im on that kennedy revisionism where i think they were media-addled pretty boys who, through quirks of fate, had the ability to change the world in a way almost no one else could
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I am convinced the modern drug and homelessness crises started with the Community Mental Health act of 1960, legislation that systematically dehoused the mentally ill to cut costs dressed up as a matter of rights and abuses.
the upper threshold of what JFK *could* have achieved is really, really high but we don't live in that world.
we live in the one where he tuned out all the adlai-adjacent, vietnam-skeptical humanists he appointed to the state department in favor of the pentagon
I remember reading in Vincent Bevins The Jakarta Method the thoughts of the ambassador to Indonesia. He had nuanced thoughts about the third world and decolonization. There were clearly some good thinkers in his orbit, but as you said.
yes. if there was someone who could transcend the traps of cold war liberalism it was probably jfk but the man never committed to that path and instead just vaguely wavered before getting his head blown off making all of it pointless
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we live in the one where he tuned out all the adlai-adjacent, vietnam-skeptical humanists he appointed to the state department in favor of the pentagon