(Cross posted from Docudharma)
This diary carries a message or two but is also a tribute. It is not hero worship. I am well aware of JFK’s flaws and weaknesses as a human being – you needn’t remind me. But John F. Kennedy was also a gifted orator who inspired and uplifted us with the poetry in his soul and the power in his words – and certain of his words resonate now more than ever.
And the story of John F. Kennedy, in certain respects at least, serves as an object lesson for our times. John Kennedy was an agent for change. He saw a revolution coming and he wished to prepare the way for what he saw as inevitable.
Our best hope is to affect its character as Kennedy suggested, to make it a peaceful renaissance of a revolution. Only in this way can it be a good thing. Only in this way can we go forward in confidence and hope. But whatever shape it is allowed to take, I believe it is certain that it is coming.
This revolution has been coming a long time. Kennedy saw it coming in the early sixties. That’s how long the knuckle-draggers and greedheads have stalled it. But, as Kennedy said, this revolution was then, as it remains now, inevitable.
There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be -- at long last -- that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government -- and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season -- the kind we get every 20 to 30 years -- or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we're going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?
Seven Steps to Revolution
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
John F. Kennedy
"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
John F. Kennedy
"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
John F. Kennedy
"Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource."
John F. Kennedy
"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."
John F. Kennedy
"The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution."
John F. Kennedy
"The best road to progress is freedom's road."
John F. Kennedy
The following video is my own.
I Pray For Revolution
"The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission."
John F. Kennedy
"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings."
John F. Kennedy
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
John F. Kennedy
"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others."
John F. Kennedy
"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
John F. Kennedy
"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
John F. Kennedy
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
"We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last."
John F. Kennedy