Preparations & Ideas for the 50th

[Charles Drago]

I go to Texas each year. I have not seen you there in a long time.

You can watch Star Wars only so many times.

Will you be willing to show up and do that?

Yup.

If there is an alternative, like a settlement, then I would surely consider it. IF you recall some guy once said: "Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate."

I do. It was the guy who got his brains blown all over his nice Pierre Cardin suit in that city you so often visit.

Are you seriously suggesting that we negotiate with the surrogates -- some witting, some half-witting, some unwitting -- of the assassins?

Just how many tender mercies were evident in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963?

Let me suggest to you that Dealey Plaza is sacred ground -- a position I argued in a major speech delivered at a JFK Lancer symposium some years ago in -- wait for it -- Dallas. You seem unwilling to fight for that ground -- as if those who caused blood to be shed on it somehow have equal standing with those whose blood, literally and symbolically, has sanctified that ground.

In my remarks, I quoted historian Edward T. Edward T. Linenthal:

"On the one hand, these sites are ceremonial centers, where various forms of veneration reflect the belief that the contemporary power and relevance of the lessons of the site are crucial for the continued life of the nation. Many people believe that the patriotic inspiration to be extracted from these sacred places depends not only on proper ceremony, but on a memorialized, preserved, restored, and purified environment. On the other hand, these sites are civil spaces where Americans of various ideological persuasions come, not always reverently, to compete for the ownership of powerful national stories."

I added:

"'To compete for the ownership of powerful national stories.' That's what we're doing. We are looking to reclaim land --- reclaim stories, reclaim history."

And you want to "negotiate" with those who would rob us of our history, of the truth, of our right to the land that is sanctified by the blood of JFK?

I closed my presentation by proposing that we:

" ... at least in our own minds, and in our own hearts ... rename Dealey Plaza as the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Battlefield Memorial Monument."

And you want to "negotiate" WHAT with WHOM?

(For John Kelin's coverage of my speech, see http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back...view3.html )

To my knowledge, Lancer has no role in this at all.

Not even a passive role, such as those who remain silent in the face of tyranny play?

Check with Conway and get back to us.