Dear CNN: I Knew Kennedy was dead.

The BBQ Pit
61

My goodness. I can’t believe how bent out of shape people are getting over this. I was born in 1978, I’m 25 years old. JFK’s death never had a strong meaning to me - he has been a dead president my entire life. BUT I’m willing to try to look at his assassination from the viewpoint of someone who was alive then. My parents are Boomers (born in 1946 and 1947) and I’ve heard them reminiscing about where they were and what happened when they found out about the assassination. It was clearly a very meaningful event to them. I don’t want to denigrate it or tell them to “get over it” or some similar bullshit. Memorializing an important event is totally valid and just because you or I wasn’t born yet and it doesn’t have special meaning to us is no reason to be an asshole and tell older people that it shouldn’t have a special meaning to them either.

I’ve imagined discussing September 11 with my (hypothetical) children, telling them where I was and how I felt and what it was like in the United States at that time. I hope they don’t turn to me and say, “Well, it was a long time ago. Is it really worth discussing anymore?”

62

Well said, Kyla.

63

Nah, it just gets annoying. I was sitting here, trying to watch the CBS pregame show, and what do they wind up putting on? Something about JFK.

64

I don’t feel like commenting on some of the opinions in this thread, but I have to respond to this. How in the holy fuck is using spies a “cheat sheet?” By this logic all the nations of the world should disband their armed forces and let all conflicts that cannot be negotiated be fought by the leader of the countries involved in single combat. Hmmm. Maybe Arnie does have a future after California*…
*I write that not to bash Republicans, but because I think it would be great to have the Terminator as our modern day Ajax.

65

Another Generation W Doper checking in:

As much as I like Pink Floyd, the Christmas Day 1989 concert in Berlin with Bernstein conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with “Freude” changed to “Freiheit” was a much more potent event IMHO. Sorry. :slight_smile:

Nevertheless, it does raise the question: why are these “defining moments” always the tragedies? Why Kennedy’s assassination and not the moon landing? Why the Challenger disaster and not the fall of the Berlin Wall? Life goes on after both triumph and tragedy; let’s remember the successes as well as the disasters.

66

Mine:

  1. The fall of the Berlin Wall
  2. The Tiananmen Square Massacre
  3. The École Polytechnique Massacre
  4. The Seattle protests
  5. The Quebec City protests
  6. September 11
67

I think that the (“a”?) problem here is that those that see it as a meaningful, even an extremely meaningful event are taking the complaints against the constant media coverage of “the Kennedy Conspiracy theory” to mean that we’re saying that his DEATH wasn’t an important defining moment. etc.

I don’t think any of those against the overkill coverage are saying that. It’s all the on and on and on, yaddayaddayadda about the “grassy knoll this, and conspiracies X, Y and/or Z” and the media coverage involved in all that, that people are complaining about.

Of COURSE his presidency and his death should be commemorated, honored and remembered.

But really, we can do without the constant rehashing of whether or not LHO acted alone, or whether the mob did it in retaliation for Marilyn Monroe’s murder…etc.

So, it’s not THAT it’s being remembered and televised. It’s HOW that’s not right. IMHO.

68

What bothers me about the Boomers re: JFK is that they never seem to have any recollection of how the world moved on afterwards.

“I was wearing my plaid jumper, and we were having mac and cheese for lunch and my best friend Mary Beth McKinney was just telling me about her new yellow dress she got for the dance that weekend, and then the principal came on the PA system…”

Me: “Yes, I’m sure you remember every drop of salad dressing. But what about afterwards? What did you think of Johnson, for instance?”

“What about him?”

“As President. Did you think he was an okay President?”

“Well, he got us into Vietnam.”

“No, he got us into active combat. JFK’s the one who first sent troops over there.”

“…”

“Well, what about civil rights? Do you think Johnson upheld the ideals JFK (supposedly) had about civil rights?”

“…Did I ever tell you about when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan? Man, it was amazing! I mean, we’d never seen anything like them before. You can’t understand what it was like…”

69

Did you see the earlier comment by Broomstick that introduced the subject?

Did you see Blonde apologize for her comment that you quoted?

This is a forum for public discussion. We may address your comments at any time whether they are directed at us or not – just as you did in your original post in this thread.

70

Gyrate, that concert must have been breathtaking! I didn’t even know about it! The Ninth is one of my favorite pieces of music – which differeniates me from no one. I chose it for my father’s funeral in 1989. I don’t speak German, but I recognize “Freiheit” as freedom, I think. What an incredible idea!

I’m sure you’re right. I’ve heard rumors about other events such as a Civil Rights Bill being passed, Martin Luther King, Jr. being assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy being assassinated, Roe v Wade, Malcolm X. being assassinated, men walking around on the moon, 56,000 Americans dying in Vietnam, a Vice President pleading “no contest” to a crime, a President resigning, attempts on the lives of two more Presidents, an arms for hostages scandal, a student rebellion in China, massacres in Africa, massacres in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Soviet Union, wars in the Middle East, a President being impeached, and a national election decided by the Supreme Court by one vote.

But when the subject is “the Kennedy assassination,” it seems a little bit of a hijack to wander off into those topics that none of us Boomers can actually remember. :rolleyes:

71

Are you being deliberately dense to make some sort of obscure point, or is someone putting you up to it?

First off, I only quoted the comment by Blonde in response to your assertion that “In fact, no one said that your generation need a “defining moment” at all.”, which was false. You accused me of not reading the thread, which I also showed was false.

Second, I was not making a direct or indirect response to Blonde. Here are some examples of Direct and Indirect responses:

Direct Response: “Blonde, you are wrong…”

Indirect Response: “What makes Blonde wrong is…”

What I made was this thing called a “general comment”. It’s like thinking out loud. When I respond to someone, I do actually quote them, or mention them specifically.

All I did in this case was read the actual thread and sit back and think about the overall concept of “defining moments” in lives and generations. Yes, unlike you how you mischaracterized me, I actually had a thought about what this might mean. Then I posted a general comment:

“Why exactly does my generation need a media-contrived or politically driven “defining moment”? I tend to make my defining moments personal, rather than let others tell me what they are.”

You may not have run across this before, but actual intelligent and non-flaming discussion does actually occur in the Pit, and some very good debates have been done here politely. Apparently not here and not with yourself. Get out of “attack mode” and try listening. You’re wrong, you came after me for no damn good reason at all, so just admit that and try to move on with your life.

72

It was; I wish I’d been there. You can listen for yourself, however; there’s a CD of it (try Amazon).

Beethoven’s Ninth is in many ways the perfect piece for both celebration of good things and defiance in the face of tragedy. When the events of September 11, 2001 forced a re-evaluation of the programming of the Last Night of the Proms (a big event in the UK classical music calendar), in came the last movement of the Ninth. I can tell you: there have been more subtle performances, but as an “up yours” to terror it was an unparalleled performance.

But I digress.

73

Zoe, I am talking about the immediate historical context, not the forty years between then and now. With the exception of the Civil Rights Act (the Civil Rights Bill was signed by Andrew Johnson in 1966, not Lyndon Johnson in 1964), all those events you mention took place in or after 1968. (Well, Vietnam was ongoing…)

I can’t do a search right now because the hamsters are on strike, but I said something to this effect in a thread about the Beatles, maybe a year ago by now. My gripe was that whenever the '60s are recalled in film or on TV, it’s always JFK assasination footage, then Ed Sullivan saying “And here they are—THE BEATLES!” and then jump-cut to the Summer of Love.

Well, what about the rest of 1964, and '65 and '66? What about Christmas 1963—was that overshadowed by Kennedy’s death, the way all the fall holidays were tainted in 2001? You didn’t just wake up one morning with long hair and a peace pendant, and people didn’t start protesting the Vietnam war the very first time American troops fired on VC. How did society get to that point, and how did you fare under Johnson as opposed to Kennedy? Did you really lose your “innocence” in one weekend, or was it not until the MLK and RFK assassinations, and the escalation of the war, that you finally realized that nothing in this world is truly stable? And for that matter, did you truly believe, up until 11/22/63, that everything in America was hunky-dory, and only a commie could be dissatisfied?

No one ever seems to have answers to these questions. Which is what frustrates me. I’m interested in the transition period, not just the high points.

74

Oh yes they’ve shown it. Shown it and rerun it. Laughed my ass off, I did, both times.

75

Rilchiam, Wow. Now that is a question! (Though not nearly all of those things happened in 1968.)

First, there is truly much that I personally don’t remember because I had two rounds of electric shock treatments in the early 1960’s. The treatments were much stronger back then and so I lost a lot.

I totally trusted our government when I was growing up. We had won the big war again the evil enemies of WWII and felt that God had certainly been on our side. President Eisenhower was a star-spangeled war hero and a likeable fellow. We were strong and wouldn’t let the Communists take over our country or drop the A-bomb on us. I lived in a small town in the rural South where my Dad had a store on Main Street and everyone in town came in that store and sat around every Saturday night. (Everything in my life was like a storybook except for my mother, but that’s a book in itself.)

The election of John Kennedy was the frosting on the cake. I think he was nominated on my seventeeth birthday. They represented to me the culmination of that perfect childhood. They were young, smart, athletic, wealthy, beautiful, cultured, witty and inspiring. “God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world” – with exceptions that the President was going to take care of.

After the shock of the assassination, I became active in politics and campaigned for LBJ. At one time I even signed a petition in support of the war because I was such a strong supporter of LBJ. It is hard for me to believe that now. (My father was a Pacifist and I am also.)

I was more concerned with the Civil Rights Movement. (The man who taught me the lyrics to We Shall Overcome and Keep Your Eyes on the Prize in 1961 was one of those pointing to where the shots came from in that famous photograph after Dr. King’s assassination.) That is where I put my focus. I went back to school and became a teacher and taught in inner city schools.

During my last year in school, two months before I graduated, one of the friends that I had known literally all of my life came home in a body bag from Vietnam. He was a West Point graduate who had volunteered to go back a second time. We had disagreed about the war, but he was no less a hero to me.

The same autumn that I started teaching, I became more active in one particular area of anti-war activities. And the more that I participated and listened and watched, the more I realized how many lies we were being fed. That was the first time that I became aware that American governments, American Presidents lied.

After Johnson and Nixon, I’ve never trusted my government to be straight. With the current Presidential Administration, I can’t even trust my government not to try to take away the very things that have made America strong and real. I don’t think that the Executive Branch of our government are the guys in white hats right now. I love my country in ways no one could begin to understand. But I get forwarded email (sent from people who don’t know me very well) saying how treasonous and seditious it is to speak out against the war or our President.

And all this time I thought I had paid my dues.

Thanks for asking. I know that this doesn’t really answer everything that you asked. It’s just part of what happened with me.

76

Nitpick: The Civil Right Act of 1964 was also a bill passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.

77

'68 or after, I said.

**

:frowning: Sorry to hear that.

I see. Kinda the way I felt about Clinton! Saw him give a speech in Market Square (Pittsburgh) just before the election…man, he was a rock star! (Figure of speech.) So you really thought the '60s were going to be bigger and better things. I can see why it hit so hard, then.

**

Well, all right! So someone wasn’t neutral about LBJ! I have read about the assassination, and it seems to me that the amount of disrespect, or at least disregard, he got from White House staff at the beginning of his tenure was just shameful. I said to my mom, “Why did they not take him seriously? Whatever happened to ‘a heartbeat away from the Presidency’?” She said, “That term came into use because of the assassination.”

**

No shit!

**

Well, thank you for telling me!

**

Okay then! I’ve just always heard “Act”.

78

You know damn well that’s exactly what’s going to happen: “Jesus, Mom, if I have to see those stupid buildings blow up one more time . . . I mean, get over it.”

79

Zoe, I owe you an apology. I was talking with Mum this weekend, and she does remember the day Kennedy was shot, although not exactly where she was at the time. Apparently it was a big deal in England at the time, and to her, in her early 20’s, it seemed the death of something young, beautiful and vital. That day, too, a neighbor’s mother died, and it seemed a day when bad things just piled up on each other.

My city was also hosting a three-day conference on Kennedy last weekend, which accounts for some of the extra new coverage. You also, know, don’t you, that you, too, are all right with me.

CJ

80

Eve, some kids will be like the ones you describe, others will be kind enough to listen, and still others will find something intriguing about the stories. Once in a while a kid starts out not caring and then morphs into a history professor. You never know.

I seem to learn from all of them.