Anyone how writes something positive about Kissinger, hasnt been to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Amount of destruction and suffering that he caused cannot be described by words.
Any attempt to whitewash immense crimes he comited is for the lack of better word "disgusting". If anything, Kissinger is father of American neoliberal policy's "bomb them now, what happens after is not our problem". His actions have created so much damage to the image of US abroad, that it will take decades (if ever) to fix.
I am trying to write less, but am going to choose not to resist the impulse to make a few obvious comments.
1. Ho Chi Minh helped found the French Communist Party around 1920. He was a Communist aligned with the Soviet Union from its earliest existence.
2. He had what amounted to his henchman, General Giap, focus his efforts not on the Japanese when they were occupied in the Forties, but upon rival National leaders, many of whom were assassinated.
3. One of the first things he did when he got control of the North in the 1954-55-56 was murder a percentage of each village and town in the areas under his control. Bernard Fall, if memory serves, documented this.
4. The Vietnam War was ALWAYS an effort by the United States to help the South resist an invasion by the North. Most of the so-called Vietcong were men conscripted against their will by NVA terrorists in their villages, who would rape their wives and daughters, kill their sons and brothers, steal everything they owned, and generally make their lives hell whether they fought or not.
5. The bombing of North Vietnam was always so half hearted and militarily idiotic that it made little military difference. But when we DID bomb the North seriously, it took WEEKS to bring the war to an end. That happened around 1972, when the Paris Peace Accords were signed.
6. The reason we remember the Vietnam War as lost, despite the FACT that we had a peace treaty signed on favorable terms to us and the South, is that Democrats in Congress, under the thrall of skillful Communist lies (lying being the one thing they are good at in addition to amoral violence) basically retreated from a victory the deaths of nearly 60,000 American soldiers had honorably won.
7. If Barry Goldwater had won in 1964 we would have no more memory of the "war in Vietnam" than we have the war on the Barbary Pirates under Jefferson. It would not have been a big deal, would not have lasted long, and would not have divided our nation. He either would have withdrawn our advisors, or made the North hurt so bad they stopped sending their troops across the internationally recognized border.
Kissingers legacy is complicated, more complicated in my world than any of you can imagine, but the real crime with regard to Vietnam is that we turned a nation that had actually undergone significant land reform and genuine liberalization over to bloodthirsty psychopaths, who murdered hundreds of thousands of people immediately, broke apart millions of families, destroyed all traditional villages and their cultures, kidnapped hundreds of thousands of kids from their parents to be brainwashed, and impoverished and immiserated an entire nation for NOTHING. Nothing good happened. The war against America merely became a war against Difference and Diversity. Now, they are locked into 1975, just as Cuba is locked into the early 1960's.
I will add: what do you think is better for business for arms suppliers and the bankers who fund everything? A short war, fought skillfully with a minimum loss of American lives, or a long term war, fought stupidly with maximal inefficiency, and concluded poorly with much loss of equipment? Johnson did their work. Nixon ended it, and paid for it with his job and reputation. Such seems plausible, in any event.
I might note that the man who warned of the rise of a "Military-Industrial Complex" was one of the few five star Generals we have had.
I couldn't pass that up. In any event, I didn't. I won't get started on JFK's asssassination, other than to note both that a Secret Service man on his detail recently offered testimony making the "Magic Bullet" idea impossible--necessitating at least one more shooter; and the team of ER doctors who were the first to see JFK's body testified that the fatal bullet seemed obviously to have entered from the front, and that the body shown in the official autopsy seemed to have been altered with plastic surgery so that it no longer looked like what they had seen, which of course many "conspiracy" theorists have long claimed.
These two items were in mainstream news.
I think my problem is that I have never been OK with going along to get along. I understand that there is a Narrative, and that my life is easier if I just pretend it makes sense to me. But I know there are a lot of sick and stupid people out there, and that although I don't know their percentages relative to the overall population, it seems obvious that they are highly represented in government and media, and that they do little but lie to cover up egregious crimes committed for money, sex and power.
The first piece, on "the paranoid style", amounts to integration propaganda that could easily have been authored in Langley or the Albert Embankment. Nothing to see here, says a seemingly erudite and well intentioned man of honor and integrity.
I don’t know if we will ever know what happened that day in Dallas. But I do know the Warren Commission Report is not it. Thank you for pointing out the inconsistency regarding the president’s head wounds. The autopsy does not reflect what was seen by those at Parkland. And 60 years later, both Trump and Biden have refused to release the remaining documents. What does this all mean? I’m not sure. But Mr. Tinline’s attitude is no different than what we see today in the attempts to control what can be said/heard. I’m sure Mr. Tinline is an avid supporter of “combating disinformation”.
While I generally agree with your comment, Vietnam, while repressive like China and other communist countries, is not as stagnant as Cuba or North Korea. According to Wikipedia: "Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing economies of the 21st century. Vietnam has high levels of corruption, censorship, environmental issues and a poor human rights record; the country ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion and ethnic minorities." There is also a reasonable amount of American tourism. I was in Vietnam in 1970-71 and, while my tour wasn't nearly as bad as most (i.e., not infantry), I have no desire to return.
Ask anyone of the street today if they know who Henry Kissinger was and you will get blank stares. An accomplished man, Kissinger was none the less a confidant to a number of presidents.
An obituary usually soft peddles a person's faults while enhancing the accomplishments.
Last I checked, was he president? All the people ringing their hands about Kissinger, he wasn't president. Nixon was. It was government policy during war. Some things work, some things don't work. It's the same people who are whining about all the Palestinians getting killed after they start a war. Everybody wants things to be sweetness and light, but the world is not that way. And anybody that wants to have it that way, should have no proximity to power. Good point. Have a great weekend
Johnson was by no means a war monger. He hated the war, it was a distraction from the Great Society he wanted to build as FDR's successor. But he felt bound by the commitments Kennedy had made. So he went forward with the war in a half-hearted way, always trying to restrict its cost and hoping for some negotiations to bring it to an end. Had Johnson been a war monger, the U.S. would have won the war in less than a year.
Given that The Obama used “complicit” in such a horrid - but entirely for him predictable - way, I recommend avoiding that word in any context.
Vietnam, the Soviet threat, the Kennedy assassinations, and more are so much of our past and are at least partially obscured by shadows, lies, and preferred Narratives that truth, particularly, political truth are hard to find. Particularly if one engages in presentism. Events happen in their own times.
That's not true. Nixon orchestrated the Paris Peace Accords but felt the office of president was too high to take a visible role. He sent Kissinger to do his bidding, knowing North VietNam would not honor the agreement while we bailed on our partners in the South.
Nixon ran the policies....Kissinger had to do the heavy lifting.
Or to point out that what is ACTUALLY meant by that is "dead Jews from the river to the sea".
It's odd to observe that Hitler was bad because he committed genocide, but the same people who like to call everyone Nazis ALSO advocate genocide against the same Jews. This allies them with Hitler, pretty obviously, and in my view undeniably.
I doubt if, in 2010, 1 in 10 Americans could have differentiated Iran and Iraq--on a map or culturally--if they had not served over there.
I am very pro-military. I count many veterans as friends. But on balance I don't anyone can honestly argue that our governments since Korea--which should have resulted in a unified non-Communist peninsula--have supported our troops with integrity.
If you look at, say, Afghanistan, it's become hard for me to believe that many of our wars are not just some horrifying for-profit game.
Wait, Kissinger established a Marxist regime in Cambodia that killed 2-3M human beings? I thought that was Pol Pot. Thank for the history lesson, Raziel!
That is a low-ball cheap shot showing your ignorance of an extremely complicated time in our history. The Viet Nam war began shortly after WWII. JFK brought our involvement to to a level that got the world's attention. LBJ escalated it and in 1967 a majority of American were in favor of the war as a means to stop the advance of communism. There was a real fear that Asia would fall like the dominos in eastern Europe did to the Soviet Union.
It wasn't until 1968, after TET and LBJ outright lying to us about invading Cambodia, a move he thought necessary, that sentiment sharply reversed. To blame a war we chose not to win on any one man is ridiculous. Why not label Johnson, or Nixon the war criminal? It would be just as foolish to name Obama a war criminal for not ending the war in Afghanistan.
I tire of idiots trying to simplify very complex situations by assigning blame.
You made some important counterpoints but maybe don't assume OP is an idiot. When I read his post the first thing that struck me was he might be a vet who fought in those places, or is related to someone who did. If so, his perspective would be very personal and not academic, and also understandable.
You're right. That may have been a little harsh, but the war spanned the administrations of five presidents, beginning with Truman, ending with Nixon. Blaming any one man for VietNam? That's also a bit harsh.
My apologies to Raziel if I touched something sensitive.
I do not disagree and I would add the sacrifice of too many American lives whether in combat or the aftermath. But I have a different take. IMO the things you lay at Kissinger's feet could not have happened with a functioning Congress. As much as we as citizens bemoan this or that President, administration or members thereof, the lack of a functioning Congress is the root of the evil.
I also have covered the impact of JFK's death here as well. I argue that his death was the turning point on so many levels in american history, but for one, it was the beginning of the "gaslight" for the american public because we begin to doubt what we saw with our own eyes:
I build upon this article and also discuss another pivotal event of that time period building on the conspiracy of JFK and touch on, MKUltra -- which was no conspiracy, but actual scientific studies that took place: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-success-of-mk-ultra#details
On a random SN: Kissinger? Good Guy? That's an interesting perspective....
Thank You Theresa! I think this is an example of “conspiracy politics” that I study. Even though the narrative is “one” person, anyone with sense can see that is an outright lie.
But what happens when a government continually lies to its citizens? How can we then have true and factual systems if they’re built on lies?
These are the works I explore and hope to get your feedback on some of my work!
Sirhan Sirhan could have been a sick anarchist acting alone trying to make a name for himself (like Mark David Chapman) in the name of some warped ideology or religion.
The bullets that killed RFK were fired contact close into his back. Sirhan Sirhan was in the front. And more bullets were found in the room than his gun held.
This per his son, who has publicly named the person--who was part of his security detail--who murdered his father.
Would it be possible to have a Presidential candidate killed in such a way, and not have it show up in the autopsy? Yes. Definitely yes.
It's interesting that Ken Kesey took part at Stanford in one aspect of MKUltra--it's discussed on his Wikipedia page--and at least one lifelong Deadhead I talked with believed that the whole acid culture of the 60's had the CIA's fingerprints all over it. He also made the interesting claim (to me at least) that the Grateful Dead shows constituted a many decades long act of performance art.
In my view, the hippies were right that a whole lot of the stories that are most interesting require deviating from the received version of the straight and narrow "consensus" (manufactured?) reality. Their particular problem is that, like the Communists, their habit of breaking social norms never made the omelet of a new and better coherent culture.
One sees them circling their wagons and shrinking in fear, now, from nearly everything. Where Woodstock happened during an arguably worse pandemic than COVID, now all those people and their children reliably clung to their masks, their experimental medicines, and their trust in a patently corrupt Establishment.
Opposites meet, as some clever person once noted. That is why the middle is a vastly healthier place to live. You don't get a dot or a sliver, but everything, if you take everything in moderation.
I remember the saga of Princess Di so well. I even remember seeing her wedding to Charles on TV when I was a kid. It's hard to explain to Millennials and GenZ the paparazzi's global obsession with her. They royals did her wrong. But the media was vicious too. All of them against a woman who truly underneath was a simple person, and I don't mean it negatively when I say of average intelligence, who wasn't even college educated (back when college really educated brighter minds). It was all so tragic.
I don't remember Rosalyn Carter much but I feel oddly a bit sad O'Connor passed away.
Diana was obsessed with her boys and what was best for them. She didn't like the royals, and they understandably grew exasperated with her. She didn't know what to do with her life after separating from Charles and filled it up with the empty spectacle and bad decisions that the media focused on.
Diana was simply not a good choice for the role she was meant to play. Her family background (her parents' bitter divorce when she was 7) was not good preparation for leading a life full of demanding pressures while married to a man who had always been in love with someone else.
Under the circumstances, Charles ought to have chosen a woman closer to his own age who understood that this was essentially an arranged marriage, and who was willing to provide an heir and spare, behave graciously in public, and have quiet alternative plans for her future happiness in the marriage if Charles strayed.
Unfortunately, Diana either didn't realize or didn't cope well with the fact that she was basically a suitable virgin of appropriate lineage. It wasn't really fair to expect so much from her.
I wish some publication, would have here's what they said was going to happen, and here's what actually happened. What can we a society learn from it?
Too often are politics and culture is all about feelings, and the self-righteousness of people's opinions. People in decision making positions, have to make calls and live with the consequences. The talking heads, and handwringers in society don't have any responsibility. But we always talk about the future, and never look back at what actually happened and why. The article about JFK was interesting in that it tells how a few fringe back goes feel about things but what is a broad majority of people think? Or do they even think. I think a place that has real data where people can make up their own minds would be a great addition to society.
I agree. I do not want others to tell me what to think. I want facts. I will decide what I think about them. I saw Max Headroom in the early 90s(?) and thought "[N]ah that could never happen here." I was so wrong. It was prescient.
I disagree. I know someone is trying to sell me a bill of goods when the article is light on facts and heavy on emotion. But I have spent a lifetime analyzing evidence so my credibility detector is pretty well developed.
Yes, that is a good indicator. I think the problem arises when there are multiple "facts" that can't be analyzed, because we can't find the source for the the "facts," or there are multiple competing sources and there is no way to determine which one is correct. I think this is especially true when dealing with govt. sources that are put out there anonomously.
I agree. But that kind of fact is just propaganda. There is very little I read that I do not verify independently. And I have lots of red flags that discredit a source for me - over-reliance on stats, use of emotional language, an intro to establish the writer's bona fides.
Albert, I've love to get your feedback on my book and my work. I agree with you 100% that "People in decision making positions, have to make calls and live with the consequences." What I've attempted to do is look at the decisions of those people and explore them from the conspiratorial perspective as to "why did you make THIS decision when THAT decision was also on the table?
when you mention "I think a place that has real data where people can make up their own minds would be a great addition to society." I agree 100% as well, hence why I introduce conspiratorial data, which whether agreed upon or not, is still data.
Here's the link to my book but looking forward to your thoughts and comments!
To me the conspiracy theory will always be there, just depends on what level of fear you have. But looking at our present situation ( obviously to me) government controls what you see and hear. Depends on who is in control. Maybe when JFK was assassinated I wasn’t mature enough to understand the world. Someone or group has control of what is put out as what is wrong and how to fix it or their solution. As I grow older I see a corrupt government and media bent on total control of the population ( mostly leftist and evil democrats).
Kissinger a “life well lived”?? Glad he had a great life...can’t say the same for the millions of citizens who died at the hands of our coup installed regimes all over the world.
Hard to believe The Crown made it this far. I tried to watch it…boring and tedious, just dont care about the people involved. Now, Fargo! There’s a series. Season 1 being among the all-time great TV series ever. Season 5 has started and it’s promising!
IMHO DIANA's death was a direct result of Dodi Fayed's father's machinations to control his son's life to meet the father's goals and the relentless cancer of the PAPARAZZI.
The often criticized and maligned freedom caucus is mainly trying to get the house to do their job of individual appropriations with floor votes like it was done for years. The omnibus bills and no discussion on the floor allow each member to deny accountability when funding all kinds of pork. A lot of BS is funded when no one would ever put their name on it. As it is now being done, they don’t have to.
The real impact of Kennedy's assassination and the mishandled Warren Commission was to validate an elite politics of distraction and spark a fascination with conspiracy theories. All to avoid the obvious, that JFK was killed by an assassin enmeshed in a newly emerging movement later called the "new left." Instead, the event was treated as something to do with "right-wing extremism" or civil rights, rather than the Cold War. All the wackjob conspiracies later was just cashing in on the elite's own refusal to face facts.
The book to read on this impact is James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution. The books to read on the facts of the assassination are those of Gerard Posner and Vincent Bugliosi.
Anyone how writes something positive about Kissinger, hasnt been to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Amount of destruction and suffering that he caused cannot be described by words.
Any attempt to whitewash immense crimes he comited is for the lack of better word "disgusting". If anything, Kissinger is father of American neoliberal policy's "bomb them now, what happens after is not our problem". His actions have created so much damage to the image of US abroad, that it will take decades (if ever) to fix.
I am trying to write less, but am going to choose not to resist the impulse to make a few obvious comments.
1. Ho Chi Minh helped found the French Communist Party around 1920. He was a Communist aligned with the Soviet Union from its earliest existence.
2. He had what amounted to his henchman, General Giap, focus his efforts not on the Japanese when they were occupied in the Forties, but upon rival National leaders, many of whom were assassinated.
3. One of the first things he did when he got control of the North in the 1954-55-56 was murder a percentage of each village and town in the areas under his control. Bernard Fall, if memory serves, documented this.
4. The Vietnam War was ALWAYS an effort by the United States to help the South resist an invasion by the North. Most of the so-called Vietcong were men conscripted against their will by NVA terrorists in their villages, who would rape their wives and daughters, kill their sons and brothers, steal everything they owned, and generally make their lives hell whether they fought or not.
5. The bombing of North Vietnam was always so half hearted and militarily idiotic that it made little military difference. But when we DID bomb the North seriously, it took WEEKS to bring the war to an end. That happened around 1972, when the Paris Peace Accords were signed.
6. The reason we remember the Vietnam War as lost, despite the FACT that we had a peace treaty signed on favorable terms to us and the South, is that Democrats in Congress, under the thrall of skillful Communist lies (lying being the one thing they are good at in addition to amoral violence) basically retreated from a victory the deaths of nearly 60,000 American soldiers had honorably won.
7. If Barry Goldwater had won in 1964 we would have no more memory of the "war in Vietnam" than we have the war on the Barbary Pirates under Jefferson. It would not have been a big deal, would not have lasted long, and would not have divided our nation. He either would have withdrawn our advisors, or made the North hurt so bad they stopped sending their troops across the internationally recognized border.
Kissingers legacy is complicated, more complicated in my world than any of you can imagine, but the real crime with regard to Vietnam is that we turned a nation that had actually undergone significant land reform and genuine liberalization over to bloodthirsty psychopaths, who murdered hundreds of thousands of people immediately, broke apart millions of families, destroyed all traditional villages and their cultures, kidnapped hundreds of thousands of kids from their parents to be brainwashed, and impoverished and immiserated an entire nation for NOTHING. Nothing good happened. The war against America merely became a war against Difference and Diversity. Now, they are locked into 1975, just as Cuba is locked into the early 1960's.
I will add: what do you think is better for business for arms suppliers and the bankers who fund everything? A short war, fought skillfully with a minimum loss of American lives, or a long term war, fought stupidly with maximal inefficiency, and concluded poorly with much loss of equipment? Johnson did their work. Nixon ended it, and paid for it with his job and reputation. Such seems plausible, in any event.
I might note that the man who warned of the rise of a "Military-Industrial Complex" was one of the few five star Generals we have had.
I couldn't pass that up. In any event, I didn't. I won't get started on JFK's asssassination, other than to note both that a Secret Service man on his detail recently offered testimony making the "Magic Bullet" idea impossible--necessitating at least one more shooter; and the team of ER doctors who were the first to see JFK's body testified that the fatal bullet seemed obviously to have entered from the front, and that the body shown in the official autopsy seemed to have been altered with plastic surgery so that it no longer looked like what they had seen, which of course many "conspiracy" theorists have long claimed.
These two items were in mainstream news.
I think my problem is that I have never been OK with going along to get along. I understand that there is a Narrative, and that my life is easier if I just pretend it makes sense to me. But I know there are a lot of sick and stupid people out there, and that although I don't know their percentages relative to the overall population, it seems obvious that they are highly represented in government and media, and that they do little but lie to cover up egregious crimes committed for money, sex and power.
The first piece, on "the paranoid style", amounts to integration propaganda that could easily have been authored in Langley or the Albert Embankment. Nothing to see here, says a seemingly erudite and well intentioned man of honor and integrity.
I don’t know if we will ever know what happened that day in Dallas. But I do know the Warren Commission Report is not it. Thank you for pointing out the inconsistency regarding the president’s head wounds. The autopsy does not reflect what was seen by those at Parkland. And 60 years later, both Trump and Biden have refused to release the remaining documents. What does this all mean? I’m not sure. But Mr. Tinline’s attitude is no different than what we see today in the attempts to control what can be said/heard. I’m sure Mr. Tinline is an avid supporter of “combating disinformation”.
Mr. Tinline is comfortably ensconced on.his "centrist" perch looking down his nose at us plebes in the trenches.
Well said. Both comments. As I said to Raziel much of this could not occur with the ease it does if there were a functioning Congress.
While I generally agree with your comment, Vietnam, while repressive like China and other communist countries, is not as stagnant as Cuba or North Korea. According to Wikipedia: "Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing economies of the 21st century. Vietnam has high levels of corruption, censorship, environmental issues and a poor human rights record; the country ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion and ethnic minorities." There is also a reasonable amount of American tourism. I was in Vietnam in 1970-71 and, while my tour wasn't nearly as bad as most (i.e., not infantry), I have no desire to return.
Wow
I was saying the same thing. How can the FP actually say something positive about Kissinger....?
How? How can they post ANYTHING if controversial people are banned from being examined? He was a controversial and complicated man.
Here's an excellent documentary on Kissinger back in 2009:
https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/meet-henry-kissinger-2009
Ask anyone of the street today if they know who Henry Kissinger was and you will get blank stares. An accomplished man, Kissinger was none the less a confidant to a number of presidents.
An obituary usually soft peddles a person's faults while enhancing the accomplishments.
Last I checked, was he president? All the people ringing their hands about Kissinger, he wasn't president. Nixon was. It was government policy during war. Some things work, some things don't work. It's the same people who are whining about all the Palestinians getting killed after they start a war. Everybody wants things to be sweetness and light, but the world is not that way. And anybody that wants to have it that way, should have no proximity to power. Good point. Have a great weekend
It was President Johnson who escalated the Vietnam War. He was a war monger.
Johnson was by no means a war monger. He hated the war, it was a distraction from the Great Society he wanted to build as FDR's successor. But he felt bound by the commitments Kennedy had made. So he went forward with the war in a half-hearted way, always trying to restrict its cost and hoping for some negotiations to bring it to an end. Had Johnson been a war monger, the U.S. would have won the war in less than a year.
Another cheap shot blaming one man for a very complicated situation.
Before TET and invading Cambodia, late '60's after LBJ resigned, public sentiment was in favor of stopping the advance of communism in Asia.
Not a cheap shot. Is it a cheap shot to blame everything on Kissinger? They were all complicit.
Given that The Obama used “complicit” in such a horrid - but entirely for him predictable - way, I recommend avoiding that word in any context.
Vietnam, the Soviet threat, the Kennedy assassinations, and more are so much of our past and are at least partially obscured by shadows, lies, and preferred Narratives that truth, particularly, political truth are hard to find. Particularly if one engages in presentism. Events happen in their own times.
Nixon was the face -- Kissinger ran the policies.
That's not true. Nixon orchestrated the Paris Peace Accords but felt the office of president was too high to take a visible role. He sent Kissinger to do his bidding, knowing North VietNam would not honor the agreement while we bailed on our partners in the South.
Nixon ran the policies....Kissinger had to do the heavy lifting.
You will likely get blank stares asking about anyone other than a rap or pop star or movie star. Sad
Or athlete.
Most people on the street can't find France on a map, or tell you who our first two Presidents were.
Wouldn't you love to quiz the protestors chanting "from the river to the sea" to ask them the names of the river and the sea?
Or to point out that what is ACTUALLY meant by that is "dead Jews from the river to the sea".
It's odd to observe that Hitler was bad because he committed genocide, but the same people who like to call everyone Nazis ALSO advocate genocide against the same Jews. This allies them with Hitler, pretty obviously, and in my view undeniably.
I had a recommendation recently. If we want to go to war, 50% of random Americans have to find the country on a map.
I doubt if, in 2010, 1 in 10 Americans could have differentiated Iran and Iraq--on a map or culturally--if they had not served over there.
I am very pro-military. I count many veterans as friends. But on balance I don't anyone can honestly argue that our governments since Korea--which should have resulted in a unified non-Communist peninsula--have supported our troops with integrity.
If you look at, say, Afghanistan, it's become hard for me to believe that many of our wars are not just some horrifying for-profit game.
“ An obituary usually soft peddles a person's faults while enhancing the accomplishments.”
Same as it ever was.
Wait, Kissinger established a Marxist regime in Cambodia that killed 2-3M human beings? I thought that was Pol Pot. Thank for the history lesson, Raziel!
That is a low-ball cheap shot showing your ignorance of an extremely complicated time in our history. The Viet Nam war began shortly after WWII. JFK brought our involvement to to a level that got the world's attention. LBJ escalated it and in 1967 a majority of American were in favor of the war as a means to stop the advance of communism. There was a real fear that Asia would fall like the dominos in eastern Europe did to the Soviet Union.
It wasn't until 1968, after TET and LBJ outright lying to us about invading Cambodia, a move he thought necessary, that sentiment sharply reversed. To blame a war we chose not to win on any one man is ridiculous. Why not label Johnson, or Nixon the war criminal? It would be just as foolish to name Obama a war criminal for not ending the war in Afghanistan.
I tire of idiots trying to simplify very complex situations by assigning blame.
You made some important counterpoints but maybe don't assume OP is an idiot. When I read his post the first thing that struck me was he might be a vet who fought in those places, or is related to someone who did. If so, his perspective would be very personal and not academic, and also understandable.
You're right. That may have been a little harsh, but the war spanned the administrations of five presidents, beginning with Truman, ending with Nixon. Blaming any one man for VietNam? That's also a bit harsh.
My apologies to Raziel if I touched something sensitive.
Same may well be true of 234.
I do not disagree and I would add the sacrifice of too many American lives whether in combat or the aftermath. But I have a different take. IMO the things you lay at Kissinger's feet could not have happened with a functioning Congress. As much as we as citizens bemoan this or that President, administration or members thereof, the lack of a functioning Congress is the root of the evil.
I also have covered the impact of JFK's death here as well. I argue that his death was the turning point on so many levels in american history, but for one, it was the beginning of the "gaslight" for the american public because we begin to doubt what we saw with our own eyes:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-jfk-conspiracy-how-the-assassination
I build upon this article and also discuss another pivotal event of that time period building on the conspiracy of JFK and touch on, MKUltra -- which was no conspiracy, but actual scientific studies that took place: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-success-of-mk-ultra#details
On a random SN: Kissinger? Good Guy? That's an interesting perspective....
President Kennedy and his brother were most assuredly planned assassinations and most certainly not done by 1 or 2 men.
Thank You Theresa! I think this is an example of “conspiracy politics” that I study. Even though the narrative is “one” person, anyone with sense can see that is an outright lie.
But what happens when a government continually lies to its citizens? How can we then have true and factual systems if they’re built on lies?
These are the works I explore and hope to get your feedback on some of my work!
I agree with you about JFK. RFK not so much.
Sirhan Sirhan could have been a sick anarchist acting alone trying to make a name for himself (like Mark David Chapman) in the name of some warped ideology or religion.
The bullets that killed RFK were fired contact close into his back. Sirhan Sirhan was in the front. And more bullets were found in the room than his gun held.
This per his son, who has publicly named the person--who was part of his security detail--who murdered his father.
Would it be possible to have a Presidential candidate killed in such a way, and not have it show up in the autopsy? Yes. Definitely yes.
It was Palestinian nationalism.
I have always found it very curious how Sirhan's motives were glossed over. I do not know what they were, but wouldn't a peek have been in order?
It's interesting that Ken Kesey took part at Stanford in one aspect of MKUltra--it's discussed on his Wikipedia page--and at least one lifelong Deadhead I talked with believed that the whole acid culture of the 60's had the CIA's fingerprints all over it. He also made the interesting claim (to me at least) that the Grateful Dead shows constituted a many decades long act of performance art.
In my view, the hippies were right that a whole lot of the stories that are most interesting require deviating from the received version of the straight and narrow "consensus" (manufactured?) reality. Their particular problem is that, like the Communists, their habit of breaking social norms never made the omelet of a new and better coherent culture.
One sees them circling their wagons and shrinking in fear, now, from nearly everything. Where Woodstock happened during an arguably worse pandemic than COVID, now all those people and their children reliably clung to their masks, their experimental medicines, and their trust in a patently corrupt Establishment.
Opposites meet, as some clever person once noted. That is why the middle is a vastly healthier place to live. You don't get a dot or a sliver, but everything, if you take everything in moderation.
Geesch, Gay "parenthood," Diana "Royal" TV shows, JFK rehash, obituaries? I thought we had a pretty good war going on. Okay, a break's okay, I guess.
I remember the saga of Princess Di so well. I even remember seeing her wedding to Charles on TV when I was a kid. It's hard to explain to Millennials and GenZ the paparazzi's global obsession with her. They royals did her wrong. But the media was vicious too. All of them against a woman who truly underneath was a simple person, and I don't mean it negatively when I say of average intelligence, who wasn't even college educated (back when college really educated brighter minds). It was all so tragic.
I don't remember Rosalyn Carter much but I feel oddly a bit sad O'Connor passed away.
Diana was obsessed with her boys and what was best for them. She didn't like the royals, and they understandably grew exasperated with her. She didn't know what to do with her life after separating from Charles and filled it up with the empty spectacle and bad decisions that the media focused on.
Diana was simply not a good choice for the role she was meant to play. Her family background (her parents' bitter divorce when she was 7) was not good preparation for leading a life full of demanding pressures while married to a man who had always been in love with someone else.
Under the circumstances, Charles ought to have chosen a woman closer to his own age who understood that this was essentially an arranged marriage, and who was willing to provide an heir and spare, behave graciously in public, and have quiet alternative plans for her future happiness in the marriage if Charles strayed.
Unfortunately, Diana either didn't realize or didn't cope well with the fact that she was basically a suitable virgin of appropriate lineage. It wasn't really fair to expect so much from her.
"Plenty more ink will be spilled about Kissinger’s perhaps complicated legacy."
"Perhaps complicated"? I think it would have been totally safe to leave the "maybe" out, Mr. Wiseman.
I wish some publication, would have here's what they said was going to happen, and here's what actually happened. What can we a society learn from it?
Too often are politics and culture is all about feelings, and the self-righteousness of people's opinions. People in decision making positions, have to make calls and live with the consequences. The talking heads, and handwringers in society don't have any responsibility. But we always talk about the future, and never look back at what actually happened and why. The article about JFK was interesting in that it tells how a few fringe back goes feel about things but what is a broad majority of people think? Or do they even think. I think a place that has real data where people can make up their own minds would be a great addition to society.
I agree. I do not want others to tell me what to think. I want facts. I will decide what I think about them. I saw Max Headroom in the early 90s(?) and thought "[N]ah that could never happen here." I was so wrong. It was prescient.
You never know if the facts are the facts.
I disagree. I know someone is trying to sell me a bill of goods when the article is light on facts and heavy on emotion. But I have spent a lifetime analyzing evidence so my credibility detector is pretty well developed.
Yes, that is a good indicator. I think the problem arises when there are multiple "facts" that can't be analyzed, because we can't find the source for the the "facts," or there are multiple competing sources and there is no way to determine which one is correct. I think this is especially true when dealing with govt. sources that are put out there anonomously.
I agree. But that kind of fact is just propaganda. There is very little I read that I do not verify independently. And I have lots of red flags that discredit a source for me - over-reliance on stats, use of emotional language, an intro to establish the writer's bona fides.
Why is over-reliance on stats one of your red flags?
Those are good points, thanks, I'll use them.
Albert, I've love to get your feedback on my book and my work. I agree with you 100% that "People in decision making positions, have to make calls and live with the consequences." What I've attempted to do is look at the decisions of those people and explore them from the conspiratorial perspective as to "why did you make THIS decision when THAT decision was also on the table?
when you mention "I think a place that has real data where people can make up their own minds would be a great addition to society." I agree 100% as well, hence why I introduce conspiratorial data, which whether agreed upon or not, is still data.
Here's the link to my book but looking forward to your thoughts and comments!
https://www.amazon.com/Unorthodox-Truth-Theoretical-Discussion-Reality/dp/B0CL3J51JZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZB0UKUCQ6PU9&keywords=an+unorthodox+truth&qid=1698936173&sprefix=%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-1
To me the conspiracy theory will always be there, just depends on what level of fear you have. But looking at our present situation ( obviously to me) government controls what you see and hear. Depends on who is in control. Maybe when JFK was assassinated I wasn’t mature enough to understand the world. Someone or group has control of what is put out as what is wrong and how to fix it or their solution. As I grow older I see a corrupt government and media bent on total control of the population ( mostly leftist and evil democrats).
As a lifelong conservative, I would add evil republicans to that mix.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/january/christian-persecution-2021-countries-open-doors-watch-list.html
Amazing how many Muslim countries persecute blacks and noone cares
Amazing how many Muslim countries persecute Christians
Link is a list of top 50 countries which persecute Christians wake up to the simple fact America's been invaded
Commenters here are on fire today!! Educational, respectful. Appreciate you all.
Kissinger a “life well lived”?? Glad he had a great life...can’t say the same for the millions of citizens who died at the hands of our coup installed regimes all over the world.
Envy, resentment, and revenge….
Pretty much defines the current mindset of congress. That and personal enrichment.
And if they would just do their effing job much of this would be moot.
Doing their job won’t make them rich and get them re-elected so don’t count on it.
Most of our problems are easily solved if both sides simply had the desire and were willing to compromise
I agree. There has to be a solution to the lackluster Congress though.
Hard to believe The Crown made it this far. I tried to watch it…boring and tedious, just dont care about the people involved. Now, Fargo! There’s a series. Season 1 being among the all-time great TV series ever. Season 5 has started and it’s promising!
IMHO DIANA's death was a direct result of Dodi Fayed's father's machinations to control his son's life to meet the father's goals and the relentless cancer of the PAPARAZZI.
You have some serious, mutant balls to discuss Henry Kissinger in the same piece as Rosalynn Carter. WTF is wrong with you?
The often criticized and maligned freedom caucus is mainly trying to get the house to do their job of individual appropriations with floor votes like it was done for years. The omnibus bills and no discussion on the floor allow each member to deny accountability when funding all kinds of pork. A lot of BS is funded when no one would ever put their name on it. As it is now being done, they don’t have to.
The real impact of Kennedy's assassination and the mishandled Warren Commission was to validate an elite politics of distraction and spark a fascination with conspiracy theories. All to avoid the obvious, that JFK was killed by an assassin enmeshed in a newly emerging movement later called the "new left." Instead, the event was treated as something to do with "right-wing extremism" or civil rights, rather than the Cold War. All the wackjob conspiracies later was just cashing in on the elite's own refusal to face facts.
The book to read on this impact is James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution. The books to read on the facts of the assassination are those of Gerard Posner and Vincent Bugliosi.
And The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter. :) Fiction - but he's an amazing writer, especially if one geeks out on snipers
My thought reading this was what does it say about a writer so readily dismissive of others as paranoid? While citing "QAnon" for Pete's sake.
Insightful and underrated comment.