Daily Dialogue — April 11, 2012

“The truth is the most important value we have because if the truth does not endure, if the government murders truth, if we cannot respect the hearts of these people… then this is not the country in which I was born and this is certainly not the country I want to die in. Tennyson wrote ‘Authority forgets a dying king.’ And this was never more true than for John F. Kennedy whose murder was probably one the most terrible moment in the history of our country. You the people, the jury system, sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw, represent the hope of humanity against government power. In discharging your duty, in bringing the first conviction in this house of cards against Clay Shaw, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Do not forget your dying king. Show this world that this is still a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important. It’s up to you.”

— Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), JFK (1991), screenplay by Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar, based on the Jim Garrison book “On the Trail of the Assassins” and the Jim Marrs book “Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy”

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is inspiration, suggested by Summer Johnson. Today’s suggestion by Jeff Messerman.

Trivia: “The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it” was a Nazi quote, but this concise version did not belong to Adolf Hitler; it was spoken by Josef Goebbels. Hitler had written “…in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility…in the primitive simplicity of their (the broad masses’) minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie…” in “Mein Kampf” (Vol.I, ch.10, p.252; ©1925).

Dialogue On Dialogue: “Do not forget your dying king.” What a great line, even if adapted from Tennyson, where the multiple layers of meaning just slotted in beautifully for the story.

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