[Newfie]

loki wrote:
Political violence has been at a remarkably low level in the US in recent decades, but I have a feeling that may not be permanent.

Yes, that's the thing that may effect us here on this site most in our life times.

[evilgenius]

loki wrote:
Political violence has been at a remarkably low level in the US in recent decades, but I have a feeling that may not be permanent.

Yes, that's the thing that may effect us here on this site most in our life times.

In what way do you think? I mean, in the sixties the greatest amount of violence was neither John Birch directed nor inspired. Mostly, it was brought about by those who saw themselves as the victims of conservative positions. Mostly, except for what was attached to the Cold War, it was perpetrated by Neo-Reds, Black Revolutionaries and their opposites (the Clan) and assorted nutballs who did garble up the conservative mandate along with petty gripes within their own lives (James Earl Ray and, to an extent, Sirhan Sirhan). There was also a lot of geopolitically inspired violence from rights activists (so-called or not) based in the Middle East, like the PLO. Yes, modern day terrorism has its most familiar roots in the sixties. That being said, the non-violent movements and approaches to bringing about change, even though they could be accused of doing it sloppily, eventually won out. Therefore, the relative calm mentioned is probably due more to the impact of those non-violent people than to the impact of the violent.

I'm more afraid of the general level of fear, and what it says about the lack of love between people, than of the rhetoric being tossed about. I think the rhetoric takes advantage of the fear, ostensibly to make a profit but in effect to warp the social climate around itself. Once the conspiracy mantra enters it can be hard to remove it in the best of times. When it enters during a time of fear, then it is doubly hard to get rid of it. Dial back the love between people that would normally serve to heal the resultant ruptures and one act of violence begets another and another.

And where does the fear come from? Say what you will, but now, as yesterday, we see it on the heels of a grand time, a time of great prosperity. Is it possible that the fuel necessary for the fear, the fear itself, grows from our lack of faith that the prosperity can endure, and our bedrock belief that we deserve it?

[Newfie]

And where does the fear come from? Say what you will, but now, as yesterday, we see it on the heels of a grand time, a time of great prosperity. Is it possible that the fuel necessary for the fear, the fear itself, grows from our lack of faith that the prosperity can endure, and our bedrock belief that we deserve it?

Well that is a good start.

But where I see the problem is in the masses rising up, and perhaps some charismatic figurehead leading us down a bad path.

What I think is most likely to effect us short term is financial instability. In 2008 we were supposedly on the brink of a very serious international financial problem. We avoided that through extraordinary measures that can not continue.

Then also this fall we saw the government shut down where we were on the brink of stopping SNAP cards and other aid.

Either one of these, or who knows how many other situations put our law an order, our culture at risk.

You are right that things have been very quiet in the US for a long time. One wonder how the new generations will adapt to the new reality.

I think food riots are very possible within the next six years. That would not be pretty.

[Pik]

Newfie wrote; "Listen to the conversation between JFK and Hoover a couple of days after the assassination. "

Please explain to me how Hoover had a conversation with JFK a couple of days after he was assasinated.

My own thoughts on this are that there was only one conspiracy and that was when Oswald conspired with himself to kill the president.
I have heard it argued that because of the large hole in the back of his head and the way his head snapped backwards suggest that he was shot from the front.
I would contend that the back of his head was blown away from what is known as bullet cavitation and that his head snapped back in reaction to extreme trauma.

[Newfie]

Obviously a typo.....LBJ with Hoover.

[Pops]

In what way do you think? I mean, in the sixties the greatest amount of violence was neither John Birch directed nor inspired. Mostly, it was brought about by those who saw themselves as the victims of conservative positions...

I think the rhetoric takes advantage of the fear, ostensibly to make a profit but in effect to warp the social climate around itself. Once the conspiracy mantra enters it can be hard to remove it in the best of times. When it enters during a time of fear, then it is doubly hard to get rid of it.

And where does the fear come from? Say what you will, but now, as yesterday, we see it on the heels of a grand time, a time of great prosperity.

Lots of good stuff Evil. I think conspiracies are a way to explain or rationalize seemingly random or irrational events. Oswald was a nut who wanted attention, he got it, simple enough for me to accept. But movements, like civil rights or the early 20th century socialist or the late 1800 anti-trust and the recent Occupy causes are something more. Not sure how much it has to do with love as with inequity.

Good stuff nonetheless.

[vision-master]

I cee TPTB are reinforcing the lie.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels

[Plantagenet]

Oswald was a nut ...

Its too easy to dismiss Oswald as a nut. NPR recently replayed bits of some of the radio broadcasts he did while in New Orleans, and Oswald shows no sign of being crazy---he is articulate, calm, and able to present his point of view clearly and logically.

It is his point of view that is interesting. Oswald was a leftist and a Marxist. He greatly admired Castro and supported the Cuban revolution and saw himself as also engaged in revolutionary struggle for socialism. Political assassination was something Oswald did----we now know he shot a segregationist with the exact same rifle he used for the attack on Kennedy. Both attacks were well planned in advance. Oswald's murder of kennedy was not an act of insanity but of politically motivated violence.

Interestingly, if you look at the famous photo of Oswald with the murder weapon, you can see that Oswald is also holding a newspaper----its "Worker's World" a US communist paper along with the rifle.


Lee Harvey Oswald---marxist political assassin

[Pops]

Being a nut doesn't mean a persona is insane, just that he's a nut. I know that's pretty technical, LOL. I don't think the assassination could have been too well planned, he could only have learned of the visit by the POTUS a couple of days ahead of time and from every indication didn't even have an escape route planned, not any idea what to do once the deed was done, he simply wandered around the city until caught hiding in a movie theatre.

I obviously have no idea what his deal was but he strikes me as someone quite delusional. He heard the POTUS was going to drive by the building where he worked and voila, there it was, his chance to be immortal, fulfil his self image of - I don't know, whatever story he told himself.

Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evi ... ld-kennedy

Slate, events after the assassination,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... oting.html

[Newfie]

VM, you beat me to it. Here is the one I had in mind.

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”


― Joseph Goebbels

[Newfie]

Just to be clear on my position, least I come across as a nut....

I do think Oswald tried to assassinate Kennedy, he may even have fired the fatal bullet.

However, I also think there was more than one shooter and that in their effort to cover up the story the FBI et al made a mess.

If you change the question just a bit it can change your view.

Can we cock up a story were it is possible Oswald was the lone shooter? Yes.

What evidence do we have that would point to a coverup? Tons!

For example, How else does one explain the pristine bullet found on the gurney at the hospital?

Hoover started the fantasy early, "it rolled out of his head as they tried to do resuscitation." So, that was the exploding bullet huh? And it had markings from Oswald's gun. How convenient.

Whether they rescinded that story later or not is moot. They floated it then, it was a bald faced attempt at a lie. THAT point is proven. Why lie?

How does a magician do the trick? Misdirection.

[Pops]

I don't think "believing" one way or another make you a nut. However, believing that there is always a conspiracy, always hidden strings being pulled, always someone out to get you/us/me is the epitome of paranoia. It is just as much of a mistake to think that everything is a grand plot perpetrated by the forces of evil as to think nothing is.

I don't discount the possibility of a conspiracy, I just think the simple answer is more probable. Oswald was a deluded, paranoid, grandiose whacko who was in the right place at the right time (or wrong) and did exactly what the Columbine kids did or any mass killing shooter of recent times has done, he played out a fantasy of him changing the world.

In fact a good read is Stephen King's "11/22/63" about a time traveler who tries to stop Oswald. Anyone read that?

[Newfie]

Again, just so you understand where I'm coming from, I'm not a conspiracy aficionado. In fact, the JFK is just about the ONLY conspiracy I support. Well, maybe that and that the gas companies are conspiring against the fracking opponents.

[Plantagenet]

Oswald was a deluded, paranoid, grandiose whacko who was in the right place at the right time (or wrong) and did exactly what the Columbine kids did or any mass killing shooter of recent times has done, he played out a fantasy of him changing the world.

Even grandiose whackos have motives. What was Oswald's motive?

The comparison to the Columbine kids doesn't quite capture the political nature of Oswald's assassination plot. The Columbine kids were zonked out on prescription drugs and were re-playing fantasies of violent video games and commited suicide. In contrast, Oswald was a Marxist who believed he was acting in solidarity with leftist causes and international socialism.

Oswald adored Castro, and Castro himself was involved in political assassinations in Cuba before he fled to Mexico. Oswald was clearly following this path, as the JFK killing was the second political assassination Oswald can be tied to. Its wrong to imagine that Oswald flipped out and decided to kill JFK on the spur of the moment, as we know now that he had previously tried to assassinate another politician---Gen Walker who had run for Governor of Texas in 1962.

Also, Oswald visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico City shortly before the assassination, and apparently discussed his plans to assassinate JFK there---more evidence it was not a spur-of-the-moment flip out but instead a planned assassination. AND, As far as Oswald's unsuccessful escape plan, he got away clean after his first assassination attempt on Gen. Walker just by walking away from the scene of the crime, and he probably thought he could just walk away again. AND, if it wasn't for Officer Tippet, he might well have made it.

Gen. Edwin Walker---Oswald's first assassination attempt

[Pops]

Plant, you keep saying he was a Marxist, does that have special meaning to you?

Why do I get the feeling you are going to tie this into Obama somehow? Did Oswald ever visit Hawaii? Kenya maybe?

LOL, dem Marxists, they're all the same.

[Plantagenet]

Plant, you keep saying he was a Marxist

Oswald was a Marxist and a socialist.

At age 15, he wrote in his diary, "I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries." At 16 he wrote to the Socialist Party of America, saying he had been studying socialist principles for "well over fifteen months." He was a Marxist through his entire life. Just before the JFK assassination when he was appearing on radio shows in New Orleans he again proclaimed he was Marxist. I heard him say it himself in the 1963 recording from New Orleans broadcast recently on NPR. When asked if he was a communist he said "Well, a Communist is a Leninist-Marxist,while I am a true Karl Marxist. I've read just about everything by or about Karl Marx."

[Pops]

So what?

Does that preclude him being a nut? Or are you saying all Marxists are assassins?

Running around yelling 'Look at me, I'm a Marxist!' may not be the most effective way to bring off an assassination plot but it seems like a pretty good sign of delusional thinking.

[vision-master]

I don't think "believing" one way or another make you a nut. However, believing that there is always a conspiracy, always hidden strings being pulled, always someone out to get you/us/me is the epitome of paranoia. It is just as much of a mistake to think that everything is a grand plot perpetrated by the forces of evil as to think nothing is.

I don't discount the possibility of a conspiracy, I just think the simple answer is more probable. Oswald was a deluded, paranoid, grandiose whacko who was in the right place at the right time (or wrong) and did exactly what the Columbine kids did or any mass killing shooter of recent times has done, he played out a fantasy of him changing the world.

In fact a good read is Stephen King's "11/22/63" about a time traveler who tries to stop Oswald. Anyone read that?

Executive Order 11110

On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy's order gave the Treasury the power "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.

http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/executiveorder11110.htm

It is suggested that President Kennedy might have been assassinated by The Federal Reserve, or the conglomerate banking systems that dominate both Europe and America.

Executive Order 11110 was the attempt to bring back United States notes backed by silver, returning to the Treasury Department the Constitutional power to issue debt-free currency. It is suggested that this would have usurped the Federal Reserve, but not all are in agreement. Some very intellectual writers propose the accusations to be fallacious.


http://www.examiner.com/article/executi ... n-question

[Pops]

It is suggested that President Kennedy might have been assassinated by The Federal Reserve, or the conglomerate banking systems that dominate both Europe and America.

In a bid to "shake things up," as executive producer Steve Callaghan put it, Family Guy killed Brian, the martini-swilling talking dog, who seemed to be the only character who related to evil genius baby Stewie on his own level.

Or is there more to it?

[vision-master]

It is suggested that President Kennedy might have been assassinated by The Federal Reserve, or the conglomerate banking systems that dominate both Europe and America.

In a bid to "shake things up," as executive producer Steve Callaghan put it, Family Guy killed Brian, the martini-swilling talking dog, who seemed to be the only character who related to evil genius baby Stewie on his own level.

Or is there more to it?

Are you talking about a movie, a movie made in Hollywood, Like the material used in Merlin's magic wands?