THE GOP RED LINE This week, Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, one of the most extreme members of the Tea Party movement announced that he would not run for re-election in 2024. Buck’s unstated reason for this decision was his recognition that his position that the 2020 election was not stolen and that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president, is a position so at odds with the beliefs of Republican voters that he would have no likelihood of success if he did run in the 2024 election.
Remember that in 1980, Ronald Reagan declared himself for states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, near where the Freedom Summer killings occurred and the KKK had reigned, then his campaign sabotaged the release of the hostages from Iran to hurt Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign. The republican party really hasn't changed.
We remenber.That was the start of the modern, Murdoch age. A long progression that we could go on and on with for hours to distract us from what is necessary NOW.
Evil including Ike, who made the great scumbag John Foster Dulles his Secretary of State.
Overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, destroying the last chance for a modern, western-oriented nationalism to take power in the Mideast. Installing the Shah led directly to the revolution of 1978 and our non-relationship with Iran today.
Overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, who wanted to institute land reform and allow the peasants of Central America a chance to join the 20th century - leading directly to the instability of Central America in the 70 years since.
Opposition to the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954, support of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Korea and refusal to hold the national elections in 1955 knowing Ho Chi Minh would win, leading to 20 years of war in Southeast Asia and the comeuppance of America.
Planning and approval of attempted overthrow of Castro in Cuba, leading to 65 years of not-so-cold war between US and Cuba.
All instigated by SecState Dulles and his brother Allen, head of the CIA, done with the approval of Ike.
And next chapter of the Chicago School of ruining the economics of many SA countries while supporting & creating police states in Chile & Argentina.etc.
One cannot begin to either comprehend or understand anything that happened during America’s involvement in the Southeast Asian wars of the 1960s without understanding that those events did not arise de novo with the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960. America’s wars in Southeast Asia were a long time coming. The United States had been effectively at war in Southeast Asia since 1950, and in many ways for much longer than that.
Perhaps the best description of what Americans would bring to the region is the famous line in Graham Greene’s novel of the First Indochina War, “The Quiet American,” in which the novel’s protagonist, cynical British journalist Thomas Fowler - a stand-in for Greene, who wrote the novel from experience - describes the title character, Alden Pyle: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused... impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance.”
At the same time, the Americans who came to Southeast Asia to fight could be compared with another fictional character, the detective Jake Gittes of Chinatown, who only gradually gains the terrible awareness of his own helplessness in the face of the omnipresence of power and abuse, “the futility of good intentions.”
John F. Kennedy, who could well be seen as the embodiment of Alden Pyle, and was perhaps more responsible than any other American for the wartime involvement of his country in Southeast Asia, visited South Vietnam as a young congressman on a fact-finding investigation in 1952. After two weeks of meetings with officials and dinner conversations with French colons in Saigon, and after receiving a quick tour of the countryside, he returned to the United States and wrote presciently of the trip in his diary: “We are more and more becoming colonialists in the minds of the people. Because everyone believes that we control the U.N. and because our wealth is supposedly inexhaustible, we will be damned if we don’t do what the new nations want.” Ten years later, one could argue he had forgotten every moment of his visit, every sight seen, every conversation engaged in.
TC, you have a vast political, historical and military knowledge of Asia. I do not. But the economic and political realities in SA were 1st scary. And have informed my reading and d growth ever since.
No but I was in SA in 1975 with people that lived it. The people that 'want" insurrection" need have a lived experience in a country going through it or one where the army is ascendant without that civilization order of what we have had...pretty scary reality. Good luck living in a police state thinking you can say or do whatever you want, as we do now under the 1st ammendment protections. Good luck thinking that fantasy survives the revolution.
Certainly sounds like a film I would like to see. I met people fleeing Chile & Argentina in the 1970s when I was in SA. Amazing to realize how the military disappeared so many people and how cavalier so many imbeciles embrace fascism here. They have no idea what a nightmare this is and how lucky they are, now, to be living in a democracy.
Far better for the US than for the world. I had forgotton a lot of those. My Dad (WWII Vet, USAAC SSgt) would never wear an "I Like Ike" button for those very reasons.
I remember sitting in the living room watching the Watergate hearings with him, and he said something to the effect "Nixon makes Eisenhower look good."
Indeed, details that I missed. I’ll blame it on being young and so impressed with Ike, the hero. And he was in so many ways. I remember my dad blathering on about JFD. It wasn’t til JFK murder that I became “woke” to politics. Thank you, I’ll keep that history lesson handy to pass on.
that's more or less what I tell people when they speak longingly of how great everything was when Ike was president and how great he was, mostly because of his now-famous (one-time barely mentioned) about the "military-industrial complex," since it came to exist on his watch.
anyone who's read Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes" (and the sequel he's been working on) will not be very quick to talk about the honesty and pluck of America's behavior in the postwar era. economically, we were all a lot better off (if we were solidly middle class or working class backed by a strong union), but the behavior of our intelligence agencies (foreign and domestic)--at least until after the Church Committee disclosed how badly they'd been acting--was inexcusable.
in 1969, when I was doing the European backpacking thing (backpack plus very heavy Olympia that was only barely "portable"), we'd run into some kids our age (20) and they'd point out people they said were CIA agents. I'd nod and think about how paranoid they sounded (this happened in at least three places, but especially in Athens) and how generally level-headed I was. "Ignorant woe!" to quote Allen Ginsberg.
even when I was way too young to know what they were actually talking about, I remember every adult I knew practically spitting when they said the name "Dulles."
in their personal lives, the Dulles boys were opposites: John Foster was prudish and puritanical; Allen was a heavy womanizer. it seems to me that, at least on the surface, their jobs mirrored their personalities. but they were a formidably evil family and together caused irreparable damage...first, for their intended victims and then for the rest of us.
"I've lost my innocence" is easy to say; living it can hurt like a motherfucker.
you're not going back far enough...there was Nixon's 1968 treason. and even THAT was the culmination of many years of Bad Republican Shit.
it seems to me that the major new blip that Reagan and his guys introduced was the beginning of the Repugs' successful attempt to absorb the evangelicals.
Shocking! You mean the Repub's "god" Reagan did something underhanded? (bit of sarcasm there) Remembering the welfare queen issue. I think Eisenhower was the last decent (as far as I know) Republican politician - downhill trajectory all the way to the bottom orange.
Ike was decent domestically. So far as foreign policy is concerned, see my post elsewhere in this thread - he and John Foster Dulles did a good job of putting the Cold War in the deep freeze.
I just vaguely remember Ike & Nixon(?) - my mother was REPUBLICAN!! Went all out on Nixon after that. And back then I really didnt pay any attention to politics. I was 15 at the time AND just got my first horse - that was all she wrote!!
This current crop makes Ike look damn good. Was Ike sort of like LBJ, got real chicken Schitt advice from his “smartest people in the room.” Or, was he aware of the damage. Bill Moyers quoted LBJ as saying, one has to act based on the information you have. And you never have the whole story. Or words to that effect. I would say, less is better in that case. But people thinking that they are keeping worse things from happening, often do the worst damage. As a parent, I know that to be true.
based on everything I've read, LBJ wasn't ever a foreign policy guy and was extremely simplistic and naive about the "evils of communism" and seems to have completely accepted the prevailing ignorance on display from the "smartest guys in the room," all of whom accepted the Domino Theory as Always True. of course, at the same time, LBJ's domestic plans represented a brilliant re-flowering of the unfinished New Deal coupled with an abiding (and very genuine) need to include the formerly unincluded. this is precisely what makes LBJ's presidency something right out of Aristotle, when old Telly describes the Tragic Hero.
when the late, great, much-lamented Michael Gambon was playing LBJ for that HBO movie, he said that LBJ was a more grandly tragic figure than anyone he'd ever played (and he'd played a towering Lear and the definitive Galileo, so the competition was pretty fierce).
when it was all going on and we were all marching, I made up my mind to avoid all those chants in which LBJ was some kind of cartoon villain ("hey, hey LBJ..." etc.). consequently, I feel like a little less of a schmuck than I tend to feel when I'm remembering how stupid and nasty I've sometimes been.
Johnson used to joke about how there were all those "New Frontiersmen from Harvard" who he kept on after the assassination - McGeorge Bundy, McNamara, etc. - in a cabinet meeting, and how they were reporting to "a graduate of Southwestern State Teacher's College," but he really was intellectually intimidated by those guys. When I researched "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" and "Going Downtown," what became clear was the president who got us into Vietnam and had no intention of getting out, no matter how many Good Liberals tell you the CIA killed him because he was going to quit the Cold War (he never was), was JFK. Period. The guys who were always in for more "escalation" were the Kennedy Guys (until McNamara finally collapsed - what a *moron* he was). The guy who didn't want to escalate, who got dragged to each one kicking and screaming, and delayed saying yes till it actually harmed things, that guy was LBJ. But the goddamned Kennedy Scum (after researching those books, I wish I hadn't worked for that 3-faced pig's election in 1960 - at least with Nixon you'd have known you were getting a lying shitbird) worked assiduously to scrub off all JFK fingerprints and put the blame on LBJ. We were idiots to be yelling "hey, hey, LBJ..." We were idiots for supporting any damn Kennedys, including RFK in 1968.
So much I was ignorant about. I was very impressed with how LBJ got civil rights passed, and maybe I liked him because he looked a lot like my father. I blamed the continuation of the war on Nixon, and felt LBJ’s anguish over it. 1968 was a paradox for me, extreme chaos and happy times. That may be the definition of life.
much against the sentimental response I--like so many of us--have in response to the Kennedy name, I realize that I agree with every part of your argument, and have for a long time. this the main reason I'm unable to take Oliver Stone very seriously after "Platoon," which is a good war movie that relies on the tropes established by war movies in general.
the "theories" he espoused in "JFK" ran entirely counter to anything observable on the level of phenomenal reality.
I actually did TRY to watch those Putin interviews, but after five minutes or less realized that ME observing THEIR psychological fellatio session just isn't FUN.
The mind-boggling thing about the Church of the Latter Day Trump is that he is an absolute caricature of the demagogue. He'd be too over the top for a film of "It Can't Happen Here." From beings in alternate reality a huge chunk of America has evolved into being very bad fiction.
I guess bad novels--in this verging-on-illiterate society, bad graphic novels-- are indeed dangerous.
it's funny. when TFF first "took office," I read "It Can't Happen Here" and was completely thunderstruck at how accurately Lewis predicted TFF''s disaster "presidency." and in so many very specific details. but that guy's behavior was downright demure when you compare it with that of TFF.
but not even Lewis went so far as to predict what would have happened if there had been the possibility of that guy having a second term.
no, what's going on now doesn't have a precedent in our history.
even in Rachel Maddow's new book, some good guys stop the bad guys, at least for a while...
He is such a joke, as is his every utterance, I was sure that we are were not that stupid. Sadly, too many were and are. I have felt that we are the majority, is it still the case??
Yep, there you have it Tom. Those tiles you just set are ready for grout. The pattern is complete and I would not change anything. You know how to lay it down.
I posted the chump/Goebbels similarities on X and FB. Got banned, be careful, anything criticizing chump and/or the cult is against community standards
Until I moved to N. Calif. 18 months ago, I lived in the district represented by Neguse (a wonderful human!), which was adjacent to Ken Buck's district. I NEVER thought Buck would be the Voice of Reason. He's still extraordinarily extreme in his views, but compared to the new "Speaker" and the rest of the GOP, he's a moderate. It's discouraging to see the rats jumping ship while it sinks, and threatens to take us all down with it.
Hope you are not on X or FB. I tried to call them what they are proud to be just before (X) and just after (FB) the 2020 election. I got banned for violating their community standards. Elon and Zuck have since told us who they are too. Joe keeps pedaling with Dems and DINO’s snipping at his heels, and too many totally engrossed in the Rangers and the Cowboys. Best distraction ever as we circle the drain. They have told us who they are, why don’t we believe and scream to the heavens before it’s too late.
I know for a fact who my next door neighbor is and I will never ever enter her bar nor give her a red cent. She also deliberately killed one of my cats.
Actually I do have words but better not use them here - kind of coarse shall we say?
I donate to a couple horse rescues - what happens & is done to these animals that puts them in harms way tells much about what human beings are capable of! And it aint good.
Hey, this forum is one where we can use those words!
Animal killers are some of the worst scum sucking fuckknuckles in the world. I can understand human passion motivating killing; killing animals is the sake of killing for killing's sake, which is horrible.
Oh Ally - what a great description - worst scum sucking fuckknuckles - I will remember that one. Actually it covers so very many of our current issues - animal AND human related, right?
I think you meant to write "Mike JOHNSON" (instead of Jordan). But as they say in Germany, "immerhin" - which just means, "anyway". You are correct. Believe what they say and believe what they do. The issue with Buck and others is that instead of defeating Johnson, the crowd of spineless wonders gave in! For goodness sake! He goes home with a pension and healthcare and washes his hands of all he himself has been part of and has been complicit in. At least Adam Kinzinger seems a little more truthful and forthcoming - "I was part of it...I benefitted even as I saw / understood what was going on. I knew being on the January 6 committee would be life changing." And of course it has been and seems that it still is. That the media keep treating Nikki Haley as though she is something better in the gop is absolutely ridiculous! There is nothing normal about this party now, other than they are normal compared with the black shirts, the brown shirts, the red hats etc. The danger still exists, and the gop has elected a guy who was at the center of the attempt to end democracy. They will keep trying from the inside until or unless they're all thrown out by voters. The problem of course is that most of their seats are safe due to gerrymandered districts. It's not exactly what all the people want even in the districts where they vote - it is that the political party that is now a danger to democratic processes and norms, even as these relate to the oath of office, is no longer a party that supports any of that. They have for the most part become performers for Faux news, or whoever is holding a camera. But you are correct. Believe what they say because that is exactly what they intend to do. Reagan's administration was not the first but it was in a way the tip of the spear. A good number of people now at the center of right wing think tanks and such came into government during that time. But you can also look back to Gerald R Ford and see some of the "bad guys/gals" getting into government then as well - Dick Cheney is one example, I believe. Correct me TC if I'm not on the right path here. When they depart government they still engage in right wing activity through all the fascist organizations that took shape during the Reagan years. Gorbachev took down a wall while Reagan and his crowd were building one.
There’s another 7 letter word that starts with an “f” and ends with a “t” that also describes what used to be the GOP just as well. Plop a “k” in the middle and you’re almost there.
When Trump says the non-magas are trying to destroy America he is a nitwit. It was not the NON-magas who participated in an insurrection nor do we make threats against our fellow Americans. It is the bitterness of the maga disappointments in life, their failures that drive them to blame our government for their losses without recognizing that it's their very own maga leaders who nurture and ensure income inequality and downward mobility. (There's a glimmer of hope here that the revival of unions will be an antidote to maga.) The magas want their religious and bigoted values enshrined in government even if it means people like them will never get to rule or call the shots. Succeeding in their revenge is the only way they see themselves winning and they don't care what comes afterward. They will happily poison the lives of their own children and grandchildren.
That interview with Johnathan Karl was hair raising. I, unfortunately, know personally a young man who, along with other members of his EXTREMELY fringe evangelical tribe, is fascinated in a very sick way with the Bannon plan to "burn it all down." What seems to drive his and their preoccupation with this destruction is their own hubris and religious fervor that THEY ALONE can "fix it" and rebuild a nation that meets their own wishes. Think Mike Johnson.
You know what? Just saw that Bankman-Fried - the crypto crook - might get to spend the rest of his life in prison - for what ? Seriously - for convincing people that crypto coin was a smart investment? And yet - and yet - we have the orange crook out and about and able to run his mouth about pretty much anything he wants - allowed to delay trials - certainly not confined in any way. AND he is guilty of insurrection against our government - of "abusing" a woman (actually more than one) stealing (yes thats what he did) classified documents & likely responsible for some of our intelligence people losing their lives (giving Israel info to russians))
What the hell? All right now I've vented - done - no more "news"!!
Remember that in 1980, Ronald Reagan declared himself for states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, near where the Freedom Summer killings occurred and the KKK had reigned, then his campaign sabotaged the release of the hostages from Iran to hurt Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign. The republican party really hasn't changed.
True dat.
We remenber.That was the start of the modern, Murdoch age. A long progression that we could go on and on with for hours to distract us from what is necessary NOW.
The Murdoch Age, much more descriptive than the Reagan age, but they were the evil twins
Partners in crime.
Nixon was the pivot point for the turnabout of the RepubliQan party.
Yes indeed. All the small gargoyles he had around him became the big gargoyles.
Evil since Ike
Evil including Ike, who made the great scumbag John Foster Dulles his Secretary of State.
Overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, destroying the last chance for a modern, western-oriented nationalism to take power in the Mideast. Installing the Shah led directly to the revolution of 1978 and our non-relationship with Iran today.
Overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, who wanted to institute land reform and allow the peasants of Central America a chance to join the 20th century - leading directly to the instability of Central America in the 70 years since.
Opposition to the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954, support of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Korea and refusal to hold the national elections in 1955 knowing Ho Chi Minh would win, leading to 20 years of war in Southeast Asia and the comeuppance of America.
Planning and approval of attempted overthrow of Castro in Cuba, leading to 65 years of not-so-cold war between US and Cuba.
All instigated by SecState Dulles and his brother Allen, head of the CIA, done with the approval of Ike.
That's quite a record, wouldn't you agree?
And next chapter of the Chicago School of ruining the economics of many SA countries while supporting & creating police states in Chile & Argentina.etc.
have you seen that documentary on The Chicago Boys in Chile?
as my best friend would (and frequently DOES) put it..."Some people have a lot of nerve with their shit."
As I put it in "Going Downtown":
One cannot begin to either comprehend or understand anything that happened during America’s involvement in the Southeast Asian wars of the 1960s without understanding that those events did not arise de novo with the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960. America’s wars in Southeast Asia were a long time coming. The United States had been effectively at war in Southeast Asia since 1950, and in many ways for much longer than that.
Perhaps the best description of what Americans would bring to the region is the famous line in Graham Greene’s novel of the First Indochina War, “The Quiet American,” in which the novel’s protagonist, cynical British journalist Thomas Fowler - a stand-in for Greene, who wrote the novel from experience - describes the title character, Alden Pyle: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused... impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance.”
At the same time, the Americans who came to Southeast Asia to fight could be compared with another fictional character, the detective Jake Gittes of Chinatown, who only gradually gains the terrible awareness of his own helplessness in the face of the omnipresence of power and abuse, “the futility of good intentions.”
John F. Kennedy, who could well be seen as the embodiment of Alden Pyle, and was perhaps more responsible than any other American for the wartime involvement of his country in Southeast Asia, visited South Vietnam as a young congressman on a fact-finding investigation in 1952. After two weeks of meetings with officials and dinner conversations with French colons in Saigon, and after receiving a quick tour of the countryside, he returned to the United States and wrote presciently of the trip in his diary: “We are more and more becoming colonialists in the minds of the people. Because everyone believes that we control the U.N. and because our wealth is supposedly inexhaustible, we will be damned if we don’t do what the new nations want.” Ten years later, one could argue he had forgotten every moment of his visit, every sight seen, every conversation engaged in.
TC, you have a vast political, historical and military knowledge of Asia. I do not. But the economic and political realities in SA were 1st scary. And have informed my reading and d growth ever since.
No but I was in SA in 1975 with people that lived it. The people that 'want" insurrection" need have a lived experience in a country going through it or one where the army is ascendant without that civilization order of what we have had...pretty scary reality. Good luck living in a police state thinking you can say or do whatever you want, as we do now under the 1st ammendment protections. Good luck thinking that fantasy survives the revolution.
Certainly sounds like a film I would like to see. I met people fleeing Chile & Argentina in the 1970s when I was in SA. Amazing to realize how the military disappeared so many people and how cavalier so many imbeciles embrace fascism here. They have no idea what a nightmare this is and how lucky they are, now, to be living in a democracy.
Far better for the US than for the world. I had forgotton a lot of those. My Dad (WWII Vet, USAAC SSgt) would never wear an "I Like Ike" button for those very reasons.
I remember sitting in the living room watching the Watergate hearings with him, and he said something to the effect "Nixon makes Eisenhower look good."
Sort of like history lessons on the lead ups to WW1 and WW2. The trails are well worn these days.
Indeed they are.
sounds just like my dad, also USAAC in WWII.
We, as a country, are reaping what we sowed those many years ago.
Why is knowledge so depressing sometimes?
because it necessarily includes a whole heap of Horrible Shit you'd prefer not to know.
Oh, indeed. DeSatan has a cure for that. Ha
Indeed, details that I missed. I’ll blame it on being young and so impressed with Ike, the hero. And he was in so many ways. I remember my dad blathering on about JFD. It wasn’t til JFK murder that I became “woke” to politics. Thank you, I’ll keep that history lesson handy to pass on.
that's more or less what I tell people when they speak longingly of how great everything was when Ike was president and how great he was, mostly because of his now-famous (one-time barely mentioned) about the "military-industrial complex," since it came to exist on his watch.
anyone who's read Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes" (and the sequel he's been working on) will not be very quick to talk about the honesty and pluck of America's behavior in the postwar era. economically, we were all a lot better off (if we were solidly middle class or working class backed by a strong union), but the behavior of our intelligence agencies (foreign and domestic)--at least until after the Church Committee disclosed how badly they'd been acting--was inexcusable.
in 1969, when I was doing the European backpacking thing (backpack plus very heavy Olympia that was only barely "portable"), we'd run into some kids our age (20) and they'd point out people they said were CIA agents. I'd nod and think about how paranoid they sounded (this happened in at least three places, but especially in Athens) and how generally level-headed I was. "Ignorant woe!" to quote Allen Ginsberg.
even when I was way too young to know what they were actually talking about, I remember every adult I knew practically spitting when they said the name "Dulles."
in their personal lives, the Dulles boys were opposites: John Foster was prudish and puritanical; Allen was a heavy womanizer. it seems to me that, at least on the surface, their jobs mirrored their personalities. but they were a formidably evil family and together caused irreparable damage...first, for their intended victims and then for the rest of us.
"I've lost my innocence" is easy to say; living it can hurt like a motherfucker.
An old 78 with a few cracks and many scratches.
Tom, you meant Vietnam, not South Korea, yes?
both
you're not going back far enough...there was Nixon's 1968 treason. and even THAT was the culmination of many years of Bad Republican Shit.
it seems to me that the major new blip that Reagan and his guys introduced was the beginning of the Repugs' successful attempt to absorb the evangelicals.
Professor, re: Carter. I published this earlier this year on Medium: https://medium.com/@kentanderson-17716/the-betrayal-of-jimmy-carter-da718e942fdb
Shocking! You mean the Repub's "god" Reagan did something underhanded? (bit of sarcasm there) Remembering the welfare queen issue. I think Eisenhower was the last decent (as far as I know) Republican politician - downhill trajectory all the way to the bottom orange.
Ike was decent domestically. So far as foreign policy is concerned, see my post elsewhere in this thread - he and John Foster Dulles did a good job of putting the Cold War in the deep freeze.
I just vaguely remember Ike & Nixon(?) - my mother was REPUBLICAN!! Went all out on Nixon after that. And back then I really didnt pay any attention to politics. I was 15 at the time AND just got my first horse - that was all she wrote!!
This current crop makes Ike look damn good. Was Ike sort of like LBJ, got real chicken Schitt advice from his “smartest people in the room.” Or, was he aware of the damage. Bill Moyers quoted LBJ as saying, one has to act based on the information you have. And you never have the whole story. Or words to that effect. I would say, less is better in that case. But people thinking that they are keeping worse things from happening, often do the worst damage. As a parent, I know that to be true.
based on everything I've read, LBJ wasn't ever a foreign policy guy and was extremely simplistic and naive about the "evils of communism" and seems to have completely accepted the prevailing ignorance on display from the "smartest guys in the room," all of whom accepted the Domino Theory as Always True. of course, at the same time, LBJ's domestic plans represented a brilliant re-flowering of the unfinished New Deal coupled with an abiding (and very genuine) need to include the formerly unincluded. this is precisely what makes LBJ's presidency something right out of Aristotle, when old Telly describes the Tragic Hero.
when the late, great, much-lamented Michael Gambon was playing LBJ for that HBO movie, he said that LBJ was a more grandly tragic figure than anyone he'd ever played (and he'd played a towering Lear and the definitive Galileo, so the competition was pretty fierce).
when it was all going on and we were all marching, I made up my mind to avoid all those chants in which LBJ was some kind of cartoon villain ("hey, hey LBJ..." etc.). consequently, I feel like a little less of a schmuck than I tend to feel when I'm remembering how stupid and nasty I've sometimes been.
Johnson used to joke about how there were all those "New Frontiersmen from Harvard" who he kept on after the assassination - McGeorge Bundy, McNamara, etc. - in a cabinet meeting, and how they were reporting to "a graduate of Southwestern State Teacher's College," but he really was intellectually intimidated by those guys. When I researched "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" and "Going Downtown," what became clear was the president who got us into Vietnam and had no intention of getting out, no matter how many Good Liberals tell you the CIA killed him because he was going to quit the Cold War (he never was), was JFK. Period. The guys who were always in for more "escalation" were the Kennedy Guys (until McNamara finally collapsed - what a *moron* he was). The guy who didn't want to escalate, who got dragged to each one kicking and screaming, and delayed saying yes till it actually harmed things, that guy was LBJ. But the goddamned Kennedy Scum (after researching those books, I wish I hadn't worked for that 3-faced pig's election in 1960 - at least with Nixon you'd have known you were getting a lying shitbird) worked assiduously to scrub off all JFK fingerprints and put the blame on LBJ. We were idiots to be yelling "hey, hey, LBJ..." We were idiots for supporting any damn Kennedys, including RFK in 1968.
So much I was ignorant about. I was very impressed with how LBJ got civil rights passed, and maybe I liked him because he looked a lot like my father. I blamed the continuation of the war on Nixon, and felt LBJ’s anguish over it. 1968 was a paradox for me, extreme chaos and happy times. That may be the definition of life.
much against the sentimental response I--like so many of us--have in response to the Kennedy name, I realize that I agree with every part of your argument, and have for a long time. this the main reason I'm unable to take Oliver Stone very seriously after "Platoon," which is a good war movie that relies on the tropes established by war movies in general.
the "theories" he espoused in "JFK" ran entirely counter to anything observable on the level of phenomenal reality.
I actually did TRY to watch those Putin interviews, but after five minutes or less realized that ME observing THEIR psychological fellatio session just isn't FUN.
I could almost feel his pain when he spoke about the war, a rarity when I watch any politician
The mind-boggling thing about the Church of the Latter Day Trump is that he is an absolute caricature of the demagogue. He'd be too over the top for a film of "It Can't Happen Here." From beings in alternate reality a huge chunk of America has evolved into being very bad fiction.
I guess bad novels--in this verging-on-illiterate society, bad graphic novels-- are indeed dangerous.
“Caricature” made me think of SNL/Colin Jost’s “reporting” LDS Trump as “ former president and current courtroom sketch model”
it's funny. when TFF first "took office," I read "It Can't Happen Here" and was completely thunderstruck at how accurately Lewis predicted TFF''s disaster "presidency." and in so many very specific details. but that guy's behavior was downright demure when you compare it with that of TFF.
but not even Lewis went so far as to predict what would have happened if there had been the possibility of that guy having a second term.
no, what's going on now doesn't have a precedent in our history.
even in Rachel Maddow's new book, some good guys stop the bad guys, at least for a while...
He is such a joke, as is his every utterance, I was sure that we are were not that stupid. Sadly, too many were and are. I have felt that we are the majority, is it still the case??
I sure hope so. The silent majority.
A majority that needs to roar, silent no more
Yep, there you have it Tom. Those tiles you just set are ready for grout. The pattern is complete and I would not change anything. You know how to lay it down.
Does he ever, needs to be on everyone’s lips
I forwarded this to several and should post it to FB. every day. We all should. He nailed it with the least words necessary.
I posted the chump/Goebbels similarities on X and FB. Got banned, be careful, anything criticizing chump and/or the cult is against community standards
Surprise surprise. Why anyone wastes time there anymore is beyond me.
Had a nice community on Twitter, and kept up with people from working years on FB. However, I don't miss either now. Both have become vile
We're off to see the Wiza... oops, OVENS!
Until I moved to N. Calif. 18 months ago, I lived in the district represented by Neguse (a wonderful human!), which was adjacent to Ken Buck's district. I NEVER thought Buck would be the Voice of Reason. He's still extraordinarily extreme in his views, but compared to the new "Speaker" and the rest of the GOP, he's a moderate. It's discouraging to see the rats jumping ship while it sinks, and threatens to take us all down with it.
So powerfully written, TC, with so many subtleties of the obvious evil that I was unaware of. I hope everyone shares it ASAP. Thank you!
Shared.
Hope you are not on X or FB. I tried to call them what they are proud to be just before (X) and just after (FB) the 2020 election. I got banned for violating their community standards. Elon and Zuck have since told us who they are too. Joe keeps pedaling with Dems and DINO’s snipping at his heels, and too many totally engrossed in the Rangers and the Cowboys. Best distraction ever as we circle the drain. They have told us who they are, why don’t we believe and scream to the heavens before it’s too late.
I cannot put a heart on this post, Tom. We need to get out the vote in every election as if our life depended on it, because it surely does.
Indeed it does.
I believe what you write. I believe in you. I believe in the Republic of the United States that was inspired by the Iroquois Confederacy.
I know for a fact who my next door neighbor is and I will never ever enter her bar nor give her a red cent. She also deliberately killed one of my cats.
And anyone who deliberately kills an animal? Dont have words!
Actually I do have words but better not use them here - kind of coarse shall we say?
I donate to a couple horse rescues - what happens & is done to these animals that puts them in harms way tells much about what human beings are capable of! And it aint good.
Hey, this forum is one where we can use those words!
Animal killers are some of the worst scum sucking fuckknuckles in the world. I can understand human passion motivating killing; killing animals is the sake of killing for killing's sake, which is horrible.
Oh Ally - what a great description - worst scum sucking fuckknuckles - I will remember that one. Actually it covers so very many of our current issues - animal AND human related, right?
Worse than horrible. When working at high school, learned too much about what disturbed kids do to pets. Sometimes it starts very early.
The ultimate sin
😱🤯🤬😢
I think you meant to write "Mike JOHNSON" (instead of Jordan). But as they say in Germany, "immerhin" - which just means, "anyway". You are correct. Believe what they say and believe what they do. The issue with Buck and others is that instead of defeating Johnson, the crowd of spineless wonders gave in! For goodness sake! He goes home with a pension and healthcare and washes his hands of all he himself has been part of and has been complicit in. At least Adam Kinzinger seems a little more truthful and forthcoming - "I was part of it...I benefitted even as I saw / understood what was going on. I knew being on the January 6 committee would be life changing." And of course it has been and seems that it still is. That the media keep treating Nikki Haley as though she is something better in the gop is absolutely ridiculous! There is nothing normal about this party now, other than they are normal compared with the black shirts, the brown shirts, the red hats etc. The danger still exists, and the gop has elected a guy who was at the center of the attempt to end democracy. They will keep trying from the inside until or unless they're all thrown out by voters. The problem of course is that most of their seats are safe due to gerrymandered districts. It's not exactly what all the people want even in the districts where they vote - it is that the political party that is now a danger to democratic processes and norms, even as these relate to the oath of office, is no longer a party that supports any of that. They have for the most part become performers for Faux news, or whoever is holding a camera. But you are correct. Believe what they say because that is exactly what they intend to do. Reagan's administration was not the first but it was in a way the tip of the spear. A good number of people now at the center of right wing think tanks and such came into government during that time. But you can also look back to Gerald R Ford and see some of the "bad guys/gals" getting into government then as well - Dick Cheney is one example, I believe. Correct me TC if I'm not on the right path here. When they depart government they still engage in right wing activity through all the fascist organizations that took shape during the Reagan years. Gorbachev took down a wall while Reagan and his crowd were building one.
There’s another 7 letter word that starts with an “f” and ends with a “t” that also describes what used to be the GOP just as well. Plop a “k” in the middle and you’re almost there.
When Trump says the non-magas are trying to destroy America he is a nitwit. It was not the NON-magas who participated in an insurrection nor do we make threats against our fellow Americans. It is the bitterness of the maga disappointments in life, their failures that drive them to blame our government for their losses without recognizing that it's their very own maga leaders who nurture and ensure income inequality and downward mobility. (There's a glimmer of hope here that the revival of unions will be an antidote to maga.) The magas want their religious and bigoted values enshrined in government even if it means people like them will never get to rule or call the shots. Succeeding in their revenge is the only way they see themselves winning and they don't care what comes afterward. They will happily poison the lives of their own children and grandchildren.
That interview with Johnathan Karl was hair raising. I, unfortunately, know personally a young man who, along with other members of his EXTREMELY fringe evangelical tribe, is fascinated in a very sick way with the Bannon plan to "burn it all down." What seems to drive his and their preoccupation with this destruction is their own hubris and religious fervor that THEY ALONE can "fix it" and rebuild a nation that meets their own wishes. Think Mike Johnson.
Scary as hell.
You know what? Just saw that Bankman-Fried - the crypto crook - might get to spend the rest of his life in prison - for what ? Seriously - for convincing people that crypto coin was a smart investment? And yet - and yet - we have the orange crook out and about and able to run his mouth about pretty much anything he wants - allowed to delay trials - certainly not confined in any way. AND he is guilty of insurrection against our government - of "abusing" a woman (actually more than one) stealing (yes thats what he did) classified documents & likely responsible for some of our intelligence people losing their lives (giving Israel info to russians))
What the hell? All right now I've vented - done - no more "news"!!
Whew.....
Yeah - apparently saved it up!!! Do I feel better - no, actually I dont. It is what it is, right?
Yup.
Thanks for a clear and well spoken piece!
(Not telling how long it took me to work out wording that was 7 letters and not obscene. )
If i ever have to unsubscribe for any reason it's not that I don't love your work. I do. It's just that something requires my immediate attention