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Mark Lane's Open Letter To The President

Walter Ego

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Walter Ego
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This has been posted on some usenet and other other online discussion groups. I can't find it anywhere else but it seems to have been written by Lane.

Mark Lane if you don't remember him is a lawyer and is best known for his JFK assassination book Rush To Judgement, a critique of the Warren Report, published in 1967. A committed leftist and tireless self-promoter, Lane managed to insert himself into every prominent radical political movement of the 1960s and 70s.

The letter seems to be an attempt to promote Lane's latest book Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK which was published in October, a book so important that it has not received a single review in any major publication.

Hon. Barack Obama

President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC
August 17, 2011

Dear Mr. President:

In my most recent book I have published the words of President Truman written one month after the assassination of President Kennedy. He stated that the Central Intelligence Agency, which he had organized as an intelligence-gathering vehicle had become operational and policy making and had therefore imperiled the functioning of our democracy. He asked that it be reformed. At the time of President Kennedy's death the CIA had been actively involved in one war; it is presently active in three.

However, I wish to bring to your attention its fourth, less heralded war, the CIA's effort to limit the First Amendment rights of authors to write and our people to read views that differ from the orthodox CIA analysis of important matters. The CIA has its own website and presents its positions there. In addition, from the shadows, using its covert assets in the news media throughout the nation and overseas, it has prevented books from being published and has instructed feature writers and book reviewers what to write about books it does not favor. In Last Word I have published those explicit, and previously top secret, CIA documents that I retrieved through actions in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia under the Freedom of Information Act.

Perhaps the enormity of the CIA efforts was best summarized by David Atlee Phillips who served as chief of all operations for the CIA in the Western Hemisphere with a rank of GS18, the highest rank in the CIA not requiring executive appointment.

He publicly stated at a conference at the University of Southern California, "I regret the attempts by the CIA to destroy Mr. Lane." But the efforts of the CIA were not focused entirely upon me as other authors offering dissenting views were also targeted.

In my view and perhaps in yours as well, the First Amendment remains the single most important sentence in the documents that founded this democracy. Organizations acting in secrecy to traduce its teachings are a threat to what we believe in.

The CIA is an executive agency, and I request that you instruct that agency to cease and desist from its ongoing efforts to interfere with the rights of Americans in America to write and to read. It is well beyond their charter, but above all it is subversive of all we stand for. I also request that you direct the Attorney General, a man for whom I also have the greatest respect, to monitor and enforce that order. We are entitled to transparency in government, and if I am asked if I think we can achieve that I would reply, "Yes, we can."

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Lane
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My translation of Lane's letter:

Dear Mr. President

I shot my wad in the 1960s and 1970s. My last shred of credibility with the American political Left, which had grown increasingly tired of my ceaseless self-promotion and self-serving shenanigans in Chicago in 1968 and Wounded Knee and many other hotspots where I was guaranteed media coverage, was destroyed by my actions of first defending and then denouncing my client Jim Jones in 1978.

I do have the distinction of being one of the handful of survivors of the Jonestown Massacre and I was able to cash in on the Jonestown debacle with a quickie book and campus lecture tour. Needing some more cash, I then went to work as a hired legal gun for the right-wing Liberty Lobby defending anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.

I am writing you in a desperate attempt to boost my public profile and promote my most recent book which is just a rehash of the same old conspiracy crapola which has been my stock in trade for the last forty plus years.

Any help you can give this 84 year-old Jonestown survivor will be greatly appreciated. This may be my last change to get the media to notice me again.


Respectfully submitted,


Mark "Please Notice Me" Lane
 
Walter Ego said:
This has been posted on some usenet and other other online discussion groups. I can't find it anywhere else but it seems to have been written by Lane.

Mark Lane if you don't remember him is a lawyer and is best known for his JFK assassination book Rush To Judgement, a critique of the Warren Report, published in 1967. A committed leftist and tireless self-promoter, Lane managed to insert himself into every prominent radical political movement of the 1960s and 70s.

The letter seems to be an attempt to promote Lane's latest book Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK which was published in October, a book so important that it has not received a single review in any major publication.




My translation of Lane's letter:

Dear Mr. President

I shot my wad in the 1960s and 1970s. My last shred of credibility with the American political Left, which had grown increasingly tired of my ceaseless self-promotion and self-serving shenanigans in Chicago in 1968 and Wounded Knee and many other hotspots where I was guaranteed media coverage, was destroyed by my actions of first defending and then denouncing my client Jim Jones in 1978.

I do have the distinction of being one of the handful of survivors of the Jonestown Massacre and I was able to cash in on the Jonestown debacle with a quickie book and campus lecture tour. Needing some more cash, I then went to work as a hired legal gun for the right-wing Liberty Lobby defending anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.

I am writing you in a desperate attempt to boost my public profile and promote my most recent book which is just a rehash of the same old conspiracy crapola which has been my stock in trade for the last forty plus years.

Any help you can give this 84 year-old Jonestown survivor will be greatly appreciated. This may be my last change to get the media to notice me again.


Respectfully submitted,


Mark "Please Notice Me" Lane
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So it's a different board, but the same old ad hominem attacks. I take it you don't have much use for the First Amendment. Perhaps your views would be more in keeping in a country like Cuba or North Korea.
 
Robert Prey said:
So it's a different board, but the same old ad hominem attacks. I take it you don't have much use for the First Amendment. Perhaps your views would be more in keeping in a country like Cuba or North Korea.
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No, it a different forum, not a different board. Do you have something to say about Mark Lane's letter or are you just trolling?
 
Robert Prey said:
I take it you don't have much use for the First Amendment.
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How exactly did Walters post violate the first amendment?

In your carefully considered legal opinion, what part of the first amendment prohibits criticism of things other people say?

If Walters criticism of Lane itself not protected speech? If not, then why?

Robert Prey said:
Perhaps your views would be more in keeping in a country like Cuba or North Korea.
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Technically, Mark Lanes views, that President Kennedy was assassinated by the military-industrial complex for insufficient warmongering, would be the ones more in line with the propaganda spewed by Cuba and North Korea.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
How exactly did Walters post violate the first amendment?

In your carefully considered legal opinion, what part of the first amendment prohibits criticism of things other people say?

If Walters criticism of Lane itself not protected speech? If not, then why?



Technically, Mark Lanes views, that President Kennedy was assassinated by the military-industrial complex for insufficient warmongering, would be the ones more in line with the propaganda spewed by Cuba and North Korea.
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You are mixed up. Walter criticized Lane for objecting to government 1st Amendment violations. Thus, Walter agrees with such First Amendment infringement.
 
ngc6205 said:
Yet another example of illogic brought to you by Robert Prey.
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One of many.

Robert Prey said:
Just out of curiosity, how are the Republicans "anti-science." Why would anyone think that? Perhaps because some reject the fable of Man made global warming?
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Robert Prey said:
Do you realize that killing the unborn for not having a functioning brain is a principle that endangers many of the already born?
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Robert is a living, breathing Stundie.
 
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