Trump The Tweeting Twit Gets His Comeuppance

Let us admit as a rational proposition, that no leader - or leader -elect- ought to be propounding nuclear policy via a cartoon language medium. I refer to Trump's nuclear policy tweet last week:

"We need to strengthen and expand nuclear capacity until the world comes to its sense regarding nukes."

What the hell is he yapping about? Expand nuclear capacity? Is he nuts, ignorant or just stupid? As a number of strategic analysts have pointed out, including staff from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the U.S. already has just under 5,000 nuclear warheads in its active arsenal and more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. This is more than enough to turn the world to ash about six times over.

Meanwhile the clueless media, especially on TV, kept showing the tweet on large HD screens in bold relief, as they scratched their heads, openly wondering what the hell he meant. No surprise here. As I pointed out earlier (Nov. 23rd  post) Twitter is essentially a cartoon language medium by which I mean its 140 character limit basically excludes any complex thought.  Or, I might add, any basis for explication or interpretation of what one is communicating.  One is basically reduced to the equivalent of a series of language cartoons.  This also harkens back to the medium used  constituting the basis of the message, as Marshall McLuhan first pointed out in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 

Thus, no surprise as the Trump tweet left its point of origin, the Trump team itself was scurrying to impose some semblance of meaning on the word jumble expelled.  In fact, as a Denver Post release noted, the "Trump team offered only slightly more explanation of the comment later in the day when communications director Jason Miller said Trump was 'referring to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the critical need to prevent it'"

Well, if that is what he meant, why didn't he say it, errr.....tweet it? Well, because the medium is so truncated and terse it doesn't allow for such expansion. Ok, let me take that back. One can, of course, do multiple tweets. But given each such blurtation is really a cartoon mini-medium itself  (complete with Trump's cartoon visage attached) there is still the danger the entire message can be misconstrued because it is not given as a coherent whole. That is, as a complete formal statement from what we expect to be grown ups wearing big boy pants, not Pampers.

And given that Russia, according to the same strategic sources, "has 400 more nuclear warheads than the U.S. does", one might assume that Trump - via his tweet - really meant overtaking the Russians.  Or, it could have meant  tearing up the new START Treaty which limits strategic weapons to 1,550 each by February, 2018. At least these would be the possible interpretations IF one could also assume Trump knew that the Russkies had a 400 nuke advantage and also knew what the START Treaty is. But since he doesn't even read his daily briefs, that's unlikely.

Trump's lack of impulse control over his Twitter account also showed itself in other manifestations over the past few days.  The latest incident occurred on Friday when the Obama administration abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote that condemned Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and allowed the resolution to pass. The alternative would have been to issue a veto to kill it right there.

Now the interesting part: a day earlier, Trump via Twitter had publicly demanded that Obama veto the measure, even intervening with Egypt at the request of Israel to pressure the administration to shelve the effort. Understand here above all else, this is a guy who has absolutely no real power or leverage as yet. He hasn't been sworn in, and as numerous rational observers have pointed out, there can be only one President at a time. It is also somewhat hilarious to witness a character with the temperament of a colicky three year old sending tweets ordering a sitting President to obey him. I mean, are you shitting me?

Trump wrote on Twitter after the vote: "As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20.” 

Maybe, Maybe not. But until that date (and actually beyond it) Trump needs to seal away and dispose of his Twitter account. The reason is very simple and ought to require little explanation: Presidents (as well as President -elects) - if one is going to insist on ""respect" - mandate via optics a certain level of decorum. This simply can't be achieved by tweets, unless one is willing to be viewed as an unreconstructed adolescent. So, like it or not, Trump- if he wishes to be taken seriously by those beyond his cartoon tweet and re-tweet community - will have to put on his big boy pants and put the Twitter away. Better yet, give his phone to Melania for safe keeping.

What has been immensely gratifying  was to finally see the Obama White House basically deliver a nice middle finger salute following Trump's original demand for UN veto tweet. Even if the WH and Trump camp haven't yet broken into open warfare, it was a gesture that warmed the cockles of every true liberal's heart.. Much of the blame of course must be on the twittering twit himself  who continues to demonstrate zero control of his impulses - a worrisome sign for a guy who will soon control the nuclear codes.

Of course, some academic dingbats - like Douglas G. Brinkley, a professor of history and a presidential historian at Rice University in Houston, have totally misinterpreted what's going on. Brinkley has insisted "Trump is neutering the Obama administration". But seriously, you can't "neuter" a sitting President using a device more apropos of horny adolescents eager to meet up with hot chicks. It just doesn't compute or work, unless these electronic burps are taken seriously, which no one in his right mind should - including Brinkley. The only one Trump is really neutering is himself, intellectually and by way of perception, because a serious "neuterer" would use the vehicle of a press conference, not a Twitter account.

Brinkley also hit the wrong note when he was quoted (by the NY Times) as saying:

"They’ve avoided personally attacking each other, but behind the scenes, they’re working to undermine each other, and I don’t know how the American people benefit from that.”

Uh, no, they can't, Brinkley. But for God's sakes put the situation in the proper framework as opposed to a "tail wags the dog" context.   It reminds me of another pretend historian - Robert Dallek - who once blurted about JFK (at least a tweet might be understandable): 'Why do we admire a president who did so little?'   Basically forgetting how Kennedy, by standing up to the Joint Chiefs during the peak of the October, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis - prevented a nuclear exchange that would have left most of the world in ashes.

In this case of Brinkley's misfire, it is Trump working to undermine Obama, by interjecting himself into serious policy issues and matters when he has no standing to do so, none. Being "President -Elect" doesn't count.  So the true matter is that the American people are definitely not benefiting from Trump/s constant impulsive expulsions- especially on nuclear matters. Why this should be so difficult for a historian to grasp is beyond me, but hey- maybe they're no longer required to take logic courses en route to their advanced degrees.

If one isn't distracted by Trump's tweets, as no rational person (especially a historian) should be, then it makes eminent sense for Obama to conduct policy as he sees fit - without having to explain himself to a smarmy ass "backseat driver" with the impulses of a 3-year old. Thus,  on Tuesday Obama's administration  announced a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along wide areas of the Arctic and the Eastern Seaboard, invoking an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The administration  was also correct to claim that Trump had no power to reverse it. Technically he doesn't, but don't be surprised if the Trump Brigade and GOP accomplices find a whole raft of ways to overturn existing laws and precedents.

It is sad that a presidential transition has come to this: A petty, infantile narcissist with the emotional IQ of a sullen three year old, dispatching random tweets on a current administration's policy - each one  taken as holy writ by the media and even historians. If this is to be the template for the next four years, we are all in a deep sack of shit and probably can't rely on any public institutions to retain sanity. But never mind, I will expose nonsense, hijinks and inimical agendas, plans whenever I see them.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-stanton/70454/emperor-twitteritus-trumparonious-birth-on-total-lunar-eclipse-666-signs

Tom Hanks Finally Gets To Broadcast His JFK Anti-Conspiracy Bollocks ( In Miniature)

Vince Bugliosi -author of 'Reclaiming History' - figures prominently in Tom Hanks' recycled propaganda piece on the Kennedy assassination.

Imagine assembling a cavalcade of talking heads with some name cachet to dispute and attempt to skewer the evidence that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a conspiracy. It would require some degree of moxie especially if one also was a self-proclaimed "Kennedy liberal".  But this was Tom Hanks, as he catapulted himself from the fictional Forrest Gump to would- be modern pop historian of record, most recently in a CNN 1-hour presentation on the JFK assassination.

Most people are aware that pop historians Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman were to have completed a 13 part HBO series on the event based on Vince Bugliosi's ridiculous book 'Reclaiming History" - to support the Warren Commission whitewash. This was to be for the 50th anniversary year (2013).  Hanks went so far as to say in one Truthdig interview that he intended to "do the American public a service" - because they "have been snookered into believing that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed."  .  Evidently, Hanks,  Goetzman and Bugliosi were convinced that Gerald Posner's earlier, two -bit hatchet job 'Case Closed' wasn't enough - and they were right. Within a short time critics had exposed all of Posner's tricks, omissions, distortions and disinformation which the interested reader can peruse here:

http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

So Hanks' job was formidable: to do what Gerald Posner was unable to. Recall when I told German friends at the Zugspitze about Hanks' grandiose plans they howled with laughter and asked 'Who was trying to snooker who?'  Most couldn't believe a high grade comic actor would deign to produce a historical series about Kennedy.  See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

One can, of course, inquire into Hanks' bona fides as a Kennedy historian of any type. Those who want the details (Goetzman's too) can  check out Jim Di Eugenio's superb book, 'Reclaiming Parkland',  where we learn Hanks first rose to some minor theatrical prominence at Skyline High School in Oakland, CA, and subsequently entered Chabot Community College in Hayward, CA as a drama specialist.  Hanks - as Di Eugenio notes- basically has no history creds at all, but he did rise to stardom with 'Splash" and then - after becoming a household name - met Gary Goetzman on the set of 'Philadelphia'. The rest, as they say, is history and the pair went on to make a set of historical series, starting with 'Band of Brothers' on HBO.

That these guys even read the full Warren Report, the official government report (released by the HSCA)  or any of the recently released files under the JFK Records Act is doubtful. As Di Eugenio put it ((p. 16):

"How did these men get into a position to make such momentous public decisions about highly controversial and very important historical issues."

Well, because of their connections - especially to media elites and propagandizers (like Vince Bugliosi, and Max Holland) with an axe to grind about anything that raises the issue of conspiracy.

But let us fast forward.

Hanks' Kennedy conspiracy- skewering extravaganza never made it to HBO, even after he and Goetzman pared it down to nine parts and pleaded with the producers re: its "import". But the decision of the honchos at HBO was that it would be a ratings disaster and the details those like Bugliosi would go into,  would simply cause viewers' eyes to glaze over.  In addition, Hanks' previous project, 'The Pacific', didn't draw the numbers of his earlier popular history efforts, e.g. Band of Brothers. So the project had to be mothballed.

But who knew at the time that this historical fiasco would be resurrected but in distilled,  miniature form? Thus, it appears Hanks and Goetzman were bound and determined to get this propaganda promotion (maybe for the CIA?)  on the air in some form, and with some cooperating media outfit. Evidently, they succeeded with CNN - in a series televised over last weekend entitled 'The Sixties'. One of the episodes was 'The Kennedy Assassination' and as soon as I spotted Hanks and Goetzman's names (as executive producers)  I figured they might try a hit job on JFK lone nut skeptics in that episode. I was absolutely correct.

To their credit they present actual historical footage from the times, including Oswald's being paraded through the Dallas police station and also being asked questions by reporters  - which would never happen today.  He provides responses that are all consistent with Peter Dale Scott's evidence that he was methodically framed by the security state to act as the patsy. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee_1807.html

Where it turns into propaganda is the edited insertion of dissing talking heads, starting with Bugliosi himself. There we see the former Manson prosecutor whining in a tinny voice that "everything he said was provably a lie" . But, of course, we now know just about everything Bugliosi said about Oswald was a lie, and the Warren Report he and his associates defend so vigorously is just a tissue of lies woven into more lies (as well as fake exhibits). But this despicable affront to American intelligence was given the mantle of probity by assembling  a set of commissioners possessing a veneer of name gravitas.  See my FAQs on the WC here for its many failings, omissions, and suborning detritus that really ought to have outraged any real lawyer:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_13.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_14.html

Bugliosi immediately follows his "lies" outburst by asserting  Oswald was a "nut" and once that was "learned" his prosecution as the lone gunman became inevitable. In fact, Bugliosi had become prey to the very media canards Peter Dale Scott exposed in his 'Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’, e.g. that of a:

"neurotic frustrated by neglect, and 'angered' (Posner's words) that 'others failed to recognize the stature he thought he deserved."

This codswallop was then additionally integrated into the CIA- confected narrative that Oswald was a "KGB -linked assassin"  hired to kill Kennedy. Under the tutelage of Warren Commissioner Dulles, it was decided to drop it and pursue the lone gunman narrative instead. The spooks agreed they didn't want to use an unproven bit of nonsense to frighten the American people to death after assembling a compendium of lies.

Alas, these illustrious historical actors presented by Hanks and Goetzman included Allen Dulles - the very CIA head JFK fired after the Bay of Pigs and who set up his own anti-Kennedy gov't in the wake to bring Kennedy down by hook or crook- or bullets see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/11/convergence-of-two-important-books.html

Bugliosi soon appears again, bellyaching that  "conspiracy theorists had  dug so deeply they had ended up splitting hairs then splitting the split hairs until the Kennedy case had become the most complex ever known". Of course, this is outrageous hyper-bullshit. In fact, all that happened is that when actual files (previously withheld) were finally released under the JFK Records Act in 1992 researchers finally had the material they needed to pursue the case in all its dimensions, including: Clay Shaw's CIA contract agent number,  Oswald's CIA files (CI/SIG and 74-500), and the fact that Kennedy had planned to pull all personnel out of Vietnam by 1965 via National Security Action Memorandum 263.

There followed stock footage of Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby which saw other media heads visibly pouting in their expressed outrage,  as if no one could be stupid enough to challenge the finding that good ol' Jack simply acted out of his heart as a latter day cowpoke who took down the 'bad guy'.  (But he did have a personal motive: he wanted to drive more business to his 'Carousel Club' - as the place owned by the guy who killed the big, bad assassin. NO thought that he'd be in the slammer for his misdeeds).

Oh, then there was the objection that hey, Ruby was a "groupie"  of the Dallas cops and always came to the station, so WHY would any dolt think it was "unusual" he was there? The odds are, well,.....astronomical!  Another pompous gasbag spouted that "Ruby had only a few minutes to get into the station" i.e. from where he'd been earlier, "so how the heck could he have been sure to be armed and known Oswald would be there so he could shoot him?" The "limited time" disproved it.

Sorry, Roscoe, it doesn't. (Also, controverting evidence shows Ruby had more than ample time to get inside and get a good shot)

Ruby's very regular presence likely made him privy to the scuttlebutt that Oswald was being moved to a new site, so was aware of the day and time and brought his weapon. As gangster Johnny Roselli confessed to one source (before he was to appear before the HSCA) :  "Of course Jack did it, to silence Oswald!" After which Roselli found himself in the Intracoastal waterway off Miami gutted like a fish and crammed inside a waste can. Escaping gases from the corpse caused the can to rise to the surface as reported by Gaeton Fonzi in 'The Last Investigation' (the HSCA real gov't investigation that Hanks and Goetzman omit.)

The only one with the sober take, amidst all Hanks' parading puppets, was Oswald's mother, who told it straight that she believed Ruby was a "hired killer to shut the mouth of Lee Oswald".  Subsequently released files disclose she nailed it.

On the segment to do with Jim Garrison, all the venomous claims and slanders made against him are interjected, as well as images of Clay Shaw - holding the New Orleans States -Item in his hands with the front page reading, 'NOT GUILTY!' and yucking it up   More Hanks' selected  talking heads follow, yapping how the case was tossed out. Well, of course it was, since the Judge in the case (Haggerty)  refused to allow Garrison to cite or introduce Shaw's alias, 'Clay Bertrand'.

Like most of the content of this blatant hit job, no mention is made that after the JFK Records Act and files release, the CIA DID fess up that Shaw was a contract agent and worked for them. As CIA Doc. (JFK 1993: 6.28.16.07.26.560280) notes:

"A memorandum marked for files says that J. Monroe Sullivan, #280201, was granted a covert security  approval as of 10 December 1962 so he could be used in Project QKENCHANT [Clay L. Shaw has #402897]"

Under the CIA  banner QKENCHANT one is cleared for intelligence procurement. Such clearance meant you were a safe contact  for the Agency and hence could be used as a "cut out" (employing an alias)  , with the CIA giving you only a certain amount of information. Clay Shaw then, had the ability to recruit other agents, thereby granting them security approvals. From the available files disclosed long after Garrison's efforts ended, Shaw used his QKENCHANT clearance to "plan or coordinate CIA activities" as well as "initiate relationships with non-Agency persons or institutions." In this guise, Shaw was effectively part of the CIA's clandestine services with Covert Security Approval, working under cover.  

Not skipping a beat, Hanks then brings in "experts" like Arlen Specter and some low level Warrenite stooges and media twerps to disparage the skeptics who found fault with the single bullet theory. A 2-dimensional plan overview of the limo and the positions of JFK and Connally are shown to refute the critics SBT objections - with Bugliosi arguing that Connally was not really seated directly in front of Kennedy, a perspective achieved by altering Connally's  seat position relative to JFK in the rear.  They'd have certainly managed to convince many people that yes indeed, that single bullet could find its way through both men to make seven wounds and emerge barely scathed. BUT....if one goes to the sideways diagram, and appeals to the records track, one finds the horse fly in the ointment, e.g..



The "horse fly" is at the entry point in JFK's back. Recall that early on the Warren whitewashers realized their original sketch of the bullet entry wouldn't work:

The upper inclined blue arrow shows the trajectory of the bullet that the Warren Commission first believed would be needed in order to account for BOTH the JFK back wound AND the neck wound - then entering Connally to make his wounds.

The problem was that with the upward angle trajectory the shooter would've had to have been firing literally  from street level,   which would have eliminated a TSBD shooter (alleged to be Oswald). Thus, at least one WC member (Gerald Ford) realized for the SBT to work the Commission's drawing had to reset the placement higher - changing it to the light yellow trajectory through the base of the neck, and a downward angle.. .

The initial draft of the report(conforming to the blue upward trajectory)  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."
 
Clearly, Ford wanted the document to conform with the single bullet myth  (requiring now the yellow shot arrow) and would stoop to altering a document on record to attain the goal.  The problem for Ford and the Warrenites is one of basic anatomy. 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.

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!

To make matters worse for Ford et al, the throat wound was described by Parkland surgeon Malcolm Perry (who should know his business given having to deal with multiple Dallasites' gunshot wounds at Parkland) as an ENTRY wound..

Cleverly, Hanks and his parade of propagandizers made reference to none of this. But that is the special talent of Hanks and Goetzman: to frame viewer perceptions by omission. (In the preceding episode, "The World On the Brink", they omit any mention of Kennedy evolving away from his cold warrior pose after the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the violent opposition of Gen. Curtis Lemay to Kennedy's naval blockade during it. They also omit his documented rapprochement with Fidel Castro. But then they obviously would know that would have given the security warhawks a prima facie case to kill him.)

Interspersed throughout we see and hear all the Warren Commission groupies and puppets, from yes, Max Holland, to Vince Bugliosi to David Susskind and assorted Jim Garrison critics.  They note at the time a majority of Americans don't buy the Warren Report - for all the reasons I have cited ad infinitum, and we hear these varied snarky mini-speeches - as if to lecture any viewers they damned well ought to know better:

Trying to add more reinforcement to the hit job Hanks et al then get this bit of canned, subjective insight from Priscilla Johnson McMillan (author of 'Marina and Lee')  :

"If you understood the Walker shooting, you knew Lee was like a cocked rifle. He could go off at any time".

The true fact is that Lee had nothing to do with the Walker shooting, but why fret over facts when Hanks and Goetzman can recruit willing disinformationists to do their dirty work. McMillan, as later records disclosed, worked as a research pawn for the CIA, so it's no surprise her book would be framed the way it is (that Lee was this seething loose cannon). See:

http://www.jfk-info.com/pjm-cia.htm

 A salient point to make which McMillan omits: the slug found at the scene was from a 30.06 as reported from the FBI files cited in Mark North’s excellent book Act of Treason (page 255). So how did a 30.06 rifle mutate into Oswald’s alleged 6.5 mm Mannlicher –Carcano some months later, when all the evidence is Oswald never fired such or was ever photographed with such?  Why would Hoover, the FBI, the Warren Commission and the Dallas Police be so eager to hang this shooting on Oswald, to later implicate him in the JFK assassination? Mark North again has the answer:

“Hoover, the Dallas P.D. and the Warren Commission realized early on that an examination of Oswald’s past reveals only a pacifist engaged in leftist activism. Simply put, he is nonviolent”

North aptly points out (ibid.) subsequently that the Walker shooting – like other “media myths” -  was totally unrelated to the assassination and further:

“would have faded into total obscurity but for the fiction that will be created on 11/22/63”

One does have to hand it to Hanks and Goetzman for clever editing and inserting all the most gravitas-resonating voices of the time, including Eric Sevareid, and Walter Cronkite to instill the meme that finding for conspiracy is all about finding "comfort" in a brutish random world where-  according to Sevareid:  "power and majesty can be wiped out in an instant by a skinny, weak-chinned little character".

After all, at least a conspiracy provides a sense of "order", where a lone nut killer is "random".  Of course, a real conspiracy involving the national security state is a billion times more upsetting to a sane person - given it implies any President can be removed by force. A lone gunman scenario would be balm by comparison given it would mean a plausible 'one off' and not that systematic killers are lurking to take out anyone who steps too far out of  line. Do these two fools- Hanks and Goetzman-  really believe Americans to be that fucking stupid? Evidently they do!

Hey! Allen Dulles didn't look that skinny and "weak-chinned" to me!

And then we are treated to the authoritative voice of Walter Cronkite:

"What would be more comfortable? Accepting a lone assassin, or believing a second assassin suddenly materialized out of thin air, fired a shot and disappeared again without leaving a trace of his rifle, his bullet or any other sign of existence?"

But barely ten years after "Uncle Walter" said those words, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) did find for a "96 percent probability" of a second gunman based on acoustic tests done by MIT researchers. While a special gov't appointed team attempted to refute it, they failed, and moreover none of them were bona fide  acoustic specialists like the MIT group.

Then there is  pseudo-historian Robert Dallek, husking through his teeth:

"They don't want to believe that something so random would have occurred."

Well, uh yeah, Robert, especially when the alleged rifle couldn't even be made to replicate Oswald's purported shots in test trials! See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-fhe-jfk.html

To make matters worse, he resorts to false analogy:

"Can you believe you could stop off a curb someday and be killed by an oncoming car? Nobody believes that kind of possibility for themselves but it happens! Is life that fortuitous or uncertain?"

Yes, it can be, but that's not at all the same as all the evidence pointing to being framed, as a set up or decoy for an actual assassination conspiracy.  Dallek, like other pro-Warren flunkies -  and that includes the pop stars of Hanks and Goetzman -want to expunge the fact that Oswald was framed. If he was framed - and we have the CIA's  (Mexico City) cables from David Atlee Phillips to prove it -  then it was no  "random" event  but planned - by the same CIA spooks who framed him. See e.g. the previous links I gave just preceding the paragraph commencing with the words "Where it turns into propaganda".

In this Dallek (like Cronkite and Sevareid),   commits the same error as mathematician John Allan Paulos, in his 2008 book, Irreligion: mistaking the low political value of the person assassinated for the high political value of the assassination.

The end blather comes compliments of Bugliosi, squealing about lack of faith in government:

"They've (conspiracy believers) lost so much faith in government they actually think the government is an accessory after the fact to the President's murder. It can't get too much worse than that."

Well, it can if it is true, and all the recent record  releases point to it ,  namely the involvement of the CIA. After all, nowhere in Bugliosi's cinder block of a book was it even mentioned that the USAID Commodity Import Aid Program  to S. Vietnam had been cut off without informing Kennedy- until David Bell (CIA and USAID go between) told him. This prompted New York Times journalist Arthur Krock  in his piece  ‘The Inter-Administration War in Vietnam’, The New York Times, Oct. 3, 1963). to write:

"If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the government, it will come from the CIA”
 
This followed his observation  that:  "the CIA had flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.”

What? Vince lacked the I.Q. to locate this NY Times piece? Or was he too lazy or too dedicated to protecting the Warren claptap? For sure - as a former prosecutor - he'd have seen prima facie evidence for government involvement!  In addition, it's mystifying to have seen him whining about this when this is the same guy wrote:  'The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President'. This refers to the noisome interjection of the Court in the 2000 Florida recounts, basically handing the 2000 election to Gee Dumbya Bush.  Basically, Bugliosi believed the high court committed "treason" as he often referred to it in interviews to promote the book. So in fact at one time he did believe the government  - a sector of it  - could be an accomplice to nefarious acts. So why not to assassination? And oh, let's not forget Operation Northwoods!

This was described by James Bamford  (Body of Secrets, Doubleday Books): p. 82 as:

“maybe the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government”

This treacherous campaign of terror was to include the sinking of refugee boats (carrying Cuban refugees) on the high seas, as well as the killing of innocent citizens on American cities’ streets, plus random bombings carried out in Washington, DC, Miami and other places. The objective? To deliberately incite a war with Castro's Cuba. One can easily see from both the October, 1962 exchanges and also the Northwoods information, that the JCS and especially LeMay - had a major 'Jones' for starting a war.

Hell, we even have FOIA files for the preliminary plan that was later accepted - which would have been easily accessible to Hanks and Goetzman if they had more investment in truth than confecting propaganda. E.g.












































That neither Bugliosi, Hanks or Goetzman could evidently find the same documents shows me they are all either incompetent, or they are committed to mass brainwashing : Bugliosi using his portentous, misleading propaganda book, Hanks and Goetzman with their biased hit job on Warren Commission skeptics and conspiracy proponents, researchers. They all ought to be ashamed of themselves.

The lone voice in the hour that stood out for me was that of historian Robert Caro:

"The assassination changed the trajectory of America. So it was a different place after the assassination than it was before Kennedy was killed. If you look at America as a whole in the 20th century - and look at America in the 1960s - you really see how that event split the history."

Thankfully, this will likely be the last half-baked historical propaganda piece we can expect from Hanks and his pal Goetzman, masquerading as real history.  Hanks insists he is a "Kennedy Liberal" which is interesting because that is exactly what I am. So why are Hanks and myself at 180 degree opposite poles on the Kennedy assassination? Why is it that I do believe Oswald was indeed framed and set up as a decoy and Hanks thinks we're all "snookered"?

I think the separation can be almost entirely explained on the basis that Hanks hasn't done one tenth the research, reading and other investigations that I have actually carried out (and described in detail in my recent book, 'The JFK Assassination: The Final Analysis').  How many years, decades has Hanks spent plowing through relevant materials, including old documents, newspapers, newsreels, clips, tape transcripts and FOIA -released files? Or, did he just commence doing it within a year or so of the publication of Vince Bugliosi's pro-Warren Commission PR book? Meanwhile, I have been at it non-stop  since 1977, including going through all the volumes of the House Select Committee on Assassinations- published in 1979. I've also done my own physics analysis of the shot sequence, including relevant computations of momentum, torque acting on the body and the impulse needed to send a piece of skull flying over the limo trunk. (A little observation Bugliosi also never processes in trying to explain why the head shot at Z-313 is really due to a "jet effect")

It is all very well, then, to seek to disabuse a population about their strong belief in Oswald's innocence, or that he wasn't the lone gunman, but what have YOU got to show in terms of your own bona fides?  Thankfully, it appears Hanks' further specious responses - apart from this CNN piece- will spread no more devious propaganda - dispensed from presumed trustworthy pundits -  masquerading as truth.

See also:


http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/green/BesmirchingHistory.html

http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2007/05/reclaiming-history-from-vince-bugliosi.html

http://www.reclaiminghistory.org/

Liberals Can Also Be Misinformed And Ignorant In Parsing Our History

-
On reading an article ('Can We Ever Recover from the Murder of John Kennedy?') by Harvey Wasserman, on the liberal blog smirkingchimp.com two nights ago, I was impressed by the insight displayed and why we as a people still haven't come to terms with his killing. However, many of the comments were another thing - demonstrating every manner of ignorance and idiocy one could imagine. It confirmed my belief that liberals are as woefully ill-informed about our 35th President and his record as right wingers. And while not quite in the "Larry Schweikart" "mold they aren't far behind from what I read.

Some examples:

1) One bonehead who goes by the monicker 'RE James50' claimed Kennedy had issued "Reaganesque supply side tax cuts"when President  This ignorant bollocks came straight from the playbook of Charles Krauthammer, resident WaPo neocon, who used it in 2001 when the initial Bush tax cuts were being promoted. It ought not be necessary to say this, but any liberal who incorporates false arguments and claims from the likes of Krauthammer is as misinformed as he is. (Krauthammer attempted to convey a veneer of truth by citing  a JFK speech before the New York Economic Club in December, 1962.  JFK's speech endorsed a general tax cut, and let's bear in mind at the time that the top rate was 91%. JFK proposed lowering it to 65% for the wealthiest, still nearly two times what the current top rate is for them (after the Bush tax cuts).

When a well-informed commentator tried to correct James he simply doubled down on this bullshit - even after the sane contributor presented evidence of Kennedy's proposals from Donald Gibson's excellent monograph: 'Battling Wall Street- The Kennedy Presidency'. To remind readers of what that evidence was,  JFK's tax cut proposals included:

- The elimination of all tax breaks set up in the form of foreign investment operations or companies

- The repeal of all tax advantages by corporations operating in low tax countries, such as Switzerland

- The repeal of the 100% charitable contribution write-off by the wealthy

- Withholding tax on the investments, dividends and capital of the wealthy to ensure revenues could not be lost by too many shelters or at the 'end point'.

- Tax on investment dividends so that all those earning in excess of $180 k would pay a much higher rate.

-Devices that would prevent 'high bracket taxpayers' from concealing income from 'personal holding companies'.

- An anti-speculation provision that would ensure property or investments were kept at least one year - else no benefit from existing capital gains rates would apply

-The elimination of special 'gift' transfers as well as repeal of the $50 dividend exclusion and the 4% dividend credit.

(Source: 'Battling Wall Street - The Kennedy Presidency', by Donald Gibson, Sheridan Square Press, 1994, pp. 22-23)

In addition - again omitted by the conservos - JFK targeted large oil and gas producers who had been manipulating a (1954) law to avoid taxes and gain an advantage over smaller producers.

The character ('RE James') on smirkingchimp averred it didn't matter because Kennedy "didn't get his proposals passed". But this is unmediated rubbish that fails to grasp that what ended up on the table was a compromise that was the best Kennedy could do with a Repub congress,  Granted then that most of his provisions didn't survive the compromises forced by congressional committees (which held JFK's Medicare, and Civil rights legislation up for ransom)  but it represented the best he could do under the circumstances- and in no sense were the cuts "supply side" - first because supply side hadn't even been invented yet! (By Arthur Laffer). and second because supply side is always tilted much more to the richest.

A bit of background:

In 1974, Arthur Laffer,  then an economist at the University of Chicago,  traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with Donald Rumsfeld, Gerald Ford's then chief of staff (though Rumsfeld subsequently fobbed him off on Dick Cheney).   Laffer had a new theory on why tax rates were inefficient and high, or one might say "inefficiently high. Laffer then proceeded to sketch his infamous diagram on a napkin on why the rich could be said to be "over taxed".



Laffer's crude napkin diagram is shown here for reference. As drawn, it was totally convincing! Especially for a guy like Cheney with minimal math skills. Note the line defining the highest marginal tax rate of 70% for Gerald Ford's presidency. What Laffer's curve sought to show is that by cutting that rate down, say to 50%, one could increase the revenues by nearly 35%! Of course, the 50% turned out to be wholly arbitrary and in fact after Reagan became President in 1980 the rates were cut down to 50 by 1981, then to 28% (by 1988). After all, if one could increase revenues by cutting taxes 20%, imagine what one could do by cutting them more than 40%!

Thus did Laffer's curve become the basis of Reagan's tax cuts and the whole tax cut meme ever since, despite the fact that in reality no community or even human body has mamanged to GROW by virtue of starving! But try to tell the bulk of Americans, who continue to buy into this codswallop at a mind-boggling rate! (Or that Kennedy actually prescribed them too!)

But the difference between taking a top 91% rate down to 65% and keeping already ridiculously low rates of 36.5% is the difference between night and day. And imposing tax cuts of the magnitude of Reagan's in an already debt exploding environment ($1.5 trillion already splurged on defense by mid -1985) is fiscal insanity. By comparison, idiots like James were totally unaware Kennedy still had a healthy surplus (as opposed to deficit environment) to work in, so could afford his tax cuts without doing untold damage.

Were Kennedy's tax policies really as maimed as RE James suggests? Go look at the record in the press at the time then decide!   For example,  Fortune accused him of an attempt to "manipulate the tax level against the business cycle". ('Activism in the White House', June, 1961, p. 117).  Why the hell would such an organ of finance capital bellyache like this if Kennedy's tax law was a hollow fake?

Two years later, Fortune implored Congress to stop JFK from "using tax policy as instruments to manage the economy". ('The Dream Businessmen Are Losing', Sept. 1963, p. 91).  Again, why the whining if Kennedy's tax cuts were so wussy and "supply sided"? All James had to do was look at the media record, but like too many liberals he was more invested in buying into Kennedy's weakness than his strengths and accomplishments. (Something I partially blame on Kennedy "historians" like Robert Dallek who have no remote clue what the man actually did, and also critics like Noam Chomsky and Seymour Hersh - with his several books, articles on JFK's dalliances)

Along the same lines, the "central organ of finance capital" - The Wall Street Journal, launched various articles and diatribes accusing JFK of being a "statist" and other things. Some of those articles include:

- 8/6/62 'No Cause for Celebration'; p. 6;

- 3/26/63 'Too Much Money, Too Little Thought', p. 18;

- 8/15/63 'When Friends Become Foes', p. 8

Meanwhile, Henry Hazlitt, contributing editor at Newsweek (The Washington Post's sister publication) was airing many of the same complaints against JFK. These polemics, appearing regularly in Hazlitt's 'Business Tides', included taking JFK to task for his tax policies - including the proposed tax on U.S. business earnings abroad while he also chastised Kennedy for "welfare spending".

Never mind! The cynical manipulators out to brainwash citizens are betting that most are ignorant of recent American history and they will surely exploit that deficiency to play their little game. As long as useful idiots and tools such as RE James exist, they will keep on doing it.

Sadly, in scanning the comments, James' foolishness didn't stop there, he actually also took the sane and rational commentator to task for "quoting Curtis LeMay" as evidence that Kennedy  saved the world by refusing to bomb and invade Cuba. In fact, the commentator had referenced the actual transcripts of the tapes at the time in the book, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis’, by Ernest R. May and Philip K. Zelikow (1997, President and Fellows of Harvard College).

The transcripts included the specific reference (p. 347) that "Strategic Air Command moved from the general Defense Condition 3 to Defense Condition 2, the level just below general war. In addition to ICBMs and submarine-based ballistic missiles, every available bomber – more than 1,400 aircraft- went on alert. Scores of bombers, each loaded with several nuclear weapons and carrying folders for pre-assigned targets in the Soviet Union."

But the moron insisted "Khrushchev deserved as much or more credit as Kennedy". He did, in the aftermath, in finally resolving the crisis - hence proposing  the removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets removing theirs from Cuba. But, Khrushchev was not in the Crisis room with JFK facing down the rabid Joint Chief hawks like Lyman Lemnitizer and Curtis LeMay. Thus, it was on Kennedy - man on the freaking spot- who denied them the bombing campaign they wanted followed by invasion. If Kennedy doesn't stand his ground in the Crisis Room, nothing Khrushchev does later matters.

Indeed, as Robert McNamara makes clear in his 'Fog of War' documentary ('Lessons 1, 2) , had Kennedy succumbed to the Joint Chiefs'  demands nearly 160 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (and 93 tactical nukes)  would have been unleashed on the eastern U.S. This McNamara learned when he met with Castro in 1992 for the 30th anniversary of the event. McNamara asked Castro if he;d really have seen his country destroyed in the potential altercation and he responded firmly, "Yes, and you'd have dome the same if faced with massive bombing and invasion of your country -with likely takeover".

McNamara could hardly believe what he heard, but he likely forgot - 30 years after the fact - that the motto circulating in the US of A was "Better dead than Red"

Another doofus weighing in on the comments thread claimed that Kennedy had only managed to get "one minor piece of legislation passed in all his time in office". Which is yet more ignorant drivel and I have noted JFK's major accomplishments in other posts, including:

1) JFK established and promoted the "Alliance for Progress' to enable low-interest loans for Latin  American nations, thereby outraging the 'Street" and the other capitalist bastions of thought which believed this to be a "giveaway"    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. 

2) Perhaps the one move that may have signed JFK's death warrant was when he attempted - via Executive Order 11,110 issued on June 4, 1963 - to challenge Fed control of the money supply. (Which under the Constitution authorizes only Congress to create paper money not a private entity) This EO authorized the creation of some $4.2 billion in U.S. Notes - 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 obtain two from my brother who still had them- a $2 note with Jefferson on the front, and a $5 with Lincoln. Both display the serial numbers in red ink. Not green, like Fed notes. See e.g.

 
In effect, JFK's issuance of U.S. Notes was a shot across the Federal Reserve's bow, as well as the banking class. By releasing all those debt-free notes out of the Treasury he not only undermined the Fed's financial hegemony but challenged their national authority and decision -making powers on money matters. Many observers believe that this alone might well have been enough to put JFK in assorted cross-hairs.

On the level of executive orders, it was perhaps the most daring ever issued, and we remind ourselves again (as RE JAMES  and Robert Dallek ought to) that Presidents can wield power in other ways apart from legislation.

3)Issuance of  National Security Action Memorandum 263, to pull out of Viet Nam by 1965. Many still quibble about whether this was actually done or mere smoke and mirrors  - but any energized citizen can find out for himself if he gets off his butt and digs into the document track!  He would find the main body of the memo actually appears in The Pentagon Papers, while the preface letter (to McGeorge Bundy) is what lazy researchers usually cite.  Bottom line is that NSAM 263 shatters another absurd trope put out by this same "liberal" poster that JFK actually was responsible for all those deaths in Vietnam by first sending personnel - oblivious to the fact it was LBJ's "Tonkin Gulf Resolution" in August, 1964 that ushered in the expansion of the war and tens of thousands of deaths.

4) Though JFK was reluctant for sure, since he could foresee the effects would lead to the now dominant GOP "southern strategy" - he nevertheless federalized the Alabama national guard in the fall of 1963, to protect black students trying to attend academic institutions.

5) In August, 1963 he outraged the extreme right fringe by signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with Khrushchev. (They were particularly enraged at the ban on anti-missile systems)   Another useless dolt on smirkingchimp  ('J Madison') asserted that the "generals were always in favor of doing that anyway" - trying to diminish the achievement again, but he's as clueless as his bosom buddy RE James. In fact none of the military or Pentagon wanted any part of it! As McNamara shows in his documentary (Lesson 2) they were well on the way to developing a 100 megaton H-bomb - one of which had already been tested. So why the fuck would they be in favor of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to outlaw such tests? Don't these people read? Don't they think? Are they this clueless about recent history? 

In addition, the Pentagon and Generals wanted no part of any Treaty that prohibited the development and use of anti-missile  systems, which they believed left the U.S. open to attack with no credible defense strategy.

6) Launching the Peace Corps, in which more than a quarter million volunteers have already served around the world - helping millions of impoverished people while letting them see the best face of America - as opposed to the usual 'war, invasion and bombing face'.These PC volunteers have worked 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,.

  I myself served 4 years and an damned proud to have been a part of Kennedy's program, teaching science to rural kids in Barbados - many of those kids having since gone on to productive careers, i.e. as airplane mechanics, electricians, pharmacists, librarians, college lecturers and police- security officers. Making a solid contribution to their nation as opposed to joining a "brain drain" leaving it.

7) Rapprochement with Fidel Castro, starting in late 1962. This has been well documented by National Archives contributor Peter Kornbluh, and paved the way to normalization of relations, including trade. (cf. 'Kennedy and Castro: What Might Have Been', by Peter Kornbluh, in The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 22, 1999, p. 1C)

National Security Archivist Kornbluh shows (by reference to documents he has accessed), it was William Attwood,, a Washington lawyer (who had negotiated the original release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners), who was instrumental. Attwood was charged with becoming the first American emissary to secure Castro’s ear and trust in a year-long rapprochement. In particular, to show good will and good faith, Attwood arranged for $62 million in medicines and food aid as part of the prisoner deal. All this was approved by JFK and likely sealed his death warrant in the Agency.

8) Space- The Apollo 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 us who became interested in math or space 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.


Sadly, if people (including professed liberals)  knew more, became the alert citizens Jefferson hoped for, the manipulators and their slick propaganda and disinfo wouldn't stand a chance in diminishing accomplishments such as those of John F. Kennedy. I leave readers with those famous words, from Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia:

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED"

HONORING JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS (Part One)

In this 50^th year following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, it is incumbent on those of us who actually lived during the ‘Camelot” era to remind people living now – most of whom weren’t born until much later- of his mammoth accomplishments despite serving only 3 years. This is also needed to fend off the ever present Kennedy haters,  political detractors, mud slingers -including latter-day “journalist” opportunists,  and racist filth and sewer scum who even today attempt to blight his presidency – as they have Obama’s- by their disgusting misrepresentations and trash. Even among the more sane and rational (or “liberal”) authors, it is easy to give short shrift to Kennedy if one isn’t paying attention, or one if deficient in the historical substance of his presidency - or one is viewing it through the prism of a preconceived bias.

 

Among the latter (I refuse to  dignify the racist vermin’s trash) is “historian” Robert Dallek who in a piece several years ago dismissed nearly all JFK’s accomplishments as overblown and exaggerated.  One of the provocative questions he threw out was:

 'Why do we admire a president who did so little?’

 

Why indeed? But what of the definition of “did so little”? Does Dallek regard the federalization of a Southern state’s National Guard  to preserve civil rights as doing “so little”? (As I described two blogs ago). Is he not cognizant of the political risk Kennedy took at the time- including for the Democratic Party which lost the South as a result? Does he not care? Does he seriously believe any president in this modern era would do the same today- say if a Governor of Georgia again prevented African-American students from attending schools?  If so, he's into stuff that's not even legalized yet here in Colorado!

Dallek begins his article by writing:

"True, his brilliant handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved the greatest Soviet-American confrontation threatening a nuclear disaster in the 45-year history of the Cold War".

Yet despite acknowledging JFK's brilliant handling,  Dallek can't or won't admit its import to us all! And that in so choosing a non-aggressive path (naval blockade as opposed to invasion, bombing) JFK ALREADY had effectively done more than any ten presidents combined by the singular choice of NON-aggression! Because, had Kennedy not used his brain and willpower,  resisting the Joint Chiefs (particularly Gen. Curtis LeMay) , none of those other presidents would have been around to even be elected! We’d all have ended up in piles of radioactive dust and debris.

One wonders if Dallek or his equally historically deficient (and dismissive) contemporary media cohort even knows any of the background and how close we came to actual obliteration. Do they know that 90-odd IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles) were actually ARMED and ready to be fired at U.S. east coast cities had Kennedy tried to invade or bomb Cuba ? (This according to a 1993 NBC Today interview with Robert McNamara that I still have on tape.) 

 

As per the article, 'Bomb Cuba! Le May Urged JFK', The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 26, 1996, p. 2A) Kennedy's Joint Chiefs, especially Air Force General Curtis LeMay and Lyman Lemnitzer, insisted Kennedy invade Cuba and take out the Soviet nuclear missile batteries and installations with bombs.

Kennedy was suspicious, and at some deep level, understood a serious and monumental danger if he acted precipitously. He chose instead to initiate a naval blockade, even as LeMay then compared JFK to Neville Chamberlain, and referred to his actions as “appeasement”.  Any other president might not have been so merciful, and might have had LeMay taken out and shot for treason.

But had JFK carried out the Joint Chief plans, all our then civilization would have been reduced to ashes. The U.S. bombing would have triggered the firing of 90-odd intermediate nuclear missiles on U.S. east coast cities, whereupon the U.S. would have rendered a nuclear retaliation on the Soviets, and vice versa. Given some 27,000 nuclear delivery systems- it is plausible that everything on Earth would have been reduced to cinders within a few hours.  So how the living hell is this not the most momentous accomplishment in all of human history, if human history would have essentially ended had he not chosen to act as he did?

 

Indeed, in the tape transcripts:  The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis’, by Ernest R. May and Philip K. Zelikow (1997, President and Fellows of Harvard College), the authors document how the country reached DEFCON 2 status (p. 347) on ’10:00 A.M. Oct. 24”. This is the stage directly before all out nuclear war! How could anyone – other than an imbecile – minimize the import of avoiding DEFCON 1?  Well, perhaps the passage of time has addled too many brains, but it hasn’t addled mine. The memories of those parlous days are as fresh and clear as ever!

 

As the referenced tapes note (I also have the actual tapes – as well as the book)ibid. :

 

”In addition to ICBMs and submarine-based ballistic missiles, every available bomber – more than 1,400 aircraft- went on alert. Scores of bombers, each loaded with several nuclear weapons and carrying folders for pre-assigned targets in the Soviet Union, were kept continuously in the air around the clock with shifts- refueled by aerial tankers, taking turns hovering over Northern Canada and the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviet government was presumed to be aware of these developments.”

At the time, I was a junior at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in North Miami, and in the middle of a Math class.  The principal (Brother Leo), entered to notify us of suspension of all classes:

 
“Boys, we are dismissing school. Please go home and make whatever preparations you need to with your families. Let us hope and pray we have a world to come back to when this is all over.”

At that I had to leave with books in tow, hoping I’d get to read them again, and trudge back home  (10 blocks away)where I found  my youngest brother – then age  9-  in near hysterics, crying and nearly wetting his pants, screaming about “The Russians gonna bomb us!” I had to calm the little idiot down, saying: “Mike, cool it! Kennedy is in charge and won’t allow that to happen! Now, go get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and stop your yelping”.

 

Make no freakin’ mistake that it took uncommon courage for Kennedy to stand up to his military whacko Joint Chiefs who were all charged and ready to bomb Cuba  “into the Stone Age”.  The worst piece of vermin demanding aggressive action was Air Force General Curtis LeMay , who actually compared JFK to Neville Chamberlain, and referred to his actions as “appeasement”.  Interestingly, we learned about a year and a half ago, that Lemay's whereabouts on the day of the assassination has always been a mystery. In a released  public audio,


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505266_162-57368696/chilling-tape-from-air-force-one-on-day-jfk-shot/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

we learned that LeMay was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. And an aide to LeMay tried urgently to reach his boss, to no avail.  Something rotten in Denmark? How about something rotten in Dallas and with the military jagoffs that wanted Kennedy dead after he punked them (6 months after the Missile crisis, removing all Jupiter missile from Turkey in a secret deal)

So, it is reasonable to conclude Kennedy actually paid with his life, for preserving our own - by opposing the military nuts.

 
For this alone, it is idiocy to claim "JFK did little".  Quite the contrary, it is self-evident except to morons that he literally saved our entire freaking civilization which – had tools like LeMay and Lemnitzer had their way, would have been reduced to nuclear ash.  

 

These things need to be known! Today, 50 years later, our news and journalism machinery is much worse, putrefied and weakened (by corporate ownership) and not up to the task of exposing truth, or even historical facts. Instead they distort history as they pervert its significance. Their noxious profit  mandate has created a faux objectivity which seeks to give two sides equal credence and space - never mind there is really only one side to the story.

 

Next: Kennedy’s other achievements

 

 

50-Year Old JFK Tapes Released: What Is Revealed....Or Not?

One of thousands of 'Wanted for Treason' posters retrieved from Dallas streets on the day of the Kennedy assassination.




The CBS Morning show today presented the news that 50-year old audio-tapes (roughly 42-43 minutes) made aboard Air Force One en route back to Washington DC after the assassination, were just released after some fifty years. The question emerged as to what new aspects or elements do they show, if anything?

Readers can learn more here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505266_162-57368696/chilling-tape-from-air-force-one-on-day-jfk-shot/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

According to the CBS website info:

" It's been nearly a half-century since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But new information from that day in Dallas has just been released -- audiotape of conversations between Air Force One and Washington.

For the first time, the complete audio record of the flight back from Dallas to Washington is available to the public online, from the National Archives, for free."

I highly recommend interested readers avail themselves of this audio record for themselves. The CBS site info continues:

"The full audio of transmissions from White House Communications Agency (which captured the tapes) that day includes 42 minutes edited out of the original public version. It's likely to peak the interest of conspiracy theorists who are already asking why this material was cut out of the original.

Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay had been a frequent opponent of Kennedy's. His whereabouts on the day of the assassination has always been a mystery.

In the newly public audio, we learn that LeMay was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. And an aide to LeMay tried urgently to reach his boss."

Of course, to say LeMay was a "frequent opponent of Kennedy's" is serious understatement.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962, Kennedy refused to bomb or invade Cuba as he was urged to do by his Joint Chiefs, especially Air Force General Curtis LeMay , who actually compared JFK to Neville Chamberlain, and referred to his actions as “appeasement”. According to one of the first major mainstream news releases after the tapes in the WH situation room were released (The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 26, 1996, 'Bomb Cuba!Le May Urged JFK', p. 2A):

"Tapes of secretly recorded White House conversations released this week show that President John F. Kennedy's military advisers strongly pressured him to bomb and invade Cuba during the missile crisis 34 years ago this month. Indeed, they forecast that war would occur whether he invaded Cuba or not.

Blasting Kennedy's cautious approach, the Air Force Chief, Gen. Curtis LeMay, told the President at a White House meeting on Oct. 19, 1962, "This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich......

Through those days Kennedy was fending off strong pressure for an attack on Cuba from congressional and military leaders such as LeMay, who told him, 'We don't have any choice but direct military action...I see no other solution...'"

Of course, JFK resisted these insane pleas which - had they been carried out- would doubtless have led to a massive nuclear exchange with the Russians, as former Defense Secrtary Robert McNamara noted in a 1993 interview on NBC Today. McNamara acknowledged that only later did the information become known that Castro had 93 IRBMs aimed at the eastern U.S. So, had JFK not had the courage to face down LeMay and the JCS we wouldn't even be discussing lost tapes.

LeMay and fellow Joint Chief Lyman Lemnitzer were also behind the odious plans for "Operation Northwoods", as revealed in James Bamford's 2001 book, Body of Secrets, Doubleday Books, p. 82. This was described by Bamford as (ibid):

“maybe the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government”

This treacherous campaign of terror was to include the sinking of refugee boats (carrying Cuban refugees) on the high seas, as well as the killing of innocent citizens on American cities’ streets, plus random bombings carried out in Washington, DC, Miami and other places. The objective? To deliberately incite a war with Castro's Cuba. One can easily see from both the October, 1962 exchanges and also the Northwoods information, that the JCS and especially LeMay - had a major 'Jones' for starting a war.

When I first heard of Northwoods, I had trouble processing how any U.S. government agency or entity could remotely conceive of such foul deeds, far less carry them out. Then I quickly recalled the blowing up of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 over Barbados, on October 6. 1976 by Luis Posada, Freddie Lugo and other renegades sponsored in the extremist Alpha 66 enclave by the CIA. 73 innocent victims perished in that terrorist act, the worst one in the western hemisphere prior to 9/11. Bamford, in his discussion of Northwoods, further notes that the extent of it included getting England (UK) to side with the U.S. against Castro by also launching attacks against Jamaica and Trinidad, both (then) Commonwealth members. Does anyone seriously believe, given the vile extent of such plans, they’d have been the least squeamish about planning to assassinate a president who consistently thwarted and humiliated them?

Evidently the daft and clueless pseudo-historian Robert Dallek does! Quoted on the CBS Morning show he opined, in conjunction with the suspicious nature of 42 minutes edited out of the original public version (presented in the Warren Commission Hearings) and the disappearance of LeMay in the immediate aftermath:

"They (conspiracy theorists) just can't accept that any person as dysfunctional as Lee Harvey Oswald, lone wolf that he was, could have carried out the assassination"

No, sir, we do not! Not when three master marksmen recruited by the Warren Commission failed to replicate Oswald's alleged feat. Indeed, just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired in the test trials struck the targets in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of the “master” riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo.

Of course, I had earlier slammed Dallek for his historical amnesia in terms of his historical perspective on JFK's achievements, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/01/jfk-amnesia-how-bad-can-it-get.html

This time I focus on the usual prattle of some that we - the American people - simply can't handle that such an epically evil act could be committed by a little "nobody". In this, Dallek commits the same error as mathematician John Allan Paulos, in his 2008 book, Irreligion: mistaking the low political value of the person assassinated for the high political value of the assassination. In the case of Paulos, he makes a false equivalence (to JFK) using the 1997 example of Princess Diana. Thus, Princess Diana was so loved and cherished by millions, that few were able to accept she perished in a random auto accident.

However, apart from initiating some land mine awareness programs and being the public face for a few charities, Diana’s slaying had no where near the political repercussions down the line that JFK’s had. Any altered timelines extrapolated in the wake of her death would find nothing of the comparable magnitude that occurred with JFK’s demise. Thus, it’s like comparing chalk and cheese.

As for Dallek, he mistakes a conspiracy approach for an inability to cope and reconciling the loss to a "lone wolf", while he confuses possible psychological "dysfunction" of the alleged assassin for serious motivation and a realistic capability to carry out the deed. Indeed, in a 1997 Usenet FAQ for the newsgroup alt.conspiracy.jfk, I showed how anyone with the putative psychological disabilities attributed to Oswald would never have been able to carry out the kill attributed to him. Also, as I showed in a number of previous blogs, the kill shots couldn't even have come from where Oswald was alleged to be (the Texas School Book Depository):

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/11/nat-geo-continues-with-elites-kennedy.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-on-nat-geo-explorer-lost-bullet.html

Thus, the dynamics don't even point to Lee Oswald! Apart from that, Oswald's rifle skills were in question. By the time Oswald was discharged from the Marines, he was barely able to qualify in any defined shooter category - with a 191 score (or Marksman). Corporal Nelson Delgado, the marine most familiar with Oswald's skills, referred to his being tagged with the label of 'Maggie's Drawers', meaning he was a lousy shot. In effect, what we see is just the opposite of what one would expect for the alleged assassin. His shooting skills never adequate to begin with, then deteriorating over time, as opposed to improving. It is rather illogical, therefore, to suppose that in an environment ('civilian') which required no regular training and for which no evidence of any extraneous 'practice' existed Oswald's skills significantly improved to the level of being able to make the shots attributed to him. (Let's again bear in mind three professional master marksmen were unable to replicate them - either using Oswald's same rifle, or a different model with 18 shots to do it in!)

At least the other historian, Michael Beschloss, quoted on the CBS Morning Show admitted that people will rightfully question why this 42 min. stretch of tape is only now being released, and why it wasn't with the original Warren records. He went on to state many already believe the Warren Commission was more a "whitewash" citing a recent CBS News poll showing that 73% of Americans didn't believe it. Well, why should they? Any professed "commission" that ignores 200 material witnesses can't be for real, but would have to be a political-PR artifact to shut people up and put the event in the rear window. "Historian" Dallek plays right into this.

Finally, what are we to make of the fact that more than 50,000 pages to do with the Kennedy assassination remain unreleased? This despite the 1992 JFK Records Act by which all these documents were to have seen the light of day by now. (And let's recall Bill Clinton's 1996 Executive order to do this!)

Readers can learn more about this in the salon.com article below:

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/31/u_s_secrecy_system_literally_out_of_control/

and in respect of the JFK material:

http://thefoiablog.typepad.com/the_foia_blog/2012/01/assassination-archives-seeks-release-of-50000-jfk-documents.html

Note also the letter therein, to the National Archives, to release this material. Why, if no conspiracy took place, the need to hide so much for so long? Surely "national security" can't continue to be used as an excuse given the technology has moved far beyond what spooks used 50 years ago, not to mention all those old sources long since dead. The only logical reason would be to protect actual handlers and agents that had a hand in the Kennedy hit - either directly, or by setting up a patsy to take the fall. People such as George Joannides.

In the end, the release of these 50-year old audio tapes merely adds more fuel to the fire of the conspiracy paradigm, while the silence of the agencies keeping 50 year old files on ice reinforces it! It appears these agencies really do fear the American people. Which seems incredible given that one of the most loathsome plans ever conceived by any government - Operation Northwoods- has already been exposed.

Lastly, the take of a genuine historian: Prof.. David R. Wrone, in writing in The Journal of Southern History(6), February, 1995, p. 188, is the only one that matters:

“I believe that irrefutable evidence shows conspirators, none of them Oswald, killed JFK. A mentally ill Jack Ruby, alone and unaided, shot Oswald. The federal inquiry knowingly collapsed and theorized a political solution. Its corruption spawned theorists who tout solutions rather than define the facts that are locked in the massively muddied evidentiary base, and released only by hard work.”