From server@firefly.prairienet.org Thu Apr 20 14:44:38 1995
	id OAA24925; Thu, 20 Apr 1995 14:44:06 +0200
	id AA08701; Thu, 20 Apr 95 07:01:36 CDT
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4 Num. 63


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4  Num. 63
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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THE GANGSTER NATURE OF THE STATE
 
My transcription of a talk by Dr. Michael Parenti. Michael 
Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale 
University in 1962. He has taught at a number of colleges and 
universities, and is the author of many books, including 
*Democracy for the Few* (St. Martin's; sixth edition); *Inventing 
Reality: The Politics of News Media* (St. Martin's; second 
edition); and *Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (St. 
Martin's). I will include a list of his audio taped lectures at 
the end of this transcript.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[...continued...]
 
MICHAEL PARENTI [continues]:
Sam Giancano... who died from "natural causes" when his heart 
stopped beating after a bullet went through it, [audience 
laughter] one day before he was to testify about mob and CIA 
connections, and *while* under government protection!
 
And by the way, what comes out of this whole thing is the 
incredible linkages between the CIA and mob "families", and mob 
figures... again and again. Because, after all, the mob is very 
functional. They can do the kind of dirty things that the CIA may 
sometimes want them to do.
 
Well I have a whole bunch of other things, and I find that I've 
run out of time. I can't believe it. But... [audience 
disappointment]... The people have spoken. The people have 
spoken.
 
There are even some on the "left", like Noam Chomsky and 
Alexander Cockburn, who argue that this whole interest in the 
assassination comes from a "Kennedy revival", a "Camelot 
yearning", a yearning for a "lost Messiah". I'm giving quotes; 
these are quotes, right from Chomsky.
 
Cockburn and Chomsky and others have argued that Kennedy... They 
challenge the notion that Kennedy was assassinated for intending 
to withdraw from Vietnam, or un-do the CIA, or end the Cold War. 
These things could not have led to his downfall, because they 
were "not true". Kennedy was a "cold warrior, a counter-insurgent 
who wanted a military withdrawal from Vietnam only *with* 
victory." I have argued similarly in my book, *Democracy for the 
Few*, that, in fact, indeed, Kennedy was a cold warrior and a 
counter-insurgent and that he should not be romanticized as a 
progressive.
 
Chomsky, Cockburn and others claim that the change of 
administration that came with JFK's assassination had *no* large- 
scale effect on policy, not even on tactics. In other words, if 
Kennedy had lived, he likely would have fabricated a Tonkin Gulf 
*causus belli* [cause of war]. He would have introduced ground 
troops in the massive land war, as Lyndon Johnson did. He would 
have engaged in the merciless B-52 carpet bombings of Laos, 
Cambodia and Vietnam, as Richard Nixon did. He would've risked 
destroying his own electoral base, proving himself a mass- 
murderer as bad as Nixon. {6}.
 
Chomsky and Cockburn don't tell us *how* they know that. All *we* 
know is, the one surviving Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, in fact went 
a different way. He became an anti-war, critic. He opposed the 
war. He broke with the Johnson administration. And he said that 
his brother's administration, his administration had committed 
terrible mistakes.
 
The evidence we *do* have, in fact, is that John Kennedy observed 
Cambodian neutrality, negotiated a cease-fire and coalition 
government in Laos (which the CIA refused to honor; they 
preferred to back a right-wing faction that continued the war.)
 
Chomsky says much about troop withdrawal; he just wrote a whole 
book on this: *Camelot Revisited* and all that. But he says very 
little about troop escalation! Other than to offer Roger 
Hillsman's(sp?) speculation that Kennedy "might well have" 
introduced U.S. troops, ground troops, into South Vietnam.
 
Maybe so, maybe not. In fact, the same Hillsman noted in the *New 
York Times* not long ago (and Chomsky *doesn't* note it) that in 
1963, Kennedy was the only person in his administration who 
opposed the introduction of U.S. ground troops. He was the only 
thing preventing an *escalation* of the war. Forget the question 
of withdrawal or not withdrawal. He *was* a barrier, in that 
sense. {7}.
 
Whether or not there are certain "left" analysts who think 
Kennedy was or wasn't a progressive or liberal, and think that 
the CIA had no reason to kill him, or other people had no reason 
to be dissatisfied with him, the fact is, do *they* see it that 
way. You know, entrenched interests are notorious for not seeing 
the world the same way that "left" analysts do. [audience 
laughter]
 
In 1963, people in right-wing circles, including elements in 
various intelligence organizations, did *not* believe that 
Kennedy could be trusted with the nation's future. Some months 
ago, on a San Francisco talk show I heard a guy come on -- it was 
on KGO -- and he said, "I've never said this before. I never said 
it; this is the first time I'm saying it. But I worked for Army 
Intelligence. And in 1963, I was in Japan. And when he... And the 
accepted word around then was that Kennedy would be killed 
because he was messing too much with the intelligence community. 
And when word came of his death, we were... all I could hear were 
delighted comments like, 'We got the bastard.'"
 
Well JFK's enemies saw something. What *they* saw was something 
*different* from what Chomsky and Cockburn have seen. They fixed 
on Kennedy's refusal to provide air coverage at the Bay of Pigs; 
his refusal to go in with U.S. forces; his unwillingness to 
launch another invasion of Cuba; his "no invasion" guarantee to 
Kruschev on Cuba; his Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty with Moscow; 
his American University speech, calling for re-examination of our 
Cold War attitudes toward the Soviet Union; his unwillingness to 
send ground forces, in a massive form, into Vietnam; his anti- 
trust suit against General Electric; his fight with U.S. Steel 
over price increases; his challenge to the Federal Reserve board; 
his warm reception at labor conventions; his call for racial 
equality, and responsiveness to civil rights leaders -- reluctant 
responsiveness; his talk of moving forward, in a "new frontier".
 
Irwin Nole(sp?), of *The Progressive*, says that "he admits he 
has no idea who killed Kennedy." But this doesn't keep him from 
asserting that the Oliver Stone film "was manipulative and that 
Stone provided false answers" -- How do you know *that*, Irwin, 
if you have no idea who killed Kennedy?
 
And the remarkable thing about Irwin Nole and Noam Chomsky and 
Alexander Cockburn is *they* *don't* *know* *a* *damn* *thing* 
*about* the criticisms and investigations that's been made. 
[audience applause] We've said this, again and again. And the 
rebuttals and the exchange in *The Nation* -- almost every one of 
them said, "Alexander Cockburn doesn't *know* anything about this 
case. He doesn't *know* anything about Lee Harvey Oswald." Or, 
"He doesn't *know*..." just some of the questions *I've* brought 
up. They don't know...
 
And they never deny it! They never say anything. They go on with 
their patronizing comments... Well -- Chomsky: patronization and 
condescension; Cockburn: with vitriol and venom -- they go on 
attacking those who, supposedly, are idealizing Kennedy.
 
Irwin Nole shows he's "flexible", though. He says "he allows that 
the Warren Commission did a hasty, slipshod job of 
investigation" -- I disagree. The [Warren] Commission did a 
*brilliant* job of investigation. It sat for 51 long sessions, 
over a period of several months; much longer than *most* major 
investigations. It compiled 26 volumes of testimony and evidence. 
It had the investigative resources of the FBI and CIA at its 
command. Far from being "hasty and slipshod", it painstakingly 
crafted theories that moved toward its fore-ordained conclusion: 
that Oswald was the assassin. It framed an argument, and moved 
unfailingly to fulfill that argument. It failed to call witnesses 
who saw something different from what it wanted to hear; who saw 
-- who not only heard, but who *saw* -- people on the grassy 
knoll, shooting. It failed to call them! It ignored, or re- 
interpreted, what little conflicting testimony that *did* creep 
into its proceedings. All this took *deliberate* *effort*! It was 
carefully crafted -- painstakingly. A "hasty, slipshod 
investigation" would show traces of *randomness* in its errors -- 
some would go this way, some would go that way. But the [Warren] 
Commission's distortions consistently move in the same direction, 
in pursuit of a pre-figured hypothesis.
 
                   [...to be continued...]
 
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{6} "...a mass-murderer as bad as Nixon." The post office will 
soon be issuing a Nixon stamp. You may not wish to have anything 
to do with such a Nixon stamp. Don't get caught by any tricks 
where, when you go to buy stamps, they tell you that the only 
stamp currently available is the Nixon stamp.
 
{7} Regarding the question of whether Kennedy was going to de- 
escalate or withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam: According to a 
column in the *Washington Times*, National Weekly Edition (April 
17-23, 1995), by Wesley Pruden ("Trying to Clean Up the Meat 
Grinder"), Robert McNamara in his latest book is saying that (as 
Pruden paraphrases McNamara) "...if JFK had survived, he would 
have withdrawn U.S. troops after concluding that South Vietnam 
would never be able to defend itself." So, if Pruden is reading 
McNamara correctly, McNamara has now publicly stated that, yes, 
Kennedy *would* *have* withdrawn U.S. forces from Vietnam.
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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