Thanksgiving 2018

Thanksgiving 2018


Thanksgiving is here. On this day, football games are abundant. Millions of people eat turkey, stuffing, macaroni and cheese, greens, cornbread, rolls, sweet potato pie, and other foods. Yet, we have to understand the origins of this day. First, it is essential to outline a history of it. For thousands of years, human beings have been a part of Thanksgiving or festival ceremonies. This is now new, and these events have transpired worldwide among a diversity of creeds. Back during the 1500's, Spanish explorers and French Huguenots had Thanksgiving celebrations before. The Thanksgiving that many Americans celebrate on this Thursday came from the 1600's. This history relates to the Native Americans, the Puritans, and the Pilgrims. This history refers to the paradox of eating foods and the ultimate genocide of the Native Americans. The Puritans and the Pilgrims are different people from the United Kingdom. Back during the 17th century, the UK was dominated by the power of the Monarchs who believed in the divine rights of kings (or that the king had the God-given right to govern the people in a total monarchy).

There are many differences between Puritans and Pilgrims. The Puritans were non-Separatists. They wanted to purify the Anglican Church without leaving it entirely. They included a larger group of English immigrants, and many of them were middle/ upper-class people. They came into America 10 years after the Pilgrims. The Puritans set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were strict and authoritarian people. Many of their famous leaders included John Winthrop, John Endicott, and Miles Standish.

The Pilgrims were Separatists. They sought initially began to purify the Church of England, but they had given up hope of reformation in the Anglican Church. So, the Pilgrims decided to completely separate from the Anglican Church and form their own churches. They were mostly working-class people numbering in about 100. Many of them were persecuted in England because of their religious beliefs. Therefore, some Pilgrims migrated into Holland or the Netherlands. The Dutch welcomed them, and they lived in Holland for over 10 years. They were on the Mayflower (in 1620 to go to America) and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They were more open-minded and gentle plus tolerant than the Puritans. Many of their leaders were William Bradford and William Brewster.

In the beginning, Native Americans lived in New England. Before the 17th century, the areas of Massachusetts and the rest of New England were inhabited by a diversity of mostly Algonquian language speaking indigenous tribes. These Native American tribes include the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuck, Mahican, and the Masschusett. They cultivated crops like squash and corn. They also funded and fished for food supplies. Wigwams were the lodges where they lived in their villages. They had long houses too. Tribes were led by men or women elders called sachems. From 1620 to 1630, early England Pilgrims started to live in New England. They formed their Plymouth Colony. European explorers visited the region previously, but they didn’t establish permanent settlements. These explorers were Englishman Bartholomew Gosnold, Frenchman Samuel de Champlain, and the Englishmen John Smith plus Henry Hudson. Native Americans experienced smallpox, measles, and influenza that killed 90% of the Native Americans in the region from 1617 to 1619. Before 1620, England was in many changes. It has been over a century after the Protestant Reformation.

Back then, the English Parliament wanted to limit the powers of the British monarchs (since the monarchs wanted absolutism and the Parliament disagreed with that agenda). After the Tudors era, debates over control in the British Crown continued. King James I in the early 1600’s ruled England. He was a Protestant leader who wanted a compromise between Catholic and Protestant forces. King James I also desired no extensive military involvement in wars in continental Europe. He survived the Jesuit-inspired Gunpowder plot of 1605. King James I believed in the authoritarian, illogical divine right of Kings doctrine. This doctrine stated that any King has supreme authority to rule over its people and even legitimate dissent against a King’s action is equivalent to disrespecting God. This doctrine is similar to the Catholic belief of the supreme earthly power of the Pope, which I don’t agree with obviously. Basilikon Doron promoted the capabilities of a king too. King James, I was disputed by the Pilgrims and the Puritans. The Pilgrims left England first. First, in 1607, the Archbishop of York named Tobias Matthew raided homes and imprisoned religious Separatists (or Pilgrims). The Pilgrims came into the Netherlands in Amsterdam and then in the city of Leiden in 1609. They did this for them to escape Anglican religious persecution.

The Pilgrim congregation in Leiden, Netherlands grew. Many of the children of the congregation adopted the Dutch language and customs. Many of them joined the Dutch army. William Brewster publicly criticized the English Crown and the Anglican Church. He faced death, and many Pilgrims experienced harsh treatment from King James I for rejecting England’s official church, so the Separatists escaped into America. Many Pilgrims didn’t believe in the Dutch’s liberalism and openness of the Dutch. They left in the Mayflower ship and the Speedwell. The Mayflower Compact was a document created by the Pilgrims which outlined their own form of government or community. It promoted self-governance, and it was profoundly religious. The Plymouth Colony was established in 1620, and it lasted until 1691. The Mayflower landed in Cape Cod on November 9, 1620. They went into Plymouth on December 21, 1620. They suffered a great winter. Many colonists suffered scurvy, lack of shelter, and other adverse conditions from being on a ship. Many people died. Myles Standish became a military leader. So, the Pilgrims came into Massachusetts to promote their theocratic religious system, and many of them were involved in the genocide of Native Americans.

By March 1621, the Pilgrims met a Native American named Samoset. There was a village called Patuxet. The supreme leader of the region was a Native American Wampanoag man named Massasoit. He was the sachem or chief. The colonists learned of Squanto from Patuxet too. Squanto had been to England, and he knew English. Massasoit and Squanto were apprehensive about the Pilgrims since many English sailors murdered several people of Massasoit’s tribe previously. The Pilgrims also stole corn stores in their landings of Provincetown. Squanto himself was kidnapped by Thomas Hunt in 1614 and spent time in Europe. He returned to New England in 19 acting as a guide to explorer Captain Robert Gorges.  Captain Hunt, an English slave trader, arrived at Patuxet. It was common practice for explorers to capture Native Americans, take them to Europe and sell them into slavery for 220 shillings apiece. That practice was described in a 1622 account of happenings entitled "A Declaration of the State of the Colony and Affairs in Virginia," written by Edward Waterhouse. True to the explorer tradition, Hunt kidnapped many Wampanoags to sell into slavery. William Fenton describes how Europeans decimated Native American villages in his 1957 work "American Indian and White relations to 1830." From 1615 to 1619 smallpox ran rampant among the Wampanoags and their neighbors to the north. The Wampanoag lost 70 percent of their population to the epidemic, and the Massachusetts lost 90 percent. The smallpox was intentionally passed to the Wampanoag, one of the earliest perpetrations of biological warfare. Massasoit and his men had massacred the crew of the ship and had taken in Squanto. William Bradford became governor in 1621 upon the death of John Carver. On March 22, 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags. The patent of Plymouth Colony was surrendered by Bradford to the freemen in 1640, minus a small reserve of three tracts of land. Bradford served for 11 consecutive years, and was elected to various other terms until his death in 1657.

Samoset returned to Plymouth on March 22 with a delegation from Massasoit that included Squanto; Massasoit joined them shortly after that. After an exchange of gifts, Massasoit and Governor Carver established a formal treaty of peace. This treaty ensured that each people would not bring harm to the other, that Massasoit would send his allies to make peaceful negotiations with Plymouth, and that they would come to each other's aid in a time of war. There has been a debate about the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving. Scholars believe that the harvest took place in November 1621. Yet, the Pilgrims called their first Thanksgiving feast at 1623.

After the departure of Massasoit and his men, Squanto remained in Plymouth to teach the Pilgrims how to survive in New England, for example using dead fish to fertilize the soil. For the first few years of colonial life, the fur trade (buying furs from Native Americans and selling to Europeans) was the dominant source of income beyond subsistence farming. When Governor Carver died, William Bradford was the new Governor of Plymouth. The Native Americans offered peace treaties with the Pilgrims. Things would change.

Massasoit, Squanto, and several other Wampanoags had been captured by Corbitant, sachem of the Narragansett tribe. A party of ten men, under the leadership of Myles Standish, set out to find and execute Corbitant. While hunting for Corbitant, they learned that Squanto had escaped and Massasoit was back in power. Several Native Americans had been injured by Standish and his men and were offered medical attention in Plymouth. Though they had failed to capture Corbitant, the show of force by Standish had garnered respect for the Pilgrims, and as a result of nine of the most potent sachems in the area, including Massasoit and Corbitant, signed a treaty in September that pledged their loyalty to King James.

Standish is a real scoundrel and murderer. This murderer Myles Standish organized a militia to get into the settlement of Wesagussett. He lured 2 military leaders into a house and Standish plus his men stabbed and killed two unsuspecting Native Americans. Word quickly spread among the Native American tribes of Standish's attack. Many Native Americans abandoned their villages and fled the area. As noted by Philbrick: "Standish's raid had irreparably damaged the human ecology of the region...It was some time before a new equilibrium came to the region." Myles Standish was the military leader of the Plymouth Colony.

Pilgrims traded in fur a lot. The power of the Massasoit led Wampanoag grew in the region. The Pilgrims also enslaved black people too. Many settlers blasphemed God by praising the death of Native Americans who had smallpox, which is sick.  In a letter to England, Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop wrote, "But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection." By 1630, the Plymouth colony had about 300 inhabitants.

By 1630, a new era began in New England. This was when there was a large scale Puritan migration which caused the forming of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Salem in 1629 and in Boston by 1630. This started the settlement of more New England colonies. The Massachusetts Bay Colony had clashes with the Anglican opponents in England over religious issues and the status of its charter. The Bay Colony had a royal charter. Most Pilgrims came from East Anglia and southwestern regions of England. From 20,000 migrants from 1628 to 1642 went into the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It became more potent than the Plymouth colony regarding economics, and it grew to have more people too. They formed a merchant class. Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams left the Bay Colony over their religious views. Hutchinson held meetings in her home discussing flaws in the Puritan beliefs. Additionally, Williams believed that the Puritan beliefs were wrong and that some of the Native Americans must be respected. Roger Williams promoted the separation of church and state. Roger was wrong to be involved in slavery. Williams would found the colony of Rhode Island in 1636 and Hutchinson joined him in the colony 2 years later. Others, such as John Wheelwright, objecting to the religious rule in Massachusetts Bay moved north, joined existing small settlements. He was involved in establishing new ones in present-day Maine and New Hampshire.

European colonialism continued. The first major war in America among the Pilgrims was the Pequot War of 1637. This was about the dispute over the control of the Connecticut River Valley near Hartford, Connecticut. Dutch fur traders and Plymouth officials wanted territories and land. The British sent an influx of settlers to the area. The English settlers threatened the Pequot Native Americans.

Other confederations in the area, including the Narragansett and Mohegan, who were the traditional enemies of the Pequot, sided with the English. The event that sparked the start of formal hostilities was the capture of a boat and the murder of its captain, John Oldham, in 1636, an incident blamed on allies of the Pequots. In April 1637, a raid on a Pequot village by John Endicott led to a retaliatory raid by Pequot warriors on the town of Wethersfield, Connecticut, where some 30 English settlers were killed. This led to further retaliation, where a raid conducted by Captain John Underhill and Captain Mason burned a Pequot village to the ground near modern Mystic, Connecticut, killing 300 Pequots. Plymouth Colony had some people who had little to do with the actual fighting in the war.

The 1637 Massacre in Mystic caused at least 700 Native Americans to be murdered by Europeans. Men, women, and children Native Americans were burned alive, and their buildings were destroyed. William Bradford or the Governor of Plymouth praised the massacre in sick terms by the following words: “…Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."

“This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots," read Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. This is real and these massacres against Native Americans are totally evil plus disgusting. Later, Pequots prisoners were executed. Pequot women and children were sold into slavery in the West Indies. The Pequot War killed most of the Pequot peoples.


King Philip’s War came about in the late 1600’s. By the end of the conflict, the Wampanoags and their Narragansett allies were almost completely destroyed.  King Philip was the nickname of Metacomet or the younger son of Massasoit and the heir to Massasoit's position as sachem of the Pokanoket and supreme leader of the Wampanoag. He became sachem upon the sudden death of his older brother Wamsutta, also known as Alexander, in 1662. King Philip’s War came because more English colonists came into New England and demanded more land. Native Americans were restricted in where they could live. King Philip didn’t like the loss of land of the Native Americans, and he wanted to stop it. The Wampanoag capital was in Mount Hope. The town of Swansea was just a few miles from the capital of Mount Hope.

The proximate cause of the conflict was the death of a praying Native American named John Sassamon in 1675. Sassamon had been an advisor and friend to King Philip; however Sassamon's conversion to Christianity had driven the two apart. Sassamon was murdered. Accused in the murder of Sassamon were some of Philip's most senior lieutenants. A jury of twelve Englishmen and six Praying Native Americans found the Native Americans guilty of murder and sentenced them to death. There is a debate on whether the men were guilty of killing Sassamon or not. King Philip prepared for war. He raided English farms and harmed property. The war continued with Native Americans using guerrilla warfare. The Plymouth leadership mistrusted all Native Americans. The English formed an alliance with the Sakonnet to fight King Philip and his forces.  After the Church was given permission to grant amnesty to any captured Native Americans who would agree to join the English side, his force grew immensely. Philip was killed by a Pocasset Native American, and the war soon ended as an overwhelming English victory. The Wampanoag chief Metacomet (or King Philip) was shot and killed by a Native American named John Alderman on August 12, 1676. Metacomet's corpse was beheaded, then drawn and quartered. His head was displayed in Plymouth for twenty years. His head was stuck on a pole in Plymouth, where the skull still hung on a display 24 years later. Metacom's young son was sent to the West Indies as a slave, along with numerous other Wampanoag and surrounding tribes.


The Following text was taken from Russel Means' autobiography entitled: "Where White Men Fear To Tread." Russel Means is a well know Native American social activist. It discusses the background to the first "Thanksgiving" on American shores:

"The Wampanoag now wanted to remind white America of what had happened after Massasoit's death. Massasoit was succeeded by his son, Metacomet, whom the colonists called "King" Philip. In 1675-1676, to show "gratitude" for what Massasoit's people had done for their fathers and grandfathers, the Pilgrims manufactured an incident as a pretext to justify disarming the Wampanoag.

"The whites went after the Wampanoag with guns, swords, cannons, and torches. Most, including Metacomet, were butchered. His wife and son were sold into slavery in the West Indies. His body was hideously drawn and quartered.

"For twenty-five years afterward, Metacomet's skull was displayed on a pike above the whites' village. The real legacy of the Pilgrim Fathers is treachery. Most Americans today believe that Thanksgiving celebrates a boar harvest, but that is not so.

"By 1970, the Wampanoag had turned up a copy of a Thanksgiving proclamation made by the governor of the colony, the text revealed the ugly truth:

'After a colonial militia had returned from murdering the men, women, and children of an Indian village, the governor proclaimed a holiday and feast to give thanks for the massacre. He encouraged other colonies to do likewise -- in other words, every autumn the crops are in, go kill Indians and celebrate your murders with a feast.'

"The Wampanoag we met at Plymouth came from everywhere in Massachusetts. Like many other eastern nations, theirs had been all but wiped out. The survivors found refuge in other Indian nations that had not succumbed to European diseases or to violence. The Wampanoag went into hiding or joined the Six Nations or found homes among the Delaware Shawnee nations, to name a few. Some also sought refuge in one of the two hundred eastern-seaboard nations that were later exterminated.

"Nothing remains of those nations but their names, and even some of those have been lost. Other Wampanoag, who couldn't reach another Indian nation, survived by intermarriage with black slaves or freedmen. It is hard to imagine a life terrible enough that people would choose instead, with all their progeny, to become slaves, but that is exactly what some Indians did..." (end of the book source).

The King Philip's war decreased the Native American population in New England massively. The Glorious Revolution of 1689 (which caused a limited monarchy in the UK after James II fled to France) represented the beginning of the end of the Plymouth Colony.  The last official meeting of the Court occurred on June 8, 1692. The legacy of American Thanksgiving is filled with bloodshed, conflict, and controversy. Afterwards, more Europeans colonists would come into America to enact genocide of Native Americans, slavery, and other evils. America, itself, was created on the blood of black people and Native Americans. Many of the leaders of the American Revolutionary War (both the American colonists and the British redcoats) owned slaves.

Also, scholarship like Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz's "Indigenous People's History of the United States" is ignored in academia and popular culture. The early English colonizers and capitalists wanted to go into America to promote the myth of white supremacy and to expand their resources. Today, many Native Americans suffer various forms of oppression like diseases, homelessness, dilapidated and vermin-infested housing, substance abuse, inadequate education, unemployment, and police brutality. So, we desire true liberation.

Now, we know the truth about Thanksgiving in North America. The truth is not about condemning every American for we realize that many Americans during the past had stood up for justice and numerous Americans fought for real human equality. In our time, many Americans are doing great things as well. The truth is about eliminating historical revisionism, so America's mistakes are not sugarcoated, and we inspire America's future to be brighter (plus better). We desire a world filled with true human equality plus real justice for all forevermore.

Fifty Five Years After the John F.. Kennedy Assassination

As we witness the fifty-fifth anniversary of the evil assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we witness even more information coming about that deals with his life plus legacy. For decades, JFK has been a very popular human being. He never lived beyond 50 years old, but his life existed with leadership, monumental events, and historical changes. He lived during the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and World War II. His family loved him and expressed solidarity with him. His wife, Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, propelled fashion and other aspects of culture in the White House including abroad. His brother, Robert Francis Kennedy, was his close ally and he was the Attorney General of America. Now, we witness a greater appreciation of his courage and his enthusiasm to advance idealism in the midst of a changing world. As the 35th President, he set out a course to promote the arts, commerce, space exploration, civil rights, and economic development in a myriad of speeches and policies. John Fitzgerald Kennedy also wanted environmental protection as Nature must be honored with continuous cultivation. Today, as we approach 2020, we are further inspired to intrepidly execute compassion, to believe in tolerance, and to accept the great responsibility to understand the advancement of human justice for all. That means that tax cuts for the super wealthy are not representative of democratic principles. Income inequality and stagnant wages are not right politics. A male in the White House condemning the independent judiciary is not righteous either. Investment, progressive taxation, and civil liberties must be advanced in order of America and the world to reach into higher heights of fairness and equality. This time is the fall of 2018, and we will always believe in the awe-inspiring principal of social justice.

JFK's Life


John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was born in wealth and privilege. His Kennedy family was very wealthy. His father was the businessman Joseph Kennedy, and his mother was Rose Fitzgerald. As a child and into his adolescence plus adulthood, John F. Kennedy experienced many health illnesses and diseases. During his youth, he traveled into many schools. JFK suffered taunts for being Irish, and kids challenged him in fights. Later, he enrolled in Harvard College. One of his famous pieces of literature was a book entitled, “Why England Slept.” The book criticized appeasement which was done by some British leaders.
Appeasement contributed to the rise of World War II. Joseph Kennedy supported Neville Chamberlain’s actions in the run-up to World War II. It is no secret that Joseph Kennedy made anti-Semitic remarks. During World War II, the Navy enlisted John F. Kennedy. He saved lives after the Japanese destroyer Amagiri rammed his PT 109 boat. He was praised and joined the House of Representatives. He visited Vietnam early in his career and criticized colonialism in his famous November 14, 1951 speech. John F. Kennedy came into the Senate and released his Profiles in Courage book in 1956. That book documented the courage of eight senators throughout American history. It sold 2 million copies during that time. He ran for President in 1960 and won after a hard campaign. He defeated Richard Nixon, praised the separation of church and state, and outlined his New Frontier vision for America. His 1961 inaugural address was one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.

In that speech, it was a combination of anti-Communist rhetoric and a call for public service in idealistic terms by him saying, “...ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” JFK had strengths and weakness. He was strong to resist the military generals who wanted an invasion of Cuba. Some accused him of not being more overt in fighting for civil rights legislation early in his Presidency out of political reasons (since Congress had tons of pro-segregationist politicians). John F. Kennedy believed in nuisance and wanted to have access to many perspectives as possible before making a final political decision. The irony with JFK was that he had a more contentious relationship with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at the beginning of his Presidency, and then later, their relationship improved (with the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, talks about détente, the creation of a nuclear hotline, and other policies that resisted war with the Soviets). Also, others pushed President John F. Kennedy on many issues. Dr. King, SNCC, and other civil rights leaders had many meetings with the Kennedy administration so that the administration would promote real civil rights legislation in Congress. He had fears about the March on Washington and then supported it. So, John F. Kennedy was not a perfect man, but he was a man who changed to be more progressive and open-minded by the end of his term. John F. Kennedy was a very intellectual, intelligent man. He would outline views with eloquence, examples, and other forms of inspiration. He passed away in a cruel, evil murder. We are indeed motivated to carry forward the vision of egalitarianism and justice.

JFK was a Liberal


John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a liberal. He said so himself in a speech. Many conservatives promote the lie that John F. Kennedy was a conservative. That isn’t the case at all. John F. Kennedy gave a speech to accept the New York Liberal Party Nomination in 1960. He said the following words, “…If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier". It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. He also promised an end to racial discrimination, although his agenda, which included the endorsement of the Voter Education Project (VEP) in 1962, produced little progress in areas such as Mississippi where the "VEP concluded that discrimination was so entrenched.” JFK supported affirmative action policies, promoted labor rights, believed in civil rights, advanced environmental protections, and believed in the investment of the arts. During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy proposed an overhaul of American immigration and naturalization laws to ban discrimination based on national origin. He saw this proposal as an extension of his planned civil rights agenda as president. These reforms later became law through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia. The policy change also shifted the emphasis in the selection of immigrants in favor of family reunification. The late president's brother, Senator Edward Kennedy helped steer the legislation through the Senate. Many conservatives lie and say that since JFK wanted tax cuts passed, then he was a conservative.

The truth is that the top marginal tax rate was at 91 percent which was created to pay for World War II. JFK acknowledged this and wanted it to go down. So, he wanted to lower the top rate to 65 percent, and that rate would go down to 70 percent under the Revenue Act of 1964. The current top income tax rate was 39.6 percent, which was more than 50 points lower than Kennedy’s time. Also, JFK lived during a time of less income inequality than today. Back then, the wealthiest 1 percent of households had less than 10 percent of the income share in 1962. Now, the 1 percent owns much more than 10 percent of the income and the super wealthy today pay less in taxes. Some rich folks pay no income taxes today. John F. Kennedy was a Keynesian, not a supply-side tax cutter. Kennedy believed that budget deficits can have a stimulative effect which is anathema to neoliberal views. JFK wanted tax cuts to stimulate demands and grow the economy from the bottom up. John F. Kennedy believed in both tax cuts and spending increases to stimulate the economy. He wanted to do tax cuts first and then increased spending later.

"First we'll have your tax cut," he told chief economic adviser, Walter Heller, 11 days before his assassination, "then we'll have my expenditures program." One of the greatest pieces of evidence that John F. Kennedy wasn’t a conservative was how he gave a speech at Madison Square Garden promoting universal health care for the elderly (which would be Medicare). That was on May 20, 1962, and conservatives back then, including Ronald Reagan, opposed him. The conservatives slandered JFK as promoting socialism or communism by JFK saying that the elderly deserve government health care. In that speech, he said the following words, “…And then I read that this bill will sap the individual self-reliance of Americans. I can't imagine anything worse, or anything better, to sap someone's self-reliance, than to be sick, alone, broke--or to have saved for a lifetime and put it out in a week, two weeks, a month, two months…” John F. Kennedy supported Social Security which is a government program. Therefore, John Fitzgerald Kennedy supported Social Security, health care insurance for the elderly, civil rights, environmental protections, labor rights, investments in welfare, educational development, ending the tax loopholes for oil companies, and a higher minimum wage. Therefore, he wasn’t a conservative. By his own words, President John F. Kennedy was a liberal.

November 22, 1963

By 1963, Diem was assassinated by his own military generals. The Civil Rights bill was in Congress. John F. Kennedy was in Dallas, Texas in his 1964 Presidential campaign already. He also wanted to travel into Dallas for another reason. He tried to mend fences between the liberals (who were Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough. They weren’t related to each other) and the conservative John Connally. Texas Governor John Connally was a lifelong friend of the Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was from Texas. Each man worked together in a meeting in El Paso, TX on June 5, 1963. JFK wanted to raise money for his reelection campaign by 1964. Kennedy was in a motorcade traveling in Dallas with cheering fans. People of many colors supported him in the travel route. He wanted to have a meeting luncheon at the Trade Mart where he would meet with civic and business leaders. Secret Service agents guarded him. On November 22, 1963, JFK just had a breakfast speech in Fort Worth. He came from San Antonio, Houston, and Washington, D.C. during the previous day. He boarded Air Force One by 11:10 am and arrived to Love Field 15 minutes later.  At about 11:40, the presidential motorcade left Love Field for the trip through Dallas, running on a schedule about 10 minutes longer than the planned 45, due to enthusiastic crowds estimated at 150,000–200,000 people, and two unplanned stops directed by the president. By the time the motorcade reached Dealey Plaza, they were only five minutes away from their planned destination.


JFK was in an open top 1961 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible limousine. It traveled into Dealey Plaza at 12:30 pm. CST. Nellie Connally, the First Lady of Texas, turned around to the President, who was sitting behind her, and commented, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," which President Kennedy acknowledged by saying "No, you certainly can't." Those were the last words ever spoken by John F. Kennedy. From Houston Street, the presidential limousine made the planned left turn onto Elm, providing it access to the Stemmons Freeway exit. As the vehicle turned onto Elm, the motorcade passed by the Texas School Book Depository. Suddenly, shots were fired at President Kennedy as his motorcade continued down Elm Street. About 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. Governor Connally was shot too. Secret Service agents ran to President Kennedy. The last shot blew the President’s head off. The limousine sped into Parkland Memorial Hospital where he passed away. Mrs. Kennedy was there throughout the ordeal. President John F. Kennedy died by the gunshot wound to his skill, and he was pronounced dead at 1:00 pm. CST. President Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One administered by federal judge Sarah T. Hughes.


Members of the President's security detail were attempting to remove Kennedy's body from the hospital when they briefly scuffled with Dallas officials, including Dallas County Coroner Earl Rose, who believed that he was legally obligated to perform an autopsy before the President's body was removed. The Secret Service pushed through, and Rose eventually stepped aside. The forensic panel of the HSCA, of which Rose was a member, later reported that Texas law indicated that it was the responsibility of the justice of the peace to determine the cause of death as well as the necessity of whether an autopsy was needed to determine the cause of death. Theran Ward, a justice of the peace in Dallas County, signed the official record of the inquest as well as the second certificate of death. John F. Kennedy’s autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. It started at 8 pm EST and ended about midnight EST. The choice of autopsy hospital in the Washington, D.C., area was made at the request of Mrs. Kennedy, on the basis that John F. Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II. His funeral came during the three days that occurred after the assassination. His body was placed in the East Room of the White House for 24 hours. His coffin was carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the United States Capitol to lie in state. Thousands of people came to see the guarded casket. Representatives from over 90 countries attended the state funeral on Monday, November 25, 1963. After the Requiem Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral, the President was laid to rest 2.7 miles from the White House at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The Warren Commission

The Warren Commission viewed Lee Harvey Oswald of murdering John F. Kennedy alone. It was created by Lyndon Johnson via the Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963. The final report had 888 pages. Jack Ruby also murdered Oswald two days later. The Commission’s findings are controversial since people debated the results since 1964 (when it was released) to this very day. Members of the Warren Commission were Earl Warren, Richard Russell, Jr. John Sherman Cooper, Hale Boggs, Gerald Ford, John J. McCloy, and Allen Dulles. Allen Dulles was fired by JFK, so it’s ironic that he would be a member of such a commission. Every member of the Commission had ties to the political establishment or had ties to the intelligence community. In recent years, we see a report from the CIA Chief Historian David Robarge. It was released to the public in 2014. According to this CIA report, CIA officers had been instructed to give only "passive, reactive, and selective" assistance to the commission, in order to keep the commission focused on "what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth' — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." The CIA was also covering up evidence that the CIA may have been in communication with Oswald before 1963, according to the CIA findings. Also withheld were earlier CIA plots, involving CIA links with the Mafia, to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro, which might have been considered to provide a motive to kill Kennedy.

The report concluded, "In the long term, the decision of John McCone and Agency leaders in 1964 not to disclose information about CIA's anti-Castro schemes might have done more to undermine the credibility of the commission than anything else that happened while it was conducting its investigation." If we know of these things for years, it shows that the CIA isn’t some benign organization. It has a known history of controversial actions. Four of the seven members of the commission, Boggs, Cooper, McCloy, and Russell, had serious doubts regarding the conclusions of the commission that the President and Governor Connally were both wounded by the "magic bullet" and regarding the view that Oswald had acted alone. Even President Johnson and Robert Kennedy (before they died) expressed some skepticism about the Warren Commission’s basic findings. Robert Kennedy asked McCone point blank if the CIA had killed his brother and McCone denied it.  It is no secret that LBJ and RFK didn’t like each other. RFK called LBJ and his wife, “Uncle Corn Pone and his little pork chop.” LBJ called RFK the “little runt.”


One of the most significant omissions of the Warren Commission was the truth that President John F. Kennedy didn’t agree with the CIA on everything. Miami CIA station chief Ted Shackley and CIA deputy director of operations Richard Helms wanted outright confrontation against Cubans and the Soviets that Kennedy rejected. Also, LBJ planned the existence of the Warren Commission with the known Kennedy hater J. Edgar Hoover. You have to have unbiased people to investigate such serious matters, especially when it comes to the assassination of an innocent President.

Alternative Views

Three other U.S. government investigations have agreed with the Warren Commission's conclusion that two shots struck JFK from the rear: the 1968 panel set by Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the 1975 Rockefeller Commission, and the 1978-79 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which reexamined the evidence with the help of the largest forensics panel. The HSCA involved Congressional hearings and ultimately concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, probably as the result of a conspiracy. The HSCA concluded that Oswald fired shots number one, two, and four and that an unknown assassin fired shot number three (but missed) from near the corner of a picket fence that was above and to President Kennedy's right front on the Dealey Plaza grassy knoll. However, this conclusion has also been criticized, especially for its reliance on disputed acoustic evidence. The HSCA Final Report in 1979 did agree with the Warren Report's conclusion in 1964 that two bullets caused all of President Kennedy's and Governor Connally's injuries, and that both bullets were fired by Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Also, many researchers accuse the CIA of assassinating JFK. Many of such scholars believe that the CIA’s Miami’s station called JM/WAVE had members so angry at Kennedy’s response during the Bay of Pigs invasion that some members of that group were involved in the assassination. JM/WAVE constantly worked to use covert operations against Cuba. William Harvey ran the program then Ted Shackley. Many people who worked under Shackley at JM/WAVE were David Morales, Felix Rodriguez, Rafael Quintero, George Efythron Joannides, David Atlee Philips, Carl E. Jenkins, Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, Thomas Clines, and other people. Many of these names come up to the Vietnam War, Watergate, drug trafficking accusations, and Iran Contra. Other people blame the Mafia, the far right wing factions, the Cubans, and other human beings of conspiring to murder JFK. Many of these scholars have worked for decades to promote these views. Polls show that a majority of American people believe that a conspiracy was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Courage

There is no question that President John F. Kennedy exhibited a lot of courage before and during his Presidency. He saved the lives of many soldiers during World War Two. He refused to support a U.S. military invasion of Cuba when even Eisenhower and numerous military general wanted such an invasion. Kennedy approved of the National Security Action Memorandum 55, 56, and 57. This stripped the CIA of its power for large-scale covert and overt paramilitary programs in places like Vietnam and Cuba. It gave the responsibility to eh Department of Defense with the CIA as a supporting role. Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods proposal that wanted false flag attacks in America to provoke an invasion of Communist Cuba. He rejected General Lyman Lemnitzer’s proposal. Lemnitzer joined the far right American Security Council. JFK supported the left wing Sukarno government of Indonesia and sent billions of dollars to its military and domestic services. The CIA supported the overthrow of Sukarno in 1965 along with the extermination of tons of suspected Communists. JFK planned to visit Sukarno in 1964.

John F. Kennedy supported Algerian independence against French imperialism. JFK supported the progressive United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjold. He also was an ally of Patrice Lumumba in opposition to the traitor Moishe Tshombe. The CIA supported Tshombe including the Belgian government. The CIA also backed Mobutu and Mobutu was part of the elite 1001 Club with its ties to Prince Bernhard, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, and Robert McNamara. JFK supported the leader Kwame Nkrumah of Kenya in support of nationalism (President John F. Kennedy also supported the independence of the nation of Guinea). In many of his speeches, John F. Kennedy wanted America to join with the countries of the Third World in a pro-nationalist, anti-colonialist mentality (in disagreement with the views of Acheson and Dulles).

Likewise, as an anti-communist, he didn’t want communism to spread in the world. Kennedy was friendly with Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt while Eisenhower including LBJ had a more hostile relationship with Nasser. LBJ supported the anti-French socialist Ben Bella in Algeria. JFK signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in October of 1963 while others like General Curtis LeMay opposed this action. JFK also wanted Israeli Prime Ministers David Ben Gurion and Levi Eshkol to not make Israel have nuclear weapons. We know now that Israel had nuclear weapons back then but Israeli leaders hid them from JFK’s eyes. In 1963, JFK sympathized with the Italian party of Partitio Socialista Italiano. This was a socialist party. Pietro Nenni or a PSI socialist was the vice prime minister under the moderate Christian Democrat Aldo Moros. JFK visited Italy in July of 1963.

CIA Director John McCone and even secretary of state Dean Rusk criticized Kennedy on this issues, but John F. Kennedy allied with Nenni. CIA station chief William Harvey and other CIA agents used Operation Gladio tactics in trying to end the communists and socialists in Italy even using overt terrorism. By June of 1963, President Kennedy was the first President to endorse federal civil rights legislation regarding a matter of morality. He not only spoke of supporting equality, but he called his proposal a moral issue. It was one of the most active calls for equality and justice made by an American President. John F. Kennedy spoke in his American University speech in 1963 about world peace and détente with the Soviet Union. We recognized the humanity of the Soviet Union in his speech while not ideologically agreeing with Stalin. His speech moved even Soviet Union Khrushchev. One of the greatest advisers to John F. Kennedy was the late, great John Kenneth Galbraith. He advised Roosevelt, Truman, and LBJ too. He rejected civilian bombing targets during World War II. He was a great economist. Galbraith was a great friend to President John F. Kennedy in writing some of his speeches and being a mentor to him. Galbraith was, of course, a follower of Keynes. This is why JFK’s Presidency saw a growth of the economy in GDP and a decline in unemployment. Galbraith (who wanted a neutral settlement to end the Vietnam War conflict) didn’t want American ground troops in Laos. Edmund Gullion, Nehru of India, and General Douglas MacArthur advised JFK not to send combat troops into Vietnam. Galbraith said that American military involvement in the Vietnam War with ground troops would harm domestic programs and split the Democratic Party apart. He was right. Therefore, John F. Kennedy expressed a great deal of human courage from standing up for human rights to desiring an end to the Cold War with his American University speech.

Legacy

For decades, we indeed discussed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He had great leadership qualities of embracing nuisance and standing up for truth especially when the time called for it. He not only spoke up for détente. He believed in strong federal civil rights legislation. Now, I don’t embrace the two extreme views of some about JFK. One extreme view is that JFK was just a Cold War capitalist who didn’t care about anything but profit. The other extreme view is that JFK was a far left revolutionary who desired far left policies to rule the world. The truth is that President John F. Kennedy was a mainline liberal who made many significant contributions to American society and he had imperfections (both inside White House and outside of it). Therefore, we have to look at the truth. A large part of the legacy of John F. Kennedy was his embrace and promotion of the arts. Throughout his Presidency, he gave speeches in favor of poetry, artistic expression, and intellectual development. In 1963, he gave a great speech about the role of the artist on October 26, 1963, in honor of his favorite poet Robert Frost. He gave his eloquent tribute at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Therefore, we always believe in leadership, justice, and the growth of the power of the human race so we can witness authentic progressive change in the world.



By Timothy