Silencing the whistleblowers in Dealey Plaza on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination
The following is a note from John Judge re his efforts to try to get a permit to hold the usual moment of silence to honor John F. Kennedy. For years, a few hundred people have gathered on the Grassy Knoll on November 22, the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, to hold a moment of silence and renew our efforts to find the truth. The research community has, in essence, been whistleblowers to the crimes of many in government who provably sought to cover up ties between Oswald and the CIA. If there was nothing to hide, why is so much still being hidden?
But I digress. Here is John Judge's message. I hope to see many of you in Dealey Plaza next year.
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Imagine
the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy, November 22, 2013, at the Grassy
Knoll passing without a word in the press about his assassination and who was
behind it, only a celebration of his life. That is what Dallas authorities are
planning now.
Every
year, as you know, we hold a Moment of Silence on the Grassy Knoll at 12:30 pm
on November 22 to commemorate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
and to keep alive the knowledge and outrage about the injustice of his
intentionally unsolved political murder. After our event, which continues a
tradition started in 1964 by researcher and journalist Penn Jones, Jr., we
speak truth to power.
We
invite the best researchers to our annual meetings to present the best new
evidence in the major political assassinations of the last five decades, and we
encourage them to speak briefly on the Grassy Knoll. Our event is not a circus
or carnival atmosphere, it is not even “conspiracy theory,” as the press
commentators try to dismiss it. It is an event lest we forget.
We
will be there again this year, this time on Thanksgiving Day. We invite you to
join us for the conference and for the event in Dallas, from November 22-25th.
We will be staying and meeting at the Hotel Lawrence this year, as in the past.
Imagine,
on the 50th anniversary, when the attention of the national and international
press, the crowds who come to Dallas and Dealey Plaza and the world that will
be watching, that there would be no Moment of Silence. We have been applying
for the permit for the last three years in anticipation of a major conference
and huge crowds, and have been told repeatedly that none could be issued more
than a year in advance. To our surprise a permit was then issued for the whole
area of Dealey Plaza for next year for a full week in November to the Sixth
Floor Museum, without an event yet planned. This permit is also exclusive of
other events at the site, which ours never was.
The
director of the Sixth Floor Museum said she got the permit to be “proactive” on
behalf of the Mayor’s office in Dallas, which then appointed a committee to
plan “dignified” events to “celebrate the life of John F. Kennedy” that week.
We have attempted to coordinate with the Sixth Floor Museum only to be told
that we should “move the national and international press attention to [JFK’s] death
to another moment.” That would be a trick, but we all know that it will be gone
at any other moment. We are also trying to coordinate with the Mayor’s
commission to exercise our right of free speech in a public park that belongs
to history and the American people. We want to be there to be seen and heard,
to be silent and loud. We don’t want to be in a “free speech zone” a mile away
where no one will hear our message.
The
Director of the Sixth Floor Museum, which gives a very imbalanced view of the
evidence and the history of the assassination of JFK to millions of tourists
each year, told the Dallas Morning News that they had no event planned but they
might do a “moment of silence”. I would suggest that if they do such an event
to the exclusion of ours, it would stretch into an eternity of silence
regarding this assassination.
Penn
Jones wrote four volumes on the evidence and strange witness deaths in the
Kennedy assassination called Forgive My Grief. Forgive ours, but some things
are not forgivable and should not be forgettable. We will be there on November
22, 2013 in any case. Hope you will be with us.
We
also fight to release all classified records on these murders, now decades
past. Our support for the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act and the
Review Board it created has led to the release of over 6.5 million pages of
classified records buried since 1964, but not all of them. We have joined the
call by the Committee for an Open Archives and the Assassination Archives and Research
Center to expedite the release of all related files on JFK’s assassination by
the 50th anniversary next year, and not in 2017 or even later. All efforts to
use FOIA, Mandatory Declassification Review or even Obama’s Executive Order
calling for release of files classified for over 25 years to be implemented
without review have failed so far. The new agencies, created by his
administration to facilitate transparency and release, have decided that the
JFK records are outside their mandate. An online petition to demand release can
be found at http://www.change.org/petitions/office-of-information-policy-and-regulatory-affairs-release-the-secret-jfk-assassination-records
We
continue to push for introduction of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Records
Act to release hundreds of thousands of pages of the House Select Committee on
Assassinations investigation into his death, locked up since 1978 until 2028.
All their files on JFK are already released. The Clerk of the House was
approached to use her authority to release these records, but their office has
declined saying it needs Congressional legislation. We have a new sponsor who
seems ready to drop the bill and details will follow to get support.
Our
website features speakers from past conferences as well as regular news updates
about political assassinations, new evidence and witnesses, legal developments,
threats on the President and Secret Service response, and in-depth articles
from leading researchers and academics.
Every
year we gather in Dallas, and some years in Memphis, Los Angeles and New York,
to present and discuss the best new evidence in the murders of Malcolm X, the
Kennedy Brothers, Dr. King and others. We invite renowned legal, medical,
forensic and ballistics experts, academics and noted authors, and citizen
researchers whose work over the years has shed light on these crimes and
rewritten our history. We make many of the presentations available by
livestream on our website, but being at the event, networking, getting the
latest books and resources and meeting those seeking the truth is an experience
not to be missed.
This
is a critical time because these assassinations are fading into history for
later generations. The approaching 5th decade mark may consign active concern
about the assassinations of the 60s to past history and indifference, despite
widespread acceptance in the public that a conspiracy of some sort was
involved, not the actions of a lone, crazed gunman. We are the ones who are
left to make sure that this history is not lost and its impact on the present
is made clear. November 22, 1963 marked a turning point in America and the rise
of the Military Intelligence Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower
warned of and Kennedy opposed has defined our history since. The political
assassinations that day and others that followed were instrumental in
destroying hope for a different future and movements for social change. All
those killed had challenged militarism, war, racism and poverty, the
"pillars of oppression" defined by Dr. King that still plague us
today.
Imagine
instead a major conference in Dallas that we have titled "50 Years is
Enough!" – with
all the key researchers, authors, legal and medical/forensic experts who have
broken the cases open in the past decades there to speak the truth about them,
to those present and on the internet to the rest of the world. Imagine a crowd
of thousands in Dealey Plaza, along with the world press, seeing our banners
calling for release of records and hearing our speakers calling for justice and
an independent investigation of these unsolved homicides that would hold those
responsible to account and take the sordid history since to task. Imagine a
future where the assassination of fairly elected leaders and purveyors of hope
for social change would never again be tolerated and would demand full
investigations and exposure of the forces behind them. We cannot celebrate the
life of John F. Kennedy while we forget his death.
Our
Dallas meeting this year will be held from November 22-25 at the Hotel
Lawrence, just off Dealey Plaza. We will announce hotel reservation information
and rates soon. Information on speakers and other details are being posted at
our website as well. Next year we plan to hold a national conference in Dallas,
and we may be doing meetings in Memphis and Los Angeles as well if there is
interest.
We
can't do all this without you. Since 1994, we have worked to present serious
research, new evidence, force release of records, support legal challenges and
forensic testing, and to keep these cases alive to the public and a new
generation. We do all this with the help of a very few donors and on a tiny
budget. No foundations sponsor us, and certainly no corporation or government
funds. We are volunteers, no paid staff.
This
year, anticipating the need to have a major conference on the 50th anniversary,
two donors have put up a challenge grant, which will match all donations made
before that up to $2,000. This means a donation of any size will double for us
right now and make it possible for us to be visible next year and to bring the
best speakers.
Donations
of $50 or more will get you a copy of a DVD set of our jam-packed 2011
conference in Dallas. $100 or more will also automatically register you for
this year's conference events, a real bargain. Donations are not tax deductible.
Checks can be made to COPA at P.O. Box 772, Washington, DC 20044 or credit card
donations can be made to our Paypal account from the website (www.politicalassassinations.com).
We
need you. Will you join us now with your support? Will you come to Dallas this
year and next? Will you stand with us on the Grassy Knoll to speak out and be
visible and help get out our call for an Occupy the Grassy Knoll in 2013 (see www.occupythegrassyknoll.com)?
COPA
has been a leader in this work for nearly two decades and our work is not
finished yet. I hope you will contribute now to both the hope of the future and
the continued visibility of the past.
Thanks
for your support!
But I digress. Here is John Judge's message. I hope to see many of you in Dealey Plaza next year.
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50
YEARS OF SILENCE
PERMISSION
DENIED
THE
PAST IS PROLOGUE
50
YEARS IS ENOUGH!
HOW TO
HELP
John
Judge, Director
Coalition
on Political Assassinations