Fifty-eight years ago, on November 22, 1963, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
It has been said that JFK left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1973, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means absurd:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, threw up their hands in defeat.
President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press-–and not for altruistic reasons. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “the percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017).
“Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”
When Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke announced his candidacy for President in 2020, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade attacked him for having a “huge library.”
“As if it’s a big plus that he reads books,” scoffed Kilmeade.
In March, 2020, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump infamously chortled after winning the Nevada Republican primary: “
Donald Trump
And, that November, “the poorly educated” elected him President.
As President, he attacked the free press as “the enemy of America” for exposing his lies and criminality. He scorned legitimate mainstream news media while seeking guidance from ego-stroking Right-wing shills at Fox News—who often proved as ignorant as he was.
His senior adviser, Kelleyanne Conway, set the tone of his administration right at the outset. Asked why then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer had lied about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration, Conway replied:
“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving—Sean Spicer, our press secretary—gave alternative facts.”
Kelleyanne Conway
“Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods,” Chuck Todd, the moderator on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” properly responded.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake–that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.
It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.
The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, KEN PAXTON, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBB ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, ROBERT FRANCIS “BETO” O’ROURKE, ROLAND FREISLER, SALON, SALVATOR RAMOS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED CRUZ, TEXS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, UVALDE, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11
NAZI PAST IS REPUBLICAN PRESENT
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 27, 2022 at 12:10 amYou can’t appreciate the ordeal—and the heroism—of Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke on May 25 if you know nothing about Roland Freisler.
Not that O’Rourke and Freisler have anything in common.
O’Rourke, 49, represented the Texas 16th Congressional district from 2013 to 2019. A Democrat, he ran for the United States Senate in 2018 and for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. He is now the Democratic nominee for the 2022 Texas governorship.
Robert “Beto” O’Rourke
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Freisler (October 30, 1893 – February 3, 1945) was a German Nazi jurist, judge and politician who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and President of the People’s Court from 1942 to 1945.
His mastery of legal texts, verbal force and fanatical commitment to Nazi ideology made him the most-feared judge in Nazi Germany. He was an admirer of Andrei Vyshinsky, the chief prosecutor of the Stalinist purge trials, and reportedly copied his demeanor.
Friesler demanded strict penalties against “race defilement”—sexual relations between “Aryans” and “inferior races”—designating this as “racial treason.”
Between 1942 and 1945, Freisler ordered 5,000 people executed. These included approximately 200 people hanged for alleged involvement in the July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Ninety per cent of all cases brought before him resulted in death or life imprisonment.
Freisler’s treatment of these defendants was especially brutal and humiliating. During the trial of Erwin von Witzleben, the former field marshal tried to hold up his trousers because he had been given oversized and beltless clothing. Freisler yelled at him: “You dirty old man, why do you keep fiddling with your trousers?”
On February 3, 1945, an American bombing raid on Berlin forced Freisler to adjourn proceedings and order the prisoners before him be taken to an air raid shelter. But he stayed behind to gather files before leaving.
A bomb struck the court building, and while Freisler hurriedly gathered his documents, a masonry column crushed him. He died instantly, and his flattened remains were found beneath the rubble.
Roland Freisler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J03238 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Among the files he clutched was that of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a member of the July 20 plot who faced execution. Because Freisler died, Schlabrendorff, survived the war.
When Freisler was brought to Lützow Hospital, a worker commented: “It is God’s verdict.”
Now, fast forward 77 years to a different country—but the same Fascistic mentality.
On May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. He shut himself inside two adjoining classrooms and fatally shot 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 other people.
He remained in the school for more than an hour before members of the United States Border Patrol Tactical Unit fatally shot him.
The next day, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott staged a press conference in Uvalde. Joining him were Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dade Phelan, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas United States Senators John Cormyn and Ted Cruz.
As always happens after a gun massacre, the assembled Republicans blamed it on everything but the ready availability of military-style firearms to virtually anyone—including criminals, terrorists and the mentally ill.
“Inevitably when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” Ted Cruz told reporters. “That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.”
Paxton similarly rejected any effort at gun control: “I’d much rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens because it’s not going to be the last time.”
This totally ignored the fact that armed Texas police, knowing they were facing a man armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, waited more than an hour to enter the school.
O’Rourke was having none of it. He had become outraged about gun violence after a 2019 mass shooting in his hometown, El Paso, killed 23 people.
About 15 minutes after Abbott began speaking to the media and fellow Republicans onstage, O’Rourke moved to the third row of the Uvalde High School auditorium. When Abbott concluded his comments and introduced Patrick, O’Rourke rose and walked to the stage and spoke directly to Abbott.
“The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing,” O’Rourke said. “You are offering up nothing. You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable when you choose not to do anything.”
Republicans onstage furiously reacted.
Cruz: “Sit down and don’t play this stunt.”
Patrick: “You’re out of line and an embarrassment.”
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin: “I can’t believe that you’re a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.”
Police escorted O’Rourke out of the room. Just as some defendants had dared to warn Freisler he would face trial for war crimes, O’Rourke had a similar warning for Abbott:
“This is on you until you choose to do something different,” O’Rourke said, as he was escorted out of the room.
“This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will be continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”
It remains to be seen whether history will hold Greg Abbott as accountable for mass deaths as it has Roland Freisler.
Share this:
Like this: