Friday, November 22, 2013

JFK 50 Years On

Charles P. Pierce on JFK's assassination.

The murder of John Kennedy in broad daylight in the streets of an American city remains, to me, an unsolved crime. I do not accept the notion that the Warren Commission, created to allay public panic and not to investigate, and composed of wise men from Washington who had made careers out of knowing more than they ever would tell, somehow still managed to stumble onto the correct interpretation of all of the events of that surreal weekend. (Hell, Allen Dulles was on that Commission and Kennedy had fired his lying ass less than a year earlier.) I stopped believing in the Warren Commission even before it was put together. I stopped believing in the Warren Commission when I sat on my living room floor and watched the accused murderer of the president get gunned down on live TV in a roomful of Dallas cops. I stopped believing in the Warren Commission when I watched a lynching with my parents while the dead president was lying in state in the White House and as the country went numb around me.

The Warren Commission was a natural outgrowth of a mentality that had infected the government from the moment that the government decided that it would build, in secret, a weapon that would not only win World War II, but also have the potential to end civilization if it -- or the men who allegedly were in control of it -- ever ran amok. What historian Garry Wills calls the "Bomb Power" was based from its beginnings in the notion that there were things about their government that the American people need not know. From this came an irresistible impulse to treat the American people -- for whom the Founders intended all of what John Adams called "the awful knowledge" about their leaders -- like fragile children who must be protected at all costs from what their government found necessary to do on their behalf. From this has come a hundred commissions and boards and gatherings of the shamans of the security state -- the slow bureaucratic response to the Watergate crimes, the Tower Commission on Iran-Contra, even the Simpson-Bowles budget commission -- all of which sprang from the notion that the nation's elite should conduct the nation's business in as quiet a manner as possible, so as not to disturb the horses or wake the children. The Warren Commission was the first of these, and it did its job very well. What unruly bloggers call The Village can be said to have been founded in the premise that the American people needed to be shielded, for their own good, from the full knowledge of the facts surrounding the murder of their president in broad daylight in the streets of an American city.
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I don't know if we'll ever settle who shot from where. But I do know that, almost from the start, the government has known more about this event than it has been willing to share with the people who, allegedly, govern themselves through it. It is long past time for that to end. It has been 50 years. So many people connected, in one way or another, and by one person or another, to the events in Dallas are dead. The Soviet Union is dead. Do not protect yourselves by claiming to protect us. We have been protected for too long and from too much of what the government has done in our name. We are not children, huddled at the classroom door, wondering why the nuns are weeping, and why the world has suddenly gone so silent all around us.

I was mercifully shielded from the events surrounding JFK's assassination. It happened on my 4th day in the Marine Corps and consisted of one short announcement from my Drill Instructor, "The President's been shot. Stand by.", and that was it. I got to watch his funeral on an 8-inch black-and-white TV crammed together with about 200 other recruits in a dark, dank shower room. I hardly watched TV during my enlistment, and the war of words about it was raging when I got out three years later.

I'd like to know who did it. The only thing I'm convinced of is that Oswald did not act alone if he acted at all. Too much hearsay/speculation/revelation to the contrary. The Warren Commission was a pack of lies/whitewash/coverup. "Magic bullet" my ass. So far, the best answer is a CIA/Mafia effort, but I don't know for sure. I hope I live long enough for it to come out.

8 comments:

Phil said...

I can still remember watching the funeral procession at my Grandmothers house on a Black and White and asking her why the boots were in the stirrups backwards.

I was three years old.
It is just about the only memory I have that old.


BTW, some Kennedy conspiracy debunker who is a recognized expert said recently that of all the conspiracies he has ever heard, the only one he can't debunk is that the CIA did it.

It's been a while Gord.
I hope all is well with you and yours.

Gordon said...

Yeah, it's been a while. We're fine, hope all's well with you and yours too.

Anonymous said...

I was in formation with you Gordon, when Sgt. King announced the assassination. That was the most scared I was in in my enlistment. I thought - I've only been in the Marines 4 days and now were going to war. We got dismissed from formation and went back to our quonset huts. A few minutes later we were called to formation again and Sgt. King said that one of us called him a liar about the assassination and asked who it was. Private Kajinski stepped forward. Sgt. King kicked him in the shins several times. Private Kajinski later went awol

bob plt 187

WhyNot said...

Pity nobody assassinated GW Bush. Both of the fuckheads. Right now, and for a few years now, there is one cunt I'd like to see assassinated, it's Jeanette Lucey, from Rock Hill, (Carolina, can't remember if it's North or South). That'd really make my day.

But not assassinated with bullets - much too quick. What she deserves is to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Impaled in one of her born-again Jesus dildoes adorned with barbed wire would be a nice added touch, kind of icing on the cake.

Deidra and I started watching "Syriana". Mmmm. I had heard lots of good things about it, and yet we both found it so comvoluted and cryptic, it was actually really boring. Well, that is, the first 20 minutes of it - we couldn't take it any longer and turned it off. I think next on the program is a good dose of Marx Brothers movies; now THAT's REAL cinema!!! Ah, why didn't you guys elect Groucho president? The world would be a better place fir sure!

sbgypsy said...

Whynot, you make me feel dirty. I'm gonna go wash my hands now.

Gordon said...

Bob, that was about as scared as I got during my hitch too. I thought they were going to hand us rifles and drop us on Moscow. I don't remember Kajinski or that episode. I'm not very smart, but I was smart enough not to fuck with Sgt. King.

WhyNot, we called for Bush et al to be hung in a glorious twelve-roper many times but ONLY after due process. Please keep your personal problems to yourself. I met Groucho Marx when I was a kid as we lived in the same town. He was a nice old man and way too guileless to be President.

Sorry, sb.

WhyNot said...

Gordon,

Wow. Certainly didn't expect this response from the owners of this blog.

"Please keep your personal problems to yourself. I met Groucho Marx when I was a kid as we lived in the same town. He was a nice old man and way too guileless to be President."

What was that you said about keeping your personal problems to yourself?

My good friend Nunya (from "politickybitch.blogspot") was married to an ex US-military cunt. She was fortunate enough to manage a restraining court order that prevented him from ever showing his fat fascist fuckface again at her front door.

I'm sure she'll enjoy reading your prose, lol. Should bring back memories to her.

So long. I can't speak for Deidra, but I'd bet a fair amount of dough you won't see her again - after she reads your fascist crap. I'd invite you to kiss her ass, but unfortunately for youze, I'm the only one authorized to do so.

But I'm sure you and Fixer can kiss each others' asses all day & night long. After all, that's what they teach you in the US military, right?

Anonymous said...

Geez Marie, Gordon! Can't you block poor old WhyNot? Thanksgiving is still a couple of days away but that spiel could turn a stomach a month ahead of time. Damned internet makes some folks obnoxious bullies cause it's not face to face and... well, you know the drill.

Hope your Thanksgiving is a good one and that your shirt fits to your satisfaction, and that you don't need BenGay, and that it doesn't rain and that you don't have to open any gates in the rain.
:)

Your faithful and appreciative reader,

Jay in N.C.