The ghosts of 1968 are haunting Barack Obama, which is tremendously unfair, I say as his coeval, given that our cohort spent the Chicago Democratic Convention sticking baseball cards in our bicycle spokes rather than pelting Mayor Daley’s finest with porcine epithets. But guilt by association is ironclad in these days when American political discourse is controlled by hall monitors and tattletales. Obama’s friendship—acquaintance?—with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn is about to get extended play as the Republicans contrast Obama’s Weatherfriends with their nominee’s stint in the Hanoi Hilton.
When the Left Was Right
Tag: Robert McNamara
Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92
Deeply disturbed by the accounting of American deceit in Vietnam, he approached The New York Times. The disclosures that followed rocked the nation.
Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92
Previously:
Franklin BOMA to vote on ‘Community Decency Policy’, Franklin Pride permit April 11
Franklin’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen is set to vote on a “Community Decency Policy” and Franklin Pride special event permit on April 11 after the Pride Festival vote was deferred last month.
Franklin BOMA to vote on ‘Community Decency Policy’, Franklin Pride permit April 11
Nuclear War Political Science and Berkeley Springs
Nuclear War Political Science and Berkeley Springs
No member of the Democratic Party in Congress would ever challenge the military industrial complex the way [Clare] Daly does.
Not one – not Bernie Sanders, not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, not Rashida Tlaib. Not one voted against the tens of billions of dollars in arms we are sending to fuel the war in Ukraine. Not one.
How JFK Sacrificed Adlai Stevenson and the Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis
How JFK Sacrificed Adlai Stevenson and the Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis
In those interim years, the fictional story of how the missile crisis was resolved became foreign-policy folklore. None of the early memoirs by top Kennedy aides, such as Schlesinger and Sorensen, contained the real history. These incomplete accounts became the basis of the foreign-policy models and paradigms in political scientist Graham Allison’s highly influential book, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. A full generation of scholars, analysts, foreign-policy makers, and even presidents learned the wrong lessons from the most significant superpower conflict in modern history.
Sixty years later, however, the Biden administration at least has a more complete record of history to draw on as U.S. policymakers and the world confront another time of crisis in the nuclear age. How applicable the lessons of the missile crisis will prove to be in preventing an escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war remains unknown. But the mantra of reason that Stevenson shared with Kennedy in October 1962 seems more relevant than ever: “Blackmail and intimidation never, negotiation and sanity always.”
Related:
The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 How John F. Kennedy Sacrificed His Most Consequential Crisis Advisor
The story of when Israel attacked America, and the US government sided with Tel Aviv
On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked an American intelligence ship named the USS Liberty. The incident left two-thirds of the ship’s crew dead or injured, in an intentional assault by the Israeli military, yet the US government’s response was to move on and become closer with Tel Aviv. It could be argued that this set a precedent for Israel to kill US citizens with impunity.
The story of when Israel attacked America, and the US government sided with Tel Aviv
H/T: Unorthodox Truth
Speaker at DSA panel: “War creates the possibility for a push of socialists ideas” + “Democratic Socialism” in the Service of U.S. Imperialism
At a recent panel event hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) chapter for the state of Maine, Vladyslav Starodubstev, a leader of the Ukrainian pseudo-left Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement), put forward the chilling perspective that “the war creates the possibility for a push of socialist ideas in Ukraine.” The panelists and DSA moderators stated their agreement with the speaker and demanded the US government deploy more tanks, missiles, and howitzers to wage war against Russia, regardless of the risk of nuclear holocaust.
Speaker at DSA panel: “War creates the possibility for a push of socialists ideas”
Related:
“Democratic Socialism” in the Service of U.S. Imperialism:
In “The Real Heritage of Harrington’s DSA,” we show where the reformist “democratic socialism” of 2018 came from, and what it actually stands for. Today’s Democratic Socialists of America hails the “tradition” of Michael Harrington and Norman Thomas, long-time leaders of the Socialist Party (SP) that gave rise to what is now the DSA. In that article (see p. x), we explain that this tradition has often, and accurately, been described as “State Department socialism.” Those unfamiliar with the left may think the term is a polemical excess or empty epithet. Not at all. In fact, intimate ties to the Department of State are only the beginning of the intertwining of the official social democrats with the agencies of U.S. imperialism. Activists who want to devote themselves to genuine socialism need to know what’s what. So here’s the story
Another Terrible Choice for Biden’s “Disinformation Board”
By Lev Golinkin | May 27, 2022
Michael Chertoff’s experience detaining Muslim Americans, justifying CIA torture, and helping to draft the Patriot Act make him an all-too-appropriate choice to advise this Orwellian agency.
Another Terrible Choice for Biden’s “Disinformation Board”
H/T: It’s NOT a joke, Biden’s Ministry of Truth just got WORSE | Redacted with Clayton Morris on YouTube.
Related:
“I have a greater respect for the American people than you do. I think the American people can figure out the truth,” the senator said. “And if you think the American people need to be told there’s not fentanyl in the vaccination, feel free to say it. But the thing is, is if you are going to go around saying that you’re the arbiter of information and of disinformation, I think you have no clue. And you don’t have the perspective of history knowing that disinformation, the largest progenitor of disinformation in our history, has probably been the U.S. government.”
…
“Do you know, the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government,” Paul said. “Are you familiar with McNamara? The Pentagon Papers? Are you familiar with George W. Bush and the weapons of mass destruction? Are you familiar with Iran-contra?”
“I mean, think of all the debates and disputes we’ve had over the last 50 years in our country,” Paul continued. “We worked them out by debating them. We don’t work them out by the government being the arbiter. I don’t want guardrails. I want you to have nothing to do with speech. You think we can’t determine, you know, speech by traffickers is disinformation. Do you think the American people are so stupid they need you to tell them what the truth is? You can’t even admit what the truth is with the Steele dossier. I don’t trust government to figure out what the truth is. Government is largely disseminating disinformation.”
Rand Paul grills Mayorkas on disinformation: ‘I don’t trust government to figure out what the truth is’
Majority of Americans Fear Nuclear Weapons Use After Russia’s Ukraine Invasion + What You Need to Know About the Threat of Nuclear War
Poll: Majority of Americans Fear Nuclear Weapons Use After Russia’s Ukraine Invasion
Related:
What You Need to Know About the Threat of Nuclear War – Robert Scheer Interviews Ted Postol
TP: We’re talking about a wall of fire that encompasses everything around us at the temperature of the center of the sun. That will literally turn us to less than ash, if this thing gets going. I can’t emphasize how powerful these weapons are. When they detonate, they’re actually four or five times hotter than the center of the sun, which is 20 million degrees Kelvin. They’re 100 million degrees Kelvin at the center of these weapons.
Forget ‘BRI debt trap’ – US controlled World Bank / IMF is the REAL debt trap
Forget the fake Western claims about China’s Belt & Road Initiative: the US controlled World Bank and International Monetary Fund have been bankrupting and enslaving developing nations with crippling debt, “austerity” and financial colonialism for 70 years.
Forget ‘BRI debt trap’ – US controlled World Bank / IMF is the REAL debt trap
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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