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Camelot and the Cultural Revolution (American liberals took leave of reason after JFK's murder)
Opinion Journal ^ | 7/12/2007 | Fred Siegel

Posted on 07/12/2007 9:37:39 AM PDT by mojito

"Inherit the Wind" is running on Broadway again, night after night pitting the righteously rational Clarence Darrow against the Bible-thumping antievolutionist William Jennings Bryan. The 1955 play--a chestnut of high-school English courses across the country--concerns the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925 and is meant to capture the moment in American history when science and reason superseded, at last, the myth and superstition of foolish reactionaries. It has become something of a liberal sacrament. But as James Piereson shows in "Camelot and the Cultural Revolution," myth and superstition were the essence of the liberal response to John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. It was the liberals who threw evidence and reason to the winds, inheriting the crippling effects of their own bad judgment. Mr. Piereson is not concerned with showing yet again that, yes--in defiance of all conspiracy theories--Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman on that fateful day. "Camelot and the Cultural Revolution," Mr. Piereson explains, is less about "the assassination itself than the political reaction to it and the lasting consequences of that reaction." It is one of the best accounts we have of why liberalism--which "owned the future" in 1963--fell from grace and has yet to recover.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: communism; conspiracy; culturalrevolution; jfkassassination; liberalism; liberals; oswald
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To: LiteKeeper

The movie was based on the play not the trial.


21 posted on 07/12/2007 10:24:42 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Shooter 2.5; tpaine
Bravo, and bookmarked. This article explains my previously stated reason for why I do what I do in the Oswald threads.

Some here want to ignore the reality of the early-1960s American left wing and instead choose to disbelieve and excuse the whole culture of the violent left based upon the unpredictability of 'magic bullet' terminal ballistics after it's passed through human tissue. To them, random circumstance vanquishes all logic.

Special thanks go to the 'Lone Gunman' deniers who have been carrying water for the radical left wing for over 40 years.

22 posted on 07/12/2007 10:25:24 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: mojito
I think it is important to remember that JFK was murdered by a hardcore leftist specifically because he was (relatively) a hawk on national defense.

There is no doubt that Oswald was nutty as a loon but that is true of many of the lefties on the stage today. He was basically a prototype for later '60s radical types like Tom Hayden, John Kerry, SDS, the Weathermen, etc. The main difference was that he was a genuine poor person working alone and they were mostly a country club of spoiled rich white boys.

Lee Harvey Oswald was the father of the modern "Progressive" left and the shot he fired from the Texas School Book Depository was the opening shot of the hard left takeover of the Democrat party that took hold by the end of the Vietnam War.

Most of the alleged "controversy" about the assassination is an attempt to cover up the fact that JFK was killed by the left because he, whatever his VERY great faults, was not a traitor. They have done a very good job of muddying the waters.

23 posted on 07/12/2007 10:30:35 AM PDT by Mad_as_heck (The MSM - America's (domestic) public enemy #1.)
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To: CondorFlight

I am by no means an expert on Clarence Darrow, but in his career he was closely linked to Eugene Debs and to the ACLU.


24 posted on 07/12/2007 10:31:27 AM PDT by mojito
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To: Mad_as_heck
Hear hear!

(*Pointing at Mad_as_heck while slapping the table*)

25 posted on 07/12/2007 10:32:33 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: TexanToTheCore
Most of the Liberals I know look to JFK and FDR as icons of the Liberal movement. But JFK died 44 years ago and FDR goes back 60 years. They need to get over it and get on with their lives, constructing the future, not reliving the past.

Lucky conservatives do no such thing! Well, there I go again.

26 posted on 07/12/2007 10:33:09 AM PDT by HitmanLV ("Lord, give me chastity and temperance, but not now." - St. Augustine)
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To: mojito
IMHO somewhere between 1955 and 1965 America “peaked out” as a great nation standing on the firm foundation established in 1776. Since that time America has been going forward on the momentum built up by the first century and half of its existence through some trying times. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” represented the beginning of the expansion of Federal powers and the welfare state. That trend has grown exponentially and will continue to do so as more and more individual liberties are surrendered to the Federal government. Look to socialist Europe to see the future of America, sadly.
27 posted on 07/12/2007 10:34:54 AM PDT by CarryingOn (America will not survive another Clinton presidency.)
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To: mojito; PGalt; Milhous; E.G.C.
It's not reason that is at the heart of modern-day liberalism but rather the claim to superior virtue and, even more important, to a special knowledge unavailable to the unwashed or unenlightened. Depending on the temper of the time, such virtue and knowledge can derive disproportionately from scientism or mysticism--or it can mix large dollops of both.
The opposite of scientism and of mysticism is candor. Rush Limbaugh is candid - he expresses himself openly, and continuously for hours at a time daily. Contrast that with the constricted "news" report which is scripted in advance (if it's not "breaking news") and which in any case is about a defined subject on which the reporter is, putatively, the expert and you and I are presumed to be ignorant. The reporter is always in a race to stay ahead of the rest of us in his knowledge of the story - and when that is no longer possible, the reporter drops the story as "old news" and moves on to another story in which the reporter has the advantage over the audience.

28 posted on 07/12/2007 10:46:47 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

To: mojito

What senses?????


30 posted on 07/12/2007 10:55:19 AM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline of the Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Club)
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To: mojito
During his presidency, Kennedy had repeatedly criticized the irrationalism of far-right-wing anticommunists and their segregationist cousins

Many of those "segregationist cousins" were, in fact, Southern Democrats. Think George Wallace.

31 posted on 07/12/2007 11:01:25 AM PDT by Justice
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To: mojito

BUMP


32 posted on 07/12/2007 11:15:15 AM PDT by jokar (for it is by grace, http://www.gbible.org)
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To: HitmanLV

Lucky conservatives do no such thing! Well, there I go again.
__________

Good thing is right. If conservatives, we’d probably be hearing Ronald Reagan’s name a whole lot this cycle. Oh, wait.


33 posted on 07/12/2007 11:25:37 AM PDT by dmz
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To: TexanToTheCore

Roosevelt did plenty of damage for which we will continue to pay for the rest of our days as a Republic. The killing of John Kennedy was the worst thing that could every have happened because it not only made him a sainted icon, but also left us with his corrupt and imbecilic relatives as “national leaders”.


34 posted on 07/12/2007 11:49:04 AM PDT by Emmett McCarthy
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To: mojito

Must you post this Camelot crap here?


35 posted on 07/12/2007 11:53:48 AM PDT by my_pointy_head_is_sharp (Evil never stops.)
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To: CondorFlight

I’m not sure why post #20 was directed at me, but I agree.


36 posted on 07/12/2007 11:56:38 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator ("Ve`attah, hirgu khol-zakhar bataf; vekhol-'ishah yoda`at 'ish lemishkav zakhar harogu!")
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To: JimRed

JFK campaigned on low taxes. He opposed unionization of public employees. He was a bigtime anticommunist. Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy was anti-abortion. The Democrats really did voluntarily head straight to hell after JFK.


37 posted on 07/12/2007 11:57:38 AM PDT by DesScorp
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To: my_pointy_head_is_sharp

Must you post insulting replies that illustrate nothing but your ignorance and bad manners?


38 posted on 07/12/2007 12:29:56 PM PDT by mojito
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To: mojito

Unfortunately not. Stuck in the sixties holistically. Can’t/won’t grow up.


39 posted on 07/12/2007 12:54:36 PM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: Borges

The one’s who wrote the play are the one’s I am referring to. Sorry for the confusion.


40 posted on 07/12/2007 1:57:02 PM PDT by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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