by Ray Jason
Time shimmers past differently for a long-distance
sailor. The daily markers that are so
familiar in the real world do not exist out on the Wide Waters. There is no breakfast with the family or
racing off to school or leaving for work.
There is only the subtle curve of the horizon, the enveloping water, and
the on-looking sky. Occasionally a wild
sea creature flies past or emerges from the depths, but mostly it is an
immensity of space and an undulating flow of time.
Thus, my decades as a sea gypsy have gently distorted
my sense of how swiftly the years thunder by.
So I was totally blindsided last week when I realized that the 50th
anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy was approaching. That horror bludgeoned me in my youth. It was the first time that I really had to
deal with mortality. That was my initial
taste of the bitter randomness of death – of someone being vibrantly alive and
then gone forever.
Like so many other young people, I was inspired by JFK
and hoped to one day follow his lead in sculpting a better world from the clay
of our democracy’s political institutions.
My grief then was overwhelming and personal – my hero had been viciously
gunned down. But as the decades ebbed
and flowed, my sense of loss widened and intensified. Yes, I had lost a role model, but the planet
had lost a visionary and a healer.
What haunts me the most is that brilliant speech that
he made before the United Nations when he offered the olive branch of Peace
during one of the most incendiary stages of the Cold War. When I watch that footage and see him accepting
the applause from the General Assembly after he offers to lead a campaign for
total world disarmament, a heart-breaking realization assaults me. He
already knew! There is a nobility
and resignation in his body language that seems to imply a foreknowledge that
the bullets had already left the guns and were headed his way. He probably understood that by speaking those
peace-seeking words, he was signing his own death warrant. But he spoke them anyway - boldly and
poetically - because he knew that sometimes Right must defy Might.
President Eisenhower, in his Farewell Address, only
three years earlier, had warned the nation about the clandestine influence and
danger of the Military/Industrial Complex.
Hidden behind the scenes, these rogue power-brokers wielded enormous control. Kennedy was perceived as a direct threat to
them. He had already vowed to destroy
the CIA, and now with his desire to dismantle the war machine, his enemies eliminated
him in a cowardly ambush. Needless to
say, this was not the story that was conveyed to us 50 years ago by the media,
and they still deceive us now.
Kennedy’s presidency was an absolute crossroads event
in this nation’s history. To use
contemporary terminology, he came from the 1% but he championed the 99%. He didn’t wish to actually strangle the ruling
elite, but he refused to let them suffocate the vast majority of decent,
everyday citizens. And unlike our
present politicians he did not just pay lip service to such noble
aspirations. He acted upon them and was
gunned down as a result of his ideals.
Although polling data reveals that a great majority of
Americans do not believe the absurd Lone Gunman theory, there still are
millions who do. They often justify
their position by saying, “But everybody loved JFK. He had no enemies. So it must have been some lone nut case like
this Lee Harvey Oswald character.”
Indeed, out in the general population almost everyone
did love the president. Just witness the
affection from the crowds as his motorcade moved through the streets during the
last hour of his life. But there is a massive difference between The People and The
Power. Many of his actions during
his first three years in office were specifically designed to rein in their
influence.
He had penalized the steel industry for price
gouging. He dispatched his brother
Robert, the Attorney General, to try and dismember organized crime in
America. He was attempting to reduce the
massive tax dodge for the petroleum industry known as the oil depletion
allowance. He would not bow down to the
Miami-based former Cuban oligarchs in their vendetta against Castro. He refused to send troops to Vietnam,
allowing only non-combat advisors. He fired
the head of the CIA and vowed to greatly diminish its power. He was on the brink of implementing far-reaching
Civil Rights legislation. So he was at
the top of the enemy list of heavy industry, the Mafia, Big Oil, the rabid
Cubans, the Military/Industrial/Complex, the CIA and the Ku Klux Klan.
Furthermore, he eloquently and clearly stated his
position on extremely important issues in major speeches. These topics included the need to rid
democracy of secret societies, the importance of racial equality, the fact that
imperialism is the enemy of freedom and the grave imperative for nuclear
disarmament. These messages further
infuriated his enemies, who were weaving their secret webs behind the scenes.
How different life might be if JFK had not been viciously
murdered. He was essentially the last
apostle for the little people. With him
gone, the men behind the curtain, what I call the Shadow Power, could enormously increase and consolidate their
control of the country. And they did so
with appalling success. Here are some
examples of how they have increased their stranglehold over decent ordinary
people:
·
They have made a
mockery of the concept of representative government. Politicians represent the Few and not the Many. Congress views themselves as our Masters and
not our Servants.
·
Wall Street has
carpet-bombed Main Street. The Middle
Class, which should be the centerpiece of a functioning Republic, has been
incinerated by the 1%.
·
Because the Haves
are justifiably worried about the anger of the Have-nots, they have
doubled-down on their security measures.
Surveillance grids that would even make Orwell blush, have been covertly
put in place to monitor us. The friendly
policeman on the corner has been turned into a psychotic, militarized
storm-trooper.
·
The consolidation
of their power has been colossal. Big
Everything has stomped the rest of us into Mom and Pop Nothing. The big chains have destroyed Main Street
retail.
·
Mainstream media
is a fraud. It does not represent the
great bulk of America – the main stream.
It services the interests of the 1%.
It should be called Corporate Media or Government Media or perhaps
Anti-Truth Media.
·
The rise of the
multinational corporations is a global version of the big chain stores. In the same way that big box retail doesn’t
care about the communities that they are in, the big global corporations barely
care about their home countries.
·
Without
permission from the citizens, our nation has been turned into an imperial
parasite that is scorned around the world.
Did anyone ask you if you wanted to unleash drones on wedding parties or
install 700 military bases overseas?
So, when people try to tell you that the Kennedy
assassination is unimportant or that it is ancient history, do not let them do
so. The Shadow Power, that literally
blew his brains out, was able to gain almost full spectrum societal domination
as a result of that “hit.” They are now more
powerful than ever and they are INSATIABLE. They will not be content until they have
turned this once great nation into Plantation
America. In honor of the vision and
sacrifice of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we
must not let them!