If John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated

[DoYouEverWonder]

and lived to serve out two terms has President, how would the world be different today?

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Secretary General Kennedy ,would have got a handle on organized crime,we

would of been out of Viet Nam by 65 ,Covert Government would have been abolished forever ,and the press would of remained a watchdog for the people.http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/diglibrary/prezspeeches/kennedy/jfk_1961_0427.html

[elocs]

2. There is no way of knowing. You can only guess.

The trouble with all of these "what if" situations or "if I could only go back ____ amount of time" is that we always assume that thing would be better and all the changes would be good. For myself I have come to the conclusion that if I could go back and relive time I would maybe not make the same mistakes, but new and maybe worse mistakes. As Democrats we tend to think that all of our actions are good and wise and noble. Yes, JFK may have done great things had he lived, but he might also have been responsible for great blunders. Rose colored glasses may be fine for feeling good, they're just not right for viewing reality.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. I just asked how it would be different

that does not mean one has to assume it would be better.

[orpupilofnature57]

7. It would be unequivocally

[elocs]

14. I just answered that I don't know and that there is no way of knowing

either good or bad. The speculation can be endless and unprovable. We know what happened after JFK died because it is history, but the "what ifs" can go on forever. Let's face it. Most all of this speculation is going to be about the wonderful and marvelous things that would have happened if JFK had not been assassinated.

[GOPBasher]

3. More peace; less hate. By the way,

you're screenname leads right into the subject line of your post. It can be one sentence. :-)

[Paranoid Pessimist]

24. Bosh! Kennedy was an avowed anti-commie cold warrior

who sent the first "advisers" to Vietnam.

[Bucky]

27. True. But you look at how he handled Cuba and it's hard to think he'd manage Vietnam like LBJ did

Kennedy was an astute politician and his handling of issue after issue (civil rights, poverty, crime, arms control, DeGaulle's orneriness) shows he was flexible, results oriented, and nondogmatic--three things that Lyndon Johnson was not. I imagine he'd have moved to negotiations with Vietnam long long before the Johnson would have.

He was starting to see the futility of his Vietnam policy. He might have moved to a Nixon style "Vietnamification" policy half a decade sooner than we did and have eaten a lot of right wing shit for dealing directly with Hanoi, but in the end that was the only way to slow down the violence. He probably would have waited until after the '64 election to anything dramatic in Vietnam. The Tonkin Gulf resolution would have been handled a lot differently. Propping up the Saigon regime was never going to work and Kennedys never did what wasn't going to work.

We can't know all the possible solutions he would have considered and then pursued or rejected, but you can bet it would have been creative, flexible, and realistic.

[bigriver]

4. We'd still be arguing over the Civil Rights Act.

[pooja]

6. I believe he would have thrown out the Federal Reserve banking

system. He knew it was wrong and crooked. It has not place in America. It has made slaves of us all. We would all be wealthier in different ways.

[dmosh42]

8. I remember him having trouble getting anything passed in congress

-While he was alive as president, the only actual legislation of any consequence, was his Peace corps bill.(that I recall) He didn't have much connection with congress, and was having a difficult time with them. He did manage to expand our troop levels into Vietnam, which gave a big gift to the military industry, after his predecessor, Eisenhower, only allowed 'advisors' to be sent previously. His brother seemed to be obsessed with getting Jimmy Hoffa and Castro. After his assassination, Lyndon Johnson, who was a former majority leader in the senate, managed all his legislation through congress under the name 'Great Society'. But Kennedy did have great rapport with the media, so that alone was enough to give him a big place in history.

[INdemo]

10. Kennedy had several accomplishments

The successful end of the Cuban missile crisis
He gained adequate funding for the Space program
The test ban treaty
The introduction of the Medicare bill which eventually passed under Johnson
And yes the Peace Corps

The book "Kennedy,The Unfinished Life" by Robert Dallek is an excellent book about Kennedy's life and political career. Details about Vietnam, accomplishments and failures of his shortened Presidency

Excellent Reading

[Golden Raisin]

9. To paraphrase Bette Davis

in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane': "But he WAS assassinated, Blanche. He was!"

We'll never know, and it turned out Camelot wasn't exactly what we all thought it was at the time. Frankly, I'm more concerned with ousting or at least limiting the horrendous damage inflicted by the current junta.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. It never hurts to spend some time imagining

the way things might have been.

Kennedy presented a very positive vision of the future. He looked at people and saw the best in them, rather then the worst, like Dimson does.

Half the battle for any leader, or person for that matter, to be successful is attitude. Kennedy had a bright vision for the future and there wasn't anything the US couldn't do. Now all we hear about is what we can't do.

Maybe I'm a silly fool, but what's wrong with wanting to go back to Camelot?

[Selteri]

18. With Kennedy his actions were not that atypical for his time.

I suspect we might not have gone into Vietnam had Kennedy not been assasinated. It is quite likely that the wave of conservativism would still have swept the country though, that is a cyclical group that moves from party to party, seeking the power, Neo-Libs will be around in time and we must be wary of them as we have needed to be wary of the neo-cons.

With the revelations of what Bush has done behind closed doors I suspct it will make people weep, angry and ashamed.

[orpupilofnature57]

31. He was the last resistance to covert corprocrats.

[matt819]

12. Too much time on your hands?

Reminds me of an SNL skit from decades ago, "If Eleanor Roosevelt Could Fly." The what if question is fundamentally pointless. It - whatever it is - is what it is. If there's something out there you have the power and desire to change, go and do it. Vote. Lobby. Demonstrate. Cajole. Pray, if that's what you're inclined to do. But skip the what if questions. They're a waste of time in politics and in personal matters.

[InvisibleTouch]

15. No, it isn't pointless.

If we can't imagine "what might have been," then we have no vision to work towards. I think speculation like this is great, myself, even if it's bittersweet - because once we get over the disappointment of how good things could have been, we can start working toward how good they could yet be. Visualizing a positive future is one of the most powerful first steps in making it happen, and "what if" questions are great to get the process going.

[matt819]

25. Again, I can't help but disagree

It doesn't matter what could have been. If you have a vision for the way things should be, then work to achieve that vision. If JFK had lived, your vision for the future might have been, and today might be, different from what it is. But your vision for the future would be what it is, and you would work toward that. This is not to say that we cannot all learn from history. We must. But we use that knowledge, as well as our own individual and/or collective vision of how things should be in the context of the way things are, in order to achieve that goal. If the present condition was different, your vision might or might not be altered, but how you achieve your goal depends on the way things are. Wishing that things would be different is a waste of time.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. Well John Lennon said it better then I can

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one



Sorry if you're world is so small that there isn't any room for dreamers.

[Mugsy]

13. No Prez LBJ. No Nixon. No Moon landing.

Well, first off, Kennedy was already concerned over rising violence in Vietnam and likely would have started winding down troop levels (RFK was put in the awkward position of having to condemn his late brother for involving us in the first place.)

No Kennedy Assassination means no LBJ Presidency. This includes escalation of the war, but it also also means no "Great Society". "Civil Rights" legislation might have been harder to push through as the turbulence over the JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations helped amplify the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement that pushed the country into passing legislation.

The space race against the Russians might have been lost, with the Russians landing a man on the moon first. It was of great importance to everyone that we "land a man on the moon by the end of the decade" in memory of the late President Kennedy's challenge. The space program... if it had continued at all (remember it was a huge expense while we were also fighting a war)... would have slowed due to a lack of that "end of decade" urgency, and Russia was only a few months behind us in that regard. The "space race" was essentially over after the moon landing, and Russia pursued no attempt to be #2. Had Russia of gotten there first, we would likely have discontinued our own moon landing ambitions.

Had JFK of withdrawn from Vietnam and served two terms, it is unlikely the GOP would have run Nixon again... the man JFK defeated in 1960. And no Nixon Presidency in '68 would have meant no "Watergate" break-in in 1972 or resignation in '74.

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Your response

is probably the one closet to reality.

However, in regards to civil rights and even some of the Great Society changes, these things would have happened anyway. Bobby Kennedy was no slouch either when it came to civil rights issues.

[rman]

22. "Civil Rights" legislation might have been easier to push through,

since the most prominent proponents of civil rights (JFK, MLK and RFK) would have lived their lives doing what they were doing: pushing for civil rights.

No moon landing? It was pretty much JFK's idea, why would he not have gone through with it?

[Melynn]

19. The world be a lot better off today if Kennedy would have lived

I don't think that Vietnam would have escalated. Kennedy was on record as saying that the South Vietnamese had to fight their own war and the U.S. couldn't do it for them. I think that Kennedy would have supported South Vietnam but I don't think that he would have kept increasing American troop levels when it became apparent that the government of South Vietnam was incapable of fighting off the communist insurgents.

Without the Vietnam war, America society in the sixties would have been much different for the better.

But we will never know what would have been. I think that it was inevitable that Kennedy was going to assassinated. He had too many powerful enemies.

[DemonFighterLives]

20. We could have been spared a lot ot shenanigans

though Kennedy may have had some of his own to replace them.
The bush lies from October Surprise to Iran/Contra, war(s) in Iraq and just general cover up and confusion. The Warren commission, 911 commmission. The rise of the Neocons and the crime family. Nixon was bad enough and Reagan ran the country into a hole, but the BFEE has had a free run on our treasury for 40 years.
:argh:
:dem:

[rman]

21. It would mean

that our governments have not been hijacked by criminal big money interests.

What a different world it would be.

There'd be far less poverty, war and oppression. We'd be in the process of creating paradise on earth.

[leftofthedial]

23. impossible to say, but I'd like to think

that the criminal cabal that seized control of the national intelligence/security apparatus, then the "conservative" movement, then the repuke party, then the media, then the entire country would have been thwarted for at least a little while longer.

The idiot Amurkan masses would not have become Reagan Democrats.

Similar issues if MLK and RFK hadn't been eliminated.

[Odin2005]

26. IMO the only main difference would be less involvement in Vietnam.

There would still have been an era of protests and counterculture, but it would have been more concerned about domestic things then foriegn policy.

[omega minimo]

28. No Dead Kennedys

[uppityperson]

29. Ever watch Red Dwarf episode where they travel back to this time?

Season III, Timeslides perhaps? First they bump Oswald out the window, then travel forward to a greatly changed USA, negatively changed with JFK being arrested for fraudish something and nukes happening, environment bad, etc. They have to hop back and forth through time to fix everything, with the ending being giving JFK the choice, go down into history being disgraced for all the bad that happened, or being the man on the knoll and shooting himself.

[DoYouEverWonder]

30. You just reminded me of one of my favorite Steve Earle songs

Conspiracy Theory
(Steve Earle)

What if I told you it was done with mirrors
What if I showed you it was all a lie
Better be careful, someone might hear ya
The walls have ears and the sky has eyes
What if I said you were only dreamin'
What you wanna bet that all you gotta do
Is open up your eyes and you will wake up screamin'
When you realize that it's all come true

chorus
Hush, now don't you believe it
Cover your head and close your eyes
Now, take it or leave it
Go back to bed
Now don't you cry

Half a million soldiers fly across the water
One in ten are never comin' back again
Fifty thousand sons who never grew to fathers
Don't you ever wonder who they might have been
What if you could've been there on that day in Dallas
What if you could wrestle back the hands of time
Maybe somethin' could've been done in Memphis
We wouldn't be livin' in a dream that's died

chorus

Go on and tell yourself again there are no secrets
Go on and tell yourself that you don't want to know
It's best that you believe that you don't hear the footsteps
That follow you around no matter where you go
Maybe you were thinkin' that it didn't matter
Maybe you believed nobody else would care
But once you've added every little lie together
You finally find the truth was always waiting there

[Clinton Crusader]

32. Maybe my cousin wouldn't have been killed in Nam...n/t