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
46 Years Ago Today