Posted on 02/05/2002 9:00:05 AM PST by Angelique
DECONSTRUCTING THE JFK MYTH
A NICE DREAM BETTER LEFT TO THE THEATER
By: SARTRE
"Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." - JFK
This stirring call to action best remembers the King of Camelot. He inspired an entire generation of youth to the call of public service. What noble intentions they had when entering into the hallowed halls of government duty. It is sad that the premise was so flawed! The invocation needed to read: "Ask not what you can do for your country -- Ask what we can do together to insure individual Liberty" . . .
How different our nation would be if Americans could understand the difference between these two calls to action. By the diminished standards of today, it can be argued that Kennedy was more of a reactionary than many current day Republicans. But let no one be misled, the propagandists of the ilk of Sargeant Shriver and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., designed a legend that defied factual references. Jack was a socialist through to the core. Don't be offended that a hero to some was really a predator with the charm of the tooth fairy. His open smile and quick wit, disguised the left hand that turned into the social excess of the 'Great Society'. What a legacy for decades to come. Its failure is evident to any sane person. The consequences of central planning and federal intrusion have allowed the multiple expansion of coercive government into every facet of society. Just what is great about this kingdom?
The likes of a Stewart Udall and Abraham Ribicoff were certainly in the vanguard of a 'collectivist' revolution. Who could forget good old Abe, taking up the George McGovern cause at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention! But you don't have to rely on the ideology of appointees to strip away the sentiment of the fair haired hero. He proclaimed proudly to the NY Liberal Party on September 14, 1960:
"But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
Note the pompous self delusion when it came to rationalize the 'good intentions' of their cause. Couple this with a willingness to micro manage public policy that established the federal programs that would reshape America society, and we have the proof that for Kennedy, country really means - government. And what is a socialist, if not a 'public servant' of the State?
And who can question that JFK's cold war interventionist credentials? "And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility."
Read that again, 'our government', 'move ahead', 'liberal spirit of daring', the same old internationalist tradition of Wilson and FDR is pure socialism . . . So why not call it for what it is, the surrender of the Republic to the supremacy of the State. JFK surrounded himself with mad men like Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, who's only allegiance was to project the empire into world affairs. The notion that Communism in Southeast Asia was the greatest threat to domestic tranquillity, when the comrades were devising similar programs down in foggy bottom, decries credulity.
So were we supposed to take JFK at his word when he proclaimed in his inaugural address that: "the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God." Or are we better served by reflecting upon the actual record that created the environment that allowed the next deceiver to establish that Great Society?
The Peace Corp established little accord, but broke ground to instill a false duty to serve the State. His failed attempts to introduce the Medicare approach of cradle to grave health, greased the skids for the dismay we now call socialized medicine. Kennedy's civil rights bill was meant to right former wrongs, but as any credible historian will reluctantly acknowledge, we are more divided today in culture and convictions, than back some forty years ago. The ideological polarization's are clear to any student of current events. So why do we indulge in national denial about the real results and adverse consequences of the 'New Frontier'?
The 'pretender emancipator', had no problem auctioning off the freedoms of the people to the overseers and carpetbaggers of the federal bureaucracy. The Kennedy plantation was extended far outside the Hyannis compound. The rise of the War on Poverty, has brought forth an even greater dependency. But this time, all American citizens are under the yoke of a federal master.
The JFK government admiration society, ushered in the era of State/Capitalism that merges both big business and big government into the same axis of public control. Individual rights became the ultimate causality of this socialism. So how does the Liberal reconcile the inherent conflict in their programs with "the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state"?
As we all know, consistency is seldom practiced while veneration for the federal crumbs are now a way of life. Idealism as the virtue of self sacrifice in support of government policy is a sickness. Kennedy is revered for preaching contempt for your own dignity. The illicit need to infuse a pathetic personal identity into the public persona, causes false heroes to be honored. When they become martyrs, factual chronicles become a fantasy. Just like Camelot, a nice dream better left for the theater.
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That rumor can be traced back to a couple articles written by leftists more than 20 years ago that had Hoover answering his door dressed in panty hose when he had parties. Over the years the articles have become progressively embellished. It's hard to imagine Hoover doing that. He would have been ruined immediately. I find there to be little factual information to back up those rumors.
That phrase has been around (not surprisingly) a long time. Cicero said something very much like it, and is usually credited with it.
The differences are there too. But they don't really matter all that much.
You need a book list. LOL
I had enough wits, to ask if classes had been cancelled, and was told yes. That was about the ONLY good thing , to have come oeut of the assassinaton. They were rewriting history , from the moment the bullet hit JFK !
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That's what people pay me to do on onther forums. I come here to get away from my writing and relax. Right now I' 48 pages into my next essay analysis.
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That's what people pay me to do on onther forums. I come here to get away from my writing and relax. Right now I'm 48 pages into my next essay analysis elsewhere. It's one of the hardest pieces I've ever written in my life.
No fan of JFK here, but just to set the record straight, the "Great Society" was LBJ's baby, for the 1964 election.
Ditto for the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, which was passed with strong Republican backing, more so than Democrat, since in 1964 half the democrats were conservative Southerners who wanted no part of the Civil Rights movement at that time.
JFK was vulnerable on a number of counts, not the least of which included his vacationing on the Cape while the East Germans and Soviets built the Berlin Wall one August weekend; and of course also the aborted Vienna Summit where Khrushchev humiliated the novice JFK by lecturing him on the Gary Powers U2 spy plane, and then stomping off in a pose of righteous indignaton.
The whole shebang got off to a crappy start in 1961 when JFK's weakness led him to sabotage the Cuban landings at the Bay of Pigs, thus setting Castro up for the next 40 years(so far).
And just for fun, don't forget the Steel confrontation when Big Steel wanted to raise prices to cover concessions to unions. JFK "jawboned" them into deferring this price raise, but ultimately US Steel did it anyway.
That prompted the whippersnapper president to snort "My father always said businessmen were SOB's and now I know why."
Lapel buttons reading "S.O.B." were sighted at Chamber of Commerce gatherings for the next year or so.
I could not agree more. Clinton is the most corrupt of any President we have ever had, and I am sure we have had some doozies!
I had almost the ONLY dry eyes on campus. I thought that the crying FOOLS were nuts, and said so. It's a good thing that I wasn't in a class. LOL
Insure means to cover with an insurance policy.
Nevermind, anyway. I was being peevish. I will read the rest of the article later, and will probably agree with most of it.
BTW: your screen name is very pretty.
I meant that with all the Nuclear WMD floating around the globe, that 2004 may never arrive? And with all these suicide bombers trying to destroy civilization, I thought that, while the rewriting of history is important, far more pressing issues are more important at the present time.
If I remember correctly, Theodore Sorensen went to Lincoln High School in Lincoln, Nebraska. It's a public school.
Other famous grads from the same school: Dick Cavett, Sandy Dennis.
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