Category: John F. Kennedy

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Out of Competition and Democracy

Grifters, sharks, wannabes, liars, creativors cruise the seaside Promenade as an enfranchising of an entire festival grows out of protest, taking voting from annual juries and giving it to the fans, without whom the festival would not be.

When I was writing this the second invasion of Ukraine hadn’t happened. When I was in the the final draft oligarchs lived only in Russia. Now they’re hard at gaming America. When I was in the final draft, political sycophancy was in its infancy now it’s fully grown.

When I was in the final draft there was still an operational Democratic Party, now a couple State governors are performing CPR on its seemingly lifeless body. When I began writing this most of America believed in habeas corpus, personal and civil rights, accountability and independence of the judiciary.

When I was writing this novel it wasn’t clear how much damage the right wing of the Supreme Court could inflict on America.

Is American democracy at death’s door …..

The No Kings Protest, and then what happens..

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Do we want to see Democracy die in America?

My current novel’s main theme was always Democracy from the earliest days I began to write it, but several years ago, deep in the writing I didn’t foresee how important Democracy would become in this era.

I decided early, writing ‘Out of Competition’ set in a film festival, that it would be comic because while I believed all processes of democracy could be better promoted everywhere I never foresaw democracy facing a serious existential threat.

Democracy has always been a major part of my life. My father was in the second world war so democracy always figured in my consciousness, and while I have never experienced totalitarianism I understood it wasn’t the way of the west, or a real threat, until now.

I never thought not even after the murder of John F. Kennedy that a U.S. president, however he got into power would try to destroy democracy in order to cling to power.

Democracy has never been perfect. It’s been manipulated, not just in the United States but its demise in the US, UK, France, Canada, Australia, or any western European nation is unthinkable. Democracy remains fundamental, especially in America.

The world is watching. Everything American was once received well. Cultural power is real. John F. Kennedy understood this.

These times need courage, unity, political skill.

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73 Films

Oliver Stone’s film Alexander shows the power of war as a means to extend power. With JFK, Stone followed and unravelled at least part of the story of how Jack Kennedy – who began a process of rolling back war as the means for the extending and using power exporting America’s cultural power peacefully – was brutally cut down in his prime.

JFK

Alexander

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Lee, JFK and Stephen King

It’s tough being a writer in this organised politically-controlled oligarchic world of ours. Publishing is a strategic asset in a stable of assets essential to a well-tuned oligarchic universe. The message, whatever it is, must be edited. That seems to be the last law of the universe, the one Scientists haven’t yet owned up to.

Try thwarting it and you will be edited out of existence says a footnote on the first page of the Oligarch’s Manual. Try beating the system and your Sun will shine no more.

So, I guess even the great Stephen King obeys this largely hidden law of our Oligarchic Universe. (I say great because book sales obviously equate with greatness, right?) It has nothing to do with well-oiled sales machines. Sales = Greatness and vice versa. So, I went, I must say with hope, to read 11.22.63 by the undoubtedly great Stephen King. And what did I find? Well, my mother always said: if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all. But when did I ever listen to my mother?

What on earth was King thinking about?

Not the truth clearly. His novel is fiction, okay I get it. Only he put an awful lot of real people in it as well. Like poor old Lee Harvey. Poor old very dead and much maligned Lee Harvey Oswald. A feckless man and near hopeless rifleman who some people keep saying was guiltier than his own much imagined sin. Lee Harvey Osward with his Carcano Model 91/38 rifle with which he probably couldn’t have hit a barn-door from 100 metres. No, not probably, maybe definitely. The man who somehow reverse-actioned Newtonian physics—with that minor impediment of a tree blocking-out his vision—hitting a moving target from the wrong direction.

From how far was it?

The man who ended in history as being responsible for killing a President. Go figure. Many have tried. I don’t need to debate this anymore. To my mind at least, if Lee were on the sixth floor of the Book Depository that fate-filled day and fated time and was pointing a rifle at the back of the President’s head, he would have had more chance of hitting Parkland Hospital, than as is claimed, he murdered JFK, in the still so far un-investigated—at State Law level—crime of homicide.

The make-believe myth come mystery in Dallas, 22 November 1963.

All now co-signed by bestselling-author Stephen King.