I spent the better part of the weekend with the wonderful Gore Vidal - reading the new selection of his essays by Jay Parini. I had forgotten how brilliant his take-down of the Kennedys, "The Holy Family," was. The comparison of JFK and BO has often been made - let's hope it is wrong. In Vidal's account, JFK's charisma masked as ambitious a politician as ever walked the earth, whose only principle was to to get to the top and who, once there, had no idea what to do.
Did you know - as I learned in his essay on William Dean Howells - that Howells was alone among the literary intelligentsia of the day in condemning the trial and execution of the Haymarket Martyrs? Conspicuously silent was Samuel Clemens, sad to say - who knew better.
2 comments:
"...JFK's charisma masked as ambitious a politician as ever walked the earth, whose only principle was to to get to the top and who, once there, had no idea what to do."
He didn't appear to know about the criminals in the New York financial and legal establishments that were protected by law, until it was too late. Kennedy did appear to develop some principles as he gained some experience as a President.
1961 – 1971. Although biological and chemical weapons were banned in the 1920s under the Geneva Convention the US however, under Operation Ranch Hand, began a full-scale “defoliation” project in Viet Nam. It was chemical genocide.
1961 – November. Kennedy leaks a military report to the press in an attempt to prevent US military engagement in Vietnam. Kennedy’s criteria for going into Vietnam. Failure of the press to warn the public about the dangers of a war in Vietnam.
1962 – The establishment of the CIA’s Domestic Operations Division, shortly after the Bay of Pigs operation. E Howard Hunt serves as the first Chief of Covert Action within this new division and says that many men connected with the Bay of Pigs were shunted into the new domestic unit.
1962 – ‘The Pentagon of Power’ by Lewis Mumford. He identified the underlying metaphor of mass civilization as the megamachine. The mechanical – fragmenting every act until its relationship to the whole is lost. A reality based on centralization, control and efficiency.
1962 – 1998 – largest transnationals and their foreign penetration
1963 – Guy Debord writes ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ in which he regarded the cannibalization of the ecosystem as the “real adventure we have embarked on”.
1963 – 4th June – Kennedy’s Executive Order 11110. To strip the US Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest.
1963 – October. US President Kennedy insists that one thousand US troops in Vietnam be recalled.
1963 – JF Kennedy says the high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American’s freedom. He referred to a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy using covert means for expanding its sphere of influence.
1963 – The night before Kennedy was assassinated.
1963 – US Civil Rights Activist, Medgar Evers, assassinated.
1963 – Assassination of President Kennedy. Kennedy declares his intention to reform the central banking system of the US not long before he was killed. VP Johnson implicated
Insider trading associated with the assassination
Plans for escalating the war in Vietnam were approved by DOD/CIA on November 20th 1963. Two days before Kennedy’s assassination.
Edward Lansdale (CIA and Department of Defense) was allegedly photographed in Dealey Plaza, Dallas Texas shortly after Kennedy was assassinated nearby.
1963 – 1969 – Presidential term of Lyndon Baynes Johnson. LBJ beats up the US Fed Reserve Chairman in order to pressure him to print the money LBJ needed for the war in Vietnam. ...
Hear a type of speech not heard since Kennedy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN4itNeh-pE
The transcript:
http://www.thepowerhour.com/news3/jfk_speech_transcript.htm
An excerpt:
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know."
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