Monday, November 23, 2009

The Discovery Channel Frames Oswald Again


In their special broadcast last night, JFK: The Ruby Connection, The Discovery Channel, which by now is getting good at being a helpful tool of government propaganda, landed another rotten egg with their look at Jack Ruby being a mob hit-man out to silence Oswald. I had a bad feeling about this show knowing what a track record the Discovery Channel has in doing JFK assassination specials and always determining the Warren Commission was right and there was no conspiracy in John Kennedy’s death. This was quite evident in the special they aired a few years ago, Inside the Target Car. It was an embarrassment featuring Dale Myers computer animations of the assassination (make sure you check out Pat Speer’s great analysis of this on his at web site at, www.patspeer.com) and other misleading information to assure the viewer that only Oswald was shooting from behind.

As usual, this latest production was a biased one-sided affair, brushing off Ruby’s intent to kill Oswald not as premeditated but a random event. It featured the typical Discovery Channel stye, the usual cherry picking of the evidence so everything comes out tidy with no loose ends. Of course, nothing is neat or tidy. Seeing it hosted and narrated by Gary Mack was the final nail in the coffin. He was instrumental in the “Target Car” show and many others. When you see his involvement there will only be one conclusion--the Warren Commission was right and there will be no dissenting opinions.

Enter Gary Mack
Gary Mack, dubbed by researcher James Eugenio as, “The Discovery Channel's Dan Rather” is a rather notorious figure in JFK research circles. A man on the side of conspiracy till he went to the dark side of the force. Mack is curator and spokesman for the Sixth Floor Museum, and the purpose of the museum is to promote the Warren Commission’s conclusion of Oswald being the long gunman and to attack all critics of the Commission. (Evidenced by the museum bookstore which features no conspiracy JFK books.) Before his about-face, Mack was instrumental in getting the dictatape recordings to the HSCA and that became the basis of their assessment for a conspiracy. He was also involved with the badgeman photo which some believe is a man wearing a badge firing from the grassy knoll. His conversion apparently came when he was offered a position with a six figure salary, after he lost his job, his marriage, and his house. Obviously, this deal meant no more conspiracy talk.

In his neatly trimmed gray hair and smartly pressed shirts Gary Mack comes off in the show as a reasonable, respectable guy. Certainly not the type to sign up for college classes on the JFK assassination and then heckle featured speakers (along with his pal Dave Perry), but this is exactly what he was observed doing in a class taught by author/researcher Jim Marrs. Or a man that publicly goes by an allis when his real name is Larry Dunkel. To add to the high-tech mood of the show, Mack is shown drawing paths on maps floating holographic style in the air. Looks cool but is mostly eye candy promoting a modern “scientific” look which ultimately doesn’t tell you much except what they want you to know.

The Stuff They Left Out
In these cherry-picked presentations there is a lot left on the cutting room floor. Which of course, is the good stuff. Since the case is built that Jack Ruby just randomly showed up with a gun to kill Lee Oswald, it is never told that Ruby was stalking Oswald from the beginning. When Huston Post reporter Alonzo Huskiness asked Ruby’s attorney Tom Howard, if Ruby was packing his gun at the Friday night press conference, Howard acknowledged that he was. Ruby had called the police department numerous times inquiring when Oswald was going to be moved to the courthouse for sentencing. So close to the DPD, Ruby was in the station building at the time Oswald was being interrogated and tried to enter but was prevented from doing so. The producers of this show want it to seem that Ruby just got lucky and happened to show up at the right place at the right time when in actuality, Ruby was all over the place from the Dallas Police station to the Parkland Hospital.

They went into much detail about the various members of the press and police that were in the basement at the time of the shooting. One person never mentioned was Ruby’s attorney, Tom Howard. He was there at the same time Ruby was and seen at the jail office window. He left just before the shooting but appeared at the Sheriff’s office just a few moments later with a writ seeking Ruby’s release. This was accomplished before the mortally wounded Oswald made it Parkland hospital, making it appear that the writ was crafted far earlier than the shooting. How is that for speedy lawyer work? Can this be so? It would be interesting to research Howard’s background and see who his other clients were. He certainly got there early enough with the proper paperwork. Perhaps too early. In 1965 at the age of 48 Tom Howard died of heart attack, taking his secrets with him.

While it was menaced that Ruby was pretending to be a reporter at the Friday night press conference, complete with a film image of Ruby being there wearing his glasses looking oh, so, journalistic. It was at this press conference that Ruby corrected DA Henry Wade when he mispronounced the name of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. How did Ruby know? It was not as if the FPCC was a well known organization. Nor was Ruby known to have been affiliated with such pro-Castro groups. Maybe Ruby’s familiarity was because he knew Lee Oswald’s affiliation with it. Of course that was never looked into like an honest, open investigation would have.

In Closing
The amount of facts left out of these so-called documentaries is a travesty that seems to have no end. As if doing this over and over again is going to turn the public away from the conspiratorial view that a majority of us have. You would think to be fair they would employ some balance. It’s not as if there aren’t an army of conspiracy based researchers out there. Or for that matter, just ordinary investigators that have found contradictions in the official narrative. People like Pat Speer. It’s always the critics and their point of view that is under scrutiny, never the government’s claims. I think the public is not as dumb as the producers of these shows perceive them to be. After all, these one-sided dog and pony shows never change the majority opinion.

Pamela McElwain-Brown, an expert on the presidential limousine, was hired by Discovery as a consultant for the Inside the Target Car special. What was supposed to be an investigation of the limousine as a crime scene turned out instead to be more of a method for proving the lone gunman theory, once more. In the end, none of Pamela’s research was used. She said in an interview on Black Op Radio that the show turned out to be, “Too much spectacle without substance.” Watching an alleged expert with a phony name, creating his etch-a-sketch holographic drawings with a finger, is a good analogy for that.

One thing they can never get away from. Lee Oswald was killed before he could have a trial. And if even if it is not true, it will always look like he was silenced on purpose.


Sources:
http://www.ctka.net/2009/target_car_jd3.html; (Pamela McElwain-Brown) http://www.in-broad-daylight.com/; http://www.patspeer.com; http://www.blackopradio.com; Books: Harvey and Lee, Crossfire, Farewell to Justice, Reclaiming History