Fw from Blue: [Redbadbear] Being provocative (now JFK)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Romi 
To: [email protected] 
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 4:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Redbadbear] Being provocative (now JFK)


  

Hunter,


There is an element of not-coincidence in this story of your meeting someone else on that fateful morning, don't you think?  The Man Upstairs was looking out for ya.



In any case, you were (and are) far ahead of the pack about JFK, but he is still--even after all the revelations about his affairs--a very charismatic figure.


I personally don't think we will ever know the real truth about why he was killed.  If there were any co-conspirators with Oswald, and half of the American public thinks there were--they have kept quiet all these years, and they probably will continue to do so.


If it was anybody else, maybe it was the usual suspects...


Best,
Blue



On Sunday, November 17, 2013 6:56 PM, Hunter Gray <[email protected]> wrote:

  

I mentioned this on RBB some years ago -- but it's worth another, given our discussional context.

For a vast number of people, the day of JFK's murder was genuinely surreal.  It was for me as well, partly because of the signal tragedy, although I was not a great Kennedy admirer, but also because of a strange personal coincidence.

Ella Baker and I had been traveling across parts of the Illinois and Iowa area, speaking on behalf of the Civil Rights Bill -- later, of course, the'64 Act. Then Ella had to return to Atlanta for a few days -- she was Advisor to SNCC -- and I carried on solo for awhile.  I left Lincoln, Nebraska, after a couple of talks, on that fateful morning.  At Denver, we learned that JFK had been shot; at Albuquerque, the word was that he was dead. 

I left Albuquerque on a Frontier flight for Flagstaff and a quick visit with my parents.  In our plane, there was only myself and another passenger, far in the back.  Suddenly, he was at my side.  It was Jack Langguth, of the NYT Los Angeles office. He had been in Jackson in the wild heat of mass brutality and Medgar Evers' murder -- a good guy who, in that hellish situation, quickly became a good friend. I had not seen him since then. (Most the outside reporters were good, ran many risks themselves.)

Jack had just that very late afternoon come from Dallas, where he had witnessed much -- and was now on his way back to L.A. since more Times people were flowing fast into Dallas. We talked of the parallels between Medgar's murder and that of JFK.

We both agreed that nothing anymore could happen in this country that would be surprising to us. As we swung into Flagstaff, he allowed that things did seem simpler in our high mountain setting.  He met my parents and we all had a good visit before he took the next leg of his journey.

H
 


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO 
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material) 

See my reflection On Being a Militant and Radical 
Organizer -- And an Effective One: 
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm 

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]: 
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm 
(Expanded, and with more photos in Fall 2012. Material on our Native 
background.) And see Personal Background Narrative: 
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm (Updated into 2012) 

For the new (11/2011) and expanded/updated 
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me. We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement 
of 1962-63: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm 


-----Original Message-----
From: Greg McDonald [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2013 04:02 PM
To: 'redbadbear'
Subject: Re: [Redbadbear] Being provocative

        

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261263/JFK-assassination-Robert-Kennedy-speaks-death-uncle.html




      On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:00 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

          

        We must not forget, assassination conspiracism is not a harmless intellectual game. Innocent persons have had their lives grossly disrupted by baseless accusations. Clay Shaw and an immigrant auto worker who just happened to be named "Raoul" are merely the most prominent instances. Perhaps more importantly, such conspiracism strengthens the tendencies to political apathy and cynicism. If our nation is dominated by mysterious sinister forces, able to strike down a president, a senator, or a Nobel Prize winning civil rights leader with impunity, what hope for change, what use in trade union or political activism?


        Serious accusations demand serious evidence. Those who make such accusations speculatively, without serious evidence, forfeit their own right to be regarded as serious persons. As Anthony Lewis wrote in his review of Gerald Posner's book Killing the Dream, "For those who promote conspiracy theories in the teeth of the evidence, there can be nothing but contempt. Raul's question to Posner is really to all of us: 'Doesn't the truth matter anymore in this country?'" I submit that Americans do still believe that the truth matters.


        KH