The President of the United States gave a 25 minute speech at the Smithsonian about service, public service specifically, and sacrifice - the monumental, and ongoing sacrifices exacted from every corner of the Kennedy Family in the service of American exceptionalism.
It was a really nice speech - and EXTREMELY low key.
But never once in that speech anywhere did he mention that any of them had been murdered for their commitment to their individual and collective beliefs.
He marked the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination without ever once mentioning the assassination.
He also - with the exception of just one or two passing mentions and acknowledgements of Jack's wartime Naval Service - made absolutely no mention whatsoever, in any sense, of the role of the military in any aspect of the American system or the American experience.
He didn't mention troops stationed currently overseas.
He, I don't RECALL, him using the word "fight", or "struggle", or "contest" in his account of the quest for American exceptionalism ANYWHERE in his speech, in no measure, and spoke of such high aspiration, solely in its own terms, and in its own right as no US President has fully been able to since, - and this is a bold guess, but one I am fully confident in committing myself to - I would suggest to you, the morning of April 12th, 1945.
He made the kind of speech that Jack Kennedy committed his whole career, his whole life, sacrificed his life, and that of almost his entire family, to be able to make.
Thinking back on it right now, it's utterly incredible - he got the Kennedy Vision of Service , and it's tangible and achieveable and publicly achieved acts of proactive and positive risk-taking and striving for change and improvement RIGHT, but he presented what Jack, Bobby, Ted, or Jack Jr. were never able to lay out, objectively.
John Kennedy was never ABLE to announce the creation of the Peace Corps, or the Alliance for Prosperity, or the scheduling and budgeting projections for the Atlas, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, absent the fact of their moments of inception within the wider context of Cold War competition.
Always, it was with the caveat, "This is the kind of positive way I firmly believe that we ought to be trying to reach out to the rest of the World, and we've going to try doing it this way for a while and see how it works out - but obviously, we're not going dismantle SAC's perpetually airborne and fully-loaded fleet of B-52s patrolling the perimeter of the Fail-Safe HOLD positions so as to effectively execute either a first or second strike response to any given development..... We're just going to do this, feed the hungry, clothe the sick and build schools, we're just going to do this too now, from now on.
Kruschev had attempted to explain to then Vice-President Nixon that the Soviets had neither the intention, nor the desire to compete with the White Heat of Yankee Science in perfecting colour television.
But only by way of the fact that the Air Force were convinced that the US stood ready to LOSE the contest with the USSR over ICBM inventory was NASA ever appropriated sufficient budget to achieve its core mission objectives.
Founded upon a deranged fantasy - Air Force Intelligence estimated the USSR nuclear inventory of ICBMs would shortly exceed 6000 launchable missiles.
CORONA imaging from low-orbital overflight revealed the true number was in fact 6.
But it was the Air Force Estimate if 6000 that secured the funds that would be needed to go to the moon, and do the other things, and return safely in time to pull Ted's Oldsmobile back out of the drink in time...
When can you last remember a substantive speech made by a sitting president that does not make reference as to the policy being announced or under discussion in relation to either one of
1) The a Global War on Terror,
2) The competition with the Soviets for global dominance
3) "New and emerging threats to future global stability, bringing with them fresh and unexpected challenges to out nation, to our values and to our way of life"
4) Global Systemic Financial Collapse
5) Peak Oil
6) The Rockerfeller Men pressing froward to forge a New World Order?
He looks genuinely sad and pained as he finishes speaking - like he ALMOST wants to just Ad Lib with an "Ask Not..." to close...
I came across these two sets of remarks at the exact same time earlier - read between the lines of Obama's phrasing, and see if you can discern the firm distinction between what the Kennedys and the veterans of the Civil Rights movement know to be "service", and what the House of Bush and Rockerfeller term "Volunteerism".
For starters, the use of "Volunteerism" creates by inference the false sense that the person concerned holds down some kind of a a Day Job in addition to this unpaid activity they are choosing to engage in, without pay - and these people in the a Thousand Points of Light Programme are all Bushes, Bush people or Bush's demographic, so we know that absolutely is not going to be the case;
But who else "Volunteers"...? You *Volunteer* to go behind enemy lines, conduct acts of sabotage, and provoke destabilising mischief.
Domestic Bureacracy is one of the most vital and thankless acts of service one could perform, and there are minor Kennedy cousins by the cartloads working quietly away all over Washington and beyond, just making government *work*...
And what are Bush's Volunteers doing...?
Establishing an HIV clinic in Tanzania.
Of three or four likely precursors to the emergence of the AIDS Epidemic, ALL of them occurred during or immediately after 1976, during the 13 months or so a Pappy Bush was Director of Central Intelligence;
First, the entire livestock population of Cuba's pig farms were wiped out and destroyed by a completely unknown and extremely virulent strain of African Swine Flu, completely unprecedented anywhere in the Carribbean, with only one or two isolated cases showing up the same time on nearby Haiti;
In response, Bush recommends Ford roll out a domestic mass vaccination programme across the US to immunise American population against the new strain of Swine Flu in October of '76;
Shortly afterward, an experimental new Hepititis-B vaccine is given to the circle of friends in the San Francisco gay community that later corresponds closely to a seeming "Patient Zero" social clique.
And around '78-'79, straight make Haitians will begin dying of what with retrospect is quickly recognised to be AIDS-related illnesses and complications....
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