Benjamin Cole
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Posts posted by Benjamin Cole
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6 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:
Benjamin,
It's true that the Democratic establishment has been somewhat aligned with globalists and the national security establishment, but the notion that liberals have "gravitated toward authoritarianism" is simply absurd. Au contraire, authoritarian beliefs in the U.S. seem to be strongly correlated with right-wing politics.
Here's a recent psychological study on that subject.
A Disturbing Number of Americans Have Right-Wing Authoritarian Views
A new poll shows a higher percentage of people in the U.S. qualify as "highly right-wing authoritarian" compared to other Western countries
www.vice.com/en/article/93ydjp/a-disturbing-number-of-americans-have-right-wing-authoritarian-viewsW.--
Historically, that has been true. Right-wingers in the past were always attracted to uniforms, epaulets and jackboots, literally and figuratively.
Not sure, anymore.
Note that I said "institutional Democratic Party."
As stated, there are many fair and fine minds in all political camps, from Trumpers to Donkettes.
But the ACLU? They used to say "free speech trumps all," and even backed the right of (loathsome) Nazis to march in Skokie, Ill. That was the liberals of old.
Today? Not so much. People who are defined as "white supremacists" by others...well, maybe they do not have free speech rights.
This is a slippery slope, no?
And jeez, when was the last time a "liberal" President or nominee advocated a smaller US military budget or global posture? George McGovern?
The Clintons were all about NAFTA and the WTO, opening up US retail to China goods, and working with globalist think tanks, and a globalized military, a pattern reprised in the Obama administration.
I am glad you are keeping an independent mind, and look forward to your comments, even if we disagree on some specifics, or even if we disagree on some fundamentals.
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1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:
I'd meditate and center myself but I'm not sure where that would be now..?
Larry H--
Every four years, people lament about their Presidential choices, and that the two major parties have ossified and become corrupt.
Perhaps there were shades a gradation in the old days, and certainly JFK was a horse of a different color.
Today?
Today the institutional Democratic Party is more aligned with the Deep State and media censorship than the GOP.
Note I said "institutional Democratic Party."
There are many fine individuals in both parties, and across the political spectrum. I have met fair, smart and witty Trump backers, and intelligent people who voted for Biden.
But I am hardly the first to note that institutions can first become rotten and then ossify. To become coprolite.
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In recent years, we have seen what used to be thought of a "liberal" or "left-wing" elements in US society gravitate towards authoritarianism, censorship and alliance with globalists and the national security state. Hey, I am an old left-winger, believe me.
From "The Wrap" review of JFK Revisited:
"Stone’s film is not a companion piece, making-of or follow-up to his all-star 1991 drama 'JFK' (a director’s cut of which played in the Cinema de la Plage section on the beach the night before) but a procession of white, male authors and experts in boring shirts hectoring you with their theories and old books."
---30---
So identity politics is now just another useful bludgeon in the hands of Deep State.
If you are hip, you don't believe these old white guys.
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This is what passes for "alternative" press these days.
The author, Caspar Salmon, is a little weenie film critic in London.
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Robert B.--
Sorry I do not have the cite, but after 1963 the CIA set out to define JFKA research as the work of "conspiracy nuts" with an actual emphasis on the word "conspiracy."
It is hard to fathom, but US media is more in tune with the national security state than ever. They are howling at CNN that the US should stay in Afghanistan, after all the US has been in S Korea for 75 years.
The multinationals want a global guard service, and every public agency wants a deeper mission and bigger budget. And they own the media.
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On 7/10/2021 at 5:00 PM, James DiEugenio said:JFK Revisited :Through the Looking Glass, Oliver Stone's new 2 hour documentary, is already selling.Even though the film has not debuted at Cannes yet.It has sold in Australia and New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Scandinavia. The distributor, Altitude, expects to announce a deal in the United Kingdom soon.Wait until the exhibitors see the whole movie on Monday. With Oliver there.
Hey, a fair shake from Deadline.
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7 hours ago, John Butler said:
Another good article to read on Oswald and his intelligence connections is a K & K:
Oswald’s Intelligence Connections: How Richard Schweiker clashes with Fake History
Written by Paul Bleau
Just right click on open in a new window.
Right-o. Thanks.
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1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:
Thanks Ben. I appreciate it.
Hey, we appreciate your research. The paper trail on LHO is often key.
Someone once said the paper trail is the story.
BTW, stayed tuned. Over in DiEugenio's K&K sometime soon, look for a story on the hole in John Connally's shirt.
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Great article.
What was the ID in the Byron Phillip wallet? AS in driver's license, or Social Security or what?
And LHO's mom kept the wallet and money for a couple of years after either receiving it, or stealing it? With the ID still in the wallet? And despite being financially struggling, never spent the money?
Would you steal a wallet (for the money in it) but then keep the identifying wallet and accompanying ID?
I guess one possibility is Marguerite Oswald had an affair with Byron Phillip....explaining subsequent behavior and the gift of the wallet...
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I found if you save the image as a JPEG, then you can post it.
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2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Paul Bleau writes another interesting piece for K and K.
God, the Oswald mystery never ends does it. Had to be the most complex 24 year old ever.
Great research. Amazing stuff.
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This uncertain paper trail fits in with my narrative of the JFKA, that it was done by lower-level CIA assets.
I think a better job could have been done on the details, if the JFKA had been planned out in advance by higher-ups.
There was a lot of impromptu covering-up to do, after the fact. Egads, the autopsy alone...
There was definitely a CIA long-term biography build being done on LHO, including the fake assassination attempt on General Walker.
John Newman says that LHO biography build was to create a WWIII virus that would stunt any true investigation of the JFKA. "This will lead to nuclear war, so we have to say LHO acted alone."
As the FBI-Warren Commission was a cover-up, not an investigation, perhaps a mythology has evolved, that of a well-planned and financed, sophisticated JFKA.
My take is the CIA planned a fake false-flag JFKA, and planned to blame Castro. That plan was piggybacked on by Cubans alright---anti-Castro Cubans.
My view in no way absolves the CIA. It was their plan that resulted in the JFKA, and they covered it up and wrecked lives and careers along the way. Arranged for the murder of LHO, and who knows what happened to Jack Ruby.
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3 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:
The Chilling Message of Trump’s Embrace of Ashli Babbitt Martyrdom
January 6 is now a heroic uprising for the movement.
By Jonathan Chait
“All the political momentum is on Trump’s side. He has slowly turned January 6 from a black mark that threatened to expunge him from Republican politics, to a regrettable episode that his allies preferred to leave behind, to a glorious uprising behind which he could rally his adherents.
Martyrs are the most potent symbols for a radical movement. The John Birch Society commemorated an American missionary killed by Chinese communists in 1945 (the first death of the Cold War, the society’s followers believed). Horst Wessel, a German storm trooper killed by communists in 1930, inspired an eponymous song that became a poopoo anthem.
The anti-anti-Trump right has dismissed the insurrection as overblown, a protest march gone bad, perhaps ill-considered but never posing any serious threat to the republic. The far right’s highlighting of Babbitt’s death sends a different message: The insurrection was good. Babbitt’s effort to penetrate the defensive barrier was brave, and the stopping of her charge a crime.
By throwing himself behind this message, Trump is endorsing the most radical interpretation of his presidency. January 6 was not a minor misstep after a successful era, as fans like Mike Pence and Lindsey Graham now say. It was the heroic culmination of a righteous uprising.“
Chilling indeed.
Steve Thomas
Steven T---
Jonathan Chait?
The twerp that wrote this:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/jfk-accomplished-little-but-his-historic-myth-endures.html
That Chait?
Chait strikes me as a punked mouthpiece.
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43 minutes ago, Joseph McBride said:
That was Daryl Gates. He played
a role in the RFK assassination on
the way up the ladder to LA police chief.
He deliberately absented himself at a cocktail party
during the crucial early hours of the clearly
anticipated uprising over the acquittal of
the police officers who beat Rodney King. I was
recording a radio interview about my Frank Capra biography in an LA station when the verdict
came down, and someone burst into the studio saying,
"We're shifting into riot mode." Gates wasn't.
Joseph M-
Verily, I lived in L.A during those riots as well, on Molina St. near downtown L.A. Huge columns of black smoke like pillars to the sky, observable from the roof.
"After the riots broke out, Gates told reporters that the situation would soon be under control, and left Parker Center to attend a previously scheduled political fundraising dinner."
The LA Sheriffs were stupified, and calling LAPD every 15 minutes, asking if the LAPD needed help. (Many cities in South LA County contract with Sheriffs).
Gates told them no.
You can't make this stuff up.
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4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
I think you mean Robert Gates, right?
Right. Showing My L.A. roots. The ol' LAPD Chief.
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26 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
Recall, JFK wanted Congo to be a free and independent and unified country.
Today there is a whole American Africa Military contingent that covers the continent.
What is off is this: they even opposed HRC's bombing campaign against Libya.
The Gaitan plot, if it was such, is almost uncanny in how it resembles the RFK case.
Carter Page worked for five years as an intelligence officer for the Marines in the Western Sahara, a nation (sort of) recently absorbed by Morocco, with US approval.
The joke is every nation on the planet is "strategically critical" except for those places that are "critically strategic."
BTW, a book worth reading, oddly enough, is "Duty" by Darryl Gates, the Secy Defense guy.
In it, without blushing, he relates how many smaller nations, all over the world (dozens), have effectively turned over "palace guards" to the CIA. This is, in part, because they fear coups, otherwise.
Of course, this means the CIA is embedded all over the world, eyes and ears everywhere and entanglements always a possibility. There are many other ramifications as well.
The Libya bombing...ooof. Libya has been destabilized ever since.
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As I say, one reason to study the JFKA, in context, is to understand US foreign-military-trade policy.
From Smedley Butler, through the JFKA, to the Biden Administration, there is the chronic theme of a national security state in alliance with multinationals.
Both the globalist national security state and the multinationals have grown increasingly powerful since the JFKA, not less.
The Gaitan-Colombia story is yet another page in a very fat book. Avoiding foreign entanglements used to be the byword of US foreign policy.
Today the dark onus is on citizens who think the US should not have a global military empire.
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Draw a line across the photo, at the top of their heads.
The answer is obvious.
They are all members of the Cubanos 5' 9" tall club.
Adios.
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On 7/3/2021 at 9:32 PM, Paul Brancato said:
I’m feeling dense. Could you write about what you see and it’s significance?
Ditto. Except "feeling dense" can become the default mode, once a certain age barrier is breached...
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You are correct I am disappointed in the Trump Presidency, although my bar was rather low to start with, due to Trump's worrisome personality traits.
Anyways, like a said, Trump is fading in the rear view mirror, and the national security state is getting stronger.
I enjoy reading your point of view, even if I differ.
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35 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:
Actually I live here so I have a more comprehensive understanding. So you're interested in the Democrats evil ties to Liz Cheney? I'm more interested in your ties to Fox news. You've wheeled out Tucker Carlson for guidance on an occasion or 2.
Benjamin said"There is some culture-war stuff, and some race stuff",You do sound more nuanced now. When you first came here, you came off as a blazing Fox cultural warrior who was obsessed with his disgust for "identity politics", stating it over and over again."I hate identity politics." Which told me this guy watches a lot of Fox culture warrior stuff or similar online sources.To demystify this for you Benjamin. When people get over their thin skinnedness, All these demarcations can be explained in terms of interest groups. The Democrats have a loose coalition of groups, the international elites and business class people and then there's a coalition of "identity" minority groups vying for their civil rights that you're upset about, Blacks, Native Americans, Asians LGBTQ. But I would think since you have "a lot of sympathy for the marginalized, the outcasts, the misfits, the estranged, the lost, the embittered.", you'd sympathize. But apparently that's just for disaffected whites? Among the other groups that are in the Democratic interest groups are the environmentalist groups and consumer protection groups. Do you have any sympathy for them?Then on the other end of the ledger, you have the Republicans who, like the Democrats favor the international global elitists and business class people, and the majority of the Defense industry, though not exclusively,and the Religious right. That's pretty much it. That's their coalition., To some of us, it's sort of arbitrary to insist that racial, ethnic, gender injustice is somehow second tier, and the religious right isn't?.The" identity politics" card is really just a buzzword phrase that Fox news and Breitbart and other right wing groups have seized upon to appeal to white people who are concerned about losing their majority status. It's a disguised race card. At the time, my feeling was upon hearing of your disdain was, if he falls for this primary stuff, he'll pretty much fall for anything. JMO.Is there some unfairness in the way all these interest groups try to seize their agenda?, yes. But your fervent adoption of the fox message that pits white disenfranchised against the minority disenfranchised is just music to the elites ears. Anything to get the attention off them. After all, there is a class of people who have strongholds on both sides of the Republican Democrat ledger! To strongly adopt the "I hate identity politics" banner is just another bandwagon to corporate shilldom. You came off completely misdirected.At least that was my opinion.I know, we have different viewpoints, and that's ok! 😀*****Kirk G-
Actually I live in Thailand now, so I do not see US cable news, or any TV news. I read Google News, and then Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald and a lot drab economics-financial stuff that would probably bore you.
True, I loathe identity politics. My take is that ID politics is divisive, and intentionally so.
There is a great book out there, "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Michael Pettit. Give it a read.
Anyways, you have your views, and I do not dismiss your views. They are simply different from my views.
Good luck in DC. About this time of year, we have something in common: heat and humidity.
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55 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:
There's a lot of stuff here. Let me just start with 2 areas that I've gathered from reading your posts that you've seemed most obsessed about. But now I see you and W. are talking about Sicknick,. So I'll start with that in in this post..
Benjamin: We have already been through the whole debunked Brian Sicknick story.This Brian Sicknick again. I know you have quite a sense of mission about this, Benjamin. I think the general reaction on this forum was to not to jump to conclusions about the riots other than a general disgust that these misdirected losers seized our capital and a greater astonishment that that was allowed to happen. I never saw one mention of Sicknick's death here until you mentioned it the next dozen times. I had no resistance to the fact that you were pointing it out that there were still unanswered questions.I guess your overall message is that " pervasive and censored media', was trying to misinform us. I tend to think that's BS. It was probably another case of a profusion of information all at once, and different witness testimony and people jumping to conclusions to come out with a story , and like all such stories, it was eventually ferreted out and exposed. In the final analysis, isn't it going to be known if Sicknick was hit with a fire extinguisher or not?Are you aware of the existence of the film where a protestor hurls a fire extinguisher at the standing cops heads, below, and actually hits 2 of them in the head? You can access it if you're so inclined.There was confusion at first, and some thought Sicknick was one of the cops. It's probably that simple, no media conspiracy. But while we're on the topic of media conspiracies, as you might know 6 people died! It was actually a few months after the riots that they determined that a woman was trampled by the rioters. They literally killed their own! Was the fact that it took months to find that out really as a result of a Trump coverup media conspiracy? heh hehIn the final analysis, I don't know what your point is to keep driving home. You're not actually asserting Sicknick died of natural causes, are you? What does it matter if Sicknick died directly from blunt force trauma or stress trauma as result of weathering the riots? He still died defending his country and doing his job. How well do you think you'd hold up to this, being beaten by clubs and flag poles, Benjamin? These are some big dudes. This ain't Chiang Mai!I'm tired of hearing about Trump and his corruption! ( move his hands over his ears) I'M NOT LISTENING, I'M NOT LISTENING, I'M NOT LISTENING.Glen Greenwald 2016-21Kirk G-
Well, we have different viewpoints, and that is OK.
I believe the Washington DC medical examiner's report on Sicknick, and so be it. Maybe I am wrong.
Actually, I am not as obsessed with the Sicknick story as the Wuhan lab-leak story (or the JFKA for that matter).
Egads, what would you call the prolonged active censoring, and de-platforming, of people who properly considered a Wuhan lab leak a real possibility? And the mainstream media with its "debunked conspiracy theory" antics regarding Wuhan?
The national security state has formed an alliance with media and the Democratic Party.
Caveat emptor.
PS You know who is best pals now with the D-Party?
Liz Cheney.
The are volumes of information in that one small answer.
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9 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:
Benjamin,
To clarify.
The only FBI arrests of potential terrorist suspects on 9/11 were the "Five Dancing Israeli" Mossad agents arrested by the George Washington bridge, after witnesses saw them filming and celebrating the WTC demolitions from Liberty State Park. They were quietly detained by the FBI for 70 days before being released to Israel.
The list of 19 alleged Muslim "hijackers" which Robert Mueller referenced on national television on 9/12/01 (Mueller's first day on the job as the new FBI Director) was obtained from documents conveniently planted in a rental car at Logan Airport. Yet, many of these alleged Muslim "hijackers" were known to be alive after 9/11, and none of them were ever filmed at airports, or boarding airplanes on 9/11. Nor were they listed on any of the 9/11 flight manifests.
Additionally, the alleged AA #77 phone calls on 9/11 from Fox News commentator Barbara Olson to Bush's Solicitor General Ted Olson describing Muslim hijackers with box cutters never happened-- according to the FBI's own expert testimony in the Moussaiou trial.
Robert Mueller later testified to Congress that, "the FBI never found a single scrap of paper" linking Osama Bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks. Dick Cheney, similarly, told Zelikow's 9/11 Commission that evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11 was not "forthcoming." And Bin Laden, himself, told journalists at Al Jazeera and in Pakistan shortly after 9/11 that he had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
As for Brian Sicknick's death, it's causal linkage to the January 6th riots has not been "debunked," in my opinion-- as I explained in two of your previous threads on the subject.
W Niederhut:
I am not disputing anything you say, save our disagreement on the Brian Sicknick affair. OK, we disagree on Sicknick, and that's fine.
What I am referring to are FBI efforts after 9/11 to find domestic terrorists, often through enticement and entrapment. In some cases it looked like the FBI manipulated half-wits into possibly compromising statements, and then prosecuted, all in the heated emotions of the time.
My bigger point is that national security state is a lot more fear-inducing than the guy in buffalo-horn hat.
Finally! A Good Review of Oliver Stone's "JFK Revisited"
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
I put a comment on the story to that effect, and positive feedback.