Connect the dots, LA LA LA!

Connect the dots, LA LA LA!

It's a song I sing with my kids.

Seriously.

It's also what the media do whenever a crime happens that can be connected to previous crimes.

It's called linkage (search this blog for other examples).

In this article from Newsweek magazine, the author calls the Arizona shooter "a crazed loner, but he’s one in a long line."

See what the author did? He acknowledged the assassin was acting alone, but then connected him to previous assassins anyway, as if there is some assassin club that all these guys belong to (well, they are all guys, so maybe it is the Y chromosome that is to blame).

Quick, how many people have assassins killed in all of American history?

It's actually less than will die today from smoking tobacco. But you don't see that in the news!

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/16/american-assassins.html

April 4, 1968

This is the day Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.

The official story is that one man killed him, and did so due to economic motivation (i.e., money).

Yet, the man convicted for his assassination (through a plea bargain in face of the threat of death from his own attorney) quickly recanted his confession and denied until his own death that he was the killer. One of Dr. King's sons even met with him and asked him on television, "Did you kill my father." His answer was no. And Dr. King's son said he believed him. The two shook hands.

A civil jury in Memphis some thirty years after the killing found evidence of a conspiracy to kill Dr. King; it involved members of the Memphis Police Department, FBI, and others (only with study of King's life and the law enforcement activities surrounding King can you understand this issue; basically, the police, including FBI Director Edgar Hoover, saw King as "the most dangerous man in America" and a "mouthpiece" for our enemies, the communists). Shortly before King was killed, Hoover distributed an internal memo to the FBI calling for King's “removal from the national scene.”

Even the New York Times covered the trial!

Whether the jury was right is debatable. But, there are serious problems with the official investigation. I discovered many of them in my own investigation. You can read in the library: Robinson, Matthew B. (2003). Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Conspiracy Theories in American History.  England: ABC-Clio.  Pp. 402-410.

In 2038, the classified files associated with the official investigation will be released. Perhaps then we will finally learn the truth.

More media linkage in recent assassination attempt

In a story about the recent shooting of a member of Congress, we learn that "a federal public defender known for handling high-profile cases, Judy Clarke, has been appointed to represent him."


Clarke previously defended the "Unabomber," Ted Kaczynski, and assisted in the case of confessed al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui.

So this story is already being linked to other past notorious violent acts.

It is also being linked to other killings of federal judges, since a judge was killed in this shooting:

"Roll is the fourth federal judge killed since 1979, when District Judge John Wood was slain in a contract killing outside his Texas home. In 1988, District Judge Richard Daronco of New York was killed by the father of a plaintiff whose case the judge had dismissed; and in 1989, Circuit Judge Robert Vance was killed by a mail bomb sent to his Alabama home by a man prosecutors said had a grudge against the appellate court on which Vance sat.

"In addition, the husband and mother of District Judge Joan Lefkow were killed in their Chicago home in 2005. A man who committed suicide two weeks later in Wisconsin left a note confessing to the killings, blaming a judgment against him in a malpractice case for the loss of his house, job and family, police said."

Linkage is identified in the book as common in the media, useful to the media to help sell stories even when things that do not need to be discussed are discussed.

Finally, the issue of mental illness comes up again: "There's reason to believe this individual may have a mental issue," Dupnik told reporters Saturday night.

Amazingly, Pima Community College warned Loughner in a follow-up letter that to return to campus, he had to present a doctor's note stating that his presence would not be "a danger to himself or others."

Online, he railed against government "mind control" and illiteracy in YouTube and MySpace postings. He tried to enlist in the Army in 2008, but was rejected for reasons the service said it could not disclose.

Nice of us to make sure this guy got help.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/09/arizona.shooting.investigation/

Palin backs away from her bullseye targets, denies they were meant to incite violence

The assassination attempt against a US Representative after she was targeted by Sarah Palin's PAC will likely lead to no change at all on the political front. And that is unfortunate.

Now, Palin's reps claim the target on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was really a "surveyor's symbol."

This, in spite of tweeting "don't retreat, instead - RELOAD!"

Words have meaning. When you target someone and that someone is shot, there should be consequences.


http://www.slate.com/BLOGS/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/01/09/palin-spox-targets-on-sarahpac-map-were-actually.aspx