Does political ideology heavily influence assassination research?

[John Dolva]

imo: you're all right ( and wrong ). It's a matter of perspective. From a left revolutionary pov the right position is that ultimately any position that accepts that a capitalist system can be reformed in favour of people rather than profits is wrong and to the right of left.

Within the bubble of capitalism there is a spectrum of left and right. Anyone within that bubble is to the right of a left outside of it.

On the far right is fascism which is usually thought of as outside by people in the bubble while it actually is the last bulwark against communism by capital which is why bigots like Trump, Erdogan, Thatcher, Pinochet, the Kiev clique etc etc are acceptable.

In the revolutionary left, there is also left and right. Anarchism, to the borders of democratic socialism. I consider myself a revolutionary centrist. Of course, I consider myself right and other positions to be wrong. When all is said and done, what's left is humanism.

[Paul Brancato]

Humanism is the only ism I believe in.

[Bernie Laverick]

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".

JIm please show me something I stated as a "fact". This is about political opinions: having different ones to you does NOT make me factually incorrect. If someone wants to vote for Clinton and you don't does that make them factually incorrect too?

I can only assume that 'Left' must mean something totally different in America to what is generally considered everywhere else. And Jim, let me educate you here...When a politician cynically courts a certain demographic they do so because they calculate that that is how they will win the election NOT because they truly believe in the cause they are promoting.

So don't tell me that a man tied up with corruption and graft and who constantly used the word ni**er is now somehow promoted as a totem of the left, because the crass stupidity of that is making my teeth itch! Maybe you need to do some research Jim. Your minutia knowledge of the JFK assassination is astounding: but your knowledge of politics is 9th grade stuff, it really is...

[Paul Brancato]

Bernie - allow me to step in here. Yes we can quibble about defining the left. I listen to KPFA sometimes, and can tell you that they will barely touch JFK, believing as you apparently do that he was establishment and not really a hero of the people. Like the Nation magazine, Noam Chomsky, and other mouthpieces of the so-called left they believe that JFK's death didn't really change anything. They also by the way give LBJ credit for the Civil Rights Act. They do however consider MLK a death they should properly mourn.

What DiEugenio is rightly pointing out is that they are wrong about the Kennedy brothers. There has been a concerted effort for over 60 years now to keep hidden the real story. I think that James Douglass covered this admirably in his book JFK and the Unspeakable. If you haven't read it you should do so immediately.

There most certainly was a right wing coup in the '60's that changed the course of history. (Perhaps it would be better to say the right wing got rid of the only threat to their already established MIC) JFK was the last truly courageous president we had. Obama may be just as humanist as JFK, but if he is he certainly didn't show the courage. He didn't fight for the millions that came out to vote, and to cheer him on when he won the 2008 election. I think the controlling forces behind the scenes have too much power for any president to do anything about it. Obama's one victory is that millions have been helped by his healthcare reform.

[James DiEugenio]

Bernie:

Do you even realize what you are writing?

You tried to say JFK was in on the Castro plots.

That has been discredited for well over a decade by the declassification of the IG Report back in 1994. And Talbot's book Brothers also showed that the CIA had backstopped certain tales told by dead men to falsify that record.

But beyond that, you actually tried to compare JFK with Blair. Show me one place in the world where Blair's coming to power impacted the lives of those people in any positive way.

Now, take a look at what happened in Africa under Kennedy. Let us take two instances: Algeria and Congo. From 1957, Kennedy had been railing against the French imperial war in Algeria. He made, what I think, is his best speech--even better than the 1963 American University speech-- on the floor of the senate to protest the US backing of that war by the Dulles brothers, Nixon and Eisenhower.

You have read this have you not Bernie? I am sure with your deep cosmopolitan understanding of who JFK was, and what the world was like back then, you could not have missed this, right? Its in that slide show I entered in this thread, which I am sure in your overwhelming desire to go beyond the parameters of current status quo knowledge, you immediately read.

But in case--like Lance-- you have not, Kennedy blasted both the USA and France for now repeating the same mistake that had just occurred back in 1954 in Vietnam. And now predicted the same outcome--that France would lose this civil war and the USA would be allied once again with a colonial power that was on the wrong side of history. He then said that the problem now was to help save the French nation and to liberate Africa.

Geez Bernie, that sounds like Blair counseling Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld about Iraq, right?

Now, JFK did this at a big risk to himself. Because he was pummeled by about a 2-1 ratio in the press, and even the titular leader of his party, Adlai Stevenson, disapproved of what he said. So did Dean Acheson, the eminent foreign policy leader of the Democrats. But he did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do. Even though he was going beyond the status quo limits of his own party. He was correct, because Algeria did eventually become free--in 1962, under DeGaulle and Kennedy.

Second example, while Kennedy was campaigning for president, the struggle for Congo was going on. During that campaign, Kennedy mentioned Africa over 400 times. Within a week of gaining office, he ordered a complete revamping of Eisenhower's Congo policy--the USA would now be backing Lumumba, the revolutionary, nationalist leader. Except for one fact: Lumumba was already dead. And the CIA kept that fact from Kennedy for about three weeks. This is JFK when he finally heard about it:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CY6g1iqW8AEsqXl.jpg

Can you find a comparable picture of Blair? Now, as myself and David Talbot, and a couple of other scholars have deduced from reading the cable traffic, and studying the State Memoranda, Allen Dulles speeded up the assassination plot against Lumumba for the very reason that he knew that once Kennedy was in office--he would do what he did, that is, reverse policy. And Lumumba would have been restored to power.

Did Blair ever do something like this Bernie? Please show me where he did, since I must have missed it.

Now, those are facts Bernie. Which you did not have the slightest idea about, since you think that from your immense study of JFK's career and foreign policy, you already knew about--except you didn't. And BTW, I can even point to a noted scholar down under, in your neck of the woods, who has done some good work on this subject, except it deals with JFK and Indonesia, and that particular double reversal--JFK over Eisenhower and LBJ over Kennedy. And I would wager you don't even know who he is.

Tony Blair, my butt.

Edited March 12, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

To be fair, let me make a possible exception to the above: Blair in Sierra Leone.

One can argue that England made a mistake going in too late, since it had been their province.

But still, Blair's record does not even come close to JFK's.

Edited March 12, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Bernie Laverick]

To be fair, let me make a possible exception to the above: Blair in Sierra Leone.

One can argue that England made a mistake going in too late, since it had been their province.

But still, Blair's record does not even come close to JFK's.

England???

Maybe you are not the scholar you thought you were Jim. England is but a constituent part of the United Kingdom. Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland are the other parts of the UK. They too are constitutionally involved in all foreign policy decisions.

Blair's first press conference on becoming PM included an apology to the Irish for Britain's role in the potato famine. This kind of thing was completely unheard of here. An apology? From a British government? About its shabby historical behaviour to another country? This was fresh. It seemed (to some, not me!) that this was to be a break from the old dull politics and a new fresh approach to foreign affairs. The new foreign secretary, Robin Cook, had promoted his "ethical foreign policy" but then went and mysteriously died young, as had Blair's predecessor John Smith.

Blair introduced a legal minimum wage, gay rights, ended terrorism in Northern Ireland, and promised a "third way" between corporate dominance and communism. It was all going to be so much different. I repeat, I didn't believe a word of it. I reckoned it was all going to end up like rat-xxxx. Of course we now know that that's what happened. But he bolstered the belief in the free market. And that's all that mattered! He didn't do it with a big stick. He did it by being liberal on those things that cost the establishment nothing!

Blair was eventually discredited and rightly so. But that was after he had had 10 years exposure at the top of the tree. JFK had three!

Trust me Jim, had he survived this assassination attempt, America would still look very similar to the way it looks today. The forces of history have no sentiment for the ideals of one individual, however courageous they may be. This is the way post industrial capitalism has to travel...assassination or not. Though I would say that Kennedy's vision and scope of liberalism was a lot wider than Blair's, they both unwittingly (Blair less so) performed the same role: that is, provide a human face for a rotten system!

[James DiEugenio]

OMG, Bernie, you mean England is part of the UK?

And the stuff about Blair's domestic program, and I consider the Irish apology part of that, I knew about--so YAWN.

Now, if you had any curiosity at all, you would understand that the whole Irish issue is where JFK began his whole look at foreign policy. It was being irish, as he told Nehru, that informed his whole attitude toward colonialism and the Third World. It was that, plus his meeting with Edmund Gullion in Saigon in 1951, that made him do what he did in Congo in 1961; fail to send in troops to Vietnam in 1961; and refuse to send in the Navy and Marines to save the Bay of Pigs in 1961. None of which you have even replied to, or acknowledged.

In 1951, 34 year old congressman John Kennedy flew into Saigon to try and understand what was going on in the French colonial war there. He quickly ditched his formal escorts and decided to knock on some doors of reporters and diplomats who he thought would tell him the truth, rather than give him the canned spiel about France being in charge.

He had known about Gullion from the American State Department back in the late forties, and Gullion had been transferred to Saigon since he spoke French. So he had dinner with him on a rooftop restaurant. Gullion told him the following:

1. France would never win the war

2. Ho Chi Minh had galvanized the Viet Minh to the point that they would rather die than go back under the yoke of colonialism.

3. France could never win a war of attrition in Indochina

4. The homefront would not support it.

Gullion turned out to be correct about all these points. Which is why JFK began to make speeches about how misguided the USA was to back up such a failed endeavor, both there and in Algeria. You were aware of this meeting right?

Part of JFK's declaration in 1951, was that the French could not battle an enemy that was nowhere and everywhere, and had the support of the populace. Why is that important? Because its the same argument that JFK used in November of 1961 to face down the Pentagon as expressed in the famous Burris memorandum. And its why he was intent on getting out when the advisory mission failed; which was evident after the battle of Ap Bac. He was simply not going to commit combat troops there. Especially with Gullion now being in the White House, since he made such a remarkable impression on the president in 1951. Now, how long after JFK's death did it take LBJ to get the Pentagon to present plans to him to Americanaize the war? Answer: 3 months.

Do you think LBJ and RMN ever seriously counseled advice like Gullion's from the onset of their presidencies? I can tell you they did not. It was not until Tet that LBJ got the message that Vietnam was hopeless. Kissinger refused to let a former student of his named Dan Ellsberg see Nixon or Kate Graham. And then when Nixon did get the message from his own commanders, he still tried to threaten the north, with the use of atomic weapons. When that did not work, he then launched a horrendous air war over, not just the north, but over Cambodia and Laos. This led to the fall of Sihanouk and the rise to power of Pol Pot. Which ended in one of the great holocausts since WW 2. BTW, who did Sihanouk complain to about the secret bombing of Cambodia, which actually began in a minor way under LBJ? Jackie Kennedy.

So when you say to trust you: why on earth should me or anyone else do that? Especially when you have shown yourself to be just about completely bereft of any knowledge about any of this stuff? A famous Harvard scholar once said that facts are very important. So much so that we should treat them like sunshine.

Bernie, keep on plunging into the dark. I would rather write and work in daylight.

Edited March 13, 2016 by James DiEugenio