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

[John W.]

At 01:54 PM 1/30/2008, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

>I'm astonished that anyone can look at the Kennedys with the advantage of 
>distance and see them as anything other than what they were -- arriviste 
>apparatchiks of an oppressive American empire.  They made great efforts to 
>hide what they were of course, but they're clear in hindsight.
>
>The vicious JFK administration "got this country  moving again" by 
>substantially increasing the crimes of the Eisenhower admin -- which had 
>an impressive list of its own, including Iran and Guatemala.
>
>JFK began with a massive tax cut for the rich and then started a war -- 
>far more murderous than Iraq -- based on fear and lies.  His admin 
>launched subversive military operations around the world ("Green Berets"), 
>installed death squads in Latin America, and was willing to blow up the 
>world in order to stop the USSR from doing in Cuba, defensively, what the 
>US was doing offensively around the world.  Luckily Khrushchev's good 
>sense and the bravery of a Russian naval commander saved the world from 
>Kennedy's madness.  (Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov: see 
><www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/>.)
>
>Those crimes are being celebrated again, and Mike Taibbi points out one 
>contemporary parallel:
>
>     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12502
>
><excerpt>
>
>     There's no denying the clear difference in the
>     two campaign styles. In Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton, we've
>     basically got Kennedy-Nixon redux, and I mean that in the most negative
>     possible sense for both of them -- a pair of superficial, posturing
>     conservatives selling highly similar political packages using different
>     emotional strategies. Obama is selling free trade and employer-based
>     health care and an unclear Iraqi exit strategy using looks, charisma
>     and optimism, while Hillary is selling much the same using hard, cold
>     reality, "prose not poetry," managerial competence over "vision."
>
><end excerpt>
>
>But it's much worse than that.  --CGE


And I have every confidence that you, Carl, the sentinel in the watchtower, 
will burn the midnight oil to keep us all abreast of just PRECISELY how 
MUCH WORSE it is.

I struggle to compose a question to which (a) I don't already know the 
answer, and (b) I WANT to know the answer.  Let's try this one:

Carl, since Barack Obama is "odious" and (may I quote you, Mort?) 
revolting, repulsive, repellent, repugnant, disgusting, offensive, 
objectionable, vile, foul, abhorrent, loathsome, nauseating, sickening, 
hateful, detestable, execrable, abominable, monstrous, appalling, 
reprehensible, deplorable, insufferable, intolerable, despicable, 
contemptible, unspeakable, atrocious, awful, terrible, dreadful, frightful, 
obnoxious, unsavory, unpalatable, unpleasant, disagreeable, nasty, noisome, 
distasteful; informal ghastly, horrible, horrid, gross, godawful; beastly;

and since JFK and his administration were "vicious" and (may I presume to 
borrow your words again, Mort?) revolting, repulsive, repellent, repugnant, 
disgusting, offensive, objectionable, vile, foul, abhorrent, loathsome, 
nauseating, sickening, hateful, detestable, execrable, abominable, 
monstrous, appalling, reprehensible, deplorable, insufferable, intolerable, 
despicable, contemptible, unspeakable, atrocious, awful, terrible, 
dreadful, frightful, obnoxious, unsavory, unpalatable, unpleasant, 
disagreeable, nasty, noisome, distasteful; informal ghastly, horrible, 
horrid, gross, godawful; beastly;

and since apparently EVERY AMERICAN PRESIDENT WHO HAS EVER SERVED 
THROUGHOUT HISTORY has been grossly deficient in any sort of redeeming 
qualities whatsoever...presumably because, I don't know, power corrupts and 
absolute power corrupts absolutely, or something along those lines...

...WHY ON EARTH do we even bother to TALK about these things?  Why do YOU 
bother to inform us, day after day and week after week and month after 
month and year after year, of all the gruesome details of the myriad ways 
in which our (supposedly) elected politicians are viciously betraying us? 
Are you just wanting to depress us?  Is THAT the whole point of this 
exercise?  I'd really like to understand, should we dare to hope for "the 
triumph of hope over experience" (which is why you say you vote, even 
though you tell the rest of us NOT to vote), what exactly it is that we 
might dare to hope for.

John Wason