While I agree with all your points here, I think it's a shame you had to bring the city of Dallas into it. After all, you're forgetting Texas is/was the home of Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat, and Texans always voted heavily Dem. up until the 1980s. I lived in Dallas at the time, I live in Austin. Our county has not voted for a Republican since the civil war. That's the one in 1865. Please stop bringing Dallas or any part of Texas into a picture of hate. In doing so, you are simply making hate worse, trying to blame Texans for the death of the President, when actually the reason JFK came was because, and I quote, "they love you in Dallas".

Linda, your comment smacks of false persecution. JFK WAS killed in Dallas, which at the time, was an intolerant city. "Eric Folkerth is the pastor of Northaven United Methodist Church in Dallas" appears before the quoted portion of the article. Instead of becoming upset that a blogger paints Texas in an unflattering light I would suggest you ask yourself how people could harbor these feelings about your state. I hate to break it to you but not only the JFK assassination, but many other factors including the Bush family, Enron, wanton state executions, the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., etc do a great job of making Texas seem like a haven of hate and corruption. Perhaps you should approach members of your community in Austin about the possibility of secession? Just an idea.

Linda, let me add that I am a native Dallasite and have lived here all my life. I know from first hand, from study and by anecdote the history of our city regarding this tragic event. Its not exaggeration in the least to say that Dallas was a hotbed of intolerance and near rabid hatred of Kennedy. Even the Dallas Morning News ran editorials which criticized Kennedy in ways that were hateful and shameful

There are no citizens in this country who regret more the climate of hatred that made that 'fringe element'(including Lee Harvey Oswald) think that taking JFK's life was acceptable, than Dallasites. Larry James, our CEO at Cenral Dallas Ministries remembers classmates cheering in school when they heard of Kennedy's death. Those of us who know this history would be guilty of neglect if we didn't warn of the consequences of such attitudes and behavior. It troubles some people, and further angers some, but the warning has to be given.

We were a better country than was shown on November 22, 1963 and we are a better country than we are showing today. I hope that you will share with any friends you might have that are participating in this nonesense that it is time to stop. There are ways to protest and voice decent that are within the bounds of the best of our democratic tradition. What's happening now is not it.

Can anyone comment on the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly a self-professed communist - thus, not at all a member of the fringe right?

A friend read this blog via a link posted on facebook, and dismissed its core message completely due to the historical inaccuracy of it supposedly labeling Oswald as a member of the fringe right. She especially objected to this statement, as it implied that Oswald was a conservative: "And some of us remember that in another time when conservatives could not control their lunatic fringe, a lone crazy killed an American president, right here in our city."

Any responses?

Although Oswald professed communism at one time, he had quite a falling out with the Soviets during his stay with them. I don't think it's very clear what his views were at the time of the assassination, or why he did it, and that has always been a big part of the mystery, and a great opening for conspiracy theories. But the lack of a clear motive fits the theory that he was crazy, since crazy people can be motivated by thoughts that rational people would not recognize as reasons.

Take it from a logic teacher, Folkerth's statement (I gathered that the statement in question is Folkerth's) does not imply that Oswald was a right-winger. Maybe it invites readers to draw that inference; but I doubt it. The word "lone" suggests that Folkerth does not want readers to draw that inference. All I think that a careful reader should take from the statement is a suggested connection between the violent right wing rhetoric of the time and place, on one hand, and a lunatic there being inspired to murder, on the other. The lunatic does not have to be politically like the purveyors of the violent rhetoric for that to happen.

Although we should be very careful not to give false impressions when we write, no one can prevent poor readers from going their own way. I wish that it were not so.

Gerald: Thanks so much for the mention. Glad you found it helpful.

Linda: You mentioned LBJ. As one example of Dallas' intolerance in that day, there was a well-covered incidence in which LBJ and Mrs Johnson were pushed around outside a downtown hotel by an unruly crowd. As Gerald writes, Dallas' reputation for intolerance was pretty well documented at the time...including ads in the local papers the day of Kennedy's visit that superimposed his pictures on the top of a bullseye target.

Peter: Your assessment of my meaning is right on, and you've even said it better than I did:

"The lunatic does not have to be politically like the purveyors of the violent rhetoric for that to happen."

Right on.

Following up a bit more on the historical references in my blog.

Bill Holmes, the pastor of the church I serve now, Northaven UMC, preached a sermon the Sunday after the Kennedy assassination that outlined some of the tangibly intolerant incidents that had happened in Dallas during the preceding years.

Among them:
-- the aforementioned incident with LBJ and Mrs. Johnson being pushed around downtown by a mob.
-- presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson being spit upon when visiting here.
-- The aforementioned "bullseye" ads that read "Wanted for Treason" which ran in the local papers the day of Kennedy's visit.
-- the fact that *some* school children had cheered upon hearing of Kennedy's death.

It was this last example that provoked wide condemnation, and caused Rev. Holmes to be forced into hiding for a week, at the insistence of the Dallas police.

The fact of his being forced into hiding all but proves his argument in an ironic and powerful way.

Nothing could be more American than dissent and just because I disagree with the president doesn't make me racist. You want us all to rally around Obama now but were you wanting people to stop criticizing Bush and rally around him? Was criticizing Bush unpatriotic?

You want to disagree with us fine, but nothing is as protected by the first amendment as political speech - and that goes for you and me.

I wanted to share the little that I know about Oswald. It is true he shocked the nation by defecting to the USSR after his US Marine Corps stint. But shortly before the Dallas shooting, he was arrested in New Orleans handing out anti Castro hate literature. I have read the minutes of his police interrigation after the shooting. It has much mindless drabble, but has themes and rheteric from polar opposites of political opinion. I don't think there is a doubt that he was the shooter, and very good thanks to the USMC. But there is much evidence that he had at the least significant financial backing and inside information. The timing was too perfect of him getting a job at the book depository on the motorcade route weeks before the visit. Not to mention he and his wife and daughter living in an apartment in Dallas for 6 months before the shooting with neither having a job.I think it is very probable that he had help but also didn't fit into any specific political bracket. Maybe a crazy not on medication.

As to the question of Oswald's political affiliations, there are reasons to think of his public persona as you would a villianous WWF wrestler. He was often in the news for pro-Communist public stunts - the defection to Russia, being the lone member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans (pro-Castro, not anti-Castro as someone wrote), public debates in support of Castro, etc. Yet his private associations were almost exclusively with members of anti-Communist Byelorussian and Cuban expatriates in New Orleans and Dallas as well as the anti-Communist segments of the military and intelligence communities. The office for his Fair Play venture was in the middle of a number of anti-communist and intelligence-related organizations. Watch Oliver Stone's JFK carefully for a fairly accurate breakdown of this.

It is unlikely that he could have pulled off the shooting given the rifle and the angle (check the description of the recovered bullets). Oswald may have been involved in the planning, or he may have just been a 'patsy' as he claimed. We'll never know because he was conveniently silenced by Jack Ruby. The transcript of Ruby's questioning afterwards by the Warren Commission is very interesting.

There is Historical Accuracy (what really happened) and Historical Correctness (what officially happened). When dealing with political assassinations and attacks, Historical Correctness usually prevails. There are plenty of interesting questions about the backgrounds of Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, Timothy McVeigh, Mohammed Atta, John Hickley, and even John Wilkes Booth, but you have to pay attention to the historical details to see why the official story often does not make sense. To make the leap to say who really planned it and why is usually imposible because it is too obscured for the layman ever to discern. Governments are not monolithic; they are factional and there are a lot of outside forces as well.

Sorry to veer off topic in the last post, but I wanted to answer that point about Oswald.

As for the noise machine, it has always been there since mass media began. Remember the Maine?

Some like Chomsky would argue that it is the main point of mass media to drive the debate in a specific direction that serves the people that finance the media. These fear-mongering distractions are usually the most effective way.

The only way to win is not to play the game. Don't answer the provocation; it is a false debate.

NoKoolaidformethankyou,

With all respect, my post is not about stifling debate or dissent. It is perfectly within the bounds of citizenship and patriotism to support the president AS president and to dissent - even protest - when we disagree with him (or her, as it will one day be).

What should be out of bounds are the attempts to delegitimize the president by questioning his citizenship; provoking violence, actively or passively, by carrying guns to rallies; absolutely ridiculous cries of 'socialism', comparisons to Hitler and Nazis. These are not the protests of concerned patriotic citizens. They are lunatics. They listen only to people who agree with them and, yes, some of them can take the anger and hysteria of people who are whipped up by hacks like Limbaugh, Beck and others as 'permission' to do something dangerous.

My comparison to the JFK assassination had nothing to do with the conspiracy theories associated with that tragedy (although I still find them interesting). My comparison had to do with stoking an atmosphere of hatred - not dissent.

As for racism: I know that people who don't consider or even remotely consider themselves racist or to have racist tendencies, take that charge personally. If that shoe doesn't fit you then please, don't try it on. But I'm afraid it is just a sorry fact that there are those who hate the president because he is black. And they use this hysteria to overtly, or behind the veil of 'patriotic citizenship' to advance and publicly voice their bigotry. That's not personal opinion, its just the facts. You can see it in the way Obama is attacked for things and in ways that no other president has ever been attacked. The same wild-eyed hysteria in the eyes of southern racists during the civil rights era who claimed that they were only protecting their 'way of life' and its similarity between that and the people who 'want their country back'.

It is there. We must warn against it. Where we are in the room we must speak against it.

There are people who are afraid of the president because they are uncomfortable with his eloquence; there are some who are uncomfortable because they are suspicious of his ability to attract enormous crowds; there are those who resent the fact that the country repudiated the party and the values that held sway for eight years in the November election. It is not 'drinking kool-aid' because we wanted something different and hoped for something better. Nor is it 'drinking kool-aid' because we wanted more than a tweaking of an economic systerm that increased the wealth of the wealthy, left middle-class wages flat, produced a paper mache economy and drove our country to the brink of depression, damaged our reputation throughout the world fighting two wars for which there is no victory possible. Nor is it 'drinking kool-aid' to still have hope inspite of the fact that the president hasn't restored an economy eight years in the breaking in eight months.

If you disagree with any of that or all of that, it is perfectly fine AND debateable. But in that debate, there is no room for hate, for unproductive 'well you did it too', or for racism. We can civily disagree, vote people in or out of office who reflect our beliefs and be a great country all at the same time.

Sorry for long reply, gang!

Thanks to everybody here for debating these ideas with civility! I know these topics can be polarizing - and - yet what I'm most impressed with on this page is how nobody needed to get bleeped or deleted! Good job everybody!

And, Gerald, please never apologize for writing long replies. Hundreds (if not thousands) of people love reading whatever you write. I also always learn from you!

Rev. Folkerth, we are honored that you came to comment at our community blog! Thanks too for sharing from the archives of your church regarding Rev. Holmes' sermon.

I too grew up in Dallas (I'm a bit older than Gerald but a little younger than Larry!) and - fortunately, I don't recall my class at Arthur Kramer Elementary School applauding upon the news of JFK's shooting. I remember the atmosphere was somber and we were all sent home from school early that day to be with our families.

I was a little older when Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated. I do remember the loose talk in some quarters about how King was "cruising for a bruising" or how the world would be better (according to these people I overheard in my neighborhood) if somebody would just "kill Bobby off like we killed his brother." Since both Kennedy and King were heroes of mine at that time - those words of hate and violence stuck with me all these years.

Words are powerful. I agree with everybody here who asks that we all ask words of hate to be stopped.

The Dixiecrats (Southern Democrats) are a far cry from today's Democrats. The Dixiecrats left the Democratic party after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. They are they same breed of individuals who make up a good portion of conservative Republicans who are prominent within the GOP in the South at the current time. Needless to say, if these are same caliber of people who switched parties because of their views on the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, they do not think highly of President Obama either. Racism, unfortunately, is alive and well. I believe quite a bit of all the manufactured controversy is being produced by these individuals.

I'm curious how you rate the previous 8 years? I'm not sure this is worse for the president, than the previous president had it.

What has Obama been attacked for "that no other president has been attacked for"? How many people voted for him because he was black and seemed nice, and the news never had anything bad to say about him?

There is a meme that keeps coming up: if you criticize Obama, it must be because you are racist. It was there during the election and keeps popping up now. I suspect there are those that race plays a part in their criticism, but I also refuse to believe that they are the majority. That would be a very sad day if they are.

Why is calling him a socialist so far beyond the pale? He wants the public option, which would lead to government control of the health either directly or indirectly - socialism is the state or public ownership of industry. How does that not fit?

First, I don't recall anyone carrying guns to town hall meeting for a political debate, except possibly some lone lunatic on the fringe. The individuals of the Tea-bagger variety and the town-hall-meeting-crashers behave as though they belong to how a lynch mob is described to be.

It is no coincidence that the heckler in Congress is from South Carolina. He is probably ready for the south to secede again, along with those in Alaska (including Todd Palin,)and Texas who also believe that they too can secede.

For the final remark about socialism and health care-the public health care option is VOLUNTARY. One does not have to sign up for the public option, but it is available for the many Americans without any insurance and who can not get any individual insurance. This is being responsible to the number of Americans who fall into this category. Obviously you and your family have health insurance. If you were to know how it is to live and WORK without insurance than your tune would quickly change. Without health insurance a person can not have even routine, preventative care unless they have a big bank account. Some providers will not even see a patient at all unless they health insurance.