The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, and it is on that principle that the media (print, TV, and radio) has been referred to as the “fourth branch of government.” Informing the public by a free, independent, and objective media was supposed to protect us from tyranny.

This is a far cry from what the media has become today.  In 1983, 90% of the American media was owned by 50 companies. In 2012, six giant media corporations control 90% of what we read, watch, and listen to.

All of the networks are controlled by giant corporations whose agenda is not to educate and inform the public, but to influence and brainwash the public. Left-wing and right-wing media only present what advances their agenda, the agendas of their corporate owners. We’re told what to think, what to buy, and how to vote, all the while we are distracted from all seriousness by a constant diet of reality shows, movies, and sports. We are being entertained and drugged by the controlling elite.

At a time when the American middle class is dissolving because manufacturing jobs have been shipped to third-world countries, and those that remain offer low pay, fewer benefits, and no retirement. 40 million Americans are without healthcare and millions have lost their homes. And, yet, we continue to sleep through it all, finding refuge in a digital never-never land.

But, all is not without hope. All over the planet, thanks to an open and free internet, truth is being told by individuals who blog, broadcast and produce TV shows who document the real stories the people of the planet need to know.

John F. Kennedy, our last great president,  in one of his historic speeches reminds the nation’s press of it’s obligations as the 4th branch of government. In it he warns against the threat of a closed society and “the very grave danger that the need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.”

Since 2001, we have witnessed the erosion of nearly all of our constitutionally protected rights. Fear of terrorism, domestic and foreign, has led to increased surveillance and the formation of a police state whose agents instill fear and punish dissent.

For decades, our leaders have withheld the truth about assassinations, wars and corruption at the highest levels of government, commerce, and finance. Because of this, humanity is on the brink of destruction as resources are pillaged, populations are murdered, cities are bombed, and billions of people are forced into poverty and starvation.

JFK warned about a “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means to expand its sphere of influence and achieve its goals… It is a system that has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. It’s preparations are concealed and not published. It’s mistakes are buried, not headlined. It’s dissenters are silenced not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed.”

Fifty years ago, JFK foresaw the creation of the world we live in today that is controlled by an elite few with the American military enforcing their domination and extraction of resources in every corner of the globe.

Kennedy pleaded with the press to help in the tremendous task to inform the American people. Sadly, the media, being co-opted and controlled by that “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy,” has failed miserably and it has led to the erosion of our civil rights and the eradication of our Democracy. JFK died because he stood up to the military industrial complex – the Department of War – and those who would conspire to destroy our freedoms and outlaw dissent.

In listening to one of the greatest speeches by any president, I was on the one hand inspired, but on the other greatly disturbed to realize what JFK warned about over 50 years ago represents the reality of our current situation in America and the world.

In the spirit and hope of a free and open society based upon an informed public, I share this incredible and timely speech of one of America’s great leaders.