Must we endure terrible pain to acquire wisdom? Lessons from big wave surfing and the conversations of President Johnson and Defense Secretary McNamara.
How about a new law. Any politician who votes in favor of the US going to war, or funds it, is given an express ticket to the front lines to fight the war (or the mine fields etc). If they are funding foreign wars, they can go fight with those soldiers too. They can choose their replacement for their political position.
I feel the same. And the same about sending our human and material resources to fight in Nigeria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Gaza, the West Bank….
President Trump, you have some nice strong sons and daughters and grandchildren, and some money in the bank, send your healthy strong family and use your money to go fight the wars I voted for you to stop.
And BTW, did those bone spurs that qualified you for your deferment ever heal up?
Do you really think you actually deserve a Peace Prize?
Agree. All direct relations to the politician in favor of the war can also serve, regardless of age or ability! I'm sure it would be their honor to give so selflessly to such important causes.
Yet he changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War and increased the funding to over a trillion dollars... and we aren't even technically at war, nor have any logical reason to be at war. It's complete and utter insanity.
McNamara would later come face to face with Castro’s letter to Khrushchev begging Russia to nuke America. And willing to sacrifice all of Cubar.
Remember also just 86 years ago when suicide/homicide Shinto Buddhists jumped with their children off of 2,000 foot sea cliffs. Rather than be liberated into common sense by coalition forces in the Pacific.
Now the Left Coast would rather mutilate and sterilize their children for life. And addict them to synthetic hormones and SSRI drugs for life. Than be liberated into common sense.
your narrative reminds me of Ezekiel's prophecies(reading it today. . .):
. . . regarding the remnants left in Judah, who continued to worship Egyptian wood and stone idols, and burning their first borns to the these impotent objects, and failing to follow the Law handed to Moses, Ezekiel warned them they would be burned themselves as dry tinder in flames, so to speak. And so they, continued . . . just as the LEFT continues with its insanity today.
Jeremiah's warnings worked for awhile. Until they didn’t. And Nineveh disappeared. As did Judah and the Temple and Old Testament Judaism. The only thing surviving after 70 A D is a remnant of Pharisee rabbinical commentary in synagogues.
Interestingly, God used an eclipse highlighter at the Cross Roads in Saint Anthony. An earlier eclipse went to the Right hand over Corpus Christi and into the Gulf of America. The last eclipse highlighter left a shadow from Saint Anthony up north east over 7 US Ninevehs and 1 Canadian Nineveh.
We can heed the warnings of Jeremiah. Temporarily will just prolong the Nineveh. Unless we inject the prayers and penances to stay the hand of Cosmic Justice.
The easy way is never the freeway. It requires sacrifices.
THESE PPL THAT I CALL THE PUPPET MASTERS, THEIR AIM IS TO KILL ANY RELIGION, THEY WORSHIP LUCIFER, WHETHER THE THJNGS THEY BELIEVE ATE REAL OR NOT, THEY HAVE THE POWER.
THEY HAVE INFILTRATED FIELDS OVER THE LAST 40 YRS W/ ALT-LFT MENTALITIES. TEACHING, MEDICAL, PSYCH, LAW, SCIENCE, CHURCH/RELIGION
(SECULARISM IS WHAT'S PASSING FOR CHRISTIANITY, MOST DON'T REALIZE IT) & MILITARY.
War has twisted my life like a pretzel. I was the Navigator on the last C-141 headed into Saigon on 30 April, 1975. When Saigon fell we were diverted into U-Tapau AB in Thailand. Anything that could get off the ground in Vietnam was limping into Thailand at that time. Cherry pickers had US Air Force troops in the baskets painting over anything South Vietnamese. It was chaos. The following day on our way back to Clark AFB in the Philippines as we rounded the southern tip of Vietnam I tilted my radar down to get a better look at what was on the ocean below. The surface sparkled with returns. Some large some barely visible. The Vietnamese were escaping by sea to the American fleet waiting in international waters off the coast. As I looked down I remembered the faces of the Vietnamese I had worked with and laughed with in prior years. The tears began falling from my eyes as I watched, knowing what awaited the ones that couldn't get away. We did it again in Afghanistan. I cried again.
You're absolutely correct, John. I have a video of McNamara confessing that the Vietnam War was Civil, not a communist plot. Same as weapons of mass destruction and every other war. They are all manufactured. Even American involvement in WW 1 and 2. FDR knew of the attack of Pearl Harbor in advance and used that attack to involve the US in another stupid European conflict. Politicians do not die, nor their children; it's the average slob that wants to take care of his family. The government and its leaders are the enemy of humanity.
My recent ancestors believed that FDR wanted the war to get himself out of economic trouble. Recent diggings supposedly showed he knew the Japanese were going to attack, got the most 'important' things out of Pearl Harbor, and then left the remaining 2000 to die. Fauci isn't the only murderer in our history.
of course. do you know that bankers fund both sides. Do you know that war is good business for the bankers. Do you know what the federal reserve bank is ?
yes, and governments also tax everything. The system is a combination of oligarchy, kleptocracy, kakistocracy and order followers. It is a system designed to extract money from the peasants.
Two dangerous characteristics “arrogant & nitwit” when occupying positions of power. Our elitist class is almost exclusively comprised of these people. Thomas Sowell has pointed this out his entire life to no avail. In fact it appears many are awarded these positions for possessing these very characteristics.
And let's not forget the narcissistic and sociopathic "qualities" of most politicians. If they continue to run and "serve", you can bet they're either or both. I have known some good legislators, and they only last one term because they can't stand the sewer they have to operate in to be successful at serving their nation.
I would like to see a Constitutional amendment requiring congressional term limits. ( a partial solution only albeit a disincentive to the “professional” politician.
Here in Melbourne, Australia, in 1966, LBJ was given a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his visit, designed to cement in place Australia's commitment to America's folly in Vietnam. Tens of thousands turned out to line the streets and cheer the great US President. The Prime Minister, Harold Holt, coined the proud slogan "All the Way With LBJ". Thus stupidity and ignorance proceeds. Holt, a well-known philanderer, was drowned while swimming at a posh resort about a year later. Blind fate occasionally results in some kind of justice.
Regarding the preface anecdote of the reckless tech bro – it's reassuring to know that millionaires or even billionaires like Zuckerberg have to literally get beaten up in order to find meaning in their life after establishing a fortune from something most likely meaningless. That guy got pummeled by a wave, and Zuckerberg threw himself into the UFC cage in order to feel something – haven't we seen this stupid movie before? I guess Fight Club was a satire?
Oh, and what I mean by "reassuring" is that I am glad that I don't feel compelled to do any of these extreme things, rather I'm content to go for walk or play some music. Reminds me of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy: these rich tech bros are wrecked by "good fortune".
But ya know, Viktor Frankl did say that courage (in addition to work, and love) are the three main ways to cultivate meaning in our lives, and I suppose surfing and UFC brawling (and skydiving, bungie jumping, hang gliding, etc) demand some courage but there's something hubristic (if not just suicidal) about these sports.
Similarly, there's a tech bro in my neighborhood who retired in his 30s and took up super bike racing – he blasts around at 3 AM to avoid traffic, but there are deer and any number of things that could cause him to crash. Do they have a death wish? Or is something about these reckless activities that serves as a kind of atonement? Regardless, don't be tempted to envy them.
My take on these guys, they don’t have a death wish at all. I have known many of them and they are to a man ( and yes ladies, they are men) atheist or agnostic, and they really don’t want to die. EVER. Because that would be the end of self. And self is very important. They are generally extremely self centered , and emotionally and spiritually undeveloped. Also they can buy just about anything they want. Thus, they get very bored. A very very bored technocrat with nothing to hold them back can cause a whole lot of mischief.
and what a putz Johnson was! The audio shows him to be an impotent old duffer floundering around in a job and world he had no business occupying. I often think of that regarding MOST presidents: Many not a clue how to manage people, the media, or who TRULY understand how to better our country. Most operating by the "seat of their pants" and we citizens are not alone at risk, the world is. . . Vietnam as a prime example.
Hell, this idiot just wanted to see the Viet Cong cornered and killed. He simply did not care what his actions would bring in the near term or the future-- certainly could have cared less about the 57,000 young Americans who would die and hundreds of thousands on both sides maimed or how the economy of 'nam and surrounding nations would suffer.
Johnson had Jumbo for brains. As Brave's AI explains: "Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, famously nicknamed his penis "Jumbo," a moniker that reflected his pride in its size and his tendency to display it publicly. He was known to expose himself to colleagues and staff, often making vulgar remarks while brandishing it." There's even a story from two sources, a biographer and a journalist, that when asked why he thought we could win in Vietnam, Johnson unzipped, pulled out Jumbo, and said "that's why." AI claims that part "can't be authenticated."
Oh dear, even "Jumbo" failed to beat the Vietnamese...size isn't everything. Apparently the recently-deceased war criminal, "Donkey Dick" Cheney, was in the same league. I suppose they will now both be able to compare their weaponry in Hell...and their master will decide the "winner".
He would know, he was a psychopathick killer, like kissonger. He personally said,"presidents are selected, not elected." It's like when Buzz jokingly admitted they "never went to the moon, they faked it." They'll tell you the truth, you just have to listen.
Your statement "Johnson is a cunning Texas redneck who is accustomed to things going his way" is true if "his way" was killing people.
He killed his enemies. I have what I consider very reliable information from a direct relative of John Connelly that LBK was directly involved in the JFK assassination. Mac Brown's (LBJ's assassin) fingerprint in the Dallas Book depository confirms Brown's presence. He wouldn't have been there without LBJ's approval. LBJ's completely fraudulent investigation of JFK's murder shows conclusively LBJ's cover up of crime alone was a crime in itself. That was "his way".
Mac Brown's other murders, particularly of LBJ sister's lover and possibly of an Agricultural Department inspector who had LBJ dead to rights , shows that LBJ made sure that "his way" was killing his perceived enemies.
Although LBJ's modis operandi including killing enemies, LBJ was equally capable of sacrificing innocent American lives, like the sailors on the USS Liberty, to suck us into another worthless Middle East war that would have killed more Americans. Of course the whole Vietnam/Gulf of Tonkin event was a fraud, so LBJ getting thousands of Americans killed in worthless wars (worthless to everybody but the Military Industrial Complex) was also "his way".
That isn't "things going his way" unless killing people and covering it up was "his way."
He got into office when President Kennedy was shot, it seems to me that "his way" was indeed ascending while others around him died with no consequences for him. Vietnam was has Waterloo.
Thanks for the kind reply. In the 1970's, I had a friend who was junior loan officer at a Houston bank. (He sat next to Jeb Bush - he didn't think Jeb was that smart) Part of his job was making sure a room at the Rice Hotel was well stocked with booze and other things. Once a week there was a poker game there with the power brokers of Texas. LBJ would stop by when in town. They would divide up the government contracts in Texas over the poker table.
I have never verified this myself but I think I got it from a pretty good source. During WW2, to avoid having tankers sailing from Texas to the East Coast refineries, the Government rush built several oil pipelines to the refineries from Texas. After the war these pipelines were going be sold off and converted to natural gas. At that time Texas had huge amounts of natural gas that needed to be produced to produce high gas content oil. Most of this gas was just flared as there was no market or long haul pipelines to move it out of state. Getting access to the converted Government surplus oil pipes to the East Coast was going to create huge amounts of money selling that worthless natural gas.
Public bidding was supposed to be completely confidential and highly secure. When the sealed bids were opened, the company that LBJ favored won by $1. What an amazing bid. Almost like they knew the other bids. Rumor has it the pipeline deal was sealed during a poker game at the Rice by LBJ. Wellcome to Texas when it was a Democrat owned (controlled isn't strong enough) State. That's the power LBJ had.
I was a young man of draft age graduating college in 1969, and my lottery number was 6. I joined the National Guard instead of being drafted because I was not going to die in a stinking jungle for the seamy politicians' aggrandizement and chickenhawk power. My whole company felt the same, down to the officers; we all knew the war was bullshit, but we wanted to get our service in anyway. Those bastards have blood on their hands wherever they are in hell, and they did a huge disservice to this country's psyche and positive development. Bush and Cheney can join them - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
I can't bear to see people hurt and walked out of the Tom Hank's movie Saving Private Ryan showing the beach invasion of Normandy...It was too real and disturbed me. I don't understand how men can send other men to be killed in fighting their wars...I don't have to be there to feel the pain of what our soldiers go through in war. "When shall all men's good, be each man's rule...and universal Peace lie like a shaft of light cross the land." Alfred Lord Tennyson.
When someone has lived raw life, then the phrase "victim of homicide" contains ALL of the sensory violence that practically most people lack these days. People are not shocked by reading those words. They go by like the day's weather forecast or the commercial droning in the background of those who watch tv, registering but not internalized.
You see, the tv will have the talking heads read the "graphic" news, but it will not be displayed in video...for being too graphic for a sheltered public. For the unsheltered, the news is graphic enough.
Ahem…. Eisenhower initiated our involvement in Vietnam, providing air support for the French. He also advocated using nukes when the French finally capitulated and was talked out of it by the Pentagon.
JFK picked up the baton after Ho shredded the peace treaty and the elected Vietnamese government begged us to pull their fat from the fire.
In the recording, Johnson mentions that nothing was really working, and nothing had changed since 54. A prudent man would've ended it instead of escalating it. Watch for the same dangerous and reckless Folly to play out in Ukraine.
True. But consider the state of technology in the Sixties - no internet, no GPS, and not even overhead satellite photography. We had the U2 and SR71 but that was pretty primitive compared to the present.
I agree with you that NOW there’s no excuse for making the same mistake in Ukraine, which is basically a domestic foreign policy wife beating, and historically we have solved little with international force commitment.
Johnson was a tragic figure, not a villain. McNamara too. I won’t comment on the W. Bush administration beyond there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq and Powell lied to the UN and the NYT lied to the world. Those of us who knew the truth and trying to dispute the company line couldn’t get media to give us the time of day.
If you want to blame somebody, blame the media who swallowed the propaganda and wrote day jeremiads. Looking at you, Judy Miller.
And as a p.s. have you heard the tape of Johnson talking to Richard Russell immediately after the Turner Joy incident, agonizing over whether or not to escalate. When I heard it I appreciated, for the first time, the weight he was carrying.
There’s no second guessing history. Who’s to say the Domino Theory was wrong, and who’s to say the Vietnam War was unwinnable? Back then we were all making decisions based on the sketchy info we had, and I suggest the best we can do is not repeat those mistakes.
You’re entitled to your opinion, I’m entitled to mine. I was there at the time and spent my career in national security, so I’m comfortable that I’m not blowing smoke out my ass.
What I said in the post(s) is cold, hard, fact. Study the history.
After Kennedy did that, with no improvement, his administration green-lighted the overthrow and assassination of the Ngo brothers, moving things from bad to worse.
I lived through that era as a participant. I noticed at the time that the anti-war push was overwhelmingly from young men, and their parents, of draft age. When the draft ended the protesting dried up.
That recording of their conversation was … 😳 … all those deaths - to both sides - and *that* was a conversation about it from our top leader. Amazing (amazingly sad/scary/infuriating).
How about a new law. Any politician who votes in favor of the US going to war, or funds it, is given an express ticket to the front lines to fight the war (or the mine fields etc). If they are funding foreign wars, they can go fight with those soldiers too. They can choose their replacement for their political position.
And Lindsay Graham can lead them to their doom!
chickenhawk graham wouldn't even make good cannon fodder.
I feel the same. And the same about sending our human and material resources to fight in Nigeria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Gaza, the West Bank….
President Trump, you have some nice strong sons and daughters and grandchildren, and some money in the bank, send your healthy strong family and use your money to go fight the wars I voted for you to stop.
And BTW, did those bone spurs that qualified you for your deferment ever heal up?
Do you really think you actually deserve a Peace Prize?
I personally do not think Trump ever was an "outsider". Just pretending.
more and more evidence of that. The mere fact that he is portrayed as an outsider is a tell that he isn't and never was.
100%
I just read that Trump endorses the flu and "covid" injections. And then there is the fifty year mortgage. keep them sick and indebted for life.
CARES act and Operation Warp Speed should have been people's clue to what he is really loyal to.
My thoughts exactly. Send prissy lisping Ivanka and old Mammylania in combat boots to the front lines in Syria or Iran.
Agree. All direct relations to the politician in favor of the war can also serve, regardless of age or ability! I'm sure it would be their honor to give so selflessly to such important causes.
DO YOU KNOW THE LAST TIME CONGRESS DECLARED A WAR?
I Imagine it was a while ago, thus my "or funds it" clause.
1942
Yet he changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War and increased the funding to over a trillion dollars... and we aren't even technically at war, nor have any logical reason to be at war. It's complete and utter insanity.
Also, Any monies left in other departments at the end of year, go to the military.
McNamara would later come face to face with Castro’s letter to Khrushchev begging Russia to nuke America. And willing to sacrifice all of Cubar.
Remember also just 86 years ago when suicide/homicide Shinto Buddhists jumped with their children off of 2,000 foot sea cliffs. Rather than be liberated into common sense by coalition forces in the Pacific.
Now the Left Coast would rather mutilate and sterilize their children for life. And addict them to synthetic hormones and SSRI drugs for life. Than be liberated into common sense.
your narrative reminds me of Ezekiel's prophecies(reading it today. . .):
. . . regarding the remnants left in Judah, who continued to worship Egyptian wood and stone idols, and burning their first borns to the these impotent objects, and failing to follow the Law handed to Moses, Ezekiel warned them they would be burned themselves as dry tinder in flames, so to speak. And so they, continued . . . just as the LEFT continues with its insanity today.
Will it happen again?
👍👍👍
Jeremiah's warnings worked for awhile. Until they didn’t. And Nineveh disappeared. As did Judah and the Temple and Old Testament Judaism. The only thing surviving after 70 A D is a remnant of Pharisee rabbinical commentary in synagogues.
Interestingly, God used an eclipse highlighter at the Cross Roads in Saint Anthony. An earlier eclipse went to the Right hand over Corpus Christi and into the Gulf of America. The last eclipse highlighter left a shadow from Saint Anthony up north east over 7 US Ninevehs and 1 Canadian Nineveh.
We can heed the warnings of Jeremiah. Temporarily will just prolong the Nineveh. Unless we inject the prayers and penances to stay the hand of Cosmic Justice.
The easy way is never the freeway. It requires sacrifices.
God Bless, 🙏🙏🙏
SIR,
THESE PPL THAT I CALL THE PUPPET MASTERS, THEIR AIM IS TO KILL ANY RELIGION, THEY WORSHIP LUCIFER, WHETHER THE THJNGS THEY BELIEVE ATE REAL OR NOT, THEY HAVE THE POWER.
THEY HAVE INFILTRATED FIELDS OVER THE LAST 40 YRS W/ ALT-LFT MENTALITIES. TEACHING, MEDICAL, PSYCH, LAW, SCIENCE, CHURCH/RELIGION
(SECULARISM IS WHAT'S PASSING FOR CHRISTIANITY, MOST DON'T REALIZE IT) & MILITARY.
Thou hast said it!
War has twisted my life like a pretzel. I was the Navigator on the last C-141 headed into Saigon on 30 April, 1975. When Saigon fell we were diverted into U-Tapau AB in Thailand. Anything that could get off the ground in Vietnam was limping into Thailand at that time. Cherry pickers had US Air Force troops in the baskets painting over anything South Vietnamese. It was chaos. The following day on our way back to Clark AFB in the Philippines as we rounded the southern tip of Vietnam I tilted my radar down to get a better look at what was on the ocean below. The surface sparkled with returns. Some large some barely visible. The Vietnamese were escaping by sea to the American fleet waiting in international waters off the coast. As I looked down I remembered the faces of the Vietnamese I had worked with and laughed with in prior years. The tears began falling from my eyes as I watched, knowing what awaited the ones that couldn't get away. We did it again in Afghanistan. I cried again.
May God forgive us.
My condolences, I am sure you did the best you could.
You're absolutely correct, John. I have a video of McNamara confessing that the Vietnam War was Civil, not a communist plot. Same as weapons of mass destruction and every other war. They are all manufactured. Even American involvement in WW 1 and 2. FDR knew of the attack of Pearl Harbor in advance and used that attack to involve the US in another stupid European conflict. Politicians do not die, nor their children; it's the average slob that wants to take care of his family. The government and its leaders are the enemy of humanity.
Politicians start ALL wars.
My recent ancestors believed that FDR wanted the war to get himself out of economic trouble. Recent diggings supposedly showed he knew the Japanese were going to attack, got the most 'important' things out of Pearl Harbor, and then left the remaining 2000 to die. Fauci isn't the only murderer in our history.
We are nothing but bugs to them. But if that be true, let’s be cockroaches!! They won’t get rid of us!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, but do you know the last time Come ngress declared a war??.
don't forget the bankers.
Do you know why bankers get away with so much crime? Because they fund the government through bond sales and other less legal means.
of course. do you know that bankers fund both sides. Do you know that war is good business for the bankers. Do you know what the federal reserve bank is ?
My point was that the government depends on funding. So they can do what they want, they never end up in jail.
yes, and governments also tax everything. The system is a combination of oligarchy, kleptocracy, kakistocracy and order followers. It is a system designed to extract money from the peasants.
Two dangerous characteristics “arrogant & nitwit” when occupying positions of power. Our elitist class is almost exclusively comprised of these people. Thomas Sowell has pointed this out his entire life to no avail. In fact it appears many are awarded these positions for possessing these very characteristics.
Since payoffs are usually involved, might I add “lack of integrity” as a third prerequisite.
Ma'am, they don't have to pay off people, they have been infiltrating certain fields over the last 40 yrs with alt-lft mentalities.
teaching, medical, psych, law, science, church, military
And let's not forget the narcissistic and sociopathic "qualities" of most politicians. If they continue to run and "serve", you can bet they're either or both. I have known some good legislators, and they only last one term because they can't stand the sewer they have to operate in to be successful at serving their nation.
https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/dissent-into-madness-projections
I would like to see a Constitutional amendment requiring congressional term limits. ( a partial solution only albeit a disincentive to the “professional” politician.
Amen to your last sentence.
Here in Melbourne, Australia, in 1966, LBJ was given a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his visit, designed to cement in place Australia's commitment to America's folly in Vietnam. Tens of thousands turned out to line the streets and cheer the great US President. The Prime Minister, Harold Holt, coined the proud slogan "All the Way With LBJ". Thus stupidity and ignorance proceeds. Holt, a well-known philanderer, was drowned while swimming at a posh resort about a year later. Blind fate occasionally results in some kind of justice.
Regarding the preface anecdote of the reckless tech bro – it's reassuring to know that millionaires or even billionaires like Zuckerberg have to literally get beaten up in order to find meaning in their life after establishing a fortune from something most likely meaningless. That guy got pummeled by a wave, and Zuckerberg threw himself into the UFC cage in order to feel something – haven't we seen this stupid movie before? I guess Fight Club was a satire?
Oh, and what I mean by "reassuring" is that I am glad that I don't feel compelled to do any of these extreme things, rather I'm content to go for walk or play some music. Reminds me of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy: these rich tech bros are wrecked by "good fortune".
But ya know, Viktor Frankl did say that courage (in addition to work, and love) are the three main ways to cultivate meaning in our lives, and I suppose surfing and UFC brawling (and skydiving, bungie jumping, hang gliding, etc) demand some courage but there's something hubristic (if not just suicidal) about these sports.
Similarly, there's a tech bro in my neighborhood who retired in his 30s and took up super bike racing – he blasts around at 3 AM to avoid traffic, but there are deer and any number of things that could cause him to crash. Do they have a death wish? Or is something about these reckless activities that serves as a kind of atonement? Regardless, don't be tempted to envy them.
My take on these guys, they don’t have a death wish at all. I have known many of them and they are to a man ( and yes ladies, they are men) atheist or agnostic, and they really don’t want to die. EVER. Because that would be the end of self. And self is very important. They are generally extremely self centered , and emotionally and spiritually undeveloped. Also they can buy just about anything they want. Thus, they get very bored. A very very bored technocrat with nothing to hold them back can cause a whole lot of mischief.
and what a putz Johnson was! The audio shows him to be an impotent old duffer floundering around in a job and world he had no business occupying. I often think of that regarding MOST presidents: Many not a clue how to manage people, the media, or who TRULY understand how to better our country. Most operating by the "seat of their pants" and we citizens are not alone at risk, the world is. . . Vietnam as a prime example.
Hell, this idiot just wanted to see the Viet Cong cornered and killed. He simply did not care what his actions would bring in the near term or the future-- certainly could have cared less about the 57,000 young Americans who would die and hundreds of thousands on both sides maimed or how the economy of 'nam and surrounding nations would suffer.
a dangerous, disastrous putz.
Johnson had Jumbo for brains. As Brave's AI explains: "Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, famously nicknamed his penis "Jumbo," a moniker that reflected his pride in its size and his tendency to display it publicly. He was known to expose himself to colleagues and staff, often making vulgar remarks while brandishing it." There's even a story from two sources, a biographer and a journalist, that when asked why he thought we could win in Vietnam, Johnson unzipped, pulled out Jumbo, and said "that's why." AI claims that part "can't be authenticated."
Oh dear, even "Jumbo" failed to beat the Vietnamese...size isn't everything. Apparently the recently-deceased war criminal, "Donkey Dick" Cheney, was in the same league. I suppose they will now both be able to compare their weaponry in Hell...and their master will decide the "winner".
amazing all the new things one learns on substack!
Love it.
He would know, he was a psychopathick killer, like kissonger. He personally said,"presidents are selected, not elected." It's like when Buzz jokingly admitted they "never went to the moon, they faked it." They'll tell you the truth, you just have to listen.
Anyone who still believes in the mastery of government--in any sphere--is a fool.
It's an illusion created by a demonic group and the politicians pretend they manage it.
Your statement "Johnson is a cunning Texas redneck who is accustomed to things going his way" is true if "his way" was killing people.
He killed his enemies. I have what I consider very reliable information from a direct relative of John Connelly that LBK was directly involved in the JFK assassination. Mac Brown's (LBJ's assassin) fingerprint in the Dallas Book depository confirms Brown's presence. He wouldn't have been there without LBJ's approval. LBJ's completely fraudulent investigation of JFK's murder shows conclusively LBJ's cover up of crime alone was a crime in itself. That was "his way".
Mac Brown's other murders, particularly of LBJ sister's lover and possibly of an Agricultural Department inspector who had LBJ dead to rights , shows that LBJ made sure that "his way" was killing his perceived enemies.
Although LBJ's modis operandi including killing enemies, LBJ was equally capable of sacrificing innocent American lives, like the sailors on the USS Liberty, to suck us into another worthless Middle East war that would have killed more Americans. Of course the whole Vietnam/Gulf of Tonkin event was a fraud, so LBJ getting thousands of Americans killed in worthless wars (worthless to everybody but the Military Industrial Complex) was also "his way".
That isn't "things going his way" unless killing people and covering it up was "his way."
You're from Texas. You know better.
He got into office when President Kennedy was shot, it seems to me that "his way" was indeed ascending while others around him died with no consequences for him. Vietnam was has Waterloo.
Thanks for the kind reply. In the 1970's, I had a friend who was junior loan officer at a Houston bank. (He sat next to Jeb Bush - he didn't think Jeb was that smart) Part of his job was making sure a room at the Rice Hotel was well stocked with booze and other things. Once a week there was a poker game there with the power brokers of Texas. LBJ would stop by when in town. They would divide up the government contracts in Texas over the poker table.
I have never verified this myself but I think I got it from a pretty good source. During WW2, to avoid having tankers sailing from Texas to the East Coast refineries, the Government rush built several oil pipelines to the refineries from Texas. After the war these pipelines were going be sold off and converted to natural gas. At that time Texas had huge amounts of natural gas that needed to be produced to produce high gas content oil. Most of this gas was just flared as there was no market or long haul pipelines to move it out of state. Getting access to the converted Government surplus oil pipes to the East Coast was going to create huge amounts of money selling that worthless natural gas.
Public bidding was supposed to be completely confidential and highly secure. When the sealed bids were opened, the company that LBJ favored won by $1. What an amazing bid. Almost like they knew the other bids. Rumor has it the pipeline deal was sealed during a poker game at the Rice by LBJ. Wellcome to Texas when it was a Democrat owned (controlled isn't strong enough) State. That's the power LBJ had.
Mr. Leake seems to have no clear idea of what the Harrowing of Hell (Hades) was, and perhaps should not be using it as an analogy.
I was a young man of draft age graduating college in 1969, and my lottery number was 6. I joined the National Guard instead of being drafted because I was not going to die in a stinking jungle for the seamy politicians' aggrandizement and chickenhawk power. My whole company felt the same, down to the officers; we all knew the war was bullshit, but we wanted to get our service in anyway. Those bastards have blood on their hands wherever they are in hell, and they did a huge disservice to this country's psyche and positive development. Bush and Cheney can join them - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
I can't bear to see people hurt and walked out of the Tom Hank's movie Saving Private Ryan showing the beach invasion of Normandy...It was too real and disturbed me. I don't understand how men can send other men to be killed in fighting their wars...I don't have to be there to feel the pain of what our soldiers go through in war. "When shall all men's good, be each man's rule...and universal Peace lie like a shaft of light cross the land." Alfred Lord Tennyson.
When someone has lived raw life, then the phrase "victim of homicide" contains ALL of the sensory violence that practically most people lack these days. People are not shocked by reading those words. They go by like the day's weather forecast or the commercial droning in the background of those who watch tv, registering but not internalized.
You see, the tv will have the talking heads read the "graphic" news, but it will not be displayed in video...for being too graphic for a sheltered public. For the unsheltered, the news is graphic enough.
Ahem…. Eisenhower initiated our involvement in Vietnam, providing air support for the French. He also advocated using nukes when the French finally capitulated and was talked out of it by the Pentagon.
JFK picked up the baton after Ho shredded the peace treaty and the elected Vietnamese government begged us to pull their fat from the fire.
In the recording, Johnson mentions that nothing was really working, and nothing had changed since 54. A prudent man would've ended it instead of escalating it. Watch for the same dangerous and reckless Folly to play out in Ukraine.
2025 hindsight does not necessarily justify the label "imprudent".
Unless and until you are "there", you simply cannot judge some historical decisions.
True. But consider the state of technology in the Sixties - no internet, no GPS, and not even overhead satellite photography. We had the U2 and SR71 but that was pretty primitive compared to the present.
I agree with you that NOW there’s no excuse for making the same mistake in Ukraine, which is basically a domestic foreign policy wife beating, and historically we have solved little with international force commitment.
Johnson was a tragic figure, not a villain. McNamara too. I won’t comment on the W. Bush administration beyond there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq and Powell lied to the UN and the NYT lied to the world. Those of us who knew the truth and trying to dispute the company line couldn’t get media to give us the time of day.
If you want to blame somebody, blame the media who swallowed the propaganda and wrote day jeremiads. Looking at you, Judy Miller.
And as a p.s. have you heard the tape of Johnson talking to Richard Russell immediately after the Turner Joy incident, agonizing over whether or not to escalate. When I heard it I appreciated, for the first time, the weight he was carrying.
There’s no second guessing history. Who’s to say the Domino Theory was wrong, and who’s to say the Vietnam War was unwinnable? Back then we were all making decisions based on the sketchy info we had, and I suggest the best we can do is not repeat those mistakes.
You’re entitled to your opinion, I’m entitled to mine. I was there at the time and spent my career in national security, so I’m comfortable that I’m not blowing smoke out my ass.
What I said in the post(s) is cold, hard, fact. Study the history.
Anyone still resorting to *ahem* whataboutism in 2025, is incredibly lost.
That is an incredibly lightweight remark, btw. Learn some respect for your elders.
After Kennedy did that, with no improvement, his administration green-lighted the overthrow and assassination of the Ngo brothers, moving things from bad to worse.
I lived through that era as a participant. I noticed at the time that the anti-war push was overwhelmingly from young men, and their parents, of draft age. When the draft ended the protesting dried up.
That recording of their conversation was … 😳 … all those deaths - to both sides - and *that* was a conversation about it from our top leader. Amazing (amazingly sad/scary/infuriating).