The Saddest Story (about the JFK assassination)

[JohnyCanuck]

By David Swanson.


One of the most unusual books and far-and-away the saddest I have ever read is James Douglass's "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters." This is the best documented account ever produced of why and how the CIA assassinated John F. Kennedy. That the CIA did this is beyond dispute, and that the first President Bush was involved is well established by Russ Baker's book "Family of Secrets." What separates Douglass's book from the pack is his account of how Kennedy lived his final months, the actions he took that turned the CIA against him but saved the world from a nuclear holocaust and -- had he lived -- would probably have avoided the Vietnam War and brought the Cold War to a swift and peaceful conclusion.

Kennedy was a cold warrior who turned away from orthodoxy and became a heretic to those within the military industrial spook complex. He defied the demands of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, on Laos and Congo, on Berlin and Indonesia and -- above all -- on Vietnam, in opening up a dialogue with Khrushchev and with Castro, by creating a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, by taking on the steel corporations, by firing the director of the CIA and other top officials, by planting a false story that his military advisors opposed escalation in Vietnam, by ordering a withdrawal from Vietnam, by selling wheat to the Soviet Union, by publicly and privately setting an agenda for peace and complete disarmament and world law, and by making plans to visit the Kremlin and declare the Cold War over.

This is not the Kennedy we think we know. It is certainly not the Kennedy the History Channel claims to document. But this is a Kennedy thoroughly researched and documented by the author. And if the History Channel's portrait of a sex-obsessed president has any relevance to how Kennedy acted on the large issues of war and peace, then we have an absolute moral duty to get President Obama some girlfriends fast!

SNIP

Kennedy was the president of a nation that had already -- long before the Bush-Cheney age -- transferred tremendous power from the legislative branch to the president. This was not government of the people, but government of the person. But it was a person under the threat of death if he stepped too far out of line, a person unable to control his own military and CIA, a person able to make progress toward world peace only once Khrushchev and Castro understood that Kennedy's greatest impediment was his own bureaucracy.

Douglass shows us that Kennedy knew he was risking assassination but chose to take that risk, and that Johnson and later presidents knew what had transpired and chose not to put their necks on the line. The fear that presidents, congress members, and millions of other Americans have lived with -- allowed themselves to live with, CHOSEN to live with -- since the Kennedy assassination is the unspeakable weight dragging our republic and the world back to the abyss that Kennedy so narrowly avoided during the missile crisis, and which the powers behind the US throne would have plunged the world into could they have had their way.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/50424

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Schema Thing]

2. indeed. this is silly.

[DearAbby]

3. What is the definition of Conspiracy?

[LakeSamish706]

4. Really? And how do you know that the CIA wasn't involved? Try reading the book

by Russ Baker "Family of Secrets" before making a statement like you made "That kinda statement makes the rest of the post ignorable".

[timtom]

5. These two books go together, hand-in-glove.

And they're both on my night table.

[LakeSamish706]

9. I am reading Family of Secrets right now, and certainly will get Douglass's book as well. n/t

[jxnmsdemguy65]

6. I'm reading this book right now...

in fact, I requested it a while back and the local library ended up buying it. It's a good book - not the most engaging writing ever - written from the standpoint of a scholarly Catholic theologian...it has some very good insights like those mentioned above. And I heartily agree that Family of Secrets is an excellent complement to this book. FoS easily is one of the most important books I've read.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. JFK and the Unspeaksable, A Buzzflash review

Whatever one thinks of the multiple conspiracy theories concerning JFK's assassination, Douglass's book is gaining popularity because it can also be read as metaphor: JFK's belated effort to turn America from an armed culture of victory to a member of an international peaceful world was shot down in Texas for a reason.

And the reason is the legacy, among others, that we saw in Vietnam (if you accept that JFK was on the verge of pulling out), the Gulf War and Iraq, among other nightmares of war. The warriors in our military-industrial-intelligence complex could not tolerate the possibility of peace.

Yes, Douglass, like all the JFK conspiracists grounds his book in the details surrounding the November, 1963, assassination, with his own interpretation.

You can debate Douglass's specific prism into the events -- the JFK assassination will forever be subject to speculation -- but you can't argue with the reality that the shooting death of Kennedy put a hole right through the heart of our hope for a nation and world turned toward peace.

We have been devastated ever since.

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/1175

A few other reviews:

An exceptional achievement. Douglass has made the strongest case so far in the JFK assassination literature as to the Who and the Why of Dallas."--Gerald McKnight, author, Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why

"One of the most important books in recent years . . . . I hope many churchpeople will read it to understand the depth of our country’s unspeakable darkness and be free, in the spirit of John Kennedy and Jim Douglass, to pursue 'peace for all humanity.' "--John Dear, S.J., author, Living Peace

"Remarkable: devastating in its documented indictment of the dark forces that have long deformed the public life of this country . . . . This book should be required reading for every American citizen."--Richard Falk, Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University

"Proposes a shocking rereading of the Kennedy presidency and assassination . . . . Douglass' message is that the greatest obstacle to world peace was and still is the secret National Security State that was built in the U.S. by the Cold War."--Rosemary Radford Ruether, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

"With penetrating insight and unswerving integrity, Douglass probes the fundamental truths about JFK's assassination . . . . By far the most important book yet written on the subject."--Gaeton Fonzi, former Staff Investigator, US House Select Committee on Assassinations

"Douglass presents, brilliantly, an unfamiliar yet thoroughly convincing account of a series of creditable decisions of John F. Kennedy--at odds with his initial Cold War stance--that earned him the secret distrust and hatred of hard-liners among the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA. Did this suspicion and rage lead directly to his murder by agents of these institutions, as Douglass concludes? Many readers who are not yet convinced of this 'beyond reasonable doubt' by Douglass's prosecutorial indictment will find themselves--perhaps--like myself--for the first time, compelled to call for an authoritative criminal investigation. Recent events give all the more urgency to learning what such an inquiry can teach us about how, by whom, and in whose interests this country is run."--Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

"This book has the potential to change our narrative about our country, and our lives as citizens and disciples. May we have ears to hear these truths, hearts able to bear their burden, and hands willing to build a new story."--Ched Myers, author, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus

"A stunning mix of political thriller and meticulous scholarship. Douglass's book offers a goldmine of information and is indispensable for building prophetic spirit and hope."--Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary

http://maryknollsocietymall.org/description.cfm?ISBN=978-1-57075-755-6

[David Zephyr]

8. K&R.

JohnyCanuck, you will catch fire here from the uninformed and others too proud to admit they might have been wrong.

To understand the plight of the American People today, one has to understand how a very powerful, small group of Americans began working to dismantle The New Deal the moment that FDR died. And, in many ways they succeeded.

[JohnyCanuck]

10. Catching fire.

"JohnyCanuck, you will catch fire here from the uninformed and others too proud to admit they might have been wrong."

But of course I fully expected that. See my sig line below.

[JohnyCanuck]

11. kick n/t

[frogmarch]

12. So, the CIA and Poppy Bush

hired loose cannon Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK. Of course they did. Right. :sarcasm:

Oswald had earlier tried to assassinate retired Major General Edwin Walker. Oswald, who'd lost his job a few days earlier, considered Walker to be a fascist and leader of a fascist government. Walker was hit but only injured in the arm because the bullet hit a window frame and was deflected.

Yes, this is the kind of assassin the CIA would hire to shoot the president. Yep, uh huh. :eyes:

Nutcase Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. Oswald acted alone.

[johnnie]

13. Oswald acted alone.

I disagree.