Babble

We seem to be living in a spiritual Tower of Babel. I feel like we are speaking the same technical language yet are failing to actually communicate. It is sad to see how loose our command of language has become as an overall culture. Of course, those of you that are reading this are walking through this with me.

I was raised by my parents with fluid use of concepts like honesty, integrity, honor. I am overwhelmed by the "Reality Television" version of todays American workplace. One sentence can be turned into a death sentence should it happen to fall on the wrong set of ears. Whole stories are concoted out of one simple misunderstood phrase.

People are not working as hard. I understand that there is a lot of undercurrents and sublayers to this whole world of a problem but, the America workplace does not promise job security for hard work any longer. Benefits are becoming something of the past, and "we the people" are not finding trades as much as we are finding jobs. It is devestating our output, our quality experience.

We are here to enjoy luminous rays of sunlight on a leaf. We are here to watch lizards run rampant across a patio in order to return to a place of safety. We are here to listen to one another, to speak our minds, to breathe in deep the scent of this glorious existence. Yet, something has happened to us.

I walk by so many with no spark in their eye. No joy in their smile. We were not intended to wear one canned emotion on our face for when we make eye contact. We were created, born into a physical being resplendent with a whole gammet of worthy emotions to have access to. When life is truly experienced, every morsel becomes meaningful and joy can be ours.

I am far from having every answer. I certainly have a whole pile of fresh questions. I simply wish to see our culture do a 180. I want to see us remember why we are here.

I am grateful for all of you in my life who have not forgotten. Challenges present themselves daily, and I have seen many challenges in the last four and a half months. There are many of us driven enough, committed to our own excellence enough to not allow any obstacle to become a set-back.

I am not sure what the next few hours will hold for me. I do know there is a great force in motion, and I am willingly a vessel for the greatest good. I learn much daily. I will only continue to rise and shine, pressing forward, this existential best of me.

How Many Times

How many times can you lead
one person to freedom?
How many lives can you move
with just one voice?

I'm on the road
Headed toward tomorrow
I'm on this path
Elegant in my Wu Wei

How many bricks does it take
to lay forever?
How many lies
Until the foundation quakes?

We're on a road
That wants to beg forgiveness
We're doin math
Does not equation make

How many souls
On board for Revolution?
How many tolls
Until the price is paid?

Research paper written...

As we approach the fifty year anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s death, the same questions linger in the air like a dense smoke that refuses to dissipate. Looking backward we still see a tangled web of information regarding the death of America’s first Catholic President.

Utterly necessary for any successful body of research requires the researcher to put themselves inside the map. In order to truly understand the propensity of his assassination, it must be understood the mentality of the era in which JFK was President.

Born May 29, 1917, no one knew he would later become the thirty fifth President of these United States. Often referred to as the “Roaring Twenties”, this decade stands out as a turning point in American society.  Victorian elements fade away and the era of the flapper takes center stage. The U.S. solidified its status as a world power and we witness a major shift in American domestic life.

Kennedy was born in an exciting era full of remarkable changes. Prohibition was set into action just as he was brought into this world. Henry Ford developed his assembly line and “revolutionized production” (academicamerican.com). Women’s Rights movements began and Darwin’s theory of evolution is tried and banned from being taught in schools. The first “talkie” films are brought to theatres. The twenties were a time of cutting loose, enjoying freedom and finding new pathways of pleasure.

All the energy of the twenties meets a brick wall as the Stock Market Crashes in 1929. This event leads to a series of circumstances that propel America into the Great Depression.

Fast forward to the fifties and we find President Kennedy now in his thirties, surrounded by a whole new list of societal obstacles. Civil Rights movements become a full force operation. The end of World War II unleashes “…an energy never before experienced” (lonestar.edu). The country is again in a state of flux, unrest, and great societal pressure for change.

Three million are unemployed. The average salary is less than three thousand dollars per year. The labor force is 5:2 Male to female. A loaf of bread costs a mere fourteen cents (lonestar.edu).

On January 2, 1960, after much disseminating material against the Catholic Church had become widespread, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began to solidify his campaign. Later that same year, at forty three years of age, he defeated Richard Nixon (jfklibrary.org). JFK “was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die” (whitehouse.gov).

As JFK began his role as President of the United States, he was confronted by many situations of large importance. Civil Rights movements were at an all-time high and much violence was associated with its presence. The KKK was a powerful faction dedicated to the segregation, subjugation and elimination of the African race. The Vietnam War was a major focus as we went in with much passion from those who objected it. (historynet.com)

Perhaps, more important than any other crisis to be considered during his timeframe as President, we must focus on the Bay of Pigs, and all the layers of thought associated with it. The Cuban Missile Crisis stemmed from the Cold War and presented a “clear and present danger”. Anyone paying attention would be very wary of Fidel Castro especially considering his relationship with Khrushchev. JFK was briefed on a plan that had been put into existence during the realm of Eisenhower. The CIA had the major stated goal of developing a Cuban government that was United States friendly, and it was agreed that would mean the removal of Castro. Leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, Jose Miro Cardona was poised and ready to become President of Cuba were their plan of invasion to conclude successfully (jfklibrary.org).

It seems plausible when all information is carefully regarded that the President did not know what the CIA knew regarding the Cuban invasion. It also seems completely credible to agree that the other government agencies were not in harmony on this matter. With so much going on in one country at the same time, it is hard to imagine how Kennedy maintained composure.

The failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs caused the Kennedy Administration much embarrassment and stress. Our relations with Castro’s Cuba remained “strained and tenuous” (jfklibrary.org).

There are many stories that intertwine into the life of President Kennedy; many elements to be considered while pondering information and postulating theories. One prominent story in his time was the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King, a minister’s son, was a highly educated man. He was a man that lived by his strong sense of morality but one that believed civil disobedience could affect necessary change. His life and the life of JFK weave in and out of one another immeasurably.

Dr. King was a black man in the middle of heightened KKK power; in the middle of heightened awareness of just what it meant to be black in America in the fifties. Dr. King believed in JFK, privately voting for him in 1960 and stated, “I felt that Kennedy would make the best President…had (he) lived I would publicly have endorsed him in 1964 (Hachette Digital, Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. p, 187)”.

In the words of Dr. King, “Agape is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return…When you rise to love on this level, you love all men not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them. This is what Jesus meant when He said, ‘Love your enemies’…I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens’ councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say…do to us what you will and we will still love you (King, Martin Luther, Trumpet of Conscience p. 73-74).”

How could JFK, also a passionate and intelligent man who believed in progressive change, not be moved by the words of a man such as Martin Luther King? Months before Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, JFK proposed action that would offer “the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves (taylormarsh.com).”

President Kennedy met with MLK and other civil rights leaders August 28, 1963 just three short months before his assassination (usliberals.about.com). If the KKK was composed of many high ranking US officials, would it be so ridiculous to postulate a theory where they got rid of the President due to his serious involvement in aiding the Civil Rights Movement?

There are so many theories put forward, many of which are utterly ridiculous, and some of which hold high merit. The Warren Commission interviewed five hundred fifty two witnesses. They published a final report that was almost nine hundred pages long! Still, the truth is a mystery in a country where so much is documented and recorded by her citizens.

In the era we now find ourselves, we are not so quick to trust the government. However, in the fifties and sixties that unrest had only just begun. The general population at the time of Kennedy’s presidency had implicit faith in the structure of the government. America was still something worth dying for to most of her citizenry.

The public was shocked awake as they realized that the theory being proposed was pretty preposterous! How could one bullet turn so many times? How could one person be responsible for all that happened that day? If the government was trying to cover up a conspiracy of this proportion what else did the American public not know?

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and titled as the assassin. He was shot a short time later, destroying a link that might have ended up helping tremendously. The theory of the “lone nut” was the most populated and perhaps the most widely accepted, at first.

Over the years, many other theories have surfaced some that hold strong threads of truth. Perhaps, it was Lyndon B. Johnson. He stood to benefit greatly by taking over the Presidency. It was well known that J. Edgar Hoover despised the Kennedy family. It was also common knowledge that Hoover and Johnson were close friends. Could it have been a man who swore the Kennedy’s would not “embarrass him again” just a few nights prior to the assassination?

Another postulated theory is that of the Israelis. Kennedy would not allow them to have nuclear weaponry. Could their leaders have planned an assassination in retaliation against Kennedy because they did not get their way?

What if it was his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy jealous over affairs that the Kennedy family was notorious for? What if she had simply had enough of not feeling the most special to him? What if was better for her if he were dead than sleeping with Marilyn Monroe?

We can consider, the driver, Oswald, the Mafia, the CIA, the KKK, Castro himself, the Israeli’s, and so many other theories that have continued to surface over the last five decades. Yet, what we all really want to know is what really happened?

Arlen Specter, an ambitious junior counselor was the author of the single bullet theory. Both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee adopted this stance.

Though the Warren Commission is focused on more harshly, the Select Committee’s findings were of the same basic nature. Both the Commission and the Committee try to explain the assassination with the defining characteristic of a bullet that seemingly makes several sharp turns.

Due to acoustical evidence, the Select Committee proposes the existence of a second gunman; although, he is assumed to have missed everything. The House Committee decided the first shot misses and the Warren Commission never decides.

The House Select Committee concurs pretty emphatically with all the Warren Commission infers except on the element of conspiracy.

The Zapruder film coming forward allows people to view a recording of the assassination. It is hard to watch it and believe that there is no one on the grassy knoll. The President does not look toward the Depository but toward the knoll. Was there a firing squad behind the fence?

Furthermore, if the admission of the Dictabelt recording is accepted as actuality, the acoustical experts who studied it state it is ninety five percent likely that a shot was fired from the grassy knoll. This would disprove the Warren Commission’s non-conspiracy approach. It would also disprove the possibility of Oswald being the “lone nut” (youtube.com/Zapruder Film with Dictabelt Recording 2).

A few months after the assassination and too much evidence has been set forward to confirm the story the government hoped we would accept as truth. Now, we have an FBI that is embarrassed, and a mortified Justice Department trying with all their might to silence the Press. 

By 1976, eighty one percent of Americans which answered the Gallup Polls believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone and that there was indeed a conspiracy (Ebenkamp, Becky, Only the Grassy Knoll Knows, Brandweek, Vol. 42, Issue 15, p18).

The American Public has been deeply moved by this story for decades now. What does it mean when a President is assassinated? What does it mean when a government is caught in a lie? What does it mean when those meant to protect us set out to deceive us? What do we do when we can no longer be led?

President Kennedy’s story may never be known exactly. It seems most plausible to believe that the iron triangle created between the Mafia, the Cuban exiles and the CIA (especially Operation Mongoose) must be the predominant suspect. President Kennedy was a young President who was fired up and ready to make a remarkable difference. He intended to pull out of Vietnam which upset the balance of many Joint Chiefs of Staff and many four and five star Generals. He was after Fidel Castro and perhaps Castro arrived at him first. He double crossed mobsters and we all know how much power they had once upon a time. So much speculation has been made but will the absolute truth ever be known?

Deep in the heart of CIA machinations, I believe we could find our solid answer. However, I do not see the arrival of that day after fifty years of confusion, speculation and tireless research. The American people deserve an honest answer. We deserve to know the truth. Ultimately, we deserved a President such as JFK! So much has changed because of that fateful day.

No longer do the American people take the words of her government at face value. No longer do the American people believe what popular imagery would have them believe. No longer do the American people rest in the most present propaganda. No longer do we sit idly to be deceived by the ranks of governmental control.

My closing question is, when will we rise to challenge the forces that have the power but so clearly do not emulate the truth or what is best for the American People?

Long live the memory and the story as adulterated as it has become, of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy!

“Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time -Disraeli (Fonzi, Gaeton. The Last Investigation, 1993).”

 

 

 

 

References:

·        Fonzi, Gaeton. The Last Investigation. Thunder’s Mouth Press. 1993.

·        Jfklibrary.org

·        King, Martin Luther. The Trumpet of Conscience. Harper & Row Publishers. 1967.

·        Archives.gov/research/jfk/select.committee

·        Usliberals.about.com

·        King, Martin Luther. Autobiography of. Hachette Digital. P. 187. ISBN 978-0-446-52412-4.

·        Taylormarsh.org

·        Ebenkamp, Becky. Only the grassy knoll knows. Brandweek, Volume 42. Issue 15. P. 18.

·        Environmentalgraffiti.com

·        Time.com

·        Academicamerican.com

·        Lonestar.edu

·        Whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/johnfkennedy

·        Ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/handle/1957/23022

·        Youtube.com (JFK Assassination The Full Original Dictabelt Recording/Zapruder Film with Dictabelt Recording)

·        JFK The Book of the Film: the Documented Screenplay. Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar. Hal Leonard Corporation. 1992.