W. Niederhut

Jim, I don't want to unnecessarily clutter the JFKA forum with old baggage from the 56 Years thread, but you are, evidently, unaware of Ben's lengthy, redundant history of bending over backwards to cover Donald Trump's derriere on the Education Forum. Let's set the record straight, in the context of understanding Ben's numerous, daily RFK, Jr./Biden snuff job threads here promoting RFK, Jr.'s anti-Biden candidacy. Ben doth protest too much about allegedly being non-partisan, while repeatedly bashing the "Donks," denying Trump's J6 coup attempt, Trump's Russia-gate scandal, etc., prior to the closure of the 56 Years thread. You, yourself, encouraged Ben to finally watch the Congressional J6 hearings last summer, after he repeatedly, erroneously dismissed them as a "circus." So, in fact, Denny Zartman is correct. Ben's daily RFK, Jr. threads on this forum are redundant, indirect attacks on Biden and the Donks, in the guise of references to the JFK records.

Jim, You, obviously, know the history better than I. Why did JFK fly to Berlin in late June of 1963 to give his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech? Wasn't West Berlin being threatened with a new Soviet blockade of some sort?

Ad hominem jargon. You ducked Baker's critique of RFK, Jr.'s dubious policy positions. Meanwhile, I notice that RFK, Jr.'s fan club on the forum is comprised of the same people who have tended to reference Tucker Carlson, Jim, Russ Baker has published a number of articles on the JFK assassination at Who What Why. I don't recall off hand whether he reviewed A Lie Too Big to Fail. As for Family of Secrets, you made a number of valid points in your review of the book, especially the relative neglect of GHWB'S October Surprise and Iran-Contra history. But you overlooked some nuances in Baker's coverage of GHWB's history on 11/22/63. For example, to whom was Barbara Bush's bizarre, formal letter "to her family" about 11/22/63 addressed? How old was Jeb Bush on 11/22/63? In any case, no less an historian and intellectual than Gore Vidal had high praise for Family of Secrets. As for our Fox News liaison Larry Schnapf's comment that Baker is suffering from "RFK Jr. derangement syndrome," it's a vacuous ad hominem slur that glosses over Baker's accurate critique of some of RFK, Jr.'s questionable judgments. And Baker's series about RFK, Jr. originated as a response to his readers who support RFK, Jr. Schnapf's comment reminds me of the Fox/MAGA habit of dismissing substantial criticisms of Donald Trump as "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

Roger, You misinterpreted my comments. I believe JFK was quite sincere about pursuing peace as an ideal, de-escalating the nuclear arms race, and "breaking the CIA into a thousand pieces." I view his subsequent Berlin Speech as a counterpoint-- a statement to the Kremlin that the U.S. was simultaneously committed to defending freedom and democracy in Europe. When people use only the Peace Speech to criticise Biden's support for Ukraine, they are overlooking what JFK said in Berlin.

Ben, I disagree with your "larger concerns" take here. IMO, the major crises of our time are issues like climate change, the proto-fascist, anti-democracy GOP cult centered on Trump, and Putin's war on Ukraine. RFK, Jr. has a good track record on environmental issues, but where does he stand on GOP voter suppression, anti-Woke-ism, Trump-ism, and Putin-ism? These are questions that progressive journalists like Russ Baker and Naomi Klein are asking. It's specious to dismiss them as "hit pieces." Also, Jim D. asked what Russ Baker's article has to do with JFK, but we could ask the same question about the daily pro-RFK threads on this board.

Ron DeSantis? Rupert Murdoch has been fluffing DeSantis for the past two years.

I've been a fan of investigative journalist Russ Baker ever since I read his great book, Family of Secrets, about the "untold history" of the Bush family. He is a Deep State critic, and a JFKA Truther. In recent years, Baker has run an independent news site called Who What Why. He has recently published a series of op-eds about RFK, Jr.'s candidacy. Since the JFKA forum has become a site for Ben Cole's daily threads about RFK, Jr.'s 2024 Presidential candidacy, here is this morning's Russ Baker op-ed. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Were President, How Safe Would We Be? - WhoWhatWhy

Anthony, I have always respected your research and insights on this forum. Two non-rhetorical questions. 1) Has Putin, possibly, had a long-term goal of annexing Ukraine, in accordance with Aleksandr Dugin's popular 1997 Russian military textbook on The Geopolitical Future of Russia? 2) If so, isn't it likely that Putin would have aggressively promoted propaganda about various pretexts/excuses for invading and annexing Ukraine-- e.g., claiming that Russia was threatened by Ukraine, that Ukrainians are N-a-z-i-s with bio-weapons labs, etc.?

Yeah, Matt, and there is a misperception in the RFK, Jr. fan club on this forum that only the M$M has been critical of RFK, Jr. RFK, Jr. has also been criticized recently by some reputable, independent, progressive journalists like Naomi Klein and Russ Baker. Russ Baker published a new op-ed today (at Who What Why) raising some serious questions, among other things, about RFK, Jr.'s position on Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Learn the definition of "spam," John. This isn't spam. It's a direct rebuttal of your inaccurate, inappropriate t-r-o-l-l-ing (above) on this thread.

Jim, What is your recollection of the events leading up to the breakdown in Biden and Blinken's efforts to forestall Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine last year? Do you condone Putin's illegal invasion and war crimes in Ukraine? Also, do you condone Putin's illegal 2014 annexation of the Crimea? Peace is an admirable ideal, but when was JFK ever confronted with an illegal invasion of an independent, sovereign nation by a totalitarian police state? As a matter of fact, JFK vowed to defend West Berlin from Soviet annexation, didn't he?

I predicted awhile ago that Rupert Murdoch and the other right wing Republican media moguls who are currently fluffing RFK, Jr. will abruptly turn on him if he ever becomes the Democratic nominee. They'll suddenly start running stories about RFK, Jr.'s heroin addiction, ex-wife's suicide, etc. They are chiefly interested in regaining GOP control of the White House and Congress-- to maintain low corporate and income tax rates, and GOP plutocratic control of the SCOTUS and judicial system. IMO, they are simply using RFK, Jr. to sabotage Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Indeed, Cliff, and the other awkward truth about NATO expansion is how eager the nations of the former Soviet Bloc have been to join NATO and the EU. Their interest in joining the prosperous democracies of the EU is inconsistent with the Russia Today narrative decrying U.S. oppression and "full spectrum dominance." Who are the "oppressors" in Europe today, other than Putin and Lukashenko?

John, Please take a break from your moronic ad hominem t-r-o-l-l-i-n-g here. Your highly offensive, personal insults about my 40-year career of hard work with the mentally ill should qualify you for a long overdue suspension from this forum, IMO. It's, frankly, pathetic. And what do your inaccurate, personal insults have to do with JFK, or with related world events? "No human dialogue between the hospital psychiatrist and his committed patient?" "The mental patient is a living corpse?" I think my former patients would pointedly disagree. Which "hospital psychiatrist" are they referring to with this insipid generalization? Meanwhile, you dodged my question about whether you, yourself, had ever spent any time with mentally ill people on psychiatric wards, to inform your self-professed "expert" opinions about the medical sub-specialty of psychiatry. And what have the self-promoting gadflies, Szasz and Rosenhan, taught you about actual psychiatric phenomenology?

Micah, Have you considered seeking treatment for your severe case of Dunning Kruger Syndrome? 🙄

John, Did you ever tell us whether you would choose to live in the oppressed U.S. "vassal state" of South Korea, or the "peaceful, multi-polar," Putin-allied nation of North Korea?

John, I thought you were taking a welcome break from posting your inane insults on this forum. 🙄 As for Thomas Szasz, one of my old associates here at the University of Colorado, Dr. Robert Freedman, always referred Szasz as an anti-psychiatric "gadfly." (Bob Freedman eventually became our department Chairman and editor of the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry.) There has long been a popular genre of pseudo-intellectual, anti-psychiatric literature out there-- some of which has been funded and promoted by the Scientology movement. Alternatively, it has been promoted by people selling snake oil. Most of it is predicated on the prevalent denial of mental illnesses-- people who believe, rather oddly, that the human brain is not subject to the same potential physiological fallibilities (congenital and/or acquired) as every other organ in the body. As for your oft-referenced Rosenhans joke-- what did it teach you about the phenomenology of mental disorders, other than the fact that people can pretend to suffer from auditory hallucinations? Big deal. Do you, therefore, infer that some mentally ill people do not experience hallucinations? Your ignorance of psychiatry reminds me of RFK, Jr.'s ignorance of virology and immunology. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Ron, I'm buying Bud Light, on principle, this summer-- although it sounds like the brand has taken a major hit from the MAGA boycotters.

Geez, Odisio, have you read, or understood, any of our detailed commentaries here on these multiple, redundant "JFK Peace Speech" threads-- including your own threads-- contrasting JFK's June 26, 1963 Berlin Speech with his idealistic, olive branch Peace Speech earlier that month? All you have done is to repeat the same tropes, like a broken record. Do you understand the relationship between the two JFK speeches-- the Peace Speech and the subsequent Berlin Speech? Peace is a terrific global ideal, as delineated by JFK in June of 1963-- but it is difficult to achieve for liberal democracies facing militant, totalitarian police states with imperialist ambitions-- e.g., N-a-z-i Germany, the Soviet Union post-WWII, Putin's fascist police state today, North Korea, et.al. The prosperous, free, U.S.-allied democracies of the G-20 today can't maintain world peace by simply wishing for it, and doing nothing, when sovereign nations like Ukraine are invaded and annexed by fascist police states like Putin's Russian Federation. That's why JFK flew to Berlin in June of 1963, after his Peace Speech, and pledge to defend freedom and democracy in Europe from Russian totalitarianism. Is democracy worth defending from totalitarianism, (e.g., fascism and communism) in your opinion? The last time I checked, your "peaceful, multi-polar," anti-American heroes are mostly dictators-- Putin, Lukashenko, Kim Jung Un, Xi, et.al. Was Winston Churchill correct when he said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms of government?" Would you choose to live in one of your anti-American, "peaceful, multi-polar" dictatorships-- Russia, Belarus, North Korea, et.al.-- or in one of your oppressive, U.S.-aligned democracies like South Korea, Japan, Canada, and the free nations in the EU?

Roger, We probably all agree that the U.S. military industrial complex post JFK's assassination has been an international humanitarian disaster-- in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. But how does your concept of a putative "peaceful multi-polar world" order jive with Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine, in accordance with Aleksander Dugin's blueprint for the Geopolitical Future of Russia? Putin sent tactical nukes to his puppet dictator Lukashenko in Belarus this week-- a nation that has brutally repressed democratic protesters in recent years. Is this an example of your new "peaceful multi-polar" world? Other Putin allies in your "peaceful multi-polar" world include the NOKO dictator Kim Jong Un and his nuclear missiles, and the Iranian Imams who have recently been executing human rights protesters. In contrast to the prosperous democracies of the G-20 nations, most of your "peaceful multi-polar" heroes appear to be dictators-- Putin, Xi, et.al.

IMO, Obama's misguided participation in the U.S./NATO intervention in Libya had more to do with the Neocon Project for a New American Century (PNAC) -- the Wolfowitz/Feith post-9/11 strategy to de-stabilize Israel's Muslim neighbors. It wasn't about the Balkans, per se, where the Clinton administration had collaborated with the Saudis and NATO in the 1990s against the communist rump state in Belgrade. U.S. participation (with Muslims) against the communist rump-state in Belgrade was more akin to our use of Fundamentalist Muslims (including former CIA asset Osama Bin Laden) against the Soviets in Afghanistan. As for the Bosnian Muslim and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) wars against the Yugoslav communist rump-state in Belgrade, most Americans still don't know that Osama Bin Laden and his CIA-trained "Al Qaeda" Mujaheddin (from the Soviet/Afghan War) were involved with the Izetbegovic government and the KLA in those wars against Belgrade. In fact, Bin Laden and his "Al Qaeda" Mujaheddin were using Bosnian passports in the 1990s. In a sense, the NATO bombing of Serbia was a late 20th century replay of the German/Austrian/Turkish alliance against the Serbs in WWI and WWII, when Hitler leveled Belgrade. (The N-a-z-i-s even had Muslim SS regiments fighting against the Serbs in Yugoslavia in WWII, alongside their fascist Croatian Ustase allies.) American War College analyst John Schindler claims that Izetbegovic was also backed by both the Iranians and Saudis in his efforts to re-establish an Islamic state at Sarajevo in the 1990s-- while posing as an enlightened secularist for the Western media.* Meanwhile, most Americans didn't even know that the Kosovo Albanian militants (KLA) were Muslims. I realized this when our local newspaper was taking up a collection to buy Christmas presents for Albanian Muslim refugees from Kosovo during the nascent civil war. And the U.S. media also blacked out coverage of the destruction of Serbian Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries in Pristina by the Islamic KLA at the time. The only photos of the bombed Orthodox churches that I ever saw were published by the media in France. * Amazon.com: Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad: 8601415795486: Books

Addendum: Oops... I just posted my travelogue response (above) for John Cotter, before seeing Kirk's interesting commentary about his current trip to Vietnam. My bad, Kirk. Great post, and thanks for sharing.

John, I'm responding to your latest post and questions in red (below.) John Cotter wrote: William, Despite my answering your question, you falsely accuse me of dodging it – while in the same post implying that I had answered it! You seem very confused. I must have missed your answer, John. Did you opt for life in North Korea or South Korea? Has your career in the authoritarian pseudo-science of mainstream psychiatry impaired your capacity to engage rationally with someone who disagrees with you and your capacity for self-reflection? The infamous Rosenhan experiment and Thomas Szasz’s classic critique of institutional psychiatry, The Manufacture of Madness, come to mind. "Authoritarian pseudo-science?" Thomas Szasz? Surely, you jest. Your "knowledge" of the clinical science of psychiatry is, apparently, sophomoric, in the worst sense of the word. It is based on evidence-free "theorizing" about "madness." Thomas Szasz's mythology is only taken seriously by people who have never encountered or studied the actual phenomenology of psychiatric disorders-- schizophrenia, manic depression, delusional disorders, severe OCD, etc. Have you spent any time with severely mentally ill patients on psychiatric wards, John? There's nothing "mythical" about their psychoses. There is another question which seems apposite. Have you ever lived and worked in a country other than the USA for a significant period of time? Not sure what is relevant about your question, but I'll respond. What the hell? I've traveled fairly widely in the world-- especially in my younger years. Never lived abroad (as opposed to traveling), other than the summer of 1973, when I lived with a Mexican family and studied Spanish in Saltillo, Mexico. And I have spent time in Mexico almost every winter for most of the past 30 years. In fact, I always wanted to retire in Mexico, before the drug cartels took over Quintana Roo. I once hiked to the top of the main pyramid at Chichen Itza, 30 years ago, before it was closed to the public. I once met Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Phanar in Istanbul. I have traveled in the U.K., Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, and, especially, Slovenia (where my mother's parents were born.) I once rowed out to the island chapel on Lake Bled. (see photo below) I once attended a Ceilidh in Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. As for your island of Hibernia, I've been to the James Joyce castle in Sandy Cove and Trinity College in Dublin. I even stayed at the "Boarding House" in Dublin that was the site of James Joyce's story, The Boarding House, in Dubliners. Below: Lake Bled, Slovenia

YouTube scholar, Paul Rigby, continues to whitewash the history of Putin's crimes against the Ukrainian and Russian people, and the far more egregious crimes of Putin's hero, Joseph Stalin, against both. Does Paul Rigby know anything about Stalin's mass murder of the Kulaks? (As Solzhenitsyn described in some detail, a "kulak" was often defined as anyone who managed to acquire a cow or two more than his neighbors in Soviet Russia.) Do people know that Putin's grandfather, Spyridon Putin, was Stalin's chef, and that Putin's father, Vladimir, served in one of Stalin's notorious NKVD Destruction Brigades on the Russian Front in WWII? Those were the scoundrels who sent Soviet Artillery Captain Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the Gulag for 9 years for posting a joke about Stalin in a private letter from the Russian Front. Rigby needs to put aside his YouTube propaganda and do some bona fide historical research about Stalin's crimes against humanity, before, during, and after WWII. Does Rigby know about Stalin's 1939 pact with Hitler (Molotov-Ribbentrop) to partition Poland? It's truly a pity to see this kind of Soviet propaganda on the forum, especially in light of longstanding Western denial about Stalin's historic crimes against humanity. This denial has mainly been a result of our alliance with Stalin in the war against the N-a-z-i empire, and a singular focus in the U.S. and Hollywood on the historic crimes of the N-a-z-i-s. Stalin killed millions. A Stanford historian answers the question, was it genocide?