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

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

Carl,
    I think your analysis gives far too much credit to the sixties and assumes that progressive liberalism 
was fording ahead----it wasn't.  The civil rights and poverty programs that emerged right after 
Kennedy died were window dressing----the relative condition of black Americans is as bad or worse 
thnan it was during the Kennedy years.  RFK did employ federal troops to forcibly integrate U Mississipii 
and ran a very aggressive Justice Department on those issues.  As to your claims about Latin 
America---Kennedy was no different and if anything a bit better than many 20th century Presidents.  
The US has such a pattern of butchery in that region that is unparalleled anywhere else that it is par for 
the course that military interventions happen there----the reason that more scrutiny was brought on 
the Reagan-Bush people for their work in Central America was because they were far more militaristic 
than previous administrations lik the Kennedys.  People were not more concerned in the 1980s about 
Latin America----there is no evidence for that.  After Reagan left office, Iran-Contra disappeared and 
the real perps----George HW Bush chief amongst them---all got away unscathed.  I mean, when Dan 
Rather tried to pin old man Bush down on Iran-Contra---Bush's evasiveness helped propel him to the 
GOP nomination for heaven's sake.  And Kennedy didn't invade SE Asia---US troops were in Vietnam in 
roughly the same numbers on 11/22/63 as there were in the late 1950s with Eisenhower.  CIA activities 
in Vietnam under Kennedy increased drastically with the help of the outright insubordination of Colonel 
Landsdale---who was running circles for both the State Dept and the CIA.  Again, you must really read 
the excellent book by John Newman entitled "JFK and Vietnam."  It's the best book on the subject by 
far---and it shows that Kennedy personally thought that heavy US involvement in Vietnam was a 
strategic mistake and that Kennedy had to manuever ultra-carefully to prevent other forces in his 
Administration and in the military-industrial complex from usurping him on this point.

SE Asia was not at the periphery of US ruling class interests either, from their point of view.  Kennedy 
actually disagreed with the ruling classes on this one, and this is why he was killed.  SE Asia was at the 
nexus of the global opium trade and US intelligence was making a lot of money in Hong Kong and 
Taiwan from the business associations they had made there.  The drug trade routes were through 
Burma and across IndoChina with the help of KMT-supported militias and outlaw groups along the way.  
Vietnamese nationalism (Ho Chi Minh wasn't initially a Commuinist) threw a monkeywrench into this 
trading network---a narcotics ring that helped to enrich the CIA off the books and provide extra money 
for intelligence and shadow government operations.  The escalation of the war itself, overseen mostly 
by LBJ, enriched other military contractors and became self-sustaining even when the locus of the world 
drug trade had begun to shift in the early 1970s with the splintering of Hong Kong organized crime and 
the fall of the KMT in Taiwan.  If the Golden Triangle drug trade had held together, I think the US might 
have even tried to continue fighting in Vietnam for an even longer period of time (despite the fragging 
and the lack of morale in the fighting ranks).....

We need to get the history right on this subject...  I think you are not being fair with Kennedy or with 
the facts.  John's comments on your opinion of US Presidents seems close to the mark.  I am an 
extremely pessimistic person myself, but I think I am more fair with Kennedy.  I appreciate your usual 
thoughtfulness and eagerly look forward to what you may have to say.


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To:      "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
Cc:      peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Kennedys' fake liberalism, then and  now
Date:    Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:01:48 +0000

> I didn't realize that my goal in these discussions was to cheer you up, 
> John.  I though we were trying to see what's really going on, through 
> the obfuscation of the most sophisticated PR system in history, the US 
> media.  (Hitler wrote in My Struggle that the reason Germany lost WWI 
> was that their propaganda wasn't as good as the Brits'; he promised that 
> Germany wouldn't make that mistake again, but the US system far 
> surpasses anything 20th century Germans were capable of.)
> 
> In fact this country is far more civilized than it was in JFK's time, 
> largely owing to the social movements that got underway at that time 
> ("the sixties") and in fact expanded in the next decade (the '70s being 
> by far the most progressive decade since WWII). 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 criticism that grew up then 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 (both synecdoches -- the repressive movements indicated by 
> those names were not owing to one man). Neoliberalism -- worse, the 
> "Reagan revolution" -- are the poor names we have for it.
> 
> 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, and for years with no 
> appreciable domestic dissent. 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 that their foreign policy would be a "War on 
> Terror" in 1981, 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.
> 
> The American ruling class is not stupid. The right-wing counter-attack 
> since ca. 1980 was absolutely necessary from their POV, because of the 
> success of popular criticism from the '60s on.  But people are not 
> fools, either.  In spite of that massive PR system, they have some idea 
> of what's going on in the country, however much the chattering classes 
> try to speak for them.  That's what keeps our rulers awake at night. The 
> only real fantasy is found in the public arena of that PR system, the 
> media. ("The rascal multitude are the proper targets of the mass media 
> and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed 
> skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely 
> occasions.")
> 
> That's what those of us with the leisure to read and write, listen and 
> talk, should be attacking.  As (of course) Noam Chomsky said, "If you 
> assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. 
> If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are 
> opportunities to change things, there's a chance for you to contribute 
> to making a better world. That's your choice."
> 
> And it is.  --CGE
> 
> John W. wrote:
> > 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
> > 
> > 
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