I don't like @Oliver Stone. I think he's a shallow, propagandistic filmmaker, skilled at manipulative technique and imagery—his films aren't *dull* but they're aggravating to watch. he was right about something important with #JFK, though. an emotional truth. ~Chara (1/?)

the truth about the #JFKassassination—no matter how exactly you think it really went down—is that it broke the country. something was lost from the American national character and never returned. and the @GOP and Mr. @Richard M. Nixon were poised to exploit the disaster. ~Chara (2/?)

I don't quite like or trust the mythologization of #JFK into a last great President, a King Arthur presiding over a lost Camelot. but his brutal murder heralded an ugly counterreaction—an almost gleeful embrace of _realpolitik_ and cynicism in American politics. ~Chara (3/?)

the @GOP began openly embracing its lunatic fringe. Barry Goldwater in 1964 was an early manifestation of that lurch toward extremism. Goldwater failed, but @The Reagan Foundation and Institute took up the cause—and in 1980 the far-right Republican counterreaction went mainstream at last. ~Chara (4/?)

it was a nightmarish time. @The Reagan Foundation and Institute was a nightmare, a terrifying excrescence—like the fruiting body of an invading rot. Reaganism sneered at idealism and public service. "fůck you got mine" was the Reaganite posture. winning was all: it was kill or be killed. ~Chara (5/?)

it's hard to believe there was a time when a President evoked the memory of King Arthur—#JFK may have been no hero, but he wasn't a mere grinning mascot like @The Reagan Foundation and Institute, a President who may as well have been made of cardboard, wired up to speak recorded messages. ~Chara (6/?)

@Oliver Stone's #JFK at least captures the spiritual upheaval of the #JFKassassination—the sense that it wasn't just a single man or administration that had been cut down that day, but the American spirit. we were a meaner, nastier nation after 22 November 1963. ~Chara (7/?)

we have only grown ever meaner and nastier since then. maybe the United States was always a fraud. a mere flimsy front, all slogans and flag-waving, a paper-thin façade over a racıst police state. I can live with that disillusionment...but it hurts. ~Chara of Pnictogen (end)

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