John F. Kennedy’s Thanksgiving Ideals, 1962– How different they are from Ours

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/11/john-f-kennedys-thanksgiving-ideals-1962-how-different-they-are-from-ours.html

John F. Kennedy’s Thanksgiving Ideals, 1962– How different they are from Ours
Posted on 11/28/2013 by Juan Cole

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On this Thanksgiving, what strikes me is the ideals JFK put forward in his Thanksgiving proclamations, and how different they are from today’s discourse in Washington, D.C.

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Kennedy talks of giving thanks for the “health of our people.” The people’s health was of concern to him. Today, we have a vast disinformation campaign against the Affordable Health Care Act, a campaign aimed at ensuring that 40 million Americans remain without health insurance, at danger at any time of losing everything. Our liberties were enshrined in the Bill of Rights, which since 1962 has been more or less gutted. They are no longer strong. The Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches of our private papers and effects has been gutted by an out-of-control National Security Agency. Our freedom of speech is threatened by surveillance and dirty tricks, which has already induced self-censorship in many American authors. As for self-righteousness, it pervades the atmosphere on Capitol Hill.

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There is nothing in Kennedy of the hatred of the foreigner or the punitive attitude toward the poor so prominent in the discourse of today. JFK wanted to see America’s bounty shared with the disprivileged not only in the United States but abroad. Nowadays, the Congress is obsessed with punishing the working poor and reducing government assistance for them, including food stamps. Mitt Romney revealed their thinking when he referred to the 47%, the portion of the population he said depends on government help. But that 47% includes Veterans, who deserve all the help they can get. It includes retirees, who paid into Social Security all their lives and are not getting a handout but their due.

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We haven’t confronted the uncertainties we now face with “grace and modesty.” We have not risen to the challenge of climate change; rather, we have allowed the debate to be dominated by the multi-billionaires and their sock puppets. We haven’t confronted the crisis in health care with grace and modesty but rather with misrepresentations and false flags. We didn’t deal well with the 9/11 attacks, going off in our anger to strike an unrelated country, Iraq. The US public was manipulated into blaming Muslims in general, whereas it was the work of a tiny, extremist fringe.

[Octafish]

1. Instead of aiming for the moon, we use our technology to bug splat Americans without trial.

The can-do spirit has changed in its application, and not for the better.

The Kochs, Waltons and near all the rest of the Have-Mores dig the set-up, though.