Almost everyone in America today remembers exactly where they were at the moment when they first heard about 9-11. I was at the dentist. And almost everyone from the baby-boomer generation also remembers exactly where they were at the moment when they first heard that President Kennedy was shot. For the baby-boomer generation, Kennedy’s assassination was like what 9-11 is to Americans today — in the sense that things have never been the same since either event.
In 1963 I was a junior in college, sitting in the front row of Professor James Pratt’s political science class and listening to his lecture on Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex. And who would have guessed back then that 47 years later I would finally actually get a chance to actually go visit Dallas, to actually go inside the Texas Book Depository and to actually stand right there on the Grassy Knoll, looking down on the exact spot where Kennedy was shot. Not me!
Here’s how it happened: I was down in Belize City and about to catch a plane home after having visited almost every Mayan ruin in a four-country radius (see http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2010/04/archeology-at-its-best-mayan-ruins.html for details), when it was announced over the loudspeaker that my flight was delayed. Rats. “Now I’ll never make my connection at DFW!”
“Not to worry,” said the gate person. “We’ll put you up at a hotel in Dallas and you can fly out to SFO the next day.” And American Airlines did just that, bless its heart. And that is how I actually got to spend a whole day in Dallas.
And what does one do when one goes to Dallas? Go to a Cowboys game? No! One visits the Grassy Knoll!
And gets to be amazed.
First I was amazed that, 47 years after Kennedy’s tragic death, the place where he was brutally assassinated was still a major tourist attraction. There were still tourists coming to that spot. And the sixth floor room where Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy is now a museum.
The second thing that amazed me was that I actually got to stand on the exact spot where Kennedy received his tragically-fatal shot to the head.
But the thing that amazed me most was that, after all this huge hype that’s been shoved down our throats for the past 47 years that Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy by firing just three shots, is really actually sort of hard to believe when you are actually there at the actual spot. Even the greenest kindergartner, standing where I stood 47 long years after the fatal event, could immediately see that, despite all the hype and the commission reports to the contrary, that it would have taken a miracle of marksmanship and accuracy for Oswald to have made those three direct hits. A freaking miracle!
Was Oswald that good of a marksman? Hardly. But if he was, then he must have been intensively well-trained by the best.
If, however, someone had made the shot that killed Kennedy from the Grassy Knoll, where eye-witnesses originally said that the shots came from, it would have been a relatively easy shot.
“But, Jane,” you might say, “if the shots had been fired from the Grassy Knoll, wouldn’t they have entered Kennedy’s body from a different angle and even injured Jackie as well?” Hmmm…
So I did some research. And according to autopsy photos at http://www.celebritymorgue.com/jfk/jfk-autopsy.html, we can clearly see that one bullet entered Kennedy’s head from the right — and one entered at the middle of his back. And a third one entered his neck from the FRONT. What’s with that? Oswald really did fire a miracle shot! Or else Kennedy was shot as he approached the Grassy Knoll, passed in front of it and was driven away from the shooter(s)?
I haven’t read all the voluminous literature regarding JFK and Oswald, but it seems to me from the perspective of a naive tourist just visiting the Grassy Knoll for a few minutes that If Oswald actually was the sole shooter, then he would have had to have started shooting Kennedy at least a half-football-field sooner than he did — if he was going to get in both his front and side shot.
And where was the Secret Service after the first shot was fired? Aren’t they spozed to throw themselves in front of the President at the first sign of trouble and protect him with their lives? Which brings up that old question of why weren’t Secret Service agents riding on the Cadillac’s rear bumper? Which they clearly were not. No wonder poor sweet Jackie got blood all over her pink suit and Caroline and John-John had to go fatherless!
“But, Jane,” you might remind me rather forcibly at this point, “all these are just conspiracy theories.” Yeah, well, tell that to the kindergartners — and us tourists at the Grassy Knoll.
Here’s a video I made of the scene of the crime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCSYfVepAYY
PS: It also seems to me that lurking behind the scenes during every major war and disaster in America since 1930 (or even actually on the scene), there has always been a member of the Bush family — with the possible exception of Korea. Prescott Bush was there egging on Hitler. George H.W. Bush was a high-ranking CIA official when Kennedy was murdered, thus paving the way for Vietnam. Then there was the Gulf War, invented almost singlehandedly by George Senior. And 9-11? According to George W. Bush’s terrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, GWB was warned about the possibility of that tragic attack at least a month before it happened — and yet Bush did nothing.
And how about Iraq and Afghanistan? Was a Bush behind those wars too? Yep.
And just think for a moment about how all these past 80 years of American “wars” have been very, very good for the Bush family — causing their stock in the weapons trade to zoom up. Which leaves me wondering which Bush will get us into America’s next war — in order to give the next generation of young Bushes a leg up in the family business?
Professor Pratt and President Eisenhower were right back in the day. “Beware of the military-industrial complex.” And nothing’s changed since — except for the worse. And while misguided Teabaggers are currently fretting their little hearts out over our government’s relatively minor healthcare expenditures, munitions manufacturers like the Bush family are still happily hijacking what is left of our treasury — and our souls.
PPS: Oh crap. I’m so tired of hearing about how Teabaggers, the NRA and “Christian” militias are out buying deadly weapons, arming themselves and then complaining that they need even MORE assess to weapons. If those people all want unlimited access to guns and warfare so badly, then they need to move to the Democratic Republic of Congo ASAP. They’d be much, much happier in the DRC. There’s no gun control there. You can shoot at people indiscriminately and nobody can stop you. Teabaggers could even own their own tanks!
PPPS: The bastards who killed Kennedy may still be feeling all smug with themselves that they got clean away with it and that they will never be caught. But all too many Americans know what really happened back then. You think not? Just go to YouTube, enter a search for “Kennedy Assassination” and watch how many VIDEOS come up. 7,880 videos come up. That’s videos, not hits (one video alone had 3,157,243 hits). Type in “Kennedy assassination conspiracy” and over TEN THOUSAND more videos will pop up.
Now take a few hours and watch some of those videos yourself. “You can fool some of the people all of the time….” Despite the fact that the perps outwardly seem to be getting away with their cover-up, they are not. Not really. Even 47 years after this tragic event, people are still not letting this issue fade.
Perhaps there is hope for America yet.
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Here’s a home video taken in 2009, showing how tourists are still swarming the Grassy Knoll even now. According to this video, there was also a tree in the way of Oswald’s shot back in 1963. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ9M_ByrEWI&feature=related
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More than three bullets were shot? This video says yes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtFoPCKVp-8&feature=related
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Here’s a video of an eye-witness who heard many shots. “The shots came from the [Grassy Knoll] and I saw a man running.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b0YcMYmweo&feature=related
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Here’s the famous video of the Secret Service stand-down in Dallas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY02Qkuc_f8
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And here’s a photo of George H.W. Bush at the Texas Book Depository after the shooting: http://www.freedomfightersforamerica.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/BushJfkBookDepoT.324104116.jpg
Not again?
[Note: for this one column, the writer will forego the pose of being “the World’s Laziest Journalist” and use traditional debating form to address a possible explanation of the events in Egypt, which has seemed to stymie both liberal and conservative pundits.]
In 1980, the Republicans conspired with radical Muslims to use the Iranian hostages as pawns in the Presidential Election process, so it isn’t inconceivable that some Republicans might stoop that low again for the same reason. It could it even be that the same Republicans who negotiated with the Iranians for the release of the American hostages are again using stealth deals to influence American politics. Didn’t the Republicans use agreements with Muslim extremists to get the money to use in the Iran-Contra deal? Was that ever fully investigated beyond the level of sending some low level intermediaries to jail? Who gave the marching orders to those intermediaries?
Who were the Americans who worked out the details for clandestine money and weapons, in the late Eighties (?), to help the Afghan rebels repulse the Russian invasion? Since the White House was occupied by Republicans from 1980 to 1992, you don’t think they let any Democrats play a substantial role in that caper, do you?
What prominent American political family is known for its political ties to the House of Saud in Arabia? Who are the workers who help maintain that cozy relationship?
Did Republicans working on the Policy for a New American Century (PNAC) project express a hope for a “new Pearl Harbor” during the Clinton Administration? Did some such invigorating and inspiring event eventually take place and deliver a unified country into the hands of the people who expressed that wish?
Did George W. Bush use a photo-op moment to make a solemn pledge to the American people to deliver justice to Osama bin Laden (a member of a family that like his own was heavily involved in the Carlyle Group)? Did George W. Bush’s military make a deal with local Muslims to apprehend the culprit and didn’t that bit of delegating authoritiy “inadvertently” let the fellow slip into oblivion that all the best CIA efforts can’t penetrate?
Would there be enough circumstantial evidence to conclude that a deal was made to let the fugitive escape in return for a promise that no further terrorist attacks would be made inside the USA while the Bush family was in the Oval Office?
Was a heavy emphasis placed on the principle of spreading democracy to explain the need for sending the United States military forces into both Afghanistan and Iraq?
In the early phase of the coverage of the unrest in Egypt didn’t some reports say that the protesters might have been coordinated on the Internets with help from some CIA controlled personnel?
When “Departure Day” arrived in Egypt, was there any possible outcome which would bolster President Obama’s chances for reelection?
Events in Egypt had put the Democrats in a box canyon ambush situation because they can’t say that Bush was prescient about the invasion of Iraq causing a large increase in demands from Muslims for democracy in their home countries, they can’t say that the charges that the USA is an imperialistic country meddling in the internal affairs of another country aren’t true, and they sure as heck can’t say Obama looks ineffectual and impotent because that would sound like they were making the Republican talking points to be used in the next Presidential election.
Who stands to gain from the current crisis situation?
Consider this: If a Republican is elected in 2012, won’t most pundits point to this week’s events in Egypt as the turning point and say that from then on, Obama was doomed to be a one term President? No matter what happens now in Egypt, can’t all Republicans say that Obama botched things just as Jimmy Carter did with the Iranian Hostage Crisis? Won’t the Republicans be very happy to say that, thanks to the ruling on Health care by a Reagan appointed judge and the fiasco in Egypt, Obama’s record was a null set?
Now let’s ask another question: Who had more sway with the CIA; a former Senator who hadn’t served one full term or a family with two former Presidents (one of whom was a former CIA director) and a viable candidate in the next election?
Who has more clout in the Muslim world: A family that has close financial ties with the House of Saud and the bin Laden family or a protégée of Henry Kissinger? (Didn’t Obama’s mother work with Henry the K? Didn’t Kissinger help the young Mr. Obama get a job out in Chicago?)
The conservatives have two ways to refute this hypothetical explanation for recent events in Egypt: they can assume that they can just ignore a rogue pundit who isn’t a member of the “in crowd” of liberal bloggers and that his latest column will not be noticed even by members of his own posse or they can use the standard political response of an ad hominem rebuttal. If Charles Manson wrote this column, debating referees would have to consider the information in the column for use in marking their score cards and not be swayed by any effort to sidetrack their judgment on to the topic of the personality of the writer.
To either method, this columnist would respond: Use the Occam’s Razor line of reasoning to evaluate the hypothetical explanation suggested in this column and what do you get? Is there any other viable explanation of the Crisis in Egypt?
All the TV personalities seem to by stumped by the events in Egypt. Isn’t there a line in a popular song that imagines a fellow who spends his entire life locked up in chains only to find that he has held the key in his hand all the time?
This columnist will return to the role of the happy-go-lucky Irish guy soon with a column that asks: If Australia has stood shoulder to shoulder with the USA every time it has gone to war (i.e. they have sent their troops to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan) shouldn’t somebody (in the mainstream media or the “in crowd” of bloggers) be suggesting ways to help Australia recover from the recent storm devastation? If America can quickly arrange benefit concerts for Bangladesh, AIDS, American Farm AID, the September 11th attack, the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami, and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, then shouldn’t they also be able to make some kind of gesture of solidarity with the Aussies, now?
Until then, enjoy your Super Bowl XLV party and don’t worry about Mubarak.