JFK responds to RFK Jr. in 2023. "The Hockey Fight" speech. Comedy impression

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Thanks To

Impressions by Tom Gutwell, Jr.
for Sabrina

Video: Archive.org
1963 JUN 06 President John F. Kennedy's - Peace Speech V01
Endymion Productions - Evidence of Revision 1, 2

https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html
https://archive.org/details/1963jun06presidentjohnf.kennedyspeacespeechv01
https://archive.org/details/EvidenceOfRevision_201610

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The Hockey Fight
Written for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in his voice.

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My dear and fellow Americans.

This man, who speaks to you, is not John Kennedy, but a mere impression. This is intended, as a creative response, to a perennial question of many Americans. What would old such-and-so, our former president, now say, in our current moment. In truth I do not know. Each man is a soul made of his country, and his time. And every American knows a different side of a president.

Since this voice cannot say for certain, it will say for maybe, using what Edgar Allan Poe called "the cock-feathers, red paint and black patches of the literary histrio". So with no further graces, I will give two responses. First, what I might say about the young Mr. Robert Kennedy. And then, what I might say, about our current moment and circumstances.

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In truth I am at a loss, on either account. Robert Junior prompts my memory, rather strongly. He compels a close listening, as I listened to his father. That he has grown up well, learned the law, loved his family and the land. And found his way into an age, now greater than my own, all these I find pleasing and commendable.

I rather marvel that our generation, lost, produced him. ... My own father, was so often vexed by things that I, or Rosemary, or especially Bobby would say. Bobby Junior seems also to have his own mind, so let him have it. Having given him these due honors, as a man, a father, and also, I am afraid, as a fellow politician, ... let me move on to his policy.

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Mr. Kennedy. I agree that, in our time, our country, has grown and served in many fruitful alliances. And survived many of them.

And I agree with you, Mr. Kennedy, that the United States requires, a vigorous defense. Few nations match our territory, our citizenship, our interests, or our men under arms, all concentrated on the defense of our vast purpose. To explain my, or rather our, rather precarious position, I will speak of one man.

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Professor Emeritus Al Bartlett trained at Colgate University, later to serve at Harvard, and then at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1944, he served his country at the secret Los Alamos project, to create and test the atomic bomb. In his words, Al Bartlett warned,

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

Al meant that the hockey stick effect is real and everywhere, except our primate evolution, or the evolution of our nations and polities. We do not understand it, by and large, until it hits us.

President Roosevelt was present at the White House, during an air scare. With the war at the front, a single soldier was his personal protection. That soldier heard the command, and frog-marched the President to the closest safe location, which happened to be a small document-closet with stacks of carbon paper. He later said "I thought of assassination, Presidents do. Before I was freed, I realized that - I was the first President ever to be filed."

I recall Al Barlett's ideas to our moment, and Franklin's carbon paper, because in the end, any nation is nothing more, nor less, than the body of its people. Where that body is fed and nurtured, it flourishes, and where it is starved and predated upon, it must surely succumb. A government then, is no more than the conscience of a people on its land, to serve its own ends. Where in nature, then, when in history, do we find the spear-tip, of violent and explosive conflict? ...

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Al Bartlett's clear vision was expounded, in a celebrated one-hour lecture called, Arithmetic, Population and Energy, based on his paper, "the Forgtten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis". Those of you who lived through the Oil Crisis have been drawn into many of the fights of hockey stick mathematics. If there is a tiger in your tank, imagine what it took to tame it abroad. ...

In the 1970s, hundreds of millions of people around the world, starved to death. In spite of our crash programs, embarked with global allies. Yet at this late date, we understand, that nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. And some say, this IS desirable, but it's not publishable.

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Mr. Kennedy, my response I suppose is made of two parts. For the one part, I cannot help but commend, your commitment to human rights, to civil rights for rich and poor alike, for which your father and so many fought so hard, here in the United States, and abroad. In my time I saw alliances flourish with our close cooperation, none more so than with the fledgeling State of Israel, which has served to anchor the United States in the heart of the Middle East.

A leader instinctively gives of himself, to all the people he serves. My mentor, who shall remain, Professor, ... once admonished me not to mistake my heart, for my constituency. Heartburn, he said, invariably follows. ...

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For my second response, I merely circle and highlight, with a question mark, the words, not publishable. ... It was Thomas Jefferson who said, and forgive me for trotting out some of these old war horses, they tell me Shilleleagh was not available, Thomas Jefferson said,

"No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is not free no one ever will." ... "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

I circled those words, Mr. Kennedy, to center the fact that information, of human importance, is now filtered, and will be filtered, from the public it would serve. If [freedom] is not the current thing anymore, or a going concern, then I am more out of style than any hologram or hallowed flame can restore.

Without free information, in sincerity, I believe a free nation can no longer flourish. and I invite your comments Mr. Kennedy - and in fact ALL candidates to the presidency - to do the same.

Thank you.

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Oh and one more thing.

John Pitcairn was respected by the the citizens of Boston, as a reasonable officer of an occupying force of some 300 British marines. When he was assigned to search Concord homes, for contraband and letters, he met with some resistance. One of his men later said, "If by Lightning we have lost our Con-cord, we shall find a link to the Dis-cord with the Locals Next-Door in the Rumble. ... " And they did find it, in Lexington.

Pitcairn lost a good horse, and a pair of matched pistols. When we consider what the Bostonians were willing to lose, as the Vietnamese were willing to lose, as any people fighting on their land, and for it, we may learn where we meet with fertile ground, and where, with resistance.

thank you.

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