"Smoke, Lies, and Revelations - Struggle for Truth During America's Lying Times (Nov. 23rd, 1963 thru Jan 20th, 2009, + August, 2009): Part 1: 50s thru early 70s - Politics, Truth, and the Furious Mar

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The most significant warning came from the President of the United States who had presided over this post WWII rise of corporations. Dwight D. Eisenhower in his final televised address to the nation before leaving office warned against the power and influence of the military-industrial complex. Prophetic and prescient, his words -- often quoted over the decades since -- included "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex...." With Americans caught between opposing evils of confusion and anomy and being assimilated by corporate culture ("resistance is futile"), many suffered through, or clung to traditional ways, especially the elderly, and ignored the assaults on their credibility. Almost immediately after JFK's murder, Johnson escalated the war and funding for it. America had its first coup; its first massive cover-up and Big Lie. Over the next forty-six years, with Republicans taking over soon enough and holding onto Executive Power for all but seventeen years, including Johnson's five years, the tendencies that began in the Fifties involving the gathering of power into fewer and fewer hands, and the use of that power to influence the beliefs, ideals, and even psychology of the masses, increased and became more severe, pervasive, and threatening up to the point of the outright lunacy and obvious deceptions and manipulations that were evident under George W. Bush. Only at that point, with year after year throwing up scandals, corruptions, misgovernment, several stolen Presidential elections, an unnecessary war, runaway deficits, and most significantly, right from the start, another massive transfer of wealth upward to benefit that small elite and increase their power, were Americans finally beginning to open their eyes to the ways they'd been lied to, used, and robbed by the rich and powerful. It took all that, which played out on the media nightly, year after year, with no recourse even for impeachment because of an ill-timed agreement between the parties about impeachment that had come out of the debacle of the impeachment attempt on Clinton, to create the cracks in the Matrix, or web of Big Lies built up over nearly 50 years. So that finally an authentic man, a man not of the powerful elite, could win the Presidency handily. In this context at no time was there an opening for the kind of rational or thoughtful, peaceful and considered pursuit of truth, insight, or enlightenment that had characterized the eras that had actually led to the birth of America and its system of democracy, freedoms, and rights. By this I mean that since 1963, there was little room in America for any of the elements that characterized the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Age of Reason or Rationalism, or the Age of Enlightenment -- whose adherents and tenets spawned the American experiment. Indeed, I personally observed the downfall of the ideal of education in the liberal arts. So liberal arts ideals were bulldozed away to make room for the career tracks leading directly into positions in management, medicine, law, and many new and highly specialized niches Students were no longer taught the great ideas of the millennia, ideas that had stood the test of time and influenced numerous societies and nations and individuals. So we can consider ourselves to be better in America. For totalitarianism -- as, for example, under Stalin, Mao, or the Khmer Rouge -- is usually accompanied by the slaughter of the educated. In my own lifetime, in Cambodia at least one million were killed wantonly, anyone with education was slated for death. But in America, we are better because we just seduce them away from higher aspirations of the soul to the lower base impulses that are satisfied with what money can buy. The corporations buy their talent and their potential for high achievement and all the rewards that come with rich lives of insight and personal growth; in exchange for their moneyed positions they receive an enlightenment lobotomy. Should they feel dissatisfied -- as we psychologists and liberal arts thinkers know they will sooner or later -- others of their kind who took the medical or pharmaceutical tracks have conveniently produced the sedatives, palliatives, and opiates to keep them numb. I guess you could say these are the "breathing holes" that Kurt Cobain talked about. They may put you in a jar, but they'll give you "breathing holes," and you'll think you're happy, he sang. Unfortunately while this story is personally gratifying, it has led me to the most disturbing truth of all time, something widely known, something dire, something so big that most people -- in keeping with the times of smoke and lies -- are finding it easy to look away, even at the cost of their lives and those of their children. (To be continued.) 

Description

This is the context of my life in terms of the increasing suppression of truth. Since Kennedy's time and because of the Vietnam War protests, I have seen the increasing web of deceit cover this land. I have seen things with my own eyes that have been changed when reported to the country and written into history books. I have seen the 1984 of George Orwell creep into America unseen --slick and gradual and perfect, as only the best minds, paid handsomely by the people with the wealth, can concoct. A well-regarded book about Bush's America recently published and tallying the actions and events of the last eight years concludes without equivocation that America had become a dictatorship. I believe that to be true, but even if it did not rise to that level, whatever it did rise to did not happen overnight and just because of one administration. Bush's dictatorship was the end result of the slick suppression of truth and manipulation of the masses that had its roots in the 50s, took the helm after killing Kennedy, and went into all-out war stance when confronted by the backlash of the educated in the late 60s and very early 70s. As for what follows from here in this narrative: This is the story of one person's life in those times. This is the story of one person's involvement in those times as Forrest-Gump-like he found himself caught up in all the major trends over the last sixty years either through first hand observation or through the fact that as a writer and avid follower of the events of the day -- in an era that seemed his whole life to be peppered with national and international surprises and upheavals, some positive; other's mostly not -- he could not look away. In particular, it is the story of my quest for truth during those times. Through a coincidence of birth, genetics, and upbringing, and because in general a quest for truth requires too much time involvement and is usually not a higher priority over things like family and community, my quest for truth, foregoing family, wealth, and community ties, was unusual for my times. I found few fellow travelers. I had a life different from most, one which took me to live, to study, and to participate in places and with groups around and around the country for 40 years. Many of these groups and places and the activities and thinking would be considered exotic or alien to most Americans, and if they'd heard about these developments, for most people it was something that was happening far away from them with people they did not know, and was on top of that reported to them in a way to distort and misinform.