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In reply to the discussion: Since November 22, 1963... [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)110. It really has been every warmongers' dream come true ever since.
JFK Conference: James DiEugenio made clear how Foreign Policy changed after November 22, 1963
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend the 2013 Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy at Duquesne University. One of the many important things discussed there was what author, historian and teacher, James DiEugenio reported on the important change in foreign policy JFK represented from his predecessor and his successors, immediate and otherwise.

DiEugenio said President John F. Kennedy did not undergo a change of heart from Cold War hawk to liberal dove Democrat only after the hair-raising nuclear crises he experienced in office. "John F. Kennedy was never a Cold Warrior," DiEugenio said. Throughout his 16-year career in the House and Senate, President Kennedy sided with the People, Justice and Democracy -- across the United States and around the world. This is a world view radically different from Eisenhower, and his foreign policy makers, principally the Dulles Brothers and their allies, including young Dick Nixon.
The JFK Administration may have represented a break in the action, H20 Man's Father explained to him and I agree. It was a special interlude, indeed. In only 1,037 days, we launched the nation toward the moon, creating a new type of economy; maintained the peace when several times the heads of the military and the secret organs of the national security state counseled all-out war; and started the nation on a path where all men are equal under the law, no matter race, color, or creed, and justice extended to economics and health, as under FDR and the New Deal.
DiEugenios research shows President Kennedy was working to defend the interests of democracy over those of colonialism, not only in Europe, as evinced in divided Berlin, but in Africa, Asia, South America and around the world. During less than three years in office, Kennedy turned official U.S. support from that of Eisenhower and the Dulles Brothers for supporting US commercial and colonial interests over democracy, such as in Guatemala and Iran, to respect for the nations and their democratically elected leaders, like Lumumba and Sukarno. In matters of war and peace, JFK always sided with peace, making overtures to North Vietnam. The Dulles Brothers and Nixon sided with France and the colonial powers, even drawing up plans to nuke the North Vietnamese Army at Dien Bien Phu, Operation VULTURE.
The record shows JFK's Foreign Policy of democracy over colonialism was immediately reversed by Lyndon B. Johnson, who reversed course in Vietnam and supported the pro-colonialist forces in Congo, Vietnam, Brazil, Dominican Republic and elsewhere around the world. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and most who followed continued the Business-As-Usual, advancing the interests of Big Money, Big Oil and Big Wars for Profit.
One of the things I am most proud of is how Democratic Underground covered many of these salient points on its boards, from DU1 through the present day. At the Duquesne conference, I was listening and nodding, knowing that many times we had discussed this on DU. In looking back to one particularly important post through GOOGLE, I found we sourced this information back to DiEugenio. That's what the Internet can do: Spread Truth.
Why it matters.
Democracy depends on Truth. The Republic depends on Justice. That is, the reality that ours is a nation under law.
Once a criminal is, or criminals are, allowed to go free, Justice has been denied. We find ourselves operating under a falsehood, we are living a Big Lie.
We as a Nation have been on the criminal path since November 22, 1963.
DUers know you dont need to read a history book or watch a tee vee special to know: It shows. Since 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin, its been a series of wars without end for profit. And in the process, the rich became super-rich -- the richest and most powerful people in history.
Keep spreading the Truth, nikto! The next 51 years can be different -- they can be decades of peace and prosperity for ALL: They can be Democratic.
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend the 2013 Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy at Duquesne University. One of the many important things discussed there was what author, historian and teacher, James DiEugenio reported on the important change in foreign policy JFK represented from his predecessor and his successors, immediate and otherwise.

DiEugenio said President John F. Kennedy did not undergo a change of heart from Cold War hawk to liberal dove Democrat only after the hair-raising nuclear crises he experienced in office. "John F. Kennedy was never a Cold Warrior," DiEugenio said. Throughout his 16-year career in the House and Senate, President Kennedy sided with the People, Justice and Democracy -- across the United States and around the world. This is a world view radically different from Eisenhower, and his foreign policy makers, principally the Dulles Brothers and their allies, including young Dick Nixon.
The JFK Administration may have represented a break in the action, H20 Man's Father explained to him and I agree. It was a special interlude, indeed. In only 1,037 days, we launched the nation toward the moon, creating a new type of economy; maintained the peace when several times the heads of the military and the secret organs of the national security state counseled all-out war; and started the nation on a path where all men are equal under the law, no matter race, color, or creed, and justice extended to economics and health, as under FDR and the New Deal.
DiEugenios research shows President Kennedy was working to defend the interests of democracy over those of colonialism, not only in Europe, as evinced in divided Berlin, but in Africa, Asia, South America and around the world. During less than three years in office, Kennedy turned official U.S. support from that of Eisenhower and the Dulles Brothers for supporting US commercial and colonial interests over democracy, such as in Guatemala and Iran, to respect for the nations and their democratically elected leaders, like Lumumba and Sukarno. In matters of war and peace, JFK always sided with peace, making overtures to North Vietnam. The Dulles Brothers and Nixon sided with France and the colonial powers, even drawing up plans to nuke the North Vietnamese Army at Dien Bien Phu, Operation VULTURE.
The record shows JFK's Foreign Policy of democracy over colonialism was immediately reversed by Lyndon B. Johnson, who reversed course in Vietnam and supported the pro-colonialist forces in Congo, Vietnam, Brazil, Dominican Republic and elsewhere around the world. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and most who followed continued the Business-As-Usual, advancing the interests of Big Money, Big Oil and Big Wars for Profit.
One of the things I am most proud of is how Democratic Underground covered many of these salient points on its boards, from DU1 through the present day. At the Duquesne conference, I was listening and nodding, knowing that many times we had discussed this on DU. In looking back to one particularly important post through GOOGLE, I found we sourced this information back to DiEugenio. That's what the Internet can do: Spread Truth.
Why it matters.
Democracy depends on Truth. The Republic depends on Justice. That is, the reality that ours is a nation under law.
Once a criminal is, or criminals are, allowed to go free, Justice has been denied. We find ourselves operating under a falsehood, we are living a Big Lie.
We as a Nation have been on the criminal path since November 22, 1963.
DUers know you dont need to read a history book or watch a tee vee special to know: It shows. Since 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin, its been a series of wars without end for profit. And in the process, the rich became super-rich -- the richest and most powerful people in history.
Keep spreading the Truth, nikto! The next 51 years can be different -- they can be decades of peace and prosperity for ALL: They can be Democratic.
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'We have more will than wallet.' -- George Herbert Walker Bush, inaugural address
Octafish
Nov 2014
#116
I live in Sam Rayburn country and I am perplexed...to say the least...that it is very conservative
Horse with no Name
Nov 2014
#12
Well now, that's one way of interpreting McLean's magnum opus. But one could say that
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#42
America was touched by the lowest demons in our nature, setting us on a different course.
Octafish
Nov 2014
#62
...this country has seen the corruption of our liberties by the MIC become the norm.
robertpaulsen
Nov 2014
#6
...and Cuba. Ike was president when Dulles hired the Mafia to kill Castro -- 1960.
Octafish
Nov 2014
#93
It is remarkable, the moments when it strikes. For me, HBO's ''Nixon by Nixon''...
Octafish
Nov 2014
#67
Since we are discussing people who need clues, perhaps you should spend a few moments
jtuck004
Nov 2014
#25
WHy don't you look up "hungry", which is what the children of the people who have been put and left
jtuck004
Nov 2014
#31
Hey, my friend, please do not confuse 'nostalgia' with 'reactionary.' I can assure you that
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#46
Maybe just maybe we learn from the past that life does not have to suck like it does today. That
jwirr
Nov 2014
#80
WTF? Historians round the world are shaking their fists at you! :) - nt
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#43
It's even more distressing to see 'progressives' forget what their party is supposed to be about.
sabrina 1
Nov 2014
#77
I was three. I still remember how upset I was. My mother had the old B & W tv on, I was watching
Dont call me Shirley
Nov 2014
#18
I don't want to piss in people's nostalgia Cheerios unduly, but JFK and RFK continued to
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#45
JFK's assassination heralded the start of a string of murders of our best and brightest....
Hekate
Nov 2014
#50
Those weren't really great times for minorities and I really don't see it as
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#34
No I've read Dallek's book and seen all the documentaries but I'm not impressed by JFK.
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#63
Probably it would help understanding if you had actually been there. The Cold War was not one-sided
Hekate
Nov 2014
#72
Maybe you're right but it all comes back to ideology with JFK for me or rather his lack of one.
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#79
Once JFK allowed the Vietnamese military to kill Ngo and his brother we owned Vietnam.
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#107
Except JFK did not order assassination, despite what E Howard Hunt and CIA want us to believe.
Octafish
Nov 2014
#108
Jon Stewart said O'Reilly seemed ALMOST a Kennedy Democrat in comparison to RW extremists
pinboy3niner
Nov 2014
#56
In other words, a humorous exaggeration by a satirist for comic effect. Makes more sense that way.
Hekate
Nov 2014
#57
Sure was. Hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. describe what JFK did during the 1960 campaign...
Octafish
Nov 2014
#104
For a time capsule of the transition from the idealism of the late 1950s to
GreatGazoo
Nov 2014
#106