In all the world only one man challenged the Killing of JFK –Jim Garrison, a bold and dauntless New Orleans, D.A. “It was a coup d’etat,” he told a nation, but how could that be? And, if it was and Americans did nothing, what sort of country are we?
Lord Tennyson was quoted in the lone prosecutor’s closing arguments:
“Authority forgets a dying King,”
An eternal flame is a much more palatable thing!
With a Grand Canyon of lies, a president’s life is erased. Whew…glad that’s over. America is once again safe!
That “Magic Bullet” sure did the trick. And, with Vietnam exploding, military contracts were kept. These were the moments we witnessed our national morality and openly wept.
The unholy trifecta of a Coup d’etat—denial, disconnect, and deliverance—saves the psyches of us all. Oh now, come on, let’s not be glum! Blaming those victimized or those who try to warn us is such delicious fun!
The fearless, you see, are always targeted first. Especially now, after eight years of a Rovian, Cheneyesque morality dearth. Who is left to regard as the salt of the earth?
Dan Rather was the most notable to go, but there were others who spoke and fell, leaving an information vacuum that creates its own distinct uninformed- divisive hell.
Still, Rather was one of the brave few.
For 44 years he made us look at our lives and what our nation might do. Vietnam, Watergate, Afghanistan too. A gift from God’s eyes…the oft-times difficult, painful other point of view.
Rather is the last of broadcasting’s great newsmen. But believing ourselves righteous we fell asleep and, without a shrug, deserted him. We listened when told by tyrants du jour, “there was our national security to keep!” That’s a good enough excuse for most journalists falling to sleep.
But, like Garrison, Rather forged ahead. Challenging those in power…digging up buried bodies no matter who might end up dead.
Rove, the political Gapetto, was just playing around. A frame up is easy when a professional gang bang of puppets rule the town. And planting a document? Heck that’s nothing new. The beauty of it all was everything in the document was essentially true. Oh, such evils immoral men do.
Now, with one broad brush stroke 44 years of protecting a nation is whitewashed away. So here is what I want us to know today.
We wonder where the press has gone. Did you see what happens when a few among them are strong?
The stakes are so high when the truth becomes a lie. And it’s always about the prophets of profits for America’s military war machine. It grinds on even at the expense of a King. So make no mistake as we blindly forge ahead, that’s why JFK, Bobby, and Martin Luther King are dead.
So now we have some new facts to face.
NBC is the military itself. And CBS is Viacom—a Hollywood movie machine making war look like a dream. And Disney animated the old ABC scene.
Now back to Tennyson’s “Forgotten Dying Kings.”
Do we have the authority to remember a trusted friend? Do we have the right to claim what he’s seen and where he’s been? A man we trusted who had courage and was bold—even when we did not like what we were told?
CBS, the lost child of Murrow, this message is for you. Open the vault and let free a life you want to erase. Dan is part of history, one too perilous not to trace. Why hide his reports from lands near and far? What threat is it to you now that you’ve shown him the door?
Or perhaps in a news industry where entertainment reigns supreme, Viacom fears we’ll remember one of the last of our news broadcasting kings.
