There Should be More Presidents Like Kennedy: Dead. posted by Richard Seymour

Kennedy was a piece of shit, and anything you say about the man that doesn't partially reflect this central truth is likely to be a lie. The legacy of the Kennedy administration is one of the most astonishing cover-ups in history, much more disturbing than the circumstances surrounding the man's death...

Let's take a cursory look at the record:

Some of Kennedy's best fucks were doves
American power, Cold War counterinsurgency and CIA assassinations are the hallmarks of that corrupt and reactionary administration. It was Kennedy who, when not extemporising with some glamorous literary and artistic friends - nay, admirers - escalated attempts at restoring the old pro-US dictatorship in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and Operation Mongoose. Overthrowing Castro was "the top priority of the United States Government, all else is secondary, no time, money, effort or manpower is to be spared". ( Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy, His Life (Simon & Schuster, 2000) p. 149). Operation Mongoose involved several attacks on the Cuban land mass, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on top flight equipment, weaponry etc., all because Castro nationalised some American interests and gave the impression that he didn't take orders well. At the same time, there were several bizarre attempts on Castro's life - in a particularly Wile E. Coyote moment, they tried to smuggle in some cigars that would cause Castro's beard to fall off. It was the Kennedy administration which began the tradition of imposing economic sanctions on Cuba, encouraging its hemispheric allies to blockade Cuba.

The Cuban missile crisis was largely the manufacture of the Kennedy administration. The USSR had 20 ICBMs versus "180 American ICBMs, 12 Polaris submarines (each carrying 12 nuclear missiles) and 630 strategic bombers stationed in the US, Europe and Asia. Kennedy had announced that the US would, by 1964, triple its ICBMs" . The Kennedy administration deliberately escalated the growing confrontation over the division of Berlin, knowing the horrendous consequences: "We have the prospect, if the Soviet Union, as a reprisal, should grab Berlin in the morning, which they could do within a couple of hours. Our war plan at that point has been to fire our nuclear weapons at them. But these are all the matters which we have to think about." As Kennedy also acknowledged: "The object is not to stop offensive weapons, because the offensive weapons are already there, as much as it is to have a showdown with the Russians of one kind or another."


Kennedy started the bloodiest, most contemptible war America has ever engaged in. No, it wasn't just Nixon and that lousy Southern Democrat LBJ. The administration was elected with an enormous mess brewing for the US in Indochina. In Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and elsewhere, the popular opposition to US client dictatorships was becoming overwhelming. Kennedy chose to accept a settlement with Laos (temporarily), but escalated in Vietnam 'where he ordered the deployment of Air Force and Helicopter Units, along with napalm, defoliation, and crop destruction. US military personnel were sharply increased and deployed at battalion level, where they were "beginning to participate more directly in advising Vietnamese unit commanders in the planning and execution of military operations plans"' . The mission looked so successful initially that they thought they might be able to pull out having secured full victory in no time at all. The Joint Chiefs of Staff all concurred: the VC should be "eliminated as a significant force" about a year after the Vietnamese forces then being trained and equipped "became fully operational."

He's a good man, he don't mean no harm...
I know, I know. Kennedy was a dove who was going to pull all those boys out of Vietnam, just to save America from its homocidal and suicidally dangerous course. The plans for withdrawal were his way of avoiding what was going to be a devastating cataclysm of bloodshed across the whole of Indochina. Yes, even though he insisted that Diem get the boys together and focus on winning this thing, even though he authorised a drastic escalation of the war on the recommendations of Robert MacNamara, even though he specifically regarded the lack of public enthusiasm for the war as a problem. He was a good guy, trying to work things out, and he got shot for the privilege.

True, he bugged his own Oval Office, had Mafia connections, stole the election and pissed on black voters while later trying to claim credit for the Civil Rights marches which were a response to his inaction - what can one say? "Bad man, good president." Despite all of these known and contemptible crimes, "Kennedy called us to something larger than ourselves", apparently because he was good looking and said things like "ask not what your country can do for you" which was such a contrast to the fusty politico-speak of Fifties politicians. Oh, and also because he risked nuclear war: "From the failure of the Bay of Pigs came the triumph of the Cuban missile crisis. There was a cyclical pattern to such things. He kept getting better. And so did we, because of what he showed us about ourselves." Thanks to JFK, 'we' were able to smack the world around more effectively, because he "called us to something larger in ourselves". "Kennedy’s truest legacy" was to have given America a "period of peace" , regardless of whether he was planning to take American troops out of the war that he'd started.


How well do Democrats fuck ass? Ask the American Left!
Let's take an exercise in advanced pattern recognition. Four slimy, corrupt, reactionary Presidents with a record of military aggression overseas, criminal neglect of the poor at home, extensive use of the most oppressive state powers, and crimes of the sort that would land any other American in jail. Two of them are Republicans, and two Democrats - (Nixon & Bush jnr, and Kennedy & Clinton respectively). Which two do your average American radical leftists still insist on harbouring some affection for, despite knowing the shit they pulled? Clue - it's not Nixon and Bush. Yes, yes, yes. Bill Clinton is "Bubba", and if Al Gore had been allowed that election victory, things would be sooooo different. JFK gave us a "period of peace", was just about to pull out of Vietnam, and was murdered because he wasn't anti-Cuban enough. Well, it's the abused wife scenario again - "he's a good man, you just don't know him like I do! I can change him!"
Of course you can. All you need is to change yourself enough, and he'll love you. Right, beeyatch?