Parkland, JFK and Propagandizing the Murder of a President

by Christopher Barr

"What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by an American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living...not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time."    - JFK

Parkland is about the aftermath of the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Texas on November.22, 1963.  It follows various people around the chaotic events that came after the murder, focusing on Parkland hospital in Dallas where the president was rushed to after being shot in the head, also the events that surrounded Lee Harvey Oswald when he was rushed to Parkland after being shot by Jack Ruby.

The film follows the events, leading up to and after, Abraham Zapruder shooting his infamous film of the event itself.  Also events at the Dallas FBI field office where it was determined that Oswald was in their office a mere 10 days prior but what was mistakenly deemed not a threat. 

It’s hard to believe that this film isn’t just a propaganda film to help combat the fallout of the 50^th anniversary of the assassination.  Questions will be asked as well as TV specials on the event will likely air, leading up to the anniversary.  This film doesn’t answer anything new and distorts the events themselves; also it relies on the tall glass of Americana bullshit that the government shills out to the people regularly.  Like the sappiness of how better they all are compared to the rest of the world.  The film is a color by numbers of the Warren Commission Report covered up view of the events of the assassination.

Religion played a big part in the movie, everyone always blessing each other of blessing god or themselves.  Fake tender moments of sorrow and disbelief ran throughout the film.  All the characters were one dimensional with the exception of Robert Oswald, Lee’s brother.  Speaking of Lee, there was a scene in the film after Oswald was captured and taken into custody that he was able to speak to his brother Robert.  A catatonic looking Oswald walked in the room mumbling cryptic slurs at his brother with a very calm disposition.  If history serves, Oswald was a wreck when he was taken into custody as any man would who was accused of a crime he didn’t commit.  In this film they portrayed him as a caught man that was going to get what was coming to him.  

The film reminded me yet again of how afraid the American people are of their wrathful government, because this film played it safe, Hallmark-card style.  The evidence of a second shooter is overwhelming in this case; it makes you wonder if quantum mechanics and applied physics aren’t really taught is schools so the confused public can’t work out the logic of the events themselves, but is rather subject to the experts on "Fox News" and "CNN" to get their evidence.

21 years ago Oliver Stone’s JFK film told the story of the events after the assassination.  The difference here is Stone’s film clearly did its research and cared, two essential components that horribly lacked in Parkland. Stone’s film felt pissed off at the cover story, it felt frustrated at the growing propaganda campaign to manipulate the public into thinking that Oswald was the killer and acted alone.  Oswald apparently shot Kennedy from the six floor of the Texas Book Depository because of his “hatred of American society” and his “perpetual discontentment” and was acting “without regard to consequences”.

Like September 11^th, 2001, the facts of the JFK assassination is so convoluted that the truth becomes so buried that the worlds most renowned Paleo-Prospector wouldn’t be able to excavate it properly, and that’s the point I think.  All the conspiracy theories are an injustice in themselves, all wanting to surface the truth but collectively drowning that possibility.  Truth becomes unattainable in this web of theory, what one thinks happened based on whatever evidence they uncover.  Some say the secret service limo driver did it by accident when he heard a car backfire and panicked.  The truth does exist but we have robbed our ability to ascertain it because of our subjective views on objectivity.  We add, we add emotion and hatred and view points to an event that requires none to understand it.  9/11 is swamped in conspiracy theory to such an extent that those that really orchestrated it can sit back and say, ‘good luck figuring it out’. 

By this notion of only seeing what we want to see, destroys the investigation at the outset, contaminating it with ideology and conjecture.  The cover story stands, period.  Lee Harvey Oswald shot he 35^th president of the United States of America from the six floor of the Texas Book Depository building, shooting into the president’s motorcade, specifically the open-top limo hitting Kennedy and governor John Connally before delivering a fatal shot to Kennedy’s head all within a 4.5 to 7 second spurt.  Oswald fled the scene among the chaos and was caught an hour later inside a movie theatre after shooting to death Dallas police officer D. Tippit.  He was taken into custody and later killed by one Jack Ruby. 

19 hijackers with box cutters commandeered four planes on 9/11 to attack America and its freedom.  It doesn’t matter that the phone system was shut down in Dallas and Washington during the JFK assassination, to control the flow of information, which allowed the government to program their cover story into the minds of their ignorant public, or that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered NORAD to shut down during the actual attacks on New York City and Washington on 9/11.  Just because we know that Oswald, the lone gunman, and the 19 highjackers wouldn’t have the connections to exact such things doesn’t make them any less guilty, they’re guilty because the government and their multimedia news story-tellers say so.

You can bet that crazy Bill O’Reilly on the O’Reilly Factor will be dispelling all conspiracy theorist as nut jobs come November when his program along with Fox news discusses the assassination’s 50^th year anniversary.  The point is they have to, they have to promote their history at all cost, because that history, as distorted at it is, is the fantasy fabric that binds what’s left of that country together.  That’s all that’s left, we’re right and you’re wrong childhood playground politics, and that’s where Parkland falls in.  To hell with the conspiracy, let’s just tug on the emotional aspects of the nostalgia, trampling over the man’s memory as they go.

Traversing the fantasy doesn’t seem to be a possibility with these odds; the bubble seems to appear well intact.  What hope is there in a country when sticking your head in the sand isn’t only better for you but is also patriotic, and what’s best for a country who is desperately hanging on by a thread?  For many countries in the world we would chalk this up as growing pains, America is a young teenager and needs time to mature.  That’s fine but America has a mass military armada that could level the earth as we know it.  On a smaller scale, that’s like putting guns in the hands of ignorant, iron-pumping, knuckle-draggers and call them police as they shoot down an unarmed women in her car, with her child in the backseat, while panicking because she has guns pointing at her and her child from every direction.  Magnify that by a million and we see an army of brainwashed men with machine guns and politicians with their fingers on the nuclear triggers.  America has become the bully that wants your lunch money and with that sensibility we must ask ourselves; should we be worried?  You’re goddamn right we should be worried.