W. Niederhut

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?

Well, not surprisingly, John Cotter has continued to dodge my question this week, while posting more Cotter-esque gibberish, including his shocking claim that Ireland is a "vassal state of the US empire"-- obviously, another hapless victim of US "full spectrum dominance," like Japan and Western Europe in the post WWII era. So, I take it that our forum's two Putin-adoring pen pals, John Cotter and Paul Rigby, would prefer to avoid living in "brutal US terror states" like South Korea or West Germany -- opting to live, instead, in Putin-aligned proletarian paradises like North Korea and Belarus. De gustibus non est disputandum... 🙄 South Korea-- A brutal American terror state North Korea-- Beyond the Pale of American Full Spectrum Dominance

Steve, The Republican Party in 2023 is like an alcoholic family that can't talk about the fact that their Orange Daddy has a drinking problem. They're living a lie and denying reality, while trying to maintain a rule of silence, and anathematizing anyone who dares to tell the truth. It's a pathetic spectacle, and antithetical to constructive governance.

Oh, I see. Are NEJM and the scientific community also part of the alleged "DNC hit team" that has criticized RFK, Jr.'s anti-vax disinformation? Meanwhile, Larry, is your Fox/Tucker Carlson contact the producer (McCaskill?) who just got sacked for pushing the ridiculous "Biden is a Wannabe Dictator" trope on Faux News?

I think I'll skip Joe Rogan, and stick with studying the virology and immunology data, thanks.

Ah, yes, Sukiyaki! To this day, the song evokes profound, 60 year-old nostalgic emotion for me, as music is wont to do. The guy who used to MC the Friday Night Dance at the Tincup, Colorado Townhall in the early 60s used to play this 45 rpm record through the PA system.

How Russia's false biolab story was echoed by the U.S. far right : NPR

I have long wondered where John Cotter gets his strangely anti-democratic concepts about modern history and politics. Is Russia Today active in Hibernia? 🙄 And I'm still waiting for John to answer my question about whether he would choose to live in North Korea or be exposed to the horrors of American "full spectrum dominance" (and "American democracy imposed at gunpoint") in South Korea. Thus far, John has ignored the question, while posting non sequiturs about Irish fables. As for Ireland, I'm also waiting for John to clarify his reductio ad absurdum about supporting Irish independence from the British empire, (at gunpoint) while disparaging Ukrainians for fighting to maintain their independence and sovereignty from Putin's totalitarian police state. Apparently, John believes that the Irish are entitled to freedom and self-determination, while Ukrainians aren't.

Yes, it's interesting to watch Rupert Murdoch's right wing propaganda empire boost RFK, Jr.'s campaign against Biden, during the same week that they telecasted a ludicrous trope about Biden being a "Wannabe Dictator." Geez... 🙄

Jim, Gene sequencing and mRNA technology has come a long way in recent years. And, contrary to RFK, Jr.'s anti-vax disinformation, the COVID vaccines saved a lot of lives in comparison with un-vaccinated, older adults. RFK, Jr. blew the call in a big way. As for Ben's argument that repetitious pro-RFK, Jr. 2024 booster threads are appropriate for the JFKA forum, while contrary evidence and opinion belongs on the "Wafer Cooler" threads, it's absurd. The Water Cooler threads were established mainly because of Ben (and Koch's) redundant MAGA spam on our 56 Years thread. Now Ben simply posts his redundant tropes here.

John C'mon, man. Put on your thinking cap. The reference was to Ukrainian indepence from the Kremlin's totalitarian police state. You persist, oddly, in viewing Ukrainian resistance to Kremlin subjugation and mass murder as a proxy war.

Ben, You should probably read the Naomi Klein related op-ed in this morning's issue of the progressive Common Dreams newspaper-- home of Ralph Nader and Jeffrey Sachs. (I posted the link on the Political Discussions board.) The professor from British Columbia thinks that RFK, Jr. is a "counterfeit populist"-- an opinion possibly shared by such luminaries as Bernie Sanders, Russ Baker, and the Kennedy family. Try keeping an open mind... 🙄

Kirk, I think "punditocracy" has something to do with "full spectrum dominance" and other American abominations. Among other causes of John Cotter's dyspepsia, he has been indignant about Americans "exporting democracy at gunpoint." I share some of John's justifiable indignation about the U.S. military-industrial complex, but I also wonder if John would choose to live in North Korea or South Korea. He refuses to tell us, but I can't picture Cotter goose-stepping past murals of Kim Jong Un.

Ben, In your lead post on this new thread, did you write, "RFK, Jr. is the one candidate who would release the JFK Records?" Where have we heard that Ben Cole trope before? 🤥

Thanks, Anthony. Given the numerous inaccuracies in RFK, Jr.'s other anti-vaccine publications, I'll have to do some research on this one. For example, RFK, Jr. has promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. A few obvious holes in RFK's theory come immediately to mind. For instance, why would the Chinese government collaborate with the U.S. government on bio-weapons research? Also hasn't the alleged Ukrainian bio-weapons lab claim been exposed as Russian propaganda?

Cherry-picking the Berlin Speech, eh, John? As opposed to cherry-picking the Peace Speech to infer that JFK wasn't serious about defending democracy in Europe from Kremlin totalitarianism? Good one. 😵‍💫 Meanwhile, can you tell us the distance from West Berlin to Soviet-occupied East Germany in 1963? Not that geographic distance is the real issue here. BTW, do you support Irish independence from the British Empire? You and Rigby completely side-stepped that awkward subject yesterday.

Yes, Ben, and your daily threads with these repeated tropes about RFK, Jr. and the JFK Records are, no doubt, helpful for forum members who suffer from profound short-term memory deficits.

Ben, See our previous discussion here about Penske and Shachtman.

Jim, Can you elaborate on this Lab Leak Theory? Is the theory that the Chinese government, the U.S., another government, Bill Gates, and/or Dr. Fauci conspired to unleash COVID as a bio-weapon? Is Taibbi's latest theory that the Chinese or U.S. governments deliberately lied about COVID-19's origins for some reason?

Yes, Ben, Rolling Stone has become yet another Mockingbird propaganda mouthpiece-- after being purchased by the Penske Media Corporation, and edited by Noah Schachtman-- the counter culture newspaper that once famously published Carl Bernstein's history of CIA Operation Mockingbird. We discussed this journalistic tragedy here recently. On the bright side, it has afforded you a pretext to start your daily RFK, Jr. thread here on the JFKA forum today.

Jim, I must confess that I have difficulty conceiving of John as "insightful," in any meaningful sense of the term, but to each his own. On the other hand, I share Greg Doudna's concerns about the recent escalation of Putin and Lukashenko's nuclear threats toward the U.S. and Western Europe. Most of us doubted that Putin would invade Ukraine last year. He is now blowing up dams and signalling that he would use nukes. Surely, we need some diplomatic initiative from Biden and NATO to de-escalate this dangerous crisis and end the violence. It seems like it would make sense to establish some sort of peace plan/partition, granting the Russian Federation control of the Russian-majority Crimea and adjacent Russian-majority regions of the Donbas.

In thinking about the Trump/Fox/MAGA/RFK attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Matt Taibbi's latest commentaries about the Wuhan Lab Leak Theory evidence, people need to recall what we all experienced during the fateful Plague Year of 2020. This lengthy Education Forum thread about the 2020 COVID pandemic is a fascinating read-- a daily blow-by-blow account of what was happening in our communities in the U.S. and around the world. Most of our moral indignation at the time was directed at Donald Trump's bizarre mismanagement of the COVID pandemic, as this 8/10/20 James DiEugenio post indicated. The Lab Leak Theory received very little notice in 2020, in contrast to the news about the pandemic and the resistance to basic pandemic management by prominent Republicans, including Trump, DeSantis, Greg Abbot, Christie Noem, and others. I, for one, was always suspicious about the claim that the pandemic just happened to originate in a marketplace near the Wuhan bio-weapons lab. Lately, the MAGA media seems to be focusing on the Lab Leak evidence to shift the focus away from the historic Trump/GOP mismanagement of the pandemic, and to imply that the COVID pandemic was some sort of nefarious conspiracy involving Dr. Fauci and (?) the Biden/Democratic establishment that worked to end the pandemic after 2020. Oddly, anti-vax disinformationist RFK, Jr. fits into this vague MAGA conspiracy theory as an erstwhile hero-- and, certainly, a defamer of Dr. Fauci. But what is the theory, exactly? Does anyone believe that the Chinese government would have unleashed a deadly bio-weapon in their own country? Is the theory that Democrats somehow unleashed the virus to undermine Donald Trump? Let's recall that Trump terminated Obama's Presidential Pandemic Response Team in (?) 2019, and even removed U.S. pandemic health experts from China. Was Trump's bungling of the pandemic response supposedly part of this Democratic/Deep State/Dr. Fauci COVID-19 plot? The "theory" makes no sense, like most MAGA rumor mongering.

Naomi Klein Rebukes 'Counterfeit Populism' of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (commondreams.org) June 14, 2023