For the past three years, our world has been turned upside down by health, community, and economic scares - or perhaps it has been this way for quite some time but we failed to see it. It is unnerving to feel so untethered and perhaps that is the purpose to keep us in perpetual vertigo where everything is always spinning.
An anchor for uncertain times is arguably myths and fairytales where collective information and wisdom is imparted in ways that are easily digestible by both young and old. Tools for survival seem a theme of many tales. For example, the German tale of Hansel and Gretel warns children to avoid taking sweets from strangers. Parents still admonish their children to do so. But this tale did more than warn of the dangers of easy gifts from strangers, it told that if caught in such a trap, you needed to keep your wits about you and use your ingenuity to escape.
The first recognized American fairy tale is the Wizard of Oz. Written by Frank Baum, the allegory represents that the individual, even a young girl, has power hidden within, and through recognition and belief, can control her destiny. It is a uniquely American story because the United States was unique in recognizing the inalienable rights of the individual at its founding. By so doing, the individual was deemed more than just cannon fodder for the aristocracy and their neverending squabbles. But by the late 1800s, Thomas Jefferson’s self-determined “noble farmer” was at risk of disappearing in the wake of the great industrialization and its creation of a class of wealthy individuals who controlled it all. With their wealth came influence over politics and societal goals. Thus, these “elites” came to have powers and influence in much the same way the aristocracy, with their believed divine right to rule, had done before. The story of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is a rejoinder to this. It represents Frank Baum’s skepticism of men posing as gods- with all their weaknesses - as well as his belief in the “human divinity of the individual with its spirit of self-reliance.” Thus, the symbolic yellow brick road does not end with encountering the Wizard, it ends within Dorothy.
It is surely no coincidence that Baum chose the setting of a poor rural farm as the backdrop for the story as opposed to an industrial setting. As popular as the book was when it was published in 1900, the 1939 movie captured the American psyche in a way no other movie has. While the scenes of Dorothy taking on Miss Gulch, who later appears as the Wicked Witch of the West, are memorable, true transformation comes to Dorothy in her confrontation of deception with the Wizard of Oz. This comes when Dorothy presents the broom of the Wicked Witch demanded as payment for the great and powerful Oz’s help. Unforgettable is Toto pulling back the curtain revealing that the great and powerful Oz was nothing more than a weak man pulling levers, pretending to be a god-like figure, commanding (and deceiving) those around him. It is obvious from the reveal that the Wizard had no magical powers to help Dorothy and her friends. Thus the quest to bring the broom in return for his help was nothing but a ruse. Dorothy accuses the man behind the curtain of being a ‘bad man’ to which the puller of the lever mournfully replies, “I am a good man but a bad wizard.”
While the character in the book and movie is portrayed as a kind man - as it is a book for children - such deception is often not kindly. As the ashes of the Covid deception fall to the ground, many seek to position themselves much like the man behind the Wizard did. They represent themselves as ‘good people’ who did bad things -and presumably deserve forgiveness. Yet rulers that deliberately distort or omit relevant facts do so, either to infantilize or terrorize those they govern into submission.
Difficulty lies in ferreting out carefully curated deception, especially when the great and powerful have so many tools with which to project their omnipotence. While it is helpful to have something or someone like a Toto to help pull back the curtains, the ability to discern truth lies within us. We are at a time when we must believe we can do so and be willing to see the lies even when it shatters our comfortable illusions.
A personal pulling back of the curtain came from reading the autobiography of Dovey Roundtree Johnson,“Mighty Justice.” This heart-wrenching book chronicles the emergence of a demure, young, black woman into an iconic civil rights attorney, who challenged government-enforced segregation, or the “Jim Crow laws” of the South. One can read her book over a long weekend, and one should, especially if you are angry at what happened during the lockdowns and the government-enforced vaccine discrimination. It is inspiring. You will experience the anguish, but also the dogged hope.
I can’t recall how I came across her name but when I did, I intuitively knew her story would be significant. At first, I thought it was because of her courage and tenacity in battling omnipotent beings who stood in her way as she fought to secure the recognition of constitutional rights for Black Americans. And it certainly is inspirational on this account. It is also a reminder that our dignity and rights do not come from the judiciary. They are inherent and exist even when not recognized.
But there is another significant tale within the tale of Dovey Roundtree Johnson. This one challenges a belief long held - one swallowed with childlike naivete. It is the belief that President John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman and any challenges to this narrative are made by the rantings of madmen. This point is critical. For decades, to challenge the assassination narrative meant you were dangerous to society and seeking to undermine it. In essence, it was unpatriotic to do so. This same logic applied to all who challenged the Covid mandates including the safety of the forced injections.
Dovey does not directly challenge the official assassination narrative. What she does do is chronicle her representation of a man accused of murdering a Washington, D.C. socialite. From these details emerge a pulling back of the curtain just enough for one to begin to question who was pulling the levers of the official story.
The accused was Ray Crump, a poor, young, black man. The victim, Mary Meyer, was killed execution-style, at a park while taking her morning walk. (Wikipedia describes an execution-style murder, as one in which the perpetrator kills at "close range”, a conscious victim who is under the complete physical control of the assailant and who has been left with no course of resistance or escape). Mary's death was mourned by the Washington elite, including historian Arthur Schlesinger, Washington Post publisher, Katherine Graham, and many other notables.
Dovey’s client did not run in such circles. Ray was a man described by his mother (in pleading with Dovey to represent him) as childlike, small, and dim-witted. While her client was at the park on the day of the murder, he was there to drink and have sex with a married woman. That he murdered Mary Meyer was inconceivable to Dovey after meeting him. She writes that he seemed “incapable of clear communication, incapable of complex thought, incapable of grasping the full weight of his predicament” and thus, hardly capable of murdering a woman with such stealth precision. It was, in essence, a "preposterous notion."
While Dovey knew the victim was a socialite, hidden from her were facts that would have been crucial to providing her client with a fair trial. Such facts would have turned upside down the curated “Camelot” mythology of the Kennedy presidency and his execution by a lone madman. Not only was Mary a wealthy socialite, but she was also the ex-wife of a CIA official and, most importantly, the mistress and confidante of John F. Kennedy for two years. This most likely, was a fact known to Mary’s sister as well as her sister’s husband, famed journalist, and publisher, Ben Bradlee.
On the night of her murder, Mary's sister received a phone call from Japan. The caller, identified as a friend of Mary's, alerted them to the existence of a diary detailing the affair and of Mary’s wishes, that in the event of her death, it be destroyed. Later, when the Bradlees went to Mary's apartment, they stumbled upon a CIA operative trying to pry open the door. The agent explained he was looking for the diary to destroy it. As the man was both a friend of the Bradlees, as well as Mary's ex-husband, he was allowed to search the apartment for the diary to retrieve it.
Ben Bradlee would later testify at trial to identify the body of his sister-in-law, as well as the state of her apartment after her murder. Under oath, his answers indicated finding nothing out of the ordinary in her apartment. The facts surrounding the diary, the relationship with the president, and the encounter with the CIA operative were left unsaid.
Despite overwhelming odds, Dovey successfully defended Ray Crump of murder. At Ben Bradlee’s funeral in 2014, he was eulogized for being a “warrior journalist” who ferociously sought out “hidden truth”. Unfortunately for Dovey, such ferocity did not extend to sharing relevant information that would have assisted in the defense of a man who risked the death penalty if found guilty. Dovey only learned that Mary was both a confidante and mistress of the president, along with the existence of the diary and Mary’s connection to the CIA, upon reading the autobiography of Ben Bradlee.
Bradlee justified his actions at trial by calling the diary a private matter. Dovey’s sense of betrayal and anger at such revelations is palpable. Her client unknowingly risked death so those in power could protect an official narrative justified under the hubris of privacy of two people who were already dead.
This essay is not intended to prove or disprove who pulled the levers on the Kennedy assassination. Too much information is still behind the curtain. What is intended is to provide an example of a personal journey of pulling back the curtain on a long-held narrative; at least part way. The revelation was shocking as I had always assumed the truth in the official narrative.
Yet the world did not end. Instead, the revelation provided the confidence to uncover more deceptions, and to do so without being concerned with whether not knowing, might be preferable. Willing blindness leads to blind decisions. We must be willing to see no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. The Covid show, I fear, was just a prequel and we must ready ourselves for what is to come. And unfortunately with new economic uncertainty hitting us every day with ‘solutions’ being given by those who colluded on Covid policies, we must keep our wits about us.
While Frank Baum gave us the allegory of a powerful individual as expressed by Dorothy, we may be witnessing a present-day Frank Baum in James O’Keefe. In James O’Keefe’s latest venture, O’Keefe Media Group, he seeks to empower everyday people to take on the grand Wizards. He would do so by teaching common folk, citizen journalism to pull back the curtains of projected omnipotence to reveal small men and women of deception. Such an initiative is a tribute to the spirit of Dorothy in all of us; that we can unleash tornado-like forces, swooping up corruption and deceit. It will be a dangerous journey yet in the end, there is ‘no place like home.’ And only we can take ourselves there.
Resources:
To learn more about Dovey Johnson Roundtree and her work: https://www.doveyjohnsonroundtree.com/about-dovey-roundtree
Schama, Chloe (June 2009). Frank Baum the Man Behind the Curtain, The Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/frank-baum-the-man-behind-the-curtain-32476330/
"While the character in the book and movie is portrayed as a kind man - as it is a book for children - such deception is often not kindly. As the ashes of the Covid deception fall to the ground, many seek to position themselves much like the man behind the Wizard did. They represent themselves as ‘good people’ who did bad things -and presumably deserve forgiveness. Yet rulers that deliberately distort or omit relevant facts do so, either to infantilize or terrorize those they govern into submission.
Difficulty lies in ferreting out carefully curated deception, especially when the great and powerful have so many tools with which to project their omnipotence. While it is helpful to have something or someone like a Toto to help pull back the curtains, the ability to discern truth lies within us. We are at a time when we must believe we can do so and be willing to see the lies even when it shatters our comfortable illusions." Eloquent ...
atmospheric... I will have to use that
shooter, yes I had not thought of that
always remember it's the psych drugs that cause 99 percent of this behavior. It's not sport. See the psych drug chapters of Butchered by "Healthcare" here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/4kliod8a9z