April 15th, The Other Independence Day

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity.  The wealthy pay more because they have benefited more.  Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare.  Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible.  Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers.  Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine.  During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services.  For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food."

"Tax Time"
Jill Lepore
The New Yorker
November 26, 2012

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Vincent Bugliosi's mammoth, totally convincing examination of the assassination of John Kennedy is encapsuled in one sentence on page 1,437:

"...Oswald, a lone nut, killed Kennedy and was thereafter killed by another lone nut, Ruby."


On page 1,461, Bugliosi summarizes his conclusion:

"After over forty years of the most prodigiously intensive investigation and examination of a murder case in world history, certain powerful facts exist which cannot be challenged:  Not one weapon other than Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle has ever been found and linked in any way to the assassination .  Not one bullet other than the three fired from Oswald's rifle has ever been found and linked to the assassination. No person other than Oswald has ever been connected by evidence, in any way, to the assassination.  No evidence has ever surfaced linking Oswald to any of the major groups suggested by conspiracy theorists of being behind the assassination.  And no evidence has ever been found showing that any person or group framed Oswald for the murder they committed."

Anyone trying to make a case for a a different shooter, more shooters, shadowy figures or organizations behind the killing, has to deal with this one central fact.  Beyond more than a reasonable doubt, beyond a rational doubt, it is clear that Oswald shot Kennedy.  From that starting point, any conspiracy would have had to been put in place before November 22nd and would have had to have been so vast (including the Secret Service, the FBI, Dallas police and prosecutors, doctors at Parkland Hospital and at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, etc) as to be thoroughly beyond belief.  One example: why would any person or group that was able to cover up so much for so long have recruited anyone as unreliable as Oswald and then have allowed him to use an old Italian military rifle, purchased for $15 mail-order, that had a defective scope?  

I didn't start this book with an open mind.  For years, having followed the assassination very superficially through press reports, I believed what so many did, that Kennedy was killed by some combination of the New Orleans mob, anti-Castro Cubans, and the CIA.  (After all, didn't the House Assassinations Committee conclude there was a fourth shot, proving the existence of another shooting and therefore a conspiracy?)

My thinking was changed completely by, of all things, watching Oliver Stone's JFK.   The movie convinced me, on a gut level, that Oswald acted alone (certainly not Stone's intention.)  It was the conversation between the fictionalized Jim Garrison and the fictional X, played by Donald Sutherland, when X explains in great detail the hows and whys of the American military-industrial conspiracy that was behind the shooting.   Watching this conversation, it became inconceivable to me that, in the nearly 50 years since Kennedy was shot, someone involved or aware of this massive undertaking would not have spoken out.  Either out of pride, guilt, religion, death-bed terror, money, or any combination, someone would have come forward by now.  That many people could not have kept this big a secret for this long.

As evident in the passage quoted above, Bugliosi dismisses much of the conspiracy theories as lacking any kind of evidence to support them.  He avoids the truism that lack of evidence does not constitute evidence of lack, but his arguments are compelling anyway.  Virtually all conspiracy theorists focus on some combination of two points.  First, they identify some group (CIA, Hoover, LBJ, Castro, Kruschev, organized crime, etc) that would appear to gain from Kennedy's death.  Having apparent motive, they are off and running, even if a more careful reading of the relationships is less convincing about the motive.

The other approach is to focus on some seemingly contradictory fact or testimony that appears to be inconsistent with the findings of the Warren Commission or the House Assassinations Committee.  Bugiliosi goes into great detail to explore and debunk these apparent anomalies, finding most to be misreading of the evidence and problems in human perceptions of rapidly occurring and complex events.

Kennedy's death was a seminal event for many people of my generation. Certainly there was no event before or since that drew the universal attention of the world so intensively.  It is hard for many of us to believe that something so important, someone so important to so many, could be suddenly struck down by an inconsequential nobody.  Yet, that's what happened. 

"2048"

Close up of a man, thin, very short steel gray hair, heavily lined face, late 50s to early 60s, stressed, bothered, talking.

"First they replaced Medicare and Social Security with vouchers and individual retirement accounts . My folks were both dead,  retirement was decades away, I figured I could do a better job with my money than the government could, so no problem."

"Then they got rid of college scholarships for poor kids. Hell, I had to work when I went
to school and I'm still paying off the loans. And so what if some of them can't go past
high school. We still need mechanics, and janitors, and construction workers, And with
the border closed and the illegals gone, somebody's got to do those jobs".

"Minimum wage was next. Sure I was 29 and still pouring coffee, but as soon as the tax
cuts kicked in, we knew the good jobs were going to come back."

"We opened up more of the country for drilling and built more nukes, so we don't need oil
from the Middle East anymore. Of course, the air's not so good, and it is too bad about
San Diego."

"Turns out global warming wasn't a hoax, of course. Food shortages are getting pretty
common, with the droughts and the crazy storms. I always wish I'd seen New Orleans
when I had the chance."

Slowly pull back, showing a small, sparsely furnished room.

"I remember 2012. Getting rid of Obama seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, I'm
not so sure....."

Anecdote is not the singular of data.

--- found in comments on an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Derivation unknown.

Once more down the rabbit hole...

...Cornell University’s Suzanne Mettler points out that many beneficiaries of government programs seem confused about their own place in the system. She tells us that 44 percent of Social Security recipients, 43 percent of those receiving unemployment benefits, and 40 percent of those on Medicare say that they “have not used a government program.” 

The truth, of course, is that the vast bulk of entitlement spending goes to the elderly, the disabled, and working families, so any significant cuts would have to fall largely on people who believe that they don’t use any government program.

Paul Krugman

The New York Times

February 17, 2012

Yet there is still a territory we call Bohemia, even if it cannot be seen or photographed: it is a territory of romance, risk, choice, commitment, and passion.  Its terrain is fraught with perils, for those who choose to dwell there set themselves apart from the inhabitants of the earth while remaining, of course, among their number.  As such they are open to all kinds of attack, some rational, some not, from those who choose more conventional lives.  It is uncharted territory, where there are no rules or rulers, and in this anarchic, motley, exciting, and timeless land, Louise Bryan still lives as queen.

Queen of Bohemia
The Life of Louise Bryant

Mary V. Dearborn

Blue Song

I am tired.
I am tired of speech and action.
If you should meet me upon the
street do not question me for
I can tell you only my name
and the name of the town I was
born in -- but that is enough.
It does not matter whether tomorrow
arrives anymore.  If there is
only this night and after it is
morning it will not matter now.
I am tired.  I am tired of speech
and of action.  In the heart of me
you will find a tiny handful of
dust.  Take it and blow it out
upon the wind.  Let the wind have
it and it will find its way home.

--- Tennessee Williams

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Britain

Another well written popular history from Erik Larson (I previously read Devil in the White City and Issac's Storm).  This book focuses on the family of U.S. ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd. It combines a vivid day-to-day portrayal of the growing Nazi menace with gossipy details of Martha Dodd's very active love life. 

Larson did a great deal of research into the years when Dodd was serving in Berlin, but there is little feeling for the impact of the Versailles treaty and life in the Weimar Republic during the first years of the Hitler period (hard to picture Sally Bowles in this Berlin). Understanding Hitler's rise to power requires a good background in the German sense of humiliation from the treaty terms and the economic hardships during the 1920s.