The Peace Corps 'Cuts and Runs'? Total Disinformational Codswallop

Me,  teaching General Science class in Barbados, in Peace Corps, ca. 1971. 

I often had my beefs with the Peace Corps while serving 4 years (1971-1975), e.g. that volunteers of the opposite sex could not live together.   But never ever have I accused the organization of "cutting and running",  even after I remained in my designated host country (Barbados) long after service.   So you can imagine my disbelief when I spotted 'the headline:

The Peace Corps Cuts and Runs - WSJ

In the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 23, p. A15), by Michael Meyer. According to Meyer:

"Amid fanfare at the White House, the U.S. and China signed an agreement pausing the trade war. The next day, the U.S. quietly terminated its Peace Corps program in China. The news didn’t merit a presidential tweet, or even a Peace Corps press release. An explanation is in order, because the program is one of the greatest diplomatic success stories in the history of both the Peace Corps and U.S.-China relations."

Actually, if Meyer -  who "taught teenagers in southwest China about the Bible and the stock market" (a weird combo) -   knew anything about the organization's perennial mission he'd know why.   That is,  the Peace Corps,  since the 'year dot' (when it was formed in 1963), has had the policy (especially in the realm of teaching)  that Volunteers vacated their positions when capable local  teachers became available.  In the Caribbean, where  all teaching volunteers have now left, it was understood the Corps  as a whole would pull out when enough of the island states had their own staffs fully implemented.    This was not "cutting and running" as Meyer claims, but a rational decision to assign precious volunteer resources to other areas where most needed.

Meyer subsequently takes issue with FLA Sen. Rick Scott who introduced the "Peace Corps Mission Accountability Act" which "would terminate operations in China and other 'hostile' countries"  Then noting Scott's reaction to the withdrawal, i.e.:

"I'm glad the Peace Corps has finally come to its senses and sees Communist China for what it is: the second largest economy in the world and an adversary of the United States."


But leaving out Scott's nationalist rhetoric the only aspect that impacts on this discussion is the fact of China's emergence as the "second largest economy in the world".  Hence, analogous to the case of the developed Caribbean nations (e.g. Barbados) the Peace Corps is simply no longer needed when there are millions of capable host country candidates to take up positions, in elementary school teaching, secondary schools, colleges or wherever.   So why all the crying or whining?


I suspect Meyer is simply chafing because he and his fellow Bible thumpers can no longer pump the population with their U.S. capitalist propaganda or  biblical fictions, fantasies. Indeed, it was one of the first warnings we received (along with no drugs (pot), no pregnancies) when we arrived in our host countries, that we absolutely could not discuss politics or religion.  Either might get you pulled up for censure before the then Eastern Caribbean local PC  Director, Dr. Marise Hadden.

Meyer writes near the end (ibid.):

"The Peace Corps isn't a perfect organization, and it shouldn't be shielded from criticism or change. But neither should the Peace Corps turn tail from China because two senators don't understand the mission there."

And what might that "mission" be, Mr. Meyer? Brainwashing the Chinese  students with Christian fairy tales? Or capitalist propaganda?  Whether you like it or not the pullout had nothing to do with Sens. Scott or Rubio but a long standing Peace Corps policy that when the locals attained a sufficient level of development - where it mattered - it would no longer be needed and would cease operations.  This would be a 'no brainer' especially for a nation that had become the world's 2nd largest economy.

The time now is for Meyer - and his biblical cohort of capitalist proselytizers -  to suck it up and move on.

Best Thing For New Grads :Get Out And See Some Of The World Before The Work-Spend Treadmill

After graduating with my astronomy degree from Univ. of South Florida - Volunteering for Peace Corps was the optimal choice made at that time. It also enabled me to see another part of the world and work there.

Graduating from university in a recession year with any kind of degree other than medical, law or business, is a recipe for letdown and disaster.  In my case, I knew the odds and though I already scored high on my GRE, preferred not to go on to grad school - just yet-  as I was essentially drained and wanted something different. The Peace Corps provided it as well as an opportunity to serve overseas.  As per JFK's immortal words: "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."

Reading Noah Smith's piece in The Sunday Denver Post, 'Pay For Kids To See The World' (p. 4D) I see he too agrees now is the time to get Americans in the 18-26 age range out of their little cubbyholes.  He asks, for instance, what would be a better alternative than blowing $8b on acquisition costs alone for the F-35 (in fiscal year 2015, on a "plane that doesn't work yet") and he advises

"We give every young American a trip overseas".

He goes on to write:

"Much of the world is clamoring to move to the U.S.. But the problem is more that Americans don't get outside the country enough, Fewer than half of Americans have passports. Few U.S. students study foreign language, and the number seems to be shrinking.

The insularity may have political and social costs. Americans' lack of understanding of the outside world fuels isolationism and could lead to ham-handed foreign policy mistakes. It might make the country less likely to support global initiatives like the fight against global warming."

The last is especially germane given it's likely that most of the knot heads who inveigh against global warming as a genuine threat have done very little global travel. Hence, they've not been exposed to many of its effects, from bleaching (and killing) coral reefs in the Caribbean to receding glaciers in Switzerland and Alaska.

Noah Smith's solution then is to propose a "reverse birthright" program (to Israel's "birthright" program where young Jews around the world are enabled to visit Israel via a subsidy). This would apply to "every American ages 18 to 26 who would get a certain amount of money toward an overseas choice trip of his or her choice."

He suggests $2,000 each but this may well be on the short side, especially if the youngster wants to go off to Katmandu. He figures if 4 million children are born each year in the U.S. this would ultimately come to $8 billion - "about the cost for each F-35". . But again - it's going to cost lots more if it is to be more than a one year, one off. Figure in at least twenty years - plus inflation - starting from next year, and you are likely looking at least at $200 billion. Sounds like a lot, but it's still ten time less than the U.S. has blown in Afghanistan - and I warrant with very little positive effect.

Granted these trips "would be exciting adventures for sure" but in addition "an overseas trip can have a huge impact on a young person". He goes on to aver: "Foreign travel can increase people's understanding of other cultures, open them to business and career ideas and create the sense that the world is a wider place than they had ever realized."

A point I can vouch for, given that in my first Peace Corps tour I visited a number of Caribbean island nations, including Martinique and St. Lucia. Thus I must agree with Smith when he concludes:

"The U.S. population in general is suffering from a decline in geographic mobility, which may be hurting economic dynamism. If that lack of mobility is in any way psychological, overseas trips can help."

Which I can certainly attest to after making no fewer than 13 overseas trips, including to Guyana, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, Bratislava, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria as well as Liechtenstein.


Approaching the Pitons in St. Lucia, August, 1972.


Me observing waterfall near volcano in St. Lucia. Aug. 1972. The best time to see some of the world is when you're still young and formulating your impressions of your place on the planet.

Of course, college grads don't have to wait for a reverse birthright program to travel overseas.. They can follow JFK's advice not to look for what their country can do for them (offer them a free trip abroad under Smith's plan) but instead join an organization like the Peace Corps.

They will not only get the chance to see another part of the world, but put their talents to use there and equally important, broaden their once provincial outlooks to a global perspective.

Millennials Need to Stop Whining About the Boomers!

Let's face it, the Baby Boomers have been a target of easy opportunity for all manner of nattering nabobs of negativity, who insist we Boomers are about to usher in the fall of civilization as we know it. From Arch-Boomer nemesis, Robert Samuelson who blames “entitlements” for an approaching fiscal train wreck, to a spate of authors – including P.J. O'Rourke, Joe Klein and  David Willets (in his book, ‘How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future and Why They Should Give It Back’)

Now enter a whiny Millennial, Alexander S. Balkin, who in a recent Salon piece (‘Boomers Ruined America’) cried for over 1,000 words on how terrible, amoral and  greedy the Baby Boomers are with choice shots such as:

The perfect example of this was the 2008 collapse of the toxic housing debt market. In government, baby boomers ballooned the defense budget beyond the point of reason. They then raided government programs to pay for their mistakes. Regarding the environment, baby boomers left the United States reliant on coal (cough, cough) while eroding the advanced nuclear energy infrastructure built by their parents. We can thank baby boomer leadership for a nation that has no sound policy on foreign affairs, the environment, energy, social welfare, human rights, terrorism, technology development, education, debt, etc. The point being, baby boomer leadership has provided America with a government that is the most partisan and self-serving the union has ever seen, and remains entirely reactive to the world around it.

All of which is over-generalized mush – can you say “fallacy of composition” i.e. when one claims that what is true of a part is true of a whole?  In this case, the “Boomers” he is referring to make up about 5 percent of the total generation. These are the entitled, 'silver spoon in the mouth'  twerps like Gee Dumbya Bush – who got his Harvard education via a legacy entitlement, and who – once elected- set the nation on a course of perpetual fear (following 9/11) , perpetual war (with defense budgets to match)  and massive oil  & coal dependency (well, BOTH Bush and Cheney were oilmen, after all, duh!)

But this twerp Balkin makes no distinction between that enclave of miscreants and the vast mass of Boomers – like me – who gave blood, sweat and tears either fighting in Vietnam for a war those like Bush instigated (in that case, LBJ – fawning fool for the Texas oilmen and military industrial complex) or serving in Peace Corps (as I did for 4 years) or some other volunteer mode. Yet this guy blames us and essentially dumps us all into the same mix as the Bushite- Neocon- Maul Street shyster  subset of Boomers!  This lack of rational discrimination alone calls into question his credibility in writing the piece.

As for the 2008 financial meltdown, don’t even get me started. But if this guy Balkin had a clue he could have researched and excavated the actual background – which can be boiled down to those of the elite Bushie-mold ilk creating credit default swaps and mixing them up with valid bonds and labeling the whole AAA. Those who want more information (and that especially includes Mr. Balkin)  can go here:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/02/lights-go-out-on-dismal-science-long.html

Also, the historical causes of multi-nation financial meltdown are a lot less obvious than picking on one highly visible demographic.  If you want the supreme distillation it can basically be summed up in two parts: 1) trashing the Bretton Woods Global Finance Agreement (1973), and 2) Launching numerous wars of choice which have not only cost blood but enormous treasure.

In the case of Bretton Woods, while it wasn’t perfect it did provide a more equitable global basis for competition and trade than what’s in place now – based on such travesties as G.A.T.T., NAFTA and World Trade Organization fiats (which sent millions of American jobs overseas). Worse, with the collapse of Bretton Woods, global currencies went from a fixed exchange rate system to a floating system. Only years after did many of the creators of the latter realize what an error they had made, and how much they facilitated currency speculation –especially in the carry trade. Since the Asian crisis in 1997, currency raiders have splattered the reserves of a number of nations as governments have watched helplessly. Only most recently, this piracy has reached new heights via the used of “naked credit default swaps” for speculators to bet on national collapse (as in Greece) with NO money on the table of their own.

If one now factors in how things have changed since 1973, one begins to see why the “younger generation” has been placed in economic peril – and it isn’t from the Boomers! For one thing, floating exchange rates and currency raids have allowed the dollar’s strength to deteriorate. This is called “currency debasement” and it’s been used over and over in recent decades for not very salutary purposes. For example, the Bush government used it to make the cost of domestic goods cheaper (via a cheaper dollar) to try to reduce the U.S. trade deficit.

Then again, the global market tyranny that has replaced Bretton Woods, has enabled millions and millions of high paying, relatively secure jobs (especially in manufacturing, but more recently in computer software specialties) to be shipped offshore to places like Bangalore and Beijing. Minus those higher benefits, higher paying jobs, Americans have barely been able to make ends meet – and this partly explains their stupendous reliance on credit card – to make up for their lost income. Young people, caught in this vortex, will obviously not see the same economic security as their parents who held steady good paying jobs with top benefits, to the extent that one could even afford to stay home. The now (nearly extinct) single income family!

Now, to this, add in all the wars  (Bushie instigated- without higher taxes to pay for them) which have bled down the national treasury (as I noted by an estimated $6 trillion – not even counting whacked out “defense” spending such as the $2.1 trillion under Reagan) and you have the basis for an economic Armageddon. Because make no mistake, SOMEONE had to pay or will have to pay, for those wars. Who is holding most of the bonds right now? Chinese and Japanese bankers – to the tune of nearly $2 trillion. Who will get the bill in the future? Our kids and grand kids, because their cowardly government didn’t have the brains or insight not to try to act like the world’s cop – and especially (in the Bush years) launching a full scale war against robed lunatics when a localized police or intel action could have been effective.

They preferred to bankrupt us, as Osama bin Laden always wanted – playing into his hands. Nor did they have the inner fortitude, given they got their war vote (by reconciliation no less) , to at least mandate the taxes to pay for it.  They preferred instead to use future taxes (and higher interest rates) to pay for it, but on the backs of future generations.

Yet now the smarmy asses in congress that voted for these war travesties and their humongous costs, want to say we haven’t the money for decent health care reform.

No, the Boomers are not the ghouls they’re made out to be by the likes of David Willet  or Alexander S. Balkin.  One of whom (Willet)  blames us for having too few children to increase our wealth relative to theirs and the other blames us for everything from the credit crisis to exploding defense budgets and overt dependence on fossil fuels.  Neither displays any grasp of reality and therein lies the problem. Because minus test in reality and hard evidence you don't know what you're talking about. 

People need to wake up, stop their blame game, and examine who the real culprits are in this forlorn multinational debt and war miasma. One thing for sure: Boomers do not need to “give back” anything to the next generation. What we do have to offer is our insight, and best advice. It’s up to the young ‘uns to take it or leave it, but if they leave it – don’t blame us for their predicament and lack of political smarts.

If I had one piece of advice for the likes of Balkin and his compatriots, it would be to put down the Ipods, smart phones and Twitter access and head to the library to do some serious reading: on history, politics and economics especially. To see first hand how you got to where you are without having to rely on simplistic scapegoats....like a whole generation. Knowledge is the key to your liberation, not picking on a large group that in many ways has been victimized as much or worse than you and for a longer time.

And btw, despite Balkin's claims we were somehow all privileged and got it all handed to us, I will have him know that most of us weren't favored sons like George W. Bush. We either had to get scholarships to attend university or student loans. And after graduating we educated ourselves on the basics of the political system and economics - our parents didn't have the time to dote because they were too busy working.

Before Mr. Balkin or others of his generation go after the Boomers again, they may wish to pick up a copy of my book, The Elements of the Corporatocracy – to see how Millennials really ended up where they are:

 http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/philip-a-stahl/the-elements-of-the-corporatocracy/paperback/product-18649133.html

 See also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/will-millennials-save-us-all.html

Joe Klein Loses It: Blames Baby Boomers for "Current Political Mess" in 'TIME' Tirade

Neolib hack Joe Klein, in his latest TIME column ("Apocalypse Now", Oct. 21, p. 18) goes even further off the deep edge of pseudo-journalistic lunacy than he did back in the spring. Recall at that time, Klein put those of  us who challenged Obama on the Chained CPI issue (for Social Security) in the same "extremist" league as the NRA - which had recently mounted a counter-legislative initiative to shoot down a weak gun control law.  Klein had responded to a letter by Howard Dean’s brother who had sent out a letter headed ‘Disgusted’ with the subtitle: ‘President Obama’s Budget Has Left me Disgusted’. I had asked at the time if Klein was nuts or just plain stupid.


Now he's one-upped that display of stupidity with his latest broadside against the Boomers. He actually puts them in the same class as the Tea Party, if one can believe it, using the dubious basis that both were into "street theater, bombast and showtime" and yeah - we were "every bit of solipsistic" as the Tea Baggers. Jeebus! So Klein actually gets paid good money to write this bollocks?  In fact, we were a damned sight more educated than the Tea Bag crowd, and far more idealistic. We didn't carry "Don't Tread on Me" signs and wear funny hats but we did actually mount enough large demonstrations to be one major agent that brought an end to the illegal Vietnam war.

As for "solipsistic", uh, no, Joe! We went out into the world to express and manifest our idealism, such as volunteering as Peace Corps volunteers to actually help vulnerable, developing nations set up agricultural projects, effective health assistance and educational consolidation. We didn't march into streets bearing real loaded guns because we didn't approve of a health care law, or try to shut the fuckin' government down!

Klein, to his minimal credit does admit:

"I am not saying the baby boom generation caused the government shutdown, but we've presided over an era during which public trust in government has been demolished. We've allowed the influence of concentrated money to corrupt our democracy."

But Klein has the wrong bad guys. In fact, I can show it was the government itself - at the time just after the Kennedy assassination (the pivotal event from which most polls disclose trust seriously  plummeted) that incepted the most profound public cynicism and distrust in the government. This government was mainly dominated by the "greatest generation" and it was they - the likes of LBJ, Earl Warren, Arlen Specter, Gerald Ford, David Belin et al who by their dastardly cover up of the crime of the century - led to our current political morass and descent. The concentrated money? JFK had plans and proposals to limit that influence, but the gangster state didn't want it and murdered him. The cover up in the wake ensured no one would be any the wiser, but most of the American people were and saw beyond the façade

But specific  examples are needed to show this. And there's no better place to start than the lies,  deceits, and shenanigans of the Warren Commission itself. Perhaps no other judicial confection or whitewash has done more to irreparably damage public trust in government than this politically-appointed entity whose job was to cover up the real actors in the assassination of one of the most beloved presidents - who also threatened the establishment.

Let's examine in detail Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford's own specific role in upending history by concealing the truth. This is visible in the draft shown below wherein he altered key words, sentences to mislead on the bullet to Kennedy's back:


The initial draft of the report had  stated:


"A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine."

Ford altered it to read:

"A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."


A comparison of the above, deliberate change (referencing a wound in the back of the neck)  to the photograph below from the autopsy,  shows clearly Ford sought to lie, since the bullet hole had clearly been marked in the back. Ford intentionally wanted the document to conform with the single bullet myth! Ford is one part of the thousands of reasons the public came to mistrust government in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Because if we couldn't trust government to perform this task, the faithful and judicious investigation of the slaughter of a sitting president, then it wasn't worth diddly spit or squat. And if it lied in its investigation-  to cover up the truth, then it couldn't be trusted!

Actual photo from Kennedy autopsy (but with rear of skull cosmetically replaced by mortician's plaster)  shows Ford is an inveterate liar.


Worse for Ford,  assassination eye-witnesses, including at least one Secret Service Agent in Dealey Plaza and several FBI agents (present at the Bethesda autopsy), placed the president's back wound exactly where the mute testimony of the president's jacket and shirt (and the above photo)  showed: six inches below the collar line.

The original autopsy sheet, including the placement and description of the back wound, was signed and verified by Admiral George Gregory Burkley, personal physician to the president who directed the autopsy at Bethesda. He verified the back wound placement on November 24th. That death certificate revealed the back wound to be, in the Admiral's own words, at the president's "third thoracic vertebra.”  The neck has seven CERVICAL vertebrae, and this observed and verified wound was described as three THORACIC vertebrae lower than the neck itself.

Let’s bear in mind that it was Gerry Ford  (who was no baby boomer!)  who originally suggested that the panel change its initial description of the bullet wound in Kennedy's back to place it higher up in his body. He knew, as did the others (including Arlen Specter, the author of the single bullet malarkey) that such changes were needed to make it fly and "disprove" conspiracy. Oh me, oh my, perish the thought of any conspiracy! We couldn't have the American people believe we were just another Banana Republic!

The final report then read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of his spine." Ford insisted this was “a small change, …intended to clarify meaning, not alter history”. But alter history is exactly what it did! For by altering the original autopsy report, Ford and his cohorts succeeded in conferring a measure of validity on Specter’s single bullet theory. This is despite the fact that analysis of the resulting trajectory doesn’t even conform to basic laws of Newtonian dynamics! Alas the only mention ever made of this perfidy was in the back pages of The New York Times nearly 33 years after the event.(See below)

But the change - though described as "ever so slight" in terms of wording, altered the whole basis for the Warren Conclusion! The Ford editing documents, on which the Times snippet was based, were made public by the Assassination Records Review Board. This agency had been set up by Congress (under the JFK Records Act) to compile all available evidence in the Nov. 22, 1963, murder. The documents had been part of the personal files of the late J. Lee Rankin, the Warren Commission's general counsel. If not for The JFK Records Act, we’d have never known about Gerald R. Ford’s tampering with the autopsy report in order to force it to show what he wanted, as opposed to the truth needed.


It’s sad to think that yet another of our sitting Presidents had a hand in deforming history, but the evidence is there and it’s not pretty! A year later, Ford produced his  own whitewash book Portrait of the Assassin, which was one of the most noisome put–up jobs ever, attempting to single out Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole perpetrator. But what would you expect of a lying scumball and one of those I blame for destroying public trust.

Which, by the way, he compounded when he pardoned Richard Milhous Nixon in 1974 - allowing the scumball who defiled the Constitution to walk free without impeachment - and doing it under the obvious nonsense of "preserving our national unity" when instead, it emboldened others to pursue even more arcane conspiracies and treachery  - such as the Iran -Contra conspiracy of Reagan.

Trust? Baby Boomers responsible for destroying public trust? Take your head out of your ass, Klein, and look at the numerous examples of how our own esteemed public "servants" spat upon their duty to truth, the Constitution and law and then tell me about destroying public trust.

The actual original description of the back wound placement was described thusly:

"in the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula there is a 7 x 4 millimeter oval wound. This wound is measure to be 14 cm from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm below the tip of the right mastoid process."

Which conforms to the location shown in the autopsy image. (
This wound placement - as described in the autopsy report reference (above) and shown in the photograph, is also clearly deduced by reference to the detailed anatomical diagrams in Gray's Anatomy.) 

 

All of the above, mean that the position reported by the Warren Commission (and engineered by Gerald Ford's alterations)  was intended  to mislead the public  as to the placement of this crucial wound, so as not to undermine the entire underpinning of the single bullet theory. It was this poppycock and malarkey on which Oswald's guilt was predicated along with the other deceptions, including fake FPCC (Fair Play for Cuba Committee) handbills as reported by John Newman (Oswald and the CIA)

Worse, it discloses that the autopsists themselves may have been complicit, i.e. lied, to make the single bullet theory work. This claim is reinforced by the fact that on their original Autopsy Body Chart, they did correctly identify the location - not in the base of the neck (as their WC  testimony averred) but six inches lower (as depicted in the diagram  above). Thus, either they falsified the facts in their testimony, or the Warren Commission itself did, to make them compatible with their single bullet nonsense. Added cogency comes from knowing that one of the Warren-appointed autopsists, Dr. J.J. Humes, burned his original autopsy notes[1].  Humes was also the only one who claimed to have detected a bullet wound in the rear of JFK’s head

As for John Connally, he is clearly hit at two different times, around Z236, where he is seen dropping his right shoulder and puffing out his cheeks[2], and still with Stetson in right hand (so no wrist bullet could have entered by then) . Later, at about Z328, when the hat is no longer held (since the wrist has been hit). Connally's wife, Nellie, the lone limo survivor - also bears this out in a diary retrieved from that fateful day, in which she pointedly notes two shots - separately to her husband and JFK (prior to the fatal head shot)[3]

This totally refutes the Warren Commission's egregious 'magic bullet'  theory. While Mrs. Connally still accepts their 'lone gunman' conclusion, this diverges logically from her own observations of 2 separate bullets - since if one disposes of the 2-for-1 shot compression, a de facto 'minimal' conspiracy scenario materializes - as there are now too many shots in the allowed time frame. This was the reason the Warrenites needed the artifice of the  'single / magic bullet' theory to begin with.

 

In effect, if one rejects the Warren Commission's 'magic bullet' theory they also (logically) must reject its 'lone gunman' conclusion, whether they realize that or not.

Reinforcing this is the fact that, had Gov. Connally been hit at frame 230 (as single bullet adherents posit) he would have had to continue holding his heavy white Stetson for about another second and a half,  AFTER being shot in the right wrist. Anatomically, this is nonsense. Close examination of the key frames discloses he firmly retains his grip on his Stetson between right thumb and forefinger.

It is the ulnar nerve which permits this apposition. But any bullet fired  into the wrist (i.e. at Z-230) would have severed that nerve, making any  grasp of his Stetson totally impossible. Hence, lone nut adherents are asking that we subscribe to a physically impossible situation.

As for the usual lone nut rejoinder that he 'suffered a delayed reaction'. this is also nonsense. Stretching the laws of physical, anatomical nature just as violently as the single bullet lunacy tortures the Newtonian laws of physics into deformed caricatures. These caricatures become subservient to political agendas rather than natural laws.

The honest inquirer is left to ask: Why are these biological/neurological and mechanical laws being so desperately convoluted and deformed? To serve a politically expedient solution and a contrived whitewash that seeks to dismiss the real evidence and replace it with a plausible sounding substitute which is totally fictitious .

If Joe Klein really wants to know the exact point at which public trust in government dissipated let him re-examine the follies and fraud of the Warren Commission and its Report which deliberately lied to the American people regarding the slaughter of a sitting president - and which offal and decay has carried forward to our present because it's never been honestly addressed.  Until this festering wound on the body politic is finally examined rigorously and honestly, with the motives of the assassination courageously exposed, the corruption in our system will only get worse. You don't survive a gangrenous wound by ignoring it, or "looking beyond it" (as Larry Sabato suggested in his recent CBS Early show interview) but by confronting it, dealing with it and hopefully healing it!

 

---

 

 

---

[1] High Treason, p. 73.

[2] Groden, op. cit., p. 27.

[3] TODAY show interview, aired November 19, 1998.

 

 

HONORING JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS (PART TWO)

We now continue to elaborate on JFK’s major accomplishments:

PEACE CORPS:

Contrary to the misbegotten trope that Peace Corps was started as a legion for do- gooders, the actual basis was as part of geopolitical strategy during the Cold War. Even before the program was inaugurated on March 1, 1961, Kennedy had pointed out that the Soviet Union "had hundreds of men and women, scientists, physicists, teachers, engineers, doctors, and nurses . . . prepared to spend their lives abroad in the service of world communism."

Kennedy understood, as few leaders do today, that most true victories aren’t won on battlefields but in the hearts and minds of populations. Support those vulnerable populations in a constructive way – by providing medicines, basic health care, ways to grow new crops to feed themselves, access to clean water and education – and you will win the most critical battles. To say JFK’s program has helped burnish the American image abroad would be an understatement – never mind the common detractors whose only contribution to human advancement to date has been…..well, nothing !

Since 1961, more than 220,000 volunteers- male and female - have served in the Peace Corps, working in such diverse fields as education, health, agricultural development, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, information technology, business development, protecting the environment and developing water resources,. Peace Corps volunteers have to be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. Peace Corps service is now a 27-month commitment.

And no, contrary to the lies of certain n’er do well, ignorant imps (who likely wouldn’t qualify for Peace Corps based on failing the psychological exam) Peace Corps was never a historical haven for “draft dodgers”. As part of the government, how could it have been? To be accepted you had to go through a government screening process and if you had dodged a draft call -up you’d have been exposed in a New York minute. If of draft age, at the time – say late 1960s, early 70s when the Vietnam War was going on – you had to either have a government deferment, or a draft card showing your classification was IY or 4F. There were no exceptions!

The goals of the Peace Corps remain:

1) To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers

2) To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served

3) To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

During my four year stint in the Peace Corps in Barbados, I helped set up the Science departments and fully outfitted biology, chemistry and general science laboratories at two different secondary schools, acted as the Head of Science Dept. in both, assisted in teacher education and curriculum development, helped found the Barbados Philosophical Society, and launched the first ever scientific journal for The Barbados Astronomical Society – as well as helping to organize public lectures, seminars, technical workshops.

The ALLIANCE for PROGRESS:

In March, 1961, Kennedy launched this critical economic assistance program – realizing the strategic importance of Latin America. In his opening speech in recognition of its goals, Kennedy said:

“We propose to complete the revolution of the Americas, to build a hemisphere where all men can hope for a suitable standard of living and all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom. To achieve this goal political freedom must accompany material progress...Let us once again transform the American Continent into a vast crucible of revolutionary ideas and efforts, a tribute to the power of the creative energies of free men and women, an example to all the world that liberty and progress walk hand in hand. Let us once again awaken our American revolution until it guides the struggles of people everywhere-not with an imperialism of force or fear but the rule of courage and freedom and hope for the future of man

Because of the program, economic assistance to Latin America nearly tripled between fiscal year 1960 and fiscal year 1961. Between 1962 and 1967 the US supplied $1.4 billion per year to Latin America. If new investment is included, the amount of aid rose to $3.3 billion per year during this time span while the total amount of aid was roughly $22.3 billion. Sadly, once LBJ got in, the amount of aid did not equal the net transfer of resources. LBJ was likely worried about the bad press Kennedy had received – as in the reactionary Wall Street Journal – which repeatedly accused him of being a “statist” and using “dirigisme”. (E.g. 8/15/63: 'When Friends Become Foes')

SPACE - THE MOON PROGRAM:

After the ignominy of the Russian satellite Sputnik, launched on Oct. 4, 1957, the U.S. received a wake up call in respect to its science and technology deficiencies. JFK knew that in order to technologically compete, a single program and focus was needed to capture the nation's imagination and to propel it toward a future where it wouldn't be left behind. Thus the manned space program was launched, and Kennedy declared in 1961 that "before this decade is out we will land a man on the Moon". With this single -minded focus the national resources were summoned through NASA, and he was as good as his word, with the Apollo astronauts setting down on July 20, 1969. Look at most of those who became interested in math or science, especially physics - at the time - and they will tell you it was Kennedy's challenge of going to the Moon, and manned space exploration in general. For me, I recall Alan Shepherd's Mercury flight on May 5, 1961 as if it was yesterday.

Many of the devices we take for granted today, especially in computers and electronic miniaturization, are direct spinoffs from the manned space program. Specific examples include: artificial limbs, scratch resistant lenses, ventricular assist devices, and light emitting diodes for medical therapies. In addition, you can thank the space program for having provided the satellites essential to keep your GPS locators functioning in your cars and satellite dishes operating for your satellite TV. You can also thank the space program for all the weather satellites that make it possible to know in advance the approach of hurricanes.

THE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY:

Few Americans today appreciate what we had to endure in the 1950s - early 60s, in terms of radioactive fallout (with Strontium 90 and other nuclides contaminating food, air, water etc.) from massive Russian and U.S. nuclear tests in the atmosphere. Often, say each month, 100 megaton or larger test warheads would be detonated – especially in the Soviet Union. The radiation from the blasts traveled across Europe as well as the Pacific. The U.S. had its share of tests too, and before Kennedy’s initiative (signed also by Nikita Khrushchev) few of us knew whether or if it would ever end.

But with the signing and ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty in August, 1963, it did. As author James Douglass aptly has noted (JFK and the Unspeakable):

“The test ban treaty was JFK’s critically important way to initiate, with Khrushchev, the end of the Cold War and their joint leadership in the United Nations for the redemptive process of general and complete disarmament.”

What changed Kennedy? Most observers believe it was the close call with the Cuban Missile crisis. Kennedy then became firmly convinced there needed to be controls in place, and also a path to general nuclear disarmament. In his American University speech on June 10, 1963, for example, JFK noted:

“Our primary long-range interest is general and complete disarmament- designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms”.

Indeed, in his National Security Action Memorandum 239 he explicitly said he was prepared to pursue such a program, noting:

” The events of the last two years have increased my concern for the consequences of an unchecked continuation of the arms race between ourselves and the Soviet bloc.”

CHALLENGING THE FEDERAL RESERVE CONTROL OF THE MONEY SUPPLY

Kennedy, while not a strict constructionist as regards the Constitution, did believe that the creation of money was legally only allotted to the U.S. Treasury and not an outside banking enterprise. (Which the Federal Reserve was, and is – see e.g. James Livingstone Origins of the Federal Reserve System - Money, Class and Corporate Capitalism 1890- 1913, Cornell University Press, 1986, p.233.)

Realizing that if he didn’t make a move to challenge the Federal Reserve no one else would, he signed Executive Order 11,110 on June 4, 1963 - to challenge Fed's control of the money supply. This EO authorized the creation of some $4.2 billion in U.S. Notes ($30b in today's dollars) to replace Federal Reserve Notes. These U.S. Notes were issued by Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, and bore his signature. After the assassination nearly all the notes were recalled. I was fortunate in being able to save two: a $2 note with Jefferson on the front, and a $5 with Lincoln. Both display the serial numbers in red ink, not green like Federal Reserve notes. Readers who are interested in seeing the fiver can go to my blog post of July 14, last year, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/yes-those-us-notes-were-real.html


JFK's U.S. note issuance was clearly an effort to break the Fed stranglehold, and especially its policy whereby new money is brokered into the M1 supply system via interest, passed on to lending, issuing banks, thereby creating a stream of new debt each time.

Had he lived, massive additional infusions of U.S. Notes likely would have occurred, ultimately leading the way to redundancy of the Federal Reserve. But perhaps that’s why he couldn’t be allowed to live.

RAPPROCHEMENT WITH FIDEL CASTRO:

JFK realized also in the wake of the Cuban Missile crisis, that Castro’s Cuba could not be an enemy of the U.S. for life. There was no upside to it, for either nation. National Archives specialist and archivist Peter Kornbluh has already extensively documented the goings on in the Kennedy white house to do with Cuba in the months leading up to his assassination. Much of this was documented in his article, 'Kennedy and Castro: What Might Have Been', in The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 22, 1999, p. 1C. As he notes:

"Unknown to all but Robert Kennedy and a handful of advisors, John Kennedy began pursuing an alternative tact on Cuba in 1963: a secret dialogue toward a rapprochement with Castro. "

(snip) "The first private channel to Castro was James Donovan, a Washington lawyer negotiating the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. During the late fall of 1962, Donovan became the first American emissary to gain Castro's ear and his trust. Donovan arranged a trade of $62 million in food and medicines for the imprisoned brigade members. During the spring of 1963 he continued his trips to Havana to secure the release of two dozen American citizens including three CIA operatives, held in Cuban jails. Debriefed by U.S. intelligence officials after each trip, Donovan described his meetings with Castro as 'most cordial and intimate'."

Developments proceeded rapidly, according to the Kornbluh documents, until by November 19, 1963, the stage was set for a preliminary “secret meeting at the United Nations to discuss an agenda for talks with Castro”. Alas, it was not to be, and 3 days later Kennedy was dead. Most deep politics researchers suspect the CIA caught wind of the plan – despite the extraordinary efforts to keep it secret- and this along with Kennedy’s plan to pull out of Vietnam in 1965 sealed his fate. (Also quite plausible, is that the anti-Castro Bay of Pigs Cubans run by George Joannides of the CIA were privy to the Castro rapprochement, and they volunteered to be mechanics in the assassination – to “pay Kennedy back for his treachery".)

Make no mistake the legacy of John F. Kennedy lives on especially in the hearts and minds of those of us who were directly involved in one or more of his programs. We who carry on that legacy seek to make it known, as well as beating back the endless efforts of racist knaves, know-nothings and knuckle draggers to slander his name and besmirch his legacy.