How Conservative Talk Radio Defends the Status Quo On JFK

One thing that stands out for me in listening to conservatives on the radio is how they are constantly telling their listeners how they can’t trust the government.  It’s the liberals in there, they say, with their socialist agenda.  They only thing they think government does well is the military through the Pentagon and the CIA.  Maybe NASA when they have the money.   They all seem to have some kind of affinity for the CIA as well.  I’ve lost track of the number of times Rush Limbaugh has railed against the Church Committee investigation of the CIA in the mid-70’s, claiming how the Democrats “destroyed” the CIA’s ability to properly function.  Which of course, is utter rubbish. Limbaugh never takes the time to comment on what this Congressional Committee uncovered during the course of the investigation.  Such as the CIA’s assassination activities against foreign leaders, working in tandem with the Mob in the aforementioned murder plots and in other nefarious activities, committing LSD experiments on unwitting persons through the MK-ULTRA project, violating its own charter not to spy on citizen’s of the United States (which they did and still do), among many other things.  In fact, I know of no conservative radio talk that criticizes the CIA in any way or ever has.  If anything, they are often repeat defenders of the Agency.  (To be fair, the mainstream media has never examined the CIA’s role in the Watergate scandal despite the fact that all five of the arrested burglars were CIA agents.)  Which makes one wonder why?  Why be so beholden to them?  Or for that matter to any of their other sacred cows, the two main ones being Israel and Halliburton.

(Recently one poor sap called in to the Mark Levin show and dared to mention the “H” word and it was like throwing gasoline on a fire.  Levin went all off on this poor guy and before he cut him off calling him a dummy.  Halliburton was originally known as Brown and Root, a contractor that benefited finically after John Kennedy’s death as the Vietnam war escalated.  They’ve been around a long time and are most famous for their no-bid contracts.  They are big-time contributors to both political parties.  Practically all conservative radio hosts will defend them to the hilt, as I have heard Rush Limbaugh do on numerous occasions.  Why is the defense so zealous?  Perhaps ones feeds the other?  Halliburton without a doubt is a major component of the military-industrial complex and instrumental in building its infrastructure.) 

For the most part the Kennedy assassination is a non-topic on conservative talk radio.  Conspiracy in general isn't unless the Democrats say or do anything--then it’s okay to hatch plots for their motives and activities.  Anybody that calls into the Rush Limbaugh show and dared mention any unsanctioned conspiracy (such as the Bilderbergs) was mocked by Limbaugh as a member of the “black helicopter crowd.”  This is getting harder to do now with so much information being published on the web regarding the secretive Bilderberg meetings, a cause for much conspiratorial speculation in the past.

Mark Levin Takes A Shot

Conservative talk shouter Mark Levin on his 6/24/10 broadcast went on a long rant on film director Oliver Stone, mainly over his support Hugo Chavez.  He then went after Stone’s movies saying that anybody that watches them is a “fool” and  that Stone creates conspiracy movies that are hate, directed at America.  This from a man who admits never having seen a Stone movie but somehow, is all-knowing in regards to this subject.  This is quite telling as the only conspiracy movie I know of made by Oliver Stone is JFK, a film that supports conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy, a belief held by a large majority of Americans.  

Of course, this is not to say that noted liberals, such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn scoff at the idea of conspiracy in the death of JFK, because they do.  In many ways both sides of the political spectrum have joined ranks on this affair to shut down speculation on conspiracy answers for John Kennedy’s death.  As if conspiracy never happens.  The conservative talkers are big believers in the conspiracy alright, constantly harping on how President Obama is out do destroy the economy, our liberty, and so on.  They just don’t go near that other conspiracy.

There is however, one conservative talk host that does like to repeatedly invoke the subject of John F. Kennedy being killed by a long gunman and that is Bill Cunningham.

The Main Offender

Conservative Bill Cunningham, who gained fame in 2008 at a John McCain rally for referring to front runner Barack Obama as Barack Hussein Obama.  This annoyed McCain who had nothing more to do with him.  Cunningham, who resembles a human version of Howdy Doody without the lines down his chin broadcasts on the former Matt Drudge slot on Sunday night at Sirius-XM.

He is, for some odd reason, a constant defender of the Warren Commission.  I find it peculiar that he does this so much.  He uses call screening and thus a good idea what people are going to say when they appear live on-air.  So when the Warren Commission doubter comes on to state conspiracy in the death of Kennedy, Cunningham is quick to shoot them down.  One night he referred to one man as an idiot, all for simply doubting that Oswald was a lone gunman.  For a man that constantly tells his listeners how incompetent government is he seems to have no issue with the Warren Commission’s actions, which in essence, was not an investigation of the normal type, but an evaluation of what they were provided.  And they were not provided everything!  The Warren Commission did not field it’s own investigators.  It basically did Investigation Theater to calm the masses, with Commissioner Allen Dulles arrogantly assuming the public would never be interested in examining the 26 volumes of evidence they published.  (A lot of which, ironically, contradicts their final report.)

Cunningham riffs on the same old themes against a conspiracy:  Oswald was a nut and loser; if there was a conspiracy it would have outed because people can’t keep secrets; the Warren Commission did a thorough job, and so on.  The argument that he uses that annoys me the most is the old, retreaded line on how people can’t keep secrets.  And just how much does get out?  What really is going on at Area 51 right now?  Or the Skunkworks?  Or the CIA headquarters at Langley?   Remember all of those banks the Federal Reserve propped up?  We still don’t know who got the Fed (tax payers) money because when the Congress asked the Federal Reserve and they refused to tell them anything.  Any number of secretive government agencies with multi-million dollar black budgets do a pretty good job at keeping their operations under deep cover.  Forcing people to sign non-disclosure agreements (as all personnel at Kennedy’s autopsy had to) doesn’t hurt either.  People certainly kept quiet in the Manhattan Project where thousands were involved with one of the top secrets of the war that was not revealed to years later.  

Probably the most annoying thing about Bill Cunningham is how ignorant he is on this issue while he speaks with such an imperious and knowledgeable tone.   It is almost as if he takes his cue from the Vince Bugliosi school of Straw Man arguments.  I just fail to understand why he is so often on the issue, constantly reinforcing the Warren Commission’s flawed conclusion, which a careful study of shows deception and a lack of serious inquiry; a rubber-stamping of the original lone gunman theory formed only a few hours after the tragedy took place.  

Think about it...how can you have an honest investigation with dishonest people in charge?  Many of whom, hated the man whose death they were pretending to investigate?  Believer’s in the Warren Commission theory of a lone nut never seem to deal with this troubling aspect of the case.  Bill Cunninghams of world do not.  As Alex Jones said, he was vetted and offered a job being the next Rush Limbaugh but he would have to compromise his beliefs and reporting on conspiracy issues to achieve that position.  He turned it down but not without eventually having his own success in developing a following.  For years Jones could only be heard on shortwave or the Internet.  Now he is Sirius-XM six days out of the week.  The experience of Alex Jones may be a peek into how things work in the talk radio industry.  Compromise and sail--remain independent and sink or flounder.  Talk on-air about how liberals control everything and never mention government paid shills (as in the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird) having a controlling influence and what we see and hear in the Big News and you rise to the top. 

So we must be careful what we hear from these people as they pat themselves on the back, called each other “good Americans” and leave the Man behind the curtain alone.  

Sources

Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable; The Warren Commission Report; Venture, Jesse, American Conspiracies; McKnight, James, Breach of Trust; Proudy, Fletcher, The Secret Team; Hougan, Jim, Secret Agenda; www.history-matters.org