I think JFK's politics are hard to summarise neatly. I mean he was still 100% US imperialist and anti-communist, like he started Vietnam and all the stuff with Cuba etc. Like all Presidents of the USA he sucked.
But there was sort of benevolent (if paternalistic) approach that he wanted to take to the global south/non aligned nations. One where independences movements weren't violently squashed (take Lumumba in the DRC and Sukharno in Indonesia) and instead they were aided in their transition to independence and helped to industrialise, so that they could slot into the global market, still exploited with comprador governments, but less overtly.
Likewise that he wanted to thaw relations with the USSR, but more to avoid outright nuclear war, he still thought the USA would beat them economically and ideologically with time. That and wanting to curtail the CIA's growing power. Like it's bad he was killed for world geopolitics, but still very much the fact was he was terrible.
Like there's a reason despite everything JFK did to Cuba, that Castro thought a second term JFK would be preferable to other presidents and when JFK was killed he outlined why the CIA killed in a speech.
He's certainly tricky to pin down, much less a force for evil than many of his predecessors and successors, but how good he was is certainly debatable.
I think JFK's politics are hard to summarise neatly. I mean he was still 100% US imperialist and anti-communist, like he started Vietnam and all the stuff with Cuba etc. Like all Presidents of the USA he sucked.
But there was sort of benevolent (if paternalistic) approach that he wanted to take to the global south/non aligned nations. One where independences movements weren't violently squashed (take Lumumba in the DRC and Sukharno in Indonesia) and instead they were aided in their transition to independence and helped to industrialise, so that they could slot into the global market, still exploited with comprador governments, but less overtly.
Likewise that he wanted to thaw relations with the USSR, but more to avoid outright nuclear war, he still thought the USA would beat them economically and ideologically with time. That and wanting to curtail the CIA's growing power. Like it's bad he was killed for world geopolitics, but still very much the fact was he was terrible.
Like there's a reason despite everything JFK did to Cuba, that Castro thought a second term JFK would be preferable to other presidents and when JFK was killed he outlined why the CIA killed in a speech.
He's certainly tricky to pin down, much less a force for evil than many of his predecessors and successors, but how good he was is certainly debatable.