Free Speech And Responsible Publishing

Last week, my colleague gave me a copy of a paperback book he said I would find amusing. Its full title is BROKEN SILENCE The Truth About Lee Harvey Oswald, LBJ and the Assassination of JFK. I gave it the once over, but didn't bother to read it. The author, Ray "Tex" Brown and his ghostwriter Don Lasseter, have produced a book that has dialogue on every or almost every page, a remarkable feat of recollection thirty years and more after the events it describes are alleged to have taken place. According to the back cover, in 1963, Brown was approached by two men who asked him to teach them how to shoot at a moving target. One of these men was Jack Ruby; the other was Lee Harvey Oswald. Anyone who knows anything about the Kennedy Assassination would stop reading here. Oswald was a crack shot; speaking Russian and shooting were about the only things he ever did well, and the very last thing he needed was lessons in either from some good ol' boy. Here is a review of this tissue of lies. Like the book by Oswald's imaginary girlfriend, and those about the non-existent spooks on the grassy knoll, this work is one for the fiction shelves. Books of this nature are surprisingly common, I mean works that are total fabrications, contain nothing of merit and not a single truthful relevant fact. Then there are books that are if not total fabrications then far from truthful. Many autobiographies and memoirs fall into this category. Not those of powerful politicians, surprisingly enough, because most of what they write can be easily verified, and they know if they do anything more than put their particular spin on said book, it will be torn to shreds by both the critics and their political enemies. Books by other people though, including celebrities, real and wanna be, are often anything but accurate, and are full of invented dialogue and worse. Then there are the books that should never be published except (possibly) with a huge disclaimer, books like Bertie, about the spirit world adventures of H.G. Wells. I actually read this rubbish back in the 70s - the 1970s to you younger generation. I didn't believe this one, that was a bit too over the top even for a true believer like me, but I, and countless others were taken in by the Bermuda Triangle freaks, and authors who peddled all manner of extraterrestrial and psychic nonsense presenting lies, flim-flam or even total fantasy as thoroughly documented fact. At the time of writing, the spirit world isn't that popular, but the braindead, so-called conspiracy theorists who choke up the Internet have learned a new phrase, "false flags", and a bit about Operation Northwoods - which was never put into practice, and the New World Order, which people like A.K. Chesterton and Gary Allen were exposing before they were born, only to be ridiculed and laughed at, at best. Now, everybody has heard of the New World Order, because the men who are promoting it have come out of the closet. With the 9/11 atrocities and the willingness of certain elements of the left, mystics like David Icke, and the generally gullible to embrace any conspiratorial nonsense, we are being deluged with disinformation and just rubbish dressed up as political analysis and documented fact. We are told that Dick Cheney, of all people, was the mastermind of 9/11. Another major player is said to be Donald Rumsfeld, the same fuckwit who was taken in by claims that Al-Qaeda had vast underground fortresses beneath the mountains of Afghanistan. Of course, anyone is free to publish this sort of dross now, and denounce as a globalist shill or worse the individual who has the temerity to point out the true facts, but no mainstream publisher should sully his profession with such rubbish. Failing to carry out the most basic fact checking is criminally irresponsible, but sadly some people will do anything in pursuit of a fast buck.