Posts Tagged ‘JOHN F. KENNEDY’
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2017 at 12:01 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 becoming President on January 20, Trump has:
- Infuriated “Obamacare” patients: Trump authorized the directors of Federal agencies to waive requirements of the Affordable Care Act–which provides medical insurance to 22 million Americans–to the “maximum extent permitted by law.”
- Infuriated the CIA: Appearing at CIA headquarters on his first full day in office, Trump addressed about 400 case officers. Standing before the star-studded memorial wall honoring 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty. Trump ignored their sacrifice. Instead, he boasted of the size of his Inaugural crowd and how many times he had appeared on the cover of Time.
- Infuriated Muslims: Commenting on the 2003 Iraq war during his remarks at the CIA, Trump said: “So we should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance….”
- Infuriated American Intelligence and military agencies: A Trump executive order allows the Director of National Intelligence and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to attend the Principals’ Committee only when it pertains to their “responsibilities and expertise.”
- Infuriated Jews and civil rights advocates: Senior Adviser and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon–an anti-Semitic white supremacist–will now wield influence over the National Security Council, Homeland Security Council and Principal’s Committee. When Bannon–previously executive chair of Breitbart News, a Right-wing website–was appointed senior adviser to Trump, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke called the selection “excellent.”
- Infuriated Medicare patients: During the 2016 campaign, Trump said he would allow Medicare to negotiate down the price of prescription drugs. At his January 10 press conference he charged that pharmaceutical companies were “getting away with murder.” But after meeting with pharmaceutical lobbyists on January 31, Trump said: “I’ll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare.”
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump infuriated one group of voters after another, including: Hispanics, homosexuals, blacks, lesbians, Muslims, women, Asians, the disabled, prisoners-of-war.
As President, he has continued to anger highly influential groups. Some of these–such as “Obamacare” and Medicare patients–can retaliate only with their votes. And that won’t affect Trump until the 2020 Presidential election.
But other groups he has antagonized–such as the military and Intelligence communities–can do far more than vote against him.
Both have access to vast amounts of secret–and highly embarrassing–information. And both are expert in leaking choice bits of this to favored members of the media.
The Trump administration is only two weeks old and already this truth is on full display.
Anonymous military officials are blaming Trump for the death of a Navy SEAL during a January 29 raid on Al Qaeda in Yemen. According to Reuters, Trump approved the raid without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.
As for the CIA: This agency has been overthrowing heads of state for decades.
In 1953, its coup removed Mohammad Mosaddegh, the prime minister of Iran. In 1954, another coup did the same for Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz. In 1970, Chile’s president, Salvadore Allende, fell victim to a CIA-instigated plot.
Millions of Americans believe the CIA engineered the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. James W. Douglass’ 2008 book, JFK and the Unspeakable, charges that the CIA murdered Kennedy because he wanted to end the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Like the despised Roman emperor Tiberius, Donald Trump lives by the motto: “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
Niccolo Machiavelli counseled better: “A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2017 at 12:49 am
On July 20, 1944, a one-eyed, one-armed man tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941). And he had been seriously wounded in its service.
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.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces–well before the much-feared Russians gained a foothold in Germany.
But Stauffenberg wanted him dead: A live Hitler 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
But his single greatest protection–he claimed–was an instinct for danger. He would often suddenly change his schedule–to drop in where he was least expected. Or to suddenly depart an event where he was scheduled to stay a long time.
On November 9, 1939, this instinct saved his life. He had been set to give a long speech at a Munich beer hall before the “Old Fighters” of his storm troopers.
Sixteen years earlier on that day, in 1923, Hitler had led them in a disastrous attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. Police had put down the effort, killing and wounding about a score of storm troopers in the process.
Hitler himself had later been arrested, tried and convicted for treason–and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.
But instead of proving to be the end of Nazism, the “Beer Hall Putsch” turned Hitler into a national celebrity. And it launched his career as a legitimate, ultimately successful politician.
So Hitler was expected to speak to his longtime supporters for a long time that evening. Instead, he suddenly cut short his speech and left the beer hall.
Forty-five minutes later, a bomb exploded inside a pillar–before which Hitler had been speaking.
Since then, a series of other assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it went off.
So now it was the turn of von Stauffenberg. He would 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 meant to direct the government that would replace that of the Nazis.
His bomb–also rigged with a time-fuse–would be left in the conference room while he found an excuse to leave. After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
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. Provided, of course, that the Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans–both Nazi and anti-Nazi–knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, 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.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2017 at 12:12 am
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. Kasich, the governor of Ohio, 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, dropping 50% in support in just one month–from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.
So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi. “You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continues 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.”
Click here: Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric – YouTube
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 Trump was furious.
“I will sue him [Kasich] just for fun,” said Trump, if he could find anything “not truthful” within the ad.
So said the man who called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and born outside the United States.
The Kasich ad was by far 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.
For most of these officers, the motive was craven: Germany was losing the war it had launched on the world–and they feared the worst. This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg–more than many German––knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “1,000 year Reich” fell.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans–even members of the Wehrmacht–were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces–well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.
For Stauffenberg, arresting Hitler wasn’t enough.
Stauffenberg wanted him dead. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But–how to do it?
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 16, 2017 at 12:14 am
After being presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, Meryl Streep criticized Donald Trump’s mocking of disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski.
Kovaleski suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts the movement of the muscles in his arms.
At a South Carolina rally on November 24, 2015, Trump claimed that Kovaleski was backing away from an article he had written four years earlier.
Trump had earlier said the article proved that New Jersey Muslims had celebrated the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Kovaleski had insisted there was no credible proof of such celebrations.
Angered at being contradicted, Trump mocked Kovaleski: He flopped his right arm around with his hand held at an odd angle while imitating the reporter: “Now, the poor guy, you’ve got to see this guy: ‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. Uhh, I don’t remember,’ he’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.'”
Trump mocking Kovaleski, left; Kovaleski, right
At the Golden Globe Awards on January 8, Streep denounced this behavior that “broke my heart.”
“And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes
Streep’s words outraged Trump’s supporters–especially his mouthpiece, Kelleyanne Conway.
Appearing on Right-wing Fox and Friends the next morning, she said: “We have to now form a government, and I’m concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is also, I think, inciting people’s worst instincts.
“When she won’t get up there and say, ‘I don’t like it, but let’s try to support him and see where we can find some common ground with him, which [Trump] has actually done from moment one.”
Conway didn’t say what common ground Streep should find with Trump. Perhaps agreeing on mocking the disabled?
Kelleyanne Conway
Then Conway visited CNN’s “New Day,” where she offered a “black-is-white” defense for Trump’s videotaped ridiculing of Kovaleski: It didn’t happen.
The host, Chris Cuomo, having seen the video, wasn’t buying it.
CUOMO: But is [Streep] wrong? Is she wrong that it was wrong for Trump to make gestures like that about a man with disabilities?
CONWAY: He didn’t–but that is not what he did and he has said that a thousand times. As he tweeted out today–
CUOMO: He can say it a million. Look at the video.
CONWAY: Why can’t you–wait, excuse me. Why can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt the way the benefit of the doubt was given to CNN’s polling, all of its analysts?
CUOMO: Because he’s making a disgusting gesture on video talking about Serge.
CONWAY: Not about that reporter and that’s just a fact. That is what he’s said. You should give him–
CUOMO: But how is it not about the reporter?
CONWAY: –the deference and respect if he says that it was–he was not mocking, he was mocking the groveling. He said it again this morning. He has three tweets out about it.
CUOMO: But he’s doing a gesture that goes right to the guy’s vulnerability.
CONWAY: You’re saying you don’t believe him. You’re calling him a liar and you shouldn’t.
CUOMO: Look, Kellyanne, to me that’s like you’re trying to scare me off the point and we both know it’s a waste of time.
CONWAY: I’m not going to scare you off anything.
CUOMO: He’s making a gesture that is so keenly tuned to what Serge’s vulnerability is.
CONWAY: And now you’re giving oxygen to what Meryl Streep said.
CUOMO: Forget about Meryl Streep. This happened before her. If our kids did that, could you imagine what we would say to them?
Conway said she would not bring her children into the discussion.
CUOMO: I will. If my kid did something like that, it’d be a really tough day.
CONWAY: You have to listen to what the president has said about that. Why don’t you believe him?
Conway tried to change the subject to Hillary Clinton: “She was given the benefit of the doubt here constantly.”
When Cuomo asked for specifics, she refused to give them. Then she returned to claiming that Trump had never mocked Kovaleski:
CONWAY: You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this, when he’s telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth, rather than look at what’s in his heart.
* * * * *
Previously, politicians had defended themselves with arguments like: “You can see right here on the tape, I did (or, I didn’t)….”
Trump has cast aside that logic–and the taped evidence–by demanding: “Believe what I’m telling you, not what you’ve just seen.”
By that rationale, if a security camera shows Trump robbing a bank at gunpoint, we’re supposed to believe him if he says: “No, I didn’t rob that bank. I was simply checking my bank balance.”
Such “logic” holds appeal for paid shills like Kelleyanne Conway. But most people will continue to judge by the evidence.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 13, 2017 at 12:02 am
For five years, Donald Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that Barack Obama was born in Kenya–and was therefore an illegitimate President.
For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued doing so.
As his popularity fell to less than 1% among blacks, the managers of his campaign urged: Put the “birther” issue behind you.
So, on September 16, 2016–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
Donald Trump: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States.”
He did so in about seven seconds and 40 words–after spending a half hour paying tribute to the military and promoting his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C.:
“Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.
“I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
His tone made it clear that he felt uneasy making that statement–and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.
He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. Nor did he apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.
On the evening of September 16, Hillary Clinton strongly responded to Trump’s comments:
“For five years, he has led the birther movement to de-legitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”
And First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Trump for his “birther” claims:
“Then, of course, there were those who questioned, and who continue to question for the past eight years, and up to this very day, whether my husband was even born in this country.
“Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the examples he set, by going high when they go low. And he’s answered these questions with the progress we’ve achieved together.”
Michelle Obama
But perhaps the best perspective on this event was provided by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Each Friday they appear on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
On September 16, Shields (a liberal) and Brooks (a conservative) addressed Trump’s about-face on birtherism.
MARK SHIELDS: “I think it’s important to establish right at the outset that [Trump] wasn’t only the loudest and the highest-profile and the most persistent and the most well-publicized birther, he, Donald Trump. He lied. He lied consistently and persistently.
“And, today, without explanation or excuse, he just changed his position and tried to absolutely falsely shift the blame onto Hillary Clinton.
“And this was an appeal to–he debased democracy. He debased the national debate. He appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Usually, there’s some tangential relationship to the truth, but a corroding relationship to the truth, frankly, as politics has gone on over the years.
“But now we’re in a reverse, Orwellian inversion of the truth with this. And so we have a team of staffers and then the candidate himself who have taken the normal spin and smashed all the rules.
“And so we are really in Orwell land. We are in 1984. And it’s interesting that an authoritarian personality type comes in at the same time with a complete disrespect for even tangential relationship to the truth that words are unmoored.
“And so I do think this statement sort of shocked me with the purification of a lot of terrible trends that have been happening. And so what’s white is black, and what is up is down, what is down is up. And that really is something new in politics.
“And the fact that there is no penalty for it, apparently–he’s doing fantastic in the last two weeks in the polls–is just somehow where we have gotten.”
Less than two months later, Trump won the Presidency.
Since then, Trump has continued to inhabit what David Brooks called “Orwell land.”
The most recent example of this occurred on January 9, 2017.
The night before, Meryl Streep had enraged Trump and his mouthpiece, Kelleyanne Conway, at the Golden Globes Awards ceremony.
While being presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, she had criticized Trump’s mocking, on November 25, 2015, of disabled New York Times reporter Serve Kovaleski:
“There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 12, 2017 at 12:10 am
In 2011, Donald Trump, host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Barack Obama.
Seeking to gain popularity among America’s Right-wing, Trump almost singlehandedly created the popular fiction that the President was born in Kenya–and was not an American citizen.
His motive: To convince Americans that Obama was an illegitimate President.
Donald Trump
Among the statements Trump made:
February 10, 2011: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.”
March 23, 2011: “I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. … There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”
March 28, 2011: “I am really concerned” [that Obama wasn’t born in the United States]. He said that the birth announcement for Obama in a Hawaii newspaper could have been planted “for whatever reason.”
March 30, 2011: “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”
April 7, 2011: “I have people that have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now I have real doubts.”
April 25, 2011: “I’ve been told very recently…that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”
On April 27, President Obama released his original, long-form Hawiian birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”
And on May 1, he announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.
SEALS attacking bin Laden’s compound in the 2012 movie, “Zero Dark Thirty”
And how did Trump respond? With the following series of Tweets on Twitter:
May 18, 2012: “Let’s take a closer look at that birth certificate.@BarackObama was described in 2003 as being “born in Kenya.” http://bit.ly/Klc9Uu
August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
August 27, 2012: “Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called “birther” issue? No more apologies–take the offensive!”
September 13, 2012: “Wake Up America! See article: “Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake”
June 30, 2013: “@davidrhythmguit: @realDonaldTrump @Chuffman48 Mark Cuban accepts the fact that the President of the United States was born here. Doubt it”
August 22, 2013: “Why are people upset w/ me over Pres Obama’s birth certificate? I got him to release it, or whatever it was, when nobody else could!”
December 12, 2013: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived”
November 23, 2014: “@futureicon: @pinksugar61 Obama also fabricated his own birth certificate after being pressured to produce one by @realDonaldTrump“
Even after declaring his candidacy for President on June 16, 2015, Trump continued to insist that Barack Obama was an illegitimate President.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity among blacks had steadily fallen. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters. By comparison, 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Among the reasons for this:
- His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
- His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya–and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
- His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
In doing so, he entered into what conservative New York Times political columnist David Brooks called “Orwell land.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 11, 2017 at 12:02 am
“Credibility gap” is a term that came into use during the mid-1960s to describe public and journalistic distrust of President Lyndon B. Johnson. In particular, the term was applied to his administration’s conduct of the Vietnam war.
It was, in short, a euphemism for accusing government officials of outright lying.
An example of the credibility gap in full swing appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1987 Vietnam war movie, Full Metal Jacket.
Vietnam was a war where military and political officials spewed a gung-ho version of constant American progress against a tough enemy.
And where civilian reporters like David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite saw–and labeled–the war as a brutal, wasteful and ultimately doomed effort.
Midway through the film, there’s an editorial meeting of The Sea Tiger, the official Marine newspaper.
Lieutenant Lockhart is presiding–and he is determined to give his superiors an endless stream of “all-systems-go” propaganda reports. He reads a series of stories that have been published:
Story #1: DIPLOMATS IN DUNGAREES–MARINE ENGINEERS LEND A HELPING HAND REBUILDING DONG PHUC VILLAGES.
LOCKHART: “Chili, “if we move Vietnamese, they are evacuees. If they come to us to be evacuated, they are refugees.”
Story #2: N.V.A. SOLDIER DESERTS AFTER READING PAMPHLETS.
LOCKHART: “A young North Vietnamese Army regular, who realized his side could not win the war, deserted from his unit after reading Open Arms program pamphlets.”
Story #3: NOT WHILE WE’RE EATING: N.V.A. LEARN MARINES ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION DON’T LIKE TO BE INTERRUPTED WHILE EATING CHOW.
LOCKHART: “‘Search and destroy.’ Uh, we have a new directive on this. In the future, in place of ‘search and destroy,’ substitute the phrase ‘sweep and clear.’ Got it?”
Lt. Lockhart, editor of The Sea Tiger
LOCKHART: “And, Joker–where’s the weenie?”
JOKER: “Sir?”
LOCKHART “The Kill, Joker. I mean, all that fire, the grunts must’ve hit something.”
JOKER: “Didn’t see ’em.”
LOCKHART: “Joker, I’ve told you, we run two basic stories here: Grunts who give half their pay to buy gooks toothbrushes and deodorants–winning of hearts and Minds–okay? And combat action that results in a kill–Winning the War. Now you must have seen blood trails … drag marks?”
JOKER: “It was raining, sir.”
LOCKHART: “Well, that’s why God passed the law of probability. Now rewrite it and give it a happy ending–say, uh, one kill. Make it a sapper or an officer. Grunts like reading about dead officers.”
JOKER: “Okay, an officer. How about a general?”
LOCKHART: “Joker, maybe you’d like our guys to read the paper and feel bad. I mean, in case you didn’t know it, this is not a particularly popular war. Now, it is our job to report the news that these why-are-we-here civilian newsmen ignore.”
So great became the divide between truth and lies during military “press briefings” that reporters started calling them “The Five O’clock Follies.” And even some soldiers took to wearing buttons that said: “Ambushed at Credibility Gap.”
Reporters who dared to write truthfully about the military’s crimes and failures–like David Halberstam of the New York Times and Peter Arnett of the Associated Press–were regarded as traitors by military and political officials.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy became enraged by Halberstam’s reporting on the corruption of the South Vietnamese government. He pressured New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to transfer Halberstam to another locale. Sulzberger politely refused–and then extended Halberstam’s stay in Vietnam another six months.
David Halberstam
In 1965, when CBS Correspondent Morley Safer filmed Marines setting fire to the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters, President Lyndon B. Johnson was similarly outraged.
He placed an early-morning call to CBS News President Frank Stanton and shouted: “Your boys shat on the American flag!”
The trail of deceit and attempted censorship continued right up to the end of the war–in April, 1975. That was when North Vietnamese forces invaded the South and quickly overwhelmed the incompetent defenses arrayed against them.
And while America was still bogged down in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal erupted on June 17, 1972.
Watergate Hotel
Members of the Nixon administration’s secret “Plumbers Unit” burglarized the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel.
Obsessed with re-electing Richard Nixon, they sought incriminating information to discredit U.S. Senator George McGovern, the Democrats’ nominee for President.
When the burglars were caught, President Richard M. Nixon and his topmost officials lied and stonewalled both reporters and investigators seeking the truth.
Nixon’s press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, repeatedly slandered the integrity of The Washington Post for its coverage of the mushrooming Watergate scandal. He called the Watergate break-in “a third-rate burglary” and attacked the Post for “shabby journalism.”
Finally, on April 17, 1973, Ziegler, announced at a press conference: “This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.”
In short: We’ve been lying to you for the last 10 months. But now we’re telling the truth.
Like Vietnam, the Watergate scandal destroyed the reputations of many of its chief architects. Forty government officials were indicted or jailed.
Vietnam and Watergate were seminal events for Americans coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They taught an entire generation: Don’t trust the government. Its officials routinely lie, and their lies can be deadly.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 22, 2016 at 12:18 am
Is it better to be loved or feared?
That was the question Florentine statesman Niccolo Machiavelli raised more than 500 years ago.
Presidents have struggled to answer this question—and have come to different conclusions.
LOVE ME, FEAR MY BROTHER
Most people felt irresistibly drawn to John F. Kennedy—even his political foes. Henry Luce, the conservative publisher of Time, once said, “He makes me feel like a whore.”
But JFK could afford to bask in the love of others—because his younger brother, Robert, was the one who inspired fear.
Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy
He had done so as Chief Counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee (1957-59), grilling Mafia bosses and corrupt union officials—most notably Teamsters President James Hoffa.
Appointed Attorney General by JFK, he unleashed the FBI on the Mafia. When the steel companies colluded in an inflationary rise in the price of steel in 1962, Bobby sicced the FBI on them.
In 1963, JFK’s cavorting with Ellen Rometsh threatened to destroy his Presidency. Rometsch, a Washington, D.C. call girl, was suspected by the FBI of being an East German spy.
With Republican Senators preparing to investigate the rumors, Bobby ordered Rometsch deported immediately (to which, as a German citizen, she was subject).
He also ordered FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to deliver a warning to the Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate: The Bureau was fully aware of the extramarital trysts of most of its members. And an investigation into the President’s sex life could easily lead into revelations of Senatorial sleaze.
Plans for a Senatorial investigation were shelved.
BEING LOVED AND FEARED
In the 1993 movie, A Bronx Tale, 17-year-old Calogero (Lillo Brancato) asks his idol, the local Mafia capo, Sonny (Chazz Palminteri): “Is it better to be loved or feared?”
Sonny gives advice to his adopted son, Calogero
Sonny says if he had to choose, he would rather be feared. But he adds a warning straight out of Machiavelli: “The trick is not being hated. That’s why I treat my men good, but not too good.
“I give too much, then they don’t need me. I give them just enough where they need me, but they don’t hate me.”
Machiavelli, writing in The Prince, went further:
“Still a Prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred, for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together. And [this] will always be attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women.”
Many who quote Machiavelli in defense of being feared overlook this vital point: It’s essential to avoid becoming hated.
To establish a fearful reputation, a leader must act decisively and ruthlessly when the interests of the organization are threatened. Punitive action must be taken promptly and confidently.
One or two harsh actions of this kind can make a leader more feared than a reign of terror.
In fact, it’s actually dangerous to constantly employ cruelties or punishments. Whoever does so, warns Machiavelli, “is always obliged to stand with knife in hand, and can never depend on his subjects, because they, owing to continually fresh injuries, are unable to depend upon him.”
The 20th century President who came closest to realizing Machiavelli’s “loved and feared” prince was Ronald Reagan.
Always smiling, quick with a one-liner (especially at press conferences), seemingly unflappable, he projected a constantly optimistic view of his country and its citizens.
Ronald Reagan
In his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention he declared: “[The Democrats] say that the United States has had its days in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith.… My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view.”
And Americans enthusiastically responded to that view, twice electing him President (1980 and 1984).
But there was a steely, ruthless side to Reagan that appeared when he felt crossed.
On August 3, 1981, nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers walked out after contract talks with the Federal Aviation Administration collapsed. As a result, some 7,000 flights across the country were canceled on that day at the peak of the summer travel season.
Reagan branded the strike illegal. He threatened to fire any controller who failed to return to work within 48 hours.
On August 5, Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who hadn’t returned to work. The mass firing slowed commercial air travel, but it did not cripple the system as the strikers had forecast.
Reagan’s action stunned the American labor movement. Reagan was the only American President to have belonged to a union, the Screen Actors Guild. He had even been president of this–from 1947 to 1954.
There were no more strikes by Federal workers during Reagan’s tenure in office.
Similarly, Libya’s dictator, Moammar Kadaffi, learned that Reagan was not a man to cross.
On April 5, 1986, Libyan agents bombed a nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people, one a U.S. serviceman. The United States quickly learned that Libyan agents in East Germany were behind the attack.
On April 15, acting on Reagan’s orders, U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps bombers struck at several sites in Tripoli and Benghazi. Reportedly, Kaddafi himself narrowly missed becoming a casualty.
There were no more acts of Libyan terrorism against Americans for the rest of Reagan’s term.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 21, 2016 at 12:03 am
It’s probably the most-quoted passage of Niccolo Machiavelli’s infamous book, The Prince:
“From this arises the question whether it is better to be 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.
“For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain. As long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours: they offer you their blood, their goods, their life and their children, when the necessity is remote, but when it approaches, they revolt.
“And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined. For the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is bought but not secured, and at a pinch is not to be expended in your service.
“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.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
So—which is better: To be feared or loved?
In the 1993 film, A Bronx Tale, 17-year-old Calogero (Lillo Brancato) poses that question to his idol, the local Mafia capo, Sonny (Chazz Palminteri).
“That’s a good question,” Sonny replies. “It’s nice to be both, but it’s very difficult. But if I had my choice, I would rather be feared.
“Fear lasts longer than love. Friendships that are bought with money mean nothing. You see how it is around here. I make a joke, everybody laughs. I know I’m funny, but I’m not that funny. It’s fear that keeps them loyal to me.”
Presidents face the same dilemma as Mafia capos—and resolve it in their own ways.
LOVE ME BECAUSE I NEED TO BE LOVED
Bill Clinton believed that he could win over his self-appointed Republican enemies through his sheer charm.
Part of this lay in self-confidence: He had won the 1992 and 1996 elections by convincing voters that “I feel your pain.”
Bill Clinton
And part of it lay in his need to be loved. He once said that if he were in a room with 100 people and 99 of them liked him but one didn’t, he would spend all his time with that one person, trying to win him over.
But while he could charm voters, he could not bring himself to retaliate against his sworn Republican enemies.
On April 19, 1995, Right-wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh drove a truck—packed with 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane—to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
The explosion killed 168 people, including 19 children in the day care center on the second floor, and injured 684 others.
Suddenly, Republicans were frightened. Since the end of World War II, they had vilified the very Federal Government they belonged to. They had even courted the Right-wing militia groups responsible for the bombing.
So Republicans feared Clinton would now turn their decades of hate against them.
They need not have worried. On April 23, Clinton presided over a memorial service for the victims of the bombing. He gave a moving eulogy–without condemning the hate-filled Republican rhetoric that had at least indirectly led to the slaughter.
Clinton further sought to endear himself to Republicans by:
- Adopting NAFTA—the Republican-sponsored North American Free Trade Act, which later proved so devastating to American workers;
- Siding with Republicans against poor Americans on welfare; and
- Championing the gutting of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law, which barred investment banks from commercial banking activities.
In 1998, emboldened by Clinton’s refusal to stand up to them, House Republicans moved to impeach him over a sex scandal with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. But his Presidency survived when the Senate refused to convict.
LOVE ME BECAUSE I’LL HURT YOU IF YOU DON’T
Lyndon Johnson wanted desperately to be loved.
Once, he complained to Dean Acheson, the former Secretary of State under Harry S. Truman, about the ingratitude of American voters. He had passed far more legislation than his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, and yet Kennedy remained beloved, while he, Johnson, was not.
Why was that? Johnson demanded.
“You are not a very likable man,” said Acheson truthfully.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson tried to make his subordinates love him. He would humiliate a man, then give him an expensive gift–such a Cadillac. It was his way of binding the man to him.
He was on a first-name basis with J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI. He didn’t hesitate to request–and get–raw FBI files on his political opponents.
On at least one occasion, he told members of his Cabinet: No one would dare walk out on his administration–because if they did, two men would follow their ass to the end of the earth: Mr. J. Edgar Hoover and the head of the Internal Revenue Service.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 2, 2016 at 12:02 am
“John and Robert Kennedy knew what they were doing. They waged a vicious war against Fidel Castro–a war someone had to lose.”
And the loser turned out to be John F. Kennedy.
So writes investigative reporter Gus Russo in Live By the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, published in 1998.
In what is almost certainly the definitive account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Russo reaches some startling–but highly documented–conclusions:
- Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy.
- He did it alone.
- Oswald, a former Marine, was a committed Marxist–whose hero was Castro.
- The CIA’s ongoing campaign to overthrow and/or assassinate Castro was an open secret throughout the Gulf.
- Oswald visited New Orleans in the spring of 1963.
- There he learned that Castro was in the crosshairs of the CIA.
- For this, he blamed John F. Kennedy.
- Oswald told his Russian-born wife, Marina: “Fidel Castro needs defenders. I’m going to join his army of volunteers.”
- Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, murdered Oswald because he was distraught over Kennedy’s death.
- Ruby was not part of a Mafia conspiracy to silence Oswald.
- Skeptics of the Warren Commission–which concluded that Oswald had acted alone–asked the wrong question: “Who killed Kennedy?”
- They should have asked: “Why was he killed?”
- The answer–according to Russo: “The Kennedys’ relentless pursuit of Castro and Cuba backfired in tragedy on that terrible day in November, 1963.”
Another book well worth reading about America’s Cuban obsession during the early 1960s is American Tabloid, by James Ellroy.
Although a novel, it vividly captures the atmosphere of intrigue, danger and sleaziness that permeated that era in a way that dry, historical documents never can.
“The 50’s are finished,” reads its paperback dust jacket. “Zealous young lawyer Robert Kennedy has a red-hot jones to nail Jimmy Hoffa. JFK has his eyes on the Oval Office.
“J. Edgar Hoover is swooping down on the Red Menace. Howard Hughes is dodging subpoenas and digging up Kennedy dirt. And Castro is mopping up the bloody aftermath of his new Communist nation….
“Mob bosses, politicos, snitches, psychos, fall guys and femmes fatale. They’re mixing up a Molotov cocktail guaranteed to end the country’s innocence with a bang.”
Among the legacies of America’s twisted romance with anti-Castro Cubans:
- Following the JFK assassination, there was a cover-up.
- Its purpose: To protect the reputation of the United States Government–and that of its newly-martyred President.
- The CIA and FBI concealed the CIA-Mafia assassination plots from the Warren Commission assigned to investigate Kennedy’s murder.
- Other government officials participating in the cover-up included Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson.
- Ironically, this secrecy ignited the widespread–and false–belief that the President had died at the hands of a government conspiracy.
- Robert Kennedy feared that his relentless pursuit of Castro might have led Castro to “take out” JFK first.
- Fearing his own assassination if he continued Kennedy’s efforts to murder Castro, President Johnson ordered the CIA to halt its campaign to overthrow and/or assassinate the Cuban leader.
- The huge Cuban community throughout Florida–and especially Miami–continues to exert a blackmailing influence on American politics.
- Right-wing politicians from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump have reaped electoral rewards by catering to the demands of this hate-obsessed voting block.
- These Cuban ex-patriots hope that the United States will launch a full-scale military invasion of the island to remove Castro.
- Having grown rich and soft in the United States, they fear to risk their own lives by returning to Cuba to overthrow the Castro regime–as he had overthrown Fulgencio Batista.
- Only President Barack Obama had the political courage to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba–in 2015.
- This occurred long after the United States had done so with such former enemies as the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam.
- With President-elect Donald Trump due to take office in January, 2017, America’s future relations with Cuba remain in doubt.
The Cuban Missile Crisis remains the single most dangerous moment of the 50-year Cold War, when the world stood only minutes away from nuclear Armageddon.
That crisis stemmed from the American Right’s twisted obsession with Cuba, an obsession that continues today.
So what are the lessons to be learned from that obsession?
- It is long past time to demand major changes in our foreign policy toward Cuba.
- It’s time to end the half-century contamination of American politics by those Cubans who live only for their hatred of Castro–and those political candidates who live to exploit it.
- (For example: Marco Rubio got elected U.S. Senator from Florida in 2010 by claiming that his parents had been forced to leave Cuba in 1959, after Fidel Castro took power. In fact, they had left Cuba in 1956–during the Batista dictatorship.)
- It’s time to end this wag-the-dog relationship. A population of about 1,700,000 Cuban exiles living in Florida should not be allowed to shape the domestic and foreign policy of a nation of 300 million.
- Those who continue to hate–or love–Fidel Castro should be left to their own private feud. But that is a feud they should settle on their own island, and not from the shores of the United States.
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IF TRUMP IS OUR HITLER, WHO WILL BE OUR STAUFFENBERG?: PART THREE (END)
In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2017 at 12:01 amOn 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 becoming President on January 20, Trump has:
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump infuriated one group of voters after another, including: Hispanics, homosexuals, blacks, lesbians, Muslims, women, Asians, the disabled, prisoners-of-war.
As President, he has continued to anger highly influential groups. Some of these–such as “Obamacare” and Medicare patients–can retaliate only with their votes. And that won’t affect Trump until the 2020 Presidential election.
But other groups he has antagonized–such as the military and Intelligence communities–can do far more than vote against him.
Both have access to vast amounts of secret–and highly embarrassing–information. And both are expert in leaking choice bits of this to favored members of the media.
The Trump administration is only two weeks old and already this truth is on full display.
Anonymous military officials are blaming Trump for the death of a Navy SEAL during a January 29 raid on Al Qaeda in Yemen. According to Reuters, Trump approved the raid without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.
As for the CIA: This agency has been overthrowing heads of state for decades.
In 1953, its coup removed Mohammad Mosaddegh, the prime minister of Iran. In 1954, another coup did the same for Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz. In 1970, Chile’s president, Salvadore Allende, fell victim to a CIA-instigated plot.
Millions of Americans believe the CIA engineered the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. James W. Douglass’ 2008 book, JFK and the Unspeakable, charges that the CIA murdered Kennedy because he wanted to end the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Like the despised Roman emperor Tiberius, Donald Trump lives by the motto: “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
Niccolo Machiavelli counseled better: “A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
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