Kirk Gallaway

Benjamin:As stated, there are many fair and fine minds in all political camps, from Trumpers to Donkettes. Oh, "many fair and fine mind Trumpers?" Well Benjamin, unless it's expat "Ninja Johnny" at your local Thai dive bar. Can we can assume those are your current online associations? Would you kindly gives us the websites you frequent so we can browse and see what your standard is for "a fair and fine mind."? ***** Benjamin: But I am hardly the first to note that institutions can first become rotten and then ossify. To become coprolite. You certainly aren't. Oh good, so you know you're nothing exceptional? Then why do you keep starting threads and saying the same things over and over again and try to talk to us like we're 3rd graders? And then at least with me avoid direct questions with this super polite, amiable, veneer crap? What are you trying so hard to convince us of? You're no spring chicken. Hey neither am I. Why does it matter so greatly to you? Do you envision yourself as a modern day Castro descending from the Thai jungles but to foment a white backlash movement? Ha ha! Seriously, what do you want, Benjamin?

John Foster?--- Kind of a big mistake! It's nice to see critics who have at least a bedding in the research material. It's pleasant though. Obviously Jim knows more about the machinations of getting it to the U.S. But I'm pretty confident, we'll all be able to see it by Fall.

Benjamin; So identity politics is now just another useful bludgeon in the hands of Deep State. If you are hip, you don't believe these old white guys Hmmm. Uh.... Are you by any chance old and white?. Ok, Then let's join in the struggle to preserve Benjamin's identity from these slings and arrows! My God! Stop the bludgeoning! Stop the bludgeoning! BLM! BLM! Benjamin's life matters! Benjamin's life matters too! ***** I can see for you this "tragically hip.' As Matt said, that is quite an extrapolation from one line of one guy's review. Do you always respond so defensively to matters about racial identity? To each his own. I'm not that much into ''identity politics.''

Richard said: Sorry for being an asshole. I wouldn't beat myself up too bad, Richard. I don't particularly like Whoopi either. But I have no idea what a good choice would be. Joy Behar?----- OK , more ethnic?...Joy Reid? heh heh Actually the one time I watched a segment on The view", Stone was the guest, plugging "Untold history". I agree, I like the Frontline narrator, who also did some Dos Equis "Most interesting man" spots. His name is Will Lyman. One guy I've been impressed with who seems to get a lot of voice overs for movies these days is this guy, who is currently doing an ad on a first run movie. I don't know his name, but when the title sticks with you 6 years later. You know he's good! He's on the just the last few seconds of this trailer. Girl on the train https://fb.watch/v/6cGIpkhF7/

Yes, I've read a couple of books on Einstein. And although he comes up with some stunning quips, I've never heard him in quite such in depth eloquence.

Yeah Pete, My son sent me that this morning. This guy waits 40 years to come out with a book saying Peter Lawford confesses that Bobby poisoned Marilyn Monroe. Hyeahh! Apparently this last photo taken of John Lennon and Paul Mac Cartney together was also taken at Peter Lawford's Malibu house by May Pang in 1974. Lennon rented the house from Lawford in his "Lost summer" in L.A. or whatever you call it.

W: Of course, the end result of his machinations was the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Great Society legislation. He did good. Yep, all the above! Who can figure out why?, but a confident opportunist with a sense of history that he knew from the very beginning what he and MLK would be remembered for. W: As I said above, I would file this one under, "God works in strange ways." Amen! Some people talk, and some people do. Sometimes I shudder to think what LBJ may have done! Complex times require complex people. Today everybody is so f--k--- binary!

Well Joe, I know you like that Madeleine Brown, May Newman and the Murchison meeting, but of course Madeleine Brown also said Jack Ruby was there! There is quite a disagreement about LBJ. Some think he was in on the plot to kill JFK, some think he was the mastermind. But there's no doubt, he was part of a massive government coverup and by some private accounts was personally a despicable human being. My outlook is certainly not going to win praise from the LBJ was "in it up to his neck crowd". But I tend to agree with Matt. I think JFK was completely different than RFK in his ideas about arousing enmity with his ideological foes that he had to have a working relationship with. When LBJ became President , he saw a unique opportunity as the previous head of the Senate and as a southerner to carry through JFK's civil rights legislation, and was probably more successful than JFK could have been because JFK really wasn't much of a politician , though he was getting better. LBJ was envious of the JFK Ivy leaguers that he kept in his cabinet after the assassination, and despite his corruption had sort of a teachers idealization of social progress, and a socialite wife to match. When he first met MLK after the assassination he told him that "You and I are going to do great things together." He was an opportunist and he saw his unique historic opportunity, and realized he was going to make his party give up the South for a long while. . I think a very sober, but accurate evaluation of JFK was made by Oliver Stone in the "Untold History of the United States" that JFK had "potential". It may have been "good potential". And I'd accept that too. He didn't say that JFK was "great" or going to knock the cover off the ball. Anyway, I liked his depiction. We can talk about his aspirations in foreign policy. He definitely was in a place to be able to get out of Vietnam, and we know in hindsight, that would have been his crown achievement, but of course nobody knew that at the time because the disastrous Vietnam War hadn't played out. So he wouldn't have had any political capital because of that. As far as aspirations being taken to fruition. Hell, Bill Clinton had great aspirations to give our nation health care at a time when it would have been a lot cheaper, but he couldn't accomplish that. I tend to think JFK's second term wouldn't have been as successful as I don't think any president could have successfully weathered the 60's. There was just too much change. JFK would have had no more control over the race riots of the 60's than LBJ did. That was a train that was going to happen and no amount of "JFK charisma" was going to stop it IMO. Still I think JFK could have been remembered for hastening the end of the Cold War, which was no small achievement!. So we would have started the post cold war era sooner and we'd be further along on this economic cycle. I'm not sure how good that would be for us now, I guess that depends on how bright you think the future is, but it was the right thing to do -damn it! heh heh

Actually I live here so I have a more comprehensive understanding. So you're interested in the Democrats evil ties to Liz Cheney? I'm more interested in your ties to Fox news. You've wheeled out Tucker Carlson for guidance on an occasion or 2. Benjamin said"There is some culture-war stuff, and some race stuff", You do sound more nuanced now. When you first came here, you came off as a blazing Fox cultural warrior who was obsessed with his disgust for "identity politics", stating it over and over again."I hate identity politics." Which told me this guy watches a lot of Fox culture warrior stuff or similar online sources. To demystify this for you Benjamin. When people get over their thin skinnedness, All these demarcations can be explained in terms of interest groups. The Democrats have a loose coalition of groups, the international elites and business class people and then there's a coalition of "identity" minority groups vying for their civil rights that you're upset about, Blacks, Native Americans, Asians LGBTQ. But I would think since you have "a lot of sympathy for the marginalized, the outcasts, the misfits, the estranged, the lost, the embittered.", you'd sympathize. But apparently that's just for disaffected whites? Among the other groups that are in the Democratic interest groups are the environmentalist groups and consumer protection groups. Do you have any sympathy for them? Then on the other end of the ledger, you have the Republicans who, like the Democrats favor the international global elitists and business class people, and the majority of the Defense industry, though not exclusively,and the Religious right. That's pretty much it. That's their coalition., To some of us, it's sort of arbitrary to insist that racial, ethnic, gender injustice is somehow second tier, and the religious right isn't?. The" identity politics" card is really just a buzzword phrase that Fox news and Breitbart and other right wing groups have seized upon to appeal to white people who are concerned about losing their majority status. It's a disguised race card. At the time, my feeling was upon hearing of your disdain was, if he falls for this primary stuff, he'll pretty much fall for anything. JMO. Is there some unfairness in the way all these interest groups try to seize their agenda?, yes. But your fervent adoption of the fox message that pits white disenfranchised against the minority disenfranchised is just music to the elites ears. Anything to get the attention off them. After all, there is a class of people who have strongholds on both sides of the Republican Democrat ledger! To strongly adopt the "I hate identity politics" banner is just another bandwagon to corporate shilldom. You came off completely misdirected. At least that was my opinion. I know, we have different viewpoints, and that's ok! 😀 *****

There's a lot of stuff here. Let me just start with 2 areas that I've gathered from reading your posts that you've seemed most obsessed about. But now I see you and W. are talking about Sicknick,. So I'll start with that in in this post.. Benjamin: We have already been through the whole debunked Brian Sicknick story. This Brian Sicknick again. I know you have quite a sense of mission about this, Benjamin. I think the general reaction on this forum was to not to jump to conclusions about the riots other than a general disgust that these misdirected losers seized our capital and a greater astonishment that that was allowed to happen. I never saw one mention of Sicknick's death here until you mentioned it the next dozen times. I had no resistance to the fact that you were pointing it out that there were still unanswered questions. I guess your overall message is that " pervasive and censored media', was trying to misinform us. I tend to think that's BS. It was probably another case of a profusion of information all at once, and different witness testimony and people jumping to conclusions to come out with a story , and like all such stories, it was eventually ferreted out and exposed. In the final analysis, isn't it going to be known if Sicknick was hit with a fire extinguisher or not? Are you aware of the existence of the film where a protestor hurls a fire extinguisher at the standing cops heads, below, and actually hits 2 of them in the head? You can access it if you're so inclined. There was confusion at first, and some thought Sicknick was one of the cops. It's probably that simple, no media conspiracy. But while we're on the topic of media conspiracies, as you might know 6 people died! It was actually a few months after the riots that they determined that a woman was trampled by the rioters. They literally killed their own! Was the fact that it took months to find that out really as a result of a Trump coverup media conspiracy? heh heh In the final analysis, I don't know what your point is to keep driving home. You're not actually asserting Sicknick died of natural causes, are you? What does it matter if Sicknick died directly from blunt force trauma or stress trauma as result of weathering the riots? He still died defending his country and doing his job. How well do you think you'd hold up to this, being beaten by clubs and flag poles, Benjamin? These are some big dudes. This ain't Chiang Mai! I'm tired of hearing about Trump and his corruption! ( move his hands over his ears) I'M NOT LISTENING, I'M NOT LISTENING, I'M NOT LISTENING. Glen Greenwald 2016-21

Dennis said:As far as Kirk's outburst is concerned, I do not watch corporate media, As for the rest of your assumptions of my views based on a zero hedge article link, thanks for the chuckle. Sorry for the" outburst" Dennis.It probably just felt like an outburst. I haven't been accused of an outburst since grade school. heh heh! But this is your assertion, and if you out yourself as believing sources with no credibility, you will be taken to task. Dennis said: I do not watch corporate media, Tucker included, but from the little I have seen (clips etc) he at least will have some decent people on and not be afraid to make fun of the Warren Report for instance. Oh yeah?, just as your heartfelt assertion that the FBI is behind the Jan 6th riots? Again, maybe you've seen so precious little about it, you shouldn't even comment, but that's your choice. But check out this real "decent" Tucker clip. Tucker is a hard core "Oswald is a commie" and all attempts to make him a right wing figure is just the left trying to take the blame away from themselves. A word to those who've been waiting for years for a 24 hour cable conspiracy channel who have now gleefully settled for Tucker Carlson and have dream athletic aspirations to be considered to carry Carlson's weighty douche bag, I should let you know that years ago, when Tucker was young, his father, after months of carousing at exclusive tennis and country clubs, picked up the heiress to the Swanson TV Dinner fortune, and despite Carlson's meanderings of populism, that every once in a while can actually make him sound like AOC, Beware! It's all a plot to draw audience because as he's seen from Trump , he can pretty much say anything now and his mindless audience will never hold him to what he says or subject him to any performance standard. Fortunately he does have a long track record as he's shown here a few years back. He's scoffing at the idea that he could be any kind of spokesman for the everyday person. "The one thing you learn when you grow up in a castle, and look across the moat every day at the hungry peasants out in the village is that you don't want to stoke envy among the proletariat." Tucker Carlson 2008, on tape below. Over and over again I see people getting sucked in to this Fox douche illuminati or on alternative media. I keep trying to free you from your existence within the mouths of the all encompassing "government deep state" to direct your energy to the people who are really controlling you as well as your government, the corporate elites, who are laughing at your misdirection. Shut out your temptations to utter helplessness, stop getting sucked in to their deliciously spooky rhetoric and free yourself from your current state of "corporate shill". Similarly in this new Trump tax fraud investigation. I assume to the shills it will be. President Trump and his tax cuts to the rich, a true revolutionary. When will they just leave him alone?----------1 The wicked "government deep state" who have sabotaged everything I've ever tried to accomplish in my life.---0 Near the end , we can see what he ended up learning from another shill favorite, Bill O'Reilly and eventually incorporated it into his act. "Well,.. we all know Trump isn't cool so, .....can we just not talk about it? "Matt Taibbi 2016-21

Thank you Andrew, some good stuff here. It was probably Newman reading a typo, as he said Churchill mentioned an "Iron Curtain" descending over Europe in May 45. The actual date is March 46. VE day was in May 45, and some time elapsed after VE day for Churchill to make that valuation.in Europe. But one passing fact I found interesting was to find "Alan Dulles found out that navy officer Richard Nixon had been out in charge of captured poopoo documents revealing Dulles was a traitor. Dulles financed Nixon's first race for office in exchange for burying the documents." This is the first I've heard of Nixon being part of any Naval Intelligence, much less being privy to any N-zi documents involving Dulles..He started out in the Navy as a lieutenant junior grade in 1942 and eventually went out into the other main venue, the South Pacific, Perhaps it could have been here, from the Naval History and Heritage Command. "From December through March 1945, he served at the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, Washington, D.C. In March, his next assignment was as the Bureau of Aeronautics Contracting Officer for Terminations in the Office of the Bureau of Aeronautics General Representative, Eastern District, headquartered in New York." Still it does seem a bit unclear how he was privy to such information about Dulles. Nixon left the service in 46. It is true that Nixon initially answered an ad from Prescott Bush (not Alan Dulles)to first get into politics and it was Bush who did finance his first political campaign.

To give you an interesting story of Dylan's evolution in trying to translate his vision to professional musicians (the Band) and his conversion to electric music and the resulting conflict with the folk purists, we have an interview with Robbie Robertson. But if that isn't enough. Robertson, accounts meeting Jack Ruby in Fort Worth! It starts around 15:00, where he accounts a very weird gig!

Wow!, Dennis, so it wasn't Antifa after all? it looks like they're going to take a page from those liberals, and make the rioters play the "victim" card! So you've finally outed for Tucker Carlson, Dennis? and his source, Zero Hedge????, I'm happy you're not shocked. Zero Hedge tries to e mail me all the time. You love that gold bug stuff. They were established in 2009,by a Bulgarian trader whose father was super pro Russian who uses the pseudonym Tyler Durden. What a surprise! And they have missed the 12 year bull market with their perma bear outlook, and on top of that weren't smart enough to have foreseen the crypto craze, and that was supposed to be right up their hard monetarist alley. Ok anyway, good impartial sources! I looked back at them to refresh my memory and a website staffer who quit Zero Hedge recited the reason. : "I can't be a 24-hour cheerleader for Hezbollah, Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, and Trump anymore. It's wrong. Period. I know it gets you views now, but it will kill your brand over the long run. This isn't a revolution. It's a joke." Lokey told Bloomberg that he was pressured to frame issues in a way he felt was "disingenuous," summarizing its political stances as "Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft."

LOVE THAT BOB! In 1966, there were a bunch of whiny Parisians who started complaining because Dylan took 5 minutes to tune his guitar...and counting! Dylan replied by cleverly insulting them. I think we can all agree- It serves them right!!! heh heh Dennis: I had heard he wanted to join the Dead, but I never heard that comment from Bob Weir---interesting! Also interesting about Lesh drawing the line on the Dylan addition. I do remember one time, when I think about it, it may have been a New Years weekend show in the 70's when Grace Slick unexpectedly came on stage drunk and took the mic I guess expecting to sing with the Dead. The Dead seemed surprised, but were kind of smiling, except for Phil Lesh who was pacing nervously behind her and resented the interruption. My friend told me he flipped her off behind her back as she was babbling on, but I didn't see that.. Then Bill Graham walks out on stage and puts his arm around her and dances with her as the Dead improvised a Waltz and he danced her offstage and they cleverly got rid of her.

W: No Winterland SF. Jaco did die a year later, I believe.. The important thing is the reason for Dylan's God awful scowl in Robert's video is because he'd never done any open tunings and was just lost and didn't like being upstaged. For a long time, Dylan was not really that generous with other musicians. He sort of had his own little island. I actually have a story, hobnobbing with stars. I've seen clips of Joan Baez trying to harmonize with Dylan on his songs and Dylan just kept spontaneously changing his phrasing, making it impossible for her, and it sounded terrible.. I've done a lot of harmonizing and I thought it was really unprofessional. Then wouldn't you know it, a week later the power goes out on Sunday Night and I decide to go to a local bar where the power hadn't gone out and who was there but Joan Baez sitting alone. So I was standing talking to her in her seat, we talked about some local things. I told her I was also into music. At one point I said to her, "Boy singing with Dylan must be a real pain the ass, always deliberately changing his phrasing'. She didn't say anything, but I sensed I struck a chord with her. It was a few years later when I read the first piece I ever read where she was critical of Dylan. And she remarked about how tough he was to sing with at times. I'm finished. I think I'm going to end up pissing off some people here.

That's a good link, Bob. She certainly is mean spirited. That video clip of Joni doing "Coyote" is great! Notice the scowl on Dylan's face. It's because he's way over his head and he's just sort strumming the root chord senselessly. Up to that point, I know I'd never heard Dylan in an open tuning so he's sort of up sh-t creek without a paddle in that video. But in the interview, when she's given the opportunity to redeem herself for her attack, she says : Musically, Dylan’s not very gifted.---That's actually true. But Dylan followers don't rave about Dylan for his musicality, but for his lyrics and poetry. A lot of the early Dylan melodies in the 60's were actually articulated in the public mind much better by the people/ groups that covered Dylan songs. He’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies.He’s got a lot of borrowed things. Maybe not sensitively said, but that's undoubtedly true. He’s not a great guitar player. She actually understates it. At least up to that point when the video was made. Dylan was a mid level coffee house guitar player, and he'd been at it for a good part of 20 years! heh heh He’s invented a character to deliver his songs … it’s a mask of sorts.” That doesn't sound very kind, does it? But when you consider Joni Mitchell's music style was similar to Neil Young. Sort of a revealing, vulnerable catharsis. To her Dylan comes off as a guy whose afraid to get very real or personal, which is sort of true, but solely from her viewpoint. Most people don't get into the weeds about musicianship and musicality. I saw the Joni Mitchell "Hejira' concert, with no less than Pat Metheny and Jaco Patorius backing her up! I'll take that to a Dylan concert any day and know a minority of people who would but that's me. As Dennis said. She at least did have Morgellon's disease. And at one point, she would swear that tiny mites were crawling under her skin. So to partisans, some may say Dylan's not so penetrative approach won out!

That's Abrams central point. He had no intention to kill Oswald initially because he left his dog in his car. and the timing of the Western Union receipt. Also he woke up late, and he wouldn't have been there had not for the fact that they brought out Oswald later than planned, never asking how he got in the basement.Never considering that he could be working with anyone else. Isn't it amazing how high profile TV people can write books exposing nothing new, but generate attention? Like this Jake Tapper book about Frank Sinatra being rebuffed by JFK through AG Bobby. But any kind of exposure by a high profile TV personality does shed more light on a figure like Ruby, and could bring on other books, so it doesn't matter what Abrams verdict is on Jack Ruby, it is actually helpful to the JFKAC just to draw attention to Ruby.

JFK revisited: though the Looking Glass ? Wasn't Stone suppose to use Jim's title "Destiny Betrayed"? What am I missing here? https://ventsmagazine.com/2021/03/18/update-director-oliver-stones-kennedy-assassination-documentary-jfk-destiny-betrayed-headed-to-a-cannes-film-festival-premiere/

Yes I also like to see JFK's headspace, knowing what we know now. Agreed, it was about issues, not about other politicians and personalities, which we've become use to with Trump. Matt: It seems clear to me that the goal of all the men in that room was that the good of the country and its people was being served. I sort of hear you because there was a spirit and consensus of the common national good at that time, as I said. Which is refreshing to think about in the context of now. But you like that collusion a lot primarily because you like all the principals involved, but you may not like the principals of a press Presidency collusion in the future. Huntley and Brinkley come off good, the questions were good questions about fear of a widening SE Asia conflict. I'm not sure JFK did any better the second time. In the end, JFK comes off like a politician trying to BS his way out of it, and even though that's sort of understandable. At least about SE Asia, It really ends up being sort of a skirting BS session that further perpetuated an illusion that we only started to sense the faintest tip of the iceberg a couple of months later.

After the first 15 minutes, I'm not sure what was incredible or extraordinary Matt. It was completely boiler plate political. JFK starts out good pushing his test ban treaty , but when asked somewhat pointed questions at the time about SE Asia, He ducks, sort of tiptoes through the the tulips with the MIC. Reinstates his firm vigilant belief in the domino theory, even though we've heard so may testimonials as to JFK wanting third world countries to find their own path. As all politicians, forever putting the best face on SE Asia "Things up to recently have gone very well". What an illusion! Rhetoric wise, you know any Democrat at the time outside of a southerner like LBJ, would give lip service to the sound bite that ultimately "the South Vietnamese can find their own way, but we can help! What we know now as of I believe August 24, 1963,is that JFK bows to an edict by the U.S. military stating that they're going to back a military overthrow of Diem,which I assume meant an assassination toJFK. Right? Isn't that pretty much understood to be the way such a situation would have been handled at that time? And I think you can see the trouble in his face. Then of course, hohum , more boiler plate. The tax cuts. Thanks Matt, That is interesting to see. What was maybe the most enlightening for me, was the last 15 minutes. Outside of Fox news, if you're a politician, there's a lot more pressure to get it right the first time. Fox opinion makers just get around it by asking softball questions. Make no mistake, politicians these days could not get away with such media collusion. " Oh that was a rough take. I didn't answer it well enough, let's do it again". Yes that's done to some degree, but media Presidential relations are much more combative now. There's a much higher standard that interviews are fresh, spontaneous and not near as orchestrated as this was, and the bar is so much higher, and there's 100 times the prep. In this it's as if the press and the Presidency have made an agreement about what is the best way to portray a concept of America's interests at home and the best face to put on it abroad.

Ben:No, I do not regard Trump as a saint. To be clear. I hardly said after acknowledging your adverbs, that you think Trump is a saint. I said your key premise that Trump is anti globalist is just false. Ben: I define my preferred US foreign-military policy as "non-interventionist." Well you might be surprised but from what I've gathered most people here want at least a much more non interventionist U.S. foreign policy. Ben:I would like Iraq and Afghanistan (or any other nation) to blossom into democracies, and even to have large private-sectors. What I want and what can be achieved... It's just like someone here mentioning the other day that the U.S. should have free health care. It's like a million things. We'd all like that. Ben:The multinationals love the CCP and China. The CCP? I think that's just another monolithic statement. I assume some sarcasm. I don't think there's any love, and probably a lot resentment among financial elites for the CCP. And on the other hand, there's some with great support for Hong Kong. And there's a sizable amount of world elites without great Chinese exposure.

You're definitely the only here obsessed with that Brian Sicknick story, Benjamin. You've mentioned it a number of times even injecting into other detailed thesis of yours to the point that I was wondering. "How did this get here?" You are certainly sure of yourself about this.You certainly wanted this to be your "scoop" What are your sources? You've written a lot of stuff here. It would a long while to respond to every thing. I'm going to try to focus on a few things.I appreciate your scope. When I first came to the forum, The devil always seemed to be the exact same deep state government military industrial complex, often I thought perpetuated by Di Eugenio at the time. I thought it was very limiting in scope. It's since broadened a lot to include what you're talking about. I get the impression with some of the UK residents who have recently come to post here that the absolute worst thing, most evil slimy thing that any Brit could call another Brit is a"globalist". Would that make you all "isolationists" Ben? I certainly couldn't imagine a current world where Japan or the U.K., with rather limited resources, what some fossil fuels?, would ever take an isolationist tack toward the world. Wouldn't that just be suicide? I don't know. In the past, wasn't that why they built an empire? But I take your point. I do understand a lot of the sentiment behind anti globalism. But I think there's so much this willingness to believe that the experiences in the UK and the US are so identical, there's this naive belief that Trump is some knight in shining armor, and somehow not a globalist, when he's the most globalist, pro business President in American History. The first 2 years of his Presidency was the greatest "perfect storm' for the Republican party in at least 100 years of American history. But having said that, I think Trump's recognition of the China economic threat will be what he is singularly most remembered for. I think the world will be more wary of the Chinese economic dominance in the future, largely because of Trump. But in reality, he was also a horrible bungler. However strong a stand his economic people , (which were probably his most competent people) took against China, Trump actually tried to undo for his personal pursuits by offering favors to Xi to again, investigate the Bidens to aid his re election prospects! And that's just for starters. Just as the the world power focus has changed since the days of the JFKA. The elites you preach about aren't near as monolithic as you think. Just as people in the U.S. who could be said to be part of these elites could be say Democrats or Republicans, they're not all as freaked about Trump's policies as you project. Some honestly do see a nationalist threat from China. And there's already been a lot of shifting of supply chains. A lot of it is going to SE Asia and India. I've gotten the continual impression from you that all of them have been against Trump from the very beginning, and wanted him out. That belief is identical to the hard core Trumper's disenfranchised. The pairing off of the elites was really very gradual. Ben said: Trump, being Trump, entered the DC landscape in 2016, and immediately and bluntly, inarticulately, woefully, bombastically, and unskillfully warred with the global Deep State and its media minions. Well, and anybody else too. I might add "ineptly" and" corruptly" to your list of adverbs. And crediting Trump with intentionally focusing that on the "global deep state' is really overrated, but "anybody else too" is underrated. To use your words, bluntly, inarticulately, woefully, bombastically, and unskillfully and I'll add ineptly, corruptly are not really qualities anyone really wants from a leader, whether you're an everyday person or an elite. With exposure everyday to these Trump attributes, In this specific case I think there's just a bedrock of people, who didn't really need a persuasive media to brainwash them into wanting Trump gone, though I know that's always the prevalent projection here. Besides the elites like the great majority of people, of course want the preservation of the country as well.

This to people who are curious about the U.S. political process, like I am is fascinating. And even more so because it comes from a quarter I don't like. If this was aired on PBS, I didn't see it, but I haven't watched a lot of TV lately. What can I say, as not necessarily a "dyed in the wool" Democrat, but always as the loyal opposition, I've always hated ace Republican poster Frank Luntz. A few years back when we had the latest incarnation of Democrats advocating that the super wealthy should pay more their fair share of taxes, they proposed a bump in the inheritance tax of taxpayers with estates of I believe over 10 million. Interestingly one of the proponents was Bill Gates father. "Oh how could it be so?' but then I think, well of course what difference could that really make to one of the richest people in the world, but then again, Bill Gates Sr. and the Gates family could have been just like 99% of the other super wealthy, and not advocate it, or even actively oppose it. Anyway I remember Luntz, with his polling was the source of the clever idea to brand the inheritance tax the "death tax." and spread it through the Fox network, so people with a few 100 thousand to pass onto their heirs got scared, and the idea went down the tubes. The topic Luntz talks about is the Trump campaign in 2016, and what a stir it caused in the Old Guard Republican Party and how it played out through Trump's administration through and after the Capitol riots. At one point he chokess up in what we're supposed to think is his future fear for his country. Even when he does this my skepticism about him is that they're crocodile tears or maybe it's just the usual sappy brand of Republican patriotism and I'm culturally misplaced. But Luntz is the quite the insider. Luntz talks of meetings he had with the alarmed Republican establishment in 2016, and talks in depth about Trump's relationship to Mitch Mc Connell, Kevin Mc Carthy, Nancy Pelosi, among others, and of course gives his insight into Trump himself. He talked with Mike Pence before Biden's inauguration, about his relationship with Trump after Trump incited some rioters to cry "hang Mike Pence" after the Capitol riots. A question Pence has not publicly fielded to this day and Pence says he was just part of "God's plan" and everything will work out the way God intended! Which of course Luntz doesn't raise an eyebrow about! I got to give it to Luntz , he does pack it with information and makes such a performance out of it, you almost get the impression, he's been rehearsing it for weeks! But that could be my innate distrust again!

All very cool, Robert! I always wondered if Phil Ochs might have been the initial inspiration for that opening socially conscious Dylan stage.