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Lee Harvey Oswald's Malign Legacy
netwmd.com ^ | Nov 21 2007 | Daniel Pipes

Posted on 11/21/2007 4:31:55 PM PST by forty_years

What's wrong with American liberalism? What happened to the self-assured, optimistic, and practical Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy? Why has Joe Lieberman, their closest contemporary incarnation, been run out of the party? How did anti-Americanism infect schools, the media, and Hollywood? And whence comes the liberal rage that conservatives like Ann Coulter, Jeff Jacoby, Michelle Malkin, and the Media Research Center have extensively documented?

In a tour de force, James Piereson of the Manhattan Institute offers an historical explanation both novel and convincing. His book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter), traces liberalism's slide into anti-Americanism back to the seemingly minor fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was neither a segregationist nor a cold warrior but a communist.

Here's what Piereson argues:

During the roughly forty years preceding the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963, progressivism/liberalism was the reigning and nearly only public philosophy; Kennedy, a realistic centrist, came out of an effective tradition that aimed, and succeeded, in expanding democracy and the welfare state.

In contrast, Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower lacked an intellectual alternative to liberalism and so merely slowed it down. The conservative "remnant" led by William F. Buckley, Jr. had virtually no impact on policy. The radical right, embodied by the John Birch Society, spewed illogical and ineffectual fanaticism.

Kennedy's assassination profoundly affected liberalism, Piereson explains, because Oswald, a New Left-style communist, murdered Kennedy to protect Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba from the president who, during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, brandished America's military card. Kennedy, in brief, died because he was so tough in the cold war. Liberals resisted this fact because it contradicted their belief system and, instead, presented Kennedy as a victim of the radical right and a martyr for liberal causes.

This political phantasm required two audacious steps. The first applied to Oswald:

With Oswald nearly deleted from the narrative, or even turned into a scapegoat, the ruling establishment – Johnson, Jacqueline Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, and many others – proceeded to take a second, astonishing step. They blamed the assassination not on Oswald the communist but on the American people, and the radical right in particular, accusing them of killing Kennedy for his being too soft in the cold war or too accommodating to civil rights for American blacks. Here are just four of the examples Piereson cites documenting that wild distortion:

In this "denial or disregard" of Oswald's motives and guilt, Piereson locates the rank origins of American liberalism's turn toward anti-American pessimism. "The reformist emphasis of American liberalism, which had been pragmatic and forward-looking, was overtaken by a spirit of national self-condemnation."

Viewing the United States as crass, violent, racist, and militarist shifted liberalism's focus from economics to cultural issues (racism, feminism, sexual freedom, gay rights). This change helped spawn the countercultural movement of the late 1960s; more lastingly, it fed a "residue of ambivalence" about the worth of traditional American institutions and the validity of deploying U.S. military power that 44 years later remains liberalism's general outlook.

Thus does Oswald's malign legacy live on in 2007, yet harming and perverting liberalism, still polluting the national debate.

http://netwmd.com/blog/2007/11/21/2103


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: castro; conspiracytheory; danielpipes; jfkassassination; kennedy; liberalism; oswald; powergrab; starkravingsocialism
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To: Bobkk47

The mind is a terrible thing to waste tell you the highly intelligent dupes of KGB disinformation. KGB’s job was simple: sow the seeds of doubt. They succceeded better than expected. Instead of focusing on the Communist agents in the State Department, in Congress, in the White House, in the media, the dupes have been playing their children’s mystery games with the grassy knoll fantasies, outdoing each other with lame theories about Oswald’s shooting skills. Wow, impressive! Highly intelligent, indeed.


41 posted on 11/21/2007 7:02:46 PM PST by Revolting cat! (We all need someone we can bleed on...)
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To: Bobkk47
Will do. I haven't read the latest generation of work on the topic. I had extensively read the forensic time line and ballistics reprts, as well as articles by expert US marine riflemen who tried to duplicate Oswalds shooting with a rifle identocle to Oswalds. What Oswald was said to have done was nearly impossible for master snipers to do. I concluded on that data and discusion that Oswald had not acted alone. I do not know though who was behind tyhe assasination. The theory I agreed with years ago involved the New Orleans mafia. However there may be new things since the mid 80s that I have not read about. I was in grade school in Canada, when the teacher came int outrr class and announced that President Kennedy was shot. School was dismissed for the rest of the day. Teachers were crying. And that was inCanada , not even uin the USA.

Despite that emotion about Kennedy then, later I read his history and his personal life. I do not beliebve that Kennedy was much more than a messianic icon for an already doomed Utopian liberal movement. Utopianism is dangerous for our nation. It prevents us from coping with conditions as they are. We see things only darkly through such idealism, and make many mistakes which hurt our nation badly. Thuis we take a woman Jew, and send her to negotiate trade agreements with conservative traditional Saudi monarchs, and feel smug and good about ourselves while OPEC does the nasty with Saudi concurrence. ( Madelaine Albright)We should be more skilful than that, and less smugly idealistic. The task at hand needs to outweigh this weakness for a vaunted style dictated by liberal Utopianism, no matter how ideologically laudable. Thats one reason liberals literally suck at power politics.

Thats what Kennedy now represents to me.

42 posted on 11/21/2007 7:04:01 PM PST by Candor7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258))
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To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
The communists saw them as useful idiots and used and exploited them in the areas of civil rights, Vietnam and others.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And likewise the Islamofascists. I had not thought of it in this way, but I like the approach. Utopians are so easy to use in this way, naivete.

43 posted on 11/21/2007 7:06:34 PM PST by Candor7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258))
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To: bjs1779
" I can't trash the guy at all."

Nor I, on his monetary policies. His personal life was a total abyss, but the same can be said for most of his successors.

44 posted on 11/21/2007 7:07:01 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: USMCVet

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of ballistics can look at the Zapruder film and understand where the shots came from.

Do a little research.


45 posted on 11/21/2007 7:09:03 PM PST by Shooter 2.5 (NRA - Hunter '08)
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To: Candor7
"Despite that emotion about Kennedy then, later I read his history and his personal life. I do not beliebve that Kennedy was much more than a messianic icon for an already doomed Utopian liberal movement."

That's what he was scripted to be, but he forgot to read the script. On the important issues, such as national security, taxes and monetary policy, he was a solid patriotic conservative. That is what got him assasinated; EO #11110.

46 posted on 11/21/2007 7:12:28 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: Shooter 2.5
Where the shots came from seems to be clear. Who did the shooting isn't quite as clear.

Like I said, my knowledge of ballistics - interior and exterior - is quite adequate. Just a bit presumptious of you to think otherwise..

47 posted on 11/21/2007 7:12:57 PM PST by USMCVet
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To: Enchante
"How ironic that liberals were able to misuse these assassinations, not to wage war against communists and anti-Israel fanatics, but to support the lurch leftward of the Demagogic Party."

Given all that has taken place since 1963, and my impressions at the time, I will never cease believing that the assassination of JFK was caused precisely by that lurch leftward within his own party - and the left's embrace of FDR's manipulation of information.
RFK's assassination was a foretaste of what we've reaped by underestimating the pathology that deforms the middle east - and the left's embrace of those infected most by that pathology.

48 posted on 11/21/2007 7:16:01 PM PST by norton (Go ahead, vote for Hunter, you know you want to.)
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To: Candor7
"And the only one up to that task is Duncan Hunter."

Amen!

49 posted on 11/21/2007 7:17:56 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: editor-surveyor
Nor I, on his monetary policies. His personal life was a total abyss, but the same can be said for most of his successors.

On that note, I think it speaks highly of him as a president of this country in spite of it. If we don't have a sound currency, we ain't got nothing. He must of understood that. Fast forward 44 years.

50 posted on 11/21/2007 7:19:31 PM PST by bjs1779
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To: editor-surveyor
I agree that what Kennedy did positively in his presidency was a result of acting conservatively in the areas you mentioned. But he also entered quid pro quo on security, refusing to fully inform the American public that he got the Russians to stand down in the Cuban missile Crisis by agreeing to remove US ballistic missles from deployment in Turkey. Few Americans know that today. He didn't just simply move the Russians away from their line by force of moral superiority, as many liberals still believe he did today.

The Bay of Pigs still haunts Cuban Immigrants today.He was disloyal and peripatetic in his committment to retaking Cuba, which he could have done if he had committed to it. If he had done so, communism would not have spread so widely throughout the Carribean and South America. We are still paying for that today. One of my friends ins an indipendent contractor with the CIA, held by FARC in Colombia since 2002. None of that would have happened if Kennedy had truly moved on Cuba, and there are very personal consequences for me in that failure.

So I do not believe one can see Kennedy was all that great , despite the messianic emotion his alleged martyrdom generates in many Americans.

He was thoroughly solid on economic and monetary policy, and was a fiscal conservative thanks to training from businessmen relatives in his family.I agree with you on that.

51 posted on 11/21/2007 7:33:26 PM PST by Candor7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258))
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To: editor-surveyor; pissant
And the only one up to that task is Duncan Hunter." Amen!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

GO HUNTER 2008

The time is fast approaching for us to " Mount up."

Hunter's Ranger here!

52 posted on 11/21/2007 7:38:46 PM PST by Candor7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258))
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To: USMCVet

The reason an all points bulletin was made on Oswald was he was the only one to leave work and not return and there was an eyewitness who described him to the police. The only mistake the witness made was the description of the rifle.

Oswald didn’t accomplish any work all that morning. The boxes for the sniper’s nest was constucted that morning. Oswald’s fingerprints were all over those boxes. The wrapping paper that held the fictional “curtain rods” was left in the sniper’s next.

All three shots came from the sixth floor according to the trajectories.


53 posted on 11/21/2007 7:43:27 PM PST by Shooter 2.5 (NRA - Hunter '08)
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To: Candor7

In the last 45 years, three presidents have taken action to pull our fat out of the fire: Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush43; while six have failed to do so when they could have: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush41, and Clinton.


54 posted on 11/21/2007 7:49:02 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: Candor7
RE: "Kennedy, who if anything was a sordid, needy, tragic figure. . . ."

Yeah but he looked good on that new fangled thing, T and V, I think they called.

JFK was a "great" president because he was telegenic. Period.

He was more celebrity than anything. Vaughn Meador's comedy album "The First Family" was wildly popular among people who adored the Kennedys, as I recall. The White House, however, let Meador know that the Kennedy's would not appreciate anymore albums.

JFK could not have beaten Nixon in 1960 without TV.. and even with (color) TV he needed voter fraud. Celebrities or not the Kennedy's were ruthless, especially Robert.

As for the assassination, who had the most to lose if JFK was elected to a second term? And I mean lose big time! Everything. Ans: LBJ.

55 posted on 11/21/2007 7:50:24 PM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: Shooter 2.5
Sure.

And how difficult would it have been for a professional to dress the scene with that stuff, make the shots, and leave the scene in the confusion?

If Oswald did happen to be a government informant, he would have been sent somewhere during that time period and then be just as surprised as he seemed to be, pointing at his black eye and complaining about how rough the cops had been with him - and looking forward to his goverment handlers coming forward straighten the situation out.

Looks like they did when Ruby showed up.

56 posted on 11/21/2007 7:52:05 PM PST by USMCVet
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To: GOP_1900AD

Can you point me towards a source for this?


57 posted on 11/21/2007 7:56:00 PM PST by sgtyork (The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage. Thucydides)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael
"As for the assassination, who had the most to lose if JFK was elected to a second term?"

The Federal Reserve Banks. He was gunning for them, even without the support of Congress, and was determined to do the job by executive orders if necessary.

58 posted on 11/21/2007 7:58:45 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: USMCVet
"Looks like they did when Ruby showed up."

Precisely!

59 posted on 11/21/2007 7:59:30 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: forty_years
Interesting piece of over-intellectualizing the alleged perceptions of the "masses."

JFK was the first president for whom I ever voted, and his assassination was felt as, first and foremost, a loss of energy driving what portended to be the advancement of a truly progressive (not at all in the Communist or socialist sense or Hillary's use of the word to hide a liberal) coming of age for a new and idealistic generation. The political persuasions of the assassin(s) were of little interest while the answer to the question, "Why?" was of first concern and, "Who?" followed in second place for prominence among us. Oswald was portrayed, and accepted, as a nut-case with ambiguous and irrelevant ideology and, most prominently, a tool. Johnson was high on the list of populous suspects, as was Nixon---and the putative "ideology" here was reduced to largely "personal" motives.

So, the author's intellectualizing is a distant, post-hoc confabulation of sensible events arranged to falsely suggest a cause and its effects.

At the time, it was plain and simple as Why?, Who? and, the one not yet settled, How?

It was not the Death of Kennedy, per se, that fueled the anger, one which was not directed at his assassin either. And, the anger of that young generation turned, not against Conservatives (as opposed to Liberals, and as the author suggests), but toward "The Establishment." The reason for this being the focus was not the ideology of Oswald, or anybody for that matter, but rather the fact that post-mortem machinations pulled the curtains back to expose the really seamy core of the then political and cultural establishment. The last straw was the sealing of the Warren Report from any form of public inspection. From that moment on, those "in power" were no longer trusted. That was the spawning of the american radical movement of the '60's.

60 posted on 11/21/2007 8:06:59 PM PST by Rudder
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