Just a warning: I'm a bit jumpy/excited as I write this. Two 44 oz. Polar Pops of Mountain Dew and a 5 Hour Energy will do that to you...
Anyways, here's what I'm listening to today as I write. Stumbled across it on Pandora the other day...quite the coincidence, or perhaps a conspiracy? Not to mention the fact that my sister just finished writing an 8th grade paper on JFK, and his assassination. FYI, telling your sister a bunch of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination isn't the best way to help them out, as I've learned. Oh well. Where was I? Oh yeah, song I'm listening to as I write this: Gostan, by Klanga. Literally a song MADE from a JFK speech. How much more postmodern can you get than that? There's great saxophone accompaniment too...worth the listen. Also check out the De Hofnar Remix if you got time. Good stuff.
Now anyways, you're probably wondering to yourself, "Jacob, what does some song made from a JFK speech mean to a blog post?" Let me tell you...I wouldn't be writing this post if it wasn't for this song. Well, also if it wasn't for Lee Harvey Oswald...or Raymo, or Ferrie...or whoever was actually involved in the JFK assassination. Because without the JFK assassination, I wouldn't be able to write a blog post about "Killing Kennedy". Neither would Bill O'Reilly have been able to have written a book with the same title (he even brings up de Mohrenschildt! Apparently he may be more relevant to the whole thing than I had thought...).
Simply put, the song made me realize the impact of Oswald's actions, or in the case of Libra, the actions of killing the president. JFK was an iconic president, with a knack for speaking diplomatically and handling situations as he saw fit. And his role in American history and culture was cemented by his assassination, a traumatic end to what could've been, what people now refer to as "Camelot". His assassination was undoubtedly a big deal, but I didn't realize how good (or how seemingly good) Kennedy was as a president or as a diplomat until his "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech, as I heard it in the song. I've heard the cliched line, "Ask not what your country..." so many times, but it's never stuck with me. It exists today as a cliche of patriotism, hiding the fact that it was part of a great speech, one of many that Kennedy would give. The assassination immortalized Kennedy, moreso than any other president's death, with perhaps the exception of Lincoln. Nobody talks about Eisenhower much these days, despite his construction of the interstate highway system, a huge part of American life today. Few people discuss the impacts that William Howard Taft had on America, besides getting stuck in a bath tub. Why is that? They weren't killed, they just died and faded away. Kennedy was with us and all around us in our lives, and then all of a sudden, he was gone. Whenever I talk to older family members (grandparents and that generation and above) about the Kennedy assassination, they can tell me exactly where they were, what they were doing, and who they were with. It was such an iconic moment in American history, similarly to how 9/11 was to the next few generations.
As we see in Libra, and as we discussed during the panel presentations today, we can understand the motives behind which Oswald may kill Kennedy: America likes to believe in lone gunmen, as one student mentioned. And by believing in lone gunmen, we highlight and focus on specific individuals in the course of doing evil deeds. We all know that Oswald (supposedly) killed Kennedy. We all remember Lee Harvey Oswald, by his full name, for that. Nobody knew Lee Oswald before that, outside of the people who had interacted with him. By killing Kennedy, Oswald, an outcast in both the capitalist US and the polar opposite USSR, cements himself into American and world history through this action. No longer is Oswald an irrelevant speck of dust in the universe, he is rather the sun, around which a solar system of history, stories, fact, fiction and conspiracies revolve. Killing Kennedy not only immortalizes Kennedy, but it immortalizes Oswald in the process.
And then, Oswald was assassinated, two days later. As we see in Libra, we see an angered Jack Ruby shoot and kill Oswald, in a way to pay off mob debts. Thinking that it will enhance his patriotism and make him seem as a hero, instead the opposite occurs. Ruby is seen as a killer, who destroys any chance of holding Oswald accountable for his actions or getting to the root of what happened that fateful November day. I don't know anybody who sees Ruby as a hero, they see him as the guy who killed Oswald, messing things up in the process. Oswald also becomes immortalized in conspiracy theories because his side of the story is never told, because of Ruby. And Ruby becomes immortalized as another figure involved in the immensely confusing mess that is the Kennedy assassination.
Libra shows us an alternative view at one of America's most convoluted parts of history, exploring it from the perspectives of the figures involved, showcasing a variety of opinions and beliefs of those figures, which could not be any different from how they are actually viewed today. The actions on that day immortalized the most prolific individuals involved in the incident to this day, in manners both similar and completely different to what they expected.
Will we ever know who killed JFK? Was it Oswald, Raymo, the Umbrella Man, or the Babushka Lady? Was it Connally, the limo driver, or even Jackie Kennedy? Was it Bill O'Reilly? Was it my uncle Neil? The world may never know. But what we do know is that the assassination was an important part in American history, and that some of the supposed figures involved are remembered to this day, 53 years after the fact.
MJ, signing out. Consider this blog stapled shut. Nice Swingline 747 there...anybody ever seen Office Space? :-)
First of all, I love your title. I think it is very interesting that since Lee Harvey Oswald fails to become the historical figure he wishes to become through his own actions/merit, he instead becomes immortalized by exploiting someone else's fame. Killing the president turns the relatively ignored Lee Harvey Oswald into one of the most memorable names in history. Until reading your blog post, I did not realize how this Immortalization works both ways: Kennedy also becomes a much more memorable president since he is assassinated. It is very weird to think that in terms of how long people are remembered, assassination is mutually beneficial.
ReplyDeleteWhen you mentioned the cliched "Ask not what your country..." line, I remembered how my mom (a presidential trivia nut) told me that Kennedy actually revised this phrase countless times, both on paper and in less important speeches until it finally reached its polished, immortalized state. For some reason this kind of reminded me of how Libra's version of Lee Oswald likes to repaint his identity over and over until he reaches his own epitome of himself and how that final version sealed his fate in a similar sense.
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