John F. Kennedy’s last battle, cut short by his assassination, was the effort to build a sustainable peace with the Soviet Union. Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University, in his new book “To Move the World” chronicles the campaign by Kennedy from October 1962 to September 1963 to curb the arms race and build ties with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev. Sachs looks at the series of speeches Kennedy gave to end the Cold War and persuade the world to make peace with the Soviets. Kennedy implemented the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. But Kennedy’s vision was not shared by many Cold warriors in the establishment, including some within his administration. Joining me to discuss ”To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace” is Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
The Chris Hedges Report Podcast
The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Professor Jeffrey Sachs on his book "To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace" and the disastrous consequences of the permanent war machine.
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The Chris Hedges Report Podcast
Covering US foreign policy, economic realities, and civil liberties in American society.
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What a wonderful podcast! I was in my early 20's when they shot Kennedy. So long ago. That time of Kennedy, Robert, MLK informed my politics of what the "good" was - internationally, domestically, ecologically - which has lasted. Making the decades since, a witnessing of increasing inferiority of American leadership with its bullying and black and white thinking, where the "art" of making right and good has been completely annihilated by a brutishness and intellectual regressiveness that is nothing but deplorable. Thank you a lot for this exchange.
Sadly, the difference may be largely apparent. U Thant was the head of the UN back then. I recently read a quotation from him in which he deplored the USA's using bullying as their first resort when persuasion could have worked. So maybe it was pretty much the same back then, just better disguised.
Even if so, these days I'm starting to think there is something to be said for hypocrisy as opposed to naked evil. https://science1arts2and3politics.substack.com/p/lies-and-hypocrisy
We could have a leader with JFK’s attitudes toward world peace: https://bostonmanmagazine.com/rfkjrpeacediplomacy/
Excellent podcast. Similar points are included in Jim Douglass’ book “JFK and The Unspeakable.” Thank you!
Just this morning before the this show I watched Jeffery Sachs "The US and Ukraine-a deeper look." He recommended watching JFK's speech and I too was moved by the speech. I never read it or watched it before, and like Chris thought what leader today would have the guts to say anything more truthful? Like MLK day no one points to his anti Vietnam war speech in 1967 "Beyond Vietnam; A time to Break the silence". Politicians today are weak kneed corporate shills owned by Big Oil the MIC and hamstrung by the CIA. One of the quotes of true democracy and a peaceful world... "When the weak are safe and the strong are just". Neither condition is met today. Neo Liberalism and income inequality go hand in hand with US Neo Fascism and permanent war.
This was an outstanding interview with historically accurate and cogent commentary on both sides. Daniel Ellsberg's book, The Doomsday Machine (Mr. Ellsberg participated in Cuban missile crisis negotiations), corroborates much of what is discussed. Ellberg's book is also and excellent resource to learn about the history of nuclear weapons proliferation (and lack of control) and the dangers that it, coupled with our government's atrocious sense of diplomacy, represents in taking us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Meanwhile, our Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve's only current concerns are about peddling fantasies about an economic "soft landing".
Today Russia officially stands for international law and the (reformed) UN, pretty much the policy stands of Dwight Eisenhower and JFK, while the USA's foreign policy can be summed up as "we will bury you".
Same timeline and context around 1960'ies Finland manage to stabilise own society from bitter russophobia and start built its own foreign policy to keep trust, negotions and non-alaignment for peroid of 50 years, concentrating to build own society quite succesfully with respect and good relation to neigbours. Understanding to stay out of "poking bear" all the time and not making sudden moves to arise threads and doubts. Not let pulling leg. Geography is to take consideration.
Nobody knows now, when there is not any contact actually between Russia and USA, what is to come even though there is laughable NATO 5 article to" protect" : how it can protect anyone from nuclear armageddon when it's taken place? We are really on the way to it happen!
Finland has resisted to take role of a western bullwork against soviet later russia, lot of efforts were around decades, sorry for ukrainians they took that toxic bait. There was a moments for them to think only their own future to concentrate building on own society.
Now they took "hired hand" role in western movie, unfortunately on nation scale.
Thanks Ilkka
I am totally unsophisticated. They call it autism and Ben Franklin said Fart Proudly
A rose by any other name.
The opposite of enlightened self interest is unenlightened self interest.
Empires run on unEnlightened self interest leading to decline and fall.
I failed kindergarten but the real wars are going on inside Russia, the USA , China, India, Egypt, Iran , Japan, Korea, Canada, Indonesia Pakistan Argentina, Chile, Brazil Paris London , Bonn Helsinki and Kiev
This is an excellent podcast and reminder of what might have been. That our country has devolved into a permanent war economy, dependent on massive military budgets and the constant need for war is a tragedy that might have been avoided. How we get our country out of this quagmire is the challenge now. Too many segments of our society have bought into this story: the media, the president, the Congress, and even most Americans who rarely, if ever, think about what has happened since the end of WWII and the creation of the covert apparatus that took the lives of these incredible leaders. I was heartened to hear that it was Adlai Stevenson who had advised Kennedy about how to negotiate with Krushchev. I think Stevenson was our last great diplomat. As Sachs remarked, we don't have diplomats anymore. We just have cheerleaders for more wars and a Congress afraid to challenge the status quo of the military-industrial-corportate insatiable war machine. Another author who has plumbed the history of the Kennedys and the Dulles brothers is David Talbot ("Brothers" and "The Devil's Chessboard").
The myth of control is why racism, misogyny, suspicion and fear still rule the minds of men who have been trained to succeed in denying their own discomfort for the sake of pseudo strength.
We need a new global architecture to obtain a fair and peaceful world. World federation is the answer, as JFK knew. Law, not war. https://fas.org/publication/jfk-one-world-none-new-effort-achieve-world-law/
WAR is the greatest example of 'Negative Externality Cost' LOOTING in our world.
My double-sided, ad-hoc, focus-group tested, and nearly 100% approved demonstration/protest signs simply say:
'NEGATIVE
EXTERNALITY
COST'
LOOTING
vs.
'POSITIVE
EXTERNALITY
PROFITS'
FOR PEOPLE
Great interview. Thank you. I’ll get the book
About time. And we don't have a lot left.
In the July 1994 issue of Vanity Fair (I still have this issue), Dominick Dunne reported that Jackie Kennedy gave only two (sealed) interviews after JFK's death, one to Theodore White to be opened one year after her death, and the other to William Manchester to be opened in 2067. I think it's fair to assume that the latter interview contains a lot of information we would like to see today -- especially since some of us won't be around in 2067.
Chris, I have had some trouble with NYT blocking many of my critcal comments. But they allowed this one on the subject of EMPIRE to get published by your alma mater and “these ’TIMES’ they are a changing” — into an actual EMPIRE by using the ultimate American GLOBAL Empire scheme ’Negative Externality Cost’ LOOTING of the whole planet:
Thomas Edsall’s recent Sept. 27 NYT Column: ‘This Is Going to Be the Most Important Election Since 1860’
Which I have exposed herein:
I've been aware, for years, of the 13 to 16 million youth advantage and hope that what you project happens, regarding DSA & Green Party — however the efforts of the arrogantly self-appointed UHNWIs, 1%ers, and "Masters of the Universe" are exercising a very different and deadly strategy for "The Quiet American" duopoly EMPIRE [apologies to Graham Greene].
The not fully recognized factor of 'Negative Externality Cost' Looting is the overwhelming mechanism which drives the following:
1. 'Negative Externality Cost' Looting has been occurring annually for decades in "The Quiet American" Empire.
2. "Accumulation by Dispossession" [David Harvey] was and continues to be the the major mechanism for elevating, not the GINI Coefficient of merely Income, but the more essential and economically deadly GINI Coefficient of WEALTH Inequality — of which "The Quiet American" Empire has pushed all the wealth of this now Global Empire to the peak of the pyramid — and all the hidden 'Negative Externality Costs' down upon our 'citizens of the world'.
3. Since at least 1944, when FDR's brilliant democratic socialist VP, Henry Wallace, was subjected to a 'silent coup d'etat' by the OSS, DNC, Dixiecrats, and Big-City Bosses — when Wallace was physically blocked from taking the podium, despite his 60%+ delegate favorability.
4. IMHO, all the oppression, depression, criminally economic, needless, violent, military deceits deaths, and deadly manipulation of "The Quiet American" Empire.
Chris, I have had some trouble with NYT blocking many of my critcal comments. But they allowed this one on the subject of EMPIRE to get published by your alma mater and “these ’TIMES’ they are a changing” — into an actual EMPIRE by using the ultimate American GLOBAL Empire scheme ’Negative Externality Cost’ LOOTING of the whole planet:
Thomas Edsall’s recent Sept. 27 NYT Column: ‘This Is Going to Be the Most Important Election Since 1860’
Which I have exposed herein:
I've been aware, for years, of the 13 to 16 million youth advantage and hope that what you project happens, regarding DSA & Green Party — however the efforts of the arrogantly self-appointed UHNWIs, 1%ers, and "Masters of the Universe" are exercising a very different and deadly strategy for "The Quiet American" duopoly EMPIRE [apologies to Graham Greene].
The not fully recognized factor of 'Negative Externality Cost' Looting is the overwhelming mechanism which drives the following:
1. 'Negative Externality Cost' Looting has been occurring annually for decades in "The Quiet American" Empire.
2. "Accumulation by Dispossession" [David Harvey] was and continues to be the the major mechanism for elevating, not the GINI Coefficient of merely Income, but the more essential and economically deadly GINI Coefficient of WEALTH Inequality — of which "The Quiet American" Empire has pushed all the wealth of this now Global Empire to the peak of the pyramid — and all the hidden 'Negative Externality Costs' down upon our 'citizens of the world'.
3. Since at least 1944, when FDR's brilliant democratic socialist VP, Henry Wallace, was subjected to a 'silent coup d'etat' by the OSS, DNC, Dixiecrats, and Big-City Bosses — when Wallace was physically blocked from taking the podium, despite his 60%+ delegate favorability.
4. IMHO, all the oppression, depression, criminally economic, needless, violent, military deceits deaths, and deadly manipulation of "The Quiet American" Empire.
GOOGLE Shifted 6 Million Votes To Biden In 2020?! - Stay Free #211 - Sep 27 – Russell Brand
https://rumble.com/v3lbto7-hang-ongoogle-shifted-6-million-votes-to-biden-in-2020-stay-free-211.html
I was 15 and was growing up in Montreal Quebec where I was born in the same hospital my mother was born in. I attended the most privileged public schools money could buy operated by The Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. You talk about a Protestant work ethic but you couldn't compete against upstart immigrants willing to work twice as hard.
Montreal was 6 hours away by car, today NYC city seems to begin at about Kingston, NY. Montreal was not in the least shocked in November.
Kennedy was seen as as Martyr even before he was shot. He was beatified when he entered office.
President Kennedy is the street on which all of Montreal's great festivals take place. It is our public square and Quebec is now a secular HUMANIST liberal democracy.
In 2023 our Quebec Prime Minister was forced into a public apology for saying the Roman Catholic Church was not all bad.
When Leonard Cohen attended Westmount High it was a Protestant school , it was Protestant when I attended and when Kamala Harris attended today it is an English high school and still the best high school taxpayer money can buy.
You get what you pay for. Quebecers pay the highest taxes and we are North America's most optimistic people. We can't change the past, we can only affect the future.
https://westmount.emsb.qc.ca/whs
I am 75 and autistic and never could compete. It took my wife's entire faculty of education to teach me how to write and I was already over 50 and the technology was cutting edge but I understood technology. I am said to be a genius at science, abstract mathematics and linguistics.
Funny thing about me is the more I learn the less I know. I still remember
Everything you know is Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_VdupNdxlM
I am sure the vinyl has turned to dust but it would be nice to have the album cover as I recherche les temps perdu.
Thank you !! Also:
Why the 2024 US election will be decided by Google | Should Trudeau Stand Down as Canadian PM?
https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-2024-us-will-89967207 -- OUTSTANDING !!
“Don’t let it be forgot, that for one brief, shining moment there was Camelot,” Jackie told Life magazine journalist White, quoting from the musical. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h7E5rtnFH4
Billy:
Is it possible to ask today, how things unfolded in relation to John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the USA, who was murdered in Dallas/Texas on the 22nd of November 1963?
Ptaah:
It was a plot of various interest groups, consisting of CIA, FBI, Mafia, pro-Cubans, oil barons and the military-industrial complex.
Lee Harvey Oswald and three other men collaborated with the alliance of conspirators, resulting in them insidiously shooting the US President dead.
It is true that Oswald the same as the other participants were firing on John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but the actually lethal shot did not originate from Oswald’s weapon.
Billy:
The one who was for his part shot by Jack Ruby and in truth called Rubinstein.
Ptaah:
That’s right.
He was a hired murderer, with the task to shoot Oswald, because the responsible persons of the plot did not trust him.
https://www.futureofmankind.co.uk/Billy_Meier/Contact_Report_256