It's been 52 years since that tragic Nov day in Dallas.

Our country made a hard and irreversible turn that day. What could have been, staggers the mind. JFK was far from perfect, and his family was scum, but his plans would truly have changed the nation, and the world. His loss is beyond tragic. 

He was highly intelligent, extremely well-read, and well-traveled. He lived in Europe during the War, then joined that fight, despite easily being physically ineligible. The 16 years ensuing from his heroic military service to the oath-taking that frozen Jan morning, are full of disgusting, nasty, crooked, vote-bought politics of the lowest order. He was a philanderer and no innocent. Addicted to sex, and to power, lying about his incredibly poor physical shape, he almost let one ruin the other. His fawning followers covered for him time and again, along with irresponsible members of the Fourth Estate.

His vision, was supreme. He set us on the road to explore the stars, and we took him up on it, and succeeded beyond his and ours wildest dreams. Today, Voyager 2, launched in 1977, is still traveling through space, sending back invaluable data. He truly wanted and believed in peace among all nations. He supported a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviets. He wanted peace with Cuba, despite his behind-the-scenes machinations of the CIA and FBI to assassinate Castro. Having visited Vietnam in the 1950's, he knew that to become embroiled in war in that country would be futile, as the French found out, and he was working on extracting us from that quagmire. Today, some 58,400 American souls later, and a couple million Vietnamese, America's largest companies are members of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce.

Peace with the Soviets was within his grasp. Khrushchev was ready to join him. He led efforts in reducing our nuclear inventory. He was going to pull us back from the threshold of an unwinnable SE Asia war. He paid more than lip service to his predecessor's exit warning about the dangers of the growing military industrial complex in America. He didn't trust his Joint Chiefs, and wanted to eliminated the CIA. He would have fired Hoover and changed the FBI, but Hoover's files were full of JFK's misdeeds, so Hoover, and his FBI, remained off-limits.

In 2015, America would be unrecognizable to him. A black man in the White House with no leadership experience and an empty resume, who has shown no interest or ability in eliminating or even fighting America's enemies around the world. A national treasury, not just empty, but some $18T in debt. He wouldn't understand that. A deeply divided, strictly partisan Congress unable to agree on just about anything, forcing his successors to do workarounds in the form of too many Executive Orders, not the design the FF's had all those years ago.

Poverty and hunger are worse today in America than ever before. Our infrastructure is old, rusty, and crumbling. Roads, bridges, electricity grid, transportation systems, all outdated, with no money for repair and upgrades.

Race relations are also probably a lot worse today, despite all the improvements in law and social programs to help those of darker shades gain a piece of the American Dream.

The elderly in America today are better off robbing a bank and going to jail, because the treatment of inmates is far better than the health care, housing, food programs, and daily assistance available to those obeying our too many laws.

Look at us all today.

We fight and pick at and with each other, over the smallest of issues, be it a religious-themed display, or respect for our flag, or a thousand smaller issues. Everyone seems able to quote the Constitution, yet no one seems able to explain its words, nor agree on their meaning. Congress, bought and paid for, is worthless and immovable. The Supreme Court, also bought and paid for continues to reverse itself in favor of Big Business.

Returning to the Wild West, we are now armed to the teeth more than at any other time in our young nation's violent history,whether we can handle the weapon or not. The smallest slight sets us off, shooting at the spilling of beer on our sneakers, or a driving move on our roads, or being handed the wrong food order at a drive-thru. When pulled over by our police, we have no idea how to act, and often instigate tragedy as a result.  

People in our country illegally, refuse to assimilate, yet feel they have the right to welfare benefits, free education and health care, while marching, shooting, demonstrating down our streets. As a nation we don't care much for voting, not aware of who our reps are and what they are allegedly doing on our behalf. This, is the legacy of Watergate, and the most crooked, mad, paranoid president to ever hold the office. Surrounded by his henchmen and yes men, he was doomed from his start.

We have disintegrated as a positive forward-moving and thinking and accomplishing society. We now think nothing of violence. It is ingrained in our culture. A neighbor gets shot and we take it for ho-hum granted. Our youth are exposed to more violence at an earlier age than ever, thanks to the computer, video games, alleged music, and Hollyweird movies that seem incapable of any other theme.

We've allowed ourselves to be taken from a great, representative democracy, to a plutocracy of socialist means and goals. The best we can do for presidential candidates in the current too-long campaign cycle, is a career liar, master of double-speak and distraction, desperate to be the first female president, as if that will begin to solve any of our nation's ills. Other candidates include a fellow who thinks he is entitled to the position because it is his family's business, a socialist senator who thinks his ideas are new, a businessman whose blunt buster rings true to millions of citizens, another black man running without anything on his political resume remotely resembling leadership of any size organization, but who undoubtedly deserves and should be included, on the next Cabinet. He is totally unprepared for the Beltway Battles, but might serve as a calm catalyst for actual change.

In trying to provide for those too lazy to do so for themselves, we have pulled ourselves down into a non-functioning, war-based, broken-economy, an empty-treasury nation of divisive self-interested souls. We care far more about our electronic devices and the lives of Hollywood narcissists,n the decision-making skills of 545 people in Washington. 

JFK simply would not recognize his beloved country, where it has ended up, and where it is headed. Sad, probably irreversible mess.