Obama follows JFK advice - Secrecy is repugnant in a free society - Please read:

[1776Forever]

In his own words John F. Kennedy stated the following:

Address to the American Newspaper Publishers

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfknewspaperpublishers.htm

"The President and the Press"

April 27, 1961

(snip)

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. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it's in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes, or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask -- But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort, based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In times of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Today no war has been declared, and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions -- by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence -- on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations......

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation -- an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people -- to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well -- the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support an Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed....

******************

There are many articles on the web that one can find that tells us how Obama is conducting his campaign in an open and transparent manner. I would urge everyone that has not voted yet to understand that the Clinton's are not opening up the Clinton Library records to allow reporting on Hillary's involvement in the Clinton White House. And also they have not released their tax return records yet.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/57351

Is this what we want in the next Administration, more secrecy? As for me I do not!

And as for HRC saying Obama speeches are just words I ask you to consider the words that are spoken and the seeds that are planted. They do make a difference!

1776 Forever!

:patriot:

[Captain Hilts]

1. JFK was VERY secretive! Read your history! nt

[1776Forever]

2. If you mean for security or private reasons then you are right - but open with the press

I do not know of anything other then that. Do you have a link?

[AZBlue]

3. k/r

Yes, JKK hid his affairs, but I don't care who sleeps with whom, I really don't. I care about issues, political moves and policies.

[MyNameGoesHere]

4. JFK was open huh?

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
1961 - 1963

President John F. Kennedy


In the wake of President Eisenhower's medical problems, the health of the presidential candidates in the 1960 election became an important issue. John F. Kennedy was acutely aware of this. While he projected youth, vigor, and fitness, he was hiding the fact that he had a life-threatening disease. If his health problems had been made public, Kennedy probably would not have been elected president.

[Peace Patriot]

5. JFK was quite the "Cold Warrior" in 1961. But what was he by 1963?

I know how much of a "Cold Warrior" he was, in the beginning. I saw/heard what he said in debates and speeches on live TV. I was a young Kennedyite--a worker in his 1960 campaign for president, when I was 16.

However, JFK soon underwent a transformation--a process of enlightenment, and growth--about our "secret government," at that time run through the CIA, in the service of war profiteers. He foiled them on two wars against communist countries--Cuba and Soviet Russia--and was working on a third, Vietnam, when he was cut down. He issued executive orders to begin the withdrawal of U.S. "military advisers" from Vietnam shortly before he died. I'm quite certain that is why he was killed. The war profiteers needed another war, a big one, and he was starting to question it, and to head it off, by scaling down our involvement with the very corrupt, CIA-created government of "South" Vietnam. And within a year of his murder, the Vietnam War was back on track and the phony "Gulf of Tonkin" incident was used to dramatically escalate it.

JFK was a "Cold Warrior" on his way to becoming a peacemaker. He also got a nuclear disarmament treaty (the first), began conversion of the military budget to peaceful uses, with the new space program, and, by the end, gave an astonishing speech to the UN on world peace. His development got truncated, violently. There was not much evidence, in the beginning, of his ability to change, other than the prescient feeling of many young people at the time--including me--who responded to his wit, his intelligence, his generosity of spirit, and charisma (charm, magic, Keltic blood). He was actually far, far less of a leftist and visionary than his chief opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, Adlai Stevenson. But there was something about Kennedy that pre-saged the astonishing social revolution that occurred just after his death, from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s: the rebellion of the young against unjust war, and the rather sudden deconstruction of every unfair social stricture that was impeding U.S. democracy (equal rights for blacks, for women, for gays, for the indigenous--and so much more--busting all the barriers, including the very barriers of earth in putting men on the moon). Kennedy sparked those amazing changes--in me and in many others--and I'll never know how.

Reading this paranoid tripe about the "communist conspiracy" in his speech on "secrecy," back in 1961, I really wonder now what it was. Why did he make me feel hope? Why did he seem to embody change? What made it possible for him TO change (which he did)? And what happened in me--a privileged white girl never out of California--who, two years after his death, traveled to Alabama to join Martin Luther King's voter registration campaign?

And I am rather typical of my generation. There is nothing unusual in my upbringing or background that accounts for my own arc of enlightenment and growth. But that's where it began, with JFK's one and only campaign for president, and my conviction, based on nothing substantial, that he would change our country and the world for the better.

Barack Obama has a similar effect on the young, which is all to the good. But so much has happened since, to enlighten us all (the majority who wish to be informed), that I wonder at his vague program. Perhaps it's just a sign of our times that a candidate cannot speak freely, without getting "swift-boated" or worse. Perhaps he's just another corporate shill, with a nice bedtime story about "opportunity in Amerika." And perhaps that doesn't matter. It takes more than a president to save a country. It takes the whole country. And the active participation of the young, and hopefulness in the young, is how it starts. And it's also a good sign that the young, and the people from every demographic, who are flocking to Obama's campaign, want the war on Iraq ended. He may not be permitted to do it. But it's an indication that the great progressive American majority is alive and well.

[AntiFascist]

6. K&R, this is exactly what it is all about...

the war-mongering, "anti-commmunist" (really anti-democracy), far right has taken control of the secret programs all for their own benefit. If this continues unchecked then we will soon have a dual class society: one class which is with the secret programs and the much larger class which is exploited and ultimately destroyed. Eventually the "trickle-down" effect will dry up and those who own everything will eventually say "fuck it" to the rest of us. We are already witnessing how much they care about society as a whole in the American educational system.

[MethuenProgressive]

7. So will Obama "find" the 8 years of records from his years as a state senator?

He claims that for 8 years he, and he alone of all Illinois state legislators, never kept any records at all. Will he "JFK" on this and come clean?

[1776Forever]

8. Links and comments......

Here are links to show his voting records:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/07/29/us/politics/20070730_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html

http://www.ilga.gov/previousga.asp

Obama has said also that he had no legal obligation to archive his state papers:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/11/sweet_web_column_obama_on_his.html

"I was in the state senate for eight years," Obama said. "I had one staff person, that was what was allocated. I don't have archivists in the state senate. I don't have the Barack Obama state senate library available to me, so we had a bunch of file cabinets. I do not have a whole bunch of records from those years. Now, if there are particular documents that you are interested in, then you should let us know.”

Barack Obama on Federal Spending Transparency Bill(signed and approved by President Bush):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYgDAmtrcJQ

Ethics and Lobbying Reform

Throughout his political career, Barack Obama has fought for open and honest government. As an Illinois State Senator, he helped pass the state’s first major ethics reform bill in 25 years. And as a U.S. Senator, he has spearheaded the effort to clean up Washington in the wake of numerous scandals:

http://obama.senate.gov/issues/ethics_and_lobbying_reform/