I have an old car. And I love my old car. But its funky old sound system consists of only a tape deck — not even a CD player let alone an iPod axillary port. So now I’m forced to play only old-school Books-on-Tape that I check out from the Berkeley Public Library every time I go on a road trip or I even need something to listen to while driving around town. And the BPL can only offer me a limited choice of funky old tapes to listen to — such as Dickens’ “Pickwick Papers” for instance. Or John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage”.
Remember when we used to be forced to read “Profiles in Courage” back in high school? Yeah, sure. But who the freak can even actually remember what JFK actually said. However, what JFK actually did say in this book is totally shocking. Why? Because it could have been written today — in today’s world, about today’s problems. And it also gives us a way to solve them.
How do you solve the problems of America today? According to JFK, it’s easy. You just show a little moral courage, exhibit a little moral backbone. Like, for instance, the moral courage exhibited by Kennedy himself. John F. Kennedy stood up to the military-industrial complex — because he thought it was the morally right thing to do.
And Kennedy died for his beliefs.
Who killed JFK? We may never know exactly who pulled the trigger or arranged the actual assassination (I myself favor the Pappy Bush theory), but we do know one thing for sure: Whoever did this evil deed has a “Profile in Cowardliness”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lSKu1WkA6U
I got so entranced by listening to Kennedy’s words on tape (read by his son John-John, by the way) that I went back to the BPL to check out the actual physical book itself. And guess what? This amazing book, one of the most important and relevant books to be read in the 21st century so far, could only be found in the children’s section of the main branch.
Kennedy wrote about eight U.S. Senatorial heroes who, at great cost to themselves, put America’s interests above their own, especially in times when other Senators were consistently only looking out for their own petty self-interests — and the interests of those lobbyists who had bribed them into corruption.
Senator Daniel Webster, for instance, “was not a Massachusetts man but an American,” who fought like a wildcat to preserve the sanctity of the Union. Imagine how Senator Webster would have reacted today if he had read the following article in “The Voltaire Network” entitled, “Kennedy, the Lobby and the Bomb,” regarding how AIPAC had spent billions of dollars buying members of the Senate to vote in Israel’s (not America’s) best interests.
If Daniel Webster was on the floor of the U.S. Senate today, you bet that America wouldn’t be dealing with the trillion-dollar-plus aftermath of the nuclear arms race in the Middle East that we have been facing since Kennedy was assassinated shortly after telling Israel prime minister David Ben-Gurion that getting The Bomb was a no-no.
“While all NATO member states and countries of the communist bloc were following the example of the USA and the USSR and taking a first step towards nuclear disarmament, Israel was acting secretly on its own, and Kennedy was determined to prevent it [and told Ben-Gurion of this intention in June of 1963 too]. Kennedy’s death a few months later eased the pressure on Israel. Johnson chose to turn a blind eye on the activities at Dimona.” http://www.voltairenet.org/article178401.html
Johnson also turned a blind eye to the brutal strafing and bombing of the USS Liberty in 1967 by Israeli fighter jets, wherein 34 American soldiers were deliberately butchered http://www.gtr5.com/
Webster would definitely have stood up to the Israel lobby.
In “Profiles in Courage,” JFK also wrote about brave Senator Edmund G. Ross, who was soundly defamed by his colleagues for not letting corporate scallywags sack and plunder the post-bellum South. And today, Ross would surely never have voted to give Monsanto a license to plunder America’s farm and food industries like our current cowardly bought-and-paid-for Congress just did http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/10/1832621/monsanto-protection-act-power/.
Another example of courage that Kennedy cited in his book was Senator Robert Taft’s protest against the illegality of the Nuremberg trials. “You can’t try someone for crimes ex post facto,” said Taft — or words to that effect. Taft’s highly unpopular stand, however, helped pave the way for the 1949 Geneva Conventions. But his stubborn defense of upholding the Rule of Law in America also cost him his bid for the presidency.
And today? Taft surely would have been horrified by Guantanamo, America’s perverse dark side evil twin of the Nuremberg trials — where Nazis have become us.
And Sam Houston? He became the most despised man in Texas because he opposed his state’s succession from the Union — kind of like when Congresswoman Barbara Lee was the only person in the House of Representatives to stand up against America’s stupid and brutal attack on Afghanistan. Or like Senator Paul Wellstone, who mysteriously died in a plane crash shortly after voting to oppose GWB’s evil and avaricious war policies http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/06/nsa-enforces-zero-tolerance-policy-on-conscience.html.
If Sam Houston were alive today, however, Texas would still be despising him because you can bet your boots that old Sam would have also stood up against Bush’s Folly — Bush’s disastrous war on Iraq.
And in the early 1960s, John F. Kennedy also took a brave stand against unnecessary, trumped-up and preemptive war — putting our nation’s interests above those of Wall Street and War Street when he tried to stop the military-industrial complex’s disastrous war on Vietnam.
In October of 1963, Kennedy apparently also questioned the CIA’s expanding role in declaring and conducting foreign wars on their own — especially the show that they had been running in Vietnam. Shortly thereafter, Kennedy was killed.
In the words of current NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, “You can’t come forward against the world’s most powerful intelligence agency…. No one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they’ll get you in time.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM
No wonder John F. Kennedy had to die.
PS: I’ll be attending the annual Netroots Nation convention again this year — if my wonderful old car can make it all the way to San Jose, that is. It will be happening on the weekend of June 20-23. Totally fun, educational and entertaining. Perhaps I’ll see you there. http://www.netrootsnation.org/nn_events/nn-13/liquid-courage-kickoff-party-with-howard-dean/
