President John F. Kennedy's Definition of a Liberal.

[Liability]

poor lie-ability, still hard for Dante?


tsk, tsk, tsk, a closeted gay troll scorned.

Dainty fevah! Dainty is the only one who ever "got it."

It's probably just syphilis, Dainty. See a doctor, ya quiff.

 

[Bfgrn]

Gaither Committee, that is were the Missile Gap theory or analysis came from, under Eisenhower.

So what is your perception on Kennedy's position fighting Communism.

As far as pulling troops out of Vietnam, I went through that in this thread, Kennedy did not issue an order withdrawing troops.

The White House or Department of Defense most certainly had a plan of action to withdraw troops, just as the Pentagon has a battle plan for war against just about every country in the world, having a plan and taking action are two very different things.

Of course Kennedy discussed troop withdrawal, just as Kennedy had a plan to send more troops, all conditional on the security of South Vietnam. All dependent on defeat of Communism.

Whatever is stated about Kennedy's supposed troop withdrawal, Kennedy increased military personal from around a 1000-10000 and specifically stated soldiers may be sent. Kennedy did send the Green Berets, around 500. Hell, it was during Kennedy's time that Robin Moore went to Vietnam and thus wrote the book "The Green Beret". The Green Beret became the basis for the John Wayne movie of the same name.

H-Net Reviews

Joseph G. Morgan. The Vietnam Lobby: The American Friends of Vietnam, 1955-1975. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. xviii + 229 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-2322-4

The AFV initially included anti-Communists from across the American political spectrum, not just conservatives but liberals like Senators John F. Kennedy and Mike Mansfield, and even Norman Thomas, head of the American Socialist Party. Joseph Buttinger, an Austrian immigrant who still held some of the socialist views of his youth, and who went to South Vietnam in 1954 to aid refugees from North Vietnam, had more than anyone else been the founder of the organization. By the mid to late 1960s the socialists and liberals had mostly dropped out, and the AFV shifted to the Right.

National Security Memorandum No. 263, 11 October 1963

Source: The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2, pp. 769-770

October 11, 1963

NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263

TO: Secretary of State
Secretary of Defense
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

SUBJECT: South Vietnam

At a meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their
mission to South Vietnam.

The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1-3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

After discussion of the remaining recommendations of the report, the President approved an instruction to Ambassador Lodge which is set forth in State Department telegram No. 534 to Saigon.

McGeorge Bundy

Copy furnished:
Director of Central Intelligence
Administrator, Agency for International Development


Essay on NSAM's #263 and #273

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kennedy's position fighting Communism...

Today's hawks like to claim J.F.K. as one of their heroes by pointing to his steep increase in defense spending and to defiant speeches like his June 1963 denunciation of communist tyranny in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. It is certainly true that Kennedy brought a new vigor to the global duel with the Soviet Union and its client governments. But it is also clear that Kennedy preferred to compete ideologically and economically with the communist system than engage with the enemy militarily. He was supremely confident that the advantages of the capitalist system would ultimately prevail, as long as a nuclear catastrophe could be avoided. In the final months of his Administration, J.F.K. even opened a secret peace channel to Castro, led by U.N. diplomat William Attwood. "He would have recognized Cuba," Milt Ebbins, a Hollywood crony of J.F.K.'s, says today. "He told me that if we recognize Cuba, they'll buy our refrigerators and toasters, and they'll end up kicking Castro out."

Kennedy often said he wanted his epitaph to be "He kept the peace." Even Khrushchev and Castro, Kennedy's toughest foreign adversaries, came to appreciate J.F.K.'s commitment to that goal. The roly-poly Soviet leader, clowning and growling, had thrown the young President off his game when they met at the Vienna summit in 1961. But after weathering storms like the Cuban missile crisis, the two leaders had settled into a mutually respectful quest for détente. When Khrushchev got the news from Dallas in November 1963, he broke down and sobbed in the Kremlin, unable to perform his duties for days. Despite his youth, Kennedy was a "real statesman," Khrushchev later wrote in his memoir, after he was pushed from power less than a year following J.F.K.'s death. If Kennedy had lived, he wrote, the two men could have brought peace to the world.

Castro too had come to see J.F.K. as an agent of change, despite their long and bitter jousting, declaring that Kennedy had the potential to become "the greatest President" in U.S. history. Tellingly, the Cuban leader never blamed the Kennedys for the numerous assassination attempts on him. Years later, when Bobby Kennedy's widow Ethel made a trip to Havana, she assured Castro that "Jack and Bobby had nothing to do with the plots to kill you." The tall, graying leader—who had survived so long in part because of his network of informers in the U.S.—looked down at her and said, "I know."

J.F.K. was slow to define his global vision, but under withering attacks from an increasingly energized right, he finally began to do so toward the end of his first year in office. Taking to the road in the fall of 1961, he told the American people why his efforts to extricate the world from the cold war's death grip made more sense than the right's militaristic solutions. On Nov. 16, Kennedy delivered a landmark speech at the University of Washington campus in Seattle. There was nothing "soft," he declared that day, about averting nuclear war—America showed its true strength by refraining from military force until all other avenues were exhausted. And then Kennedy made a remarkable acknowledgment about the limits of U.S. power—one that seemed to reject his Inaugural commitment to "oppose any foe" in the world. "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we are only 6% of the world's population, that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94% of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

Sorensen—the young progressive raised in a pacifist, Unitarian household who helped write the speech—calls it today "one of Kennedy's great speeches on foreign policy." If J.F.K. had lived, he adds, "there is no doubt in my mind [that] we would have laid the groundwork for détente. The cold war would have ended much sooner than it did."

Kennedy reached another visionary pinnacle on June 10, 1963, when—eager to break the diplomatic deadlock with the Soviet Union—he gave wing to the most poetic foreign policy speech of his life, a speech that would go down in history as the "Peace Speech." In this stirring address, J.F.K. would do something that no other President during the cold war—and no American leader today—would dare. He attempted to humanize our enemy. No matter how "profoundly repugnant" we might find our foes' ideology or system of government, he told the American public, they are still—like us—human beings. And then Kennedy launched into a passage of such sweeping eloquence and empathy for the Russian people—the enemy that a generation of Americans had been taught to fear and despise—that it still has the power to inspire. "We all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." The following month, the U.S. and the Soviet Union reached agreement on the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the first significant restraint put on the superpowers' doomsday arms race.

The speech that Kennedy was scheduled to deliver in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, was to strike a similar peace chord. It was a courageous address to give in the Texas city, a seething hotbed of anti-Kennedy passions. Dallas had voted for Nixon in 1960 by the widest margin of any major city. It was the base of far-right agitators like General Edwin Walker, who after being forced into retirement by the Kennedy Administration, had launched a national crusade against J.F.K.'s "defeatist" foreign policy and "socialistic" domestic agenda. The day of the President's Dallas motorcade, angry street posters and an ad in the Dallas Morning News accused J.F.K. of treason. But Kennedy was undeterred. This is what he planned to tell his audience at the Dallas Trade Mart that afternoon: The most effective way to demonstrate America's strength was not to threaten its enemies. It was to live up to the country's democratic ideals and "practice what it preaches about equal rights and social justice."


Read more: The Lessons of J.F.K. - Warrior for Peace - TIME

 

[mdn2000]

Bfgrn, I addressed National Security Action Memorandum 263, I posted a link to the complete document.

From this thread;

"In October 1963 he signed National Security Action Memorandum 263 calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 U. S. military troops from Vietnam by the end of the year and a total withdrawal by the end of 1965.[iii]

"All this he did while secretly engaging in negotiations with Khrushchev via the KGB , Norman Cousins, and Pope John XXIII , and with Castro through various intermediaries, one of whom was French Journalist Jean Daniel.

"In an interview with Daniel on October 24, 1963 Kennedy said, 'I approved the proclamation Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we will have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.'

"Such sentiments were anathema, shall we say treasonous, to the CIA and top generals."

JFK and the Unspeakable...

Chomsky students do not do their homework, Memorandum 263 did not call for the withdrawal of troops. Troops will stay, only advisors training the Vietnamese would be withdrawn once they were capable of continuing the war on their own.

Vietnam War: The Documents - 14

2. The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963.

So Georgy/Chomsky paraphrase Memo 263, no link when as we know Georgy/chomsky loves links. If you quote something you should link to it. Especially if you never read it.

Reading Memo 263 item 2 makes it clear one must read another statement to no what the policy is. Politics within the White House most likely move faster than these threads. What was the policy of Kennedy a minute before the bullet entered his brain, who knows.

U.S. Policy Statement on Vietnam, 1963

Secretary [of Defense Robert S.] McNamara and General [Maxwell D.] Taylor reported to the President this morning and to the National Security Council this afternoon. Their report included a number of classified findings and recommendations which will be the subject of further review and action. Their basic presentation was endorsed by all members of the Security Council and the following statement of United States policy was approved by the President on the basis of recommendations received from them and from Ambassador [Henry Cabot] Lodge.

1. The security of South Viet-Nam is a major interest of the United States as other free nations. We will adhere to our policy of working with the people and Government of South Viet-Nam to deny this country to communism and to suppress the externally stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong as promptly as possible. Effective performance in this undertaking is the central objective of our policy in South Viet-Nam.

2. The military program in South Viet-Nam has made progress and is sound in principle, though improvements are being energetically sought.

3. Major U.S. assistance in support of this military effort is needed only until the insurgency has been suppressed or until the national security forces of the Government of South Viet-Nam are capable of suppressing it.

Secretary McNamara and General Taylor reported their judgment that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965, although there may be a continuing requirement for a limited number of U.S. training personnel. They reported that by the end of this year, the U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Viet-Nam can be withdrawn.

4. The political situation in South Viet-Nam remains deeply serious. The United States has made clear its continuing opposition to any repressive actions in South Viet-Nam. While such actions have not yet significantly affected the military effort, they could do so in the future.

5. It remains the policy of the United States, in South Viet-Nam as in other parts of the world, to support the efforts of the people of that country to defeat aggression and to build a peaceful and free society.

That is the policy, at that second, for how long after considering everything Kennedy was doing, Kennedy was a military man, not like Liberals of today. I would have to say Kennedy is not a Liberal by today's definition.

Chomsky and his students count on the the conservatives to not be able to counter the arguments they present, they present heresy as fact. Why not just refer to the policy statement of Oct 2, 1963, its simple, Chomsky does not base his criticism on fact.

Memo 263 explicitly refers in item 2 that the White house policy statement of Oct. 2, 1963 stands as policy.

Do we need our university professors telling lies about history. Chomsky has no business in the classroom

 

[mdn2000]

President John F. Kennedy's Definition of a Liberal. (sorry Right Wing World, you lose)

I know many kooks and cons keep saying that JFK would not be a Democrat or a Liberal today. But kooks and cons have warped memories if they truly believe this bullcrap. I suggest they know right well JFK would be a liberal Democrat today. How do I know this? JFK in his own words:

"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label, "Liberal"...if by a "Liberal," they mean...someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties...if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say that I'm a "Liberal." "[Applause.]

- Address of John F. Kennedy upon Accepting the Liberal Party Nomination for President, New York, New York, September 14, 1960 - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

---

"Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day...And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman..."

- A Liberal Definition by JFK

---

as you can see, the kooks and cons would have you believe they think a conservative would salute those two fine gentlemen JFK saluted.

What conservative politician today ran on or dares to admit wanting to care about the people's "...health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties." as a politician?

They kept telling us for decades now that it is not the government's or a politician's business.

If they cared they'd have to do something about it. You can't do something when you say the government has no role.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

That's very conservative.

no, that's very liberal.

The Peace Corp was not a selfish conservative greed program.

Liberalism made America great. Conservatism has sold America out to the highest bidder.

JFK himself defined himself as a liberal, yet shitheads like you imagine that if you shout a lie enough times, it may become truth.

sadly for you, JFK called himself a liberal.

I dont know much about JFK, I have much I am studying so no time to learn, I do know that JFK's greatest contribution to man was Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

 

[xotoxi]

How can you be so brain dead to not understand that it is better to teach a man to fish than to just give him fish.

Do you advocate that the Department of Education be responsible for teaching the fishing?

If you were a true conservative, you would say "It is better for a man to figure out how to fish on his own, then to be taught how to fish"

 

[Liability]

How can you be so brain dead to not understand that it is better to teach a man to fish than to just give him fish.

Do you advocate that the Department of Education be responsible for teaching the fishing?

If you were a true conservative, you would say "It is better for a man to figure out how to fish on his own, then to be taught how to fish"

Wrong. Conservatives enthusiastically endorse education. Conservatives merely challenge the notion that the job of educating youngsters is properly one granted to the Federal Government.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Conservatives enthusiastically endorse education.

tell that to children who are US Citizens with illegal parents.

They are still citizens and people like you would throw these children into the gutter.

 

[Liability]

Conservatives enthusiastically endorse education.

tell that to children who are US Citizens with illegal parents.

They are still citizens and people like you would throw these children into the gutter.

Another set of mindless Dainty lies. You can't speak for me, douche bag.

First of all, I think all children here, while here, should get an education. Secondly, I don't know of any other conservatives who would deny to the anchor kids an education either.

You making-up shit doesn't constitute legitimate basis for an "argument," piss-boi.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Conservatives enthusiastically endorse education.

tell that to children who are US Citizens with illegal parents.

They are still citizens and people like you would throw these children into the gutter.

Another set of mindless Dainty lies. You can't speak for me, douche bag.

First of all, I think all children here, while here, should get an education. Secondly, I don't know of any other conservatives who would deny to the anchor kids an education either.

You making-up shit doesn't constitute legitimate basis for an "argument," piss-boi.

The Lunatic Fringe @ USMB

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

JFK thought the Federal government had a responsibility in the areas of health, housing, schools, jobs, as well as civil rights.

JFK also praised ...omg...... union Bosses!!!

Yeah, and his brother went after Hoffa with a passion and accused him of being a Communist.

JFK took us into a war we had no business being involved in so he'd have been more of a scourge to the left today than Bush is.

Oh and JFK cut taxes for (gasp!) the RICH!!!!

 

[mdn2000]

Conservatives enthusiastically endorse education.

tell that to children who are US Citizens with illegal parents.

They are still citizens and people like you would throw these children into the gutter.

Illegal Aliens get free education in California, scholarships are even given to 4th graders in public schools, as long as they are overcoming English as a second language.

Further Illegal aliens are admitted to Universities without the scores required of legal students, all for free.

So where are kids not being educated.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

JFK thought the Federal government had a responsibility in the areas of health, housing, schools, jobs, as well as civil rights.

JFK also praised ...omg...... union Bosses!!!

Yeah, and his brother went after Hoffa with a passion and accused him of being a Communist.

JFK took us into a war we had no business being involved in so he'd have been more of a scourge to the left today than Bush is.

Oh and JFK cut taxes for (gasp!) the RICH!!!!

History Lesson:

JFK's brother Bobby went after lots of corrupt nitwits and some undersving people too. It's called politics.

JFK escalated a war...a war Ike took us into. The anti-war movement on the left was no fan of JFK (fact). (simpleminded theories have the anti-war movement representing the left or liberalism on all things)

JFK lowered the tax rates on wealth and closed loopholes -- the result being higher taxes on lots of wealth D'oh!

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Conservatives enthusiastically endorse education.

tell that to children who are US Citizens with illegal parents.

They are still citizens and people like you would throw these children into the gutter.

Illegal Aliens get free education in California, scholarships are even given to 4th graders in public schools, as long as they are overcoming English as a second language.

Further Illegal aliens are admitted to Universities without the scores required of legal students, all for free.

So where are kids not being educated.

fact: in 2009 I took classes at a local city college along with low income illegals who were paying their own way because they were ineligible for grants

 

[Liberty]

tell that to children who are US Citizens with illegal parents.

They are still citizens and people like you would throw these children into the gutter.

Illegal Aliens get free education in California, scholarships are even given to 4th graders in public schools, as long as they are overcoming English as a second language.

Further Illegal aliens are admitted to Universities without the scores required of legal students, all for free.

So where are kids not being educated.

fact: in 2009 I took classes at a local city college along with low income illegals who were paying their own way because they were ineligible for grants

Then you are an accessory to a crime. Good job.

 

[whitehall]

I think that's Bobby Kennedy's picture you have posted Dante.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Illegal Aliens get free education in California, scholarships are even given to 4th graders in public schools, as long as they are overcoming English as a second language.

Further Illegal aliens are admitted to Universities without the scores required of legal students, all for free.

So where are kids not being educated.

fact: in 2009 I took classes at a local city college along with low income illegals who were paying their own way because they were ineligible for grants

Then you are an accessory to a crime. Good job.

here's a good example of Tea Party Type Lunacy...


gawd, some people are dumber than shit.

 

[Rousseau]

The more I study the more I grow impatient with socialist welfare morons....

...THEY ARE NEVER LONG TERM.

look at:
france
greece
and now the UK

just for some recent examples.

Is that what you want? Rioting? Violence?

The liberals of today are nothing more than confused, insolent, and lazy people who want something for nothing, or openly want theft and violence committed against their fellow citizen at the threat of government force. And when you don't get your way? You attack the government. It is the liberals who are violent, the people who would rather earn nothing but have everything rather than earn everything themselves.

Makes me want to throw up my oatmeal to be honest. Get a fucking life.

My, you're quite sheltered. What a delicate, uneducated, ethnocentric little flower you are.

The more you "study"? Seriously? I think it's blatant you haven't "studied" shit from your comments, my homely friend. I grow impatient with aggressively ignorant claims like yours. Let me explain some things to you because I think you're entirely confused and seem to suffer from an almost childish view of how government works:

#1 To put it simply, Greece's economy failed because the Government failed to repay debts, resulting in low credit rating (literally every government has a credit rating, i.e. the U.S. is AAA). When a government's rating is low it's debt becomes "junk" or "toxic" debt which makes it harder for that government to borrow further and continue. The IMF offered a bailout to which the people of Greece protested at first (now they really don't have much choice).

I'm actually really baffled as to why France and UK are on your list... maybe you can explain

The UK students protests last month were against raising tuition fees and the Paris riots in October had to do with protests of a variety of government reforms including the raising of the pension age from 60 to 62. From your comments it's almost as if you view the rioters as "socialists" and the governments as not. These are nations which you may call "socialist", their governments would love to continue offering them these social services if they could do so, fiscally.

As for your moronic attempt at a rhetorical question:

Is that what you want? Rioting? Violence?

No, I don't think there's many people who want that, except maybe... well you know, Glenn Beck.

Moving on...

#2 Germany, a "socialist" democratic nation, do you have any idea how well they are doing in this economy? Perhaps you should "study" more, my homely friend.

#3 Every developed nation in the world has socialized health care available to all it's citizens, with the exception of the U.S. So when you try to make an example of one "socialist" nation, really you should compare it to the rest of the developed world (since they're all "socialist" )

#4 It's worth noting that Bush Jr. increased Welfare spending 32% from Clinton (and overall federal spending 55%). Yes, that's right, a Republican allocated more federal money to Welfare than a Democrat, welcome to 21st century.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I think that's Bobby Kennedy's picture you have posted Dante.

soon to be taken down.

do you like the head shot?

 

[TossObama]

JFK was a monster who thought nothing of physically attacking the American people he disagreed with or thought he disagreed with.

That guy had goon squads he sent around the country attacking entire communities in America. He held the traditional northeast coast mentality that everyone else in the country was somehow backwards and simply chunks of meat that had to be destroyed. To him everyone was a racist -- which was a very convenient cover and excuse for his own racism. That guy was no good guy.

 

[TossObama]

The more I study the more I grow impatient with socialist welfare morons....

...THEY ARE NEVER LONG TERM.

look at:
france
greece
and now the UK

just for some recent examples.

Is that what you want? Rioting? Violence?

The liberals of today are nothing more than confused, insolent, and lazy people who want something for nothing, or openly want theft and violence committed against their fellow citizen at the threat of government force. And when you don't get your way? You attack the government. It is the liberals who are violent, the people who would rather earn nothing but have everything rather than earn everything themselves.

Makes me want to throw up my oatmeal to be honest. Get a fucking life.

My, you're quite sheltered. What a delicate, uneducated, ethnocentric little flower you are.

The more you "study"? Seriously? I think it's blatant you haven't "studied" shit from your comments, my homely friend. I grow impatient with aggressively ignorant claims like yours. Let me explain some things to you because I think you're entirely confused and seem to suffer from an almost childish view of how government works:

#1 To put it simply, Greece's economy failed because the Government failed to repay debts, resulting in low credit rating (literally every government has a credit rating, i.e. the U.S. is AAA). When a government's rating is low it's debt becomes "junk" or "toxic" debt which makes it harder for that government to borrow further and continue. The IMF offered a bailout to which the people of Greece protested at first (now they really don't have much choice).

I'm actually really baffled as to why France and UK are on your list... maybe you can explain

The UK students protests last month were against raising tuition fees and the Paris riots in October had to do with protests of a variety of government reforms including the raising of the pension age from 60 to 62. From your comments it's almost as if you view the rioters as "socialists" and the governments as not. These are nations which you may call "socialist", their governments would love to continue offering them these social services if they could do so, fiscally.

As for your moronic attempt at a rhetorical question:

Is that what you want? Rioting? Violence?

No, I don't think there's many people who want that, except maybe... well you know, Glenn Beck.

Moving on...

#2 Germany, a "socialist" democratic nation, do you have any idea how well they are doing in this economy? Perhaps you should "study" more, my homely friend.

#3 Every developed nation in the world has socialized health care available to all it's citizens, with the exception of the U.S. So when you try to make an example of one "socialist" nation, really you should compare it to the rest of the developed world (since they're all "socialist" )

#4 It's worth noting that Bush Jr. increased Welfare spending 32% from Clinton (and overall federal spending 55%). Yes, that's right, a Republican allocated more federal money to Welfare than a Democrat, welcome to 21st century.

Folks, before you allow yourself to be manipulated by comments that Germany is such a great power, you might want to study some recent history to find out what they've been doing -- and who and what controls Germany.

It's money is NOT strong and Germany has gone to great lengths to pull a Madoff in the EU.

Atta way to go Berney and Barney.