Kirk Gallaway

One thing you could always count on from Ron Paul was that he would be honest with you, that if he ever was to get in power he'd tell you he'd starve the government of money and dismantle any safety net but then later he'd be surprised when the private sector didn't jump in head first to save the economy with their mega trickles only to find he threw not only the U.S. but consequently maybe the entire world economy into a depression. JMO This is probably the least original and least authentic and most political thing I've ever heard him say. I don't see his conversion as anything that consequential. As far as Ben: Anybody who was here in 2021 knows Jacob Chansley was Ben's 2021 Man of the Year, and following Ben's writing style, you can only imagine how repetitive that was! And Ben's 2021 Woman of the Year was dragon lady, LIz Cheney. Ben felt a terrible sense of betrayal when Cheney broke with his Republicans and decide she was going to take a stand against the 1/6 riots. Apart from that , I could applaud that Ben was taking a stand that Cheney , like her Dad was a neocon hawk, but the events of the last 2 years have told me Ben hasn't met a war he didn't like. Ben's entitled to his viewpoint on those matters, but I found no consistency. Similarly, Ben has such an "open mind," he'd continually brag that he would never watch the 1/6 House hearings.

Whew! Geez Pat, now you're like the forum Michael Jackson, put up on a pedestal only to be ravaged. again! You're obviously a survivor Pat, as I noticed 2 rather hostile titled extended threads bearing your name here recently and I was thinking how many hours you probably had to expend reexplaining yourself. Anyway, glad you survived and were not shamed to death! I knew Francois to be a LNer from his occasional stops on the forum, but you come off real well as the interviewee. Don't beat yourself up. I certainly thought you were easily lucid enough to be President! I don't agree with some of Pat's conclusions but I love his method. of putting evidence up to the test and if it doesn't cut it, in his mind, he looks for other answers. If your journey into the JFKA has been very linear and you've largely accepted the story line you've been told. If you never read a JFKA book, or an author that you first believed that you later called into question., or a super author statement that you came to doubt., or put to test and resisted the newest forum groundswell theory. Then you won't understand Pat.

The current U.S. non MSM story Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant will come to Washington next week with a long list of U.S. weapons Israel wants to receive in an expedited manner, two Israeli and U.S. officials told me. My story on @axios

Matt, Young people are more apt to vote Democrat. I could see RFK taking away young Democrat voters from Biden, as I think the whole age issue is particularly acute to them. Also in Michigan there's a huge group of people waiting to see how Biden performs in the Israel Hamas War. Though I think they're smart enough to know Trump will be much worse!, but they may not turn out. But what I gather from what you're saying is that Trump will self destruct with not only old age gaffes, like Biden, but by some of the very destructive divisive things he's been saying like not helping NATO countries if attacked by Putin. and his more recent Democrat Jews are not loyal to Israel., and the list goes on. These are things that can be easily turned against Trump in the campaign. It could well happen that Trump becomes more of an outrageous joke to voters other than Democrats. Is that what you're saying? Or is it that people will finally burn out on Trump's histrionics and just want the steady peace of Joe Biden? Hmmmmmmm, heh heh! I gotta say Matt. If you had told me after 1/6 and Biden assuming office that Trump would have 91 counts against him, and would be saying some of the hateful, outrageous things he' been saying, and making some of the old age gaffes he's been making, and still has had the most .successful renomination campaign of any non incumbent in history, I wouldn't have believed this at all. I'm very disappointed in the American public. No doubt about that. I can count on 2 hands here people who are enthralled with RFK Jr. They don't care about any of his stands on the issues. It's really a blood worship. I do think some of that was brought on by Di Eugenio when he was in a more dominant position on the forum and every day he was a fawning fanboy of anything JFK, and anything Kennedy. I do think at this point, any further progress from RFK, will come more from Dems than Republicans. But the question is, will that apply to Michigan Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania? I don't know WTF those people are thinking. But if Trump wins Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, all he has to do is win one of those 3 and if everything else turns out like it did before, in 2020 Trump wins. I do think Biden's going to win. But Michael Moore who predicted Trump would win in 2016, lose in 20 and 22, now thinks Trump could win but is not making a formal prediction yet. Actually Moore was technically wrong in his prediction in 2016, in that he was thinking Trump would win the popular vote. The polls on election day showed Hilary ahead by 1.5 points and were deadly accurate but not so, in the Electoral College,which was something no polls took in account. duh! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYAjJCCUjBs&pp=ygUNbWljaGFlbCBtb29yZQ%3D%3D

Gerry, As Denis said, (though months turn into years as i was surprised to see Lifton died in Dec. 2022!) Lifton did post this here. in May 2022. My 1995 interview with Michael Paine

Oliver Stone at the beginning of Putin's bloody invasion of Ukraine said something to the effect that the "U.S. left Putin no choice!" One thing Stone, living in Hollywood , being worth 70 million , and Glenn Greenwald who you'd think would know better , living in Brazil and Aaron Mate, of course just being a Canadian will never understand., as well as the Putinistas here. Is that if a fledgling country like Ukraine, a breadbasket region that has some natural resources as well, is offered a choice to go with Putin and have a 4 economy always in the doldrums but at least steady, or go with the West and have a more dynamic 6 economy with a shot at 7. If given the choice, which one do you think they'll pick? But no, it had to be that the all powerful CIA that subverted the will of the Ukrainians, or the EU or Victoria Nuland , who literally turned the balance of power as if Ukraine was Guatemala in 1953! And never is it conceded that a brutal crackdown and repression had anything to do with creating a situation later by which everyday Ukrainians were eventually mindblown when they visited in masse their former President, now in exile's opulent estate and discovered for themselves, how he had been living in at the expense of the Ukrainian people. The Putinistas can't see it, but when Putin invaded, the choices were clear. Putin 's relationship to Ukraine is sort of like LHO to Marina, where Putin eventually laid down the law and said "don't learn English and stop being so materialistic" or there will be consequences! heh heh *Mate always focuses on one thing , America's International relationships but is completely clueless about any U.S. domestic policies, so he has no idea of the range of issues say, confronting American voters.

Furious Trump Admits He Can't Post Bond. At 3:27 there is an excellent AI meme lasting about a minute and a half showing Trump pitching his selling of everything he owns to post the bond. It's pretty well done, the edited audio is excellent ! It obviouslyt involved a bit of work and makes you ponder just how ubiquitous these deep fakes are going to be in the future.

Excellent Matt! No wonder Fox cut in when it was about to get juicy! I would have liked to see how they spun that!

I can't imagine either. A "Suppressed premise?" Kevin it sounds like a paranoid imagining. Look at my post that you first responded to. Again, I merely mentioned that I generally liked the interview you posted. As far as the files. Regretfully I think the effort is because they do because they can. And because I trust them less, and I respect any enemy that's fooled us for 60 years. I'd ask why in the world , after 60 years would anybody leave a smoking gun left in the files? Though I do think they'd produce some good leads to some good researchers. JMO It sounds like you have infinite hours of time and links to convince me otherwise. Kevin:Back when the USSR was truly a monolithic power, rather than the current country it is with a GDP roughly equivalent to that of the State of California. What? did you make that up Kevin?.Russia's entire economy the size of California.? California's economy (3.9 trillion) is almost twice as big as Russia. (around 2 trillion.) Russia's economy isn't as big as Italy. it's the greatest under performing economic basket case in the world, a point the Putin apologists never have thought significant, (or that there is actually an economic reason Ukraine would want to align more with the West ) but the everyday Russian feels it, Although only those who are well off enough to leave the country know that!. And the only reason the mass of Russians haven't rebelled probably has partly to do with their Serf ancestry's paltry expectations. It's economy is largely based on fossil fuels.. Russia and China basically started their economic transformation around the same time, and look at the the difference! I think maybe you're confusing nuclear weapon arsenals with economic prosperity. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/the-top-10-economies-in-the-world

What I said Kevin was, You'll see you're hardly the first to speculate that. I personally don't think anyone including Pompeo looked at the files and saw a "smoking gun" at all. I referred only to your Mate Parenti interview which I thought was actually pretty good.

I'm almost hesitate to write anything because it's going to get pulled. Trump“if they showed you what they showed me, you wouldn't have released it either.” This is just another low hanging fruit sucker's game as "Tucker Carlson's smoking gun JFK files that threw the forum in a frenzy over a year ago. If you don't think that wasn't discussed fully only to eventually have great hopes dashed, as Tucker moved on., I assure you it was. No matter however earthshaking Tucker made it sound "I saw the files, everything since then has been all fake!". he eventually left all his proponents here in the dust and went on to greener pastures! We've beaten this dead horse before and you can see the forum response if you go back to, was it Dec. 2022? Does your experience with Trump lead you to think there's any credence to his comment? Even further, put on your sleuthing cap, isn't that a typical Trump response to make you think Trump has all the power, knows the secrets of the kingdom, and where the bodies are buried, so you place your trust only him, as only he has the secrets as to the machinations of the "deep state".Why would you trust anything he says? One thing I'll say about Kevin's Mate, Parenti interview is that I don't think either of them mischaracterized Trump. They acknowledge he has some anti war machine tendencies, pro war machine tendencies, some tendencies that if they were left to Trump and not censored or maneuvered around could possibly have catastrophic consequences. But Parenti tends to focus on those that were anti military establishment and Mate delivers a counterbalance saying Trump was hardly a peacenik. But why wouldn't any responsible military establishment be against somebody whose lazy, thick has no real understanding, doesn't read or research? The whole question of Trump against the"deep state " military establishment would be much more interesting with a reasoned person and yes,a more known quantity who had some consistency in what he says. At least with a foe like say, Bernie Sanders, they'd have a record in his campaign speeches, of what they're up against ,and he wouldn't be some guy who was so intransigent that he could change his viewpoint depending who he last talked to. I'll leave it to you, in a most recent statement by Trump's Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, who warns Trump would be dangerous if reelected, says Trump told him he wanted to shoot the protestors at Lafayette Square. Is that statement coming from a former Trump Secretary of State, a blot on the "Deep State"?

That's exactly right Matt.! He's kind of a baby. Stone: "everybody does it!." So Stone at 78 , worth about 60 million and is realizing for the first time that there's corruption and and rather than advocate fighting it, he says nobody has any authority to fight it because everybody's corrupt. Wow! that's quite a revelation for a 78 year old.! heh heh

I get the picture here. Eleanore's son posted the Glenn Greenwald piece and W. felt obligated to counter with his Oliver Stone piece. But of course W. has to know by now the only one on this forum who would support him and dare poke fun at Oliver Stone would be me. What good is free speech if everybody thinks the same?! So I will. Do the later life transformations ever stop for Ollie? First there was that 10 hour interview with Putin, where he was first asking Putin "if Ukraine wanted to join the EU, would that be such a big deal?" That's when Vlad turned the sword on him and over the next few sessions worked his magic on Stone, killing him softly with his command leaving Stone empty, and lulling Stone into the transformative pull of "thuglove" By the end Ollie was so completely goo goo gaga, he hurried back home to throw a couple a million of his own money to make Putin's propaganda film "Ukraine on fire," where he brands the Ukraine people and government as fascists in a fascist state, and actually gave Putin a platform for his eventual bloody invasion of Ukraine. Then he's driven to go back to Moscow and interview the deposed Ukraine President Yanukovych! It's always struck me how quiet Oliver is about the treatment of dissidents in Russia. When approached, he dismisses them as Putin's insidious troublemakers He doubts Prighozin was murdered and of course, probably if asked, Stone would say Navalny was to be released, and it was all an unpleasant accident! . Yeah, those were the good old days, but no more. It's too bad according to Stone that corrupt politicians are now called on their corruption. That's no doubt the insidious work of the "Deep State". i mean, what will they do next? Expose tapes of high up Government executives trying to persuade local officials to throw elections? Expose fake elector schemes? Show tapes of deliberate attempts to hide Highly Classified Documents? I've been on this forum long enough to figure out what's really going on!. Stone's adolescent hero worship of Putin, I would attribute to a last ditch bucket list attempt at cult devotionalism that he always felt lacking in his youth for being too old for Beatlemania. What no one will ever take away from Stone are his achievements for open government. He's been around so long, and has gained so much respect for his films, that he's a known quantity so no one's too surprised at anything he says. "That's just Oliver", and he always has a number of his favorite controversial issues., so he doesn't really soil the JFKA conspiracy movement. Ho, how could I ever even entertain such a thought!?

More new Trump gaffes. I don't know how but I got videos with one link! I was meaning to show the second one entitled. "Bernie Moreno gets on stage and starts pathetically fawning over Trump It's only funny because it's real!

Damn Steve!, I thought maybe we had him for good. That's political dynamite! He has been sinking in the polls. But it's out of context. Trump: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected,” Trump said. "Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it," he added. "It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.” Later, he added, "If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country."

This is an excellent post by W. asking relevant questions of Paul , who seems never concerned with issues concerning his life and others in the present, but whose overriding concern is to settle some score from 60 years ago, but has no idea who, in the present, he is striking out against or any idea how to go about it or how that could possibly happen, which is why IMO, it's doomed to failure. To be clear I agree with most of Paul's opening sentences , even up to Rk's intention of breaking of the duopoly of the 2 party system, though it's important to note that was not his original intention at all, but is result of the general frustration of becoming one party's candidate. Paul's very confident that RK will double cross his donor's agenda. This is based on Paul's faith in RK. But the most powerful situation that RK could find himself in is to control some battleground states (which is where he's focused) to hold the balance of power and deny either Biden or Trump a majority and use his delegates to be a pivotal factor in the election. In that case, I would agree that RK would throw a balance to Biden., if he was to throw that balance to Trump, he would be hated forever and poison his family legacy in the Democratic party and destroy any possibility of a future generation Kennedy dynasty. But I think the idea is hypothetical because RK won't win one state. So when is attacking people who in some cases died 50 years ago going to do anything concrete to answer the problems we face today Paul? Are you going to go after their ancestors, whose best result would be to not deny the proof you, in your certainty are convinced will happen, and simply say they regret that their ancestors were involved in the assassination of JFK. (Just like Roscoe White's son was it?) Are you then going to after them? Do you think you'll get much public support for going after them? Paul:The US is dying before our eyes, a withering semblance of democracy unable to fix the enormous problems facing us square on. Ok, and how will that change any present equation? Paul: My opinion is that this single fact outweighs all objections to whatever else might accompany his presidency, To me that sounds so selfish and omnipotent. That any consideration to problems that RK's Presidency could produce that could affect millions are subjugated to some "hunch" that Paul has that RK will settle some score from many years ago that will somehow transform our country,shows complete naivety to the scope of the problems we face and sounds so insulated. We'll just have faith in you Paul, that all your hunches are correct.

Right Ben, And what factual basis do you have to arrive that statement? How about Spiro Agnew was a crook and was found out and later Nixon was a crook and was found out. Nixon ordered the burglary, whether you're sure he was set up or not. Now follow me. So Ford eventually appointed the ultimate NE establishment Nelson Rockefeller to be his interim VP and then the following year in 1976 Ford dumped him. So they eventually accomplished what they wanted., with the conspirators ideal ticket in place. Why did Ford dump Rockefeller and and the pick super Republican establishment Bob Dole as his running mate in his place? Yes, RK would pick Ventura to cover his ass? Very clever Ben! More pretentiousness. Do you really still think that someone would assassinate ardent Pro Israel status quo establishment RK simply because he wanted to open the JFKA files? Like they don't have a lot greater issues to worry about than a 60 year old assassination? You're obviously still sucked into the Tucker Carlson narrative that intoxicated and sucked every ounce of common sense out of some conspiracy super hero authors on the forum for 2 months last year? * So you have great hopes those files still has a smoking gun, and there are 3rd generation people who are shaking in their boots.? Get real I've asked you now many times Ben, what is the worse that could happen.? What are you imagining would happen? Tell me your fantasy.! Whatever you think of Jessie, why would RK pick such a terrible candidate that doesn't balance out the ticket at all,? Just to appeal to the 1% voting population that it could possibly entice, unless of course, he has no other good options? Releasing JFK files is not in the top 40 issues for any politician! Do you read the current news at all and realize how hard it is to get a conviction? Are you so convinced that RK as President wouldn't run into a wall only embarrassing himself in what the public would come to see as an understandable but selfish indulgence taking taxpayer money? Have you ever given that consideration? All the while everybody here would be drawing connections from the ongoing investigation and in frustration lament why the public at large just doesn't get it, like we're doing now anyway? *It's worth noting, both Larry Hancock and Pat Speer expressed great skepticism at the Carlson low hanging fruit.

Hyeaah Roger, that is about strained an explanation of a connection as I could imagine. And I basically agreed with you that your thread concerning JFKA's effect, or non effect on the current political landscape was a relevant topic.* And now emboldened, you're just trotting out your conspiracy super heroes. Roger: The separation of the JFKA from politics is a false dichotomy! Yeah, and where does anybody draw any line with that statement ? Why not just start this thread in Political Discussions,? *apparently you offended the mods with your lambasting of Biden. I may not agree with their action. But you started the topic and then inflamed it. People were moving on anyway.

Very cool!, In these hearings where Hur, the Special Counsel who oversaw the Biden probe is being questioned about unnecessary conclusions he drew about Biden's cognitive decline in his report, the Democrats sneak in a couple of Trump gaffe reels on the house floor!.

Roger, you remember when you first got here, I thought you were a youngster because you had infinite time to haggle with the mods. You seemed to have no concept of wasting the time of people who were surrendering their time with no compensation to be of service to you I thought you probably also treated waitresses shabbily, as a young man might. You're doing it again. So this is turning into a topic about ground rules again? But having said that, outside of a sh-tty title that tells nothing about the subject you're bringing up , and seems to just be a trick to catch eyeballs. I'll address the mods and say, the topic of whether the JFK had a huge effect on our current reality, which of course Roger believes, is very legitimate topic of discussion. I remember a few years back, Jim Di was an everyday propagater of the concept that we would be living in a virtual utopia now if JFK had lived. No one, posters or the mods ever questioned it but would wait with baited breathe at his next installment. I still see some of his followers frozen in time, oblivious to the fact that the only thing you can really count on is change, whether it's anabolic, good or building or catabolic , negative and destroying. You'd think they would have taken measure of that just through watching current events play out through their own lives, but no. Sandy, I was thinking maybe you're quibbling and getting lost in the weeds a bit, But your last 2 comments I'm in complete agreement with. In this case if you're evaluating how important the jfka is to present reality , you have to make some comment on your perception of the current political reality. It's true, you can see the temptation of some of the posters here to segue into talking about RK. But this topic by Roger is not like Ben for example,countlessly bringing up the JFK files issue although there had been no news regarding the JFK files but only using it as a pretext to talk about RK.

Ok, I was decimated by that as well having all my political leaders killed. I wouldn't say that that fomented a political seismic shift in people's thinking, but ok. I'm not one who believes that JFK was killed because he was going to pull out of Vietnam. Though I think it's clear, Vietnam wouldn't have been anywhere near the debacle that it was under LBJ and he'd probably like Biden, maybe would have pulled out in his first year in 1965 and suffered some politically, but the screams from the hawks would have died down. But there was a steady stream of wars and police actions long before Vietnam. There was the Korean war , Iran, Guatemala. I think FDR filling out his 4th term would have had a much more positive pull on history than JFK on a second term, but of course, he wasn't assassinated IMO.. It was a new beginning, the world was being reshaped , and FDR was a proven winner as a politician. In a sense the JFKA was not a surprise and was the product of the growing cold war insanity of the 50's. The U.S. controlled half the worlds resources , and every thing was growing including the government. Department heads like Hoover, and the Dulles's amassed huge power and were little fiefdoms, awash with government money. That situation doesn't exist today really. It's much more checked and consensual, much more bureaucratic. I agree. But the way you're carrying on about it. I'd almost think you're a pacifist but I assume you're not a pacifist, because RK is the most articulate pro Israel -Gaza War spokesman of any politician around! If you're just generally a dove,, and believe there are just wars. There's still not a majority of you. There are clear issues where politicians are standing in the way of the will of the people. Universal health care, sensible gun legislation, but that's not true of defense spending. The average American is somewhat hawkish. So am I to assume in an ideal world, you're probably against both the current wars that the U.S, a proxy to.? The support for the War in Ukraine is rather strong but dying down because of the Republicans, but if you believe the U.S. is supplying and supporting Israel genocide in Gaza. Joe Biden is under almost no criticism from either political party. It's about the only policy that the Republicans won't lambast him about, and he has overwhelming support from Democrats as well, except for a handful of hard lefties. The point I'm making is that none of us are just hopeless pawns groveling before the warmongering deep state. But largely support these wars. The only War protest worth a sh-t was one I think both of us participated in, (as I recall you saying) the Vietnam War protest, and my account is even though myself and friends became greatly disillusioned after time, there were people younger than me, becoming draft age who kept it going, and there were lot of families who just wanted to have a semblance of peace again and we actually ending up stopping it. JMO Ok, then there was some protest to Bush's War in Iraq. But has there really hasn't been much history of war protest in the U.S. in the last 50 years. Yet the truth is , It's becoming much harder all the time for American politicians to put America's son's and daughter's boots on the ground. 3 by chance got killed a month ago, and the U.S. swiftly retaliated. As a pacifist, you wouldn't be happy with anything. As a dove, you probably don't appreciate that things over time in the U.S. at least have been going your direction. That was a great moment! It's nice to think JFK making peace with the Soviets would have stopped wars everywhere. But you would have thought a 45 year Cold War buildup that finally ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union wouldn't have in 20 years just reverted right back to where it is, as it has. And the truth is, JFK had a few potentially costly stumbling pains himself. I assume you weren't like my brother and I at 11, during the Cuban Missile Crisis wondering how JFK and Khrsuchev could be so crazy to bring us to the brink of nuclear annihilation! No one remembers that. But "all's well that ends well", right? To me the only real promising situation would have been 16 years of JFK and RFK, but even then, life has told me afterward that you have to consider it would be 4 steps forward and 3 steps back, if you're lucky!

Ok, we'll say he sold Scotch Whiskey. The point was about Globalism, and Joe was involved in selling product from a foreign country. I would assume, since he can't legally sell in the U.S. he's selling from one foreign country to another? So now it involves 3 countries?

Ben you always talk like the U.S. started globalism. So you don't think that the colonization of the world that went on for 5 centuries wasn't globalism? Why do you think Brits, French Spanish Dutch decided to leave home? But that wasn't just business . That was raping and pillaging countries for their natural resources! Ben:JFK appeared able to forestall globalism, but he would have termed out anyway. Where do you get this that "JFK appeared able to forestall globalism?" You don't realize that the class of people that the Kennedy clan represented were globalists? His father was a bootlegger of Irish whiskey. I'm sure he had many other foreign interests as well. Most everyday Americans had never been out of the country! Ben:The globalists have unlimited amounts of money and friends in Qatar, Beijing, Riyadh to get even more. Skipping ahead a bit, aren't we? The prevalent attitude among the nations of the post war world was simple, the more globalism and International trade, the better! But Europe was largely decimated and the country more apt take advantage was the U.S. Ben:PS I recently posted about the media treatment of RFK2's explanation of the JFKA, and that post was deleted. So it goes. I consider media treatment of explanations of the JFKA---always dubbed "conspiracy theories"---as important to this forum. But some participants see "RFK2" and go bananas. As if commentary here could have slightest impact on national elections. BTW, RFK2 is not a globalist. The first candidate in the JFK tradition in many, many moons. So are we going to have a civil discussion about the topics you guys brought up, or is this just a cheap segue to talk about RK again? Because it sure seems like it!

Roger you use catchphrases like "seismic shift" and "tidal effect". Yet you offer no details like we should know what you're talking about and all nod in agreement. When you say a "political seismic shift." What are you talking about?

I think this is a good topic Roger , and I have views at odds with most of the forum about a lot of this. So far there has been a lot of comments I can comment on.. I love Robert's writing style, but fascism has been with us all our lives., long before JFK. To those people who propose a humongous JFK conspiracy I would agree only in the sense that there is a right wing malignancy in the U.S. that's never been truly understood . It exists organically and hasn't been brought here exclusively or substantially by old WWll Nazis allowed to thrive in the post war West. Roger, you and I have lived through this. After RFK's death I had suspicions that both deaths were related but I didn't want to seriously consider it. After time researching both assassinations, I've come to believe they are. I assume you are talking about the U.S. policy of endless wars? I think that could be stopped, but it obviously isn't going to be stopped now. 5 years ago I wondered about the usefulness of NATO.. Well the governments of Europe don't think it's useless now. We have neutral countries like Finland and Sweden clamoring to join NATO. Obviously they perceive a threat. That we could have avoided this if the U.S. had made a concerted effort to help the Russians in the period after the dissolution of the USSR's is undoubtable and we share blame, but we aren't the sole cause. Roger:The good news is the "rules based order", where the US makes and enforces the rules, created by, and a prime object of, the murder, is disintegrating before our eyes. The prime object of the murder??! I'll address that later. I agree with you only in that the U.S. is gradually and voluntarily detaching economically from the world and is going inward. Which is a matter of great concern, particularly for Europe. But I don't think that's what you're talking about. This is real forum heresy! I don't believe understanding the JFKA has any great relevance to what is happening. The power structure is completely different today. You have to know who your enemy is. I'm for generally cutting defense spending but the truth is the amount of money the U.S. spends on Defense is a smaller part of GDP than it's been since WWll . The amount of money spent on arms and weapon systems is about 3% of GDP. But because across the political spectrum, people agree a fundamental purpose of government is for it's mutual defense. The topic of government spending on Defense is important and should always be in question. It is true that people lost trust in their government that was never regained after the JFK assassination But the truth is the Vietnam war was the cherry on top for America's self image. Finally America came to grips wit the fact that they couldn't just militarily roll over everybody, if they so chose. A lot of this lamenting about this is because of a nostalgia for the carefree America of the 50's where America was the infallible leader of the world, and opportunity was everywhere for everyone, which of course, was an illusion! IMO This tidal shift you're talking about is an illusion as well. I think for 20 years things were going in a humdrum fashion. I don't think what i see as a military industrial based coup that favored largely a handful of defense based companies could ever have lasted on it's own and morphed into something much worse, much more insidious to be not be recognized and the result is we're still having these "war state" arguments when the power structure is now international and involves policies representing all industries on earth, as none of the elites are tied to the military or any one industry. If industries go out of favor, money goes somewhere else. I think the seminal event that really has little relation to the JFKA happened with little notice around the time of the Reagan administration and policies that were designed to marginalize the middle class that have strengthened unopposed over decades. Roger, I understand we all want peace but this is precisely why I think your comments below are so irrelevant. You're focusing on one area below which shows me you have no concept of the scope of the problem. Sorry But I do agree with your general commentary at the end in that I think Sandy probably is occasionally stepping out of bounds. But I don't think your post here is too political. I think it's relevant. I think Sandy's persistence has done some good at stifling purely political posts and I find it ironic that Ben brought that up because he was the number 1 violator. Maybe he's grown out out of it. Maybe I'll address his comments later. .