2009 vs 1959, JFK and BHO, Obamanation
Posted in Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, News Media, Kennedy, America, obama, Opinion on September 15th, 2009 by Stanford MatthewsA relevant discussion of the 2008 US Prresidential election can draw comparisons from a recently published book. As with any opinions on history there is plenty of room to debate. But a few excerpts from the book suggest 1959 also had much in common with 2008 in terms of politics. The following certainly disagrees with popular notions that the ‘hippie’ generation is responsible for the turbulent sixties.
(from the report below)
But it wasn’t the Baby Boomers, born after World War Two, who lit the fuse, Kaplan says. “It was a people who grew up through the Depression and World War Two, and who were dissatisfied with the state of things.” They had expected things would change after the war, he notes, and they didn’t.
And then the JFK election success can be compared to that of BHO.
For Kaplan, the “New Frontier” Kennedy meant was the 1960s. “It was the future; it was tomorrow. So there was this sense of ’something is new over the horizon’ and there was this appetite for it.”
Learning from history or not the thought of being doomed to repeat it comes to mind. It might be fair to characterize the author of the book as left-leaning or liberal based on his resume’. But at least in this case he provides an interesting analysis solely based on the report presented here.
In thinking about a comparison between JFK and BHO that was initiated by the fawning liberal crowd during the 2008 election the following piece may be of interest. Particular attention should be paid to the ‘letter’ portion. Media Malpractice: Tom Brokaw’s World Implodes
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
| New Book Points to 1959 as Pivotal Year | |
New York 26 August 2009 |
![[insert caption here]](http://morewhat.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/1959bookVOA01.gif "[insert caption here]")
Most Americans associate seismic cultural upheavals - like women’s liberation and rock ‘n roll - with the 1960s. But a new book asserts that those changes were actually rooted in the supposedly drab 1950s, and by end of that decade, they had come to a head.
Even half a century after its release, Miles Davis’ 1959 album, Kind of Blue, retains a whiff of the avant-garde. By ignoring the classic scales of jazz, the renowned trumpeter expressed the daring experimentalism that suffused many areas of life that year in areas as diverse as art, politics, social relationships, and science.
Beginning of space age
“You look at 1959, there was an enchantment with the new,” says Fred Kaplan. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed points to aviation as one area that embodied the high flying spirit of the year. 1959 saw the first transatlantic passenger jet flight. It was also the year America’s Mercury astronauts were chosen.
 |
| Fred Kaplan is a journalist and contributor to Slate magazine. He is a native of Hutchinson, Kansas, and graduated from Oberlin College and has a Ph.D. in political science from MIT. In the late 1970s, he was the foreign and defense policy adviser to Congressman Les Aspin. |
Indeed, Time magazine seemed to express the public’s “gee whiz” enthusiasm most ebulliently in a publisher’s note following the Soviet Union’s launch of Luna 1 rocket on January 2, 1959. It was the first human artifact to escape Earth’s gravity.
“It hailed the achievement as ‘a turning point in the multi-billion year history of the solar system,’” Kaplan says, “in that ‘a creature of the sun had evolved to a point where he could break free of his planet’s gravity.’”
That event seemed to epitomize what was going on at the time, the author says. “It’s all kinds of people in different walks of life breaking free of the gravity that had been holding their predecessors down.” That, he says, “created the world that we came to know over the next half century.”
Breaking barriers in literature and entertainment
Kaplan says events of 1959 led to the blurring of lines between public and private, literature and pornography that we see today in the Internet Age.
In 1959, publisher Barney Rosset successfully sued the United States Post Office for confiscating copies of D.H. Lawrence’s sexually explicit novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It was also the year American writer Norman Mailer published Advertisements for Myself, which fused literature, personal confession and social commentary in new ways.
1959 also saw the first mainstream record release by iconoclastic comedian Lenny Bruce, and his first appearance on national television. “Lenny Bruce would talk about politics and the church and sex and race in ways that nobody had ever spoken before in public,” says Kaplan. “And anything you see now of this sort - HBO or Comedy Central or Showtime or George Carlin - all stems directly from Lenny Bruce.”
 |
| John F. Kennedy was preparing to run for the presidency in 1959, promising a “New Frontier” |
Many Americans think of the 1960s as the 20th century’s most explosive era. But it wasn’t the Baby Boomers, born after World War Two, who lit the fuse, Kaplan says. “It was a people who grew up through the Depression and World War Two, and who were dissatisfied with the state of things.” They had expected things would change after the war, he notes, and they didn’t.
In 1959, John F. Kennedy was preparing to run for president. He was Catholic and young, and so, many thought him unelectable. Yet Kennedy attracted young idealists in great numbers. He promised a “New Frontier” where “the torch would be passed to a new generation of Americans.”
For Kaplan, the “New Frontier” Kennedy meant was the 1960s. “It was the future; it was tomorrow. So there was this sense of ’something is new over the horizon’ and there was this appetite for it.”
New inventions
1959 was also the year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Birth Control Pill. By freeing women from the fear of getting pregnant, the Pill ushered in the so-called Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. It also allowed women to enter the workforce without concern that their careers might be cut short by unplanned motherhood. That put women on the road toward social and economic equality. It’s a cultural change we’re still adjusting to today.
 |
| The invention of the microchip set the stage for the era of computerized technology |
Fred Kaplan also emphasizes the importance of another invention of 1959 - the microchip. One microchip was crammed with enough electronic circuitry to replace tens or even hundreds of thousands of transistors, the state of the art technology at the time.
Microchips made high-speed computers possible, Kaplan says. “[Without microchips,] you couldn’t even have a handheld calculator, much less a high definition television or space communications.”
Of course, 1959 marked the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and many of that year’s technological innovations enhanced our capacity for destruction, as well creation. As Fred Kaplan points out in his book 1959: the Year Everything Changed, we are still coping with, as well benefiting from, many of the changes set in motion a half century ago.
This is a brief post with the sole purpose to highlight two points on the healthcare debate on this Monday September 14, 2009. Most people, if being honest, would expect the MSM is not altogether unbiased. These same people would likely hold that sources like ABC News and WaPo if anything, lean left. Based on the resume’ it would be reasonable to also suspect that George Stephanopoulos leans in the same direction. With that in mind you might expect that if a poll produced by ABC News and WaPo may have surveyed more left leaning participants than right. Yet the numbers do not bode well for Obamacare.
Again, if this information is even close to reality, there must be plenty of people who simply don’t care about the cost. The guess here is that if 2/3 of people surveyed expect healthcare reform to make the deficit worse those supporting Obamacare come in two flavors. Those who do not expect to pay for it. And those who expect to gain enough from the plan to offset any tax increases, etc.
One thing seems clear in the debate on healthcare reform and the underlying problem of reasonable and effective governance. Except for the possibility that the majority party would force through legislation by the tactic ‘reconciliation’, no healthcare reform of any kind is likely this year. And healthcare reform’s distraction from other equally important items demonstrates a government liability. That is, what many have been saying for years, less government works better than more government.
