What?

[Roger Odisio]

15 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

I agree with Sandy, as has Mark.  For me the word is kind of like the formerly banned word Nazi.  Used in a historical past tense, with proof that someone was a Nazi or liar that's fine.  If anyone on here calls another member or a current politician, writer, etc. such without demonstrable proof they will be warned and penalized for repeated infractions.  Pending Mark and Sandy's agreement with my statement.

Welcome to the thread, Ron. Now could you, as a mod, please comment on the main issue herein. I assume you've been following along.

Do you agree that a discussion of the effects of the JFKA on contemporary politics must be prohibited?  If so, why?  What is the purpose of such a prohibition?  What is to be gained by it.

On the other hand, what is lost by such a prohibition?  Can you balance these two things?  

Finally, a broad question.  To what extent should the mods be accountable to members, if at all, for their decisions? If they should be accountable is there currently a mechanism for such accountability?

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

5 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

The JFKA was quickly followed by the political murders of Malcolm, King, Bobby, Fred Hampton that were designed to decimate left opposition to the ascendant war mongers.

Ok, I was decimated by that as well  having all my political leaders killed.  I wouldn't say that that fomented a political seismic shift in people's thinking, but ok. I'm not one who believes that JFK was killed because he was going to pull out of Vietnam. Though I think it's clear, Vietnam wouldn't have been anywhere near the debacle  that it was under LBJ and he'd probably like  Biden, maybe would have pulled out in his first year in 1965 and suffered  some politically, but the screams from the hawks would have died down.

5 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

There has been a steady stream of wars since.

But there was a steady stream of wars and police actions long before Vietnam. There was the Korean war , Iran, Guatemala. I think FDR filling out his 4th term would have had a much more positive pull on history than JFK on a second term, but of course, he wasn't assassinated IMO..  It was a new beginning, the world was being reshaped , and FDR was a proven winner as a politician.  In a sense the JFKA was not a surprise and was the product of the growing cold war insanity of the 50's. The U.S. controlled half the worlds resources , and every thing was growing including the government. Department heads like Hoover, and the Dulles's amassed huge power and were little fiefdoms, awash with government money. That  situation doesn't exist today really. It's much more checked and consensual,  much more bureaucratic.

 

5 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

There is now a uniparty consensus in Washington for war and trillion dollar "defense" budgets, when you include the cost of "intelligence".  Name a politician today who opposes that.  Name a national politician today who can be called antiwar.  Name anyone who could give JFK's peace speech or even dare contemplate out loud ways to achieve peace, as JFK was trying to work out with the SU. 

 

I agree. But the way you're carrying on about it. I'd almost think you're a pacifist but I assume you're not a pacifist, because RK is the most articulate pro Israel -Gaza War spokesman of any politician around! If you're just generally a dove,, and believe there are just wars. There's still not a majority of you.

There are clear issues where politicians are standing in the way of the will of the people. Universal health care, sensible gun legislation, but that's not true of defense spending. The  average American is somewhat hawkish.  So am I to assume in an ideal world,  you're probably against both the current wars that the U.S, a proxy to.? The support for the War in Ukraine is rather strong but dying down because  of the Republicans, but if you believe the U.S. is supplying and supporting Israel genocide  in Gaza. Joe Biden is under almost no criticism from either political party. It's about the only policy that the Republicans won't lambast him about, and he has overwhelming support from Democrats as well, except for a handful of hard lefties.

The point I'm making is that none of us are just hopeless pawns groveling before the warmongering deep state. But largely support these wars. The only War protest worth a sh-t was one I think both of us participated in, (as I recall you saying) the Vietnam War protest, and my account is  even though myself and friends became greatly disillusioned after time,  there were people younger than me, becoming draft age who kept it going, and there were lot of families who just wanted to have a semblance of peace again and  we actually ending up stopping  it. JMO

Ok, then there was some protest to Bush's War in Iraq. But has there really hasn't been much history of war protest in the U.S. in the last 50 years. Yet the truth is , It's becoming much harder all the time for American politicians to put America's  son's and daughter's boots on the ground.  3 by chance got killed a month ago, and the U.S. swiftly retaliated.

As a pacifist, you wouldn't be happy with anything. As a dove, you probably don't appreciate that things over time in the U.S. at least have been going your direction.

5 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

While explaining there was little reason to hate and fear the Russians, but instead it was necessary to work with them, while acknowledging our differences. "We all breathe the same air."  Where is that guy today?

That was a great moment! It's nice to think JFK  making peace with the Soviets would have stopped wars everywhere. But you would have thought a 45 year Cold War buildup that finally ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union wouldn't have in 20 years just  reverted right back to where it is, as it has. And the truth is, JFK had a few potentially costly stumbling pains himself. I  assume you weren't like my brother and I at 11, during the Cuban Missile Crisis wondering how JFK and Khrsuchev could be so crazy to bring us to the brink of nuclear annihilation! No one remembers that. But "all's well that ends well", right?

To me the only real promising situation would have been 16 years of JFK and RFK, but even then, life has told me afterward that you have to consider it would be 4 steps forward and 3 steps back, if you're lucky!

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

Well, hell's bell's.  Contemplating posting in this thread I went from tall cowboy boots to hip waders to chest waders to a full diving suit with body armor.  The topic is a mine field for moderators.  I could use the cop out that removing political threads started before I became one, but I won't.  

I've wondered if maybe it didn't contribute to my predecessors retirement.  Kathy Beckett helped me out a couple of times.  I asked if anyone knew why she left, no one did, someone speculated burnout.  

If called out on it, I'd have to admit I have posted previously in support of the belief that JFK's assassination was the formal takeover of our government by the powers that be, which has led to where we are today.  After WWII they had Truman, creator of the CIA, albeit not what he intended.  Then eight years of Ike, General Eisenhower, who said get rid of Lumumba.  Then comes JFK.

The deepest and most reasoned thing I've read on the topic is Joseph Mc Bride's Amazon.com: Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination of President Kennedy eBook : McBride, Joseph: Kindle Store

That said, from what I've seen as an observer and commentator on the forum prior to becoming a moderator, allowing a free for all on the topic is not in the best interest of it. It is divisive and disruptive.  Maybe not a bad thing if people could keep their comments courteous.  But some don't.  It is a recurring thing.  Moderation is not the full answer, even if we wanted to the three of us can't read every post on the forum.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I agree with Sandy, as has Mark.  For me the word is kind of like the formerly banned word Nazi.  Used in a historical past tense, with proof that someone was a Nazi or liar that's fine.  If anyone on here calls another member or a current politician, writer, etc. such without demonstrable proof they will be warned and penalized for repeated infractions.  Pending Mark and Sandy's agreement with my statement.

 

That is also my understanding of the forum policy, Ron.

If a member claims that a person is a nazi, or any other (non-trivial) pejorative, he'd better have very good evidence of that being the case. (If the person he is referring to is a forum member, the mods will likely respond to the infraction more severely.)

 

[Roger Odisio]

9 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Well, hell's bell's.  Contemplating posing in this thread I went from tall cowboy boots to hip waders to chest waders to a full diving suit with body armor.  The topic is a mine field for moderators.  I could use the cop out that removing political threads started before I became one, but I won't.  

I've wondered if maybe it didn't contribute to my predecessors retirement.  Kathy Beckett helped me out a couple of times.  I asked if anyone knew why she left, no one did, someone speculated burnout.  

If called out on it, I'd have to admit I have posted previously in support of the belief that JFK's assassination was the formal takeover of our government by the powers that be, which has led to where we are today.  After WWII they had Truman, creator of the CIA, albeit not what he intended.  Then eight years of Ike, General Eisenhower, who said get rid of Lumumba.  Then comes JFK.

The deepest and most reasoned thing I've read on the topic is Joseph Mc Bride's Amazon.com: Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination of President Kennedy eBook : McBride, Joseph: Kindle Store

That said, from what I've seen as an observer and commentator on the forum prior to becoming a moderator, allowing a free for all on the topic is not in the best interest of it. It is divisive and disruptive.  Maybe not a bad thing if people could keep their comments courteous.  But some don't.  It is a recurring thing.  Moderation is not the full answer, even if we wanted to the three of us can't read every post on the forum.

 

"If called out on it, I'd have to admit I have posted previously in support of the belief that JFK's assassination was the formal takeover of our government by the powers that be, which has led to where we are today."  Yes, and the coverup, begun by the authorities on the day of the murder, continues to today.  For example, the blatant, illegal violation of the terms of the JFK Act designed to try to end the coverup continues in a bipartisan way.  First Trump, then Biden. 

Section 12 (b) of the Act says the releasing of JFK records shall continue until NARA's Archivist certifies to the President and Congress that all records have been made available to the public.  But here comes Biden's Orwellian named "Transparency Plan" designed to usurp the Archivist's authority, remove the president from the process, and send the release decisions back to the very agencies that have been hiding records all along. The plan was suggested to Biden by the CIA.

Yet the forum policy I am criticizing is based to the false premise that only the actions of past authorities may be examined when considering the murder.  Contemporary political acts are out of bounds.  Somehow today's politicians and authorities are different than those of the past.  Criticism of their actions is deemed anti-politician; it must not be allowed.

But clearly they are no different.  The coverup continues.  60 more years of wheel spinning lies ahead.  

Considering what is lost by banning discussion of current effects of the murder, the reason given for the banning is weak tea indeed.  Division and disagreement are a normal, necessary part of any discussion that is likely to lead somewhere. If everyone agreed beforehand there is no need for discussion.

But disruption may occur. Did you notice a note by Pat Speer a few months ago saying that things around here are a lot calmer than they used to be some years ago? None of the mods has tried to argue otherwise, and it's notable that few specifics, if any, are offered to support the claim in this case that the topic must be prohibited to avoid such disruptions.

Even so, banning the topic itself is the wrong response to possible disruptions for reasons that should be obvious.  Disruptions should be addressed directly.

Being a mod is often and thankless job.  Thanks for doing it. But hasn't it occurred to you that the mods have made the job more difficult than it needs to be by trying to ban discussion of the current effects of the murder? Which topic should be banned, which thread should be removed, which member should be penalized:  all time wasting discussions that would be made unnecessary in this case.

[Sandy Larsen]

29 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

Contemporary political acts are out of bounds.

 

You can make comments on contemporary actions as long as they are relevant to the JFK assassination. Even if the actions are done by politicians.

What you can't do is have a political discussion involving contemporary politicians. (Making a succinct comment about a politician is okay because it is not a discussion.)

 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 minute ago, Sandy Larsen said:

You can make comments on contemporary actions as long as they are relevant to the JFK assassination. Even if the actions are done by politicians.

What you can't do is have a political discussion involving contemporary politicians. (Making a succinct comment about a politician is okay because it is not a discussion.)

 

Forum members shouldn't dwell on forum policies regarding contemporary politics. Because there is no penalty attached to talking politics. If a discussion does happen to take place, I don't think any mod is going to do anything about it as long as it is relevant to the JFK assassination and as long a pejorative isn't used against any particular politician or political party.

The worst that could happen is that a mod will ask the participants to stop.

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

 Roger, you remember when you  first got here, I thought you were a youngster because you had infinite time to haggle with the mods. You seemed to have no concept  of wasting the time of people who were surrendering their time with no compensation to be of service to you  I thought you probably also treated waitresses shabbily, as a young man might.  You're doing it again.  So this is turning into a topic about ground rules again?

But having said that, outside of a sh-tty title that tells nothing about the subject you're bringing up , and seems to just be a trick to catch eyeballs. I'll address the mods and say, the topic of whether the JFK had a huge effect on our current reality, which of course Roger believes,  is very legitimate topic of discussion. 

I remember a few years back, Jim Di was an everyday propagater of the concept that we would be living in a virtual utopia now if JFK had lived. No one, posters or the mods ever questioned it but would wait with baited breathe at his next installment.  I still see some of his followers frozen in time, oblivious to the fact that the only thing you can really count on is change, whether it's  anabolic, good  or building or catabolic , negative and destroying. You'd think they would have taken measure of that just through watching current events play out through their own lives, but no.

Sandy, I was thinking maybe you're quibbling and getting lost in the weeds  a bit, But your last 2 comments I'm in complete agreement with. In this case if you're evaluating  how important the  jfka is to present reality , you have to make some comment on your perception of the current political reality. It's true,  you can see the temptation of some of the posters here to segue  into talking about RK. But this topic by Roger is not like Ben for example,countlessly  bringing up the JFK files issue although there had been no news regarding the JFK files  but only using it as a pretext to talk about RK.

[Roger Odisio]

On 3/9/2024 at 11:11 PM, Kirk Gallaway said:

 

But I do agree with your general commentary at the end in that I think Sandy probably is occasionally stepping out of bounds. But I don't think your post here is too political. I think it's relevant.  I think Sandy's persistence has done some good at stifling purely political posts and I find it ironic that Ben brought that up because he  was the number 1 violator. Maybe he's grown out out of it. Maybe I'll address his comments later.  .

 

Kirk:  I assume you are talking about the U.S. policy of endless wars?  I think that could be stopped, but it obviously isn't going to be stopped now. 5 years ago I wondered about the usefulness of NATO.. Well the governments of Europe don't think it's useless now. We have neutral countries like Finland  and Sweden clamoring to join NATO. Obviously they perceive a threat. That we could have avoided this if the U.S. had made a concerted effort to help the Russians in the period after the dissolution of the USSR's is undoubtable and we share blame, but we aren't the sole cause.

 

RO:  When I talk about endless wars, I'm referring to more than the continuous stacking of wars one after another. Though there is that.  I'm talking more about the conduct of the recent wars themselves.  Here is a short clip of Julian Assange discussing Afghanistan as an endless war.  You no doubt remember the outcry when the first moves were even suggested that we leave Afghanistan.  https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=700846421307736.

Added to this is the decision to avoid use of American troops and instead rely weapons, missiles, drones, as well as proxy troops.  That reduces the burden of a war and helps prolong it. All of which is intended to enrich the warmongers. 

 

Kirk:  Roger:The good news is the "rules based order", where the US makes and enforces the rules, created by, and a prime object of, the murder, is disintegrating before our eyes.

 

The prime object  of the murder??!    I'll address that later. I agree with you only in that the U.S. is gradually and voluntarily detaching economically from the world  and is going inward. Which is a matter of great concern, particularly for Europe. But I don't think that's what you're talking about.

 

RO:  Yes. The prime object of the murder was to get rid of JFK's search for peace and substitute the Pax Americana he had railed against.

 

The US is *not* "gradually and voluntarily detaching economically from the rest of the world".   It and Europe are being isolated (against their will) as most of the rest of the world sees the wars, and US foreign policy, for what they are. Correspondingly, membership in BRICS is rapidly expanding as an alternative to US hegemony and the dollar is being replaced as the currency backing trade in much of the world.

  On 3/8/2024 at 3:44 PM, Roger Odisio said:

This is why understanding the murder is so important today.

 

Kirk:  This is real forum heresy! I don't believe understanding the JFKA has any great relevance to what is happening. The power structure is completely different today. You have to know who your enemy is. I'm for generally cutting defense spending but the truth is the amount of money the U.S. spends on Defense is a smaller part of  GDP than it's been since WWll . The amount of money spent on arms and weapon systems is about 3% of GDP. But because across the political spectrum, people agree a fundamental purpose of government is for it's mutual defense. The topic of government spending  on Defense is important and should always be in question.

 

RO:  Couldn't disagree more.  The power structure today is different only in the sense it has strengthened its grip and further decimated opposition.  Different people doing the same thing, now even on a more bipartisan basis.  I keep asking someone to name a prominent politician today who could even be considered antiwar, e.g.

 

A relevant case in point:  32 years ago Congress felt so compelled by the public outcry over hidden information about the murder to pass unanimously the JFK Act that was designed to end that part of the coverup.  Many records remain outside the JFK Collection at NARA.  Yet today Biden is trying to end any further record release by taking the president out of the process and sending the release decision back to the agencies withholding the information in the first place. As the CIA suggested. The power structure at work.

 

RO:  FYI  as to your comments about Junior Kennedy in another note. I find his comments about Israel and the Palestinians to be absolutely abhorrent. Indefensible.  Another reminder not to put too much faith in a politician to save us.

[Roger Odisio]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Forum members shouldn't dwell on forum policies regarding contemporary politics. Because there is no penalty attached to talking politics. If a discussion does happen to take place, I don't think any mod is going to do anything about it as long as it is relevant to the JFK assassination and as long a pejorative isn't used against any particular politician or political party.

The worst that could happen is that a mod will ask the participants to stop.

 

Do I sense a commitment to not moving a thread to the politics forum, or deleting it, *as long as it is relevant to an understanding of the JFKA*?  There may of course be disagreement about relevance, but that is the proper question to be trashed out.  Deciding what is relevant and what isn't has its own benefits. People may learn things in the process.

[Ron Bulman]

"to the current neocon ignoramuses currently running the White House."

That comment is what started this thread.  Roger's being warned about using the term ignoramuses about the current administration.  They may well be.  The same warning would apply to "name calling" regarding any prior administration such.

This comment unfortunately comes into play too.

"So are we going to have a civil discussion about the topics you guys brought up, or is this just a cheap segue to talk about RK again? Because it sure seems like it!"

"How is that different from a dictatorship by troika? Or is it?"

If it was such this interesting and informative thread would have been terminated shortly after it started.  As for me, feel free to discuss how the JFKA led to where we are today, if, we can keep the discussion civil.  Which may not be possible.  

As for a dictatorship and in turn the moderators being fascists.  Mark created a topic specifically for comments to and about moderators.  

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Do I sense a commitment to not moving a thread to the politics forum, or deleting it, *as long as it is relevant to an understanding of the JFKA*?

 

I, like Ron, wouldn't move such a thread as long as it remains relevant and civil.

As for deleting a thread... it's highly unlikely I would ever do that. The only things I've ever deleted were individual posts that are pretty bad.