My new book, "Into the Nightmare"

[Tracy Riddle]

Charles, the American empire existed long before JFK was even born. Just ask the Filipinos or the Native Americans or the Mexicans.

Tracy,

Help me to understand the relevance of your response above to my points on this thread.

Thanks.

Well, regarding your quote - "Ask, for instance, the survivors of My Lai what they see as the "ultimate legacy" of JFK's murder."
JFK might have succeeded in getting us out of Vietnam if he had lived, and maybe not. But the system that existed before he took office would probably have survived to some extent and rebuilt itself after his second term. The Kennedy brothers were a brief blip in the system like the Gracchi brothers in ancient Rome.

[Joseph McBride]

Thanks, Peter and Tracy, for your comments. I appreciate your
insights and am glad Tracy is finding the book engrossing.
Our country has many aspects of a police state, and we have
lost many of our civil liberties, but I don't
think we are living in a completely totalitarian regime.
We still have some freedoms, such as being able to publish dissident
books or forums. And yes, the US has
been an imperial power for a long time. U. S. Grant wrote, "The
Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations,
like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our
punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times."

[Tom Huston]

Joseph, thanks for the effort put in to your book. I am about 3/4 way through and I applaud your writing style and research. I particularly like the way you set the stage with your own pesonal experiences and feelings leading up to the asassination. I was 11 years old when it happened and still today I rank it as one of the two most important and influential events in my life. JFK's asassination and the way it changed the world and then my own Father's sudden death three years later. It was as if the world suddenly became a darker place to live and even a young boy could sense that something was terribly wrong with the way the story played out on television. I am just a citizen, not an author or researcher but my heartfelt thanks to all of you folks out there doing your best to see to it that America might be able to heal herself some day, but only if the truth of this dastardly deed comes to light. ::thumbsup::

[Charles Drago]

Charles, the American empire existed long before JFK was even born. Just ask the Filipinos or the Native Americans or the Mexicans.

Tracy,

Help me to understand the relevance of your response above to my points on this thread.

Thanks.

Well, regarding your quote - "Ask, for instance, the survivors of My Lai what they see as the "ultimate legacy" of JFK's murder."
JFK might have succeeded in getting us out of Vietnam if he had lived, and maybe not. But the system that existed before he took office would probably have survived to some extent and rebuilt itself after his second term. The Kennedy brothers were a brief blip in the system like the Gracchi brothers in ancient Rome.

Expanding upon your thought, we're looking not at an American system, but something far larger, truly ancient, and ultimately non-material.

[Joseph McBride]

Tom, Thanks for your kind remarks. I am glad the
book struck a chord with you and your experiences.

[Dawn Meredith]

I think this is true Tracy. Much fear in those days. Making JR into the guy who killed the assassin of JFK for revenge much more comfortable for most in the community. Mutual interest in maintaining the lies and cover up.

It's one of the main reasons why many liberals and leftists (Jews and Gentiles alike) continue to defend the official story. They've accepted without questioning that Oswald was the shooter, and that he was a Commie, so logically the only conspiracy to be uncovered would lead to Castro or the KGB, etc. Better to call Oswald a lone nut than start a new wave of McCarthyism.

I don't agree with this at all. Leftist simply do not care. They buy into the JFK war hawk crap that is found in their bs mags. I have had this very discussion with countless left leaning folks over the decades.
They mainly will not do a lick of research. Why bother when Noam tells it like it is?
The Jack Rubenstein idea may have been a reason at the beginning but in all the years since it's because they just do not want to know. Too unsettling.

A year or so I got my VERY left- leaning brother in law to read JFKU. His email later made it clear that he considered it one isolated event. Unconnected to anything after that. He's a prof. at UT. Very smart man.
But he missed the point totally.

Dawn

[Dawn Meredith]

Finally, I got to spend the entire day Saturday reading this book. There are things I take issue with, that I have discussed in private...as I don't wish to get into it yet again with an author to whom he gives too much credit, imho.
I LOVE the stuff on "Saint Mary". I have waited a very very long time to see her sorry ass busted. She fooled so many, and even in death continues to.
I loved the personal stuff...I so identified with it. I guess many kids from that era probably do. Especially the ones of us who had father issues. JFK became a father figure for me at 11. I adored him. His assassination changed my life completely. That event would drive me for the rest of my life. To seek justice, (thus law school), to connect the dots to all the deep events that followed.
And here we are. Basically a police state. Now, if you believe 9-11 was an inside job, you are considered a "terrorist". Fema camps next?

Dawn

Damn: I really need to READ before I hit the post button. Typos. In a rush on a work day especially.

[Tom Huston]

Finally, I got to spend the entire day Saturday reading this book. There are things I take issue with, that I have discussed in private...as I don't wish to get into it yet again with an author to whom he gives too much credit, inho.
I LOVE the stuff on "Saint Mary". I have waited a very very long time to see her sorry ass busted. She fooled so many, and even in death continues to.
I loved the personal stuff...I so identified with it. I guess many kids from that era probably do. Especially the ones of us who had father issues. JFK became a father figure for me at 11. I adored him. His assassination changed my life completely. That event would drive me for the rest of my life. To seek justice, (thus law school), to connect the dots to all the deep events that followed.
And here we are. Basically a police state. Now, if you believe 9-11 was an inside job, you are considered a "terrorist". Fema camps next?

Dawn

Dawn, my sentiments exactly...I really believe for someone who did not live through the assassination it is difficult if not imposssible to know the way so many Americans actually felt about JFK. There has been no political figure that has come within a shadow of the respect and admiration common folk had for him. I just can't imagine people crying in the streets for Bush, Reagan, or any of the presidents since. We truly felt a real sense of hope and optimism for the future and it was snuffed out that day in Dallas.
I do have one more question for Mr. McBride though and that is in regards to Ed Hoffmann. Was there something about his testimony that bothered you? He was the one witness who said he actually saw the shooters that day. Having heard (TMHKK) his testimony and read his accounts that day I found him one of the most credible witnesses. Perhaps I am a bit biased in that I have hearing impaired son and I know first hand of the difficulties involved with deaf communication with hearing people. My personal feeling is it has been too easy to discount his testimony. I believe it was Helen Keller who was both blind and deaf that said if she could have one of the two senses back she would have the hearing back, not eyesight. The other thing with deaf folks is they tend to have super keen eyesight in that they use their eyes to see and hear. Perhaps there is something ese I don't know about his testimony but if I had to rely on two witnesses for a visual report on an event and one had normal hearing and the other was deaf I would take the deaf one's recollection hands down. Interested to know your thoughts...

[Joseph McBride]

Dawn, I appreciate very much your kind words about the book and am
glad you identify with my odyssey. I think there are many of us
who have gone through similar cycles of admiration, loss, disillusionment,
and gradual understanding through study of this case. Although I wasn't
intending to try to speak for our generation, sometimes when you speak
for yourself, you find it has that effect, as you and others have told
me. I look forward to having a talk with you in person in Dallas
as well, about points of agreement or disagreement. I am glad
we're having that dialogue already through the book. I had
hoped it would open more dialogue, as we have on DPF
and in some other media outlets (though not enough of them).
I welcome reasoned disagreement and argument; we need more of that
in our discourse today rather than the shouting and sloganeering that
passes for dialogue on cable TV.

And along the lines
of what you and Magda have written about the left, one of the most
disappointing aspects of the case over the past fifty years has been
the unwillingness of many leftists and liberals to engage in it, as well as the state of
denial in which many seem to prefer living. I quote Mort Sahl in the book
as saying, "The social democrats in this country have a lot of guilt.
They didn't stand up to Vietnam. They didn't stand up to the encroachment of the intelligence
community. And they walked away from Jack Kennedy. The most they could
come up with after he was shot in the street like a dog was to say,
'He wasn't that good a president anyway.' Yeah, let me tell you, he had
a strange group of friends. Remarkably absent when he fell." That quote has long haunted
me with its painful truth.

Being unable to engage
one's friends in serious discussion of this case or of JFK's legacy has long been a hindrance. I find
it has become somewhat easier today. The younger generation seems
more openminded and free of some of the old hangups many boomers have dragged
along from the fifties and sixties. I think both you and Magda hit on
different aspects of why many 1960s leftists remain in denial. Of course,
some radicals of the time also became stockbrokers. And though
the antiwar radicals of the time used to say they were going to change
the world, the students who actually did so were such hawkish rightwingers as Dick Cheney
and Lynne Cheney, who were attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
when I was. Dick Cheney hurried past our October 1967 Dow Chemical
demonstration (which turned into a police riot) on his
way to his internship at the State Capitol with the
Republican governor, Warren Knowles. Lynne Cheney
professed horror over the participation of the San
Francisco Mime Troupe in our protest of Dow's manufacture
of napalm for the Vietnam War. I go into all this history and personal witness
in the book to help give context for people's attitudes today.

[Joseph McBride]

Tom, I'm not sure what you mean exactly. I did find Mr. Hoffman an impressive
man and source. I interviewed him. I didn't include his comments because
I didn't go into every witness who saw things that didn't match the official
version. I could have done so and maybe should have, but it was already a long book, and I had
numerous witnesses to cite about the shooting from the front.