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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, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 2, 2024 at 12:10 am
Why aren’t Republicans—allegedly the party of “family values”—morally outraged at Donald Trump for his adulterous tryst with a porn “star” and his hush money payment to conceal it during the 2016 Presidential campaign?
Why are they instead outraged at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself?
Republican party logo
Simple: They see Trump as their best chance to not only reclaim the White House but establish a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
Under this, the Republican party will become—in fact, if not officially—the only recognized political party in the nation.
Democratic candidates—for the House, Senate and Presidency—will be prevented from taking office by gerrymandering or false claims that they committed election fraud.
These—and other goals—have been enshrined in Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- The Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House. The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- Funding for the Department of Justice would be slashed.
- The FBI would be dismantled.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
* * * * *
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….
“[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”
On November 8, 2016, 62,984,828 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man, charged conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
And on November 3, 2020, 74,223,975 of those same Americans again voted for him. This despite Trump’s legacy of:
- Brutally attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Lying about the dangers of the deadly COVID-19 virus, thus allowing it to ravage the country and kill 400,000 Americans.
- Refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election in 2020 and falsely claiming himself the victim of massive voter fraud.
- Inciting thousands of his followers to storm the United States Capitol Building to prevent the winner, Joe Biden, from being declared President-elect.
So why have millions of Americans stood by Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?
Their #1 reason: Hatred—of most of their fellow Americans.
Fortunately, 80 million Americans braved the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts by Republicans to overturn their voting rights—and elected Joseph Biden President of the United States.
Only time will tell if the country proves so lucky in 2024.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 1, 2024 at 12:10 am
The May 31, 2024 episode of Washington Week With the Atlantic raised the question: Why were Republicans so obsessed with Bill Clinton’s adulterous affair with Monica Lewinsky but are furiously supporting Donald Trump’s tryst with Stormy Daniels?
Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg opened with: “Donald Trump isn’t a convicted felon yet. Sorry to be pedantic here, but he technically acquires that status only at sentencing come July 11th.
“But a New York jury has spoken, finding him guilty of engaging in a financial scheme to keep the porn star, Stormy Daniels, quiet about their sexual encounter, one that occurred shortly after Trump’s wife gave birth to their son.
“Trump, in addition to this guilty verdict, was recently found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. In total, more than 25 women have accused him of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
“The reaction of the Republican Party leaders to the verdict was to rally around Trump. Evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, also doubled down on their support. Graham, writing on X, said, ‘What we saw today has never happened before, and I think for the majority of Americans, it raises questions about whether our legal system can be trusted….’
“[In] the 1990s…. when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans were outraged and many other people were legitimately outraged that the president of the United States was having sexual relations with a White House intern. Explain to us, if you can, the different dynamics here, the party of family values.”
McKay Coppins, staff writer at the Atlantic: “Well, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the way the Republican party, the conservative movement, think about morality and public leadership.
“Something that I always think about when issues like this come up is that before Donald Trump came on the scene, I can’t remember, it was 2013, 2014, if you surveyed Republican voters and asked them how important is public — it is personal morality in an elected leader to you.
“Something like two-thirds of them would say it’s very important, that I would rather have somebody of high moral character than somebody with policies I agree with.
“A couple years into the Trump presidency, that had flipped and it was only a third of voters said that that was the case, if you were a Republican.
McKay Coppins
“And it just shows kind of the sea change in evangelical ethics and social conservative ethics. I think a lot of conservatives now, because of negative partisanship and polarization….they want to, you know, line up with their team right?
“They want to be with their guy, and then they kind of create a moral architecture around being able to do that.
“But, you know, [he] cheated on his wife with a porn star, and then….is now been convicted of committing fraud to cover it up.
“[It’s] almost a cliché to say if a Democrat had done that, we know what we would be hearing from social conservatives and evangelicals, but they want Donald Trump to be elected.
“And so they are pivoting away from the specifics of the case and the underlying facts of the case to [say] this is a rigged system, this is a legal persecution, Donald Trump is a victim, and we need to back him because they’re going to come after us next.”
There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in the foregoing. But there is also a great deal of truth in a statement that was not made:
Republicans’ professed outrage at Bill Clinton’s infidelities and their furious defense of those by Donald Trump actually share a common link.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, once the poster boy for Republican values, best described the current mindset of the Republican party. Ironically enough, at the time, he was assailing the leaders of the Soviet Union:
“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
Ronald Reagan
In January, 1998, when the public learned of President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Republicans gushed moral outrage.
They portrayed Lewinsky—who had had a seven-year extramarital affair with her former high school drama instructor and flashed her thong at Clinton, signaling her readiness for an affair—as a Vestal Virgin, and Clinton as Grigori Rasputin incarnate.
By 1992, Republicans had come to regard the White House as theirs by Divine Right. Anyone who ran against them automatically became—for them—a traitor. And anyone who won against them became—for them—an usurper.
Thus, Clinton’s true “crime” had been defeating, first, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992, and then Kansas Senator Bob Dole, in 1996.
Fast-forward to the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a sexual tryst with porn “star” Stormy Daniels.
Suddenly, Republicans aim their cries of moral outrage not at Trump but at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself.
The reason: They see Trump as their best chance for not simply reclaiming the White House but for establishing a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 28, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is a secular, political organization that leads the Republican party of the United States.
But on February 4, 2022, it acted as the reincarnation of the Spanish Inquisition—a judicial institution which attacked heresy in Spain from 1478 to 1834.
Under its reign of terror, countless “heretical” men and women found themselves sentenced by kangaroo courts to hideous torture and death.
Seal of the Spanish Inquisition
User:Di (they-them), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On February 4, 2022, the RNC’s chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, “cast out” two fellow Republicans: Representtives Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Ronna Romney McDaniel
Part One of this series analyzed the first major paragraph of this censure. Part Two will analyze the remaining six.
“WHEREAS, Winning back the majority in Congress, including the United States House of Representatives, in 2022 must be the primary goal of the House Republican Conference (“Conference”) and requires all Republicans working together to accomplish the same….”
- Here, at least, the RNC and its chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, offered the truth: Gaining absolute power over the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government is this party’s “primary goal.”
- Punishing those who engage in treasonous attacks on Constitutional government is not a priority—so long as the perpetrators are Fascistic Right-wingers.
“WHEREAS, The Conference must not be sabotaged by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who have demonstrated, with actions and words, that they support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022….
DESTROYING PRESIDENT TRUMP:
- It was Trump who tried to destroy Constitutional government by stripping every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. Had he succeeded, there would have been:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for remaining in office in 2020—and thereafter—as “President-for-Life.”
WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger have engaged in actions in their positions as members of the January 6th Select Committee not befitting Republican of Congress, which include the Committee’s disregard for minority rights, traditional checks and balances, due process, and adherence to other precedent and rules of the U.S. House and which seem intent on advancing a political agenda to buoy the Democrat bleak prospects in the upcoming midterm elections….”
WINNING BACK A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN 2022:
- This, for the RNC, takes precedence over investigating a treasonous plot to overthrow democratic government and establish a one-party (Republican) state, presided over by a lifetime criminal and proven traitor.
Liz Cheney
Adam Kinzinger
“WHEREAS, Congressional Republicans bear ultimate responsibility for their own success or failure and the RNC supports their efforts by denouncing those who deliberately jeopardize victory in November on which the future of our constitutional republic depends at this critical moment in history….”
DELIBERATELY JEOPARDIZING VICTORY:
- Once again, the RNC admits that gaining absolute power for itself takes precedence over investigating and punishing those who sought to overthrow American democracy.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger purport to be members of the Republican Party….”
“PURPORT” TO BE REPUBLICANS:
- Liz Cheney had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Wyoming since 2017. She voted in line with Trump’s policies 93% of the time, according to the data journalism site Five Thirty-Eight.
- Heritage Action, a Right-wing policy advocacy organization, gave her a “lifetime score” of 80%.
- Adam Kinzinger had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois since 2011.
- According to Five Thirty-Eight, he voted in support of Trump’s agenda 90% of the time,
- Thus, the “crime” committed by Cheney and Kinzinger was to investigate the treasonous attempted coup by a lifelong criminal and would-be tyrant.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it
“RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee hereby formally censures Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.”
* * * * * * * * *
The RNC’s action was one worthy of the Spanish Inquisition.
And it serves as a warning to democracy-loving Americans of the fate awaiting them if Republicans’ revenge fantasies become reality.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 27, 2024 at 12:10 am
On February 4, 2022, the Republican National Committee (RNC) officially endorsed the use of violence on behalf of the party.
It described the January 6, 2021 attack on the nation’s Capitol—a violent and treasonous attempt to prevent the orderly and legal transition of power from one President to another—as “legitimate political discourse.”
This is no private opinion of a single Republican—or even a fringe group of Republicans.
The RNC is described on Wikipedia as:
“A U.S. political committee that leads the Republican party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising, election strategy, and a ‘party brand.’ It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Convention.”
The endorsement came during an official censure of two of the Committee’s fellow Republicans—Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Predictably, the statement opened with a series of grotesque lies:
“WHEREAS, The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism; eliminate border security in favor of lawless, open borders; create record inflation designed to steal the American dream from our children and grandchildren; neuter our national defense and a peace through strength foreign policy; replace President ‘Operation Warp Speed’ with incompetence and illegal mandates; and destroy America’s economy with the Green New Deal….”
To address these lies:
REPLACING LIBERTY WITH SOCIALISM:
- It was Donald Trump—not Joseph Biden—who said that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”
- It was Trump—not Biden—who attacked American Intelligence agencies for their unanimous conclusion that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 Presidential election.
- It was Trump—not Biden—who never once attacked nor even criticized Putin, although he has viciously attacked literally hundreds of others, verbally and on Twitter.
Donald Trump
ELIMINATING BORDER SECURITY:
- Attacking Hispanics—both those who are United States citizens and those who wish to become citizens—is a potent weapon for Republicans. It’s the single most galvanizing issue for their base, and the one guaranteed to win and retain Right-wing votes.
- The Biden administration—like every previous administration—is trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens on the southern border. But it’s a never-ending struggle marked by legal and logistical complications.
CREATE RECORD INFLATION:
- Biden—like every other President—has few weapons to use in controlling inflation. Much of this has been caused by COVID-19 and the resulting slowdowns and/or shutdowns in employment it has produced.
- As a capitalist nation, the United States does not often intervene in what is euphemistically called “the free enterprise system”—even though much of that is dominated by predatory corporations.
- Biden could propose legislation making price-gouging a Federal crime, punishable by a lengthy prison term. But this—modeled on the anti-extortion provisions in the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—would never gain Republican Congressional support.
NEUTER OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE:
- It was Trump—not Biden—who tried to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
- Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the Congressionally authorized $400 million in military aid.
- It was Trump who repeatedly defended Vladimir Putin while attacking America’s longstanding allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
REPLACE “OPERATION WARP SPEED” WITH INCOMPETENCE, ILLEGAL MANDATES:
- Trump learned how deadly the virus was in January, 2020. But he publicly denied this and attacked mask-wearing and social distancing.
- He attacked governors who issued stay-at-home orders to contain the virus—and incited his followers to defy those orders.
- He secretly got vaccinated before leaving office and only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of vaccinations.
- His legacy of defying science continues to live on in his millions of Stormtrumper followers—who refuse to mask up, social distance and, most importantly, get vaccinated. The vast majority of those now flooding hospital ER and ICU rooms—and graveyards—are unvaccinated.
- Biden instead launched a nationwide campaign to persuade Americans to wear masks, socially distance and, above all, get vaccinated.
DESTROY AMERICA’S ECONOMY WITH A GREEN NEW DEAL:
- Despite Right-wing lies to the contrary, global warming is an established fact.
- If there is to be any chance of halting—let alone reversing—the planet-threatening dangers this brings, it must come through the elimination of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
- But corporate CEOs—such as West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin—have a vested financial interest in continuing the sale of fossil fuels.
- And they have the backing of corrupt Right-wing politicians and millions of their voters who refuse to accept science.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 26, 2024 at 12:11 am
Donald Trump made a return to waterboarding terrorism suspects a prime issue in his campaign for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.
And a March 30, 2016 Reuters/lpsos poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that the use of torture could be justified to force suspected terrorists to talk.
A growing fear by Americans of Islamic terrorism had been ignited by a series of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States.
Frightening a prisoner in Iraq
In fact, however, torture, generally, and waterboarding in particular, have proven worthless at obtaining reliable information.
Victims will say anything they think their captors want to hear to stop the agony.
Yoshia Chee, a Special Forces veteran of Vietnam, recalled his use of torture against suspected Vietcong:
“One of the favorite things was popping one of their eyeballs out with a spoon….
“If I had one of my eyeballs hanging out, I’d say I killed Kennedy. I’d agree to anything in the whole world.
“We would do that, and they still wouldn’t talk….You rarely got anything out of them. Just more hatred. More reason to fight back.”
Click here: Strange Ground: An Oral History Of Americans In Vietnam, 1945-1975: Harry Maurer: 9780306808395: Amazon.com: Books
During the George W. Bush Presidency, the CIA relied on harsh physical punishments—beatings, humiliations and waterboarding—to convince suspects to talk. These were euphemistically referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Upon assuming the Presidency in 2009, Barack Obama ordered an immediate halt to such methods. Since then, Republicans generally and their Presidential aspirants in particular have harshly criticized Obama’s decision.
Like Trump, they claimed that Obama had endangered American security in the name of Political Correctness. In turn, Obama argued that the use of torture produces unreliable information and inflames Muslim hatred of America.
Meanwhile, the FBI applied its traditional “kill them with kindness” approach to interrogation. And agents found this yielded far greater results.
For one thing, most Al Qaeda members relished appearing before grand juries.
Unlike organized crime members, they were talkative—and even tried to proselytize to the jury members. They were proud of what they had done—and wanted to talk.
“This is what the FBI does,” said Mike Rolince, an FBI expert on counter-terrorism. “Nearly 100% of the terrorists we’ve taken into custody have confessed. The CIA wasn’t trained. They don’t do interrogations.”
According to The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror (2011) jihadists had been taught to expect severe torture at the hands of American interrogators.
Writes Author Garrett M. Graff:
“Often, in the FBI’s experience, their best cooperation came when detainees realized they weren’t going to get tortured, that the United States wasn’t the Great Satan. Interrogators were figuring out…that not playing into Al Qaeda’s propaganda could produce victories.”
And the FBI isn’t alone in believing that acts of simple humanity can turn even sworn enemies into allies.
No less an authority on “real-politick” than Niccolo Machiavelli reached the same conclusion more than 500 years ago.
In his small and notorious book, The Prince, he writes about the methods a ruler must use to gain power. But in his larger and lesser-known masterwork, The Discourses, he outlines the ways that liberty can be maintained in a republic.
Niccolo Machiavelli
For Machiavelli, only a well-protected state can hope for peace and prosperity. Toward that end, he wrote at length about the best ways to succeed militarily. And in war, humanity can prevail at least as often as inhumanity.
Consider the following example from The Discourses:
Camillus [a Roman general] was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it….A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city [to ingratiate himself] with Camillus and the Romans, led these children…into the Roman camp.
And presenting them to Camillus [the teacher] said to him: “By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.”
Camillus not only declined the offer but had the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back….[Then Camillus] had a rod put into the hands of each of the children…[and] directed them to whip [the teacher] all the way back to the city.
Upon learning this fact, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense.
This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity.
It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.
This truth should be remembered whenever Right-wingers brag about their patriotism and willingness to “get tough“ with America’s enemies.
Many—like Newt Gingrich, Rudolph Giuliani, Rick Santorum, Eduardo “Ted” Cruz and Donald Trump—strenuously avoided military service. These “chickenhawks” talk tough and are always ready to send others into battle—but keep themselves well out of harm’s way.
Such men are not merely contemptible; they are dangerous.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 25, 2024 at 12:10 am
As Donald Trump campaigned for the Presidency in 2016, nearly two-thirds of Americans endorsed the use of torture to force suspected terrorists to talk, according to a March 30, 2016 Reuters/lpsos poll.
A growing fear by Americans of Islamic terrorism had been ignited by a series of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States.
- On November 13, 2015 in Paris, France, terrorists belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) killed more than 100 people.
- On December 2, 2015, a married Islamic couple shot and killed 14 people at the Department of Public Health in San Bernardino, California.
- And on March 22, 2016, a series of ISIS attacks struck Brussels, Belgium. Two explosions at the city’s main international airport and a third in a subway station killed 31 persons and injured 270 more.
Click here: Most Americans Say Torturing Suspected Terrorists Is Justifiable
And the chief beneficiary of this growing fear among Americans proved to be Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Since declaring his candidacy for the 2016 Republican nomination for President in June, 2015, Trump made the use of torture a major campaign issue. He promised to end the waterboarding ban that President Barack Obama declared at the start of his term in 2009.
During a campaign event at Arizona’s Sun City retirement community, Trump said he would reinstate waterboarding and techniques that are “so much worse” and “much stronger.”
“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work—torture works,” Trump said. “Okay, folks? Torture—you know, half these guys [say]: ‘torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works. Okay?”
How he knew it worked remained unclear, since he had never served in the military or law enforcement.
And in a February 15. 2016 Op-Ed piece for USA Today, Trump declared: “I will do whatever it takes.
“I have made it clear in my campaign that I would support and endorse the use of enhanced interrogation techniques if the use of these methods would enhance the protection and safety of the nation,” he wrote.
“Though the effectiveness of many of these methods may be in dispute, nothing should be taken off the table when American lives are at stake.
“The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind.”
The Reuters/lpsos online poll of 1,976 Americans occurred between March 22 and 28, 2016. Among its findings:
- About 25% said that the use of torture can “often” be justified against suspected terrorists.
- Another 38% said such tactics were “sometimes” appropriate in order to obtain information.
- Only 15% opposed torture under all circumstances.
Past surveys found Americans less comfortable with the controversial tactic.
In 2014, a poll by Amnesty International revealed that about 45% of Americans supported the use of torture against terrorism suspects.
Unfortunately for Americans, the truth about torture generally—and waterboarding in particular—-is that it doesn’t work.
Victims will say anything they think their captors want to hear to stop the agony. And, in fact, subsequent investigations have shown that just that happened with Al Qaeda suspects.
Humiliating a captive at Abu Ghraib Prison
Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001, hundreds of Al Qaeda members started falling into American hands. And so did a great many others who were simply accused by rival warlords of being Al Qaeda members.
The only way to learn if Al Qaeda was planning any more 9/11-style attacks on the United States was to interrogate those suspected captives. The question was: How?
The CIA and the Pentagon quickly took the “gloves off” approach. Their methods included such “stress techniques” as playing loud music and flashing strobe lights to keep detainees awake.
Some were “softened up” prior to interrogation by “third-degree” beatings. And still others were waterboarded.
In 2003, an FBI agent observing a CIA “interrogation” at Guantanamo, Cuba, was stunned to see a detainee sitting on the floor, wrapped in an Israeli flag. Nearby, music blared and strobe slights flashed.
In Osama bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of war against America, he had accused the country of being controlled by the Jews, saying the United States “served the Jews’ petty state.”
Draping an Islamic captive with an Israeli flag could only confirm such propaganda.
The FBI, on the other hand, followed its traditional “kill them with kindness” approach to interrogation.
Pat D’Amuro, a veteran FBI agent who had led the Bureau’s investigation into the 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, warned FBI Director Robert Mueller III:
The FBI should not be a party in the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” They wouldn’t work and wouldn’t produce the dramatic results the CIA hoped for.
But there was a bigger danger, D’Amuro warned: “We’ll be handing every future defense attorney Giglio material.”
The Supreme Court had ruled in Giglio vs. the United States (1972) that the personal credibility of a government official was admissible in court.
Any FBI agent who made use of extra-legal interrogation techniques could potentially have that issue raised every time he testified in court on any other matter.
It was a defense attorney’s dream-come-true recipe for impeaching an agent’s credibility—and thus ruin his investigative career.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on June 24, 2024 at 12:10 am
On October 7, 2023, about 2,500 Hamas terrorists launched coordinated attacks on Israeli outposts and settlements, firing over 5,000 rockets and burning houses.
They killed over 1,139 people, of which 695 were civilians—including women, children and the elderly. They also kidnapped over 250 others—including 30 children—to Gaza.
Most of those hostages have since been murdered.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. Palestinian health authorities claim that Israel’s ground and air campaign has killed more than 35,000 people,
Liberal Democrats have demanded that President Joseph Biden stop shipping military equipment to Israel.
The World Court has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Three European countries—Spain, Ireland, and Norway—announced that they would recognize a Palestinian state.
Across the United States, scores of university students have protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.
Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.
Columbia University, Barnard College and the University of Southern California (USC) canceled their graduation ceremonies owing to fears of violent protests by terrorism-sympathizing students.
Such holier-than-thou attitudes ignore three important truths:
First: Soldiering is by its nature a brutal business.
- The purpose of boot camp is to “break down” the restraints of pacifism and individuality and turn “boys” into “fighting men.” This must be done in weeks, so the process is shockingly brutal.
- Recruits are repeatedly taught such maxims as: “Ambushes are murder—and murder is fun.”
- Denigrating the enemy is a time-worn habit in all armies—including the American army. During the Indian wars, soldiers referred to Indians as “Red niggers.”
- In World War II—the “Good War”—America’s servicemen fought “Japs” and “Krauts.” During the Vietnam war, Vietnamese became “dinks” and “gooks.”
Marine drill instructor
- Today’s servicemen and women routinely (but unofficially) refer to their Islamic enemies as “ragheads” or “sand niggers.”
- Soldiers who aren’t toughened by boot camp are by the battlefield. As General George S. Patton often warned: “When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.”
- Those who are demanding that Israel “pause” its offensive against Gaza ignore that when Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, the capitol of Nazi Germany, Americans did not demand that Nazis be given a chance to reorganize and counterattack.
Second: Atrocities in wartime are nothing new—including for U.S. forces.
- During the Mexican War, Texas Rangers accompanying the U.S. Army acted as commandos—and exacted reprisals against Mexicans engaging in terrorist acts.
- During the army’s wars against the Indians, soldiers and scouts—such as William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody—routinely took scalps as trophies.
- During World War II, Marines posted in the Pacific rarely took prisoners. The reason: Japanese soldiers often pretended to surrender––and thus lured American troops into ambushes.
- GIs fighting in the European theater generally shot fanatical Waffen-SS soldiers—including those who tried to surrender. This was especially true during the Battle of the Bulge, when Germans dressed in American uniforms stirred panic among Allied forces.
Waffen-SS soldier
- During the Vietnam war, some “grunts” made necklaces of ears taken from dead Vietcong. Vietnam Correspondent Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches, relates the story of a grunt who was “building his own gook” from actual body parts.
Third: Those who provoke war do not have a right to dictate how their opponents should defend themselves.
- In 1815, just before the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson ordered American snipers to harass invading British forces—and especially to take out officers. The British commander angrily protested this “barbarism.” Jackson sent back a message of his own: “You have invaded our country and we will defend ourselves as we see fit.”
- William Tecumseh Sherman, defending the conduct of his men during their legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia, said: “Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
- Israelis have learned to deter Palestinian suicide-bombers by the use of police dogs. Muslims protest because they consider dogs defiled—and defiling—creatures. Islamic terrorists fear that blowing up themselves near a dog risks mingling their blood with that of the dead or wounded animal—thus forfeiting their opportunity to enter Paradise and claim those 72 willing virgins.
- In early November, 2001—two months after 9/11—Muslims throughout the Islamic world demanded that the United States halt its attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan out of “respect” for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
- In short: Islamic “holy warriors” could launch attacks that murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children. But “infidels” were supposed to defend themselves according to Islamic rules.
- The United States wisely refused to bow to this Islamic version of “political correctness.”
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In Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 21, 2024 at 12:05 am
On October 3, 2022, former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN for defamation.
Seeking $475 million in punitive damages, he charged the network with conducting a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Trump claimed that CNN had used its influence to defeat him politically.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the lawsuit claimed.
The lawsuit focused largely on CNN’s use of the term, “The Big Lie,” to describe Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 Presidential election.
The phrase dates from Adolf Hitler’s use of it in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: People “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Trump’s lawsuit claimed “The Big Lie” had been used in referring to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January, 2021.
In addition, the lawsuit cited instances where CNN compared Trump to Hitler. In a January, 2022 report, Fareed Zakaria provided footage of Germany’s dictator.
On July 28, 2023, a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, threw out Trump’s defamation lawsuit.
U.S. Judge Raag Singhal, who was nominated by Trump in 2019, said CNN’s words were opinion, not fact, and therefore could not be the subject of a defamation claim.
“CNN’s statements while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory,” wrote Singhal. “Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim.”
Trump, in fact, had zero chance of winning his lawsuit.
First: Donald Trump is a public figure—arguably the most public figure in the world. Plaintiffs who are public figures or government officials must prove themselves victims of actual malice to collect damages.
In the landmark case, New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) the Supreme Court declared that actual malice occurs when a statement is made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
This is a more stringent standard than private citizens have to meet, which is negligence.
Donald Trump
Second: Truth is an absolute defense against libel (unless the plaintiff is suing for invasion of privacy). And Trump’s history as a liar, criminal and traitor has been thoroughly established.
Liar:
- He created the lie that Barack Obama—whose birth certificate states unequivocally that he was born in Hawaii—was not an American citizen. The reason: To de-legitimize Obama as a Presidential candidate and President.
- Throughout 2020, he repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID-19—attacking medical experts who urged citizens to mask up and social distance. As a result, by the time he left office, 400,000 Americans had died of COVID.
Criminal:
- He has been forced to shut down his Trump Foundation and forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.
- He was also forced to close his unaccredited Trump University for scamming its students. He had promised to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with many of those students.
Traitor:
- On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The reason: To obtain “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
- On July 27, 2016, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
These incidents were nothing less than treason—inviting a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
Third—and perhaps the most important of all: In a libel suit, the plaintiff must answer—under oath—all questions put to him by the defendant’s attorneys.
Trump, better than anyone, knows the depths of his own criminality. Just as Al Capone knew his notoriety for evil would make it impossible for him to win a libel suit, so does Trump.
On August 10, 2022, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination nearly 450 times during a deposition at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, in its probe into the Trump Organization’s business practices.
And during April-May, 2024 trial for paying hush-money to porn “star” Stormy Daniels, he refused to take the witness stand.
If he refused to testify as a litigant in a libel suit, the suit would be dismissed by the judge.
So why did he file a defamation suit against CNN?
Money—not by winning an impossible lawsuit, but by raising it from his gullible and Fascistic followers.
He could claim “The court system is rigged against me.” And know that his Stormtrumper army would gladly empty their pockets—to pay his ever-mounting legal expenses.
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YOUTH, COURAGE AND IDEALISM–NOW SORELY NEEDED IN A PRESIDENT: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 4, 2024 at 12:10 amOn 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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