JFK Assassination: 50 Years Later

[Wingnut 6,725]

Tomorrow marks the 50 anniversary of the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy.  Those of you with access to US media sources will probably see some coverage of this.  A lot of people will be asked, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?"  The strange thing is, I'm not aware of any active member of this board who is old enough to have a first hand memory of that day.  Even I wasn't born for almost another decade. 

 

But because we like to mark major anniversaries of major events, this is going to get some attention in US news outlets and elsewhere.  The first thing that comes to my mind is the endlessly replayed film of TV news anchorman Walter Cronkite breaking the news to a stunned national audience.  Because of clips like that and memorials like the eternal flame, a lot of us feel a palpable connection to this tragedy even though it took place well before we were born.  And I'm not even going to get into the conspiracy theories.  Those debates will rage on after we die of old age. 

 

What does JFK, his legacy, his death, and this commemoration mean to you? 

[Scootalove 10,684]

His legacy will definitely live on for another 50 years to come but, all of these conspiracies really do show that people will come up with hair brained theories on what happened on that day. His death definitely left the Kennedy family a memory, that they might never forget. But, we've seen more important people get assassinated.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Scootalove

[caramba2654 601]

The first thing that went to my mind was "Kennedy died in the day that the first Doctor Who episode aired? That sucks!"

 

And then I thought "Oh, wait. Isn't his daughter the American ambassador to Japan because Kennedy would've had a meeting in Japan if he didn't get shot or something?"

 

Anyways, never heard a lot of him. I just heard that he got shot and a few other things. I don't live in the USA, and USA politics is next year, so I'll probably learn more about him soon.

[Derpaholic 1,155]

His death, legacy and commemoration mean absolutely nothing to me whatsoever.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy wasn't the first world leader in history to be assassinated, so why must we pretend that his death carries any more weight than someone like, say, Mohammad Mosaddegh? Bet you a million dollars you've never even heard of the guy.
He was the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, until your land of the free and brave decided to take him down in a carefully orchestrated coup d'état, because Mossadegh's policy was that Iranian oil should be used to benefit the Iranian people, not feed the sick, cancerous, rotten-to-the-core western, capitalist machine that's raping our planet.
People die every single day, and all anyone ever remembers are US figureheads.

Edited November 25, 2013 by DashForever

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

Too bad people nowadays look up to those low-down spoiled movie stars. At least they'll have one day to remember a great man who truly changed this country. 

 

[Rinkitty 588]

I don't see why we'd celebrate/deliberately remember the murder of a President. Seems kinda silly to me.

 

Same deal with 9/11. 

[Pomfritter 165]

I only know of JFK as a president who was very suave and charismatic. I don't even know if he was considered a good president or bad, but I really only know that he was very charismatic. 

[Wingnut 6,725]

 

 

His death, legacy and commemoration mean absolutely nothing to me whatsoever. John Fitzgerald Kennedy wasn't the first world leader in history to be assassinated, so why must we pretend that his death carries any more weight than someone like, say, Mohammad Mosaddegh? Bet you a million dollars you've never even heard of the guy.

 

A very good point.  There are plenty of heads of state who have been gunned down over the years.  But to be remembered in a big way, you have to be president of the US or a select handful of other countries. 

 

It'll never be perfect, but it wouldn't hurt for our "world" news programming to give us more of a world view. 

[GrimCW 658]

My only question is "what are they hiding?"

 

Bush signed that the records remain sealed still just before he left office. Records the world have been waiting on to be made public for a rather long time... sooooo WTFH is in those they don't want the conspiracy nuts to have at?

[Luna the Great of all the Russias 2,688]

The JFK assassination.

 

The fact that he was killed as well as the fact that the supposed assassin was also killed before releasing any information irritates me quite a bit. Was it the US government? The Soviet Union? Or was Lee Harvey Oswald really the only one involved? It has been a half century since he was killed and we still don't really know what happened and why JFK was killed. I expect that there will never be an answer that will satisfy.