27-01-2014, 02:45 PM
The Norton Paperback Post 1960 presidential historians tell us repeatedly that LBJ was the Master of the Senate, knew how to work the legislative branch like no other etc.
They forget the "Congressional" in Ike's original Farewell Address phrase "Military Industrial Congressional Complex".
This enables them to bypass the most important political difference between JFK and LBJ. Sure there were SOME ingredients of backroom in JFK as there would be from any urban Democrat, or heck any US politician. But JFK was using Television to go foreground ... i.e. talking directly to the electorate regardless of regional hierarchical powerbrokers like Congressmen and newspaper owners. The latter were corporate mediating institutions that could prevent coast to coast messaging by the president to the entire country. JFK could do this like no other, not merely because he was so charismatic, but because the new medium of television politics had not been delineated as far as permissibility and rules yet.
For example in his Western Tour of September 1963 JFK was getting standing ovations in Montana and a 15 minute one by the Mormons in Salt Lake City. Think about what that meant in terms of US elites tradition of using Catholic v protestant to divide the working class. On the Conservation Tour JFK turned a 80-20% Senate opposition to the test ban treaty to an 80% majority for its passage, while US magazines openly fretted about the impact of the end of the Cold War on corporate bottom lines.
It was this ability of presidents to speak sideways over the Rockies and back again East, that was assassinated on 11/22. What greater symbolism of the return to the Old Media Regime than Harriman's slumming on the night of 11/22 when he decided to drop in on his New York newspaper in order to personally sync it with Allen Dulles' lone nut syntax. (see Destiny Betrayed, 2nd edition)
Now was TV still important? Of course, but now it knew that those manicurists could cut more than fingernails.
Our corporate, court historians imply that LBJ was more democratic because of his ability to work with Congress. When we remember Ike's original phrase, and also keep in mind that Tabernacle Choir soon to be be erased from history like September's mournful gnats once we realize which medium's message was lost.
IMO the Obama comparison is completely ahistorical which is why it is thrown into the New Yorker article. It is impossible to compare Presidents 50 years after the office of the presidency has become wall paper for the national security state. And the impossibility of that comparison is the most dangerous freight of the JFK Assassination because of what that discontinuity implies about our educational system, our media and the Corporate Capitalism that are the only underpinning of these institutions of pure control.
They forget the "Congressional" in Ike's original Farewell Address phrase "Military Industrial Congressional Complex".
This enables them to bypass the most important political difference between JFK and LBJ. Sure there were SOME ingredients of backroom in JFK as there would be from any urban Democrat, or heck any US politician. But JFK was using Television to go foreground ... i.e. talking directly to the electorate regardless of regional hierarchical powerbrokers like Congressmen and newspaper owners. The latter were corporate mediating institutions that could prevent coast to coast messaging by the president to the entire country. JFK could do this like no other, not merely because he was so charismatic, but because the new medium of television politics had not been delineated as far as permissibility and rules yet.
For example in his Western Tour of September 1963 JFK was getting standing ovations in Montana and a 15 minute one by the Mormons in Salt Lake City. Think about what that meant in terms of US elites tradition of using Catholic v protestant to divide the working class. On the Conservation Tour JFK turned a 80-20% Senate opposition to the test ban treaty to an 80% majority for its passage, while US magazines openly fretted about the impact of the end of the Cold War on corporate bottom lines.
It was this ability of presidents to speak sideways over the Rockies and back again East, that was assassinated on 11/22. What greater symbolism of the return to the Old Media Regime than Harriman's slumming on the night of 11/22 when he decided to drop in on his New York newspaper in order to personally sync it with Allen Dulles' lone nut syntax. (see Destiny Betrayed, 2nd edition)
Now was TV still important? Of course, but now it knew that those manicurists could cut more than fingernails.
Our corporate, court historians imply that LBJ was more democratic because of his ability to work with Congress. When we remember Ike's original phrase, and also keep in mind that Tabernacle Choir soon to be be erased from history like September's mournful gnats once we realize which medium's message was lost.
IMO the Obama comparison is completely ahistorical which is why it is thrown into the New Yorker article. It is impossible to compare Presidents 50 years after the office of the presidency has become wall paper for the national security state. And the impossibility of that comparison is the most dangerous freight of the JFK Assassination because of what that discontinuity implies about our educational system, our media and the Corporate Capitalism that are the only underpinning of these institutions of pure control.