A particular JFK speech

[Ian Livingston]

Alarm? No. I just thought the phrasing was all so ambiguous as to
qualify as nearly paranoid. Maybe, as Michael says, it's just JFK
out-mongering his press. That seems a likely enough take. I just
wondered if it might have relevance to the more generalized paranoia
we meet in Pynchon' oevre and in Nixon and his breed of Repugnicans.

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 9:56 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> I take it, therefore, this Kennedy speech is no great cause for alarm for
> the p-list.
>
> P
>
>
> On 12/17/2011 8:20 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>>
>> I mean, if you look at the context:
>> he's in front of the newspaper guys, who are not all that friendly to
>> him, which he mentions.
>>
>> he contrasts open society with the secrecy and the stealth of
>> Communist insurgency
>>
>> he tries to unite everyone at the gathering against that threat, and
>> enlist their loyalty, and remind them of their duty as newspapermen.
>> I really don't see this as a forum for any kind of venting of
>> suspicions other than against totalitarian Communism, and the need to
>> distinguish free society from it...
>>
>> and there's no development beyond the mere mention of "secret
>> societies" - it's a real stretch, although I personally believe in the
>> existence and abhor the effects of numerous secret societies such as
>> ALEC and Skull and Bones, I don't see them in this speech.
>>
>> However, we do know that at this same time, Kennedy was putting out
>> secret feelers to Khruschchev and to Castro and in fact via
>> journalists (this is detailed in James Douglass's excellent _JFK and
>> the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters_ .)
>>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant