Four Died Trying: A Powerful, Riveting, and Masterful Documentary Series Begins
Edward Curtin
It is hard for those who have not lived through the shattering political assassinations of the 1960s to grasp their significance for today. Many might assume that that was then and long before their time, so let’s move on to what we must deal with today. Let some old folks, the obsessive ones, live in the past.
It is an understandable but mistaken attitude that this documentary will quickly shatter, visually and audibly. The echoes of those guns that killed President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy in rapid succession repeat and repeat and repeat down through the years, and their echoes bang off the walls of all today’s news that springs from the cells of all the little digital dinguses that provide a constant stream of distractions and fear porn meant to titillate but not illuminate the connections between then and now, nor those between the four subjects of this illuminating film.
Today we are living the consequences of the CIA/national security state’s 1960s takeover of the country. Their message then and now: We, the national security state, rule, we have the guns, the media, and the power to dominate you. We control the stories you are meant to hear. If you get uppity, well-known, and dare challenge us, we will buy you off, denigrate you, or, if neither works, we will kill you. You are helpless, they reiterate endlessly. Bang. Bang. Bang.
But they lie, and this series, beginning with its first installment (see sneak peek here), will tell you why. It will show why understanding the past is essential for transforming the present. It will profoundly inspire you to see and hear these four bold and courageous men refuse to back down to the evil forces that shot them down. It will open your eyes to the parallel spiritual paths they walked and the similarity of the messages they talked about – peace, justice, racism, human rights, and the need for economic equality – not just in the U.S.A. but across the world, for the fate of all people was then, and is now, linked to the need to transform the U.S. warfare state into a country of peace and human reconciliation, just as these four men radically underwent deep transformations in the last year of their brief lives.
Four Died Trying, directed by John Kirby, the wonderful filmmaker who made The American Ruling Class with and about Lewis Lapham, and produced by Libby Handros, his partner in exposing the criminals that run the country, has just begun streaming.
As I watched the first twenty minutes of this opening episode, I was inwardly screaming, feeling deep in my soul how powerfully the film was capturing the essence of the dynamic, prophetic, and charismatic voices of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, Jr., and RFK. All shot down – we hear the gun shots – by deep state forces, even as the film artfully juxtaposes this brutality against video clips of new reports, images of advertisements for silly products, and television shows that kept most of the public entertained and distracted during the 1960s carnage. Doing the Hokey Pokey, as the soundtrack plays it, but not turning around in a profound sense, as did the four who died trying to radically change the country and the world for the better. Simply as film art, this documentary is ingenious. And its use of music is great.
I was transported back to the time of my youth. I was startled again by the powerful courage, passion, and eloquent intelligence of those four compelling voices that once lifted my spirits to the heavens, and I felt the despair as well as each assassination followed the other and my spirits sank. It is not nostalgic, I am sure, to say that one is hard pressed to find those qualities in many leaders today. Like others of my generation, I am still trying to grasp the depths of what their assassinations did to me. Bob Dylan, who came to prominence in the midst of it all, referring ironically to his own life and work, has said that his first girlfriend was named Echo. I think I know her, for she echoed down the canyons of my mind as I watched this prologue and continues as I now reflect upon it.
So it does get hard to be objective, if that is what you want. I don’t. This not-to-be-missed film is truthful, for it uses vintage footage of what these men said and what was said against them by a government/media intent of distorting their messages and their assassinations. Listen and then research if you have any doubts. See if the film is truthful or manipulative, As one who has deeply studied these matters, I can attest to the former.
And I can tell you that if you are young and never knew about these four guys and what men they were – not in any macho sense, but as true lovers of human beings, men with chests, as C.S. Lewis described those who were true and brave and undaunted by the then current vibes that sucked the soul out of you, not pseudo-men in the “pumping iron” sense, not men who tried to appeal to your grossest stereotypes – you are in for a great surprise. You will yearn to see them resurrected in others today. In yourselves. As Malcolm X said hopefully, “The dead are arising.”
This 58 minute prologue touches on many of themes that will follow in the months ahead. Season One will be divided into chapters that cover the four assassinations together with background material covering “the world as it was” in the 1950s with its Cold War propaganda, McCarthyism, the rise of the military-industrial complex, the CIA, red-baiting, and the ever present fear of nuclear war. Season Two will be devoted to the government and media coverups, citizen investigations, and the intelligence agencies’ and their media mouthpieces’ mind control operations aimed at the American people that continue today.
One important aspect of this documentary series – never before done in film – is the way it shows the linkages between these four great leaders. Beside their own words, we hear from their families and associates throughout. Based on over 120 interviews conducted over many years, we hear from the four men’s children, Vince Salandria, James W. Douglass, Mort Sahl, Harry Belafonte, Khaleed Sayyed, Earl Caldwell, Clarence Jones, James Galbraith, John Hunt, Stephen Schlesinger, Andrew Young, Oliver Stone, David Talbot, Adam Walinsky, et al. It is an amazing list of thoughtful commentators who tell the story for the dead men whose living tongues have been silenced, although we are privileged for their fatidic cinematic ghosts to speak to us through archival footage.
In this opening Prologue, I was especially impressed with the words of Vince Salandria, one of the earliest critics of the Warren Commission’s absurd claims, and Adam Walinsky, a former aide and speechwriter for RFK, who made it clear that we are free, no matter what the propagandists tell us. That freedom to think and act, to make connections between then and now, to see the linkages between the four men’s messages and today, is crucial to carry on their legacy. That message ends the Prologue. It is a message of hope in a dark time.
This opening prologue is divided into four parts, each devoted to what each man tried to accomplish. That is followed by a section on how they died and the ways it was buried, ending with an Epilogue on why they died and why it matters today.
All four died fighting the international power structure, the CIA and FBI, the military-industrial complex, the racist ideology central to the capitalist elites’ economic injustice and warfare state – those deep structures of power that have come to be called the deep state. They were brothers in arms, their only weapons being their linked arms in a spiritual war against evil forces. They were men of compassionate conscience, warriors for peace and justice for all. That is why they were killed.
Four Died Trying is a profound documentary. It is good that each episode will be a stand-alone short film – that gives the viewer time to absorb its lessons rather than binging on too much too soon. Once you watch this prologue, with its overview of all to come, you will be hooked. It is not just revelatory history, but is artistically made, and, dare I say, entertaining. Kirby and Handros are astute to realize that young people demand more than lectures, and it is to the next generations that these voices must be addressed. For although the times have changed, in so many ways we are today faced with all the same problems. The deep wounds of the 1960s were never given careful treatment; they are now suppurating and the infection is spreading.
Then and now. There is a powerful clip in the film of Senator Robert Kennedy giving a speech in Chicago when he has decided to enter the race for the presidency right after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, a massive breakout surprise to U.S. authorities who thought they could contain and defeat the Vietnamese struggle for independence; that they had them trapped. Kennedy has decided to enter the race for President and realizes that supporting a corrupt South Vietnamese government and their ruthless policies aimed at exterminating the Vietcong and North Vietnamese is morally wrong and runs counter to American attestations of the belief in democracy and justice for all. He says about such an impossible military victory:
…and that the effort to win such a victory will only result in the further slaughter of thousands of innocent and helpless people—a slaughter which will forever rest on all our consciences and the national conscience of the country.
His was a powerful moral voice. Who is standing with the innocent and helpless people today? And who is standing with the killers? As Martin Luther King, Jr., put it, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And procrastination is still the thief of time and conscience whispers those pathetic words: Too Late.
Don’t miss Four Died Trying. I am sure it will affect you deeply and force you to think twice over about what is going on today.
Yes, then and now. To slightly alter the song, As Time Goes By:
It’s still the same old story.
A fight for love and glory.
A case of do and die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.
Four Died Trying is available for rental and purchase through several platforms, listed on the official website: https://www.fourdiedtrying.com/
Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.
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here’s where the film comes from –
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/320740.The_Assassinations
True, JFK, RFK, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were all assassinated, murdered. But to assert that the Kennedys, politicians to their core, particularly JFK, fought for Peace, Justice and Freedom is beyond the pale. Peace–where? Justice– where? Freedom– for whom? To equate them with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King who actually did fight and suffer for peace, justice and freedom goes beyond the pale. Typical revisionist history. Not how some of us remaining recall what went down in the 1960s. About what one would expect from Mr. Curtin. Just put the eraser to the board–makes life easier, eh?
“Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’” George Orwell
Looks interesting. I would like to get it all in one go – any idea how long it will take for the whole series to be available?
Cannot wait to watch this…
The sixties brought mankind to the brink of the nuclear apocalypse, JFK chose to step back from the precipice: the planet was saved. But we are there again, teetering. Our rulers have not learned a single lesson from history, which can be summed up in a simple syllogism: every empire eventually gets the war it is trying to avoid: everyone wants to avoid WW III; therefore, that is the fate that awaits. If they fail to grasp this deductive logic they will drag us over the edge.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
Curtin loves the Kennedys because he is Irish Catholic. People are prejudiced in favor of their own ilk. He throws King and Mr. X in there for reflected glory purposes. Although, come to think of it, what did Mr. X ever accomplish? Urging people to riot? At least King passed legislation. Ill-conceived, perhaps, but at least it was a concrete accomplishment.
Didn’t Obama, Bush and Clinton all claim to be Irish Catholic? You might even be one of us yourself if you look carefully. I think you miss the point: these 4 men were executed by the Establishment because they represented a real threat in speaking truth to power. I know making comments here on Off-G doesn’t require the same amount of courage, but there are plenty of others who do despite knowing they put their lives at risk. Assange is one obvious example, but here in NZ we have the remarkable whistle-blower, Barry Young – albeit he is a Geordie (and I’ve never met a Geordie I didn’t like). In answer to the question of Mr. X: as I understand it, he had developed his thinking and saw that the struggle of the blacks in US were identical to the struggle of the global poor against the rich. And what… Read more »
I was 14 when Jack Kennedy became president of the USA and lived through the “Cuban Missile Crisis” being aware at the time of the global apocalyptic dangers. JFK certainly had his flaws, but what distinguished him from the presidents who followed him (and those who preceded him as well) was that he was not a complete and utter psychopath. One need only drill down to study Operation Northwoods to appreciate this. For those unfamiliar with it, it was a proposal put together by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military and the CIA, to carry out a false flag operation that, like 9/11, would kill hundreds or thousands of American citizens via “terrorism,” be blamed on Cuba, and give the US the fake excuse to invade Cuba with the full force of the US military, When the Joint Chiefs presented it to Kennedy, he listen to the proposal, said no, and… Read more »
“…a slaughter which will forever rest on all our consciences and the national conscience of the country.”
— Curtin quoting RFK
“Dr. King’s policy was, if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption. In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
— Kwame Ture aka Stokely Carmichael
I know people hate to have their hagiographies deflated but putting these four individuals in the same category displays a breathtaking level of historical illiteracy. Holding US imperialists like the Kennedy’s in the same regard as Malcolm X and MLK is a slap in the face to these two men fought not only for economic justice and class consciousness and revolution not only in the US but across the globe. The reality is that the Kennedy’s and all the liberal Dems are firmly opposed to the economic and political demands sought by MLK and Malcolm X. Unbelievable that the author brings in McCarthyism here. During the 1950 Nixon campaign against Gahagan/Douglas, Kennedy extensively red-baited Douglas (“the Pink Lady”) for her support for Henry Wallce (FDR’s V.P. before Truman) in his Progressive Party run for the presidency in 1948. Kennedy’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, made a significant contribution to Nixon’s campaign (as he did later for Joseph McCarthy)… Read more »
Maxwell, as usual you make great points. But you’re forgetting something. This item isn’t about making sense. It’s a “prepaid” campaign ad for RFK Jr, as Mr Curtin and certain local powers-that-be continue to push his campaign, never mind all the evidence, and his adoring fans go around and downvote anyone who dares to point out the truth about this ruling class family.
Mr. Strahl, I think you may protest too much: Ed Curtin has made his disgust with RFK Jr. more than clear over the latter’s refusal to condemn Israel over Gaza. That bus has left the station. Note I didn’t down-vote you….’tis the season of goodwill etc.
JFK changed over his political career, didn’t he? With regard to peace and war in Vietnam, the JFK of 1961 was not the same one as that of 1963. As a non-American, in principle I resent having the name of American presidents given to streets in my country, certainly that’s how I feel about FDR. But I would make an exception for JFK. He did refuse the Chiefs of Staff’s plan to start nuclear war with the UdSSR, didn’t he? Just for that, the whole world can be grateful to him.
Yes, JFK wasn’t Malcolm X. But you have to judge men within the parameters and limitations of their personal background or social class of origin, which they don’t chose.
I suggest those maligning, for example, J.F.K, spend time reading very carefully
https://archive.org/details/jfkunspeakable00doug_0
Four assassinations before i was old enough to vote. Then sabotage of any politician that voiced similar convictions, told me all i needed to know. The SYSTEM of elite parental control and social design over Humanity must never be allowed to continue. And here we are 55 years later. And my age peers, largely life-long liberals, fail to connect-the-dots over the decades. The recent introduction of the term “Settler Colonialism” perfectly describes the subliminal mental virus that occupies the Western mind. “Well those things happen.” No they don’t. You/we/us allow them to happen because we do not have control over those bad-parent elites that prosecute war empire internally and externally, because, we allow to decide for us. This is not convenience. Why do we continue to allow the prosecution of evil empire, domestic and foreign? Are we afraid to work together toward a common goal, for Humanity, that WE collectively… Read more »
JFK talked of breaking up the CIA into a thousand pieces after the Bay of Pigs. All talk. What he actually did after Alan Dulles left in November 1961 was to appoint Atomic Energy Commission head John McCone to head the Company. This was per the recommendation of brother Bobby. The agency under McCone proceeded to overthrow a bunch of governments in Latin America as well as Iraq’s regime, push John Diefenbaker out of his premier job in Canada, and prepare a coup in Brazil. It also functioned to overthrow the Diem regime in Saigon. McCone objected, but JFK overruled him. RFK Sr never called for a US withdrawal from Vietnam, indeed rejected it. He preferred “Vietnamization,” which is what Nixon eventually adopted. His domestic agenda was “Work, not welfare,” his model was a state/private partnership he set up in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesent area (Brooklyn’s Harlem) which attracted business investment by… Read more »
Mr. Strahl (again): if JFK couldn’t control the CIA, what makes you think that any Kennedy appointee could? Those clown take orders from CFR and other dark places. Work, not Welfare sounds pretty good logic to me. As for Vietnam, I suspect that RFK had to chose his words very carefully, knowing that was the MIC’s golden fatted milch cash-cow (mixed metaphors).
Four Died Trying. earth to ed. ground control to major tom.think of the prosecution that Tommy Robinson went through or Tucker carson being censored or Nigel forage being refused a courtte bank account. what about Alex jone,s.>? have you even thought what it must be like to be prosecuted like larren southern or Andrew Tate or Jeremy corbin. JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, Jr., and RFK had it easy compared to the like of Trump #he even got censored on twitter (imagine that type of prosecution) what about jofen peteron or ben sharpio in the type of censorship they had I switched on the BBC and they wasnt on it, no advertisement no nothing. Real censorship where you can only have your book in the new york best sellers list or books in barnes and noble or whs smith that type of censorship in where you allowed to appear on shows… Read more »
Sop I see that you guys don’t know that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were communist agents?
Do a research, yes? Nelson Mandela was one as well!!!
Nelson Mandela from the Mandela effect.
Researching a bit, I found the book: American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family Paperback – Large Print, 22 May 2018
https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Robert-F-Kennedy/dp/0062845918
I enjoined the comment of K. E Hart.
It looks like the security guard has become the boss.
Obviously their mistake was not to offer up a sacrifice.
That’s what Crowley wrote about Jesus. (Now he’d make a witchy Tik-Tok video).
We work for whom?Name one person that loves to work unless self employed yet still your taxes your not free who invited these parasites to make your life not worth living.
I love to work also in non self employed.
I’d love to come on here more but it’s conspiracy after conspiracy I think we all know we’re being guided
By the rich like cattle and they decide cull times.
Bang bang we’re dead unless we rise people work for the rich people buy the rich stuff people retire and die for the rich.
And go to war for the rich … who then get even richer, while our minds become deranged from all the horror, our legs are blown off or we die for them… err the motherland/fatherland.
It looks like it might be about to happen in the UK. If this doesn’t work I’ll try to find another way.
file:///C:/Users/Ariel/Downloads/UK%20-%20RED%20ALERT%20(1).mp4
“One man’s conspiracy is another man’s business plan.”
And then the moon landings…
Were those a distraction? Were they real? It seems to me that those “landings”, walking on the moon etc were impossible at the time (and maybe impossible today as well).
Today we know more than ever how easily masses of people can be manipulated to believe absurdities presented by media and governments.
What is Offguardian’s (and their contributors) view on this?
If they were real then we are dealing with extremely clever people.
If they’re fake then you could argue we’re dealing with people even cleverer than we thought they were.
Personally, I’m not sure.
The only thing I know is the mask slipped with WTC7
……………………..And they STILL got away with it !
I believe in my government no matter what conspiracy theories people come up with!
Did you just state ” I believe in liars no matter how much truth you come up with” ?
Not yet sure they “got away with it”…
It may be that more and more people are becoming suspicious because of wtc7. Takes many years, but more and more you see people talk about it.
Does Stanley Kubrick qualify as an “extremely clever” person?
David McGowan Moondoggie explains it all (at least to me). It is a long read, but worth your time. From the intro: there is a tremendous reluctance among the American people to let go of the notion that we sent men to the Moon. There are a couple of reasons for that, one of them being that there is a romanticized notion that those were great years – years when one was proud to be an American. And in this day and age, people need that kind of romanticized nostalgia to cling to. But that is not the main reason that people cling so tenaciously, often even angrily, to what is essentially the adult version of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. What primarily motivates them is fear. But it is not the lie itself that scares people; it is what that lie says about the world… Read more »
Excellent. Could you please explain why USAmericans think the anyone in the ROW gives a rat’s ass about what they think or feel?
Yankee go to your crumbling, decrepit home. Yankee leave us alone. Now.
Thanks for the link, its a beauty.
“The total distance traveled during the alleged mission, including Earth and Moon orbits, ranged to 1,484,934 miles for Apollo 17 and the same back.
All on a single tank of gasoline…………………LOL.
Dunno…two bucks of REGULAR took me a long ways in ‘69 and I got the windows washed, tires and oil checked too no charge.
I saw an article some time ago (please forgive me for not remembering where I saw it) wherein Edward Snowden made the comment that, based on what he had seen in all those classified files he had access to, the moon landing was real.
FWIW, I sincerely believe they faked it. Those radiation belts surrounding the earth make it nearly impossible for live men to traverse them without injury, and the mechanism(s) for protecting them from radiation are too heavy and could not have been launched into space. IMHO.
Considering that Snowden could be a limited hangout as well, then he would have every reason to state that the moon landings were real.
He is a limited hangout. He literally limited what he determined we the people were allowed to see, which was and still is the majority of what he had.
Moon landings…more bullshit…can’t pass through the Van Allen belts because of the radiation…if they really went to and landed on the moon, why haven’t they been back since…lost the data they said…yeah right, pull the other one! 🤥
That’s what cinched it for me. They lost the data and the original footage for the Giant Leaps for Mankind? No way it was real.
why haven’t they been back since…
Whaddya talking about?
Tom Hanks and his Hollywood buddies went back but they couldn’t make a landing because they went over budget. 🤓
They are working hard to set up believable dioramas at the “landing sites”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpuKu3F0BvY&t=2792s
Fake.
Curtin, sounding like a Woke-tard, writes: ” the racist ideology central to the capitalist elites’ economic injustice and warfare state “. No, it is not central at al. It was merely useful at a particular time in history. After all, rich UK families or the Church of England apologising at the shrine of Negrophilia for their ancestors being in the slave trade way back when was inconceivable in the 60s. Because Baby Boomers were being born, If it were central, i.e, unvarying over time, Biden and all other Western leaders would not be flooding their countries with immi-vaders AKA country shopping welfare migrants from all over. With the vigorous approval of Syriza’s Finance Minster Varoufakis, for example. Those immi-vaders are rarely Caucasian, except for maybe Ukrainians in Germany or Balts in Ireland or Poles in France and the UK, so where is the “racism” that is central to “economic injustice”,… Read more »
Well done. Capitalism is ideology-free. One is as good as the next and the only one worth promoting is the one that maximizes profit.
Did you forget?
This ones been GB news indoctrinated,
They fought for control.
“what we must deal with today. ”
War, Injustice and Tyranny. What the Reverend Dr.MLK struggled to eradicate, and was martyred.
Same as we suffer today from the Lie and the War that Dr.David Kelly, RIP, tried to prevent, and was martyred.
Blair had Doctor Kelly bumped off f-cking war criminal scum that he/it is.
Thanks Ed.
And how many died trying to perpetuate the idea of fortress/empire USA?
Working class citizens slaughtered, maimed and traumatised on battlefields for the glory of the Stars and Stripes and the Military Industrial Complex.
It is sickening.
The good news is that, way past it’s sell-by date, the USofAs in the form that has been oppressing humanity for much too long will disappear in the next 3-4 years. Billions of humans will breathe a sigh of relief and not shed a single tear.
I dont hear from the end of the world in 2025 crowd anymore. Way past yes, disappear, aside from you, its very dubious.
” .. in the form that … “
My money’s on nothing changes w/o a war scenario.
There is a beginning lack of gun powder which will raise 15% in US next year. Maybe its gun control, maybe thats why they have to slow down.