Reply #145: "An Act of State," by William Pepper

[puebloknot]

It's been a long time since I read it, also.

Here is some information about the book and some comments by the author since its publication.

William F. Pepper - "An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.html

He is depicted on King Day as a civil rights leader. And that's the way you're going to see him probably forever. But he was much more than a civil rights leader and that's what no one in official capacity wants you to know. He had moved well beyond the civil rights movement by 1964-65 and he had become effectively a world-figure in terms of human rights people and particularly the poor of this earth. That's where he was going. That's the area you don't really get into safely when you start talking about wealth, redistributing wealth. Taking, diverting huge sums of money into social welfare programs and health programs and educational programs at the grass roots. When you start going into that you begin to tread on toes in this country, in the United Kingdom, and in most of the western world.

>>clip

It became evident that the military did not kill Martin King but that they were there in Memphis as what I've come to believe was a backup operation. Because King was never going to be allowed to leave Memphis. If the contract that was given didn't work these guys were going to do it. . . . This was not a one-off for these guys. They were trained snipers. You remember a hundred cities burned in America in 1967. These guys were sent around the country, teams of them, into different cities. These particular fellows had been in Detroit, Newark and Tampa and possibly L.A. They were given mugbooks. Those mugbooks were the photographs of community leaders and people who were to be their targets. And they would be put in positions and they would take out community leaders who would somehow be killed in the course of the rioting that was going on in various cities. The assassination of Martin King was a part of what amounted to an on-going covert program in which they tried to suppress dissent and disruption in America

>>clip

You can't put anything past this government or any other government of this sort. Because the people who are in power, officially, are really only foot soldiers for the people who run things from the shadows. 9-11 has personally given me a lot of difficulty. But this is not just something that is unique to the United States..

Comments above about safely talking about wealth redistribution, diverting sums of money into social welfare programs, health and educational programs casts some light (maybe only the light of speculation?) on the sudden departure of John Edwards from the primary scene, and the likelihood, or not, of any candidate (even if sincere) being able to deliver universal health care and other social programs.