My answer: Look at three things: (1) the current budget of the military-industrial complex; (2) the perpetual foreign-policy crises into which our nation has been plunged; and (3) the totalitarian-like, dark-side powers wielded and exercised by the national-security establishment, none of which can be reconciled with a genuinely free society.

Congress recently awarded the military with a budget of $839 billion, which was several billions more than what President Biden had requested. That's a lot of money. And it all comes out of the pockets of the American people.

Look at the foreign-policy crises and chaos since the end of the Cold War. The Persian Gulf War, deadly sanctions against Iraq, terrorist blowback, the global war on terror, the deadly and destructive invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran, Kosovo, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, sanctions, embargoes, and now, once again, China and Russia.

Consider the dark-side, communist-like powers wielded by the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA: torture, indefinite detention, mass secret surveillance, secret prison camps, military tribunals and state-sponsored assassinations. 

Why does the Kennedy assassination matter? It is a virtual certainty that none of that would be happening today if Kennedy had not been assassinated. That's one big reason why the Kennedy assassination still matters today.