22 November 2013

Political Killings

The so-called "JFK assassination" is one of the dullest episodes in US history. It completely fails to register with me. It's a non-event. Politicians get killed. So what? Big fucking deal.

Now, I don't turn down my long nose at political killings. I've no problem with them. I think more should take place under the proper circumstances. Violence, after all, works.

When I was growing up my parents had some good friends--old preppy Nantucket types--for whom the "JFK assassination" was the watershed moment in their lives. It was as if their existence began with that event. Its legacy for them was like the bottom of a swamp stirred by memories, constantly muddied with sentiment, self-righteous indignation, and revenge.

My mother--an über-WASP from an old colonial masonic settler family--absolutely loathed the Kennedys and all they supposedly stood for. And so did her family. Vehemently so. I still recall them denouncing the American circus in ferocious terms.

I agreed with them then, and still do today.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did Kennedy ever do anything aside from look like he could be in a Brooks Brothers catalog? Good question to ask liberals.

(As for The Day of the Jackal, there's only one problem with that movie - the bad guys win.)

Anonymous said...

The rich and powerful do not like being reminded they are vulnerable.

Etymologue said...

I'd rather have someone in the White House who looks like he belongs in a Brooks Brothers catalogue than someone who looks like he's never heard of Brooks Brothers.

Greencoat said...

'Did Kennedy ever do anything aside from look like he could be in a Brooks Brothers catalog? Good question to ask liberals'

Well, I'm no liberal but history shows us that Kennedy went head-to-head with the Soviets and sent those bastards away with their tail between their legs.

All honour to the man and his memory.

w. adam mandelbaum esq. said...

Hey-the Kennedys gave us bootlegging, government association with organized crime, and other community benefits--like the betrayal of the Bay of Pigs fighters (Sorry, air support is offline at the moment, please try again). I just wondered, how come the fifty cent piece doesn't have a hole through it? "Happy Death Day Mr. Kennedy..."

Anonymous said...

If it wasn't for JFK quite a few of us might not be here today. Nuclear war anyone?

Aside from that JFK had more women at his beck and call at any one time than any president who preceded or succeeded him. Beat that LBF!

Michael said...

50 years in and the press blames it on hateful Dallas and barely mentions the Commie Oswald who had lived unsuccessfully in Russia and adored Castro and taken a shot at a righty a few weeks before. Kind of a pussie he was. Not a bad shot.

Cameron said...

Kennedy invited the Cuban missile crisis by acting like a beta at his meeting with Krushchev in Vienna. He then invited being shot in the head by commie by protraying the missile crisis as a great triumph when in reality he backed down and pulled missiles from Turkey.

LBF's Anglo mum was very much right about the little tyke prick.

? said...

Anybody who says JFK went head-to-head with the Soviets and won needs to do a little reading.

LBF - Your mother sounds like a fine woman.

Greencoat said...

'Anybody who says JFK went head-to-head with the Soviets and won needs to do a little reading.'

I've done all the reading that's necessary. Kennedy pulled a few out-of-date missiles from Turkey so that Kruschev could save face when he crawled back to the Kremlin.

In other words: 'Always give the other fella his bus fare home when you've just kicked his ass'.


Anonymous said...

Never understood how Irish smugglers got to be the end all be all of the WASP world.

lsiepw-W said...

My problem is having to listen to litany after litany of the Glorious and Sorrowful Kennedy Mysteries every 22nd of November.
Fifty years afterwards, the only person entitled to feel real sorrow at this man's death is Caroline. Other than that, you're just engaging in ritual self-flagellation. It's grotesque-nobody was beating himself, or the rest of the country, in 1951 because it was the 50th anniversary of McKinley's assassination. Or fifty years after Lincoln. More Boomer narcissism and self-importance dressed up as serious analysis.

Per Varios Casus said...

Kennedy did not go head to head with the Soviets. That was the US press' spin. Kennedy got owned by the Russians. They got him to pull our missiles out of Turkey. Most foreign leaders saw him as vapid playboy.

He began the involvement in Vietnam. And by getting killed he gave us that unmitigated disaster LBJ who ushered in the modern welfare state in America. All in all he was a bad president. Who didn't even win the 1960 election but had it stolen for him by Daley and Johnson.