Does political ideology heavily influence assassination research?

[David G. Healy]

Lance, your excuse for not keeping your promise about leaving is that people keep on addressing you.

Yet, they keep on addressing you because you keep on saying, what i think, are deliberately provocative things. Like the above.

Like, for example, your "near-JFK worship" comment. And then you end again with comparing JFK with UFO's. Completely bogus.

There is no such thing as JFK hero worship, as least as far as I am concerned. There is a long delayed recognition of who Kennedy was and what he was doing. Why is it long delayed? Because this was covered up almost to the point that the evidence of conspiracy was concealed. One example: the May 1963 Sec Def meeting in Hawaii which was not declassified until 1997--34 years after it happened. And for good reason, since it shows McNamara demanding everyone speed up their withdrawal timetable.

The two newest books on JFK's foreign policy are based upon rigorous scholarship and archival research. And I would be willing to wager you never heard of them: Betting on the Africans, and Kennedy, Johnson, and the Non Aligned World. They were written by two scholars who have no dog in the assassination fight. Both men came to the conclusion that what came after JFK, that is LBJ and RMN reversed what he did. They did not rely on anything except evidence dug up from history. And neither one dealt with Vietnam. Or Cuba.

I challenge anyone to show me the UFO connection or Hero worship in what follows:

http://www.ctka.net/2014/JFKForeignPolicy.html

LBJ and RMN systematically assaulted Kennedy's foreign policy in every way and in every area. You sir, are showing yourself to be a man who likes to make unfounded and hackneyed charges, and then when shown how wrong you are, you jump to something else.

kinda like out good friend DVP, eh?

[Don Jeffries]

The phony Left-Right paradigm is crumbling. All the young people who are supporting Bernie Sanders, and the independents who have gravitated to Trump are understanding more each day just how corrupt those who run this system are. Try explaining "super" delegates to a starry-eyed Sanders supporter. All they know is when their guy wins, the establishment choice still gets more delegates.

As Dawn pointed out, most liberals blanch at "conspiracy theories." And as I noted in my book, the establishment Left was never enamored of JFK, and continues to hold the Kennedys in general in an unfavorable light. Yes, most of the well-known Warren Commission critics were left-wingers, and most of those who post regularly here probably are. But in general, the majority of "liberals" tend to roll their eyes at the notion of "conspiracy" in the JFK assassination or anything else.

JFK is hardly considered a hero by even many of those in our dysfunctional research community. Jim DiEugenio was the first to correct the distortions of the media about the Kennedy legacy, in his "Posthumous Assassination of JFK" article. That is the way I've always felt, and I try to incorporate that into my own writings. There are few modern political heroes. In my view, JFK and RFK were genuine heroes.

To answer your question directly; no, I don't think political ideology influences many JFK assassination researchers. Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and others have written extensively about the assassination, pointing out how impossible the official narrative is, while being on the opposite end of the spectrum politically. Hopefully, most of us continue to be interested in this issue because we care about truth, and justice, and history.

[Pat Speer]

One of the earliest doubters of the official story was a right-wing columnist who claimed no commie like Oswald would try to shoot Kennedy because Kennedy was soft on communism. He reasoned then that Oswald was trying to kill Connally and hit Kennedy by mistake. Later, left-wing intellectuals like Chomsky pushed the opposite view--that there was no conspiracy from the right because Kennedy was at heart a hawk and cold warrior.

So, yeah, people's personal politics play a role in their approach to the assassination. There are plenty of conspiracy theorists who see the world as a right-wing plot that showed its teeth on 11-22-63, and there are plenty of right-wingers who think there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and that the only reason people suspect there was one is because "America-haters" like Lane, Garrison, and Stone have duped the American people into believing as much. Some even blame the American people's loss of faith in institutions on the JFK critics, as if LBJ and Nixon's lies about Vietnam, and the subsequent lies about Watergate, Iran Contra, and our invasion of Iraq, had nothing to do with it.

But it's a mistake to think it's a neat split, with all leftists on one side and all rightists on the other. Some leftists, for example, loved LBJ or Chief Justice Warren, and lean away from conspiracy because they can't stomach the thought their heroes collaborated on a cover-up. And some rightists, simultaneously, lean toward conspiracy because some of the bread crumbs lead toward Castro, or even Johnson.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Pat Speer

[Bernie Laverick]

"...leftists, for example, loved LBJ or Chief Justice Warren, and lean away from conspiracy because they can't stomach the thought their heroes collaborated on a cover-up...."

Leftists who loved LBJ??? You seriously believe that someone who regards themselves as "left" sees the likes of LBJ and Earl Warren as "heroes"???

Only in America could anyone possibly think that some rag-bag racist piece of xxxxx like LBJ was a hero for the "left".

The political naivety is just astonishing!

For the real left, the JFK assassination is but part of a chain of political events that demonstrate the will and the power of a muscular economic elite determined to carry out their agenda of global domination. Anyone who stands in their way will either be vilified, framed, or eliminated. This is the reality of corporate planet earth. Power buys power. And no one is allowed to get through the net.

Though Lance has more than a point. Was JFK really a 'threat' to this elite? Or was he really just a part of it? Was JFK no more than a more glamorous version of Gorbachev desperately trying to make the system more appealing to many who felt disenfranchised? Gorbachev was a dyed in the wool communist; he just calculated that in the wider interests of the privileged Party elite, and in order to retain those privileges, it was expedient to 'open up' and become more inclusive thus justifying their positions before anger from below overthrew them with civil disorder.

I believe that JFK (and more recently Obama) had exactly the same mind set. In other words, they are as much a part of the problems humanity finds itself in than the solution.

There has been much canonisation of JFK and nearly all of it is due to him being struck down so violently and so young. Had he not been assassinated I truly doubt he would have carried that aura of wonder now so readily ascribed to him because of the tragic circumstances. We once had a bright young photogenic Prime Minister here in England in 1997. All the cool rock stars and actors wanted to be seen with him and he with them. It was new, young and fresh and he was going to take Britain in a new exciting direction. Unfortunately he lasted for 11 years and is now seen as possibly one of the most unpopular PMs we have ever had and soon maybe indicted for war crimes.

Had his premiership been cruelly struck down no doubt we would all be talking about the GREAT Tony Blair and how the world would have been at peace had he lived, bla bla bla

Here's another bit of bitter truth to chew on. Hendrix was an awful guitarist. Get over it!

[James DiEugenio]

Bernie, really, this is what I meant a long time back when I said that you ROKC guys are so polarized around H and L that you cannot see straight.

To compare Obama with JFK? That they had the same mindset? Can you really be serious? Kennedy actually stood up to the Pentagon at the Bay of Pigs when he refused to send in the Marines and the Navy. He did it again in November of 1961, when after a two week debate in the White House, he refused to send combat troops into Vietnam--and he fought that battle almost alone against everyone else in the room, not just the military, but his own advisors.

I mean, you have read the Kennedy Tapes, have you not? It was Kennedy, just about alone again, who fought off every attempt to bomb the missile sites or send in the army during the Missile Crisis. He even refused to retaliate when 1.) Castro shot down a U2 and killed the pilot and 2.) When the Russians broke the limit line of the blockade. In both of those instances, there had been contingencies for the USA to counter with. Kennedy refused to do it. And its on tape.

These are all facts and anyone who wants to find them can read up on them instead of succumbing to Lance's groundless bombast and BS.

What would have been the results if Kennedy had buckled?

1.) Cuba would have been a colony of the USA. (And Nixon told Kennedy to declare a beachhead and send in the Marines)

2.) The bloody quagmire that engulfed Indochina would have begun four year earlier. (We know what LBJ and RMN did. It resulted in the deaths of about 3.5 million people.)

3.) If LBJ or RMN had been in command in 1962, there likely would have been a nuclear exchange over Cuba. Because almost no one knew that 1.) The missiles had already been loaded up with warheads at the time of the blockade and 2.) the USSR had given Castro control of tactical nukes meant to wipe out any invasion force sent onto the island.

Now, these are just the easy ones that almost any newbie in the field knows about. (Except maybe you and Lance.) But I could go on and on with fact after fact and do the same thing in Congo, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Middle east, and in Africa. I mean you did click on that stuff I posted, right? Or maybe you think you and ROKC are too smart for that?

As per LBJ's following, I mean you are aware of the film begin prepared on him? You are aware of how many people, including the standard liberal establishment, admire his Great Society programs?

I will give you the same advice I tried to give Lance: If you don't know what you are talking about--and its clear you do not--then just be quiet and try and learn something. So you don't sound like such an unmitigated and arrogant axe-grinder again.

Edited March 11, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Pat Speer]

To answer your question, Bernie, yes, there were leftists who loved LBJ and Warren. Now, did they love everything about these men, such as LBJ's expansion of the Vietnam War and Warren's throwing Japanese-Americans in camps during WWII? No, of course not.

But the climate in the U.S. during the cold war was decidedly chilly and conservative. So much so that the Warren Court's ruling in Brown v Board of Education--which essentially ruled that segregation was a violation of civil rights--turned America upside down, and made Warren a hero to some and the anti-Christ to others. I still remember the sight of Impeach Earl Warren bumper stickers. I mean, they were everywhere. And I was raised in California, Warren's home state, and one of the most liberal states in the country when it came to race relations. So, yes, Warren was a hero to many liberals.

And so was LBJ. Now, to be clear, I think LBJ was involved in Kennedy's assassination. But that doesn't make him a racist. LBJ started out as a teacher in a poor Mexican-American school. He developed a sensitivity to the poor and underprivileged. But he was first and foremost a member of the Democratic Party...from Texas...which meant he had to play ball with racists all day long, for many many years.

When Kennedy was killed, however, Johnson took a look in the mirror. He saw that he could use Kennedy's death to push through civil rights legislation, or use Kennedy's death to bury it for a decade. He decided on the former. But it came at a cost. First, he could only be good to minorities if he played tough guy overseas. To his mind, he couldn't be both soft at home and soft overseas. So he dived into Vietnam, which ultimately undermined his domestic policies. Second, he knew that his pushing civil rights legislation would lose his party the southern white vote for a generation. It ended up being permanent, at least so far. Johnson's actions finished the flip of the parties re the black vote started under Roosevelt. His doing so allowed Wallace to split the party in 68, and thereby give the victory to Nixon. Nixon then completed the flip by actively pursuing the Southern bigot vote in 72.

And the rest is history. The Republican Party--the Party of Lincoln--has been the party of those who murdered Lincoln and danced when he was killed for 50 years now. Witness the rise of Donald Trump. While the mainstream media thought someone like Trump would falter in the South due to his multiple marriages, potty mouth, and lack of religiosity, it turns out that a big chunk of the Republican base is more excited by someone who says in public the nasty racist things they secretly believe, than by proven conservatives with a strong Christian background.

For better or worse, LBJ and Warren are liberal icons. They pushed America to the left and were hated for it. Get over it.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Pat Speer

[Bernie Laverick]

Bernie, really, this is what I meant a long time back when I said that you ROKC guys are so polarized around H and L that you cannot see straight.

To compare Obama with JFK? That they had the same mindset? Can you really be serious? Kennedy actually stood up to the Pentagon at the Bay of Pigs when he refused to send in the Marines and the Navy. He did it again in November of 1961, when after a two week debate in the White House, he refused to send combat troops into Vietnam--and he fought that battle almost alone against everyone else in the room, not just the military, but his own advisors.

I mean, you have read the Kennedy Tapes, have you not? It was Kennedy, just about alone again, who fought off every attempt to bomb the missile sites or send in the army during the Missile Crisis. He even refused to retaliate when 1.) Castro shot down a U2 and killed the pilot and 2.) When the Russians broke the limit line of the blockade. In both of those instances, there had been contingencies for the USA to counter with. Kennedy refused to do it. And its on tape.

These are all facts and anyone who wants to find them can read up on them instead of succumbing to Lance's groundless bombast and BS.

What would have been the results if Kennedy had buckled?

1.) Cuba would have been a colony of the USA. (And Nixon told Kennedy to declare a beachhead and send in the Marines)

2.) The bloody quagmire that engulfed Indochina would have begun four year earlier. (We know what LBJ and RMN did. It resulted in the deaths of about 3.5 million people.)

3.) If LBJ or RMN had been in command in 1962, there likely would have been a nuclear exchange over Cuba. Because almost no one knew that 1.) The missiles had already been loaded up with warheads at the time of the blockade and 2.) the USSR had given Castro control of tactical nukes meant to wipe out any invasion force sent onto the island.

Now, these are just the easy ones that almost any newbie in the field knows about. (Except maybe you and Lance.) But I could go on and on with fact after fact and do the same thing in Congo, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Middle east, and in Africa. I mean you did click on that stuff I posted, right? Or maybe you think you and ROKC are too smart for that?

As per LBJ's following, I mean you are aware of the film begin prepared on him? You are aware of how many people, including the standard liberal establishment, admire his Great Society programs?

I will give you the same advice I tried to give Lance: If you don't know what you are talking about--and its clear you do not--then just be quiet and try and learn something. So you don't sound like such an unmitigated and arrogant axe-grinder again.

I have immersed myself in left wing politics for nearly 40 years. Trust me Jim, it is YOU who hasn't a clue what you're talking about.

If you think that people of the 'left' admired LBJ then you simply haven't the faintest as to what the term 'left' actually means. By definition, someone who politically supported LBJ is a right wing conservative...because that's what he was. It's just silliness and chronic political ignorance. Only in America can you be THAT right wing and STILL be labelled a hero of the left. Astonishing!

This is an extremely serious thread and shows why nothing has been achieved. This canonisation of JFK and all he supposedly stood for is what gets in the way. (And btw, planning to assassinate another country's president does also NOT count as being on the 'left'!!)

You can't see the evidence because of the tears!

At best JFK was slightly liberal. That wing of the establishment, like Obama, believe that the velvet glove is a better way of selling the system rather than Bush's iron fist. Gorbachev, likewise believed that communism could be saved if it just showed it's "human face". It's a political tactic by the elite to prevent civil disorder, or worse, from below

In other words these people wanted the same old racket to continue but make it look more inclusive and 'popular'. Inevitably at some point JFK would have turned into Obama. Stuck in the mud with empty promises lying around in tatters. That would have been JFK's fate. With a bit of luck all that "wishy-washy" liberal nonsense will have created a very right wing backlash, just like Obama's done.

So maybe some are too politically blind to see the similarities between the Obama and JFK administrations. The only difference is that one was assassinated and therefore almost beautified as a Saint, and Obama wasn't.

And for the record Jim I post under my own name; ROKC is the place to go if you want to see some honest and fresh new research but I am NOT their spokesperson. Just for the record...

Edited March 11, 2016 by Bernie Laverick

[Bernie Laverick]

Bernie, really, this is what I meant a long time back when I said that you ROKC guys are so polarized around H and L that you cannot see straight.

To compare Obama with JFK? That they had the same mindset? Can you really be serious? Kennedy actually stood up to the Pentagon at the Bay of Pigs when he refused to send in the Marines and the Navy. He did it again in November of 1961, when after a two week debate in the White House, he refused to send combat troops into Vietnam--and he fought that battle almost alone against everyone else in the room, not just the military, but his own advisors.

I mean, you have read the Kennedy Tapes, have you not? It was Kennedy, just about alone again, who fought off every attempt to bomb the missile sites or send in the army during the Missile Crisis. He even refused to retaliate when 1.) Castro shot down a U2 and killed the pilot and 2.) When the Russians broke the limit line of the blockade. In both of those instances, there had been contingencies for the USA to counter with. Kennedy refused to do it. And its on tape.

These are all facts and anyone who wants to find them can read up on them instead of succumbing to Lance's groundless bombast and BS.

What would have been the results if Kennedy had buckled?

1.) Cuba would have been a colony of the USA. (And Nixon told Kennedy to declare a beachhead and send in the Marines)

2.) The bloody quagmire that engulfed Indochina would have begun four year earlier. (We know what LBJ and RMN did. It resulted in the deaths of about 3.5 million people.)

3.) If LBJ or RMN had been in command in 1962, there likely would have been a nuclear exchange over Cuba. Because almost no one knew that 1.) The missiles had already been loaded up with warheads at the time of the blockade and 2.) the USSR had given Castro control of tactical nukes meant to wipe out any invasion force sent onto the island.

Now, these are just the easy ones that almost any newbie in the field knows about. (Except maybe you and Lance.) But I could go on and on with fact after fact and do the same thing in Congo, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Middle east, and in Africa. I mean you did click on that stuff I posted, right? Or maybe you think you and ROKC are too smart for that?

As per LBJ's following, I mean you are aware of the film begin prepared on him? You are aware of how many people, including the standard liberal establishment, admire his Great Society programs?

I will give you the same advice I tried to give Lance: If you don't know what you are talking about--and its clear you do not--then just be quiet and try and learn something. So you don't sound like such an unmitigated and arrogant axe-grinder again.

"You are aware of how many people, including the standard liberal establishment, admire his Great Society programs?"

Since when did that count as "left"?

You're all over the place Jim...

[Ray Mitcham]

And so was LBJ. Now, to be clear, I think LBJ was involved in Kennedy's assassination. But that doesn't make him a racist. LBJ started out as a teacher in a poor Mexican-American school. He developed a sensitivity to the poor and underprivileged. But he was first and foremost a member of the Democratic Party...from Texas...which meant he had to play ball with racists all day long, for many many years.

Lyndon Johnson said the word “n igger ” a lot.

In Senate cloakrooms and staff meetings, Johnson was practically a connoisseur of the word. According to Johnson biographer Robert Caro, Johnson would calibrate his pronunciations by region, using “nigra” with some southern legislators and “negra” with others. Discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, he’d simply call it “the n igger bill.”

Then in 1957, Johnson would help get the “n igger bill” passed, known to most as the Civil Rights Act of 1957. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the segregationists would go to their graves knowing the cause they’d given their lives to had been betrayed, Frank Underwood style, by a man they believed to be one of their own. When Caro asked segregationist Georgia Democrat Herman Talmadge how he felt when Johnson, signing the Civil Rights Act, said ”we shall overcome,” Talmadge said “sick.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism

Nope, doesn't seem a racist to me.......

Edited March 11, 2016 by Ray Mitcham

[Michael Walton]

Bernie,

You may want to read this article about why the Arabs hate America.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/rfk-jr-why-arabs-dont-trust-america-213601

I know you may say the entire article is hogwash because after all it was written by John Kennedy's nephew so it's biased. I choose to believe it's not, just like I also choose to believe many of the factual articles written about Kennedy's beliefs on getting rid of "colonialism" in third-world countries being dominated by huge corporations harvesting their resources.

It's amazing to me how you think Obama and Kennedy are on equal footing in the comparison department. I mean, can you imagine the political ****-storm that would have happened if he'd just come in and completely shut down Guantanamo Bay instead of letting it continue to fester? As a comparable event, Kennedy refused to send in the military during the Bay of Pigs and then did it again when Russia put nuclear arms 90 miles away from Florida. He did this while staring down the likes of cigar-chomping General LeMay and those in his own cabinet.

[Michael Walton]

And so was LBJ. Now, to be clear, I think LBJ was involved in Kennedy's assassination. But that doesn't make him a racist. LBJ started out as a teacher in a poor Mexican-American school. He developed a sensitivity to the poor and underprivileged. But he was first and foremost a member of the Democratic Party...from Texas...which meant he had to play ball with racists all day long, for many many years.

Lyndon Johnson said the word “n igger ” a lot.

In Senate cloakrooms and staff meetings, Johnson was practically a connoisseur of the word. According to Johnson biographer Robert Caro, Johnson would calibrate his pronunciations by region, using “nigra” with some southern legislators and “negra” with others. Discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, he’d simply call it “the n igger bill.”

Then in 1957, Johnson would help get the “n igger bill” passed, known to most as the Civil Rights Act of 1957. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the segregationists would go to their graves knowing the cause they’d given their lives to had been betrayed, Frank Underwood style, by a man they believed to be one of their own. When Caro asked segregationist Georgia Democrat Herman Talmadge how he felt when Johnson, signing the Civil Rights Act, said ”we shall overcome,” Talmadge said “sick.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism

Nope, doesn't seem a racist to me.......

Frank, I do agree with you on this. I'm not trying to make excuses here for Johnson but he was from a very different era. Even Lincoln, who we all admire as a great president, wanted to ship African Americans back to a country made for them instead of being fully committed to their rights as American citizens.

[James DiEugenio]

Bernie:

It's pretty apparent that you have done absolutely no research on this subject. Nor has anyone at ROKC. Just look at the site.

And anyone who has to stoop to saying JFK was in on the Castro plots, simply has no case. That whole thing has been discredited for well over a decade. I mean you have not even read the CIA IG Report on the subject. Which admits they had no presidential authorization to do what they did. Or David Talbot's Brothers, where it shows that the CIA actually made up a back stopped story about the subject to the Church Committee.

I love that whole, "liberal establishment does not count as left" Laverickian distinction. I mean, what is the "left" in the USA then? Pacifica Radio? The Green Party? Pat Speer just gave you a good rundown on how LBJ courted that vote with his civil rights program. He also used the great admiration Warren had because of Brown vs Board to lend credence to the Warren Commission. Brown vs Board is why Eisenhower did what he did in Little Rock, Arkansas. That is he sent in troops to enforce the decision. That is why Kennedy did what he did at Ole Miss--where two were killed in the race riot, and JFK had Meredith escorted with bodyguards to class for two years. Or a year later when Kennedy amassed something like 2000 national guardsmen and a thousand army troops to face down Wallace who had about 800 men on hand at Alabama.

But Pat left out the other credential Warren had on the left: the revolution he set forth in defendant's rights. This began with the case of Gideon vs. Wainwright which was about 8 months before the assassination. (Reclaiming Parkland, p. 249) And it was because of those things that Warren became an object of admiration on the left and and object of scorn and derision on the right.

Now, if you read the article that Michael linked to, you will see how the whole War on Terror has not been abated by Obama, but actually, in many ways, has been exacerbated by the Obama/Clinton doctrines. Which, really, do not differ very much at all from Republican ideas e.g. the whole Libya debacle, where Obama aligned himself with Al Qaeda and ISIS, even though Gaddafi had warned him in advance. I actually did some historical research on this subject, and I know what a divergence the Obama/Clinton policy is from Kennedy's.

http://www.ctka.net/2015/HillaryJFKAddendum.html

If you have not done any work on this area--and you clearly have not--then why don't you do some reading so you don't spout off even more silly bluster and phony "facts".

Edited March 11, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

I should add, the reason there is no real left in the USA today is because of the four assassinations of the sixties: President Kennedy, Malcolm X, King and Senator Kennedy. That is what brought the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the election of Richard Nixon, and then Ford's presidency. Along with it came the Republicanization of the Democratic Party with Carter and Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. (When the DLC was disbanded in 2011, its records were purchased by the Clinton Foundation.)

I know about this since I co-edited a book on the topic called The Assassinations.

Edited March 11, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Bernie Laverick]

I should add, the reason there is no real left in the USA today is because of the four assassinations of the sixties: President Kennedy, Malcolm X, King and Senator Kennedy. That is what brought the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the election of Richard Nixon, and then Ford's presidency. Along with it came the Republicanization of the Democratic Party with Carter and Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. (When the DLC was disbanded in 2011, its records were purchased by the Clinton Foundation.)

I know about this since I co-edited a book on the topic called The Assassinations.

Jim allow me to introduce you to Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders meet someone who doesn't know what 'left' means....

There is a massive and proud history of left wing struggle in your great country. Look up Eugene Debs and the Wobblies; see the power of the unions down the decades who delivered American workers some of the best living standards in the Western world. (As a kid in the 60's I was in awe of my Mum's observation that "even American firemen have swimming pools in their back gardens")! And why not??

And the huge advances made in civil right were more down to the bravery and indefatigable human spirit of those who demonstrated than the flourish of a President's pen. Sometimes, when faced with a determined people fighting for change, it's a good general who will attempt to lead them (against his better judgement) rather than be overthrown by them. Gorbachev, attempted just that, but the Soviet elite had left it far too late.

So I repeat, whilst the nuance maybe a lot different (because the historic backdrop is a lot different) nevertheless Obama and JFK represent the same wing of the ruling American establishment (notwithstanding their occasional Samurai slash at some sections of said establishment) who calculate that the 'appearance' of justice and fairness is the safest way to rule.

Chuck a few bad eggs off the ship: as long it stays afloat we can still steer it in OUR direction. Better that than a mutiny...then we lose the whole ship!

It's not rocket science...

[James DiEugenio]

Bernie,

Not only is your JFK scholarship lacking, but you don't seem to know much about Obama.

See, JFK never joined the CFR. He didn't have very many friends in the upper elite. Part of that was because his 1957 speech on Algeria put a lot of people off because it was such a radical departure from anything anyone was saying about American foreign policy.

On his way up, Obama was friends with Robert Rubin through something called the Alexander Hamilton project. He was befriended in the senate by people like Biden and Kerry precisely because he was not Jessie Jackson. His presidency has borne that out. He had a great opportunity to launch an expansive economic reform program that would have rivaled the New Deal. He didn't do it. He didn't even come close. I strongly suspect this was due to his friendship with Rubin; I mean look who he took in as his economic advisers--Geithner and Summers. Two friends of Rubin's.

As per civil rights, and union rights, can you be serious? As one big union leader said, during Kennedy's administration, "I lived at the White House." As per civil rights, JFK did more for that cause in three years than the combined 18 presidents before him did in a century.

Yes, the struggles of labor in the USA were a bitter and bloody one. But those rights were more or less won by the time of the New Deal with the Wagner Act. And the fact that FDR openly backed the strikers in the Detroit sit down strike. The influence of labor peaked under JFK and LBJ. I mean the Kennedys reached out to Reuther for help to man the big "I Have a Dream " speech in Washington in 1963. I mean for that matter see RFK and Cesar Chavez.

When did Obama meet in public with migrant workers?

Edited March 11, 2016 by James DiEugenio