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top of the heap to third world status in one generation
- Thread starter Gry
- Start date
The “Freedom” Billionaires & the GOP are Selling Americans is Deadly
Which begs the question: What is freedom?
hartmannreport.com
On this day 59 years ago, a terminated and fired Allen Dulles did monitor the murder of JFK from the
agency facility known as the girls school.
For three months, beginning in November of 2018, Jim DiEugenio did one-hour-long interviews on Dave Emory’s syndicated radio show For the Record. Emory has been broadcasting for 40 years. These 25 programs constitute the longest continuous interview series he has ever done. The subject was a sustained inquiry into DiEugenio’s second edition of Destiny Betrayed. Emory was very impressed by the author’s use of the declassified record excavated by the Assassination Records Review Board and how it altered the database of Jim Garrison’s New Orleans inquiry into the assassination of President Kennedy. This series is also the longest set of interviews DiEugenio has ever done about the book. Emory read the book and took extensive notes, which made for an intelligent and informed discussion of what the present record is on the Garrison inquiry.
Recent /current Interviews with Jim DiEugenio and Dave Emory on “JFK Revisited”
1.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1262.mp3
2.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1263.mp3
3.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1264.mp3
4.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1265.mp3
5.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1266.mp3
6.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1267.mp3
7.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1268.mp3
8.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1269.mp3
9.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1270.mp3
10.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1271.mp3
11.)https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1272.mp3
agency facility known as the girls school.
For three months, beginning in November of 2018, Jim DiEugenio did one-hour-long interviews on Dave Emory’s syndicated radio show For the Record. Emory has been broadcasting for 40 years. These 25 programs constitute the longest continuous interview series he has ever done. The subject was a sustained inquiry into DiEugenio’s second edition of Destiny Betrayed. Emory was very impressed by the author’s use of the declassified record excavated by the Assassination Records Review Board and how it altered the database of Jim Garrison’s New Orleans inquiry into the assassination of President Kennedy. This series is also the longest set of interviews DiEugenio has ever done about the book. Emory read the book and took extensive notes, which made for an intelligent and informed discussion of what the present record is on the Garrison inquiry.
Recent /current Interviews with Jim DiEugenio and Dave Emory on “JFK Revisited”
1.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1262.mp3
2.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1263.mp3
3.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1264.mp3
4.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1265.mp3
5.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1266.mp3
6.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1267.mp3
7.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1268.mp3
8.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1269.mp3
9.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1270.mp3
10.) https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1271.mp3
11.)https://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/1200_1299/f-1272.mp3
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Outrageous Brainwashing Event—Sponsored By Bush Institute and CIA-Backed National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—Deliberately Falsifies History to Inflame American Hatred Against Russia and China
George W. Bush speaking with David J. Kramer, Director of the Bush Institute. [Source: dallasnews.com] Head of International Republican Institute Dan Twining ridiculously compares Putin-Xi meeting …
covertactionmagazine.com
Teachers' Union Leader Hits Back After Pompeo Calls Her the 'Most Dangerous Person in the World'
"Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America," said AFT president Randi Weingarten.
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Time to Call Mass Shooters - and Those Who Inspire Them - Terrorists
In America, hate is all too often triggered by politicians who then sanctimoniously offer “thoughts and prayers” when random (or stochastic) terrorists to do their evil work for them
A terrorist attacked Club Q in Colorado Springs Saturday night. Another terrorist attacked WalMart workers in Virginia yesterday. It’s happened over 800 times this year.
But nobody’s calling them terrorists, and that’s a problem for America.
We didn’t call the jihadis who blew up the Twin Towers “mentally ill,” “disgruntled,” or discuss their “troubled past.” We correctly called them terrorists because they used mass murder to try to “right a wrong” or achieve a political goal, which is the literal definition of terrorism.
Osama bin Laden was nowhere in the vicinity of 9/11 — we later learned he didn’t even know the details of the operation that he had inspired with his words and those who amplified his rhetoric until it happened — yet President Barack Obama tracked him down and killed him. Bin Laden wasn’t mentally ill, either: he was a terrorist.
Bin Laden was radicalized by mullahs in Saudi Arabia, and went off to Afghanistan to use terror to (successfully) drive out the occupying Russian “blasphemers.”
Here in America, media figures, politicians, and preachers — seeking fame, fortune, and power for themselves just like the Saudi mullahs — similarly radicalize angry or self-righteous men to commit acts of mass murder.
But when the men they’ve triggered practice their terrorism to frighten Black people, Jews, abortion providers, queer people, or even former employers into submission or invisibility — or to keep politicians in offices they lost — we call them “sick” or “troubled” or “mentally ill.”
The man who shot up Club Q in Colorado Springs has been called “deranged” in media headlines featuring his “troubled past.” He wasn’t deranged: he was a terrorist. So were the men who murdered Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue and Black people at a Buffalo supermarket.
All had the mental competence to identify their victims, acquire their weapons, and execute their crimes. They may not live or think exactly like you and me, they may have had tough childhoods, but they’re not mentally ill: they’re terrorists.
The Arizona citizens who so threatened the life of the Maricopa County Supervisor, Republican Bill Gates, that he and his family went into hiding aren’t mentally ill. They’re malinformed — lied to — largely by a hierarchy of Republicans from former President Trump down to county officials, and worked into a rage by those lies broadcast across social media, podcasts, and the radio, but they’re not mentally ill: they’re terrorists.
— Members of the Klan, who murdered thousands of Americans over the decades and continue to advocate white supremacy today aren’t mentally ill: they’re terrorists.
— So-called militia members who go looking for street brawls and tried to murder Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi aren’t mentally ill: they’re terrorists.
— Politicians who engage in dog-whistle politics using antisemitic innuendo and darkening the faces of their Black opponents in TV ads aren’t mentally ill: they’re trying to inspire terrorists.
There are a few mass shooters who are clinically delusional, genuinely mentally ill, but they’re few and far between. And even they are similarly vulnerable to radicalization by preachers, politicians, and media figures who are hustling hate for their own selfish purposes.
A 2018 FBI study, looking in detail at the lives and backgrounds of 63 mass shooters from 2000 to 2013, found that, at most, about a quarter had a mental illness “of any kind” — which included things like depression and anxiety disorders — but only three out of the 63 had an actual psychotic disorder, what we usually think of when we attribute mental illness to a horrific act.
Mentally ill people, in fact, are more likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. By calling terrorists “mentally ill” or “troubled” we’re doing a terrible disservice to those tortured souls who actually suffer from mental illness.
That homeless guy with the wild hair who screamed incoherent obscenities at Louise as he chased her down a Portland street was genuinely mentally ill. Sixty out of 63 mass shooters the FBI looked at were not: they’re simply terrorists.
They hate Jews and Muslims, they hate Blacks, they hate queer people, they hate teachers, librarians, and election workers. But hate is not a mental illness: it’s a normal part of the spectrum of human emotion that we are all capable of experiencing.
And, in America today, that hate is all too often triggered by politicians and media figures who then sanctimoniously offer “thoughts and prayers” when random (or stochastic) terrorists to do their evil work for them.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC
.@laurenboebert you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws. You don’t get to “thoughts and prayers” your way out of this. Look inward and change.
Lauren Boebert @laurenboebert
The news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful. This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers. This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.
7:05 PM ∙ Nov 20, 2022
273,477Likes47,360Retweets
The shooters — and the politicians and the media figures who incite them — are America’s real terrorists: only rarely are any of them actually mentally ill or driven by their own “troubled pasts.”
America has a terrorism problem, and if we don’t face it soon it will destroy our nation.
While our mental illness problems are a very real crisis for our society, particularly since Reagan defunded so many of our federal programs to help the mentally ill, that’s not what’s causing mass shootings. They’re caused, pure and simple, by all-American inciters of terrorism and then carried out by all-American terrorists.
— Some wear fancy business suits and make billions funding massive media operations that spread hate and fear.
— Some hold political office, claim patriotism as their motivation, and say they’re just “protecting the children.”
— Some run or work at social media operations and websites that use algorithms that amplify hateful messages just to increase profits from “engagement.”
All are accomplices to terrorism, just like bin Laden was when he inspired 9/11 but didn’t fly a single plane.
Six months ago psychologists Seth D. Norrholm, PhD (also a professor of psychiatry), Alan D. Blotcky, PhD published an analysis of multiple mass shooting incidents and the people behind them. Their article was appropriately titled “Most Mass Shooters are Terrorists, Not Mentally Ill.”
Opening their article with a quote from Greg Abbott claiming after the Uvalde shooting that, “Anybody who shoots someone else has a mental health challenge,” they came right out and called BS on these pathetic excuses offered by politicians who are, themselves, inciting terrorism.
They note how many of the mass shooting crimes in America are motivated by racism, writing:
Mark Follman, author of the book Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America and National Affairs Editor for Mother Jones, came to a similar conclusion after years of research on the topic.
In an article for The Los Angeles Times, he notes:
That isn’t mental illness: it’s terrorism.
Experts across the spectrum — from those who study mental illness, crime, and gun violence — all largely agree: our crisis of mass shootings isn’t the result of mental illness. It’s fueled by hate and grievance and is most appropriately called one thing and one thing only: terrorism.
Only our media and politicians insist on calling terrorism what it isn’t, as if using the word will burn them when they type it or call it out.
And, sadly, the genuinely mentally ill in America are such a tortured and fractured community that they lack the infrastructure and coordination necessary to respond to these slurs by media and politicians against them.
So it continues. Media and politicians blame mental illness for terrorism that they, themselves, often inspire and amplify.
January 6th was an act of terrorism, killing eight people including three police officers. The plan to kidnap and murder Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was an act of terrorism. The shooting at Club Q was an act of terrorism, as are the vast majority of the over-800 mass shootings America has experienced in the past year.
It may be terrorism with big goals like getting a president elected or changing policy and laws.
It may be terrorism with smaller goals directed at a former boss or lover who fails to “respect” their male-privilege grievance, often ending in suicide or death-by-cop.
Or it’s terrorism targeting people because of their race, religion, or because of who they love.
But it’s all very simply one thing and one thing only: terrorism.
You can’t cure a problem that you refuse to identify. And if we truly want terrorism in America to stop, we damn well better start calling it what it is.
Thom Hartmann.com
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Army vet, Navy officer stopped gunman at Colorado gay club
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — When army veteran Rich Fierro realized a gunman was spraying bullets inside the club where he had gathered with friends and family, instincts from his military training immediately kicked in.
First he ducked to avoid any potential incoming fire, then he moved to try to disarm the shooter.
“It’s the reflex. Go! Go to the fire. Stop the action. Stop the activity. Don’t let no one get hurt. I tried to bring everybody back,” he said Monday outside his home in Colorado Springs, where an American flag hung from the porch.
Fierro is one of two people police are crediting with saving lives by subduing a 22-year-old man armed with multiple firearms, including an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, who went on a shooting rampage Saturday night at Club Q, a well-known gathering place for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs. Five people were killed and at least 17 wounded.
Fierro was there with his daughter Kassy, her boyfriend and several other friends to see a drag show and celebrate a birthday. He said it was one of the group’s most enjoyable nights. That suddenly changed when the shots rang out and Kassy’s boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance, was fatally shot.
Speaking to reporters at his home Monday, Fierro teared up as he recalled Raymond smiling and dancing before the shooting started.
Fierro could smell the cordite from the ammunition, saw the flashes and dove, pushing his friend down before falling backwards.
Looking up from the floor, Fierro saw the shooter’s body armor and the crowd that had fled to the club’s patio. Moving toward the attacker, Fierro grasped the body armor, yanked the shooter down while yelling at another patron, Thomas James, to move the rifle out of reach.
James is a U.S. Navy information systems technician stationed at the Defense Intelligence Agency base in Colorado Springs, according to a biography released by the Navy. The Navy statement Tuesday said James is in stable condition, without elaborating on the nature of his wounds.
As the shooter was pinned under a barrage of punches from Fierro and kicks to the head from James, he tried to reach for his pistol. Fierro grabbed it and used it as a bludgeon.
“I tried to finish him,” he said.
When a clubgoer ran by in heels, Fierro told her to kick the gunman. She stuffed her high-heeled shoe in the attacker’s face, Fierro said. Del Lusional, a drag queen who performed at Club Q on Saturday night, said on Twitter that the patron who intervened with her heel was a transgender woman.
“I love them,” Fierro said of the city’s LGBTQ community. “I have nothing but love.”
Fierro served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan as a field artillery officer and left the Army as a major in 2013, an army spokesperson said.
He noted he had dealt with violence. That’s what he signed up for. “Nobody in that club asked to do this,” he said, but everyone “is going to have to live with it now.”
Fierro and James pinned the shooter down until officers arrived minutes later. Fierro was briefly handcuffed and sat in a police car as law enforcement tried to calm the chaos.
“I have never encountered a person who had engaged in such heroic actions who was so humble about it,” Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said of Fierro on Monday. “He simply said to me, ‘I was trying to protect my family.’”
The suspect, who was said to be carrying multiple guns and additional ammunition magazines, faces murder and hate crime charges.
Fierro’s wife, Jess, said via Facebook that her husband had bruised his right side and injured his hands, knees and ankle. “He was covered in blood,” she wrote on the page of their brewery, Atrevida Beer Co.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that President Joe Biden had spoken with the Fierros. “He offered his condolences to them and also his support and talked through what it’s like to grieve,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that Biden thanked Fierro for his instinct to act and save lives.
Though his actions saved lives, Fierro said the deaths — including his daughter’s boyfriend, Vance — were a tragedy both personal and for the broader community. The self-described “dude from San Diego” who said he was from a family of immigrants rebuffed the idea that he was a hero and asked to keep focus on those whose lives were lost.
“There are five people that I could not help. And one of which was family to me,” he said, as his brother put a consoling hand on his shoulder.
Fierro said he doesn’t remember if the gunman responded as he yelled and struggled to subdue him, but he has thought about their next interaction.
“I’m gonna see that guy in court,” Fierro said. “And that guy’s gonna see who did him.”
___
Metz reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle in Dallas, Randy Herschaft in New York City and Josh Boak in Washington contributed.
___
This story has been updated to correct that a clubgoer, not a performer, helped Fierro subdue the gunman.
By JESSE BEDAYN and SAM METZyesterday
Army vet, Navy officer stopped gunman at Colorado gay club
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — When army veteran Rich Fierro realized a gunman was spraying bullets inside the club where he had gathered with friends and family, instincts from his military training immediately kicked in.
apnews.com
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An Arizona election official went into hiding over threats as Trump-backed Kari Lake refuses to concede
The Republican Maricopa County election official has stood by the results as Kari Lake and others point to long lines and issues with ballot printers.
www.businessinsider.com
April 07, 1931
CHILDREN ARE our most precious possession. The Children's Charter was written by 3,500 experienced men and women, after many months of study. It condenses into few words the fullest knowledge and the best plans for making every child healthier, safer, wiser, better and happier. These plans must be constantly translated into action. Fathers and mothers, doctors and teachers, the churches and the lay organizations, the officers of government in the states and counties and towns, all have one common obligation--to advance these plans of better life for the children. I urge upon you an even larger interest in it.
HERBERT HOOVER
Note: The message was printed in a brochure of the Children's Charter, distributed by the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. A text of the Charter follows
THE CHILDREN'S CHARTER
PRESIDENT HOOVER'S WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON CHILD HEALTH AND PROTECTION RECOGNIZING THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD AS THE FIRST RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP PLEDGES ITSELF TO THESE AIMS FOR THE CHILDREN OF AMERICA
FOR every child spiritual and moral training to help him to stand firm under the pressure of life
II For every child understanding and the guarding of his personality as his most precious right
III For every child a home and that love and security which a home provides; and for that child who must receive foster care, the nearest substitute for his own home
IV For every child full preparation for his birth, his mother receiving prenatal, natal, and postnatal care; and the establishment of such protective measures as will make child-bearing safer
V For every child health protection from birth through adolescence, including: periodical health examinations and, where needed, care of specialists and hospital treatment; regular dental examination and care of the teeth; protective and preventive measures against communicable diseases; the insuring of pure food, pure milk, and pure water
VI For every child from birth through adolescence, promotion of health, including health instruction and a health program, wholesome physical and mental recreation, with teachers and leaders adequately trained
VII For every child a dwelling place safe, sanitary, and wholesome, with reasonable provisions for privacy, free from conditions which tend to thwart his development; and a home environment harmonious and enriching
VIII For every child a school which is safe from hazards, sanitary, properly equipped, lighted, and ventilated. For younger children nursery schools and kindergartens to supplement home care
IX For every child a community which recognizes and plans for his needs, protects him against physical dangers, moral hazards, and disease; provides him with safe and wholesome places for play and recreation; and makes provision for his cultural and social needs
X For every child an education which, through the discovery and development of his individual abilities, prepares him for life; and through training and vocational guidance prepares him for a living which will yield him the maximum of satisfaction
XI For every child such teaching and training as will prepare him for successful parenthood, homemaking, and the rights of citizenship; and, for parents, supplementary training to fit them to deal wisely with the problems of parenthood
XII For every child education for safety and protection against accidents to which modern conditions subject him--those to which he is directly exposed and those which, through loss or maiming of his parents, affect him indirectly
XIII For every child who is blind, deaf, crippled, or otherwise physically handicapped, and for the child who is mentally handicapped, such measures as will early discover and diagnose his handicap, provide care and treatment, and so train him that he may become an asset to society rather than a liability. Expenses of these services should be borne publicly where they cannot be privately met
XIV For every child who is in conflict with society the right to be dealt with intelligently as society's charge, not society's outcast; with the home, the school, the church, the court and the institution when needed, shaped to return him whenever possible to the normal stream of life
XV For every child the right to grow up in a family with an adequate standard of living and the security of a stable income as the surest safeguard against social handicaps
XVI For every child protection against labor that stunts growth, either physical or mental, that limits education, that deprives children of the right of comradeship, of play, and of joy
XVII For every rural child as satisfactory schooling and health services as for the city child, and an extension to rural families of social, recreational, and cultural facilities
XVIII To supplement the home and the school in the training of youth, and to return to them those interests of which modern life tends to cheat children, every stimulation and encouragement should be given to the extension and development of the voluntary youth organizations
XIX To make everywhere available these minimum protections of the health and welfare of children, there should be a district, county, or community organization for health, education, and welfare, with full-time officials, coordinating with a state-wide program which will be responsive to a nation-wide service of general information, statistics, and scientific research. This should include:
(a) Trained, full-time public health officials, with public health nurses, sanitary inspection, and laboratory workers
(b) Available hospital beds
(c) Full-time public welfare service for the relief, aid, and guidance of children in special need due to poverty, misfortune, or behavior difficulties, and for the protection of children from abuse, neglect, exploitation, or moral hazard
For EVERY child these rights, regardless of race, or color, or situation, wherever he may live under the protection of the American flag
www.presidency.ucsb.edu
CHILDREN ARE our most precious possession. The Children's Charter was written by 3,500 experienced men and women, after many months of study. It condenses into few words the fullest knowledge and the best plans for making every child healthier, safer, wiser, better and happier. These plans must be constantly translated into action. Fathers and mothers, doctors and teachers, the churches and the lay organizations, the officers of government in the states and counties and towns, all have one common obligation--to advance these plans of better life for the children. I urge upon you an even larger interest in it.
HERBERT HOOVER
Note: The message was printed in a brochure of the Children's Charter, distributed by the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. A text of the Charter follows
THE CHILDREN'S CHARTER
PRESIDENT HOOVER'S WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON CHILD HEALTH AND PROTECTION RECOGNIZING THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD AS THE FIRST RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP PLEDGES ITSELF TO THESE AIMS FOR THE CHILDREN OF AMERICA
FOR every child spiritual and moral training to help him to stand firm under the pressure of life
II For every child understanding and the guarding of his personality as his most precious right
III For every child a home and that love and security which a home provides; and for that child who must receive foster care, the nearest substitute for his own home
IV For every child full preparation for his birth, his mother receiving prenatal, natal, and postnatal care; and the establishment of such protective measures as will make child-bearing safer
V For every child health protection from birth through adolescence, including: periodical health examinations and, where needed, care of specialists and hospital treatment; regular dental examination and care of the teeth; protective and preventive measures against communicable diseases; the insuring of pure food, pure milk, and pure water
VI For every child from birth through adolescence, promotion of health, including health instruction and a health program, wholesome physical and mental recreation, with teachers and leaders adequately trained
VII For every child a dwelling place safe, sanitary, and wholesome, with reasonable provisions for privacy, free from conditions which tend to thwart his development; and a home environment harmonious and enriching
VIII For every child a school which is safe from hazards, sanitary, properly equipped, lighted, and ventilated. For younger children nursery schools and kindergartens to supplement home care
IX For every child a community which recognizes and plans for his needs, protects him against physical dangers, moral hazards, and disease; provides him with safe and wholesome places for play and recreation; and makes provision for his cultural and social needs
X For every child an education which, through the discovery and development of his individual abilities, prepares him for life; and through training and vocational guidance prepares him for a living which will yield him the maximum of satisfaction
XI For every child such teaching and training as will prepare him for successful parenthood, homemaking, and the rights of citizenship; and, for parents, supplementary training to fit them to deal wisely with the problems of parenthood
XII For every child education for safety and protection against accidents to which modern conditions subject him--those to which he is directly exposed and those which, through loss or maiming of his parents, affect him indirectly
XIII For every child who is blind, deaf, crippled, or otherwise physically handicapped, and for the child who is mentally handicapped, such measures as will early discover and diagnose his handicap, provide care and treatment, and so train him that he may become an asset to society rather than a liability. Expenses of these services should be borne publicly where they cannot be privately met
XIV For every child who is in conflict with society the right to be dealt with intelligently as society's charge, not society's outcast; with the home, the school, the church, the court and the institution when needed, shaped to return him whenever possible to the normal stream of life
XV For every child the right to grow up in a family with an adequate standard of living and the security of a stable income as the surest safeguard against social handicaps
XVI For every child protection against labor that stunts growth, either physical or mental, that limits education, that deprives children of the right of comradeship, of play, and of joy
XVII For every rural child as satisfactory schooling and health services as for the city child, and an extension to rural families of social, recreational, and cultural facilities
XVIII To supplement the home and the school in the training of youth, and to return to them those interests of which modern life tends to cheat children, every stimulation and encouragement should be given to the extension and development of the voluntary youth organizations
XIX To make everywhere available these minimum protections of the health and welfare of children, there should be a district, county, or community organization for health, education, and welfare, with full-time officials, coordinating with a state-wide program which will be responsive to a nation-wide service of general information, statistics, and scientific research. This should include:
(a) Trained, full-time public health officials, with public health nurses, sanitary inspection, and laboratory workers
(b) Available hospital beds
(c) Full-time public welfare service for the relief, aid, and guidance of children in special need due to poverty, misfortune, or behavior difficulties, and for the protection of children from abuse, neglect, exploitation, or moral hazard
For EVERY child these rights, regardless of race, or color, or situation, wherever he may live under the protection of the American flag
Message Endorsing the Children's Charter. | The American Presidency Project
www.presidency.ucsb.edu
I remember November 22, 1963 as though it happened yesterday.
I was eleven years old. I don’t remember who came into our classroom at Houston’s Mark Twain Elementary School and told us the president had been shot, but I remember my teacher turned away from the class and started to cry. I took it on myself to run out of the room, open the doors in several other classrooms and announce the news. I have no idea why I thought I should do that. I just did.
Violence has become so normalized in America that nothing like that could happen now and create the kind of shockwaves it did then. JFK’s murder was inconceivable, like a gut punch to the entire country. It was like 9/11 in many ways - a horror and a tragedy - but in significant ways it was also different. With both events we lost the world as we had known it, but with JFK’s death it felt like we had lost a part of ourselves. With Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated five years later, America would never be the same. Those men held aloft the dreams of a generation, and it felt when they died that our dreams had died too.
I was only 11 years old when Kennedy was killed; the exact age both in years and months that my daughter was on 9/11. Both Kennedys were in their early 40s when they died, and Dr. King was 39. The boomers get a lot of understandable flack for the irresponsible way we’ve wielded power over the last fifty years, but there is no way to overestimate the trauma, the collective PTSD, of having our leaders literally shot and killed in front of our eyes.
A loud unspoken message came with those murders: we were to leave the public sector alone. We could do whatever we wanted in the private sector, but we were to leave the public sector to whomever wanted to control it so badly that they were willing to kill in order to do so. And in case the message hadn’t quite hit home, college students at Kent State University were shot protesting the war. By then the message was clear: “Do as you’re told, or we might kill you too.” The bullets that struck the Kennedys, King, and the students at Kent State psychically struck us all.
An entire generation grew up without the guidance of the elder brothers that King and the Kennedys were to us, and it shows in what has been in many ways our stunted development. It’s not an accident that to this very day, we still don’t know the deeper truths behind who killed any of them. But we suspect. And the suspicion itself has scorched our souls.
With the anniversary of most people’s deaths, with each passing year it’s a bit easier to accept. But with the Kennedys and King it somehow gets worse every year. November 22 isn’t just a day of remembrance, or simply a day of grief over something that happened almost six decades ago. It’s a day of grief over what’s been happening ever since. Everything we feared would happen when they died has happened.
But it also occurred to me a few years ago that if the Kennedys and King had lived, by now they would be very old men. They would have passed the baton and they would deserve a rest. It would be time for us to say, “Thank you for what you showed us. Now we’ll take it from here.” Neither they nor we were allowed that transition, and one can only imagine what the world would be now had fate not been what it was. But every generation has its pain and its glory, its challenges and its wisdom. Ours has been what ours has been.
As the boomers age, we can look back and understand our story more deeply than we could understand it while it was happening. I’ve heard it said that in youth you learn and in age you understand. We were frozen in a collective state of subconscious fear, told that our safety lay in being good capitalists, feeding the machine instead of raging against it; in Dr. King’s words, being “silent about things that matter most.” As my father would say, we let the bastards get to us. In the final analysis, a most rambunctious generation simply did as we were told.
But while our generational destiny was waylaid, perhaps it is not yet lost. I see it in the eyes of my peers. For something happens to your soul when you begin to glimpse twilight; you’d like to get it right before you die. For many, the thought that we could die knowing that we failed to do what in our hearts we know we were born to do, is actually scarier than the thought that they might kill us if we do.
There is an intergenerational revolutionary spirit rising up in America today, with many who are young and many who are old now resonating like a perfect third. We are notes that somehow know one another. The younger you are the more you know certain things, and the older you are the more you know other things. The young know more about what’s happening now. An older generation is the keeper of our stories, and stories should be passed on like torches that light the way. November 22, 1963, is a very, very sad story with very great meaning. It is a story that should always be told.
After the death of the president, Bobby Kennedy said he was moved by these words of the ancient Greek philosopher Aeschylus:
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
This will always be a day of sadness for those whose lives were touched by the enormity of the Kennedy assassination. A terrible pain was visited on the country that day, a pain that in many ways has never ended but has taken different forms as the years have gone by. The pain of every generation since has been a legacy of the tears we cried that day. But as we have suffered, perhaps we have also grown. In our despair, even against our will, may there come wisdom by the awful grace of God.
Marianne Williamson
My favorite series of classes classes are done by Daniel P Sheehan.
https://danielpsheehan.com/
Can not speak highly enough of the man.
His perspective has been a source of comfort.
https://danielpsheehan.com/
Can not speak highly enough of the man.
His perspective has been a source of comfort.
