based on everything I've read, LBJ wasn't ever a foreign policy guy and was extremely simplistic and naive about the "evils of communism" and seems to have completely accepted the prevailing ignorance on display from the "smartest guys in the room," all of whom accepted the Domino Theory as Always True. of course, at the same time, LBJ's…
based on everything I've read, LBJ wasn't ever a foreign policy guy and was extremely simplistic and naive about the "evils of communism" and seems to have completely accepted the prevailing ignorance on display from the "smartest guys in the room," all of whom accepted the Domino Theory as Always True. of course, at the same time, LBJ's domestic plans represented a brilliant re-flowering of the unfinished New Deal coupled with an abiding (and very genuine) need to include the formerly unincluded. this is precisely what makes LBJ's presidency something right out of Aristotle, when old Telly describes the Tragic Hero.
when the late, great, much-lamented Michael Gambon was playing LBJ for that HBO movie, he said that LBJ was a more grandly tragic figure than anyone he'd ever played (and he'd played a towering Lear and the definitive Galileo, so the competition was pretty fierce).
when it was all going on and we were all marching, I made up my mind to avoid all those chants in which LBJ was some kind of cartoon villain ("hey, hey LBJ..." etc.). consequently, I feel like a little less of a schmuck than I tend to feel when I'm remembering how stupid and nasty I've sometimes been.
Johnson used to joke about how there were all those "New Frontiersmen from Harvard" who he kept on after the assassination - McGeorge Bundy, McNamara, etc. - in a cabinet meeting, and how they were reporting to "a graduate of Southwestern State Teacher's College," but he really was intellectually intimidated by those guys. When I researched "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" and "Going Downtown," what became clear was the president who got us into Vietnam and had no intention of getting out, no matter how many Good Liberals tell you the CIA killed him because he was going to quit the Cold War (he never was), was JFK. Period. The guys who were always in for more "escalation" were the Kennedy Guys (until McNamara finally collapsed - what a *moron* he was). The guy who didn't want to escalate, who got dragged to each one kicking and screaming, and delayed saying yes till it actually harmed things, that guy was LBJ. But the goddamned Kennedy Scum (after researching those books, I wish I hadn't worked for that 3-faced pig's election in 1960 - at least with Nixon you'd have known you were getting a lying shitbird) worked assiduously to scrub off all JFK fingerprints and put the blame on LBJ. We were idiots to be yelling "hey, hey, LBJ..." We were idiots for supporting any damn Kennedys, including RFK in 1968.
So much I was ignorant about. I was very impressed with how LBJ got civil rights passed, and maybe I liked him because he looked a lot like my father. I blamed the continuation of the war on Nixon, and felt LBJ’s anguish over it. 1968 was a paradox for me, extreme chaos and happy times. That may be the definition of life.
much against the sentimental response I--like so many of us--have in response to the Kennedy name, I realize that I agree with every part of your argument, and have for a long time. this the main reason I'm unable to take Oliver Stone very seriously after "Platoon," which is a good war movie that relies on the tropes established by war movies in general.
the "theories" he espoused in "JFK" ran entirely counter to anything observable on the level of phenomenal reality.
I actually did TRY to watch those Putin interviews, but after five minutes or less realized that ME observing THEIR psychological fellatio session just isn't FUN.
Oliver and I became friends in the 80s when we were in a "horse race" to see if "Platoon" or "In the Year of the Monkey" would become *the* Vietnam movie (he was a graceful winner). But after JFK, he ended up waaaay the hell "out there," and the last time I saw him about 20 years ago it took us 5 minutes to start yelling at each other.
based on everything I've read, LBJ wasn't ever a foreign policy guy and was extremely simplistic and naive about the "evils of communism" and seems to have completely accepted the prevailing ignorance on display from the "smartest guys in the room," all of whom accepted the Domino Theory as Always True. of course, at the same time, LBJ's domestic plans represented a brilliant re-flowering of the unfinished New Deal coupled with an abiding (and very genuine) need to include the formerly unincluded. this is precisely what makes LBJ's presidency something right out of Aristotle, when old Telly describes the Tragic Hero.
when the late, great, much-lamented Michael Gambon was playing LBJ for that HBO movie, he said that LBJ was a more grandly tragic figure than anyone he'd ever played (and he'd played a towering Lear and the definitive Galileo, so the competition was pretty fierce).
when it was all going on and we were all marching, I made up my mind to avoid all those chants in which LBJ was some kind of cartoon villain ("hey, hey LBJ..." etc.). consequently, I feel like a little less of a schmuck than I tend to feel when I'm remembering how stupid and nasty I've sometimes been.
Johnson used to joke about how there were all those "New Frontiersmen from Harvard" who he kept on after the assassination - McGeorge Bundy, McNamara, etc. - in a cabinet meeting, and how they were reporting to "a graduate of Southwestern State Teacher's College," but he really was intellectually intimidated by those guys. When I researched "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" and "Going Downtown," what became clear was the president who got us into Vietnam and had no intention of getting out, no matter how many Good Liberals tell you the CIA killed him because he was going to quit the Cold War (he never was), was JFK. Period. The guys who were always in for more "escalation" were the Kennedy Guys (until McNamara finally collapsed - what a *moron* he was). The guy who didn't want to escalate, who got dragged to each one kicking and screaming, and delayed saying yes till it actually harmed things, that guy was LBJ. But the goddamned Kennedy Scum (after researching those books, I wish I hadn't worked for that 3-faced pig's election in 1960 - at least with Nixon you'd have known you were getting a lying shitbird) worked assiduously to scrub off all JFK fingerprints and put the blame on LBJ. We were idiots to be yelling "hey, hey, LBJ..." We were idiots for supporting any damn Kennedys, including RFK in 1968.
So much I was ignorant about. I was very impressed with how LBJ got civil rights passed, and maybe I liked him because he looked a lot like my father. I blamed the continuation of the war on Nixon, and felt LBJ’s anguish over it. 1968 was a paradox for me, extreme chaos and happy times. That may be the definition of life.
I've always called 1968 "the year of the national nervous breakdown."
Also the year when I found a wonderful man. Maybe that was part of the nervous breakdown??
much against the sentimental response I--like so many of us--have in response to the Kennedy name, I realize that I agree with every part of your argument, and have for a long time. this the main reason I'm unable to take Oliver Stone very seriously after "Platoon," which is a good war movie that relies on the tropes established by war movies in general.
the "theories" he espoused in "JFK" ran entirely counter to anything observable on the level of phenomenal reality.
I actually did TRY to watch those Putin interviews, but after five minutes or less realized that ME observing THEIR psychological fellatio session just isn't FUN.
Oliver and I became friends in the 80s when we were in a "horse race" to see if "Platoon" or "In the Year of the Monkey" would become *the* Vietnam movie (he was a graceful winner). But after JFK, he ended up waaaay the hell "out there," and the last time I saw him about 20 years ago it took us 5 minutes to start yelling at each other.
I could almost feel his pain when he spoke about the war, a rarity when I watch any politician