From Eilleen:
“I’m rewatching the Duquesne 2013 conference and I wish I could tell all of the panelists about hope, and lack of hope for the future of JFK assassination research that in some fundamental way you are already won. You changed how the public regards its government.”
“You introduced the idea that our government might not be honest , and the idea of challenging what we are told. In large measure there would have been no Watergate without you, no Vietnam protest, no Wikileaks. We might not ever know the truth of the assassination,. And in some narrow sense now it doesn’t matter anymore. You have made the larger point and the public has learned from you. The fact that 85 percent of the public doubts the Warren Commission means that 85 percent of the public doubts the government in honest. You have changed the culture. You are already the victors. Feel better.”
What is a researcher? I don’t consider myself one although I’ve been to Dealy Plaza multiple times looking around. Dr. Peter Dale Scott was a diplomat and Political Science lecturer at the time. Sylvia Megaher gave ration to the confusion that is the Warren Commission Report. Marry Ferrell, so may more. Even Jim Dieugenio went and looked for himself and interviewed people. He give’s credit to Gaeton Fonzi and others…
I am very grateful, as a UK citizen for the work done by JFK researchers for their work in support of democracy in one of the Worlds most powerfull nations. None of the researchers who suspect conspiracy will consider themselves victors. As a UK citizen I doubt I know who runs the USA. It is difficult to state any progress has been made in revealing this via the prism of the assassination.
As much as I appreciate the general sentiment, I have to differ with the suggestion that it wasn’t until the JFK assassination that Americans became skeptical of their own government. Healthy skepticism of government power is an American tradition dating back to the days before the Revolution. It is an essential prerequisite for every citizen of a self-governing republic.
Sadly, the real legacy of JFK’s death, and our government’s failure to solve it, may be the state of our current polity: a very powerful state and a virtually apolitical electorate. Angry but passive, frustrated but resigned, and deeply cynical rather than healthily skeptical.
It may appear, when dwelling around in the microcosmos of JFK assassination research and discussion that – with the slight comeback of the magic bullet theory & the rise of the
‘critical thought equals enemy propaganda’ mentality – everything is moving in the wrong direction.
But then you watch one of those Marvel blockbusters, where agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. topple foreign governments and use science to create superweapons, and realise: I have to get out of that microcosmos more often and have some faith in mankind.
In fact the values you describe are those of the founding of this country. The Constitution was constructed to prevent individuals from assuming monarchical powers on the theory that human beings have an inclination to misuse power and subjugate others. The effort to cause full disclosure of the facts surrounding the assassination implements Enlightenment values that were the core of the founding of this country. Benjamin Franklin was asked the result of the Constitutional convention (conducted in secrecy)- his reply: “A republic, if you can keep it”.