When one knows the history of the JFK assassination in Dallas, one wonders if we, the people, should protect Obama ourselves. A secret service agent riding the right rear bumper of Kennedy's car was pulled off by a superior just minutes before gunshots were heard in Dealey Plaza. The agent would have been in the line of fire from the book depository, perhaps preventing Oswald from firing. If the only shots had come from some where else, the lone gun man theory would have never been.
That's not to say that we would KNOW anything. When the government is involved in something, speculation is usually all we ever have.
Not long after I left the Navy, I ventured down to the southern islands in the Carribean . I was seriously thinking of staying down there. On the way back, some friends and I found ourselves at Grand Turk. One evening, around sunset, I was alone at a Tiki bar. (Most of my friends had sun burns from a day on the beach under overcast skies and were in no mood for staying out late.)
I wasn't much of a partier in those days, but I did like Island drinks, sunsets and the beach at night. I got into a conversation with a fellow, there at the tiki bar. By that time, back in the states, Nixon had resigned in disgrace and Gerald Ford was president. The 60s were, for all practical purposes, over and I had found out many truths about my country which, having been young and naive when the era began, had changed me in some profound ways. It was like getting an answer to a question, of which you had never even conceived, let alone asked and that answer to that question had left you with nothing but questions. I felt like Alice through the looking glass Nothing much made sense anymore. I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but everything I had done until I joined the Navy made no sense after I took the off the uniform.
My partner in conversation wasn't a complete stranger. I had seen him around for the 5 days we had already been there. He said he lived there, "for now." One of my friends had spent a little time with him and had reported that the guy was a real trip. He seemed fairly harmless. The sea breezes, the moon rise and those wonderful island libations were, for me, as close to heaven as I would ever get.
My drinking buddy (whom I will call FB, for fried brain) drank skowly, as I did. Neither of us was there to get drunk. We weren't there for each other either, except for the conversation. We were there for the same heaven.
I remember thinking that the sea breezes, warm and balmy, were far more mind-altering than the Rum and whatever else they put in the drink. That night was like a time out of context. We talked mostly about the government, but there was no emotion; no anger, no patriotism, no pride......
More, it was like observing certain realities unfold, from different perspectives, as a scientist observes and then speaks of his observations to another scientist; casually, 0ver a beer.
At some point he told me he was ex-CIA. Most people I knew hated the CIA. By that time I didn't care. We were all just actors in a sick film, no one any worse or better than anyone else. I had enough on my psychic plate, so to speak, to take on the job of judging other human being like me...powerless, no money to speak of, flawed, but not capable of effecting much of anything that went on in the world. At least he and I had decided we no longer wanted to be involved, even as mindless chess pieces.
It was such a weird time in history and the evening seemed almost psychedelic. Our egos were not attached to anything as far as I could tell.
Toward what would be the end of the conversation he asked me what I thought about why there had been such a world-wide uprising, made up of so many different types of people, with such different agendas, etc.
Pausing to think, the JFK assassination floated through my conscious. Somehow, that had something to do with it. Perhaps it was the U.S. trigger but one, followed by two others.
What triggered it in other nations, I had no idea.
I said, "you know, so many forces came together in such a way and at just the right time, that something was bound to happen."
For a guy who was supposed to be the enemy of the "pro-civil-rights, anti-war, loony left he certainly didn't disparage them. As a matter of fact, he knew what I knew and so much more.
Charles Manson was no more a Hippie than Adolph Hitler was a Socialist Democrat. There was a big difference between the antiwar movement and the peace movement. Few Americans, relatively speaking, had so much as a clue what a Hippie really was nor did they know what Hippies generally believed.
Much effort was put forth to see that that was the case. Richard Nixon once said that Timothy Leary was the most dangerous man on earth. We should not have laughed nearly so hard. If people actually believed him, there would be hell to pay for anyone who even gardened, let alone wore flowers in their hair. Ah, yes....fear. Trying to convince anyone that a real, Tie-dyed-in-the-wool Hippie was a person to be feared would not be easy.
Along came Charlie Manson. Yep, that was the ticket. A Scary-looking, burnt-out, sociopathic reject from the W.Va prison system slices up a whole bunch of people in Lefty Hollywood. That will be the end of this bunch. That and a couple of other nudges, sent the Hippie movement over a cliff (actually just under ground). Most people didn't know the difference between civil rights workers, anti-war people and Hippies. They were all commies and traitors as far as most people were concerned. After all, hadn't Spiro told them that? See how simple that makes everything?
Soon, it woudn't matter, as the women's movement, the environmentalists, the GLBTs, the peace movement and others would take the place of the "anti" people and quietly, new spiritual traditions took root. There were Zen Buddhist, transcendental meditators and other "real" meditators (TeHe), devoteess of Yoga of all kinds, practioners of Tai Chi and Taoism and those who practiced a half-breed, mixed version of two or more of the above. When the 60s ended, a whole new chapter began for human kind.
I got up, paid my tab and reached to shake his hand. He said, "So, what you are saying is that Kennedy had to die?" I jumped back as if he had handed me a snake. "What" I asked, shocked at the question.
I was not unfamiliar with the fate thing; Judas was meant to betray Jesus so that he would be killed and a new movement could be born; one that would last for 2000 years and bring many changes to the life of mankind.
"But Kennedy didn't die for such noble reasons. Or did he? No, Hell No, Kennedy didn't have to die! He died because powerful people and some with no power, but know-how, wanted him dead and his brother, for that matter, powerless little people who would sell their own soul's for the right amount of money. Those with the money, will never be suspected of anything and probably don't even have souls in any case".
The man smiled, slightly...but his eyes did not. He put money on the counter and strode off down the beach into the darkness, alone. He seemed very comfortable alone, as if he had spent much of his life alone.
I had just met a man, talked to him for hours, who knew more about the Kennedy assassination, personally, than most Americans ever would. Was he in on it? Did he know who was?
I'll never know and even if I did, it wouldn't matter. No one would believe me if he had told me outright that he and others had done it.
But he sure as hell knew a lot for the time.
I guess I never really believed that Oswald killed Kennedy, alone, on Castro's orders or for some other goofy reason and then there was Bobby......
Damn I feel helpless right now.
Police concerned about order to stop screening
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Barack Obama speaks Wednesday at a Democratic rally in Dallas' Reunion Arena. Police were told to stop screening people for weapons before the rally began.
DALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.
The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.
"Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd."
The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.
Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
"How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman.
JACK DOUGLAS Jr., 817-390-7700
jld@star-telegram.com
jld@star-telegram.com
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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