W. Niederhut

Paul, Would you agree that the former Soviet Union experienced serious instability following Gorbachev's ouster? Meanwhile, the thesis of Catherine Belton's history of Putin-ism (Putin's People) is that Putin and his KGB associates had anticipated the collapse of the USSR, and had intended to re-construct a totalitarian police state on the ruins of the bankrupt USSR. Putin initially posed as an enlightened democratic leader in the late 1990s, before gradually destroying the foundations of a democratic Russia, subverting the constitution, and re-establishing a totalitarian police state. He was always contemptuous of liberal democracy. Next, he proceeded to re-construct the Soviet empire, in opposition to Western democracy in Europe. Did it have to happen that way? Could Russia have, instead, developed as a free, prosperous, convivial member of the European community? Why not? Was Russia's regression to anti-democratic totalitarianism in the 21st century NATO's fault? And under the circumstances, should NATO have ceased to exist?

Russia State TV Warns U.S. a Nuclear Strike Will Happen—'In the Crosshairs' (msn.com) After reading today about Putin's latest threats to nuke the U.S., I immediately wondered if Trump had shared top secret U.S. intelligence about our nuclear defense capabilities with Kremlin agents. If I recall correctly, a lot of Russians congregate at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties.

Roger, Your thread was, in essence, a repetition of Jeff Carter's previous thread about the Jeffrey Sachs JFK Peace Speech op-ed. And the Sachs op-ed was an implicit criticism of Biden's Ukraine defense policy. Ergo, discussing the specific historical details of Putin's Ukraine invasion, and Biden's policy, does not constitute "hijacking" of your redundant thread. My posts were precisely on topic. See if you can figure that one out. You and Ben Cole seem to have a strange notion that posting redundant criticisms of Biden's administration on the JFKA forum is entirely acceptable, but any on-topic response to the criticism constitutes "hijacking" of your threads.

Why ask me, Paul? Ask the people in eastern Europe who have been so desperate to join NATO during the past 30 years. Why have eastern Europeans, themselves, wanted NATO and the EU to expand eastward, in your opinion?

I have, thank you. Meanwhile, let's hope that clueless sophists will eventually grasp the concept that serial killers and mass murderers like Putin are "evil," rather than misinterpreting such basic concepts as "projections."

Yes, Roger, isn't it wonderful that Ben Cole has started yet another redundant "Biden snuff job" thread for the "benefit" of our EF-JFKA? Where would we be without Ben's daily anti-Biden spam here on this forum, now that the 56 Years thread was closed as a result of the redundant daily MAGA spam? And I'm shocked, shocked to read today that Trump and Biden blocked the release of the JFK Records, and that RFK, Jr. wants them released. Who'd have thunk? 🙄

It's difficult to engage in a rational debate with people who either don't read, or don't understand, basic arguments. I'll try one last time, then take a break from this redundant pseudo-debate about JFK's Peace Speech and Biden's Ukraine policy. 1) Can we all, at least, agree that a criticism of Biden's Ukraine defense policy is implicit in Jeffrey Sachs's recent op-ed about JFK's Peace Speech? Duh. 2) If so, isn't it reasonable, and entirely germane, to discuss both sides of the conflict relating to Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Biden's response? In other words, how can we formulate a rational critique of Biden's Ukraine policy without discussing what has actually been happening in Ukraine and in the invading Russian Federation during Putin's 21st century reign? To discuss the history and backstory of Putin's invasion of Ukraine is not "hijacking" threads about Sach's implicit criticism of Biden's Ukraine policy-- it is integral to formulating a meaningful critique of that policy.

Ron, I used to go to the Nuggets games at Denver's old McNichols Arena back in the 80s-- when Alex English, Dan Issel, Fat Lever and the Nuggets often led the NBA in scoring-- but the Nuggets could never get past Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers in the playoffs. Then I gave up on the Nuggets after Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups lost to the Lakers 4-2 in the Western Conference Finals and left town for good. 46 years is a long, long time for a franchise to exist without winning a championship. So, the feeling in Denver is surreal tonight. People are lighting firecrackers in my neighborhood. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and the Nuggets have a groovy thing going. I hope this squad will remain intact for a few years.

John, Your post is almost too ridiculous to dignify with a response. Instead of presuming to educate me, a psychiatrist, about Jungian psychology, try educating yourself about the nature of sociopathy and the details of Putin's history. Have you studied any of the references about Putin that I have posted for you, and others, on the forum? As for Manicheanism, and theodicy, I have probably forgotten more about the subject than you will ever know.

Ben, I can't fix your reading comprehension problems-- or John Cotter's moronic "shadow projection" misdiagnosis of Putin's sociopathic history-- but I'll try. My response to your latest post is in read (below.) Ben Cole wrote: "Here is a pattern: 1. An EF-JFKA participant will post earnestly about RFK Jr. and Deep State efforts to derail his campaign, or about JFK's peace vision in current context. 2. The usual suspect shows up to hijack the thread into the blue-red pissing wars, or views about Putin. A side dose of Trump is ever in the picture. Correction, Ben. You have repeatedly posted partisan anti-Biden tropes here on the JFKA forum, in the context of your redundant threads about either the JFKA Records and/or RFK, Jr.'s candidacy. My critiques of your redundant anti-Biden tropes don't constitute "hijacking." They're in context. Also in context are my responses to Jeff Carter and Roger Odisio's recent threads criticizing Biden for supporting Ukrainian independence following Putin's invasion-- based on a singular focus on JFK's Peace Speech, which overlooks JFK's subsequent Berlin Speech. That isn't "hijacking." Nor is it "attacking" as Cory Santos claims. It's precisely on topic. Why? Because an implied criticism of Biden's response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine is an integral aspect of the recent Jeffrey Sachs/Carter/Odisio thesis. Sachs is essentially asking, "Why can't Biden follow the JFK Peace Speech foreign policy directives" -- while ignoring the JFK Berlin Speech. 3. The moderator moves intelligent dialog to the boonies. I have even been served notice...I cannot post about RFK Jr. anymore without having posting privileges revoked. Frankly, I don't see how RFK Jr.'s campaign is of anything but daily interest in the EF-JFKA. He is the only candidate who will open up the JFK Records upon which President Biden has done a snuff job. Evidently, even mentioning President Biden's snuff job on the JFK Records is considered a transgression in some quarters. This is the EF-JFKA? Other than your numerous, redundant threads about the JFK Records, Ben, what does RFK, Jr.'s 2024 candidacy have to do with the JFK assassination per se?

Paul, I'm looking at both sides of the story in Putin's invasion of Ukraine. I understand Putin quite well. He's no victim. The people who keep blaming NATO for Putin's decision to invade and destroy Ukraine are the ones who aren't looking at both sides. They aren't interested in studying Putin's history and agenda, or the antecedent history of Stalinism, which has been largely ignored by Hollywood and our American culture. I have posted references on the subject, ranging from Solzhenitsyn, Andreyev, and Preobrazhensky to Aleksander Dugin, Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin, and British correspondent Catherine Belton-- which have been summarily ignored by the Jeff Carter/Russia Today crowd here. Putin and his FSB associates have had their own agenda for reconstructing the Soviet empire for the past quarter century. The Kremlin's invasion and annexation strategy in Ukraine is not simply, or even primarily, NATO's fault, as the Russian propagandists keep saying. Nor has NATO posed a bona fide offensive threat to Putin and his neo-Stalinist FSB goon squad. Rather, NATO has served as a defense against Soviet and neo-Soviet annexations -- the imposition of totalitarian police states on free, democratic European people. Under the circumstances-- Putin's creation of a fascist police state in the RF since 1997-- I don't blame the citizens of Eastern Europe for wanting to join NATO. No one has compelled these people to join NATO. They are desperate to do so, as an alternative to living in a Russian-controlled, totalitarian police state. As for JFK, peace was his goal, but he was also committed to defending freedom and democracy where it existed-- as in the case of West Berlin in 1963.

It's not a "shadow projection," John. That's a misdiagnosis. I know a lot more about Putin than you imagine, from intensive study and direct, personal experience.

And JFK did the best he could with a difficult situation. I will add to my critical comment about Oliver Stone's take on Putin, (above) that I also believe Oliver Stone's critique of the U.S. military-industrial complex-- in Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth, The Untold History, Salvador, JFK, JFK Revisited, et. al.-- is brilliant stuff. I will also add that I got called into the principal's office in about (?) 1972 for publishing a criticism of Nixon's secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, in our school newspaper, after some parents from the local Air Force base called to castigate the principal. I have long been a critic of the U.S. military-industrial complex.

Jim, You, Oliver Stone, Jeff Carter, et.al., have always dodged the damning facts about Putin's openly expressed contempt for liberal democracy, and his transformation of the Russian Federation's nascent Yeltsin-era democracy into the current quasi-fascist Russian Federation police state. He has murdered journalists and turned the Russian media into an organ of state propaganda, while incarcerating opposition leaders. I have tried to share some insights with you guys about Putin's history, based partly on my direct observations within the Russian Orthodox (ROCOR) community during the past quarter century, to no avail. Your flawed paradigms about Putin-as-NATO-victim are, apparently, fixed in concrete. Even when Putin launched missiles into residential apartment buildings in Ukraine, and started shipping Ukrainian civilians to Russian exfiltration camps, you and Jeff Carter remained silent-- always blaming NATO for the 1997 Putin/Dugin agenda of annexing Ukraine. Now Putin is blowing up dams in Ukraine and deploying tactical nukes in Belarus. He's, obviously, pursuing "multi-polar peace"-- using Iranian drones to attack civilian targets in Ukraine, and using his Belarusian dictator/puppet, Lukashenko, to deploy nukes. As for Roger Odisio, let's look for a moment at his absurd premise about the totalitarian states he imagines are interested in "multi-polar" peace... Roger Odisio wrote: I concluded with the observation that, interestingly, today it is the "non-Western" world (excluding the US, Western Europe, Australia, and maybe Canada) that has taken up the gauntlet laid down by JFK in the speech . I wanted to hear reaction to that point from those who have followed the recent move to replace US hegemony that Kennedy so despised with a multipolar, peaceful economic system. How absurd is Odisio's concept-- in the context of the Kremlin's current destruction of Ukraine-- that Putin is seeking a JFK-esque "peaceful, multi-polar system?" The notion is ludicrous. Are Putin's close allies in Iran and nuclear North Korea seeking a peaceful world? Better living through drones and ballistic missiles? How did "US hegemony" work out for Western Europe after WWII, in comparison with the totalitarian Soviet Bloc? How did "US hegemony" work out for Japan and South Korea after WWII-- in comparison with Soviet-aligned North Korea? Would Odisio choose to live in South Korea or North Korea today? Munich or Minsk? As for my analogy (above) about West Berlin in June of 1963 and Ukraine in 2023-- it isn't about geography. It's about democracy and freedom vs. Russian totalitarianism. JFK sought peace, and wanted to reign in the Cold War hawks in the U.S. military-industrial complex, but isn't it also the case that he was committed to defending liberal democracy from totalitarianism, as he said in Berlin on June 26, 1963? Someone needs to remind Odisio (and Oliver Stone) that democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other form of government.

Here's a multiple choice question for Roger Odisio and the forum. I. A Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, seeks to invade and annex additional territory of a free, sovereign, democratic nation in Europe. Which June 1963 JFK speech most accurately describes JFK's likely response to Putin's invasion and attempted annexation of Ukraine? A) JFK's June 10, 1963 Peace Speech, in which he extolled the general ideal of trying to seek peaceful relations with the Soviet Union, if possible B ) JFK's June 11, 1963 Civil Rights Speech C) JFK's June 26, 1963 Berlin Speech, in which he pledged to defend West Berlin from a Russian dictator who was seeking to annex the territory of a free, sovereign democratic city in Europe D) All of the above E) None of the above

Ron, There's a lot of redundancy on this thread-- including the fact that two separate threads were started on the same topic in consecutive days, about the Jeffrey Sachs op-ed. Then Ben has added a third iteration, with the copycat Jefferson Morley article (above.) Monkey see, monkey do. (I think Ben used to work for the Department of Redundancy Department.) We even have Jeff Carter repeating his same trope about Douglass's book. As Sandy Larsen pointed out, the various iterations of the Sachs thesis are all framed in terms of a criticism of Biden's current response to Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine. And withal, our Putin apologists and Biden critics really don't want to talk about JFK's Berlin Speech.

Jim, That is a misrepresentation of my points (above) about the post-WWII USSR and Putin's 21st century Russian Federation. 1) Regarding the USSR, my point is that, IMO, Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick tended to de-emphasize the significance of Stalin's genocidal history, and his post-war agenda in Eastern Europe-- largely blaming Truman, Byrnes, and the Dulles brothers for the Iron Curtain and the establishment of Stalin's Marxist-Leninist Soviet Bloc. Truman, Byrnes, and the Bomb certainly launched the Cold War, and undermined our war-time alliance with Stalin, but a rift with the USSR in Europe was inevitable, IMO. Even Tito and Milovan Djilas realized that much, if you study their historical rift with Stalin in Yugoslavia. The U.S. had nothing to do with it. (See M. Djilas. Conversations With Stalin.) Stone & Kuznick elaborated on the thesis that Uncle Joe Stalin mainly wanted a defensive barrier against another German invasion after WWII. In the process, they never mentioned the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to partition Poland. Nor did they discuss the dark side of post-war Soviet oppression of the Baltic states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary-- including Stalin's mass incarcerations of ethnic non-Russians in his Gulag Archipelago. By 1950, even FDR's terrific former VP, Henry Wallace, had become disillusioned with Stalin's totalitarian police state and its oppression of Eastern Europe. Of course, JFK was right in pursuing detente, nuclear non-proliferation, and a de-escalation of the Cold War-- for which he was murdered. Without the Kennedy brothers, our U.S. Cold War hawks would have nuked the planet to defeat communism. 2) As for Putin, my point is that those in the West who are blaming NATO for Putin's invasion of Ukraine are not looking very carefully at the history of Putin's transformation of the Russian Federation's nascent Yeltsin-era democracy into a totalitarian police state. Putin has had his own geopolitical agenda for the past quarter century. It's Aleksander Dugin's vision of Russia's geopolitical future. It isn't communist, but it is totalitarian. As I began telling people 16 years ago, after the KGB (FSB) seized the ROCOR, Putin appeared to be creating a kind of fascist, ethnic Russian, totalitarian police state. He has even had his own Russian version of the Hitler Jugend, and jackboots who beat up homosexuals, etc. That concept was based on my own observations and conversations with people in Russia and in the Russian Orthodox community, including former KGB Lt. Col., Konstantin Preobrazhensky.

What pettifoggery. You thrive on modern Western ignorance of Russian history. From your glib dismissal of Stalin's monstrous crimes against humanity, it is apparent that you never studied The Gulag Archipelago or other non-Soviet texts documenting the bloody history of Stalinism. UCLA Professor Jared Diamond, among others, has ranked Stalin's 20th century genocide in the Soviet Union as the single worst genocide in the history of our species-- estimated by Diamond at 20 million souls. Nor have you, apparently, studied the sordid history of Putin-ism in the 21st century. Conscientious Soviets may have engaged in an "intensive process of self-evaluation in the wake of Stalinism," but that process obviously failed to prevent Putin and his KGB associates from reconstructing a totalitarian, neo-Stalinist police state in the modern Russian Federation after 1997. It's a pyramid with no meaningful checks-and-balances on Putin's absolute power-- not even a Politburo. Putin turned the Russian media into an organ of state (and international) propaganda, and systematically murdered or incarcerated critics and the political opposition. (Incidentally, you have never commented on Putin's serial murders of Russian journalists during our debates here. You always dodge the subject.) As for the so-called "crisis-beset U.S. Empire," when has our U.S./NATO alliance ever been stronger in recent years? Our most serious U.S. crisis, at present, is the right-wing, proto-fascist Trump cult, which has been actively promoted and funded by the Kremlin's asymmetrical warfare against the U.S. since 2015. Meanwhile, Putin's fascist police state is on the brink of collapse as a result of his botched invasion of Ukraine.

In Thailand, there lived an ex-pat, who secretly wore a red hat. He'd curse Donks and Joe Biden, while also deriding alleged feculent, partisan scat.

Peaceful coexistence is an ideal, but at what price? I doubt that Eastern Europeans subjected to the Soviet yoke after 1945, or modern day Ukrainians, share your blithe moral relativism about Soviet, and neo-Soviet, oppression. Do you, at least, agree that Stalin was evil? Conversely, do you believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are, generally, good --as opposed to murder, gulags, and social control through police state terror?

Jeff, Certainly, we can all decry the misuse of labels that falsely demonize putative adversaries in the conduct of foreign affairs, without simultaneously pretending that there is no such thing as evil. Such moral relativism is surely absurd, even for modern intellectuals who believe that God is dead. Who among us would deny that mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin were truly evil? Or American mass murderers like LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the Neocons? And now Putin? My point is that we need to study both sides in the 78 year-old conflict between Washington and the Kremlin, and this forum has always been focused on the untold history of the U.S. Deep State. As for JFK's Berlin Speech, was it, in fact, delivered as a realpolitik-al counterpoint to the olive branch of the Peace Speech?

Question. Is it possible that the Trump Espionage case was sent to Judge Cannon to prevent other judges from being murdered by the MAGAts? The judge in Florida who originally authorized the Mar-a-Lago search warrant received subsequent death threats from the MAGA Bomber crowd. And Trump has already called for his MAGA Bombers to descend on the Florida courthouse this Tuesday.

Posted without intentional, feculent irony by the guy who was supposed to move his redundant anti-Biden spam to the MAGA Water Cooler... 🙄 In any case, I, for one, was relieved when Ben finally figured out-- after the premier of JFK Revisited at Cannes-- that Operation Mockingbird is still operational in the U.S. media. Ben wasn't so sure at the time, but he has learned some things, and he now wants to educate us, at last. As for FDR's wartime alliance with the USSR, (prior to his death and the subsequent surrender of Japan) I noticed that no one has commented on the fact that FDR's own progressive, pro-Soviet former Vice President, Henry Wallace, acknowledged by 1950 that he had been naive about Stalin, and that he now believed that the Soviet Union was "utterly evil." Is it possible that FDR would have done the same, had he lived another five years? Most Western intellectuals eventually concurred with Henry Wallace's condemnation of the Soviet Union after Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was published and the truth about 20th century Soviet atrocities became more evident in the West. The evidence was shocking. Meanwhile, the evidence of Putin's neo-Stalinist atrocities has become increasingly evident in the 21st century. Journalists and other Putin critics in Russia have been systematically murdered during the past twenty years, residential buildings in Ukraine have been demolished by Russian missiles, and Ukrainian citizens have been shipped to Russian Gulags in Stalinist fashion. Putin is a graduate of the Yuri Andropov Institute. Obviously, the U.S. military-industrial complex has committed endless atrocities in the post-WWII era, throughout the world, including the Middle East during the Bush/Cheney/Neocon era. JFK was the only POTUS who tried to end those U.S. military-industrial travesties. He understood the anti-colonial aspect of most Third World conflicts. But, on this forum, there has been a persistent tendency to focus on only one side of the 78 year-old conflict between the U.S. military-industrial complex and the Soviet (and neo-Soviet) military-industrial complex. Both complexes have been problematic for humanity. People from the former Soviet Bloc nations of Eastern Europe understand that better than some people from the U.S., U.K., (and Ireland.) Eastern Europeans would have preferred the Marshall Plan's "export of American democracy at gunpoint" to Soviet totalitarianism any day, which is why they have been so eager to join NATO and the EU. Peace is an admirable thing, as Neville Chamberlain, himself, believed, but, when dealing with bullies, it is often necessary to carry a big stick. JFK believed as much, as he said in his June 1963 Berlin Speech.