Posts Tagged ‘2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 26, 2016 at 12:15 am
On July 22, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The emails were exchanged from January 2015 through May 2016.
These clearly reveal a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters have long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign. Now thousands of them are expected to descend on the Democratic convention as furious protesters.
The leak could not have come at a worse time for Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
About to receive the Democratic nomination for President, she finds herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Wasserman-Schultz has proven the first casualty of the leak, resigning from her position as chair of the DNC and saying she would not open the Democratic convention as previously scheduled.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
As for Clinton: Her campaign manager, Bobby Mook, blamed the Russians for the leak. Their alleged motive: To help Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Cyber-security experts believe the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
His alleged motive: Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more. Otherwise, if he is elected President, they would be on their own if attacked by Russia.
Trump took to twitter to offer his take on the release: “How much BAD JUDGEMENT was on display by the people in DNC in writing those really dumb e-mails, using even religion, against Bernie!”
Bernie Sanders
Which brings up the obvious question: Why was such sensitive information entrusted to computers that could be hacked?
This is not the first time a major corporation or government agency has fallen prey to hackers.
Name-brand companies, trusted by millions, have been hit with massive data breaches that compromised their customers’ and/or employees’ most sensitive financial and personal information.
Among those companies and agencies:
- Target
- Kmart
- Home Depot
- JPMorgan/Chase
- Staples
- Dairy Queen
- Anthem, Inc.
- Sony Pictures
- The U.S. State Department
- The Pentagon
- The Office of Personnel Management
Perhaps the most notorious target so far hacked is Ashley Madison, the website for cheating wives and husbands. Launched in 2001, its catchy slogan is: “Life is short. Have an affair.”
On July 15, 2015, its more than 37 million members learned that highly embarrassing secrets they had entrusted to Ashley Madison had been compromised.
This included their sexual fantasies, matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.
A website offering cheating services to those wealthy enough to afford high-priced fees is an obvious target for hackers. After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true.
And the same is true for computers of one of the two major political parties of the United States.
Among the secrets unearthed in the WikiLeaks document-dump: Plans by Democratic party officials to reward large donors and prominent fundraisers with lucrative appointments to federal boards and commissions.
Most of the donors listed gave to Clinton’s campaign. None gave to Sanders.
According to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group:
“The disclosed DNC emails sure look like the potential Clinton Administration has intertwined the appointments to federal government boards and commissions with the political and fund raising operations of the Democratic Party. That is unethical, if not illegal.”
Centuries before the invention of computers–and the machinery needed to hack into them–Niccolo Machiavelli offered cautionary advice to those thinking of entering into a conspiracy. He did so in his masterwork on politics, The Discourses.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Unlike his better-known work, The Prince, which deals with how to secure power, The Discourses lays out rules for preserving liberty within a republic.
In Book Three, Chapter Six (“Of Conspiracies”) he writes:
“I have heard many wise men say that you may talk freely with any one man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the ‘Yes’ of one man is worth as much as the ‘No’ of another.
“And therefore one should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.”
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, ordered the execution of the popular Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, claiming that he had aided Britain and plotted against France.
The aristocracy of Europe, still recalling the slaughters of the French Revolution, was shocked.
Asked for his opinion on the execution, Napoleon’s chief of police, Joseph Fouche, said: “It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.”
This may prove to be history’s verdict on the storing of so many incriminating computer files by the DNC.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2016 at 12:13 am
Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren seems to know something that most of her fellow Democrats don’t–or choose to ignore.
Nazi Germany wasn’t defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
On the contrary: It was defeated because the Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
For example:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- The United States and Great Britain carpet-bombed about 150 German cities by day and night, killing 305,000 to 600,000 civilians.
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear! Barbarians! They use gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party. Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.
To Republicans, “lawfully elected” applies only to Republican Presidents. A Democrat who runs against a Republican is automatically considered a traitor.
And a Democrat who defeats a Republican is automatically considered a usurper, and thus deserves to be slandered and obstructed, if not impeached.
Unable to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried in 1998 to impeach him for getting oral sex in the White House.
Similarly, 2012 Presidential candidate Herman Cain, asked in a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach President Barack Obama, replied:
“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action.”
Barack Obama
In Renegade: The Making of a President, Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s successful 2008 bid for the White House. Among his revelations:
Obama, a believer in rationality and decency, felt more comfortable in responding to attacks on his character than in making them on the character of his enemies.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.
But for all this, he failed–from the onset of his Presidency–to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be more loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Just as they have blithely disregarded the lessons of history, liberals have ignored the Realpolitik of Machiavelli–with catastrophic results.
On Facebook and Twitter, liberals are already celebrating the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2017.
They forget–or ignore–that liberals couldn’t believe America would elect, respectively, Richard Nixon (1968 and 1972), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984), George H.W. Bush (1988) and George W. Bush (2000 and 2004).
But Elizabeth Warren clearly hasn’t forgotten those Republican victories. Nor does she take for granted that Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump is certain to lose in November.
Elizabeth Warren
Instead, Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat–or Republican–has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
On March 31, she appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Patton to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
Only Elizabeth Warren has so far grasped this truth. And only she seems determined to act on it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2016 at 12:04 am
Donald Trump, “for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius.”
So stated New York Times columnist David Brooks on the May 27 edition of the PBS Newshour.
“And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco {Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
Donald Trump
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under. It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And [Hillary] just comes with ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton isn’t the only Presidential candidate who has proven unable to cope with Trump’s gifts for insult. His targets–and insults–have included:
-
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
-
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
-
Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
-
Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
So far, only one opponent has managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom Trump has called “goofy.”
Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio tried to out-insult Trump at the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate on March 3.
“I call him Little Marco. Little Marco. Hello, Marco,” said Trump.
And so Rubio retaliated with “Big Donald.” Since Americans generally believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of insult.
On the May 27 edition of the PBS Newshour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields noted the ability of Elizabeth Warren to rattle Trump:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trunp’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
“I mean, she obviously–he can’t stay away from her. He is tweeting about her.”
Elizabeth Warren
JUDY WOODRUFF (moderator): “But whether it’s Elizabeth Warren or not, doesn’t Hillary Clinton need to come up with some approach that works, that is as effective comeback?”
DAVID BROOKS: “Yes. Well, I think she does, not that anybody else has managed to do this….
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
But sharp-edged humor clearly works for Warren.
A May 12 story on CNN–“Elizabeth Warren Gives Trump a Dose of His Own Medicine on Twitter”–notes:
“In the past week the Massachusetts Democrat has refined an aggressive anti-Trump message through a series of so-called tweetstorms.
“Whenever Trump criticizes her, Warren fires right back at him, sometimes twice as hard.”
Warren’s tweets, according to the article, appear to have two goals:
- Challenge Trump on social media, which he has so far dominated; and
- Use attention-catching words like “bully” and “loser.”
Among her tweets:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully–not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- When Trump boasted “I’m driving her nuts” Warren tweeted: “No, @realDonaldTrump – your racism, sexism & xenophobia doesn’t drive me nuts. It makes me sick. And I’m not alone.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor has Warren restricted herself to battling Trump on Twitter.
On May 24, Warren unleashed perhaps her most devastating attack on Trump at an event hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy:
“Just yesterday, it came out that Donald Trump had said back in 2007 that he was ‘excited’ for the real estate market to crash because, quote, ‘I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.’
“That’s right. The rest of us were horrified by the 2008 financial crisis, by what happened to the millions of families…that were forced out of their homes.
“But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown–because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap.
“What kind of a man does that? Root for people to get thrown out on the street? Root for people to lose their jobs? Root for people to lose their pensions?
“What kind of a man does that? I’ll tell you exactly what kind—a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure moneygrubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes some money off it….
“Sometimes Trump claims he is tough on Wall Street–tough on the guys who cheated people….. But now he’s singing a very different song.
“Last week, he said that the new Dodd-Frank financial regulations have…’made it impossible for bankers to function’ and he will put out a new plan soon that ‘will be close to dismantling Dodd-Frank.’
“Donald Trump is worried about helping poor little Wall Street? Let me find the world’s smallest violin to play a sad, sad song.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 31, 2016 at 12:05 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
With the business magnate having won the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“I cannot figure out any possible advantage to Donald Trump when he’s got a problem with Latinos and with women to go into New Mexico, where the nation’s only Latina woman Republican governor sits, who has not said anything negative about him, who endorsed one of his opponents, but has not been an attack dog on Donald Trump, and absolutely goes after her and is abusive to her.
“And I’m just saying to myself, what is the advantage to this?
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.
“And those rallies bring out something in him, and he just feels that he has to–and it’s all personal….I mean, it’s not a philosophical difference. It’s not a political difference. It’s all personal.”
Donald Trump
Ironically, Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, has reached a similar conclusion about Trump:
“I think there is a sophomore quality that is entertaining with Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned of having him in charge of his nuclear weapons because his visceral response to attack people on their appearance–short, tall, fat, ugly–my goodness that happened in junior high.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
How did American politics reach this state of affairs?
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”
Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Newt Gingrich
Even worse, Gingrich encouraged the news media to disseminate such accusations. Among his suggestions:
- “Fights make news.”
- Create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism: “A shield issue is, just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion. You better…show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center.”
In the memo, Gingrich advised:
“….In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning.
As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’
“That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases….
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media.
“The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
Here is the list of words Gingrich urged his followers to use in describing “the opponent, their record, proposals and their party”:
- abuse of power
- anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
- betray
- bizarre
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- cheat
- coercion
- “compassion” is not enough
- collapse(ing)
- consequences
- corrupt
- corruption
- criminal rights
- crisis
- cynicism
- decay
- deeper
- destroy
- destructive
- devour
- disgrace
- endanger
- excuses
- failure (fail)
- greed
- hypocrisy
- ideological
- impose
- incompetent
- insecure
- insensitive
|
- intolerant
- liberal
- lie
- limit(s)
- machine
- mandate(s)
- obsolete
- pathetic
- patronage
- permissive attitude
- pessimistic
- punish (poor …)
- radical
- red tape
- self-serving
- selfish
- sensationalists
- shallow
- shame
- sick
- spend(ing)
- stagnation
- status quo
- steal
- taxes
- they/them
- threaten
- traitors
- unionized
- urgent (cy)
- waste
- welfare
|
Yes, speaking like Newt–or Adolf Hitler or Joseph McCarthy–“takes years of practice.”
And to the dismay of both Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump has learned his lessons well.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 24, 2016 at 12:56 am
The 1960 Kirk Douglas epic, Spartacus, may soon prove to be more than great entertainment. It may also turn out to be a prophecy of the end of the American Republic.
In the movie, Spartacus (Douglas), a Roman slave, entertains Marcus Crassus (Laurence Oliver) the richest man in Rome. He does so by fighting to the death as a gladiator.
Poster for Spartacus
While Spartacus and his fellow gladiator/friend, Draba, slash and stab at each other in the arena, Crassus idly chats with his crony, Marcus Glabrus.
Crassus has just secured Glabrus’ appointment as commander of the garrison of Rome. Glabrus is grateful, but curious as to how he did it.
After all, Gaius Gracchus, the leader of the Roman Senate, hates Crassus, and stands ever ready to oppose his every move.
“I fought fire with oil,” says Crassus. “I purchased the Senate behind his back.”
Draba defeats Spartacus in their gladiatorial bout, but refuses to kill him. Instead, he throws his spear at Crassus and is immediately slaughtered by Roman guards.
Soon afterward, Spartacus leads 70 other gladiators against their Roman masters, forms an army of freed slaves, and marches against Rome.
Just as Crassus bought the Roman Senate in Spartacus, so, too, are billionaires now buying the 2016 Presidential election.
In 2016, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, ran as the pet candidate of casino billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson. Since 2007, Adelson had spent millions in support of Gingrich and his causes.
Newt Gingrich
Adelson put up seed money and, ultimately, $7.7 million between 2006 and 2010 for a nonprofit group that served as a precursor to Gingrich’s presidential campaign.
Sheldon Adelson
Such a contribution is no small amount to the average American. But Adelson is listed by Forbes as the eighth-wealthiest American, with a net worth of $21.5 billion.
Naturally, Adelson denied he had any selfish motives for shelling out so much money to a candidate for the most powerful office in the world:
“My motivation for helping Newt is simple and should not be mistaken for anything other than the fact that my wife Miriam and I hold our friendship with him very dear and are doing what we can as private citizens to support his candidacy.”
Unfortunately, Gingrich was not the only candidate of the rich, by the rich and for the rich seeking the Presidency.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney relied heavily on a small group of millionaires and billionaires for support.
By February, 2012, a quarter of the money amassed by Romney’s campaign came from just 41 people. Each contributor gave more than $100,000, according to a Washington Post analysis of disclosure data. Nearly a dozen of the donors had contributed $1 million or more.
Some of Romney’s biggest supporters included executives at Bain Capital, his former firm; bankers at Goldman Sachs; and a hedge fund mogul who made billions betting on the housing crash.
Like Adelson, Bain has directly profited from the losses of others.
Fast forward to 2016:
In early May, Adelson met privately with Republican Presidential nominee-in-waiting Donald Trump. Nevertheless, at least this much has leaked:
Adelson promised to contribute more to secure Trump’s election than he had contributed to any previous campaign. This could exceed $100 million.
Meanwhile, Trump is bragging that he’s “not beholden” to any “special interests” because “I’m really rich.” This myth has been a main reason for his popularity as a candidate.
Donald Trump
All of this can be directly traced to the 2010 “Citizens United” decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that ended limits in corporate contributions to political campaigns. The decision is so named for the group that successfully sued over federal campaign finance laws.
The 5-4 decision led to the rise of Super PACs–outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don’t directly coordinate with the candidate. The overwhelming majority of this money goes for negative ads–that slander opponents without saying anything about what a candidate proposes to do.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia brushed aside criticism of the corrupting role money played in politics: Change the channel or turn off the TV.
“I don’t care who is doing the speech–the more the merrier,” Scalia said. “People are not stupid. If they don’t like it, they’ll shut it off.”
On the contrary: A fundamental principle of propaganda holds that most people are stupid–or can be made to behave stupidly. If they are ceaselessly bombarded with mind-numbing lies, they will eventually substitute these for reality.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“These must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
During the early 1960s a series of movies about the Roman Empire–like Spartacus and Cleopatra–hit the big screen. In these, rich criminals like Marcus Crassus openly bought the favors of ambitious politicians like Julius Caesar.
No doubt millions of moviegoers thought, “Boy, I’m glad that couldn’t happen here.” But it has happened here–and it’s happening right now.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2016 at 12:05 am
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Shenk von Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it–appropriately enough–“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler–who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table.
Then Stauffenberg excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
But the Third Reich didn’t come to an end–because, as if miraculously, Hitler had survived.
Hitler shows off the site of the explosion
What had happened?
First, the conference location had been changed–from a wooden building to a concrete one. The concrete absorbed much of the blast.
Second, owing to the summer’s heat, Hitler had ordered all the windows–about ten–opened to let in a breeze. This allowed much of the force of the blast to be dispersed.
Third, and perhaps most important: Stauffenberg had carefully placed his briefcase near Hitler, who was standing next to a heavy oaken support of the conference table.
But after Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, who stood next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it–to the other side of the heavy oaken support.
When the bomb exploded, Hitler was partially shielded from its full blast. Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
Not only did Hitler survive, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Adolf Hitler
Mass arrests quickly followed. Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo–of which 4,980 were executed.
Had the conspiracy succeeded, history would have turned out differently:
Thus, history can be altered by the appearance or disappearance of a single individual.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Since declaring his candidacy for the Presidency on June 16, 2015, Trump has been the first choice among the Republican base.
At first, he was dismissed as a bad joke–by Republican Presidential candidates as well as by Democrats.
Surely voters would reject a bombastic, thrice-married “reality show” host who had filed for corporate bankruptcy four times.
Yet from the outset Trump dominated the field–and a series of Republican debates. The other Republican candidates watched him with envy–and tried to out-do his hate-filled rhetoric and agenda.
But none of them succeeded–and, one after another, they dropped out of the race: Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul.
Eventually, only two were left to deny Trump the Republican nomination–Texas U.S. Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
On May 3, 2016, Trump captured 53.3% of the votes in the Indiana primary, compared to 36.7% for Cruz and 7.5% for Kasich.
That night, Cruz bowed out of the race. The next day, so did Kasich–the man who had dared compare Trump to Adolf Hitler.
For conservative columnist David Brooks, a Trump Presidency would be disastrous. On the March 25 edition of the PBS Newshour, he offered this assessment of Trump’s character:
“The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the “Army bomb plot” conspirators who failed to kill Hitler:
“The conspirators died heroically, but they were not heroes. They bungled the most necessary assassination of their time when it was within their power to do the job well….They were amateurs when professionals were needed.”
There is a very real danger that Donald Trump will assume the Presidency–and all the awesome power that goes with that office.
If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans”–and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2016 at 11:49 am
The ad opened with ominous music–and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.
“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.”
The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force–and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.
It was a video produced by the 2016 Presidential campaign for John Kasich, the governor of Ohio. He had been peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.
John Kasich
But he remained far behind in the polls. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was backed by increasingly large numbers of Republican primary voters.
So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves.
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.
Donald Trump
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care of Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.
“But think about this:
“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”
The above is indeed a paraphrase of a famous quote by Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984), a prominent Protestant pastor. Although he had been a U-boat commander during World War 1, he became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.
A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union. But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom.
Martin Niemoeller
For his opposition to the Third Reich, Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps. With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed–and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947.
During the 1960s, he was a president of the World Council of Churches.
He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kassich video. But it infuriated Trump, who threatened to sue Kasich if he found anything “not truthful” in the ad.
The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–Republican or Democrat. And it raises a disturbing question:
If Donald Trump is America’s Adolf Hitler, who will be its Claus von Stauffenberg?
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).
While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943 when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
His reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans–even members of the Wehrmacht–were criminals.
Stauffenberg wanted Hitler dead. A live Fuehrer might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But–how to do it?
Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
Several attempts had already been made on Hitler’s life–all of them with time-bombs. But one of the bombs–smuggled onto Hitler’s plane–hadn’t exploded. Another bomb had–45 minutes after Hitler left the beer hall where he had been making a speech.
Stauffenberg decided to carry his bomb–hidden in a briefcase–into a “Hitler conference” packed with military officers.
But Stauffenberg didn’t intend to be a suicide bomber. He intended to direct the government that would replace that of the Nazis. He would plant his time-bomb in the conference room–and find an excuse to leave.
Then, the coup–“Operation Valkyrie”–would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 22, 2016 at 9:48 am
Ironically, Right-wingers, who support many of the same policies of Adolf Hitler, often attack liberals as Nazis–especially President Barack Obama.
But now a genuine authority on Fascism has come forward to assess the front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination.
“If Donald Trump become[s] the next president of the US it would be a complete disaster. I think he is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.”
So says Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Holocaust victim Anne Frank. As a survivor of Auschwitz, Schloss should know something about Nazis.
Eva Schloss
Now 86, Schloss met Anne in Amsterdam as a fellow refugee. Both their families had taken refuge there after fleeing Nazi Germany.
Anne Frank spent four years hiding in an attic and keeping a diary. But in 1944 she was discovered by the Nazis and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
She was 15 when she died there of typhus in March 1945. After the war, Eva Schloss’ mother, Fritzi, married Otto Frank, Anne’s father.
Anne Frank
Eva was detained at the same time as Anne and sent to Auschwitz. She survived when the camp was liberated on January 27,1945.
In a January 27th essay for Newsweek, Schloss warned of dire consequences if Donald Trump became President.
“During his U.S. presidential campaign he has suggested the ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,’ as well as pledging to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out.”
She was 11 when her family immigrated to Belgium after Hitler forcibly Annexed Austria in 1938.
“We were treated as if we had come from the moon. I felt as if I wasn’t wanted and that I was different to everybody. It is even harder for today’s Syrian refugees who have a very different culture….
“I am very upset that today again so many countries are closing their borders,” said Schloss, who lives in London. “Fewer people would have died in the Holocaust if the world had accepted more Jewish refugees.”
And on February 18, Pope Francis also waded into the 2016 Presidential race with his own assessment of Trump.
The comment came in answer to a question by one of several reporters who were accompanying the Pope to Rome from a six-day trip to Mexico.
What, a reporter asked the Pontiff, did he think of Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexican border and expel millions of illegal aliens now living in the United States?
“A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they are, and not in building bridges, is not Christian,” replied the Pope. “This is not the gospel.”
Pope Francis
Francis said he would “give the benefit of the doubt” to Trump because he had not heard Trump’s border plans independently.
But he added: “I say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that.”
Trump, a Presbyterian, responded minutes later: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”
Trump has repeatedly accused President Barack Obama–a self-described Christian–as a secret Muslim.
Donald Trump
On February 21, for example, he tweeted: “I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of [Supreme Court] Justice [Antonin] Scalia if it were held in a mosque.”
Obama had paid tribute to Scalia at the Supreme Court on the day prior to the funeral. He declined to attend the service because his heavy security detail might disrupt the ceremony.
“I am proud to be a Christian,” added Trump, “and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened.”
Nor did he stop there: “If and when the Vatican is attacked by the ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president.
“ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians.”
Trump thus implied that the Pope’s future security depended on the United States generally–and on Donald Trump in particular.
And he clearly ignored the fact that, since September, 2014, the United States Air Force has been bombing ISIS convoys in Iraq and Syria.
Trump has long been critical of the Pope’s stand on immigration.
As the Pope undertook his trip to Mexico, Trump told Fox Business Network that he didn’t think Francis understood “the danger of the open border we have with Mexico.
“I think Mexico got him to do it because they want to keep the border just the way it is,” he said. “They’re making a fortune, and we’re losing.”
A Vatican spokesman replied: “The pope always talks about migration problems all around the world, of the duties we have to solve these problems in a humane manner, of hosting those who come from other countries in search of a life of dignity and peace.”
For millions of Jews and Catholics, the election of 2016 may turn on how they answer the question: Am I serving the Lord–or the devil?
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In Bureaucracy, History, Social commentary on January 29, 2016 at 12:53 am
“Senator, may we not drop this?…You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
The speaker was Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army–then under investigation by Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for alleged Communist activities.
It was June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings.
And it was the pivotal moment that finally destroyed the career of the Wisconsin Senator whose repeated slanders of Communist subversion had bullied and frightened Americans for four years.
Joseph McCarthy
When the Senate gallery erupted in applause, McCarthy–totally surprised at his sudden reversal of fortune–was finished.
Today, however, other Americans should be asking themselves the question asked by Welch: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Americans like Rick Santorum, Republican Presidential candidate in 2016.
Rick Santorum
As a United States Senator from Pennsylvania (1997-2005) and a 2012 Presidential candidate, Santorum fervently sought to ban legalized abortion–even in rape cases. Also on his list of banned items: birth control.
Abortion and birth control, said Santorum, were an affront to “the way things ought to be.” As decided, of course, by Santorum.
But this did not stop him from marrying, in 1990, a woman–Karen Garver–who had spent six years as the unmarried bedmate of an OBGYN-abortionist named Tom Allen, who was 40 years her senior.
Today, as Mrs. Santorum, she has totally reversed her view on abortion and wants to see it banned.
Then there’s 2016 Presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
As a Republican United States Senator from Texas, Cruz voted–three times–against providing federal aid for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.
The October, 2012, hurricane killed about 150 people and caused an estimated $75 billion worth of damages across the Northeast.
But when a fertilizer plant exploded in West, McLennan County, Texas, on April 17, 2013, Cruz vowed that he would seek “all available resources” to assist its victims.
The blast killed 13 people, wounded about 200 others, and caused extensive damage to surrounding homes.
It didn’t matter to Cruz that:
- The facility hadn’t been expected by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) since 1985, when the company was find $30; and
- The plant had been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS.).
Then there’s Donald Trump, the egocentric businessman and “reality star of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” who, likewise, has thrown his hat into the 2016 Presidential race.
Donald Trump
On April 17, 2011, toying with the idea of entering the 2012 Presidential race, Trump said this about Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and front-runner GOP candidate:
“He’d buy companies, he’d close companies. He’d get rid of jobs. I’ve built a great company. I’m a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean, my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.
“Mitt Romney is a basically small-business guy, if you really think about it. He was a hedge fund. He was a funds guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. he worked there. He didn’t create it.”
Trump added that Bain Capital, the hedge fund where Romney made millions of dollars before running for governor, didn’t create any jobs. Whereas Trump claimed that he–Trump–had created “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
So at least some observers must have been puzzled when Trump announced, on February 2, 2012: “It’s my honor, real honor and privilege, to endorse Mitt Romney” for President.
“Mitt is tough. He’s smart. He’s sharp. He’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So, Governor Romney, go out and get ’em. You can do it,” said Trump.
Mitt Romney
And Romney, in turn, had his own swooning-girl moment: “I’m so honored to have his endorsement. There are some things that you just can’t imagine in your life. This is one of them.”
Clearly, the word “hypocrisy” means nothing to Santorum, Cruz and Trump. But it should mean something to the rest of us.
In samurai Japan, officials who publicly disgraced themselves knew what to do. The samurai code of Bushido told them when they had crossed the line into eternal damnation.
And it gave them a way to redeem their lost honor–seppuku. With a small “belly-cutting” knife and the help of a trusted assistant who sliced off their head to spare them the agonizing pain of disembowelment.
Seppuku
In the armies of America and Europe, the method was slightly different: A pistol in a private room.
Considering the ready availability of firearms among Right-wing Republicans, redeeming lost honor shouldn’t be a problem for any of these men.
But of course it will be. It takes more than a trigger pull to “do the right thing. It takes insight to recognize that you’ve “done the wrong thing.” And it takes courage to act on that insight.
In men who live only for their own egos and wallets, such insight and courage will be forever missing. They are beyond redemption.
Their lives give proof to the warning offered in Matthew 7:17-20:
“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 2, 2015 at 12:17 am
On July 20, 1944, members of the Wehrmacht high command failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.
But two setbacks prevented the conspirators from succeeding.
First, Hitler survived the bomb blast.
Second, the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Adolf Hitler
Mass arrests quickly followed. Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. According to records of the Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 were executed.
Had the conspiracy succeeded, history would have turned out differently:
Thus, history can be altered by the appearance or disappearance of a single individual.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Since declaring his candidacy for the Presidency on June 16, Trump has been the first choice among the Republican base.
At first, he was dismissed as a bad joke–by Republican Presidential candidates as well as Democrats.
Surely voters would reject a bombastic, thrice-married “reality show” host who had filed for corporate bankruptcy four times.
Yet from the outset Trump dominated the field–and a series of Republican debates. The other Republican candidates watched him with envy–and desperately tried to steal some of his limelight.
Making made one inflammatory statement after another, he offended one group of potential voters after another. Among those groups:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
These insults delighted his white, under-educated followers. But they alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
While some of those offended are unlikely to respond with violence, others have powerful motives–and means–for doing so. Among those groups–and the insults Trump has leveled at them:
- Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He’s also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
- Illegal aliens: Trump has threatened to forcibly deport millions of mostly Mexican and Central American residents.
- Blacks: At a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, he was interrupted by black activist Mercutio Southall, who repeatedly shouted: “Black lives matter!” Trump ordered his removal, and several of his supporters beat and kicked Southall. Later, Trump said: “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
- Trump retweeted an image of a masked, dark-skinned man with a handgun and a series of alleged crime statistics, including: “Blacks killed by whites – 2%”; “Whites killed by blacks – 81%.” The image cites the “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco”–an agency that doesn’t exist.
- Muslims: Trump has boasted he would revive waterboarding of terrorist suspects. He would require Muslims to register with the Federal Government. And he would close “some mosques” if he felt they were being used by Islamic terrorists.
- Islamic terrorists: Trump has bragged that he would “bomb the hell” out of oilfields controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS): “I would absolutely cut off their source of wealth, which is the oil.”
- Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman: Referring to the Mexican drug lord in a tweet, Trump wrote: “Trump…would kick his ass!” Trump hurriedly called the FBI after he received a death threat from a Twitter account associated with Guzman.
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warned against hurling threats and insults: “For neither the one nor the other…diminishes the strength of the enemy.
Niccolo Machiavelli
“[Threats make] him more cautious, and [insults increase] his hatred of you, and [make] him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
But Trump revels in insulting anyone who dares to challenge him.
In 1935, Louisiana U.S. Senator Huey Long intended to occupy the White House in 1936 and unseat then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His “Share Our Wealth” program was hugely popular among millions in Depression-era America.
On September 8, 1935, he was shot and fatally wounded by Carl Austin Weiss, an idealistic young doctor.
His motive: Long had gerrymandered Weiss’ father-in-law, a district judge, out of his district and spread vicious rumors about his ancestry.
Writing about Long’s assassination, historian William Manchester noted: “Huey Long was one of the very few men of whom it can be said that, had he lived, American history would have been dramatically different.”
If the same fate removes Donald Trump from the 2016 Presidential race, future historians may write the same about him.
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THE FIRST RULE OF CONSPIRACIES–AND COMPUTERS
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 26, 2016 at 12:15 amOn July 22, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The emails were exchanged from January 2015 through May 2016.
These clearly reveal a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters have long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign. Now thousands of them are expected to descend on the Democratic convention as furious protesters.
The leak could not have come at a worse time for Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
About to receive the Democratic nomination for President, she finds herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Wasserman-Schultz has proven the first casualty of the leak, resigning from her position as chair of the DNC and saying she would not open the Democratic convention as previously scheduled.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
As for Clinton: Her campaign manager, Bobby Mook, blamed the Russians for the leak. Their alleged motive: To help Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Cyber-security experts believe the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
His alleged motive: Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more. Otherwise, if he is elected President, they would be on their own if attacked by Russia.
Trump took to twitter to offer his take on the release: “How much BAD JUDGEMENT was on display by the people in DNC in writing those really dumb e-mails, using even religion, against Bernie!”
Bernie Sanders
Which brings up the obvious question: Why was such sensitive information entrusted to computers that could be hacked?
This is not the first time a major corporation or government agency has fallen prey to hackers.
Name-brand companies, trusted by millions, have been hit with massive data breaches that compromised their customers’ and/or employees’ most sensitive financial and personal information.
Among those companies and agencies:
Perhaps the most notorious target so far hacked is Ashley Madison, the website for cheating wives and husbands. Launched in 2001, its catchy slogan is: “Life is short. Have an affair.”
On July 15, 2015, its more than 37 million members learned that highly embarrassing secrets they had entrusted to Ashley Madison had been compromised.
This included their sexual fantasies, matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.
A website offering cheating services to those wealthy enough to afford high-priced fees is an obvious target for hackers. After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true.
And the same is true for computers of one of the two major political parties of the United States.
Among the secrets unearthed in the WikiLeaks document-dump: Plans by Democratic party officials to reward large donors and prominent fundraisers with lucrative appointments to federal boards and commissions.
Most of the donors listed gave to Clinton’s campaign. None gave to Sanders.
According to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group:
“The disclosed DNC emails sure look like the potential Clinton Administration has intertwined the appointments to federal government boards and commissions with the political and fund raising operations of the Democratic Party. That is unethical, if not illegal.”
Centuries before the invention of computers–and the machinery needed to hack into them–Niccolo Machiavelli offered cautionary advice to those thinking of entering into a conspiracy. He did so in his masterwork on politics, The Discourses.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Unlike his better-known work, The Prince, which deals with how to secure power, The Discourses lays out rules for preserving liberty within a republic.
In Book Three, Chapter Six (“Of Conspiracies”) he writes:
“I have heard many wise men say that you may talk freely with any one man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the ‘Yes’ of one man is worth as much as the ‘No’ of another.
“And therefore one should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.”
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, ordered the execution of the popular Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, claiming that he had aided Britain and plotted against France.
The aristocracy of Europe, still recalling the slaughters of the French Revolution, was shocked.
Asked for his opinion on the execution, Napoleon’s chief of police, Joseph Fouche, said: “It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.”
This may prove to be history’s verdict on the storing of so many incriminating computer files by the DNC.
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