>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 12/16/99 03:22PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>And so said fairy tale in no way invalidates the specific
>hypothesis that the most reactionary sector of U.S. capital , so it
>concluded, had to resort to assassination of Kennedy and coup d'etat
>to hold on to power in the U.S.
Did they succeed by installing Johnson, or fail?
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CB: Was there a real threat to their rule from Kennedy ? Did they succeed at thwarting a paranoid threat ?
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Johnson did pass all the civil rights and social welfare legislation JFK couldn't. Or do you buy the Oliver Stone line that Kennedy wanted to end the war against Vietnam and therefore had to be killed?
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CB: This is , in my view, the military industrial complex ( which name we get from an insider, Eisenhower, sort of like "imperialism" comes from an insider, Hobson) at work. They wanted to keep the war on Viet Nam going, but their main enemy was the Soviet Union, with which Kennedy had just completed a nuclear test ban treaty and lost the Cuba missile crisis "bowl" ( the hawks probably wanted to call the bluff and invade Cuba and have the nuc out with the Soviets if necessary, but mostly thinking the Soviets would not shoot). These two acts of "cowardice" by the commander-in-chief were enough for the reactionary sector to give thumbs down.
By the way, Johnson was a Democrat, so this is not a "good dems/bad reps" hypothesis.
And where are the Great Society and Civil Rights laws ( that Johnson passed) now ? Abolished as we knew them. Scofflawed. Effectively reversed. Eventually the ruling class got to everything.
There may have been a secondary component in that Kennedy had a lifestyle liberalism that foreshadowed the 60's cultural reforms. This added fuel for the fire of the reactionary sectors. They couldn't quite get with Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, the Rat Pack. :)>They did not exactly want this going out from the Bully Pulpit to the Baby Boomers. They could sense its subversive potential. Why not kill the fucker ? Let it be known you mean business, not pleasure.
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I wish I could attach a clip of the Mekons singing "Insignificance."
"A word slips out of Dallas in 1963 Spawns an industry Conspiracy Initials 10 feet tall Just reinforce and underline Insignificance
If they can kill What could they do to me Stumbling into their attention..."
If They can kill JFK, might as well give up. What else can We do?
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Charles: And Kennedy was one of them ! Guess what ? They can kill anybody and everybody already , and they are getting better at it everyday. Get used to it. Revolution is not really a Tea Party. The struggle continues; socialism is inevitable.
CB