Unfortunately, not the only travesty committed. As pointed out by Bernie in his debate with Hillary:
"A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa. Pull but one string from the current tangle of today’s multiple foreign policy crises, and odds are it will lead back to something Kissinger did between 1968 and 1977. Over-reliance on Saudi oil? That’s Kissinger. Blowback from the instrumental use of radical Islam to destabilize Soviet allies? Again, Kissinger. An unstable arms race in the Middle East? Check, Kissinger. Sunni-Shia rivalry? Yup, Kissinger. The impasse in Israel-Palestine? Kissinger. Radicalization of Iran? “An act of folly” was how veteran diplomat George Ball described Kissinger’s relationship to the Shah. Militarization of the Persian Gulf? Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger." https://jacobin.com/2021/02/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-debate#:~:text=A%20full%20tally,Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger.
Well said. Truth. He was a foreign policy disaster for this country, an egocentric and amoral political animal drunk on his power and convinced of his superior grasp of realpolitik. Polite society still welcomes him and Bush, even after the harm they have done to the world and to our country.
It goes beyond "welcoming" him and goes right to "celebrating" him and his latest book on his 100th birthday, as if he has provided serious and beneficial guidance. His son gave an interview extolling his "greatness." If that is polite society I want none of it. He always sounds serious and loves to pontificate as if he has special knowledge. He is, and was, evil. Instant karma has not worked in this case, and too often doesn't.
Some say that we should let this old man alone and pay attention to current affairs, but I believe that you know people by the company they keep. One purpose in discussing Kissinger at this time in his life is to see who is still supporting and/or adulating him. Know thy enemies.
You're right about 1 thing. Kissinger did not do his evil deeds all alone. He was part of a group in power and its members enabled each other. The Dulles brothers, yes, GHW Bush and Bush lite, Nixon - how could we leave Richard Nixon out of this conversation, and many others.
Diet Pepsi ; If you refer to George W, Bush as 'lite', it does not diminish the harm he has done. The Blitzkrieg that was 'Shock and awe' 'justified' by non existent 'weapons of mass destruction' and which led to a very long and deadly war in the Middle East killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, along with our own military personnel, and injured many more. And this isn't all of it either. Some facts may never be known.
Laurie, I think Diet Pepsi means, "lite" in terms of intellectual abilities, as compared with his father. Bush II is unequivocally guilty of many crimes, but Cheney and Rummy, among others, called the tune, as I'm sure you well know. He didn't come up with all those ideas on his own, unlike his father.
GW Bush, the son of GHW Bush, has been commonly referred to as "Bush Lite" for years. I have always understood the moniker to be derogatory and a reflection on his lack of any kind of, shall we say, prowess, including prowess of the intellectual kind. I have never understood it to be a suffestion that he did not do great harm to this nation and to many others.
Jean, Because Kissinger was post-pubescent (he was 15) when he and his family fled Germany, the staying power of his native phonology was biologically determined.
Barbara Jo Krieger; Many if not most Americans in the 40's and 50's were shown movies with German accented villains. We were pre and post pubescent too when exposed to this negative propaganda, and with effort , we should be accepting that there is a need to understand and avoid these cultural stereotypes. We must mature, and are experiencing growing pains. Americans fought in wars where people with such accents were the enemy. It takes time and education to heal.
Since you broached cinema and propaganda of the day, Dr Strangelove is a notable example of the German accent in cinema you speak of. Of particular interest in the film, I understand many interpret Peter Sellers' role as the film's bewheelchaired namesake, in which one of Strangelove's hands keeps trying to strangle him, while the other keeps trying to knock it away, was an oblique reference to and lampoon of Kissinger's personal demons. Pay special attention to Strangelove's hair style.
I believe that's still a thing in Britain, while the old Monty Python troupe - in particular - used the German accented characters as a recurring trope - and that would include Fawlty Towers.
Laurie, My comment merely was intended to provide Jean with a biological fact explaining the inescapable German sounds infused with Kissinger’s spoken English.
Robert E, I agree with your assessment that Kissinger is and was evil. He managed to get some things done while people were praising each little move and those things he did were for lack of a better word, appalling!.
Robert, I don’t imagine I am the only one who was bothered seeing, on the news, the current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken having attended the event honoring Kissinger’s life and publication of his latest book.
And we stupidly drank the Koolaid and believed him. However !!!!! The same applies today with the millions of people who are still in thrall of Trump. Plus ca change !!!
Strengthen the FCC ; Truth in advertising! guardrails on all media! We should not have FOX "NEWS" or any media that treat lies as news; Misinformation, AKA, lies are NOT Free speech, any more than tfg qualifies to run for ANY office ; whether it's County Commissioner, dog officer or President of the United States of America!
Kiss made a career by telling conservatives what they wanted to hear. Nobody forced Nixon to accept K's advice. And nobody forced people to vote for Nixon> Were it not for Watergate Nixon would have inflicted even more damage on humankind.
Kerry, I get it that human beings need heroes. I can't help but wonder how so many people were so desperate for a hero, they cheered for and saw Kissinger as " good It didn't matter what was real. He had a good pedigree, so people believed his lying self, and still do.
Evil little homunculus! Gad. How we let the powerful get away with literal murder and stuff the powerless into jail for next-to-nothing … Les Miserables, for sure!!
The quote did not mention the shenanigans done to Cambodia, which led to the Pol Pot killing fields. The memories of those atrocities are seared into the collective psyche of the Cambodians.
Never forget Cambodia. This obsession with socialism, where did it come from?
It is said that Eisenhower, as soon as he entered the oval office in 1953, came under intense pressure to send American troops into Vietnam. One of his first overseas visits was to London, where he asked the re-elected prime minister Churchill if the UK would join the US in helping the French in Vietnam. Churchill immediately responded with "Why would you wanna do that?" To which Eisenhower replied something along the lines of "to oppose Russia, to fight communism and socialism."
To which Churchill, who was then 80 - Biden watchers please note - responded "Don't worry about Russia, it'll collapse under it own economic weight within 50 years." Talk about prescience.
And, US troops did not enter Vietnam in a big way until that young buck Kennedy - who IMHO was far too young to be president - declared "We will bear any burden....."
Vietnam certainly did not have to be as it turned out. Ho Chi Minh was intent on unifying the country after WW I. He approached Woodrow Wilson at Versailles but was rebuffed. Many historians see that as the time Ho turned to the Soviets for assistance in pursuing his dream of a unified country.
We would not have had to “help France” in Vietnam if they’d honored their promises to Ho when he and his people helped the Allies win the war in the Pacific theater. Ho was betrayed by France, which refused to relinquish its colonial powers over Vietnam. When the West betrayed him {he was a well-educated man who had visited and studied in European countries and had promises made to him …}, he turned where he thought he could find support to re-establish his country as a united and free one.
The French "ran" some of the bloodiest colonies of the European colonials, and the planet is still experiencing the effects of it (northern Africa is a notable example).
You're right. The US had been meddling in Vietnam since 1945, and Eisenhower was under pressure to amp it up. JFK succumbed to that pressure, against the good advice of John Kenneth Galbraith. I agree that LBJ amped it up very considerably, and very unfortunately. For such an astute politician, I still find it surprising that he did this, instead of the courageous political act of declaring victory and leaving while he was ahead. But he didn't want to be "the first US president to lose a war," apparently oblivious to the fact that a) he wouldn't have lost the war because he would have declared victory, and b) that moniker actually goes to James Madison. Tells you something about what they were writing in the schoolbooks in 1920.
I've read (I wish I could remember the source) that a company that was making money building military bases in South Vietnam was one of LBJ's big supporters, which was why he pushed US involvement there starting when he was a senator.
As you know, the Vice President was not involved in the affairs of the president. So, when he became president, LBJ did what he felt JFK was going to do. Wrongly, I believe.
JFK gave tacit approval to the CIA to assassinate President Diem, the President of South Vietnam, when he refused to resign his position and go along with a coup. He had been given a promise of safety by the U.S. , which he refused.
Um, actually, it was LBJ who ratcheted up the U.S. presence in Vietnam. JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors, and in early fall, '63, he issued a memo outlining the recall of those personnel. He didn't live to see it carried out, and four days after his assassination, LBJ signed the escalation order.
" JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors." Actually JFK sent 16,000 personnel, mostly soldiers. The fact that he later wanted to scale back means that he didn't know what he was doing in the first place.
The surprising thing is that an astute politician like LBJ would double down on a bad bet.
Or it means that he saw the writing on the wall, and he wanted to cut his losses.
Not at all surprised that LBJ doubled down. His predecessor wanted to leave Vietnam, and look what happened. After Dallas, LBJ didn't have a lot of choices.
I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong.
Your essay dredged up memories of other bad ol' times when I felt powerless to effect change in wrongful national and local policy decisions.
And at 70-something, I've realized there's no benefit in trying to quantify my states of despair. Existing in such times is just plain painful, whether it stems from living in a divided nation rife with dissension and inequality; or from having a corrupt federal government that engaged in war crimes; or from living in a city where overt racial bias triggered race riots at a time when we were still reeling from the assassinations of two national leaders.~
Actual Swiss history is a catalogue of centuries of bloody internecine tribal and religious warfare.
The very recent peace holding Canton democratic model was a cultural creation of a certain, largely unknown, General Von Sprecher. An individual who after years of participating in localised civil battles knew the history, land and its warring tribes intimately. From that painfully gained life knowledge he drew up a culturally specific nation state template for governance that enlightened politicians of his time ran with. The rest is history.
What our disintegrating democratic societies lack globally today is visionary leadership like this in positions of influence.
~Does Switzerland have the history of slavery, then segregation, then a bought media force that convinces poor white people to support a federal government that (keeps them fighting with poor people of color to distract them from the real enemy so it can) serves mostly the rich because “at least we’re white…we don’t need no handouts.” ?
~Do the Swiss working class actively vilify people utilizing a modest Social Safety Net, believing that a family with children are taking the laborers “hard-earned tax dollars,” while for some strange reason not minding one bit that corporations and billionaires are the largest recipients of welfare?
~Do the Swiss lower classes generally want to shoot asylum seekers crossing their borders because the Robber Barons gave them some “other” to hate?
~Do the people vote against their economic self-interests and even national security interests because a blubber-mouthed orange menace and his cult members say “only they” will protect them from Drag Queen Story Hour, and “only they” will make certain every 12 year old has their baby regardless of how a baby got inside a child, and “only they” will siphon funds from public schools to fund religious schools that don’t teach American History and Health Education and Earth Science and Civics? ~Do forty percent of the men aged 40 and over in Switzerland believe that they are in a persecuted class of citizens, that strong women are trying to emasculate them, that African-Swiss (or is America the only nation that differentiates Americans based on skin color?) only got that job because of “reverse racism,” that they’d be further ahead in life if not for hiring quotas and handouts (and Jay Eee DoubleYous), that they’d get the really awesome girls if not for the sissy-boys, and that the country should “get back to the good old days.” ?
~Does Switzerland have an anti-intellectual cult and do they have Fox News?
I can't answer those questions about the Swiss, Angie Ma, but you certainly nailed it with that description of the political, cultural, economic and educational climate in America today!
TheHAMMOND ; "I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong." Same here!
It does certainly feel at times like there is this steamrolling juggernaut of fascism, which cannot be stopped, fully supported by almost HALF of this country's populace, and much of the other half is way too busy with worrying about what the Kardasians (or any other 'influencers') are doing, and the latest 'popular' POS reality show foisted upon U.S. to give two shits about said fascist takeover. :( :(
There are a bunch of YouTube videos, called Trajectory of Justice, lectures by the one & only Daniel Sheehan, who speaks about robber barons et al and grinding history up to the current period of beginning of turd45 presidency. They encapsulate pretty much all the shenanigans, of various US "leaders/people" in domestic, international affairs. Worth the time, to get educated. Regards from London 🧘🌌💙
Yes, to these evil scumbag turds a "socialist" country cannot and will not be allowed to exist.
But a fully fascist, repressive, genocidal land, led by a butchering autocratic DESPOT with no controls at all, is just fine, and "in our interests".
Same shit as today, when they want to install their putrid orange fuehrer (FOR LIFE!) who swears he will punish ALL of his (and their) 'enemies' however he sees fit, but HERE this time, not in some distant foreign land.
Spot on. If "polite" society that's never seen its kids tortured and lives ruined by autocrats, fascists and false populists, doesn't approve of our blunt descriptions of monsters like Kissinger, Pinochet, Trump and Pol Pot, maybe they need a taste of the human suffering such criminals visited on the innocent. Ugly acts do much more harm than disagreeable words. So if you have thin skin for difficult words but are ignorant or apathetic about this country's human right's abuses, get over yourself.
It's time for the USA to initiate a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The ugliness must be laid bare, lest the next Kissingers, Nixons and Trumps return to power in our country. Never again!
except, for me, We ain't "out of the woods" on this - slow rolling - attempt. Let me see how this 2024 campaign works out, how many of our fellow Americans, who haven't subscribed to the "Fake News" "stolen 2020 election" narrative get out to the polls and who they vote for, before We put this into the past tense. Please?
Trump is contemptible, but he has not committed genocide, and started no war. Don't link him with Pol Pot. When we go overboard we do a disservice to ourselves.
Well…but there were 500,000 Americans dying of a “hoax” that’ll “be over by Easter.”
He did let Syria get divided between Putin and Erdogan and left the Kurds to be slaughtered (but he was hot to protect the oil fields. Other people’s oil…they had to explain to him why we didn’t just take it all ourselves. Not any interest in protecting the innocent civilians, but that oil!
Don’t kid yourself. Orange Menace would let his gran be murdered if Putin paid him a compliment and said to do it.
You say "link", I say compare. There is too much at stake in this nation to get into a pissing match about semantics. You say it's overboard, I respectfully disagree, Victor.
Trump divided his countrymen between allies he´d protect and enemies against whom he advocated violence. Listen to recordings of several campaign speeches in which he condoned this against peaceful dissenters at his gatherings.
In this way he sent his followers down the road of dark, violent authoritarians like Pol Pot. In this way, knowing history, we perceive that the logical extensions of Trump's rhetoric, actions and (in)actions on and before January 6th, 2021 lead to outcomes comparable to those seen in Khmer Rouge Cambodia and Nazi Germany. To call for vigilance in order to prevent our nation 's coming to resemble the latter two is not, I submit to you, a disservice.
Yes, allow (or better yet DO NOT allow) the NAZIS in this land to install him into power FOR LIFE, with no restraints whatsoever and watch what he will do, especially with his brownshirt POS MAGAts both egging him on and even DEMANDING that he be much more cruel, barbaric, and murderous.
Where the surveillance state meets predatory mass incarceration. It´s not limited to China. It continues to be played out in the United States -- and the rest of the world isn´t unaware of the extent to which the most degrading conditions and practices are condoned by the same people.
If only the United States were to reaccession to the Rome Statute.
There should be a division of the International Criminal Court operating in the United States and/or Canada -- address the evil practices and people responsible for them at length (example: Kosovo Chambers).
There’s no way the United States is going to subjugate itself to a rule of law that does not originate HERE. In this, our government behaves as though “sovereignty” over any and all decisions on the foreign stage are sacrosanct, and no other entity gets to tell us what we can or cannot do, for all extents and purposes.
Of course, when negotiating trade deals, we agree to lots of limitations on our ability to forge our own path, including accepting sanctions and penalties, if we stray .. but that’s…you know…business.
I think we as Americans need to take January off to get our proverbial shick together and go to Washington. We need to have conversations with our reps. We need town halls there - NOW.
I've had it with the oligarchs, Wall Street etc. The gop have betrayed our trust and are destroying our unique and wonderful democracy, environment, and country.
Dr. Doug, thanks so much for reminding me of more of the horrors Kissinger committed. It is appalling that he was allowed to rule for so long! Eight years of mahem! I am sure you are right about the millions lost to Kissinger's actions. I am guessing he will never be held accountable for any of it because at 99 he is pretty much useless now, but alas, people still listen to him. It would be incredible, though if he were tried in the World Court for even one of the crimes you name. Just seeing him sitting in a court of law for some of what he has done would be tremendous.
Ruth, the really “tremendous” thing about Kissinger standing trial would be that all of these facts and history that are bring discussed here would be more widely publicized and more readily available to people who otherwise might not ever hear about them.
And at 100, Kissinger is still meddling in foreign affairs—most recently his little freelance mission to Beijing. The State Department was not amused. Absent even karmic justice on this sphere, a special ring of hell should be waiting for him.
Although it made me nauseous to read, thank you, Dr. Reich, for publishing this article. It could be said of Kissinger: never was such a brilliant brain tucked into such a small mind. You provoked me into reading his Wiki entry, where his youth was detailed and he was indeed young and brilliant. That genius morphed into a thing corrupt, especially when he hooked up with Nixon, who he had earlier called "dangerous." Yet he came to admire the former President in what could only be described as opportunistic ambition on his part . . . although he had worked on Nelson Rockefeller's repeated campaigns in the '60s, when he saw that Nixon had won the Presidency, Kissinger had to be in the center of power. Like Rudy Giuliani, he allowed any personal semblance of ethics or love for justice to erode as he further compromised his morals in the name of "fighting Communism." The Wiki entry called him a practicer of "Realpolitik," which is a term generally used pejoratively now. There was always an undercurrent of brutal capitalism in his diplomacy.
Henry Kissinger became, and still remains, the devil whispering into the ears of the politically powerful. God help him when he departs this mortal coil.
Let's face it...America is rife with stories as evil as Kissinger and many, even more evil. We have oppressed and persecuted people of many countries and many origins...especially our own indigenous people. It's hard to believe we can honestly claim 'In God We Trust' when our history would make any god weep in sadness. If patriotism requires genuflection to a flag that symbolizes such sordid history...count me out.
and then there is the fact that he advised Trump as a heralded hero. not to mention his seemingly ease with cocaine distribution - He represented the US when he was (reliable) reported to have brought cocaine to ABT welcome parties. Kissinger is representative of the Republican mafioso that has become the international crime syndicate currently trying to bring down our Constitution.
Wow, always thought Kissinger was someone who held back Nixon from being too excessive (see my comment above) but my ignorance of his role in all this has now been removed. So thank you, well done on an excellent contribution.
At this juncture, I think it's important to understand Kissinger's political/diplomatic/defense context. I would like to present a little gem produced in 1980, based on the producer's 1975 memoir. To my understanding, Philip Agee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Agee) was - and probably still is - about as popular with "The Company" as Edward Snowden. He simply seems to have had the good sense to keep his mitts off anything otherwise classified, relying on his personal experience and diaries to direct his efforts in using publicly available documentation resources and interviews. Keep in mind, it documents what was going on covertly at the behest, not only of Kissinger, but the major US political figures from WWII to Carter.
I wrote a college paper, a critique of this. It's the historic events precursor to my arrival into that environment as a military musician - at the denouement of Watergate:
Let me hasten to add, I'm not apologizing for Kissinger's complicity. I'm saying he is a creature of the political/diplomatic/defense environment of the day - upon which everything we've experienced since is a result. Indeed, that environment is not a thing of the past. Some may well see a congruency with documented practices and outcomes with what we've seen in the streets here, today. ("You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment.") There's a lot of blood on a lot of hands, including some of our most respected - as well as reviled - leaders.
FOOTNOTE: Pay close attention to what, in the interview with officer Victor Marchetti at around 44 minutes in, refers to as a "non-directive," and compare it to what ol' P01135809 has been saying (non-directing) publicly in his political campaign since his call on Russia to attack Clinton's email.
And don't even get me started on nonverbal directions. I'm thinking of things like physically posturing, for example standing against or away from a wall or some other fixture, or maybe leaning against it, or maybe swiveling your head around like you're looking for someone you're not seeing or reading a newspaper upside-down. Then there are the baseball-like hand gestures, like scratching a body part, or holing an object with fingers arranged in a particular way.
Thank you Dr. Gilbert for reminding me why I backed Bernie Sanders in both of his bids for President, and why I’ll never regret any of the money or time I spent on Bernie.
Thank you, Robert. These are words that need to be written. I get sick to my stomach when I see that miserable human celebrated and feted in all the “elite” circles. He is indeed a criminal, with blood on his hands.
Not to lessen the evil that Kissinger was and is, but also recall the involvement of Harold Geneen and ITT in the Chile coup. Yet another instance of the symbiosis of US corporate interests and US gov't actions, both covert and overt.
And I'll echo another commenter who mentioned Allen Dulles as another intensely evil operator whose name should be deeply etched into the American Wall of Shame. His brother John Foster Dulles wasn't far behind him in the disrepute department.
Kissinger has enough blood on his hands to cover his entire body from his head down to the ground. And, for what it’s worth, the energy he runs ... for those of us who see energy is black and jagged and poisonous. He evil incarnate ...
And I’m struggling a little to figure out how say this, but I would imagine that being in Kissinger’s presence would make me shiver. He literally runs the Energy of Pain & Fear & Death. And yes, that’s a little hyperbolic, but it’s not inaccurate. Kissinger has what I can only imagine is a gaze that would make me shiver. He has cold, dead eyes. And the only time that his eyes would “light up” would be if he were thinking about doing something to cause pain to someone else. There are some people that really have almost no spark of humanity left ... and he’s one of those.
He would have been an ENTHUSIASTICALLY GLEEFUL KAPO, and falling all over himself, willfully helpful to the NAZI scum SS commandants at one of the (S)Hitler 1.0's death camps, had his family not escaped Germany in 1938, ironically.
Yet another born member of the tribe who makes me ashamed to be such myself. :(
David: Look, Kissinger will go down - has gone down - as the instigator/perpetrator of some of the worst crimes in U.S. history for which he will probably never be held accountable. However, we cannot surmise how such a human being would have acted as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps.
For an exegesis of the morally ambiguous universe within such an environment we can perhaps be guided by the writings of Primo Levi in his 'Escape from Auschwitz' and 'The Dead and the Drowned'.
And I would in fact hesitate to bring up anything regarding Kissinger's ethnicity when discussing the crimes for which he should be held accountable because it is probably essentially irrelevant to that discussion.
You are correct, but it still shames me that I was born into the same religion (it is NOT an 'ethnicity' or 'race', that's how the effing evil NAZIS tried to frame it, to justify their eugenics based genocides).
Ok David just to keep the convo going: How would you define a "Jewish" atheist? That Jewish atheist woulda ended up in the death camps just as readily as a tefillined Talmudic scholar regardless of your rejection of "ethnicity" or "race" as a determining factor. Even in Israel, Orthodox Jews reject Reform Jews' authenticity, but Hitler would have had no problem.
I got literal chills reading your comment, Susan, for I believe down to my bones that you speak absolute truth. I remember my mother seeing him on TV early in the Nixon years. She took one look and said that he was truly evil. He has certainly proved her---and you---right.
Evil such as Kissinger runs is palpable, and it’s literally visible. The energy is jagged, and in color it ranges from a really sick greenish yellow ... to black. Funny - that greenish yellow is the one we somehow chose in which to “suit up” the Army the U.S. sends out to “take care of “inconvenient attempts by small countries to “try out” Democracy - especially when it means calling for control over their own Natural Resources. This Country needs to stop behaving like a “Rich Kid” and assuming that “All the Toys Are OURS even when they lie 3,000 miles outside of our borders. And then and only then will the United States of America start to become a Democracy within its own borders, and a Force for Democracy around the World. There’s a lot of “Growing Up” that we need to do here within our own country before we could EVER earn the Right to tell other countries “what to do.”
Attached, from the National Security archive, The Pinochet File—on the “Countdown Toward the Coup.” Peter Kornbluth. U.S. Officials: “Our Policy on Allende Worked Very Well”
Kissinger joked that “the President is worried that we might want to send someone to Allende’s funeral. I said I did not believe we were considering that.”
The Documented U.S. Role in the Months, Days and Hours Before the Overthrow Of Allende
I am so very disgusted by this, a revelation to me? Where was the education I never received or is this another type of “woke” agenda that was classified and now revealed? Why are we not a signatory to the treaty that supports the ICC at The Hague? How many atrocities do we have to hide as “classified documents” to protect perpetrators of heinous crimes? My shock may seem naive but my impression was always that Kissinger (not Nixon) was a statesman, not a heinous criminal. Thank you for the enlightenment. While I am on the subject of things about which truth is elusive, when will we get all the JFK documents released and know his true fate and the reason for it? Please do not insult my intelligence with the Warren Commission BS.
I am author of Breaking Up with Cuba. My spare time was spent at the GW archive and at the Smithsonian, and I had enough material to know that most of us were snowed. IMHO a lot of the material was withheld to protect GHW Bush, who was the "moneyman" for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
If I had the time, I'd discuss the "suicide" of Carlos Prio Socarras, and the fact that on his deathbed E.Howard Hunt confessed to his son, St. John, that he was the second gunman at the JFK assassination.
Do you have any references to which you could point me about the E. Howard Hunt confession, Daniel? That's a fascinating revelation, and I've never come across it in all my JFK reading. How has this not been made public?
https://www.amazon.com/Bond-Secrecy-Watergate-Conspirator-Howard/dp/1936296837 A father’s last confession to his son about the CIA, Watergate, and the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, this is the remarkable true story of St. John Hunt and his father E. Howard Hunt, the infamous Watergate burglar and CIA spymaster. In Howard Hunt's near-death confession to his son St. John, he revealed that key figures in the CIA were responsible for the plot to assassinate JFK in Dallas, and that Hunt himself was approached by the plotters, among whom included the CIA’s David Atlee Phillips, Cord Meyer, Jr., and William Harvey, as well as future Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. An incredible true story told from an inside, authoritative source, this is also a personal account of a uniquely dysfunctional American family caught up in two of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century.
Thanks for the references, Daniel. I've read the Rolling Stone piece so far, and it actually appears that Hunt named a Corsican assassin as the second gunman, unless I'm misunderstanding.
But that aside, the people at RS are no slouches. If they printed it, I'd say it's solid. Why, then, didn't other outlets pick up the story? I mean, there was just an article yesterday in the NYT, outlining former Secret Service agent Paul Landis' recollections about that day in Dallas, including speculation as to how relevant they are. That is, there's still much argument about the lone gunman theory. Hunt's statements, as revealed by RS, blow all of that out of the water, once and for all. How come that information didn't hit like a tsunami?
I believe the majority did not realize the true Kissinger. He was hailed as a great statesman; celebrated on numerous TV shows and pictures in many magazines at gala parties.
Speaking of JFK’s assassination, I read an article a few days ago in the NYT about 90 year old Paul Landis, one of the secret service protective agents assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy. He recently came forward admitting that the official reports submitted by himself and the agency were materially false. He mentioned hearing another shot much closer than the book repository. He said he wanted to clear his conscious before he dies. He didn’t say as much, but my personal opinion is that he was trying to say without saying that agent George Hickey, riding in the open limo immediately behind JFK’s lost his balance while trying to bring his automatic rifle up and around to return fire at the book repository and accidentally discharged his weapon and shot JFK in the back of the head when he lost his balance as the limos sped up to get out of Dealey Plaza. This scenario fits many of the inconsistencies of the Warren Commission report to a tee. Especially the scent of gun powder reported by many of the people near the motorcade despite the fact that the cars were all well up wind of the repository. If you want to see a fascinating film covering this theory it’s on Amazon Prime "JFK: The Smoking Gun". Or you can read book the film is based upon “ Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK" by Bonar Menninger. I don’t know it’s true, but it seems to fit the facts as we know them much better than any other explanation I’ve ever heard.
Here is a free link to the recent NYT article I referenced at the beginning of this post:
For a country that supposedly prides itself on freedom, democracy and human rights, the United States has appeared to go out of its way to be not only the bully of the Americas but, as we saw in places like Iran, Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to name a few, we always seem to betray the principals of our founders and just send in the Marines on whatever pretext we wish to use.
Which is why we need to be MORE aware of what’s going on, not get bamboozled by empty rhetoric, and UNDERSTAND the true implications of foreign affairs.
The people of our country — most of us — DO hold decency and human rights to be important. But we let the wool get pulled over our eyes too oten.
We have our DOMESTIC imperatives right now, which is to hold off the barbarians at the gate and keep a Democracy. We SHOULD also try to make it a better democracy!!
A primary debate with whom? RFK, Jr.? Who claims to be running as a Democrat against the President?
I am upset about Democrats threatening to ignore primary votes for anyone who puts their name in for the Democratic “primary” in a state that holds a vote before South Carolina. Saying they will not recognize a state’s choice to hold a primary because they’d prefer their own choice for “first” is juvenile, arrogant, and anti-Democratic autocratic nastiness. It’s certainly does not respect the American voter, the Democratic Party voters, or our prerogative to have our voices heard.
Of course, running in a state where Biden might not have his name on the ballot is the only way RFK,Jr. could win a state primary, but that’s another conversation.
And I’m no fan of super delegates, either. They are absolutely a means of cementing “leadership” in the party, circumventing the ACTUAL will of the people in the party, and they should be considered a travesty!!! Some 15% or so of all delegates?
The outright arrogance of Democratic leadership is gobsmacking, but I’m on record all over the place as thinking the DLC and DNC are obnoxiously in love with themselves and show rabid disrespect for the rank and file of the party. UGH.
That doesn’t mean I won’t vote for Biden in 2024 — I certainly will. But I’d spend a lot of time between now and then letting the Dem Leadership know what i think if their arrogance, in the lead up to this next election, and for years afterward, hoping the message eventually gets through …
[Knock off the Republican-Trumplican buzz words, OK? The criminal family in our midst is the Trump Clan, not the president’s]
I would use the adjectives uneducated, uninformed, misinformed, and misled but agree that the under-taught subjects of world history and geography should have a more central, and truth-based, role in American education.
We can also add American history which, if taught in our schools currently, is careful not to upset students with the grisly truth about what has been perpetrated in the name of the American people.
We had Civics and American History even World History when I was going to school. Public school in Tampa, Florida. To teach a curriculum you have to have teachers. Real teachers. Well-educated teachers. Where ya gonna get 'em? How ya gonna keep 'em? Especially in Florida.
I had a history teacher so boring he even made my parents practically fall asleep. I had no interest in history or politics until Trump came on the scene and psychiatrists were alarmed he was possibly going to lead our country with his severely impaired personality.
I research further discovering how dishonest he was and how he employed mafia attorney Cohn.
Trump was a student of Roy Cohn, a vicious and truly evil man who came to prominence as a lead attorney in the Army-McCarthy "dig out the commies" hearings who took on Trump as his protege.
well, the founders bullied the native Americans, native Hawaiians etc off their lands and forced them to give up their culture - or perish.
Which is worse at the moment - wall street, corporations, or government. They should all be kept a close watch on. Like the glass dome over the German government.
I believe “pretext” is the operative word here. It’s all about money and greed. The problem is that the typical American citizen doesn’t find out the salient details of these political, social, and economic atrocities until way after the fact, yet, we the people become responsible for what the typical big powerful international conglomerates do around the world in our name.
Isn't it peculiar that the effing right wing's 'Domino Theory' ONLY applies/holds to 'commie socialist nations' or 'threats', but just simply does not EXIST when it comes to FASCIST threats, such as in Europe currently, or Vlad The Impaler's INVASION of sovereign, democratic Ukraine?!?
The misnomer of you calling Ukraine of being a sovereign democratic country is really just an oxymoron used by Woke’s liberal elites without any validity other than some of the false narratives of Ukraine being democratic falls flat on its face and the reality that their are No Opposition Parties allowed to participate in elections which negates the illusions of grandeur fed the general public… It is amazing how naive of most people nowadays do choose to ignore Ukraine is and has been a global capital of sex slave and the trafficking of young children and women for over 25 years… That is one reason Jeffrey Epstein used the term of young & dumb Ukrainian teenaged women to be sex slaves for Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Prince Phillip, Bill Gates, and yet we as a nation of many venerable virtues seem to ignore the reality about Ukraine… Why is that now even possible to allow us to financially support the advent of a nuclear war in the political quagmire in Ukraine War with Russia?
REGARDLESS of what they are to be labeled, your POS fascist murderer Uncle Pootie has NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER (except in his evil little megalomaniacal mind) to just go ahead and BOMB their schools/hospitals, and INVADE them, just like fellow fascist POS Hitler (whom I believe your Vlad admires just as much as his boyfriend SCUMp does) did in Poland and Czechoslovakia to kick off HIS World War.
The fact that you even use terminology like "Woke's liberal elites" tips us off that there is a good chance of you being one of your dear leader's FSB disinformation farm trolls in beautiful sunny St. Petersburg (and NOT the one in FloriDUH either).
There you go again with the liberal Woke’s myopic hatred of free speech based solely upon your naivety about Ukraine and the Biden’s Family Crime Global Syndicate… When guys like you readily accept your own bigoted beliefs as facts which tend to set you off L’il Snowflake… Lolz
I think you need to wake up and stop parroting the American neo-Fascist BS phrases. Try not watching Fox for a day, two if you can stand it. Go outside, look around, check out the greenery, birds, the blue sky. Might do wonders for you.
A fascinating book by Jonathan Katz, “The Gangsters of Capitalism,” traces exactly how we sent in the Marines to destroy democracies around the world, specifically to enrich various corporations.
Was the war of 1812 about national security? How about the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American war, the establishment of puppet dictators in Latin America? It depends on how you define "the national security state," but keep in mind that the competition for empire predates the discovery of America. Our survival depends on more cooperation and less competition.
The voters need to be way more careful about to whom they trust the government. We need to have careful and truthful dissections of all those running for any office. It seems that sometimes all we are given to vote for are not in our nation's best interests.
Thank you. This is what I'm stewing in. I wander around wondering what more has been white washed and wall papered. I'm saddened and disgusted. I know I'll come to some kind of grips with this knowledge, but right know I just... feel like I'm being swallowed by the morass of our history.
I understand. When you don't have some distance, say over a long period of years, of stuff like this and it seems to come at you all at once, it can be overwhelming. A change of worldview, you might say. This is why you, and everyone, should be exposed to the truth of our history beginning perhaps in high school and definitely in college and why you should, as the old saying goes, "Question Authority". And perhaps more importantly, ask questions, write letters, read reliable and truthful news sources, and vote accordingly. A well-informed electorate is essential to our democracy.
Milton Friedman was just as evil. Both of them were responsible for a lot of bad things that happened all over the world including in the United States.
Chile’s wealth gap and the pathetic state of its lower and middle classes are products of Friedman, and his laissez faire capitalism. The privatization in that country is gouging the average citizen. It’s remarkable that Americans are not hated for all we’ve done to that country.
Look at what the republicans are doing to this country. Florida is scary. The insane fraud is happening here with the "moms of liberty" really? They are not raising kids "right". They are the brainwashers.
I agree, Janet Adans. It's unconscionable for any government to have the hubris to interfere in something as private as a child's gender orientation! And Rethuglicans complain about government intrusion! They're afflicted with selective myopia.
It's the religious puritans that Wall Street has brainwashed (recruited) to exploit not just our country but also privatization of any country they want to to strip mine for money and natural resources.
Our government should have a glass dome over it. This is nothing new. I was just reading an excerpt from The Shock Doctrine. (eye roll)
Thanks Mr. Reich for upsetting our apple carts on a sunny sunday !
In the late 1990s [even before Ms Klein wrote her book about the phenomenon] a manifesto for a Project for a New American Century was made public. It spoke of the desire to get the people behind some sweeping changes in our culture that might otherwise be resisted … BUT, if the country were responding to a crisis on the order of another Pearl Harbor, those who would impose the new agenda would be advised to jump on that and get the people in a patriotic frenzy to approve the changes …
September 11 >>>> The Patriot Act, an offshore non-constitutional prison at Guantanamo Bay, approving torture and rendition to “black sites” — not to mention invading Iraq and starting a few forever wars under a loosely applied AUMF, with little or no provocation.
I fall just short of thinking the administration in office at the time knowingly allowed 9-11 to happen {I doubt anyone would have predicted the towers would fall, but one might have predicted that Al Qaeda would at least attempt to do something violent on American soil — we were warned the summer before that they were “determined” to do so!!!}
But I do think the Bush administration and Republicans jumped on the event to push through some terrible things, gaining the people’s acquiescence by dint of what Naomi Klein described in The Shiock Doctrine.
It certainly did, Pat! I remember telling my son, "Americans are handing the government their civil liberties with both hands! This will not end well!" And it hasn't.
I lived in Peru for eight years, Mexico for two. We are admired far more than hated in both countries and others. Certainly, there are those who hate the US, but they are a minority. I think it’s the pervasiveness and attractiveness (?) of American culture that is responsible for this generous attitude towards a “big brother” that has promoted or sponsored some horrific regimes in the hemisphere.
Spend time with people. There are plenty of intellectuals all over Latin America who are anti-American, certainly. But the general populace is not, in my opinion. And there are certainly a large number of people in the entrepreneurial class who are mostly enthusiastic supporters of the US.
The reality is that NOT ALL of U.S. are evil, as is generally the viewpoint by the outside world.
But we HAVE done just so much outright EVIL around this globe in the name of corporate capitalist greed and vehement ANTI-leftist ideologies, under the auspices of our government (whether covert or overt), that even those with absolutely NO 'agenda' at all, except to HELP, are seen through a jaundiced eye of always having an ulterior motive. :(
Sort of like I have a questioning view of any religious 'missions' going on throughout this planet.
It would seem, and one would hope that they would be doing these purely out of the beneficence and kindness of their hearts and souls, and to saves the lives they do on a daily basis.
But I do have to wonder if the ulterior motive is just to make sure that they end up with that many more people being members of, and supporting said religions as their ulterior motive. ;)
Yes, David, yes. The human psychology of it is not so difficult to understand, but it is a sad reality that antipathies toward some of a group are too often spread to include the whole group. It is the basis for prejudice and racism, at its core. We try to resist, if we recognize it, but sometimes we think it’s warranted.
Something to be aware of and careful about, I’d warrant.
My best friend's mother grew up in Chile and "lived" through the Pinochet years. In her
later years I got to know her and respect her for what she and her family had gone through. My friend is a product of her 2nd marriage here in the states and never got to know his 1/2 siblings who had dispersed to other parts of the world when of age.
His mom had nothing good to say about those years and 'blamed' the U.S. for everything
that came of the Pinochet years and passed away - a broken woman.
From the get go I got a very negative opinion of Henry Kissinger and his - overzealous ways - of dealing with U.S. foreign policy especially when that policy benefited U.S.
"If not now, on the 50th anniversary, when will the U.S. own up to the entirety of what Nixon and Kissinger wrought?" Yes, for sure! Kissinger is a war criminal! Last week on Amanpour &Company I was pleasantly surprised to hear senior American diplomat Richard Hass stating American foreign policy has primarily been about pursuing Americas economic interests far more than supporting democratic principles. America supports dictators now and has a huge history of Republican and Democratic Administrations supporting dictatorships around the world at a huge cost of democratization.
Dear Jennifer: please get off your soapbox. Write only when you have something to contribute. Readers of these comments likely range in age between -8 and 80+. Allow for large differences in background and awareness. Thanks.
That was a little harsh. Let’s just say this. Many of the comments posted through several of these sessions have not been on topic. I’ve tried myself to ask people to stay on topic so that the threads don’t get disjointed but these are humans who are expressing their feelings with passion and we have to expect deviations. As a scientist, I try and look that things dispassionately but I am human too and can get caught up in dribble at times. It would be wonderful if we all were perfect. But we are not.
Obama does not admit that democracy was not his priority when he supported dictatorship over the Arab Spring. My point was that it was refreshing to hear this from Hass who has long talked around this blunt fact as he has served both Republican and Democratic Administrations.
Noam Chomsky has documented this and many other atrocities committed by our gov't in pursuit of the capitalist imperative to steal labor, land, and resources of third world countries.
And Chomsky has been doing so at a steady pace with dozens of books, interviews and articles for *at least* 50 years, starting with his first foreign policy (ie. non-linguistics) book “American Power and the New Mandarins”, in which he clearly explains that the terrible Viet Nam war was entirely the U.S.’ doing. We lost that war along with many lives, but now Viet Nam is a great source of cheap labor for the regime changers.
He has been so marginalized by the power structure, but he keeps doing his thing. He's one of my heroes. also, Howard Zinn. Daniel Ellsberg, the Berrigans. more heroes. True patriots in that they want to help our country fulfill it's dream of equality of all.
The American myth of Rugged Individualism meets its match in the American fear of the alleged horrors of socialism, a term that 9 out of 10 Americans cannot define.
Yes. “Democracy” means freedom *for me*. Just like the Europeans who we were taught came here for religious freedom actually only came here for *their own* religious freedom.
I still remember when, in college, I read the Church Committee report that exposed the U.S. actions (as much as a congressional report can). I'm still appalled, all these years later.
I never knew that this happened back then. We certainly did not learn about this in our history class. Shame on Nixon and Kissinger for their involvement in the murder of these people and the theft of the children! Reparations! Disclose those documents, President Biden!
I surmise there’s a lot we don’t know. Do we want to know? Holding these people accountable...post humously? To acknowledge this , uncover it, an expose ...perhaps to what gain...information ? Knowledge ? There seems a myriad of people tuned in now saying the authoritarian agenda is in full tilt boogie play by playbook. The manipulation is the same gain game. Shallow. Inevitably loses. How to stop all this? Is it possible?
We thought so in the 70’s. Labeled Utopian Dreamers. I remember when monopolies were outlawed , that we’d passed laws against that. Not! They’re above the law, so they think, and so they do. Watch dog services created , spin wheels ,the corruption goes on , some more covertly. The few good get done what they can. Maybe there’s actually more of them, but the bad guys get the press. Take right now , right?
They certainly don’t change much future by being exposed . Yet we have improved , or had improved . Perhaps this plateau can be the lesson...finally . Ukraine wins the war. Biden wins 2024. The Dems rule for 50+ years with bipartisan help and the world is back at peace and lifts us into the next enlightenment period.
one of the hardest books i ever read was OVERTHROW by stephen kinzer. i could hardly breathe as it was (i think) an explanation of 14 democracies the USA either covertly or overtly overthrew, beginning with HI in the 1890s.
I read the same book, Zinn’s came shortly after, American history , and I have struggled for more awareness ever since -to understand as the world got increasingly/obviously in another autocratic push..which we ARE in...how much a part of this have ‘ we’ been..and the uneducated is intentional -kept that way for the very purpose of ‘pulling the wool over eyes’. Just within my own small section of the world such dilemmas present and cause either immediately or eventually far too much trouble having been unattended or ahhh...’overlooked’?
I read as much as possible , grateful for TRUSTED writers and feeling near helpless , I underscore always been actively promoting , protesting for, helping in , active participation by as many as possible.
This is such a part of Me Too, Indigenous/Black/Asian subjugation etc etc etc...power, control and the age old question ...what can be done a stark reality given the truth . But we need the truth, need to admit,acknowledge and acclimate . Holding people’s past into accountability is part of and currently the Headline Story...
Let it be heard in all context..rewriting history so our children won’t feel guilty is as wrong and a warning as not be told factual history therefore NOT learning what NOT to do again.
Thanks to all the writers, people and politicians willing to bring TRUTH out and TEACH civics , history , for maintaining a Great American Dream.
JBS: be gentle, be kind. Don't dismiss posts from those who are younger and perhaps less informed on issues which occurred in the past. You seem angry.
Thank you. I responded to him in much the same way, saying it was harsh. And like you stated, not everybody knows everything others have accumulated over the years.
So? Not everyone has had access to the kind of information that is now pretty easily accessible. Or perhaps they weren't as politically aware and inquisitive as you were throughout your life. Good for you. But your snideness and smug self-satisfaction does not become the politically aware person that you obviously are. A bit of humble introspection might enhance your intellectual acumen unless of course you prefer the persona that you are projecting. Hey girl if that's what you want you got it!
Oh my. Carrying on in the Eisenhower tradition of the Dulles brothers. Terrible. Yes, the US should release all info we have on this. Fifty years later. If not now, when?
Never like Hillary but she was smart enough to rely on experts for her tenure as sec of state she did sideline anyone that threatened her place in the spotlight.
She also relied on Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. In other words, she relied on those that were available. Hillary is very smart and savvy. That doesn't mean she took all advice.
Chile was just one of a series of misguided and violent actions perpetrated by the US on countries that did not deserve our intervention. I suppose you could start with Korea, but definitely Iran in 1953, Guatemala the same year (the Dulles brothers belong in the Hall of Shame with Kissinger), Dominican Republic, Haiti (numerous times until today), DR Congo in 1960, Vietnam soon after that, then Cambodia and Laos, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya under Obama (a mistake we are paying for in the coups now playing out across the Sahel), and more. Our foreign policy basically sucks, even under Biden. It is independent of party. Though you can probably justify the help for Ukraine, there is no justification for cluster bombs and spent uranium shells. When will we ever learn? Probably not until all the flowers are gone because of ecological collapse due to burning fossil fuels. Politics at the international level, in more countries than just the US, is a dirty business.
Let's not forget about the copper resources in Chile. I'd like to know how if decision to overthrow Allende was because of his plan to nationalize the copper mines, thereby causing a fair market in copper pricing. Anaconda and Phelps-Dodge, among others, certainly were not in favor. Mineral resources of any country are all part of global unrest.
Bernie Sanders was right on the money about a lot of things...Kissinger, billionaires running the country, average citizens' rights being trampled, lobbyists money buying votes...Trump was the result of this SYMPTOM that grew into the sham we have today. Accountability needs to be pursued, President Joe, on so many counts. <sigh>
Not sure what <sigh> meant Julie. For my part, understanding the limitations of an openly hostile congress, I'm very grateful for what it appears from evidence, all that President Joe has done and still strives to do; for one, building 'bridges' around the world instead of 'walls.' I could not be prouder, nor more grateful.
My wish: That someone would write an essay or OpEd distinguishing Socialism from Democratic Socialism. If we could learn to define our terms, maybe some of the confusion could be diminished somewhat in our country.
And why don't the interviewers ask the interviewees to define their terms more often than they do?
Too easy to let it slide. Subtlety is inconvenient. That said, listening to Bernie lately has made me realize the toll that being an outsider took on him. I'm not sure he would have made a good chief executive even though I agree with him about almost everything.
I’d also like for that essay to include the differences between “Social Democracy” and “Democratic Socialism”. Hint: One involves the state taking over the means of production, and one doesn’t. I don’t k ow about you, but I have NEVER heard Bernie advocate for government running all factories. He’s actually a Social Democrat, not a Democratic Socialist.
It’s not surprising that people incorrectly call Bernie a Democratic Socialist. For years now, even he does it. I’ve never understood why he didn’t correct the record on this point back in 2016 when it would have been simple and educational for Americans. Now it’s far too late. He is, and will always be a “socialist” despite the fact that’s he actually a Social Democrat, which is not the same thing at all. 🤷🏻
Yes, my definition of Socialism is one where govt controls the means of production and distribution. Such a system is fraught with human misery. A Social Democrat, like Bernie, on the other hand, merely wants Capitalists to share the fruits of Capitalism equitably, a conviction I share deeply. I wish this distinction could be implanted in the American consciousness so that voters could be precluded from voting against their own interests. It would seem that workers bargaining within Unions as a block is the only way to bring this idea to fruition. I remember when we had it once long ago before Corporations mysteriously became people and money became speech. I can't resist closing with the often quoted expression of Justice Louis Brandeis which I offer in essence: "You can have great inequality of wealth and income OR you can have democracy, but you cannot have both." -- circa 1910
He has w/o exception spoke the most truth, the longest , and most accurate, of any representative we’ve likely ever had. Few others compare. 🗣️We love you Bernie
He has w/o exception spoke the most truth, the longest , and most accurate, of any representative we’ve likely ever had. Few others compare. 🗣️We love you Bernie
America has created more dictatorships than my lifetime than democracies. And now the billionaire globalist autocrats want to turn America into a dictatorship and the Republicans are almost all on board. China is a capitalist dictatorship even though they call themselves communist.
I was 19 at the time. I remember a comment in the National Lampoon and I paraphrase-- Allende committed suicide shooting himself in the head 23 times pausing only once to reload.
If you think Kissinger was a war criminal regarding Chile, check out "Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia," by William Shawcross.
"If Kissinger can win the Nobel Peace Prize, I would be surprised to wake up and find that I'd won the Preakness." -- "Wag the Dog"
Unfortunately, not the only travesty committed. As pointed out by Bernie in his debate with Hillary:
"A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa. Pull but one string from the current tangle of today’s multiple foreign policy crises, and odds are it will lead back to something Kissinger did between 1968 and 1977. Over-reliance on Saudi oil? That’s Kissinger. Blowback from the instrumental use of radical Islam to destabilize Soviet allies? Again, Kissinger. An unstable arms race in the Middle East? Check, Kissinger. Sunni-Shia rivalry? Yup, Kissinger. The impasse in Israel-Palestine? Kissinger. Radicalization of Iran? “An act of folly” was how veteran diplomat George Ball described Kissinger’s relationship to the Shah. Militarization of the Persian Gulf? Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger." https://jacobin.com/2021/02/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-debate#:~:text=A%20full%20tally,Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger.
Well said. Truth. He was a foreign policy disaster for this country, an egocentric and amoral political animal drunk on his power and convinced of his superior grasp of realpolitik. Polite society still welcomes him and Bush, even after the harm they have done to the world and to our country.
It goes beyond "welcoming" him and goes right to "celebrating" him and his latest book on his 100th birthday, as if he has provided serious and beneficial guidance. His son gave an interview extolling his "greatness." If that is polite society I want none of it. He always sounds serious and loves to pontificate as if he has special knowledge. He is, and was, evil. Instant karma has not worked in this case, and too often doesn't.
Some say that we should let this old man alone and pay attention to current affairs, but I believe that you know people by the company they keep. One purpose in discussing Kissinger at this time in his life is to see who is still supporting and/or adulating him. Know thy enemies.
He was featured with Trump early during his Administration.
Don’t leave out the slimy secrets in Vietnam that had Kissinger’s fingerprints all over them.
I always wondered why, if he were smart he couldn’t speak English without a HEAVY German accent.
Kissinger and the Dulles brothers.... and Bush... great harm to the name “America”.
His HEAVY German accent has nothing to do with his inexcusable criminal activities. Please don't go there.
Sorry, nothing about accents or language.
He just always acts superior to most.
I have nothing against language barriers.... my own Grandfather came to America with one.
Hope all will forgive the indelicate comment.🙏🏻😮💨
You're right about 1 thing. Kissinger did not do his evil deeds all alone. He was part of a group in power and its members enabled each other. The Dulles brothers, yes, GHW Bush and Bush lite, Nixon - how could we leave Richard Nixon out of this conversation, and many others.
Diet Pepsi ; If you refer to George W, Bush as 'lite', it does not diminish the harm he has done. The Blitzkrieg that was 'Shock and awe' 'justified' by non existent 'weapons of mass destruction' and which led to a very long and deadly war in the Middle East killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, along with our own military personnel, and injured many more. And this isn't all of it either. Some facts may never be known.
Laurie, I think Diet Pepsi means, "lite" in terms of intellectual abilities, as compared with his father. Bush II is unequivocally guilty of many crimes, but Cheney and Rummy, among others, called the tune, as I'm sure you well know. He didn't come up with all those ideas on his own, unlike his father.
GW Bush, the son of GHW Bush, has been commonly referred to as "Bush Lite" for years. I have always understood the moniker to be derogatory and a reflection on his lack of any kind of, shall we say, prowess, including prowess of the intellectual kind. I have never understood it to be a suffestion that he did not do great harm to this nation and to many others.
I think “shock and awe” was mostly about good old Texas-style revenge. ‘You disrespected my daddy and I’m gonna make you PAY’!
As you say, Diet Pepsi, there were/are many others, among them Dick Cheney, who is a thread through much of the crimes in the last half-century.
Yes, Dick Cheney and let's not overlook Donald Rumsfeld.
Jean, Because Kissinger was post-pubescent (he was 15) when he and his family fled Germany, the staying power of his native phonology was biologically determined.
Barbara Jo Krieger; Many if not most Americans in the 40's and 50's were shown movies with German accented villains. We were pre and post pubescent too when exposed to this negative propaganda, and with effort , we should be accepting that there is a need to understand and avoid these cultural stereotypes. We must mature, and are experiencing growing pains. Americans fought in wars where people with such accents were the enemy. It takes time and education to heal.
Since you broached cinema and propaganda of the day, Dr Strangelove is a notable example of the German accent in cinema you speak of. Of particular interest in the film, I understand many interpret Peter Sellers' role as the film's bewheelchaired namesake, in which one of Strangelove's hands keeps trying to strangle him, while the other keeps trying to knock it away, was an oblique reference to and lampoon of Kissinger's personal demons. Pay special attention to Strangelove's hair style.
I believe that's still a thing in Britain, while the old Monty Python troupe - in particular - used the German accented characters as a recurring trope - and that would include Fawlty Towers.
Laurie, My comment merely was intended to provide Jean with a biological fact explaining the inescapable German sounds infused with Kissinger’s spoken English.
Robert E, I agree with your assessment that Kissinger is and was evil. He managed to get some things done while people were praising each little move and those things he did were for lack of a better word, appalling!.
Robert, I don’t imagine I am the only one who was bothered seeing, on the news, the current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken having attended the event honoring Kissinger’s life and publication of his latest book.
Hatred was given a gloss that made torture and murder appear attractive.
It continues to this day in plain sight.
And we stupidly drank the Koolaid and believed him. However !!!!! The same applies today with the millions of people who are still in thrall of Trump. Plus ca change !!!
Strengthen the FCC ; Truth in advertising! guardrails on all media! We should not have FOX "NEWS" or any media that treat lies as news; Misinformation, AKA, lies are NOT Free speech, any more than tfg qualifies to run for ANY office ; whether it's County Commissioner, dog officer or President of the United States of America!
Brava!
Well....some people believed him. Others thought he was a snake from the get-go. With apologies to snakes, of course.
Kiss made a career by telling conservatives what they wanted to hear. Nobody forced Nixon to accept K's advice. And nobody forced people to vote for Nixon> Were it not for Watergate Nixon would have inflicted even more damage on humankind.
Sounds familiar...just sayin...
I can hear that statement coming again …soon hopefully . Love the book references, tidbits. Thanks
Kerry, I get it that human beings need heroes. I can't help but wonder how so many people were so desperate for a hero, they cheered for and saw Kissinger as " good It didn't matter what was real. He had a good pedigree, so people believed his lying self, and still do.
Those who weren't paying attention believed, and still do. A common ailment in this country, it seems.
Wish I could disagree
I believe, "amoral" is much too kind and lenient a description, Kerry.
Evil little homunculus! Gad. How we let the powerful get away with literal murder and stuff the powerless into jail for next-to-nothing … Les Miserables, for sure!!
The quote did not mention the shenanigans done to Cambodia, which led to the Pol Pot killing fields. The memories of those atrocities are seared into the collective psyche of the Cambodians.
https://www.salon.com/2015/11/10/henry_kissingers_genocidal_legacy_partner/#:~:text=From%20Cambodia...,plane%20could%20carry.%22
Never forget Cambodia. This obsession with socialism, where did it come from?
It is said that Eisenhower, as soon as he entered the oval office in 1953, came under intense pressure to send American troops into Vietnam. One of his first overseas visits was to London, where he asked the re-elected prime minister Churchill if the UK would join the US in helping the French in Vietnam. Churchill immediately responded with "Why would you wanna do that?" To which Eisenhower replied something along the lines of "to oppose Russia, to fight communism and socialism."
To which Churchill, who was then 80 - Biden watchers please note - responded "Don't worry about Russia, it'll collapse under it own economic weight within 50 years." Talk about prescience.
And, US troops did not enter Vietnam in a big way until that young buck Kennedy - who IMHO was far too young to be president - declared "We will bear any burden....."
Vietnam certainly did not have to be as it turned out. Ho Chi Minh was intent on unifying the country after WW I. He approached Woodrow Wilson at Versailles but was rebuffed. Many historians see that as the time Ho turned to the Soviets for assistance in pursuing his dream of a unified country.
We would not have had to “help France” in Vietnam if they’d honored their promises to Ho when he and his people helped the Allies win the war in the Pacific theater. Ho was betrayed by France, which refused to relinquish its colonial powers over Vietnam. When the West betrayed him {he was a well-educated man who had visited and studied in European countries and had promises made to him …}, he turned where he thought he could find support to re-establish his country as a united and free one.
The French "ran" some of the bloodiest colonies of the European colonials, and the planet is still experiencing the effects of it (northern Africa is a notable example).
Actually, it was Truman who first intervened in Vietnam, and it was LBJ who most strongly pushed for it.
You're right. The US had been meddling in Vietnam since 1945, and Eisenhower was under pressure to amp it up. JFK succumbed to that pressure, against the good advice of John Kenneth Galbraith. I agree that LBJ amped it up very considerably, and very unfortunately. For such an astute politician, I still find it surprising that he did this, instead of the courageous political act of declaring victory and leaving while he was ahead. But he didn't want to be "the first US president to lose a war," apparently oblivious to the fact that a) he wouldn't have lost the war because he would have declared victory, and b) that moniker actually goes to James Madison. Tells you something about what they were writing in the schoolbooks in 1920.
I've read (I wish I could remember the source) that a company that was making money building military bases in South Vietnam was one of LBJ's big supporters, which was why he pushed US involvement there starting when he was a senator.
As you know, the Vice President was not involved in the affairs of the president. So, when he became president, LBJ did what he felt JFK was going to do. Wrongly, I believe.
JFK gave tacit approval to the CIA to assassinate President Diem, the President of South Vietnam, when he refused to resign his position and go along with a coup. He had been given a promise of safety by the U.S. , which he refused.
Thanks; I didn't know that.
Um, actually, it was LBJ who ratcheted up the U.S. presence in Vietnam. JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors, and in early fall, '63, he issued a memo outlining the recall of those personnel. He didn't live to see it carried out, and four days after his assassination, LBJ signed the escalation order.
" JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors." Actually JFK sent 16,000 personnel, mostly soldiers. The fact that he later wanted to scale back means that he didn't know what he was doing in the first place.
The surprising thing is that an astute politician like LBJ would double down on a bad bet.
Or it means that he saw the writing on the wall, and he wanted to cut his losses.
Not at all surprised that LBJ doubled down. His predecessor wanted to leave Vietnam, and look what happened. After Dallas, LBJ didn't have a lot of choices.
I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong.
Your essay dredged up memories of other bad ol' times when I felt powerless to effect change in wrongful national and local policy decisions.
And at 70-something, I've realized there's no benefit in trying to quantify my states of despair. Existing in such times is just plain painful, whether it stems from living in a divided nation rife with dissension and inequality; or from having a corrupt federal government that engaged in war crimes; or from living in a city where overt racial bias triggered race riots at a time when we were still reeling from the assassinations of two national leaders.~
How is it that the Swiss, despite religious and linguistic difference manage to live together in peace and prosperity?
Actual Swiss history is a catalogue of centuries of bloody internecine tribal and religious warfare.
The very recent peace holding Canton democratic model was a cultural creation of a certain, largely unknown, General Von Sprecher. An individual who after years of participating in localised civil battles knew the history, land and its warring tribes intimately. From that painfully gained life knowledge he drew up a culturally specific nation state template for governance that enlightened politicians of his time ran with. The rest is history.
What our disintegrating democratic societies lack globally today is visionary leadership like this in positions of influence.
I learn something new every time I visit this community. Thanks, Moninna, for enlightening us.
~Does Switzerland have the history of slavery, then segregation, then a bought media force that convinces poor white people to support a federal government that (keeps them fighting with poor people of color to distract them from the real enemy so it can) serves mostly the rich because “at least we’re white…we don’t need no handouts.” ?
~Do the Swiss working class actively vilify people utilizing a modest Social Safety Net, believing that a family with children are taking the laborers “hard-earned tax dollars,” while for some strange reason not minding one bit that corporations and billionaires are the largest recipients of welfare?
~Do the Swiss lower classes generally want to shoot asylum seekers crossing their borders because the Robber Barons gave them some “other” to hate?
~Do the people vote against their economic self-interests and even national security interests because a blubber-mouthed orange menace and his cult members say “only they” will protect them from Drag Queen Story Hour, and “only they” will make certain every 12 year old has their baby regardless of how a baby got inside a child, and “only they” will siphon funds from public schools to fund religious schools that don’t teach American History and Health Education and Earth Science and Civics? ~Do forty percent of the men aged 40 and over in Switzerland believe that they are in a persecuted class of citizens, that strong women are trying to emasculate them, that African-Swiss (or is America the only nation that differentiates Americans based on skin color?) only got that job because of “reverse racism,” that they’d be further ahead in life if not for hiring quotas and handouts (and Jay Eee DoubleYous), that they’d get the really awesome girls if not for the sissy-boys, and that the country should “get back to the good old days.” ?
~Does Switzerland have an anti-intellectual cult and do they have Fox News?
Thank you Angie Ma!
I can't answer those questions about the Swiss, Angie Ma, but you certainly nailed it with that description of the political, cultural, economic and educational climate in America today!
Good question. How do they? It's a much smaller country, of course....
Bingo.
TheHAMMOND ; "I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong." Same here!
Good to know I'm not alone in my feelings, Laurie!
It does certainly feel at times like there is this steamrolling juggernaut of fascism, which cannot be stopped, fully supported by almost HALF of this country's populace, and much of the other half is way too busy with worrying about what the Kardasians (or any other 'influencers') are doing, and the latest 'popular' POS reality show foisted upon U.S. to give two shits about said fascist takeover. :( :(
HOPE I am dead wrong about the above, though. ;)
There are a bunch of YouTube videos, called Trajectory of Justice, lectures by the one & only Daniel Sheehan, who speaks about robber barons et al and grinding history up to the current period of beginning of turd45 presidency. They encapsulate pretty much all the shenanigans, of various US "leaders/people" in domestic, international affairs. Worth the time, to get educated. Regards from London 🧘🌌💙
Thanks for the referral.
So very sadly, yes … a horrible horrible legacy we have from those times …
Yes, to these evil scumbag turds a "socialist" country cannot and will not be allowed to exist.
But a fully fascist, repressive, genocidal land, led by a butchering autocratic DESPOT with no controls at all, is just fine, and "in our interests".
Same shit as today, when they want to install their putrid orange fuehrer (FOR LIFE!) who swears he will punish ALL of his (and their) 'enemies' however he sees fit, but HERE this time, not in some distant foreign land.
WE CANNOT, AND MUST NOT ALLOW THEM TO DO THIS!!
Spot on. If "polite" society that's never seen its kids tortured and lives ruined by autocrats, fascists and false populists, doesn't approve of our blunt descriptions of monsters like Kissinger, Pinochet, Trump and Pol Pot, maybe they need a taste of the human suffering such criminals visited on the innocent. Ugly acts do much more harm than disagreeable words. So if you have thin skin for difficult words but are ignorant or apathetic about this country's human right's abuses, get over yourself.
It's time for the USA to initiate a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The ugliness must be laid bare, lest the next Kissingers, Nixons and Trumps return to power in our country. Never again!
What about Bush-Cheney and the Iran war? America is not the best in the world.
except, for me, We ain't "out of the woods" on this - slow rolling - attempt. Let me see how this 2024 campaign works out, how many of our fellow Americans, who haven't subscribed to the "Fake News" "stolen 2020 election" narrative get out to the polls and who they vote for, before We put this into the past tense. Please?
Trump is contemptible, but he has not committed genocide, and started no war. Don't link him with Pol Pot. When we go overboard we do a disservice to ourselves.
Trump also didn’t end a war that needed to be over. He left it for Biden.
Well…but there were 500,000 Americans dying of a “hoax” that’ll “be over by Easter.”
He did let Syria get divided between Putin and Erdogan and left the Kurds to be slaughtered (but he was hot to protect the oil fields. Other people’s oil…they had to explain to him why we didn’t just take it all ourselves. Not any interest in protecting the innocent civilians, but that oil!
Don’t kid yourself. Orange Menace would let his gran be murdered if Putin paid him a compliment and said to do it.
Yes, Angie, I think 500,000 deaths qualifies as genocide.
You say "link", I say compare. There is too much at stake in this nation to get into a pissing match about semantics. You say it's overboard, I respectfully disagree, Victor.
Trump divided his countrymen between allies he´d protect and enemies against whom he advocated violence. Listen to recordings of several campaign speeches in which he condoned this against peaceful dissenters at his gatherings.
In this way he sent his followers down the road of dark, violent authoritarians like Pol Pot. In this way, knowing history, we perceive that the logical extensions of Trump's rhetoric, actions and (in)actions on and before January 6th, 2021 lead to outcomes comparable to those seen in Khmer Rouge Cambodia and Nazi Germany. To call for vigilance in order to prevent our nation 's coming to resemble the latter two is not, I submit to you, a disservice.
Yet
Yes, allow (or better yet DO NOT allow) the NAZIS in this land to install him into power FOR LIFE, with no restraints whatsoever and watch what he will do, especially with his brownshirt POS MAGAts both egging him on and even DEMANDING that he be much more cruel, barbaric, and murderous.
These heinous crimes have paved the way for the watershed that is the 2024 election. Time to sh*t or get off the pot, PEOPLE!!!
You're absolutely right! Think you're preaching to the choir here.😏
I fear for us!
Great post overall, but I especially like the contrast you draw in your first two paragraphs, David.
Where the surveillance state meets predatory mass incarceration. It´s not limited to China. It continues to be played out in the United States -- and the rest of the world isn´t unaware of the extent to which the most degrading conditions and practices are condoned by the same people.
Props for, "homunculus," Pat!
Aw, gee! 😎
Send him to the Hague!
If only the United States were to reaccession to the Rome Statute.
There should be a division of the International Criminal Court operating in the United States and/or Canada -- address the evil practices and people responsible for them at length (example: Kosovo Chambers).
There’s no way the United States is going to subjugate itself to a rule of law that does not originate HERE. In this, our government behaves as though “sovereignty” over any and all decisions on the foreign stage are sacrosanct, and no other entity gets to tell us what we can or cannot do, for all extents and purposes.
Of course, when negotiating trade deals, we agree to lots of limitations on our ability to forge our own path, including accepting sanctions and penalties, if we stray .. but that’s…you know…business.
....in a cage. And then in the same cage to the streets of Santiago, Puerto Montt, Antofagasta, etc.
I think we as Americans need to take January off to get our proverbial shick together and go to Washington. We need to have conversations with our reps. We need town halls there - NOW.
I've had it with the oligarchs, Wall Street etc. The gop have betrayed our trust and are destroying our unique and wonderful democracy, environment, and country.
Who's with me?
I'm signed up for a meet and greet with the Dems in my county. What actions are you taking for democracy this week? :)
Thank you Dr. Gilbert.
Dr. Doug, thanks so much for reminding me of more of the horrors Kissinger committed. It is appalling that he was allowed to rule for so long! Eight years of mahem! I am sure you are right about the millions lost to Kissinger's actions. I am guessing he will never be held accountable for any of it because at 99 he is pretty much useless now, but alas, people still listen to him. It would be incredible, though if he were tried in the World Court for even one of the crimes you name. Just seeing him sitting in a court of law for some of what he has done would be tremendous.
Ruth, the really “tremendous” thing about Kissinger standing trial would be that all of these facts and history that are bring discussed here would be more widely publicized and more readily available to people who otherwise might not ever hear about them.
And at 100, Kissinger is still meddling in foreign affairs—most recently his little freelance mission to Beijing. The State Department was not amused. Absent even karmic justice on this sphere, a special ring of hell should be waiting for him.
Although it made me nauseous to read, thank you, Dr. Reich, for publishing this article. It could be said of Kissinger: never was such a brilliant brain tucked into such a small mind. You provoked me into reading his Wiki entry, where his youth was detailed and he was indeed young and brilliant. That genius morphed into a thing corrupt, especially when he hooked up with Nixon, who he had earlier called "dangerous." Yet he came to admire the former President in what could only be described as opportunistic ambition on his part . . . although he had worked on Nelson Rockefeller's repeated campaigns in the '60s, when he saw that Nixon had won the Presidency, Kissinger had to be in the center of power. Like Rudy Giuliani, he allowed any personal semblance of ethics or love for justice to erode as he further compromised his morals in the name of "fighting Communism." The Wiki entry called him a practicer of "Realpolitik," which is a term generally used pejoratively now. There was always an undercurrent of brutal capitalism in his diplomacy.
Henry Kissinger became, and still remains, the devil whispering into the ears of the politically powerful. God help him when he departs this mortal coil.
I sincerely hope God does NOT help him, S.A.
I meant that rhetorically. ;)
Let's face it...America is rife with stories as evil as Kissinger and many, even more evil. We have oppressed and persecuted people of many countries and many origins...especially our own indigenous people. It's hard to believe we can honestly claim 'In God We Trust' when our history would make any god weep in sadness. If patriotism requires genuflection to a flag that symbolizes such sordid history...count me out.
and then there is the fact that he advised Trump as a heralded hero. not to mention his seemingly ease with cocaine distribution - He represented the US when he was (reliable) reported to have brought cocaine to ABT welcome parties. Kissinger is representative of the Republican mafioso that has become the international crime syndicate currently trying to bring down our Constitution.
Wow, always thought Kissinger was someone who held back Nixon from being too excessive (see my comment above) but my ignorance of his role in all this has now been removed. So thank you, well done on an excellent contribution.
Really appreciate the reference!
At this juncture, I think it's important to understand Kissinger's political/diplomatic/defense context. I would like to present a little gem produced in 1980, based on the producer's 1975 memoir. To my understanding, Philip Agee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Agee) was - and probably still is - about as popular with "The Company" as Edward Snowden. He simply seems to have had the good sense to keep his mitts off anything otherwise classified, relying on his personal experience and diaries to direct his efforts in using publicly available documentation resources and interviews. Keep in mind, it documents what was going on covertly at the behest, not only of Kissinger, but the major US political figures from WWII to Carter.
I wrote a college paper, a critique of this. It's the historic events precursor to my arrival into that environment as a military musician - at the denouement of Watergate:
- INSIDE THE CIA: ON COMPANY BUSINESS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYrznlDTE_M
If you would like or prefer to read the original memoir:
- Inside the Company: CIA Diary:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/320742.Inside_the_Company (Link to Kindle edition provided.)
Let me hasten to add, I'm not apologizing for Kissinger's complicity. I'm saying he is a creature of the political/diplomatic/defense environment of the day - upon which everything we've experienced since is a result. Indeed, that environment is not a thing of the past. Some may well see a congruency with documented practices and outcomes with what we've seen in the streets here, today. ("You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment.") There's a lot of blood on a lot of hands, including some of our most respected - as well as reviled - leaders.
FOOTNOTE: Pay close attention to what, in the interview with officer Victor Marchetti at around 44 minutes in, refers to as a "non-directive," and compare it to what ol' P01135809 has been saying (non-directing) publicly in his political campaign since his call on Russia to attack Clinton's email.
And don't even get me started on nonverbal directions. I'm thinking of things like physically posturing, for example standing against or away from a wall or some other fixture, or maybe leaning against it, or maybe swiveling your head around like you're looking for someone you're not seeing or reading a newspaper upside-down. Then there are the baseball-like hand gestures, like scratching a body part, or holing an object with fingers arranged in a particular way.
Thank you Dr. Gilbert for reminding me why I backed Bernie Sanders in both of his bids for President, and why I’ll never regret any of the money or time I spent on Bernie.
Thank you, Robert. These are words that need to be written. I get sick to my stomach when I see that miserable human celebrated and feted in all the “elite” circles. He is indeed a criminal, with blood on his hands.
Not to lessen the evil that Kissinger was and is, but also recall the involvement of Harold Geneen and ITT in the Chile coup. Yet another instance of the symbiosis of US corporate interests and US gov't actions, both covert and overt.
And I'll echo another commenter who mentioned Allen Dulles as another intensely evil operator whose name should be deeply etched into the American Wall of Shame. His brother John Foster Dulles wasn't far behind him in the disrepute department.
Blowback. We’re lucky there hasn’t been even more.
Kissinger has enough blood on his hands to cover his entire body from his head down to the ground. And, for what it’s worth, the energy he runs ... for those of us who see energy is black and jagged and poisonous. He evil incarnate ...
And I’m struggling a little to figure out how say this, but I would imagine that being in Kissinger’s presence would make me shiver. He literally runs the Energy of Pain & Fear & Death. And yes, that’s a little hyperbolic, but it’s not inaccurate. Kissinger has what I can only imagine is a gaze that would make me shiver. He has cold, dead eyes. And the only time that his eyes would “light up” would be if he were thinking about doing something to cause pain to someone else. There are some people that really have almost no spark of humanity left ... and he’s one of those.
He would have been an ENTHUSIASTICALLY GLEEFUL KAPO, and falling all over himself, willfully helpful to the NAZI scum SS commandants at one of the (S)Hitler 1.0's death camps, had his family not escaped Germany in 1938, ironically.
Yet another born member of the tribe who makes me ashamed to be such myself. :(
David: Look, Kissinger will go down - has gone down - as the instigator/perpetrator of some of the worst crimes in U.S. history for which he will probably never be held accountable. However, we cannot surmise how such a human being would have acted as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps.
For an exegesis of the morally ambiguous universe within such an environment we can perhaps be guided by the writings of Primo Levi in his 'Escape from Auschwitz' and 'The Dead and the Drowned'.
And I would in fact hesitate to bring up anything regarding Kissinger's ethnicity when discussing the crimes for which he should be held accountable because it is probably essentially irrelevant to that discussion.
You are correct, but it still shames me that I was born into the same religion (it is NOT an 'ethnicity' or 'race', that's how the effing evil NAZIS tried to frame it, to justify their eugenics based genocides).
Ok David just to keep the convo going: How would you define a "Jewish" atheist? That Jewish atheist woulda ended up in the death camps just as readily as a tefillined Talmudic scholar regardless of your rejection of "ethnicity" or "race" as a determining factor. Even in Israel, Orthodox Jews reject Reform Jews' authenticity, but Hitler would have had no problem.
Don't fear him. He's a bugger picking feckless turd. Evil and mundane.
I got literal chills reading your comment, Susan, for I believe down to my bones that you speak absolute truth. I remember my mother seeing him on TV early in the Nixon years. She took one look and said that he was truly evil. He has certainly proved her---and you---right.
Evil such as Kissinger runs is palpable, and it’s literally visible. The energy is jagged, and in color it ranges from a really sick greenish yellow ... to black. Funny - that greenish yellow is the one we somehow chose in which to “suit up” the Army the U.S. sends out to “take care of “inconvenient attempts by small countries to “try out” Democracy - especially when it means calling for control over their own Natural Resources. This Country needs to stop behaving like a “Rich Kid” and assuming that “All the Toys Are OURS even when they lie 3,000 miles outside of our borders. And then and only then will the United States of America start to become a Democracy within its own borders, and a Force for Democracy around the World. There’s a lot of “Growing Up” that we need to do here within our own country before we could EVER earn the Right to tell other countries “what to do.”
Could not agree more on all counts, Susan.
Attached, from the National Security archive, The Pinochet File—on the “Countdown Toward the Coup.” Peter Kornbluth. U.S. Officials: “Our Policy on Allende Worked Very Well”
Kissinger joked that “the President is worried that we might want to send someone to Allende’s funeral. I said I did not believe we were considering that.”
The Documented U.S. Role in the Months, Days and Hours Before the Overthrow Of Allende
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-09-08/chiles-coup-50-countdown-toward-coup?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=785e7679-5ca0-4e5c-8952-dfec0ab561ff
I am so very disgusted by this, a revelation to me? Where was the education I never received or is this another type of “woke” agenda that was classified and now revealed? Why are we not a signatory to the treaty that supports the ICC at The Hague? How many atrocities do we have to hide as “classified documents” to protect perpetrators of heinous crimes? My shock may seem naive but my impression was always that Kissinger (not Nixon) was a statesman, not a heinous criminal. Thank you for the enlightenment. While I am on the subject of things about which truth is elusive, when will we get all the JFK documents released and know his true fate and the reason for it? Please do not insult my intelligence with the Warren Commission BS.
I am author of Breaking Up with Cuba. My spare time was spent at the GW archive and at the Smithsonian, and I had enough material to know that most of us were snowed. IMHO a lot of the material was withheld to protect GHW Bush, who was the "moneyman" for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
If I had the time, I'd discuss the "suicide" of Carlos Prio Socarras, and the fact that on his deathbed E.Howard Hunt confessed to his son, St. John, that he was the second gunman at the JFK assassination.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Carlos_Prio
Do you have any references to which you could point me about the E. Howard Hunt confession, Daniel? That's a fascinating revelation, and I've never come across it in all my JFK reading. How has this not been made public?
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81M00980R000600230023-6.pdf
Was made by his son. https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-last-confession-of-e-howard-hunt-76611/
https://www.amazon.com/Bond-Secrecy-Watergate-Conspirator-Howard/dp/1936296837 A father’s last confession to his son about the CIA, Watergate, and the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, this is the remarkable true story of St. John Hunt and his father E. Howard Hunt, the infamous Watergate burglar and CIA spymaster. In Howard Hunt's near-death confession to his son St. John, he revealed that key figures in the CIA were responsible for the plot to assassinate JFK in Dallas, and that Hunt himself was approached by the plotters, among whom included the CIA’s David Atlee Phillips, Cord Meyer, Jr., and William Harvey, as well as future Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. An incredible true story told from an inside, authoritative source, this is also a personal account of a uniquely dysfunctional American family caught up in two of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century.
Thanks for the references, Daniel. I've read the Rolling Stone piece so far, and it actually appears that Hunt named a Corsican assassin as the second gunman, unless I'm misunderstanding.
But that aside, the people at RS are no slouches. If they printed it, I'd say it's solid. Why, then, didn't other outlets pick up the story? I mean, there was just an article yesterday in the NYT, outlining former Secret Service agent Paul Landis' recollections about that day in Dallas, including speculation as to how relevant they are. That is, there's still much argument about the lone gunman theory. Hunt's statements, as revealed by RS, blow all of that out of the water, once and for all. How come that information didn't hit like a tsunami?
Thank you for this! A jewel!
I believe the majority did not realize the true Kissinger. He was hailed as a great statesman; celebrated on numerous TV shows and pictures in many magazines at gala parties.
Speaking of JFK’s assassination, I read an article a few days ago in the NYT about 90 year old Paul Landis, one of the secret service protective agents assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy. He recently came forward admitting that the official reports submitted by himself and the agency were materially false. He mentioned hearing another shot much closer than the book repository. He said he wanted to clear his conscious before he dies. He didn’t say as much, but my personal opinion is that he was trying to say without saying that agent George Hickey, riding in the open limo immediately behind JFK’s lost his balance while trying to bring his automatic rifle up and around to return fire at the book repository and accidentally discharged his weapon and shot JFK in the back of the head when he lost his balance as the limos sped up to get out of Dealey Plaza. This scenario fits many of the inconsistencies of the Warren Commission report to a tee. Especially the scent of gun powder reported by many of the people near the motorcade despite the fact that the cars were all well up wind of the repository. If you want to see a fascinating film covering this theory it’s on Amazon Prime "JFK: The Smoking Gun". Or you can read book the film is based upon “ Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK" by Bonar Menninger. I don’t know it’s true, but it seems to fit the facts as we know them much better than any other explanation I’ve ever heard.
Here is a free link to the recent NYT article I referenced at the beginning of this post:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/09/us/politics/jfk-assassination-witness-paul-landis.html?unlocked_article_code=e3rJWIHDe6HIsPB1xW3UN7uvuIt313PFW3HkAT22EtlhEikUlvB_RdbdqF-ZZvRkAvXdk2VpkElraDvMgEH0CUPxRZkaqRw0cDTOratrzk9r7XUAVbH6PatEvByOcnKMog8c4IY3-3YGQs2lqySh8y5dmBbB-DwOnQPaQPBmvwymjx_tQyHu2CqHhkfgYU0fyP-KcY-FdQNsSvgVDfYOlvEOY9vl0bbcj7zVB0SgMN3lLkdOdjhhYqykmv9QEYU2JfpU7kQx15lqYGSIhUxB0_opVRxCAzws0asDEPASeFevc-id2htT2tHtOjovjxUHHeFwLgk6Kcl3YAxKj-D425BQ8nw5Yn41U_Jbxm2VZDTIyydn&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Thank you!
For a country that supposedly prides itself on freedom, democracy and human rights, the United States has appeared to go out of its way to be not only the bully of the Americas but, as we saw in places like Iran, Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to name a few, we always seem to betray the principals of our founders and just send in the Marines on whatever pretext we wish to use.
Which is why we need to be MORE aware of what’s going on, not get bamboozled by empty rhetoric, and UNDERSTAND the true implications of foreign affairs.
The people of our country — most of us — DO hold decency and human rights to be important. But we let the wool get pulled over our eyes too oten.
We have our DOMESTIC imperatives right now, which is to hold off the barbarians at the gate and keep a Democracy. We SHOULD also try to make it a better democracy!!
https://www.politico.eu/article/need-international-anti-corruption-court/
Thank you for this.
🙌
😎
A primary debate with whom? RFK, Jr.? Who claims to be running as a Democrat against the President?
I am upset about Democrats threatening to ignore primary votes for anyone who puts their name in for the Democratic “primary” in a state that holds a vote before South Carolina. Saying they will not recognize a state’s choice to hold a primary because they’d prefer their own choice for “first” is juvenile, arrogant, and anti-Democratic autocratic nastiness. It’s certainly does not respect the American voter, the Democratic Party voters, or our prerogative to have our voices heard.
Of course, running in a state where Biden might not have his name on the ballot is the only way RFK,Jr. could win a state primary, but that’s another conversation.
And I’m no fan of super delegates, either. They are absolutely a means of cementing “leadership” in the party, circumventing the ACTUAL will of the people in the party, and they should be considered a travesty!!! Some 15% or so of all delegates?
The outright arrogance of Democratic leadership is gobsmacking, but I’m on record all over the place as thinking the DLC and DNC are obnoxiously in love with themselves and show rabid disrespect for the rank and file of the party. UGH.
That doesn’t mean I won’t vote for Biden in 2024 — I certainly will. But I’d spend a lot of time between now and then letting the Dem Leadership know what i think if their arrogance, in the lead up to this next election, and for years afterward, hoping the message eventually gets through …
[Knock off the Republican-Trumplican buzz words, OK? The criminal family in our midst is the Trump Clan, not the president’s]
You are polite and delusional. You drink the Kool-Ade over and over again. Trump is a fascist-loving autocratic fascist. Not just bad, but horrible.
Biden didn’t take bribes. Egad. Just stop.
So propagandized the American people. Education and World History and Geography are needed.
I would use the adjectives uneducated, uninformed, misinformed, and misled but agree that the under-taught subjects of world history and geography should have a more central, and truth-based, role in American education.
We can also add American history which, if taught in our schools currently, is careful not to upset students with the grisly truth about what has been perpetrated in the name of the American people.
I would include a civics curriculum, started in K7 and through to K12.
We had Civics and American History even World History when I was going to school. Public school in Tampa, Florida. To teach a curriculum you have to have teachers. Real teachers. Well-educated teachers. Where ya gonna get 'em? How ya gonna keep 'em? Especially in Florida.
Are you referring to the "Free State of Florida"? A line that De Satan is using to try to shoehorn his way into the White House.
Amen
Our educational system has been appallingly deficient for decades, Porter, from my observations.
And to your list of adjectives, I'd add, "willfully ignorant."
I had a history teacher so boring he even made my parents practically fall asleep. I had no interest in history or politics until Trump came on the scene and psychiatrists were alarmed he was possibly going to lead our country with his severely impaired personality.
I research further discovering how dishonest he was and how he employed mafia attorney Cohn.
Trump was a student of Roy Cohn, a vicious and truly evil man who came to prominence as a lead attorney in the Army-McCarthy "dig out the commies" hearings who took on Trump as his protege.
Trump was not an attorney, how could he be his protege. Trump went to Cohn seeking help.,
And critical thinking, too.
well, the founders bullied the native Americans, native Hawaiians etc off their lands and forced them to give up their culture - or perish.
Which is worse at the moment - wall street, corporations, or government. They should all be kept a close watch on. Like the glass dome over the German government.
I believe “pretext” is the operative word here. It’s all about money and greed. The problem is that the typical American citizen doesn’t find out the salient details of these political, social, and economic atrocities until way after the fact, yet, we the people become responsible for what the typical big powerful international conglomerates do around the world in our name.
Isn't it peculiar that the effing right wing's 'Domino Theory' ONLY applies/holds to 'commie socialist nations' or 'threats', but just simply does not EXIST when it comes to FASCIST threats, such as in Europe currently, or Vlad The Impaler's INVASION of sovereign, democratic Ukraine?!?
You have a valid point.
The misnomer of you calling Ukraine of being a sovereign democratic country is really just an oxymoron used by Woke’s liberal elites without any validity other than some of the false narratives of Ukraine being democratic falls flat on its face and the reality that their are No Opposition Parties allowed to participate in elections which negates the illusions of grandeur fed the general public… It is amazing how naive of most people nowadays do choose to ignore Ukraine is and has been a global capital of sex slave and the trafficking of young children and women for over 25 years… That is one reason Jeffrey Epstein used the term of young & dumb Ukrainian teenaged women to be sex slaves for Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Prince Phillip, Bill Gates, and yet we as a nation of many venerable virtues seem to ignore the reality about Ukraine… Why is that now even possible to allow us to financially support the advent of a nuclear war in the political quagmire in Ukraine War with Russia?
REGARDLESS of what they are to be labeled, your POS fascist murderer Uncle Pootie has NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER (except in his evil little megalomaniacal mind) to just go ahead and BOMB their schools/hospitals, and INVADE them, just like fellow fascist POS Hitler (whom I believe your Vlad admires just as much as his boyfriend SCUMp does) did in Poland and Czechoslovakia to kick off HIS World War.
The fact that you even use terminology like "Woke's liberal elites" tips us off that there is a good chance of you being one of your dear leader's FSB disinformation farm trolls in beautiful sunny St. Petersburg (and NOT the one in FloriDUH either).
There you go again with the liberal Woke’s myopic hatred of free speech based solely upon your naivety about Ukraine and the Biden’s Family Crime Global Syndicate… When guys like you readily accept your own bigoted beliefs as facts which tend to set you off L’il Snowflake… Lolz
I think you need to wake up and stop parroting the American neo-Fascist BS phrases. Try not watching Fox for a day, two if you can stand it. Go outside, look around, check out the greenery, birds, the blue sky. Might do wonders for you.
Well said.
A fascinating book by Jonathan Katz, “The Gangsters of Capitalism,” traces exactly how we sent in the Marines to destroy democracies around the world, specifically to enrich various corporations.
It continues with flags waving , throats swelling with emotion as we profit in Ukraine at their expense.
General Smedley Butler said the same early in the last century: "War is a racket."
The pretext is always defending democracy and "the American Way of Life," whatever that means.
The priorities of the national security state are foremost and achieved by any means necessary since JFK etc.
Was the war of 1812 about national security? How about the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American war, the establishment of puppet dictators in Latin America? It depends on how you define "the national security state," but keep in mind that the competition for empire predates the discovery of America. Our survival depends on more cooperation and less competition.
The voters need to be way more careful about to whom they trust the government. We need to have careful and truthful dissections of all those running for any office. It seems that sometimes all we are given to vote for are not in our nation's best interests.
Thank you. This is what I'm stewing in. I wander around wondering what more has been white washed and wall papered. I'm saddened and disgusted. I know I'll come to some kind of grips with this knowledge, but right know I just... feel like I'm being swallowed by the morass of our history.
I understand. When you don't have some distance, say over a long period of years, of stuff like this and it seems to come at you all at once, it can be overwhelming. A change of worldview, you might say. This is why you, and everyone, should be exposed to the truth of our history beginning perhaps in high school and definitely in college and why you should, as the old saying goes, "Question Authority". And perhaps more importantly, ask questions, write letters, read reliable and truthful news sources, and vote accordingly. A well-informed electorate is essential to our democracy.
Ukraine is no different , just sold well .
Just invoke the presumed power of the Marines -- right.
Did the Marines serve as a model for the Waffen SS?
Smedley Darlington Butler may well have had more damning observations about that entity.
Milton Friedman was just as evil. Both of them were responsible for a lot of bad things that happened all over the world including in the United States.
Chile’s wealth gap and the pathetic state of its lower and middle classes are products of Friedman, and his laissez faire capitalism. The privatization in that country is gouging the average citizen. It’s remarkable that Americans are not hated for all we’ve done to that country.
Look at what the republicans are doing to this country. Florida is scary. The insane fraud is happening here with the "moms of liberty" really? They are not raising kids "right". They are the brainwashers.
Add the Texas Governor and what a joke we are for human rights and justice even at home.
International human rights CRIMINALS, in power, right at our STATE levels even!
I agree, Janet Adans. It's unconscionable for any government to have the hubris to interfere in something as private as a child's gender orientation! And Rethuglicans complain about government intrusion! They're afflicted with selective myopia.
It's the religious puritans that Wall Street has brainwashed (recruited) to exploit not just our country but also privatization of any country they want to to strip mine for money and natural resources.
Our government should have a glass dome over it. This is nothing new. I was just reading an excerpt from The Shock Doctrine. (eye roll)
Thanks Mr. Reich for upsetting our apple carts on a sunny sunday !
Egad, if people understood the shock doctrine!
In the late 1990s [even before Ms Klein wrote her book about the phenomenon] a manifesto for a Project for a New American Century was made public. It spoke of the desire to get the people behind some sweeping changes in our culture that might otherwise be resisted … BUT, if the country were responding to a crisis on the order of another Pearl Harbor, those who would impose the new agenda would be advised to jump on that and get the people in a patriotic frenzy to approve the changes …
September 11 >>>> The Patriot Act, an offshore non-constitutional prison at Guantanamo Bay, approving torture and rendition to “black sites” — not to mention invading Iraq and starting a few forever wars under a loosely applied AUMF, with little or no provocation.
I fall just short of thinking the administration in office at the time knowingly allowed 9-11 to happen {I doubt anyone would have predicted the towers would fall, but one might have predicted that Al Qaeda would at least attempt to do something violent on American soil — we were warned the summer before that they were “determined” to do so!!!}
But I do think the Bush administration and Republicans jumped on the event to push through some terrible things, gaining the people’s acquiescence by dint of what Naomi Klein described in The Shiock Doctrine.
Uh-huh. It worked.
It certainly did, Pat! I remember telling my son, "Americans are handing the government their civil liberties with both hands! This will not end well!" And it hasn't.
I so agree
He did it to our country as well. Except the brainwashed still vote for the GOP here.
The USA is indeed hated throughout Central and South America.
“We don’t hate you Roberto we just hate your country”. Eu também.. eu também eu falou.
I lived in Peru for eight years, Mexico for two. We are admired far more than hated in both countries and others. Certainly, there are those who hate the US, but they are a minority. I think it’s the pervasiveness and attractiveness (?) of American culture that is responsible for this generous attitude towards a “big brother” that has promoted or sponsored some horrific regimes in the hemisphere.
Interesting. Not my experience. Nor that documented by Killing Hope, Rogue State or Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
Spend time with people. There are plenty of intellectuals all over Latin America who are anti-American, certainly. But the general populace is not, in my opinion. And there are certainly a large number of people in the entrepreneurial class who are mostly enthusiastic supporters of the US.
I did spend time with people. Os caboclos.
I agree that the upper classes admired European and the USA. Even to the confusion/ conflation about their own culture.
They flew there for dental care. They brought back Levis.
“Deus e Brasileiro mas mora nos Estados Unidos, o matriz.”
In my very early youth I never understood the term 'Ugly American', nor the movie with that title.
Once I started learning about this world, and our role and interference in it, I not only understood it, but thought it an abject UNDERSTATEMENT!
I don’t like it, but I get it.
I wonder if all the people who spent a lot of time around the planet in the Peace Corps were not the adverse of that, though. Am I totally deluded?
The reality is that NOT ALL of U.S. are evil, as is generally the viewpoint by the outside world.
But we HAVE done just so much outright EVIL around this globe in the name of corporate capitalist greed and vehement ANTI-leftist ideologies, under the auspices of our government (whether covert or overt), that even those with absolutely NO 'agenda' at all, except to HELP, are seen through a jaundiced eye of always having an ulterior motive. :(
Sort of like I have a questioning view of any religious 'missions' going on throughout this planet.
It would seem, and one would hope that they would be doing these purely out of the beneficence and kindness of their hearts and souls, and to saves the lives they do on a daily basis.
But I do have to wonder if the ulterior motive is just to make sure that they end up with that many more people being members of, and supporting said religions as their ulterior motive. ;)
Yes, David, yes. The human psychology of it is not so difficult to understand, but it is a sad reality that antipathies toward some of a group are too often spread to include the whole group. It is the basis for prejudice and racism, at its core. We try to resist, if we recognize it, but sometimes we think it’s warranted.
Something to be aware of and careful about, I’d warrant.
Then I remember our conducting The School of the Americas in Panama, and my sense of multiple-personality-disorder rises … !
My best friend's mother grew up in Chile and "lived" through the Pinochet years. In her
later years I got to know her and respect her for what she and her family had gone through. My friend is a product of her 2nd marriage here in the states and never got to know his 1/2 siblings who had dispersed to other parts of the world when of age.
His mom had nothing good to say about those years and 'blamed' the U.S. for everything
that came of the Pinochet years and passed away - a broken woman.
From the get go I got a very negative opinion of Henry Kissinger and his - overzealous ways - of dealing with U.S. foreign policy especially when that policy benefited U.S.
corporations.
We are.... try traveling the world for 36 years... you would have heard of ”the ugly American”!
I think 'hate' is not a word I would use. Dislike.
But they are hated, and not only by Chileans.
And a lot more countries besides Chile.
"If not now, on the 50th anniversary, when will the U.S. own up to the entirety of what Nixon and Kissinger wrought?" Yes, for sure! Kissinger is a war criminal! Last week on Amanpour &Company I was pleasantly surprised to hear senior American diplomat Richard Hass stating American foreign policy has primarily been about pursuing Americas economic interests far more than supporting democratic principles. America supports dictators now and has a huge history of Republican and Democratic Administrations supporting dictatorships around the world at a huge cost of democratization.
Definitely a bipartisan endeavor. You see -- the two political parties can cooperate.
Funny but I feel guilty for laughing
Jeez. How old are you>
The whole world knows this.
Dear Jennifer: please get off your soapbox. Write only when you have something to contribute. Readers of these comments likely range in age between -8 and 80+. Allow for large differences in background and awareness. Thanks.
I'm 80+ and remember very well what "Ugly American" meant. We needed to look in the mirror and still haven't.
I did/ have and always tried to not fit that term.
Well said! Save the snark for X.
That was a little harsh. Let’s just say this. Many of the comments posted through several of these sessions have not been on topic. I’ve tried myself to ask people to stay on topic so that the threads don’t get disjointed but these are humans who are expressing their feelings with passion and we have to expect deviations. As a scientist, I try and look that things dispassionately but I am human too and can get caught up in dribble at times. It would be wonderful if we all were perfect. But we are not.
Obama does not admit that democracy was not his priority when he supported dictatorship over the Arab Spring. My point was that it was refreshing to hear this from Hass who has long talked around this blunt fact as he has served both Republican and Democratic Administrations.
Noam Chomsky has documented this and many other atrocities committed by our gov't in pursuit of the capitalist imperative to steal labor, land, and resources of third world countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXtgq0Nhsc&ab_channel=Chomsky%27sPhilosophy
And Chomsky has been doing so at a steady pace with dozens of books, interviews and articles for *at least* 50 years, starting with his first foreign policy (ie. non-linguistics) book “American Power and the New Mandarins”, in which he clearly explains that the terrible Viet Nam war was entirely the U.S.’ doing. We lost that war along with many lives, but now Viet Nam is a great source of cheap labor for the regime changers.
He has been so marginalized by the power structure, but he keeps doing his thing. He's one of my heroes. also, Howard Zinn. Daniel Ellsberg, the Berrigans. more heroes. True patriots in that they want to help our country fulfill it's dream of equality of all.
Naomi Klein make your list?
yes, as well as Amy Goodman.
The American myth of Rugged Individualism meets its match in the American fear of the alleged horrors of socialism, a term that 9 out of 10 Americans cannot define.
Thank you Bennett!
Another word used to divide and conquer. Most do not know what Democracy means... or what it is supposed to mean.
Yes. “Democracy” means freedom *for me*. Just like the Europeans who we were taught came here for religious freedom actually only came here for *their own* religious freedom.
Agree big time. See my comment directly above.
I still remember when, in college, I read the Church Committee report that exposed the U.S. actions (as much as a congressional report can). I'm still appalled, all these years later.
Yes, JKDonn,
Frank Church did a seriously great job of looking under the “CIA’s” rock. It almost got him killed.
I never knew that this happened back then. We certainly did not learn about this in our history class. Shame on Nixon and Kissinger for their involvement in the murder of these people and the theft of the children! Reparations! Disclose those documents, President Biden!
I surmise there’s a lot we don’t know. Do we want to know? Holding these people accountable...post humously? To acknowledge this , uncover it, an expose ...perhaps to what gain...information ? Knowledge ? There seems a myriad of people tuned in now saying the authoritarian agenda is in full tilt boogie play by playbook. The manipulation is the same gain game. Shallow. Inevitably loses. How to stop all this? Is it possible?
We thought so in the 70’s. Labeled Utopian Dreamers. I remember when monopolies were outlawed , that we’d passed laws against that. Not! They’re above the law, so they think, and so they do. Watch dog services created , spin wheels ,the corruption goes on , some more covertly. The few good get done what they can. Maybe there’s actually more of them, but the bad guys get the press. Take right now , right?
They certainly don’t change much future by being exposed . Yet we have improved , or had improved . Perhaps this plateau can be the lesson...finally . Ukraine wins the war. Biden wins 2024. The Dems rule for 50+ years with bipartisan help and the world is back at peace and lifts us into the next enlightenment period.
I’m still an Utopian Dreamer
💙💙VOTE💙💙
one of the hardest books i ever read was OVERTHROW by stephen kinzer. i could hardly breathe as it was (i think) an explanation of 14 democracies the USA either covertly or overtly overthrew, beginning with HI in the 1890s.
I read the same book, Zinn’s came shortly after, American history , and I have struggled for more awareness ever since -to understand as the world got increasingly/obviously in another autocratic push..which we ARE in...how much a part of this have ‘ we’ been..and the uneducated is intentional -kept that way for the very purpose of ‘pulling the wool over eyes’. Just within my own small section of the world such dilemmas present and cause either immediately or eventually far too much trouble having been unattended or ahhh...’overlooked’?
I read as much as possible , grateful for TRUSTED writers and feeling near helpless , I underscore always been actively promoting , protesting for, helping in , active participation by as many as possible.
This is such a part of Me Too, Indigenous/Black/Asian subjugation etc etc etc...power, control and the age old question ...what can be done a stark reality given the truth . But we need the truth, need to admit,acknowledge and acclimate . Holding people’s past into accountability is part of and currently the Headline Story...
Let it be heard in all context..rewriting history so our children won’t feel guilty is as wrong and a warning as not be told factual history therefore NOT learning what NOT to do again.
Thanks to all the writers, people and politicians willing to bring TRUTH out and TEACH civics , history , for maintaining a Great American Dream.
💙💙VOTE💙💙
Were you actually interested?
I don't think so.
JBS: be gentle, be kind. Don't dismiss posts from those who are younger and perhaps less informed on issues which occurred in the past. You seem angry.
Thank you. I responded to him in much the same way, saying it was harsh. And like you stated, not everybody knows everything others have accumulated over the years.
Likewise SandyC
I am in my 70's too.
So? Not everyone has had access to the kind of information that is now pretty easily accessible. Or perhaps they weren't as politically aware and inquisitive as you were throughout your life. Good for you. But your snideness and smug self-satisfaction does not become the politically aware person that you obviously are. A bit of humble introspection might enhance your intellectual acumen unless of course you prefer the persona that you are projecting. Hey girl if that's what you want you got it!
Oh my. Carrying on in the Eisenhower tradition of the Dulles brothers. Terrible. Yes, the US should release all info we have on this. Fifty years later. If not now, when?
Read the Devils's Chessboard by David Talbot. Dulles' airport should be renamed.
And the Reagan airport, too.
I have said it for years Gerald. Dulles should be vilified not drilled into our airports .
Same with the Hoover building. Same with Reagan standing in front of National airport. Slimy misrepresentations!
Ah yes. The Dulles boys. Heard well on “The Bastards” pod cast.
In 2016 Hilary Clinton said Kissinger was her mentor. 'Nuff said.
Which is why I voted for Bernie in the primary. As Dr. Doug Gilbert pointed out, Bernie was quick to call it to our attention.
That's how I voted, too. Bernie in the primary, H.C. in the general.
Sick
Never like Hillary but she was smart enough to rely on experts for her tenure as sec of state she did sideline anyone that threatened her place in the spotlight.
Hilary relied heavily on Kissinger’s advice when she was Sec. of State.
She also relied on Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. In other words, she relied on those that were available. Hillary is very smart and savvy. That doesn't mean she took all advice.
Yep, just one of many reasons not to vote for her.
Chile was just one of a series of misguided and violent actions perpetrated by the US on countries that did not deserve our intervention. I suppose you could start with Korea, but definitely Iran in 1953, Guatemala the same year (the Dulles brothers belong in the Hall of Shame with Kissinger), Dominican Republic, Haiti (numerous times until today), DR Congo in 1960, Vietnam soon after that, then Cambodia and Laos, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya under Obama (a mistake we are paying for in the coups now playing out across the Sahel), and more. Our foreign policy basically sucks, even under Biden. It is independent of party. Though you can probably justify the help for Ukraine, there is no justification for cluster bombs and spent uranium shells. When will we ever learn? Probably not until all the flowers are gone because of ecological collapse due to burning fossil fuels. Politics at the international level, in more countries than just the US, is a dirty business.
Let's not forget about the copper resources in Chile. I'd like to know how if decision to overthrow Allende was because of his plan to nationalize the copper mines, thereby causing a fair market in copper pricing. Anaconda and Phelps-Dodge, among others, certainly were not in favor. Mineral resources of any country are all part of global unrest.
Bernie Sanders was right on the money about a lot of things...Kissinger, billionaires running the country, average citizens' rights being trampled, lobbyists money buying votes...Trump was the result of this SYMPTOM that grew into the sham we have today. Accountability needs to be pursued, President Joe, on so many counts. <sigh>
Not sure what <sigh> meant Julie. For my part, understanding the limitations of an openly hostile congress, I'm very grateful for what it appears from evidence, all that President Joe has done and still strives to do; for one, building 'bridges' around the world instead of 'walls.' I could not be prouder, nor more grateful.
Just think if Bernie had been elected?
My wish: That someone would write an essay or OpEd distinguishing Socialism from Democratic Socialism. If we could learn to define our terms, maybe some of the confusion could be diminished somewhat in our country.
And why don't the interviewers ask the interviewees to define their terms more often than they do?
Too easy to let it slide. Subtlety is inconvenient. That said, listening to Bernie lately has made me realize the toll that being an outsider took on him. I'm not sure he would have made a good chief executive even though I agree with him about almost everything.
I’d also like for that essay to include the differences between “Social Democracy” and “Democratic Socialism”. Hint: One involves the state taking over the means of production, and one doesn’t. I don’t k ow about you, but I have NEVER heard Bernie advocate for government running all factories. He’s actually a Social Democrat, not a Democratic Socialist.
Ah, yes you've caught my drift and thanks for the clarification of terminology.
It’s not surprising that people incorrectly call Bernie a Democratic Socialist. For years now, even he does it. I’ve never understood why he didn’t correct the record on this point back in 2016 when it would have been simple and educational for Americans. Now it’s far too late. He is, and will always be a “socialist” despite the fact that’s he actually a Social Democrat, which is not the same thing at all. 🤷🏻
Yes, my definition of Socialism is one where govt controls the means of production and distribution. Such a system is fraught with human misery. A Social Democrat, like Bernie, on the other hand, merely wants Capitalists to share the fruits of Capitalism equitably, a conviction I share deeply. I wish this distinction could be implanted in the American consciousness so that voters could be precluded from voting against their own interests. It would seem that workers bargaining within Unions as a block is the only way to bring this idea to fruition. I remember when we had it once long ago before Corporations mysteriously became people and money became speech. I can't resist closing with the often quoted expression of Justice Louis Brandeis which I offer in essence: "You can have great inequality of wealth and income OR you can have democracy, but you cannot have both." -- circa 1910
You are so right!
He has w/o exception spoke the most truth, the longest , and most accurate, of any representative we’ve likely ever had. Few others compare. 🗣️We love you Bernie
He has w/o exception spoke the most truth, the longest , and most accurate, of any representative we’ve likely ever had. Few others compare. 🗣️We love you Bernie
America has created more dictatorships than my lifetime than democracies. And now the billionaire globalist autocrats want to turn America into a dictatorship and the Republicans are almost all on board. China is a capitalist dictatorship even though they call themselves communist.
'That' is about accurate. So very sad.
I was 19 at the time. I remember a comment in the National Lampoon and I paraphrase-- Allende committed suicide shooting himself in the head 23 times pausing only once to reload.
If you think Kissinger was a war criminal regarding Chile, check out "Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia," by William Shawcross.
"If Kissinger can win the Nobel Peace Prize, I would be surprised to wake up and find that I'd won the Preakness." -- "Wag the Dog"
lol Attic....
People should watch those movies more ! LOL a great entertainment!