Post: #1

JFK is arguably one of the most famous and highly rated US Presidents out there, but was he actually that good and capable or is he just a mythical figure due to his assassination? If Nixon didn't sweat so much during the infamous presidential debate, Kennedy might've been a footnote in history!

There have always been rumors that he wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve and CIA, but to which extent is this true?

There are also those who argue that JFK and his family in general were among the last 'honorable' politicians and went into politics for 'the greater good'. The actions of his brother Ted Kennedy indicate otherwise because he promoted the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which led to the demographic downfall of America.

Post: #2

The Kennedy family was anything, but 'honorable'. The Kennedys' fortune was built by the patriarch Joe Kennedy Sr under mob activities such as alcohol smugglering during Prohibition.
Aside from that. President Kennedy was assasinated because he introduced the silver dollar issued by the Department of Treasury killing the monopoly the FED, a private bank, has to issue dollars charging an interest on it.

Post: #3

3 words: Public Sector Unions

Post: #4

Kennedy was probably a middle of the road president. His presidential legacy was of course cut short. His approach to the Cuban missile crisis was probably his most noteworthy presidential accomplishment. As mentioned, his father made most of his money through bootlegging. I've read a few biographies on jfk. Whatever your political affiliations, he seemed like he would be a cool guy to roll with with.

Post: #5

Yes, dying prematurely helped guarantee his mythical status. Charismatic young men with youth, vitality, and immense popularity who die tragically leave a void for many people who left wondering about what might have been. And by having such a massive unknown variable + wild human imagination, you can see how a person gets elevated to mythical status in the event of their untimely demise. We think of what could have been, and we attach that to what they really were.

Post: #6

His death and his youth have definitely contributed to his mythical status. He was only 46 when he died and one of the youngest Presidents America ever had.

And while he wasn't the first President to appear on television, he was the first President whose time was definitely impacted by television. In the 1960 debate, people who listened to it on the radio said that Nixon won. People who watched it on television said that he had won.

Finally, there are the many conspiracy theories and gossip surrounding his life, career, and death. His election in 1960 was highly questionable, especially his "wins" in Illinois and Texas. He reportedly had an affair with Marilyn Monroe, and many believe that she was murdered because of this. And finally there is his own assassination, which has a whole lot of questions surrounding it. There are many reasons for people to keep talking about him.

We've now went went 53 years without a President dying in office. This is the longest period we've had without one dying in office. Here is a list:

William Henry Harrison, 1841
Zachary Taylor, 1850
Abraham Lincoln, 1865
James Abram Garfield, 1881
William McKinley, 1901
Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1923
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1945
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1963

Kennedy's death is also the only Presidential death which is on video tape.

Post: #7

I just finished watching "The Sixties" series on netflix, and I found what they said about Kennedy fascinating because I've never really known that much about him aside from his assassination. I'm a lifelong Republican, but the clips they showed of him speaking were very moving, such as arguing that America will defeat Communism only by being a shining beacon of success and prosperity to the world, and leading by example. He was very young as president, and like Obama in 2008 he had the "cool" factor going for him.

The show portrayed the Bay of Pigs invasion as something he mostly inherited from Eisenhower, although he dramatically scaled it down. Apparently it was originally conceived as a full-scale American invasion of Cuba to overthrow Fidel. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion may have directly led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, as America was caught red-handed conspiring against the government of a sovereign communist nation and Cuba immediately went to the Soviet Union for help to "protect them."

Although the Vietnam War started under Kennedy, America wasn't directly involved in it. We supplied South Vietnam with weapons and supplies, and had a handful of troops over there in an advisory role, but responsibility for what the war became lies entirely with Lyndon Johnson. He was the one who decided that the United States needed to fight that war itself.

Kennedy's assassination was also portrayed as a turning point in history, along the same lines as 9/11. The country's attitude took a much darker and angrier turn after his death. His assassination caused many baby boomers to start disliking and distrusting "the system" and that combined with the anti-war and anti-draft sentiments sweeping the nation because of the Vietnam War that his successor escalated led to the counterculture and hippie movements. Most of the things that the sixties are famous for might not have happened if Kennedy had lived.

At least, that's the way the documentary portrayed it.

Post: #8

(05-20-2016 12:22 AM)ShootTheMoon Wrote:  Kennedy's assassination was also portrayed as a turning point in history, along the same lines as 9/11. The country's attitude took a much darker and angrier turn after his death. His assassination caused many baby boomers to start disliking and distrusting "the system" and that combined with the anti-war and anti-draft sentiments sweeping the nation because of the Vietnam War that his successor escalated led to the counterculture and hippie movements. Most of the things that the sixties are famous for might not have happened if Kennedy had lived.

I actually started to write about the profound affect is assassination had on the mood of the country earlier when I replied, but I decided to keep it short and simple. You can hear it in the music. From 1954-1963 most of the music was light and carefree. What we commonly call "oldies." From 1964 it was much darker and heavier. It lasted until around 1973 when we finally began to seriously get out of Vietnam, which is also around the time disco became popular.

I don't remember much of a change in music after 9/11. There was certainly a change in the psyche of the nation. Again, a great crime had been committed against the people. The government said "we'll fix this." And rather than fix it, they used it to pursue their own agendas. I remember the profound sadness I felt on 9/11. I wasn't sad for the people who died because I didn't know them. I was sad because I knew the world had changed, and it changed for the bad. I knew the country would embark down a dark path and that in very short order, the carefree life we all knew before 9/11 would be a distant memory. By the time they finally caught Bin Laden most of us didn't even care all that much. The psychological damage had been done by that point. But even after catching and killing the guy, our first female president fucked us over again and denied us what was due. They wouldn't show us pictures of his dead body.

The change we saw in the media after 9/11 was on regular tv programming. It seemed like every show on tv was about some government agency swinging its dick. CSI, NCIS, etc. I can't remember how many times in '02/'03 I heard the "good guys" on those shows threaten the bad guys with a charge of terrorism and a trip to Cuba. When Hurricane Katrina happened in '05 and the SHTF in '08, there was no panic in the streets because everyone was so mentally drained at that point, zero fucks were given.

Post: #9

Kennedy is vastly overrated, primarily because of his assassination. Granted, he did well during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he had a part in escalating. Other than that, not so much.

See; Bay of Pigs

Obama would become a hero is he was gunned down. It's just how the majority of people's thought processes work.

Post: #10

Kennedy was an alright president, but as others have said he is viewed through very rosy glasses because he was assassinated. In my opinion one of the worst parts of his legacy, and it's not his fault, was the subsequent veneration of the Kennedy family as some kind of sainted royalty. RFK's assassination was part of that as well, but to a lesser degree.

The family is not admirable. As mentioned, they gained their wealth through criminal enterprise, and Joe Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer. As a cranky independent minded American I think the very idea of royalty is ridiculous, and the consensus selection of the Kennedy family as the American "royalty" pisses me right the fuck off.

The worst part is, the Kennedy worship is why Ted Kennedy--a man who got away with negligent homicide--ended up as one of the longest serving senators in US history. Utterly shameful.

Again, I don't blame JFK for any of this. I wish he had lived. I think he would've been a decent president, but not a standout we would be talking about today.

Post: #11

When you look back at the Kennedy family, it was amazing how much influence Joe Kennedy had with the national media, especially the New York Times. Many stories were suppressed that could have made the Kennedy family look bad. He also made sure that some of the stories that did get published portrayed him and his sons in a positive light. They also exerted a lot of influence with the Boston media as well. They were very conscious of how to work the PR angle back then.

Post: #12

Kennedy's best contribution was arguably cultural. He provided a model of youth and virility (even though this was not true and he was very sickly) which young men could aspire to in ways that arguably no other president except for perhaps Reagan has since (Reagan was old, but had a great masculine persona).

Kennedy was the last leader who we can perhaps say was visually inspiring and called upon people to do something more, especially men. He did this with his speeches to, notably about going to the moon and asking what you could do for your country instead of what it could do for you.

The presidents since him, once again with the possible exception of Reagan, were all thoroughly uninspiring. I have a model of leadership where I elaborate on elsewhere that I call the "Thutmose test," which is modeled on the Egyptian King Thutmose III (our Thutmosis' namesake ). Thutmose, during his Megiddo campaign in 1457 B.C., had the option of taking a few roads to the target city, he took the most dangerous, but he marched with his men through that dangerous road on foot personally rather than waiting for the all-clear. That is inspiring leadership.

Kennedy, even though he may not have done the same, at least made you think that he would. Again, only Reagan since him has conveyed that same feeling. 2008's Barack Obama might have conveyed the feeling to some, but he was always a bit too...academic, shall we say, to really hit the right tone.

It was arguably this lack of inspiration in the intervening decades that was a cause of the cultural decay, with once again an arguably brief interruption in the 80's.

This is why Trump's election could prove so important. Trump makes you think he'd pass the "Thutmose Test." As we've seen recently, with "MYGA," he inspires the public.

Kennedy's cultural contribution with his can-do vision may indeed be seen again soon.

Post: #13

(05-20-2016 06:43 AM)weambulance Wrote:  The family is not admirable. As mentioned, they gained their wealth through criminal enterprise, and Joe Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer. As a cranky independent minded American I think the very idea of royalty is ridiculous, and the consensus selection of the Kennedy family as the American "royalty" pisses me right the fuck off.

That's the work of Jackie Onassis. She was the one who first termed her marriage to JFK 'Camelot' in the wake of his death, a phrase that stuck.



Not bad for 1963.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #14