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Remembering the day he was assassinated |
"The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight." John F. Kennedy at Columbia University 10 days before his assassination |
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Finally, the book History Will Not Absolve Us: In this book, it reveals (among many other things) that when JFK was assassinated, he was in the process of secret negotiations with Fidel Castro and Russia, with the promise of a settlement with Cuba and mutual disarmament by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. These talks did not set well with those involved in what was described by President Eisenhower as the Military Industrial Complex. He was in the process of withdrawing from Viet Nam. In addition, he was considering the dissolution of the unconstitutionally established Federal Reserve Board, which is NOT a federal agency at all.
It reveals that Lee Harvey Oswald was, prior to the assassination, on the payroll of the CIA as an operative, whose contacts with the CIA involved a future President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, the Bush who was elected. Further, that on the day of JFK's assassination, Fidel Castro was scheduled for assassination as well. Given the talks between Kennedy and Castro, Fidel Castro was fearful that Kennedy's assassination would mean the overthrow of his government too. And, it discusses the fact that, despite Jack Ruby's many requests to be heard by Congress and the Warren Commission, they never took his testimony regarding the assassination of JFK, or Ruby's murder of Oswald. With that, I hope you'll appreciate this report.
We've all gone through the experience of September 11th, 2001 in our own ways... together... it's easy to point out how we grieved as a nation, and still do... I was considering how people younger than me could understand why people, especially older than me, talk about something called Camelot, and their sadness at the loss of President John F. Kennedy. See, Friday was the anniversary date of the assassination of the President Kennedy. I thought it might help you understand a little more if you heard my story about what I experienced that day. One other thing that I think you might find interesting is that I'm 47, and, in looking at the issues and social climate of our population's demographics, I'm a little too young to really be a baby boomer, and a little too old to be in what is referred to as generation X. But I understand the issues of all 3 basic factions. Today, I received an email from a visitor to this web site site. He was 30 years old. The essence of his email was this: "I'll do anything to see real Democracy finally be used in the U.S...." Everytime I need a reminder of why I'm doing what I am doing, statements like that, people like him, are the reason I'm doing what I'm doing. The generation gap is upon us, only it's 3 ways instead of 2... I'm smack dab on the cusps of 2 of them... Feeling much like a negotiator. And I keep thinking about my experiences, the possibilities good and bad that could occur in the near future, and I think... remember this, just think back and remember this... what kind of world are we leaving for our children? Remember when we asked our parents what kind of world were they going to leave us? You may wonder what that has to do with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I only hope I can tell you in a way that lets you understand it, even just a little. I was 8 years old, and home from school with a cold the day John Kennedy was assassinated. My father loved to build wooden toys for me. He did different things with each of us 6 children. And that's what he did in order to relate to me. He built cars, houses, little wooden people and all sorts of things. But the thing he made me that I loved the best was a simple rectangular wooden box that was made to look like an old-fashioned telephone switchboard operator's connection console... just like you see in the old movies. It wasn't very fancy, but little light lenses that lit up in the sun and he supplied me with a set of aviator's headphones to "listen". We lived way out in the country on a 5 acre "ranch" in the Santa Cruz Mountains that was a parcel which had previously been a part of my grandparents and great grand parents' farm. We had a garden in the summer that was the horse corral in the winter (easier access to the horses in bad weather, and great fertilizer too). It was about a 1/2 acre. Now, my father didn't exactly relate to people the way most normal people do. He was supposed to have been an off the charts genius, and from what I have learned, he was. So, he liked to have political discussions with me. From the time I was 5 or 6. And he was a die hard, anti-communist Republican. But for some reason, he really liked President Kennedy, even though Kennedy was a Democrat. I'd hear him talking about Kennedy, Eisenhower... he was an incredibly politically opinionated if not active. But I remember him talking. Talking about justice, equality and the economy and the military, though I'm not so sure I came away with his opinions. And the books I chose to read as a kid were biographies of the founding fathers, their speeches and accounts of their lives. Ever since my father made me that telephone switchboard I was talking about, we'd go out to the edge of the garden, just as the sun was going down, and he'd have me pretend to call President John. F. Kennedy. We'd talk about school, the weather, I'd tell him what my dad said about him, and told him I liked him alot. Then he'd say he had to go. So, I'd unplug the chords from the switchboard, and put it away for another day. And then, like I said, I was home sick when President Kennedy was assassinated. I watched it on tv. I listened to it on the radio. I thought maybe our country was under attack. I thought about my dad talking about communism and socialism and capitalism and I wondered what would happen in the future. It was alot like September 11th. We lived way out in the country, and I was afraid to go outside. It was a very frightening day. I didn't know what was for certain anymore, what I could trust, and what was deception. So little of it made any sense. Like an earthquake that shakes the ground from beneath your feet. Among other things, to me, I had also lost a friend. In a way, John Kennedy was my imaginary friend. I had a vivid imagination for an 8 year old. And no, I never really had any "imaginary friends". I remember my father following the trial intently, and almost betting his life on Jim Garrison and the trial of Clay Shaw. He said it would be the thing that would reveal the truth. When Clay Shaw was acquitted of complicity in the death of John Kennedy, my father seemed very disappointed and sad. Because my father, like most people I've ever known, never believed that President Kennedy died at the hands of the lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. I've watched the films of the crime over and over again. And authorities didn't want to hear the story Jack Ruby wanted to tell, despite his many requests to testify. Jack Ruby was the man who assassinated Oswald before there could be a trial. In the three month period surrounding the time of Kennedy's Assassination, the leaders of 9 other nations were assassinated as well, including the President of Viet Nam, where we were beginning to fully engage in a war. After that, my father started telling people he was a Libertarian, and to question authority. I can't help but notice that as I write this, I am seeing an interview on tv about how Saddam Hussein killed off all of the other people in his country who had the power to mount a political or military offensive against him. It's a classic strategy described in a little book national leaders often read called The Prince by Machiavelli. You owe it to yourself to read it. It will explain a great deal to you. It's very short, and very inexpensive. And, it is relevant. Especially when you add the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy into the patterns. It was only last year that I came to understand what people meant about John Kennedy when they talked about Camelot. I watched a movie starring Sean Connery about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I had never read much mythology. I finally came to realize it was the vision Kennedy expressed, and the one I so believed in. The one that everyone talks about, the way things should be, that they've given up believing could ever be possible again. Beause, in the end, our leaders had been taken from us. It was a dream worthy of dreaming. Of true justice, and truth, and equality and freedom. Of a government taking full responsibility for the well being of its citizens,whatever that meant, whatever it took. It was about true unity and community and nationalism. And you can talk about globalization and integration and von Hayek and Keynes and economic theory and planned and managed economies all you want.. but it all still adds up to the fact that when John Kennedy was assassinated, it was the beginning of the end of a dream, a hope of a government that would serve the interests and well-being of its citizens over the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. It marked the resurgence of a paradigm that people in the 60's called the Military Industrial Complex. So, when you hear people talk of President John F. Kennedy, and his assassination, and Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy... understand that these people were the people of the older generations who defined and expressed the true character of this nation... people now addressed by political adversaries as liberals with disdain and ridicule... disdain for the intent of the founders of this nation... disdain the world we really intended to provide you, as we requested our parents to provide us... remember what Senator Ted Kennedy said "The Dream Will Never Die" ... and then remember that it's up to you demand it and create it. Because, like the truth, it is yours to have and hear and require. Everything is possble. All you have to do is want it. The dream did not die. It lives in our hearts and imaginations. The part of us all that wishes things weren't the way they are. That is the answer that Camelot was to provide. In honor of that dream, that Camelot, and the man in America who symbolized the intent and heart and soul of this nation 39 years ago... that's what we lost... let's bring that dream back to life. Let's live it. It's the greatest gift and honor we could possibly bestow upon him on this anniversary of his death, as well as ourselves. John Kennedy was a man, a human being with all the same kinds of flaws and trappings and feelings that all of us have... but what he showed us was how to represent a vision of a future that would only get better and better. By speaking from our hearts, and saying what it is we really stand for and believe in. And after all, unless we do that, how will anyone know? With that, I'll only say, John, we miss you and your example in many, many ways. And thanks for the lessons and the legacy you left for us to discover inside us all.
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Orwellian
Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy (E. Martin Schotz,
Preface by R. Cardona 
