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Cliff Varnell

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Posts posted by Cliff Varnell

    James Saxon and John Kennedy vs Wall Street

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

    Dennis, I would say that of the Big Four, Kennedy hit on maybe two.

    His brother as AG, and McNamara as Sec Def.

    Rusk and Dillon I think were Rockefeller guys. In his book on JFK and the non aligned world, Robert Rakove writes about how Rusk ended up discarding Kennedy's policies once LBJ got into office. Rusk turned out to be a hawk on Vietnam also.  His testimony about the Tonkin Gulf incident is really something to read.

    https://harvardpolitics.com/presidents-wise-men-president-kennedy-decline-eastern-establishment/

    Caitlin Johnstone, JFK and the Insurrection

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted · Edited by Cliff Varnell

    DiEugenio:
      
    This author is not one of those who despises Donald Trump.     </q>
     
    No kidding.  It took Kennedys and King 5 years to denounce Trump’s xenophobic, White supremacist sympathies.

    Neither do I think he is the worst president in history. Anyone who thinks that does not realize how bad some of the American presidents really were.
     
    I don’t think DiEugenio realizes how bad Trump has been.

    Other than Woodrow Wilson, how many presidents mis-managed a pandemic dooming hundreds of thousands to death?

    How many Presidents have defied a peaceful transfer of power?  

    Or acted consistently in the interest of a hostile foreign power?  
     
    Or torn children from the arms of their parents in order to discourage legal asylum seekers?  

    Demanded personal loyalty from all federal employees?  

    Openly claimed unlimited powers?

    Blackmailed a friendly foreign leader for dirt on an opponent?

    In fact, I actually agreed with some of his early foreign policy decisions. And I appreciate the fact he did not start up any new wars,

    Trump helped the Saudis commit genocide in Yemen.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47958014

    Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuke deal, slapped crippling sanctions on Iran, assassinated their #2 leader, formed an anti-Iran front with Israel and the Saudis.

    Pulled out of the Paris climate accords —forced farmers on the dole with tariffs on China — moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and broke off communication with the Palestinians.

    Blackmailed the President of Ukraine.

    Trump quadrupled air-strikes in Somalia.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_military_intervention_in_Somalia_(2007–present)

    image.jpeg.15a8eca13100abec9b7af4ab2ae46dbd.jpeg

     

    image.jpeg

    James Saxon and John Kennedy vs Wall Street

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Dennis Berube said:

    That Federal Open Market Committee aspect of the Federal Reserve was signed into law by FDR in the 1935 Banking Act, one of the biggest mistakes he ever made imo. It ceded far too much monetary control to the Federal Reserve, he should have nationalized it instead, but I guess the Morgan types had already tried to overthrow and/or kill him once or twice already at that point.

     

    With Dillon, it seems JFK really underestimated the forces against him. Some of his "unity" choices really ended up badly. Lodge might have been the worst, although I guess Dulles would take the cake in that conversation. Regardless, I know he had his reasons for making appointing/keeping those people but you have to wonder if it would have made a difference if he hadn't. It kind of reminds of me of pondering the Wallace/Truman in 1944 question in a way.

    Soon after the ‘60 election Joe Kennedy had JFK contact Robert Lovett (Brown Brothers Harriman banker “wise man”) who recommended Dean Rusk for State, McGeorge Bundy for National Security Advisor, C. Douglas Dillon for Treasury, and Robert McNamara for Defense.

    Lovett and Old Joe had tried to get Ike to fire Allen Dulles for several years.

    Rusk started complaining about the size of the Cuban operation as soon as he took over State, and continued to complain right up to the point when the “Go Decision” was made D-Day -1 and he suddenly fell silent.

    Yalie Harrimanite Richard Bissell, as head of CIA covert operations, mis-managed the operation, guaranteeing failure at the Bay of Pigs.

    The primary outcome of the Bay of Pigs fiasco was the removal of Allen Dulles.

    I find it plausible that that was the primary objective of Lovett and Old Joe.

    Deconstructing JFK: A Coup D'Etat over Foreign Policy?

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    3 hours ago, B. A. Copeland said:

    Shall we add Henry Cabot Lodge as someone else who royally screwed JFK in Vietnam as well? Its sickening to read about his actions in the documentary record as well as Douglass' book in particular.

    Absolutely. Eastern Liberal Establishment “Masters of the Universe” types like Harriman and Lodge whacked the Ngo Brothers to maintain a militarized South Vietnam.  Harriman bucked JFK’s Foreign Policy Team when he negotiated the Partition of Laos, which gave the North Vietnamese access to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos while the CIA got access to opium fields in the west.

    Without a militarized South the CIA operations in Laos faced doom.

    Deconstructing JFK: A Coup D'Etat over Foreign Policy?

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

    A good question might be; to what extent was it in his control?

    He was outplayed by the #3 man at the State Dept., Averell Harriman.

    2 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

    He seemed very pro-rapproachment in general. Another good question might be; to what extent was any person or US president able to change the course of history in regard to US foreign policy.

    October of 1963 the UN sent a delegation to Saigon to make a report on the conflict between Diem and his brother Nhu with the Buddhist protesters who’d been stirred up by the CIA.  By then the Buddhist uprising was beginning to cool off, and the initial report from the delegation was positive.  US aid to the Diem regime had been curtailed a month earlier, and if Kennedy had restored aid on the basis of the UN report the South Vietnamese generals would have taken that as a withdrawal of US support for a coup.

    2 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

    Anybody walking into the job inherited an infrastructure populated by a nest of serpents (military/cia/council on foreign relations). Was JFK's biggest folley that when he walked into the job, he had no idea how difficult it would be and how strong the network of pro war for profit people would be? It was certainly much easier go along with the program. 

    And the overthrow of Diem was the program JFK went along with.  
     
    Don’t get me wrong, I admire JFK tremendously— but a screw-up is a screw-up.

     

    Deconstructing JFK: A Coup D'Etat over Foreign Policy?

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted · Edited by Cliff Varnell

    DiEugenio:

    <quote on >

    The truth is, not only did Kennedy want to end America’s destructive (and self-destructive) military support for the collapsing colonial empire of France that had embroiled it in an unwinnable war in Vietnam; his speeches, correspondence and high-level meetings with emerging Third World leaders reveal his growing antipathy for colonialism, rejection of imperialism, toleration for the non-aligned movement—contrasting markedly with his predecessor—and promotion of nationalistic leaders, albeit ones that were considered to be “responsible” in their moderation. </q>

    The overthrow of Diem in Vietnam occurred on JFK’s watch.  This prevented the North/South rapprochement on the table at that time. 

    Beware the JFK fanboy adulation.  He screwed up royally in Vietnam.

    The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

    in Political Discussions

    Posted

    4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

           IMO, those nincompoops, along with the right wing agent provocateurs who posed as "Antifa," played a major role in helping Donald Trump garner 74 million votes in November.

           I agree with some of their "Black Bloc" political views, but their methods are truly self-defeating.

    Black Bloc — giving peaceful left-wing protests a black eye since 2003.

    https://nypost.com/2021/01/22/twitter-suspends-antifa-accounts-with-over-71k-followers/

    The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

    in Political Discussions

    Posted · Edited by Cliff Varnell

    1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

    How does anyone know what actions are what faction of Antifa?

    They wear black clothes and break stuff.

    Quote

    I’m all for holding Capitalism accountable but the window breakers are doing something counterproductive.

    I couldn’t agree more.

    Quote

    Antifa can mean anything anyone wants, including those who self identify as such.

    If you’re anti-fascist you’re Antifa.  If you dress in black and break stuff you’re Black Bloc Antifa.

    Quote

     

    There are so many good and well meaning people demonstrating in Seattle and Portland for whom the destruction of property is a negative and a serious distraction. 

    I first heard of Black Bloc in’03 at anti Iraq war demonstrations.  I think they ruined a lot of momentum of the Occupy protests in Oakland in ‘11.

    The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

    in Political Discussions

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

    Well crap.  It wont let me read the article without subscribing.  I did see a fox headline about these protesters being antifa.  I'd think antifa would be happy the fascist is gone.

    It’s the Black Bloc faction of antifa.  Back to the good old days of the Left holding the feet of Corporate Centerists to the fire!

    I’m not down with vandalism, but it has a -back-to-normal feel.

    The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

    in Political Discussions

    Posted

    1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

    As I said on FB, Biden just has to get through about four months of walking and talking. 
     

    Is that all that’s happening?

    How Michèle Flournoy's Pentagon dreams collapsed: Progressives fought back

    https://www.salon.com/2020/12/08/how-michle-flournoys-pentagon-dreams-collapsed-progressives-fought-back/

    Win some...lose some...

    Who is Victoria Nuland? A really bad idea as a key player in Biden's foreign policy team

    https://www.salon.com/2021/01/19/who-is-victoria-nuland-a-really-bad-idea-as-a-key-player-in-bidens-foreign-policy-team/

    A lot of Lefty critics of the Democratic Party don’t see how often the Dem-left gets it’s way.  

    As often as the Corporate Dem-center?

    It’s an on-going battle of personnel and policy, susceptible to relentless grass roots push.

    Quote

    He passes on and Kamala becomes president, which I think was the plan all along. After all, she is a female Obama.

    And in DiEugenio’s book that’s a bad thing.

    The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

    in Political Discussions

    Posted · Edited by Cliff Varnell

    1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

            Since this is a scholarly forum, I wanted to add a few possible sales items to Joe's proposals for the Trump Presidential Library gift shop.

    1)  An inflatable Stormy Daniels blow up doll.

    2)  A Mike Pence doll with a gallows and noose that fits around the V.P.'s neck

    3)   A Rudy Giuliani doll with a supplemental blonde wig and pink dress.

    4)   Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan dolls with detachable Presidential Medals of Freedom.

    5)   A Kimberly Guilfoyle doll that yells loudly when you pull a string. 

    image.jpeg.4791520bdf4154c2b5c4686e045d5b4a.jpeg

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