50 Years Later

I think I'm too young to care about JFK.  I haven't done a comprehensive survey of people my age to see if a similar lack of feeling affects my generation, but it wouldn't surprise me.   It's annoying how people tend to look at that era with rose-colored glasses, because, honestly, most of the mystique stems from the fact that a young, telegenic President was assassinated. 

All right, maybe that's a little too harsh.  Yes, the Bay of Pigs was a total fiasco, but he sort of inherited that from Eisenhower.   Maybe a lot of the Cuban Missile Crisis was down to sheer luck- but I'm glad he managed to get us through it without, you know, destroying the world.  The Moon Speech was brilliant.   The whole 'I am a jelly donut' thing was also brilliant- despite the fact it obscures one of the great political speeches of the 20th Century in my opinion.  He started the ball rolling on civil rights- though his untimely death meant he didn't see it through.

Fine, fine.  Maybe I shouldn't be so cynical and jaded about him.  But part of the reason I just can't get on board with liberalism in this country is the large population of Boomers that seem to want to drag us kick and screaming back to the 60s, so they can start the past five decades over again and 'do it right this time.'  The decade is so idealized by some people, it's nauseating- I mean, was it really all that great?  Was it about America 'coming of age' or 'losing its innocence.'   For all that liberals bitch about conservatives wanting to drag us back to the 50s (part of the reason why I can't get on board with conservatism), there's a large swathe of nostalgia on the left that yearns for the good old days of the 60s, when people didn't trust anybody over 30 and banded together to fight 'the man.'   Causes were just.  The government fought for the people and not the corporations and blah, blah, blah...

It's like those bumper stickers you see sometimes:  'THE WEEKEND:  Brought to you by LABOR UNIONS.'  And while that's true and I appreciate it greatly, that's not enough for me to sign a union card.  I want to know what you're going to do tomorrow, not what tired old ideology and rusty, sclerotic organization you'd like me to support yesterday.

But that's just me.  I'm picky like that I guess.

Do I think there was a lone gunman on the grassy knoll?  No, I don't.  I actually read a really excellent book on the Kennedy Assassination whose name escapes me at the moment and the author seemed level headed and convincing enough that I sort of brought into his argument that yes, Oswald acted alone and yes, the Castro probably knew and said nothing.  Because, after all, if someone has been trying to kill you in the most ridiculous way possible, why would you want to speak up?

The theories about the Mob are interesting though- especially given what happened to Oswald a week later at the hands of Jack Ruby.

What would be interesting to find out though, is just how the general public has reacted to the assassination of Presidents in the past.   Was McKinley held in higher esteem because of his death?  What about Garfield?  (Obviously, Lincoln was.  When you die and someone says:  "Now, he belongs to the ages."  That's the kind of thing that gets engraved in history book, permanently.)

So for those that have sad memories of this day, so long ago, I wish them comfort today.   As for myself, I will go to work and be blessedly free of nostalgia about today and probably remain slightly jaded and cynical about the whole thing.