Received the following response after characterizing JFK a "douche bag" on a Facebook thread, something I'd hitherto taken for granted as being obvious:
... I guess its just a minor point though since he was a douche... And the fact that he was making a pact with Castro... thats doesnt matter he was a ... See Moredouche and the fact that ALL recent research shows that the entire national security state thought he was getting out of Vietnam and had enacted plans-- much more than "just" NSC 268 --- to do so that doesnt matter because he was just a douche. And the fact that he stood up to the change from industrial capitalism to finance capitalism doesnt matter at all nor does the fact that the CIA set him up at Bay of pigs..Lets just throw away the best epitomological opportunity to show what the REAL STRUCTURE OF POWER IS AND THAT THE INDIVIDUAL DOES NOT MATTER because Guru Chomsky has been attacking JFK 800000000000000000000000more times than JFK who was way way way way to the right of JFK just ask virtually anyone in Brazil after the 1964 coup. There are about 15 other aspects of JFKs policies I would like to discuss with you also. But thanks for throwing away the best opportunity for the most people to understand the CIA and the nature of Corporate Power there ever was by playing who was the more worthy vicitm. Do you want to play fake left victimology or do you want to understand power?
And demolishing my attempted refutation:
An Imperial maniac [quoting me]. I see you have been reading Chomsky Cockburn and their favorite source Sam Halpern, who was the top aid to Richard Helms. Funny how they forget to mention that about the top source for Sir Symour of Langley Hersh and the Chomper. Again all of the recent scholarship shows JFK was getting out of Vietnam. But thats ok go ahead ... See Moreand belive Newsweek Time and.... Noam Chomsky! Seen history of Encounter Magazine also the CIA magazine aimed at the american "left" Actually there is NOTHING THAT SHOWS THAT A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL DOES NOT MATTER IN THE FACE OF INSTITUTIONALIZED OPPOSITION FROM THE PERMANENT MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COMPLEX than the JFK assassination. He opposed that permanent bureacracy and was assassinated. But just go ahead and cancel out that history lesson with namecalling as your great leftist leaders have trained you. You clearly have read very little actual history of the period. Why does Chomsky write so little about JFK and Laos? Why so little about the nuclear test ban? Why such incredible distortion and perhaps outright lies about JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Why no mentions of JFKs clear ability to discern differences betweeen nationalism and communism in Vietnam and Africa? Could lead the left in a dangerous direction. The left was not always this brainwashed about JFK. It took a lot of funded. work...
I think the capitalized statement in the middle--"...REAL STRUCTURE OF POWER IS AND THAT THE INDIVIDUAL DOES NOT MATTER.../NOTHING THAT SHOWS THAT A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL DOES NOT MATTER IN THE FACE OF INSTITUTIONALIZED OPPOSITION FROM THE PERMANENT MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COMPLEX than the JFK assassination"--gets to the hearth of the matter. I think the myth serves two main functions:
To prove that there exist magic bullet truths, truths so powerful that once brought to light can cause empires to crumble.To show the action of a saintly individual can save humanity from itself if he or she is duly recognized.
Of course absurdities abound in the argument. If individuals are powerless to act against the imperial power structure, even when nominally in a position of power, then the role of JFK is irrelevant since he had no way of acting on what was in his heart of hearts; and since he was unable to act on his own principles (a fact my FB friend claims is refuted "by the latest scholarship") while alive it would seem the assignation by the CIA was superfluous.
I have some sympathy for people who know there are being abused and lied to about it who create myths about the situation to cope psychologically. But it is hard not to react with anger when one is conscious that that myths of this sort result in confusion makes that only makes the struggle more difficult.
My FB friend concludes with the reflection:
Chomsky can be SO COMPLETELY ILLITERATE about the Cold War history of the the years 1958-1963!! Nothing about how close the US was to a first nuclear strike as was being pushed very very hard by the JCS in 1961 (see the brilliant book House of War by James Carroll) Nothing about how the permanent intel bureacracies had been undermining presidential Vietnam policy even under Eisenhower and how this CIA JCS autonomy radically increased under JFK (see the excellent and highly respected Vietnam Scholar Garreth Porters book Perils of Dominance( University of California press 2005) Nothing Howard Jones excellent book Death of a Generation: How the Deaths of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War (Oxford University Press, 2004) Nothing about David Kaisers excellent book American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Harvard University Press, 2002) which shows that JFK s plans to leave Vietnam were far more extensive than described in Chomsky's reassassination.*
Poor guy, not only was he assassinated once by the CIA, he gets "reassassinated" my "mainstream" liberal apologists including Alexander Cockburn, Noam Chomsky and those the notorious duo brainwash.
*By the way, I never mentioned either Cockburn or Chomsky, but clearly anyone who would call the Great Man a douche bag and an imperial maniac must under their spell.
Peter Ward pontificatingwithoutalicense.wordpress.com
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