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An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (Updated)

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It's front-page news in 2009 that Dick Cheney presided over covert hit squads operating around the world and very likely in the US, too. It may be "news" --- but it's not really new.

What this flawed but very important book reveals, based on 20 years of research by attorney Pepper, is the MO used in the '60s to eliminate an enemy of the Status Quo. Pepper's investigation determined that King was most likely killed by a hidden gunman who happened to be the Memphis police force's top marksman, and he in turn was backed up by Army Special Ops snipers posted on nearby buildings to "triangulate" the target. (Perhaps this sounds absurd --- please read the book.) A patsy, James Earl Ray, was framed to take the rap; the rifle he supposedly used was found to be woefully inaccurate, and bullets fired from it didn't match the one that killed King. Witnesses and peripheral participants in the crime were murdered. Evidence was lost or tampered with. Ray pleaded guilty on the advice of his lawyer, Percy Foreman, who had deep connections to the likely perpetrators of the assassination. A massive cover-up and disinfo campaign ensured that the public would discount any version of what happened in favor of the official myth.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Edit of 8 May 08: Reverend Wright preaches in the negative, but this does not mean he is wrong, only inflamatory. Senator Obama's first instinct was correct: he can no more deny those who walked with us than we can the truth. In renouncing Reverend Wright, Senator Obama demonstrated his subordination to "the system," the same subordination that swallowed Colin Powell, who confused loyalty with integrity.

John 8:32 Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

The updated book is better than the original because it includes a post 9-11 Afterword.

So many people are going to consider this book to be a provocation, a conspiracy theory, revisionist, etc. I will start with three compelling reasons to take this seriously:

1. The author is a recognized barrister in England and lawyer in the US. His reputation is impeccable, and he is respected by heads of state and of international organizations concerned with human rights.

2. The author brought a civil suit in which it took the jury less than one hour of deliberation after all the facts had been laid out, to find for the plaintiffs (the King family survivors) and agree that the US Government was complicit in his murder.

3. The evidence of US Government complicity in crimes against humanity as well as high crimes and misdemeanors of all sorts, is now over-whelming within the non-fiction literature. Cover-ups are the norm.

Here are my flyleaf notes:

+ King was leading a coalition of peace and civil rights in 1967, one that expanded to address economic injustice and the rights of indigenous people's everywhere, but especially in Viet-Nam. This "new politics," like the third party politics of today, was so threatening to the Mafia, to banks and corporations, and to the US political and FBI leadership committed to "because we say so, right or wrong," that he was ordered killed.

+ The author tells us that by 1970 King's moral authority was directly challenging the moral bankruptcy of the American "state," which King aptly described as "the greatest purveyor of violence on Earth." See my review of The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World and also Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

+ Unlike others who accepted the government's fictional account at face value, the author actually interviewed James Earl Ray in prison, and over time clearly established both Ray's veracity, and additional evidence.

+ The FBI burglarized Martin Luther King over 20 times.

+ Less than one month after the John F. Kennedy assassination (he was warned and discounted the warning delivered by his brother), the FBI made Martin Luther King its top target, focusing on "neutralizing King as an effective leader." The cover-up is exposed in Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History.

+ At least two funded "hits" on King were discovered, but the one that succeeded involved Frank Liberto, a Mafia boss in the food business, who evidently forgave a major debt from Lloyd Jowers who served as the on-site cut-out for the weapon but did not do the shooting himself. Links are discussed between the FBI, the Mafia, and local police.

+ The local police pulled back all assigned security, took black officers off watch, and evidently arranged to have King moved from a protected inner courtyard room to an upper room directly in the line of sight from the bushes where the shooter was planning to be.

+ 30 years seems to be the magic time period that must pass before individuals sworn to secrecy to protect political malfeasance realize they should ease their consciences before death.

+ The book includes an appendix that shows the many times the Department of Justice willfully lied or omitted evidence in its own investigation.

+ The author presented nine areas to a court that found for the plaintiff; they are listed on page 108:

01 the background to the assassination
02 the local conspiracy
03 the crime scene
04 the murder weapon
05 Raul (the handler)
06 the broader conspiracy
07 the cover up--its scope and activities
08 the defendant's prior admissions
09 damages

The King family sought damages of just $100. Far more important to them was the verdict of the jury: the US Government, and particularly the FBI and US Army counterintelligence elements acting against US citizens on US soil, were complicit in the murder (assassination) of Martin Luther King.

The author places King is direct opposition to the materialism and the secularization of life to include a loss of morality in US foreign policy. Specifically mentioned in this book are King's objection to US Government support for dictators. See my review of Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025.

The author states that he could not have obtained a trial date, much less a verdict, without the full engagement of the King family. Their participation was of inestimable value, he says. He then goes on to describe how the media, which did not attend the trial, slandered (broadcast) and libeled (print) the family and the memory of Martin Luther King. [This is the same media that refused to run $100,000 cash in advance information advertisements against the elective war on Iraq.]

The author specifically warns of the discreet movement in 2007 of the Violent Radicalization Act allowing the White House to redirect the National Guard from any state to any other state, and believes that there is now an explicit fear among "the elite" of impending and complete system collapse and a public rebellion of consequence.

I have a note from the book, that Martin Luther King was branded a traitor. So also was General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret), the most recently retired Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, and the single most knowledgeable authority at the time on Iraq, Iran, the Middle East, the Pakistan wild card, and Afghanistan. My bottom line: we are lied to; the "experts" are not expert and pander for access--it is time we assert the collective intelligence of We the People.

Completely unexpected to me, but relevant in the context of other books I have been reading, is the author's outline of how King and all that he stood for called into question the entire-military industrial complex and the misdirection of most of our money toward waging war. See my review of War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier and of the DVD Why We Fight.

The last page of the body of the book, page 288, has this quote that I marked:

"Martin King firmly believed that non-violent civil disobedience was the best strategy to obtain justice. There is little doubt in my mind that massive non-violent civil disobedience has the potential to shut down the nation, and compel substantive social, economic, political, and cultural change, leading to the reconstruction of the Republic with a focus on the needs of people rather than capital. His dream lives on in each of us who internalized it."

See these two books for a taste of our potential:
Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Why the two party system is organized crime at its best:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It

Why Senator Barack Obama is not the one (and today he Uncle Tom'ed himself--Reverend Wright's concerns are firmly founded on non-fiction):
Obama - The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate

To fulfill the dream, we need a third party with no experts, just us.

In short, Martin Luther King was killed by agents of the City of Memphis, the State of Tennessee, and the Federal Government. The family sued for his wrongful death, the case was argued before a jury, which found for the King Family.

The family has posted the transcript from the trial at their website, so you can follow-up and learn more after reading the book:

http://www.thekingcenter.org/news/trial.html

It is very important that everyone in the US and the world understands that it will be almost impossible for some lone-nut to kill Obama unless the Secret Service stands down.

William Pepper's powerful recounting of his thirty-year quest to uncover the truth behind the assassination of Martin Luther King, is absolutely riveting. Who knew that a civil jury had found that a governmental conspiracy was behind the King assassination? History is indebted to Mr. Pepper for the dedicated work he has done here, and in the process for revealing the mainstream media for what it is--the public relations firm for a murderous and corrupted government. Fearing the emergence of the "New World Order?" Apparently that nightmare has been a reality since at least the 1960s.

On a more optimistic note, especially moving in "An Act of State" is Mr. Pepper's insight into, and expression of, all that Martin Luther King stood for and believed in. And yes, Mr. King's dream does live on in each of us who internalized it, as Mr. Pepper prosaically notes in the afterword.

Pepper's evidence / narrative is jaw-dropping. The book is thoroughly documented, presenting evidence that would have easily been uncovered had James Earl Ray gone to trial rather than entering a guilty plea. What one does not learn is the REAL role Ray did play. Rather, it presents evidence about who really committed the murder and the identities of the many players who came together to get rid of a man they all found inconvenient.

Like the Kennedy conspiracy one learns more than one might like to know about how things really work in an incredibly imperfect world. No sacred cows here.

This is the best book on revealing the truth about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I highly recommend An Act of State.

I randomly picked up another audiobook on this subject at my lib, and started checking sources, leading me to this book on Amazon, which I also started checking out - the upshot is in the title of this review - thumbs down.