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6/17/2007
Jack: I am often perplexed for as we have spoken before it is my understanding now that the lives that each person chooses have been choices. So it seems to me that the families who are enduring today’s chaos do so for a much grander purpose to help the world as a whole to learn.
Jim: Ok.
Jack: My thought is, how can we provide the tools to start the change in motion? If I were to sit with the leaders of the Democratic Party today I would likely address three issues before all others. They would be health care, education, and financial responsibility. There’s no question that we live in a country that has at its disposal the greatest of medical technology yet the poorest of medical technicians and the poorest system of delivery of that technology. I know Jim, from earlier discussion that you had some years ago spoken of a system of medical treatment in this country that would reward physicians for keeping their patients healthy rather then rewarding them for treating them when they are ill.
Jim: Yes that’s true.
Jack: Is that still you thought?
Jim: Yes, and its not my thought--it came from Doctor Wayne Dyer in his book Gift From Eykis. We have a society that’s sickness oriented and not wellness oriented.
Jack: Do you believe today that the interests such as your circle pursues of alternative methods of health care are things that should be more accepted and more rewarded in mainstream America?
Jim: Oh absolutely. This is where the pendulum was originally and then it swung probably to the other side and now I think it’s coming back slowly but because of the power of pharmaceutical companies it’s a tremendous uphill fight.
Jack: In my Camelot view of society I would love nothing more then to see the pharmaceutical industry subsidized by tax dollars in such a way as to make medications affordable without the need for another layer of administration through insurance policies. Right now the medication that one would take, for example for high blood pressure costs roughly $.05 per pill including research and development funds which means that the cost of a 30 day supply is roughly $15.00. Is this correct?
Jim: Yes.
Jack: Yet that same product is either sold for $100.00 for a prescription or is sold for a $15.00 co-pay and there are ten to twelve administrative employees within an insurance company that are charged with the responsibility of allocating premium dollars back to the pharmaceutical company.
Jim: Yes.
Jack: Now I may be old fashioned in my thoughts, I may be unrealistic but I don’t see the sense in this.
Jim: I think the greatest argument I have with the pharmaceutical companies is not, I mean they claim the cost of research and development drives medication up yet each year they spend 1 to 2 times more on advertisement then they do on research and development. Stop the advertisement and start getting the price back down. As my brother commented before he made the transition that he was happy that he was leaving the medical profession because pharmaceuticals were now dictating to patients through advertisement what they needed and by passing the doctors.
Jack: Most definitely Jim. And indeed along with that marketing there are millions if not billions of dollars of sample medications being distributed to physicians around this country each and every day. The medications that are distributed as samples in this country could totally change the quality of life in countries such as Darfur.
Jim: Yes that’s true.
Jack: I believe our medical professionals and our pharmaceutical companies’ must begin a pattern of social responsibility. Yet absent such a crisis in this country that it would bring all commerce to its knees. It is difficult to find a way to turn back the hands of time.
Jim: Yes, because I was reading here recently about…I don’t recall the legislation but it has to do with the pharmaceutical industries…it wasn’t looking good until all of a sudden they, through every lobbyist that they had in their power, sent into Washington to change it. This is the thing that the average Americans are out of the loop. We don’t have the power that these pharmaceutical companies have.
Jack: This is one of the reasons Jim that in our discussions of late as we’ve talked about the two leading democratic candidates and I have said repeatedly that Senator Obama is not a proven commodity and therefore in some circles considered to be unelectable. The more we engage in dialogue the more I am starting to realize that his lack of roots in the status quo is likely to be precisely what we need.
Jim: Ok.
Jack: Perhaps his lack of seasoning could work to the country’s advantage much as my brother Bobby when he ran for office led so many into such great support for his candidacy. Yes, my brother had a proven track record as attorney general, yet if you look back historically at the time he did not have a legislative track record to speak of. Yet it was precisely that fresh approach that made so many look to him with excitement. And I’m wondering if perhaps Barack Obama can not embody that same spark.
Jim: Yes, that’s to me a very viable thing because he’s not, pardon the expression, tainted by the system and maybe, I know that’s what we need, we need a fresh breath, a fresh wind in the sails of the American flag.
Phyllis: But the article in the paper today talked about the second tier. If you don’t have the money, it’s the money that propels you along. I mean I don’t know how much money Obama has.
Jim: He’s generating according to the paper close to what Hillary Clinton is generating.
Jack: Exactly and…
Jim: I think it’s a big shock to a lot of people.
Phyllis: Well and again it talked in the paper again today about Jimmy Cater who he was a second tier candidate but gained enough momentum and enough support that put him in the White House.
Jack: Exactly Phyllis.
Phyllis: It can happen.
Jack: Yes indeed and I would much rather see the future government in this nation move in that direction than it did at the time that I ran for the office of president. For if not for the Kennedy wealth and the Kennedy string pulling if you will, chances are good that I never would have been elected.
Phyllis: You’re right, you’re right and that’s kind of what you were taking about last week is that those who come from the blueblood money are the ones that have the better chance. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to make a better President.
Jack: They are often times the least equipped.
Phyllis: Luckily you were. So we lucked out.
Jack: Phyllis I really was not well equipped to lead on a, what’s the word, I wasn’t wise enough truly to lead this country. Yet I had one thing going for me, in that I followed my gut when it can to the needs of the people on this country. I was willing not to teach but to learn form them. Of all the Presidents before and after I would say the one thing that set my administration apart from many others is that the doors of the oval office were always open and I was a good listener. And there may be a lesson in that.
Phyllis: Most definitely.
Jim: Yes as it stands right now the doors are closed but George Bush is a good listener but to a very, very, very small group.
Jack: The thing that worries me about Mr. Bush is he’s listening to the voices in his head as often as not. Mr. Bush is not a well man. I don’t think he’s hiding it as well today as he has historically.
Phyllis: Well my feeling is that we need to look ahead.
Jack: Absolutely Phyllis.
Phyllis: Not, not to worry about what’s going on in Washington right now, but to look ahead and figure out how we can make a difference.
Jim: It was interesting the email that I think Diane sent me about what Lee Iacocca has written. I think it was in June, the first of this month, that how upset he was, and said am I the only one that is upset. And they had the nine C’s of the criteria that he feels every candidate should be placed up to meet.
Jack: Indeed. I couldn’t agree more even though on many levels I take issue with Mr. Iacocca’s politics. The piece that you are speaking of I believe should be the standard upon which candidates on all levels of government should be judged. It is unfortunate that we sat roughly one year ago and spoke about a book that had been written about the formation of a new political party. And for all of those wonderful ideas nothing has changed.
Jim: You’re right.
Jack: People are too busy struggling to survive to step outside the comfort zone of what has always been. So the change must come on a different level. We must continue to hold all of our leadership accountable. We must stop making political office a sacred cash cow for those who become elected to office.
Jim: I think you hit upon a thing that a very few people in this country, the more wealthy upper class, they want to keep the American people struggling barely keeping their heads above water so things can be manipulated in such a way that the people won’t have time to deal with it any other way.
Jack: This was the intention my friend of the builder bergs, and the trilateral commission back as early as 1947, this was the goal and it is a goal that they have achieved systematically.
Jim: Of course part of it belongs to the responsibility of the American people to quit buying into Wall Street and the things that Wall Street says that you need to make yourself happy. There are many, many people who are placing themselves in tremendous debt just for the things that they really don’t need. It’s not making them happy, it’s not making their family unity stronger any more. It’s “divide and conquer”.
Jack: Absolutely Jim. Yet this pattern has been in place since the close of World War II. Unfortunately the generation that has now become the age of leadership in this country was a product of an environment of keeping up with the Joneses. This is what has gone on in every community except for the heart land the rural areas. And even in those areas the goal has been to disenfranchise the American farmer in order to control commodities prices in this country. My friends I keep, unfortunately, trying to look ahead but always looking back because I see with great frustration today those ill-gotten gains of those in the secret societies in this country and in the leading countries of the world became the cornerstone for the disenfranchisement of people around the world. One world order is not a solution; global economy is not the solutions. We can within the confines of our own government do great things to protect the American people, yet we do not do so. And I am not certain today how we can un-ring the bell that has started this country on this chase. My fear is that it will take great calamity either in this country directly or world wide before things can rebalance. I certainly hope that we can at least start in the right direction before that time.
Jim: Yes. From your perspective how do you foresee that maybe we can touch and start changing things in the American family because the website as you may or may not know, I’ve been in contact with someone who’s going to start helping me up it together.
Jack: I’m truly honored Jim.
Jim: So we need to start looking on how, if we can get, and it will get together there’s no doubt in my mind. How do we start communicating to the American people the concept of bringing family unity back, getting back to the basics of understanding of love and at peace with each other not putting yourselves into such tremendous debts that we’re doing.
Jack: First I would revisit an old idea my friend. So great time ago we discussed a concept of one hour a week.
Jim: Yes.
Jack: I still firmly believe in that concept. And I believe if the families around this nation would invest one hour a week around the dinner table or together as a family without a television set or soccer practice or basketball practice or homework or meetings but truly invest one hour a week to come together as a family because as we have moved away from religion as a cornerstone of day to day American living. This historically was that time of coming together as a family. And as more and more people have moved away from that religious cornerstone they have not replaced it with anything that unifies the family. I believe this would be a good place to start.
Phyllis: And perhaps that one hour week could be done as a family and community service to others who are not as fortunate.
Jack: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Phyllis: Take an hour and go down to the homeless shelters and as a family help feed them, go through closets and as a family donate something who are less fortunate. I see that as a very beneficial way of spending one hour family quality time not going to a movie.
Jack: Yet I caution you slightly Phyllis, to keep the focus away from community service as doing for the less fortunate. For in doing that we draw lines of demarcation, us versus them.
Phyllis: Good point.
Jack: Yet if we were as a family to look within our neighborhood and see that Mrs. Jones the 80 year old widow, has holes in her fence and in a system of community you could come together and fix that fence for her. Would not the same result be achieved?
Phyllis: Yes absolutely.
Jack: While strengthening the bonds within the community. I’m not saying that volunteering to do things for those who are in challenging circumstances is not a good thing, it is. Yet if we allow the focus to become that of doing for others who have less the focus then becomes how much more we have.
Phyllis: Right.
Jack: This is spoken by someone who was raised with the Kennedy fortune. I don’t think as a young man I could have even begun to understand this concept. SO don’t expect it to be an easy sell for those multi millionaires in Scottsdale.
Jim: Right.
Jack: Yet I believe properly motivated it could do great wonders. For when someone has the opportunity to see how the coming together of their family to assist someone else not only improves the quality of the life of the person they are assisting but the quality of their own life. The trickle down impact of this into all levels of management and customer service across the board will be telling.
Jim: Something that I would like you to contemplate, is with the website possibly an opening statement, something that you would like to put as the very beginning, is your thoughts and feelings about this website and where it’s going and what we are trying to accomplish.
Jack: Jim that’s an easy thing for me today, largely because of the discussion that we’ve been having. I will give it some additional thought but I think I would begin my saying, many years ago on a cold January morning this country was challenged to ask not what the country could do for you but what you could do for the country. We as a nation have lost sight of that and I would like to help us return to those simpler times and those simpler thoughts.
Jim: Ok and that would be wonderful. That, unto itself, speaks a volume of words.
Jack: Is that satisfactory to you Jim?
Jim: I’m sorry.
Jack: Was that thought satisfactory to you?
Jim: Yes.
Jack: I’m pleased. I’m also on a lighter note slightly jealous, for I know that at the conclusion of our discussion today you will be indulging in a wonderful concoction known as a Mudslide.
Jim: Yes.
Jack: Have one for me my friend.
Jim: Ok. I can do that.
Jack: Are there any other questions you have for me?
Jim: The big questions I have right now is the directive that George Bush just started, I guess, into effect in the middle or the first of June or even in May which according to everything I’m reading, he basically issued a dictatorship. And I don’t think the American people understand or even know about it, let alone understand what he has done on this executive order.
Jack: They don’t understand Jim that this is just carrying forward policy that has been in place for a number of years. Anyone who tries to say that we live in a democratic society is wearing rose colored glasses. This new executive order by its mere existence may serve to a good end to finally make the America people dig their heels, stare straight at Washington and say I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take anymore.
Jim: But was that type of executive order in existence in your administration?
Jack: No. These orders followed my administration they began with Mr. Johnson and have grown substantially over the years. There was, of course, during World War II at the time of Pearl Harbor a number of executive orders in place that were rescinded at the close of the war. Yet many of the ones since that day have remained in place. And like insidious building blocks they have built a wall between the leadership and the nation.
Jim: Ok. Yes because I can see as it was pointed out in the paper work that if there is an avian flu infecting this country it technically could force everyone to be inoculated and at the same time, conceivably the chip would be in placed in each individual.
Jack: Kind of gives one pause for a moment to think back to the book of revolution. Does it not? Is this not precisely what was for told in the Bible?
Jim: Yes.
Jack: And I bring this up Jim, only to highlight the status of the mental condition of our commander in chief today. I will not say anymore but I offer to you to draw your own analogies. Read between the lines if you will. He has taken on a role that he truly believes is given by the hand of God.
Jim: Yes he basically is on the opposite side of the fundamentals Islamic who believe the same way, God is destined them to do this and God has destined him to do that. And it’s sad that so
Jack: True. For as we well know God does not ask anything of us. For how does one truly ask of oneself?
Jim: Right. Absolutely.
Jack: You think I have not come along way from my years of Catholic indoctrination.
Jim: I would say yes. Absolutely yes.
Jack: This experience is all of these years has taught me much, has taught me lessons that I am so grateful to be able to share. So that hopefully many others can gain the benefit of some of what I’ve learned.
Jim: And I thank you for that. We’ve basically enhanced each others thoughts and understandings about the world and world religions and things like that. What I’m going to start doing now is try to focus my attention on getting pictures of you for the website for I do want it to look nice to look beautiful to look well respected of your statue in life.
Jack: Remember at all costs though Jim, that long before my short term of office as President of this country, I was measly a man.
Jim: Ok. Let me turn the tape.
Jack: I am of course honored for I know the thoughts in your heart and it is a great honor to me that if my words are to be of deeper meaning they must flow from the energy of Jack Kennedy the man as well as Jack Kennedy the President.
Jim: Well there’s going to be, to me a wonderful thing to get this up and going. It’s going to happen now. I have found someone I think that, she said in her email that she’s not afraid of controversy.
Jack: That’s a strong lady and I am and will be honored to have her participation in this process. It will be of great interest to me to see how this new electronic device that this young woman has will be able to assist in the process. I find it interesting, for imagine the trouble that I would have gotten into or heaven forbid Dick Nixon would have gotten into with recording devices of this type.
Jim: Yes. We’re getting very small and very, very hard to detect.
Jack: See there are some good things happening in today’s generation Jim.
Jim: It’s what?
Jack: There are some good things happening in today’s generation.
Jim: Yes.
Jack: But yet at the same time, turning for a moment to the American family, if the computer and the television did not exist things would be much different. But the thing that we must do is not remove the technology but inspire the American public to use this technology in a different way and to not forget what is truly important.
Jim: Yes this is true. The computer was never created as a bad thing, it’s not a bad thing, it’s not an evil thing, it’s not a negative thing--it can be a very powerful tool for learning for understanding it’s what we as American people have turned it into. Is where the dilemma lies.
Jack: Think for a moment about this wonderful technology--if perhaps once in a while as a family, the family would gather around the computer and go on a visual safari to a place that they have never been. The tool is there. Yet how many people consider doing so?
Phyllis: So is the age of family board games gone? You know families sit around and play Monopoly or, of course they can do all that on the computer now so what good is a board game?
Jack: You would be surprised Phyllis, the number of children in this country who frequently look to their families and ask for just such an activity. Unfortunately, the answer is always “we’ll do it tomorrow”.
Phyllis: They don’t have time.
Jack: As crisis impacts this country again and again, as unfortunately we know it will, little by little I think the thought process will turn in that direction…but only time will tell.
Phyllis: You know what, maybe it will take a devastating blow from another country, with bombs and all that to make us wake up to what really important. It may take that.
Jack: And if that is what is to be then as you know it is exactly as it is meant to be.
Phyllis: Right. You’re right.
Jack: And I believe the activity that is being seen around the World today with climate and earthquakes and volcanoes it may not take an act of aggression Phyllis. It may be a natural calamity that steps up.
Phyllis: But as more and more people in other parts of the country hate the Americans, it may be an aggression tactic as well.
Jack: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Phyllis: You know, I mean they tried it once with the bombing of the Twin Towers. It could have been much worse and that was horrible enough as it was but I mean they could come right in and devastate communities like Phoenix.
Jack: They could. Heaven knows the technology exists. We all understand the nature of the radical factions.
Phyllis: Right, they have no respect for life, not theirs or anyone else’s, so you know hopefully the United States will not come to that kind of devastation before they rebuild, before we rebuild. I would hate to see that, that kind of necessary rebirth.
Jack: Yet Phyllis, as we all have come to understand history does repeat itself. And all of the most highly advanced civilizations on this planet from its inception have ultimately been responsible for their own down fall.
Phyllis: They all implode. But you know what, I think still of Katrina. Where has been the help to get those people back? It’s not there. Who’s helping them? It’s been over a year and they’re still wallowing. Part of it’s all rebuilt to get the tourists back but what about the people?
Jack: Phyllis, understand that there have been many individuals and organizations who have tried to assist in the rebuilding process. There was more money donated by the American people to disaster relief following hurricane Katrina then for any other natural disaster in history. Yet for every dollar in finances and materials that were donated, only 30% reach the people.
Phyllis: See…this is where we got to make a change.
Jack: If there is money to change hands there are those who will profit from it.
Phyllis: Yep, yep, yep.
Jim: I understand we have trailers down there that are loaded with formaldehyde fumes that are making people sick because we bought fly by night trailers at top dollar.
Jack: Because it greased the palm of someone who knew someone who knew someone.
Jim: Right and greed is the whole deal.
Jack: Absolutely my friend. Well Jim I don’t want to keep you too much longer from your Mudslides that you are well entitled too.
Jim: Ok. We will do this probably on a weekly basis now, where I definitely want you getting more and more in tune with what’s going on with the website and everything else. And I know Diane is willing to be that medium. So we’re definitely going to keep this on a very, very close ongoing thing.
Jack: That is my fondest hope Jim. Thank you.
Jim: Thank you. And wherever you go we know the blessings of Mother/Father God journey with you.
Jack: As we know they do with you my friends.
Jim: Thank you.
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