This is the beginning of a piece that I had hoped to post on the correct day. Sadly my work schedule and other events haven’t allowed me the time to finish what I had planned to post, but I simply cannot allow this anniversary (if that’s the correct word, seems so callous in this regard) to pass without posting on the day.
I was 9 years old when John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th, and still youngest, President of the United States was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. To say that he both in general and his assassination in particular had an enormous effect on me would be a gross understatement, especially for me, being one who is often given to overstatement.
By now I’m sure most, if not all, of you have seen the existing footage many times, Jackie leaning over him in the car, the secret service agent jumping on top of them, offering his body as a shield and target in the hopes of protecting the President and First Lady, sadly too late.
They are images permanently burned into my memory. My sadness then and now is immeasurable. As time went on and my understanding of the world grew, I realized that what I felt about John and later Bobby was true. They were and still are heroes. I was and still am, a “Kennedy Democrat”. In Sweden, I would be, and am, a mix lying somewhere in between Social Democrat and Vänsterpartiet (Left Party), with a strong support for the Miljöpartiet (Environmental Party).
Kennedy stated one of his objectives was to break up the CIA and spread it’s parts to the wind. Sadly that seems now to be an impossible task. After 9/11 and with the impenetrable strength of Homeland Security, (read KGB) the US security forces now get away with anything and to be against them is to draw an heretofore unthinkable amount of scrutiny into every aspect of your life.
I have no intention of going into conspiracy theory. I’ve always hated it Conspiracy theories are best left for the odd ones in the Mojave Desert with 10 years rations stockpiled. I will only say that I suspect the CIA and always have and always will until proven wrong.
”But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”.
For now, I’m going to let you ponder this, what is our fate? How would it be different if John and Bobby Kennedy had lived? If Malcolm and Martin and Mahatma hadn’t been killed? And Abraham Lincoln?
I will continue to write on my much longer, much more personal piece over the night and tomorrow, hopefully it will publish soon.
I leave you with the hope that the day gives you pause to consider our fate, our freedom, the choices governments make that we never know about, and the lies they tell us. We can do better. Jack Kennedy knew that, so did Bobby. And they paid the ultimate price. God bless us all.
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