[Peace-discuss] JFK murder---Chomsky, Cockburn, and "acceptable" dissent on Warren Commission, Vietnam et al.

[ndahlhei at uiuc.edu]

Article by Michael Worsham of Touchstone Magazine, Feb. 1997.

URL: 
http://www.rtis.com/reg/bcs/pol/touchstone/february97/worsham
.htm

JFK CONSPIRACY: THE INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY AND COWARDICE OF 
ALEXANDER COCKBURN AND NOAM CHOMSKY
by Michael Worsham
When JFK came out in 1991, I felt Oliver Stone hit the nail 
on the head. During 1992, some progressive/liberal writers, 
including Alexander Cockburn of The Nation, criticized 
Stone, and said there was no conspiracy, and even if there 
was, it did not matter because Kennedy, despite his great 
personal charisma, dynamic speaking, etc., was underneath, 
the same as all the other power-hungry and money-loving 
capitalists.

I asked Alexander Cockburn about JFK when he visited TAMU in 
1992 (with the help of Danny Yeager and The Touchstone), but 
he seemed bored talking about Kennedy. As I sat and chatted 
with Mr. Cockburn along with the rest of the Touchstone gang 
(as it existed back in 1992) around a table at a local 
College Station restaurant, I was extremely puzzled and just 
could not understand how someone as educated, well-read, and 
perceptive about so many national and world affairs as Mr. 
Cockburn could really believe a complete load of crap like 
the Warren Commission report. It just did not make sense.

I learned a little later that Noam Chomsky also took the 
position that there was no conspiracy. Most of what I know 
about Mr. Chomsky is what I read in his occasional 
editorials in the now-defunct Lies Of Our Times magazine, 
and through the movie Manufacturing Consent (a biography of 
Mr. Chomsky worth watching, especially for the section on 
the N.Y. Times and East Timor).

Now, an answer as to why these and other progressive writers 
smart enough to know better, support (at least publicly) the 
Warren Commission has surfaced in the Jan-Feb issue of Probe 
(the newsletter of Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy 
Assassination, http://www.webcom.com/ctka).

According to a Probe article by Ray Marcus, back in early 
1969 Mr. Chomsky met with several Kennedy experts and spent 
several hours looking at and discussing assassination 
photos. Mr. Chomsky even cancelled several appointments to 
have extra time. There was a followup meeting with Mr. 
Chomsky, which also lasted several hours. These meetings 
were ostensibly to try to do something to reopen the case. 
According to the Probe article, Mr. Chomsky indicated he was 
very interested, but had to give the matter careful 
consideration before committing.
After the meeting, Selwyn Bromberger, an MIT philosophy 
professor who had sit in on the discussion, said to the 
author: "If they are strong enough to kill the President and 
strong enough to cover it up, then they are too strong to 
confront directly . . . if they feel sufficiently 
threatened, they may move to open totalitarian rule." 
According to the author, Mr. Chomsky had given every 
indication that he believed there was a conspiracy at these 
meetings. However, Mr. Chomsky never got involved with 
trying to reopen the case.

The same Probe article mentions that (the late) I.F. Stone, 
another leading progressive writer of the past, also took a 
position supportive of the Warren Commission in I.F. Stone's 
Weekly for Oct. 5, 1964.

Alexander Cockburn now writes for CounterPunch, a solid bi-
weekly newsletter associated with the liberal Institute for 
Policy Studies. CounterPunch is fine, and worth reading, 
although its articles are never authored. CounterPunch also 
overly dwells on Washington D.C. politicians, like the 
tabloids, except that CounterPunch emphasizes financial 
instead of sexual misdeeds—i.e., it follows the money. 
(Recently CounterPunch was also the only organization of 
about 20 which refused my renewal check, subject to a simple 
agreement not to release my name or pester me with junk mail—
more on this in a future issue of The Touchstone).

It has now become clear to me that leading 
progressive/left/liberal thinkers and writers like I.F. 
Stone, Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn will only 
criticize the monied and powerful to the extent that they 
think it is safe for them to do. This is no different in 
principle from what the mainstream news media does: 
critiques are within a constrained margin of what is 
acceptable and not acceptable to the powers that be.

The only difference is that Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn 
have much wider margins than ABC (now owned by Disney), NBC 
(owned by General Electric), CBS (owned by Westinghouse), 
The Washington Post (with long ties to the intelligence 
community), and the N.Y. Times (so biased that the 
previously mentioned Lies Of Our Times was created to combat 
the rampant disinformation).

Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn are also really no different 
than Dan Rather. Mr. Rather publicly supports the Warren 
Commission, but has a private position on the assassination 
we have not heard. On specials about Kennedy, Mr. Rather 
will spout some mealy-mouthed nonsense like "The mystery of 
the assassination burns like an eternal flame" while the 
camera pans over Rather's shoulder to the Kennedy torch that 
burns at Arlington Cemetery.

To some extent Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn practice what 
the Kennedy research community is often accused of—they have 
created a cottage industry—standard left-wing/liberal 
criticisms of power. Their critiques are well-meaning and 
accurate, and provide a comfortable if not wealthy living, 
but don't really make a substantial dent in the problems 
they write about. Mr. Chomsky has been writing for over 30 
years now, yet how many people have even heard of Noam 
Chomsky—even after the feature film about him (Manufacturing 
Consent) was produced? Has corporate power been reigned in 
any? How many Americans know about East Timor?

I hope these and all progressive writers will develop the 
courage to speak all of the truth that they know, or at 
least be honest about it, because even repeated, sharp, and 
direct-to-the-point criticisms of power, are not worth much 
if they are deliberately mis-aimed against the most 
important and critical problem: That forces in the 
supposedly constitutional democracy of the U.S. will murder 
democratically elected leaders like John F. Kennedy (and 
progressive leaders like Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr.) and get away with it.