Dirty Job’s host Mike Rowe meet one young man in his 20s making a hundred dollars an hour being a mechanic.  This is an interesting take on the College question.

Overall smoking is likely a negative health decision but the demonetization of smoking by the press and the government is overblown.  Popular hatred of smoking is culturally chic but it does most is not based on sound science.  This article goes into how there are actually a number of benefits to smoking.  Though it is unlikely that most people will consider the costs to out weigh the benefits it is worth noting number of interesting findings.

Smoking have

 50% lower rate of Parkinson’s disease

50% lower rate Alzheimer’s disease

50% lower rate of Endometrial cancer

50% Lower rate of Prostate Cancer

30% to 50% Lower rate of Colon Cancer

Tobacco can also help in famine situations by reducing the feelings of hunger.  This is a large reason why the founding settlers in American used tobacco in the first place.

I went to Dallas last week in a personal tribute to the place where President Kennedy was killed.  A couple months ago I did not know a whole lot about JFK during his time in office or about his assassination.  This fall with the 50th anniversary approaching I started to familiarize myself with the most recent books that have been written about the JFK assassination recommended by the libertarian community.  These include JFK and the Unspeakable,  Bush: Family of Secrets, Dr. Mary’s Monkey, and Mary’s Mosaic. I was shocked to find so much information about the Kennedy assassination and the overwhelming evidence that there is far more to the story than what the official government version puts forth.

I don’t intend to convince anyone in this article that there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.  There are mountains of research pointing to conspiracy and more information comes out every year through Freedom of Information Act requests.  A small article like this is unlikely to convince anyone either way.  The books I mentioned previously are good start if you want some well researched reading material.  I want to focus on the the general narrative, the story of what happened on November 22, 1963, the coverup, and what it means for us today.

The killing of President Kennedy was a highly risky task.  It took months of planning and the subversion of some of America’s most trusted institutions.  When I visited Daley Plaza it was obvious that the killers could not have chosen a better spot to assassinate the President.  Such places seem large when you read about them and imagine them in you mind but when I arrived in Daley Plaza I was surprised how small it really was. No security detail would ever send  VIP in such a dangerous area.  To get into Daley Plaza the motorcade would have had to make a sharp 90 degree turn which would have brought it to a almost complete stop.  It was against secret service policy to never drop the motorcade’s speed below 45 MPH.  The first of many violations of the SOP so conveniently happened that day.  Other violations included open windows along the presidential route.  This not only violated the Secret Service SOP but any person thinking about the basics of security would have found this extremely odd.  The Secret Service on any other day would have placed themselves along the route hours ahead of time.  They would have made sure every window was closed along the route.  Each building would have snipers on the roof to look out for any open windows. Each building along the route would also have teams of secret service inside.  Any window that was opened would have been radioed in by the snipers.  The snipers would radio to the teams within the building who would rush to the room where the window was open.  This is pretty basic procedure but it was completely ignored that day.  Additionally, Secret Service agents were always placed on the rear bumper of the President’s car but that day they were ordered off.  Dallas Police Motorcycles were supposed to be placed beside the President’s car but this was not done either. The Secret Service was in charge of directing the Dallas police that day but they chose not to place any officers along the motorcade.  The Secret Service claimed that they had no officers Daley plaza but a police officer claimed to have been confronted by a man with Secret Service credentials as he ran over the crest of the grassy knoll in response to the shots.  Investigators would later claim that this man with Secret Service credentials was one of the assassins.  The Warren Commission would later ignore this police officer’s claim.  It is obvious that the perpetrators of the assassination had the ability to subvert the Secret Service but what is more disturbing is the coverup that came after.

The coverup of the JFK assassination was a much larger challenge.  It is a story that is as fascinating as it is disturbing.  How could so many institutions become subverted?  How could so many people be brought into the coverup.  Just thinking about what it would take to pull a cover up like this off boggles the mind. The video below documents how a conspiracy was perpetrated against the American people.

Looking back at what happened in November 1963 I no longer find it strange that such crime was pulled off.  Obviously this is shocking and even depressing to realize that the American power structure could be subverted in open day light right in front of the American people.  Upon more thinking, what better way to dispose of a President that was inconvenient?  Any assassination behind closed doors would have caused intimidate suspicion and likely popular revolt.  There had to be a fall guy.  In no way could JFK’s assassination appear like a coup.  Once the assassins were successful all effort had to exerted to ensure that the American people believed the lone gunman story.  This would require American Intelligence agencies to subvert other members of government and likely members of the media.  It is my opinion that most of the people used to perpetrate the coverup did not really know what happened either.  The members of the Warren Commission were likely told that Oswald was soviet agent, and that this revelation to the American people would cause world war.  Upon reading further documentation it might also be true that intelligence agencies told the Warren Commission that CIA agents did kill the president but that they were rouge agents and could not be controlled.  In this situation the CIA would tell the Warren Commission members the critical need to coverup such a crime because the American people would demand the complete dismantling of the CIA which in turn would leave the U.S. vulnerable to attack during the height of the Cold War. I think many people might consider such a coverup their patriotic duty.

What about the media?  Did the media intentionally coverup or are they still covering up for one of the biggest crimes in American History?  I think the answer to this is yes and no.  Certain members of the media had to be brought in and told of the importance of “reassuring the American people” that Oswald was the lone assassin.   Remember that assassination took place thirteen months after the Cuban missile crisis.  America and the rest world almost went over the cliff into a fiery nuclear Armageddon.  The tension and fear that existed back then would hard to understand today.  It is likely that the media was told the same things that the Warren Commission was.  The truth about the JFK assassination would either plunge the U.S. into world war or leave the U.S. very vulnerable to global Communism’s seemingly unstoppable march around the world.  Some things after all were “too important for the American people to know about.”  Is this so hard to believe?   I think it is very likely that the ego’s of the media were played upon as well.  They were to become the sacred guardians of the “America Story”.  Any deviation from that story had buried. A new term was invented by the CIA and used by the media specifically for that purpose. The term was conspiracy theory.  Anyone who deviated or questioned the government account was termed a conspiracy theorist whose belief’s were considered ludicrous by definition.  This discrediting of opposition would prove very effective over the years and has lead journalists and the public both to avoid any express any ideas that were too unconventional or that questioned Authority a little too much.

What about the American people?  Why did American’s accept the Warren Commission report and how did the members of the conspiracy know that they would?  I think this is the easiest question.  The American people trust their institutions.  The American government had no higher prestige than after the decades following World War II. The American government had defeated the greatest evil on earth, Nazi Germany,which seemed to place America on that mythic city on a hill, a force for good on earth. Not only this but the American government was needed more than ever as a protector.  An enemy armed to the teeth with nuclear missiles, and espousing atheistic collectivist ideologies was disturbing enough to the American people.  An enemy at home within America’s most revered institutions would have too much for the American mind to handle.  People would literally want to be told a lie as long as it would reassure them and let them sleep at night. The alternative was simply to scary to even consider.

Fifty years later thousands of documents surrounding the JFK assassination are still classified. It is time to declassify these documents. No truth is so horrible that it should remain secret for 50 years. People often view the world around them as a kind of story or narrative.  They believe certain things because it generally fits the narrative that they have come to believe about the world around them.  Part of narrative for citizens of the U.S. is that the United State’s government is positive entity and a force for good at home and around the world. This is why it is so hard for many people to even consider that an assassination of an American President could be executed by forces within their own government.  Such a revelation would cut to the very core of the American system and the mythology that has been built around it. Many people would have to question some of their most sacred beliefs.  It is likely that many people would feel fear and other types of mental stress when they realize that their government that has been entrusted in protecting them is in fact a potentially very dangerous entity.  It is a psychological defensive technique to deny such claims out of hand.  It is called cognitive dissonance.  Such information is threatening to psyche and unconscious mind will fight it at all costs.  Ideas define who we are, to question such fundamental ideas is to question the deepest parts of yourself.   It may take years for somebody reconcile past false but reassuring information with what they have learned to be true. It is not an easy process.  Unfortunately in way, the American people are going to have to come to terms with what happened to JFK.  It will be difficult but the alternative is to live a world of lies.