JFK [Track 11] | What Was JFK Really Warning Us About?

What JFK Was Really Warning Us About — Revisiting My 2011 Post

May 2026

Why I'm Bringing This Old Post Back

Fifteen years ago I sat down and wrote a short reflection on one of the most quoted speeches in American history. Back then I was posting as Apollo, still searching for the language for ideas I'd spend the next decade building into books and albums. I came across the post recently and realized it deserved more than to sit buried in an old archive. You're reading the updated version now, and I want to walk you through what I was reaching for then and where my thinking has landed since.

The speech in question is John F. Kennedy's 1961 address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association. People still search for "what was JFK warning us about" and the meaning of the JFK secret society speech, and the fact that the question won't die tells you something. A president stood in front of the press and talked about secrecy, conspiracy, and the duty of a free society to stay informed. That's worth sitting with, no matter what year you're reading this in.

What I Think JFK Was Actually Saying

Let me be straight with you about the history first. When Kennedy spoke of a "monolithic and ruthless conspiracy," most historians agree he was describing the Soviet Union and the Cold War threat of international communism. The speech came just weeks after the Bay of Pigs disaster, and a big part of it was Kennedy asking the press to show restraint on matters of national security. So the literal target in that room was a foreign adversary, not a hidden cabal at home.

But I don't think that's the whole story, and I don't think you should stop reading there. The deeper warning in that speech is timeless, and it's the part that grabbed me in 2011 and still grabs me now. Kennedy said the word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society, and he praised the press as the recorder of man's deeds. He was describing a principle, not just a moment: power that operates in the dark is dangerous, and a free press exists to drag it into the light.

That's where my reading goes beyond the textbook. Whether the concentrated power is a foreign state, a banking establishment, or a media apparatus that shapes what you're allowed to think about, the mechanism is the same. Secrecy plus concentration equals control. Kennedy was pointing straight at the relationship between an informed public and a free people, and that relationship matters just as much in 2026 as it did in 1961.

How My Thinking Has Changed Since 2011

In 2011 I had an instinct. Today I have a framework. The years in between handed me the language of thinkers like Chomsky, Marx, Rousseau, and Schopenhauer, and I built that reading into the work I do now as Eric Leo 108.

If you've followed my books, you already know where this goes. In Farming Humans I argue that ordinary people get managed like a resource by a small ownership class, and that the American Dream gets sold to you as motivation rather than offered as a real possibility. I call the trap the Psycho Consumption Cage — the way attention, debt, and manufactured wants keep you busy and compliant. JFK's warning about secrecy fits neatly inside that frame, because the cage only works as long as you can't see the bars.

The media piece is the part I'd underline hardest today. Kennedy understood that the press is responsible for informing the public, which means whoever influences the press influences what the public believes is even possible. That's not a fringe idea — it's the heart of the manufacturing-consent critique. It's also why I keep circling back to pluralistic ignorance, where almost everyone privately doubts the official story but assumes they're the only one. You are not as alone in your doubts as the noise wants you to feel.

Where To Go From Here

If this is the kind of thinking you want more of, you've got a couple of doors. Over on the LyceumRecordz.com blog I break down my albums and the business side of building all of this as an independent artist, so head there if you want the music and the entrepreneurship angle. This blog stays focused on the philosophy and the social critique.

And if you want to go deeper with me directly, become a member at fiense.com/memberships. That's where I share the work that won't fit in a single post, and where you can be part of the conversation instead of reading from the outside. Now, here's the original 2011 post that started all of this.

The Original 2011 Post

JFK is a famous speech given by John. F. Kennedy expanding on a “tightly nit, highly concentrated” conspiracy in America whose “secrets are not revealed” and whose “dissenters are silenced.” If nothing else, I put this clip in here to provoke thinking about President Kennedy’s words because I do think it matters and should not be taken lightly.   

Considering it is (historically) an issue where presidents talk candidly, I personally think our President was talking about the Federal Reserve system/banking establishment and their influence over institutions like the media. It seems he is focusing on the media because he knows they are the ones who are responsible for informing the American public. That is why the “very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society” and why the “Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime that any citizen should shrink from controversy.” And “so it is to the printing press; to the recorder of man’s deeds” in order to expose the economic tyranny so that “man can be what he was born to be; free and independent.”