A grim lesson from Nov. 22, 1963

This is one of those anniversaries by which Americans mark time — life’s changes occurred either before or after this event — because they alter the course of history. Our lives are never the same afterward.

The attack on Pearl Harbor.

The terrorist attack of 
Sept. 11, 2001.

The Wall Street crash of 1929, that was the start of the Great Depression.

The dropping of nuclear weapons on Japan in August 1945, effectively ending World War II.

And the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — on this day, Nov. 22, 46 years ago.

Of course, unless you are 50 or older, you probably have no direct memories from that horrific day in 1963 when an American president — the embodiment of American vigor, vitality and youth (despite his many health problems) — was mortally wounded by gunfire during a motorcade in downtown Dallas. Debate has raged for decades over whether President Kennedy’s murder was the act of a lone gunman or the result of a conspiracy, and the argument may never end.

As the nation ages and the Kennedy assassination is considered peripheral history to more and more Americans, the significance of this date — which was once solemnly commemorated every year — has faded with time. Now it’s just another day around the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps remembered with a documentary on the History Channel. Most of the actors from that day have died.

But there’s still a lesson to be learned from the events of Nov. 22, 1963 — specifically about the dangers of political fanaticism and overheated, hyperbolic rhetoric, not unlike the intense political environment that pervades the nation today.

President Kennedy’s America was fully engaged in the Cold War with the communist government of the former Soviet Union, and an American politician in the 1950s and 1960s could not be perceived as being “soft” on communism. And in some corners, history has recorded, Kennedy was considered too soft on communism. It was not a time for nuanced political positions, but the country — indeed, the world — was well-served because his thinking was not rigid and ideology-driven when the Cuban missile crisis brought the U.S. and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

When Kennedy went to Texas on a political trip in November 1963, the political atmosphere in Dallas was toxic and a handbill — with Kennedy’s image and the headline “Wanted for Treason” — was in circulation there on Nov. 21. “In the early 1960s, Dallas was a city in which bigotry and prejudice were allowed to fester under the noses of civic leaders,” Dallas Morning News writer Carolyn Barta wrote a few years ago.

No one can directly blame ultra-conservative organizations like the John Birch Society, or sympathizers or opponents of Fidel Castro’s Cuban regime, for Kennedy’s assassination but we know — thanks to 9/11, Fort Hood and Oklahoma City — that a handful of political extremists, or just one, can be influenced and persuaded to use violence to make a statement. Lee Harvey Oswald may have been a “patsy” for other interests, as he claimed before his own murder, or he may have been the lone fanatical gunman that the Warren Commission claimed he was. In either case, he was surely a byproduct of the ugly, virulent political climate of the early 1960s, and he changed history on this date.

On this anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, we find ourselves thinking about the political climate of 2009 and whether things have really changed all that much. As the last three presidential elections have demonstrated, America is deeply polarized — nearly divided right down the middle — with both sides showing too little interest in understanding the other’s points of view and too little respect for one another. Clever sound bites pass for political philosophy these days, and the objective too often appears to be shouting down your opponent, whether he’s right or wrong, and blindly supporting your favorite politician, whether he’s right or wrong.

Americans should be actively involved in politics and shaping government policy, so it’s a positive development that the current health reform debate has drawn in so many of us, both those who favor reform and those who do not. But we insist that it’s intelligent, reasoned arguments, respect for opposing points of views and fair elections that are the true American way of advancing an agenda, not hyper-partisan rabble rousing and certainly not violence. (It’s disheartening to read that guns and bullets have been selling at a furious pace since January’s inauguration.)

The country has surely lost its way when partisan gamesmanship is put before the nation’s future and the people’s welfare. And we’re courting another tragedy when we start bringing weapons to political rallies and carry signs — reminiscent of that Dallas handbill 46 years ago — that portray the president of the United States as a war criminal or a traitor to our nation. Demonizing the other side — an act both political parties are often guilty of — can result in unintended consequences, we learned 46 years ago.

“... Let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved,” John Kennedy famously said at American University five months before he was murdered. “And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”

The sudden, shattering death of this young, articulate leader — who inspired a post-war generation to value public service and to reach for the stars — can still teach us about the perils of extremism and blind ideology in an open and armed society — if we only stop shouting at each other and begin to listen.