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Arts and Culture

No ‘Kennedys’ for History Channel

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Posted on Jan 10, 2011
Wkimedia Commons

The part of Jacqueline Kennedy, shown here in an official White House portrait, is played by Katie Holmes in the miniseries dropped by the History Channel.

The History Channel announced Monday that it was dropping “The Kennedys,” an expensive eight-part miniseries about the American political dynasty, from its spring lineup, sparking speculation that political drama may have extended beyond the narrative scope of the series itself.  —KA

The Hollywood Reporter:

Upon completion of the production of The Kennedys, History has decided not to air the 8-part miniseries on the network,” a rep for the network tells The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. “While the film is produced and acted with the highest quality, after viewing the final product in its totality, we have concluded this dramatic interpretation is not a fit for the History brand.”

The multi-million dollar project—History and Lifetime president and general manager Nancy Dubuc’s first scripted miniseries at the network and its most expensive program ever—has been embroiled in controversy since it was announced in December 2009.

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By JustDFacts, January 18, 2011 at 5:15 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I would have liked to view Greg Kinnear’s portrayal as JFK; Katie’s performance would not have mattered as Jackie K-O…  I find it ludicrous to spend $$ on production and advertisement for the television miniseries (history soap), and then kill it due to the family (supposedly) fussing afterward.  Where was the outcry post ‘screen-script’?  Hopefully, if a few folks fuss, it can go to DVD.

The Kennedy family should fuss about something a bit more important.

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Napolean DoneHisPart's avatar

By Napolean DoneHisPart, January 18, 2011 at 2:31 am Link to this comment

Kennedy was groomed from the appetite of the elites that wanted to be, being from the Irish kiln, better or equal to the English pedigreed empirical dominion.

Yet, he was confronted with the fraternal order which is the invisible hand, the wizard of oz if you will.

He denied the order, not his Oath to office Under God.

He, like us all, was a man with faults and typical sins.

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By diamond, January 17, 2011 at 4:35 pm Link to this comment

“There are a lot of holes in the official version of the JFK assassination, it could very well have been an intelligence hit for some reason, but to suggest it was to stop a man who wanted to bring world peace makes no sense when you look at the record. MLK is another story, he was beginning to openly attack imperialism, capitalism and social inequality, something JFK and RFK never did.”

I never said he wanted to bring world peace: I said he wanted to get US troops out of Vietnam and end the war. In the eyes of the Pentagon and the CIA, this made him a traitor. Even though they themselves eventually had to pull out of Vietnam in disorder, while tossing helicopters in the sea, because Kennedy’s decision to get out of Vietnam was the right one and would have prevented 40% of the total US casualties in that war. But as in Afghanistan pulling out would have put a real crimp in the CIA’s ‘business ventures’ in that country and of course it would have severely curtailed the arms profiteering of their corporate allies. What Joe Kennedy did was what Joe Kennedy did: I judge his sons on what THEY did, and were not allowed to do by the Fascist elite that killed both of them and Martin Luther King.

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By drbhelthi, January 17, 2011 at 6:00 am Link to this comment

JFKs trying to turn the Federal Reserve into a less-israeli-parasitic, more American institution was one of numerous motives for murdering JFKSr.  The recent release of the article naming Johnson as the instigator is logical to me.  The video just after the murder, which showed Johnson walking away from the scene, reveals his body-language, which tells the story.  However, one of the three assassins confessed, in detail.  He stated that the mafia was hired to do the hit, and provides details of his weapon, location, how he was almost a few seconds too late, etc.  He provided no detail of the role of the CIA.  As far as deathbed confessions are concerned, they have proven to be very reliable, typically, in my experience.

I have known several german-born persons, who spoke American without a German accent.  However, it is extremely unusual, as some evidence of an accent from the mother language usually remains - for everyone who speaks other languages- not only the German language.

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By prisnersdilema, January 17, 2011 at 1:57 am Link to this comment

Actually all those things, previously mentioned that Kennedy did, or didn’t do had nothing to do with his assassination.

Kennedy was assassinated because he planned to put the Federal Reserve out of business.

Executive order # 11110 signed by Kennedy would have stripped the Federal Reserve the power to loan money to the government at interest.

It gave the treasury department the right to issues “silver certificates”, called United States notes, that were backed by bullion held in the treasury. 

After Kennedy’s assassination United States Notes were immediately taken out of circulation.


Kennedy’s actions threatened the riches of those who really run this country, and of course he had to go.

Since then they have continued to make billions upon billions of dollars, loaning money to the government at interest.

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By Robespierre115, January 17, 2011 at 12:47 am Link to this comment

@Diamond, Kennedy wasn’t part of the elite? So his family’s fortune wasn’t built on corruption and shady connections? Wasn’t Joe Kennedy a Nazi sympathizer? Sorry to break it to you but the kinds of policies Kennedy carried out in Latin America, let’s just take that region as an example, would have been fully supported by Cheney. Robert Kennedy is well documented in PERSONALLY approving brutal policies towards Cuba. I also doubt Cheney would disapprove of Obama’s policies in Pakistan. These men (Kennedy, Obama) are not dumb teenagers or children, these are very serious, disciplined individuals who know very well the world they operate in.

There are a lot of holes in the official version of the JFK assassination, it could very well have been an intelligence hit for some reason, but to suggest it was to stop a man who wanted to bring world peace makes no sense when you look at the record. MLK is another story, he was beginning to openly attack imperialism, capitalism and social inequality, something JFK and RFK never did.

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By diamond, January 17, 2011 at 12:01 am Link to this comment

I really hope R115 that you’re not comparing John Kennedy with that unspeakable grub, Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney is part of the elite that plans the wars and plans the fake terror attacks. He was looking at Iraq’s oil maps at a meeting in Walnut California in February 2001. He was discussing a replacement for Saddam Hussein at that meeting. There were plenty of eye witnesses, including the man they interviewed as a replacement for Saddam. It’s all in ‘Armed Madhouse’ by Greg Palast.

Kennedy never was part of this elite and neither was his brother. Neither was Martin Luther King. They were all expendable. Like Obama they made the mistake of believing America was run by elected officials: Dick Cheney knows that’s not true because he’s part of the star chamber that actually does run America. He’s been part of it all for a very long time. Whatever else John Kennedy was, he wasn’t a Fascist. Dick Cheney and the Bush gang are, and are quite proud of the fact.  Obama has now, I’m sure, realized how things are done and probably only wants to get out of office still breathing. If Kennedy was the cause of the US ruling elite’s war mania the wars would have ended with his death. But as we both know, they have never stopped and never will as long as these people are allowed to rule America.

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By Robespierre115, January 16, 2011 at 8:22 pm Link to this comment

@Diamond, we have to look at government policies in detail here. The purpose of Vietnam wasn’t to conquer the country, it was seen as more of a brutal vaccination program if you will to kill the “virus” of Vietnamese resistance. The point was to destroy the revolution so it couldn’t serve as a model to the region, which in part was accomplished considering the country was left virtually destroyed much like what Reagan did in Nicaragua in the 1980s. This is the same idea found in Kennedy tightening the embargo on Cuba, to destroy Cuba’s economy to make its example less attractive in Latin America. In Iraq the objectives have more to do with geopolitical control of an energy-rich region.

There is absolutely no documented evidence anywhere that suggests that Kennedy considered exits from Vietnam because of any sort of moral objection to troop losses, Kennedy’s policies are pretty imperial and basic: We can begin pulling out by 1965 if we’ve achieved US objectives.

It is true that the president is only one part of a wider system, but to suggest he’s just some little puppet of the CIA doesn’t go at all with the facts. Was Dick Cheney a mere figurehead? The Hunt “deathbed confession” is quite a murky piece of “evidence” to put on the table, even someone as dedicated to the case as Oliver Stone or James W. Douglass, author of “JFK And The Unspeakable” have given little value to this supposed, earth-shattering event.

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By diamond, January 16, 2011 at 6:07 pm Link to this comment

Gee, I can just imagine the looks on Prescott Bush’s friends’ faces when he told them: ‘This guy was a Nazi spy but now he’s my son.’ And what about the German accent? It doesn’t go away, you know. Especially in those who change to English as adults. I’m sure Werner von Braun had the same problem after he was brought into America after World War II even though he had run the infamous rocket facility at Pennemunde which used laborers from concentration camps. He was also the mastermind behind the V2 rockets that just about destroyed London. But hey, the CIA liked the guy and installed him at NASA where the whole unfortunate business of Pennemunde and the bombing of London was soon forgotten. There was dirty work to be done and von Braun was just the man for the job. The ‘my son the Nazi spy’ thing would make a good movie though.

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By drbhelthi, January 16, 2011 at 12:30 pm Link to this comment

Congratulations, Diamond. If you are not a former
insider, you have a marvelous understanding of
history and current facts.

The hired pimps aside, most people do not care to
view the documentation passed on by the last
bodyguard of Hitler, to the boyfriend of his
daughter. LTC Otto Skorzeny did not die in Madrid, as
publicized by the CIA article in Madrid. Rather, he
was fereted into the USA, married an American woman,
sired a daughter and died in 1999 in a Florida
coastal community.  He provided documentation that
the 41st USPresident was/is a NAZI spy.  Similar to
the 200 German(NAZI) scientists fereted in via the
first iteration of Operation Paper Clip, who received
falsified family histories, identities, and
passports, so did Georg Scherff Jr.  Squired thru US
academia, WWII, then the oil industry-which made him
a millionnaire- he became the secretive head of the
CIA.  The 50-yr history was summarized last year by
Congressman Ron Paul, more recently by a former chief
in the CIA, John Stockwell, in
http://www.addictedtowar.com/dorrel.html#stockwell.

Two years ago, I passed the info to an elderly,
gifted-scientist-type in north Germany. He responded,
“Doc, certain families have always known the true
identity of the 41st U.S. president.”  Since the
israeli Zionists tossed in with the CIA, the downward
path of the US has accelerated, beginning with the 3
months work of the MOSSAD in the Twin-Towers and the
3rd building, which culminated 11 Sep 2001.

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By diamond, January 16, 2011 at 3:38 am Link to this comment

“This was not a guy who was preparing to prance around holding hands with revolutionary governments.”

I never said he was but he was a guy who knew when it was time to go home instead of allowing another 40% of the casualties to US troops to occur - and for what? So that the CIA and the Pentagon could go on pretending the war wasn’t already lost? Kennedy was a very bright man and he knew when enough was enough - something the CIA and the Pentagon don’t know and have never learned to this day. THEY run America and they run it like a corporation with the president as the CEO, not as a public servant and an elected official. To them the president is just a figurehead and they see themselves as the real government, and in everything but name that’s exactly what they are. They intend to create a global corporation with America as its head office and anyone who gets in their way will be character assassinated, really assassinated or locked up for the rest of their lives. I hardly think you can blame either of the Kennedys for this because this Fascist millionaires club was already up and running before either of them was ever born.

The Vietnam war was indeed a colonial war and so are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or have you found a way to blame the Kennedys for those too, even though they were long dead when they started? And no matter how you roll the dice you’re still left with Hunt’s deathbed confession and the fact that the CIA was involved in all three of these assassinations. If Kennedy was their blue eyed boy why did they find it necessary to kill him? Actions speak louder than words, no matter who writes them and Kennedy’s not around to defend himself - exactly as they intended.

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By Robespierre115, January 15, 2011 at 5:39 pm Link to this comment

@diamond What you said made absolutely no sense if it was in response to my points. I don’t buy into the domino theory, but Kennedy certainly did considering the Cuban Revolution was already inspiring insurgent movements all over Latin America. You have to know some basic history here. Yes, the Vietnamese Revolution was indeed an indigenous uprising against colonialism, but there was simply no way Kennedy was going to allow a revolutionary Communist regime to take power in Vietnam under his watch, sorry that’s just supported by the documented evidence, including the Pentagon Papers.

The documented record also shows that Kennedy himself was PERSONALLY involved in planning the overthrow of Brazil’s elected, center-left government and he specifically stated “we can’t let the Left win.” It’s all nicely captured in Tim Wiener’s excellent book on declassified CIA material, “Legacy Of Ashes.” This was not a guy who was preparing to prance around holding hands with revolutionary governments.

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By diamond, January 15, 2011 at 4:08 am Link to this comment

No, you know what’s laughable R115? That you are still so involved in that Communist/ domino theory shit that has been completely discredited by the fact that Vietnam, once the US left, did not occupy other countries or take over South East Asia and it’s highly unlikely they ever wanted to. All they wanted was their own country back, after it had been occupied ever since China invaded it many hundreds of years before - and then France and then Japan and then France again and then the United States. The United States killed 5 million Vietnamese, most of them civilians.

Civilian casualties in World War I - 10%
                World War II- 50%
                Vietnam   - 70%
                Iraq     -90%

As you can see it’s all heading in the wrong direction and instead of blackening the name of a dead man who was one of the best presidents America had you might be better occupied looking at the whole rancid corporatocracy/Pentagon/CIA dictatorship that rules America without ever having to face the voters and commits all kinds of crimes including treason and murder without ever seeing the inside of a jail cell.

And, of course, if Kennedy had read the Pentagon Papers he must have known what the CIA and the Pentagon had also known for years but didn’t tell the American public - namely that the war was completely unwinnable. Under those circumstances the only smart thing to do was get out of there. But the CIA and the Pentagon weren’t having that, and not only did Johnson and Nixon ‘stay the course’ but Nixon was also persuaded to invade Laos and Cambodia, just as Obama is being led to the idea of all out war with Pakistan, even if it’s a nuclear war. 40% of US casualties in Vietnam occurred after Nixon was elected on a promise to end the war. And they did kill both Kennedys and Martin Luther King just as they would now like to kill Julian Assange. They are nothing more nor less than a nuclear armed criminal gang.

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By Robespierre115, January 14, 2011 at 7:04 pm Link to this comment

@diamond The problem with the “Secret State” argument is that what I described were major foreign policy moves, the “Secret State” wasn’t going to bomb and overthrow governments without Kennedy knowing about it, unless he was a complete retard who was too busy having parties a the White House pool to know what was happening in Cuba. There’s a difference between covert operations and then major events that gathered international attention.

The idea that Kennedy was simply going to pull out of Vietnam is a joke. He established a timetable for when he wanted the war to end, but his ideas was similar to Obama’s, dates but depending on how US objectives were being met. You seriously believe in the 1960s that JFK, a man obsessed with overthrowing Castro, was simply going to allow a Communist, possibly Chinese-aligned rebellion to take over Vietnam and possibly serve as a beacon for revolution in Asia? That’s laughable.

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By diamond, January 14, 2011 at 5:54 pm Link to this comment

Amen muscleboy. You’re right on nearly everything you say. And Robespierre115 wants to put the blame for everything the Secret State has ever done on to John Kennedy. But R115 needs to ask the question: if Kennedy was so on board with the Secret State’s plans and wars why did they find it necessary to kill him? It’s well known that Kennedy was planning to end the war in Vietnam and he was certain of re-election. What to do? Kill him, of course. And to this day this is their favored method of dealing with anyone who dares to stand up to them in any way. Why do you think they immediately called for Julian Assange to be killed? This is how they do business. To call them ‘worthless psychopaths’ is to underestimate their moral bankruptcy and barbarity. They have the ‘values’ of the mafia and, in effect,they are unelected dictators hellbent on taking America down to financial, moral, military and social collapse. America would be a very different place today if they hadn’t killed John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King so obviously assassination works by removing those who see a different, more just and equitable America and hopefully making everyone else too scared to resist.

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By Robespierre115, January 13, 2011 at 8:29 pm Link to this comment

@Muscleboy, what the hell are you talking about? The Kennedys were as corrupt as any other oligarchic family. Let’s look at JFK’s track record as president:

- A violent terrorist war against Cuba which went on until the day he died and provoked the Missile Crisis.

- Setting up brutal counter insurgency policies all over Latin America, including continuing support for brutal regimes such as Somoza in Nicaragua. Kennedy also planned the fascist military coup in Brazil which took place a few months after his death.

- Full support for brutal, genocidal regimes in Africa.

- Bombings in Vietnam, the assassination of Diem.

- Very weak attitude towards civil rights, next to nothing.

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By Muscleboy, January 13, 2011 at 8:14 pm Link to this comment

Good work. The History Channel decided to pull a twisted and propagandistic version of the Kennedy family.  The family has been tortured by the crooks that have murdered them and tried desperately to keep the Kennedys from turning the USA into a golden and beautiful reservation of freedom and magnificence that is the best of what mankind can be. Boundless clean energy from sea to shinning sea and full control of our own banks and money supply along with a government that serves the interests of the American people and is not, itself, a criminal organization.

Instead, today, we have a destroyed hijacked faux Democracy that only seems to be still the United States. We are hijacked by a global band of mobsters of the lowest sort. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr had told very few of his plan to run for president and was soon thereafter murdered by the very same people that did the 9/11 orchestration and the subsequent war on terror fraud and banking heist of our treasury.  He was soon thereafter murdered using the very same method which was used to murder Beverly Eckert who also was a national treasure of the highest order. She had already filed a 9/11 legal proceeding which would have forced testimony from the likes of Bush, Cheney and many others, exposing even more of the truth and leading to a complete end of the tyranny of these evil people. John was brutally murdered to protect a criminal band of worthless psychopaths and their efforts to hijack the greatest country in history and ruin everything good in the world. Essentially turn the world into a complete and utter Hell. John would have turned the USA into a golden paradise, instead of nearing obliteration we would now have a wonderful supercharged economy, with vastly renewed efforts to supplant petroleum to halt the destruction of our air and water and make us the number one nation on the Earth for alternative energy production. Instead we are way behind. We are last among industrial nations in the technology we have engineered, the Internet and many other areas because of a veritable takeover of our nation and it’s wealth for decades now. Obama’s efforts have paled in comparison to that of nations like China, in terms of building up solar panel and windmill protection as he mostly has gone about the days allowing and facilitating the theft of our treasury and the continuation of the mass murdering polices of the Neocon-Zionist Bush administration.

We need the Kennedy family now more than ever before. You can pull out and twist information on anyone or any group of people but the largest truths of the Kennedy family are that of serving the USA, serving the people of this great nation, against horrendously criminal elements, that hate Democracy and want to crush us as a nation, as a free people.

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By diamond, January 12, 2011 at 10:46 pm Link to this comment

The history channel is a sad joke. History for dummies is what it is. ‘The Kennedys’ was probably too highbrow or too accurate for their tastes. And dream on G. Anderson. There is as much chance of anything to do with the murders of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King being officially admitted to as there is that the truth about 9/11 will be officially admitted. In spite of Hunt’s deathbed confession the elites who were behind these killings will never admit anything. Why would they? They are accountable to no one and it is they who rule America, not elected officials.

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By Napolean DoneHisPart, January 12, 2011 at 3:28 pm Link to this comment

Will Arizona have to spread until the realities of our time come to light?

History channel’s policy “programming” is to desensitize the populous… and they do a good job of it!

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By johndot, January 11, 2011 at 9:47 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Just found out we’re gettin’ to see it in Canada.
By the sounds of it, the content should fit right in on
our own History Channel, where the top shows are
American Pickers and Ice Road Truckers.

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By G.Anderson, January 11, 2011 at 11:54 am Link to this comment

I would rather see a mini series on E. Howard Hunt. Focusing on his video taped death bed confession that he was a part of the team of hitters that killed kennedy.

Then afterward a detailed analysis, of who, arranged the hit, who paid for it, why they did it, and what it did to the country.

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By James, January 11, 2011 at 6:58 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Kudos to TruthDig for defending… or at least mentioning a potential
suppression of truth.

I have sadly accepted that Amy Goodman, Huffington Post, and other “liberal”
voices will not dare cross a certain line.  The irony is that this line is what
circumscribes all of these left wing voice to irrelevant complaining about the
status quo.

Will Chris Hedges and others begin to accept that as part of the media, if they
sanction a country’s lies about September 11 then they are simply corrupt. Even
more vile than the government for it is their job to report such controversies
whereas the governments job is to run the country.  I can understand the latter
justifying cover-ups; I can not understand the former turning a blind eye.

Truth Dig, step up.  I think this little story blurb is a start.  Are you ready to
help lead a way back to democracy?  Let me know so I can decide to bookmark
you in my browser.

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By Robespierre115, January 11, 2011 at 1:12 am Link to this comment

So are we some sort of Communist state where nobody can present a new view of an iconic figure? The History Channel’s standards are quite pathetic, they pack hours and hours of their programming with worthless 2012 Prophecy, UFO and “Ancient Aliens” specials.

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