One Man's Opinion

A weird thing happened to me last October 9, a birthdate I proudly share with both John Lennon and Mike Singletary, When I counted the candles, there were 65 of them. 65! How the hell did that happen? As I gazed at the sun glistening off the red rock mountain behind my house, I tried to remember as far back as I could. Interesting . . . ever tried it?

To my horror, I realized that my very first rememberance is that of War! It was either the end of 1944 or early 1945. I was 2. We lived in San Francisco about a mile from the ocean on Fulton Street, right across the street from Golden Gate Park. I remember hearing air raid sirens and my parents turning out all the lights. The street lights also went out and we were left in pitch darkness. Then my dad put on his jacket and left. He was a block captain and during air raids he had to circle the block and make sure everyone had their lights out.

My next memory is of going in my uncle's car to pick up my uncle Johnny, who had spent 30 months as a POW in Stalag 17 after his plane was shot down and he cleverly parachuted onto the roof of the prison barracks. He was so skinny and had his first of nine heart attacks at age 29. He died in his 50's, killed by war 30 years earlier.

My next memory is being 3 1/2 years old and playing with my dad when I tripped and hit my head on the corner of his bed, splitting it open (my head, not the bed). Wow, you'd think I would have had a terrible childhood. To the contrary, it was very loving, a patient loving father who never lifted a hand to me, and my crazy little 5' Italian mother, bless her soul.

I think I made it through easily enough by singing. My parents swore I was humming myself and then singing myself to sleep when I was a very tiny infant. I love music and have always remembered loving music. At any rate, growing up at that time everyone was very patriotic and stood proudly when the National Anthem was played. After all, our parents, relatives, and older friends had fought to preserve our freedoms.

The first chink in the armor occurred on Nov. 22, 1963, the day a coup was successfully accomplished in America and JFK was assassinated. The lone gunman theory and the convenient murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby combined with the obvious coverup led to great suspicion among the young people of America. This, combined with the hosing of blacks in the South which we got to watch on television every night and the war in Vietnam coming across our dinner tables each night made us realize that we had been lied to for years.

At about the same time our music changed. The English invasion took place and the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Zombies, Animals, etc., began making their presence known on the American music scene. Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and other American rock bands emerged and the scene became highly political. Our generation had been lied to -- lied to about a lot of things and our generation was not happy about it. We were especially not happy about a staged attack in the Gulf of Tonkin that led to thousands of young Americans being forced to fight in Vietnam.

If anyone questions our findings re the JFK assassination, I have inserted links to two videos. The first shows the Secret Service detail abandoning its post guarding JFK's limo just seconds before he was shot and killed.It's a short two-minute video. The second video lasts 90 minutes and provides damning evidence that those involved in JFK's murder are still involved in our government today. E. Howard Hunt was one of the three "tramps" arrested at the Grassy Knoll in Dallas, then released after showing secret service documents. One of the others was Frank Sturgis. Both were to be arrested 7 years later as Watergate burglars working for Richard Nixon. Their boss in 1963 at the Florida CIA was a man named George Bush.

Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald to keep him quiet, was a former employee of Richard Nixon in California. Richard Nixon got into politics as the protege of a man named Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush. Old gramps was famous for being part of a conspiracy to overthrow the United States Government in 1932, to assassinate FDR, and to institute a fascist regime in this country. Only the valiant and brave efforts of Gen. Smedley Butler prevented this from happening. FDR confiscated many of Bush's holdings for trading with the enemy and laundering money for the Nazis. Proof of these charges was recently confirmed by an American journalist, John Buchanan, and confirmed by a British journalist.

Getting back to the 1960's, America was in turmoil. The "movement" was in full swing and the tide of public opinion was beginning to turn against the Vietnam war as the youth of America protested in song, writing, and appearance. Then, it really got ugly and a generation lost respect for our government and so-called leaders. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated. The day before RFK was murdered in L.A., I had shaken his hand in San Francisco at a huge rally. The excitement at that rally has not been matched for 40 years -- until now. Barack Obama generates the same kind of hope about the future and to watch Bill Clinton (an unfortunate memory of ties to the past) attack this man wreaks of the status quo desperately hanging onto what they desperately don't want to lose -- control.

Now, we are at a critical time in our history. George W. Bush has done all he can to make his grandfather's wishes come true . . . he has disregarded our constitution, abridged many personal freedoms, made habeas corpus a thing of the past, started a war for the benefit of his contributors, raped the coffers and turned a huge surplus into the largest deficit in our country's history, decimated the middle class, institued a system of corporate welfare, destroyed our manufacturing base and outsourced high-paying jobs to other countries, and now is creating a staged reason to go to war in Iran. It is NOW or NEVER for our country. Unless we elect Barack Obama this year, we may never recover.

There is a third video below -- a song by today's Bob Dylan, James McMurtry which clearly and depressingly describes the situation in America today. I urge everyone, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Republican and Democrat to wake up and smell the coffee. Time is NOT on our side!