[Peace-discuss] The Kennedys' fake liberalism, then and now

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

When Eisenhower left office in 1961, there were nearly 5000 troops in Vietnam....  On 11/22/63, there 
were only 16,000 troops in Vietnam.  After the Gulf of Tonkin "incident", there were over 100,000 troops 
in Vietnam in 1965....


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To:      n.dahlheim at mchsi.com
Cc:      Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Kennedys' fake liberalism, then and now
Date:    Fri, 1 Feb 2008 04:07:54 +0000

> [There's a lot here; so, some quotations from your note, with comments by me.
> --CGE]
> 
> 
> [1] "There never has been any real Left-leaning liberalism in America that took
> hold of the mainstream political discourse in America."
> 	 The vagaries of American political discourse (they aren't accidental) 
> leave 
> you with a phrase as awkward as "Left-leaning liberalism" (LLL? LOL!), and much 
> of the effort of American propaganda organs -- from President Wilson's
> "Committee of Public Information" in 1917 on -- has been to persuade people
> that "mainstream political discourse" (MSPD) was not what it seemed, but I'd
> argue that MSPD had a large dose of LLL in pre-World War I socialism and the
> pre-WWII labor movement.
> 	In fact, one motive for American leaders to enter both world wars was 
> the 
> desire to suppress the debate over the growing domestic class war.  Then, after 
> the Second World War, (as I said in an earlier post) the social
> movements that got underway in the sixties (and in fact expanded in the next
> decade, the '70s being by far the most progressive decade since WWII) certainly
> represented your LLL.
> 	That's why the "excesses of the '60s and '70s" have to be calumniated by 
> politicians on all sides -- as Obama did last week.  The LLL of the '60s and 
> '70s was seen as so dangerous by the US ruling class (as they said in the 
> Trilateral Commission's 1976 book, "The Crisis of Democracy") that it had to be 
> countered by one of the great ideological rectification campaigns in US history, 
> comparable to and more extensive than the Palmer Raids and McCarthyism:
> neoliberalism (or the "Reagan revolution").
> 	We're now getting some good accounts of what happened ca. 1980-present, 
> as in 
> David Harvey (2006) "A Brief History of Neoliberalism."
> 
> 
> [2] "Kennedy was the most liberal President we have had since Truman without a
> doubt."
> 	I strongly doubt it.  If we judge a president's liberalism from the
> accomplishments of his administration rather than from the secret places of his
> heart (Kennedy might lose on that, too), then the most liberal admin since WWII
> was Nixon-Ford.  That's when the "excesses of the '60s and '70s" matured into
> legislation, prompting the neoliberal counterattack in the Carter/Reagan years.
> 
> 
> [3] "I never have tried to indicate that the Kennedys were anything other than
> managers and stewards of an imperial, expansionist state. "
> 	Good.
> 
> 
> [4] "People like Lippmann and Hofstadter would be viewed as pinkos in today's
> media right-wing discourse."
> 	From the European Journal of Communication (2002) vol. 17.2, p. 163: 
> "...the 
> influential American journalist Walter Lippman [1889-1974 -- a member of
> Wilson's propaganda CPI, incidentally] advocated consent engineering early in
> the 20th century.  For Lippman, the ‘manufacture of consent’ was both necessary
> and favourable, predominantly because, in Lippman’s view, ‘the common interests’
> – meaning, presumably, issues of concern to all citizens in democratic societies
> – ‘very largely elude public opinion entirely’. Lippman postulated that ‘the
> common good’ ought to be ‘managed’ by a small ‘specialized class’ ... Lippman
> recommended that the role of the electorate – the ‘bewildered herd’, as he
> called them – be restricted to that of ‘interested spectators of action’ ...
> Lippman predicted that the ‘self-conscious art of persuasion’ would eventually
> come to preface every ‘political calculation’ and ‘modify every political
> premise’."
> 	The Kennedy administration certainly believed that, as did pinkos (a 
> curiously 
> old-fashioned word) of the Leninist variety.  But it's shockingly 
> anti-democratic.
> 
> 
> [5] "The Cuban Missile Crisis was largely saved by backroom negotiations between
> Kennedy and Kruschev."
> 	There's some truth in that, but it's a tribute to Khrushchev's good 
> sense that 
> he was willing to negotiate away something he had a right to do -- defend an 
> ally. Kennedy was willing (according to Ted Sorensen's memoirs) to accept a 
> probability of 1/3 to 1/2 of nuclear war, in order to establish that the US 
> alone had the right to maintain missiles on the borders of a potential
> enemy.  In secret discussions with top planners during the Cuban missile crisis,
> the Kennedy brothers expressed their concern that Castro might use the missiles
> to deter U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. (And incidentally only 40
> years later did we come to realize how the restraint of one Russian submarine
> commander prevented the nuclear exchange the Kennedyites were willing to see
> happen; that's been called the most dangerous moment in human history.)
> 
> 
> [6] "I think you have to look at the Kennedy years more generally in a wider
> context---Kennedy was as good as we progressives were going to get..."
> 	That may, horribly enough, be true -- but it's no reason to support 
> Kennedy, 
> then or now.  Progressives said the same thing about Hitler in 1933, Mussolini 
> in 1922, and of course Lenin in 1918.  Again, not a reason to support any one of 
> them.
> 
> 
> [7] "Things are far worse now than then---at least then we had the pretense of
> following international law and engaging in a multilateral, realist foreign 
> policy."
> 	I disagree, as I said in an earlier post.  Even though the Bush II admin 
> may be 
> the most dangerous in US history, it is nevertheless far more circumscribed in 
> its evil-doing than Kennedy's was. The Kennedy-Johnson admin conducted a much 
> more murderous war in a area peripheral to US interests, with no appreciable 
> domestic dissent for years. Bush launched a war at the center of US foreign 
> policy concerns only after the most massive anti-war demonstrations in history, 
> and he'll leave office universally reviled in spite of a narrow military success 
> (i.e, the US will continue in effective control of ME energy resources).
> 	The casual murder and mayhem that Kennedy ordered throughout Latin 
> America 
> became more difficult, even by Reagan's time.  When the Reagan administration 
> announced in 1981 that their foreign policy would be a "War on Terror," they had 
> in mind invading Central America as Kennedy had invaded SE Asia -- but they 
> found they couldn't do it.  Reagan's foreign policy was driven underground 
> ("Iran-Contra") by the US anti-war movement, most of it church-based.  Reagan 
> killed hundreds of thousands, but now the Bush people (mostly Reagan people) 
> can't even do that, except on the periphery (Haiti).  A self-aware Latin America 
> and domestic criticism would prevent it.
> 
> 
> [8] "The whole reason JFK was assassinated was that he didn't view a major
> escalation in Vietnam as a prudent policy----the detailed archival work of Peter
> Dale Scott and especially John Newman really bear this out."
> 	I don't know why Kennedy was assassinated; since I think that Oswald 
> probably 
> did it by himself, the only question is his motive.  But I do think that the 
> idea that Kennedy was killed because he intended to withdraw from Vietnam is a 
> fairy tale (to use a current analytic term) -- more a matter for the 
> psychoanalyst's couch than the historian's archive.
> 	Oliver Stone and others want to believe that the "good daddy," JFK, was 
> killed 
> by the "bad daddy," LBJ -- since Freud, that's the basic story.  But there's 
> little evidence for it. LBJ continued with JFK's cabinet, JFK's advisors and 
> JFK's plans; the major invasion of South Vietnam (and the war was always 
> primarily against the South, because they wouldn't accept the government we'd 
> picked out for them) occurred under Kennedy in 1962.
> 	The detailed record is analyzed by Chomsky in "Rethinking Camelot" 
> (1993), 
> which is directed particularly against John Newman's arguments.  (And Alex 
> Cockburn was his usual amusing and devastating self in columns discussing Peter 
> Dale Scott.)
> 
> 
> [9] "One final point----we cannot look at politics by only judging individual
> leaders.  We tend to personalize political eras and particular administrations,
> but we also must situate them within broader ideological, political, and
> cultural contexts.  Administrations also are complex and function not so much as
> a direct reflection of a President's peculiar temperment and personality; but as
> an amalagamation of bureaucratic relationships amongst competing departments,
> personalities, and interest groups that also have a fair degree of private
> motives and autonomy (insofar as there is some divsersity amongst interests
> working for the ruling classes primarily) within the framework of government
> operations."
> 	I quite agree.  And for that reason we have to consider the general 
> political 
> and social context.  It was remarked with some insight long ago that "the 
> history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" -- a 
> class being roughly a group with the same role in the process of production. 
> ("Mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can 
> pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.")  One cannot deduce history from 
> class struggle, but it is a heuristic -- it suggests questions to be asked.  How 
> did underlying class interests affect or condition the particular complexities 
> of a given situation?  There's no way to determine that other than going and 
> taking a look.
> 	Cui bono? -- whose interests were served by the Kennedy administration?  
> It's a 
> good place to start.
> 
> 
> Regards, CGE
> 
> 
> n.dahlheim at mchsi.com wrote:
> > Carl, First, there never has been any real Left-leaning liberalism in America
> >  that took hold of the mainstream political discourse in America---even the 
> > Progressive movement at the start of the 20th century failed at creating 
> > that.  But, since WWII made America the hegemonic global power rather than 
> > just a regional power---with the rest of the "civilized" world in tattered 
> > ruins---a Left-leaning imperialism was never going to materialize without at 
> > least a strong consensus liberalism surviving and thriving in spite of the 
> > pressure to militarize.  I think this is the real meaning behind Ike's 
> > cryptic farewell speech in 1961.  So, consider the appropriate standards I am
> >  employing here in judging the various Administrations.  If your measuring 
> > stick is a very principled Left-leaning liberalism, I don't think we can 
> > adequately assess the progression and the machinations of our odious 
> > militaristic state. That said, Kennedy was the most liberal President we have
> >  had since Truman without a doubt.  Yes, LBJ passed the Great Society but his
> >  radical escalation of Vietnam through the manufactured Gulf of Tonkin as
> > well as the vicious repression of race riots and student protests mitigates
> > that accomplishment. Also, the virtual destruction of Great Society programs
> > today more generally as a result of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II
> > makes the point null and void.
> > 
> > I think you also underestimate the importance of the unique inner dynamics of
> >  the Kennedy White House.  I never have tried to indicate that the Kennedys 
> > were anything other than managers and stewards of an imperial, expansionist 
> > state.  They were not progressives, and with the exception of RFK during 
> > moments in 1968, never spoke that way in their rhetoric.  They were 
> > liberal-minded imperial stage managers and ruthlessly practical politicians 
> > who would appeal to the liberal intelligencia of the day in media and 
> > academia----people like Lippmann and Hofstadter who would be viewed as pinkos
> >  in today's media right-wing discourse.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was largely
> >  saved by backroom negotiations between Kennedy and Kruschev---if anything, 
> > the madness of the CIA and the Joint Cheifs shows up in the EXCOM meetings of
> >  the Cuban Missile Crisis most poignantly of all.  Kennedy, supported only by
> >  Sorenson and his younger brother, really had to play a careful game.  The 
> > Cuban Missile Crisis nearly occasioned a military coup---Kennedy had to work 
> > with those people and assuade and placate them.  I don't think Kennedy was 
> > some dove fighting a moral crusade against them, nor do I think he was 
> > reckless in discharging the Cuban Missile Crisis considering the presence of 
> > nuts like Lemnitzer and LeMay who placed heavy pressure on the President to 
> > go to nuclear war.  I think JFK's pragmatism and his willingness to talk to 
> > Kruschev (who himself was facing hawks similar to our Joint Chiefs at the 
> > same time as Kennedy was) really made the critical difference in staving off 
> > a nuclear holocaust.  I think you have to look at the Kennedy years more 
> > generally in a wider context---Kennedy was as good as we progressives were 
> > going to get...  Things are far worse now than then---at least then we had 
> > the pretense of following international law and engaging in a multilateral, 
> > realist foreign policy.  The whole reason JFK was assassinated was that he 
> > didn't view a major escalation in Vietnam as a prudent policy----the detailed
> >  archival work of Peter Dale Scott and especially John Newman really bear
> > this out.
> > 
> > This segues to one final point----we cannot look at politics by only judging 
> > individual leaders.  We tend to personalize political eras and particular 
> > administrations, but we also must situate them within broader ideological, 
> > political, and cultural contexts.  Administrations also are complex and 
> > function not so much as a direct reflection of a President's peculiar 
> > temperment and personality; but as an amalagamation of bureaucratic 
> > relationships amongst competing departments, personalities, and interest 
> > groups that also have a fair degree of private motives and autonomy (insofar 
> > as there is some divsersity amongst interests working for the ruling classes 
> > primarily) within the framework of government operations.
> > 
> > Best, Nick
>