A particular JFK speech

[Ian Livingston]

Nada. Seems everybody's a tad edgy these days.

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> On 12/17/2011 1:20 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>
>
> Sorry for the flippant remark.
>
>
> P
>>
>>
>> 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