Looking into the future the Pelican feeding its young from a self-induced wound in its own breast (as depicted, mysteriously, on the state flag of Louisiana) is accepted as an appropriate symbol of both self-sacrifice and rebirth. Through his selfless efforts, man is raised from the slavery of ignorance to the condition of freedom conferred by wisdom. Given the current state of affairs in Louisiana, one hopes that the understanding of the Pelican as a symbol shall point the way towards a new consciousness of ourselves as a whole, and lead us to face our futures with strength, grace, wisdom and faith, to learn from our mistakes and carry our successes and zest for living to future generations.

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John F. Kennedy Jr. Evidence of a Cover Up

Part 2: The Dishonesty of the Media

Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club, John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Times, made this candid confession [it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, who admired him greatly]:

1. "There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
2. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

From a very young age we are all raised in the belief that the media is supposed to keep an eye on the government, to watch out for wrongdoing. There is a carefully crafted illusion of an independent media, but it is illusion only. Since WW2, the Central Intelligence Agency has been running operation MOCKINGBIRD which places CIA assets in management positions of all the media. That the CIA wields a great deal of control over the media and what it tells the American people was revealed by the heavy handed actions taken in regards to covering up that portion of the Iran-Contra scandal that took place at the Mena, Arkansas airport. Following the killing of cocaine smuggler and Iran-Contra pilot Barry Seal, writers Roger Morris and Sally Denton uncovered documents proving that Seal had been working for the CIA. That information was written up as an article for the Washington Post, and had been cleared for publication by legal and fact checking when Managing Editor Bob Kaiser spiked the article without explanation. When writer Gary Webb wrote his series of article "Dark Alliance", which accused the CIA of being the source of the cocaine that poured into Los Angeles in the 1980s, virtually every major newspaper, including the Los Angeles Times, united in their attack on his story. Less than one year later, the CIA's Inspector General issued a report that admitted to the cocaine trafficking in connection with Iran-Contra. None of the newspapers that savaged Gary Webb ever bothered to apologize to him.

The few times the media has appeared to expose government wrongdoing has later been revealed in historical hindsight as one faction using the media against another faction. For those issues which all factions agree must be kept from the public, the media operates with total unanimity. As we saw in the photos from the Dec 14th, 1963 POST magazine, the media was committing outright fraud to sell the single bullet theory to the public. And, as we saw with regard to the cocaine smuggling by the CIA, the media not only ignores the story, but attacks anyone who dares touch the subject.

And again, these are not isolated incidents, but part of a continuum, as evidenced by the various scandals which have hit the major media involving the fraudulently manufactured Food Lion story, the phony Bosnian "Concentration Camp" photos, and the use of explosives to manufacture a story about unsafe side mounted gas tanks on GM trucks.

That our media is biased is clear. All the mainstream media championed the story that White House Deputy Council Vincent Foster committed suicide. CBS "60 Minutes" went out of their way to attack writer Chris Ruddy, who pointed out the evidence of cover-up (evidence which has now brought the FBI into Federal Court on charges of witness harassment and evidence tampering). A&E's "Inside Investigations" explained away the lack of fingerprints on the smooth metal revolver Foster was found with by using a heavily textured semi-automatic pistol on their program, a deliberate fraud.

Speaking of CBS "60 Minutes", the executive producer of that show, Don Hewitt, has admitted on video tape to editing his show's segment on Gennifer Flowers to discredit her and help Bill Clinton, even though Gennifer Flowers had audio tapes which proved her story was true.

DON HEWITT (Executive Producer, "60 Minutes"):

1. And they came to us because they were in big trouble in New Hampshire. They were about to lose right there and they needed some first aid. They needed some bandaging. What they needed was a paramedic. So they came to us and we did it and that's what they wanted to do. When I told Tim Russer that I was persona-non-grata at the White House, he said, "Why?" I said, "The Gennifer Flowers interview." He said, "You got him the nomination." I said, "I know that." As far as I know from the conversations I've had, Bernie Nussbaum knew that, Gergen knows that, Lloyd Cutler certainly knows it 'cause Lloyd had a hand in his coming on that night.

2. You know it was strong medicine the way I edited it but he was a very sick candidate. He needed very strong medicine, and I'm not in the business of doctoring candidates but he got up out of a sick bed that night and walked to the nomination and as I said to Mandy, "You know if I'd edited it your way, you know where you'd be today? You'd still be up in New Hampshire looking for the nomination." He became the candidate that night.

Because of incidents like the above, plus others so numerous as to be beyond the scope of this document, it has become popular to refer to members of the media as "presstitutes", in keeping with John Swinton's quite honest assessment of his own profession.

It therefore follows that, since the presstitutes write or broadcast what they are told to write and broadcast, that all media presents to the public is what the owners and controllers of the media want you to think. They print it, you think it. They broadcast it, you think it. They print it, you think it. They broadcast it, you think it. People believe what they hear over and over again.

And over and over again, you are being lied to.