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Gary Porpora

THE MURDER OF JFK: The Beginning of America's Second Civil War

THE UNFORGETTABLE MOMENT


Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Grade School…Second grade…Mrs, Dudash’s classroom. She was wearing one of her typically gaudy purple dresses sporting a garish piece of costume jewelry that would have made Liberace cringe..


The P.A system crackled on…Very unusual for Sister Philomena to announce something so late in the day.


My friends and I looked at each other trying to figure out which one of us bold hooligans would face the Iron Penguin’s wrath…


A strange man’s voice announced a news bulletin: “President Kennedy has been Shot!..I repeat the President has been shot…”


The breathless report continued, but was mostly drowned out by Mrs. Dudash’s head slamming onto her desk followed by uncontrollable sobbing.


I will never forget the sound of her forehead hitting that wooden desk.


Almost like a gunshot…


Mrs. Milanovich came into the room to comfort her, and be comforted—they wailed on each other’s shoulder for what seemed like hours…


Some of my classmates began to cry. Sister Albert came into the room, speaking in low tones to her colleagues. They did their best to compose themselves.


With a gentleness I didn’t think was in her—the woman beat my ass at least once a week—Sister Albert told us busses would soon take us home and asked us to please be quiet…


She actually said “please.”


The newsman’s voice came back on “President Kennedy was pronounced dead at…”


Sister Albert silently crossed herself.


The collective weeping, gasps, sobbing of the Fatima faculty and the seventh and eighth graders who better comprehended the event resonated throughout the school.


It was the saddest echo I have ever heard…It lasted even after I got home to my red-eyed parents…


Its faint but steady remnants haunt our country to this day.


Shots fired in Dealy Plaza in November of 1963 were the first salvo in the Second American

Civil War—and I hate to tell you, the bad guys are winning.


AFTERMATH


“Lone Assassin” advocates are seen as delusional Warren Commission apologists by

“Looney Conspiracy Theorists,” who insist one nebulous cabal or another had a role in JFK’s murder.


The fact is, the conspiracy was successful.


Since 11/22/63 we have been arguing the “who/what/ where/how” of Kennedy’s murder, often forgetting to explore the most important question, “WHY?”


FACTS?

So, let’s put out some verifiable facts—undisputed by rational thinkers on either side of the debate.


FACT: The first doctor who treated the mortally wounded President in Parkland's Trauma Room One said on 11.18.13 during a symposium in Pittsburgh that he examined "the massive wound in the back of Kennedy's skull and that a trauma of that size had to be an exit wound."


FACT: Grassy Knoll witnesses—58 have been identified--have been consistent from day one as to what they saw, and heard that day, and from which direction, and how close together the shots came.


FACT: The autopsy—in the opinion of top forensic pathologists—was performed by inexperienced, unqualified people--on government orders...There were so many flaws, so many mistakes beginning with lack of basic procedures and techniques available in 1963, many modern day professionals cannot take the results seriously...


FACT: Oliver Stone jumped the shark numerous times in "JFK" but the one question brought up during the scene in the 6th floor book depository is compelling: If you were a lone gunmen, why would you wait until your target was moving away from you—and obscured by an oak tree—instead of taking your initial shot when your target is coming at you, and potential second and third shots, if needed, are clear?



FACT: The documented, verifiable proof the Warren Commission, omitted, manipulated, fabricated, and/or ignored relevant eyewitness accounts and forensic, ballistic, and “timing” evidence, strongly points to an orchestrated cover-up.


In his book, Dead Wrong, Richard Belzer stops short of Stone’s all encompassing conspiracy, hypothesizing “elements” of the government may be involved in America’s great mysteries. The institution is forced to hide that involvement from the public to “keep faith” or avoid embarrassment.


THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT: JFK’s murder has never been investigated like a murder is supposed to be using the preferred handbooks by Vernon J Geberth, Louis N. Eliopulos, or the USDOJ.


That fact alone is the strongest evidence affirming a conspiracy.


BASIC INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUES


Fundamentally, the first questions detectives must answer are MEANS, MOTIVE, and OPPORTUNIY.


For those who believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, there is no arguing the Warren Commission puts him in the Texas School Book Depository, (TSBD) with a rifle = MEANS…


Forget, the time-table regarding his movements to and from the lunch room—and ultimately out the TSBD door—do not coincide with the Commission’s time-table. In fact, the available evidence strongly suggests Oswald was on the second floor sipping a Coke when the fateful shots were fired.


Lone Nut advocates believe LHO hated Kennedy—had sought asylum in Communist Russia, thereby holding a clear political MOTIVE to kill the President....


Forget Oswald’s undeniable, long time connections to extreme right-wing figures like Guy Bannister and his murky Black-Ops history as some kind of CIA/FBI operative while in Russia.


No doubt, Oswald was in Dallas and worked in the Texas School Book Depository, obviously a golden OPPORTUNITY for a would-be assassin.


Ignore, again, the pesky timetable problems in the TSBD. While you’re at it don’t try to walk from LHO’s boarding house to the site of Officer J.D. Tippet’s murder in the time allotted by the Warren Commission. That and the six second window in which to fire three—two, deadly accurate--shots from a low rent bolt action rifle is much smaller than logic allows it to be.


In fact, if you believe LHO acted alone, the case is pretty straightforward against him—until you follow the homicide manuals more closely on several different levels…

  • WHERE? Did the murder take place

  • Who benefitted most from the victims death…

  • What do witnesses say?

  • What do the forensics say?

  • Could the main suspect have been set-up?

Those and about three-dozen other questions must be conclusively answered before any prosecutor will file charges.


In the Kennedy murder, if any of those questions are answered contrary to the Warren Report’s conclusions—and there are many such answers—then a conspiracy is certain to have taken place.


DEBUNKERS IN CHIEF…GERALD POSNER…


Posner’s 1993 book Case Closed gives conspiracy nuts a lot to think about.


Posner successfully debunks a lot of mythology surrounding JFK’ murder.


Sometimes brilliantly, Posner sheds light on the analytical folly of some conspiracy lovers.

Unfortunately, he sometimes ignores his own findings when the facts don’t coincide with his lone-nut perspective.


For example, Posner’s meticulous examination of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life, influences, psychology, and world-view illuminates Oswald’s frailties. The reader understands the man as a real human being.


Mainstream American media made Posner famous after publication of Case Closed. There was not a news show the author didn’t appear on where he didn‘t brag about how that historical analysis alone pointed to Oswald’s guilt.


Unfortunately, Posner acted like that was the only history that counts.


He never delved into the history of political fanatics in this country—the throbbing vein of right-wing hatred of Kennedy for his decision on the Bay of Pigs, (and how the American intelligence community thought JFK’s inaction against Castro was nothing short of betrayal) and the relentless pursuit of organized crime by RFK. This inconvenient history would have given much clarity and context to the forces arrayed against Kennedy and his ilk—and may have rendered the Lone Nut theory laughable.


Add to that cauldron of hate, an arms industry that has made trillions of dollars off the blood of American soldiers from Vietnam to Afghanistan.


Our history doesn’t lie: War is America’s biggest business.


The nascent rumblings of the Second American Civil War began before the mushroom cloud dissipated over Nagasaki.


Those that wanted peace, those that, believed humans were responsible for each other, those who believed we deserved some control over our future were unwittingly pitted against those who wanted America to dominate the world, those who sought wealth at the expense of the less fortunate, those who allowed fear to guide their thinking.


The OSS became the CIA and America became a police state, immersed in an almost constant state of War—and business was booming.


From the end of WWII, the entire Southern Corridor—from Key West, through New Orleans, to Dallas; home to the extreme right-wing fanatics, Cuban exiles, CIA veterans, arms dealers, the mob, and money—was the world-wide hub of that business.


The FBI was made aware of two possible assassination sites prior to 11/22/63—Miami and Dallas.


Here’s more on Posner’s Case Closed:



…AND VINCENT BUGLIOSI


FIVE POUNDS! That what Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi weighs. 1632 pages!!! A million and a half words…With an accompanying CD containing over 1500 footnotes.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is less.


Reclaiming History…Most is nothing?


According to the publisher, there were record returns of the book that won Bugliosi an Edgar Award.


I read a few chapters and excerpts, and it didn’t take me long to know exactly where the author was coming from:


If you do not agree Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone nut assassin, you are a kook, wacky, a conspiracy apologist, out of your mind, badly mistaken, mentally deranged, insane, a moron, idiotic, uncomprehending, silly, pathetic, laughable, certifiable—and just plain nuts!!!


I could go on for about 1600 pages, but my professors taught me only a desperate writer needs to attack those who disagree with him.


I respect Mr. Bugliosi too much to belittle him as the author of a book he views as his “magnus opus.”


I can say what I read gave me more insight into the mind of a prosecutor than the murder in question. Typically, the scales of justice are not their concern—winning the case supersedes all concerns.



Reclaiming History goes above and beyond Posner’s glossing over important, valid evidence, or playing only one side of the historical record. Bugliosi distorts the factual record, defies logical thought, and attacks all those who believe, testify, or analyze events differently than he does.


Oliver Stone may have jumped the shark in JFK, no doubt setting back those who believe more than one individual killed President Kennedy.


Vincent Bugliosi did a Fosbury Flop over a whole pod of Orcas—and desperately tried to assassinate a truth we may never fully understand. By doing so, he only further legitimized the “conspiracy nuts…


For that, we, and history, owe him our thanks.


CONCLUSION


The next time you turn on Fox and hear about the poor being freeloaders and drug addicts…banks being to big to fail…the government sifting through your e-mails…more young Americans dying to fight those who “hate our freedoms”… and how we must go back to being a Christian Nation, view it as the answer to the question why only progressive leaders like the Kennedys or Martin Luther King were assassinated at the zenith of their potential to better the world for everyone


We better start taking The War seriously.



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