The fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is largely being trivialized in elite U.S. corporate media. Regardless of what one thinks of JFK’s legacy, one significant outcome to his killing should be better understood. Sixty-one percent of Americans do not believe the official government line that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. The passage of time has brought this public distrust barometer down from previous highs of eighty-one percent. Outside the beltway, the burning question is not why so many Americans disbelieve official government explanations but whether secrecy also drives their contempt of the big media outlets that loudly trumpet them. Since 1997, close to half of Americans also consistently distrust the fundamental accuracy of news industry output…
…So what does lingering secrecy about JFK have to do with Middle East policy formulation? Americans researching key policies that were made possible only by Kennedy’s early departure well-understand that information privation and spin is the norm. The CIA in particular, and by extension the National Archives, keep vast and ever-growing troves of secrets away from Americans that make the quantity withheld by the JFK NARA library on the assassination pale in comparison. Secret file release would fundamentally improve governance at the cost of exposing corrupt policies that political elites would rather not answer for or revisit. However, they cover many dates and many subject areas, from Israel’s theft of U.S. nuclear materials to the Kennedy brothers failed bid to register and regulate Israel lobbying organizations. The common origin of some of America’s worst regional policies is the void created by the JFK assassination. That is why all Americans should celebrate every November 22. Not to applaud the death of a U.S. president, but as a cynical Bronx cheer to the army of bureaucrats, politicians and media pundits who work so hard to withhold facts, shape the resulting flawed narrative and smear unbelievers. More