Posts Tagged ‘Sarah Palin’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 8, 2022 at 9:43 am
The Kennedy administration’s unprecedented attack on organized crime has led some law enforcement experts to believe the Mob engineered President Kennedy’s assassination.
One of these is G. Robert Blakey, father of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. As the former Chief Counsel and Staff Director to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (1977–1979) he oversaw the second official inquiry into the Kennedy assassination.
As a result, he believes the Mob had ample means, motive and opportunity to arrange for a “nut” to kill the President.
In his 1980 book, The Plot to Kill the President, Blakey asserted:
- Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy.
- An unknown confederate of Oswald’s, firing from the “grassy knoll,” also shot at Kennedy but missed.
- The conspiracy was rooted in organized crime and involved Mafia boss Santos Trafficante of Miami and/or Mafia boss Carlos Marcello of New Orleans.
The 1983 TV mini-series, “Blood Feud,” clearly implied that the Mob was responsible. At its heart lay the 10-year conflict between Robert F. Kennedy and James R. Hoffa, then president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union.
This was also the plot of American Tabloid, a 1995 novel by James Ellroy.
But investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that during the five years he researched The Dark Side of Camelot, his expose of the hidden life of President Kennedy, he didn’t uncover any evidence of such a plot.
After Robert Kennedy left the Justice Department in 1964 to run for the post of U.S. Senator from New York, the Justice Department slacked off its push against the crime syndicates.
But the war was resurrected during the Nixon administration and has remained a top priority ever since.
Perhaps the most controversial legacy of the Kennedy administration remains the President’s dealings with the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.,
In 1954, the French—who had controlled Vietnam for 80 years—were forced to withdraw their military forces from the country. Their army had suffered a humiliating defeat at Dienbenphu and the French citizenry—still recovering from defeat and Nazi occupation during World War II—demanded an end to the disastrous conflict.
Into this political vacuum stepped the victorious North Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh.
Kennedy—then U.S. Senator from Massachusetts—had visited Vietnam while the French were still trying to hold onto one of their last colonial possessions. And he had urged them to withdraw and allow the Vietnamese to govern themselves.
But President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware of Ho’s overwhelming popularity throughout Vietnam due to his battles against Japanese and French colonialists. In any nationwide election, Ho was certain to win the presidency.
But Eisenhower felt he couldn’t allow an avowed Communist to rule Vietnam. With the North under firm Communist control, America focused its attention on the South.
Searching for an acceptable alternative, Eisenhower found him in Ngo Dinh Diem—a mandarin in a nation swept by revolution, a Catholic in a nation with an 80% Buddhist population.
In 1954, America began backing Diem. Although his first years were marked by social progress, he later became increasingly oppressive toward the Buddhist majority. Corruption openly flourished among government and army officials.
Ngo Dinh Diem
In 1960, North Vietnam launched an aggressive campaign of infiltration and assassination across South Vietnam.
In 1961, President Kennedy sent 400 Green Berets and 100 other military advisers to South Vietnam to offer support.
Diem requested American financing of a 100,000-man increase in his army. Kennedy agreed to an increase of 30,000. Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that 40,000 U.S. troops would be needed to “clean up the Vietcong threat.”
Kennedy underestimated the reaction of North Vietnam, whose forces were fighting what they believed was a crusade. As American troop strength increased, the North escalated its own commitment.
From 1961 to 1963, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam steadily rose from 685 to 16,732. American minesweepers patrolled the coasts while their aircraft engaged in surveillance.
For the first time, Americans became casualties of the war–especially those in helicopter combat-support missions.
Meanwhile, Diem—urged by his influential brother, Nhu, who ran the secret police—cracked down on the Buddhists.
Government troops fired on a peaceful demonstration in May, 1963. In protest, Buddhist monks burned themselves to death before TV cameras.
Nhu’s beautiful and powerful wife, Madame Nhu, fed growing world outrage by her ridicule of “monk barbecue shows.”
American efforts to stop Diem’s anti-Buddhist campaign failed. On August 21, 1963, Diem’s police shot their way into Buddhist pagodas, killing scores and arresting hundreds.
This finally convinced the Kennedy administration that Diem would never gain the popular support he needed to win the war against the Communist North.
As a result, the administration offered support to South Vietnamese military officers planning a coup against Diem.
On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese army units stormed the presidential palace. Diem and Nhu fled, but were caught and shot. Madame Nhu, visiting the U.S. at the time, escaped death, accusing Kennedy of supporting the coup.
The administration issued a flat denial.
Diem’s assassination was followed 21 days later by Kennedy’s own.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 7, 2022 at 9:24 am
John F. Kennedy became President when civil rights suddenly became a burning issue throughout the Nation.
At Kennedy’s request, dozen of law firms sent lawyers South, so civil rights demonstrators would not lack counsel.
Prominent blacks such as Thurgood Marshall, Robert C. Weaver and George L.L. Weaver were appointed, respectively, to the Supreme Court, the Housing and House Finance Agency and the office of Assistant Secretary of Labor.
But Kennedy was highly reluctant to push for a civil rights bill addressing the overall issues of racial discrimination.
The reason: Most of the chairman of House and Senate committees were deeply conservative Southern racists–whether Republican or Democrat. They decided whether Kennedy’s foreign policy initiatives would be approved or opposed–especially his bills for increased foreign aid.
Kennedy believed he could not offend such men without jeopardizing the legacy he wanted to achieve in foreign policy.
This timidity, in turn, led many prominent blacks—such as Martin Luther King and Malcom X—to believe they would see no innovative moves on Kennedy’s part.
But events forced Kennedy’s hand.
On September 30, 1962, the President sent deputy U.S. marshals and National Guardsmen into Mississippi to restore order. Rioting had erupted when, by federal court order, James Meredith, a black, was enrolled at the state university.
Kennedy’s problems in winning support for his civil rights program arose in the folkways of the Nation. When laws run counter to a nation’s folkways, the laws lose.
In backing the admission of Meredith, the President chose an incident which would set off shockwaves for black rights.
Kennedy held mixed emotions about the demand for civil rights by blacks. On one hand, as an Irish Catholic, he grew up with stories about longtime discrimination against his ancestors (such as the “No Irish Need Apply” signs posted by numerous employers).
On the other hand, he had been born into a world of power and wealth, and he had to grope his way toward understanding the problems of the oppressed.
Another major confrontation broke out between Kennedy and the forces of segregation on June 11, 1963. Alabama Governor George C. Wallace personally blocked the entrance of two black pupils to the University of Tuscaloosa.
The President, watching on TV, federalized the Alabama National Guard, which Wallace had used to ring the school. Wallace withdrew and the students were admitted and enrolled.
That same day, Kennedy addressed the nation on the need for genuine equality for all Americans: “The question is whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”
JFK addresses the nation on civil rights
And he called on Congress to pass his civil rights bill, which had been stalled by the legislators.
On August 28, 1963, 200,000 civil rights demonstrators flooded Washington, D.C., for a massive rally.
Fearing that violence would erupt—embarrassing his administration and setting back the cause of civil rights—Kennedy had sought to persuade Dr. Martin Luther King, the march’s chief figure, to cancel the proposed march.
But King and his fellow organizers were determined to go through with it. They had, they said, waited too long for justice to be satisfied with anything less.
The dignity and peacefulness of the rally–and, most especially, King’s soaring “I Have a Dream” speech–won tremendous sympathy throughout the country. Kennedy met with civil rights leaders afterward to offer his support.
Martin Luther King during the March on Washington
But Kennedy’s civil rights bill remained stalled in Congress until 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson used the assassinated Kennedy’s new status as a martyr to gain enough support for its passage.
Meanwhile, on yet another front, the Kennedy administration was waging an unprecedented war against organized crime.
This was primarily the work of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. As chief counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (1957–59), he had interrogated about 800 mobsters who had been summoned by subpoena.
And he had learned, firsthand, how ineffective the FBI and Justice Department were at bringing such powerful criminals to justice. The FBI had long steered clear of organized crime investigations, largely because its director, J. Edgar Hoover, feared corruption of his agents.
Upon taking office as Attorney General, he greatly expanded the number of attorneys assigned to the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Section. And, more important, he used his status as brother to the President to jawbone FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover into attacking the Mob.
The FBI installed illegal microphones in Mob hangouts throughout the country and started building cases against such mobsters as Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante and Carlos Marcello.
The administration’s attack on the Mob has led some historians to believe the assassination of President Kennedy was Mob-orchestrated.
The reasons:
- Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch, solicited Mob money and influence for his son’s 1960 Presidential campaign.
- Through singer Frank Sinatra, the elder Kennedy assured Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana that the mob would get a free ride if his son were elected President.
- The CIA, seeking any way to topple Fidel Castro, enlisted the Mafia to assassinate him.
- But Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, ignored the Mob’s “contributions” and pressed his war against the syndicates
- As a result, mobsters felt betrayed and lusted for vengeance.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 6, 2022 at 10:46 am
By October, 1962, Nikita Khrushchev, premier of the Soviet Union, had supplied Cuba with more than 40,000 soldiers, 1,300 field pieces, 700 anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks and 150 jets.
The motive: To deter another invasion.
Khrushchev also began supplying Castro with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Their discovery, in October, 1962, ignited the single most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War.
John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis
On October 16, Kennedy was shown photographs of nuclear missile sites under construction on the island. The pictures had been taken on the previous day by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane.
Suddenly, the two most powerful nuclear countries—the United States and the Soviet Union—appeared on the brink of nuclear war.
Kennedy officials claimed they couldn’t understand why Khrushchev had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. “Maybe Khrushchev’s gone mad” was a typical musing.
The Kennedy administration never admitted that JFK had been waging a no-holds-barred campaign to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its leader.
Kennedy convened a group of his 12 most important advisers, which became known as Ex-Comm, for Executive Committee.
For seven days, Kennedy and his advisers intensely and privately debated their options. Some of the participants—such as Air Force General Curtis LeMay—urged an all-out air strike against the missile sites.
Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General (and the President’s brother) opposed initial calls for an air strike.
It would be, he said, “a Pearl Harbor in reverse.” And, he added: “I don’t want my brother to go down in history as the Tojo of the 1960s.”
Robert F. and John F. Kennedy
Others—such as Adlai Stevenson, the United States delegate to the United Nations—urged a reliance on quiet diplomacy.
It was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara who suggested a middle course: A naval blockade—a “quarantine” in Kennedy’s softened term—around Cuba. This would hopefully prevent the arrival of more Soviet offensive weapons on the island.
The President insisted that the missiles had to go—by peaceful means, if possible, but by the use of military force if necessary.
Kennedy finally settled on a naval blockade of Cuba. This would prevent additional missiles from coming in and give Khrushchev time to negotiate and save face.
On October 22, President Kennedy appeared on nationwide TV to denounce the presence of Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba.
He demanded their withdrawal, and warned that any missile launched against any nation in the Western hemisphere would be answered with “a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
Kennedy ordered American military readiness raised to a level of Defcom-2—the step just short of total war.
The United States had about 27,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviets had about 3,000. In a first nuclear exchange, the United States could have launched about 3,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviets about 250.
Nuclear missile in silo
On October 28, Khrushchev announced that the missile sites would be destroyed and the missiles crated and shipped back to the Soviet Union.
In return, Kennedy gave his promise—publicly—to lift the blockade and not invade Cuba
Privately, he also promised to remove obsolete Jupiter II nuclear missiles from Turkey, which bordered the Soviet Union. Those missiles were, in effect, the American version of the Russian missiles that had been shipped to Cuba.
The world escaped nuclear disaster by a hair’s-breath.
Khrushchev didn’t know that Kennedy had intended to order a full-scale invasion of Cuba in just another 24 hours if an agreement couldn’t be reached.
And Kennedy and his military advisors didn’t know that Russian soldiers defending Cuba had been armed with tactical nuclear weapons.
If warfare of any type had broken out, the temptation to go nuclear would have been overwhelming.
The Cuban Missile Crisis marked the only time the world came to the brink of nuclear war.
The Right attacked Kennedy for refusing to destroy Castro, thus allowing Cuba to remain a Communist bastion only 90 miles from Florida.
The Left believed it was a needless confrontation that risked the destruction of humanity.
For Kennedy, forcing the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba re-won the confidence he had lost among so many Americans following the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
It also made him face the brutal truth that a miscalculation during a nuclear crisis could destroy all life on Earth.
He felt he could now move—cautiously—toward better relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Ironically, the crisis had the same effects on Khrushchev—who had witnessed the horrors of Germany’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss of at least 22 million Soviet citizens.
Slowly and carefully, Kennedy and Khrushchev negotiated the details of what would become the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere.
Underground tests would continue, but the amounts of deadly strontium-90 radiation polluting the atmosphere would be vastly reduced.
The treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union on July 25, 1963.
Kennedy considered it his greatest achievement as President, saying in a speech: “According to a Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. My fellow Americans, let us take that first step.”
2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BAY OF PIGS, BBC, BERLIN WALL, BILL CLINTON, BRUCE GREENWOOD, BUZZFEED, CARLOS MARCELLO, CBS NEWS, CIA, CIVIL RIGHTS, CLIFF ROBERTSON, CNN, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, DAILY KOS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD J. TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIDEL CASTRO, FRANK SINATRA, HERMAN CAIN, ICH BEN EIN BERLINNER SPEECH, INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, J. EDGAR HOOVER, JAMES MARSDEN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MAFIA, MALCOM X, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MARTIN SHEEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MOVIES, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY, POLITICO, PT-109, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICK PERRY, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, ROBERT S. MCNAMARA, SALON, SAM GIANCANA, SANTOS TRAFFICANTE, Sarah Palin, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, THE BUTLER, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RAT PACK, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THIRTEEN DAYS, TIME, TWILIGHT ZONE, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WILLIAM DEVANE, WILLIAM PETERSON
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2022 at 9:31 am
During the 1960 Presidential campaign, then-Senator John F. Kennedy promised to build a Peace Corps to train people in underdeveloped nations to help themselves.
John F. Kennedy
In March, 1961, the program went into effect, with the President’s brother-in-law, Sergent Shriver, as director.
Starvation, illiteracy and disease were the enemies of the Corps. Any nation wanting aid could request it. The first group of volunteers went to the Philippines, the second to Ecuador and the third to Tanganyika.
The problems of the underdeveloped world were too great for any single organization to solve. But the Corps lifted the spirits of many living in those countries. And it captured the imagination of millions of Americans—especially those of thousands of idealistic youths who entered its ranks.
To combat the growing Communist threat to Latin America, Kennedy established the Alliance for Progress. He defined the Alliance’s goal as providing “revolutionary progress through powerful, democratic means.”
Within two years he could report:
“Some 140,000 housing units have been constructed. Slum clearance projects have begun, and 3,000 classrooms have been built. More than 4,000,000 school books have been distributed.
“The Alliance has fired the imagination and kindled the hopes of millions of our good neighbors. Their drive toward modernization is gaining momentum as it unleashes the energies of these millions.
“The United States is becoming increasingly identified in the minds of the people with the goal they move toward: a better life with freedom,” said Kennedy.
Critics of the program, however, charged that the President was trying to “dress up the old policies” of Franklin D. Roosevelt in new rhetoric. Since FDR’s time, the United States has believed in giving economic aid to Latin America.
Much—if not most—of these billions of dollars has wound up in the pockets of various right-wing dictators, such as Anastasio Somoza and Rafael Trujillo.
Meanwhile, Kennedy was urging action on another front—that of outer space.
“This generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space,” declared the President. He committed the United States to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
As indeed it happened less than six years after his death—on July 20, 1969.
Kennedy’s idealistic rhetoric masked his real reason for going to the moon: To score a propaganda victory over the Soviet Union.
Another of his anti-Communist goals: To remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba at almost any cost.
Fidel Castro
Immediately after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert–who was then the Attorney General—to oversee a CIA program to overthrow Castro.
The CIA and the Mafia entered into an unholy alliance to assassinate Castro—each for its own benefit:
- The CIA wanted to please Kennedy by overthrowing the Communist leader who had nationalized American corporate holdings.
- The Mafia wanted to regain its lucrative casino and brothel holdings that had made Cuba the playground of the rich in pre-Castro times.
The mobsters were authorized to offer $150,000 to anyone who would kill Castro and were promised any support the Agency could yield.
“We were hysterical about Castro at about the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter,” then-former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara testified before Congress about these efforts. “And there was pressure from JFK and RFK to do something about Castro.”
Nor was everyone in the CIA enthusiastic about the “get Castro” effort.
“Everyone at CIA was surprised at Kennedy’s obsession with Fidel,” recalled Sam Halpern, who was assigned to the Cuba Project. “They thought it was a waste of time. We all knew [Fidel] couldn’t hurt us. Most of us at CIA initially liked Kennedy, but why go after this little guy?
“One thing is for sure: Kennedy wasn’t doing it out of national security concerns. It was a personal thing. The Kennedy family felt personally burnt by the Bay of Pigs and sought revenge.”
It was all-out war. Among the tactics used:
- Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder Cuban police officials and Soviet technicians.
- Sabotaging mines.
- Paying up to $100,000 per “hit” for the murder or kidnapping of Cuban officials.
- Using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry.
- Planting colorful seashells rigged to explode at a site where Castro liked to go skindiving.
- Trying to arrange for his being presented with a wetsuit impregnated with noxious bacteria and mold spores, or with lethal chemical agents.
- Attempting to infect Castro’s scuba regulator with tuberculous bacilli.
- Trying to douse his handkerchiefs, cigars, tea and coffee with other lethal bacteria.
But all of these efforts failed to assassinate Castro–or overthrow the Cuban Revolution he was heading.
“Bobby (Kennedy) wanted boom and bang all over the island,” recalled Halpern. “It was stupid. The pressure from the White House was very great.”
Americans would rightly label such methods as ”terrorist” if another power used them against the United States today. And the Cuban government saw the situation exactly the same way.
So Castro appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, for assistance.
Khrushchev was quick to comply: “We must not allow the Communist infant to be strangled in its crib,” he told members of his inner circle.
2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BAY OF PIGS, BBC, BERLIN WALL, BILL CLINTON, BRUCE GREENWOOD, BUZZFEED, CARLOS MARCELLO, CBS NEWS, CIA, CIVIL RIGHTS, CLIFF ROBERTSON, CNN, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, DAILY KOS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD J. TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIDEL CASTRO, FRANK SINATRA, ICH BEN EIN BERLINNER SPEECH, INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, J. EDGAR HOOVER, JAMES MARSDEN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MAFIA, MALCOM X, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MARTIN SHEEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MOVIES, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY, POLITICO, PT-109, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICK PERRY, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, ROBERT S. MCNAMARA, SALON, SAM GIANCANA, SANTOS TRAFFICANTE, Sarah Palin, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, THE BUTLER, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RAT PACK, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THIRTEEN DAYS, TIME, TWILIGHT ZONE, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WILLIAM DEVANE, WILLIAM PETERSON
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 4, 2022 at 11:55 am
This October 16 – 28 will mark 60 years since the world hovered on the brink of nuclear oblivion.
It was the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. And it was the supreme test of John F. Kennedy’s leadership as the 35th President of the United States.
He served as President for only two years, ten months and two days.
Yet today—-61 years since he took office, and 59 years since his assassination—millions of Americans still remember Kennedy with reverence, even awe. This despite decades of highly embarrassing revelations about his scandalous private life.
Some have called the Kennedy administration a golden era in American history. A time when touch football, lively White House parties, stimulus to the arts and the antics of the President’s children became national obsessions.
John F. Kennedy
Others have called the Kennedy Presidency a monument to the unchecked power of wealth and ambition. An administration staffed by young novices playing at statesmen, riddled with nepotism, and whose legacy includes the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam war and the world’s first nuclear confrontation.
The opening days of the Kennedy Presidency raised hopes for a dramatic change in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
But detente was not possible then. The Russians had not yet experienced their coming agricultural problems and the setback in Cuba during the Missile Crisis. And the United States had not suffered defeat in Vietnam.
Kennedy’s first brush with international Communism came on April 17, 1961, with the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. This operation had been planned and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency during the final months of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s term as President.
The U.S. Navy was to land about 1,400 Cuban exiles on the island to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. They were supposed to head into the mountains—as Castro himself had done against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956—and raise the cry of revolution.
The invasion would occur after an American air strike had knocked out the Cuban air force. But the airstrike failed and Kennedy, under the pressure of world opinion, called off a second try.
Even so, the invasion went ahead. When the invaders surged onto the beaches, they found Castro’s army waiting for them. Many of the invaders were killed on the spot. Others were captured—to be ransomed by the United States in December, 1962, in return for medical supplies.
It was a major public relations setback for the newly-installed Kennedy administration, which had raised hopes for a change in American-Soviet relations.
Kennedy, trying to abort widespread criticism, publicly took the blame for the setback: “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan….I’m the responsible officer of the Government.”
The Bay of Pigs convinced Kennedy that he had been misled by the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Out of this came his decision to rely heavily on the counsel of his brother, Robert, whom he had installed as Attorney General.
The failed Cuban invasion—unfortunately for Kennedy—convinced Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev that the President was weak.
Khrushchev told an associate that he could understand if Kennedy had not decided to invade Cuba. But once he did, Kennedy should have pressed on and wiped out Castro.
Khrushchev attributed this to Kennedy’s youth, inexperience and timidity—and believed he could bully the President.
On June 4, 1961, Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna to discuss world tensions. Khrushchev threatened to go to nuclear war over the American presence in West Berlin—the dividing line between Western Europe, protected by the United States, and Eastern Europe, controlled by the Soviet Union.
Kennedy, who prized rationality, was shaken by Khrushchev’s unexpected rage. After the conference, he told an associate: “It’s going to be a cold winter.”
Meanwhile, East Berliners felt they were about to be denied access to West Berlin. A flood of 3,000 refugees daily poured into West Germany.
Khrushchev was embarrassed at this clear showing of the unpopularity of the Communist regime. In August, he ordered that a concrete wall—backed up by barbed wire, searchlights and armed guards—be erected to seal off East Berlin.
As tensions mounted and a Soviet invasion of West Berlin seemed likely, Kennedy sent additional troops to the city in a massive demonstration of American will.
Two years later, on June 26, 1963, during a 10-day tour of Europe, Kennedy visited Berlin to deliver his “I am a Berliner” speech to a frenzied crowd of thousands.
JFK addresses crowds at the Berlin Wall
“There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world,” orated Kennedy. “Let them come to Berlin.”
Standing within gunshot of the Berlin wall, he lashed out at the Soviet Union and praised the citizens of West Berlin for being “on the front lines of freedom” for more than 20 years.
“All free men, wherever they may live,” said Kennedy, “are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich ben ein Berliner.’”
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADAM KINZINGER, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALLEN WEST, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANN COULTER, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL ATTACK, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EGYPT, FACEBOOK, FERGUS CULLEN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAMAL ABDEL NASSER, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND REFORM COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, ISRAEL, JEB LUND, JIMMY CARTER, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN KASICH, JORDAN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LIZ CHENEY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL HAYDEN, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOSHE DAYAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PAUL GOSAR, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PHIL GRAMM, PHILIP KLINE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, ROGER STONE, ROLLING STONE, RON KLEIN, SALON, Sarah Palin, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PENTAGON, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WONKETTE, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 26, 2021 at 12:14 am
Having made threats of violence an integral part of his successful 2016 campaign for President, Donald Trump continued to make violence a hallmark of his Presidency.
Throughout his run for President, Trump’s followers chanted, “Lock her up!” at Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Yet Clinton has never been tried for a crime, let alone convicted of one.
As President, Trump still encouraged his followers to shout this chant.
On July 2, 2017, Trump tweeted a video showing him punching a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head during a WWE wrestling match.
And on August 15, 2017, Trump retweeted a cartoon photo of a “Trump Train” running over a CNN reporter.
Summing up Trump’s legacy of hatred, longtime Republican Presidential adviser David Gergen said:
“Trump unleashed the dogs of hatred in this country from the day he declared he was running for president, and they’ve been snarling and barking at each other ever since. It’s just inevitable there are going to be acts of violence that grow out of that.”
Gergen said this on October 24, 2018—the day that pipe bombs were mailed to:
- Former President Barack Obama
- Former President Bill Clinton
- Former First Lady and United States Senator Hillary Clinton
- Former Attorney General Eric Holder
- Congresswoman Maxine Waters
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Actor Robert De Niro
- Former CIA Director John Brennan
Trump had brutally and repeatedly attacked all of these intended victims. And the man who sent the bombs—Cesar Sayoc Jr. of Aventura, Florida—had plastered his van with stickers supporting Trump.
Donald Trump
On October 8, 2020, 13 Right-wingers were arrested and charged in a terrorism plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The terrorists intended to overthrow several state governments that they “believe are violating the US Constitution,” including the government of Michigan, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Trump had repeatedly attacked Whitmer for issuing a March 23 stay-at-home order to stem the COVID-19 pandemic in that state.
After losing the 2020 Presidential election, Trump ordered his campaign to file at least 63 lawsuits contesting Joseph Biden’s victory. Upon losing all of these, Trump turned to violence as his last-ditch remedy to stay in office.
On January 6, he incited thousands of his supporters to storm the United States Capitol Building where members of the Senate were counting the electoral votes cast in the election.
The Stormtrumpers’ goal: Stop the ballot counting—and thus maintain Trump in office.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police.
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents, metal poles and lead pipes.
- At least 140 police officers suffered injuries, including concussions, broken ribs, smashed spinal discs, a lost eye.
- Many lawmakers’ offices were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
- Lawmakers huddled under desks and behind locked doors, expecting to die any minute.
- More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
Stormtrumpers scaling Capitol Building walls
And Republicans?
Even after being forced to flee for their lives or barricade themselves in House or Senate rooms, Republicans refused to condemn Trump. On January 11, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection against the United States government.
Senate Democrats wanted to try Trump while he was still in office. But then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused. On February 13, after a five-day trial, Republicans acquitted Trump by a vote of 57-43, failing 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
Since then, Republicans such as Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have recast the attempted coup as a non-violent—even patriotic—event.
“Outright propaganda and lies are being used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding U.S. citizens, especially Trump voters,” Gosar said, condemning the Justice Department’s Investigation of Capitol attackers.
And Greene claims: “January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”
A party—Republican—that has made such a heavy, long-running—and successful—investment in violence is not going to voluntarily turn pacifist.
And a party—Democratic—that has generally behaved like cowards and appeasers toward its sworn enemies isn’t going to survive, let alone preserve democracy.
In May, 1967, Israel faced a similar deadly threat.
On May 22, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would be closed to all Israeli shipping. And Nasser mobilized the Egyptian military along the border with Israel.
On May 30, Jordan and Egypt signed a defence pact. The next day, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armored units in Jordan. They were reinforced by an Egyptian contingent.
Israel was being surrounded—and its sworn enemies were about to attack.
“We are being bullied,” said longtime Israeli soldier Moshe Dayan. “And the only way to handle a bully is to punch him in the face.”
On June 5, Israel struck first, defeating its enemies and securing huge tracts of territory as a defensive barrier.
Democrats have yet to learn Dayan’s lesson. They—and the country—may not turn out to be as fortunate as Israel.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADAM KINZINGER, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALLEN WEST, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANN COULTER, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL ATTACK, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EGYPT, FACEBOOK, FERGUS CULLEN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAMAL ABDEL NASSER, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND REFORM COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, ISRAEL, JEB LUND, JIMMY CARTER, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN KASICH, JORDAN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LIZ CHENEY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL HAYDEN, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOSHE DAYAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PAUL GOSAR, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PHIL GRAMM, PHILIP KLINE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, ROGER STONE, ROLLING STONE, RON KLEIN, SALON, Sarah Palin, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PENTAGON, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WONKETTE, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 25, 2021 at 12:05 am
With the rise of Donald Trump to Republican standard-bearer in 2015, threats of violence entered the rhetoric—and tactics—of the Republican party.
On March 16, 2016, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot:
“I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
Donald Trump
Republicans clearly saw this as a threat is undeniable.
Paul Ryan, their Speaker of the House, said on March 17: “Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable.”
And Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich chinned in. “Leaders don’t imply violence,” Kasich told “Face the Nation” on March 20. “When he says that there could be riots, that’s inappropriate. I think you understand that, okay? Secondly, while we have our differences and disagreements, we’re Americans. Americans don’t say, ‘Let’s take to the streets and have violence.'”
But threatening his Republican and Democratic opponents with violence played a major role in Donald Trump’s campaign for President.
No other candidate—Republican or Democrat—had ever made such repeated and brutal use of threats of physical assault in pursuing the Presidency.
- Philip Klein, the managing editor of the Washington Examiner, wrote on the eve of the Republican National Convention in July: “Political commentators now routinely talk about the riots that would break out in Cleveland if Trump were denied the nomination, about how his supporters have guns and all hell could break loose, that they would burn everything to the ground. It works to Trump’s advantage to not try too hard to dispel these notions.”
- On August 9, Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- “Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
- “Well, let me say if someone else said that outside of the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now, with the Secret Service questioning him,” said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA).
Threats of this type continued to be made by Trump supporters right up to the day of the election.
- On July 29, Roger Stone, a notorious Right-wing political consultant acting as a Trump strategist, told Breitbart News: “The first thing Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
- At a town hall meeting where Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence appeared, a woman named Rhonda said: “For me personally, if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself am ready for a revolution.”
- In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the race: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,”
- Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee: “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take….I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Even Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, expressed fear of what might happen if Trump lost the election:
Fergus Cullen
“That’s really scary,” Cullen said, recounting the violence at Trump rallies around the country leading up to the Republican National Convention. “In this country, we’ve always had recriminations after one side loses. But we haven’t had riots. We haven’t had mobs that act out with violence against supporters of the other side.
“There’s no telling what his supporters would be willing to do at the slightest encouragement from their candidate,” he said.
Trump even began encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He urged them to act as poll watchers in “other” [non-white] communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”
Many of his supporters promised to do so.
“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.
“I’ll look for…well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADAM KINZINGER, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALLEN WEST, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANN COULTER, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL ATTACK, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EGYPT, FACEBOOK, FERGUS CULLEN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAMAL ABDEL NASSER, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND REFORM COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, ISRAEL, JEB LUND, JIMMY CARTER, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN KASICH, JORDAN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LIZ CHENEY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL HAYDEN, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOSHE DAYAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PAUL GOSAR, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PHIL GRAMM, PHILIP KLINE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, ROGER STONE, ROLLING STONE, RON KLEIN, SALON, Sarah Palin, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PENTAGON, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WONKETTE, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 24, 2021 at 12:17 am
Republicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking whites’ fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…
“’We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
Since the end of World War II, Republicans regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-approved thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech.
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—a “Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents—or at least unwitting pawns—of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their “evidence”: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas—one of America’s poorest states—and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—-and their right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
For several years, fears of Islamic terror carried Republicans to electoral victory—most importantly in 2004, when George W. Bush won re-election as President.
But after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Americans lost interest in The Maniacal Muslim as a surefire election tactic.
With the rise of Donald Trump to Republican standard-bearer in 2015, threats of violence entered the rhetoric—and tactics—of the Republican party.
For example:
- On March 16, 2016, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear on [March 16]: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.'”
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADAM KINZINGER, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALLEN WEST, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANN COULTER, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL ATTACK, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EGYPT, FACEBOOK, FERGUS CULLEN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAMAL ABDEL NASSER, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND REFORM COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, ISRAEL, JEB LUND, JIMMY CARTER, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN KASICH, JORDAN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LIZ CHENEY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL HAYDEN, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOSHE DAYAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PAUL GOSAR, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PHIL GRAMM, PHILIP KLINE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, ROGER STONE, ROLLING STONE, RON KLEIN, SALON, Sarah Palin, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PENTAGON, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WONKETTE, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 23, 2021 at 12:27 am
It was a moment both poignant and prophetic: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responding to a brutal virtual attack on her by a fellow member of Congress.
Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) had tweeted a doctored anime video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez and then turning his sword towards President Joseph Biden.
Paul Gosar
As a result, the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives was now meeting to decide if he should be censured over that video.
“What is so hard, what is so hard about saying this is wrong?” asked Ocasio-Cortez. “This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar. This is about what we are willing to accept. If you believe that this behavior should not be accepted, then vote yes. It’s really that simple.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
And the Republican response was equally telling: Of the 213 Republicans serving in the House, only two—Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois)—dared to support censure of Gosar.
A censure resolution is the most severe form of punishment in the House, and stripping a member of committee assignments removes a powerful platform to influence legislation and give voice to constituent priorities.
The resolution approved by the House removed Gosar from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which Ocasio-Cortez also serves on, and the Natural Resources Committee.
“We cannot have a member joking about murdering each other or threatening the President of the United States,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech.
“Disguising death threats as a video doesn’t make it less real. It’s a sad day for the House of Representatives, but a necessary day.”
Nancy Pelosi
Before the vote which censured him, Gosar said: “I have said decisively there is no threat in the cartoon other than the threat that immigration poses to our country. And no threat was intended by my staff or me.
“I voluntarily took the cartoon down not because it was itself a threat, but because some thought it was. Out of compassion for those who generally felt offense, I self-censored.”
Yet only minutes after the House voted to censure him, Gosar retweeted the video. He also retweeted Right-wing podcaster Elijah Schaffer’s tweet of the video: “Really well done. We love @DrPaulGosar, don’t we folks?”
This marriage of violence with Right-wing ideology is not new.
Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund noted in a June 19, 2015 editorial: “The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it. “
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent—-and violence-arousing—-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Republicans like Paul Gosar fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs—and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
If a “nutcases” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked—-shocked!—that such a thing could have happened.
And if the attempt proves successful, then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.
The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.
Consider the following:
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Representative Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: “You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
- Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MINN.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
- Former Governor (R-Alaska) Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
- Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-TEX.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
Republicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking white fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 22, 2021 at 12:07 am
Fifty-eight years ago this coming November 22, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
For most Americans, 1963 was over—and their lives would never be the same.
It has been said that JFK left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
- By the time JFK died, 16,000 Americans were serving in Vietnam, with more than 70 casualties.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1972, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy asked his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means hopeless:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, couldn’t reach agreement.
President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press—but not for altruistic reasons. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
- Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader”—thus excusing his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
- Texas Governor Rick Perry (and Secretary of Energy under Donald Trump) didn’t know there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court: “Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah—-
- “Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
- In short, it’s the media’s fault if your answer reveals your ignorance, stupidity and/or criminality.
- Sarah Palin rewrote history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”: “He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
- In fact, Revere wasn’t warning the British about anything. Instead, he was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack—as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake—that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
Donald Trump has publicly celebrated ignorance. After winning the Nevada Republican primary in 2016, he declared: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
Similarly, 58% of Republicans and Right-wingers believe that higher education has a negative effect on the country.
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders. And in seeking a reasoning and educated future for their children.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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JFK: ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER: PART FIVE (OF TEN)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 8, 2022 at 9:43 amThe Kennedy administration’s unprecedented attack on organized crime has led some law enforcement experts to believe the Mob engineered President Kennedy’s assassination.
One of these is G. Robert Blakey, father of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. As the former Chief Counsel and Staff Director to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (1977–1979) he oversaw the second official inquiry into the Kennedy assassination.
As a result, he believes the Mob had ample means, motive and opportunity to arrange for a “nut” to kill the President.
In his 1980 book, The Plot to Kill the President, Blakey asserted:
The 1983 TV mini-series, “Blood Feud,” clearly implied that the Mob was responsible. At its heart lay the 10-year conflict between Robert F. Kennedy and James R. Hoffa, then president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union.
This was also the plot of American Tabloid, a 1995 novel by James Ellroy.
But investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that during the five years he researched The Dark Side of Camelot, his expose of the hidden life of President Kennedy, he didn’t uncover any evidence of such a plot.
After Robert Kennedy left the Justice Department in 1964 to run for the post of U.S. Senator from New York, the Justice Department slacked off its push against the crime syndicates.
But the war was resurrected during the Nixon administration and has remained a top priority ever since.
Perhaps the most controversial legacy of the Kennedy administration remains the President’s dealings with the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.,
In 1954, the French—who had controlled Vietnam for 80 years—were forced to withdraw their military forces from the country. Their army had suffered a humiliating defeat at Dienbenphu and the French citizenry—still recovering from defeat and Nazi occupation during World War II—demanded an end to the disastrous conflict.
Into this political vacuum stepped the victorious North Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh.
Kennedy—then U.S. Senator from Massachusetts—had visited Vietnam while the French were still trying to hold onto one of their last colonial possessions. And he had urged them to withdraw and allow the Vietnamese to govern themselves.
But President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware of Ho’s overwhelming popularity throughout Vietnam due to his battles against Japanese and French colonialists. In any nationwide election, Ho was certain to win the presidency.
But Eisenhower felt he couldn’t allow an avowed Communist to rule Vietnam. With the North under firm Communist control, America focused its attention on the South.
Searching for an acceptable alternative, Eisenhower found him in Ngo Dinh Diem—a mandarin in a nation swept by revolution, a Catholic in a nation with an 80% Buddhist population.
In 1954, America began backing Diem. Although his first years were marked by social progress, he later became increasingly oppressive toward the Buddhist majority. Corruption openly flourished among government and army officials.
Ngo Dinh Diem
In 1960, North Vietnam launched an aggressive campaign of infiltration and assassination across South Vietnam.
In 1961, President Kennedy sent 400 Green Berets and 100 other military advisers to South Vietnam to offer support.
Diem requested American financing of a 100,000-man increase in his army. Kennedy agreed to an increase of 30,000. Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that 40,000 U.S. troops would be needed to “clean up the Vietcong threat.”
Kennedy underestimated the reaction of North Vietnam, whose forces were fighting what they believed was a crusade. As American troop strength increased, the North escalated its own commitment.
From 1961 to 1963, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam steadily rose from 685 to 16,732. American minesweepers patrolled the coasts while their aircraft engaged in surveillance.
For the first time, Americans became casualties of the war–especially those in helicopter combat-support missions.
Meanwhile, Diem—urged by his influential brother, Nhu, who ran the secret police—cracked down on the Buddhists.
Government troops fired on a peaceful demonstration in May, 1963. In protest, Buddhist monks burned themselves to death before TV cameras.
Nhu’s beautiful and powerful wife, Madame Nhu, fed growing world outrage by her ridicule of “monk barbecue shows.”
American efforts to stop Diem’s anti-Buddhist campaign failed. On August 21, 1963, Diem’s police shot their way into Buddhist pagodas, killing scores and arresting hundreds.
This finally convinced the Kennedy administration that Diem would never gain the popular support he needed to win the war against the Communist North.
As a result, the administration offered support to South Vietnamese military officers planning a coup against Diem.
On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese army units stormed the presidential palace. Diem and Nhu fled, but were caught and shot. Madame Nhu, visiting the U.S. at the time, escaped death, accusing Kennedy of supporting the coup.
The administration issued a flat denial.
Diem’s assassination was followed 21 days later by Kennedy’s own.
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