Reviving the Spirit of JFK
[PDF version of this editorial]
The scientific and moral optimism of President John F. Kennedy was brought to life once more, in a concert program presented by the Schiller Institute in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Nov. 22, the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's death. The 700 people attending this event, which featured the voice of JFK, along with a stunning performance of Mozart's Requiem by the Schiller Institute Chorus, came away with a profound realization not only of what the nation and world had lost with Kennedy's assassination 50 years ago, but of what the American people could achieve again.
This is an historical turning point, noted Lyndon LaRouche, who was in the audience that evening—especially as the concert, with its broad attendance, took place in the environs of the nation's capital, which is otherwise the scene of "inside-the-Beltway" madness.
In his Nov. 25 discussion with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee, LaRouche drew out the implications of this event:
"We've had a rebirth, in effect, a rebirth of what Kennedy had represented. It's like the spirit had come alive again and was dictating the policy, whispering from some distant place, 'Oh, do it now, do it now, do it now!' And we have a President to throw out of office, and we have a Vice President who will probably be amanuensis, or something, in this process, in getting us free of this incumbent President. Just throw him out of office: He's incompetent, he's despised, he's a liar, he's a cheat. Get rid of him!
"...There was a change, not just what people call a popular opinion change: Yes, it could be called popular opinion, but what happened is, you have had a suppression. We had lost Franklin Roosevelt; we suffered horribly, under Truman. Truman demoralized the nation!
"And so therefore, once Kennedy was killed, the effect of what we had lost after Roosevelt went down; and actually Kennedy was a representative of Franklin Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt was his political manager! No, it was Roosevelt's policies and inspiration—and suddenly, that's all taken away; now, you've got drugs and war and junk. And with the process of the drug problem, which came in with Indo-China, we just lost it: The morale was not there. People actually morally degenerated at a rapid rate, willfully! It's all like they're 'children of Satan'....
"Now, suddenly, the gates are opened, and now his voice, though he's been dead for these years, his voice will be heard again, stronger than ever before, because he came back."
Now, the task is to build upon this shift, using the inspiration which the beauty of Kennedy's ideas, and of the Classical music commemoration of his life, to get inside the souls of the American people. Concrete programs, of course, have to be realized: the removal of Obama, the re-instatement of Glass-Steagall, the launching of NAWAPA, and a serious pursuit of international collaboration around economic development projects such as the World Land-Bridge. But the key will be the degree to which the American people can access the sense of historical mission which the United States last had under Kennedy.
Just as the assassination of Kennedy precipitated a sudden downturn in the morale and morality of U.S. political life, so the truthful revival of what his Presidency, incomplete as it was, actually represented, can create a sudden upshift. Watch www.schillerinstitute.org for the video, coming soon.
