Reply #12: Interesting alternate history

[Squeech]

I don't buy it. I believe one of the reasons JFK was killed was because he was discovering how badly the CIA was misleading him about Vietnam, and was increasingly determined to put a stop to it.

So assume Kennedy pulls out. Goldwater runs on an anti-appeasement platform, that American prestige and the need to contain Communism require us to stay in 'Nam. Not sure who wins-- I don't see America having that big an emotional stake in the war, either way, in 1964, so it probably comes down to the economy.

In any case, I agree with this future history that this delays the Civil Rights Act of 1965 by several years. Even if Kennedy wins, he doesn't have the mandate or the political capital to pull it off-- and if Goldwater wins, he has no interest in it. Either way, Dr. King is preoccupied with the various issues of civil rights and equal access, and never starts to develop his anti-war, anti-corporatist critique (which I believe is what got him shot in real life). Eventually his determined non-violent stance gets civil rights laws passed, especially when he hooks up with Motown, whose artists start playing hit songs based on King's theories. The Watts riots never happen.

Bobby Kennedy wins in 1968. He makes the fight against organized crime the cornerstone of his presidency. To remove one of their major sources of funds, he decriminalizes most recreational drugs, along the Dutch and English models: small amounts of recreational marijuana are sold under loose government supervision in coffee shops, and opiate addicts can register and get regular fixes in outpatient clinics, or if they want to kick, hospital facilities are available. LSD remains available as a psychiatric tool, and recreational use never becomes a requisite for membership in the counterculture (and Timothy Leary remains an academic). The culture wars of the Summer of Love et seq. never happen. A lot of that energy goes into the arts: an amazing renaissance of theatre and literature, and Jimi Hendrix hooks up with Gil Evans to write a symphony that becomes as popular as Rhapsody in Blue. (BTW, the other thing I disagree with this other alternate history is, I think the Beatles would have revolutionized the world of pop music even without the JFK assassination. I remember how refreshing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" sounded after three years of lame teenage crooners with pompadours. And I think the Summer of Love still happens pretty much as we remember it, but of course way less belligerent, since the war wound down. Indeed, the American audience demands quality, so disco never happens, and neither does "Married With Children.")

When RFK points out that the Soviet apparatchiks essentially constitute a Mafia, he makes important allies among the Republican right, especially Goldwater, and together they draft a foreign policy based not on military containment but on economic marginalization. We still bribe third world countries with development assistance and trade credits, but we require greater standards of openness, and a lot of official corruption never happens. Nasser remains anti-Israel but ceases to flirt with Russia, and because of American pressure, the 1973 war never happens, and as soon as Sadat takes the reins, he writes a peace pact with Israel. Lebanon (which, with American aid, stays independent of Syria) and Jordan soon follow. We withdraw our support from the Shah, who abdicates in favor of a parliamentary system where the mullahs constitute a large minority party but never attain absolute power. America and the UN guarantee universal free access to Jerusalem, and Israel is persuaded to give back the West Bank. (Not the Golan; Syria is left as the most belligerent Arab state, and forges close ties with Iraq-- who America never favors.) I'm not sure whether the West Bank becomes a Palestinian state or simply gets returned to Jordan, but in either case, there are no major organizations devoted to terrorism. India and Pakistan get along too; the most fractious spot on the globe is Northern Ireland.

Africa becomes self-supporting, which is a good thing, because the space program becomes so successful that by now we're mining the asteroids and no longer have to get our chromium and such from there. Butchers like Idi Amin are quickly turned out of office by neighboring countries whose leaders like to quote JFK and Jefferson. Other than that, people get to realize there's really nothing to fight over. I'm not sure if Andropov is smart enough to realize that the Soviet system is washed up-- he was KGB, and has issues with freedom-- but certainly the people are ready. Whoever is president when Gorbachev is in charge gives Russia all the development aid it needs. We develop the Uzbek oil and gas fields together. The Sauds no longer have the leverage of pulling the strings on the entire fossil fuel market, and OPEC never happens. Besides, we've got solar power installations all over the map-- on the open seas, electrolyzing water for hydrogen to run fuel-cell powered cars. Smog is a thing of the past.

Pleasant dreams, folks.