Posts Tagged ‘JOHN F. KENNEDY’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2024 at 12:10 am
On March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, speaking at the University of Kansas, called on his fellow citizens to show compassion for those less fortunate and in need of relief through the Federal Government.
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
Finally, Kennedy did something almost no other politician—in his time or since—has ever done: He dared to attack that holy-of-holies, the Gross Domestic Product (then called the Gross National Product).
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product….counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
“It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.
“It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans….
Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
“George Bernard Shaw once wrote, ‘Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?’
“So I come here to Kansas to ask for your help. In the difficult five months ahead, before the convention in Chicago. I ask for your help and for your assistance.
“If you believe that the United States can do better. If you believe that we should change our course of action. If you believe that the United States stands for something here internally as well as elsewhere around the globe, I ask for your help and your assistance and your hand over the period of the next five months.
“And when we win in November….and we begin a new period of time for the United States of America, I want the next generation of Americans to look back upon this period and say as they said of Plato: ‘Joy was in those days, but to live.’ Thank you very much.”
At the end of Kennedy’s wildly popular speech at Kansas State University, photographer Stanley Tretick, of Look magazine, shouted, “This is Kansas, fucking Kansas! He’s going all the fucking way!”
But he didn’t go all the way. On June 5, 1968—82 days after announcing his Presidential candidacy—an assassin’s bullet suddenly halted his short-lived campaign—and his life.
Robert Kennedy’s funeral train
Historian William L. O’Neil delivered a poignant summary of Robert Kennedy’s legacy in his 1971 book, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and through error and tragic accident, failed at…..He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That, too, must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death, something precious vanished from public life.”
As United States Attorney General (1961-1964) Robert F. Kennedy had the courage to wage all-out war on the Mafia. As a United States Senator (1964-1968) he had the compassion to champion aid to impoverished Americans.
Even in his own era—a half-century ago—Robert Kennedy stood out as the only major Presidential candidate who could legitimately make both claims.
Today, most Democrats—battered by decades of Republican charges that they’re “big spenders”—fear supporting big-ticket items to help the poor.
And the Black Lives Matter movement has made any connection to law enforcement a disqualification for higher office—as former California Attorney General Kamala Harris found out as a 2020 Presidential candidate.
America may never again see a Presidential candidate who can combine a strong stand against crime with an equally strong commitment to helping the poor and disadvantaged.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 4, 2024 at 12:10 am
On March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy did what few politicians have ever done: He accepted public responsibility for a war that had since become a national disaster—the Vietnam war.
Addressing a packed audience of students and faculty at Kansas State University, he said:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported—governments, one after another, riddled with corruption, inefficiency, and greed; governments which did not and could not successfully capture and energize the national feeling of their people.
“If that is the case, as it well may be, then I am willing to bear my share of the responsibility, before history and before my fellow citizens. But past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
“Now as ever, we do ourselves best justice when we measure ourselves against ancient tests, as in the Antigone of Sophocles: ‘All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride.’
Sophocles
And he dared to attack the war as more than a military and political disaster: He saw it as a stain on America’s moral fiber:
“Can we ordain to ourselves the awful majesty of God—to decide what cities and villages are to be destroyed, who will live and who will die, and who will join the refugees wandering in a desert of our own creation?
“If it is true that we have a commitment to the South Vietnamese people, we must ask, are they being consulted—in Hue, or Ben Tre, or in the villages from which the three million refugees have fled?
“If they believe all the death and destruction are a lesser evil than the Wet Cong, why did they not warn us when the Viet Cong came into Hue, and the dozens of other cities, before the Tet Offensive? Why did they not join the fight?
“Will it be said of us, as Tacitus said of Rome: ‘They made a desert and called it peace?'”
Robert F. Kennedy
The students gave him an ovation worthy of a rock star.
Time correspondent Hays Gorey said the electricity between Kennedy and the K.S.U. students was “real and rare.” “A good part of it is John F. Kennedy’s, of course, but John Kennedy…himself couldn’t be so passionate, and couldn’t set off such sparks.”
Jim Slattery, who would later be elected to Congress from Kansas, reread the K.S.U. speech during the second Iraq war and decided it was so powerful “because Kennedy was talking about what was right!”
As Kennedy started to leave, students rushed the platform where he stood, knocking over chairs and grabbing at him. They stroked his hair and ripped his shirtsleeves.
Later that day, Kennedy addressed another wildly enthusiastic audience—at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas.
Then he addressed the glaring disparities between rich and poor Americans—a topic now generally ignored by Democrats and turned into an attack line by Republicans:
“All around us, all around us….men have lost confidence in themselves, in each other. It is confidence which has sustained us so much in the past. Rather than answer the cries of deprivation and despair….hundreds of communities and millions of citizens are looking for their answers, to force and repression and private gun stocks— so that we confront our fellow citizen across impossible barriers of hostility and mistrust.
Robert F. Kennedy talking with black children
“And again, I don’t believe that we have to accept that. I don’t believe that it’s necessary in the United States of America. I think that we can work together. I don’t think that we have to shoot at each other, to beat each other, to curse each other and criticize each other, I think that we can do better in this country. And that is why I run for President of the United States….
“I have seen children in Mississippi starving, their bodies so crippled from hunger and their minds have been so destroyed for their whole life that they will have no future. I have seen children in Mississippi—here in the United States—with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars.
“I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation, and we haven’t developed a policy so we can get enough food so that they can live, so that their children, so that their lives are not destroyed, I don’t think that’s acceptable in the United States of America and I think we need a change.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 3, 2024 at 12:43 am
He remains forever frozen in time—young, vigorous, with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice calling on Americans to do better for those less fortunate.
And he exuded an idealism which seems totally out of place with today’s “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” politics.
It’s been 56 years since his life was brutally cut short—yet he remains forever the age at which he died: 42. Born in 1925, he would turn 99 on November 20 if he were alive today.
On March 16, 1968, from the Caucus Room of the Old Senate Office building, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for President of the United States.
Eight years earlier, on January 2, 1960, his brother, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy had announced his own candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination from the same place.
Ten months later, on November 8, that campaign had ended in victory with his election. And that victory, in turn, ended in bitter sorrow with his assassination two years, 10 months and two days later on November 22, 1963.
Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign would not last as long as his late brother’s. Nor would it end in the victory he and his supporters yearned for.
Robert F. Kennedy
Eighty-two days later, he was dead—shot in the back of the head by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab furious at Kennedy’s avowed support for Israel.
For Kennedy, making up his mind to run for the Presidency was no easy task.
Since the assassination of his brother, millions of Americans had assumed—as his admirers or detractors—that he would one day become President.
For his admirers, there was an element of “the once and future king” about this young, intense man with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice. He—they believed—was the man who would somehow avenge his martyred brother by restoring “Camelot” and returning youth, energy and idealism to the White House.
A playwright—Barbara Garson—had even written a 1967 satire depicting then-President Lyndon B. Johnson as the MacBeth-like murderer of John Ken O-Dunc. In the end, he was confronted and killed by Robert Ken O’Dunc.
His detractors saw him as a ruthless upstart who wanted to foist too-liberal policies on the United States. They distrusted his sympathy for the downtrodden—especially blacks and Hispanics. Worse, they saw the Kennedy family as trying to found a dynasty of Presidents that could last until the mid-1980s.
But the real Robert Kennedy was long torn between running against Johnson—whom he had long personally loathed—and letting someone else do so.
Kennedy’s hatred of Johnson—and his irrational belief that LBJ was somehow responsible for his brother’s death—was well-known. And Kennedy feared that if he ran against Johnson, his many enemies would charge he was doing so out of personal animosity.
And there was another reason: Johnson, who had won the Presidency in a landslide in 1964, was certain to seek re-election in 1968. If Kennedy challenged him for the nomination, it might well split the party and result in the election of a Republican that November. And he—Kennedy—would be blamed for it.
Throughout 1966-7, Kennedy was urged to run against Johnson. Still, he dithered.
Then, on March 12, Minnesota United States Senator Eugene McCarthy entered the New Hampshire Democratic primary against Johnson—and won a surprising 42.2% of the vote to Johnson’s 49.4%.
Four days later, Robert Kennedy announced his own candidacy.
McCarthy’s supporters were outraged: Their candidate had dared to do what Kennedy had not—directly take on Johnson. And now that he had shown it could be done, the opportunistic Kennedy had jumped in.
On March 18—two days after announcing his candidacy—Kennedy gave his first campaign speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. This was the heart of conservative country, and Kennedy didn’t know how his audience would accept many of his decidedly liberal proposals.
“Do you think they’ll boo him?” his wife, Ethel, asked a friend before the speech. “Will they hate him?”
Arriving at the university, Kennedy ate breakfast at the student union—and told a group of university officials and student leaders: “Some of you may not like what you’re going to hear in a few minutes, but it’s what I believe; and if I’m elected President, it’s what I’m going to do.”
Kansas State University
As events unfolded, he—and Ethel—had no reason to worry.
Kennedy had served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. Yet he had not limited himself to simply fighting organized crime and enforcing civil rights. He had aggressively urged his brother, the President, to take a hard line on fighting the Communist forces in Vietnam.
But now he did something almost no other politician had—or has—ever done: He publicly accepted responsibly for the disaster the war had become since 1965:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 6, 2024 at 12:10 am
“For it is the doom of men that they forget.”
—Merlin, in “Excalibur”
June 6—a day of glory and tragedy.
The glory came 80 years ago—on Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
On that morning, Americans awoke to learn—from radio and newspapers—that their soldiers had landed on the French coast of Normandy.
In Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force: American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Overall command of ground forces rested with British General Bernard Law Montgomery.
Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion to liberate France from Nazi Germany, proved one of the pivotal actions of World War II.
Shortly after midnight, 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops launched an airborne assault. This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—the legendary “Desert Fox”—commanded the German forces. For him, the first 24 hours of the battle would be decisive.
“For the Allies as well as the Germans,” he warned his staff, “it will be the longest day.”
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed—73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Omaha Beach – June 6, 1944
Initially, the Allied assault seemed likely to be stopped at the water’s edge—where Rommel had insisted it must be. He had warned that if the Allies established a beachhead, their overwhelming numbers and airpower would eventually prove irresistible.
German machine-gunners and mortarmen wreaked a fearful toll on Allied soldiers. But commanders like U.S. General Norman Cota led their men to victory through a storm of bullets and shells.
Coming upon a group of U.S. Army Rangers taking cover behind sand dunes, Cota demanded: “What outfit is this?”
“Rangers!” yelled one of the soldiers.
“Well, Goddamnit, then, Rangers, lead the way!” shouted Cota, inspiring the soldiers to rise and charge into the enemy.
The command also gave the Rangers the motto they carry to this day.
The Allied casualty figures for D-Day have been estimated at 10,000, including 4,414 dead. By nationality, the D-Day casualty figures are about
- 2,700 British
- 946 Canadians
- and 6,603 Americans.
The total number of German casualties on D-Day isn’t known, but is estimated at 4,000 to 9,000.
Allied and German armies continued to clash throughout France, Belgium and Germany until May 7, 1945, when Germany finally surrendered.
But Americans who had taken part in D-Day could be proud of having dealt a fatal blow to the evil ambitions of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
So much for the glory of June 6. Now for the tragedy—which occurred 56 years ago, on Thursday, June 6, 1968.
Twenty-four years after D-Day, Americans awoke to learn—mostly from TV—that New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy had died at 1:44 a.m. of an assassin’s bullet.
He had been campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and had just won the California primary on June 4.
This had been a make-or-break event for Kennedy, a fierce critic of the seemingly endless Vietnam war.
He had won the Democratic primaries in Indiana and Nebraska, but had lost the Oregon primary to Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.
If he defeated McCarthy in California, Kennedy could force his rival to quit the race. That would lead to a showdown between him and Vice President Hubert Humphrey for the nomination.
(President Lyndon B. Johnson had withdrawn from the race on March 31—just 15 days after Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16.)
After winning the California and South Dakota primaries, Kennedy gave a magnanimous victory speech in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles:
Robert F. Kennedy, only moments from death
“I think we can end the divisions within the United States….We are a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running over the period of the next few months.”
Then he entered the hotel kitchen—where Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian from Jordan, opened fire with a .22 revolver.
Kennedy was hit three times—once fatally in the back of the head. Five other people were also wounded.
Kennedy’s last-known words were: “Is everybody all right?” and “Jack, Jack”—the latter clearly a reference to his beloved older brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Almost five years earlier, that brother—then President of the United States—had been assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Then Robert Kennedy lost consciousness—forever, dying in a hospital bed 24 hours later.
Kennedy had been a U.S. Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator (1964-1968). But it was his connection to President Kennedy for which he was best-known.
His assassination—coming so soon after that of JFK—convinced many Americans there was something “sick” about the nation’s culture.
Historian William L. O’Neil delivered a poignant summary of Robert Kennedy’s legacy in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s.
“He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and through error and tragic accident, failed at…..He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That, too, must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death, something precious vanished from public life.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 24, 2024 at 12:10 am
Ask the average person, “What do you think of Niccolo Machiavelli?” and he’s likely to say: “The devil.”
In fact, “The Old Nick” became an English term used to describe Satan and slander Machiavelli at the same time.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The truth, however, is more complex. Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
The years he spent as a diplomat were tumultuous ones for Italy—with men like Pope Julius II and Caesare Borgia vying for power and plunging Italy into one bloodbath after another.
Florence, for all its wealth, lacked a strong army, and thus lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Machiavelli is best-known for his writing of The Prince, a pamphlet on the arts of gaining and holding power. Its admirers have included Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.
But his longer and more thoughtful work is The Discourses, in which he offers advice on how to maintain liberty within a republic. Among its admirers were many of the men who framed the Constitution of the United States.
Most people believe that Machiavelli advocated evil for its own sake.
Not so. Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect—or perfectly good—solution to a problem.
Sometimes it’s necessary to take stern—even brutal—action to stop an evil (such as a riot) before it becomes widespread:
“A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good. And therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.”
His counsel remains as relevant today as it did during his lifetime (1469 – 1527). This is especially true for politicians—and students of political science.
But plenty of ordinary citizens can also benefit from the advice he has to offer—such as those in business who are asked to give advice to more powerful superiors.
Machiavelli warns there is danger in urging rulers to take a particular course of action: “For men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment.”
This puts would-be counselors in a difficult position: “If they do not advise what seems to them for the good of the republic or the prince, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then they fail to do their duty.
“And if they do advise it, then it is at the risk of their position and their lives, for all men are blind in thus, that they judge of good or evil counsels only by the results.”
Thus, Machiavelli warns that an adviser should “take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.”
The person who asked for the advice may follow it, or not, as of his own choice, and not because he was led or forced into it by the adviser.
Above all, the adviser must avoid the danger of urging a course of action that runs “contrary to the wishes of the many.
“For the danger arises when your advice has caused the many to be contravened. In that case, when the result is unfortunate, they all concur in your destruction.”
Or, as President John F. Kennedy famously said after the disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April, 1961: “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”
John F. Kennedy
By “not advocating any enterprise with too much zeal,” the adviser gains two advantages:
“The first is, you avoid all danger.
“And the second consists in the great credit which you will have if, after having modestly advised a certain course, your counsel is rejected, and the adoption of a different course results unfortunately.”
Finally, the time to give advice is before a catastrophe occurs, not after. Machiavelli gives a vivid example of what can happen if this rule is ignored.
King Perseus of Macedon had gone to war with Paulus Aemilius—and suffered a humiliating defeat. Fleeing the battlefield with a handful of his men, he later bewailed the disaster that had overtaken him.
Suddenly, one of his lieutenants began to lecture Perseus on the many errors he had committed, which had led to his ruin.
“Traitor,” raged the king, turning upon him, “you have waited until now to tell me all this, when there is no longer any time to remedy it—” And Perseus slew him with his own hands.
Niccolo Machiavelli sums up the lesson as this:
“Thus was this man punished for having been silent when he should have spoken, and for having spoken when he should have been silent.”
Be careful that you don’t make the same mistake.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 23, 2024 at 12:36 am
The upcoming 2024 Presidential election has raised serious issues which demand addressing.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to apply such remedies to this election. But they could be in place by the time the 2028 election occurs.
Reform #1: Institute mandatory FBI background investigations on all declared Presidential candidates.
Donald Trump’s trial for hush money payments to porn “star” Stormy Daniels has highlighted an issue that should have been addressed long ago: Americans don’t know as much about their candidates for President as they think they do.
- As the trial testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker has revealed: In August, 2015, he met with Trump at Trump Tower and offered to use the Enquirer to catch and kill any allegations of extramarital affairs against Trump.
- Later he personally facilitated a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep her affair with Trump hushed up.
- This came in addition to Trump’s paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels to ensure his 2006 tryst with her didn’t emerge during the campaign.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
- Similarly, in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy successfully ran for President while concealing his affliction with Addison’s Disease—an insufficiency of the Adrenal glands that can prove fatal.
Thus, all future candidates for President should be required to submit to full FBI background investigations at least one year before election time—with the results released before the election. Any candidate refusing to participate should be barred from competing.
You’re not allowed to become an FBI agent or Cabinet Secretary without passing a background investigation. You shouldn’t be allowed to become President without one, either.
Reform #2: No Presidential candidate can be over 70 at the time s/he leaves office.
The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that commercial airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65.
FBI agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57.
Commissioned officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps must retire by 64.
Yet Donald Trump is 77 and will turn 78 on June 14. Joseph Biden is 81 and will turn 82 on November 20.
If Trump wins, he will be 82 in 2028, his last year in office (assuming he doesn’t stage another—and successful—coup attempt). If Biden wins re-election, in 2028 he will be 86 (assuming he’s still alive by then).
Funeral for Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev – 1982
The Presidency is notorious for prematurely ageing its occupants: “The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office,” said Dr. Michael Roizen. He used presidential medical records from the 1920s through today to reach this conclusion.
The United States Presidency is becoming a mirror-image of the former Soviet Union:
- In 1982, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75.
- He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov—who died, in 1984, at age 69.
- He, in turn, was followed by Konstantin Chernenko—who died in 1985 at age 73.
Finally, the Politburo—tired of replacing the General Secretary every two years—elected 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, who lived to leave office six years later at age 60.
In the United States, having two geriatric Presidential candidates has become comic fodder for late-night TV hosts. Yet voters fear that neither candidate can handle the strains of another four years as President—or even survive a full term.
Reform #3: Abolish the honorific title of “Mr. President” for ex-Presidents.
This used to be offered as a tribute to a former President for having won the support of the majority of Americans.
But Donald Trump has corrupted this phrase, as he has so much else in American life. Since losing the 2020 Presidential election, he has continued to insist that he is the legitimate President of the United States, and Joseph Biden is a usurper.
When his fanatical followers refer to him as “President Trump,” that is what they mean—thus trying to de-legitimize Biden’s Presidency and elevate Trump as the rightful victor.
The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes it a federal misdemeanor for anyone to falsely claim to have received any U.S. military decoration or medal—such as the Medal of Honor or Purple Heart. Violating the law can lead to fines, up to a year in prison, or both.
Thus, Congress should mandate that only the current holder of the Presidency has the legal right to call himself “Mr. President”—and that right ends when he no longer occupies the White House.
Reform #4: Require millionaire ex-Presidents to pay for Secret Service protection.
Every ex-President since Dwight D. Eisenhower—even Jimmy Carter—has been a millionaire.
Assigning a platoon of elite Secret Service agents to watch over every ex-President 24/7 is a huge expense.
The case of Ronald Reagan is instructive: At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—while living in a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills—received lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
United States Secret Service
It’s also an unnecessary expense. There has never been an attack on an ex-President in all of American history.
Still, if the powers-that-be consider this essential, then millionaire ex-Presidents should be required to pay for their protection—just as moguls and Hollywood celebrities do.
As the situation now exists, the government is simply providing welfare for the rich. Whereas the poor face strict limits on how high their income can be and still receive welfare.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 17, 2024 at 12:10 am
Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be the wiser to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.
Myth 4: Americans are knowledgeable about their own history—and that of other nations.
Americans’ ignorance of history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal.
- A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
- More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
- Only 24% correctly identified one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for; 37% believed he invented the lightbulb (that inventor was Thomas Edison).
- Twelve percent incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War; six percent thought he was a Vietnam War general.
if Americans are flagrantly ignorant of their own history, they are even worse at the history of other countries.
A major reason for this lies in Americans’ belief that other nations aren’t worth bothering about except when they threaten us. During the Vietnam war, soldiers referred to the United States as “The World”—as if the rest of the planet didn’t exist.
Americans, protected from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and the Far East by the Pacific Ocean, allowed geography to isolate themselves from the messiness of the rest of the world.
Donald Trump, as President, gave a frightening example of this during a conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” In fact, India does share a border with China.
Myth 5: The “Bible Belt” (the Deep South) is the spiritual capitol of America.
You won’t find these truths on “Green Acres” or “The Andy Griffith Show” but they form a stain on rural America that can’t be ignored:
- A 2015 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that religious conservatives search more for online pornography on Google than anyone else.
- Educational attainment and college graduation rates in the Bible Belt are among the lowest in the nation.
- Smoking rates are high in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi—and so are rates for smoking-related diseases and deaths.
- Heart disease, obesity, homicide and teenage pregnancies are among the highest in the nation.
Myth 6: Americans are health-conscious.
The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths. In 2020, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths increased 31% compared to 2019.
Adults aged 35-44 experienced the highest rates of drug overdose deaths while young people aged 15-24 experienced the greatest percentage increase in deaths.
In 2019:
- 12 million Americans 12 or older used marijuana
- 9.1 million Americans used tobacco
- 14.5 million Americans aged 12 or older used alcohol
- 9.7 million people misused pain relievers
- 6 million people misused hallucinogens
- 5.9 million people misused depressants
- 5.5 million people misused cocaine
- 4.9 million people misused prescription stimulants
- 2.1 million people misused inhalants
- 2 million people used meth
- 745,000 Americans used heroin
Myth 7: Americans only support democratic regimes.
The United States has long supported foreign dictators—so long as they’re reliably Right-wing.
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.
- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi, a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate.
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- His crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
- in 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
* * * * * * * * * *
Behind these myths: The belief in “American exceptionalism”—that the United States is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.
Wrote Christian G. Appy, in his 2015 book, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity:
“It was still unimaginable to most Americans that their own nation would wage aggressive war and justify it with unfounded claims, that it would support undemocratic governments reviled by their own people, and that American troops would be sent to fight in countries where they were widely regarded not as liberators but as imperialist invaders.”
For millions, that belief died a horrific death during the Vietnam war. Yet so long as millions remain convinced that America is guided by God and that its people are His faithful servants, these myths will remain vividly alive.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 16, 2024 at 1:33 am
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
—John F. Kennedy
Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be the wiser to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.
Myth 1: Americans are highly educated.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census:
- In 2022, the highest level of education of the population age 25 and older in the United States ranged from less than high school to advanced degrees beyond a bachelor’s degree.
- 9% had less than a high school diploma or equivalent;
- 28% had high school as their highest level of school completed;
- 15% had completed some college but didn’t have a degree;
- 10% had an associate degree;
- 23% had a bachelor’s degree;
- 14% had completed advanced education such as a master’s degree, professional degree or doctorate.
Myth 2: Rural America is the repository of old-fashioned virtues.
Years of “hayseed” comedies such as “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Real McCoys,” “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction” convinced millions of Americans: If you want to find the “real” America, move to rural America.
If rural America is where you’ll find the “real” Americans, the future of the United States lies in peril.
Marshall County, Indiana
Derek Jensen (Tysto), CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rural Americans overwhelmingly support Donald Trump—who refused to accept defeat in a legitimate Presidential election, schemed to overturn the voters’ decision, and finally incited an attack on Congress to illegally remain in office.
- Rural America is home to fundamentalist Christians, who demand an end to legalized abortion and birth control—and thus hope to gain dictatorial control over women’s lives. They brand pro-choice Democrats as “baby killers.”
- During the 2020 Presidential election, Joe Biden won 91 of the nation’s 100 largest counties, but hardly anywhere else.
- Trump won about five times as many counties. Democrats are thriving in major metropolitan areas, but tanking elsewhere.
- Rather than being a Garden of Eden, rural America shares many big-city ills, such as crime, opioid addiction and a decline in life expectancy.
- Nearly all of the economic growth that occurred between the Great Recession and the start of the pandemic happened in a small number of metropolitan areas, making rural residents feel that the recession had never ended.
- Rural Americans refuse to abandon industries that are now dying out—such as in coal mining and steel.
- Trump promised—falsely—to bring those jobs back. Rural voters have forgiven him for this because he delivered on cultural issues—such as appointing anti-abortion Justices to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade.
- Nearly half (46.7 percent) of all people living in rural areas are in the South. For a century following the Civil War (1861-1865) the South was accurately known as a Democratic stronghold. But that changed after Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law.
- In short: When Democrats went from suppressing black rights to protecting them, the great mass of white, racist rural Southerners moved to the Republican party.
Myth 3: Most Americans take a vital interest in politics.
Most Americans are dismayingly ignorant of politics at all levels—local, state and federal.
- The attempted coup of January 6, 2021, was largely fueled by ignorance. The rioters believed that Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election, and that Joe Biden had “stolen” it through fraud.
- They clung to this belief, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including numerous court decisions rejecting GOP claims of fraud, many of them authored by conservative, Republican-appointed judges.
- And this ignorance continues: A large majority of rural Republicans still believe that Biden is an illegitimate President—just 21% say that he “probably” or “definitely” won.
Donald Trump
- Most Americans don’t know the names of their state and federal representatives or even the names of the three branches of government.
- Only one third of Americans can name the three branches of our federal government: executive, legislative, judicial.
- Most voters overestimate the percentage of the federal budget spends on foreign aid (actually, about 1%). Yet they underestimate the amount going to entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security. As a result, they believe we can solve our fiscal problems without either cutting entitlements or raising taxes on the vast majority of Americans.
- Voters also often reward or punish elected officials for events they did not cause, such as short-term economic trends or droughts.
Such ignorance makes people more susceptible to lies and conspiracy theories, including those about the 2020 election.
Myth 4: Americans take pride in their history.
Americans’ ignorance of history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal.
- A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
- More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
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In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Self-Help, Social commentary on March 18, 2024 at 12:11 am
Every family has one—or several: Right-wing relations or friends who treat every word of former President Donald Trump as if it comes down from God Himself.
Who furiously assert that:
- Climate change is still a Democratic hoax.
- The Trump administration completely stopped illegal immigration.
- Legitimate media stories of Trump’s crimes and failures are “fake news.”
- Every civil and criminal case filed against Trump is part of a conspiracy by President Joe Biden to sabotage Trump’s 2024 candidacy for President.
- Only Trump can be trusted to safeguard America.
What to do?
There are three methods to cope with such behavior.
Method One: Challenge the Stormtrumper
Bring up an embarrassing incident that even the Stormtrumper can’t deny.
Example: A Stormtrumper falsely accuses Democratic President Joseph Biden of “groping” women.
Response: Mention how Trump openly bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy.” Then ask: “Would you leave your mother / wife / sister alone in a room with him?”
Donald Trump
No matter how the Stormtrumper replies, you have him.
- If he says “No, I wouldn’t,” then ask: “How can you support a candidate like this?”
- If he says “Yes, I would,” then assert: “So you’d leave your mother / wife / sister alone with an admitted sexual predator? What does that say about you?”
Odds are the Stormtrumper will back off—or try to change the subject.
If he opts for the latter, don’t let him. Keep attacking him for supporting a sexual predator until he flees or shuts up.
Method Two: Fight Fire With Fire
Trump has long relied on slanders and insults to successfully attack his opponents—in business, politics and media.
These have included:
- Falsely accusing the father of Texas United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz of being a party to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- Falsely accusing Barack Obama—who was born in Hawaii—of being born in Kenya, and therefore ineligible to be President.
- Falsely accusing Democratic Vice Presidential Kamala Harris—who was born in Oakland—of being born outside the United States.
Such slanders and insults can be attacked with counter-slanders and insults.
For example: It’s widely assumed that Trump’s disastrous response to the COVID-19 plague resulted from mere incompetence. But it could have been a deliberate sabotaging of the American healthcare system.
Why?
To curry favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Trump’s effusive embrace of Putin—and the monies he’s received from Russian oligarchs—are well-known. Perhaps he chose to weaken the United States to pay off that debt.
Vladimir Putin
If this assertion is false, let the Stormtrumper prove it.
And insults can be countered with insults—such as:
- Commissar-in-Chief
- Fake President
- TrumPutin
- Red Donald
- DJTraitor
- Carrot Caligula
- Trumpy Traitor
- Coronavirus-in-Chief
There’s no need to insult your Stormtrumper friend/relative (unless you want to).
Just keep jabbing at his infamous idol. If he ends your relationship because you don’t subscribe to his brand of treason and criminality, the loss is his.
Of course, if he insults you and you feel like responding, here are two replies that are always useful:
- “Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.”
- “Do you always support criminals and traitors?”
Then walk out, hang up and/or block him if he’s on your Facebook or Twitter page.
Method Three: Use Diplomacy
But suppose you don’t want to get into a verbal (and possibly physical) combat with your Stormtrumper relative/friend—or even your boss.
At the same time, you don’t want to prostitute your integrity by agreeing with the sheer ignorance and/or treason coming out of his/her mouth. (And often it’s impossible to tell which is at play.)
In that case, you can honorably defuse the situation by simply saying: “Of course.”
Most Stormtrumpers come from the ranks of high school dropouts or, at best, graduates.
They dismiss legitimate news media who chronicle Trump’s crimes and failures as “fake news.” Thus, they remain—proudly—ignorant of what’s going on in the world.
In short, they’re not exactly the sharpest knife in the box.
So when you say, “Of course,” they will most likely think you’re agreeing with them. When what you mean is: “Of course only a moron and Fascist like you would believe that.”
This will save you from wasting your time in trying to educate them. (Remember the adage: “Never try to teach a GOPig how to sing. It only wastes your time and annoys the GOPig.”)
It also allows you to preserve the relationship. (That’s assuming you want a relationship with someone who actively supports a master criminal and traitor.)
* * * * *
The key thing to remember when dealing with Stormtrumpers is what Ernest Hemingway said about Fascism: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”
Stormtrumpers are Fascistic bullies who tell lies. They give you two choices: You can be their slave—or their enemy.
If you choose to be their slave and you have any sense of self-worth, you will despise yourself for doing so.
If you choose to fight, you might not win, but you’ll have preserved your own integrity—which the Stormtrumper forfeited long ago.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2024 at 12:10 am
In January, 2018, the White House of President Donald Trump banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believed that leaks wouldn’t end unless Trump started firing staffers. But that risked firing the wrong people. To protect themselves, those who leaked might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
According to the 2016 book, One Day We Will Live Without Fear: Everyday Lives Under the Soviet Police State, by Mark Harrison, the methods used to keep conversations secret included:
- Turning on the TV or radio to full volume.
- Turning on a water faucet at full blast.
- Turning the dial of a rotary phone to the end—and sticking a pencil in one of the small holes for numbers.
- Standing six to nine feet away from the hung-up receiver.
- Going for “a walk in the woods.”
- Saying nothing sensitive on the phone.
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels.
He’s never been able to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does.
At Christmastime, 2018, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.”
In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”
By saying that, Trump showed his contempt for the role of the First Amendment in American history.
Cartoonists portrayed President Andrew Jackson (1829 -1837) wearing a king’s robes and crown, and holding a scepter. This thoroughly enraged Jackson—who had repulsed a British invasion in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans. To call a man a monarchist in 1800s America was the same as calling him a Communist in the 1950s.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was lampooned as an ape and a blood-stained tyrant. And Theodore Roosevelt proved a cartoonist’s delight, with attention given to his bushy mustache and thick-lensed glasses.
Thus, the odds are slight that an American court would even hear a case brought by Trump against “SNL.”
Such a case made its way through the courts in the late 1980s when the Reverend Jerry Falwell sued pornographer Larry Flyint over a satirical interview in Hustler magazine. In this, “Falwell” admitted that his first sexual encounter had been with his own mother.
In 1988, the United States Supreme Court, voting 8-0, ruled in Flynt’s favor, saying that the media had a First Amendment right to parody a celebrity.
“Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist—an appointee of President Richard Nixon—wrote in his majority decision in the case.
Moreover, Trump would have been forced to take the stand in such a case. The attorneys for NBC and “SNL” would have insisted on it.
The results would have been:
- Unprecedented legal exposure for Trump—who would have been forced to answer virtually any questions asked or drop his lawsuit; and
- Unprecedented humiliation for a man who lives as much for his ego as his pocketbook. Tabloids and late-night comedians would have had a field-day with such a lawsuit.
And while Trump loves to sue those he hates, he does not relish taking the stand himself.
On October 12, 2016, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
He accused the Times of inventing accusations to hurt his Presidential candidacy. And he threatened to sue for libel if the Times reported the women’s stories. He also said he would sue the women making the accusations.
He never sued the Times, The Post, People—or the women.
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YOUTH, COURAGE AND IDEALISM–NOW SORELY NEEDED IN A PRESIDENT: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2024 at 12:10 amOn March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, speaking at the University of Kansas, called on his fellow citizens to show compassion for those less fortunate and in need of relief through the Federal Government.
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
Finally, Kennedy did something almost no other politician—in his time or since—has ever done: He dared to attack that holy-of-holies, the Gross Domestic Product (then called the Gross National Product).
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product….counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
“It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.
“It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans….
Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
“George Bernard Shaw once wrote, ‘Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?’
“So I come here to Kansas to ask for your help. In the difficult five months ahead, before the convention in Chicago. I ask for your help and for your assistance.
“If you believe that the United States can do better. If you believe that we should change our course of action. If you believe that the United States stands for something here internally as well as elsewhere around the globe, I ask for your help and your assistance and your hand over the period of the next five months.
“And when we win in November….and we begin a new period of time for the United States of America, I want the next generation of Americans to look back upon this period and say as they said of Plato: ‘Joy was in those days, but to live.’ Thank you very much.”
At the end of Kennedy’s wildly popular speech at Kansas State University, photographer Stanley Tretick, of Look magazine, shouted, “This is Kansas, fucking Kansas! He’s going all the fucking way!”
But he didn’t go all the way. On June 5, 1968—82 days after announcing his Presidential candidacy—an assassin’s bullet suddenly halted his short-lived campaign—and his life.
Robert Kennedy’s funeral train
Historian William L. O’Neil delivered a poignant summary of Robert Kennedy’s legacy in his 1971 book, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and through error and tragic accident, failed at…..He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That, too, must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death, something precious vanished from public life.”
As United States Attorney General (1961-1964) Robert F. Kennedy had the courage to wage all-out war on the Mafia. As a United States Senator (1964-1968) he had the compassion to champion aid to impoverished Americans.
Even in his own era—a half-century ago—Robert Kennedy stood out as the only major Presidential candidate who could legitimately make both claims.
Today, most Democrats—battered by decades of Republican charges that they’re “big spenders”—fear supporting big-ticket items to help the poor.
And the Black Lives Matter movement has made any connection to law enforcement a disqualification for higher office—as former California Attorney General Kamala Harris found out as a 2020 Presidential candidate.
America may never again see a Presidential candidate who can combine a strong stand against crime with an equally strong commitment to helping the poor and disadvantaged.
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