The Real JFK Conspiracy

John F. Kennedy came from a very rich family, so rich as to create a complex labyrinth that would be safe from public scrutiny. Kennedy was a conservative by the standards of both his time and today. The Kennedy clan  were economic robber barons. They hobnobbed with the most unsavory reactionaries. They were virulently anti-labor; Bobby almost destroyed the Teamsters. Some believe that Kennedy was a bastion for civil rights but nothing could be further from the truth. Kennedy urged the black leaders leaders to call off the 1963 march. Kennedy had no plans to put before congress civil rights legislation.

JFK essentially bought his way into politics. His father, the wealthy Joseph Kennedy, picked out a nice congressional seat in Massachusetts and basically paid the occupant of the position to step down and run instead for the Boston mayor. JFK’s father then tried to pay off the Democratic frontrunner to drop out of the race, and when that didn’t work, persuaded William Randolph Hearst not to run any of the candidate’s ads or pictures in Hearst-owned newspapers. Joe Kennedy even paid a janitor named Joseph Russo to run in the race in order to dilute support for another leading candidate named Joseph Russo. Recognizing the importance of PR, the Kennedy family contributed $600,000 – an enormous sum in 1946 – for a children’s hospital in the district where JFK was running for office. a capitalist politician, Kennedy, son of a millionaire, a capitalist politician never knew the poverty, hunger and insecurity that most of the human race knows or has known at some time. He was confident to the point of arrogance. He was rash. He isought quick victories, and was impatient and accustomed to getting what he wants. He became petulant when frustrated. The profit system had been very good to him.

There was a deep connection between red-baiter Joe McCarthy and the Kennedy family, with McCarthy being a close friend of JFK’s father, who gave sizable contributions to his campaign, and dated two of his daughters which is rarely discussed. This is probably why JFK didn’t speak out against McCarthy. Nor let us not forget that Bobby Kennedy was an aide to Joseph McCarthy. JFK respected Nixon, and preferred him to liberal members of his own party. Kennedy was stand-offish toward the Civil Rights movement and it was the archetype Southern politician LBJ who passed the Civil Rights Act. It was LBJ, the Texan oil man’s statesman, who launched the War on Poverty.

It must also be noted that all of the cabinet members served through part, or all, of the Johnson Administration, further dispelling the myth that Kennedy’s was somehow extraordinary. Noam Chomsky says, the Kennedy and Reagan administrations aren’t that different:
“...compare two Presidential administrations in the 1960s and the 1980s, the Kennedy administration and the Reagan administration. Now, in a sense they had a lot in common, contrary to what everyone says. Both came into office on a fraudulent denunciations of their predecessors as being wimpish and weak and letting the Russians get ahead of us–There was a fraudulent “missile gap” in the Kennedy case, a fraudulent “window of vulnerability” in the Reagan case.  Both were characterized by a major escalation of the arms race, which means more international violence and increased taxpayer subsidies to advanced  industry at home through military spending. Both were jingoist, both tried to whip up fear in the general population through a lot of militarist hysteria  and jingoism. Both launched highly aggressive foreign policies around the world–Kennedy substantially increased the level of violence in Latin America; the plague of repression that culminated in the 1980s under Reagan was in fact largely the result of his initiatives...”

Nor is the similarity restricted to foreign adventurism. Both JFK and Reagan were the tax-cutting presidents. He lowered the top rates of individual income tax and he reduced corporate tax levels. Kennedy was a boom time for the corporations with the price of the S&P Composite Index return  up,  about 150% between 1960 and 1965. At the same time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 115 points (between 18 and 19%), give or take, during JFK’s administration, reaching a high of about 735 points in 1962.  corporate taxes as a percentage of corporate profits were on a decline while corporate profits after taxes were on the rise. However, personal wage and salary as a percentage of the GDP was on the decline.

Noam Chomsky commented: “…Kennedy was very pro-business. He was essentially a business candidate. His assassination had no significant effect on policy that anybody was able to detect.”
Howard Zinn wrote that after JFK presented his first budget, it was clear there “would be no major change in the distribution of income or wealth or tax advantages” and then proceeded to quote New York Times columnist James Reston, who wrote that Kennedy “agreed to a tax break for business investment in plant expansion and modernization. He is not spoiling for a fight with the Southern conservatives over civil rights. He has been urging the unions to keep wage demands down…he has been trying to reassure the business community that he does not want any cold war with them…”.

When we recall the assassination of JFK 50 years ago and ask ourselves who did it, we should answer, who cares. Nobody has come up with a plausible reason for a conspiracy requiring his assassination. When it comes to the assassination of presidents there is no conspiracy theory - just ask Castro who was subjected to numerous attempts on his life under Kennedy’s Operation Mongoose. Nor were acts of terrorism, such as the CIA blowing up a factory in Cuba that killed 400, a conspiracy theory. The respected political observer and writer Gore Vidal wrote: “He [JFK] gave the green light to an invasion of Cuba and suffered a humiliating defeat...In the gospel according to Oliver Stone, after a little trip to Dallas, Kennedy would bring back the troops that he has only just sent into battle. Why? Because he’s the good guy. Actually he has no intention of ending the war that he has just begun. “After Cuba,” he told mutual friends, “I have to go all the way with this one.”

JFK was no hero to be admired and there is no reason to discuss conspiracies that required his assassination, but rather it is time to look for the truth in the deceptive myth of  Kennedy as a liberal president.  Instead we should remember the real Kennedy - the president who protected the interests of the plutocracy.

“Kennedy arrogantly and irresponsibly violated his covenant with the people. While saying and doing the appropriate things in the public light, he acted covertly in ways that seriously demeaned himself and his office." - A Question of Character by Thomas Reeves

Taken and adapted from 
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/10/jfk-americas-admired-corporatist-imperialist-and-interventionist/
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/11/jfks-corporatist-and-imperialist-presidency/
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/11/jfks-corporatist-and-imperialist-presidency-2/
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/11/jfks-corporatist-and-imperialist-presidency-3/