To call this photo perfect is understating its power. All of US power in one snapshot: the greed, the vulgarity, the assholery, the smugness, the anti-intellectualism, it's all there.

'Twas ever thus. Seymor Hersh in The Dark Side of Camelot.

In early 1962 David Herbert Donald, a Harvard historian widely respected for his scholarly research and writings on the Lincoln presidency, was invited to give an informal talk at a meeting in the private quarters of the White House with the president, first lady, and a small group of friends and administration officials. Donald spoke about Reconstruction for forty minutes and then took questions, half of which came from an attentive president. Donald afterward had a private meeting with Kennedy and came away with grave reservations.

[snip]

In a 1996 interview for this book, Donald recalled his disquiet after the talk. The president was fascinated with Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because "he thought to be a great president you had to be a wartime president. That was scary to me," Donald said. "I came away feeling that this is a young man who doesn't understand history."

And the very reason he gives (repeatedly) for attacking Iraq is a flat out and clear falsehood! He claims Saddam didn't let the inspectors in!
We have a very, very sick intellectual class that can sit by and let him get away with claiming repeatedly that Saddam didn't let the inspectors in! That is so very easily shown to be a lie that it is ridiculous. I think we need to keep hammering away at this specific point. We must push for his prosecution so he can go to jail. I think this is a clear point that the general public can understand if we have a chance to get this basic fact to them. His lie isn't a matter of opinion or something hard to understand, this is CLEAR CUT FRAUD. (it's probably what he had hoped Saddam would do and the fool has convinced himself it's true) But what are we that we allow him to walk around a free man? This year push, push, push this point until we get this man behind bars. (please share my videos with others, I honestly think there will be a tipping point and they won't be able to get away with it it is public discourse often.)

'war' asymmetry lie as well- as techno changed, the "risks and suffering of war" has indeed changed- now there is much more asymmetric suffering and fatalities on the low tech side- at least in the glory days of war, both sides had to die eqaully in the trenches

Unfortunately, because the LIARS know, they will not have to pay any price for doing it ( accountability is not in their vocabulary for themselves ) even though that means thousands will die as a result, they continue to do it shamelessly......no remorse..
That awful wink on Bush's face seems to say to the citizens, "You know I am lying but there is nothing you are going to be able to do about it" and to his accomplices, "See, I told you, we will get away with this, trust me".

ALL OF CONGRESS CHEERED AS BAGHDAD BURNED. It was quite a fireworks show one must admit. Baghdad all lit up like Saturday Night on The 4th of July, the cruise missile's red glare, anti-aircraft tracers in the night sky, impressive.

Its NOT the intellectuals fault, its the WHOLE country's. WE watched the Towers Fall, got pissed&scared and started killing people---ANYBODY.

Say, how's about that GITMO, huh? I think it shows the WHOLE world just how pretty WE are. Good news is, it ain't going away either. Obama closed down the "office-to-close-GITMO" today, BUT NOT GITMO.
Like Geronimo said, "All men from Washington are liars."
And The Bush/Obama Torture Legacy continues.

"Its NOT the intellectuals fault, its the WHOLE country's. "
I disagree with that. Statistically I think on average, most people are better than the elites who manipulate us. I really think that not enough thought is put into the reality that cruel and manipulative people are more likely to rise to positions of power and have a disproportionate influence on society. I think we would be a lot safer if power was more evenly distributed. I was very much against the war and did all I could to prevent it. You cannot lump me in with the war criminals who lied to get us into war. ( I was against the Afghanistan war too)
Lumping everyone together, elites and the masses, that's just a way to deflect blame away from the elites. You may say you are blaming everyone but the fact is not everyone is to blame so when you do that you just help elites get away with their crimes.

"Its NOT the intellectuals fault, its the WHOLE country's. "
I disagree with that. Statistically I think on average, most people are better than the elites who manipulate us. I really think that not enough thought is put into the reality that cruel and manipulative people are more likely to rise to positions of power and have a disproportionate influence on society. I think we would be a lot safer if power was more evenly distributed. I was very much against the war and did all I could to prevent it. You cannot lump me in with the war criminals who lied to get us into war. ( I was against the Afghanistan war too)
Lumping everyone together, elites and the masses, that's just a way to deflect blame away from the elites. You may say you are blaming everyone but the fact is not everyone is to blame so when you do that you just help elites get away with their crimes.

Tom Murphy: What about the families of those WE killed(WE PAID to have them killed, those war machines ain't cheap so the cost is high)? Certainly they aren't saying, "Let's not lump Tom or Mike into the group of those who BOMBED our homes and killed our children. They protested." They say and will FOREVER SAY "THE AMERICANS killed our loved ones!" Should U&I go to these nations of the slaughtered, those people WILL point to US and say, "AMERICANS". They won't recognize US as Tom or Mike. Wear a sign preaching against the war, U&I will STILL BE AMERICANS in their eyes, OUR past actions, words, and thoughts won't mean a tinkers damn.
When WE bombed those wedding parties, the innocent women and children weren't culled out and spared by those bombs that U&I PAY for, so to expect the victims to show that kind of discernment over the deaths of their family members is unrealistic. It was done in OUR NAME, so WE must wear it.

Ask YOURSELF, are YOU an American?

The Dark Side of Camelot is full of the most ridiculous slanders ever, and it made a fool of Hersh to anyone who has bothered to try to understand all that, but most of the drivel Hersh included in the book was just gossip about affairs concocted decades after the purported events by dubious characters who had never said anything corroborating that crap for 30 or 40 years before. The debasement of JFK's character didn't become necessary or possible until then, but the idea that JFK wanted to be a war President is of a different sort, and really just so absurdly false that Dante would have to have a ring of hell for Hersh in which everything everyone says is a lie, and he can never hear the truth, to atone for the royalties he earned for that calumny. That claim is demonstrably false, and in a major way, but people are going to have to straighten out there own ignorance there, because it is too vast for me just now, because I ain't got no more time to spare.

Plus, people remain ignorant largely by choice, which enables powerful people to have the fine qualities they do and rewards the ample cynicism of the wicked.

On February 16th, we will honor the tenth anniversary of THE DAY THE WORLD MARCHED.

There were millions of us who figured out that they were lying about WMDs and we stood against this war of aggression.

I am still fighting.

N.E., that is an exquisitely annoying comment. Kudos to you!

Although I seem to have seen some things lately saying Kennedy deliberately promoted the myth that he stared down the Ruskies in Cuba, so whose fault is it if I'm ignorant?

Why thank you godoggo, I'm glad I haven't completely lost my touch even though I am too damn busy to excel nowadays.

i can't say what you've seen, and since 99+% of what is seen isn't worth seeing, it sure is a challenge for all of us not to be ignorant, even if somwe really don't want to be, but frankly, the choice to be ignorant is pretty rational, because although ignorance isn't necessarily bliss, it does make things a lot simpler most of the time, including getting along with most people. Plus, knowing something alone doesn't do a damn thing, and to the naive (as I once was, and maybe still partly am, since I'm typing this), it's a real eye-opener to discover that the truth doesn't really matter very often or very much.

But what does it matter what I say anyway? Not one little bit. If people want to have ignorant opinions about JFK, they will, and you may too godoggo, but if JFK can be called a warmonger after getting his head blown off by the true and definitely crazy warmongers for not being enough of a warmonger, well then this really is Orwell's world through and through, but I guess there are a million other reasons that's obviously true, so why fight it. Just take the blue bill and be happy.

Peace.

It's really more opportunity cost. If I were to read up on the JFK assassination it would be at the expense of other topics that interest me more. Anyway the consensus among smart sane people who've looked into it seems to be one gunman.

Of course it if you intrigue me by, say, mentioning a source or two for your statements, maybe I'll take a look. Probably not, though.

If I may, for whatever it may be worth to you godoggo........

"RFK Jr: 'Very convincing' evidence that JFK wasn't killed by lone gunmanRFK Jr: 'Very convincing' evidence that JFK wasn't killed by lone gunman"

here

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/12/16474762-rfk-jr-very-convincing-evidence-that-jfk-wasnt-killed-by-lone-gunman

ps btw, I do not know anything about smart and sane people...

Meanwhile, getting slightly curious, unfortunately. Here's a bunch of articles criticizing Bugliosi's book:
http://www.reclaiminghistory.org/

Thanks for the link godoggo. I have not read this book but reviewer mentions....
While RFK toed the official line in public for the obvious, political reasons, in private, and until the day he died, he remained active as, to borrow from Talbot, "America’s first assassination conspiracy theorist."
And that is what RFK Jr has claimed.

I have read....
here

http://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1570757550

which was recommended by N E ( thank you )....
A fascinating book.... which also brings to light how Heads of States ( HoS ) are constrained by their Intelligence Agencies ( IAs ) and how they have to communicate with other HoS in total secrecy if their own IAs do not approve of what they want to achieve!!

The reason is that war is a religion while peace is a bummer to those who make it so.

Godoggo

Knowing who killed JFK, or RFK, or MLK, or Malcolm X, or Lincoln and perhaps also Warren Harding and FDR and McKinley, or tried to kill Teddy Roosevelt and Truman and Reagan, and why any or all of those things happened or might have happened, may in fact be an utter waste of time, or of no interest, or whatever, and certainly there is an opportunity cost to learning about those things, as there is to anything. It's very questionable that it was a good use of my own time to think and read about such possibilities, and investigate possibilities a bit, but I wanted to know more than I did, as is my habit once I bother to know anything at all about something. (I know pretty much nothing about the vast majority of things and am at this point resigned to accepting that.)

I am very curious about how people are conned into believing that evil of a very direct, non-theoretical, concrete sort does not occur in the United States, and that subject of curiosity is very tabboo, because if people think about things like that, well, thinking causes trouble. It's only permitted to talk about evil in ideological and basically pointless ways that don't result in any disruption of business as usual, but allow the Empire to proceed uninterrupted, and pretty much everything is subordinate to that end, just as nearly everything can be used for that purpose, even little spec of internet insignificance that that we're commenting in. (Sorry Jon!)

You get to form your own opinion, godoggo, or at least you sort of do, but when I happen upon some ignorant statement about something I do know about, I comment in my own preciously annoying way just because there's so much propaganda and repeated propaganda about these things that I feel the urge to note my dissent. Just for the hell of it, or the written record perhaps, because it really doesn't matter what I think, or you think, but it matters to me that I don't just completely write off trying to say anything and accept that power will proceed uninterrupted, supported unwittingly by its own critics.

And so, godoggo, adieu. I'm going back to reading a little more about the Babylonian sexagecimal system now, which I'm sorry to say I'd never heard of before, even though we all use it for keeping track of time in hours and minutes. Sometimes I'm astonished by the shit I've never heard of, but there's just so much to learn and so little time!

peace

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