W. Niederhut

Interesting thread. Coincidentally, I've been reading a fascinating book this week about the history of Hollywood during WWII and the ensuing Cold War, called Army of Phantoms, by former Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman, which has multiple references to the work of Joseph McBride I can hardly put the book down. https://www.amazon.com/Army-Phantoms-American-Movies-Making-ebook/dp/B004W3UGU0/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Army+of+Phantoms&qid=1580406558&sr=8-1

Speaking of AIPAC, a Super PAC affiliated with AIPAC is now airing attack ads against Bernie Sanders in Iowa. Bernie is one of the only politicians in the U.S. who has dared to criticize Netanyahu and his Likud Party hardliners. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/29/out-touch-pro-israel-group-criticized-ads-hitting-bernie-sanders-electability

Here's the latest from University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole on the Kushner/Netanyahu Apartheid Plan. (As an aside, Juan Cole's Informed Comment website seems like a reliable source of info about Middle East affairs, but the only time I posted a comment at Informed Comment about evidence of Israeli involvement in 9/11, Cole promptly deleted it.) https://www.juancole.com/2020/01/palestinians-against-humanity.html

Or Kenneth Starr complaining that we live in an "age of impeachment." 🙄 As for the so-called Bolton "bombshell" today-- there's nothing explosive or shocking about it-- except, perhaps, for people who completely ignored the public testimony in the House impeachment hearings. From what I have read, Bolton has merely corroborated the detailed, sworn testimony of Trump's own staffers about his Ukraine-gate extortion scam last summer -- viz., Ambassadors Taylor and Sondland, and NSC advisor Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. I noticed over the weekend that the "House Intelligence Committee" was live tweeting detailed, point-by-point rebuttals of Trump's "defense."

It also looks like Trump's attorneys, Cipollone and Sekulow, could be in hot water, if they knew about Bolton's unpublished manuscript. At least some members of Trump's legal team also likely knew of Bolton's knowledge which, if so, potentially subjects them to criminal perjury charges or legal disciplinary actions for their statements before the Senate. https://t.co/Ur4ST3vmSS — Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 27, 2020 https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/whistleblowers-lawyer-bolton-revelation-potentially-subjects-trumps-legal-team-to-criminal-liability/

Trump Suggests NPR Shouldn’t Exist After Heated Mike Pompeo Interview The president went on the attack after the secretary of state’s foul-mouthed tirade was reported by the nonprofit media organization. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-npr-mike-pompeo-interview_n_5e2db132c5b6779e9c34fc02 January 26, 2020

Fascinating analysis published at University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole's Informed Comment website this weekend, written by retired U.S. Major Danny Sjursen, a former history instructor at West Point. American Apocalypse: The Rapture of a U.S. Foreign Policy Off the Rails https://www.juancole.com/2020/01/american-apocalypse-rapture.html January 24, 2020

Talk about disillusionment! Jim Lehrer, Bill Moyers, and Dan Rather have always been three of my favorite television "journalists." And, yet, they all colluded in the BIG LIE about JFK's murder-- for 56 years!

Here's an anecdote about one of the GOP Senators numbered in Trump's camp during this trial, (and recently threatened with having his head on a spike if he fails to acquit Mad King Donald.) Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) defeated incumbent Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado) in 2014-- the year that the Koch Machine bought control of the Senate and installed Mitch McConnell as majority leader. Gardner received $18 million in "dark money" donations during the month before the 2014 election, (compared to $4 million for Udall) and flooded the local airwaves with a blitzkrieg of false advertising. The Gardner/Koch ads were running in a 5:1 ratio with the Udall ads prior to Election Day. Gardner was also endorsed by our local Robber Baron/McClatchy newspaper, the Denver Post, in an editorial that Gary Hart publicly denounced (in the Huffington Post) as the most absurd political endorsement he had ever witnessed. Interestingly, the Denver Post has never told the story of Gardner's $18 million dollar dark money donation. (I read about it in the New York Times in November of 2014.)

Agreed. This country is in very serious trouble. After watching that 22,000 man semi-automatic weapons rally in Richmond this week, I can't help thinking that we are on the brink of a serious national crisis. From here, it seems like a very short leap to some sort of "Reichstag fire" type event and a declaration of a "national security" emergency in the U.S. The next step would be a crack down on the "opposition" media, groups, and individuals who are deemed threats to "national security." I hope I'm wrong.

Hmmm... On Trump's theatrical use of anger... Well, at the risk of re-introducing Godwin's Law to the Education Forum, I'll mention that Donald Trump used to keep a copy of Adolph Hitler's speeches on his nightstand, according to his ex-wife Ivana Trump, which is especially bizarre given Trump's lifelong aversion to reading books. " I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few." -- Adolph Hitler

One of my former patients here in Denver was a close personal friend of the late, great American writer Steve Tesich, who first coined the term "post-truth" society.* Steve Tesich is probably rolling over in his grave this week, as we witness the first "post-truth" impeachment trial in American history. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Tesich

Not only McConnell, but the entire GOP Senate Goon Squad. What a historically pathetic spectacle. And the mainstream media is failing to tell the essential story here, as Dan Froomkin pointed out at Salon.com today. https://www.salon.com/2020/01/22/press-watch-big-journalism-is-completely-failing-to-deliver-the-big-picture-on-impeachment-trial/

I hope the Seidler screenplay can bring the key narrative details of Mary's Mosaic to the screen. The most interesting part of the book, for me -- beyond the details of Meyer's murder-- were Janney's vignettes about growing up in a CIA family in D.C. in the 50s and 60s. He recounts a time when he was watching the old 1960s Mission Impossible T.V. show, with Martin Landau as the master of disguise, (boy, was that Saturday night show popular in my circle of friends at the time!) and his dad commented, "We do it better." Peter Janney's best friend in childhood was Mary Pinchot Meyer's son, and his family was in regular, close contact with Mary and Cord Meyer and their family, (and, to a lesser extent, with James Angleton.)

One of the most interesting factoids in Peter Janney's somewhat controversial book, Mary's Mosaic, was about his father (CIA exec Wistar Janney) and Ben Bradlee discussing Mary Pinchot Meyer's murder over the noon hour-- long before the D.C. police had even announced, or issued an APB about, the murder. It was, obviously, a CIA-orchestrated hit, and Ben Bradlee knew all about it.

My bad. Not sure where I got the notion that the Washington Times was a Murdoch propaganda rag. I know that our local Colorado Robber Baron, Phil Anschutz, bought the Washington Examiner. As for the WSJ, I recall reading that a lot of high quality journalists left the WSJ after Murdoch bought it.

Ron, The point I was getting at has to do with raising consciousness about the true history of the U.S. military-industrial complex, (including, for example, the CIA's murder of Iran's democratically-elected leader, Mossadeq, in 1953, and our role in training and maintaining the Shah's SAVAK/police torture state in Iran from 1954-79.) If the American people could learn the dark truth about JFK's murder, Vietnam, 9/11, and the bogus "War on Terror," it could, possibly, lead to the election of more enlightened U.S. leaders who are committed to diplomacy, justice, and peaceful resolutions of world conflicts-- rather than more genocidal bombing campaigns for Wall Street corporations.

Oliver Stone has managed to punch a hole in the veneer of U.S. military-industrial-complex propaganda. One of the few. His prologue to the Untold History of the United States series was spell-binding-- where he talked about his concern that the truth about American history was not being taught in our schools. And, I read somewhere (?) that some American history teachers in the U.S. are starting to use Oliver Stone's work in their classrooms-- along with the work of Howard Zinn, et.al., on the People's History of the United States. (I just finished reading another fascinating book of this type called, White Trash-- The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, by Professor Nancy Isenberg of Louisiana State University.) There also seems to be increased public interest in the true, "untold" history of slavery, the Reconstruction era, and Jim Crow-- as described by the work of Columbia University historian Eric Foner, and award winning films like 12 Years a Slave. I sincerely hope that Stone's Destiny Betrayed series will break through to a large American audience-- but I suspect that propagandists in the mainstream media will either, 1) ignore, or 2) misrepresent the significance of the damning historical evidence in Destiny Betrayed.

The latest revelations from long-time Trump associate Lev Parnas are entirely consistent with the damning Congressional testimony of Ambassador William Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, et.al., about Trump's Ukraine-gate extortion scheme last summer. Parnas has filled in some details regarding the complicity of Nunes, Pence, Pompeo, and Barr in the Trump scheme, but the overwhelming evidence of Trump's misconduct has already been presented to the public by the House. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch's propaganda empire-- Fox, WSJ, NY Post, Washington Times, etc.-- has been aggressively promoting that false GOP narrative that Trump's historic impeachment is merely a "partisan" political exercise. That's bunk. The only thing "partisan" about Trump's impeachment-- for serious Presidential misconduct -- is the partisan refusal of dishonest Republicans in Congress to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of Trump's obvious, impeachable offenses.

America's great defender of the public interest said it best last May. Donald Trump Is the Most Impeachable President in American History www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/03/donald-trump-most-impeachable-president-american-history by Ralph Nader May 3, 2019

Important article by Jon Schwarz at The Intercept today about David Wurmser and Donald Trump's Iran policy. For those who don't know, David Wurmser was one of the key Neocon architects of Bush and Cheney's Iraq War, who had also worked on the "Clean Break" policy paper that Douglas Feith, et.al., wrote for the Netanyahu government in 1996. Key Architect of 2003 Iraq War Is Now a Key Architect of Trump Iran Policy https://theintercept.com/2020/01/16/david-wurmser-iran-suleimani-iraq-war/ January 16, 2020

Ray, I have been truly shocked by what is happening in the U.S. during the past four years. I didn't think this could ever happen here. When a few historians and sociologists started writing a few years ago about the parallels between Trumpism and European fascism in the 1930s, they were either ignored or ridiculed as alarmists-- adherents of the internet's "Godwin's Law." University of Pennsylvania historian Thomas Childers taught a Great Courses series on the history of the Nazi Empire a few years ago, where he asked the question, "Could this ever happen in America?" Childers outlined a series of critical events and policies used by Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels from 1932-33 to subvert the democracy of the Weimer Republic and establish a totalitarian, fascist police state. Hitler came to power in 1932, improbably, with a core group of racist supporters-- roughly one third of the electorate, as I recall. He was strongly supported by the military, the police, and wealthy industrialists (IG Farben, et.al.) who believed that the Nazis would function as a bulwark against socialism. Immediately after coming to power, Hitler and his goons relentlessly attacked the opposition press, (the "Lugenspresse," fake news, etc.) then abolished all opposition political parties after burning down the Reichstag and declaring a state of emergency. They also relentlessly attacked minority groups-- especially the Jews-- and foreigners, creating paranoia about threats to Germany along its borders.

Speaking of the "Power Elite," has anyone else noticed that the corporate media moguls -- including Sulzberger and Bezos-- have been smearing Bernie Sanders bigly this week--- after completely blacking out any media coverage of Bernie's two presidential campaigns during the past FIVE years? 😬 These are the same guys who ran weekly headline stories-- based on anonymous FBI "leaks"-- about Hillary's Emails from July to November of 2016.

My impression is that most Trump supporters here in the States never question the whizdom of the Fuhrer. They simply drink the kool-aid and get angry if anyone asks questions or expresses any concerns about Don Mar-a-Lago's whizdom. As an example, Trump supporters on another forum I participate in have refused to comment during the past two days on the fact that Trump lied about "imminent threats" to four U.S. embassies-- his alleged pretext for assassinating Iranian General Soleimani.

The NYT is hardly a reliable source, especially in matters pertaining to the Middle East, but they published a lengthy article last night about the chronology of the Soleimani assassination op. Based on their article, the "stand down" agreement by Trump and Tehran was negotiated by the Swiss intermediaries who have functioned as our de facto diplomatic liaison to Tehran ever since we broke off formal relations. Seven Days in January: How Trump Pushed U.S. and Iran to the Brink of War The story of that week, and the secret planning in the months preceding it, ranks as the most perilous chapter so far in President Trump’s three years in office. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/us/politics/iran-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage