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Huh??

Rat

You call this a news article???? WTF

Wonder who out there today in the media are really looking for people to report? Just kidding. It must be a slow news day.

Paid F.B.I. informant or not, he certainly demonstrated photographic skills which rightfully will become his legacy in the Civil Rights struggle. A museum of his life's work would definitely be in order.

So what was he informing the FBI about ..Dr. King??? wow!!!!

So a dead photographer whose name the FBI "accidentally" released under the Freedom Information was an informant. This is a man who took photographs that have shaped the Civil Rights history. What is the point? Who gives a damn? Does it change the art, the impact, the impact those photographs have had on history.

Is that all there is to the story? Where are the facts supporting it? What kind of journalism is this?

OK I get it now, this is just a blog about an article.

If it is true; why are we just now hearing about it? If it is not true then the story and the timing are suspect considering the political climate in the States...

He provided invaluable, highly confidential, secret information to the FBI. Things like, "We're having this public rally and march in Selma next Sunday at 10:00 AM after church services." Martin likes ice cream. Ralph will be on the AM radio in Memphis Tuesday after next. In other words, if all he "gave up" was worthless, inane, otherwise publicly available information, he just took their money and who cares - which might just be the best conclusion after all. It's about the photographs, stupid!

Odd that you mentioned that he was present when MLK was assassinated, the random possibility that the vacant building across an alley with a direct line of sight etc., etc. is not helped by this new information. The group of assassinations at that time is linked by myth, legend and fodder for endless conspiracies. It was not the dog that won’t hunt for the connections; so much as the strategy of putting down tracking scent to make sure that the dog would be confused, and exhausted before it needed lunch. When this matter was “settled” by the legacy of misdirection, what could be the value of bring this information forth at this time? More conspiracies than you can count; just by pealing back the blacked-outs from the rest of alleged “accidental” disclosure at this time raises new questions. First questions to be asked, is who in fact paid to fund a two year research project, hence speculation will happen as if this is good or evil. Depends on who gets discredited; the informant or the group who was being informed on, or who started down this path to gathering information in the first place, who back tracked and covered up the mess, who sought to exploit the MLK legacy, then, then later, and later still, and now, and in the future. We are living in unprecedented era where all information can be purchased as private property; old information can be recast by thousand hands. The old written words of truth can be rewritten into scores of half truths, those half truths knit together into lies by the copious thousands that finding the original truth is made nearly impossible, no impossible. The eye of mine cannot follow the light of true when the thousand of lies burn brighter. A truth that once lasted a lifetime is replaced by last year’s lie, and the lie from yesterday displaced this morning news. The information era makes this possible, and curses itself by not only remembering the thousands of lies made yesterday, but by remembering every lie made in every yesterday and in every yesterday made by every future tomorrow.

From the dust of this confusion of exploded trust what shall be made? Shall we say that we can only trust that we cannot trust? Shall we tear down our best efforts, to satisfy the greed of owning everything? Shall we tear the sustenance from the lips of the starving, declaring them unworthy, to place a gilded lining to our pocket?

This event has started again, to take apart what should be whole and finished, and to replace it with a indefinite era where all information has become no information at all, and trust is buried where it cannot be found.

Even if he was, his photographic documentation of the period far exceeds any negative press or efforts to tarnish his character. Kudo's to Withers, we need more people like him.

People ignore the obvious - he was among the ranks of oppressed people who faced retaliation from their own country and government just because they wanted basic, human, equal rights. The were on the right side of history. If he did this, he is indeed a traitor - of the worst kind. He betrayed his people. Period. Now the question is why? While no explanation would be acceptable, the question begs itself.

Since we do not know what it was he was informing about, if it is even true, we should all hold off judgement.

There are so many avenues of approach concerning this. Does it make a difference now? Hell no because Dr. King and Mr. Withers are both dead. It's just hard to believe that a movement as strong as the Civil Rights Movement, for the lack of a better term, was compromised by someone who contributed so much in terms of physical insight with his pictures. But for the record it shouldn't deter the movement in any way.

King was a threat. He was a terrorist to white people (regardless of those stupid tea bag MLK rally participants who hoped to pull the wool over our eyes so we couldn't see their white hoods) and maybe to some of you he still is, and he was removed, thanks to informers like this one. Now, you're still not safe because the arabs are the terrorists, you are the terrorists, or anybody that gets in the way of this government murdering and plundering the wealth of nations. Americans are terrorists if they refuse to turn over their wealth to wall street.

If his information helped to facilitate the assassination, then the Judas factor will be off the charts...

rich jones, should work for FOX, awesome

So what information did he have? Was he selling out his friends or was it a Viet Nam thing? Where's the rest of this story?

Where is the proof?

Even if irrefutably true, you should ask: what did the FBI have on a man so clearly devoted to the documentation of a crucial era in American history that could inspire him to betray the trust many placed in him?

It is unlikely that such a man would simply volunteer for treachery against his own, only to skillfully convey their stories with memorable images of crushing sorrow and hardscrabble poverty.

There is more here than meets the eye- and it would seem that the goal was to impugn enlightenment by the revelation of reasons to distrust it.

Beware media. Take what you can from this sandy mixture of grain and chaff in terms of raw information- but winnow such carefully, and leaven it well with reason, before baking the bread of conclusion.

To Rich M. Jones: It was refreshing to see well developed prose expressing difficult ideas in a public forum. Thanks for taking the time to convey complex ideas both well and entertainingly.

Many in the media today have connections to the party's. They are hardly objective. The idea that journalists are held to some standard is laughable. They in many cases are partisan shills. I beleive this is called hypocrisy, again.

So what information did he report. That Dr. King was not a communist. Or perhaps that he was using his constitutionally guaranteed rights to protest. The real question is why was the FBI spying on the legitimate activities of a citizen.

It is long past time that all of the FBI's files on Michael "Martin Luther" King Jr. were unsealed and made availablt to the public without restriction or redactions.