And all of that came to a crashing halt at 0100 Hours (Golf) on August 4, 1964, when the American destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported themselves under attack from "North Vietnamese torpedo boats" in the Gulf of Tonkin. That night when he was notified of the event, Lyndon Johnson was literally the only guy on the planet who - unknowingly - got it right about what had actually happened when he exclaimed "Those poor dumb sailors were probably shooting at flying fish." Indeed, in 2006, it was determined that "the lights in the water" the ships reported were the reflection of the moon and the lightning flashes from the storms, on the enormous school of flying fish that annually transit the Gulf of Tonkin in the first week of August.
Had it not been for my best friend from boot camp, by then a Fire Controlman 2nd Class, in the Maddox's gun tower, three times refusing the order to open fire, telling the captain "there's nothing out there except the other ship" the destroyers might have opened fire on each other. He got a general court martial for "failure to obey a direct order" and busted to E-3, and we didn't get World War III. (I was on the staff of the operational command for the destroyers, and learned that truth a month after the event when I walked into a bar in Olongapo and found my friend sitting at the bar, where he told me the story. I have divided my life ever since Before Tonkin Gulf and After Tonkin Gulf. Finding that out was what turned my life around 180 degrees and created the person you know now.)
Yes, we went to war in Vietnam because of flying fish.
TC Fascinating personal insight into the phony Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In the fog of water, the initial reports from Tonkin Gulf were swiftly revised. (Indeed, we had been providing naval support for covert South Vietnamese incursions into North Vietnam.) LBJ didn’t give a damn about the facts. He wanted legislative authorization for whatever he chose to do in Vietnam.
You told a personal story related to LBJ. Let me share another. In 1964, as a Foreign Service Officer, I was deeply involved in efforts to rescue over 3,300 hostages (including our five captured consulate personnel) who were under death threat by the Congolese rebels.
The military roll back, with CIA-funded mercenaries and a CIA-organized Congolese Air Force with left over Bay of Pigs flight personnel, was commencing in October, 1964. Then, to my amazement, ‘some one in the White House’ ordered the Congolese Air Force to stand down. Our ambassador was instructed to inform Prime Minister Mobutu of this.
Why has remained a puzzle. My most credible explanation is that it relates to our captured consul, Michael Hoyt. LBJ sought to crush Goldwater in the 1964 presidential elections.
Mike’s father in law was the publisher of the largest newspaper in Arizona (Goldwater’s home state).I believe that LBJ feared that a botched rescue operation could hurt his full-court-press to trounce Goldwater and obtain a massive legislative victory.
I saw these planes flying again just after LBJ’s smashing victory. Coincidence or truth?
The thing that troubles me about these old “war stories” (not to make light of them) is that from both the left and the right, it seems to be that meddling is preferred policy over problem solving — then and now.
I'm not certain what exactly you are referring to. "Meddling" has indeed been US policy - since before there was a United States, with the settlers at Jamestown and the "good Pilgrim Fathers" at Plymouth Rock "meddling" in the affairs of the Original Inhabitants they found on arrival - and as has been the policy ever since, doing it from a position of complete ignorance about who was who and what was what in what they decided to "meddle" in. We have yet to have ever "solved" a problem. What we do is create the problems.
TC We also ‘meddled’ our way in seizing one third of Mexico. We created the Mexican-American War in 1846 that resulted in our taking much of what is now the American Southwest. In the early 1850s we then ‘negotiated’ the taking of Baja California. Much earlier we ‘diddled’ Spain out of Florida. As for the Brits in the Northwest, they reluctantly gave us ‘disputed’ territory.
Regarding Mexico and the Northwest, one might say that we Polked ourselves into these territories. Oh yes, Hawaii simply fell into our laps after the American-heritage Five Families vigorously shook the tree. And Puerto Rico—an apple that fell from the Spanish-American War.
Patricia One of the most overrated things in life, whether dealing with foreign political problems or within families, is the compulsion to ‘do something.’ While folks often are clamoring for this, just sitting back in the saddle for a while may be the best reaction.
In the Middle East, for example, over the years there has been a ‘do something’ mentality. The Middle East has been in turmoil for over 4,000 years. Perhaps standing back and letting the Arabs stew in their own juices might be the best policy. Ditto with over involved parents.
Not so much anymore with fracking here. We're almost not importing anything. If we took the opportunity to "go green" in a big way we could tell them to go kick cans.
I feel little if any justification to borrow your “sizzlin,” yet our own LFAA colleagues, Not-Doc Wheelock and TC, truly are!! So appreciative of their personal shares that weave richly into our history.
When I read through the Ellsworth snippet linked here, I was left with the impression that much of what LBJ did regarding the war came from his military lying to him. Did I read that wrong?
No, Deborah, you did not read that wrong. Westmoreland (and the rest of military leadership) lied, to LBJ and to the American people, about everything. Viet Cong strength, casualties, actions, the progress of the war (these lies were revealed in the Pentagon papers). McNamara and others in LBJ’s cabinet were arrogant, naive and bumbling. LBJ took responsibility, and took the extraordinary step of stepping down from the presidency (refusing to run for re-election) because of our (his) failed war in Viet Nam.
The one thing I'd say about Johnson is that his main interest was in righting domestic wrongs unlike John Kennedy's almost exclusive focus on the international scene. All the push for civil rights laws, for example, was from Johnson. He not only stepped down over the mess in Vietnam but he stepped down and shouldered the burden of blame. I don't recall a word of self-justification from him at any point. He was a crude man and an easy target in the closed, urbane world of DC.
Thank you, JR. I hope others here read that, too, and see that Richardson is not propagandizing to avoid pinning war blame on LBJ. I really like what you wrote here. And keep in mind, I was still a naive Republican believer back in those days. But 1964, when this all happened, I was 14 to 15 years old and pining after Paul McCartney!
I was 13-14 years old when I was asked how I felt about our being in Vietnam. "To stop the spread of communism," I parroted not knowing what the H I was talking about, but was gratified by the reaction by the grownups in the room.
Deborah, yes, sometimes in our families and community but also we have all grown up on war. Somewhere on our planet there is war. And our kids, too. Now. Then. Endless war. It’s endless tragedy.
The Generals also lied to JFK. JFK wanted OUT of Vietnam. In his graduation speech at the U.S. Military Academy in 1961, JFK spoke about the new form of warfare: guerilla warfare. JFK was my Commander-in-Chief. He seemed to sense what the future foretold. LBJ felt shamed. Generals and arms industries LOVE war. Too often, the people who one trusts and listens to are the very people who lie to set a better advantage.
Vince, thank you for the clarity. Leaders have a playbook, political or military. Perhaps it’s ancient. People believe their leaders, so gaining Trust, the One True Thing, is essential. It divides us and often blinds us to reality and to Truth. It’s hard to argue when “each side” sees the same thing in a different light.
I was a young Airman when JFK was president (and, when assassinated). One of my "idols" was U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay. He was legendary. Years later I read how he all but bullied us into the Vietnam War, going aggressively against Kennedy. I was disappointed to learn that. War is ugly, messy and dirty. A nation loves to send its young expendables into the line of fire. Most of us are too gung-ho starry-eyed idealists to realize we are in some abstract way simply providing fodder for the fight. I believe in the good fight, the right fight. Yet often the good and the right serve unseen, underlying and unspoken objectives and agendas. We see that today in the Supreme Court, where certain justices lied to secure their appointments, knowing or believing that in due course their personal ideologies would be put into action. My byline in some of my writings: "Truth is hard won, but easily forfeited."
My husband was a marine who fought in Tet offensive. He struggles daily with Parkinson’s, dementia, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury. Agent Orange and the horrors of eighteen year old men who were ordered to kill are the gifts that keep on giving. The fact that the war was started because of flying fish confirms that we never had a legitimate reason to be there in the first place.
I am so upset, disillusioned and worn out by what I have read and learned today. So much deceit, so much lying and misleading. From so many corners. I have turned a corner by reading through the Daniel Ellsworth link provided earlier. OMG. I didn’t know, and we can’t know everything about everything. We should be able to trust those in charge. Ethics. What is lost when we let duplicity slide? Thanks once again fellow readers and writers. You’ve given me, once again, so much more to think about.
Deborah I trusted Truman and Ike. I trusted Obama for seeking to do what was right for our country. I trust President Biden. That leaves me with lots of modern-day mistrust. I believed that Carter was a good man who wouldn’t lie—that didn’t mean that I trusted that he would do what was best for our country.
Keith, Good point. I’m thinking I should get comfortable with my “worker bee” status and just do the best I can as I move along. Interestingly enough, my 98 year old WWII marine veteran dad trusted me back in the 1990s with statements I then made that I have now concluded were wrong. At the time, I was in my PhD dissertation writing years and - at the time - believed there are “real” intellectual differences between and among the races. I thought that statistics and test scores and outcomes were the proof of that. However, - through the years of study, writing, and observation, I have concluded quite differently that systemic racism and contrived poverty around the globe have made it currently next to impossible to know what’s true in that domain. Generational poverty and suppression also suppress the fullest development and expression of intelligence.
My father still has negative and racist views and likes to remind what I told him back in the 90s. I tell him I was wrong. I tell him why I think I was wrong. But the damage to his views, the reinforcement of his views, hasn’t disappeared. The best we can do now is agree not to talk about race at all when we are together. It’s still a tough sell for him. So, even good people sometimes act on erroneous views rather than amoral or immoral intent or purposes.
Perhaps this is why so many deathbed confessions show how people can change their thinking over time and feel guilt and dismay over earlier actions. So, yes, while continuing to trust, I will also ask questions and probe a little more deeply.
Deborah As John Maynard Keynes expressed it ‘When the facts change, I reconsider my previous opinion. What do you do?’
I have discovered, over many years, that there are distinct levels of ‘learning.’ There is the one-dimensional fact learning. When I was very young, I was a pain-in-the-ass ‘fact expert.
Over time, with constant study and experience, one can enter the two-dimensional learning stage. Life and the world seem more complicated. Also, facts, like religion, become less simple.
Eventually, if one lives long enough, there is the possibility of three-dimensional learning. Facts may seemingly be arranged as on a Ouija board. Interrelationships may be difficult to ascertain, but simply knowing that they exist (in the Middle East, for example), tends to restrict one’s impulse to be definitive. This sense of relative humility may tremendously aggitate those one-and-two-dimensional folks, but it brings one closer to wisdom.
And, of course, there are those who never emerge from the crude, initial one-dimensional stage. Often they become Republicans in Congress.
Keith, I like your three dimensional model, but it assumes a good faith attitude towards facts. I suspect that there are plenty of stage two people in congress who think they are smarter than their stage one constituents. Thus all the theater and lying. Just pushing the Ouija pointer around to sell a false message. Maybe LBJ was a stage two guy who stepped into stage three when he realized it was time to go. I have learned a lot today. Thanks for your posts, and to all who have contributed to this thread.
Brilliant, Keith your last line. What is so tragic, is that the epiphanies come too late. The death and destruction, domestic and foreign last a lifetime. And while all are victims, too many are puppets. And it’s true, “War is Not the Answer.” We know that from history. In our world we don’t really know the answer. What I struggle with is what is the answer when the Hitlers and Putins and all who make wars, including Americans, cause death and destruction and call that collateral damage. How to be a Pacifist. How to prevent and stop the War Machine.
TC and Keith got a good dialogue going. They are each experienced and insightful. Your experience reminded me that epiphanies come at different decades in our lives, so, perhaps the deathbed revelation gets remembered because it is their last and someone interested enough writes it down. One of mine came and stuck with me in the 1960s and I realized the evendence in support of psychotherapy was "fragile at best." So, began my career in evaluation research with a reminder written on a 3x5 card stuck above my desk for the next 55 years: Write what you know, but do not believe what you once wrote." I am still revising what I know levened by experience and a few truths verifiable.
I have a friend who underwent open heart surgery on Thursday. He was Army, on the ground in Viet Nam in 1968-1969 whose bevy of medical problems trace back to Agent Orange exposure. My father-in-law (USAF) who flew helicopters in Laos/Cambodia (detached USAF to a joint operation by the 5th SFG) in 1971-1972 and had Agent Orange exposure has dodged lymphoma in his 40's, heart disease in his 70's and is now firmly in the grip of dementia which has onset fairly quickly.
Ally, you describe the lasting effects of war. To be trapped in the mental and physical pain and trauma, fighting a war with tangled roots and based on lies. Still there are apologists and naysayers ready to start the next war and send our children to kill and die.
Many of the diseases and maladies that beset veterans of the war in Vietnam and other countries of SE Asia can be related to exposure to agent orange. If the vet was a “ground trooper” and is dealing with some type of cancer the Veterans Administration considers it’s presumptive cause as exposure to agent orange and is compensable.
The history of agent orange begins in 1961. It was one of many defoliants know as the rainbow agents introduced by the CIA and authorized by JFK. As a possible deterrent to the insurgent VC.
There are provinces in Vietnam where 80%+ are uninhabitable because of unexploded ordinance… mostly unexploded cluster bombs that were no bigger than a baseball and are still active.
Note: I am a Vietnam vet and was there in 1968. I was wounded and had my last surgery 6 years ago. I am also dealing with a metastatic cancer caused by agent orange requiring testing every 90 days and injections every 180 days. The Portland VA has provided excellent care.
CTA, it’s good to know that treatment for Agent Orange exposure is recognized as cause for many diseases. The number of years since exposure to Agent Orange or injuries is decades. I remember learning that many Vietnam veterans had diseases and ailments not diagnosed and also the services weren’t available to serve the numbers of veterans. I know that Veterans can be treated by private physicians now, as well as GI facilities. The other illness from all wars is the psychological and mental disability that often lasts a lifetime. For those in the military, from all conflicts, suicide is also a huge concern. We owe our Veterans more gratitude and help than we can ever provide. Veteran suicide is one of the greatest crises of our time. “More Veterans Die By Suicide Than In Combat. But It's Preventable” “Since Sept. 11, 2001, just over 30,000 veterans have died by suicide — four times more than the number of U.S. military personnel who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.” https://amp.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/09/28/veterans-suicide-prevention-afghanistan-anna-richardson-sarah-roxburgh
It is always best to use one of the many service agencies that are approved by congress to represent the vet on any claim or appeal before the VA, such as American Legion, VFW, etc.,. I use Disabled American Veterans. They are familiar with the administrative process and can expedite processes. There are some great benefits provided by the VA.
My husband was also there in 68-69. He missed Tet by one month but not one Nam vet escaped those sprays. Nonetheless, the effects of Dow’s Agent Orange should have deemed that company bankrupt. I am glad you are getting excellent care from Portland VA. My very very best to you, CTA.
Sandy My heart aches for your husband, you, and the countless millions who have been so painfully affected by Vietnam. Last Thursday I was with a Vietnamese who experienced the other side of this war. It was a Greek tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
Once our military involvement in Vietnam started as an anti-communist riposte to support French colonial rule and to prevent the ‘domino effect’ [a patently false analogy] of countries falling to the communists after Mao took China, the tragedy commenced apace.
My brother David Slone also suffers from what you mention as a result of what you mention. His book "A Man Left Behind", along with others, is available from amazon.
Oh my goodness! I knew this was a talented group, but now I realized I need to stay healthy long enough to do a TON more reading! Thank you for this, Kathy.
Linda, your truth, you express the tragedy: who are the victims in war. And the Heroes. What’s amazing is that we can watch War in modern times, from our homes on screens, in real time. What does this all say about Humanity?
The irony was not lost on me and my fellow Dow Chemical Company offspring, as we marched as college students against the Vietnam War and the use of Agent Orange and Napalm - our tuition was paid with the profits. My heart goes out to you Sandy.
Sandy, I’m so very sorry that your husband (and your family) has suffered physically and mentally during his lifetime. For lies. He was just a kid! And countless men and women, mostly drafted or joined and the war was a sham. Absolutely kids fighting a man’s folly. But it’s not just a slogan. War after war. And Vietnam and its devastation changed our country, divided families, caused endless domestic strife and violence. And illness, homelessness, broken families and people. When you read about the duplicity and the politics, it’s sickening. But the truth years later make it even more heartbreaking. And evil.
I'm sure I'm not the only one with this thought - but think about how few (if any) wars there would be - if the men (politicians) who started had to fight in them! Sure does make sense to me.
Hi Maggie, I’m positive you’re not alone in your thoughts about men (politicians and other high testosterone beings) as the “reason” for wars. I’m paraphrasing your comment! But I have also posted and considered how diplomatic women are/were in ancient times. Has War been with us forever? “Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē, "Army Disbander") is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
Yes, I remember reading or seeing something about that "comedy" quite a long time ago. I believe there were or are several variations of the story over time. It needed to be a group (all or nothing) effort , though. It would appear that much of the blame (war) does fall on the shoulders of older, mostly white males who we foolishly continue to re-elect to public office. Seems to me electing more women would be a really good thing - for everyone!
Right, Maggie, it’s an ancient story, and that’s what I love about history and literature, the lessons and interpretations that are handed down through the ages. But your point of electing more women is more likely to make a difference in our time. Fun to think about this possibility, though.
My husband also, but he was in the Army. The after effects of war are on the soldiers who fight on the front lines suffer terribly. Not to mention what we have done to other countries inhabitants! Power hungry men create wars; women do not.
Your comment breaks the heart of us all. So awfully sorry for what you and your husband have had to endure. When I look at my grandsons who are approaching military age, I wonder about patriotism. Our leadership in the Vietnam era was so disgraceful. I like Biden, but I'm still not sure. It may not be so easy the next time our country calls.
TC, thank you for the reminder: Wars are costly, the human and property toll and losses, but also how government resources are diverted, spent on the killing machine and not on the needs of the people. Vietnam, a War based on errors and lies. Daniel Ellsberg writes about those details many, maybe most, Americans didn’t and still don’t know. The tragedy, loss of life and land. And War never ends. “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.” (2003)https://www.ellsberg.net/secrets-a-memoir-of-vietnam-and-the-pentagon-papers/
TC Vietnam—‘errors and lies’! I can provide a personal insight from the 1960s. I had been deeply involved in the roll back of the Congolese rebels and the rebel threat to kill 3,300 foreign hostages in 1964.
At one time several Pentagon colonels sought to get my support for ‘strategic villages’ in the Congo. As they described it, Congolese would be brought in from their homes and farms into a ‘strategic village,’ and what was outside would be considered ‘enemy territory,’ that could be bombed (or napalmed?)
What a stupid approach to ‘winning the hearts and souls of the locals.’
Because of my vigorous, armed involvement in the Congo, in March, 1965 our ambassador in Saigon ‘invited’ me to join him. I had witnessed the Pentagon’s dreadful approach to ‘counter insurgency.’ I had also read Bernard Fall’s and Robert Shaplen’s superb books on Vietnam and realized that we were fighting a military war, with an unpopular Saigon government, against a primarily nationalist rather than communist popular movement. I declined his ‘invitation.’ I declined a successor ambassador’s ‘invitation’ in the summer of 1967.
Sam Adams, my excellent counterpart on Congo current intelligence, at CIA, switched to VietCong military order of battle, once the Congo had cooled down. A meticulous analyst, he was increasingly appalled by the inaccurate (deliberately? Or from stupidity?) assessments by military intelligence.
Sam’s carefully calculations in 1965 pinpointed more than 250,000 more VietCong soldiers than our military had ‘calculated.’ [This was when Defense Secretary McNamara was boasting of ‘the attrition rate’ of the VietCong.]
General Westmoreland became furious with Sam’s ‘embarrassing assessments’ and finally banned him from Vietnam. In Washington Sam sought to alert his bosses to his unsettling military intelligence findings. When this went to the CIA director, he was stonewalled and ordered not to provide these figures to White House personnel.
Ultimately Sam’s accurate military assessments were blocked by CIA, General Westmoreland, and the Pentagon. Sam was sidelined and ultimately obliged to resign.
As newly-appointed SecDef Clark Clifford discovered in early 1968, NO ONE IN THE MILITARY HAD EVER PROPOSED A ‘WINNING’ STRATEGY IN VIETNAM. President Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election in March, 1968. Under Nixon another 20,000 American soldiers and at least 1,000,000 Vietnamese died before our withdrawal in 1973.
A recent book on the twenty years of our ‘war’ in Afghanistan is similar to The Pentagon Papers, although our military deaths were only in the low thousands.At least President Biden had the guts to say “enough’ and get our military out.
Thank you Keith for ticking off Sam Adams' analyzes. The Issues go back even further to WWII in Alllied strategies to harness deep nationalist fervor in China, Vietnam, "Malaysia" & the Philippines.
Bryan Sam Adams was a good friend who I greatly admired. A fine book was published on Sam’s work on Vietnam and the law suit by General Westmoreland. I have it upstairs. If you are interested, I can send you the title.
Sam’s papers are archived at some unvisited (perhaps Harvard, but I would have to check my records). Through Sam’s family I contributed my insights.
The story of our opposition to Mao (see Marshall mission to China 1946-1947) and Ho Chi Minh are well worth remembering. Ho worked closely with Americans during and after WW II. In fact he joined the French Communist Party in 1919 in frustration, after Woodrow Wilson refused to permit him to be heard during the Versailles Peace Treaty negotiations.
Nationalism is a strong wave which, as Canute revealed, can not easily be resisted by mankind.
Keith, as to Ho in WWII, I do recall some grainy footage of Ho doing Tai Chi near his group's supply drop zone. Apparently, this was an OSS ( now CIA ) operation using quid pro quos with the "Viet Minh".
Bryan Ho was in close contact with some savvy Foreign Service Officers whose reports, years later, were used to try force them out of the Foreign Service because of their ‘communist-leaning reports.’
In 1966 I believe that I was the first FSO to send a memorandum to Secretary Dean Rusk urging that we not be concerned about some ‘communist’ activity in Congo-Brazzaville. This was my riposte to a CIA request that I support their request to the 44 Committee for authorization to spend $1,000,000 to ‘destabilize’ the government of Massamba-Debat.
Utterly stupid idea, but consistent with other CIA activities. In Chile, with my ambassador’s strong approval, I nixed all but one of CIA’s requests to fund candidates in the 1969 congressional elections. This incident in our sound-proof room would have played well on Saturday Night Live.
Jeff I don’t know the name of the book. I recently read a review (NYT?) and, for me, it read like The Pentagon Papers. It underscored that Afghanistan was never declared a war and pointed out that militarily, as well in our many billions in economic aid, we seldom knew our ass from a hole in the ground.
I was clear from the beginning in Afghanistan we did not understand the history, the people or the country (or the nature of tribal culture). See Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan. The afghans consumed us like they have other Empires. And we (that is the government broadly speaking) have poor knowledge of Islamic culture/traditions—Iraq proves that. We’ve made a mess. And destroyed cultures and more.
Thank you Irenie for the detailed Link to Daniel Ellsberg's important Memoir. I recall that I met Mr. Ellsberg at a radio station (KPFA) in the mid-1980's & got the opportunity to answer his piercing question to a Pacific Panel about United States policy in the Marshall Islands (Kwajalein atoll missle testing zone) and the islands of Palau (the then planned U.S. Nuclear Sub Base) for access to the immediate deep waters of the far Western Pacific. Mr Ellsberg spoke earlier about the post-WWII history of SE Asia, the French attempted re-colonization, the purposeful split of Vietnam, the Vietnam War involving Cambodia & Laos & the aftermath. Vivid memories.
Huff Post had a piece yesterday about how we Americans have accepted killing and death as normal. I remember being in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone (also there for all the assassinations of that period) when LBJ decided not to run and how delighted we were because of the mess we had made in Viet Nam. In those days males were usually not drafted if they were in the Peace Corps, but it did occur. Some of them knew that as soon as their PC days were over, they would be drafted. It depended on local draft boards. My husband was lucky as he was 26 when our tour ended, a magic age for him and his draft board. My brother-in-law joined the army and spent those years in the San Francisco area.
I think we still accept killing and death as normal. I called game over when we apparently discovered that, as a nation, we are willing to live with children massacred in a classroom. I don't know where this stops. It makes me terribly afraid.
Significant story. My resposne to HCR is the same as yours, if only Johnson had not been misled into the horror of Vientam and destroyed the hope for our generation to be what he called for and envisioned. We were promptly divided and those of us who knew the war was misguided based on misinformation were treated with the utmost disrespect. My heart and soul still burn with anger and frustration as we struggled to live the vision of the Great Society, but alas people were hellbent on electing the law and order Nixon who would murder students and expand the war. The generation that gave us Newt Gingrish and nastiness is the same generation that was brutally didvied because of that horrible war. We still live that that unforunate legacy. We believed "we shall overcome" but too many hated our vision of love, hope, peace, justice. We shall persist in our later years, and Bill McKibben and the Third Act (thirdact.org) is but one excellent example. Onward still!
I'm glad you mentioned Third Act, Karen! I've signed up to make graduation card inserts with voter registration QR codes, and a short video, more if I can.
Let's all give it a try. I love the energetic young generation of my grandkids and their friends. They are beginning to realize, and organize, e.g. Fridays for Future and March for Our Lives! I'm alongside them to encourage and help.
Maggie, they make it so quick, easy and non-partisan that tech-savvy youngsters are more likely to register. Studies show that kids who are encouraged to register become more willing to actually vote! I also write letters via Vote Forward votefwd.org
Well, not exactly. No more than we went to war in Iraq because of yellow cake. The US war in Viet Nam was locked and loaded, just waiting for a spark. The domino theory of Asian nations falling to communism was being bandied about, and the embrace of communism by Ho Chi Minh (a one time US ally) was seen as an existential threat by American hawks. If the Gulf of Tonkin incident hadn’t created an excuse for war, something else would have. You're right that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was trumped-up, but it didn’t cause the Viet Nam war. It was just the excuse.
I always blamed McNamara for Vietnam, well not always. At first someone called him the smartest man in the room. I believed that for awhile. I think he apologized before he died, if memory serves. What more proof do we need that smart can also be dumb arses. It’s all the repubs have these days. Maybe I didn’t want to blame LBJ because I wanted to believe in his vision. He didn’t blame McNamara, nor did he name Nixon (for screwing up his effort to stop the war in 1968). How deluded am I TC??
Jeri There is enough blame to go around. LBJ, General Westmoreland, Walter Rostow, Robert McNamara—-the list is very long. Only George Ball, State Department Under Secretary, was the only member of the ‘inner circle’ who spoke early and clearly about getting out of Vietnam. His ‘eyes only’ 75-page assessment in October, 1964 was a most honest and true analysis. It was sidelined and Ball was treated lightly as a ‘devil’s advocate.’
LBJ considered McNamara the brightest guy he had ever met. McNamara, a Ford Company super technocrat, reduced Vietnam to numbers. [He did the same with design of the F 111 with disastrous results.] He went from being self assured to almost having a nervous breakdown during a speech in Canada, as he realized that he had been dreadfully wrong. Ultimately he was shuffled off to head the World Bank.
Personally, I don’t believe that he ever clearly apologized for the principal role in playing regarding Vietnam. His book (I have it upstairs) in, I believe, 1991 did not read as a personal apology for his initial and wrong-headed arrogance.
FDR opposed actions supporting the French colonial war in Vietnam but was too busy winning WWII to battle a pack of bellicose warmongers around him to put a stop to it. Truman or Eisenhower could have shut it down, too, but let rabid anti-communists like the Dulles brothers have their way. JFK had a brief opportunity to stop it but had his hands full making sure Curtis Lemay didn’t start WWIII. Johnson, McNamara, and the lot of them knew it was wrong but feared the wrath of (primarily) the white working class and other cheerleaders for the National Guard in the 1970 massacres at Kent State and the police in the massacre at Jackson State.
Many subscribers have responded to TC's comment about how his life has been divided between 'Before Tonkin Gulf and After Tonkin Gulf'.
How many of us will reflect on the USA today based on LBJ's vision for The Great Society --the focus of today's Letter? In sum,
‘…of A COUNTRY THAT DID NOT CONFINE ITSELF TO MAKING MONEY, but rather used its post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” That Great Society would demand an end to poverty and racial injustice.'
‘…that we are CONFINED TO A SOULESS WEALTH. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”
How close or far are we from confining our society to making money as measured by the country’s current wealth gap -- to ending poverty and racial injustice -- the functioning of the two party system and minority rule over the majority of Americans?
How does the USA measure up to its democratic principles? It is time to issue a Report Card. How are we doing?
The following are a few recent articles which pertain to the subject of today’s Letter. It is our job of citizens to know how our country is performing and to voice what is important to us.
‘Corporate greed trumps public need’
‘Last year was the best of times for corporate America and the worst of times for hard-working American families. New reports on corporate profits and inflation demonstrate the fundamental problems in the U.S. economy. Big business reaped big profits while hard-working Americans wept over their declining standard of living.’
‘The dry numbers paint a vivid portrait of corporate greed and human suffering. In the last 12 months ending in January this year, real hourly wages adjusted for inflation declined by 1.7 percent.’
‘Big businesses, in sharp contrast, hit pay dirt last year with estimated profits for S&P 500 companies rising by nearly 50 percent in 2021.’
‘The immense gap between rising corporate profits and decrease in consumer buying power is a sure sign of an economy in decline. We won’t enjoy a true economic recovery until consumers do as well as big business already is. Aggressive government intervention, not laissez faire economics, is necessary to eliminate the stranglehold that Wall Street has used to choke off mobility for the poor and middle class for the last generation.’
'Gas pump sticker shock is the biggest culprit in the disparity between the fortunes of big corporations and plight of ordinary Americans. While drivers stared in disbelief as the price at the gas pump ticked higher and higher, big oil enjoyed record profits.'
'Gasoline prices rose dramatically by 40 percent last year, so it was hardly surprising that the oil company behemoths recorded astronomical earnings. The pandemic put most people in a tight financial squeeze, but it was a great year for the giant ExxonMobil which enjoyed a $ 23 billion profit last year. Yes, that’s $23 billion with a “b”.
'As inflation spreads, rising prices fuel charges of corporate greed'
'Liberals allege companies are taking advantage of the moment, but companies say much more complicated economic forces are at work'
'Procter & Gamble is charging more for diapers, laundry detergent, razors and just about everything else it makes, joining scores of corporations in a display of market power that is shocking consumers who grew accustomed over the past decade to prices virtually flatlining.'
'To P&G executives, the price hikes are unavoidable at a time when costs for wages, freight and raw materials are rising by the largest amount in two decades. Failure to act, the company says, could lead to thinner profits, layoffs, investment cuts and, eventually, a lower stock price. Plus, after years of balking at higher prices, consumers now are swallowing them.'
'But to liberals, P&G and its corporate kin are not reacting to inflation so much as causing it. Companies that are raising prices for beer, chicken, toys, gasoline and medicine, the critics say, are just using inflation as an excuse to pad record profits and to reward Wall Street.'
‘Following the practice of ignoring precedent, an appellate ruling seeks to destroy consumer and investor protection.’
‘On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling that, if upheld by the Supreme Court, could literally shut down the regulatory authority of large parts of the federal government. In Jarkesy v. SEC, the Fifth Circuit overturned a penalty ordered by an SEC administrative law judge on the grounds that the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial. The Court, ignoring decades of Supreme Court precedent, held that Congress's delegation of such authority to the SEC is unconstitutional.’
‘Jarkesy operated two hedge funds. After an extensive investigation by the SEC, the administrative law judge found that the hedge funds had misrepresented facts and risks in order to deceive investors, and ordered a fine of $300,000, a disgorgement of $685,000 in ill-gotten gains, and barred Jarkesy from a variety of securities activities. But the court reversed the orders as unconstitutional.’
‘The federal government uses administrative law judges in some 30 different agencies. There are about 2,000 such judges, who are civil servants, about twice the number of federal district court judges. They do everything from adjudicating benefits disputes at the Social Security Administration to issuing findings and penalties at other regulatory agencies.’
‘If all these questions must go before a jury, much of what the far right disparages as the “administrative state” is out of business. This is of course the Fifth Circuit's broader agenda, and it chimes with anti-regulation views of Chief Justice Roberts. The SEC can appeal to the Supreme Court, but good luck to that.’
‘The irony is that regulatory agencies are finally doing their jobs. The Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Jonathan Kanter, recently gave an interview to the Financial Times promising a long overdue crackdown on abuses by private equity. But such efforts are now on a collision course with far right courts that have been half a century in the making.’
‘ If the Democratic Party had not gotten into bed with Wall Street under Carter, Clinton and Obama, Democrats might have remained the national majority party—and those far-right judges never would have been appointed. Back when the judiciary was more supportive of regulation, the SEC might have closed down private equity before it even gained a foothold by ruling that you can't take over a company using its own assets as collateral.’
‘Now, despite Biden's attempt to revive regulatory agencies with assertive public-minded appointees, good Democratic regulators will be hobbled by the sins of bad Democratic presidents that led to even worse Republican ones, and a legacy of reactionary courts.’
TCinLA: My God! What an injustice was this General Court Martial! Your best friend from boot camp is now my own hero. A man of courage! I dearly hope life has rewarded this hero. I think he should receive a Presidential Pardon, and I hope he has lived a life with rewards worthy of such a highly moral person. God bless him!
Vietnam war was the defining moment in my life as to realization that our government was not always truthful. The military often did not hold officers responsible for their actions. This came to me slowly during and after the war and then 911, the bank crisis 2008 and of course the Trump years. Trumps's campaign and subsequent legal issues brought out of the closet his accomplices and what they had done gotten away with in New York City for decades.
It was crucial for me too, but I think in a different way. I was just coming of political age during the Vietnam War. I never had a baseline of thinking our government was always, or even usually, truthful. Since I'd been studying the history of the Arab world on my own, my baseline was more "governments routinely lie if it's to their advantage." The governments in this case were the British and the French, but as I learned more about the run-up to U.S. involvement in Vietnam (which of course involved learning about the French in Indochina), it wasn't hard to draw the same conclusion about the U.S. government.
The French told us (U.S.) NOT to get into the Indochina/Vietnam fray. The French were slaughtered there (la Drang). The movie "We were Soldiers", authored by retired Lt.Gen Hal Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway is a seering indictment against our entry into Vietnam. The movie itself is based on facts (Hal Moore was a Captain/USA at the time). It also is very difficult to watch. Fast forward to the mid-1970s when Kissinger secretly met with the North Vietnamese, all but assuring them the U.S. knew we had lost that war. Think about that! A major player in U.S. politics going behind our very own DOD, telling the enemy the U.S. knew we had lost the war. 58,000+ KIA all for a deception. Of course, years later "we" started the Iraq War under the guise of WMDs, etc., etc. That "war" was for the oil. Period. Years later Dick Cheney remarked on a national TV talk show when asked about the 4,000+KIA in Iraq, "Well, they volunteered." Let that sink in.
Wasn't some of that going on during the 1968 campaign, with the Nixon team pulling strings to ensure that no peace agreement would be reached before the election (which would have benefited the Democrats)? My memory is a little hazy on this. I should look it up!
I had to check my historical memory on this, before responding. It was 1970. Nixon invaded Cambodia with the SVN (South Vietnamese) to take out a communist stronghold in Cambodia. That incursion resulted in the Kent State protest which then resulted in four students being shot to death on campus. No one has ever come up with an honest answer on that event; sadly.
There is every good reason to suspect Nixon's hands were in the background manipulating things. I have never understood why Johnson was beaten down so badly, while Nixon kept the war going for the next SEVEN years! But Johnson had become so horribly unpopular that the stage was set for "any" Nixon to get elected. (I actually voted for Nixon 2x. OUCH!)
Years ago, I had a retired US Marine friend who was a spotter along the Cambodian/S. Vietnam border. He was posted in a tree. Slipped out of his post and caught the inner right thigh on a broken limb along the trunk. His inner thigh was severely torn. He laid waiting for three days before our troops rescued him. He was most grateful our men found him before the VC did. Needless to say, he limped for the rest of his life. I share this, because it became clear to me long ago that our so-called "leaders" do not give a damn about how they use our Military to achieve THEIR sometimes-sinister objectives.
If you served in-country, God Bless You! I was USAFSS Intel, but not in 'Nam. "Tell them (the people) what we want them to hear; not what they should know." That adage is as old as humankind.
TC, thank you for sharing that amazing information, wow! Why didn't the captain get reprimanded for not checking the radar before ordering to open fire? I have seen fishermen in the S. Pacific wearing headlamps and netting flying fish that leap out of the water towards the light. We were in an achorage in Nuie watching this fishing method from our boat, coincidentally where we got the news of 9/11!
No doubt HCR is aware of the Tonkin Gulf incident improperly used by LBJ as a provocation to war. My guess is that her focus is elsewhere--LBJ's grand vision for America, in line with Winthrop's "city upon a hill" vision of 1630 and Reagan's "morning in America" vision 350 years later. Vietnam was the result of hubris, the arrogance born of power, and this cost Johnson his continued leadership and legacy. At least he had a vision consonant with the inherent idealism of the American spirit. Not so the hubris of the Iraq War, which an extremely callow George W. Bush was persuaded to pursue by his neocon advisers Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al. That policy was based on the arrogance of power, shockingly expressed by Michael Leeden: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall to show the world we mean business." That is Russia's policy under Putin. Diplomacy with realism is not only more morally acceptable, but under competent leadership, more effective.
The unfortunate thing is that the grand vision was torpedoed by the fact no Democrat in Washington could ever afford to be thought "soft on communism," regardless of what it did to the domestic agenda. And that is why we don't have nice things.
Anti-Vietnam war political figures - Frank Church, John Sherman Cooper, J. William Fulbright, , Mike Gravel, Vance Hartke, Mark Hatfield, Jacob Javits, Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Patsy Mink, Wayne Morse, William Proxmire -- some Republicans tossed in, and this is only among the senators.
I understand that and in part agree. On the other hand, LBJ could have made a stand, made the argument, and called the Repubs war-mongers. The Thieu-Ky government was as corrupt as the Marcos government on the Philippines. Ho Chi Minh was a patriot who admired the cause of the American Revolution. Yes, he was on China's turf; yes, Vietnam was a proxy war between authoritarian Marxism and free-market liberal democracy. But a principled stand could have been made. Easy to say in hindsight, of course, but great leaders make tough decisions.
I think you must be too young to have any visceral understanding of McCarthyism. Every Democrat in power in DC in the 60s had gone through that fire. Between the time the Korean War began June 25, 1950 and MacArthur's successful landing at Inchon on September 15, which should have been the point where the Korean War was declared "won," McCarthyism had become a white-hot fire in Washington, with Democrats defending themselves over being accused of not only being "soft on communism" but actually overrun by communists. The result was the UN invasion of North Korea that October, which led to the Chinese communist intervention in the war, which led to the "Great Bug-Out" from North Korea, termed at the time by Secretary of State Dean Acheson "the greatest defeat of American arms since the Second Battle of Bull Run" and by British historian Sir Martin Gilbert later "The greatest defeat of a previously-victorious army in history." Truman was seriously planning to use the A-bomb to stop the Chinese that December. The next year, the Democrats faced their worst defeat in 20 years, with "soft on communism" being the main Republican line of offense. Careers were destroyed and lives were ended. No Democratic politician after that was ever going to let that happen again. LBJ was up against Barry Goldwater in 1964, and he knew that charge was going to fly. There was no way he was going to do something that would leave him open to that. To top it off, he kept all the morons from the New Frontier, all of them the dedicated Cold War men who were out to assassinate Castro, keep the Russians out of Berlin, and the commies out of Saigon (JFK was the one who took us into Vietnam in 1961; it was his response to being made a fool of by Krushchev at the 1961 Vienna Summit, and deciding to oppose the Soviets at their own game after K announced support for "wars of national liberation" after the summit).
There was literally no possible reality in which LBJ would have done differently. And he did declare the Republicans "war mongers" - the "daisy chain countdown" ad (run only once) declared that in no uncertain terms. LBJ declared his "policy of restraint in the face of communist provocation" the "peaceful" alternative to Goldwater and the far right's war mongering.
If you're going to engage someone who's written six well-received books on this topic, come armed with more than platitudes, please.
Fair enough, TCinLA. I stand schooled. So, where does your argument/explanation leave us? Victims of historical forces we cannot control? Doomed to expend billions of treasure and seas of blood because we really have no choice? We had a choice in Vietnam, we had a choice in Iraq, just as we had a choice in 1941 and we have a choice today regarding Ukraine. Of course we are constrained by a complex myriad of factors, but I think your apparent historical determinism needs some attention. The gratuitous gibe at the end is also quite unnecessary.
Thank you. I am glad to find I am dealing with what/who I was hoping for. A probing intellect.
We have a choice, but I don't think we will take it, any more than any other empire does so voluntarily. That is to stop all this crap. It would indeed be nice to find a national-level politician who would do what you wished LBJ had done in 1964, but I don't see how it happens. Any one who would think to do such a thing would have been knocked off the board long before they got to that position.
Empires remain empires until they are either defeated (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans and Romanovs in WW1) or so weakened (think Britain after WW2) that they cannot remain empires. We've been either the outpost of empire at the original colonization or an empire outright when we began taking the continent. Since WW2 we have been a republic within our borders and an "empire" beyond them in the way Rome was after the Punic Wars until the fall of the Republic.
I really wish I could see some way out, but there is a strong element of "historic determinism" in an empire. Once you're on that track, there aren't many off-ramps, and what there are, are not the ramps those in power willingly take.
I don't draw any conclusions, but Johnson City, Tex, which I understand is where LBJ grew up, is a nice place to live. I lived there last summer for a few months. Texas seems full of places where folks have the liberty of more trees around them than people. A privilege, to be sure. It seems to me that the Johnson family turned that privilege to good end. To me it seems like that's what a lot of this is about - enjoying privilege, and sharing it.
There is one inescapable conclusion to draw from your account, several of the other close encounters with history noted in the replies, and the current observation of Russia's actions in Ukraine: War is stupid.
And, across the "Percific" Orstralia yesterday has just dumped the wanna-be GOP (LNP) rather dramatically - it's going to be an interesting exercise re-directing Labor (the winner) who are really LNP lite, to a better mindset - it can be done. The Green vote has really increased - but, you see, we are a multi party society, and we have compulsory voting, and we have preferential voting (which means no vote gets lost) and we use PENCIL AND PAPER to record our votes. Plus we have an Australian Electoral Commission which sets the electoral boundaries across the whole country - no gerrymandering and uniform electoral procedures everywhere. Can the USA follow our example?????
Hey, what's this "Orstralia"? That dates from WWI. Even the Poms know it's "a Straya" now. :) And there's one more thing you didn't mention: Election Day is always a Saturday, which generally isn't a working day. When you vote, your name has a line ruled through it on the electoral roll, and if that line doesn't appear, you get a please-explain from the AEC, and a fine if you can't produce a recognised verifiable excuse.
The wonderful travel writer, Bill Bryson, in his book on Australia said that undoubtedly there were more things per square inch in Australia that could kill you than any place else on earth. Everywhere he went he was constantly getting warnings about this or that that could be lethal. Nevertheless, I always greatly regret in all my travels I never made it to that region--a part of me thinks I'd probably not want to leave.
One hopes, but in USA the recent phase is to love expensive, poorly-functioning future piles of e-waste (think “smartboards” or “chromebooks” in schools) that make beaucoup de $ for a few over delightfully recyclable, fully-functional papers and pencils, and if course that extends to worthless-piece-of-shit voting machines that threaten our very democracy. If elected to Congress (trying now to get on the ballot in NY; primary delayed so collecting petition signatures) going back to paper ballots will be among my first pieces of proposed legislation, if possible coupled with compulsory voting. Which is no doubt why I’ll be a one-termer if I pull off a statistical miracle.
Here in Oregon we have a mess in Clackastan (Clackamus) County with machine readers. The bar code on many ballots were unreadable. The county clerk (clearly a R dingbat) knew two weeks in advance and did little to fix the situation. Her remedy was to have two people (one R, one D) open the original ballot and mark a new ballot that could be fed into the machines. Election Day arrived and went. The clerk was unrepentant and everyone else was having a fit. She had many excuses, but never has owned her own part. There was an audit before this and she refused to make the changes they suggested. Now the county has provided 200 county workers who have to have some training. And we wait for the results which have to certified by June 13th and the clerk says it will take all of that time. The main contest people are watching is the one between Schrader and McLeod-Skinner who is to his left. She has built up a commanding lead and the consensus is that there will not be enough votes in Clackamus to save him. We'll see. I am hoping that the clerk is out on her ear come November.
I should say that we mark paper mail in ballots which are fed into a machine. I haven't voted in a polling place in over 20 years. Usually this works very well.
We have an astute friend that refers to Clackamas as this. Tootie Smith as county chair and this clerk is something else. Remember that it was Clackamas County where the R election worker got in trouble for adding to a ballot. That's why two people now open each ballot.
Unfortunately, there is some verisimiltude to it. It's hard to believe, but it is a very different place from the Clackamas County I used to enjoy visiting. It was conservative then, but rational. I know some good clear-thinking people there, but oh god, the place has a lot of nuts.
Good luck. If you succeed, check out the system St. Louis County, Missouri uses, I think the provider is Verity. It's a combination of paper and computer and works amazingly well.
That’s what we use in Knox Co, TN. First used in 2020 and voters loved it. Used in last month’s primary too. Both times ballots and votes matched exactly.
Same here; I was an election judge in the locals in April and met it for the 1st time. Made things much easier and, as with you, the statistics were a perfect match. Going back again for the primaries in August.
Not at all; the system is computerized on a unique server that, at least here, can print a bespoke ballot for every voter anywhere in the county and it will reflect only that voter's options. The voter completes the ballot by hand and feeds it into an optic scanner which tallies the vote, rejects any incorrect ballot on the spot so the voter can make corrections if needed and tallies the ballots so that they can be verified against the number issued as well as provide preliminary counts. The paper ballots are retained for verification and/or recount if needed. Definitely not the way it was done in the 50s or even the 60s and 70s where we were pulling levers.
That is not what I was addressing in my reply to Laura Thomas. You may have lost the thread; which is easy to do. I am calling out much more that just paper and pencils with my roll "back the clock to the 1950's" statement and I don't want to have to spell it out. We've heard a lot from folks who have the same 1950's mindset haven't we?
Yes and no on the voting issue. I believe Americans have been bamboozled and are being led down a path of "but those darn voting methods" away from the urgent, catastrophic reality of Republicans setting up a State by State system of stealing elections no matter the method for voting. Voter suppression, gerrymandering and installing stop the steal Secretary of State in States is part of the blueprint.
I wish we could post images - I was sent a fantastic one of dear Rupert Murdoch as an octopus engulfing the globe. Australia has been one of his early victims, we have almost no National "liberal" press left - some, but vanishingly small.
Worse than a victim: he's our "alien". An octopus? yes. I've saved the one of tfg done by a Norwegian(?) cartoonist, before he was even elected (?) - he's portrayed as a huge overgrown crawling baby in a filthy diaper, mouth hanging open, reaching up to pull on the tablecloth to make the world (a globe on its stand) come crashing down. Everything he's touched is marked by his filthy hands.
I have that. Also, the pic I have from the Helsinki debacle is a fav. It has Putin leading chump by his long red tie. The length of the tie is photoshopped to look like a leash, but the facial expressions are priceless, and 100% real. Tells the tale..
A picture is worth a thousand words, that said, I hate to associate any creature of nature with the slime ball Murdoch. Sorry slime (NOVA “The Secret Mind of Slime”). He was likely brought in By Reagan to do what he does best, Goebbels’s style propaganda. Our home-grown evil loved it.
Sure sounds great - but ever notice that USA doesnt do much "example following"? Guess its because we are so "special"? (I do seem to use quotation a lot lately)
What's not to love about it? You actually get what most of the adult population wanted. Your name is neatly crossed off the electoral roll when you vote, and if in later weeks it's monitored that it hasn't been crossed off, you get a letter in the mail asking why you failed to vote. If your answer doesn't give one of the prescribed reasons, you get fined.
I haven't had my first cup of coffee and now I read some America bashing. So unnecessary and disappointing. And even more depressing is when Americans go along with it. I believe in the saying that I can complain about my family but no one else can.
Frankly your argument is apples and oranges. Our national configuration of States is different, our Constitution is different, our election process is different.
Surely there are some valid and long overdue changes needed in Australia you can turn your attention towards?
I always appreciate comparative literature, and this is along the same lines. I always urge my i ternational students to share perceptions of America/ans from abroad and we learn a lot! Thanks for contributing to the discussion! Learning from everyone!
Seriously? Comparative literature and international politics are not even remotely along the same lines. We're not giving participation gold stars out today. You know the intent of what I said. Please feel free to address those.
Really, Barbara? Perhaps you’re so high up on your horse that you can’t see the flaws in your vaunted “exceptional" country, or that other countries on the planet may have very good reasons to dislike the US. That said, the benign comparison between Australia’s successful election system and the US’s foundering one was nowhere near US bashing. I hope that first cup of coffee took the bitter out of your reaction.
In your haste to rage at me (or probably anyone handy today) you have confused/combined 2 separate things, comments, responses and issues in the comments. Take some deep breaths. And btw disagreement is one thing raging at someone on this comments site isn't ok.
Maybe, since Reagan was a slick character and many of the ramifications were policy based, it took time to see fallout of his presidency and policies. Trump OTOH, we see things in real time because he is actively trying to take down the government as we know it, and have known it, and we see that all his cohorts are criminals and crazy, and he had/has no respect for the protocols of the office.
I don't think that is it. I think so much is colored by the fact that the Berlin Wall came down, and essentially, Reagan was a likeable fellow, with a genial personality. He has been out of office long enough for us to see how bad trickle down economy has performed, and what it has done to our economy. I have heard the analysis from respected historians who still rank him among out best. I just don't see it, and didn't at the time. I think he also chose people for the most part, who believed in the United States, whereas, Trump chose ones determined to tear down what was "being" carefully constructed over the life of our country.
Concerted effort to deify Pres. Reagan by the Republican Party had a lot to do with it. Following quote if from a CNN essay about the effect.
“Less than a decade after his presidency ended, Reagan aides made a concerted effort to convince local governments and private associations to name places after their boss across the nation. Led by lobbyist and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the Reagan Legacy Project was founded in the 1997 with the goal of naming something substantial after the nation’s fortieth president in every state and, eventually, make the Gipper’s mark in each of the nation’s 3,144 counties.”
Depends on who makes the list. Just for the record: a number of things named after Reagan have reverted to their original name. In the context of time and facts, his name just doesn't have the glimmer it did for some for a while. I think he is beginning to take his rightful place in history, which is quite a ways lower down.
I don't think Dems think Reagan was a good President. I think that they've learned that the myth of his "greatness" had been so embraced by all Repubs, and there is no changing their thinking, so the Dems use Reagan as a "we like Reagan, Trump is awful" comparison.
And that was a global phenomenon; the gains of the 60s and 70s being clawed back by the useful idiots like Margaret Thatcher the Milk Snatcher (a schoolyard chant; spent a term as a schoolgirl just outside Cambridge)
FDR, with the New Deal (First Hundred Days) and 2nd New Deal (1935) provided a basis for modern-day America at that time. LBJ, a man with gargantuan appetites and ambitions, sought to out do FDR with the Great Society.
Medicare, two monumental civil rights laws (he took tremendous personal satisfaction in accomplishing what JFK had failed to do), the Voting Rights Act of 1965, poverty programs, NEH, NEA, and hundreds of other transformative initiatives marked LBJ’s Great Society.
Johnson, whose ruthless political skills in Congress were superbly described in Robert Caro’s Pulitzer-winning MASTER OF THE SENATE, knew that he had a short window, after JFK’s assassination and his trouncing of Goldwater in 1964, to jam a panoply of far-reaching legislation through Congress.
This almost seemed like throwing massive globs of pasta at the wall to see what might stick. Johnson was in a legislative frenzy believing that ground-breaking legislation and a moderately open check book could transform the America society.
We are indebted for what President Johnson accomplished. By FDR’s rule of thumb (‘If I bat 70% with what I initiate, that’s pretty damned good’), Johnson scores well. The political push back caused by his Great Society steamroller came rather swiftly. As he noted, when signing his 1965 civil rights law, ‘We will lose the South for at least a generation.’
The Vietnam War proved his major political Achilles heel. Using his same Great Society overdrive in Vietnam, he escalated the war with phony claims (Tonkin Gulf Resolution), lying to the American people about ‘winning,’ and sending over 500,000 military where there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
It probably was as great a shock and personal humiliation for Johnson as his Watergate resignation was for Nixon, when Johnson announced in March, 1968 that he would not run for re-election.
On reflection, I give him poor marks on Vietnam (a Greek tragedy) and a vigorous shout out for his somewhat flawed, but still monumental Great Society.
I wonder how the American society of the 21st century might have been transformed, if President Biden had been able to legislate a robust Build Back Better program.
So does my rep, David Rouzer, R-NC7, political opportunist and sedition caucus member. Why do we pay these people? They don’t do ANYTHING for anyone but themselves.
Keith, as I’m sure you agree, the ideas of BBB are there waiting to be tried out. The American People will love them when they eventually are. Biden, and more importantly, those who back him, have said everyone will benefit from BBB, new Voting Rights and Climate Change Reversal; of course, they’re right…they are excellent “just in time” initiatives for America and the free world. Who’s holding them up and why? If the democrats would simply identify their antagonists and keep pushing against them we’d have the congressional majorities in 2022 needed to “go big”, instead of worrying about hanging on to much less than optimal majorities…which aren’t enough….or, so much worse, facing defeat to fear mongering nihilistic republicans that the majority of Americans simply loathe. Will the outcome of January 6 hearings help bring things back in line? Will follow on indictments and trials of high level Republican trumpist seditionists…key leaders of the New Confederacy…. help? How about Victory for Ukraine and defeat of Russia? Will the American voters come out in droves and resoundingly reject trumpist MAGA false grievances and lies that have made his bamboozled supporters as crazy as him… to the benefit of the real antagonists of our fragile democratic experiment? Yeah, just maybe…
May I call you Keith? (Perhaps my favorite name) what you proscribe regarding BBB is common sense for our country and essential for a great majority of American society.
Sadly, I believe that BBB ain’t going to happen in the months prior to November elections. I would love to witness a campaign in which President Biden and the Democrats shove BBB up the butts of the Republicans in a Trumanesque campaign.
I profoundly hope that I am wrong. But we now have the two putrid lions (Manchin & Sinema) in the Senate and a narrow-thin Democratic majority in the House and post-November may well be worse.
My honor… we have work to do for sure. Nothing is certain; we can only keep trying for the right outcome that will happen when our voters support it. Thank you for your service to our country.
As Bill Moyers stated somewhere, LBJ said that a president dealt with the information that he had, full well knowing that he did not have the whole picture, but he sought it. Moyers left Johnson over Vietnam, but he knew him well. That is when I knew that the end was near. I saw his statement on tv at the time, not knowing that so much worse was to come…
Jeri In early 1966 the State Department had selected me to be interviewed for the spot of administrative assistant of the director of the National Security Council. I refused the interview, not wishing to be within spitting distance of the White House’s Vietnam policy. I much preferred going as Political Officer to Chile 1966-1969, before Nixon/Kissinger screwed up things there and I resigned from the Foreign Service.
You had a choice! You are much older than I and you still have a clear head. Amazing stories you have told of which I have only read, even though it was happening before my very eyes. Would have been selected and instead volunteered in 68. The better decision at the time for me. Others chose differently to which I hold no grudge. Learned a lot from 68-74 and got out.
Keep talking as it is an education for many of us.
It was said at the time that LBJ knew where all the skeletons in the Senate were hidden and didn’t mind pulling them out for the country to see if necessary to get his legislation through. Biden is too nice to be so ruthless but then Schumer is no Mike Mansfield either.
Sarah LBJ was obsessed, brutal, vicious, and played the political game to win. As described in Caro’s MASTER OF THE SENATE, he had a ‘book’ on every senator—weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The ‘Johnson method’ of relentless intimidation was legendary.
Despite republican’s protests to the contrary they are trying to use the government to reshape society - in their image - by working to control women’s bodies, decide what books we have access to, even what we are allowed to say i.e. don’t say gay. Rolling back civil rights is their goal and always has been There’s a lot to dislike about Johnson but he had a vision I would heartily agree with
I couldn’t agree more! Johnson’s words are simply splendid, as are yours, Heather! Thank you!
What stands out most are the following stated by Johnson:
“There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”
I believed in LBJ and he believed in the words he spoke. He was a crushing politician, but I would wager that he scarfed up as little personal largesse as prez as any modern ex Pres, unless it was Truman, if he can be considered modern...
Thank you, Heather for the best letter We could read, one that reinforces how government and Democracy are for the people and by the people. President Johnson was key in introducing sweeping changes, The Great Society, a vision that addressed, gave a name to the poverty and injustice that plagued our country. We lived these great changes. Since then, the repubs have actively worked to dismantle the benefits and protections of all citizens, especially those who had suffered the injustices and inequality the most. And today, the repubs continue to attempt to destroy equality and Justice. We must speak up, vote and stop the slide toward autocracy.
Robert Reich who is often positive and hopeful, spoke in his latest “Coffee Klatch” podcast with great concern and not as hopeful about the direction our government is now traveling. Let’s share the Voices we respect, especially with voters and acquaintances who aren’t paying attention. Friends, family. Even repubs. It’s our Democracy.
Thanks for this. Well said! LBJ was a master politician and in the words Heather quoted and alluded to he voiced a vision that should still be at the center of "our" aspirations!
Despite LBJ's bold vision and many accomplishments, he fell into the Cold War trap of Vietnam. And everything changed. The vision still awaits to be attained.
As part of the generation LBJ was speaking too, and to your point about the Viet Nam mess. I am coming to conclude that we go distracted by the insanity of VN while crafting the art of protest without enough energy given to the challenges presented in his speech. We perhaps retain and continue that art in lieu of mentionable accomplishment societally. There seems a parallel in the here and now we're distractions and noise substitute for changing society, improving plight of our fellow man, and forming a government with capability and competence to counter greed and ignorance that appear to be on the ascendant.
I remember thinking back on the pre-Vietnam years of the Johnson Presidency when, in 2020, shortly after Biden became the presumptive nominee, the Biden Campaign had joined with the Sanders’ Political Movement to establish six policy task forces covering the economy, health care, criminal justice, immigration, education, and climate change. I recall Sanders saying that he was glad to work with the then former VP in forming the six separate task forces, which had some of the most knowledgeable people in the country coming together. Moreover, Sanders noted, that while the people who represented the progressive movement held a different perspective on policy than did Biden’s people, serious discussion and an honest effort to compromise ensued. Sanders added, “I think the compromises that they came up with, if implemented, [would]… make Biden the most progressive President since FDR. It did not have, needless to say, everything that I wanted. It didn’t have everything that Biden wanted. But there is no question that on some of the major issues facing this country, if that agenda [were]… implemented, life [would]… improve for tens and tens of millions of working people.” Sanders concluded by specifically naming policies directed at the environment, at climate change, at criminal justice, and at the needs of low-income people.
As we have witnessed, every bit of the legislation passed in the Democratically-controlled House and remains stalled in the Senate due, in large part, to the filibuster. Worse, the Budget Reconciliation package (BBB) that contains much of the legislation and requires only 50 Senate votes failed by just two—Manchin and Sinema, resulting in my repeated calls for the Senate to pass whichever Budget Reconciliation provisions can gain support from 50 Senators to present to voters as a down payment with more to come if Dems can hold the House and pick up at least 2 Senate seats.
All I remember from LBJ's "War on poverty" are the cartoons of bombers over Vietnam, with that title. The irony goes on with "Make America Great Again".
Two weeks ago, the Kentucky Derby saw a win from a late entry (Rich Strike, with 80 to 1 odds) that came from behind to beat the favorite (Epicenter). Telling (to me at least) was how unprepared the announcers were for this outcome. Footage of the replay had them laser focused on the favorite, so much so that the eventual winner was all but relegated to the background. Yesterday, again, the favorite (Epicenter) was at the Preakness, there to claim a victory that many said was rightfully his to own. In the lead up to the actual race, all talk was about him, not so much about the horse that bested him at the Derby. Yet, again, he lost to a more than also ran horse named Early Voting (!)
What does all this have to do with LBJ's Great Society and, by extension, Biden's many accomplishments so far? A lot IMHO. Because, you see, the story is not so much about who and what we should be focusing on; it's always about who has the louder megaphone.
And that is exactly how the former president got elected: earned media through shambolic stunts that allowed him to blatt soundbite lies (especially theough Murdoch organs), self-published repetitions of lies on social media, and megaphones on hate radio like Hannity/Limbaugh/Carlson and from pulpits of churches. In the hands of those disciplined at getting out the vote, to whom he shrewdly tethered himself by promising to end abortion and by photo ops like shambling out on our streets (after clearing peaceful demonstrators with gas) clutching a bible, then calling on his corps for an insurrection with colluders in Congress, he nearly got a fascist dictatorship and Pence said NOTHING after being hanged in effigy. That it could be so easily done by a buffoon so shrewd but stupid, manipulated by weasels like Miller and Bannon, is sobering.
BAM, Lynell. That focus on Epicenter by those calling the race at the Derby was so odd to me. Yet telling. I had to laugh later thinking how all in the room with me were shouting for… who? Oh yes, Rich Strike as he raced from behind to win. Got to love it. Think I’ll watch Dreamer today with Kurt Russell and little then Dakota Fanning. Get set for the week.
Morning, Christine!! Thanks for commenting on what I think many would say is an off-the-wall rambling. Comforting to know you're occupying that wall with me!
Dont watch the races anymore - only videos AFTER. I was tickled to see an 80 to 1 horse come up & win the Derby & to hear of another non-favorite win the Preakness. And relieved to see the Derby winner get time off rather than run again that soon. As I've likely said before - running 3 year old (& some not quite 3) babies is wrong. Sadly, any discipline that uses animals, whether it be horses or others, always has areas that puts them at a disadvantage - at the least.
And Christine, agree completely about Dreamer - I go back & watch it every so often. Another good one, if you havent seen it, is Dream Horse. Really good movie.
Thanks, Magge. Their bodies (bones) are yet to be fully formed at 3. The horse forum I follow targets ulcers as the likely culprit that made Rich Strike aggressive toward his companion horse after the race.
Morning Lynell. We are not dealing with a little race fixing I trust. Someone at least made a great deal of money betting on the outsider while the bookies creamed it on the favourite.....in both races.
Morning, Stuart!! Beyond my ability to know whether this is a follow-the-money story or not. The Derby winner - who entered the race just the day before - came from way, way behind. The Preakness looked more "normal" as they headed for the finish. There's cameras everywhere capturing every angle imaginable, even on top of the jockeys' helmets!
In the Derby the horses in front burned themselves out. That's why Rich Strike looked so fast. He was not really a fluke. Pretty well bred. But I digress.
I remember well the horizon lit with impacts droning on and on night after night. The thunderous impacts. I remember flying over the craters slowly filling with water from horizon to horizon underneath our helicopter. I remarked the enemies wheeled traffic driving between and around the craters always towards Saigon. Hundreds and hundreds of vehicles bringing in enemy munitions. I remember feeling very small knowing we would soon be receiving their gifts. That was Nixon’s war then. The war he told North Vietnam to keep fighting until he was elected, promising them a more lucrative peace.
Well said, Olof. I was a young man then, just starting university. We didn't believe it then, nor should we now. Beautiful prose, while committing the unthinkable. Some things never change.
Dunno MLM, as I haven't read the article. If you're talking politically though, let's just say if your views are anywhere to the left of Mitt Romney's (inclusive) you don't apply any bumper stickers to your car that might suggest that fact. And a "Liz Cheney" sticker would likely get you "keyed" and very possibly much worse. I'm aware of the rap Idaho gets nationally, which is the reason I posted my general location here originally; just to let a few of you know that we're not all .... as portrayed. But Since the 2020 election I've become a lot more paranoid, so I think I'll change my profile name. I appreciate your reminder. Take care.
No. That's very far from "All the way with LBJ" and the anti-war movement that had our hitherto apathetic Australian youth marching in the streets. And I'd never realised the harm done by Reagan. We saw him as a B-grade movie actor declining rapidly into senility and mocked him accordingly. The inspiring story HCR tells here is very sad.
Yes - but if you really want know, read Naomi Klein "Shock Doctrine" - it will all come clear. And now we all have to figure out how to disentangle ourselves from that all pervading mess.
On top of that go back to Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and "Kids" to guage to what extent American community spirit and societal involvement started to fall apart and kids stopped hoping they could do better.......the American Dream fading away.
I knew it but the war and the Nixon evil in preventing his effort to end it in 1968 was a Waterloo for America. He called out our racist propensity “If you can convince the lowest white man that he is better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pockets.”
Adding this here. Richard Goodwin was speechwriter for LBJ and is attributed to have coin Great Society" and likely authored the speech. Here is some coverage upon his death.
I have found it rather striking that the current GOP have taken the corner stone of Johnson's Administration to be the basis of attack. The Voting Rights Act is certainly their biggest emphasis as it will change the face of this Nation the fastest and most directly.
I wonder what LBJ would think of this current horrific stripping of Rights in plain sight?
Being who he was, he prob would light fire under some asses to get them to light the fires of democracy again. Too many people thinking current Repubs have brought the curtain down. Maybe on themselves Let’s be the encore. That is usually how it works when democracy gives a woodshed thrashing.
Good evening Christine. I do believe he wouldn't take these current events sitting down.
We must be very deliberate to gain and keep control of the Midterms. It's honestly all down to that.
I haven't been checking too heavily on today's Letter, but good question about Daria. It makes me uneasy when she isn't in the fold of conversations. As I recall, she was in conversations last week. We may need to send out an APB for her.
So what problem do so-called conservatives have with Johnson's Great Society programs? Is it that they cost money, or that they would benefit the undeserving (according to conservatives), people who don't have a lot of money for a lot of different reasons? Elite conservatives, of course, want any general economic benefit to accrue from "trickle down," that is, the surplus from any big economic benefit the elites get as a matter of course.
I believe the answer is both of your first two: cost and benefit to the "undeserving". Anything that "takes away" from them, they hate. Never mind that there is never enough for them.
Thank you HCR. It's a reminder to those of us who grew up in the 60's that there were politicians who had big thoughts for the welfare of others and who had a congress that could get things done. The big money in politics of our current day has poisoned the well of hope.
Three steps forward, two steps back ... in the fullness of Time, I still believe We Will Get There. Maybe not as we would wish for in our lifetimes? But for the Future, Certainly. Thanks Heather. It's words like yours and your reminders of our history that keep us moving forward in the right direction.
And all of that came to a crashing halt at 0100 Hours (Golf) on August 4, 1964, when the American destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported themselves under attack from "North Vietnamese torpedo boats" in the Gulf of Tonkin. That night when he was notified of the event, Lyndon Johnson was literally the only guy on the planet who - unknowingly - got it right about what had actually happened when he exclaimed "Those poor dumb sailors were probably shooting at flying fish." Indeed, in 2006, it was determined that "the lights in the water" the ships reported were the reflection of the moon and the lightning flashes from the storms, on the enormous school of flying fish that annually transit the Gulf of Tonkin in the first week of August.
Had it not been for my best friend from boot camp, by then a Fire Controlman 2nd Class, in the Maddox's gun tower, three times refusing the order to open fire, telling the captain "there's nothing out there except the other ship" the destroyers might have opened fire on each other. He got a general court martial for "failure to obey a direct order" and busted to E-3, and we didn't get World War III. (I was on the staff of the operational command for the destroyers, and learned that truth a month after the event when I walked into a bar in Olongapo and found my friend sitting at the bar, where he told me the story. I have divided my life ever since Before Tonkin Gulf and After Tonkin Gulf. Finding that out was what turned my life around 180 degrees and created the person you know now.)
Yes, we went to war in Vietnam because of flying fish.
TC Fascinating personal insight into the phony Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In the fog of water, the initial reports from Tonkin Gulf were swiftly revised. (Indeed, we had been providing naval support for covert South Vietnamese incursions into North Vietnam.) LBJ didn’t give a damn about the facts. He wanted legislative authorization for whatever he chose to do in Vietnam.
You told a personal story related to LBJ. Let me share another. In 1964, as a Foreign Service Officer, I was deeply involved in efforts to rescue over 3,300 hostages (including our five captured consulate personnel) who were under death threat by the Congolese rebels.
The military roll back, with CIA-funded mercenaries and a CIA-organized Congolese Air Force with left over Bay of Pigs flight personnel, was commencing in October, 1964. Then, to my amazement, ‘some one in the White House’ ordered the Congolese Air Force to stand down. Our ambassador was instructed to inform Prime Minister Mobutu of this.
Why has remained a puzzle. My most credible explanation is that it relates to our captured consul, Michael Hoyt. LBJ sought to crush Goldwater in the 1964 presidential elections.
Mike’s father in law was the publisher of the largest newspaper in Arizona (Goldwater’s home state).I believe that LBJ feared that a botched rescue operation could hurt his full-court-press to trounce Goldwater and obtain a massive legislative victory.
I saw these planes flying again just after LBJ’s smashing victory. Coincidence or truth?
I'm sure you know there are no "coincidences" in stories like this. :-)
The thing that troubles me about these old “war stories” (not to make light of them) is that from both the left and the right, it seems to be that meddling is preferred policy over problem solving — then and now.
I'm not certain what exactly you are referring to. "Meddling" has indeed been US policy - since before there was a United States, with the settlers at Jamestown and the "good Pilgrim Fathers" at Plymouth Rock "meddling" in the affairs of the Original Inhabitants they found on arrival - and as has been the policy ever since, doing it from a position of complete ignorance about who was who and what was what in what they decided to "meddle" in. We have yet to have ever "solved" a problem. What we do is create the problems.
TC We also ‘meddled’ our way in seizing one third of Mexico. We created the Mexican-American War in 1846 that resulted in our taking much of what is now the American Southwest. In the early 1850s we then ‘negotiated’ the taking of Baja California. Much earlier we ‘diddled’ Spain out of Florida. As for the Brits in the Northwest, they reluctantly gave us ‘disputed’ territory.
Regarding Mexico and the Northwest, one might say that we Polked ourselves into these territories. Oh yes, Hawaii simply fell into our laps after the American-heritage Five Families vigorously shook the tree. And Puerto Rico—an apple that fell from the Spanish-American War.
Do we deserve a medallion for our ‘meddling?’
Unfortunately, i am aware of a lot of “meddling”!
A good description of things.
That, in fact, was my point.
Patricia One of the most overrated things in life, whether dealing with foreign political problems or within families, is the compulsion to ‘do something.’ While folks often are clamoring for this, just sitting back in the saddle for a while may be the best reaction.
In the Middle East, for example, over the years there has been a ‘do something’ mentality. The Middle East has been in turmoil for over 4,000 years. Perhaps standing back and letting the Arabs stew in their own juices might be the best policy. Ditto with over involved parents.
Wasn’t (isn’t) there a tremendous incentive for the Middle East involvement having to do with crude oil?
Not so much anymore with fracking here. We're almost not importing anything. If we took the opportunity to "go green" in a big way we could tell them to go kick cans.
Good advice, Mr. Wheelock.
Is there coincidence in political wars? I think not.
Salud, Keith.
Dear Christine,
I feel little if any justification to borrow your “sizzlin,” yet our own LFAA colleagues, Not-Doc Wheelock and TC, truly are!! So appreciative of their personal shares that weave richly into our history.
The griddle has been sizzlin’ lately. For sure.
Salud, fab Ashley.
Ditto, Ashley.
☺️Hi, Lynell! Hope this Sunday finds you well.
Hey, Ashley! Doing well, thank you. Wishing you the same. 🎇
When I read through the Ellsworth snippet linked here, I was left with the impression that much of what LBJ did regarding the war came from his military lying to him. Did I read that wrong?
No, Deborah, you did not read that wrong. Westmoreland (and the rest of military leadership) lied, to LBJ and to the American people, about everything. Viet Cong strength, casualties, actions, the progress of the war (these lies were revealed in the Pentagon papers). McNamara and others in LBJ’s cabinet were arrogant, naive and bumbling. LBJ took responsibility, and took the extraordinary step of stepping down from the presidency (refusing to run for re-election) because of our (his) failed war in Viet Nam.
LBJ became a statesman when he stepped down. I admired him for that. Wish more politicians would see statesmanship as their goal.
The one thing I'd say about Johnson is that his main interest was in righting domestic wrongs unlike John Kennedy's almost exclusive focus on the international scene. All the push for civil rights laws, for example, was from Johnson. He not only stepped down over the mess in Vietnam but he stepped down and shouldered the burden of blame. I don't recall a word of self-justification from him at any point. He was a crude man and an easy target in the closed, urbane world of DC.
Thank you, JR. I hope others here read that, too, and see that Richardson is not propagandizing to avoid pinning war blame on LBJ. I really like what you wrote here. And keep in mind, I was still a naive Republican believer back in those days. But 1964, when this all happened, I was 14 to 15 years old and pining after Paul McCartney!
I was 13-14 years old when I was asked how I felt about our being in Vietnam. "To stop the spread of communism," I parroted not knowing what the H I was talking about, but was gratified by the reaction by the grownups in the room.
George Harrison.
Deborah, yes, sometimes in our families and community but also we have all grown up on war. Somewhere on our planet there is war. And our kids, too. Now. Then. Endless war. It’s endless tragedy.
Lol Deb ! ... And I was a young man signing up to be cannon fodder. Oh the changes all that made deep within me.
I am sorry you went through that, D4N.
❤️
The Generals also lied to JFK. JFK wanted OUT of Vietnam. In his graduation speech at the U.S. Military Academy in 1961, JFK spoke about the new form of warfare: guerilla warfare. JFK was my Commander-in-Chief. He seemed to sense what the future foretold. LBJ felt shamed. Generals and arms industries LOVE war. Too often, the people who one trusts and listens to are the very people who lie to set a better advantage.
Vince, thank you for the clarity. Leaders have a playbook, political or military. Perhaps it’s ancient. People believe their leaders, so gaining Trust, the One True Thing, is essential. It divides us and often blinds us to reality and to Truth. It’s hard to argue when “each side” sees the same thing in a different light.
I was a young Airman when JFK was president (and, when assassinated). One of my "idols" was U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay. He was legendary. Years later I read how he all but bullied us into the Vietnam War, going aggressively against Kennedy. I was disappointed to learn that. War is ugly, messy and dirty. A nation loves to send its young expendables into the line of fire. Most of us are too gung-ho starry-eyed idealists to realize we are in some abstract way simply providing fodder for the fight. I believe in the good fight, the right fight. Yet often the good and the right serve unseen, underlying and unspoken objectives and agendas. We see that today in the Supreme Court, where certain justices lied to secure their appointments, knowing or believing that in due course their personal ideologies would be put into action. My byline in some of my writings: "Truth is hard won, but easily forfeited."
Thanks, Keith. I spoke from the "heart" with my horseracing story. You sort of confirmed my point about loud megaphones.
Thank you for that insight an information, Keith.
It seems there's always "more to the story".
Thank you Keith for this story of the twisted fabric of history. As TC says, there are no "coincidences". It seems there is always a "secret history".
My husband was a marine who fought in Tet offensive. He struggles daily with Parkinson’s, dementia, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury. Agent Orange and the horrors of eighteen year old men who were ordered to kill are the gifts that keep on giving. The fact that the war was started because of flying fish confirms that we never had a legitimate reason to be there in the first place.
I am so upset, disillusioned and worn out by what I have read and learned today. So much deceit, so much lying and misleading. From so many corners. I have turned a corner by reading through the Daniel Ellsworth link provided earlier. OMG. I didn’t know, and we can’t know everything about everything. We should be able to trust those in charge. Ethics. What is lost when we let duplicity slide? Thanks once again fellow readers and writers. You’ve given me, once again, so much more to think about.
Deborah I trusted Truman and Ike. I trusted Obama for seeking to do what was right for our country. I trust President Biden. That leaves me with lots of modern-day mistrust. I believed that Carter was a good man who wouldn’t lie—that didn’t mean that I trusted that he would do what was best for our country.
Keith, Good point. I’m thinking I should get comfortable with my “worker bee” status and just do the best I can as I move along. Interestingly enough, my 98 year old WWII marine veteran dad trusted me back in the 1990s with statements I then made that I have now concluded were wrong. At the time, I was in my PhD dissertation writing years and - at the time - believed there are “real” intellectual differences between and among the races. I thought that statistics and test scores and outcomes were the proof of that. However, - through the years of study, writing, and observation, I have concluded quite differently that systemic racism and contrived poverty around the globe have made it currently next to impossible to know what’s true in that domain. Generational poverty and suppression also suppress the fullest development and expression of intelligence.
My father still has negative and racist views and likes to remind what I told him back in the 90s. I tell him I was wrong. I tell him why I think I was wrong. But the damage to his views, the reinforcement of his views, hasn’t disappeared. The best we can do now is agree not to talk about race at all when we are together. It’s still a tough sell for him. So, even good people sometimes act on erroneous views rather than amoral or immoral intent or purposes.
Perhaps this is why so many deathbed confessions show how people can change their thinking over time and feel guilt and dismay over earlier actions. So, yes, while continuing to trust, I will also ask questions and probe a little more deeply.
Deborah As John Maynard Keynes expressed it ‘When the facts change, I reconsider my previous opinion. What do you do?’
I have discovered, over many years, that there are distinct levels of ‘learning.’ There is the one-dimensional fact learning. When I was very young, I was a pain-in-the-ass ‘fact expert.
Over time, with constant study and experience, one can enter the two-dimensional learning stage. Life and the world seem more complicated. Also, facts, like religion, become less simple.
Eventually, if one lives long enough, there is the possibility of three-dimensional learning. Facts may seemingly be arranged as on a Ouija board. Interrelationships may be difficult to ascertain, but simply knowing that they exist (in the Middle East, for example), tends to restrict one’s impulse to be definitive. This sense of relative humility may tremendously aggitate those one-and-two-dimensional folks, but it brings one closer to wisdom.
And, of course, there are those who never emerge from the crude, initial one-dimensional stage. Often they become Republicans in Congress.
Keith, I like your three dimensional model, but it assumes a good faith attitude towards facts. I suspect that there are plenty of stage two people in congress who think they are smarter than their stage one constituents. Thus all the theater and lying. Just pushing the Ouija pointer around to sell a false message. Maybe LBJ was a stage two guy who stepped into stage three when he realized it was time to go. I have learned a lot today. Thanks for your posts, and to all who have contributed to this thread.
Brilliant, Keith your last line. What is so tragic, is that the epiphanies come too late. The death and destruction, domestic and foreign last a lifetime. And while all are victims, too many are puppets. And it’s true, “War is Not the Answer.” We know that from history. In our world we don’t really know the answer. What I struggle with is what is the answer when the Hitlers and Putins and all who make wars, including Americans, cause death and destruction and call that collateral damage. How to be a Pacifist. How to prevent and stop the War Machine.
Keith, I want to quote you in my nearly finished book. Please contact me via my name @gmail.com.
Very well said!
TC and Keith got a good dialogue going. They are each experienced and insightful. Your experience reminded me that epiphanies come at different decades in our lives, so, perhaps the deathbed revelation gets remembered because it is their last and someone interested enough writes it down. One of mine came and stuck with me in the 1960s and I realized the evendence in support of psychotherapy was "fragile at best." So, began my career in evaluation research with a reminder written on a 3x5 card stuck above my desk for the next 55 years: Write what you know, but do not believe what you once wrote." I am still revising what I know levened by experience and a few truths verifiable.
Fred, yes, “write what you know…” and write it in pencil.
Deborah, thank you for this. I often think the questions are more important than the answers
Dean I am reminded of the three maxims on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi:
1)”Know thyself”
2)”Nothing in excess” (except, perhaps, love?)
3)”certainty brings insanity”
Don't forget the wonderful Jimmy Carter!
"Should". Famous last words.
I have a friend who underwent open heart surgery on Thursday. He was Army, on the ground in Viet Nam in 1968-1969 whose bevy of medical problems trace back to Agent Orange exposure. My father-in-law (USAF) who flew helicopters in Laos/Cambodia (detached USAF to a joint operation by the 5th SFG) in 1971-1972 and had Agent Orange exposure has dodged lymphoma in his 40's, heart disease in his 70's and is now firmly in the grip of dementia which has onset fairly quickly.
The gifts that keep on giving, indeed.
Proud of your dad. Send him blessings for healing and that he finds some relief in his current reality. I hope he sees the Light there for him.
I do too. He's trapped in the angry, bitter person he's always been, sadly.
Ally, you describe the lasting effects of war. To be trapped in the mental and physical pain and trauma, fighting a war with tangled roots and based on lies. Still there are apologists and naysayers ready to start the next war and send our children to kill and die.
Many of the diseases and maladies that beset veterans of the war in Vietnam and other countries of SE Asia can be related to exposure to agent orange. If the vet was a “ground trooper” and is dealing with some type of cancer the Veterans Administration considers it’s presumptive cause as exposure to agent orange and is compensable.
The history of agent orange begins in 1961. It was one of many defoliants know as the rainbow agents introduced by the CIA and authorized by JFK. As a possible deterrent to the insurgent VC.
There are provinces in Vietnam where 80%+ are uninhabitable because of unexploded ordinance… mostly unexploded cluster bombs that were no bigger than a baseball and are still active.
Note: I am a Vietnam vet and was there in 1968. I was wounded and had my last surgery 6 years ago. I am also dealing with a metastatic cancer caused by agent orange requiring testing every 90 days and injections every 180 days. The Portland VA has provided excellent care.
CTA, it’s good to know that treatment for Agent Orange exposure is recognized as cause for many diseases. The number of years since exposure to Agent Orange or injuries is decades. I remember learning that many Vietnam veterans had diseases and ailments not diagnosed and also the services weren’t available to serve the numbers of veterans. I know that Veterans can be treated by private physicians now, as well as GI facilities. The other illness from all wars is the psychological and mental disability that often lasts a lifetime. For those in the military, from all conflicts, suicide is also a huge concern. We owe our Veterans more gratitude and help than we can ever provide. Veteran suicide is one of the greatest crises of our time. “More Veterans Die By Suicide Than In Combat. But It's Preventable” “Since Sept. 11, 2001, just over 30,000 veterans have died by suicide — four times more than the number of U.S. military personnel who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.” https://amp.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/09/28/veterans-suicide-prevention-afghanistan-anna-richardson-sarah-roxburgh
My f-I-l has wanted nothing to do with the VA since his retirement. His wife is now bearing the brunt of everything.
It is always best to use one of the many service agencies that are approved by congress to represent the vet on any claim or appeal before the VA, such as American Legion, VFW, etc.,. I use Disabled American Veterans. They are familiar with the administrative process and can expedite processes. There are some great benefits provided by the VA.
😣
My husband was also there in 68-69. He missed Tet by one month but not one Nam vet escaped those sprays. Nonetheless, the effects of Dow’s Agent Orange should have deemed that company bankrupt. I am glad you are getting excellent care from Portland VA. My very very best to you, CTA.
Sandy My heart aches for your husband, you, and the countless millions who have been so painfully affected by Vietnam. Last Thursday I was with a Vietnamese who experienced the other side of this war. It was a Greek tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
Once our military involvement in Vietnam started as an anti-communist riposte to support French colonial rule and to prevent the ‘domino effect’ [a patently false analogy] of countries falling to the communists after Mao took China, the tragedy commenced apace.
Cancer by exposure to Agent Orange killed my brother in law. He worked recovery with cadaver dogs
My brother David Slone also suffers from what you mention as a result of what you mention. His book "A Man Left Behind", along with others, is available from amazon.
Oh my goodness! I knew this was a talented group, but now I realized I need to stay healthy long enough to do a TON more reading! Thank you for this, Kathy.
Just ordered “A Man Left Behind”. Thank you.
I’m so very sorry about your husband. You are also a victim of that horrific war—you and your husband are heroes to me. Peace and love ☮️💟
Linda, your truth, you express the tragedy: who are the victims in war. And the Heroes. What’s amazing is that we can watch War in modern times, from our homes on screens, in real time. What does this all say about Humanity?
The irony was not lost on me and my fellow Dow Chemical Company offspring, as we marched as college students against the Vietnam War and the use of Agent Orange and Napalm - our tuition was paid with the profits. My heart goes out to you Sandy.
Sandy, I’m so very sorry that your husband (and your family) has suffered physically and mentally during his lifetime. For lies. He was just a kid! And countless men and women, mostly drafted or joined and the war was a sham. Absolutely kids fighting a man’s folly. But it’s not just a slogan. War after war. And Vietnam and its devastation changed our country, divided families, caused endless domestic strife and violence. And illness, homelessness, broken families and people. When you read about the duplicity and the politics, it’s sickening. But the truth years later make it even more heartbreaking. And evil.
I'm sure I'm not the only one with this thought - but think about how few (if any) wars there would be - if the men (politicians) who started had to fight in them! Sure does make sense to me.
Hi Maggie, I’m positive you’re not alone in your thoughts about men (politicians and other high testosterone beings) as the “reason” for wars. I’m paraphrasing your comment! But I have also posted and considered how diplomatic women are/were in ancient times. Has War been with us forever? “Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē, "Army Disbander") is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
Yes, I remember reading or seeing something about that "comedy" quite a long time ago. I believe there were or are several variations of the story over time. It needed to be a group (all or nothing) effort , though. It would appear that much of the blame (war) does fall on the shoulders of older, mostly white males who we foolishly continue to re-elect to public office. Seems to me electing more women would be a really good thing - for everyone!
Right, Maggie, it’s an ancient story, and that’s what I love about history and literature, the lessons and interpretations that are handed down through the ages. But your point of electing more women is more likely to make a difference in our time. Fun to think about this possibility, though.
My husband also, but he was in the Army. The after effects of war are on the soldiers who fight on the front lines suffer terribly. Not to mention what we have done to other countries inhabitants! Power hungry men create wars; women do not.
Your comment breaks the heart of us all. So awfully sorry for what you and your husband have had to endure. When I look at my grandsons who are approaching military age, I wonder about patriotism. Our leadership in the Vietnam era was so disgraceful. I like Biden, but I'm still not sure. It may not be so easy the next time our country calls.
There’s also the rumor that we were there for the benefit of Shell Oil.
Rumor based in fact.
TC, thank you for the reminder: Wars are costly, the human and property toll and losses, but also how government resources are diverted, spent on the killing machine and not on the needs of the people. Vietnam, a War based on errors and lies. Daniel Ellsberg writes about those details many, maybe most, Americans didn’t and still don’t know. The tragedy, loss of life and land. And War never ends. “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.” (2003)https://www.ellsberg.net/secrets-a-memoir-of-vietnam-and-the-pentagon-papers/
TC Vietnam—‘errors and lies’! I can provide a personal insight from the 1960s. I had been deeply involved in the roll back of the Congolese rebels and the rebel threat to kill 3,300 foreign hostages in 1964.
At one time several Pentagon colonels sought to get my support for ‘strategic villages’ in the Congo. As they described it, Congolese would be brought in from their homes and farms into a ‘strategic village,’ and what was outside would be considered ‘enemy territory,’ that could be bombed (or napalmed?)
What a stupid approach to ‘winning the hearts and souls of the locals.’
Because of my vigorous, armed involvement in the Congo, in March, 1965 our ambassador in Saigon ‘invited’ me to join him. I had witnessed the Pentagon’s dreadful approach to ‘counter insurgency.’ I had also read Bernard Fall’s and Robert Shaplen’s superb books on Vietnam and realized that we were fighting a military war, with an unpopular Saigon government, against a primarily nationalist rather than communist popular movement. I declined his ‘invitation.’ I declined a successor ambassador’s ‘invitation’ in the summer of 1967.
Sam Adams, my excellent counterpart on Congo current intelligence, at CIA, switched to VietCong military order of battle, once the Congo had cooled down. A meticulous analyst, he was increasingly appalled by the inaccurate (deliberately? Or from stupidity?) assessments by military intelligence.
Sam’s carefully calculations in 1965 pinpointed more than 250,000 more VietCong soldiers than our military had ‘calculated.’ [This was when Defense Secretary McNamara was boasting of ‘the attrition rate’ of the VietCong.]
General Westmoreland became furious with Sam’s ‘embarrassing assessments’ and finally banned him from Vietnam. In Washington Sam sought to alert his bosses to his unsettling military intelligence findings. When this went to the CIA director, he was stonewalled and ordered not to provide these figures to White House personnel.
Ultimately Sam’s accurate military assessments were blocked by CIA, General Westmoreland, and the Pentagon. Sam was sidelined and ultimately obliged to resign.
As newly-appointed SecDef Clark Clifford discovered in early 1968, NO ONE IN THE MILITARY HAD EVER PROPOSED A ‘WINNING’ STRATEGY IN VIETNAM. President Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election in March, 1968. Under Nixon another 20,000 American soldiers and at least 1,000,000 Vietnamese died before our withdrawal in 1973.
A recent book on the twenty years of our ‘war’ in Afghanistan is similar to The Pentagon Papers, although our military deaths were only in the low thousands.At least President Biden had the guts to say “enough’ and get our military out.
Thank you Keith for ticking off Sam Adams' analyzes. The Issues go back even further to WWII in Alllied strategies to harness deep nationalist fervor in China, Vietnam, "Malaysia" & the Philippines.
Bryan Sam Adams was a good friend who I greatly admired. A fine book was published on Sam’s work on Vietnam and the law suit by General Westmoreland. I have it upstairs. If you are interested, I can send you the title.
Sam’s papers are archived at some unvisited (perhaps Harvard, but I would have to check my records). Through Sam’s family I contributed my insights.
The story of our opposition to Mao (see Marshall mission to China 1946-1947) and Ho Chi Minh are well worth remembering. Ho worked closely with Americans during and after WW II. In fact he joined the French Communist Party in 1919 in frustration, after Woodrow Wilson refused to permit him to be heard during the Versailles Peace Treaty negotiations.
Nationalism is a strong wave which, as Canute revealed, can not easily be resisted by mankind.
Keith, as to Ho in WWII, I do recall some grainy footage of Ho doing Tai Chi near his group's supply drop zone. Apparently, this was an OSS ( now CIA ) operation using quid pro quos with the "Viet Minh".
Bryan Ho was in close contact with some savvy Foreign Service Officers whose reports, years later, were used to try force them out of the Foreign Service because of their ‘communist-leaning reports.’
In 1966 I believe that I was the first FSO to send a memorandum to Secretary Dean Rusk urging that we not be concerned about some ‘communist’ activity in Congo-Brazzaville. This was my riposte to a CIA request that I support their request to the 44 Committee for authorization to spend $1,000,000 to ‘destabilize’ the government of Massamba-Debat.
Utterly stupid idea, but consistent with other CIA activities. In Chile, with my ambassador’s strong approval, I nixed all but one of CIA’s requests to fund candidates in the 1969 congressional elections. This incident in our sound-proof room would have played well on Saturday Night Live.
Bryan I need your e-mail address.
Thanks. What is this "recent book" on the war in Afghanistan that you mention, please?
Jeff I don’t know the name of the book. I recently read a review (NYT?) and, for me, it read like The Pentagon Papers. It underscored that Afghanistan was never declared a war and pointed out that militarily, as well in our many billions in economic aid, we seldom knew our ass from a hole in the ground.
I was clear from the beginning in Afghanistan we did not understand the history, the people or the country (or the nature of tribal culture). See Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan. The afghans consumed us like they have other Empires. And we (that is the government broadly speaking) have poor knowledge of Islamic culture/traditions—Iraq proves that. We’ve made a mess. And destroyed cultures and more.
Jeff, I think Keith is referring to The Afghan Papers. I haven't read yet, but it's suppose to be fascinating
Yes, "The Aghanistan Papers" and/or " The American War in Afghanistan".
Looks like you've got it right: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56898213-the-afghanistan-papers?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=H8ajg39d4I&rank=1
TC’s book.
Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, The: Naval Aviation in the Vietnam War https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472845951/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_99M6712RSTS9B6VKG4GJ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
It's a good book and an important lesson about the "false flag" incident that was used to bury our country in that horrible war.
Ahh, thanks, Christine!
Just finishing it now. We built our aircraft for the wrong war.
Thank you Irenie for the detailed Link to Daniel Ellsberg's important Memoir. I recall that I met Mr. Ellsberg at a radio station (KPFA) in the mid-1980's & got the opportunity to answer his piercing question to a Pacific Panel about United States policy in the Marshall Islands (Kwajalein atoll missle testing zone) and the islands of Palau (the then planned U.S. Nuclear Sub Base) for access to the immediate deep waters of the far Western Pacific. Mr Ellsberg spoke earlier about the post-WWII history of SE Asia, the French attempted re-colonization, the purposeful split of Vietnam, the Vietnam War involving Cambodia & Laos & the aftermath. Vivid memories.
Huff Post had a piece yesterday about how we Americans have accepted killing and death as normal. I remember being in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone (also there for all the assassinations of that period) when LBJ decided not to run and how delighted we were because of the mess we had made in Viet Nam. In those days males were usually not drafted if they were in the Peace Corps, but it did occur. Some of them knew that as soon as their PC days were over, they would be drafted. It depended on local draft boards. My husband was lucky as he was 26 when our tour ended, a magic age for him and his draft board. My brother-in-law joined the army and spent those years in the San Francisco area.
I think we still accept killing and death as normal. I called game over when we apparently discovered that, as a nation, we are willing to live with children massacred in a classroom. I don't know where this stops. It makes me terribly afraid.
This was the lament of the article.
Yes. And I think one of the great losses of our time is that we have forgotten how to lament.
It appears that "thoughts & prayers" are now the US lamentations ? go to! Seems to take care of the whole issue, doesnt it?
unfortunately, Irene, that link doesn't open the link to the Gulf of Tonkin excerpt, but this is a substitute:
http://archive.pov.org/mostdangerousman/excerpt-ellsberg-memoir/2/
Thank you, Jeff.
Thank you Jeff. I think.
Significant story. My resposne to HCR is the same as yours, if only Johnson had not been misled into the horror of Vientam and destroyed the hope for our generation to be what he called for and envisioned. We were promptly divided and those of us who knew the war was misguided based on misinformation were treated with the utmost disrespect. My heart and soul still burn with anger and frustration as we struggled to live the vision of the Great Society, but alas people were hellbent on electing the law and order Nixon who would murder students and expand the war. The generation that gave us Newt Gingrish and nastiness is the same generation that was brutally didvied because of that horrible war. We still live that that unforunate legacy. We believed "we shall overcome" but too many hated our vision of love, hope, peace, justice. We shall persist in our later years, and Bill McKibben and the Third Act (thirdact.org) is but one excellent example. Onward still!
I'm glad you mentioned Third Act, Karen! I've signed up to make graduation card inserts with voter registration QR codes, and a short video, more if I can.
Let's all give it a try. I love the energetic young generation of my grandkids and their friends. They are beginning to realize, and organize, e.g. Fridays for Future and March for Our Lives! I'm alongside them to encourage and help.
Maggie, they make it so quick, easy and non-partisan that tech-savvy youngsters are more likely to register. Studies show that kids who are encouraged to register become more willing to actually vote! I also write letters via Vote Forward votefwd.org
Well, not exactly. No more than we went to war in Iraq because of yellow cake. The US war in Viet Nam was locked and loaded, just waiting for a spark. The domino theory of Asian nations falling to communism was being bandied about, and the embrace of communism by Ho Chi Minh (a one time US ally) was seen as an existential threat by American hawks. If the Gulf of Tonkin incident hadn’t created an excuse for war, something else would have. You're right that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was trumped-up, but it didn’t cause the Viet Nam war. It was just the excuse.
Well said! TY
Said well JR
OMG! Can’t unsee that in my mind, and it changes my perspective of that era as I lived through it.
I’m speechless…..except to say thank you, TCinLA, for sharing.
I always blamed McNamara for Vietnam, well not always. At first someone called him the smartest man in the room. I believed that for awhile. I think he apologized before he died, if memory serves. What more proof do we need that smart can also be dumb arses. It’s all the repubs have these days. Maybe I didn’t want to blame LBJ because I wanted to believe in his vision. He didn’t blame McNamara, nor did he name Nixon (for screwing up his effort to stop the war in 1968). How deluded am I TC??
Jeri There is enough blame to go around. LBJ, General Westmoreland, Walter Rostow, Robert McNamara—-the list is very long. Only George Ball, State Department Under Secretary, was the only member of the ‘inner circle’ who spoke early and clearly about getting out of Vietnam. His ‘eyes only’ 75-page assessment in October, 1964 was a most honest and true analysis. It was sidelined and Ball was treated lightly as a ‘devil’s advocate.’
LBJ considered McNamara the brightest guy he had ever met. McNamara, a Ford Company super technocrat, reduced Vietnam to numbers. [He did the same with design of the F 111 with disastrous results.] He went from being self assured to almost having a nervous breakdown during a speech in Canada, as he realized that he had been dreadfully wrong. Ultimately he was shuffled off to head the World Bank.
Personally, I don’t believe that he ever clearly apologized for the principal role in playing regarding Vietnam. His book (I have it upstairs) in, I believe, 1991 did not read as a personal apology for his initial and wrong-headed arrogance.
FDR opposed actions supporting the French colonial war in Vietnam but was too busy winning WWII to battle a pack of bellicose warmongers around him to put a stop to it. Truman or Eisenhower could have shut it down, too, but let rabid anti-communists like the Dulles brothers have their way. JFK had a brief opportunity to stop it but had his hands full making sure Curtis Lemay didn’t start WWIII. Johnson, McNamara, and the lot of them knew it was wrong but feared the wrath of (primarily) the white working class and other cheerleaders for the National Guard in the 1970 massacres at Kent State and the police in the massacre at Jackson State.
Watch Morris’s “The Fog of War” for an incisive account of McNamara’s Viet Nam war beliefs and actions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
Many subscribers have responded to TC's comment about how his life has been divided between 'Before Tonkin Gulf and After Tonkin Gulf'.
How many of us will reflect on the USA today based on LBJ's vision for The Great Society --the focus of today's Letter? In sum,
‘…of A COUNTRY THAT DID NOT CONFINE ITSELF TO MAKING MONEY, but rather used its post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” That Great Society would demand an end to poverty and racial injustice.'
‘…that we are CONFINED TO A SOULESS WEALTH. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”
How close or far are we from confining our society to making money as measured by the country’s current wealth gap -- to ending poverty and racial injustice -- the functioning of the two party system and minority rule over the majority of Americans?
How does the USA measure up to its democratic principles? It is time to issue a Report Card. How are we doing?
The following are a few recent articles which pertain to the subject of today’s Letter. It is our job of citizens to know how our country is performing and to voice what is important to us.
‘Corporate greed trumps public need’
‘Last year was the best of times for corporate America and the worst of times for hard-working American families. New reports on corporate profits and inflation demonstrate the fundamental problems in the U.S. economy. Big business reaped big profits while hard-working Americans wept over their declining standard of living.’
‘The dry numbers paint a vivid portrait of corporate greed and human suffering. In the last 12 months ending in January this year, real hourly wages adjusted for inflation declined by 1.7 percent.’
‘Big businesses, in sharp contrast, hit pay dirt last year with estimated profits for S&P 500 companies rising by nearly 50 percent in 2021.’
‘The immense gap between rising corporate profits and decrease in consumer buying power is a sure sign of an economy in decline. We won’t enjoy a true economic recovery until consumers do as well as big business already is. Aggressive government intervention, not laissez faire economics, is necessary to eliminate the stranglehold that Wall Street has used to choke off mobility for the poor and middle class for the last generation.’
'Gas pump sticker shock is the biggest culprit in the disparity between the fortunes of big corporations and plight of ordinary Americans. While drivers stared in disbelief as the price at the gas pump ticked higher and higher, big oil enjoyed record profits.'
'Gasoline prices rose dramatically by 40 percent last year, so it was hardly surprising that the oil company behemoths recorded astronomical earnings. The pandemic put most people in a tight financial squeeze, but it was a great year for the giant ExxonMobil which enjoyed a $ 23 billion profit last year. Yes, that’s $23 billion with a “b”.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/594886-corporate-greed-trumps-public-need/
'As inflation spreads, rising prices fuel charges of corporate greed'
'Liberals allege companies are taking advantage of the moment, but companies say much more complicated economic forces are at work'
'Procter & Gamble is charging more for diapers, laundry detergent, razors and just about everything else it makes, joining scores of corporations in a display of market power that is shocking consumers who grew accustomed over the past decade to prices virtually flatlining.'
'To P&G executives, the price hikes are unavoidable at a time when costs for wages, freight and raw materials are rising by the largest amount in two decades. Failure to act, the company says, could lead to thinner profits, layoffs, investment cuts and, eventually, a lower stock price. Plus, after years of balking at higher prices, consumers now are swallowing them.'
'But to liberals, P&G and its corporate kin are not reacting to inflation so much as causing it. Companies that are raising prices for beer, chicken, toys, gasoline and medicine, the critics say, are just using inflation as an excuse to pad record profits and to reward Wall Street.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/04/02/inflation-corporate-greed/
'Another Sweeping Far-Right Court Ruling'
‘Following the practice of ignoring precedent, an appellate ruling seeks to destroy consumer and investor protection.’
‘On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling that, if upheld by the Supreme Court, could literally shut down the regulatory authority of large parts of the federal government. In Jarkesy v. SEC, the Fifth Circuit overturned a penalty ordered by an SEC administrative law judge on the grounds that the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial. The Court, ignoring decades of Supreme Court precedent, held that Congress's delegation of such authority to the SEC is unconstitutional.’
‘Jarkesy operated two hedge funds. After an extensive investigation by the SEC, the administrative law judge found that the hedge funds had misrepresented facts and risks in order to deceive investors, and ordered a fine of $300,000, a disgorgement of $685,000 in ill-gotten gains, and barred Jarkesy from a variety of securities activities. But the court reversed the orders as unconstitutional.’
‘The federal government uses administrative law judges in some 30 different agencies. There are about 2,000 such judges, who are civil servants, about twice the number of federal district court judges. They do everything from adjudicating benefits disputes at the Social Security Administration to issuing findings and penalties at other regulatory agencies.’
‘If all these questions must go before a jury, much of what the far right disparages as the “administrative state” is out of business. This is of course the Fifth Circuit's broader agenda, and it chimes with anti-regulation views of Chief Justice Roberts. The SEC can appeal to the Supreme Court, but good luck to that.’
‘The irony is that regulatory agencies are finally doing their jobs. The Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Jonathan Kanter, recently gave an interview to the Financial Times promising a long overdue crackdown on abuses by private equity. But such efforts are now on a collision course with far right courts that have been half a century in the making.’
‘ If the Democratic Party had not gotten into bed with Wall Street under Carter, Clinton and Obama, Democrats might have remained the national majority party—and those far-right judges never would have been appointed. Back when the judiciary was more supportive of regulation, the SEC might have closed down private equity before it even gained a foothold by ruling that you can't take over a company using its own assets as collateral.’
‘Now, despite Biden's attempt to revive regulatory agencies with assertive public-minded appointees, good Democratic regulators will be hobbled by the sins of bad Democratic presidents that led to even worse Republican ones, and a legacy of reactionary courts.’
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/another-sweeping-far-right-court-ruling/
😣
TCinLA: My God! What an injustice was this General Court Martial! Your best friend from boot camp is now my own hero. A man of courage! I dearly hope life has rewarded this hero. I think he should receive a Presidential Pardon, and I hope he has lived a life with rewards worthy of such a highly moral person. God bless him!
Vietnam war was the defining moment in my life as to realization that our government was not always truthful. The military often did not hold officers responsible for their actions. This came to me slowly during and after the war and then 911, the bank crisis 2008 and of course the Trump years. Trumps's campaign and subsequent legal issues brought out of the closet his accomplices and what they had done gotten away with in New York City for decades.
It was crucial for me too, but I think in a different way. I was just coming of political age during the Vietnam War. I never had a baseline of thinking our government was always, or even usually, truthful. Since I'd been studying the history of the Arab world on my own, my baseline was more "governments routinely lie if it's to their advantage." The governments in this case were the British and the French, but as I learned more about the run-up to U.S. involvement in Vietnam (which of course involved learning about the French in Indochina), it wasn't hard to draw the same conclusion about the U.S. government.
The French told us (U.S.) NOT to get into the Indochina/Vietnam fray. The French were slaughtered there (la Drang). The movie "We were Soldiers", authored by retired Lt.Gen Hal Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway is a seering indictment against our entry into Vietnam. The movie itself is based on facts (Hal Moore was a Captain/USA at the time). It also is very difficult to watch. Fast forward to the mid-1970s when Kissinger secretly met with the North Vietnamese, all but assuring them the U.S. knew we had lost that war. Think about that! A major player in U.S. politics going behind our very own DOD, telling the enemy the U.S. knew we had lost the war. 58,000+ KIA all for a deception. Of course, years later "we" started the Iraq War under the guise of WMDs, etc., etc. That "war" was for the oil. Period. Years later Dick Cheney remarked on a national TV talk show when asked about the 4,000+KIA in Iraq, "Well, they volunteered." Let that sink in.
Wasn't some of that going on during the 1968 campaign, with the Nixon team pulling strings to ensure that no peace agreement would be reached before the election (which would have benefited the Democrats)? My memory is a little hazy on this. I should look it up!
I had to check my historical memory on this, before responding. It was 1970. Nixon invaded Cambodia with the SVN (South Vietnamese) to take out a communist stronghold in Cambodia. That incursion resulted in the Kent State protest which then resulted in four students being shot to death on campus. No one has ever come up with an honest answer on that event; sadly.
There is every good reason to suspect Nixon's hands were in the background manipulating things. I have never understood why Johnson was beaten down so badly, while Nixon kept the war going for the next SEVEN years! But Johnson had become so horribly unpopular that the stage was set for "any" Nixon to get elected. (I actually voted for Nixon 2x. OUCH!)
Years ago, I had a retired US Marine friend who was a spotter along the Cambodian/S. Vietnam border. He was posted in a tree. Slipped out of his post and caught the inner right thigh on a broken limb along the trunk. His inner thigh was severely torn. He laid waiting for three days before our troops rescued him. He was most grateful our men found him before the VC did. Needless to say, he limped for the rest of his life. I share this, because it became clear to me long ago that our so-called "leaders" do not give a damn about how they use our Military to achieve THEIR sometimes-sinister objectives.
If you served in-country, God Bless You! I was USAFSS Intel, but not in 'Nam. "Tell them (the people) what we want them to hear; not what they should know." That adage is as old as humankind.
TC, thank you for sharing that amazing information, wow! Why didn't the captain get reprimanded for not checking the radar before ordering to open fire? I have seen fishermen in the S. Pacific wearing headlamps and netting flying fish that leap out of the water towards the light. We were in an achorage in Nuie watching this fishing method from our boat, coincidentally where we got the news of 9/11!
No doubt HCR is aware of the Tonkin Gulf incident improperly used by LBJ as a provocation to war. My guess is that her focus is elsewhere--LBJ's grand vision for America, in line with Winthrop's "city upon a hill" vision of 1630 and Reagan's "morning in America" vision 350 years later. Vietnam was the result of hubris, the arrogance born of power, and this cost Johnson his continued leadership and legacy. At least he had a vision consonant with the inherent idealism of the American spirit. Not so the hubris of the Iraq War, which an extremely callow George W. Bush was persuaded to pursue by his neocon advisers Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al. That policy was based on the arrogance of power, shockingly expressed by Michael Leeden: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall to show the world we mean business." That is Russia's policy under Putin. Diplomacy with realism is not only more morally acceptable, but under competent leadership, more effective.
The unfortunate thing is that the grand vision was torpedoed by the fact no Democrat in Washington could ever afford to be thought "soft on communism," regardless of what it did to the domestic agenda. And that is why we don't have nice things.
Anti-Vietnam war political figures - Frank Church, John Sherman Cooper, J. William Fulbright, , Mike Gravel, Vance Hartke, Mark Hatfield, Jacob Javits, Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Patsy Mink, Wayne Morse, William Proxmire -- some Republicans tossed in, and this is only among the senators.
I understand that and in part agree. On the other hand, LBJ could have made a stand, made the argument, and called the Repubs war-mongers. The Thieu-Ky government was as corrupt as the Marcos government on the Philippines. Ho Chi Minh was a patriot who admired the cause of the American Revolution. Yes, he was on China's turf; yes, Vietnam was a proxy war between authoritarian Marxism and free-market liberal democracy. But a principled stand could have been made. Easy to say in hindsight, of course, but great leaders make tough decisions.
I think you must be too young to have any visceral understanding of McCarthyism. Every Democrat in power in DC in the 60s had gone through that fire. Between the time the Korean War began June 25, 1950 and MacArthur's successful landing at Inchon on September 15, which should have been the point where the Korean War was declared "won," McCarthyism had become a white-hot fire in Washington, with Democrats defending themselves over being accused of not only being "soft on communism" but actually overrun by communists. The result was the UN invasion of North Korea that October, which led to the Chinese communist intervention in the war, which led to the "Great Bug-Out" from North Korea, termed at the time by Secretary of State Dean Acheson "the greatest defeat of American arms since the Second Battle of Bull Run" and by British historian Sir Martin Gilbert later "The greatest defeat of a previously-victorious army in history." Truman was seriously planning to use the A-bomb to stop the Chinese that December. The next year, the Democrats faced their worst defeat in 20 years, with "soft on communism" being the main Republican line of offense. Careers were destroyed and lives were ended. No Democratic politician after that was ever going to let that happen again. LBJ was up against Barry Goldwater in 1964, and he knew that charge was going to fly. There was no way he was going to do something that would leave him open to that. To top it off, he kept all the morons from the New Frontier, all of them the dedicated Cold War men who were out to assassinate Castro, keep the Russians out of Berlin, and the commies out of Saigon (JFK was the one who took us into Vietnam in 1961; it was his response to being made a fool of by Krushchev at the 1961 Vienna Summit, and deciding to oppose the Soviets at their own game after K announced support for "wars of national liberation" after the summit).
There was literally no possible reality in which LBJ would have done differently. And he did declare the Republicans "war mongers" - the "daisy chain countdown" ad (run only once) declared that in no uncertain terms. LBJ declared his "policy of restraint in the face of communist provocation" the "peaceful" alternative to Goldwater and the far right's war mongering.
If you're going to engage someone who's written six well-received books on this topic, come armed with more than platitudes, please.
Fair enough, TCinLA. I stand schooled. So, where does your argument/explanation leave us? Victims of historical forces we cannot control? Doomed to expend billions of treasure and seas of blood because we really have no choice? We had a choice in Vietnam, we had a choice in Iraq, just as we had a choice in 1941 and we have a choice today regarding Ukraine. Of course we are constrained by a complex myriad of factors, but I think your apparent historical determinism needs some attention. The gratuitous gibe at the end is also quite unnecessary.
Thank you. I am glad to find I am dealing with what/who I was hoping for. A probing intellect.
We have a choice, but I don't think we will take it, any more than any other empire does so voluntarily. That is to stop all this crap. It would indeed be nice to find a national-level politician who would do what you wished LBJ had done in 1964, but I don't see how it happens. Any one who would think to do such a thing would have been knocked off the board long before they got to that position.
Empires remain empires until they are either defeated (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans and Romanovs in WW1) or so weakened (think Britain after WW2) that they cannot remain empires. We've been either the outpost of empire at the original colonization or an empire outright when we began taking the continent. Since WW2 we have been a republic within our borders and an "empire" beyond them in the way Rome was after the Punic Wars until the fall of the Republic.
I really wish I could see some way out, but there is a strong element of "historic determinism" in an empire. Once you're on that track, there aren't many off-ramps, and what there are, are not the ramps those in power willingly take.
I don't draw any conclusions, but Johnson City, Tex, which I understand is where LBJ grew up, is a nice place to live. I lived there last summer for a few months. Texas seems full of places where folks have the liberty of more trees around them than people. A privilege, to be sure. It seems to me that the Johnson family turned that privilege to good end. To me it seems like that's what a lot of this is about - enjoying privilege, and sharing it.
Dave
I copied down your e-mail to send you my review of DUTY, but apparently my shaky 88-year-old penmanship failed me once again.
Could you please repeat?
Klutz Keith
dmsirius@gmail.com
There is one inescapable conclusion to draw from your account, several of the other close encounters with history noted in the replies, and the current observation of Russia's actions in Ukraine: War is stupid.
Thank you for that insight and information , TC.
Thank you for this telling me/us about these events. Otherwise we would have never known.
And, across the "Percific" Orstralia yesterday has just dumped the wanna-be GOP (LNP) rather dramatically - it's going to be an interesting exercise re-directing Labor (the winner) who are really LNP lite, to a better mindset - it can be done. The Green vote has really increased - but, you see, we are a multi party society, and we have compulsory voting, and we have preferential voting (which means no vote gets lost) and we use PENCIL AND PAPER to record our votes. Plus we have an Australian Electoral Commission which sets the electoral boundaries across the whole country - no gerrymandering and uniform electoral procedures everywhere. Can the USA follow our example?????
Hey, what's this "Orstralia"? That dates from WWI. Even the Poms know it's "a Straya" now. :) And there's one more thing you didn't mention: Election Day is always a Saturday, which generally isn't a working day. When you vote, your name has a line ruled through it on the electoral roll, and if that line doesn't appear, you get a please-explain from the AEC, and a fine if you can't produce a recognised verifiable excuse.
Yeah - but don't come here, you are likely to accidentally get killed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEeq5qGh8I.
(I'd be more scared in Georgia or Florida -water moccasins, etc...)
You’d need to be more worried about the humans than the poisonous snakes. I live and garden in eastern NC; rarely meet a snake.
The wonderful travel writer, Bill Bryson, in his book on Australia said that undoubtedly there were more things per square inch in Australia that could kill you than any place else on earth. Everywhere he went he was constantly getting warnings about this or that that could be lethal. Nevertheless, I always greatly regret in all my travels I never made it to that region--a part of me thinks I'd probably not want to leave.
I prefer to have Bill Bryson do my traveling for me.
Thanks, Hugh. I'll be quieter about the wonders of nature after seeing this video!
Well, that was scary.
Brilliant! 😆
One hopes, but in USA the recent phase is to love expensive, poorly-functioning future piles of e-waste (think “smartboards” or “chromebooks” in schools) that make beaucoup de $ for a few over delightfully recyclable, fully-functional papers and pencils, and if course that extends to worthless-piece-of-shit voting machines that threaten our very democracy. If elected to Congress (trying now to get on the ballot in NY; primary delayed so collecting petition signatures) going back to paper ballots will be among my first pieces of proposed legislation, if possible coupled with compulsory voting. Which is no doubt why I’ll be a one-termer if I pull off a statistical miracle.
Have you read 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting by EJ Dionne and Miles Rappaport? They rely heavily on the Australian model.
The vote percentage was a little over 30 percent and it isn't like voting is difficult here in Oregon.
Thanks for a great addition to summer reading list!!
Here in Oregon we have a mess in Clackastan (Clackamus) County with machine readers. The bar code on many ballots were unreadable. The county clerk (clearly a R dingbat) knew two weeks in advance and did little to fix the situation. Her remedy was to have two people (one R, one D) open the original ballot and mark a new ballot that could be fed into the machines. Election Day arrived and went. The clerk was unrepentant and everyone else was having a fit. She had many excuses, but never has owned her own part. There was an audit before this and she refused to make the changes they suggested. Now the county has provided 200 county workers who have to have some training. And we wait for the results which have to certified by June 13th and the clerk says it will take all of that time. The main contest people are watching is the one between Schrader and McLeod-Skinner who is to his left. She has built up a commanding lead and the consensus is that there will not be enough votes in Clackamus to save him. We'll see. I am hoping that the clerk is out on her ear come November.
I should say that we mark paper mail in ballots which are fed into a machine. I haven't voted in a polling place in over 20 years. Usually this works very well.
I had not heard "Clackastan" with respect to Clackamas county. That is rich!
We have an astute friend that refers to Clackamas as this. Tootie Smith as county chair and this clerk is something else. Remember that it was Clackamas County where the R election worker got in trouble for adding to a ballot. That's why two people now open each ballot.
Unfortunately, there is some verisimiltude to it. It's hard to believe, but it is a very different place from the Clackamas County I used to enjoy visiting. It was conservative then, but rational. I know some good clear-thinking people there, but oh god, the place has a lot of nuts.
Including the county clerk.
Good luck. If you succeed, check out the system St. Louis County, Missouri uses, I think the provider is Verity. It's a combination of paper and computer and works amazingly well.
In Waltham, MA we mark paper ballots which are then fed into machines for counting. Easy to use, easily verified.
That’s how I voted in the NC primary last week. Easy peasy.
Michigan, too. Works great.
That’s what we use in Knox Co, TN. First used in 2020 and voters loved it. Used in last month’s primary too. Both times ballots and votes matched exactly.
Same here; I was an election judge in the locals in April and met it for the 1st time. Made things much easier and, as with you, the statistics were a perfect match. Going back again for the primaries in August.
Attempting to roll back the clock to the 1950's?
Not at all; the system is computerized on a unique server that, at least here, can print a bespoke ballot for every voter anywhere in the county and it will reflect only that voter's options. The voter completes the ballot by hand and feeds it into an optic scanner which tallies the vote, rejects any incorrect ballot on the spot so the voter can make corrections if needed and tallies the ballots so that they can be verified against the number issued as well as provide preliminary counts. The paper ballots are retained for verification and/or recount if needed. Definitely not the way it was done in the 50s or even the 60s and 70s where we were pulling levers.
That is not what I was addressing in my reply to Laura Thomas. You may have lost the thread; which is easy to do. I am calling out much more that just paper and pencils with my roll "back the clock to the 1950's" statement and I don't want to have to spell it out. We've heard a lot from folks who have the same 1950's mindset haven't we?
I think I understand your point now and, yes, we've seen sufficient of that. I do think though that the voting conversation was well worth it.
Yes and no on the voting issue. I believe Americans have been bamboozled and are being led down a path of "but those darn voting methods" away from the urgent, catastrophic reality of Republicans setting up a State by State system of stealing elections no matter the method for voting. Voter suppression, gerrymandering and installing stop the steal Secretary of State in States is part of the blueprint.
An example of what I am saying
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-election-denier-who-could-run-michigans-elections/ar-AAXzAMy?li=BBnb7Kz#:~:text=The%20Election%20Denier%20Who%20Could%20Run%20Michigan%E2%80%99s%20Elections
You bloody Ozzies always make too damn much sense. :-)
Snark (grin)
If that was true we wouldn't have had the Libs in for so long. It's a toss-up who was worse: Tony Abbott or mini-Trump ScoMo of all too recent memory.
I wish we could post images - I was sent a fantastic one of dear Rupert Murdoch as an octopus engulfing the globe. Australia has been one of his early victims, we have almost no National "liberal" press left - some, but vanishingly small.
Worse than a victim: he's our "alien". An octopus? yes. I've saved the one of tfg done by a Norwegian(?) cartoonist, before he was even elected (?) - he's portrayed as a huge overgrown crawling baby in a filthy diaper, mouth hanging open, reaching up to pull on the tablecloth to make the world (a globe on its stand) come crashing down. Everything he's touched is marked by his filthy hands.
I have that. Also, the pic I have from the Helsinki debacle is a fav. It has Putin leading chump by his long red tie. The length of the tie is photoshopped to look like a leash, but the facial expressions are priceless, and 100% real. Tells the tale..
That’s a perfect description of the lying POS that befouled the presidency.
A picture is worth a thousand words, that said, I hate to associate any creature of nature with the slime ball Murdoch. Sorry slime (NOVA “The Secret Mind of Slime”). He was likely brought in By Reagan to do what he does best, Goebbels’s style propaganda. Our home-grown evil loved it.
I know one Aussie who referred to their previous leader as "Scotty from Marketing." She is thrilled now with their new leader.
I don't know anybody that isn't! The sunshine is blissful today. Even the fog was lovely yesterday.
🤣
Can we? Sure. Will we? Probably not, it would cost too many people too much of what they value most. But, we'll try.
Nah, our states (well, some) are too busy trying to rule the country. United we are not, and it will destroy us before any external threat.
Agreed but—Not if we come out swinging SOON, and mean it.
I've been wondering, why does the outgoing Australian party have liberal in its name, when they are conservatives?
It's historic. And they aren't known for their truthfulness.
Sure sounds great - but ever notice that USA doesnt do much "example following"? Guess its because we are so "special"? (I do seem to use quotation a lot lately)
Yep, could just follow European social democracies in so many ways and we'd be doing much better.
Sweet revenge for million,s of Koalas.....if a little late!
I love the compulsory voting concept. How is this done?
What do you love about compulsory voting? And what happens if a person doesn't comply?
What's not to love about it? You actually get what most of the adult population wanted. Your name is neatly crossed off the electoral roll when you vote, and if in later weeks it's monitored that it hasn't been crossed off, you get a letter in the mail asking why you failed to vote. If your answer doesn't give one of the prescribed reasons, you get fined.
Follow your example in what?
I haven't had my first cup of coffee and now I read some America bashing. So unnecessary and disappointing. And even more depressing is when Americans go along with it. I believe in the saying that I can complain about my family but no one else can.
Frankly your argument is apples and oranges. Our national configuration of States is different, our Constitution is different, our election process is different.
Surely there are some valid and long overdue changes needed in Australia you can turn your attention towards?
I always appreciate comparative literature, and this is along the same lines. I always urge my i ternational students to share perceptions of America/ans from abroad and we learn a lot! Thanks for contributing to the discussion! Learning from everyone!
Seriously? Comparative literature and international politics are not even remotely along the same lines. We're not giving participation gold stars out today. You know the intent of what I said. Please feel free to address those.
Really, Barbara? Perhaps you’re so high up on your horse that you can’t see the flaws in your vaunted “exceptional" country, or that other countries on the planet may have very good reasons to dislike the US. That said, the benign comparison between Australia’s successful election system and the US’s foundering one was nowhere near US bashing. I hope that first cup of coffee took the bitter out of your reaction.
Thanks, Jude. That was unexpected, and it did sting.
In your haste to rage at me (or probably anyone handy today) you have confused/combined 2 separate things, comments, responses and issues in the comments. Take some deep breaths. And btw disagreement is one thing raging at someone on this comments site isn't ok.
So envious …
And Reagan dragged the country right back to the sewer of money first and last.
I still don’t understand how Republicans and Dems alike think Reagan was a good president?
Check out the trajectory of the National debt beginning in 1980.
Worse than Trump (if that’s possible) as his legacy lives on as a goal still a work in proces.
Yup
Maybe, since Reagan was a slick character and many of the ramifications were policy based, it took time to see fallout of his presidency and policies. Trump OTOH, we see things in real time because he is actively trying to take down the government as we know it, and have known it, and we see that all his cohorts are criminals and crazy, and he had/has no respect for the protocols of the office.
I don't think that is it. I think so much is colored by the fact that the Berlin Wall came down, and essentially, Reagan was a likeable fellow, with a genial personality. He has been out of office long enough for us to see how bad trickle down economy has performed, and what it has done to our economy. I have heard the analysis from respected historians who still rank him among out best. I just don't see it, and didn't at the time. I think he also chose people for the most part, who believed in the United States, whereas, Trump chose ones determined to tear down what was "being" carefully constructed over the life of our country.
Concerted effort to deify Pres. Reagan by the Republican Party had a lot to do with it. Following quote if from a CNN essay about the effect.
“Less than a decade after his presidency ended, Reagan aides made a concerted effort to convince local governments and private associations to name places after their boss across the nation. Led by lobbyist and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the Reagan Legacy Project was founded in the 1997 with the goal of naming something substantial after the nation’s fortieth president in every state and, eventually, make the Gipper’s mark in each of the nation’s 3,144 counties.”
Why Ronald Reagan’s name is everywhere
Chris Moody
By Chris Moody and Casey Capachi, CNN
Updated 7:52 PM EDT, Mon September 4, 2017
Typical Republican philosophy, go for the branding rather than facts.
Thank you putting that perspective on it. I’m seeing lists though of our best Presidents, Reagan’s name is on them. Why?
Depends on who makes the list. Just for the record: a number of things named after Reagan have reverted to their original name. In the context of time and facts, his name just doesn't have the glimmer it did for some for a while. I think he is beginning to take his rightful place in history, which is quite a ways lower down.
I was so glad that they finally quit “digging the corpse out” for every election.
Some people have been convinced that he was a better president than George Washington!
I don't think Dems think Reagan was a good President. I think that they've learned that the myth of his "greatness" had been so embraced by all Repubs, and there is no changing their thinking, so the Dems use Reagan as a "we like Reagan, Trump is awful" comparison.
And that was a global phenomenon; the gains of the 60s and 70s being clawed back by the useful idiots like Margaret Thatcher the Milk Snatcher (a schoolyard chant; spent a term as a schoolgirl just outside Cambridge)
FDR, with the New Deal (First Hundred Days) and 2nd New Deal (1935) provided a basis for modern-day America at that time. LBJ, a man with gargantuan appetites and ambitions, sought to out do FDR with the Great Society.
Medicare, two monumental civil rights laws (he took tremendous personal satisfaction in accomplishing what JFK had failed to do), the Voting Rights Act of 1965, poverty programs, NEH, NEA, and hundreds of other transformative initiatives marked LBJ’s Great Society.
Johnson, whose ruthless political skills in Congress were superbly described in Robert Caro’s Pulitzer-winning MASTER OF THE SENATE, knew that he had a short window, after JFK’s assassination and his trouncing of Goldwater in 1964, to jam a panoply of far-reaching legislation through Congress.
This almost seemed like throwing massive globs of pasta at the wall to see what might stick. Johnson was in a legislative frenzy believing that ground-breaking legislation and a moderately open check book could transform the America society.
We are indebted for what President Johnson accomplished. By FDR’s rule of thumb (‘If I bat 70% with what I initiate, that’s pretty damned good’), Johnson scores well. The political push back caused by his Great Society steamroller came rather swiftly. As he noted, when signing his 1965 civil rights law, ‘We will lose the South for at least a generation.’
The Vietnam War proved his major political Achilles heel. Using his same Great Society overdrive in Vietnam, he escalated the war with phony claims (Tonkin Gulf Resolution), lying to the American people about ‘winning,’ and sending over 500,000 military where there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
It probably was as great a shock and personal humiliation for Johnson as his Watergate resignation was for Nixon, when Johnson announced in March, 1968 that he would not run for re-election.
On reflection, I give him poor marks on Vietnam (a Greek tragedy) and a vigorous shout out for his somewhat flawed, but still monumental Great Society.
I wonder how the American society of the 21st century might have been transformed, if President Biden had been able to legislate a robust Build Back Better program.
That Mitch McConnell should have been able to prevent that legislation (and so much else) is a cause for bitter despair.
Mitch McConnell in tandem with Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, along with the criminal gang of Republican. OMG!! Who votes against feeding babies?
My rep, Tim Burchett, R from TN2, does.
So does my rep, David Rouzer, R-NC7, political opportunist and sedition caucus member. Why do we pay these people? They don’t do ANYTHING for anyone but themselves.
🤬🤯 there really are not words.
Well, we know what has to be done about it....take back the States!
And...action!
Keith, as I’m sure you agree, the ideas of BBB are there waiting to be tried out. The American People will love them when they eventually are. Biden, and more importantly, those who back him, have said everyone will benefit from BBB, new Voting Rights and Climate Change Reversal; of course, they’re right…they are excellent “just in time” initiatives for America and the free world. Who’s holding them up and why? If the democrats would simply identify their antagonists and keep pushing against them we’d have the congressional majorities in 2022 needed to “go big”, instead of worrying about hanging on to much less than optimal majorities…which aren’t enough….or, so much worse, facing defeat to fear mongering nihilistic republicans that the majority of Americans simply loathe. Will the outcome of January 6 hearings help bring things back in line? Will follow on indictments and trials of high level Republican trumpist seditionists…key leaders of the New Confederacy…. help? How about Victory for Ukraine and defeat of Russia? Will the American voters come out in droves and resoundingly reject trumpist MAGA false grievances and lies that have made his bamboozled supporters as crazy as him… to the benefit of the real antagonists of our fragile democratic experiment? Yeah, just maybe…
May I call you Keith? (Perhaps my favorite name) what you proscribe regarding BBB is common sense for our country and essential for a great majority of American society.
Sadly, I believe that BBB ain’t going to happen in the months prior to November elections. I would love to witness a campaign in which President Biden and the Democrats shove BBB up the butts of the Republicans in a Trumanesque campaign.
I profoundly hope that I am wrong. But we now have the two putrid lions (Manchin & Sinema) in the Senate and a narrow-thin Democratic majority in the House and post-November may well be worse.
My honor… we have work to do for sure. Nothing is certain; we can only keep trying for the right outcome that will happen when our voters support it. Thank you for your service to our country.
Fabulous! A pair of Keith's. Is that a Cluster of Keiths? A Combination of Keiths?
I’d say, in this case, a constellation of Keiths.
Salud!
A Kinship of Keiths.
Mimi I delight in KK, but would abhor KKK.
A Klatch!
Ally I know some people who believe that one Keith is too many.
Agree…made me laugh!
They’ve tried but we don’t have media willing to report on it.
As Bill Moyers stated somewhere, LBJ said that a president dealt with the information that he had, full well knowing that he did not have the whole picture, but he sought it. Moyers left Johnson over Vietnam, but he knew him well. That is when I knew that the end was near. I saw his statement on tv at the time, not knowing that so much worse was to come…
Jeri In early 1966 the State Department had selected me to be interviewed for the spot of administrative assistant of the director of the National Security Council. I refused the interview, not wishing to be within spitting distance of the White House’s Vietnam policy. I much preferred going as Political Officer to Chile 1966-1969, before Nixon/Kissinger screwed up things there and I resigned from the Foreign Service.
Keith:
You had a choice! You are much older than I and you still have a clear head. Amazing stories you have told of which I have only read, even though it was happening before my very eyes. Would have been selected and instead volunteered in 68. The better decision at the time for me. Others chose differently to which I hold no grudge. Learned a lot from 68-74 and got out.
Keep talking as it is an education for many of us.
Edited, I was only on my second cup of black coffee. Read your background and saw your picture. It I ever see you, I will say hello.
Bill Ditto!
Thanks for that nugget of inside information!
So true, Jeri. My reaction, as a know it-all-almost- college-graduate was “We Won!” Not even close. So many losses in the 50+ years that followed.
It was said at the time that LBJ knew where all the skeletons in the Senate were hidden and didn’t mind pulling them out for the country to see if necessary to get his legislation through. Biden is too nice to be so ruthless but then Schumer is no Mike Mansfield either.
Sarah LBJ was obsessed, brutal, vicious, and played the political game to win. As described in Caro’s MASTER OF THE SENATE, he had a ‘book’ on every senator—weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The ‘Johnson method’ of relentless intimidation was legendary.
It’s just numbers, though. Look at the composition of the Senate when LBJ was president.
I know. The Dixiecrats hadn’t pulled out of the Dem party yet.
Despite republican’s protests to the contrary they are trying to use the government to reshape society - in their image - by working to control women’s bodies, decide what books we have access to, even what we are allowed to say i.e. don’t say gay. Rolling back civil rights is their goal and always has been There’s a lot to dislike about Johnson but he had a vision I would heartily agree with
He was an honorable, and flawed man, with the best intentions for the country. Wish there was some of that now, Joe is close but not the salesman
LBJ didn’t have Fox and the whole right wing echo chamber to deal with. He also never had to withstand the 24/7 scrutiny.
A moving, loving, paean for our nation, from our better selves. The morality behind these Letters. Beautiful.
I couldn’t agree more! Johnson’s words are simply splendid, as are yours, Heather! Thank you!
What stands out most are the following stated by Johnson:
“There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”
Sounds a lot like what President Biden is now saying.
I believed in LBJ and he believed in the words he spoke. He was a crushing politician, but I would wager that he scarfed up as little personal largesse as prez as any modern ex Pres, unless it was Truman, if he can be considered modern...
Thank you, Heather for the best letter We could read, one that reinforces how government and Democracy are for the people and by the people. President Johnson was key in introducing sweeping changes, The Great Society, a vision that addressed, gave a name to the poverty and injustice that plagued our country. We lived these great changes. Since then, the repubs have actively worked to dismantle the benefits and protections of all citizens, especially those who had suffered the injustices and inequality the most. And today, the repubs continue to attempt to destroy equality and Justice. We must speak up, vote and stop the slide toward autocracy.
Robert Reich who is often positive and hopeful, spoke in his latest “Coffee Klatch” podcast with great concern and not as hopeful about the direction our government is now traveling. Let’s share the Voices we respect, especially with voters and acquaintances who aren’t paying attention. Friends, family. Even repubs. It’s our Democracy.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/coffee-klatch-cpac-in-budapest-bezos?r=ele1&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Thank you, Irenie. You said it rightly!
Lynell, positive words into positive actions! Do we need a magic wand?
Magic wand? Like they say about chicken soup: It wouldn't hurt!
Bam! CHICKEN SOUP! It wouldn’t hurt! Lynell, this jumps out of the page. Chicken soup, it wouldn’t hurt. Magic right there!
If we ever needed a recipe for chicken soup we need one from the hen house now.
You got that right, Pat!
Thanks for this. Well said! LBJ was a master politician and in the words Heather quoted and alluded to he voiced a vision that should still be at the center of "our" aspirations!
Despite LBJ's bold vision and many accomplishments, he fell into the Cold War trap of Vietnam. And everything changed. The vision still awaits to be attained.
As part of the generation LBJ was speaking too, and to your point about the Viet Nam mess. I am coming to conclude that we go distracted by the insanity of VN while crafting the art of protest without enough energy given to the challenges presented in his speech. We perhaps retain and continue that art in lieu of mentionable accomplishment societally. There seems a parallel in the here and now we're distractions and noise substitute for changing society, improving plight of our fellow man, and forming a government with capability and competence to counter greed and ignorance that appear to be on the ascendant.
Thank you. I needed that.
I remember thinking back on the pre-Vietnam years of the Johnson Presidency when, in 2020, shortly after Biden became the presumptive nominee, the Biden Campaign had joined with the Sanders’ Political Movement to establish six policy task forces covering the economy, health care, criminal justice, immigration, education, and climate change. I recall Sanders saying that he was glad to work with the then former VP in forming the six separate task forces, which had some of the most knowledgeable people in the country coming together. Moreover, Sanders noted, that while the people who represented the progressive movement held a different perspective on policy than did Biden’s people, serious discussion and an honest effort to compromise ensued. Sanders added, “I think the compromises that they came up with, if implemented, [would]… make Biden the most progressive President since FDR. It did not have, needless to say, everything that I wanted. It didn’t have everything that Biden wanted. But there is no question that on some of the major issues facing this country, if that agenda [were]… implemented, life [would]… improve for tens and tens of millions of working people.” Sanders concluded by specifically naming policies directed at the environment, at climate change, at criminal justice, and at the needs of low-income people.
As we have witnessed, every bit of the legislation passed in the Democratically-controlled House and remains stalled in the Senate due, in large part, to the filibuster. Worse, the Budget Reconciliation package (BBB) that contains much of the legislation and requires only 50 Senate votes failed by just two—Manchin and Sinema, resulting in my repeated calls for the Senate to pass whichever Budget Reconciliation provisions can gain support from 50 Senators to present to voters as a down payment with more to come if Dems can hold the House and pick up at least 2 Senate seats.
My reason for hope
(Sweden)
All I remember from LBJ's "War on poverty" are the cartoons of bombers over Vietnam, with that title. The irony goes on with "Make America Great Again".
Two weeks ago, the Kentucky Derby saw a win from a late entry (Rich Strike, with 80 to 1 odds) that came from behind to beat the favorite (Epicenter). Telling (to me at least) was how unprepared the announcers were for this outcome. Footage of the replay had them laser focused on the favorite, so much so that the eventual winner was all but relegated to the background. Yesterday, again, the favorite (Epicenter) was at the Preakness, there to claim a victory that many said was rightfully his to own. In the lead up to the actual race, all talk was about him, not so much about the horse that bested him at the Derby. Yet, again, he lost to a more than also ran horse named Early Voting (!)
What does all this have to do with LBJ's Great Society and, by extension, Biden's many accomplishments so far? A lot IMHO. Because, you see, the story is not so much about who and what we should be focusing on; it's always about who has the louder megaphone.
And that is exactly how the former president got elected: earned media through shambolic stunts that allowed him to blatt soundbite lies (especially theough Murdoch organs), self-published repetitions of lies on social media, and megaphones on hate radio like Hannity/Limbaugh/Carlson and from pulpits of churches. In the hands of those disciplined at getting out the vote, to whom he shrewdly tethered himself by promising to end abortion and by photo ops like shambling out on our streets (after clearing peaceful demonstrators with gas) clutching a bible, then calling on his corps for an insurrection with colluders in Congress, he nearly got a fascist dictatorship and Pence said NOTHING after being hanged in effigy. That it could be so easily done by a buffoon so shrewd but stupid, manipulated by weasels like Miller and Bannon, is sobering.
Excellent telling like it was and is, Laura. I'm sober.
So easily done, scary to the Nth degree
❤️
BAM, Lynell. That focus on Epicenter by those calling the race at the Derby was so odd to me. Yet telling. I had to laugh later thinking how all in the room with me were shouting for… who? Oh yes, Rich Strike as he raced from behind to win. Got to love it. Think I’ll watch Dreamer today with Kurt Russell and little then Dakota Fanning. Get set for the week.
Salud, Lynell.
Morning, Christine!! Thanks for commenting on what I think many would say is an off-the-wall rambling. Comforting to know you're occupying that wall with me!
Dont watch the races anymore - only videos AFTER. I was tickled to see an 80 to 1 horse come up & win the Derby & to hear of another non-favorite win the Preakness. And relieved to see the Derby winner get time off rather than run again that soon. As I've likely said before - running 3 year old (& some not quite 3) babies is wrong. Sadly, any discipline that uses animals, whether it be horses or others, always has areas that puts them at a disadvantage - at the least.
And Christine, agree completely about Dreamer - I go back & watch it every so often. Another good one, if you havent seen it, is Dream Horse. Really good movie.
Thanks, Magge. Their bodies (bones) are yet to be fully formed at 3. The horse forum I follow targets ulcers as the likely culprit that made Rich Strike aggressive toward his companion horse after the race.
Thanks for the movie tip.
I'm guessing the "forum" you follow is the same one I do, Lynell! And I agree
Anna Blake? IMHO, Anna is for horse people what HCR is for people people!
Morning Lynell. We are not dealing with a little race fixing I trust. Someone at least made a great deal of money betting on the outsider while the bookies creamed it on the favourite.....in both races.
Morning, Stuart!! Beyond my ability to know whether this is a follow-the-money story or not. The Derby winner - who entered the race just the day before - came from way, way behind. The Preakness looked more "normal" as they headed for the finish. There's cameras everywhere capturing every angle imaginable, even on top of the jockeys' helmets!
In the Derby the horses in front burned themselves out. That's why Rich Strike looked so fast. He was not really a fluke. Pretty well bred. But I digress.
Those thoroughbreds are magnificent as man kills many in their lust to win.
I remember well the horizon lit with impacts droning on and on night after night. The thunderous impacts. I remember flying over the craters slowly filling with water from horizon to horizon underneath our helicopter. I remarked the enemies wheeled traffic driving between and around the craters always towards Saigon. Hundreds and hundreds of vehicles bringing in enemy munitions. I remember feeling very small knowing we would soon be receiving their gifts. That was Nixon’s war then. The war he told North Vietnam to keep fighting until he was elected, promising them a more lucrative peace.
No words, except thank you, Pat
Well said, Olof. I was a young man then, just starting university. We didn't believe it then, nor should we now. Beautiful prose, while committing the unthinkable. Some things never change.
He meant it (vision), I believed it, until the war overshadowed it. Watching the war news during dinner was a game changer.
George, I just read an article yesterday about northern ID. Is the crazy true?
Dunno MLM, as I haven't read the article. If you're talking politically though, let's just say if your views are anywhere to the left of Mitt Romney's (inclusive) you don't apply any bumper stickers to your car that might suggest that fact. And a "Liz Cheney" sticker would likely get you "keyed" and very possibly much worse. I'm aware of the rap Idaho gets nationally, which is the reason I posted my general location here originally; just to let a few of you know that we're not all .... as portrayed. But Since the 2020 election I've become a lot more paranoid, so I think I'll change my profile name. I appreciate your reminder. Take care.
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We are the champions of ironic blather. The MAGA crowd is a harbinger of America’s decline, I fear.
I'm even more afraid Putin knows it, and knows what buttons to push.
I didn’t know that about LBJ. impressive.
No. That's very far from "All the way with LBJ" and the anti-war movement that had our hitherto apathetic Australian youth marching in the streets. And I'd never realised the harm done by Reagan. We saw him as a B-grade movie actor declining rapidly into senility and mocked him accordingly. The inspiring story HCR tells here is very sad.
Yes - but if you really want know, read Naomi Klein "Shock Doctrine" - it will all come clear. And now we all have to figure out how to disentangle ourselves from that all pervading mess.
On top of that go back to Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and "Kids" to guage to what extent American community spirit and societal involvement started to fall apart and kids stopped hoping they could do better.......the American Dream fading away.
Thanks for the recommendation. Just bought it and is next on my list.
Reagan couldn’t even convince his kids to like him. Of course, Michael was a different can of worms. Ron and Patty were not silent.
I knew it but the war and the Nixon evil in preventing his effort to end it in 1968 was a Waterloo for America. He called out our racist propensity “If you can convince the lowest white man that he is better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pockets.”
“Hell, if you can give him someone to look down on, he’ll pick his pockets for you.” -LBJ continued.
And guess who did most of the dirty deadly grunt work in Nam. He wasn’t white and affluent.
Agree!
Adding this here. Richard Goodwin was speechwriter for LBJ and is attributed to have coin Great Society" and likely authored the speech. Here is some coverage upon his death.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/22/613449550/richard-goodwin-who-wrote-johnsons-great-society-speech-dies-at-86
Thank you Heather.
I have found it rather striking that the current GOP have taken the corner stone of Johnson's Administration to be the basis of attack. The Voting Rights Act is certainly their biggest emphasis as it will change the face of this Nation the fastest and most directly.
I wonder what LBJ would think of this current horrific stripping of Rights in plain sight?
Be safe. Be well.
What amases me is how unaware The Fat Man’s followers are that they are fighting agains things that would better their lives.
As long as it hurts someone else as badly as it hurts them, they will line up and say "thank you, sir, may I have another?"
(Reference Animal House and Neidermeyer getting paddled as part of his "initiation")
Amazes!
Bet he would not be surprised, he knew the extent of the hate…
Being who he was, he prob would light fire under some asses to get them to light the fires of democracy again. Too many people thinking current Repubs have brought the curtain down. Maybe on themselves Let’s be the encore. That is usually how it works when democracy gives a woodshed thrashing.
Be fabulous. As always.
Salud, Linda. (By the way….where is Daria???)
Good evening Christine. I do believe he wouldn't take these current events sitting down.
We must be very deliberate to gain and keep control of the Midterms. It's honestly all down to that.
I haven't been checking too heavily on today's Letter, but good question about Daria. It makes me uneasy when she isn't in the fold of conversations. As I recall, she was in conversations last week. We may need to send out an APB for her.
So what problem do so-called conservatives have with Johnson's Great Society programs? Is it that they cost money, or that they would benefit the undeserving (according to conservatives), people who don't have a lot of money for a lot of different reasons? Elite conservatives, of course, want any general economic benefit to accrue from "trickle down," that is, the surplus from any big economic benefit the elites get as a matter of course.
As HST said “Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”
Of course it’s not socialism if it helps the big boys is it. The irony is bitter.
I believe the answer is both of your first two: cost and benefit to the "undeserving". Anything that "takes away" from them, they hate. Never mind that there is never enough for them.
Thank you HCR. It's a reminder to those of us who grew up in the 60's that there were politicians who had big thoughts for the welfare of others and who had a congress that could get things done. The big money in politics of our current day has poisoned the well of hope.
Three steps forward, two steps back ... in the fullness of Time, I still believe We Will Get There. Maybe not as we would wish for in our lifetimes? But for the Future, Certainly. Thanks Heather. It's words like yours and your reminders of our history that keep us moving forward in the right direction.