Morley and Talbot on RFK1A

[John Cotter]

2 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

I think you have that backwards, Ron.  If you are considering removing the thread from this forum and sending it to politics, it is incumbent upon you to explain why it it *not* relevant to the JFKA.  Why nothing discussed in this thread can help anyone understand anything about the JFKA.

In particular, the question of whether the two murders were related is important. It's clear to me they were, and I'd appreciate any further information on that point.

Any one with even a passing understanding of Bobby's reaction to his brother's murder and his subsequent interest in it for the rest of his life should have no trouble understanding the connection.

Bobby never believed the WR fairy tale, despite what he thought he had to say in public. His first instinct was to call the CIA and ask, pathetically, did your people do this? That afternoon he talked to John McCone, the man who replaced Allen Dulles at CIA when JFK fired him, and probably the most he learned was how out of touch McCone was with what the CIA was doing.   Talbott has shown Dulles was still running essential parts of the agency from his home in Georgetown.

But RFK realized he couldn't do anything about the murder without first having the powers of the presidency behind him.  He knew the killers were that powerful. He was right about that as 60 years of wheel spinning by others has shown.

JFK's killers were not going to let him become president.  Larry King told the story of driving Garrison to the airport one day.  As Garrison was getting out of the car, he turned and said "they're going to kill Bobby too". 

Surely it's now understood as fact that Sirhan did not kill RFK.  He was in front of Kennedy and the fatal shot was delivered from behind, up close and below, as the autopsy showed.  Musings about Sirhan's alleged motives are a worthless distraction. 

 

 

Well said, Roger.

[Roger Odisio]

2 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

There's nothing new here about the JFK and RFK assassinations, Roger.  We've discussed this historical material at length on the forum.

If you're genuinely interested in the subject, try studying the archival EF material about Lisa Pease's book, A Lie Too Big to Fail, or the George Estabrooks thread on Sirhan and the Manchurian Candidate literature.  Comment on those original threads if you're interested in the subject.

And ask yourself why MAGA Ben Cole is suddenly starting redundant threads about the RFK assassination.  Why now?

 

 

A favorite tactic of yours, w., is to claim there is nothing new in a thread that displeases you and which you want removed from the forum.  Such mastery of all topics far and wide you must have to be such an authority!  Such encyclopedic knowledge about what everyone who comes here already knows (so you can protect then from the scourge of redundancy) is staggering!

The fact that both Kennedys were killed by the same forces--Sirhan did not kill RFK--as discussed by Talbott, a far more astute student of the murders than you, is nothing new?   Have both murders been solved?  Is Talbott not worth reading?  How do you account for the fact there is several posts in this very thread that claim Sirhan did kill RFK, and so explore his "motives"?  Is that not worth rebutting, as I tried to do.  Only to be removed.

Your usual attempt to claim that the thread is really about bashing Biden does not obscure what is actually discussed.

How dare you say to me  "if you're really interested in the subject (the murders)" as if you doubt that. And then condescendingly tell me what to read before I should be allowed to comment further!

Finally, Ben is not MAGA, as he has repeatedly told you.  The fact that the mods have not told you to stop only reflects badly on them. 

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

15 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

A favorite tactic of yours, w., is to claim there is nothing new in a thread that displeases you and which you want removed from the forum.  Such mastery of all topics far and wide you must have to be such an authority!  Such encyclopedic knowledge about what everyone who comes here already knows (so you can protect then from the scourge of redundancy) is staggering!

The fact that both Kennedys were killed by the same forces--Sirhan did not kill RFK--as discussed by Talbott, a far more astute student of the murders than you, is nothing new?   Have both murders been solved?  Is Talbott not worth reading?  How do you account for the fact there is several posts in this very thread that claim Sirhan did kill RFK, and so explore his "motives"?  Is that not worth rebutting, as I tried to do.  Only to be removed.

Your usual attempt to claim that the thread is really about bashing Biden does not obscure what is actually discussed.

How dare you say to me  "if you're really interested in the subject (the murders)" as if you doubt that. And then condescendingly tell me what to read before I should be allowed to comment further!

Finally, Ben is not MAGA, as he has repeatedly told you.  The fact that the mods have not told you to stop only reflects badly on them. 

 

 

Get a clue, Roger.

We've studied and discussed RFK's assassination in great detail in the past-- especially in relation to Lisa Pease's definitive book on the subject, and, beyond that, through the exploration of Sirhan's Manchurian Candidacy-- on my George Estabrooks thread.

As for your delusional notion that Ben Cole is not a closet Trumpster, go to the 56 years thread and read Ben's stubbornly myopic denials of Trump's Russia-gate and January 6th scandals.   

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

 

Edited May 31 by W. Niederhut

[Roger Odisio]

2 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Now and then Robert F. Kennedy Jr. points out the sheer perversity of President Biden denying him Secret Service protection when his father and uncle were assassinated. As has been commented upon many times, Biden even displays a bust of RFK, one of his (safely dead) heroes, in the Oval Office.

 

After discussion between moderators and input from other forum members This is why the thread is being moved.  It Is a recurring thing with Ben, starting a RFK or RFKA thread then slipping the RFKJR campaign into it.  Which is about current politics.  Personally, I have no objection to discussing the RFKA or it being possibly related to the JFKA, I've done so myself.  Start a new thread on the RFKA but leave all of the current candidates out of it.

Your explanation for removing the thread is decidedly unsatisfactory, Ron.  I hope you and the mods will reconsider.

Talbott's article is about Junior's recognition that Sirhan did not kill his father.  That recognition was a compelling factor in one of Junior's themes from the beginning of his campaign:  his desire to reopen both cases if he makes it to the presidency. He believes, as I do, that the top echelon of JFK's own government was responsible for both murders.  Isn't that the sort of thing we should be talking about here? 

Junior's efforts should be important to everyone here, because of the attention he has brought to the issue even if he doesn't make it.  I want to keep hearing about that and what writers like Talbott have to say on the issue

To latch on to Talbott's offhand remarks at the end about Biden's refusal to give Junior SS protection and then move the thread claiming it is about "current politics" just won't wash.  Yes, Junior has entered a discussion about the murders into "current politics".  Good.  The very effects of the murders, and the other "political murders" at that time, argue such a discussion belongs in current discourse.  That's the point of the new doc series "Four Died Trying"

One other thing I have mentioned before.  If you insist that a thread belongs in "Politics" why not paste to there and leave it alone here if it has relevance here?

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

Your explanation for removing the thread is decidedly unsatisfactory, Ron.  I hope you and the mods will reconsider.

Talbott's article is about Junior's recognition that Sirhan did not kill his father.  That recognition was a compelling factor in one of Junior's themes from the beginning of his campaign:  his desire to reopen both cases if he makes it to the presidency. He believes, as I do, that the top echelon of JFK's own government was responsible for both murders.  Isn't that the sort of thing we should be talking about here? 

 

Yes, here on the Political Discussion forum.

It's a discussion about RFK, Jr.'s 2024 right-wing-funded stalking horse campaign to re-elect America's worst POTUS-- Donald Trump-- correct?

RFK, Jr.'s own New York campaign manager recently admitted that the purpose of RFK, Jr.'s 2024 candidacy is to help re-elect Donald Trump.

That's also why the felonious MAGA brain trust-- Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Rupert Murdoch, et.al.-- have been promoting RFK, Jr.  

So, these 2024 political discussions do, in fact, belong on the Political Discussion board.

The mods are correct.

[Roger Odisio]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Yes, here on the Political Discussion forum.

It's a discussion about RFK, Jr.'s 2024 right-wing-funded stalking horse campaign to re-elect America's worst POTUS-- Donald Trump-- correct?

RFK, Jr.'s own New York campaign manager recently admitted that the purpose of RFK, Jr.'s 2024 candidacy is to help re-elect Donald Trump.

That's also why the felonious MAGA brain trust-- Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Rupert Murdoch, et.al.-- have been promoting RFK, Jr.  

So, these 2024 political discussions do, in fact, belong on the Political Discussion board.

The mods are correct.

w:  Yes, here on the Political Discussion forum.

It's a discussion about RFK, Jr.'s 2024 right-wing-funded stalking horse campaign to re-elect America's worst POTUS-- Donald Trump-- correct?

 

RO: No. that's just another of your mischaracterizations. The thread started out as a discussion of Talbott's article about Junior's realization that both his uncle and father were killed by the same forces, and what he would like to do about that.  Until you highjacked it claiming Ben was once again simply using the article as a pretext to  bash Biden. Probably the worst part of that is when the mods lent any credence to such an obviously false claim. 

 

Do you have any idea how much Nicole Shanahan is worth?  Now that she is on the ticket there is no limit to the money she can give the campaign.

 

Right wing funded? The latest survey of Junior's donors by Politico shows that while those who formerly gave to Republicans slightly outweighs former Democratic donors, both groups are dwarfed by both small dollar donors and large dollar donors with no recent donor history. 

 

Junior started out running in the D party, but soon realized the DNC had already locked up the nomination for Biden.  He is now focusing on the millions of voters disgusted with both parties and the awful candidates that have been forced down their throats.

 

But the best way to see the ignorance of your Junior is a stalking horse for Trump claim is to go the Junior's website and read the list of issues he mentions. Then  explain which ones Trump also espouses. 

 

w:  RFK, Jr.'s own New York campaign manager recently admitted that the purpose of RFK, Jr.'s 2024 candidacy is to help re-elect Donald Trump.

 

RO:  His NY campaign manager, huh.  If that were actually Junior's position and he "admitted" it, his campaign would be over, wouldn't it?

 

w:  That's also why the felonious MAGA brain trust-- Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Rupert Murdoch, et.al.-- have been promoting RFK, Jr.  

 

RO:  You actually think that by claiming a few idiots have been "promoting" Junior, you can discredit him!!!

 

w: So, these 2024 political discussions do, in fact, belong on the Political Discussion board.

 

RO: Nothing you have said supports the removal of the thread from this forum, regardless of whether you think it also belongs in "Politics"

 

w: The mods are correct.

 

RO:  Sandy, Ron, and Mark:  Surely you are not going to make a ruling, so thinly supported as the one here, then disappear without a response when questioned about it. Saying the thread about the murder of RFK, which Ron admitted may have some relevance to the JFKA (I don't think there is any doubt about that) must be removed from this forum because Junior brought it up in his current political campaign makes no sense at all.

 

The murders of the Kennedy brothers were political murders in the truest, in the deepest, sense of that term. The murders and their ramifications to this day *should* be talked about in the current campaign.  It's probably one of the best ways to get what happened reexamined.  You would rather have them treated as detached from the issues of today?  As mere historical events of limited curiosity to a few people with time on their hands?   We've had 60 years of that.

 

I'm assuming these comments can still be read on the EF, as well as on Politics, which should be the "solution" to the artificial claim that the threat must be removed from EF and seen only at Politics. Which as Sandy has admitted, typically means the end of a thread.

[W. Niederhut]

Roger,

     If you had paid any attention to the facts some of us have been posting for the past several months about RFK, Jr.'s third party candidacy, you wouldn't be so clueless about the subject.  Do some remedial reading of the (non-Ben Cole) RFK, Jr. threads on this Political Discussion board-- with detailed commentaries by progressive intellectuals like Naomi Klein, Robert Reich, Russ Baker, and Edward Curtin.

     Do you really not know that right-wing Republican billionaire, (and Trumpster) Timothy Mellon, has been the major bankroller of RFK, Jr.'s campaign?

     As for your persistent whining about the Education Forum moderators, tell us what new material Ben Cole cut-and-pasted about the RFK assassination at the top of this thread-- other than his misleading photo and trope about "RFK, Jr. finishing what his father started."

     Did you read former RFK staffer Robert Reich wrote about this subject (above?)

     If RFK, Jr. was truly promoting the progressive Democratic legacy of his illustrious father and uncles, he would end his destructive third-party candidacy today and support Joe Biden and the Democrat Party's historic struggle against the crooked Trump/Koch/GOP/Federalist Society plutocracy.

 

P.S.  Please post any additional whining about the moderators on the Moderator Complaints board.

     

Edited June 1 by W. Niederhut

[Roger Odisio]

22 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Roger,

     If you had paid any attention to the facts some of us have been posting for the past several months about RFK, Jr.'s third party candidacy, you wouldn't be so clueless about the subject.  Do some remedial reading of the (non-Ben Cole) RFK, Jr. threads on this Political Discussion board-- with detailed commentaries by progressive intellectuals like Naomi Klein, Robert Reich, Russ Baker, and Edward Curtin.

     Do you really not know that right-wing Republican billionaire, (and Trumpster) Timothy Mellon, has been the major bankroller of RFK, Jr.'s campaign?

     As for your persistent whining about the Education Forum moderators, tell us what new material Ben Cole cut-and-pasted about the RFK assassination at the top of this thread-- other than his misleading photo and trope about "RFK, Jr. finishing what his father started."

     Did you read former RFK staffer Robert Reich wrote about this subject (above?)

     If RFK, Jr. was truly promoting the progressive Democratic legacy of his illustrious father and uncles, he would end his destructive third-party candidacy today and support Joe Biden and the Democrat Party's historic struggle against the crooked Trump/Koch/GOP/Federalist Society plutocracy.

 

P.S.  Please post any additional whining about the moderators on the Moderator Complaints board.

     

 

 

 

It takes a special kind of arrogance to direct me to do "remedial reading" so that I might understand the issues as thoroughly as you do.

 

A few lines later you show how little you do understand by claiming it is Biden, not Junior, who is promoting the progressive Dem legacy of Junior's father and uncle.  Biden, who is currently engaged in, supporting, or considering 3 wars to desperately try to salvage the current version of Pax Americana enforced by weapons of war that JFK railed against in his peace speech.

 

The Democrats have abandoned their working class base and you haven't noticed!  There are no prominent anti-war politicians any more, except perhaps a few Libertarian Republicans. For a clear and thorough treatment of this abandonment, read Thomas Frank's books, What's the Matter with Kansas?, Listen Liberal, and The People, NO

 

To expect the current Dem party to follow up what the Kennedy brothers tried to do to replace war with a genuine peace is indeed a fool's errand.

 

Even though it was Junior who focused on, and quoted from, the peace speech as a theme of his campaign when he announced his candidacy, by inference you claim it is Biden who could give that speech today.  It doesn't get more laughable than that.

 

I read Edward Curtin periodically.  I read his plaintive letter to Junior back in November when he published it. Either you haven't, or are willing to so blatantly distort what he said to imply he supported your nonsense.   

 

As he said, Curtin was an early supporter of Junior.  He believed Junior understood what his father and uncle were trying to do to replace war with peace, something he thinks is so desperately needed today.

 

So Curtin was sickened by Junior's stance on the Israeli genocide. The letter was an attempt to convince him to rethink it.  As such, he would have nothing to do with your false claims about Junior being a stalking horse for Trump.

 

Please stop soiling Curtin's reputation by insinuating otherwise.

 

I too am sickened by what Junior has said about the genocide.  I agree with everything Curtin said in that article.

 

Since the mods removed this thread from the EF, rather than simply pasting it to Politics, I assume few folks are reading this.  Sandy has acknowledged this is what happens when the mods remove a thread.  

 

In the case of this thread, latching on to a couple sentences in which Talbott criticized Biden (gratuitously--it had nothing to do with the substance of the article) to say that was grounds for removing the whole discussion is indefensibly weak.  I've asked for a further explanation but the silence from the mods is deafening.

 

The mods have said that EF is not a democracy and that is true.  It's not feasible or wise to have a vote of membership to settle every issue that arises. But with the right to decide accorded to the mods comes a responsibility to respond when a member questions one of their decisions.

 

Surely the terse and obvious assertion that Junior's campaign is "about current politics" used as a justification is not a sufficient for removing the thread. Nor is the accompanying offer to start a new thread about RFK's murder but leave out any reference to it by "current candidates", like Junior or Biden.  That, in fact, is bizarre. As I said, those of us interested in reopening both murders welcome any help we can get from Junior or anyone else.  And we would like to discuss what they are doing without the mods removing our discussion.

[W. Niederhut]

Geez... The Democrats have abandoned their working class base, Roger?

What planet are you living on?  

Have you studied the recent Congressional GOP proposals to de-fund Social Security for the American working class, in order to pay for the Bush/Trump/GOP billionaire tax cuts of 2001, 2003, and 2017?

Have you studied the history of Reaganomic GOP tax cuts for billionaires during the past 40 years-- and the GOP "Starve-the-Beast" agenda to de-fund landmark Democratic programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?

Have you studied the history of the Koch/GOP/Tea Party campaign, since 2009, to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and climate change mitigation?

Have you read Professor Nancy MacLean's classic text, Democracy in Chains?

Amazon.com: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America: 9781101980972: MacLean, Nancy: Books

Last question.  Are you familiar with Marx's concept of "false consciousness"-- i.e., the working class delusion that rich people are concerned about the welfare of the working class?

 

Edited June 2 by W. Niederhut