17-09-2015, 06:54 AM
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:More on JFKFacts and Bill Clarke.
First of all, I think the moderation policy there has hurt the frequency of the comments. Many of the recent posts have very few comments and some of the people who had commented are now gone.
Second, I think Morley may have killed his own scoop when he downplayed the O'Reilly lie about being at DeMohrenschildt's house to hear the shotgun blast that took his life. He made more than one appearance about this after he and Talbot got the tapes from Marie Fonzi. In one of his last appearances he kind of downplayed their importance. I did not understand the logic of that. Pointing out a fabrication in a book which the author is encouraging his public to buy, I think that is important. As I think the mystery of how the Baron died is important also. Which he pretty much ignored.
Third, McAdams may be gone, but Bill Clarke is in full bloom now. I just noted how, in addition to trying to say JFK was not really withdrawing from Vietnam, he also tried to downplay a statement I made about Kennedy's achievements in civil rights. I talk about this in this week's BOR which is on tomorrow night.
In my review of Sabato's book, The Kennedy Half Century, I wrote that Kennedy did more for the civil rights of black Americans in three years than the previous 16 presidents did in a century. Clarke, with a straight face, actually wrote that Grant had appointed a few black judges to the bench, and Truman had integrated the armed services.
LOL ::angeldevil::
Can the man be real? Maybe its McAdams using an alias, or Paul May taking on a second one in addition to "Photon".
Just what Kennedy accomplished at the U. of Mississippi and the U. of Alabama outweighs what Truman did. Because those two colleges were the last two which accepted segregation. Kennedy made sure that Meredith finally got into Ole Miss against all the racist efforts of Governor Barnett. He then had to call in the army when rioting broke out. He then had Meredith escorted to class for about two years so he would not be murdered. Barnett is the same guy who showed up at the trial of Byron de La Beckwith and interrupted the testimony of Medgar Evers' wife to shake hands with the killer. Great guy eh?
In 1963, Kennedy moved in 3000 national guardsmen to counteract Wallace's bringing in over 800 state troopers to stop Alabama from being integrated. Wallace was determined to stand in the schoolhouse door and make Kennedy move him out. Kennedy ultimately had to nationalize the state national guard in order to bring a detachment of jeeps and army vehicles on campus to move Wallace out. Its an image that millions of people saw live on TV and will never forget. The end of southern racism in education. Who can forget it?
Maybe Bill? Clarke Hey Bill, did Truman ever do anything like that?
(Sound of crickets in the night.)
But that was just one aspect of a full court press that the Kennedys had planned in advance to break down the walls of segregation and voting rights discrimination in the south. Kennedy had been keen on this since Johnson's 1957 civil rights act, which he did not think went far enough, even though he voted for it. So he told his campaign advisory committee on civil rights that he would use the Attorney General's office to file suits in all the deep south states which he could prove were violating the civil rights of black Americans. Of course they did not know at the time that the AG would be RFK. But once appointed that is exactly what RFK started doing. For instance, Eisenhower had never field a lawsuit in Mississippi. RFK not only filed suits, he ended up suing the whole state. JFK monitored this progress every week. He asked Bobby when it would all be over, and the AG said probably 1967, maybe 68.
But see, something else happened in the meantime which nuts like Clarke do not acknowledge. Because of the campaign JFK ran--with the call to Coretta King and RFK arranging for MLK to get out of jail, plus JFK mentioning Africa 470 times in his campaign--all this and more raised the dormant expectation of black Americans throughout America. No presidential candidate had ever done that: I mean show an interest in Africa? (BTW, this is how we got Barack Obama as president. JFK secretly funded his father's voyage to America. To be honest, with how Barack turned out, maybe he shouldn't have.)
Therefore, the black civil rights groups throughout America now began to break out of their shells since they knew they finally had an ally in the White House. Somebody who would have their backs. So you got things like the Freedom Riders and lunch counter sit ins etc. And King in Birmingham. And in all these cases, in an escalating way, the Kennedys came through. It was culminated of course with the March on Washington. Which Kennedy backed and gave his brother Bobby responsibility for running. It was the high point of the civil rights movement. And then Kennedy got these activists into the White House to actually make calls to lobby congress for his all out push on the Civil Rights Act. They even got private donors to contribute money to voting rights causes.
Hey Bill, did Eisenhower ever do that? Truman? Grant? Who was one of the worst presidents ever.
After I stopped posting there because of the moderation policy which I felt was aimed at me, the owners said they were extreme first amendment defenders. Well, that is one way of saying you will allow anyone to post just about anything.
Including Clarke's ahistorical but pure BS.
****
What JFK did is major, of course. The confrontation with Wallace was Kabuki theater. Wallace
wanted to be seen "standing up to the federal government" before being forced to step aside to save face.
The Kennedys wanted to avoid physically removing him.
Truman's integration of the armed services by executive order was a big deal, however belated.
African Americans' service in the war led them to expect such integration, though it took three
years. This helped lead the way for the nascent civil rights movement. But parts of the military still
resisted. It took Eisenhower's threat to fire a top general to get the army finally integrated
after he took office. Eisenhower's attitude and overall record on civil rights was not progressive (he was privately
a racist), but he did send the troops to Little Rock to defend federal sovereignty over states'
rights. He hated to send troops to the South but felt it had to be done. That was also
important.