41 replies to this topic

[BSLJamieSieck]

Wondering if anyone on the board has read about or has any interest in the Kennedy assassination. If so, and if you haven't already, you have to read the James Douglass book, "JFK and The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters". 

 

It goes beyond just the mechanics and who, what and how of what happened in Dealey Plaza on the fateful November day. It talks about JFK's turn from a Cold Warrior towards peace, towards rapprochement with Castro and Cuba and cooperation with Khrushchev and the Soviets. And how those actions pitted JFK at odds with the military and the national security state.

[You Play to Win the Game]

I'll check it out. I've dug in quite a bit on this. Needless to say, the saying applies to our government just as it does to individuals "people show you who they are if you're paying attention." I can't wrap my head around people's willingness to accept stuff like this. Is it a hierarchy of needs thing? So long as your safe, comfortable and not hungry, you're good? Or they see not accepting this from our government as a threat to that security and comfort? I don't have that gene. It just drives me crazy that this is the world we live in and no one cares.

[You Play to Win the Game]

While Eisenhower didn't overtly talk presidential assassination in his epic speech on the military industrial complex, he basically flat out predicted this. He told us everything we need to know.

[RShack]

Ike's draft of the speech originally warned the nation about the "military-industrial-congressional complex"... but was persuaded to take out the congressional part...

[You Play to Win the Game]

Ike's draft of the speech originally warned the nation about the "military-industrial-congressional complex"... but was persuaded to take out the congressional part...

I'm not following the significance of this, can you elaborate? (Excuse my ignorance)

[RShack]

I'm not following the significance of this, can you elaborate? (Excuse my ignorance)

 

Ike was trying to warn us that Congress would feed the military-industrial complex... to get jobs in their districts for the missile plant we don't need (or whatever)...

 

Which is exactly what has happened.  Take any megabuck program that the Pentagon doesn't even want... the jobs to make whatever-it-is are spread across eleventy-seven districts... to MAX how many Congressmen will be motivated to vote to fund it... regardless of whether the Pentagon wants it or not... 

 

The corporate lobbyists make sure of that... which is yet another reason why term limits are a terrible idea... term limits would mean that the damn lobbyists are the only ones in DC who understand how things work... you need Congress people with tons of experience who also have a conscience... without them, nobody will know how to interfere with that crap... 

[You Play to Win the Game]

Yeah, it's fascinating when you look at how strategically placed the various military bases and branches are throughout the country.

[BSLJamieSieck]

Ike's draft of the speech originally warned the nation about the "military-industrial-congressional complex"... but was persuaded to take out the congressional part...

 

Ironically, Eisenhower had a pretty big hand in creating the very military industrial complex that he tried to warn us about. 

[BSLJamieSieck]

I'm not following the significance of this, can you elaborate? (Excuse my ignorance)

 

Also, look at the impact that military contractors have on foreign policy. LBJ gave a huge contact to Brown and Root (with whom he had ties to in Texas) to dredge Cam Ranh Bay for use by the military. Even though this was completely unnecessary because Vietnam already had several natural harbors that would've worked fine.

 

It's quite simply like Deepthroat said in "All The President's Men"......."Follow the money."

[BSLJamieSieck]

I'll check it out. I've dug in quite a bit on this. Needless to say, the saying applies to our government just as it does to individuals "people show you who they are if you're paying attention." I can't wrap my head around people's willingness to accept stuff like this. Is it a hierarchy of needs thing? So long as your safe, comfortable and not hungry, you're good? Or they see not accepting this from our government as a threat to that security and comfort? I don't have that gene. It just drives me crazy that this is the world we live in and no one cares.

 

If you want other great material on JFK, here are some others...."Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy" by Jim Marrs (which was used as the source material for Oliver Stone's "JFK"), "Bloody Treason" by Noel Twyman (this is difficult to find in print but you can get it on the Kindle; delves into a likely Zapruder film tampering in an attempt to obfuscate that the limo driver, Special Agent Greer, pulled the car to the right and to almost a complete stop right before the fatal shot), "Best Evidence" by David Lifton (this covers all of the medical evidence and uncovers obvious forgery of the evidence and autopsy photos and other outright lies). Another good one is "Hit List" by Richard Belzer, which covers all of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the many deaths of key witnesses and others that may have knowledge of the assassination. It also analyzes the statistical improbabilities of that many people from the same subset all dying suddenly of things like single vehicle accidents, sudden heart attacks and even a karate chop to the neck.

 

When you realize the true gravity of what happened on 11/22/63, the state of our country and the rest of the world comes into sharper focus.

 

Our president was murdered in broad daylight on the streets of a major American city and a "blue ribbon" commission came to the conclusion that a "disgruntled ex marine" with a cheap Manlicher Carcano rifle (which had a defective sight, even the WC acknowledged this and was nicknamed the "Humane Weapon" because soldiers said it never killed anyone), stood in a 6th floor window and through a Texas Live Oak tree, which was in full bloom, fired 3 shots in 5.7 seconds from a weapon that needed at least 2.3 seconds between shots to recycle the spent cartridge and load the new one, at a target moving away and scored 2 hits, with the 3rd shot being the most accurate. And Oswald was a terrible shot, as per his marine marksmen test, he passed a paraffin test for gun shot residue and no useable prints were found on the weapon. 

 

I could go on but the bottom line is that enough people swallowed that lie, so the lies have gotten bigger and more frequent. Then, they killed King, X, Fred Hampton, RFK, etc and killed the movement as a result. 

[RShack]

Ironically, Eisenhower had a pretty big hand in creating the very military industrial complex that he tried to warn us about. 

 

Yes. 

 

But he also observed how things were developing and provided the nation with a very explicit warning about the dangers of it... which is about the most you could reasonably expect of somebody whose background was in the military and not in being a futurist, and who thus wasn't magically prescient enough to see it occurring before it did...

[BSLJamieSieck]

59 years today since the last real US President was executed in broad daylight. This country has never recovered from the JFK assassination. 

 

After Kennedy's murder, Vietnam started for real with LBJ's National Security Action Memorandum 273, which undid JFK's own NSAM 263 that was going to draw down all US military personnel in Southeast Asia. Interestingly enough, the draft of NSAM 273 that resides in the LBJ library is dated 11/21/63, which can only mean the Johnson was at least aware of what was going to happen the next day, even if he wasn't directly involved.

 

The embargo on Cuba persists to this day and there's no logical reason for it. Kennedy was opening up communication with Castro through an intermediary in the French media. Instead, the open hostility toward the tiny island nation has continued to this day.

 

Kennedy and Khrushchev has already signed the historic nuclear test ban treaty (which W let lapse) and they were working towards an end to the Cold War. Instead, the war hawks in the Pentagon and the MIC won out and continued the US and the world on a potentially destructive path of never ending arms build up and brinkmanship until the fall of the Soviet Union. The United States military budget now exceeds the next 24 countries combined, 20 of which are our allies. 

 

We didn't just lose a President that fateful day in Dallas, we lost a chance at a better world. Instead, we've been plunged ever further into chaos and exist under a never ending cloud of war. Our tax dollars continue to feed an insatiable war machine that produces weapons that execute people all over the world and line the pockets of defense contractors. All the while, so many citizens of this once great nation suffer under the weight of poverty, homelessness and despair.

 

The perfect way to sum up what was lost on November 22nd, 1963, read the following excerpt from Kennedy's speech to the graduating students of American University in June 1963. And if you've never seen this speech, go find it on YouTube. 

 

"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time." 

[Old Man]

7 Days in May, wasnt just a movie out of Hollywood.

 

Most people have no idea, how close USA and Russia came to, firing Nuclear warheads at each other.

[BSLJamieSieck]

7 Days in May, wasnt just a movie out of Hollywood.

 

Most people have no idea, how close USA and Russia came to, firing Nuclear warheads at each other.

 

Kennedy was so moved by the possibility of that story happening in real life that he gave Frankenheimer the White House to film the movie.

[You Play to Win the Game]

Good stuff Jamie.

All the while, they’ve masterfully gotten us so partisan and divided that we are down each others throats, rather than criticizing the DoD/Military industrial complex. Just how they want it. Focusing on superficial nonsense, while they continue to transfer wealth to the mega wealthy players in and around the DoD.

It’s why many defense contractors were celebrating when Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s all greed to the nth degree.

Like a weather man needs rain, DoD needs war.

[BSLJamieSieck]

Good stuff Jamie.

All the while, they’ve masterfully gotten us so partisan and divided that we are down each others throats, rather than criticizing the DoD/Military industrial complex. Just how they want it. Focusing on superficial nonsense, while they continue to transfer wealth to the mega wealthy players in and around the DoD.

It’s why many defense contractors were celebrating when Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s all green to the nth degree.

Like a weather man needs rain, DoD needs war.

 

When the Cold War ended, the defense industry suffered in the 90's. Peace is not good for business. 

 

Another interesting read was Colonel Fletcher Prouty's (his character was "Mr X" in Oliver Stone's "JFK", portrayed by the great Donald Sutherland) book, "JFK and Vietnam". He talks about a meeting in Tehran in 1945 where the world leaders got together to discuss the next era of warfare. It was acknowledged that, in the nuclear age, "total war" could no longer be fought because it would eventually lead to a nuclear exchange and the extermination of life as we know it. Therefore, it was determined that all future wars would be fought in 3rd world countries, have no clear objective and no clear exit strategy. That way, the major powers could exist in a perpetual state of war but not really harm themselves. 

 

And when you look at the wars the US have fought since World War II, it only supports the afore mentioned assertions. Korea, all of the interventions in South and Central America, Vietnam, First Gulf War, Iraq the 2nd time, Afghanistan, Syria and now the proxy war in Ukraine. The military budget of the United States is rapidly approaching 1 trillion dollars......1 trillion dollars. It's absolutely unreal.

[Mike in STL]

59 years today since the last real US President was executed in broad daylight. This country has never recovered from the JFK assassination. 

 

After Kennedy's murder, Vietnam started for real with LBJ's National Security Action Memorandum 273, which undid JFK's own NSAM 263 that was going to draw down all US military personnel in Southeast Asia. Interestingly enough, the draft of NSAM 273 that resides in the LBJ library is dated 11/21/63, which can only mean the Johnson was at least aware of what was going to happen the next day, even if he wasn't directly involved.

 

The embargo on Cuba persists to this day and there's no logical reason for it. Kennedy was opening up communication with Castro through an intermediary in the French media. Instead, the open hostility toward the tiny island nation has continued to this day.

 

Kennedy and Khrushchev has already signed the historic nuclear test ban treaty (which W let lapse) and they were working towards an end to the Cold War. Instead, the war hawks in the Pentagon and the MIC won out and continued the US and the world on a potentially destructive path of never ending arms build up and brinkmanship until the fall of the Soviet Union. The United States military budget now exceeds the next 24 countries combined, 20 of which are our allies. 

 

We didn't just lose a President that fateful day in Dallas, we lost a chance at a better world. Instead, we've been plunged ever further into chaos and exist under a never ending cloud of war. Our tax dollars continue to feed an insatiable war machine that produces weapons that execute people all over the world and line the pockets of defense contractors. All the while, so many citizens of this once great nation suffer under the weight of poverty, homelessness and despair.

 

The perfect way to sum up what was lost on November 22nd, 1963, read the following excerpt from Kennedy's speech to the graduating students of American University in June 1963. And if you've never seen this speech, go find it on YouTube. 

 

"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time." 

 

 

Did you ever read the Stephen King book 11/22/63. Fictional of course, but insists that saving JFKs life in fact made life worse today. Nuclear wasteland everywhere, Civil Rights Act never gets passed, etc...

[mdrunning]

If you want other great material on JFK, here are some others...."Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy" by Jim Marrs (which was used as the source material for Oliver Stone's "JFK"), "Bloody Treason" by Noel Twyman (this is difficult to find in print but you can get it on the Kindle; delves into a likely Zapruder film tampering in an attempt to obfuscate that the limo driver, Special Agent Greer, pulled the car to the right and to almost a complete stop right before the fatal shot), "Best Evidence" by David Lifton (this covers all of the medical evidence and uncovers obvious forgery of the evidence and autopsy photos and other outright lies). Another good one is "Hit List" by Richard Belzer, which covers all of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the many deaths of key witnesses and others that may have knowledge of the assassination. It also analyzes the statistical improbabilities of that many people from the same subset all dying suddenly of things like single vehicle accidents, sudden heart attacks and even a karate chop to the neck.

 

When you realize the true gravity of what happened on 11/22/63, the state of our country and the rest of the world comes into sharper focus.

 

Our president was murdered in broad daylight on the streets of a major American city and a "blue ribbon" commission came to the conclusion that a "disgruntled ex marine" with a cheap Manlicher Carcano rifle (which had a defective sight, even the WC acknowledged this and was nicknamed the "Humane Weapon" because soldiers said it never killed anyone), stood in a 6th floor window and through a Texas Live Oak tree, which was in full bloom, fired 3 shots in 5.7 seconds from a weapon that needed at least 2.3 seconds between shots to recycle the spent cartridge and load the new one, at a target moving away and scored 2 hits, with the 3rd shot being the most accurate. And Oswald was a terrible shot, as per his marine marksmen test, he passed a paraffin test for gun shot residue and no useable prints were found on the weapon. 

 

I could go on but the bottom line is that enough people swallowed that lie, so the lies have gotten bigger and more frequent. Then, they killed King, X, Fred Hampton, RFK, etc and killed the movement as a result. 

Oswald was not a terrible shot; he was good enough to make the shots from the sixth floor window of the School Book Despository. He fired the three shots in 8.9 seconds, which was plenty of time. Unfortunately, many people's knowledge of the assassination (and I'm not pointing any fingers at you) comes from Oliver Stone's film, which was a smorgasbord of fact and fiction and all blended together with a film maker's skill.

 

I have read many treatises on the Kennedy Assassination, including Jim Marrs, as you mentioned above, Robert Groden, et al. If you want to talk about an industrial complex, the Kennedy assassination has become an industry onto itself. But until someone can show me convincing enough evidence to the contrary, I will always believe that Oswald was the killer and he acted of his own accord. 

[Mike in STL]

[mdrunning]

Is this a reference to the fatal head shot or am I completely missing the boat here?