Response to Original message
4. Speech made by JFK on 9/14/60: "What is a liberal?"
"...if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
"Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility."
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partygirl (187 posts) Thu Sep-16-04 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #5
14. Actually, I have been to both of
their libraries and there is a LOT of evidence that they were friends until the end. It was a real shocker to me, because before they ran against each other in 1960, each one had separately told several of his friends that the other was his best friend in Washington! There are dozens of sources for this, and I saw the stuff at both libraries.
That is why Nixon did NOT fight even though people considered the Kennedy win controversial. Eisenower offered to pay out of his own pocket $$$ to challenge the election, but Nixon would not do anything to hurt his friend. Kennedy wrote his some very sweet letters between 1960 and the time he died--I cried when I read them at the Nixon library. And when Nixon got in office, one of the first things that he did was have JFK Jr visit the white house--if you get a chance read the sweet thank you note that the young JFK Jr wrote to him.
I think we (just we the people) have built up a hatred, but they did not hate each other ever. Nixon lived longer and at his library, there is written and verbal very very nice things that Nixon said about JFK. Their is evidence that they were very close friends prior to the election and that after the election they remained in contact and that each respected the other until the day they died. I think it is a wonderful story! Neither one was as partisan as we are now and they were able to reach out and be friends with people who disagreed with them so that they could accomplish more.
I am always shocked by the people who are all like "oh my mother is going to vote for Nader, I hate her now". I was not raised to HATE people who disagree. There is a saying that "good men disagree"?
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Tax cuts. Repubs think JFK was conservative because
of his belief in tax cuts. He did believe, and get pushed through Congress, tax cuts, but they were very different from the conservative supply-side tax cuts. AND the tax cuts were part of an economic plan that included protection of the unemployed, raising the minimum wage, a growth plan for the depressed Appalachian region, and social programs to help the disadvantaged.
All Bush has done is the tax cut part, and his tax cuts predominantly benefited the top 1%. Kennedy's were across the board. Although he decreased the top bracket significantly, it had reached a whopping 91% income tax rate. Congress cut it to 70% under Kennedy's plan. Compare that to Bush cutting from almost 40% to 35%. 40% is not unreasonable for someone earning over $1 Million dollars, esp. considering all the deductions they could use, if they chose to (and do). We all know that the wealthy have many loopholes to lower their tax bills. The poor do not.
Bush's economic plan is MAINLY tax cuts for the top earners, and not much else. That's a huge difference.
Even Reagan's tax cuts were not as bad as Bush's. The proof is in the pudding: The gap between the middle class and the wealthy widened significantly under both Reagan and Bush Jr. It did not under or immediately after JFK.
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Merlin (1000+ posts) Thu Sep-16-04 10:51 PM
Response to Original message
25. Actions Speak the Loudest. JFK was the gutsiest liberal of our time.
Can there be any doubt about it?
The only thing the other side points to to try to morph JFK into a right winger is his tax cuts and fiscal responsibility.
But Clinton proved that it is LIBERAL to be fiscally responsible. A balanced budget and strong economy keeps interest rates down and brings in tax revenues with which it's possible to make changes.
JFK got up on TV and asked America to consider if our society is truly just and equal, "...then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and become a negro?" He said it was time to stop having two Americas "one black and one white" and eradicate the ancient primitive differences. Then he introduced the Voting Rights Act.
JFK fought tooth and nail to keep combat troops OUT OF VIETNAM, and even issued an order to withdraw our advisors by 1965; an order reversed 2 days after he died.
JFK began a program to eliminate the enormous wealth disparities in Latin America. He sent Peace Corp volunteers to poor areas to help people. He initiated programs to redevelop Appalachia.
JFK launched a program of detente with the Soviet Union, and announced in his extraordinary American University speech in June, 1963, that he would try to end the cold war.
For which of these liberal initiatives was JFK murdered?
We have yet to find out.
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