-Caveat Lector-
> WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
>
> The death of JFK Jr. and the politics of celebrity
>
> By Martin McLaughlin
> 24 July 1999
>
> Back to screen version
>
> A week-long media barrage on the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.
> culminated in the burial at sea Thursday of the ashes of Kennedy,
> his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren, and the memorial service
> Friday in New York City. While both the burial and the funeral
> were private and closed to the press, the American media
> nonetheless gave them virtually continuous coverage, with the
> television networks showing hour after hour of long-distance
> shots of the naval warship from which the ashes were to be
> scattered and the cathedral in Manhattan where a select group of
> mourners gathered.
>
> The Clinton administration's authorization of the use of a Navy
> ship to conduct the burial at sea was unprecedented, given that
> the victims were private citizens who had never served in the
> military. This decision only underscored the quasi-official
> character of the whole process by which public opinion has been
> besieged with the claim that the death of JFK Jr. represents an
> enormous loss to society.
>
> There are contradictions too many to enumerate in the
> presentation of this fairly undistinguished multi-millionaire as
> a model of social virtue. Article after article, broadcast after
> broadcast, celebrates Kennedy's alleged role as a philanthropist
> and benefactor of the poor, although he did little more than
> follow the prescribed course for any scion of a wealthy
> capitalist family who wishes to present the image of noblesse
> oblige —a little charity work, a few foundation meetings, all
> very useful for a future political resumé.
>
> One obvious question related to the plane crash remains
> unanswered. According to the media presentation, JFK Jr. was
> universally admired and beloved, a “regular guy” who befriended
> ordinary people, a man treasured by his elite friends. Why was it
> then, that none of these friends and admirers sought to prevent
> him from putting his life and the lives of his wife and
> sister-in-law at risk with the reckless decision to fly a small
> plane under adverse conditions? A colossal machinery has been set
> into motion to magnify the grief after the event, but there
> apparently was not a word of wisdom said beforehand.
>
> Thousands of Americans die in accidents every year, but none of
> these deaths are singled out as a national tragedy. On the
> contrary, the political and media establishment resolutely
> opposes drawing any social conclusions from such incidents, even
> when they are fairly obvious—the large number of tornado deaths
> among poorer sections of workers compelled to live in mobile
> homes, or the horrendous rate of road deaths among overworked
> truck drivers.
>
> Aside from concern that examination of the social implications of
> such “accidents” might pose a threat to corporate profits, there
> are broader ideological issues. The trend in America over the
> last several decades has been to reduce all the social evils
> produced by the profit system—hunger, homelessness, drug abuse,
> unemployment—to issues of “individual responsibility.”
>
> Yet in the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., the full power of the
> American media and the government is being mobilized to present
> the death of an individual who made no significant contribution
> to American society as a calamity of historical dimensions. In
> part, this could be attributed to the machinery of media
> manipulation going about its work almost automatically. It has
> become routine for the press and television to take any
> unfortunate event involving even a minor celebrity—such as the
> skiing death last year of Congressman Sonny Bono—and milk it for
> every possible drop of sentimentality.
>
> But the official response to the death of JFK Jr. goes beyond
> this. Other considerations are involved, some of them suggested
> by a column which appeared Wednesday in the Washington Post,
> written by Charles Krauthammer.
>
> First, a word about style. Krauthammer begins the column, “Heir
> to Camelot,” with a quote from Moby Dick, and ends it by
> comparing JFK Jr. to Prince Hal (the future Henry V of England).
> It is pretentious in the extreme to cite the writings of literary
> geniuses to describe an incident of so little intrinsic
> importance. References to Shakespeare and Herman Melville cannot
> give the death of John Kennedy Jr. the broad historical
> significance which it lacks.
>
> Krauthammer claims Kennedy's death evoked “a feeling of national
> loss, the kind one feels at the death not just of youth but of
> royalty.” American politics is democratic only in theory, he
> declares, “In practice, we are lovers of dynasty.”
>
> Kennedy was the only son of the assassinated president. “And it
> is precisely the death with him of that name—and the redemption,
> nay restoration, that it promised—that added so strangely and
> deeply to the sense of national loss at his death...
>
> “Can there be any doubt that it was only a matter of time before
> John Kennedy Jr. would have made the transition from a life
> associated with politics to a life of high office himself?”
>
> Other Kennedys, not directly descended from John F. Kennedy,
> might have to seek lesser offices to build up their political
> credentials, “But not the one true heir. He does not have to
> apprentice to greatness. He can wait, then claim it.”
>
> Krauthammer combines prostration before money, power and
> celebrity with an unabashed defense of inherited privilege. His
> column might seem more in keeping with a monarchist tract of the
> 18th century than a political commentary written on the eve of
> the 21st. Nonetheless, his effusions demonstrate what, under
> certain circumstances, could have been set into motion to build
> up John F. Kennedy Jr. as a political figure, the heir to the
> tradition embodied by his martyred father and brother, etc., etc.
>
> What did JFK Jr. actually stand for politically? The magazine
> that he founded, George, was certainly not a voice of the
> Democratic Party liberalism that prevailed in the heyday of his
> father and uncles. It provided a venue for a mix of conservatives
> and free market liberals—former New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato
> was a columnist—and approached political Washington in the
> fashion of a Hollywood gossip publication.
>
> As Krauthammer admits, JFK Jr. could have played a political role
> not because he was a political figure, but because he was a
> celebrity. The transformation of celebrity into political power
> has become a recurring feature of American political life, and an
> important symptom of the decay of bourgeois politics. This trend
> assumed major proportions with the election of Ronald Reagan, the
> former movie actor, continued with the rise of eccentric
> billionaire Ross Perot and the promotion of a number of show
> business and sports celebrities to national office, and now finds
> expression in the professional wrestler and governor of
> Minnesota, Jesse Ventura.
>
> Texas Governor George W. Bush, although little known nationally
> in terms of his actual political views, has become the leading
> Republican presidential hopeful by combining the power of
> celebrity with the benefits of heredity. He has “name
> recognition” because he is the son of the former president.
> Largely for that reason he does well in the polls, and his
> performance in the polls is a major reason why he is being
> inundated with contributions from big donors and sweeping the
> Republican field, eight months before any balloting.
>
> The recourse of American politics to the promotion of celebrity
> is one expression of its inability to address any of the social
> concerns of the masses of working people. To the extent that no
> important issues—the growth of social inequality, the rise of
> militarism, the erosion of democratic rights—can be seriously
> discussed by any of the bourgeois parties, and the political and
> media establishment is increasingly isolated and alienated from
> the broad mass of the people, the methods of Hollywood and
> Madison Avenue play an ever larger role.
>
> Krauthammer gives voice, in an unabashed way, to the
> anti-democratic ethos that prevails within a well-defined
> political elite that is recruited from and serves the most
> privileged and narrow strata of society.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
> Copyright 1998-99
> World Socialist Web Site
> All rights reserved
>
>
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