How prepared are you to go down the political rabbit hole?
By David Ficarri
-Diversions with Dave-
It’s often said that history repeats. Some people will claim if it doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. The refrain this year is “Stop the steal.” Four years ago, it was “Not my President.”
Each political party has had its turn to question the legitimacy of the presidential election. Both sides agree on one thing, kinda, and that's that this country should have free and fair elections to determine our representatives. However, if you understand American political history, you’ll quickly point out there have been several occasions with questionable results.
I suppose it’s what side of the scoreboard your team was on that ultimately matters to you though. For me, I’m less concerned with the winners and losers and more interested in who really runs the system. You see, every four years, we will hold a contest to see who our President is going to be. We argue, debate and fight vigorously in hopes of getting our candidate into that highest of seats. With a lot of trust and perhaps too much naïveté, we’ve tacitly had blind faith in our system. All of that changed one fateful afternoon on Nov. 22, 1963, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The motives and reasons are a little too complicated to get into details here, but if “they” could kill a sitting president, in broad daylight in the middle of a major American city to prevent him from getting re-elected, then there is no reason to believe “they” won’t try to rig any subsequent election.
Especially, since the most notorious assassination in modern history continues to be a topic of heated debate.
It is said JFK challenged the status quo establishment and his critics struck back. And as a result, the foundation of this nation was rocked. Following the threads of power that have occurred since that fateful day, you’ll realize how interconnected the events of today are to that day. If history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.
The question for us then becomes, how deep down the rabbit hole do we want to go?
If you’ve seen the movie JFK, there’s a scene where a character named Mr. X asks the most important questions in any investigation. You see, while everyone is fixated on who did it, Mr. X’s eyes were looking elsewhere. He asked three questions: Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefitted? Who had the power to cover it up?
As we argue over Russia, China, paper ballots and other things, those important questions come back in full force. In fact, they’ve never gone away. The scenery and cast of characters may change, but the hunger for political power is as strong as ever.
Throw in real information, misinformation and outright propaganda, mix that with the social media tyrants and the general public can get easily frustrated and discouraged with the whole process.
If there is an upside to all of this, it’s that unlike the events in 1963, it’s becoming much harder to keep those secrets hidden for very long until someone exposes the plot.
With each answer, more questions get raised. So, whenever any event happens, ask yourself the questions Mr. X had. Those will lead you much closer to the actual truth.
When it comes to your role in history, the questions for you then become, how much does it really matter to you and what are you prepared to do?