Dear NPPA Supporters:
The young Preston Randolph, college student and aspiring director, continues on his remake of Incident at Oglala under the new documentary title, “Wind Chases the Sun.” Catchy title even if the geophysics is implausible.
Preston recently stated of Wind; “This film with the new information and very new and very shocking testimonies from former FBI, BIA and BOP as well as key witnesses will be revealing for the first time the horrific truth…we will be blowing this case apart…etc., etc.,” You get the point.
(Side note: If Wind includes, for the BOP, the love-affair scenario between Leavenworth guard Bruce Smith and Peltier, it will lack credibility; nothing Smith claims has any relevance to Peltier’s conviction, sentence, appeals or feigned innocence. It would amount to meaningless filler.* Also, if Wind includes, for the FBI, anything from former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, it will contain even less credibility. Swearingen’s ramblings have covered all the bases from the incredible to the bizarre [he knew of the plot to kill JFK…]. Swearingen adds nothing of substance to the Peltier debate except that he did say “Why does anyone have to know who actually fired the fatal shots? I can assure you that if I had been in such a shoot-out there would have been a hell of a lot of dead Indians.” “Peltier is a joke, as is Bob Robideau.”** )
Early on I exchanged emails with Preston but it became apparent that confusing agenda with facts was problematic; it’s much easier to pursue the folklore.
With his “expansive team of researchers and producers,” (in other words, Preston and buddy or two), they plan to undo nearly 37 years of intense scrutiny, multiple trials and hearings, dozens of appeals and thousands upon thousands of pages of reports, documentation and transcripts that will produce “…documents, testimonies, affidavits and interviews you have never heard of…”
Wonderful threat, and a tall challenge that cannot be reached, and here’s why: Every single question concerning June 26, 1975 has been asked and answered, and the fundamental facts of what happened that day cannot be altered no matter how deep the mythology surrounding Peltier becomes. The substance of what the Peltier jury heard from the “critical witnesses” establish the sequence of events that began with the overheard radio calls from Agent Williams himself that they were about to come under fire, and then were, as those nearby responded to their aid. But too late, as Joe Stuntz and Norman Brown fired on the first responding agent and BIA officers.
We don’t have to search too terribly far for some basic facts, just ask Leonard, and quote directly from him perhaps the most crucial single sentence in this entire, nearly
four-decade-old drama. “I seen Joe when he pulled it out of the trunk and I looked at him when he put it on, and he gave me a smile.” (ITSOCH p552)
That was an FBI jacket (and thanks for the smile, Joe), as they stood there with two dead agents at their feet, their faces blown to bits, (and by the way, they were both physically moved; shot in the face but found face down establishes that; the crime scene photos are self-evident ). Then Peltier and others stole their weapons and one of the vehicles, and using Peltier’s words again, “We gotta get out of here.”
And yes, the prediction. Mr. X.
For nearly twenty years Peltier had an alibi and stuck to it as it was chronicled in ITSOCH with even a cameo appearance in “Incident.” Yes, Matthiessen and Redford both bit into that rotten apple. Quoting Peltier… “This story is true. But I can’t and will not say anything about it. For me to testify against anybody-or even mention-try to get somebody else in trouble-is wrong. And I won’t do it. Because it’s against my belief, it’s against my religion, my culture. It’s against everything that we’ve fought for or stood up for. (Everything, of course, but the truth.)
Really, how quaint that he felt so strongly about not identifying Mr. X, even though it turned out to be one huge lie (just ask Dino Butler).
So, how will young Preston handle this in the blockbuster “documentary” Wind Chases? Ignore it (as Peltier did, never mentioning Mr. X or the infamous red pickup truck in his autobiography, Prison Writings)? Claim, like so many others, that it must have been another government conspiracy of some sort or anther? (Tough to do with all the admissions from Butler, Robideau and Peltier.) Or try to spin it yet in some other direction. Odds are it won’t even be mentioned.
Perhaps a tile change would be appropriate. “Wind Chases Mr. X” would work.
“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods
No Parole Peltier Association
*See NPPA Blog: Peltier “Shot” in Prison dated August 28, 2011 re Bruce Smith.
**See Editorial Essay #28; M. Wesley Swearingen: No longer supports Leonard Peltier,
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#swear, and the “1 Star” reviews, by this writer, on Amazon.com, of Swearingen’s two hopeless and ineffective books.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
LET'S CAPTURE THEM! Capture turns to murder
Dear Supporters:
In the film “Incident at Oglala,” Bob Robideau proclaims
“We needed to capture these two agents, we didn’t know they were agents at the time. We didn’t have any idea who they were. We felt it had become necessary to capture them and that’s what we were going to do.”
There are several obvious problems with this fantasy scenario.
Everyone on the Reservation knew who the federal agents were; even during Peltier’s trial when Angie Long Visitor said “I looked over and seen them two FBI cars standing there.” “Because nobody has new cars around here.” And because of the “aerials.” (transcript 2657). In other words, everyone knew that white guys in civilian clothes driving late model cars with antennas, were Feds. No secret there.
Then when did the scenario change? They were first going to “capture” the agents, but after they were severely wounded and unable to defend themselves they were both shot in the face at point-blank range. So the capture, after it became obvious they were agents, turned into murder?
But Robideau had an explanation for that too. In the film he describes the phantom Mr. X: “That day I noticed a red pickup coming down from that white house up there (pointing for the camera), and when it got on the other side of these cars, it stopped, an individual got out, of course I knew who he was…and fired and killed both of them. Shorty after that the individual got back into the driver’s side of the pickup, and the pickup left, and made its way up along this tree line up here (still pointing for the camera) and past the green house and I never saw the red pickup again.”
(Mr. X, by the way, was allegedly bringing dynamite to the camp that day. And let’s not forget that Dino Butler called both Robideau and Peltier liars on Mr. X and this fable.)
So we have a feigned capture plot, a known shooter who does the deed and drives off, and yet, according to Leonard Peltier, it was all “pre-planned,” almost ordained.
In his secondary-school level book, Prison Writings, Peltier offered this whopper of a tale: “I can't believe that the FBI intended the deaths of their own agents…nor does it jibe with the fact that scores, even hundreds, of FBI Agents, federal marshals, BIA police, and GOONS were all lying in wait in the immediate vicinity. It seems they thought they'd barge in on that phony pretext, draw some show of resistance from our AIM spiritual camp, then pounce on the compound with massive force.” (Page 113)
“Spiritual?”
“Hundreds?” “Massive force?” “All lying in wait?”
Interesting, yet in Robideau’s tale they had plenty of time to shoot at the agents, wound them, kill them, steal their weapons and one of the vehicles, before the first agent even showed up at Jumping Bull.
All this fantasy is disproven by the fact of Agent Williams’ radio calls for assistance and that the nearest agent and two BIA officers were about twelve miles away when this all started. The responding agent and officers were also shot at when they attempted to enter the Jumping Bull property from Highway 18.
And, of course, this all flies in the face of Peltier’s latest reinvention of that day (“They attacked the Village,” NPPA Blog, 12/27/11).
Robideau’s statements stand, along with “Incident at Oglala” because Peltier still relies on Robert Redford’s fantasy remake of Peter Matthiessen’s “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,” who was characterized by a Harvard law professor as "Mr. Matthiessen is at his worst when he becomes a polemicist for his journalistic clients. He is utterly unconvincing-indeed embarrassingly sophomoric-when he pleads the legal innocence of individual Indian criminals." In other words, both works are fatally flawed…carbon copies as it were…but we cannot ignore the direct and recorded statements from either Robideau or Peltier.
Adding more insult and injury to Peltier’s cause even Peter Matthiessen didn’t by the pre-planed tale; “…the agents pulled up in that vulnerable place down in the pasture because they heard a warning shot or came under fire; if there is another persuasive explanation of the location and position of their cars, I cannot find it.” (ITSOCH p.544) In other words, for the factually challenged, feeble-minded Peltier sycophants, the Agents were attacked and murdered at Jumping Bull that day.
The fabled and feigned innocence and the remanufacturing of facts continues embarrassingly in the Peltier camp…their problem lies in the fact that their claims are so easily dispelled as Peltier continues to foster the myth that he somehow legitimizes a rich Native American history.
“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods
For a factual and accurate review please see the following:
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/timing.html
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/lie.html
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#concise
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html
In the film “Incident at Oglala,” Bob Robideau proclaims
“We needed to capture these two agents, we didn’t know they were agents at the time. We didn’t have any idea who they were. We felt it had become necessary to capture them and that’s what we were going to do.”
There are several obvious problems with this fantasy scenario.
Everyone on the Reservation knew who the federal agents were; even during Peltier’s trial when Angie Long Visitor said “I looked over and seen them two FBI cars standing there.” “Because nobody has new cars around here.” And because of the “aerials.” (transcript 2657). In other words, everyone knew that white guys in civilian clothes driving late model cars with antennas, were Feds. No secret there.
Then when did the scenario change? They were first going to “capture” the agents, but after they were severely wounded and unable to defend themselves they were both shot in the face at point-blank range. So the capture, after it became obvious they were agents, turned into murder?
But Robideau had an explanation for that too. In the film he describes the phantom Mr. X: “That day I noticed a red pickup coming down from that white house up there (pointing for the camera), and when it got on the other side of these cars, it stopped, an individual got out, of course I knew who he was…and fired and killed both of them. Shorty after that the individual got back into the driver’s side of the pickup, and the pickup left, and made its way up along this tree line up here (still pointing for the camera) and past the green house and I never saw the red pickup again.”
(Mr. X, by the way, was allegedly bringing dynamite to the camp that day. And let’s not forget that Dino Butler called both Robideau and Peltier liars on Mr. X and this fable.)
So we have a feigned capture plot, a known shooter who does the deed and drives off, and yet, according to Leonard Peltier, it was all “pre-planned,” almost ordained.
In his secondary-school level book, Prison Writings, Peltier offered this whopper of a tale: “I can't believe that the FBI intended the deaths of their own agents…nor does it jibe with the fact that scores, even hundreds, of FBI Agents, federal marshals, BIA police, and GOONS were all lying in wait in the immediate vicinity. It seems they thought they'd barge in on that phony pretext, draw some show of resistance from our AIM spiritual camp, then pounce on the compound with massive force.” (Page 113)
“Spiritual?”
“Hundreds?” “Massive force?” “All lying in wait?”
Interesting, yet in Robideau’s tale they had plenty of time to shoot at the agents, wound them, kill them, steal their weapons and one of the vehicles, before the first agent even showed up at Jumping Bull.
All this fantasy is disproven by the fact of Agent Williams’ radio calls for assistance and that the nearest agent and two BIA officers were about twelve miles away when this all started. The responding agent and officers were also shot at when they attempted to enter the Jumping Bull property from Highway 18.
And, of course, this all flies in the face of Peltier’s latest reinvention of that day (“They attacked the Village,” NPPA Blog, 12/27/11).
Robideau’s statements stand, along with “Incident at Oglala” because Peltier still relies on Robert Redford’s fantasy remake of Peter Matthiessen’s “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,” who was characterized by a Harvard law professor as "Mr. Matthiessen is at his worst when he becomes a polemicist for his journalistic clients. He is utterly unconvincing-indeed embarrassingly sophomoric-when he pleads the legal innocence of individual Indian criminals." In other words, both works are fatally flawed…carbon copies as it were…but we cannot ignore the direct and recorded statements from either Robideau or Peltier.
Adding more insult and injury to Peltier’s cause even Peter Matthiessen didn’t by the pre-planed tale; “…the agents pulled up in that vulnerable place down in the pasture because they heard a warning shot or came under fire; if there is another persuasive explanation of the location and position of their cars, I cannot find it.” (ITSOCH p.544) In other words, for the factually challenged, feeble-minded Peltier sycophants, the Agents were attacked and murdered at Jumping Bull that day.
The fabled and feigned innocence and the remanufacturing of facts continues embarrassingly in the Peltier camp…their problem lies in the fact that their claims are so easily dispelled as Peltier continues to foster the myth that he somehow legitimizes a rich Native American history.
“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods
For a factual and accurate review please see the following:
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/timing.html
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/lie.html
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#concise
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html
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