Apple Pie

Political assassination is as American as apple pie.


The video posted above provides a contextual insight.


I remember being woken by my father on 22nd November 1963 to be told that John Kennedy had been shot.


Dad was very upset - he was an admirer of Kennedy, as much as anything else because there was a Catholic in the White House.


Then on June 5th 1968, my 21st Birthday, as a young teacher in Goondiwindi who was awaiting my National Service medical, I heard the news of Bobby Kennedy's assassination.


I've never understood why the incidence of political murder has provided such ghastly but regular punctuation to American political history, but after watching this video, I have a better idea.


It has very fertile ground available stateside.


It doesn't happen only in the USA, of course, there was an attempt on the life of Arthur Calwell, federal opposition leader in this country, back in 1966 when he had finished addressing an anti-conscription rally in Mossman, Sydney.


But this phenomenon has been monotonously regular on the other side of the Pacific -


1865 - US President Abraham Lincoln dies after shooting by John Wilkes Booth


1963 - JFK assassinated


1964 - US civil rights leader Martin Luther King shot in Miami


1968 - Bobby Kennedy assassinated


1972 - US presidential candidate George Wallace shot and paralysed


1981 - John Hinckley Jr. fires six shots at US President Ronald Reagan


2011 - Congresswoman Gabby Gifford shot in Arizona


The American media has gone mad with the usual recriminations and questioning. Blot and Blair have been furiously covering their backsides.


There is a simple answer to the "why?" question. It's the consequence of a combination of unregulated gun ownership, a tendency towards religious fundamentalism, and a plethora of radio shock jocks who deal in hate to make a living - much in the same way as Blair and Bolt.

There are about 2% of the American population who react to this drip-feed of anti-government rhetoric, and we see the result.

Fortunately, we don't have all the ingredients to the recipe available in this country. Give it time…..