Episode 73: JFK - The Use of Character Ässassination in Iron Man 2

If you can make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him . . .

You go after his legacy - that's what you kill.

Notions of legacy building run throughout Iron Man 2.  Tony Stark has a variety of enemies and one of them, Justin Hammer, has figured out, as they hyper elites did, that you can't just kill someone: you have to also poison their legacy. 


Links:

https://consaracytheories.com/f/the-justin-hammer-method

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-posthumous-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy

https://www.kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/Post_Assassination.pdf 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film

https://www.britannica.com/event/assassination-of-John-F-Kennedy/Conspiracy-theories#ref1233549

https://sgp.fas.org/advisory/arrb98/part03.htm

https://consaracytheories.com/f/how-do-we-separate-the-personal-from-the-presidential

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14548032

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot

https://consaracytheories.com/f/what-real-power-is

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Sara's book Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld is available now! Click here to buy it on Amazon. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please excuse any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Iron Man 2, JFK themes, Tony Stark, Justin Hammer, arc reactor, Stark Expo, legacy building, Senate Armed Services Committee, Ivan Vanko, military industrial complex, character destruction, Kennedy legacy, smear campaign, Church Committee, Zapruder film.

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about the themes of destroying someone's character and destroying someone's legacy that we find in the Marvel film Iron Man two. If for some reason you have not seen this movie, but you plan to spoilers lie ahead. There's no way for me to get into the ins and outs of what I want to talk about without some spoilers. So Consider yourself warned. You may also be wondering why I have chosen to label this a JFK themed episode, when seemingly What the heck does Iron Man two have to do with JFK? If you stick with me, I intend to show you pick out your frosty beverage of choice, and we will saddle up and take this ride. Iron Man two starts where the first Iron Man film leaves off. Tony is announcing to the media that he is Iron Man. Meanwhile, an ailing man in Russia is watching this globney and novasti, otherwise known as top news. His son, Ivan, finds his father's schematics and sets about building his own arc reactor, like the one Tony has in his chest. Tony has revived his father Howard's pet project, the stark Expo, which is supposed to host a variety of STEM related innovations. He flies in in the Iron Man suit, with a group of scantily clad women on stage behind him. It feels like less of a science Expo and more of a big ego trip. He feels that he has single handedly caused world peace, even though this is clearly Tony's massive ego at work, and it's very self aggrandizing to claim that he has single handedly brought about world peace. It doesn't escape my attention in re watching this film, that whatever peace he has brought about is for boat. You're not supposed to have world peace the engines of war, the military industrial complex, the defense contractors. They want constant states of warfare all the time, all over the place. So whatever contribution to peace that Tony actually has made, he's committed a naughty he announces at the expo that the expo is really not about him, but rather about legacy. This notion of legacy building becomes an important theme in the film. Tony is secretly ill from the arc reactor in his chest. He has also served with a subpoena to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee the following day. He gets there and makes a joke of the proceedings. He also humiliates Justin Hammer, who is a major defense contractor and weapons manufacturer. Tony argues that other nations are nowhere near close to developing a knock off of his Iron Man suit. The Senate wants Tony to turn his suit over to the US military, which he refuses to do. Tony proclaims that America is safe. He's a nuclear deterrent, and he successfully privatized world peace. Ivan is watching from Russia and continues working on a weapon powered by an arc reactor. Tony makes pepper pots his CEO so that he can focus on tinkering with his suits in Russia. Ivan gets a fake passport and tickets to a Grand Prix in Monaco. Tony goes to the Grand Prix with some of his entourage. Lord Elon makes a cameo, which is funny, since Justin Hammer's character is so obnoxious, Tony decides to buck protocol and drive a race car in the Grand Prix. Of course, this makes a huge and instant publicity splash. Justin Hammer was in the middle of an interview with Vanity Fair, and the reporter drops him to report on Tony. Instead, Ivan has gained entry with his whiplash weapon. So this is the weapon that he's been tinkering on that involves the arc reactor. Although he doesn't kill Tony, he injures Tony and publicly embarrasses him. So much for Iron Man as an unbeatable, infallible presence. Justin Hammer smiles at this turn of events, Ivan is taken to prison, where Tony is allowed in for a few minutes to interrogate him. Tony wants to know why Ivan didn't sell his tech on the black market. Ivan tells him that the Stark family has killed many people. We get very, very interesting dialog in this scene, Ivan, you come from a family of thieves and butchers, and now, like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your history, and you forget all the lives the Stark family has. Destroyed. Tony, speaking of thieves, where did you get this design? Ivan, my father, Anton Vanko. Tony, well, I never heard of him. Ivan, my father is the reason you're alive. Tony, the reason I'm alive is because you had a shot. You took it, you missed. Ivan, did I if you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him, and there will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come. The truth, all I have to do is sit here and watch as the world will consume you. Tony. Where will you be watching the world consume me from? Oh, that's right, a prison cell. I'll send you a bar of soap. So even though Tony is being tongue in cheek and smart ass here, that's a really interesting exchange, if you can make God bleed. Wow. What Ivan predicts happens as Tony's claim to the Senate Committee has proven false. In short order, Ivan is broken out of prison, and we learned that it was a plan orchestrated and funded by Justin Hammer. We get another very important bit of dialog here. When Justin brings Ivan to an airplane hangar, I got a sweet tooth. Apparently you do too for Tony Stark, what I saw you do to Tony Stark on that track, how you stepped up to him in front of God and everybody that was wow, you spoke to me with what you did, and I know that you knew that I'd be listening. This is why I couldn't bear to have you shipped off to God knows, where it would have been such a waste of talent. But if I might make a suggestion, you know, you don't just go and try and kill the guy. I think, if I may you go after his legacy. That's what you kill. You and me, we are a lot alike in a lot of ways. The only difference between you and I is that I have resources. I think, if I may, you need my resources. Someone behind you, a benefactor. I'd like to be that guy. We'll come back to that we learn that Ivan's father was a Soviet defector, and that he and his son were both accused of espionage. Tony's health deteriorates mentally and physically at hammer industries, Justin instructs Ivan to work on a series of suits that will make Iron Man look like an antique and will humiliate Tony at his own Expo. Tony's birthday rolls around and he gets drunk and Ill behaved, Colonel Rhodes takes one of Tony's suits while he is drunk and incapacitated, while Ivan works on Justin's project. He creates drones instead of manned flight suits. Justin is frustrated with the situation, but he continues to work with Ivan. The government calls Justin to weaponize the suit that Colonel Rhodes stole. Now from here we get what I would call a stereotypical Hollywood superhero action movie type of ending. Tony is able to solve his problem. He gets humbled up a bit. Has to go through something of character development. Justin and Ivan have a falling out. Ivan winds up humiliating Justin with a collection of murder drones, instead of making Tony look humiliated, so the good guy ultimately wins. The baddies are put away or killed or done away with and yay, we all get a happy ending. Of course, we know in reality, real life doesn't always work that way. In fact, it usually does not work that way. On March 16 of 2024 I published a blog post on the conspiracy theories blog titled The Justin Hammer method. In this I write Iron Man two is an underrated movie, and Justin Hammer, played with flair by Sam Rockwell is an underrated villain. I got a sweet tooth. Apparently you do too for Tony Stark. What I saw you do to Tony Stark on that track, how you stepped up to him in front of God and everybody that was wow. You spoke to me with what you did, and I know that you knew that I'd be listening. This is why I couldn't bear to have you shipped off to, God knows, where it would have been such a waste of talent. But if I might make a suggestion, you know, you don't just go and try and kill the guy. I think, if I may, you go after his legacy. That's what you kill. You and me, we are a lot alike in a lot of ways. The only difference between you and I is that I have resources. I think, if I may, you need my resources. Someone behind you, a benefactor. I'd like to be that guy, Justin Hammer to Ivan Vanko about the legacy of Tony Stark although this is a fictional superhero movie, does Justin Hammer have a point when someone is larger than life and publicly adored is the goal of the detractors, ultimately to murder the person's legacy. In 1997 James di Eugenio published the posthumous pop pop of John F Kennedy, looking back, one reason it had so much resonance is that no one had ever done anything like it before that is explored at length and in depth. Depth, both the provenance and the evolution of these JFK scandal stories over a number of years. By the term evolution, I mean how they morphed over time, in each appearance, into something they were not when they first appeared. The other point that made this such an attention grabber was the fact that certain personages somehow appeared on the scene, directly or on the periphery, people whose presence should have caused alarm bells to go off with intelligent and sophisticated observers, Frank CAPELL, Robert Loomis, OVA, demarus, Liz Smith, James Angleton, Timothy, Leary, etc, as the essay makes clear, these people had agendas in mind when they got into this racket. Others like Robert slatzer, as we will also show, were just money grubbing hustlers, but the net effect is that by reinforcing each other, they became a business racket, a network creating its own echo chamber. It was not an easy piece to write. I learned a lot doing it, but I came away with a lot of dirty knowledge about how power in America works and the links the other side will go to in order to snuff out any kind of memory of what America was at one time. Now you can find this article. It's been republished online that James di Eugenio wrote the posthumous pop pop of John F Kennedy. You can find it at Kennedy's and King com. I will drop a link. I highly, highly, highly encourage you to check it out if you're not familiar with it, if you're not heard of it before, you've not read it before, I cannot recommend it highly enough, you will really begin to understand the smear campaign better. There are people even within the research community, whether you're talking about researchers who focus on JFK is murder or who focus on his life and his politics that take some of these questionable resources at face value. Any gal that trots out and says, Oh yeah, 100 million years ago, I screwed JFK. Let me tell you all about it. It's like they just go, oh, okay, well, she's probably telling the truth. Nobody bothers to actually vet the information and ask some rather important questions. I will continue to read from my blog post now. Jim Garrison said that a troublesome person will be discredited, removed or killed. In JFK case, it seems the powerful want to ensure it's all of the above. Leave no shred un poisoned. Removal from office is not enough. Murder him and do it publicly and violently to send a message once he's dead and the period of mourning is over, discredit anything he ever did, tried to do or stood for in even the vaguest sense. I'm going to read again now from Kennedys and king.com this is James di eugenio's writing in 1964 author Morris Beale, a genuine conservative and critic of the Eastern establishment, wrote a novel called guns of the regressive right, depicting how that elite group had gotten rid of Kennedy. There certainly is a lot of evidence to substantiate the claim. There were few tears shed by most right wing groups over Kennedy's death. Five years later, they played hardball again. King and Bobby Kennedy were shot. One would think the coup was complete, the war was over. That would be underestimating these people. They are in it for the long haul. The power elite realizes that, in a very real and pragmatic sense, pop, pop isn't enough. You have to cover it up afterwards and then be ready to smother any legacy that might linger. The latter is quite important, since pop, pop is futile if a man's ideas live on through others. This is why the Charlie India alphas Bill Harvey once contemplated getting rid of not only Castro but his brother Raul and Che Guevara, as well as part of a single operation that would have made a clean sweep of it. In America's case, one could argue that such an operation was conducted here over a period of five years. The smothering effect afterward must hold, since the Pop Pop leader cannot be allowed to become a martyr or a legend. To use a prominent example, in 1973 right after the Charlie India alpha and ITT disposed of Salvador Allende in his Chilean government, the State Department announced falsely that the US had nothing to do with the coup. Later on, one of the agency agents involved in that operation stated that Allende had killed himself and his mistress in the presidential palace. This was another deception, but it did subliminally equate Allen days demise with the death of Adolf Hitler, the latter tactic is quite prevalent in covert operations. I absolutely agree with the Eugenio there these people, these power brokers, these hyper elites, they are in it for the long haul, even if they don't get the satisfaction of seeing something play out in their lifetime. Maybe it doesn't happen until their children or grandchildren's lifetime. They don't care. They are absolutely 100% in it. For the long game, I intend to write more about the treasure trove of information that D Eugenio gets into in later posts. For now, suffice it to say this is the Justin Hammer method. You don't just go after the actual guy. Okay, you kill his legacy. That's what you go after, of course, in JFK, his case, you obliterate the whole damn thing. The event precipitating Ivan Vancouver's meeting with Justin Hammer in iron. Man two is Vanco attempt to murder Tony Stark in Monaco. Vanco doesn't succeed in killing Stark. But Stark's victory was not decisive. Stark is wounded and publicly embarrassed by a rival he didn't see coming. When Vanco is imprisoned, Stark visits him. The reason I'm alive is because you had a shot, you took it, you missed. Did I if you can make God bleed, then people will cease to believe in Him, and there will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come. The truth, all I have to do is sit here and watch as the world will consume you. What a lie. If you can make God bleed, then people will cease to believe in Him. From there, the job is quite easy. Vanko doesn't have to work any harder. In his essay, di Eugenio points to the Church Committee as one catalyst for an increased poisoning of JFK legacy. What precipitated these posthumous and personal attacks on the Kennedys? Something happened in the 70s that necessitated the second pop pop from the right, ie, the use of scandals to stamp out Kennedy's reputation and legacy. That something was the Church Committee, belated revelations about the Charlie India alpha's role in Watergate and later of the agency's illegal domestic operations created a critical Firestorm demanding a full scale investigation of the agency. Also, don't forget about Dick Gregory and Robert Grodin on Good night America on March 6, 1975 they brought the Zapruder film to Geraldo, and it was broadcast on late night television. I read now from the Wikipedia page about the Zapruder film on March 6, 1975 on the ABC late night television show, good night America, hosted by Geraldo Rivera pop, pop researchers Robert Grodin and Dick Gregory presented the first ever us network television showing of the Zapruder film. The public's response and outrage to that television showing quickly led to the forming of the Hart Schweiker investigation, which contributed to the Church Committee investigation on intelligence activities by the United States and resulted in the House Select Committee on pop. Pops investigation. There's an audible gasp from the audience and Heraldo remarks. It's the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in the movies. And then I also drop a link. If you've not seen good night America before, you've not seen that episode, you can watch it on YouTube when you see the Zapruder film on TV. It's a sanitized version where Jack suddenly leans over towards Jackie, who looks frantic, but you're not totally sure what's happened. It's more like someone who has succumbed to a sudden heart attack than someone who's been violently shot in the head. The first time I saw it. Really saw it. I just sat frozen and thought, my God, that's what they did to him. It's worth noting that Geraldo had a tough go of things in the 1980s according to Rivera himself, he was fired from ABC in 1985 after working for them for 15 years. In 1986 his infamous TV special, the mystery of Al Capone's vaults, aired to a pretty disappointed audience, including me. There was so much hype about what could be down there, dead bodies, wads of cash, old cars, hidden treasures, etc. I remember watching it with my family, waiting to see what horrors lurked within. Then we were all deflated. When it was a few old bottles and dirt in 87 Geraldo became a tabloid TV talk show host with tawdry guests and Satanic Panic. Insanity was his downfall, connected to showing the verboten Zapruder film on national TV in the 70s and causing public tumult. Decide for yourself. I'm reading now from britannica.com while still frames from the zapruders eight millimeter footage had been published in November 19 no excuse me, had been published maybe I said that start over while still frames from the zapruders eight millimeter footage had been published in November 1963 in life, which had purchased the rights to the film. The footage itself did not receive a wide viewing until 1975 when it was shown on the good night America television program in showing Kennedy's head jerking backward, the film seemed to indicate that a shot had come from in front of the President, and not from Oswald sniper nest, adding seeming support to those who argued that there had been a second shooter on dealey plazas grassy knoll. The uproar generated by the American public's response to the film and by revelations that the Charlie India Alpha had withheld pertinent information from the Warren Commission contributed to the establishment in 1976 of the House Select Committee on pop pops, the HSCA, which investigated not only the pop pop of Kennedy, but also that of Martin Luther King Jr. People were rightfully upset, but in the end, the government really does not want its populace asking tough questions. The name of the game is sit down, shut up. Do what you're told when some committee or inquiry or show trial needs to be conducted, it's very often little more than a sham. You. With that, said, it seems lost to history that the HSCA concluded that, yes, JFK probably was murdered as part of a conspiracy. I'm going to read now from the archive site of the FAS project on government secrecy, aside from the pop, pop investigations that the Dallas Police, the Foxtrot Bravo, India and the Service conducted. President Lyndon B Johnson immediately established the President's Commission to investigate the pop pop of President Kennedy, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Earl Warren, headed the efforts of the Warren Commission. 10 months later, the Warren Commission report concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and shot the president from a sniper's nest on the sixth floor of his workplace, the Texas School Book Depository, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that the Warren Commission conducted some of its investigations in secret and sealed many of its records the American public never trusted the Commission's conclusion. Subsequently, other federal entities conducted partial or complete re investigations of the pop pop. The most significant of these re investigations was the House Select Committee on pop pops, the HSCA, which concluded in 1979 that President Kennedy's death was the result of a probable conspiracy. Amidst this backdrop, as D Eugenio points out, it becomes necessary to drag Kennedy's name through the mud. It always comes back to the same basic premise. We didn't lose much on November 22 1963 suffice it to say for now, there's the official narrative for you. JFK was a piece of garbage, and you peons who like him, are stupid. From there, all roads lead to Rome. It always leads back to the murder. I've noticed something with JFK legacy for the sex obsessed crowd, the impetus appears to be tearing Kennedy apart via his obvious failing as a husband and his rampant sexcapades. It's something like this. He was a philanderer and a general creep. Therefore he was also a bad president, therefore his legacy is questionable at best and abysmal at worst. Therefore we didn't lose much that day in Dallas. It always comes back to the Pop Pop every time, and it's mostly driven by men, not women, which is the opposite of what you'd expect. We've gone from people sobbing openly the day he died to oh, well, I mean, hey, the guy was selfish and entitled and a sex fiend to boot. No big loss. Am I right? If you can make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. The sharks will smell blood in the water and come after the wounded carcass to tear it apart further. I'm reading now from the bonus episode I recorded entitled RFK Junior's interview with Vlad TV, and then also after JFK had been murdered, RFK Jr, in this interview, particularly points a finger at the Charlie India alpha, and says that a concerted effort was made because there were people looking in their direction after Kennedy was murdered, there was this concerted effort to not only point that finger of blame away from them, But to start disparaging the general Kennedy name and anything that might be associated with a Kennedy legacy, he says that there was a man who was Charlie India alpha that had also been a bureau chief for The New York Times in Havana. And for 30 years, according to RFK Jr, it was his primary job to blacken the name Kennedy. And as he tells it, this is one of the rumors that was started by that individual as part of the smear campaign. The narrative goes something like this, Joe senior was a bootlegger and a general ne'er do well, he had gotten involved with the mafia, and the mafia had helped JFK to get elected in 1960 particularly in Chicago. So then, whenever JFK and RFK started to go after the mafia and organize crime, they felt double crossed, therefore they were angry, therefore they were responsible for the pop pop in Dallas. He mentions, in 1959 the grilling that takes place those Senate hearings where RFK senior is trying to question Sam Giancana, but he keeps pleading the fifth and giggling, and he's like, I thought only little girls giggled. So there's this tension, obviously, between RFK senior in Giancana. And so RFK Jr is like, it doesn't make any sense that there would be this animosity, but then Giancana would help rig an election for Jack Kennedy to get elected. Like, why would he even do that? It doesn't make any sense. He also addresses the prevalent rumor, even now, that the 1960 election was stolen, that Mayor Daley in Chicago, whatever you want to believe, that he stuffed the ballot box, that he withheld votes that were meant for Nixon, that he did some kind of election rigging to put Kennedy over the top and essentially hand him the election in 1960 and RFK Jr pushes back on that idea. According to RFK Jr, daily, was so outraged by the accusation that he offered to do a recount and even pay for it himself. I'm reading now from Jewish virtual library.org the OSS psychological profile of Hitler described his use of the big lie. His primary rules were, never allow the public to cool off. Never admit a fault or wrong. Never concede that there may be some good in your enemy. Never leave room for alternatives. Never accept blame. To concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong. People will believe a lie, a big lie, sooner than a little one, and if you repeat it frequently enough, people, sooner or later, will believe it. The OSS was a precursor to the Charlie India Alpha. Sounds like they learned a thing or two from their own psychological profiling. Get the gossip mill churning, ensure journalists believe whatever someone says about JFK, so long as it's negative and the more heinous and outrageous, the better, and get these stories in print as often as possible, lash out at anyone with a positive story to tell, as well as anyone who generally doubts the official narrative. Lather, rinse, repeat, I'm thinking again of Justin Hammer, who was a weapons manufacturer and DOD contractor in the film. You and me, we are a lot alike in a lot of ways. The only difference between you and I is that I have resources. I think, if I may, you need my resources. Someone behind you, a benefactor. I'd like to be that guy. We have the resources to tell giant, nasty lies and repeat them so often they become ingrained in people's minds, generally, without knowing where the source of information actually originated. This is what real power looks like. So in Iron Man two, you have Ivan Vanko saying, it doesn't really matter what I just did? Well, you took a shot and you missed, and so that's why I'm still alive. Oh, did I miss? Did I if you can make God bleed, then people will cease to believe in Him, then there's blood in the water and the sharks will come. I feel like this is one of the reasons why you have different commentators and smut peddlers that just went to pick clean the carcass of Kennedy's sex life. It's like man whoever he was having consensual sex with. Does it matter? I mean, seriously, does that matter if he was having consensual sex with every consenting adult within a 50 mile radius of him at any given time all these years later, especially, does that actually matter? Or do his policies matter, the things that he stood for, the ramifications of what was going on when he was in office, wars that he prevented, conflicts that he prevented things that could have gone really wrong had somebody else been in the office at that point in time. Does it matter that much what he was doing with his PP as long as it was consenting adults? I mean, it doesn't matter to me, but that's the thing, if you can make somebody bleed, then people will cease to believe and it just attracts more and more of these bottom feeders and these hatchet jobs and smut peddlers, then you have Justin Hammer. You don't just go up and try to kill the guy. You kill his legacy. That's what you go after. Well, one begets the other. And as I've written before, in JFK case, it has to be all of the above. So we have Jim Garrison, very wisely, saying, I think a troublesome person will be removed, discredited, or killed. Well, in Kennedy's case, it's all of the above. He's murdered in broad daylight, and it sends one hell of a message to everybody. So he's not only removed from office, he's also killed. And then, after a little bit of mourning, a little bit of oh, this is so sad for Jackie and the kids. Oh, it's the end of Camelot. Oh, King John and Queen Jackie. And isn't this sad? After a little bit of sackcloth and ashes, it's time to absolutely wreck this guy. I feel like people are quick to judge the Marvel movies as being Hollywood schlock and silly over the top filmmaking, but if you really know what you're looking for, there's some pretty interesting tidbits, and some, I think, insights into how the world really works. Stay a little bit crazy, and I will see you in the next episode.

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