John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and George Wallace . . .
March 28, 2014
. . . had a number of things in common, wrote Murray Rothbard. They were all “important anti-establishment figures.” They all had a “charismatic capacity to mobilize large sections of the populace against our rulers.” They all “constituted ‘populist’ threats against the ruling elite.” And the Official Government Cause of Death (or attempted murder in Wallace’s case) in each instance was murder by a “lone nut.”
John Avery Emison has written the latest challenge to the lone-nut theory of political assassination, challenging the state’s Official Explanation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. James Squires, former editor of the Chicago Tribune, says on the back cover: “That [James Earl] Ray acted alone out of racial hatred has always been unbelievable.”
UPDATE: Dan W. writes to suggest that John Lennon, one of the “greatest peace advocates of all time,” be added to the list. And note that Rothbard asked in his article in the link why there never seemed to be any attempts to harm the biggest warmongering politicians of the sort we have today trotting the globe stirring up trouble, sending in the CIA, arming “rebels,” overthrowing democratically-elected governments, mass murdering foreign civilians, bombing cities, and endlessly calling for war, war, and more war (the defining characteristics of the Republican Party and its cackling radio chickenhawks like Limbaugh and Hannity ). In fact, such politicians are perennially hailed by our professional court historians (a.k.a. government grant-seeking academic “historians”) as “our greatest” statesmen, presidents, etc.).
Michael D. writes to pose the question of whether Reagan was also targeted for doing a little too much, too fast, to end the Cold War.
The Crimean War