A particular JFK speech

[Joseph Tracy]

Again, I think this rather minor speech has to be put in the context of Kennedy's inaugural speech which is much more clear and precise on communism and on America's role in third world countries where ideological battles were being played out. Kennedy marks a careful but substantial break in American policy away from the paranoia of the american far right, particularly Nixon, McCarthyism and Goldwater.  Look at his decisions, he refused to be pushed into an attack on Cuba on one side and  on the other side stood down the threat  without resorting to nukes in the missile crisis. 
Same thing with space, he diffuses the paranoia about Russians being first in space by launching a race to the moon.  Instead of 'be afraid,'  as in  'we have to make more bombs', the key response is let's show the world what we can do. I'm not trying to heroize Kennedy, but he was clearly marking a change in policy that the CIA and Howard Hughes hated. 


On Dec 18, 2011, at 4:23 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:

> Paul, Yes, we disagree, even about the extent to which we disagree.
> But I agree that that is okay.
> 
> Michael, you cite the Soviet expansion following WWII, leaving out the
> American expansion, and citing the Soviet possession of atomic weapons
> they never used. Only the US used those weapons in military actions
> against humans. The whole world is afraid of our weapons and our
> willingness to use them. No, I do not see anywhere in the histories
> any persuasive evidence that the USSR was a viable threat to the US.
> They WANTED to be, yes. But they were not. They only managed become a
> foil to US aggression.
> 
> And, yes, the threat to the US was from within. It predated the
> existence of the Soviets by roughly 200 years. As wealthy lords moved
> into the American colonies, the poor were cast into near-slave
> conditions in America from the beginning. The threat was that, if the
> USSR developed a working version of socialism, Americans would take
> note and soon or later follow suit. A reemergence of a strong labor
> voice in government could be very threatening to big capital, and
> hence to the federal government. So the threat the press was called
> upon to censor was the threat of uprising from the disfranchised in
> America, who might be persuaded to pick up again the socialist banner
> J Hoover had so thoroughly soiled. Kennedy was certainly hep to all
> that, as he was alive to see some of the demonstrations government
> forces crushed in his home state.
> 
> In other words, the other side in the Cold War was not wholly on the
> other side of the Iron Curtain.
> 
> The evidence that the US ever slacked off its prosecution of
> propaganda war against socialism and communism is something I would
> like to see substantiated. The tenor of the propaganda became more
> subtle, thanks largely to Eddie Bernays, but far from less pervasive.
> I think Kennedy's speech was intended to redirect the gaze of the
> media away from the presidency and back into its accustomed paranoid
> cant. He was saying, "There are enemies, yes, but the US government is
> not among them. So pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
> 
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>> On 12/18/2011 2:59 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> What Kennedy was arguing for was the need for more self imposed restraint
>>>> on
>>>> the part of the American press when it came to publishing information
>>>> that
>>>> might be of use to the other side in the Cold War.
>>>> 
>>> ...
>>> 
>>>> In other words I didn't see the paranoia.
>>>> 
>>> You don't see the paranoia? The Soviet Union was never a viable threat
>>> to the US. The whole Cold War was an exercise in paranoid dysfunction
>>> and the marketing potentials implicit in the holy "free markets" v.
>>> Godless "communism" melodrama. Kennedy was in an unusual position cast
>>> between his loyalty to big capital and what at times seemed to many of
>>> us to be his conscience. We'll never know, of course, just how tough
>>> that position was for him, or what his intentions really were, of
>>> course, but I do think Kennedy was playing the paranoia card with
>>> exceptional skill here.
>> 
>> 
>> The cold war wasn't a delusion.  Nobody thinks that.
>> 
>> The delusion was  an overemphasis on the existence of enemies  within, to
>> which earlier the President had not been immune. However, this semi-McCarthy
>> stance was never very strong and by this point in time was definitely in
>> remission.
>> 
>> The speech in question was about something else entirely. (as I indicated)
>> 
>> So we disagree, almost a hundred percent.
>> 
>> But that's OK
>> 
>> 
>> P
>> 
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>>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>>>  wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On 12/17/2011 4:44 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> For myself and my own memories of the time, what Kennedy was doing was
>>>>> proposing in this speech and much more clearly in his inaugural address
>>>>> was
>>>>> not so much precisely anti-communism but anti-secrecy, anti secret and
>>>>> unaccountable authority. He was leading the country away from
>>>>> McCarthyist
>>>>> paranoia toward a genuine confidence in the openness and resilience of
>>>>> America's devotion to civi liberties. It is a fine line he is walking
>>>>>  but
>>>>> he is saying sure, be strong,be prepared, be wary but we have to behave
>>>>> in
>>>>> accord with our values or we lose all that makes America worth
>>>>> defending.
>>>>> For Nixon t was fight fire with fire. For Kennedy it was deprive fire of
>>>>> its
>>>>> fuel; again and again he spoke of that fuel being poverty and injustice
>>>>> and
>>>>> the deprivation of rights.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Communism is gone except an an authoritarian party. But secrecy and lies
>>>>> seem to have found a welcome home.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> What Kennedy was arguing for was the need for more self imposed restraint
>>>> on
>>>> the part of the American press when it came to publishing information
>>>> that
>>>> might be of use to the other side in the Cold War.
>>>> 
>>>> While there was reference in the speech to Soviet secret methods, the
>>>> sense
>>>> of the "secret societies" remark was that although we Americans find
>>>> secret
>>>> societies repugnant, meaning our own secret societies, still there is a
>>>> valid and important need for keeping certain information secret in time
>>>> of
>>>> danger to the country.
>>>> 
>>>> I didn't pick up in the speech that home-grown secret societies were of
>>>> much
>>>> present concern.
>>>> 
>>>> In other words I didn't see the paranoia.
>>>> 
>>>> P
>>>> 
>>>> P
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 17, 2011, at 12:51 AM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> A JFK speech with which I was not familiar. It is ominous. He is
>>>>>> clearly not talking about the "Communist threat", or about "secret
>>>>>> societies", but he seems rather to be talking about a general
>>>>>> insurgence of cabalistic truth-destroyers emerging in all parts of the
>>>>>> globe--people who will use truth to tell lies--and he calls upon the
>>>>>> press to respond with caution to this insidious menace. He actually
>>>>>> sounds afraid, perhaps foreshadowing somewhat Nixon's later paranoia.
>>>>>> I guess TRP would have heard this speech, or heard about it.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://wakeup-world.com/2011/05/20/jfks-speech-on-secret-societies/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> "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
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "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