I read the whole series of articles in TIME on Kennedy earlier today.

However, first, let me put a preface to my remarks. I am a 58 year old son of dyed in the wool New Deal Democratic parents. I count my political awareness as starting with the 1960 Presidential election. JFK's assassination, occurring in the midst of my 9th grade study hall was the searing historical moment of my then young life, much as Pearl Harbor was to my parents and 9/11 was to my kids.

With that out of the way, let me state that I found most of the Kennedy articles in this issue of TIME had me nodding with agreement, while shaking my head over what might have been.

Except for Talbot's all too easy surrender to the dark side of conspiracy nonsense. Over the years, I have come to believe that there is some insidious American tendency to almost automatically ascribe to complicated and convoluted conspiracy theories that border on Byzantine complexity for any bad thing that happens. It probably dates back to the Lincoln assassination. While Lincoln's death really was the focus of a nasty conspiracy, it does not always follow that every American political killing is.

Too many just cannot grasp that, every now and then, some nutjob gets through all plans and security protocols and scores. So many just cannot wrap their minds around the fact that a "GREAT MAN" can be brought down by a loser, a zero. In short, folks, shit happens. Just because the high and mighty are brought down does not necessarily mean that such requires and equally powerful adverse force. Oft times, it is just plain damn chance, bad luck or happenstance.

Did we lose a lot with the death of JFK? You bet. Should we fixate on it? Hell no.

Too many just cannot grasp that, every now and then, some nutjob gets through all plans and security protocols and scores.

This story didn't hold water in the few days before Oswald was shot and it still doesn't. Its proponents continue to uphold discredited "evidence" and nonsensical theories to "prove" their points. The truth won't begin to emerge until we see the full FBI and CIA files on Oswald -- which I've almost no doubt will show (if they haven't been purged) that he was an agent who was set up to take the fall for Kennedy's assassination.

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

So, JFK stood up to the powers-that-be (the same folks who have installed Dick Cheney, by the way): he pulled the plug on the Bay of Pigs; he refused to launch their war for them during the Missile Crisis; he was preparing to withdraw from the insanity of Viet Nam; plus - he fired Allen Dulles, the architect, along with brother John Foster, of the overthrow of the duly elected governments in Iran and Guatemala. And he got whacked: surprise, surprise.

Would we believe a single bullet theory on the Sopranos???

Then RFK announced if he won the presidential election in '68 -he would smash the CIA into 1,000 pieces. Then he won the all-important California primary. And he got whacked: surprise, surprise.

Would we believe a lone nut theory on the Sopranos? With the girl in the polka-dot dress, gunpowder residue on the back of Bobby's head and the fact that Sirhan never got closer than 3-4 feet away. Plus, more bullets fired than the revolver held.

If nothing else, we're #1 when it comes to lone assassins of a conservative bent.

...go to Amazon.com and get a copy of "Appointment in Dallas" before it no longer exists. And listen without prejudice to E. Howard Hunt.

Why is it important? Because the very people who killed JFK are now in absolute power, and we may never even see another actual "election" in this country. Because they are richer and more powerful than you and me, they fancy themselves superior intellectually. Perfect!

But, they have usurped the power of The People, gutted the Constitution of any laws that would prevent their success, and now, also control the Department of Justice - the only protection for us, standing between a Military/Industrial Imperial Presidency and actual Democracy

Their jig is up, the whole world sees them for what they are. Only a small segment of "patriotic" true believers (23%) are still hypnotized.

Their obscene plans (PNAC) are public knowledge (Dismantle the federal government [all public oversight], "...until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub"!) and they now they have a virtual stranglehold on the Government of, by and for The People.

We have no advocates left for us in positions that are still effective, as intended by the Founding Fathers. I fear a revolution - may it be of hearts, minds and souls.

Much of the longing for John F. Kennedy over the decades, including among the kids who have no direct memories of him comes from the fact that he clearly grew in the office. His public rhetoric improved and matured in the three years he served as president. He actually seemed to be learning as he went along.

Both he and Nikita Khrushchev, having stared into the abyss of nuclear war, suddenly seemed to have to determined not be another of those guys who spend their careers in the military industrial complex, retire and then proclaim the insanity of it all (think Rickover, but there are many others who spoke out only in retirement). They decided to act.

I think what impressed Kennedy at the end as well was that there really was a constituency for sanity. The Test Ban Treaty passed overwhelmingly, with about 80 votes in the Senate. Kennedy was also about to make the environment a major issue as well, in a tour of the West in the last weeks of his life. The way had been prepared by his Interior Secretary, Stewart Udall's book, "The Quiet Crisis" which, to some surprise proved to be a big best seller, about the same time as "Silent Spring." In a long campaign swing through the West, Kennedy began to promote conservation.

These efforts were obscured to some degree, even by Kennedy himself, by the enthusiasm with which his mention of the Test Ban Treaty and other disarmament initiatives were recieved by his huge audiences. But the environment, as it would later be called, was going to be a big issue for him in 1964.

Kennedy was also the last president who never seemed to talk down the American people. You might agree or disagree with what he was saying, but you never felt you were being patronized. He not only could deliver speeches, but had a natural eloquence. His great civil rights speech in June 1963 was not finished at air time, and was about half ad-libbed. It's one of his very best and most moving.

He went out of his way celebrate intellect and the arts, and while there were those who accused him of being high-faluting, the attacks never stuck. He might celebrate Nobel Prize winners and have Casals play at the White House, but there was no else in American politics people of all stations would prefer to have a beer with.

To that, to some extent, we can thank the war. Kenedy was part of the Navy's cannon fodder, literally "expendable" as suggested in the title of the great account of the PT Boats in action: "They Were Expendable." He may have been the ambassador's son, but he served with the other G.I. Joes who found themselves on his boats in the Solomon Islands. He missed being killed by a whisker. He knew in his bones what he was asking the soldiers he would later command to do. In a letter home, he remarked on how badly the guys on his boat wanted to live and expressed scorn for those -- always far from battle fronts, he observed -- who were willing to take countless casualties to prevail.

He may have been tempered by war, but his heart was not hardened. People sensed that at the time and were coming to believe that it was actually possible to have a world where the strong were just, the weak secure and the peace preserved. That looks better than ever from the vantage point of 2007. And not a bad platform for 2008 either.