Fifty years ago next Friday is the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. What few recall these days was how deeply the right hated Kennedy. Well here is the poster that was handed out on the streets of Dallas Texas days before the President made his fatal visit.
Here’s the story behind the handbill.poster according to PBS:
According to the Warren Commission Report, this anti-Kennedy handbill appeared in Dallas one or two days before Kennedy’s arrival. It was designed like a “wanted” poster, with frontal and profile photographs of the president at the top.
Investigators ultimately identified the author of the handbill as Robert A. Surrey, a business partner and political associate of right-wing political agitator General Edwin Walker. The typos are original to the handbill.
Sounds and looks familiar, doesn’t it? Perhaps that is because the John Birch Society and right wing ideologues such as General Edwin Walker are the progenitors of today’s right wing extremists, the very groups that collectively use the phrase “Tea Party” to represent their supposed uber-patriotism. The same Tea Party groups that have used racist propaganda, including cartoons, posters, emails, etc. to denigrate our current President, such as the following:
and threatening messages such as these:
and lastly, this one:
Not a lot has changed in half a century, only the names the extremists call themselves. Substitute Tea Party for John Birch Society and you have nearly identical political platforms. And you certainly have an equal measure of vitriol and venom directed at a President who just happened to be a member of the Democratic Party.
