W. Niederhut

From the terrific In Search of the Lost Chord album. I still listen to that album, Ron-- and have for 54 years now. (I have an old vinyl copy and a modern era CD.)

I've done a lot of traveling over the years, but not since the pandemic started. Which continents have you inhabited, then and now? As for my criticism, I do believe that you have posted some worthwhile things on the forum-- especially your references on Dr. Daniel Brown and the Sirhan case.

Chris, You're a lousy diagnostician, in general. Accurate diagnosis--of patients, forum members, nations, history, current events, and what-have-you-- is based on one's fund of knowledge and empirical abilities, not preconceived theories and notions that are projected on to the actual facts. One of my favorite old medical adages from the Massachusetts General Hospital (Man's Greatest Hospital) is, "You see what you look for, and you look for what you know." Before making generalizations about American history and politics, you should study American history and spend some time over here. It's not the U.K. For one thing, the U.K. has a far older, entrenched class/caste system than the U.S.-- based on my observations of British society and literature.

Pete, I've been waiting a long time for Chronicles II. Dylan has an unusual prose style which I enjoy reading. I would liken it to what psychiatrists describe as a "flight of ideas" in manic thought and speech. It's colorful and often quite profound, as in the case of his historical collage/word salad in Murder Most Foul. So, I just ordered a hardback copy of Dylan's new book. The eclectic list of songs/chapter titles intrigued me, including a chapter on one of my all-time favorite songs-- the 1957 Eurovision hit from Italy, Volare. As for I'll Be Your Baby, Tonight, it's a terrific, s-h-i-t-kicking, strangely Freudian, country western song from Dylan's 1967 John Wesley Hardin album, which has been covered by almost everyone over the years. I made my own basement studio recording of the song years ago, using my cheap lap steel guitar to try to simulate Dylan's original pedal steel guitar accompaniment. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight by Guillermo Ambrose | SoundClick

It's not polite to endlessly repeat claims that forum members have taken the time to politely refute-- like the notion that there is any meaningful equivalence between Trump's white supremacist cult and American Democrats, or between right wing, Trumplicon propaganda in the U.S. media and bona fide journalism. As for a capacity for introspection, does psychoanalytic training, perchance, qualify? 🤥

It sounds reasonable, but it's dead wrong-- a misdiagnosis of what is actually happening in the United States in recent years. It's another verbose theory debunked by the actual historical and contemporary facts. Chris has never understood much about American history and politics, and he continues to promulgate a false equivalence narrative, along with Ben Cole, about the nature of America's partisan political discord and mass media disinformation. The media aspect of the rise of Trump's violent, right wing white nationalist/fascist identity politics in the U.S. originated in Reagan's abrogation of the Fairness Act in 1988-- and the subsequent rise of right wing hate radio and Fox News in the 1990s. Other more recent right wing propaganda moguls, along with Rupert Murdoch's empire, include Robert Mercer, (Breitbart) Phil Anschutz, (Washington Examiner) and cults like the Falun Gong, (Epoch Times) and the Moonies (Washington Times.) The current white nationalist Trump cult promoted by these right wing propaganda corporations was built on the foundations of the old Confederacy, the Ku Klux Klan, and Dixiecrat white supremacists, whose ancestors (in the South and North) date back to the American colonial era. This strain of nativist white supremacy in U.S. politics also had periodic outbreaks in American political movements like the 19th century Know Nothing Party, and Dennis Kearney's anti-Chinese "populist" party in 19th century California. Trump is only the most recent of America's nativist, white supremacist demagogues. But his current Republican cult-- promoted by Koch Industries and right wing corporate propagandists like Murdoch, Mercer, and Anschutz-- has taken the war on American democracy and voting rights to a whole new level.

And what's worse, as we learned in the last Congressional J6 hearing, Trump planned even before the 2020 election to claim that he had won, and to claim that the election was stolen. The man is a complete fraud, and he has been willing to drag the country through hell and foment violence and civil discord to promote himself. As I recall, he was finally kicked off of Twitter only after organizing and inciting his violent J6 attack on the U.S. Congress. Trump is a stochastic terrorist.

And, as a daily reader of the NYT, for years, I was truly astonished to read weekly front page NYT stories about Hillary's Emails during the summer and fall of 2016. Most of them were based on "leaks" from anonymous FBI sources. Nothing burgers. Like many NYT readers, I was puzzled about what looked like an NYT smear campaign against Hillary. My best guess at the time was that the NYT sabotage was about money-- possibly Trump corporate tax cuts vs. Hillary's tax proposals. I remain in the dark about Sulzberger's motives.

Yes, and we learned in 2017 that NYT Editor-in-Chief Dean Baquet had explicitly put the kibosh on any 2016 pre-election NYT stories about Trump's ties to Russia.

I'm guessing it was the James Comey/FBI/Anthony Weiner laptop horse manure.

Dylan has published his first book since Chronicles. I'll probably read this, despite the negative review here at Slate. I noticed that U2 singer/songwriter Bono has also just published a book about his songs, which I will, most definitely, read. Bob Dylan’s Philosophy of Modern Song is by turns brilliant, nonsensical, and misogynistic. (slate.com) November 1, 2022

The Dark Heart of the Republican Party politicalwire.com/2022/11/01/the-dark-heart-of-the-republican-party/ by Tom Nichols November 1, 2022 “It might seem late in the game to point to any one event as a final or conclusive moment in the decline of the Republican Party. And I have no doubt that if the GOP returns to power this winter, its worst members will find new ways to appall decent people while gamboling about in jester’s bells for its base. (As my Atlantic colleague Adam Serwer has put it so well, ‘The cruelty is the point.’) But the reaction among Republican elected officials and their conservative-media life-support system to the beating of Paul Pelosi—by a man named David DePape, who was charged with attempting to kidnap Speaker Nancy Pelosi and admitted to planning to torture her—feels different.”“I am not alone; my friend Mona Charen, among others, also senses that this event marks a new level of depravity in the GOP. I have struggled for a few days to decide why, exactly, this moment seems like an inflection point. In terms of actual damage, January 6 was far worse than one violent crime in San Francisco. Republican leaders—and here I will leave aside Donald Trump, who is in a class of hideousness all by himself—have said far worse things over the past five years. But a parade of Republicans somehow think that an unhinged, hammer-wielding intruder putting an old man in the ICU is funny…”“One might think that it would be easy for America, as one nation, to condemn an attempt to kidnap the woman second in line to the presidency that resulted in the beating of her husband with a hammer. As Ernest Hemingway would say: Pretty to think so. Instead, we have seen the dark heart of the Republican Party, with a reaction so callous, so flippantly sadistic, so hateful, that it all feels irredeemable.”

"Me, YOUR President." Steve Thomas Geez...talk about projection... But what a relief to know that Trump is determined to "keep fighting for the American people"-- presumably by fomenting violence, sedition, and civil discord, and cutting taxes for billionaires and multi-national corporations!

Donald Trump Jr posts 'Paul Pelosi Halloween costume' image mocking hammer attack on House Speaker's husband https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-mocks-paul-pelosi-attack-halloween-costume-tweet-2022-10

Geez. Michael Griffith has, obviously, never read Prouty's book on JFK and Vietnam. I also doubt that Michael has ever read The Secret Team or Prouty's famous 1990 letter to Jim Garrison. Michael's tropes about Prouty all seem to come from Lansdale and CIA/McAdams disinformation sources on the internet-- e.g., the trope about Prouty being a "crackpot," a "chauffeur," an anti-Semite, etc. It's a case of CIA character assassination/Swiftboat vetting-- repeating the defamatory lies until uninformed people believe they are true. If Michael had read JFK and Vietnam, he would know that Prouty was a firsthand witness/participant in Vietnam who had worked directly with Lansdale at Saigon Station for years, and was intimately familiar with the history of CIA ops in Vietnam after 1954, having served as a USAF liaison to the CIA. Obviously, the CIA relied heavily on Prouty and the U.S. military for their Vietnam ops prior to 1964. Prouty was also intimately familiar with Lansdale's earlier ops with Magsaysay in the Phillippines, that set the stage for Allen Dulles to give Lansdale a leadership role in CIA Vietnam ops after Dien Bien Phu. Prouty was judicious, perceptive, and sufficiently competent to eventually be promoted to a position as the chief Joint Chiefs' liaison to the CIA during JFK's administration. Hardly a crackpot. He served as a high level briefing officer, and co-authored parts of the Pentagon Papers and the McNamara/Taylor Report, with General Victor Krulak, which was used as the intel basis for NSAM 263. Along with Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone, whom he consulted with, Prouty was one of the true heroes of the JFKA truth movement. He was a man who had firsthand, personal knowledge of Ed Lansdale and CIA black ops and psy ops around the world, and became highly suspicious of numerous details about the JFK assassination op. He was also a rare case of a person with firsthand knowledge of CIA ops who never reported to Allen Dulles or signed a CIA non-disclosure agreement. Like Garrison and Oliver Stone, he was, obviously, targeted by the CIA for character assassination for telling the truth about JFK, the CIA, and Vietnam.

I don't always agree with Max Boot, but even a blind squirrel finds an acorn on occasion. In today's WaPo, Max Boot says exactly what I told Ben last night about the bogus Republican "both sider-ism" relating to political violence in America today. Hopefully, Ben will eventually get it. (I won't hold my breath.) Opinion | Pelosi attack rooted in political violence on right, not 'both sides' - The Washington Post

Don't keep "both sides-ing" this, Ben. You've been doing this for the past year. It's bunk. Do you acknowledge Trump's deliberate Big Lie about non-existent 2020 election fraud that launched his multi-state False Elector scam and January 6th mob attack on Congress? If you had watched the Congressional J6 hearings you would know that Trump planned his Big Lie strategy to overturn the election even before November of 2020. This Pelosi attacker was also an election denier who bought into Trump's Big Lie. But the GOP was lying about voter fraud even before Trump's Big Lie about November 2020. They have repeated this voter fraud BS for the past several years as a pretext to pass legislation to suppress voting in Republican controlled red states.

More false equivalence, eh, Ben? Democrats aren't suppressing voters and whining about fraudulent elections. I think we all know which party has been predicated on a Big Lie about fraudulent election results since November of 2020. Hint: They're the same MAGAts who have been hanging around ballot drop boxes with guns and tactical gear, after watching Dinesh D'Souza's loony 2,000 Mules GOP propaganda film. Group can monitor Arizona ballot drop boxes, US judge rules (yahoo.com)

Dinesh D'Souza? On the Education Forum? Geez... Your MAGA-verse updates offer a useful perspective on the mass delusions of the Trump cult, Mathew, but quoting Dinesh D'Souza is going a bit too far, isn't it? What's next, Laura Logan? 🤥

Does anyone know where the old CIA trope about Fletcher Prouty being a "crackpot" originated? I think I first read that nonsensical meme on a John McAdams website, after I had read Prouty's JFK and Vietnam book. I was surprised to read it, because Prouty seemed to be the diametric opposite of "crackpot" in my professional psychiatric opinion. He was a judicious, highly respected military officer who was ultimately promoted to serve as the U.S. Joint Chiefs Chief Liaison to the CIA. Since then, I have seen the same McAdams "crackpot" meme used by several different people who, on questioning, have never read Prouty's books or studied his letters and commentaries. Michael Griffith is the most recent of these misinformed Prouty defamers.

Indeed, Joe. Meanwhile, Mathew Koch has been kind enough to keep us all informed about the loony coverage of the Pelosi attack in the MAGA-verse. Mathew's MAGA-verse updates are helpful, especially since Ben, understandably, doesn't want to talk about the Pelosi attack this weekend. At least Ben hasn't blamed this one on the FBI, so far!

Paul Pelosi attack follows years of GOP demonizing Nancy Pelosi - The Washington Post October 29, 2022

Do some remedial reading about Col. L. Fetcher Prouty, fella-- and the other subjects you have been schooled on in recent weeks. Learn something new. You continue to clutter this forum with falsehoods about Prouty, Vietnam, WWII, and the Middle East, while stubbornly refusing to educate yourself on these subjects. You have a lot of fixed ideas that have been debunked by the facts. Prouty remains one of the key CIA-affiliated figures in the U.S. who accurately exposed the history of CIA black ops, including JFK's assassination and the related alterations in U.S. Vietnam policy by LBJ and the Joint Chiefs after 11/22/63. He was a co-author of the McNamara/Taylor Report behind NSAM 263. As for WWII, my father's tank battalion (the U.S. 753rd) was involved for the duration of U.S. involvement in the European war effort in WWII-- with Patton's 5th Army invasion of Sicily, to the Italian peninsular campaign, (including the Battles of San Pietro and Monte Cassino) Operation Dragoon, then up the Rhone valley and into Germany at the war's end. I'm proud of my father's military service in WWII, and that of all of our American troops in WWII, including the 350,000 American soldiers who died in the European and Pacific theaters. But I also recognize that 75 Russians died for every American killed in WWII. 75-to-1. The Soviet Red Army was largely responsible for the defeat of the N-a-z-i Wehrmacht, and 80% of all Wehrmacht casualties in WWII occurred in Russia. 2,000,000 people died in the Battle of Stalingrad alone-- the turning point in the war. Many Americans still don't understand that the central theater of the war in Europe was Russia. The Western Front, including Italy, was a relatively small-scale theater, in comparison. In fact, the Wehrmacht deployed a lot of younger and older soldiers to the Western Front, while sending their battle-hardened troops to the Russian Front. Nor would Patton have rolled the Red Army, as the Rambo crowd seems to imagine. Look at the sheer size of the Red Army in relation to the U.S., British, and Canadian forces at the war's end. D-Day happened almost five years after WWII began. Churchill was very reluctant to commit ground troops to the Continent after Dunkirk. FDR sent our troops into North Africa and Italy-- including my father's tank battalion-- mainly in response to Stalin's repeated request for a Second Front. The Russians had no illusions about Churchill's reluctance to open a Second Front.

No doubt. The plutocrats control the U.S. government. And the problem has been worsened by the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling that has opened the floodgates for "dark money" funding of elections. The progressive social democracies of Western Europe have been able to maintain a more functional balance of power between corporate capitalists and the labor movement. In the U.S., the labor movement has been gradually destroyed, and the masses have been indoctrinated by years of capitalist propaganda to anathematize social democracy as "socialism."

Mathew, Are you claiming that an election-denying Mike Lindell/My Pillow fan who thinks the Congressional J6 investigation is a farce and hates Nancy Pelosi isn't MAGA? 🤥 That's the strangest theory I've heard since Fox News and the Republicans tried to blame Antifa for Trump's January 6th mob attack on the U.S. Congress.