Random Barking: Smokey The Bear Sutra, Peeps

You Must Remember This

The Fire Next Time: Obligatory Cute Animal Graphic

A few points about the Climate agreement and things Paris:  (1) It's a set of guidelines with no penalty for low- or non-performance. As an example, "Rich" nations are  'encouraged'  to collectively give "at least" $100 Billion US per year to "Poor" nations to help them in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But if they don't  -- or, the Banksters create yet another global financial meltdown and governments can't offer assistance -- well, gosh; it's not as if anyone were being held accountable.   (2) Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ky Moon said the agreement doesn't go far enough to curb emissions.  (3) The energy alternatives being stressed for "Poor" countries in the immediate future are natural gas and (cough cough) nuklar energy.  (4) Marie LePen is a fat, proto-nazi.

Yeah; I just threw that last one in there.  So sue me -- they'll come after you for mistreating an animal, bub.

 _______________________________________

Still Missed

Twenty-Five Years

Something About Him Was Always A Kick-Out-The-Jambs Liverpudlian Rebel

Speak, Memory: One of the two arrests we made that day hadn't gone well. After putting the car in the basement garage at the Federal Building, I'd walked up the underground ramp to the street, intending to buy my second pack of Marlboros of the day from the liquor store up the next block. Stepping inside, I looked down at a stack of the evening edition of a paper which isn't even around any longer, lying on the counter below the cash register with a banner headline in 48-point type: JOHN LENNON SLAIN.  Fuck; I thought, and then said it out loud.  

_______________________________________

Miracle Of The Season

Go Ahead. Take A Break From Your Busy Holiday.

The 1993 film, Matinee ! was (one Dog's opinion; there have to be miscreant throwback troglodyte maniacs individuals out there who believe it's a cinematic gem) a failed coming-of-age movie set in Key West, Florida -- only an SRBM's throw away from the island of Cuba -- and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, no less.

One of its subplots was the arrival in town of a hucksterish film producer,  Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), who was out in The Sticks doing some audience research of a B-grade sci-fi movie before its full release. The real story line of the film was about the experience of two 10 to 12-year-old boys in Key West whose fathers were Navy aviators on end-of-the-world alert, and their Mom.

The only thing notable about Matinee was the B-grade movie being shown in Key west's local walk-in theatre, entitled MANT !, a typical man-exposed-to-radiation, mutates-into-giant-Ant story, the kind that would later become classic fodder for MST3K.  Snippets of this, uh, 'effort' were shown as a film-within-the-film as "Maintee" progressed; at least two of the actors performing in it, William Schallert and Kevin McCarthy, had appeared in actual sci-fi films in the 50's and 60's (McCarthy in the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', among others; Schallert worked on scores of television series, most notably in The Patty Duke Show), which increases the Camp factor for Dogs of a certain age.

While Goodman had received top billing in this, uh, 'effort', his actual on-screen time didn't amount to much. It was noted that, when the last take of his character's last scene was completed, Goodman was supposed to have looked around at the rest of the cast and crew, said, "So long, suckers!", then walked to his convertible parked just off-set and drove off without another word or backward glance.

It's a miracle that someone took the time in 2013 to stitch these clips together into a coherent reconstruction. Isn't it?  Of course it is.

Because this is the season for miracles. Or, something. Isn't it?

________________________________________

James Tate

(Because the comments section at BLCKDGRD is closed, and I can't get my suggestion in. And, it seems fitting -- the season, and bloody obscene tragedies, and politicians, and Oval Office speechifying, and everything. That the world as we see it now must seem full of opportunities, to a certain type of individual.)

Behind The Green Door

Thaddeus had said he wanted to get together, but,
then, when we met in town, he didn’t seem to have anything
on his mind. “I’d like to get myself one of those remote-
controlled airplanes, and chase pigeons in the park,” he
said. “That will show them who’s boss,” I said. “Of course,
some people might think I’m a little old for that,” he said.
“For terrorizing innocent birds? You’re never too old for
that, Thad,” I said. We sipped at our beers. It was still
before noon, and Mary’s was almost empty, except for an elderly
couple at the bar drinking martinis. “They’re pretty expensive,”
Thad said. “Martinis?” I said. “No, stupid, remote-controlled
airplanes,” he said. “Think of it as an investment in your
lost childhood,” I said. He thought that over for a while.
The couple at the bar toasted one another, and laughed. The
bartender brought us another round. It was a Saturday, and
I had many errands and chores on my list. “You know all about
my ‘lost childhood,’ so I don’t need to remind you,” he said.
“I can recite what you got and what you didn’t get for all
your birthdays,” I said. “Then, why do you put up with me?”
he said. “I need to suffer, Thaddeus. It makes me a better
person. So, you see, indulging you is completely selfish
on my part. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how the
world is, and that’s why some great good may come out of
making those birds suffer. I don’t know what it is, but something
tells me it’s so,” I said. The woman at the bar was tickling
the man’s ribs, and he was about to fall off his stool. “Then,
you think there really is a plan?” Thad said. “Absolutely,
right down to the last drop of beer spilled on this floor
every night, to the ant you killed walking out your door,
and the plane crash in the Andes,” I said. Thaddeus seemed
stunned, while I was just saying anything that came into my
head. I took it as my job to give him something to think
about. The couple at the bar ordered another round. Then,
Thaddeus said, “If that’s true, then I’ve never really done
anything wrong. I had no choice, I’m off the hook.” I looked
at my watch. We were right on schedule for that conclusion.
“And soon the earth will open up, and a ten-thousand-year-old
giant squid will strangle us all,” I said. “I’m hungry,” Thaddeus
said, “do you want to get some lunch? There’s a new place
across the street.” “That’s not new. They just painted the
door a different color. The owner, Herb, had a midlife crisis
or something,” I said. “Well, then, it’s sort of new, I mean,
you don’t know what you’re going to get after something like
that,” he said. “I see your point. I suppose it could get
kind of ugly. Or maybe not. It could be better than ever.
Still, I have these errands,” I said. “You’re afraid to lose
even an hour, George, afraid what you might find in its place,
something truly unknown, without a name, no visible shape.
There’s nothing wrong with that, George. You know I’ve always
admired you, so go on your way, get your dishwashing detergent
or whatever it is. I’m going to find out what’s behind that green
door,” Thaddeus said. “No doubt there will be an ambrosia burger,”
I said, “and you’ll order one.” “I will have no choice,” he
said. When we stepped outside, the sunlight blinded me. “Good-bye,
Thaddeus,” I said, “wherever you are.” A dog barked, and, then,
a siren sped by. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my
face.

-- From "Ghost Soldiers" (2008)

_______________________________

Always For You -- Even More Annual Reprint Heaven: Is The Wonderful Is This Life

By I. Rabschinsky

[Yes and it is this time again. It is Chanukah (Hoo boy; we missed getting this in last night), and also the time of the Birthday of the redoubtable Moldavish Guy. We will eat a little parve apple cake in his honor. Okay; a lot.

[And always of course of course of course, we are watching the Mister Ed marathon on television cable at Great-Uncle Yehudi's house and open the big jar Of Mama Putin's Chicken Heads. And we remember how lucky we are being.

Beaver: Good For You, Nize For You;

What We Watch At Great-Uncle Yehudi's

[And you are being lucky today also. This film history for you, now being the annual every year repeat. Always too, Great-Uncle Yehudi is saying, "Don't Stand In Way Of The History!"  Enjoy.]

George Bailey Guy Making The Panik

So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.

Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving In To Movies:

"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim, with big ring and parties with the Girls, and other Guys clasping him on the arms frequently.

Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.

Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra; but still, we love him).

Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?

Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!

TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.

EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.

GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,

because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!

(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!

GEORGI: So you're saying that when the consciousness

of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle

is not only necessary but inevitable?

SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.

A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children

Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them

For Them, The World Is Something To Carve Up, Like Beef

While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.

GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!

He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm

tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!

CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.

BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of

weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?

GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber

dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!

MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!

BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.

All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before

your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back

to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.

GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your

class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your

crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.

And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.

GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.

SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair

Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?

SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed

peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.

But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.

RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!

PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.

...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow!  Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy; but, still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

_______________________________________________

Judgement At Nürburgring

Give Up Your Arbeitsbruden

The New York Times reports that, in an attempt to be seen to "get to the bottom of its emissions-cheating scandal", The Volkwagen Group has "pressured [Volkswagen division] employees to tell what they know" and announced an amnesty program for any informants who would come forward.

In a letter to employees ... Herbert Diess, chief executive of the division that produces Volkswagen brand cars, said people who provided information would not be fired or face damage claims. Mr. Diess cautioned, though, that the company could not shield employees from criminal charges.

The offer applies only to union employees, covered by collective bargaining agreements, and is not available to managers or executives, or persons chosen at random on the street. The offer expires at the end of November.

The interviews with potential snitches informants persons who had knowledge of 'past practices' are held in an abandoned aircraft hangar at an undisclosed location in the Ruhr.

INNOCENT ARBEITER No. 1: "I only followed orders. Workers on the assembly line were told to install emissions sensors which were nothing but blank tabs of plastic. No sensors were put in at all... What? No, I never did these things myself, you understand. I only saw them being done by others. Will you give me this Amnesty in writing, please?"

INNOCENT ARBEITER No. 2: "... the emissions filters were just cloth bags, filled with CheeseWhiz. They forced me to do this. It was the only way I could get a promotion. Do I receive a reward for my confessions?"

INNOCENT ARBEITER No. 3: "I changed the code in the software package which operated the emissions detectors. Each time the car was mounted on a test machine, the software sensed this -- and the auto sound system would come on, playing Heino, singing 'Liebe Mütter' at 320 Decibels. This upset the emissions technicians so much that they would do anything to get the car out of their shop.

"I don't know why anyone should be surprised by this -- 'It's a massive conspiracy; a wholesale defrauding of governments and consumers; harm to the environment', blah blah blah. Doesn't anyone get it? Corporations do not care about anything other than profit. They will do whatever they want in order to get it. Period.

"You going to put that in your report? Nein? Imagine my astonishment."

_______________________________________________________

It's Just As Bad As You Thought

Persistent Aggravating Barking

Yet again, that terrible Dog gets on his little Soap Box and barks and barks and barks.

Josh Hoxie, director of the Project on Opportunity and Tax at the Institute for Policy Studies, recently published a study with a colleague, Chuck Collins, entitled "Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us".  Hoxie also contributed a piece to Reuters, providing an extremely high-level summary of the issues and alternatives. An even shorter form version: It's every bit as bad as you may have thought.

Or, maybe not -- it's possible people out there simply don't give a damn any longer. Or, they believe that Trumpolina will lead us "back to greatness", that Greg Stillson Ted Cruz will lead us all to Big Jesus. Once again, America -- holding a tear-stained image of Saint Ronald The Dim -- will sit tall in the saddle at the top of the Darwinian heap.

It's just possible that a large number of people are so willfully ignorant that they don't understand: If the current situation continues, their children and grandchildren will live at an enforced lower standard of living. All to benefit a tiny number of 'Owners.'  

...the richest 400 people in the United States together possess more wealth than over 60 percent of the country, a striking 194 million people and more than the populations of Mexico and Canada combined...

The Forbes 400 members have a combined fortune of $2.3 trillion. This is more than the gross domestic product of India, a country with more than a billion people. By comparison, the typical American family has about $81,000 in wealth — their total combined assets minus their debt. [It would take the combined wealth of] 36 million such typical families [to equal] the wealth of the Forbes 400.

The wealth gap in America is especially startling for people of color. Median household wealth for African-Americans is just $11,000 and for Latinos is $13,700...

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

This rising inequality, which has accelerated in the last decade, has devastating implications. Extreme inequality has been linked to negative health effects... for everyone in these unequal societies, not just those at the bottom. In fact, according to British public health researcher Richard Wilkinson, we are better off living in a community with a lower standard of living but greater equality than living in a community with a higher income, but more extreme inequality...  [because] greater inequality tears the social fabric of society — we care less for each other and collectively suffer as a result.

High levels of inequality also erode social mobility — the ability of those born into poverty to climb the economic ladder into the ranks of the middle class. This is the result of a now-broken ladder of opportunity — the public investments in things like housing, education, and healthcare for those at the bottom and middle required to help people build wealth. Today, the United States is among the least socially mobile... countries in terms of earnings: children are less likely to earn more in real terms than their parents did...

Instituting a wealth tax or any other policy that strikes at the growing wealth divide is unthinkable in our current Congress, which has shown little interest in serious discussion about tax reform, especially before the presidential election. But a generation ago, the thought that Americans would be experiencing such massive inequality seemed similarly unlikely. If we fail to take bold action, wealth will continue to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands.

In the early Go-Go, "Lil' Boots" Bush years, the Department of Labor's bureau of statistics simply stopped reporting the number of layoffs announced in the U.S., and the amount of U.S. currency in circulation (a reference point known as M2).  Just -- stopped.  The CBO was also told to stop publishing a report which detailed how much the top layer of Our Wealthy paid in taxes, as compared with "ordinary" Americans.

When studies like Hoxie and Collins' are no longer news items; when reports that document how much of a Gilded Age is being created, at the expense of most of us, are no longer published or funded -- then you'll know things will have changed sufficiently that polite conversation, or impassioned civil discourse, won't be enough to bring about any kind of relief.

Past a certain point, the old claim that simply to be here in America -- to "live in the greatest country on earth" won't mean as much. And that thought should concern those 400 people in Forbes' little list. It ought to concern them deeply.  But I doubt it.

_____________________________________________

MEHR, UND NOCH IMMER MEHR:  Not like things have changed in half a decade.

And it's not like I haven't barked about all this over and over, and again and again, as if repeating the same facts ten different ways might help bring about that change we all talk about but never see.  Talk about ego.

And, I don't have a good feeling about this mission. You shouldn't, either.

 Additional Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo At Close Of Blog Thing
_____________________________________________

Random Barking: Turkey Day

Sad Vlad Eyes The Menu


Click To Enlarge -- It's Easy And Fun !

                                               ___________________________________

November 22

We Interrupt This Program For An Important News Bulletin

CBS News' Broadcast Interruption: 12:48PM CDST, November 22, 1963

For longer than I want to remember, I've been gnawed by a feeling that the world has deteriorated since JFK's assassination. Inexorably gone, right into the toilet. And, it's not possible to consider that without also remembering Martin Luther King's. And Bobby's. But this isn't a conversation about conspiracy, so much as the relevancy of November 22nd to America in 2015.
                                     ________________________________________

On November 22, 1963, it was as if the universe had shifted on its axis in Dealy Plaza... and later, on the second floor landing of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis... and then in a service corridor near the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.  And without those events, my sense is this world of 2015, in all its dangerous splendor, might not have happened.

It's just a feeling, not a fact -- and given that humans (and Dogs) tend to remember the past as a time when things were more secure, more full of promise than the present, it's no surprise that 1963 seems better. But even with that understanding, my feeling won't go away.  Every year on this date, I take that sense of things out of the memory box and look at it again.
                                     ________________________________________

Most Americans unconsciously accept the notion that we're special, god-blessed, preeminent in the world; we are best representatives of human civilization. It's a High School Civics Class view of who we are: a narrative of endless natural resources and boundless personal opportunity, in a democratic Republic protected by two huge oceans and two pliable geographic neighbors.

Our country developed in response to the tyranny of the Old World -- where powerful cabals ran things and murder to advance their interests could be common; where royalty could imprison you, or take what little you had, on a whim. They owned you from birth, and when you died they would rent your children pennies to place on your eyes.

The New World, The United States Of America, was a place where that couldn't happen -- because here all are equal before The Law, and all have an equal shot at becoming rich as princes themselves.

You're agent Hoffman, yeah?... German extraction? ... My name's Donovan. Irish -- both sides, mother and father. So, I'm Irish, you're German -- but what makes us both Americans? Just one thing... the rule book. We call it the Constitution. We agree to the rules, and that's what makes us Americans; it's all that makes us Americans. So don't tell me there's no rule book -- and don't nod at me like that, you son of a bitch.
-- Tom Hanks, as James Donovan [speaking circ. 1960], Bridge Of Spies (2015)

It's tempting (particularly if you were there for it) to believe the early 1960's were a golden age. JFK's assassination was a tragedy -- but it's too simplistic to use his death as just a metaphor for everything that's gone wrong after. I happen to believe the metaphor (the most favored was Camelot; the death of Arthur and the end of a golden age) has a good deal of truth in it -- but his assassination means something more seminal for all of us than the death of a noble man. Context is everything.
                                     ________________________________________

The Cold War defined the post-WW2 age. The West had seen Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' descend, then the Berlin blockade; an ugly proxy war in Korea; the suppression of Hungary by Russian troops. Finally, Cuba's 1959 revolution was too close to home; the CIA (as led by John Foster Dulles) was already attempting to assassinate Castro, or remove him through a planned invasion by CIA-backed anti-communist Cubans at the Bay Of Pigs. 

Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's Vice-President, was a known quantity for the Pentagon and 'The Company'. It isn't much of a stretch to imagine they hoped for a Republican victory in 1960.  In their plans to defeat the Reds, JFK wasn't supposed to have become President.  Nixon would rubber-stamp whatever the CIA had developed.

But the 1960 election was the most closely contested presidential race in the 20th century: Kennedy beat Nixon in the popular vote by just 0.17% -- less than two tenths of one per cent. But he also beat Nixon in enough key precincts in key states to win more than 270 electoral votes. In that contest, it's the only math that matters.

However, there were hints of voter fraud which benefited Kennedy in some of those key precincts. Immediately after the election, influential Republicans tried convincing Nixon to demand a recount, but Tricky -- wounded, angry and self-pitying -- rejected the advice... luckily for America, and the world, as it turned out

JFK wasn't Nixon, but he agreed to the CIA-backed invasion of Cuba.  When it failed, within hours of it's start, the military begged Kennedy to commit American air, naval and ground troops to support the invasion force. Kennedy refused (an Admiral asked JFK about sending in Navy jets and was told, No. "Why not?" the admiral asked. JFK, amazed at the question, replied, Because they're American planes! The admiral paused, then asked, "Well, what if we paint out the [aircraft identification] numbers?"). Attacking Cuba would be a first strike without a declaration of war, Kennedy said, and America's declared policy was never to act 'like the Japanese at Pearl Harbor'. 

Kennedy believed that Dulles and his CIA had lied, and attempted to manipulate the country into war: the sheer arrogance of it nearly left him speechless. Eventually, Kennedy fired Dulles and the head of the CIA's Operations Directorate, Richard Bissell, and said he wished he could "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds"  

(This was a dangerous mistake. Kennedy believed he understood politics, and how tough things could get -- but in the end, people didn't kill each other. He assumed that the CIA, for all its power, was just another government bureaucracy. As President, he never appeared to understand that the agency might contain persons deluded and arrogant enough to have him killed -- if, in fact, that's how it went down.)

A year later, JFK was President when Soviet IRBMs were discovered in Cuba,  in part as a response to the Bay of Pigs. Only by careful backchannel diplomacy, by defying the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and luck, did Kennedy and his core advisors avoid a full-scale nuclear war.

We know now there were nearly 60,000 Soviet troops on the island, possessing tactical nuclear weapons under the control of local commanders. If Richard Nixon had been President in the fall of 1962, I doubt he would have resisted the advice of the Joint Chiefs to bomb the missile sites, followed by a full invasion of Cuba.  I doubt any of us would be alive to read this.
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In 1963, Kennedy was murdered, in public; later, so were MLK and RFK. I understand how it can feel true that the world has gone to hell in a plastic bag since, but the currents which created our present situation had been in motion long before that morning in Dallas.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West... There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
-- Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen; "Network" (1976), Written By Paddy Chayefsky

Commerce had been globalizing beforeWW2.  Intelligence agencies, once a backroom adjunct to diplomats and the military, became secret, unaccountable instruments of U.S. foreign policy (in the eight years of the Eisenhower administration, Dulles' CIA destabilized governments and arranged the murder of national leaders -- actions Americans had never done before).  Industrial processes and chemicals that affected our water, air, and food chain were used on an increasing scale with little or no oversight.

The Cold War paranoia of the McCarthy era was still in the air, and it lasted for decades. Even in the 1970's when applying for jobs, I had to sign a Loyalty Oath to the Constitution and the government, a requirement to swear you were not then and had never been a member of an organization advocating the violent overthrow of that government. Hoover's FBI keep track of anyone of interest.

And underneath it all, like an underground river moving in the dark, was our unacknowledged history of disenfranchisement, slavery, exploitation, prejudice, hypocrisy and inequality. The facts about what business and intelligence connections were doing wasn't common knowledge, but people sensed things in America were... not right, but in the social contract of 1960, you didn't acknowledge them. If you did bring them up, it was -- well, impolite: Don't make waves. Don't be disagreeable. You can't fight city hall. Don't spoil the party for others. And, You don't like it here, go to Moscow !
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I don't pretend to know who was responsible for killing JFK. I don't believe we will ever know. A Gallup poll taken in November, 2013, noted that eighty per cent of adults contacted replied that they believed Kennedy was killed as the result of a conspiracy.  Who ran that conspiracy -- the Mafia, the CIA; Lyndon Johnson; the Commies, or Space Aliens -- is less clear.

The common wisdom is that 'They' killed him. And Martin. And Bobby.  That whoever 'They' are, They're powerful enough to murder an American President, his brother, and a Baptist minister who was the spirit and conscience of Black America. Powerful enough to keep it a secret for 52 years.

Woody Allen's joke in the mid-1960's, that he was "still waiting for a non-fiction version of the Warren Report", made people laugh -- not because it was funny, but because it struck a nerve: the Report's conclusions were Official History and almost everyone sensed something was wrong with it.

After November 22, 1963, The Sixties that followed, everywhere, were partly driven by a shared understanding that we were living in a lie. The cognitive dissonance between the Official History of America, and that feeling we weren't being told the truth, ended up fueling a tremendous amount of social change.
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This is the real metaphor of JFK's assassination. His murder and the inquiry that followed was a lie told in public and made into Official History. His death was like some original sin, the truth of which would bring down empires if known. So other acts, more protective lies, grew around that original sin like scar tissue.

It almost doesn't matter any longer who killed him. What matters was that we were lied to in order to hide the guilt of those responsible. In America, murderers aren't supposed to be above the law -- but these are. By birth or wealth or influence, they're exempt from the kind of accountability and punishment an ordinary American would face. 

JFK's death is symbolic of that gulf between the narrative we tell ourselves about America, and the truth of where we've been.  The greater the difference between the two -- the further we are from the Freedom, Equality and Opportunity, from the Equal Justice Under The Law in our national story -- then the more we feel cheated, manipulated, lied to.  The more we feel like We, The People, aren't more than chattel for someone else's enrichment and amusement.

... That's where we are today. And, at least for me, that's what November 22nd represents.
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A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.
-- John F Kennedy; Amherst College Address: October 26, 1963

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Paris

Once Again, The City Of Lights

Once again, we sit and watch violence being done in the heart of France and one of the capitals of human culture.  Offer up a prayer, in whatever way you conceive of that to be, for the victims, their friends and families.

Some are going to say that the Russians have shown the way in dealing with the thing that is ISIS -- simply, we will have to kill them all. 

Others will say that after "Lil' Boots" Bush's imbecilic, unnecessary invasion of Iraq, western governments can't do as the Russians have done. We can't send troops -- no government in the Middle East wants our military (or France's, or the UK's) in their countries. America can't afford another military commitment economically, and neither the Right, Center or Left in the U.S. can afford it politically.  It's why, so far, we've only sent fighter-bombers to strike IS positions, and a limited number of special-forces soldiers.

Still others (like Little Rupert and his issue) will use yesterday's events to raise the overall climate of paranoia and fear ...in order to sell advertising time or space, and to support their pet, right-wing politicians (I swear before Almighty God: If Hitler were to reappear, Fox/News Corp would give him his own half-hour show).

The Middle East may be a snake pit of clan, tribal, national and religious loyalties; a tapestry woven out of blood feuds thousands of years old, into which outsiders step in at their peril (A Fool Lies Here / Who Tried To Hustle The East).

I don't know how it all will end.  I've been in situations where violence was the common denominator (or, simply, common).  Violence will be required to remove IS; that is their raison d'etre and they want to cause as much of it as they can. But if the way all the events in the region conclude is through violence and only violence, then we've learned nothing. We are facing global issues that demand we act interdependently, cooperatively, with compassion.  Violence will not help us, our friends and families, and strangers bound to us by a common humanity, to survive.

For any broader solution to be more than window-dressing before the next proxy war or excess of evil: the only way to end violence is simply to stop. Some will be amazed at how crazy or stupid I must be to offer up something so simplistic -- but I must be crazy, because it seems just that simple to me.

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