American University
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“There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,” wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities — and his words are equally true today. He did not refer to towers, or the campuses. He admired the splendid beauty of a university, because it was, he said, “a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.”
I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived – and that is the most important topic on earth: Peace. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
When I originally decided to do a lyric video for this one, it was soon after the 60th anniversary of JFK's famous "peace speech" at the American University. You may have heard RFK Jr. talk about it. He also did his own peace speech on June 20th, in honor of his late uncle's. It was pretty great.
I decided to make the speech the centerpiece of my 2018 American University album, because at the heart of it all, I'm most impressed with the anti-war activists in this world. In 1963, we just so happened to have one as president and people don't know about it.
Why, you ask? Because “intelligentsia” figures like Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, and others have covered it up, along with our entire media and education system. Only the diehard researchers and readers of their work who seek the information themselves learn the truth about JFK's life, let alone how he died. Consider yourself lucky if you attended a university and learned anything at all about it that wasn’t a lie.
Because understanding JFK's life provides the motive for his assassination, and it teaches us a basic lesson about our government: That empire is never going to bow to human rights, no matter who gets in the way, and that they are playing hard ball in a way most of us just cannot fathom.
Do not underestimate the nature of their greed.
Given the level of pure propaganda we've been forced to swallow in the past few years, I'm shocked at how quickly the chorus has become relevant. When I wrote it I was mostly referring to the assassination itself with the words "At the American University where now the truth ain't told." But as you're probably aware being a reader of Substack, the lies go much deeper than that.
And now that JFK’s nephew is himself seeking the presidency, running on a peace platform, the relevance has become even more literal.
My takeaway from studying the assassination was that we cannot expect a leader to fix our broken world, because the powers that be will just chop off the head of the snake and leave us lost. We need to do it ourselves, somehow. I believe that starts with education.
We need to learn how to interpret propaganda and teach each others to read between the lines. Because our schools and media industry are not going to do it for us, ever.