ANATOMY OF A CONSPIRATORICIAN

I realized yesterday that it has been twenty years now since we did the coffee-table book, Conspiracy-A-Go-Go, a guide to sites associated with the JFK tangle. My feelings for study of the JFK assassination have been dormant for many years. Yet when viewing RFK Must Die, about Robert Kennedy`s shooting, much of my enthusiasm came back from the dead. This was in November of 1988 that all of this action went down. But yesterday I tried to remember when this unusual hobby of evidence digging really got started; what were its origins?

In the early to mid 1970s I tinkered a little by reading the Warren Report; more than anything else I was having trouble making the facts fit together into a cogent puzzle. I am a trained historian and was aware of methodologies to research a subject and at least attempt objectivity. Not that much was laying around that you could read to counter the wooden story that was given by the Warren Report. And then again, I was from Dallas (but living in Austin at the time) and many rumors and stories were circulating back then; most people with any saby did not accept the fabrications spun-out by the government.

Actually it was just a handful of independent researchers who began to crack the lid of lies, the cookie-jar cover story that shielded the American people from the stark truth. I would sit in the public library for hours on end reading the trifle of material I could get my hands on. One of the first things I ever looked at was Cover-up by Gary Shaw. I can not recall when I first saw it (around 1978). I marveled over all the knew information contained within, such as the tramps or hobos at the Depository or the fake Oswald photos taken at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. I knew that Gary Shaw was onto something significant.

In the late 1970s I began to obtain more reading materials that gave me more data. When the House Report came out suddenly I realized that the conspiracy was real, four shots had been fired at Dealey Plaza. Oddly, over the past ten years, say, more books and specials have reasserted the veracity of the single bullet theory, the model for Lee Oswald doing it alone. From say, 1979-1999 conspiracy was the going trend regarding the assassination. I am confounded by this change in public opinion. I believe it is contingent on these oppressive times. However, I will state a few simple bits of info that still lead me to believe that JFK was killed as a result of a conspiracy.

One thing that still eats away at me is pointed out by Josiah Thompson in Oswald`s Ghost, the best film I`ve seen in recent memory about these issues. That is, what was a lefty doing shooting a liberal president in right-wing Dallas? This does not make sense. Did Lee work for the CIA, just as his mother Margarita always purported? The evidence that Lee did is convincing to me.

For me, It is still simple things that trouble me. It is little things that don`t fit. Remember, witnesses saw two men stacking boxes in the sixth floor window about thirty minutes before the shooting. How could Oswald have gotten to the lunch room in just two minutes? No one has ever duplicated this feat. Did Roger Craig see Lee run down the Knoll and get in a car about twenty minutes after the shooting? Why did so many witnesses die after 1963, many of them under suspicious circumstances (see Penn Jones Jr.)? How does the missed shot that hit the curb fit into the construct? Why were there two caskets for JFK? What about the puff of smoke coming from the Knoll, and seen by S.M. Holland and others? Weren`t the autopsy photos faked?

There are hundreds and hundreds of anomalies to this case, that simply don`t support the position that only Oswald did it alone. I`m sorry to see this new wave of conservative constructionists on the JFK Assassination. We have an obligation to look back on the courageous original researchers who uncovered this heinous plot. A few of them are Robert Groden, Gary Mack, Mark Lane, Gary Shaw, Harold Weisburg, and Josiah Thompson. I will continue to be defiant against these latest distortions. Access The Men Who Killed Kennedy again for truth. This has been censored on the History Channel in recent memory. I recorded it in the late 1990s, so I can not be denied its revelations. When people try to put forth the single-bullet theory, they simply have to extract all the info that doesn`t fit. This is a sizeable body of facts. Keep this in mind…

RFK MUST DIE!

The second film that I viewed was RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy, a canny film with a few significant break-throughs, is by Shane O`Sullivan and was released last year. The freshest evidence is the apparent presence of three CIA agents at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5th, 1968. His other major contribution to the case is the argument that Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotized in order to play his role as a patsy to take the wrap. This coverage includes the specifics of the shooting as well as ample explanations of the bigger picture of a conniving conspiracy.

The coup de grace of conspiracy, for me, is the fact that Kennedy was shot in the back of the head, probably and the muzzle of the gun was just about three inches from his head. This is known because of the powder burns that were apparent in the autopsy. Another shocking fact is that were more bullets flying around the kitchen pantry than the 8 that could have come from Sirhan`s 22 caliber Iver-Johnson cadet revolver.

THE GIRL IN A POLKA-DOT DRESS
Sandra Serrano was a twenty-year old at the primary victory and was napping in a balcony, when two people hurried by and exclaimed, “We shot him, we shot him.” “Who did you shoot?” “We shot the senator.” The girl running by was young and pretty, with dark hair and wore a white dress with black polka-dots. Sandra had seen them earlier with two Latin men, one of which she later identified as Sirhan. Another witness, Vincent Di Pierro, also identified the girl in question. At the trial the prosecution argued that Valerie Sheltzie, who was a blond, was the said girl.

The oddest thing about this is the way that the LAPD detective Hernandez. interrogated her and tried to coerce her to alter her story. She described him as a Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde-like character. He engaged in ‘brow beating’ and was trying to intimidate a witness, just like the Dallas police had in 1963. He manipulated her into signing a statement that she did not see or hear anything from the girl with the polka-dot dress.

WITNESSES TO THE CIA AGENTS
The chief identifier of rogue operative Dave Morales was Bradley Ayers. Ayers had known him in Miami when working on JM-Wave in 1963, a CIA operation to train Cubans to attempt the usurpation of the Castro regime. It must be noted that Morales himself had a massive heart attack in 1978 before he could appear on the Senate Hearings on the Assassination. Someone did not want him to talk.

I will include some of Bradley Ayers` words in order to cement the ID of Morales at the Ambassador Hotel on the late eve of June 4th, 1968. He is reacting to the footage shown him by Shane O`Sullivan. Ayres` words verbatim.

“That was the figure that I previously identified as Morales. The nose is a little more flattened, but the stance, the shoulders, the face, the tie eschew, the general facial impression is an individual that I would identify as Morales. Yea, practically to a 100 % degree.”

“I think that the nose is really an artifact of pixel color shadow and so on. This definitely from the profile is hugely similar. The body language is very, very much characteristic of Morales. See how he moves back and forth very casually so as to not attrack attention to himself. That is him, no question.”

A good testimony is provided by Wayne Smith, a state department official who knew Morales well at the US embassy in Havanna in 1959. He says: “That`s Morales! Yea, I`m virtually certain,” while reacting to the film footage of the night of the assassination. Smith says also: “I knew Morales quite well in Argentina.” They argued and Dave Morales said: “Kennedy got what was coming to him.” This was said in a very determined way, Smith emphasized. Kennedy had betrayed the agency by not providing air support for the ‘Cuban liberators’ at the Bay of Pigs.

Shane O`Sullivan asked him if there is a benign explanation for him to be at the Ambassador. “In my wildest imagination I couldn`t imagine Morales being assigned to protect RFK,” Shane exclaims. He furthers concludes that Morales` presence there that night and RFK being shot have to be related.

David Rabern, an ex-CIA operative and eyewitness at the Ambassador Hotel, was working on an alarm systems project and had free tickets to primary victory party. He was walking toward the front doors when he heard the slight noise of the pop, pop, pop of gunshot. Rabern did not believe that Sirhan could have done it alone.

David Rabern clearly identified David Sanchez Morales (El Gordo) at the crime scene, a rogue CIA agent who had antipathies for the Kennedys. Rabern also saw the bald one (CIA agent Gordon Campbell) talking to Morales. He assumed a military stance with his hands behind his back. Sirhan was a decoy, a mere throw away, the shooter in the public eye. The primary gunman performed the act in a secret way.

David indicates that this is highly suspicious. “Why they were doing the things they were doing, I`m surprised it was never investigated, is a mystery,” he states (I`m paraphrasing). He did not want to detail his associations with Gordon Campbell, but was fully familiar with him.

Ed Lopez, a former congressional investigator, identifies George Joannides in a photo at the Ambassador Hotel. Joannides had a very intriguing background with the CIA. I have just learned that he was the case officer for the DRE in New Orleans. They were a fabricated anti-Castro group that got in a ruckus with Oswald in the summer of 1963, when Oswald was handing pro-Castro leaflets on the streets of New Orleans. This got Oswald news coverage, and put him the limelight as a communist rebel. This appears to have been the goal of Joannides` operation. Ed Lopez is able to verify the connection of Oswald and the CIA and Joannides is smack dab in the middle.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

Perhaps Sirhan was programmed just right before the shooting. He was highly suggestable and was hyponotized to climb his cell bars. On the day of the shooting he had picked up two boxes of 22 caliber ammunition at the Lock Stock and Barrel. He had gone to San Gabriel Valley Range to target practice for six hours. He bumped into a friend at Bob`s Big Boys and challenged him to a game of pool. Sirhan had four Tom Collins cocktails and was very sleepy. He began to seek out coffee at the Ambassador Hotel. He ran into a girl, the girl in the Polka Dot dress, and she led him into a dark place.

Sirhan was interviewed under hypnosis. He described a policeman with a funny uniform. "You son of a bitch." A comment Sirhan makes about Kennedy. A witness heard him say that on the given night. "Can`t send those bombs." The psychiatrist, Dr. Diamond, utters: "he`s reaching spasmodically for gun in pants." There`s a Freudian aspect to the killing. Programmed to kill RFK, then programmed to forget. Sirhan was seen staring at teletype operator. He appeared to be in a trance. The witness was told by LAPD to not tell anyone about seeing this. Clues that night suggest his trance-like state. The writer George Plimpton noticed that Sirhan`s eyes were enormously peaceful. He was a good candidate for the decoy. These strange handlers from the CIA programmed him to forget the crime, and forget the people who who helped him. Sirhan honestly never did remember the crime.

WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS
The Manchurian candidate angle was liberally treated. An audio tape of Sirhan under hypnosis was played in its entirety. He called Robert Kennedy a “son of a bitch.” When conscious he claimed no memory of the crime. The film suggests that he may have been programmed by the CIA to participate in the shooting with some help from the girl in the polka dot dress.

The main angle played here is that the CIA engineered the killing of RFK. The great thing about Shane O`Sullivan`s treatment is that he connects the RFK assassination with JFK`s in 1963. The Kennedys took an interest in dismantling the CIA. There was lingering resentment that John had not given the Cubans air support at the Bay of Pigs. This was the motive for eliminating the Kennedys. The two killings were related events.

There is no benign explanation for the CIA presence at the Ambassador hotel. Surely they were not involved in Robert`s security? The identification of these agents is mostly positive, with some objections raised by a few. The chief CIA agent who is implicated is David Sanchez Morales, a person involved in military coups in third world countries. Do not neglect reading the article Did the CIA Kill Bobby Kennedy? O`Sullivan has exposed some new evidence here. You will need to study the identity of Gordon Campbell and George Joannides too. If they were in Los Angeles on June 5th, 1968, then that they are connected to the shooting is positive.

“I WAS IN DALLAS WHEN WE GOT THAT MOTHERFUCKER, AND I WAS IN LOS ANGELES WHEN WE GOT THE LITTLE BASTARD.” DAVE MORALES-The man of a 1,000 faces and a hater of all communists.

Okay, I have ten pages of very good notes to plug into this document. Shane O`Sullivan has done some great leg work here. I want to mull over this, and then see how others react to it, that may be in a position of authority. This conspiracy was so cleverly perpetrated, that I wonder just who will come forward. I will get his book and the DVD and study them further.

“DID YOU SAY THAT SOB I`LL BREAK HIS BACK?” RFK
RFK wanted to dismantle the CIA. I think he probably knew that they had killed his brother. The motive was The Bay Of Pigs. JFK did not give air support for the CIA brigade that tried to instigate the coup of the Castro government.

The chief areas that I feel are worth investigating are: the actual shooting itself. The fact that too many bullets were around. And then there is the question of whether Sirhan was programmed? The suspicion of the Security Guard, Thane Eugene Cesar, was be carefully probed. I think it is a fact that RFK was shot in the back. It is impossible for Sirhan to be the shooter. The girl with the polka-dot dress must be studied. The LAPD was obviously being manipulated, and this must be considered. And finally the fresh evidence of the CIA must be examined very carefully! This thing has been finally cracked wide-open by Shane O`Sullivan, yet some still deny that the three men were CIA at the Ambassador Hotel, June 5th, 1968. Remember the tenet of ‘plausible deniability’ that was put forth by Richard Helms when he testified in 1978!

You are going to want to see the epilogue to this on the web site for RFK Must Die. Stanislaw Pruszynski made an audio tape, little known by anyone, that has 13 shots on it, thus proving that a second gunman was involved in the shooting. This would cast suspicion on the security guard Cesar who was right behind RFK.

Please be sure to use the wiki page, it is a good resource.

Robert K. Kennedy

Then I found this great page by Thom White.

http://www.citizinemag.com/politics/politics_0506_rfk_twhite.htm

Two Days In October

*Left-from the Pentagon Protests-not Madison-my favorite image of Vietnam Era.

This may be the best documentary on Vietnam that I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few. This post is just a fragmented, hodge-podge collection of notes along with a few comments. More order will be imposed on these records in time, I promise. As I watched it, I started to take notes because it was so important what was being said. Please watch this special, and see for your self. My notes may help you to begin assembling these troubling facts, as disjointed as they are. At least I`ve opened a file now, and I encourage you to do the same, on these few turgid days in October of 1967, that seemed to turn the world upside down.

“We got ambushed”… and later: “I was pretty bitter. I…I…, I considered those people to be traitors. I mean traitors, cowards, and any other dirty name you can come up with. As far as I`m concerned they can line those people up and shoot `em right between the eyes. That`s a pretty hard stand, but that`s the way I feel about it.” First Sergeant Bud Barrow-comments about Vietnam War protesters.

I saw two excellent DVDs yesterday (November 8th), the first was Two Days in October, which tells the parallel stories of a battle in Vietnam and a war protest at the University of Wisconsin. In October of 1967 the Americans of Alpha Company were ambushed by the Vietcong. Sixty-one young Americans lost their lives. Clark Welch, a Vietnam veteran who is extensively interviewed in the documentary, survived the battle and was wounded several times. Terry Allen, Jr., son of the famous WWII general, was in command at this time and ordered Alpha Company to attack the Vietcong position. He has therefore, when looking back in time, been held accountable by the survivors for this senseless massacre.

“To say it`s wrong to liberate the oppressed (to help the Vietnamese was the right thing to do)…It seemed so simple.” Clark Welch-Commander Of Delta Company

Terry Allen was shot through the head while staring at a photo of his three daughters. His wife, Jean Ponder Allen, is interviewed and reveals her gradual objections to the war. This includes a breaking with her husband who was on the other side of the fence. Footage of the battle makes it very real, and many of the Vietcong`s stories (Vo Minh Triet for one) are also recalled. Upper command was urging the soldiers to get into a real scrap with the commies. Terry Allen was being pressured to engage in a real battle.

The student protests at the University of Wisconsin were shocking to watch. You could see police battering students on the head with Billy clubs. The students blocked the administration building in protest to Dow Chemical, who had a presence on campus, and who made napalm, the gruesome jelly gas that burns at 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Apparently, this was the first student protest of the Vietnam War that turned violent. This incident occurred on October 18th, 1967 when the Chancellor, William Sewell, ordered the local police to break up the sit-in, even though he was an opponent of the war himself. I believe that he was pressured by the governor of Wisconsin.

The introduction to Two Days in October, produced and directed by Robert Kenner, synchronizes and animates newspaper headlines with snapshots from college and high school yearbooks, as well as talking head sound bites. GI VIET DEATHS PASS 10,000…US DEATHS IN VIETNAM SET RECORD… VIETNAM TROOP INCREASE… The music is pensive. Here is one sound bite:

“I`m the first born Jewish son after the holocaust. You don`t just blindly follow, you don`t just blindly obey. You stand up when you see something wrong. Your government like any government can make mistakes.” Mark Greenside

In the fall of 1967 the war was picking up. The nightly news says:171 killed this week, 977 wounded. Walter Kronkite reports: 193 died, 14,000 Americans had died by the fall of 1967. Dow Chemical Company started producing Napalm in 1965, they mainly made sirran wrap heretofore. A piece in Ramparts, read by students, calls attention to this new chemical warfare. The Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, was an opponent of the war, but he later calls the Madison police when the students stage a sit-in in defiance of the presence of Dow Chemical`s recruiting on campus.

There were now a half million young men in Vietnam. LBJ wanted body count, search and destroy the enemy was the prevailing tactic used by the military. “It was an exciting day, there was movement all around us.” Jim Shelton-On October 17th, 1967. An entire regiment of Vietcong, 12,000 soldiers, were present in the Iron Triangle, forty miles NW of Saigon. The Black Lions were stationed at Lai Khe. The Vietcong had no rice to eat for days, and were dug in bunkers. “It`s a big, hot murderous jungle.” General Hay was told by Westmoreland that we were not aggressive enough (in our pursuit of the enemy). Colonel Allen told the Company, “To pick up the pace.” Was being a hypocrite, but didn`t want to get relieved of command. Allen paid one last visit to his wife and kids in the states.

Allen`s wife, Jean Ponder Allen, from El Paso, was assaulted by images on TV of body bags and flag-draped caskets coming home. She began to doubt what it meant to be a military wife. She now wants a divorce from Terry Allen, but something worse was yet to come. She wrote a ‘Dear John Letter’ saying “I don`t want to be your wife anymore.”

The interviews with Paul Soglin and Jane Brotman really shed light on their evolving perspective. Paul Soglin became a professional protester after a very early start, dating back to protests against U.S. support of Ngo Dinh Diem. Jane Brotman, less of a professional, gradually turned against the war, especially when she was an eyewitness to the police brutality. She could hear the crack of the bats against student skulls when she walked upon the scene of confrontation. A combination of film footage, black and white stills, and eye witness testimony give this a poignancy of realism that riveted me. Scary were the words of Keith Hackett, a Madison cop who seemed to enjoy cracking the heads of students and who still seemed to relish those glory days. No remorse for his brutality could be detected in this 2005 documentary.

THE BATTLE OF ONG THANH

On October 16, 1967 Delta and Bravo Company made contact with the enemy, or on the edge of the base camp anyway. They had hit a ‘vital organ’. “we got the Vietcong where we want them.” A ‘frontal attack on a fortified position’ is not such a good idea (Clark Welch). There was a full moon that night. On October 17th Allen, who had never moved a company on the ground, began moving the troops in position. Heard a clicking sound, then the battle started.

The Americans had 160 men, the Vietnamese had 14,000 men. They were just 10 or 15 meters away. Fight very close. Alpha Co. just disappeared, now it was Delta. Machine gunner Sikorski is dead. “Anybody that was in the sunshine was being shot.” Mike Troyer. All of a sudden they had disappeared. They were gone. Everything was dead silence. 142 went out, 64 died. Almost everyone was wounded. It was a massacre. Diane Sikorski had an intense dream. Danny had his arms out. He had a giant hole in his stomach. It was a nightmare.

THE DOW PROTESTS OF OCTOBER 18TH

The kids were playing musical instruments. DOWN WITH DOW! DOWN WITH DOW! They chanted. William Sewell calls the Madison police. The Madison cops came mainly from the working class part of town. The students were East coast money. Keith Hackett says they were young and dumb. “You start anarchy, you have a fight on your hands.” James Rowen, a student protester, says: “ Expulsion from school could be a ticket to the war.”

When the cops showed there was an electric tension in the hallway. The officers were speaking through their clubs. 65 students had to go to the hospital. The bodies were stacked up like cordwood. 4,000 other students were watching the proceedings. Hackett says: “I`ve never seen the hate that was in these kids faces.” Chanting SEIG HEIL! SEIG HEIL! *The photo to the left is a demonstration in Seattle, October 16th, 1965. This is from my great book, Vietnam-A Complete Photographic History.
COVER-UP

After the ‘ambush’ at Ong Thanh of Alpha Company the military tried to spin it to look like a successful campaign. A private, Mike Arias, was told “not to mention it was an ambush.” The documentary shows old newspapers, then highlights the headlines, and enlarges the type so you can read it good. This is shocking the way the military spins this. Here are a few of them. “Threat Of Cong Attack Nipped In Jungle”… “Cong Repulsed”… “103 Reds Killed”… “Communists Withdraw”… “Victory”…. Okay, nothing could be further from the truth. General Hay was pleased that Charlie stayed in place briefly. General Westmoreland rewarded the purple heart to a few of the survivors of Ong Thanh.

The spin of the ‘Dow Protests’ by the Madison press and the university was equally nefarious. Some of the newspaper headlines that were projected were: “Campus Strike”… “Face Civil Arrest”… “Riot Leaders Suspended”… “Legislators Demand Penalties”….A witch hunt was on by the governor for protesters. A credibility gap between the media and the students is created. Now they could see that the university was on the side of Dow, the war profiteers, weapons makers. Jane Brotman, a freshman at Wisconsin in 1967, realized it was her civic responsibility to say what I witnessed was wrong. The anti-war movement only grew after ‘Dow Chemical’.

One headline reads: Communism Is On...Campus.

*(A collage I did a few years ago-not related to this special.)

DO NOT FAIL TO READ MY PIECE WHY VIETNAM? FROM 2005!

THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM THOSE DAYS IN OCTOBER OF 1967
“I think back then if people tried in anyway to stop the war, they probably felt that they were doing the right thing. On the other hand, the boys in Vietnam felt that they were doing the right thing. In the end I wonder who was right?” Diane Sikorski-sister to Danny Sikorski, a gunner who died in Vietnam on October 17th, 1967.

Diane Sikorski recalls the painful news on October 20th when the soldiers showed up to tell her family that Danny had been killed in action. Danny was dead and she had dreamed it the night before. Jean Ponder Allen lost her husband. She found it to be meaningless. She still feels a deep anger about the war. Most of the people in this special are far from healed yet.

OBAMA WILL WIN!

Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States come November 5th. The economy is bad and people will vote against the incumbent party. It will be a referendum on the Bush administration, who has performed poorly in every area-foreign policy, the economy, and with the American people themselves. Just look at Katrina. The American people want change and they`re going to get it. If we don`t get change, the economy will collapse and the threads of society will come undone. We can no longer afford the War in Iraq. Our auto companies will go out of business, if they don`t retool and build energy efficient cars. Tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas is unacceptable! Large tax breaks for the big oil companies is unforgivable! No health care for millions of Americans is not acceptable. The curtailment of civil liberties (The Patriot Act) is unacceptable!

My fundamental reason for believing strongly in the Democrats and Barack Obama is that I can recall when Bill Clinton grew the middle class in the late 1990s and then more people could participate in the economy and share a little bit of improvement. I made some money on the stock market and slightly improved my social status from lower class to lower-middle class. This is the key to what makes our capitalist economy tick. If a greater amount of people increase their income, then they can make contributions to other small businesses so that they can also succeed. They in turn will create more jobs, may become IPOs on the stock market, so that the rising middle class can participate in their unique niche in the market. At one time companies like Cisco Systems, Yahoo, Qualcom, and Sun Microsystems were small, on the go companies that people could purchase shares of stock in and participate in their growth. This opportunity has not been present in the last eight years of Bush. The market has gone down because average people can not participate. This is due to rising fuel and food costs, health care costs, and shrinking wages. This phenomenon is due to, in part, to the elitist tax structure of the Republicans that rewards the wealthy and cripples those that struggle for improvements, such as myself. These tax policies are fundamentally undemocratic.

There has been much talk lately about The Great Depression, what with the recent economic melt down of astronomic proportions. This may be something of an exaggeration, but we will just have to see just how deep the current recession will be. The measures taken by the New Dealers were, when looking in hindsight, somewhat harsh. But when you look at conditions such as unemployment levels, desperation and creativity were greatly needed. Work programs had to be created by the federal government in order to give people the ability to eat. Once they started to purchase products such as food, the helped small businesses to keep their doors open. This is small, but ironically it was the Federal government that was able to save capitalism. We will have to see how bad things get, but no doubt Obama will have to create work programs such as improving roads and bridges, investing in the US infrastructure, and helping the under employed, whose numbers are growing every day. I`m calling Obama`s efforts the New New Deal (see my collage), although I`m sure it will assume a very different form from FDRs. This won`t be a welfare state, but just a little intervention to help redirect the economy after eight years of crippling policies. This will actually be friendly to common people, so cast off the paranoia of the Bush years! I know, this is hard to do!
Everything is going to change a lot, I do believe! Businesses will have to equal out their pay, especially for African Americans, Latinos, and women. Democracy in general will be more apparent. People will vote more in schools, businesses, and in local government. People will have more voice in important decisions. Executive decisions will need to be more transparent and those choices should be based on the will of all workers. The Fat Cats can no longer be renegades in profit sharing and decisions or policy. Everyone must have a voice, we demand it.

The polls are tightening in the battleground states, such as Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. Please everyone heed the warning and work harder and harder to help Obama win! We can do it…YES WE CAN! THE RED MEANIES are creeping up on us, so lets redouble are efforts for the BLUE! I don`t understand why so many people are still going to vote for McCain. I suspect that its ignorance. Young people must vote in groves. African Americans must vote in groves. The poor must vote in groves. Obama can help us all, because we all are hurting.

THE WAR IN IRAQ MUST END! We can not afford it anymore, and the Iraqis have plenty of money to help themselves. We can not go it alone anymore. Even Bush senior built a strong coalition of allies before we went into the first Gulf War. We need to make some friends in the world, and Obama can help us do this, especially Third World countries. And no George Bush, The United Nations is not an outdated organization. We are spread too thin in Iraq and need more troops in Afghanistan.

Thousands and thousands of Obama ground troops are canvassing Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Missouri, even as I type this, and knocking on doors, making phone calls, and arguing down misdirected conservatives who have been brainwashed for years by Shaun Hannity and Rusch Limbaugh, who are nothing but demigods for an extremist and dangerous position. Fox News will lead us to destruction! Turn it off RIGHT NOW! Obama is running a brilliant campaign, maybe the best since John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in 1960 with Robert Kennedy as his campaign manager. Obama is getting the Hispanic vote and white women, and many of the soft Republicans too, who see Sarah Palin as too far on the right, which is exactly the case! I have a feeling that the follow through for the Obama people will be fantastic, and I`m making a stab at it right here! We have to win, and WE WILL! I don`t want this GREAT COUNTRY to end, and I know that you don`t either!

Let me summarize Obama`s position to turn this country around: GROW THE MIDDLE CLASS. Create jobs in technology and the auto industry…have everyone working, UNITE ALL PEOPLE…we are one people, not various pockets of blue and red. DIXIE NEEDS TO THAW OUT! The past is over, let it go. Maybe Georgia can go Obama if every African American will vote there. Let`s elect the FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN EVER AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Health care for all Americans is possible. Friends with many more countries is a possibility! An end to foreign wars. The recovery of civil liberties. The reduction of fear and the stupid use of the American flag to only represent a very narrow concept of patriotism…one that rejects dissent against an unfair War in Iraq! We can do it, ELECT BARACK OBAMA ON NOVEMBER 4TH! Study his web page please, and pass my blog on to countless others immediately! OUR VERY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT! JGK

OBAMA/BIDEN OR DIE!

EMERGENCY! PLEASE VOTE FOR OBAMA/BIDEN NOW OR ON NOVEMBER 4TH!

TEN GOOD REASONS TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC BLUE MY FRIENDS:

1. WE NEED TO GROW THE MIDDLE CLASS!

2. THEIR PLAN FOR HEALTH CARE WILL WORK!

3. TAX CUTS FOR 95% OF AMERICANS WILL HELP THE SHRINKING MIDDLE CLASS & ALL WORKING PEOPLE!

4. IT`S TIME TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ NOW!

5. THE FEDERAL DEFICIT IS RUINING THE ECONOMY-WE MUST SHRINK IT JUST AS BILL CLINTON DID!

6. WE HAVE TO STOP OUTSOURCING JOBS, & CREATE JOBS HERE IN THE U.S! OBAMA HAS A PLAN FOR THIS!

7. THINK AL GORE IN TERMS OF THE TYPES OF NEW JOBS THAT CAN BE CREATED IN ENERGY & THE HIGH TECH INDUSTRY!

8. OBAMA`S IDEAS ON IMMIGRATION ARE RIGHT!

9. WE MUST BEGIN TO IMPROVE OUR IMAGE IN THE WORLD! OBAMA/BIDEN CAN DO THIS, BUT IT WILL TAKE MUCH TIME! WE HAVE TO STOP THESE ILLEGAL INVASIONS INTO SYRIA!

10. THE ECONOMY WILL GRADUALLY IMPROVE, BUT IT WILL TAKE SOME TIME! THE KEY IS BY LETTING THE LOWER MIDDLE CLASS DO A LITTLE BETTER. THEN THE WHOLE ECONOMY WILL START TO PERCOLATE! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED LATE IN BILL CLINTON`S SECOND TERM! THIS IS WHY I STARTED TO DO BETTER THROUGH THE U.S. STOCK MARKET!

MCCAIN/PALEN ARE WRONG ON THE ECONOMY, WRONG ON THE WAR IN IRAQ, & WRONG ON ENERGY!

VOTE OBAMA/BIDEN ON NOV 4TH, OR EARLIER!

A TRUE TALE OF WOE-GHOUL(S) OF THE OLDE WEST

A TRUE TALE OF WOE-GHOUL(S) OF THE OLDE WEST by John G. Kays

“I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed-melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring.” The Time Machine-H. G. Wells

This is a true tale of woe. The particulars are undeniable shards of indicia, yet the rub of this perplexing interlude is subject to pendulums of speculation. If I had any notion of what was about to happen to me this Hallows Eve, I would have chartered a flight to Bermuda, cashed in my 401 K, or what is left of it, and taken an early retirement, a leave of absence from this ignoble planet that we call home. Yet the human race craves to hear my wrenching tale, while even knowing that their fates are carved as pumpkin fur party. Eek! Gadzooks! Yet wait, here crawls a freak, a ghoulish effigy, a Badman out-of-time-me sees a puff of fancy, a pipedream, my chummy compadre? Doomed, doomed, thus quivers my throat!

`Twas a crisp clear autumn day in the year 2008, the month was October, the day was the 31st. An infrequent breeze did coarse through the room, and openings in the blinds saw whisking palms gently swaying. Merrily, I lit a candle to a newly carved Jack-O-Lantern smiling wryly and arranged decorative, fresh candy bowls for the trick-er-treaters who would chance my abode this very eve. Eagerly, I unwrapped my HP Pavilion dv9000 notebook from the Fed Express package and began to set up shop for my wireless laboratory that would soon take me to new places. Green light go, all systems tilt-a-whirl, knobs on eleven! The antenna waves began to function and I surfed the net for spine-tingling stories to pass some idle hour.

I peered into the notebook and this scene came forth: it was the parking lot behind a humble mall in Dallas, Texas, known as Northtown Mall. The focus is on a yellow 1966 Ford Mustang, the best model ever, and one that resembles my very own, used to drive around the town in my youth. It was closely parked to one of the entrances to the mall towards the back of the building. Why was I seeing only vehicles in the lot from the 1970s, such as Pintos, Ford Broncos, or Pontiac Firebirds?

Screen fog clouds then the ‘camera’ trots swiftly into the mall, then pans into the AMC Northtown Six Theater, an earliest version of multi-cinema complexes that now crowd our American landscape. You should know, I was gainfully employed as an usher for the Cubs-share of my latter days in high school (1967-1971). The eye then races down (I do not know what it is) the lobby (replay The Shining again for reference) past the refreshment stand and into screen IV where the feature that is playing is Phantasm, considered by most to be a classic, with its campy antics of flying metal blades and the spooky Tall Man mortician cruising in hearses, snatching teens, and turning the dead into dwarf zombies in order to take over the world.

Now skip back to a young man munching corn and hugging a soft drink-grimacing to the shenanigans of supernal simulacre. He is a thin lad with flowing chestnut locks and coke-bottle glasses as thick as the iron girders of the Empire State Building. He is wearing a navy blue sports coat, white wrinkled dress shirt, bell-bottom blue slacks, and cordovan weejins lacking socks. As I witnessed this on the notebook canopy, my mouth opened in awe, this was me back in time. I was watching myself at the premiere of Phantasm, March 28th, 1979, at Northtown Six Theater. The specifics of the event began to flood back into my mind, Goosebumps popped up in my craggy joints.

This was a chronicle from my life. It was real, I actually did attend this movie at this now defunct mall, that is at present an abandoned shell for dubious flea markets and traveling carnivals with one star ratings. But folks, I had just gone back in time some twenty-nine years to a frivolous, yet pertinent event from an earlier chapter in my life. A pitch of fever for vagaries, a trance came over me, what would happen next? I watched Phantasm once again on Netflix to put meat on the bones of memory.

The laptop curtain blurred and cleared prodigiously in my chamber, the commotion desisted and I observed some relevant entries in the bottom right hand corner of the flatface. It read: May 25th, 1871, Abilene, Kansas. I recognized this as the last stop on the Chisholm Trail, a frenzied cash-in cowtown where law and order had taken a vacation to Saskatchewan! Frame the scene, two men approach each other with harried mugs. The drunken one sputtered: “I`m just taking in the town.” The other blasted, “Take those pistols off. I arrest you.” Lo and behold, this was Wild Bill Hickok, I recognized his countenance from rusty photos!

The young, spunky stranger pulled his firearms from his scabbard and quickly rolled the guns over in his hands and stuck em in Wild Bill`s face. He curses the legend as a long-haired scoundrel, then he says, “This is my fight and I`ll kill the first man that fires a gun.” Oddly, the two made up, shook hands, patted their respective backs, then paced to the Apple Jack Saloon fur an eye-opener. I grimaced as the screen fogged up big time. Cognizance filled my brain, I pulled impacting data from storage-this was John Wesley Hardin`s infamous Border Roll on Wild Bill Hickok. The event seemed real; the cobwebs of time dissipated, sheen returned to the dusty memory.

Several hours went by and I doled out trick `r treats to costumed revelers ambling from door to door. Nervously, I festooned my condo with orange and black streamers, to take the edge off, you see, but the shocking revelations, the recollection of the cyber-loop, echoed through my brain and bones (which shook with the timidity of a skeleton dance of death). After much gloom and off-the-map marveling, I returned to my experimental chamber for encounters unexplained-a diminishment of cowardice pushed me forth to my station (a refuge for unspeakable chimera).

I deposited my paperback copy of The Tommyknockers on the nightstand and turned down the chiming clocks ringing on The Dark Side of the Moon vinyl platter. I returned to my spanking new notebook and read a ghost story or two-one on theSOP.org about the Bell Witch put me in a moony mood, so I fetched a steaming kettle of green tea and fixed my eyes on a short story, Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe in a yellowing, though lovely, antediluvian volume. Mysteriously, fog began to appear on the edges of the screen; did I have extra pork-barrel options in this box that I was unaware of? Data in the bottom right hand corner displayed Friday, August 1st, 1873. Locale: Albuquerque, Texas. Clarity returned to the screen.

I could make out a Blacksmith Shop; one man was getting off a horse with a double-barreled shotgun in hand. The other cowpoke was cocking a pistol and aiming it towards a man down the dusty street who was sporting a knife. The man with the blade uttered: “Hands up, you son of a bitch!” The ornery dudes commenced to plug `em with six-shooter balls and buckshot. The man tumbled to the dirt stone dead and bleeding from countless orifices. The killers fled nonchalantly and my display began to obfuscate yet again. Later I was able to piecemeal exactly what I had seen.

The electronic partition clouded for a moment than began to rewind rapidly. Scenes changed dramatically as people, trees, and buildings whipped back through time and got younger. Finally, focus emerges and on the right hand bottom of the screen digits are noted: El Paso 8/19/1895. I can see we are in front of the Acme Saloon on San Antonio Street-downtown El Paso. The time on the screen is 11 PM and a cantankerous looking cowpoke walks through the saloon doors, and begins to pull a pistol out of his side holster. A drunken man with a mustache who is playing dice gets up, wobbly, tossing dice down the spit-clean bar and utters to his compadre, “Brown, you`ve got four sixes to beat.”

The man with the silver star pinned to his vest walked four steps through the smoky pallor and pointed the pistol to the back of the woozy gambler`s head and fired. Down tumbled the loner, a gaping wound to the back of the head. The limping lawman pumped two more slugs into the fallen cowboy then calmly left the scene. The screen began to mist as the drama was told. A chilly draft wafted through the room. Strains of Stan Jones` classic Ghost Riders in the Sky piped through the Altec Lansings. “Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel, their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel…Yippee-yi-ya, yippee-yi-yo, Ghost riders in the sky.”

I was still soaking this all in. My eyes danced over to the mantle while the clock struck midnight. Antique photographs of ancestors leered out at me as if they were still alive. And there was a shot of me from around the time of the ‘Phantasm incident’ at the old familiar mall called Northtown. Troubling too was a cowboy menagerie on the mantle-a pistol-packing outlaw shootin` straight at me! My eyes turned back to the shroud where steamy vapors began to part; scenes transformed rapidly-buildings disappeared, old men morphed to garland-bearing youth, Starbucks vanished in a puff, and Wal-Marts vaporized to desolate prairies.

As the notebook began to clear up I indexed the data in the bottom right: High Noon, Sunday, August 27th, 1995-El Paso, Texas-Concordia Cemetery, to be exact. A little scuffle was taking place, and I could hear their words. These citizens had a disinterment order to confiscate the remains of one John Hardin, and return him to his hometown of Nixon. But the historian Leon Metz got an injunction signed by a local judge restraining the digging up of Hardin`s charnel remains. After a few minutes the parties dispersed; the Nixon bunch were grumpy and cursing for the failure of their mission. Later I would find out John`s position on where he intended to rest all his days.

In a flash the apparition sprung out magically from the mini-computer veil and floated languorously around my condo like a busy bumble bee sniffing honey. Remember the fairies in Disney`s Sleeping Beauty, for this was the type of projection that I beheld. A day-glow green veneer emanated out of the ghost bubble eidolon. My jaw dropped, eyes bugged-out, and my face turned a slime green. Perspiration streamed down my cheeks and I quaked in terror anticipating otherworldly utterances from this gruesome umbra. The ungodly gaseous ghost got in my face (this petrified me to stone) and bespoke some words that warbled sinuously from some echo chamber of a Poe tale of horror. These creaky vocal chords sounded distant like white zombies in a New Orleans voodoo factory.

“I am what remains of John Hardin. I loathe every Yankee carpetbagger that ravages the hallowed grounds of Texas. I never killed but in self-defense. Though it is true, I once shot a man simply for snoring. Let my remains stay in El Paso until eternity! I have revealed these scenes unto you that you might see the truth instead of the legend. However, I am the greatest gunslinger that has ever roamed the Wild West. My story is wrought from Reconstruction, the darkest time in our nation`s history. Tell my tale to the world that people will see the travesties and contradictions that confounded me. I was a victim of Lincoln, that scoundrel! While yet it is true, fifty men bit the dust from my pistol lead, each of them Yankee lovin` devils got their just deserve.” He gave out a shrill laugh and disappeared into the ether. A screamin` genie out-a-the-bottle had just haunted me!

The next day I gathered my wits after fitful slumbers and noxious dreams put bags under my eyes and cobwebs in my crevices. The theorems of science were ‘closely watched trains’, but I needed badly to catch the metro daily express to sanity! I knew what had happened to me, so I will tell you. My notebook had turned into a conduit to the past. It was programmed into a time machine, possibly by the combination of technologies at the disposal of necromancing wizards. I wasn`t looking at an old movie, nor was this a reenactment of the glory days of the Old West. This was a Sherman and Peabody out-of-body experience where I had seen pivotal events in real time.

These did not look like dwellings derived from the movie sets of Hollywood, say culled from the days of Tom Mix or the early flicks of the Duke, Mister John Wayne. No motion cameras were around in the 1870s. My best conjecture is that these were real time-loops summoned by my modem and projected onto the notebook terminal. Please understand, these were not instant playbacks, but rather the actual action itself happening-live, you see!

This is very hard to understand. I`ll give an example. Remember, there is a distinction between a memory and the actual event. Think of the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby; what you have seen over and over again in the past forty-seven years is a film tape of the shooting. It looks real but it is not. The real shooting resides in a specific time slot: 11:14 November 24th, 1963, and in a particular space spot, the basement of the Dallas Police Department. In my case, I truly went back in a time machine to some salient events in the life of John Hardin.

Let me summarize exactly what transpired. First, I returned to my premiere viewing of the cult classic Phantasm. Second, I experienced the Border roll of Hardin and the famous confrontation with Wild Bill Hickok in Abilene, Kansas. Third, I was right there when the killers took down Sheriff Jack Helm-this was most ghastly indeed! Fourth, I was an eye-witness to the murder of John Hardin by the two-timin` Constable John Selman in El Paso. Fifth, I saw the altercation at the graveside of our gunman; this is divined from recent recollections, sundry newspaper articles, that are unsavory souvenirs of infamy and violence. Lastly (sixth), I had my own personal visitation by the sheer, translucent poltergeist of one Hardin. This was a historical event, I can swear on it! This was not a memory or made up, but rather a newly conjured banshee conceived from fresh advances in computer science. A new necromancy has emerged along the lines of H. G. Wells and his nifty Time Machine. This explanation can not be proved, but no other possibility can be plausible. Rebellion against science is unheard of, so immutable facts are for the offering.

Lazy days went by, and day to day obligations were performed. The trash was taken out, the dishes cleaned, the bills paid. Nervous palpitations began to spring up. Itches and sweating, clammy sensations, fears, unbalanced humours, denial, mood swings, and the questioning of science all played their hands. Nothing out of the ordinary, mind you, but one rainy night I looked into the crystal ball (the notebook) and saw a flashing bright orange pumpkin in flagrant animation and the chilly strains of John Carpenter`s Halloween theme went blasting through the speakers! I tossed up my hands, gesticulated in consternation and rattle chanted: “I better not ‘pal around’ with ghostly western outlaws anymore!” Nothing ever happened again for evermore.

A GHOST STORY OF JOHN WESLEY HARDIN

This is the actual GHOST OF JOHN WESLEY HARDIN! I am preparing a chilly, yet true account of his gossamer visits to me, by way of a modern machine that acts as a conduit to paranormal waves of spirited energy. Be prepared to read my story about one week before HALLOWEEN! You can be sure that he`s an apparition because you can see through him; transparency of his image is obvious. Ladies & gentleman, this is not a stunt, it is not hocus pocus, no charade my friend, nor has trick photography been harnassed to cajole you into believing that this is an otherworldly spirit. That it is honestly a ghost, you can bank on it! I chill at the prospect of more visitations, but no doubt, more will come to pass! This gunslinger, this murderer is restless, maybe angry, & wants to still preside on our times, for reasons unknown. I will peck out my story with fear & trembling but will truthfully chronicle the path of the reckless killer with keen acumen . But no use in stirring him up to the point of harrowing hauntings. Of endless campaigns or spooky encounters! SO PLEASE PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE GREATEST GHOST STORY EVER TOLD JUST TWO WEEKS HENCE!

*If you haven`t already read my piece on Philip K. Dick`s, Flow My Tears, please do so now!