Remembering JFK

47 years ago today, Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Was he a perfect president or a perfect man? No, but no one is. He did bring hope and optimism and the world looked at the U.S. as it never had before. The following comments were made while he was president, some 50 years ago, but strangely, sadly, but not surprisingly, the remarks apply as much today as they did then. They also apply to those Republicans and Tebaggers and Democrats turned Republicans who who dare suggest that JFK was anything but a liberal. Here he is, in his words:

"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

"I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.

"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal."

"But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

Boehner, Remixed

Whoever produced this is brilliant. It is brilliant because it is true. Hate never wins. Fear never wins. They may capture the occasional victory, but such victories are always short-lived.

I don't want to gloat or celebrate in the wake of the passage of the healthcare insurance reform bill. I find it hard to celebrate because there is so much work to still be done. And it's tough to celebrate something like the guarantee of a basic level of healthcare insurance, which is no big deal in other, civilized countries. And it's not a single-payer system, so much of the burden is still on employers, for one. But it's a giant step in the right direction. I don't want to gloat, or sing, but then I remember the text message I got from my former friend on the night Barack Obama was elected president, which stated, "Hope isn't any good when planes fly into buildings." I also think of the lies that were spread by those who opposed reform from the start, and I think of all those who from the moment he was elected, devoted their lives to derailing the presidency of Barack Obama.

I think of the Congressman who shouted, "You lie!" at the president. I think of Rep. Boehner shouting "Hell no!" in Congress. I think of smug John McCain, who though he lost to Barack Obama, couldn't get the smirk off his face during the president's bipartisan meeting on healthcare reform, the same meeting in which the Republicans went to and treated as a campaign debate then got their asses handed to them, wrapped up quite nicely, by this president. I think of the police officers I sometime hear on the police scanners late at night saying things like, "tell Obama to take care of them," when a dispatcher or another officer says someone has been injured or wounded on the city's streets. I think of the editorial writers and cartoonists who have been saying for the past year that freedom as we know it would cease if Obama got his way (of course none of them offered any workable alternatives). I think of the racist imagery so often used to criticize the president, and on, and on, and on, and I can't help but think ... you lost. You all lost. You lost the election, you lost on healthcare reform, and you're going to lose again and again. "Hell no!" sounds like the last words of a movement going down in flames. We've said it before, we can say it again -- Yes, we can.