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The other day I went looking for a quote from a civil rights speech that John Kennedy had given during a critical moment of American history, as the National Guard was called out to escort two black students enrolling at the University of Alabama. I found the passage I wanted and then went ahead and read the entire speech. It was fairly stunning.
Consider some of the following excerpts:
I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents.
We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.
It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.
Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.
The first thing that's striking about this rhetoric - and a fact which makes the second observation all the more notable - is that it comes from a president who was just barely decent on civil rights issues. Kennedy was young, handsome, eloquent, witty, martyred and canonized by his camp after his assassination, and Americans therefore remember him as a much more successful president than he actually was. More importantly, we give him more credit than is due for his moral courage on issues like civil rights, perhaps the single most important domestic question of the era. (In this respect, it must also be said that two other less-than altruistic motivations leap off the page as you read this speech: the national elite's concern, in the context of the Cold War, about how racism was hurting American efforts to win over hearts and minds in the Third World; and white America's palpable fear of black violence boiling over in response to unyielding racism.)
Kennedy was in fact behind the curve of history in many respects. Brown versus the Board and the Montgomery bus strike had already occurred seven years before his inauguration. And yet he was reluctant to move anywhere on this issue much past where events on the ground pushed him. This is understandable in crass political terms, given that the Solid (white, racist) South at that time was still a huge chunk of the Democratic Party's coalition, and given that Kennedy had won election in 1960 by the barest of margins (in fact, it took the generosity of a whole lot of people in Illinois - who, despite being dead, nevertheless voted for him - to put him over the top).
But that's just it - Kennedy's reticence on civil rights is understandable in crass political terms, but only in those terms. Nobody in our political class likes to hear blunt truth, especially on matters of character, but let's boil this one down to just that: JFK was, in his political calculus, balancing the prospect of a second presidential term for one very privileged single American, on the one hand, versus the equality, aspirations and dignity of one-tenth of the country's population, plus the moral and Constitutional integrity of the entire nation, on the other. And, by and large, he was too often choosing to put his own interests over the country's.
All that said, look again at his words. The second reason they are striking - and my real point here - has to do with the moral power and eloquent clarity of his call to Americans to form a more perfect union. Yes, Kennedy was a flawed president (which, of course, makes him part of a mighty big club), and yes his deeds frequently failed to match the power of his words. But that in fact underscores my argument even more emphatically: Back in the day, even weak presidents could articulate a national vision that was vastly larger and more appealing than anything we remotely aspire to today.
Think about it. Since Jimmy Carter was in the White House, America has been a captive of regressive politics, including that of Democratic presidents and congressional majorities. The only passionate rhetoric you are ever likely to hear in our political discourse nowadays is some bald-faced lies about the urgent need to go to war or to slash taxes on the wealthy. When was the last time anyone spoke out with a moral vision about the environment, civil rights, the American addiction to war, economic justice, or the due process of civil liberties?
It happens, but it is rare in our rhetoric generally, and even more rare amongst our political class. Remember when Robert Byrd denounced the Iraq invasion in passionate moral terms? That episode sticks out precisely because it was such an unusual act. And even that was not done by a president, congressional leader, cabinet member or senior statesman. The speaker was just a senator. Not that senators aren't prominent figures in American politics, of course. But at any given time there are a hundred of them. And that just covers one half of one branch, constituting one-third of the American government.
The truth is that American political discourse in our time has been dumbed down, cheapened, emasculated and impoverished. It is Exhibit A in the case arguing that, if America was ever once a great country, it is not now. We are instead, today, a crouched and fearful giant. We don't lead in the world, other than to lead the regressive opposition (along with countries like Somalia and Libya) to virtually every form of international law and morality. At home, we have two political factions: those who emphatically and aggressively seek to turn the clock back on every form of progress achieved these last decades, centuries and even millennia, and those who sheepishly and timidly defend the status quo, or perhaps favor regressing a bit more slowly. You can see this clearly in the contrast between take-no-prisoner presidents of our time like Reagan and Lil' Bush, versus the hopelessly cowardly Clinton or Obama. You can see it on the Supreme Court. The regressive faction is bold and aggressive. The others on the Court are milquetoast moderates, merely trying to hold the line on existing policy. And, despite all the bullshit rhetoric about balance and fairness and yadda-yadda, Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama would dare nominate a true Warren Court-style progressive to the bench, giving the Court even a single liberal, up against five reactionaries.
No wonder our politics are so bereft of stirring moral rhetoric. We are consumed with the smallest politics of the most narrow self-interest. Our electorate hasn't had a generous tendency in ages, and our political class is populated by careerists, on a good day.
Elena Kagan is a good example. So is Barack Obama, or John Edwards or Harry Reid or Dick Gephardt (now a leading lobbyist) and so many others. (I don't even bother to mention figures from the right, including those like John McCain, once dolled-up by the media and his own campaign rhetoric as some sort of patriot who places country before self.) Look across the political landscape and see if you can spot a Daniel Ellsberg or a Paul Wellstone or even a Lyndon Johnson anywhere on the horizon of our political class - somebody who (even with the enormous other flaws in the latter's case) takes a principled stand on any great issue of our time, and who is willing to risk something of personal value to do so. You won't. It's as rare today as the Catholic Church doing the right thing about pedophilia.
What's perhaps most astonishing about all this is we live in a moment where even self-interest could simultaneously be both the right thing to pursue and politically popular. Even if politicians can't transcend their own bloated cravings for money, power and attention to stand up for repressed gays or shrinking glaciers, couldn't they find it within themselves to look out for the interests of tens of millions of Americans (who just happen also to be voters) suffering under tremendous economic anxiety and worse? What the hell is wrong with Barack Obama - as a politician and as a person - that he doesn't savagely excoriate the sickening monsters of the GOP who oppose extending unemployment rights to "lazy" Americans living on the very edge of survival, and thereby along the way also earn some much-needed moral and political credit for doing so?
This week saw the ignominy of the Shirley Sherrod case, in which regressive hitman Andrew Breitbart blasted across the media a doctored up video of a speech the black former director of the Agriculture Department's Georgia state office gave, decades ago, talking about how she transcended her own impulses to discriminate on the basis of race. Transcended, I say again. But that was the part that got edited out. It was as if you lost your job because you said publicly that "I am not a terrorist", but some right-wing freak (whose parents evidently neglected him as an infant and we're all paying for it still to this day) took out the third word of the sentence and gave the rest to your boss and wife and kids and everyone else, and now you've lost your marriage and family and home and job and no one will talk to you anymore. All because maybe you voted Democratic or something.
What this illustrates for the umpteenth time (as if the Brooks Brothers Riot, or what Saxby Chambliss did to Vietnam vet Max Cleland, or the character assassination of the Swiftboat thugs didn't make this crystal clear already) is that the scum that is today the American right will absolutely say and do anything in order to score political points, while so-called progressives say and do nothing even to stop their crimes, let alone to advance a positive agenda. They do nothing, that is, unless crumpling up like frightened kittens in a thunderstorm counts as doing something.
The distance traveled from Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King (or even John Kennedy) to Barack Obama represents a stunning collapse of empire. Once a powerful country that could, with partial justification, boast of leadership in the moral sphere, we have today shrunken, literally and figuratively, to a nation of Newts looking for some kind of cheap Rush.
For better and, unfortunately, sometimes for worse, this is a country that used to have big aspirations. Now we're like a two-bit drunken banana republic, thrashing about in the gutter of history as we implode from the toxic combination of greed, stupidity, indolence and hubris.
We once used to conduct a war on poverty. Now we just incarcerate the impoverished. In privately-owned, for-profit, jails, no less.
We once used to take care of our aged and elderly. Now our big social programs legislation does little more than redirect huge masses of taxpayer funds to corporations.
We once cared about promoting equality. Now when Oliver Stone makes the movie Wall Street in order to offer a cautionary tale about the perils of greed, a hundred thousand new stock trader careers are launched instead, in proud emulation of Gordon Gekko.
We used to be serious about protecting the air we breath, the water we drink and the land we live on from the ravages of pollution. Now we standby and watch with our hands in our pockets as we toast an entire planet to a lethal crisp.
We once used to explore the boundaries of what civil liberties could be sustained in sprawling industrialized democracy. Now we race to legislate them away as fast as we can, while the state ignores "guaranteed" protections of privacy or due process whenever it wants to, anyhow.
We once used to race to the moon, pushing ourselves to do the impossible. Now we just stick dynastic disasters of DNA dice like George W. Bush before a podium to haplessly call for a yawn-inducing, focus-group scripted, mission to Mars.
We once used to care about how we were perceived internationally, even as we nevertheless too often displayed the belligerence of our power. Now we don't even bother with the former, while we've raised the latter to a high art.
We once used to come together as a whole country to address threats and shared national concerns, all of us making enormous sacrifices toward a common purpose. Today, our presidents encourage us to go shopping.
Is it any wonder that our political rhetoric is so uninspired today? It's the perfect representation of our impoverished moral spirit.
And it's likely to bite us hard in the not-too-distant future, if it isn't doing so already.
It's been nearly half a century since JFK so aptly reminded us, "Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality."
93 Comments so far
Show AllThe dumbing down of America continues. Right on, David Michael Greene! Keep speaking out!
It is interesting is it not that our golden past in every instance has led inexorably to the awful present? The Hindus got it right. Over time, things always get worse.
From the Gulf of Mexico to Afghanistan, we are all paying the price of corporatized politics:
Build & Vote for the Green Party.
http://edbortzforcongress.org
JFK was the last man who when he was elected president actually thought he had gained power. The example of the red pieces of his brain spattered on the streets of Dallas for exercising that power against the interests of the moneyed interests hasn't been lost on his successors.
In June 1963 he authorized the Treasury Dept to begin issuing dollars...cutting off the parasitic, private "federal reserve." He decided in September that year to withdraw US troops from Vietnam...infuriating the hawks of the MIC.
There has been a concerted attempt by the corporate media for twenty years to smear his name. He wasn't perfect...not even close...but he surprised his peers in the prep school alumni by having a moral core. We've not seen his like since.
Seek out JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass. It's heartbreaking how far we've fallen.
Still wondering how Teddy Kennedy got sucked into the Obama war machine? Anyone have any ideas? What a mark on his career!
Wrong Kennedy.
From the article:
We once used to take care of our aged and elderly...
We once cared about promoting equality...
We used to be serious about protecting the air we breathe...
Anybody see a problem with this formulation? Who is "We", exactly? Today, lots of people - including people who write for and read this website - "take care of our elderly", "care about promoting equality", and are "serious about protecting the air we breathe."
But, in Green's essay, all of these people - tens of millions of people - don't exist, because the faults of the tiny, elite criminal class that actually runs this country are projected on to the entire population.
If the government's attempt to shirk its promises to the elderly are just a consequence of the fact that "We" don't care for the elderly anymore, then what's the problem? Doesn't that mean that America is still a democracy, whose government policy reflects the will of the people?
Nice job letting the real criminals off the hook, Professor Green.
You make no sense.
Stop trying so hard to appear more insightful than anyone else.
You asked:
"What choice have we left to affect change?"
I think change is coming because the policies that the oligarchs are pursuing are fundamentally unsustainable. They can't continue for much longer, and the only question is what will replace them.
I wouldn't say that "nothing has worked." One of the consequences of the movement against the Vietnam war, for example, was the elimination of the draft, which forced the government to rely on a "volunteer" military and contractors, which has made it harder to turn out the number of troops needed to effectively control the world (counterinsurgency experts estimate it would take a half-million troops to effectively control Afghanistan, and we can't field even half that number.)
And then there are the things that the oligarchs do to hasten their own end. The massive greed of the military industrial complex has made war vastly more expensive, speeding us towards the day when insolvency forces an end to the empire.
Don't give up hope! In many ways, the oligarchs are their own worst enemies.
SteveB, if the US is moving toward a relatively high unemployment level for the foreseeable future, then the manpower for our military is quite a bit easier to acquire. I believe the military will work to control strategic resource areas and not entire nations in cases such as Afghanistan. Since military contracts are spread out through all the states (and I think through damn near every representative district) making cuts is quite difficult. The US will find a way to continue to pay for its military machine, while making relatively minor cuts in spending for occasional political show. My hope is that our politicians and military leaders are smart enough to limit the number of stupidities and catastrophes.
It's already happening. I remember reading somewhere that recently, and for the first time since the US armed forces went voluntary, all parts of the armed forces met their recruitment quota.
I agree. The oligachy's own policies will lead to their demise. We'll be left with a "dark-age" to struggle through, in the aftermath of downfall. This will be the beginning of real tragedy, after the oligharchs' "clown show" is swept away by their own follies.
The oligarchs are stock-piling for the days to come...
I guess once we "defeated" Totalitarian Communism we lost the motivation to strive for at least the appearance of moral superiority.
I just don't understand why DMG still bothers to bemoan the failures of the Democrats. Our political process has more in common with professional wrestling than it does with anything like a healthy democratic republic. It's a big puppet show. While knuckleheads on the left and the right cheer for their favorites, they never bother to inquire about the identities and motivations of those pulling the strings.
It's the internal logic of the system. Industrial Capitalism does not and will not produce a better world- it will destroy the world: for profit.
This is a good article, but David Michael Green missed the important point that John F. Kennedy's term in office was a personal work in progress, from cold warrior to peacemaker.
JFK's entire term of office was a story of increasing personal transformation because he persisted to think outside the box of conventional thought. James Douglass points this out in his book "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters".
The John Kennedy speech quoted by Professor Green pales in comparison to the moral clarity expressed in the JFK speech given at American University on June 10, 1963. This speech essentially ended the cold war, just months before his assassination.
Unfortunately, the story of JFK's increasing maturity was never matched by the American people because the mainstream media obscured his message.
The same problem is with us today. Where are the voices from outside the system? Certainly our churches and elite universities have failed to be that counter cultural voice because they have bought into the dirty rotten system. The system remains rigged for the greed of corporate capitalism and those industries profiting from war.
The war on terrorism is the new "Cold War" and our churches and universities continue to fail the American people and American democracy.
Very good point Steven Riley. Why do we forget that the idea of personal growth is what leads us down the path of human evolution?
JFK warned against -- and fought against -- the descent of politics into mere coporate public relations, an approach which I believe reached its apex under George W. Bush. Part of Obama's winning promise was a return to the moral leadership called for by our historical moment. Today, we need him to be more like FDR, politically and rhetorically.
Today, we need (Obama) to be more like FDR, politically and rhetorically.
This will never happen. Obama is a villain and no amount of good intentions or wishful thinking on anyone's part can change that.
STEPHEN: Thank you for pointing out the lessons/insights drawn from the Douglass book. It's required reading for any who see fit to make a judgment call on or about JFK.
As to the indictment that there are no leaders or visionaries... there are plenty who exist under the radar. If any got too close to a media position of influence, he or she would be readily portrayed as anything but viable or stable. That's how power holds on. Millions and millions of dollars go into the following to shape consent and marginalize dissent:
1. Think tanks! Given prestigious titles, they essentially own the right to send their initiates out into media. Then these disciples are tasked with the power to frame all major debates, while keeping any inconvenient options off the table.
2. Universities: and which departments get grants or big funding. (It works the same way that donors to politicians expect "consideration" in return.)
3. Ownership of media: Best way to determine who gets anointed with celebrity status, or who will be granted a microphone/camera angle at all.
It's not that difficult to provide the illusion that there is no alternative (TINA) when any who represent it are entirely marginalized. So there's nothing organic or natural about David Michael Green's assertion that mediocrity has come to replace ideals. And while it is true that the democrats fight to hold onto the status quo while the right/republicans push the agenda further and further towards some form of neo-classical feudalism... this awful outcome has not come about without much help (and covert funding) from strategically positioned elites.
Well said. Success today is not a matter of doing what is right when it matters, but of doing what is required. Doing the right thing will often enough end your career. Examples are legion.
You're right. Doing the right thing can end most of these useless careers - but it doesn't end my career. I think you can figure out which careers are immune. How about those that keep the resources in closed loops, off-limits to the elites?? Everyone is shifting production to the local level, closing the loops, starving the elites. I never liked their jobz anyway. They sucked! You don't work for them, do you??
How about Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold to name a few?
The problem is not that there are no courageous progressives willing to call
for the end of Wars, the Empire, class warfare and the decimation of the planet.
But progressive comments never get the Corporate Mainstream coverage of the
rightwing echo chamber.
On the other hand, today, thanks to the Internet, I can hear these people speak
and give their opinions on Websites like Democracynow.org and other
alternative Websites.
This possibility never existed before.
For example, millions of Americans and others around the world rallied to stop
the Iraq conflagration before it began via the Internet.
As opposed to Vietnam which took years for people to realize was a huge mistake
except for a small sliver of informed progressives.
Also President Obama has made some excellent speeches.
The problem is in the execution and the Democrats' hiding behind the filibuster
as the excuse for watered down Weimar Republic type reform which does not
change fundamental issues but only the margins.
So I am not sure I buy this thesis.
Our job is to continue to advance alternative media like Democracynow.org or
this very Website and increase their audience.
To answer the question you first wrote, I have seen those three speaking out even on MSM but with the exception of Feingold in most cases, they fold when they try to bring up a bill, feel that they are not getting support for their ideas, or make the usual mistake of voting against what they really believe in at heart.
You mentioned about the Internet and how it is helping us compared to Vietnam. Yes, it is helping us but only some. We may have the Internet to inform us as to what is going on but even the Internet can't help us when the wars and what is happening on the battlefields have been privatized unlike Vietnam. You can only know what is really happening when you are closer to it. Another problem are the unknown and hidden connections between the military and what would look like businesses not connected to them. For example, the Internet will not tell you the details about some of the phone companies and their secret business deals with the manufacturers of the war drones. Only those of us who work and get punished for trying to stop them at their meetings will get to know their hideous plans. There are plenty of dangerous examples in the business and warlords world too. We may have advanced 3 steps with the Internet but our rivals have beaten us by 7 steps thereby making us feel like 3 steps forward 7 steps back.
Once again, DMG is dead wrong. Kennedy was a ruthless cold warrior and ran to the right of Nixon in 1960. He most certainly would have escalated in Vietnam.
Green: "We once used to race to the moon, pushing ourselves to do the impossible. Now we just stick dynastic disasters of DNA dice like George W. Bush before a podium to haplessly call for a yawn-inducing, focus-group scripted, mission to Mars."
Liberal "progressive" pap from DMG, as usual. Please see Anthony DiMaggio's piece on Znet earlier this week.
The problem with any historical person is you have to read someone else's interpretation of the person. My educated guess is that most writers of history have some prejudice of the person good or bad that will come through in their writings. Then throw in the political hacks that rewrite history to suit their politics, and it can be difficult to know what that person was really like. So sadly you end up with opinions of the person that are all over the place like they are in this discussion thread.
Very, very good point. Irrespective of who actually assassinated JFK, Douglass' book proves that democracy in this country was overthrown in that period. After reading it, I realized that Kennedy wasn't quite who I thought he was.
Our politics are impoverished at least in part because of a desperate attempt to cling to a disappearing past glory. In "The End of History and the Last Man," Japanese American Francis Fukuyama unwittingly heralded the decline, not ascendence, of the United States. Trumpeted was the global victory of the asserted twin pillars of American culture: democracy and capitalism. Democracy collapsing into capitalism, and capitalism into mercantilism, and mercantilism into "The Great Recession," even Fukuyama has rejected his romantic thesis.
A second force is the ongoing economic-sociological-political decline of "whites." Working class whites have been descending into economic insecurity since the recession in the late 1970s. With their corresponding declining birth rate, they are a shrinking percentage of the American population. This in turn shrinks their political efficacy. All of these forces focus into the libertarian bigotry of the Tea Party Movement. As Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal asserts, "Government can't do anything right!"
Overlooking the irony of a government official declaring himself incompetent, rejecting Federal bailout funding, and then chastising the Federal government for ineffectiveness in dealing with the oil spill, while fighting any attempt to forestall oil drilling off the Louisiana shore, and being an Indian American, Jindal represents all of the confusion spilling out from the desperate "white" population.
Beyond the Jindals, Americans know the reality. After Katrina, NBC and ABC network news bluntly and consistently declared treatment of New Orleans African-Americans as discriminatory. After the last batch of Nobel Prize awards, a mainstream journalist began an article trumpeting how Americans STILL were intellectually successful.
Desperate to affirm Fukuyama's Hegelian dream of the end of history in Cotton Mather and Ronald Reagan's "Shining City on the Hill," history is altered in Texas. Again, the South rises in glorification of the Civil War (aka "War Between the States"). Challenge to this retrospective vision is crushed in the fixed curriculum and teaching to the test of No Child Left Behind.
As chronicled in two other articles in today's "CommonDreams," Korean American D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee ennobles this vision of education by the mass firing of teachers. History is at an end. All that can be known is known. Therefore, repetition of the TRUTH is education. Critical teaching threatens the perfection of the TRUTH revealed by Fukuyama.
"American political discourse in our time has [NOT] been dumbed down, cheapened, emasculated and impoverished." Just as the citizens of Athens made clear to Socrates, to assert so is to "corrupt the youth of America." And we know what happened to Socrates . . . or do we, is his fate any longer taught? Coming not to praise Socrates, but to bury him, a Nigerian American President ennobles a "Race to the Top" whose apex is the eternal TRUTH of the Texas-Arizona-Southern end of history.
What the hell is wrong with Barack Obama - as a politician and as a person - that he doesn't savagely excoriate the sickening monsters of the GOP who oppose extending unemployment rights to "lazy" Americans living on the very edge of survival . . .
Barack Obama IS the GOP (Ganefs Opportunists Punks). That's what's wrong with him.
You don't get to where Barack Obama is by doing what is right; you get there by doing what is required.
Well, the fact that this country could once "boast leadership in the moral sphere" was itself a huge propaganda success. Should we forget that this country got to be "this country" on Native American genocide and Black slavery? This country never had a moral compass--it was always business first, then civil rights if, and only if, it could benefit business interests. This is the root of why today the US alone supports Israel's war crimes--we've been there, done that. From genocide to reservations, we are seeing in Israeli human rights violations the mirror image of the white Protestants who stole this country. No recent US president--certainly not Lyndon Johnson with his lies in Vietnam--can claim to have even a touch of integrity, mush less a moral vision.
"Think about it. Since Jimmy Carter was in the White House, America has been a captive of regressive politics, including that of Democratic presidents and congressional majorities. The only passionate rhetoric you are ever likely to hear in our political discourse nowadays is some bald-faced lies about the urgent need to go to war or to slash taxes on the wealthy. When was the last time anyone spoke out with a moral vision about the environment, civil rights, the American addiction to war, economic justice, or the due process of civil liberties?"
I have thought that many times myself. We seem to be a country without purpose moral or otherwise.
"The distance traveled from Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King (or even John Kennedy) to Barack Obama represents a stunning collapse of empire."
So true, can you even imagine that this congress could/would pass anything like the civlil rights bills passed back then?
There is a documentary record on JFK's conditions for withdrawal from Vietnam.
The context of the conflict was (as Eisenhower stated when president) that if they had an election in 1956 Ho Chi Minh would have won 80 percent in both the North and the South, unifying their country after French occupation and division. Eisenhower, of course, therefore, blocked the election.
As Eisenhower said, years after blocking the election with the help of US puppet leader Diem, who opposed the election:
"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held at the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the communist Ho Chi Minh."
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNhochiminh.htm
Kennedy's criteria for withdrawal were contingent on preventing democracy and demonizing (as "communists") those defending Vietnam from the French and then US invasions and occupations.
Yes, Kennedy wanted to withdraw, but only on terms that prevented democracy, and on terms favorable to US domination. Read the National Security Action Memorandum of October 11, 1963, NSAM263.
http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html
While the overall thrust of this article is quite good, and accurate, it is important not to see President Kennedy as a progressive on foreign policy interested in world peace, and supportive of peaceful, democratic revolutions in the world (despite rhetoric to that effect in his American University speech). He had his chance to support a democratic revolution in Vietnam, and he made his decision less than a month prior to his death—US (perceived) interests trump democracy, for others.
As for explaining the more progressive policies in the 1960s under Kennedy, rather than attributing these to him, I'd put more emphasis on the theory of history focused on "regimes" or "eras." In Charles Derber's books Regime Change Begins at Home, Hidden Power, and Greed to Green, he develops a concept of a "regime" that spans decades. The New Deal regime in this concept spanned from 1932 to 1980 and was a progressive regime, our nation's second since the Civil War, in terms of domestic policy. Arthur Schlesinger's work Cycles of American History develops the same concept of alternative cycles of private power and public interest.
In the current *corporate* regime (or era), since 1980, (our third corporate regime since the Civil War) and still operating strongly, the political culture and power arrangements are far from the New Deal regime or era, and explain Obama as a corporate-regime-supporting president, just as the New Deal regime explains some of the sentiments and rhetoric, and indeed actions of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Ford, Nixon and Carter. (Nixon campaigned on a guaranteed income for welfare recipients called the Family Assistance Program.)
Regime-changing candidates such as Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney are predictably banned by the corporate regime, operating to preserve itself and its distribution of power and wealth to the plutocracy that all corporate regimes benefit and are controlled by.
The task of progressives is to usher forth a new progressive regime or era, a peaceful revolution on which the very survival of civilization may depend. We must, quoting Kennedy, realize that "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." To reword that idea, for going forward, to make violent revolution impossible, we must make peaceful revolution inevitable.
http://kellygerling.com
http://progressiverevolution.org
== Yes, Kennedy wanted to withdraw, but only on terms that prevented democracy, and on terms favorable to US domination. Read the National Security Action Memorandum of October 11, 1963, NSAM263.==
I have. I think it was a smoke screen while the administration was working upon the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Nhu. Here is more context.
On October 7, 1963 the first serious criticism of JFK's Vietnam policy was voiced by Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, who rose on the Senate floor and said these words:
"We have been and are heavily engaged in Vietnam to the extent of 12,000 "advisers". They are supposedly "technicians", but of course they are troops, and it is sheer hypocrisy to pretend they are anything else. It is only costing us a million dollars a day, but far more serious, it has cost us the lives of 100 American young men."
JFK might not have taken them to heart if said by anyone other than Ernest Gruening, Doctor of Medicine from Harvard. John Kennedy admired the hell out of Ernest, and he kept up a personal correspondence with Mrs. Dorothy Gruening, who treated JFK like a son.
It took a deep sense of responsibility to 1) question a friend who, kindly, came to Alaska to campaign for him, and 2) to question the leader of his own political party about his foreign policy. But Ernest Gruening never lacked the courage of conviction - as LBJ would later learn.
On October 8th the Administration suspended commercial exports to South Vietnam. That night Madame Nhu arrived in New York where she said she hoped to learn "why we can't get along better." She soon tagged the Buddhist self immolations as "monk barbeques".
Press Conference, 9 October 1963
QUESTION: Mr. President, how do you feel about Senator Gruening's proposal to set up a Congressional Committee as a watchdog over the CIA?
THE PRESIDENT: I think the present committees--there's one in both the House and Senate which maintains very close liaison with the CIA, is best, considering the sensitive nature of the Central Intelligence Agency's work.
As you know, there is a Congressional Committee in the House, one in the Senate, composed of members of the Appropriations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, and they meet frequently with Mr. McCone and he also testifies before the Foreign Relations Committees of House and Senate and the general Armed Services Committee. And I think that the Congress has through that organization the means of keeping a liaison with him.
In addition, I have an Advisory Council which was headed by Dr. Killian formerly, now Mr. Clark Clifford, which includes Jimmie Doolittle and others, and Robert Murphy, who also served as an advisory committee to me on the work of the Intelligence community. I am well satisfied with the present arrangement.
The point is this. On 22 October 1963 Sen. Ernest Gruening met in the Oval Office with President Kennedy for just over one hour, a huge slice of Presidential time. They discussed matters in Alaska, plus a concern with the Alliance For Progress in Latin America. But what is most important is what they DID NOT DISCUSS. John Kennedy did not mention the CIA nor did he attempt any arm twisting or persuasion of Senator Gruening to "get with the administration's Vietnam program". And MY interpretation of this is like "Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan Doyle who writes:
“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
I choose to believe JFK was telling his friend, "stay cool, I am going to get us out of Vietnam after the next election."
Trylon
Very good and helpful. Much thanks Trylon.
Common folklore states thats why he was shot. For not following the MIC and promoting Vietnam.
But considering how ineffective he was I doubt this, I really think the whole cult of Kennedy thing was starting to worry those who truly run the Empire.
>^^<
Why do you keep Dennis K in there, He's a sell out, a weak sister. Sign him first for ObamaCare if he likes it so much!
>^^<
Kucinich, in terms of policy intentions, is a regime-changing politician. So is Bernie Sanders. So is Barbara Lee. In the case of Kucinich, we only need to examine his presidential platform to recognize his intentions regarding policy. But on the health care cave in, I agree with your objection to his vote. I thought it was ill-timed, cowardly and weak—and that Kucinich could have learned much from Bart Stupak by standing firm instead of getting all starry-eyed about the president. Nevertheless the cave in of Dennis Kucinich and the other 57 progressives who pledged only to vote for a robust public option remains a huge failure on the part of the CPC. I hope they learn from their failure. To force Obama in a progressive direction they must stand on principle and force him to either fail, or to move towards progressive policies. Whether they will or not, we will see. They need an injection of courage and leadership, that is for sure.
Kucinich committed political suicide when he caved on health care. He had slim chances of ever being elected in a presidential primary before he betrayed his principles. His only chance was to stay the course. His own party betrayed him and the rest of the American people. He was the only progressive voice left in a Congress of sell-outs. Now he's just a dead man walking. He will never be a serious contender for the presidency. The sea of corruption is so toxic as to make survival nearly impossible.
...thoroughly silly. Kucinich never had a chance at the Presidency and he never will. Kucinich helped make the health care situation in America slightly better. Bravo to him. There is much work left to do.
I think I said as much.
When "we once" did this great thing and that, this entire essay comes apart.
We did none of the above unless it was in a half-asssed way-to allay a disaffected, near rebellious population, and throwing a few bucks to the "losers" in our society in which there are many, and it did not require diverting money from Wall Street.
At the time DMG was referring to- "there was a time when we used to"- when Capitalism was riding high globally and we had created the cold war in order to claim the world and ours (owned by the US) and as a pretext for invading and looting the planet. That time was an illusion and a great propaganda victory for the US.
I would recommend Harold Pinter's Nobel Literature acceptance for a more realistic rendering of recent US history.
http://nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=620
Very good points. We can never go back...
Well now that all the money is on Wall St their just gonna have to smile and give some back!
That'll work right?
>^^<
While I agree that those weren't the good old days, I would like to point out some of the things that did happen that did make a difference. Obviously the civil rights movement was huge. SS was huge and it doesn't represent a "few bucks". Unions gained significant strength is those bad old days. In addition, we saw environmental awareness arise in the populace and significant regulation of industry. Most importantly, we saw significant resistance to status quo war, replete with government slaughter at Kent State and split melons in Madison. The key aspect of those times was the fact the country was moving in a direction that offered a glimmer of hope. You can't say that today. We are clearly heading in the wrong direction at break neck speed and as you talk to the people of this nation, there is no putting on the brakes. I can best describe the situation as grim.
We don't need mommy+daddy government to tell/lead/force us to do what we all know is the right thing.
There are more than enough of us non-morons in this country to lead the rest by example.
First, as much as possible, avoid Big Anything - big Bankster, big retail, etc. All the ruling Plutocracy ultimately wants is our money - stop giving it to them. See how easy? Do you think 'our' government is ever going to tell We The People to stop enabling Big Corporate destruction of America? Um, no.
Second, live as 'green' as possible.
Third, help others when possible without expectation.
Fourth, shame the greedy and materialistic as much as possible. And if you're greedy and materialistic, grow up - that is a dead way of life walking.
Get started.
I was thinking about this again at work, and I really wish these points here could be more often articulated. Broken down, easily.. for.. you know, Americans (just kidding.).. uh, so I guess that's the kind of thing you can only do successfully in person. So that's the furthest reach of our technology then. Anyway, sorry..
People seem just lost, mostly. I feel pretty anxious myself sometimes, but I think overall I'm optimistic. I just feel like things are going to get "shaky" for a good while. And I'm worried about how OTHER people are going to take it.
But yeah, great points there. People need to put the toys away and think more, and talk more. I mean, we talk through some toys.. but still.. we're distracted too easily. Me especially.
Distraction is often good. Without distraction, optimism would fade.
>>People need to put the toys away and think more, and talk more.
I talked with a number of people yesterday and the more I heard, the more uncomfortable I became. This truly has become a sickly and ugly society. The justifications and excuses for this ruthless and brazen society ring hollow and I get the distinct sense of revulsion.
The 60's Counterculture was in fact a Planetary Spiritual Renaissance Wave that held the promise of spiritual, political and economic liberation and cultural renewal.
But judging from what I read here on CD all the time, few seem to have gotten the message that the problem goes beyond politics and even capitalism. The problem is that humanity got stuck at a larval stage of development and is now about to suffer die-back because of it.
In other words, because humanity has failed - for whatever reason - to emerge beyond childhood and adolescence and engage in higher spiritual evolution, humanity has completely lost touch with true spirituality and is sick on a mass scale because of it.
In order to break out of prison, one must first admit to being in prison. How many people here reading these words have ever stopped to see that you were born into a spiritually degenerate culture and that social indoctrination in such a sick culture has damaged you almost past the point of no return? How many of you have ever really asked yourselves how capable YOU are to engage in ego-transcending cooperation and spiritual unity with other human beings?
Because if you havent devoted decades to self-development, self-actualization and higher Realization, you may well be part of the problem, not the solution. And yes, I can hear a few of you sharpening your knives already.
Christianity has done tremendous damage to humanity by outlawing higher realization. The Big Lie is that only one lone jew who walked the sands of Palestine 2000 years ago is the ONLY person who can or will achieve God-Realization, a grotesque lie that has infected western civilization with its pernicious influence ever since.
The facts of the case are that every single person is potentially capable of the highest levels of God-Realization, mystical knowledge and the direct Realization that one is - as pure Consciousness-Being, the source of all spiritual, artistic, philosophical and scientific Genius.
In other words, beyond the illusion of the individual ego, there is only God and in the words of Vedanta, "Thou Art That." We are all always, already One. And as such, you and anyone are potentially capable of levels of Consciousness, Intelligence, Knowledge, Genius and Love as far beyond your present level as that is beyond the consciousness of a hamster. And, if you dont know this, it is because your birthright has been stolen from you - time to find out why you were never told dontcha think?
The elites dont want you to know, because when you realize that you are an immortal being of Light, they lose their power over you.
Oh yes, this is elitism, but with an added twist: it is an Elite OPEN TO EVERYONE PROVIDED YOU ARE WILLING TO FULFILL THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE THE REALIZATION.
Ah, but just as Everyone cannot catch the same flight from New York to Los Angeles, everyone does not spiritually evolve at the same rate or have the same capacity for realization. If this upsets you, it is really too bad, because that's the way it is. If your adolescent ego prevents you from learning from those who have put more effort into spiritual evolution than you have, and you therefore seek to tear down such a person, or throw a tantrum about it all, then YOU are part of the problem, not part of the solution, and as such, you have lost your right to criticize Bush, Obama or whoever. Ah, I hear a few more people sharpening their knives......
A population devoted to higher Realization would be unexploitable. But if people choose to remain at a spiritually childish level of existence, dont be surprised if such a population gets the goverment that mirrors its childish level of development. Is the majority in this country actually capable of ego-transcending democratic polity? I see no evidence of that. all my life I have seem very educated and intelligent people sell-out for egotistical reasons.
Without higher spiritual Realization and Knowing Who and What You Really Are, life is nothing but a mortal, materialistic round of pain, suffering and frustration - that is why people are so desperately caught up in Substitute gratifications, lost in lustful greed for wealth and power.
In our spiritually degenerate adolescence, we have created global industrial civilization, and that is now on the verge of complete Collapse due to the reaching of energy, resource, ecological and complexity limits. Who is to blame? Ha! No one. We are one of Nature's experiments, an experiment that has happened an infinite amount of times.
So cheer up! this is but one lifetime and one planet. And if you played your part badly this time around, dont worry, you get an infinite amount of times to Get It Right. As the Rolling Stones put it, "On with the show good health to you!"
Oh and btw. If anyone here thinks they are going to put a guilt trip on me for being an "elitist" you got another thing coming. To those who seek to refute all of this - by virtue of nothing more than their own limited knowledge and experience - I can only say I guess you just havent reached the level of creative discontent - a phrase from J. Krishnamurti - necessary to admit you are in prison. Those who Understand will smile and realize that the posting of this message is nothing but an act of compassion given by You to remind You of Who You Really Are. Peace.
The 60's Counterculture was in fact a Planetary Spiritual Renaissance Wave that held the promise of spiritual, political and economic liberation and cultural renewal.
Having lived through the Sixties as a college student, I would say this is absolutely true - as ridiculous and bombastic as it sounds in the present moment.