A Memorial Day message from JFK

This was forwarded to me from my Politics discussion group:

THEODORE C. SORENSEN
What JFK might tell our leaders
By Theodore C. Sorensen | May 28, 2005

TOMORROW WOULD have been John F. Kennedy's 88th birthday. Were he still alive, I have no doubt that, with his customary idealism and commitment to country, he would still be offering advice to our current leaders in Washington. Based upon his words of more than 40 years ago, he might well offer the following:

To President George W. Bush on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea:
''The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough -- more than enough -- of war." (American University commencement, 1963)

To President Bush on stem cell research:
''For those of us who are not expert ... we must turn, in the last resort, to objective, disinterested scientists who bring a strong sense of public responsibility and public obligation." (National Academy of Sciences, 1961)

To Vice President Dick Cheney on international organizations, alliances, and consultations:
''The United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. We are only 6 percent of the world's population... we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind." (University of Washington, 1961)

To Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on terrorism:
''If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." (Inaugural address, 1961)

To United Nations ambassador-designate John Bolton on diplomacy:
''Civility is not a sign of weakness. The United Nations [is] our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace." (Inaugural address, 1961)

To Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on space:
''We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. This new ocean must be a sea of peace, [not] a new terrifying theater of war." (Rice University, 1962)

To House Majority Leader Tom Delay on fund-raising:
We need ''men of integrity whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust." (Massachusetts farewell, 1961)

To Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on judges:
''To maintain the constitutional principle, we should support Supreme Court decisions, even when we may not agree with them." (News conference, 1962)

To White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on negative news media:
''It is never pleasant to be reading things that are not agreeable news, but it is an invaluable arm to the presidency as a check on what is going on... [e]ven though we never like it... and wish they didn't write it... we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press." (Television interview, 1962)

To pastor-in-chief Pat Robertson on church-state separation: ''I believe in an America where no [clergyman] would tell his
parishioners for whom to vote, where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the public acts of our officials, where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. The presidency must not be the instrument of any one religious group." (Houston ministers, 1960)

To Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes on propaganda :
''The United States is a peaceful nation where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction not belligerence." (undelivered Dallas speech, 1963)

How I miss his friendship. How our nation misses his wisdom.

Theodore C. Sorensen is former special counsel to President Kennedy.

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Another fun exchange from my Politics group:

I don't know if it was intentionally written that way, but Revenge of the Sith could be compared to the current political arena. Did anyone else catch that? It seems some of Darth's quotes were almost like Bush's...
- CHRIS

And the reply from another group member:

Intentional it is. Evil is Bush. Told you we did. Now, matters are worse.
-LEONARD

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"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things . Among them are ... a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

–President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

Tiger update and a lesson learned, again

Earlier this year, I made a post about losing all my iTunes bookmarks. That sucked so bad, I immediately got a .mac account to back up all my important data.

Except I fucked up. I didn't back up all my important data.

I upgraded to Tiger a couple of weeks ago. Did a clean install. In other words, I erased my hard drive and started from scratch. Then I tried to do a restore off my iDisc .mac account. Everything seemed in order. All my work was intact; all my bookmarks and yes, all my iTunes folders.

It appears that I forgot to check the box for backing-up my mailboxes. I (twinge of pain) lost all my e-mail for the the last three years. A lot of important stuff was in those mailboxes. They're all gone.

That setback fucked me up pretty bad, which explains the lack of posts of late. Plus, I'm going headlong into production for the next few weeks. I may try to post for L.A., but more likely, I'll veg out in my hotel room at night.

The Democrat's plan

The Dem platform on Social Security has always been solvency and not dismantling. Until we get a majority in office, there's not a lot to talk about. Introducing legislation that has zero chance of passing through a republican-controlled Congress and House is stupid. It will only give the right-wing time ot build their bullshit arguments and wall of lies.

Some of the solutions include raising taxes, or at the very least, returning to pre-Bush tax numbers. Those are not the kind of evening news soundbites that the Left can win hearts and minds with. You know it and I know it.

Make no mistake about it, Bush won on the fear platform. They were supposed to protect us from the terrorists. No surprise then that they've decided not to report that worldwide terror has gone UP (doubled?) under their leadership. They made terror the defining issue of the campaign. No one in the White House is talking about the 11 Americans killed over the weekend. Wonder why.

Now, Bush has made Social Security the most important thing on his agenda. It is the Democrat's job to call him on his bullshit. Some pundits on the Right say the Left needs to present their ideas, but fail to call Bush to the floor to do the same. His entire privatization roadtrip has been personal accounts-this and personal accounts-that wih no concrete proposal in place. The only detail he gave out last week is that anyone making over $20,000 is going to get their benefits cut.

Doesn't sound like such a great plan to me.