The relevance of JFK's peace speech to the JFKA and to where we are today

[Roger Odisio]

The essence of JFK's peace speech can be found in this passage:  “What kind of peace do we seek?  Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war but the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living… that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” 

 

This was a direct challenge to the war machine.  A Pax Americana enforced by American weapons of war precisely expresses what they *did* want. You don't understand anything about the importance of the JFKA without understanding this basic conflict within the White House.

 

A few decades later with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pax Americana became official policy, per Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, now called the international "rules based order" (rules made by the US) designed to ensure American hegemony.    Every effort was to be made to prevent a challenge to US "authority" by another country.

 

That was 30 years ago.  The rules based order and its twin idea of "American exceptionalism" are now crumbling before our eyes.  In one sense the partnership of China and Russia, and BRICS and the more than 20 countries that want to join it, are now, on the 60th anniversary of the speech, taking up the gauntlet laid down by JFK to fashion a multipolar, peaceful world order. To end the economic and military dominance of the US. To end the dominance of the dollar in world trade.  To replace war with peaceful interaction.

 

All that is  missing is a voice in the US to support JFK's vision of peace.  Enter Bobby Jr.  The peace candidate lane to the presidency is wide open. With his understanding of the issues and what happened to his father and uncle, he is uniquely qualified to fill it.  

 

As we get closer to the election, the need for a discussion about a more peaceful world will become more apparent.  It all begins with JFK's vision of peace and the murders and wars that followed the silencing of the Kennedy brothers.

[Jeff Carter]

Apparently, to this forum's moderators, the Peace Speech is a "Political Discussion" with no relevance to the assassination, even though James Douglass wrote a five-hundred page book based on exactly the relevance.

[Paul Brancato]

14 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

Apparently, to this forum's moderators, the Peace Speech is a "Political Discussion" with no relevance to the assassination, even though James Douglass wrote a five-hundred page book based on exactly the relevance.

I agree it’s totally relevant. Most of us care about JFK’s assassination for exactly this reason.

[James DiEugenio]

I agree.

 

[John Cotter]

Hear, hear.

[Ron Bulman]

My first thought was Huh?  Then, why?  I just went back and re read the thread.  Which was very informative for me.  The discourse was generally civil, no name calling, etc.  The Peace speech and Berlin speech seemed relevant to what happened then and what is happening now and how we got from then to now.  I believe some of what JFK said in both of those speeches may well have contributed to his execution.  They were not what those pushing for war in Vietnam wanted to hear.  

IDK.  Maybe getting into covid, censorship, or the evils of Putin were deemed irrelevant to the JFKA?

I wonder if a thread to be moved might first receive a warning as to what might cause it to be moved if such doesn't stop?  Or at least an explanation as to why it is, e.g. say three members complained (about what?).

[James DiEugenio]

Nothing could be more relevant in my view than Kennedy trying to back to FDR's foreign policy. 

IMO, that is what got him killed.

[Benjamin Cole]

I have long said the reason to study the JFKA is because of the horrible crime itself, but also to learn how government and media really work.

Certain EF-JFKA discussions about the Deep State and media in current context seem justified to me, as well as any conversations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the only candidate who will open up the JFK Records, and who, of course, is the son and nephew of RFK and JFK. 

Long, daily and minute discussions about the JFK Records Act are also justified---egads, this is the EF-JFKA and the Biden Administration has done of snuff job on the JFK Records in real time. 

Are we supposed be timorously polite and not discuss this daily travesty and crime against the American public for partisan reasons? 

I understand the moderator's treatment of endless strident partisan dogma and feculent invective, which does belong in the water cooler section.

 

 

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

34 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have long said the reason to study the JFKA is because of the horrible crime itself, but also to learn how government and media really work.

Certain EF-JFKA discussions about the Deep State and media in current context seem justified to me, as well as any conversations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the only candidate who will open up the JFK Records, and who, of course, is the son and nephew of RFK and JFK. 

Long, daily and minute discussions about the JFK Records Act are also justified---egads, this is the EF-JFKA and the Biden Administration has done of snuff job on the JFK Records in real time. 

Are we supposed be timorously polite and not discuss this daily travesty and crime against the American public for partisan reasons? 

I understand the moderator's treatment of endless strident partisan dogma and feculent invective, which does belong in the water cooler section.

Posted without intentional, feculent irony by the guy who was supposed to move his redundant anti-Biden spam to the MAGA Water Cooler... 🙄

In any case, I, for one, was relieved when Ben finally figured out-- after the premier of JFK Revisited at Cannes-- that Operation Mockingbird is still operational in the U.S. media.   Ben wasn't so sure at the time, but he has learned some things, and he now wants to educate us, at last.

As for FDR's wartime alliance with the USSR, (prior to his death and the subsequent surrender of Japan) I noticed that no one has commented on the fact that FDR's own progressive, pro-Soviet former Vice President, Henry Wallace, acknowledged by 1950 that he had been naive about Stalin, and that he now believed that the Soviet Union was "utterly evil."   Is it possible that FDR would have done the same, had he lived another five years?

Most Western intellectuals eventually concurred with Henry Wallace's condemnation of the Soviet Union after Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published and the truth about 20th century Soviet atrocities became more evident in the West.  The evidence was shocking.

Meanwhile, the evidence of Putin's neo-Stalinist atrocities has become increasingly evident in the 21st century.  Journalists and other Putin critics in Russia have been systematically murdered during the past twenty years, residential buildings in Ukraine have been demolished by Russian missiles, and Ukrainian citizens have been shipped to Russian Gulags in Stalinist fashion.  Putin is a graduate of the Yuri Andropov Institute.

Obviously, the U.S. military-industrial complex has committed endless atrocities in the post-WWII era, throughout the world, including the Middle East during the Bush/Cheney/Neocon era.  JFK was the only POTUS who tried to end those U.S. military-industrial travesties.  He understood the anti-colonial aspect of most Third World conflicts.

But, on this forum, there has been a persistent tendency to focus on only one side of the 78 year-old conflict between the U.S. military-industrial complex and the Soviet (and neo-Soviet) military-industrial complex.

Both complexes have been problematic for humanity.  People from the former Soviet Bloc nations of Eastern Europe understand that better than some people from the U.S., U.K., (and Ireland.)  Eastern Europeans would have preferred the Marshall Plan's "export of American democracy at gunpoint" to Soviet totalitarianism any day, which is why they have been so eager to join NATO and the EU.

Peace is an admirable thing, as Neville Chamberlain, himself, believed, but, when dealing with bullies, it is often necessary to carry a big stick.

JFK believed as much, as he said in his June 1963 Berlin Speech.

[Douglas Caddy]

 

60 Years Ago Today - Michael Moore

[Jeff Carter]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Posted without intentional, feculent irony by the guy who was supposed to move his redundant anti-Biden spam to the MAGA Water Cooler... 🙄

In any case, I, for one, was relieved when Ben finally figured out-- after the premier of JFK Revisited at Cannes-- that Operation Mockingbird is still operational in the U.S. media.   Ben wasn't so sure at the time, but he has learned some things, and he now wants to educate us, at last.

As for FDR's wartime alliance with the USSR, (prior to his death and the subsequent surrender of Japan) I noticed that no one has commented on the fact that FDR's own progressive, pro-Soviet former Vice President, Henry Wallace, acknowledged by 1950 that he had been naive about Stalin, and that he now believed that the Soviet Union was "utterly evil."   Is it possible that FDR would have done the same, had he lived another five years?

Most Western intellectuals eventually concurred with Henry Wallace's condemnation of the Soviet Union after Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published and the truth about 20th century Soviet atrocities became more evident in the West.  The evidence was shocking.

Meanwhile, the evidence of Putin's neo-Stalinist atrocities has become increasingly evident in the 21st century.  Journalists and other Putin critics in Russia have been systematically murdered during the past twenty years, residential buildings in Ukraine have been demolished by Russian missiles, and Ukrainian citizens have been shipped to Russian Gulags in Stalinist fashion.  Putin is a graduate of the Yuri Andropov Institute.

Obviously, the U.S. military-industrial complex has committed endless atrocities in the post-WWII era, throughout the world, including the Middle East during the Bush/Cheney/Neocon era.  JFK was the only POTUS who tried to end those U.S. military-industrial travesties.  He understood the anti-colonial aspect of most Third World conflicts.

But, on this forum, there has been a persistent tendency to focus on only one side of the 78 year-old conflict between the U.S. military-industrial complex and the Soviet (and neo-Soviet) military-industrial complex.

Both complexes have been problematic for humanity.  People from the former Soviet Bloc nations of Eastern Europe understand that better than some people from the U.S., U.K., (and Ireland.)  Eastern Europeans would have preferred the Marshall Plan's "export of American democracy at gunpoint" to Soviet totalitarianism any day, which is why they have been so eager to join NATO and the EU.

Peace is an admirable thing, as Neville Chamberlain, himself, believed, but, when dealing with bullies, it is often necessary to carry a big stick.

JFK believed as much, as he said in his June 1963 Berlin Speech.

W - you well know, or should know, Wallace’s defensive remarks in 1950 were made in the context of the Red Scare and resulting political repression of progressives which included arrests, jail sentences, surveillance, blacklists, and loyalty oaths. You know, or should know, Kennedy was capable of Cold War rhetoric when the mood struck, but his developed and developing policies are the measure of where he was actually headed. I strongly doubt he was abandoning the concepts articulated in the Peace Speech a mere two weeks later at the Berlin Wall.

In my opinion, both JFK and FDR came to realize the folly and danger of a manichean good/evil mindset, and understood that progressive or liberal domestic and foreign policies were incompatible which such mindset. They understood that the logic of a good/evil dichotomy required confrontation and ultimately elimination of “evil”, and would unleash destructive rather than productive energies, and eventually be damaging to all. To JFK, this prospect would unfold in the context of doomsday weaponry as he witnessed first hand. (In light of that last point, a poster on the previous thread, expressing a manichean worldview, actually called the sitting President a “coward” for not engaging in direct military conflict with a country holding the world’s largest nuclear weapon stockpile, and doing so directly on its border. That’s Joint Chiefs 1962 level craziness.)

In perspective, 22 years since 9/11 - a period marked by “twilight-struggle against evil” rhetoric - the evil-doers have variously been identified as “al-Qaeda”, Saddam Hussein, back to “al-Qaeda”, briefly to Gaddafi, pivoting to Syria’s Assad, shifting to ISIS, then settling on Putin (with China just offstage and already identified). Once a good/evil paradigm is engaged, internally and externally, the conflict will never end and will ultimately take us all down. That should be common wisdom.

[James DiEugenio]

50 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

 

60 Years Ago Today - Michael Moore

A very nice salute to the Peace Speech by Michael Moore.

 

Thanks for posting it.

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

W - you well know, or should know, Wallace’s defensive remarks in 1950 were made in the context of the Red Scare and resulting political repression of progressives which included arrests, jail sentences, surveillance, blacklists, and loyalty oaths. You know, or should know, Kennedy was capable of Cold War rhetoric when the mood struck, but his developed and developing policies are the measure of where he was actually headed. I strongly doubt he was abandoning the concepts articulated in the Peace Speech a mere two weeks later at the Berlin Wall.

In my opinion, both JFK and FDR came to realize the folly and danger of a manichean good/evil mindset, and understood that progressive or liberal domestic and foreign policies were incompatible which such mindset. They understood that the logic of a good/evil dichotomy required confrontation and ultimately elimination of “evil”, and would unleash destructive rather than productive energies, and eventually be damaging to all. To JFK, this prospect would unfold in the context of doomsday weaponry as he witnessed first hand. (In light of that last point, a poster on the previous thread, expressing a manichean worldview, actually called the sitting President a “coward” for not engaging in direct military conflict with a country holding the world’s largest nuclear weapon stockpile, and doing so directly on its border. That’s Joint Chiefs 1962 level craziness.)

In perspective, 22 years since 9/11 - a period marked by “twilight-struggle against evil” rhetoric - the evil-doers have variously been identified as “al-Qaeda”, Saddam Hussein, back to “al-Qaeda”, briefly to Gaddafi, pivoting to Syria’s Assad, shifting to ISIS, then settling on Putin (with China just offstage and already identified). Once a good/evil paradigm is engaged, internally and externally, the conflict will never end and will ultimately take us all down. That should be common wisdom.

Jeff,

    Certainly, we can all decry the misuse of labels that falsely demonize putative adversaries in the conduct of foreign affairs, without simultaneously pretending that there is no such thing as evil.

     Such moral relativism is surely absurd, even for modern intellectuals who believe that God is dead.

     Who among us would deny that mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin were truly evil?

     Or American mass murderers like LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the Neocons?

     And now Putin?

     My point is that we need to study both sides in the 78 year-old conflict between Washington and the Kremlin, and this forum has always been focused on the untold history of the U.S. Deep State.

      As for JFK's Berlin Speech, was it, in fact, delivered as a realpolitik-al counterpoint to the olive branch of the Peace Speech?

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Jeff Carter]

47 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jeff,

    Certainly, we can all decry the misuse of labels that falsely demonize putative adversaries in the conduct of foreign affairs, without simultaneously pretending that there is no such thing as evil.

     Such moral relativism is surely absurd, even for modern intellectuals who believe that God is dead.

     Who among us would deny that mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin were truly evil?

     Or American mass murderers like LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the Neocons?

     And now Putin?

     My point is that we need to study both sides in the 78 year-old conflict between Washington and the Kremlin, and this forum has always been focused on the untold history of the U.S. Deep State.

      As for JFK's Berlin Speech, was it, in fact, delivered as a realpolitik-al counterpoint to the olive branch of the Peace Speech?

 

In my opinion, characterizing the concept of peaceful coexistence as moral relativism or a denial of the presence of “evil” both misses the point and passively accepts the destructive good/evil dichotomy.

[W. Niederhut]

29 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

In my opinion, characterizing the concept of peaceful coexistence as moral relativism or a denial of the presence of “evil” both misses the point and passively accepts the destructive good/evil dichotomy.

Peaceful coexistence is an ideal, but at what price?

I doubt that Eastern Europeans subjected to the Soviet yoke after 1945, or modern day Ukrainians, share your blithe moral relativism about Soviet, and neo-Soviet, oppression.

Do you, at least, agree that Stalin was evil?

Conversely, do you believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are, generally, good --as opposed to murder, gulags, and social control through police state terror?

Edited June 11, 2023 by W. Niederhut