Pat Caddell: Roots of Tea Party Revolt, Distrust of Govt in JFK Assassination

[Rapunzel]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/18/Pat-Caddell-Roots-of-Tea-Party-Revolt-Bipartisan-Distrust-of-Institutions-in-JFK-Assassination

Pat Caddell: Roots of Tea Party Revolt, Distrust of Govt in JFK Assassination


by Tony Lee 18 Nov 2013, 4:18 PM PDT

On Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125, Fox News contributor Pat Caddell, who was one of President Jimmy Carter's top advisers, said John F. Kennedy's assassination not only damaged "the psyche of America," but also is when Americans started to lose trust in its institutions.

He said that distrust was "reaching levels beyond anything we've seen" on the right and the left today. Caddell said the Tea Party revolt and the disruptive forces on the left that distrust the "best and the brightest" have their roots in the Kennedy assassination

Speaking to host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, Caddell said America after the JFK assassination was a country in which the self-sustaining myths about "who we are" was "shattered." He said Americans believed "we were a country of  laws and not bullets." But the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, in addition to Watergate, shattered those beliefs. Caddell also said Americans felt before Watergate that the president was "divinely" chosen and that the "office makes the man."

He also said the Warren Commission also did not help Americans trust its leaders. Caddell said people did not previously believe their leaders would lie to them, but data shows that after the Warren Commission, Americans started to believe the government was trying to "bamboozle" them.

Caddell mentioned that during Kennedy's time, "vast majorities said you could trust the government most of the time," while now vast majorities say "hardly ever." He said Americans no longer believed the "government reflected them" and that the "people were in charge."

"These are the lines that are drawn today," Caddell said. "It starts there. And you can track much of the alienation and discontent [to Kennedy's assassination]."

He said this is a "new phenomenon in America," and "now it is reaching levels beyond anything we've seen."

Caddell added that the country is so used to politicians "getting up with confessionals and soundbites" that they "forget the big ideas move a world and move a country."

He criticized "Obama's hope and change fraud" as "a Democrat who once wanted to believe him." Caddell said Obama's lie that Americans could keep their health insurance under Obamacare may ultimately destroy his presidency and legacy.

Caddell then noted that Kennedy was a "cold warrior" who "inspired millions" and believed in achieving peace through strength where America was the "watchman on the walls" of the world's freedom. Caddell said he was "excited to be an American" because of Kennedy. He added that Kennedy "inspired and energized the baby boom generation," but that idealism was "taken away" and "killed" when he was assassinated on 11/22/1963--when Caddell was 13 years of age.

[Oceander]

JFK, JFK, JFK.  I don't think so; there were folks coming out of Korea - long before JFK got to wet his willy in the White House - who didn't exactly end up trusting their government, either.  And JFK had very little to do with the anti-war stuff percolating around various campuses and etc.

This fixation with, and fetishization of, JFK borders on the ludicrous.  Perhaps we should stop labeling years as B.C. or A.D. and instead label them BJFK and AJFK.

[Rapunzel]

JFK, JFK, JFK.  I don't think so; there were folks coming out of Korea - long before JFK got to wet his willy in the White House - who didn't exactly end up trusting their government, either.  And JFK had very little to do with the anti-war stuff percolating around various campuses and etc.

This fixation with, and fetishization of, JFK borders on the ludicrous.  Perhaps we should stop labeling years as B.C. or A.D. and instead label them BJFK and AJFK.

Were you alive when he was assassinated?

[Oceander]

Were you alive when he was assassinated?

Who the hell cares?  Does the mere fact of having heard about it on the radio make your perspective on it any better than mine?  I've read more than enough about that period in history - and more to the point, a lot about all the other stuff that was going on in the world, stuff that had no connection to JFK whatsoever.  Do you really think the French student protests in 1968 were caused by JFK's assassination?  Do you really think the whole damned world revolves around JFK - that twitty little womanizer - and his death by moron?

Yes, it was a terrible tragedy, and I can understand that it shook many people to their core; but this nonsense about deifying JFK is beyond silly, it's some sort of perverted version of the Stockholm Syndrome.  It's also an extremely parochial, myopic view of the world because there were plenty of other currents, political and philosophical, going on in the world that engendered mistrust of government, including the US government.

Ever heard of the Roswell Incident?  Ever heard of the US government's response to it?  Ever heard of the growing mistrust of the US government that came out of the US government's response to it?

Guess what, Roswell happened in 1947, long before JFK could have even qualified as President (he was 30 at the time).

Ever heard of Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism?  Ever heard of the government-sponsored persecutions of various "undesirables" in the US that went hand-in-hand with the paranoia of that era?  Guess what, Joe McCarthy died in 1957, long before JFK ever got to Daley Square, so JFK and his death by moron could not have inspired the mistrust of the US government that blossomed out of the persecutions and prosecutions of the McCarthy era.

In short, there were plenty of reasons for people to begin distrusting the US government, and the sources of those reasons substantially predated JFK and his death-by-moron.

This fixation on JFK and his assassination is so parochial, so unbecoming of people who otherwise seem to be of above-average intelligence.

[Cincinnatus]

Actually Oceander the assassination and its aftermath sped up a feeling of distrust that had already been developing.

After WWII and during the 50s there was a very high level of trust and goodwill between the federal government and the American people. The only factors which impinged on that feeling were, as you noted, the investigations and allegations of Senator McCarthy,and the development of a group of intellectuals who began to criticize American '"complacency" and materialism. You overrate the former and ignore the latter.

It was the attacks on the Kennedy assassination investigation which began to lead to major doubt and distrust. At the same time the Civil Rights movement was making people question our commitment to equality and fairness and that lying lowlife LBJ got us into an endless war in Vietnam after promising not to do so.

Those are only some of the threads which created the wariness Americans now have toward their government. Consider now the lies Obama has told. Just more of the same which actually began with FDR but began reaching critical mass with the JFK assassination.

Btw,  you aren't real clear about your attitude toward Senator McCarthy, the mistrust of the US government that blossomed out of the persecutions and prosecutions If you think that was the case because of the Senator, I recommend strongly you read, Blacklisted by History: the Untold Story of Sen. Joe McCarthy by M Stanton Evans, the definitive work on the McCarthy era and the investigations he led.

[Rapunzel]

This fixation on JFK and his assassination is so parochial, so unbecoming of people who otherwise seem to be of above-average intelligence.

Just as WWII defined my parents generation, the Kennedy assassination defined my generation. If that upsets you C'est la vie.  I would take him - womanizer and all - for the damage LBJ wrought or Nixon and the damage he brought to this country - and not just Watergate - or Clinton or especially Obama.   For those of us who were alive at the time we have seen first hand the degradation of this country at too many levels to count since 1963.   

[Formerly Once-Ler]

I don't remember a time when government was trusted.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least.

- Thomas Paine

A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”

Woodrow Wilson 1913
https://archive.org/stream/NationalEconomyAndTheBankingSystemOfTheUnitedStates/NationalEconomyAndTheBankingSystem#page/n105/mode/2up

Maybe a healthy distrust of government is a good thing.

[olde north church]

The Birchers didn't trust the government before Kennedy.
But let's play what if for a moment, shall we?  Without Oswald, Sirhan, Chappaquidick.  LIVs live for dynasties.