December 16, 1978 – East Village – Journal

A Pleasant Paradise
1963 Snipers murdered JFK
1968 A sniper kills Malcolm Luther King.
Gunmen assassinate Malcolm X and RFK
Our leaders dying before their time
Before their replacements
Richard Nixon betrayed the USA
But kept coming back
The Messiah of the Silent Majority
Why did you live?
When so many others died.
Almost sixty thousand US soldiers in Vietnam
Millions throughout Indochina
And Henry Kissinger
The blood of Cambodia on his hands
Palestine too.
He will live to an old age
Never to go to Hell or Heaven
Only finally to death

Leaving us in a pleasant paradise.

Bad poetry

Who Killed the Kennedys?

The night Barack Obama was elected president, people danced in the streets of New York. Our man had beaten the GOP. I looked into the eyes of a man my age and we started crying, not out of joy, but in relief of having endured the lost years since November 22 1963.

Obama was one of us. He took office two months later. The presidential limousine drove him from the inauguration stage to a series of parties. Thousands of supporters glad-handed their president and at the end of the festivities Barack Obama found himself in the White House.

He had it all.

The Oval Office.

The Red Phone to Moscow.

The Briefcase.

They were his along with two wars in Asia and a shattered economy by billionaire tax breaks.

That evening he must have looked at his wife and said, “What now?”

If I was Michelle, I would have said, “What about the Kennedys?”

"What do you mean?"

"Who killed the Kennedys?"

"That's a dangerous question." And he dropped the subject.

The President had eleven years of access to the deep, dark secrets buried by various agencies; Roswell, Martin Luther King, Pearl Harbor et al. We had too many questions, yet nothing new came to light during his administration and considering the body count for asking the wrong questions, I can appreciate his patience.

It takes time to unbury the truth and even fifty years after the fact and it doesn't look like Obama is going to get it for us either before his access is gone.

So who killed the Kennedys?

Someone knows, but they ain't saying, but according to the Rolling Stoners, "It was you and me."

JFK on the March to Washington

Written August 13, 2013

Two years ago the BBC News reported that JFK had attempted to block the 1963 March on Washington for fear of violence and painted a picture of a president apathetic to the plight of blacks in America, however the article ignored to mention the Justice Department descending on Birmingham after the police chief had sicced dogs on peaceful Civil Rights demonstrators and had focused on Martin Luther King's Statement that 'the events of the early summer had transformed the struggle for black equality from what he called a "Negro protest" into a "Negro revolution". America, he feared, had reached "explosion point".

For the most part the violence was one-sided with white supremacists bombing churches and firing at SNCC volunteers, however the specter of a slave uprising scared whites and JFK was concerned about losing the South to the GOP on the issue of equal rights.

Upon hearing on the March on Washington JFK called out the National Guard and the FBI spied on march organizers and radicals opposed to non-violence.

Snipers were placed along the parade route.

But on August 28 there was no violence.

JFK listened to King's I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH.

"He's good - he's damned good”

I thought the same thing in Boston.

I hoped for a better day.

And so did JFK.

After the speech the black leaders came to the White House.

It was hard to stop being a white man and see all men as men, but this country was founded on the tenet that all men are created equal.

JFK understood that and his brother even more.

We are all family.

America Same As It Ever Was

Today is an important day in the American holiday calendar marking the birth of Martin Luther King Jr., who fought the forces of racism, saying, "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Sadly the forces of hatred ended the peacemaker's life in Memphis. I would like to uphold his path of pacifism, however race hatred in America burns brighter than a KKK cross.

Years ago at the Diamond Exchange I was speaking with Richie Boy and said, "I should have the day off."

"What? National Nigger Day?"

"What did you just say? You're Jewish and I don't consider none of you white."

I was half-Mayflower descendant and 50% Black Irish.

"Sorry."

"You better be." Racism has been a hatred taught to us whites at an early age and later that afternoon a rich white woman saying, "I hate the city. It's so dirty."

She wasn't speaking about the litter, but the filth of the races.

I said nothing, because I was trying to sell her a diamond and the best revenge was to hit her pocketbook.

Money is all the rich have and I try not to hate them or white people, because there's nothing wrong with taking cash off the rich.

Long live the man of peace and even a dead Martin Luther King Jr. is better company than the filthy rich.

He gave his all for the world.

For everyone.