The dinner menu and guest list for royal functions over 100 years ago was (and may still be) redacted by the state in the UK. Sometimes, secrets are not really about very much.
I am personally more interested in the MLK data than the JFK data because flawed though they were, the many eyes on that prize didn't find even the scent of a smoking gun worth much. If it had been the other side of the Iron curtain, by now they'd have capitalised on proving it. The ability to tie that era's democrat party to the mob was too delicious to keep secret if provable. (yes, even being killed by the mob taints you with the mob) so either political, foreign, or crime related I can't see how successive governments could have resisted showing-and-telling all.
MLK, I felt was swept under the carpet the way decent "folk like us" wanted. The moment of political advantage in the facts faded much faster, the underlying unease of what agencies of the state might be complicit remains. I think we all deserve a bit of clarity here. We know he had feet of clay, thats not the point. The point is how poorly the state defended a man trying to build a better america.
Neither are anything like as important as current events. The release is not just a mechanistic "I am a man of my word" moment, its a distraction from the everyday events. Any hour news online dedicates to these stories, is time not spent worrying about what dismantling the US state means in practice in 2025.
> The release is not just a mechanistic "I am a man of my word" moment, its a distraction from the everyday events.
Excellent point that I hadn't considered. We're already flooded with executive orders and news of Musk's capricious wrecking ball. Ultimately who killed JFK or MLK doesn't matter all that much today, except as a matter of historical accuracy. But it's something that people will certainly talk about, distracting us from the real dangers going on in this administration.
Ultimately I don't think we'll learn much from this anyway. I expect any juicy documents (if any existed) were destroyed long ago, and the departments in custody of any related files are still free to redact whatever they want, or simply decide not to release the parts they don't want to release.
Another possibility is that the remaining files contain something incredibly damaging to a group or agency he hates. Like say the MLK files implicate the FBI somehow. Trump hates the FBI now (which was not the case during his first term), and files pointing the finger at the FBI would be more ammunition for purging and remaking the FBI.
There might be some news in some details. You have to be pretty dedicated to think the news outweighs other stories of the moment. Qualified historians of the 1960s will be lining up to re-strike positions on what the minutia say about the Warren Commission, washington insider politics, previously misunderstood relationships between agencies, great stuff for PhDs.
Undeniable. And Bobby Kennedy. But, ask yourself why you care more than the deaths of McKinley, or Hoffa or Malcolm X
I maybe said it badly. I think MLKs unanswered questions have more current value, than JFKs because I think they tell us more about morally corrupting behaviour in US institutions. I don't tend to think any US agency paid a part in JFKs assassination, although they bungled the aftermath.
I've been to the book depositary. Sad place. Banal even.
I wouldn't call it FAFO given 11 presidents in a row including Trump sat on the files. It wasnt fucking around, it was established practice. Your other point, that he campaigned on it is true. It was possibly his least consequential lowest bar act. I'm not personally sensing a massive public THIS IS WHY I VOTED FOR HIM moment on it tbh. Maybe in the rooms people discuss pizzagate, the grand conspiracy comes up from time to time but I can't imagine many of the core caring about MLK. That may have been a sop to black voters.
I will be truly interested in both files, how much new emerges. Imagine when the same level of info comes out about Reagan and the Iran thing, Kissinger and Nixon and the Vietnam war, Clinton in Bosnia, Clinton & Bush and Iraq. Future historians will have a field day. I'll be interested but they just don't feel very .. big.
The established practice is fucking around. It’s not just any one thing. There’s a widespread feeling among Trump voters that the executive branch is secretive and unresponsive. There is a continuity between the MLK/JFK stuff all the way to executive-branch refusal to enforce immigration laws (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...). E.g. the deep state turned H1B from what Congress promised was a temporary worker program into a pathway to permanent immigration.
I am personally more interested in the MLK data than the JFK data because flawed though they were, the many eyes on that prize didn't find even the scent of a smoking gun worth much. If it had been the other side of the Iron curtain, by now they'd have capitalised on proving it. The ability to tie that era's democrat party to the mob was too delicious to keep secret if provable. (yes, even being killed by the mob taints you with the mob) so either political, foreign, or crime related I can't see how successive governments could have resisted showing-and-telling all.
MLK, I felt was swept under the carpet the way decent "folk like us" wanted. The moment of political advantage in the facts faded much faster, the underlying unease of what agencies of the state might be complicit remains. I think we all deserve a bit of clarity here. We know he had feet of clay, thats not the point. The point is how poorly the state defended a man trying to build a better america.
Neither are anything like as important as current events. The release is not just a mechanistic "I am a man of my word" moment, its a distraction from the everyday events. Any hour news online dedicates to these stories, is time not spent worrying about what dismantling the US state means in practice in 2025.