House of Eratosthenes

If you could bring John F. Kennedy back from the dead, what would he say about our current happenings? The author of this video would have you believe our only Catholic President would be horrified at the actions of the Bush administration, based on a speech he gave in the spring of 1961.

Seems like an open and shut case, right?

Not so fast. This summer, in response to the video above someone on LibertyForum named HolyKnight was able to find this complete transcript.

Some parts of it which I’ve highlighted in light blue made it into the YouTube clip. Some parts which I’ve highlighted in red, did not. That might be because where the font is red, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is talking an awful lot like John Fitzgerald Bush.

I

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country’s peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of “clear and present danger,” the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public’s need for national security.

Today no war has been declared–and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self- discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of “clear and present danger,” then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions- -by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security–and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation’s foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation’s covert preparations to counter the enemy’s covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said–and your newspapers have constantly said–that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: “Is it news?” All I suggest is that you add the question: “Is it in the interest of the national security?” And I hope that every group in America–unions and businessmen and public officials at every level– will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation–an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people–to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well–the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers–I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: “An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news–for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security–and we intend to do it.

III

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world’s efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press–to the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news–that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

That’s your First Instinct Fallacy playing out in the YouTube clip above, right there. You have a first-instinct, and subsequently all evidence that becomes available to you is filtered according to whether it fits the instinct.

The fact is, Kennedy was walking a pretty thin line here. He had just botched the Bay of Pigs invasion and three of his officials had to resign over the failure. The best information we have today, is that his administration was planning the invasion to a depth of detail he was still dodging at the time of this speech, and at the same time he was tut-tutting the press for being too diligent in exploring the matter that was an embarrassment to him. But he also wanted to extoll the virtues of leaders in democratic societies welcoming criticism of their errors…and exploration of what those errors may be.

But genuinely welcoming such inspection? Really? History doesn’t support this.

And here it is 45 years later, the speech is hauled out and put on YouTube — just carefully cherry-picked pieces of it, though — to make the current presidency look bad. Yet in the final analysis, what JFK had to say about the communists, is fundamentally no different from what GWB has to say about the Islamo-fascists. It’s exactly the same argument. Our enemy is “monolithic” in all the ways that matter; our enemy is controlled, and therefore has a cosmetic advantage over our own society, which is free; we will ultimately prevail because our society works in greater harmony with the human spirit; but victory is only possible if we respect transparency and, at the same time, national security.

Neither President, when you parse the words all the way down, is supporting an idea that transparency should be absolute. The 35th and the 43rd have it in common that they’d like to keep some things under wraps.

And the secrecy carefully embraced by the Bay State President, as it relates to the matter he was addressing in his speech, was needed to protect his image and not to protect national security. Is the same true of our current President? Time will tell. Meanwhile, the clip is just so much bull. The words are correct. To suppose Kennedy would approve of the way it is shown, depends on how sincere, and intellectually honest, our former President would want to be. He had no standing to criticize our government as it operates today. Not as far as the secrecy-vs.-transparency issue.

What’s sad is people take this kind of thing at face value. There’s actually a frame in the movie that says “GOOGLE MUTHAFUCKA, DO YA USE IT??” And if you really do use it, before you find something that embarrasses the White House, you find other things that embarrass the video…so the author of the clip better hope the answer is “no.” But in most cases, that’s the correct answer. People see images, they presume the Government is out to get ’em with every little thing it does, they find a couple quotes by Thomas Paine telling them this is what they’re supposed to be thinking, and they then labor under the belief that they must have noodled this through with some good mind-sweat, spent some good mental elbow-grease on it. All they’ve done is watch a five-minute video and believed every word in it without question.

And then if/when a Democrat takes the White House, they’ll stop being suspicious. They won’t outwardly admit that’s the process…but they’ll drop the “Big Brother’s Out To Get Me” act for forty-eight to ninety-six months straight. You won’t hear a peep out of ’em about it.

And then they’ll watch a made-for-TV movie about the Kennedy family, watch a few scenes with touch-football, Jackie in her pillbox hat, Bobbie courageously mouthing off at J. Edgar, and they’ll think they’ve become authorities on “Camelot.” Oh, I do hope people are better informed than that…before receding again into the world of Starbuck’s and Blockbuster and Krispy Kreme. I hope so. I doubt it.

[…] The most closed-minded people I’ve known have always believed themselves to be superior to everyone else. Being open-minded isn’t something that happens naturally. It’s something into which you have to put effort. Morgan Freeburg expands on this concept… a lot. People see images, they presume the Government is out to get ‘em with every little thing it does, they find a couple quotes by Thomas Paine telling them this is what they’re supposed to be thinking, and they then labor under the belief that they must have noodled this through with some good mind-sweat, spent some good mental elbow-grease on it. All they’ve done is watch a five-minute video and believed every word in it without question. […]
- rightlinx.com » Blog Archive » The Ignorance Of Arrogance | 12/03/2006 @ 17:43

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