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Albert E. Burke: Difference between revisions
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Kennedy was still thinking of his encounter with Dealey when he spoke later that year of people who “call for ‘a man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our churches, in our highest court, in our treatment of water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, socialism with communism.” With his prescient political eye Kennedy saw that the new world was being created, and it stood opposed to everything he represented: East Coast liberalism, mainstream Democratic party politics, Ivy League learning, the customary restraints of educated society. Although Kennedy was popularly understood as a man of his time, a thoroughly modern president, in many ways he was the last of the traditionalists. He called his administration the New Frontier, but his successors—Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan—would show that the real frontier in American politics lay for away in the new world. | Kennedy was still thinking of his encounter with Dealey when he spoke later that year of people who “call for ‘a man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our churches, in our highest court, in our treatment of water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, socialism with communism.” With his prescient political eye Kennedy saw that the new world was being created, and it stood opposed to everything he represented: East Coast liberalism, mainstream Democratic party politics, Ivy League learning, the customary restraints of educated society. Although Kennedy was popularly understood as a man of his time, a thoroughly modern president, in many ways he was the last of the traditionalists. He called his administration the New Frontier, but his successors—Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan—would show that the real frontier in American politics lay for away in the new world. | ||
During his presidency the atmosphere in Dallas approached hysteria. “The historical conservatism of the city,” wrote Dallas’ most prominent merchant, Stanley Marcus, “had been fanned to a raging fire by the combination of a number of elements: the far right daily radio ‘Facts Forum’ program by Dan Smoot sponsored by the ultraconservative wealthiest man in town, H. L. Hunt; the John Birch Society; the oil industry’s hysterical concern for the preservation of what they considered a biblical guarantee of their depletion allowance; the ‘National Indignation League’ founded by a local garageman, Frank McGeehee, in protest of the air force’s training of some Yugoslavian pilots at a nearby air base; the consistently one-sided attacks on the administration by the Dallas Morning News and the semi-acquiescent editorial policy of the Times Herald, which had previously been a middle-of-the-road, fair newspaper. For the lack of courageous firemen in the business and intellectual segments of the community, the fire raged on.” ... | During his presidency the atmosphere in Dallas approached hysteria. “The historical conservatism of the city,” wrote Dallas’ most prominent merchant, Stanley Marcus, “had been fanned to a raging fire by the combination of a number of elements: the far right daily radio ‘Facts Forum’ program by Dan Smoot sponsored by the ultraconservative wealthiest man in town, H. L. Hunt; the John Birch Society; the oil industry’s hysterical concern for the preservation of what they considered a biblical guarantee of their depletion allowance; the ‘National Indignation League’ founded by a local garageman, Frank McGeehee, in protest of the air force’s training of some Yugoslavian pilots at a nearby air base; the consistently one-sided attacks on the administration by the Dallas Morning News and the semi-acquiescent editorial policy of the Times Herald, which had previously been a middle-of-the-road, fair newspaper. For the lack of courageous firemen in the business and intellectual segments of the community, the fire raged on.” ... | ||
Dallas was gaining notice. The leader of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell, opined that Dallas had “the most patriotic, pro-American people of any city in the country.” The compliment may have embarrassed a few, considering its source, but we believed that about ourselves. To the radical conservatives, Dallas had become a kind of shrine, a Camelot of the right. [Then as now, no matter how much things change, they still remain the same.] | Dallas was gaining notice. The leader of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell, opined that Dallas had “the most patriotic, pro-American people of any city in the country.” The compliment may have embarrassed a few, considering its source, but we believed that about ourselves. To the radical conservatives, Dallas had become a kind of shrine, a Camelot of the right. ... | ||
[Then as now, no matter how much things change, they still remain the same.] | |||
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