Comment: Marking the 50th anniversary of his election to the U.S. presidency and the 47th anniversary of his death, the following Focus piece on JFK is a short excerpt taken from author Laura Knight-Jadczyk's feature article in the latest issue of the Dot Connector Magazine. By subscribing you can support Sott.net and help us to keep the lighthouse shining!
I've already written - more than once - that most of what we know as history is a pack of lies and the dedicated historian has to read as fast as they can, remember as much as they can, and have a really good ability to analyze the data in order to come even within hailing distance of the truth, i.e. 'what really happened.' In the case of current events, the active and careful historian has a little bit of an edge if they can catch initial reports before they are buried or spun. That is what someone did and then put together a video entitled Evidence of Revision. I highly recommend this rather painful trek into the past via on-the-spot news reports as well as audio and video tapes that were later retrieved and added to the collection. I can assure you, seeing what was reported in real time, observing the spin machine going into action, is an experience you'll never forget.
As far as the varying books about the assassination go, "Farewell America" is one of the saddest books ever written. It was by a pseudonymous author, James Hepburn, who was widely believed to have been a member of the French equivalent of the CIA. Hepburn based his book on hard intelligence gathered from French, Russian and even American sources. It was originally published in French in 1968 and was unavailable in the United States for many years. With the coming of the internet, it became available and I truly wish that every American would read it.
With remarkable skill and insight, the book outlines the overall situation in America at the time, and describes the players and most probable conspirators involved in the horrific and brutal public execution of probably the best president America ever had. There are many reasons to think that George H.W. Bush was involved in the plot, and today, having placed his idiot son on the throne, the world is so far from that world we could be living in had Kennedy lived, that it is like we all died back then, and now we have awakened in Hell.
It is difficult to imagine New Yorkers being porno-screened and sexually groped on crowed subway platforms or showing up an hour or two in advance for clearance for a 15 minute subway ride, but once bureaucrats get their teeth in the bit they take absurdity to its logical conclusion. Buses will be next, although it is even more difficult to imagine open air bus stops turned into security zones with screeners and gropers inspecting passengers before they board.
Will taxi passengers be next? In those Muslim lands whose citizens the US government has been slaughtering for years, favorite weapons for retaliating against the Americans are car and truck bombs. How long before Pistole announces that the TSA Gestapo is setting up roadblocks on city streets, highways and interstates to check cars for bombs? That 15 minute trip to the grocery store then becomes an all day affair.
Indeed, it has already begun. Last September agents from Homeland Security, TSA, and the US Department of Transportation, assisted by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, conducted a counter-terrorism operation on busy Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, Georgia. Designated VIPER (Visible Inter-mobile Prevention and Response), the operation required all trucks to stop to be screened for bombs. Federal agents used dogs, screening devices, and a large drive-through bomb detection machine. Imagine what the delays did to delivery schedules and truckers' bottom lines.
In a recent column, "The Stench of American Hypocrisy," I noted that US public officials and media are on their high horse about the rule of law in Burma while the rule of law collapses unremarked in the US. Americans enjoy beating up other peoples for American sins. Indeed, hypocrisy has become the defining characteristic of the United States.
Hypocrisy in America is now so commonplace it is no longer noticed. Consider the pro-football star Michael Vick. In a recent game Vick scored 6 touchdowns, totally dominating the playing field. His performance brought new heights of adulation, causing National Public Radio to wonder if the sports public shouldn't retain a tougher attitude toward a dog torturer who spent 1.5 years in prison for holding dog fights.
I certainly do not approve of mistreating animals. But where is the outrage over the US government's torture of people? How can the government put a person in jail for torturing dogs but turn a blind eye to members of the government who tortured people?
Under both US and international law, torture of humans is a crime, but the federal judiciary turns a blind eye and even allows false confessions extracted by torture to be used in courts or military tribunals to send tortured people to more years in prison based on nothing but their coerced self-incrimination.
Compare Vick's treatment of dogs with, for example, the US government's treatment of Canadian "child soldier" Omar Khadr. Khadr was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, the only survivor of a firefight and an air strike on a Taliban position. He was near death, with wounds to his eyes and shoulder and shot twice in the back. The Americans accused the boy of having thrown a hand grenade during the military encounter that resulted in the death of a US soldier.
Reactions to KFC's announcement were mixed, as could be expected. Some hedonists lauded its approach with a great deal of fanfare while health experts expressed understandable disgust. This led to blog comments of the usual variety - those who warn of the dangers of consuming something like this and call for its ban, those who bring up the important fact that it is their right to eat like this, and then those whose plan for eating it can only be attributed to spite - eating out of spite being a model adaptation for self-preservation.
Running Time: 01:00:58
Download: MP3
The military regime that rules Burma just released from house arrest the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The American media used the occasion of her release to get on Burma's case for the absence of the rule of law. I'm all for the brave lady, but if truth be known, "freedom and democracy" America needs her far worse than does Burma.
I'm not an expert on Burma, but the way I see it the objection to a military government is that the government is not accountable to law. Instead, such a regime behaves as it sees fit and issues edicts that advance its agenda. Burma's government can be criticized for not having a rule of law, but it cannot be criticized for ignoring its own laws. We might not like what the Burmese government does, but, precisely speaking, it is not behaving illegally.
In contrast, the United States government claims to be a government of laws, not of men, but when the executive branch violates the laws that constrain it, those responsible are not held accountable for their criminal actions. As accountability is the essence of the rule of law, the absence of accountability means the absence of the rule of law.
According to Ken's facebook updates, the aid workers are now being held by Greek authorities on suspicion of terrorism, even though it was THEY who were abducted from Libya!
Comment: UPDATE: As of 01:30 CET, Sunday November 14, all the charity workers have been arrested, handcuffed and imprisoned by Greek port police.
UPDATE 2: Ken O'Keefe sent the following message to his Facebook page at 07:30 CET:
We are free in Greece. It has been trying, but the Greek government has done the right thing in the end.UPDATE 3: Monday November 15 - The Road to Hope crew have released this video footage of the bizarre moment when the Ukrainian captain of their chartered ship went bezerk and deliberately ran his own vessel into the pier at the port of Derna in Libya, before abducting them to Greece:
Comment: Also written by Laura Knight-Jadczyk:
The JFK Series
JFK: The Debris of History
The Gladiator: John Fitzgerald Kennedy
JFK: The Bushes and The Lost King
Sim City and John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy and All Those "isms"
John F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, Organized Crime and the Global Village
John F. Kennedy and the Psychopathology of Politics
John F. Kennedy and the Pigs of War
John F. Kennedy and the Titans
John F. Kennedy, Oil, and the War on Terror
John F. Kennedy, The Secret Service and Rich, Fascist Texans
John F. Kennedy and the Monolithic and Ruthless Conspiracy