Ever Present Evil Awaits To Seize The Day
Good and evil travel together in both people and countries alike. In almost all cases, however, there is a preponderance of one or the other. Within the Kennedy family the two brothers Jack and Robert, though far from flawless, stand out for inspiring us to find our greater selves.
It’s not far-fetched to argue that had JFK and RFK not been assassinated… America might still sit unchallenged as the leader of countries who not only cherish their national sovereignty but willingly cooperate in a worldwide effort to bring humanity to greater heights.
With the U.S. at the nadir of a 50-year descent, another Kennedy has entered the race for president, RFK Jr. Like his uncle, he has been greeted with utter disdain. This should horrify but not surprise you, as I will explain below. I want to say a few words about the short lives of his uncle and father, who have informed and inspired his political aspirations.
In 1961 when John Kennedy (JFK) became the youngest and first Catholic president, this country stood at the pedestal of greatness and good. In the three years he served the United States in the Oval office, not only did he inspire the country to even greater heights, but stood in the way of evil, which in the eyes of Thomas Jefferson is ‘ever present and waiting for the chance to seize the day.’
The Joint Chiefs And Cuban Missile Crisis
The most visible forces of evil were within the government itself. The military leaders and especially the Joint Chiefs of Staff, many of whom were WWII heroes, stood out. Most thought it was critical to destroy the Soviet Union and were looking for an excuse to confront and even provoke a war against Russia. That excuse came in the form of the Cuban missile crisis. In 1962, Soviet missiles were discovered in Cuba. The Soviets termed the arms build-up in Cuba, a defensive response to the U.S. missiles in Turkey that were aimed at the Soviet Union.
The five Joint Chiefs of Staff insisted on eliminating the missiles by an all-out attack against Cuba and the destruction of the Soviet missiles. A nuclear conflict was considered possible if not likely. Moreover, many felt that a nuclear war with the Soviets could have destroyed much of the world – an act only Satan would have applauded.
To ward off potential Armageddon, a young President Kennedy had to stand-up to the likes of Curtis Lemay – who created the Air Force and was widely considered one of the fiercest commanders the world has ever known. He was implacable in his insistence on a large-scale Cuban invasion – whatever the consequences. Kennedy instead opted for a blockade of the island. Lemay was furious at Kennedy’s refusal to attack. He made little secret of his unbridled disdain and even hatred of the President. On tapes that later became available, Lemay told Kennedy to his face his actions were comparable to Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich.
Sidenote: The Munich agreement with Hitler gave the German leader part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, and in exchange Hitler promised not to ask for any additional European land. Within a year Hitler had seized all of Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland. By the likes of Lemay- Chamberlain’s appeasement was seen as an utterly shameful act by an effete leader.
About a year after the Cuban Missile crisis, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. According to most sources, including Kennedy’s own statements and actions, he was against escalation. Two months after JFK’s death, his wish to reduce involvement was honored by the reduction in the number of American advisors to the war-torn country. Meanwhile, President Johnson did not have a clear position on Vietnam.
Lemay, as evidenced by Johnson’s extension of Lemay’s term on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had insisted his views into Johnson’s thinking. Not surprisingly, Lemay wanted to destroy Vietnam. Lemay’s eventual retirement in 1965 coincided with Johnson’s decision to put ground troops into Vietnam. There was no looking back as the Vietnam war was set to tear America apart.
When There’s Blood In The Streets…
By 1968, over half a million Americans were fighting in Vietnam and antiwar protests were rampant across the United States. On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced he would not run for reelection. That left pro-war Humphrey, Johnson’s V.P., as the presumptive Democratic nominee. A Humphrey candidacy became much less likely when Bobby Kennedy entered the race.
Kennedy had inherited his brother’s charisma, and many felt he was the best chance to end the emerging evil that was gaining a foothold on our national spirit. No one can say whether he would have heralded a new beginning, or prevailed and become president. Still comments from many well-respected historians and journalists give you a taste of what might have been.
Arthur Schlesinger, Harvard historian and RFK biographer stated:
“Robert Kennedy… Showed new possibilities in the unending fight towards individual freedom and individual social justice. And I think he is an example which continues to inspire people… Had he been elected president in 1968 we would have gotten out of Vietnam in 1969.”
Robert Dallek, a chaired Oxford professor who specialized in the lives of presidents including FDR and Nixon commented:
“Robert Kennedy has a continuing hold on the public’s imagination… Because he and his brother represented a kind of hope, a kind of vision of the future. And that was snuffed out with JFK’s death in 1963. And then it was snuffed out again with Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968. There is this faith, this belief, that if only he had lived, he would’ve won the presidency in 1968… And brought the country into a kind of golden age…”
Among so many others who were well regarded thinkers and leaders in 1968, I wanted to note what the late John Lewis, the courageous campaigner for civil rights, felt:
"In 1968, during that brief campaign for the Democratic nomination, Robert Kennedy would say over and over again, 'There must be a revolution.' Not a revolution in the streets, but in the minds and hearts and souls of our people." RFK
Robert Kennedy really believed that. He wanted — not just to change laws — but to change the collective mind-set. He wanted to build a sense of patriotism and rekindle the sacred beliefs that the United States was once founded.
One reason to include the Lewis comment; simply because it suggests an optimistic counter to Jefferson’s belief that once evil prevails, all the rot in the system has to be flushed out, which means starting over again. To the dismay of American history, this would only serve as a prelude to half a century of economic and nationalistic decline verses an about face for the country.
The Root Of All Evil
RFK’s assassination was followed by Nixon’s presidency. Although it was clear in 1968 that the Vietnam War would only result in more deaths, we continued fighting for five more arduous years. Adding a final fatal blow that would reverberate throughout the economy to this very day, in August of 1971 (with Nixon at the helm) America left the infamous gold standard.
The Princeton astrophysicist, J. Richard Gott, once said;
“In the absence of special knowledge, the best predictor of the lifetime of something is how long it has already existed.”
Something can include anything you can think of… Ranging from a species, to a civilization, to a law of science, to a human tendency, to the universe itself. I bring this up because when it comes to laws of nature or human tendencies, you can’t find anything that predates money as “the root of all evil.” Recent experiments done by several London based researchers have shown love of money is tantamount to regarding other individuals as objects, cogs in a machine rather than sacred beings deserving of equality and freedom.
Leaving the gold standard meant the United States could print as much money as it wanted. As a consequence, the country has devolved from a magnificent power into a grotesque version of what it once was. The real legacy of Vietnam and the early deaths of the two Kennedy brothers has been the apotheosis of money. Whether it is fighting another war or making health-based decisions somewhere in the background… Inherently, therein lies greed for more money.
The U.S. continues to spend trillions of dollars on fruitless wars, while lending beneficence to such causes as billion dollar profit margins for drug companies. Read any recent article that I have written about the Ukraine War, and you will discover the stark truth; the United States has handed out copious amounts of foreign aid to the worst elements of humanity, neo-Nazis, who have a major if not dominant role in western Ukraine. Do you think this statement sounds absurd? You need not look far or very hard for the evidence.
In 1991, the first president of Ukraine, in celebration of its independence from the Soviet Union, gathered many world leaders and intellectuals together. A major reason was to make a global announcement that it wanted to ‘turn the page’ on a past riddled with atrocities. Most importantly, the country’s leader admitted to complicity in the holocaust, perhaps the greatest example of human potential for evil. Arguably, the worst two days of the holocaust occurred in Kiev, Ukraine. In those two days in which Ukrainians willingly participated, about 35,000 Jews were slaughtered.
To the world’s dismay, the ‘new page’ in Ukraine lasted less than a decade. Around the turn of the century, statues of the leader of the most extreme Nazi organization started surfacing in western Ukraine. And not just ordinary statues. In western Ukraine there is a 20-foot replica of Stepan Bandera. This monument in Ukraine is dedicated to a man who was a fervent devotee to Hitler and Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical, militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Bandera’s statue stands in front of ‘four pillars’ that are supposed to represent different aspects of Ukraine. And of course for good measure, Ukraine has declared Bandera’s birthday a national holiday.
Ukraine may be the worst example of what greed for money brings, but far from the only one. Over the past 20 years, foreign policy has been built around cementing U.S. hegemony at the expense of its citizens. According to Brown University, in a multitude of failed conflicts, the number of needless deaths is approaching 5 million, with 80% being innocent men, women and children. Total expenditures approximated at 9 trillion dollars.
Consider that as a result of those wars and the United States maniacal short-term money-making schemes– imagine the technologies that were not created, the education that was not provided, and the health care that was not given. A life expectancy that is now lower than it was in the 90’s, and an entire generation of young adolescents who are so miserable that an unfathomable 40% of America’s youth have had thoughts of suicide.
Good And Evil Travel Together
As long as humans have walked this earth, evil and good have been fighting for supremacy. In the end, there is no guarantee that one side will eventually triumph, but my strong feeling is that the Ukraine war is a breaking point – a point of inflection. In any country… Good and evil coexist but one typically has the upper hand. It’s typically easier to go from good to evil than the reverse. Often it takes a real shock to slay evil – the loss of a war or some sort of catastrophic meltdown.
Evidence continues to mount that in the wake of Ukraine – the world will stand as one – a group of sovereign countries cooperating to develop ways of sustaining humanity on this planet.
Among the existential problems our world currently faces is a profound shortage of natural resources and essential commodities. You don’t have to be a climate change enthusiast or believe in apocalyptic nonsense to realize that humanity doesn’t have nearly enough resources to provide a decent life for all the denizens on this planet.
Moving forward, a United States that cooperates internationally is very important if not necessary. And it goes without saying that if the U.S. tries to go it alone- it’s curtains for us- and possibly for the rest of the world.
Currently, most Americans vacillate between one false narrative and another. Contrary to living in the Land of Liberty, Americans are not free people. Humans tend to follow herd mentality, rarely questioning authority or challenging mainstream media. In my opinion, there is not one person with political power in the United States, and likely no president this century who would have had the wherewithal to stand-up to the likes of Curtis Lemay, aside from perhaps Donald Trump.
RFK Jr. would have no problem telling Curtis Lemay and other manifestly evil individuals to go to hell. I am going to end this opinion piece by pointing to the most controversial belief that RFK Jr. has brought to light. Many popular vaccines, including those for measles and Covid should not be mandated, according to Kennedy. A look at the hard research suggests he is absolutely right. For Covid, I would recommend viewing past YouTube videos of the British medical scholar John Campbell. He documents some of the hideous side effects of MRNA vaccines, those produced by Pfizer and Moderna. And if you don’t want to bother… Then just go to the site Worldometer and you will find that a U.S. citizen is 13x more likely to die from Covid than an Asian citizen.
We desperately need a new type of leadership in the United States, the type of leadership that brings back the altruistic ideals of the Kennedy brothers who, despite their flaws, were among the best America has ever produced. As the saying goes; ‘You cannot let the Great be the enemy of the Good.’ RFK Jr. is good and there is nothing in the way of saying he is not one of the great.
Final Thoughts…
I admit that I never thought I would see the day I would mourn the firing of Tucker Carlson. But that day has arrived. I am sure Carlson holds many beliefs that are totally contrary to mine. Still, he has proved that he demands respect. Despite his substantial salary, he made himself vulnerable by castigating potential advertisers; such as drug companies. Nor did he win praise from his bosses when he had RFK Jr. featured as a guest. Other networks have been censoring Bobby Kennedy’s son. Why? Undoubtedly, because RFK Jr. sees an urgent need for America to change direction. Unlike most leaders in America this century and before… He is not a lover of money.
To call it a disgrace that major networks censor vaccine research is like ridiculing a typical anchor for not being as honest as Tucker Carlson. Let me end by pointing out that it has never been more imperative for the United States to find an honest man, comfortable in his own skin, who clearly has sacred core positions. Before rejecting the third Kennedy- let’s at least leave the collective herd mentality which governs the majority of the populations thinking and do something to prove we deserve better leadership in America.
