Was JFK beginning to "Go Economic Populist" AROUND the state Dems in 1963 into '64 Campaign?

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Hello, here is my broad question: Was Kennedy beginning to "Go Economic Populist" AROUND the state Dem. "machines" in '1963.

The word "populist" is an EXTREMELY loaded term especially during McCarthyism, Which the early 1960s WAS and WAS NOT [ this ambiguity and misunderstanding is richly cultivated, IMO] but, amazingly, even more so in 2013, when plutocracy is everywhere [in its own way].

Now what might have made JFK think he could go round machines and their uber-handlers, the golden part of Gilded Age? TV.

TV moved sideways, unlike the siloed internet.

TV, as the Civil Rights movement was showing, could dial direct, across state lines showing the granny in Sac the blood in Birmingham. If that was not controlled by the Robber Barons, no telling where it might lead.

Now look again, at JFK's airport comments in El Passo, June 5th 1963. The short but stand-out remark was that the greatness of a country should be measured by "the well-being of its people" How often do you see that in Cold War America?

Was JFK becoming willing to sacrifice, to some extent state pol infrastructures in order to use TV to dial more direct, using more working class aimed themes to compensate for the whites he was going to lose in the South? Was he beginning to fight black and white with Green?

That could be dangerous, and could never be an absolute break with state pols. But what else was the child like shenanigans about seating arrangements in the Dallas parade showing other than "this gulf cannot be breached the old way, gotta dial direct"?

That's not war time footing. That was part New Deal Dem rhetoric reemerging for this first time since the 1930s . Only THIS time there was a huge difference. The racial factor that had been used to keep wages down, was changing.

At the forefront was JFK's use of the UAW, which as Jim D. pointed out on an old BOR show last year, was a watershed mark in US labor history, because NOW when the gov, threatened to support labor it was threatening the Jim Crow income inequality ramifications that went with it , and income issues were the raison detre of Jim Crow to begin with. I really wish Jim would go further into this UAW trap door that he touched on, because it was RFK 's use of UAW in 68 ... that really began to effect the entire national labor picture, leading to a pantry and a plane-crash. The Kennedys and the murder of Jim Crow Labor terrain, was the Altoona Curve of the Democratic Party, and that real history threatens our current plutocracy more than anything, because it shows all to clearly how the Democrats abandoned the working class. With the contrast of JFK, RFK, and MLK with Walter Reuther, nobody can have any illusions at all about today's Deal! Democrats, who are paid mutes in the trumpet of dissent. This is history, weaponized.

[Tracy Riddle]

I think Kennedy was definitely discovering the power of TV, and realizing that he could go over the heads of traditional power centers and directly to the people. He did something like that rounding up public support for the Test Ban Treaty.

On economics, Kennedy was more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, though after the steel crisis it's obvious he didn't think much of big business.

[Albert Rossi]

On economics, Kennedy was more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, though after the steel crisis it's obvious he didn't think much of big business.

If you haven't read Donald Gibson's Battling Wall Street, I recommend it. The basic thesis of the book is that JFK's economic policies were resisted by what we call today the 1% because they sought to achieve a form of wealth redistribution through tax structure and increased productivity. It was this interventionism which was criticized so severely by Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and the Morgan/Rockefeller interests. JFK was not "anti-business", as Tracy states, in any ideological way, but was concerned about the economic commonwealth, about spreading the benefits of production throughout society, and with preventing the bleeding of productive capital into speculation and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. Gibson makes a good case for seeing his economic and foreign policy views (on the Third World) as of a piece. Gibson also states (I think correctly) that the steel crisis was staged to place JFK's policies under a generalized attack and to weaken his efficacy. It was not really all that much about the immediate profit to be gleaned by U.S. Steel from the price hike. One of the points he makes here is that the steel producers and unions were in negotiation for over a year; the timing of this rejection, after the fact, bespeaks a subtler, clandestine agenda.

I know this is slightly askew from the original question of JFK's populism, but I thought I'd inject it here. I think JFK was willing to experiment with any means that would broaden his ability to achieve the kind of consensus he thought was important. Tracy is spot on to mention the Test Ban Treaty in that respect.

[Phil Dragoo]

Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, is a complement to Gibson's Battling, illustrating the use of CIA, Green Berets, financial and diplomatic pressure, regime change, assassination, and pacification of recalcitrant tribes to expedite the extraction and exploitation of the Hemisphere's resources to the profit of the few at the expense of the continued lament of the many.

It wasn't merely that Kennedy was an obstacle to steel magnates or oil barons; it was that he desired loans be made absent the customary military codicils, that the quality of life be raised for all, though plenty deprived the profits of the scarcity merchants as a glut of diamonds or gold--or oil.

His opposition to post-colonial Cold War alliances with dictators and covert interference by intelligence and industry made him an enemy of the extant cabal.

Ike saw a military-industrial complex rampant; Truman petitioned, "Return CIA to Intelligence Role," but Kennedy saw the larger picture of interference with self-determination to profit the global interests.

Settling on a single villain, e.g., LBJ or Hoover or American mafia or intelligence or industry or right-wing or Cubans or Pentagon is to settle for a single Blind Man's description of the Elephant.

Kennedy was the only American president of the Century of the Fed to elevate the interests of all peoples to those of the American people.

He was therefore an existential threat to Ahab and was harpooned

at High Noon

as An Example

[Albert Rossi]

Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, is a complement to Gibson's Battling, illustrating the use of CIA, Green Berets, financial and diplomatic pressure, regime change, assassination, and pacification of recalcitrant tribes to expedite the extraction and exploitation of the Hemisphere's resources to the profit of the few at the expense of the continued lament of the many.

Yes, absolutely. Gibson writes of how the globalists basically wanted resource-rich Third-World countries not to develop independent economies, but simply increase exports (to/via them). The financial arm-twisting was done by the World Bank and IMF. Gibson doesn't spend a lot of time on the other (covert/military) aspect of neo-colonial domination, but it's implicit in what he writes.

It wasn't merely that Kennedy was an obstacle to steel magnates or oil barons; it was that he desired loans be made absent the customary military codicils, that the quality of life be raised for all, though plenty deprived the profits of the scarcity merchants as a glut of diamonds or gold--or oil.

A big point made by Gibson is that JFK envisaged economic cooperation between nations (states), while Wall Street insisted on private contractual agreements between corporations and the holders of resources.

Kennedy was the only American president of the Century of the Fed to elevate the interests of all peoples to those of the American people.

That is perhaps the most "dangerous" proposition which could be maintained about JFK's short term in office. It is the biggest elephant in the room.

[Lauren Johnson]

A big point made by Gibson is that JFK envisaged economic cooperation between nations (states), while Wall Street insisted on private contractual agreements between corporations and the holders of resources.

And the key to this sentence is that in order for this to happen, the political climate must be created and maintained such that the resources and local markets were to be managed to the benefit of foreign corporations. Nationalism was and is the enemy.

[Jan Klimkowski]

A big point made by Gibson is that JFK envisaged economic cooperation between nations (states), while Wall Street insisted on private contractual agreements between corporations and the holders of resources.

Indeed.

Which is why I prefer the formulation military-multinational-intelligence complex as in my judgement it more accurately encapsulates the permanent power structure than military-industrial complex.