Question for younger babyboomers. How old were you when you

[Swede]

realised that JFK,RFK,and MLK were all progressives assassinated under murky circumstances? I was too young back then,I thought that it was bad men killing good men. Then one day in my late teens someone pointed this out,no Republicans,no rightwingers were killed in the turbulent 60's by assassins. And the men killed were working for the good of mankind.

[demnan]

1. By the time Watergate came along

I was old enough to figure out what was going down.

[Morning Dew]

9. Yep, right around then - born in '57

eom

[mac56]

24. Me too - born in '56

nm

[progressivebydesign]

29. Wow.. me, too. I was born in '59 and watched all the WG hearings nt

[SW FL Dem]

52. Yep = born in 58

to very smart and politically aware parents.

[hippiechick]

2. I was born in 66...

...started studying JFK/RFK in jr high, got obsessed when I was about ... 17 & started reading voraciously ... made the BFEE/military industrial connections about 10 years ago ... but there's still details that NOBODY will ever know.

Best way to make sure a mystery is never solved is to fuck with all the evidence. And that's exactly what they did.

Unintentionally, my ass, BTW.

[skylarmae]

3. born in 49 - knew as it was all happening . n/5

[serryjw]

7. Born in 50.......

so did I. I was raised Jewish I remember so well when the 3 civil rights kids were killed in MS. I was at the Ambassador Hotel the night Bobby was killed. When I finally got threw to my parents.......I remember saying "They killed him"

Take the civil rights quiz........I did very badly with 3 right! I', embarrassed
http://encarta.msn.com/quiz_38/The_American_Civil_Right...

[librechik]

43. When Oswald got shot--(I witnessed it live on TV)

I was only 11, but my spider sense started tingling right then, and it hasn't stopped since. I was a cop's daughter, and saw everything from that perspective. Cops kids witness from early on the fact that policemen and lawyers and judges lie. They also see what heroes and how selfless and helpful first responders are. My family were
avid students of the Kennedy case, because my dad was studying for the detective test and was deep into criminology. He was also a poor reader, and had me read everything to him, so I learned it all with him.

We saw the evidence as it appeared and it didn't add up, even then. I was too young to be really aware of racism and civil strife and the big picture. But I knew there was a palpable rift opened up in the country then, that I've only felt once since, on 9/11. None of us bought the single bullet theory, we could see how corrupt everything was with the investigation. It broke all the rules of criminology, just like the 9/11 murders.

HOWEVER my dad is and was a John Bircher and a brutal, racist SOB. So there wasn't a whole long way I could share with him the pain I was feeling because he was, in short, the enemy. When I grew up & became a liberal and then a hippie, we split up for a long time. I go visit now and then, mostly for my mom, who would be liberal too if she weren't a prisoner in her own home. Nowadays my dad is a bitter old man whose dreams were crushed by the very RW power structure that he worshipped so persistently. Now he hates everybody, not just minorities.

What a waste. He got sucked into that ultra Nazi BS and it wasted him.
And that's my Kennedy assassination story.

[dflprincess]

49. That was the point for me too

I was only 10, but I heard my dad say to my mom "Someone doesn't want him talking." I put on my first tinfoil hat then.

[serryjw]

54. I'm sorry for you and your mom.....

I was brought up in a liberal house. I can't imagine anything else.

[Eloriel]

58. Born in 49 -- I didn't

For JFK I was probably an early adopter (tho not early enough), but it took me much longer for RFK and MLK, Jr.

Where JFK was concerned, I never bought the single bullet bullshit, but I didn't spend much time or energy taking it from there (should have, but I wasn't all that political until Bush 1 with his Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill debacle).

Of course, I also didn't read this book (which is online and wonderful, IMO):

Farewell America
http://www.jfk-online.com/farewell00.html

IMO Oliver Stone's movie, which I didn't see until about a year ago, lays it out pretty well. I've seen discussions here about all the problems with it, the inaccuracies, etc., but my point is that the overview, tone and tenor seem right on to me from what I know.

[knowbody0]

4. born in 48

9th grade. i had a "knowing" then but was surrounded by people who had blind faith in our government. probably when the seed of rebellion was planted in my heart

[murielm99]

6. I was born in 1948.

By the time they killed Bobby, I had put it all together.

It was just too convenient.

[Dora]

5. Born in '69

Was a head-in-the-sand Democrat and didn't wake up until the late 90's.

Didn't put these progressive deaths together until after the 2000 election. Causes me to wonder where George H.W. Bush was in those years.

[donkeyotay]

8. Welcome to DU, Dora! We need more like you

I got a little suspicious when Robert Kennedy was killed. But I didn't become a full member of the conspiracy theorists until, of all things, the first Gulf War. I learned the truth about the story of the babies being torn from their incubators and saw how the media was used. That's when I realized how much of our news is propaganda.

[vetwife]

10. I was born in 1950 and got it pretty much connected by

the time Robert was killed. I hurt so bad. I was going to vote that year and this was my candidate. I did not vote again until Clinton ran. Maybe I was wrong but I just felt like my candidate would die. I got real political after the Clinton impeachment. I am really mad now and feel bad about standing by so young and not protesting all the injustices, although I did support the kids who banned together about South Africa. I was a property manager at the University of Florida. I have done all I think I can do this time around as I did last time around for Gore. I got involved with the NAACP in 1993 when as a property manager (another complex) was told to disenfranchise the Blacks, and this came from Florida owners and I went straight to the NAACP and Clinton Whitehouse who got me involved with EEOC and I lost my job but Clinton staffers did and still do stay in touch.

Newberry Florida was a right winged town and the property was in South Gerogia near the military bases at Kings Bay Georgia. I took a lot of heat and so did my vet husband but Clinton-Gore administration had their people get personally involved as I taped recorded conversations of people talking quotas to me and to put people out on the street. We would not do it ! Not one person got evicted except me and hubby of course but it was worth it ! I filed suit as they fired us based on my husband's at the time 50 percent disability and then the Atlanta lawyers sold us out. We know what all of this was really about. We came out the victors and so did the Black residents who did not have to move.

[libertad]

14. Me, too (I was born in '64, though)

I didn't put it together until a few years ago.

[MisterP]

31. Poppy Bush was in Dallas that day, once said he couldn't remember

where he was when he heard the news, and started fingering other right-wing operatives.

[kayell]

11. Born in '57 - About the time that MLK and RFK died, but I had help

My father was a vehement "conspiracy theorist" and was furious, and never bothered to hide his feelings and thoughts from us kids. He tended to bury us in facts and figures about what he saw happening.

[ArkDem]

12. Well Wallace, Reagan were shot and Ford was shot at. Maybe

it just means liberals are bad shots.

[Mountainman]

19. I think that Hinkley and the woman who shot at Ford were insane and not

liberals. Was her name Squeeky From or something like that? I doubt that their motives were political. I'm not sure who shot Wallace and what was his motive.

[JHB]

22. Squeaky was part of the Manson Family...

...so "nutjob" fits with her

[alittlelark]

38. Ever read this about Hinkely and Neil Bush?

very interesting

http://www.hereinreality.com/hinckley.html

[Art_from_Ark]

57. The man who shot Wallace, Arthur Bremer, was insane, too

He wrote in his diary that it didn't matter to him whether he got Nixon, a Democrat, or Wallace-- he just wanted to shoot a national politician.

[Eloriel]

59. What would you think if you knew, as is the case, that

the Bushes and Hinckleys are/were good friends? That Neil Bush and Hinckley's brother were supposed to have dinner together the very night of the Reagan assassination attempt? Just a coincidence?

Also, liberals don't go around assassinating our political opponents (in fact, we're rarely violent at all). That assassination is an acceptable political strategy is an extreme rightwing concept.

Edited to add (and correct "dad" to "brother"): I see someone beat me to it with a great article, from the AP no less.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. born in 51 & i knew it was not as the powers that be wanted us to believe

i was born and raised in the south and i remember well the civil rights movement.

[maxsolomon]

15. when i was 30.

i never thought much about it. i was 1 month old when JFK was killed, 5 when RFK was killed. so the vietnam war was pretty much over when i came out of being a kid. i thought it would be the last war ever since even my parents were against it.

so naive.

i suppose oliver stone made me interested in who what when of assassination, as embarassing as that is to say.

now i'm fucking pissed off. there was a bush involved.

[Snotcicles]

16. I wonder if telling a senator

to go F himself, in senate chambers, is a characteristic of one that would send or conspire to send Anthrax to that very same senator.
I think a profile is needed.

[Virginian]

17. I was born in 1951

I think I pretty much figured that was the situation when Bobby was killed. I heard stuff about Jackie not wanting her kids to be the next targets and marrying Onassis to keep them safe.
I still don't think JFK jr's plane crash was an accident. He would have made too good a candidate. His mother knew what she was doing when she tried to keep him away from small planes and getting his pilot's license.

[Mountainman]

18. I'm an old boomer but I think a lot of younger ones were moved by

the song "Abraham, Martin and John"

[qwlauren35]

20. To this day...

I still don't know anything about RFK.

I hadn't been born when JFK was killed. I didn't understand what was happening when MLK was killed, just that my mom was frantically pulling us out of school and I'd never seen her so frightened.

But as for the murky circumstances, I think I figured that out pretty quickly. Some people say that us black folks are always crying "Conspiracy!" like the boy who cried wolf. We are a bit sick of justice long denied. I applauded Coretta Scott King's efforts to re-open her husband's case, given the clear antipathy of J. Edgar Hoover toward MLK. I applauded Myerlie Evers-Williams for pursuing her husband Medgar Evers' killers for 30 years. No one yet is talking about who ordered Malcolm X killed, but that one looks like one we were dumb enough (arrogant enough, evil enough, whatever...) to do ourselves.

A LOT of people died back then. And most of them were black. And no, most black folks didn't have any problem figuring out which side the dead guys were on and which side the killers were on.

Why do you think we avoid the Republican party???? It's certainly *NOT* because we're pro-choice, pro-gay or pro-feminist...

[Eugene]

21. Born in '63 - Learned it by age 10

from politically vocal family and
70's talk radio.

[proReality]

23. "Only the good die young."

Born on Nov. 2nd 1944. I knew something was horribly wrong with the stories we were fed right after Bobby Kennedy was murdered.

Have you noticed how many other progressives have suddenly found themselves on another plain? <pardon the unintended pun> Start with Wellstone and work backward. It's astounding.

On edit: I know I'm a war baby and not a boomer, but I had to respond to question. It's good to see that people younger than I are aware of what's going on. I guess misery really does love company.

Keep as alert as you are now and teach your kids to think critically, and to pay close attention.

[One_Life_To_Give]

25. Don't quite buy your argument

If you mean that they were assasinated because they were progressives. As opposed to progressives who were assasinated.

They also all opposed the war in Vietnam. And yet I have never heard a theory before today that MLK was assasinated for any other reason than to terminate his civil rights activities.

If we want to find esxamples of "progressives" killing "conservatives" history provides ample examples.

[H2O Man]

26. I don't think that anyone close to Martin

believes that he was killed to "terminate his civil rights activities." If you haven't "heard" any other theory, you might try reading any one of a number of books authored by his friends, or just for the heck of it, study the civil case his family won a few years back.

[One_Life_To_Give]

27. 42

Thanks H2O
I'm always learning something at DU

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. Both MLK and RFK were assassinated after they began

preaching economic justice and attracting large crowds by doing so.

MLK was tolerable to the powers-that-be when he was just fighting segregation in the South, which was internationally embarrassing anyway. When he started talking about how black people should share in the wealth of the country, that was just too radical.

The same with Bobby. By all accounts, he underwent a conversion of sorts after touring the Mississippi Delta with a Senate delegation. He was campaigning on both peace and economic justice, and he had just won the California primary. The next stop was New York, where he was already Senator, and with those sets of delegates, plus all the others, he would have been unbeatable for the nomination. Running against Nixon, he would have had the full support of the left wing of the party, brought in a lot of new working class and minority voters, and attracted the votes of old-time Democrats who were fond of his brother.

Nothing is more frightening to the powers that be than a leftist who is genuinely popular with a wide range of people nationwide.

There are suspicions that just won't go away about Paul Wellstone, too, because his popularity went up after he voted against the Iraq resolution, and between his peace advocacy and his fiery speeches in the Senate (shown on CSPAN), he was winning fans across the country.

[Eloriel]

60. Wellstone's popularity was just a part of his "problem"

He was an arch-foe of the BFEE, actively working on a number of things that would have exposed them badly.

Plus, control of the Senate hung in the balance. Remember?

[Swede]

28. Try re-read my original post.

Let's hear about them conservative Presidents,candidates,and leaders assassinated by progressives.

[One_Life_To_Give]

32. 1917

Even with what I have seen from H2O above. The operative connection appears to be opposition to the war in Vietnam. That is the assasination was triggered because of a single issue. Not because of a collection of issues which could be defined as progressive or conservative.

As for commiting attrocities it is seldom a case of ideology, but one of power. The execution of the Csar & family in Russia for example.

[Swede]

34. Gee,I didn't know the Czar was in America in the 60's.

King and the Kennedy's murders were politically motivated,they were all progressives,all have unknown questions unanswered.

[H2O Man]

37. I didn't mention Vietnam.

King challenged the entire system. He spoke of the giant triplets of racism, militarism, and materialism. An interested person would do well to go beyond reading the stories that make King out to be a figure on a stained glass window now that he is safely dead and in the ground. Read what that man was saying about the economic system .... and know that the war was only part of that. Read about his plans for the tent city in Washington, DC. Take the time to read the things that were being said about him at the time.

The powers that decided to kill King were not concerned about the old goals of blacks to be able to drink coffee in a public place with white folks, because those powers didn't drink coffee in the places blacks could afford to be. And they weren't concerned about little black children swinging on swingsets in public parks with little white children, side-by-side. That was of no concern.

[Eloriel]

61. If you'll read this book about JFK, you'll get some answers

you're seeking (it's all online, tho also available in print again):

Farewell America
http://www.jfk-online.com/farewell00.html

[nine23]

30. I may be an "old fuck", but my father left me this:

It's so nice to be able to address people own my age on such a simple "wide screen" topic.

*Full disclaimer: I'm Canadian, and I'm known as kind of an "old fuck" down at my local , but I still look 30...

Those of you my age, please indulge me and picture me as a boy, circa 1962, sitting in my living room in front of the old Sears black and white "console" TV with rabbit ears, voraciously sucking in everything only those five <2 Canadian, 3 US>network channels could feed me at the time...

AGE SIX, MY FIRST TV MEMORIES:

"The Friendly Giant". Canadian children's program, watched by virtually every single Canadian baby boomer in the 50's and 60's; our "Howdy Doody", if you will...

"Hockey Night In Canada". I'm Canadian, go figure...

AND MY THIRD/FIRST TV MEMORY:

THE UGLIEST WHITE PEOPLE THIS SIX YEAR OLD HAS EVER SEEN, PUNCHING AND SPITTING ON INNOCENT BLACK KIDS WHO WERE SIMPLY TRYING TO GO TO HIGH SCHOOL IN ARKANSAS AND ALABAMA...

At this point, my father sat me down and told me: "Son. We're not like that. We don't do that to people. We're not British; we're not American. We're Canadian and we don't do that. We're a lot like the Yanks, but please - keep an eye out for these motherfuckers because they're not all they're cracked up to be..."

CUT TO 2004:

As I look back on my youth, I now realise: MY DAD WAS TALKING ABOUT FUCKING REPUBLICANS. EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF MY LIFE SINCE THEN BEARS THIS OUT.

Post WW2 American foreign policy and it's consequences is fraught with abject failure on an enourmous scale - from Vietnam, Cuba, Latin America, "arms for hostages"...way too many examples to cite here.

AND IT'S EXCLUSIVELY THE REBUBLICANS. IT'S THEIR "CLUB". IT'S THEIR LEGACY.

THANKS DAD.


---------------------------------------------------------------

You've entered hell. Choose your Lay-Z-Boy.

[librechik]

48. ouch

but so true

people like that make me ashamed of America. I wish we were more like Canada.

You're right about the Racist Republicans though. They own this mess, right from Selma onward.

[Eloriel]

62. So true, and so well said

(You had FIVE TV stations? I only had the 3 American stations.)

As I look back on my youth, I now realise: MY DAD WAS TALKING ABOUT FUCKING REPUBLICANS. EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF MY LIFE SINCE THEN BEARS THIS OUT.

Post WW2 American foreign policy and it's consequences is fraught with abject failure on an enourmous scale - from Vietnam, Cuba, Latin America, "arms for hostages"...way too many examples to cite here.

AND IT'S EXCLUSIVELY THE REBUBLICANS. IT'S THEIR "CLUB". IT'S THEIR LEGACY.

Not only that, but all they have to offer is lies. They lie about who they are, what they're about, what the intent of their legislation is, what's really going on, etc., etc., etc.

They couldn't win NYthing were it not for their lies. Someday our country is going to have to wake up and realize that.

[idiosyncratic]

33. All I knew was that I wanted to move to Australia, or

anywhere else where this didn't happen. I was apolitical then, but the assassinations made me very sad.

I couldn't believe I lived in a country where those things could happen.

[Nordic]

35. this may be embarrassing but -

I didn't really think about it until recently.

I was born in 1962.

I remember Robert Kennedy getting shot, but not the others.

I grew up with Squeaky Fromme and Hinckley. I figured most assassins were just nutjobs like them.

Never really thought about it until the last few years, actually, when I started to really take a hard look at the BFEE clan.

And now .......

WOW. The things a guy can learn if he just starts snooping around.

[Bjornsdotter]

36. Around the age of 13...

....I was spending quite a bit of time in Sweden while Watergate was breaking here. We were told very different things on the news there compared to what was being aired here.

When I came back here my teacher asked me what the Swedes thought about Nixon...so I let her have it. She called me a liar and had me suspended for a day for speaking out against the president.

Best part of the story is that everything I told her I heard on the news came out in the US news a couple of weeks later.

It was an eye opening experience.

Cheers,
Kim

[lgardengate]

39. Younger Boomer here.was in my teens before i even knew...

Anything.I still think JFK and RFK wew mob related hits.
MLK was killed by KKK right? Thats what i believe.I have always despised the KKK, but not most Repubs etc.

[lgardengate]

40. P.S. born in 1958. no memory of JFK

[charlyvi]

41. Born in 1951

and began to wonder about it right after JFK was killed--the Warren Commission was in the headlines and I seem to remember everyone thought they were full of it. Then MLK, RFK and finally Watergate. But shrub has it all beat. He scares me.

[marlakay]

44. also born in 56 watched watergate with my dad n/t

[fortyfeetunder]

45. I was in elementary school when these events happened

and I was also living in Washington DC. Consider myself more politically aware than most Murkans. And thought I was shocked, the assassinations was no surprise. Turned me into a young cynical person before I entered puberty.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

46. probably the 1970s, when i was in high school

...lots of talk about the 'Zapruder Film" back then.

[leftofthedial]

47. 1972

my worldview changed and I could see past the propaganda

even then, we were fed a steady diet of bullshit

nothing like now, but still not the truth

[Greylyn58]

50. I Was Born...

in 1958 and can remember when President Kennedy was killed. My mom was watching "As the World Turns" and Walter Cronkite broke into her show and delivered the news that he had been shot in Dallas. My father (a 30 yr vet) was in the Marines and we were living in VA at the time. It was a rough few days after his death. I was only 5 almost 6 at the time, but I vividly remember his funeral on TV. It was very sad.

And then in 1968 when we were living in California (dad was stationed at Camp Pendleton) I was 10 yrs old and much more aware. We lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy that year. I can remember my mom and dad both getting upset after hearing of Bobby's shooting and my mom saying "Not again...not again."

Some things stay with you, no matter how old you are. I remember asking my mom why Robert Kennedy had been killed and she said "Because he wanted to make the world better."

I often wonder what kind of a President he would have made.

[LiberalAndProud]

51. I was 8 years old in 1968. I remember watching the reports

about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination on television, because I remember the looks on my parents' faces. I do not remember "where I was" when Kennedy was killed. And I believe I thought that the Bobby Kennedy assassination reports were reruns. I don't have a clear recollection of it at all. I know that I did not clearly understand the events of the time.

But I remember how horrified my parents were at the news that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed. I know that they admired him above all others. Somehow, in our household, evil has always been equated with the evil machinery of the right (Republicans).

In answer to your question, I grew up knowing it.

[intheflow]

53. Born in 1964

in a middle-class white suburb. Remember Nixon's resignation, but my family was very Republican (still is) so we watched the news, but never discussed it.

I became a teenage welfare mom in the projects by age 18 in 1982. I caught on pretty quickly after that.

Got obsessed with the Vietnam War, read everything I could find. Got my college degree over 18 years. Graduated with a peace studies degree.

But it wasn't until I went to grad school 4 years ago that I learned that MLK was assisinated while working on labor issues! That illustrated to me in a way nothing else ever had how race and class intersect in the US, and also how truly greedy, ruthless, and immoral the right can get.

And--it also dawned on me at that time that most of the truly evil right-wingers are southerners, still seething about the Southern Freedom Movement and the Civil War.




(edited for typos)

[Zen Democrat]

55. Born in 1948. For me? When Oswald was murdered in the police basement.

My parent were Democrats who voted Republican from Eisenhower to Nixon to Goldwater to Nixon ... but, for them it was Watergate. That did it. Their eyes were miraculously opened and they were never again taken in by Republican lies and dirty tricks. Now they are savvy Democrats who voted for Carter twice, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton twice, Gore, and yesterday they voted for John Kerry.

But for me it was November 24, 1963, when Oswald was killed in police custody and the Warren Report so clumsily buried the facts. When Watergate came along, I worked on my parents until they finally saw the light during the Ervin Hearings. They both believed John Dean's testimony and saw Haldeman and Ehrlichman for what they were. The Saturday Night Massacre sealed it. The Democrats made a big mistake letting the Republicans off the hook once Nixon resigned. This was bigger than what we know. The Republican Party should have died with a stake in its heart from Watergate.

My first vote was a proud vote for George McGovern and I've voted Democratic in every election since. Voting for Kerry on Saturday.

[Eloriel]

63. You are so right

The Democrats made a big mistake letting the Republicans off the hook once Nixon resigned.

And then we made the same mistake right through the Reagan and Bush 12 years with all their scandals -- Iran/Contra, BCCI, S&L, and who knows what else. Each and every time we let them off the hook; each and every time they've roared back stronger and more blatantly evil than in the past. We MUST not make that mistake this time, which is why getting Kerry in office is just the first SMALL step we have to take.

[mike_c]

56. born in '55 into a fundy repig family....

I was never fooled. Never.

[Technowitch]

64. Born in '63, February

Obviously I was too young to think anything about JFK's assassination until I was older. And RFK and MLK... they were marginal.

I'd have to say it was around '72-73 when I began seeing Nixon's 'rat-fucking' dirty tricks exposed during the Watergate scandal that I realized there were people in and near to our government who have NO respect for democratic processes and civil rights.

And it was around then I began to suspect that Oswald wasn't a crazed 'lone gunman'.

[Trailrider1951]

65. Born November 28, 1951

I was in the sixth grade when JFK was murdered. I remember that school let us out early, and we came home to watch the coverage on TV. Just one day later, Oswald was gunned down, surrounded by POLICE! Then, the Warren Commission report that did not make sense. So, for me, I had doubts thru the 60's and early 70's as to what really happened. I read Mark Lane's "Rush to Judgement" and then Jim Garrison's "On the Trail of the Assassins", and wondered. Then, in the fall of 1990, the A&E network broadcast a five part series, "The Men who Killed Kennedy", and for the first time I saw the Zapruder film, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I KNEW!!!!
I knew then that I had been fed a pack of lies, from the TV news reports, to what my teachers told me, to what was printed in my "history" books. IT'S ALL LIES, FOLKS!!!! I just can't write anymore..........

[devinsgram]

66. Born in '46

I remember the day JFK died like it was yesterday. I cried the whole day and I was a repug back then, when I was too young to know any better. As you get older you get a whole lot smarter.

[itcfish1]

67. In my 30's

When I saw the movie JFK, It all clicked, Never was really political until the 2000 stolen election

[noiretextatique]

68. probably @1976..my first year of college

when i was 17.