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Will Trump End Up In Prison?

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#46

If you get a chance to read that piece by Cockburn, I’d be curious where you think reality lies based on your read from Douglass - closer to Stone, or closer to Cockburn? I don’t know that much, but I feel like this Camelot myth is pretty strong with a lot of people and it feels like Stone was bitten by it (even though I do still like him and have greatly enjoyed his recent interviews with Robert Scheer and Michael Moore).

I started watching a short documentary on Amazon Prime called The American War and it was pretty disturbing - I couldn’t even finish it in one sitting - need to finish it soon. The Agent Orange spraying by us and the film of the French burning the boats as they left made me sick to my stomach. I know all the numbers which are disturbing enough, but there is something more visceral about seeing it on film.

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#47

Used to play tennis w this nut, he cheats.

#48

The probability of Donald croaking from the obvious is north of 75% over the next 24 months.

#49

Thanks, dara. I followed the link, and I read the column, “JFK and Vietnam,” although it was written by Gordon Goldstein. If you have a link to an Alex Cockburn column, send it.

Some of JFK’s press conferences are available to view on Youtube, and I’m struck that JFK at times mentions Laos, almost never Vietnam, though Goldstein’s article recalls that McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor, surmised, “Laos was never really ours after 1954…Vietnam is…”

Goldstein’s commentary agrees largely with James Douglass’ views on this, from my take. Goldstein concludes:
“That Kennedy as commander in chief was not provided the opportunity to determine a different fate for the United States in Vietnam deepens the tragedy of his loss and also underscores his profound legacy…: The judgment of the commander in chief… ultimately determines the difference between war and peace.”

#50

Ouch. I didn’t follow the link from the search engine as I thought it was the right one and as I don’t have a subscription to LA times, I was trying to not add 1 to my read count.

This is the right one:

~https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-12-26-me-1179-story.html

Is the other piece any good? Maybe I should read it.

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#51

Very, very, true! I posted during the so-called Democratic debates that the whole thing was a farce for the politically naive. At that time I said that Bernie was being used as a sacrificial lamb to make voters believe America is a Democracy and the Biden/Harris ticket had already been selected for POTUS.

#52

Thanks, dara, for making the effort to send the A. Cockburn article. I just read it.

These are Cockburn’s Christmas musings from 1991, and he had seen Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. My 1st thought was some astonishment that it’s been 30 years since that film was released. A moment of,
“Was it that long ago?”

The Cockburn piece is a fairly brief essay, and it’s a pronounced contrast in tone and message to James Douglass’ book. Cockburn presents his arranged critique of JFK’s foreign policy in a brief paragraph, and Douglass has the benefit of 500 pages of explanations.

Goldstein’s article that you cited mentions “the glamor, intelligence, wit, and possibility,” and all these years later (58!) I’m still a sucker for his administration. I live a few blocks from John F. Kennedy Road, and also John Kennedy Elementary School, here in Dubuque. An inveterate Irish American, I still cheer for the one of us, among “a nation of brilliant failures” (Oscar Wilde) who reached the top, and stayed there for a thousand days.

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#53

Given the history, it doesn’t seem like Trump will be doing any time anytime soon!–The aura, or fetish, of the presidency is still propped up, no matter the legitimacy of the occupant–Some sort of commission could be organized to put Trump, et al, on trial, with no sort of powers of sentencing, or the ICC could try him on crimes against humanity, though the US does not recognize ICC findings, so aside from some possible symbolic measures, no, Trump won’t be locked up–He may become impoverished through all the legal actions being taken against him, but he’ll be supported by very wealthy donors–I do think that the smaller fry, Manafort and Stone, should be of extreme interest to our own secret police, the CIA, after all, they were playing footsie with the Russians, and that should attract the interest of the intel community.

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#54

There is very little doubt that the Russian leadership wishes America ill and harm, but the simple truth is that their efforts at inflicting such upon America is, ill-conceived, incompetent and blow-back self-defeating. In composite, the combined international propaganda efforts against America are no where near as devastating to America, as the homegrown anti-democracy, security-craving, semi-authoritarian, preferences of roughly half of our domestic population (regardless of which face of our duopoly you happen to value more).

#55

You are assuming that modern people are not smart enough to invent a superior form of government to what was invented 250 years ago.

#56

I’m pretty sure most people aren’t smart enough to do that,
but most are smart enough to know such a thing will take more than smarts.

#57

Existential desperation may motivated primitive systemic focus of distributed intelligence. Is computer assisted focus artificial intelligence?

#58

Good (insightful) point.

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