Tag Archives: u.s. history

What’s really new with the JFK assassination?

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You can read this Jacobin article on new document releases and still be confused, and this is is not an unbiased objective journalistic source. But I am just going to state what I think is by far the most likely scenario: The murder of JFK was orchestrated by anti-Castro Cuban exiles with ties to the CIA. Oswald was manipulated by those elements into either participating in the murder or just being in the right place at the right time to be framed for it. He was then assassinated in turn by an agent with clear CIA ties, because he could not be allowed to talk. He might have been a CIA asset at some point, or he might have been a Soviet asset at some point, or he might have been a double agent for either side. It doesn’t particularly matter. Civilian governments ever since have pretty much given the U.S. military industrial complex what they want in exchange for at least publicly staying out of domestic politics.

If this is the most likely scenario, the puzzle is why it is still so threatening today. Individuals involved at the time have to be close to the end of their natural lifespans at this point. Why is it so threatening to the CIA or other government organizations? They could just say yeah, bad things went down during the Cold War and we’re sorry and we are the good guys now. Even if that isn’t true and the dirty truth is that civilians are not really in charge of our government, they can still lie and use the lie to get away with the crimes of today.

But there is one more possibility – maybe the Oswald thing went down the way they say it did, in a bizarre fluke that denies logic and common sense, and that is why we will never be able to make sense of it and will keep searching forever for patterns that are not there.

Joe Biden has a mangy dog

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I was having kind of a rough morning, and then this made me laugh out loud! Of course, the “panel of presidential historians” is being completely deadpan, if not actually serious. I did not independently verify that this is an actual picture of Joe Biden’s actual dog at the actual White House. If so, it does seem like they could afford to get a dog groomer in there. Then again, maybe it fits the image that an “average Joe” would have an average dog. And the dog looks perfectly happy to me, like it’s lying on a porch looking out over the Smoky Mountains with someone strumming a banjo in the background.

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what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas

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Axios has some interesting stats comparing the demographics of Nevada today to the projected future of the U.S. as a whole.

  • The U.S. is on track to become minority white by 2045. Nevada is one of just 4 states that are already there.
  • Hispanic people are expected to make up 25% of the American population by 2045. They’re 29% of Nevada’s population today.
  • Immigration will likely be the backbone of the U.S.’ future population growth, and will likely hit record levels by 2045. Today, immigrants’ share of the Nevada population is the 5th largest of any state.
  • The vast majority of Nevadans live in urban areas, just as 89% of Americans are projected to by 2050, according to UN data.
  • At 10% of the population, Nevada’s black voting bloc is also significant. The U.S. will be 13% black in 2045.

best books of 2018 (Project Syndicate)

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Project Syndicate is one of my favorite sources of commentary on economics and geopolitics. In this post, their contributors each name some of their favorite books of 2018, which, perhaps not surprisingly, mostly cover economics and geopolitics. I would love to read almost everything on this list, but I’ll mention 10 just for brevity.

in praise of Richard Nixon

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This post on History News Network makes a case that Richard Nixon looks great if you compare him to Donald Trump.

Richard Nixon did not set out to destroy our foreign policy, and in fact, improved it dramatically with the promotion of détente with the Soviet Union, the overture to the People’s Republic of China, and the nurturing of close ties with America’s allies in NATO. He had a mastery of foreign policy based on great experience from his Vice Presidential years onward for which he is often remembered aside from Watergate. This does not excuse the lengthening of the Vietnam War, or the terrible decisions on foreign policy regarding Chile, Greece, and the issue of the Indo-Pakistan War (which is associated with the creation of the nation of Bangladesh). But Donald Trump has been totally destructive in foreign affairs, alienating our allies in NATO, antagonizing all nations with his protectionist tariff policies, and consorting with authoritarian dictators including Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and the leaders of such other nations, as the Philippines, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Trump has also worsened relations with Iran and Cuba, based upon extremist right wing influences of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. The Middle East has become much more unstable. The US Foreign Service itself has been badly damaged by the inconsistencies and instability of Donald Trump.

Richard Nixon had many battles and conflicts with the Democratic-controlled Congress during his years in the Presidency, and yet managed to sign into law many signature measures that built upon the accomplishments of the Great Society of his predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson. These included the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the enactment of Affirmative Action in employment and education. Donald Trump, in contrast, has been backtracking, destroying environmental protections, undermining consumer agencies, rolling back labor rights, ignoring scientific advancements, and curtailing civil rights. The Republican Party itself has become a willing participant in the destruction of these major domestic accomplishments of Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon also promoted the concept of welfare reform, including the expansion of the Food Stamp Program, and attempted, though he failed, to advance health care reform. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has wished to destroy the health care plan represented by ObamaCare, stranding millions of people without health care, and offering no alternative, in collusion with a Republican Party far to the Right of what it was in Nixon’s time in the Oval Office. Additionally, Richard Nixon expanded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and initiated Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the elderly and disabled, all programs now in danger from Trump and the GOP.

Trump has added to the long-term existential risks to our civilization posed by climate change and nuclear weapons. But so far, we’re incredibly lucky he has not been faced with a major global economic or geopolitical crisis. My apologies to people in Puerto Rico and Yemen, among other places, when I say that. These are horrible crises for limited geographic areas and limited numbers of people (millions, in the case of Yemen) and the U.S. administration has blood on its hands. But think about the world-wide suffering caused by the financial crisis of 2008 or the world at the brink of nuclear war in 1962, and now imagine Trump in charge at those moments. Two years down, two to go.

hottest May recorded in U.S. was during the Dust Bowl, until last month

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May 2018 broke a heat record last set during the 1930s Dust Bowl. I’m trying to think of some clever Grapes of Wrath reference to illustrate how clever and well-read I am. Nothing is coming. Well, let’s just point out that last time it was this hot, a segment of the U.S. population was living in poverty as a result.

RFK Jr. doesn’t believe Sirhan Sirhan killed his father

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Maybe people are a little tired of Kennedy conspiracy theories, but they just won’t go away. RFK Jr. actually went to the prison where Sirhan Sirhan is and interviewed him after examining the evidence. His conclusion, apparently, is that Sirhan Sirhan fired shots and intended to kill RFK, but a second shooter actually made the fatal shot at close range.

The Washington Post article has actual footage from the press conference just before and the confusion just after the killing, which I had never seen. You can hear a reporter saying “we don’t want another Oswald”.

The Republic of Minerva

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Here’s something I didn’t know: in 1971, a group of American libertarians created two small artificial islands on an unclaimed coral reef near Fiji and Tonga, (very roughly) a thousand miles or so off Australia’s east coast, and proceeded to declare a new country, which was then invaded and conquered by the kingdom of Tonga, and then washed away by storms.

The best Oliver could do was Minerva Reef, in the middle of the Pacific, 500 km (260 miles) southeast of Tonga.  It had never been claimed, despite being discovered as far back as 1854.  There were, however, serious problems establishing a settlement on the reef, not the least being that the reef lies some three feet above water at low tide and about four feet under water at high tide.

Undaunted, in January 1971, Oliver and a small party went to Fiji, where they chartered a 54-foot motor sailer and purchased the materials to create artificial islands on the reef.  On their arrival at Minerva, the party unloaded large hunks of coral wrapped in chicken wire, concrete blocks, sand and other rubble, which allowed them to build two micro-islands on the reef.  On one of these islands, they built a small stone tower and hoisted its flag: a yellow torch of freedom on a solid blue background.  The founding fathers of Minerva hoped to expand the reclaimed land until it would eventually support a city of 30,000 citizens…

Taking up the challenge was King Tāufa’āhau Tupou IV, the heaviest monarch in the world, weighing in at over 440 pounds. On June 21, 1972, he led an expeditionary force to invade the Principality of Minerva.  Without an army or navy to call on, the king recruited a five-man convict work detail to undertake the invasion and, to add gravis to the expedition, a four-piece brass band played the Tongan national anthem from on-board the royal yacht Olovaba to inspire the troops.  Taking courage, when he saw that Minerva was unoccupied, the king decided to personally lead his force.  Once the tide was out, the king went ashore.  After tearing down Minervan flag, he read aloud a proclamation of sovereignty.  The reef now belonged to Kingdom of Tonga.

I like to think I have a creative mind but I certainly couldn’t have made that up.

speculative fiction on a future U.S. civil war; also, who is Adam Rothstein?

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The Intercept has reviews of a few new books in which the United States breaks up.

“Tropic of Kansas” takes place in a United States, in which “whole counties depopulated by disappearing futures” have tried, with limited success, to institute “autonomy and local control of land and law.” A federal recolonization, equally unsuccessful, has left pockets of quasi-autonomous territories contested by various for-profit revolutionaries; feral, unofficially deputized militias; and the occasional U.S. government incursion. The result is the titular space — it’s not “a specific place you could draw on a map, and Kansas wasn’t really even a part of it” — where violence is endemic. Militias confiscate guns. An insurgent is hung from a bridge, “naked and carved with a warning that looked like a corporate logo.” It is into this zone that Sig, a young man orphaned by the militarized police state, is deported by self-amused Mounties…

“AMERICAN WAR,” SIMILARLY composed before Trump’s America was imminent, sees the Second American Civil War kick off in 2074 over the South’s refusal to adhere to the Sustainable Future Act, which outlaws the use of fossil fuels. Following the molding of Southern resistance fighter Sarat Chestnut, “American War” reads less Cassandra than “Tropic.” Instead, El Akkad recreates in the U.S. the societal fracturing it has inaugurated in the Middle East. Children are radicalized by the loss of home, refugee internment, and massacre…

The Neo-Reactionary movement — think the theory bro version of the “alt-right” — sees an endgame in “Patchwork,” which was dreamed up by Mencius Moldbug, the pen name Curtis Yarvin, who reportedly watched election results at the home of sometime Donald Trump adviser Peter Thiel. “Patchwork” consists of a neo-feudal “global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions.”

It also mentions two older books – Ecotopia, which I have read, and The Turner Diaries, which I do not plan to read. Finally, it mentions Adam Rothstein’s “Cascadian Drone Ballads”, about which I am confused whether they are stories, songs, both, or neither, and where and how one would get them. Adam Rothstein appears to be an interesting character, some kind of cross between an author and artist who just does his own thing. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, there does not appear to be a Wikipedia page about him.

It’s hard for me to imagine an actual war between the states. I can imagine a scenario where a federal government starved of tax revenue and regulatory power gradually lets states drift off in their own directions until it is unclear whether they have a coherent foreign policy, and perhaps start checking papers at the border. Ironically, rather than the EU gradually turning into something like the United States as Churchill envisioned, this would mean the U.S. gradually turning into something like the EU (while the EU might be drifting back into something more like its 19th century predecessor.)

By the way, what’s a “theory bro”? Are those the dudes who sit around in bars talking about theories instead of sports and women?