2010 has proved to be an awesome year for me and this place I have for writing and pondering one of the monumental events in American history, the assassination President John F. Kennedy. I’m thankful for the internet and web sites such as Blogspot.com that give me the chance to publish my thoughts. Thanks also to numerous sites that now link this blog. On Facebook I’ve met up with numerous fellow researchers to discuss ideas and that’s been great for debating the facts without the general rudeness ones finds on forums. And most of it all, all of you readers have made it all worthwhile, with a banner year for site traffic. The best year ever! Thank you! Most grateful.
Here, in the final winter days of 2010 we see the monumental forces that JFK was trying to wrestle power from, those “entrenched interests of enormous strength” as L. Fletcher Prouty wrote and which ultimately Kennedy lost to, come to fore with a steady erosion of our Constitutional rights. The rude and outrageous harassment of women and children to simply board a plane; the FCC under the guise of “Net Neutrality” attempts to fix something that is not broke so as to affix its talons into it for greater control; The DHS, not content with No Fly Lists is now working towards a No Work List as well, where a citizen has to pass through a security hoop so as not to be considered a threat to the Homeland; The HDS has also been granted the authority to shut down web sites that they suspect of committing copyright infringement, something that should be under the control of the FBI and in the past would need a judge to sign off of on; the government now says it can examine credit card transactions without a warrant–something that would be a felony if you or I did that; the TSA views all air passengers as criminals and inspects people as if they were cattle while placing critics on watch lists. The catalog of outrages and humiliations could go on for many pages. It is all just a lot of little steps towards one big tyranny. I view 2010 as the year of many lost liberties.
Our government, established on a Constitutional Republic, has now grown into a vast, criminal enterprise where the People are expected to serve it and not the other way around, as it grows in power and avarice. We now live in a National Security State where everybody, young and old, are considered a threat and have to be vetted. If John Kennedy had lived, or simply survived that ruinous day in Dealey Plaza, I think he could have thwarted a lot of what we are experiencing now. That was certainly where he was headed in his final days on earth. Certainly Vietnam would have turned out differently because after 1961 and the Bay of Pigs disaster he knew who and what he was up against. He was the last President to confront these unseen powers. And a sad note that is...
I hope we don’t became a people such as what Bruce Springsteen sang about in Jungleland. “The poets down here right nothin’ at all–they just stand back and let it all be.”
The Politics and Unexpected Things
It’s amazing sometimes what kind of things you can get into just simply trying to write about subject. I’ve had people contact me from well known writers and searchers, impostors, to people on the kooky fringe. One guy emailed me with the idea that the grassy knoll shooter was a diversion; the real kill shot came from Jackie. I don’t respond back to people with this sort of nonsense–how can you? I want nothing to do with them and certainly no email trail between us.
The big uptake in traffic has resulted in a large surge in attention from various agencies of the government, military, and those corporations that profit from them. The full litany of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower has stopped by. It spoke to me how deep all of this runs even now, almost 50 years as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This has also launched a host of commentary on various forums. As they say, you know you are getting somewhere when you start getting your character trashed on the Internet! They also say that any publicity is good publicity. Okay, not really, but at least people can come to my blog, read the articles, and see that I am trying to be reasonable and fair in dealing with the facts. They can decide for themselves what the truth is for them. Anyway, I am fully aware that this endeavor is not about me–it’s about finding the truth.
Another factor is the little things that happen along the way. For example, I only fly once a year and each time, since I started this blog, I’ve had my luggage searched by the TSA. Which means three times so far. It’s easy to tell–they leave their calling card in my bag. This is of course a violation of my 4th Amendment rights for undue search but under the Homeland Security mania anything goes. Note that I have no arrest or criminal record as a juvenile or adult, nor have I ever been a member of a any subversive group. So is it because I’m a government critic through my writing about JFK? I don’t know but it could be with other critics being placed on government lists (not that I fancy myself of any importance to be placed on one). Ironically, my Congressman John Mica, is one of the sponsors of the bill that launched the TSA. I’ll be sending him a written complaint with a host of questions in the coming year.
Books
As usual, another good year for JFK conspiracy-oriented books. In fact, I know of no book supporting the lone gunman theory that was published in 2010. Of all that were published, Me and Lee by Judyth Vary Baker (see my review HERE) was the most informative and with much ground-breaking material not ever seen before. What makes it an important book is that it offers first-hand account of someone that knew Lee Oswald personally–to the point to being, according to her words, the lover of Oswald during the summer of 1963 in New Orleans. It’s a far more detailed narrative than Oswald’s widow Marina, ever told and it’s rich with the personalities of the period. It often reads like a who’s-who of JFK conspiracy characters and events. As I read it I thought, too bad that Jim Garrison didn’t have Judyth Baker as a witness! As she connects all the major figures together–Oswald, Ruby, Ferrie, Shaw and Banister into a cohesive group of which she claimed to have met and interacted with. Her story makes sense and I think overall, adds much to the history of the days leading up to the assassination. It’s a familiar story that reads fresh. The details of Lee Oswald’s personality and work in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 are fleshed out in such a way to fill in most of the mysterious areas of his life. You’ll never read or think about Oswald the same again. It’s a truly thought provoking read.
And one interesting aside. The TV show 60 Minutes launched a 14-month long investigation of Judyth Vary Baker’s allegations which unfortunately, and mysteriously, was never aired. They either found out her story was bogus or else they found it was true and knew they could never air it. Mostly likely the latter is the case. After all, the mainstream media (other than the History Channel one time) has never presented anything on the JFK assassination that was pro-conspiracy or for that matter, entreated the possibility of a conspiracy as being a legitimate area of inquiry.
A Look Ahead To 2011
I hope to eventually get a book published featuring the “best of” blog articles. I’ll be updating each article with the latest information or new discoveries along the way. Podcasting. I hope to get that started as there are few JFK podcasts out on the web. And of course, the writing and research continues.
As we move into a new year I leave you with these words from Fredrick Douglass:
“Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”