Tuesday, November 23, 2010

John Fitzgerald Kennedy is Still Critically Dead...

Yesterday was the anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States.

I hate all things Kennedy, so you won't get any tears here.

I was struck by the total lack of the usual over-the-top,The-Man-Was-A-God, handwringing, overwrought, tearjerking television extolling the invented virtues and fabricated hagiography of a thoroughly despicable man this year. Typically, the anniversary of this event brings out the very worst in the Libtard-Baby-Boomer media who simply can't help themselves but to sing the praises of their hollow childhood hero, so "tragically" murdered on a street in Dallas.

The "Tragedy" is that John Kennedy had such a large extended family --which would one day infest the American body politic for two generations -- to take advantage of his death so as to steal lucrative jobs they otherwise would never get, as having really big teeth and being the child of an alcoholic are not usually qualifications for a job outside of politics.

I mean, not one documentary. Not one showing of the now-famous Oliver Stone tour-de-bullshit. No interviews with people who were "close" to Kennedy, but who haven't done a damned thing since. No replays of the Zapgruder film. No wall-to-wall conspiracy theorists. Even the History Channel didn't make much of a fuss (and JFK is one of the staples of History Channel programming. JFK and World War Two...guess Ice Road Truckers rates higher than JFK, huh?).

It's been curiously refreshing, from my point of view. I long ago tired of the fake grief, the overdone hero worship, and of course, hearing the stories about "where I was when Kennedy was shot...".

Who gives a shit? He was, in hindsight, one of the worst American Presidents of the 20th Century. After all, look who he picked to succeed him; Lyndon Johnson would be the worst thing to happen to America until the arrival of James Earl Carter made him look like a modern-day Pericles. I would have thought that the advent of Barack Obama would have brought out the sickly-disgusting streak of nostalgia for shallow non-achievers (like JFK) present in the fibre of every Baby Boomer, considering how he makes JFK, LBJ, and Carter combined seem Churchillian by comparison, but I guess they're keeping quiet these days, what with having ruined the economy, academia, the Government, and still hoping to keep the illegal Free Viagra for Seniors program hidden deep inside ObamaCare.

So, no paens to the dead king from the Haight-Ashbury set this year, I guess. The generation behind me probably doesn't even know who JFK was, and if they are aware of him, they probably think he was...like... President during...like... the Civil War...like... the one we like fought against the Germans or Vietnamese, or ...like...whatever, in 1776...to keep...like...black people...like...slaves.

The silence reinforces something I've often thought about; that within 50 years or so, all events are eventually forgotten by the greater mass of people. The lack of the usual television Day of National Mourning this year was perhaps the first sign that the manufactured grief (and history)over that assassination of a mediocre personality whose father bought him the White House is finally becoming a thing of the past.

And that's a good thing.

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