[QUOTE=kladner;501492]It is and has and shall be depressingly true.[/quote]My mother was fond of reciting part of a coda to the Song of Simeon, mercilessly ripped out of context, to describe such a circumstance:

[Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost]

[b]As it was in the beginning, is now, and evermore shall be

World without end.[/b]

[Amen.]

[quote]Somewhere, probably in this forum, is a cartoon depicting two desks. Above one desk, with a dozing occupant, is a sign, "Uncomfortable Truths." A long line stretches to the other desk which proclaims "Comforting Lies."[/QUOTE]
[url=https://henrykotula.com/2017/02/17/cartoon-comforting-lies-vs-unpleasant-truths/]This one[/url], perhaps?

Yep. That is the one!

I suppose I was mirroring the "Glory be" lines. I was certainly exposed to more than enough of that until my family moved out of Podunk and started going to an Unitarian Universalist place. Now, I don't go anywhere along those (deist) lines. :smile:

A Killer Dies, a Teacher Lives: George H.W. Bush v. Noam Chomsky
 

[URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/03/a-killer-dies-a-teacher-lives-george-h-w-bush-v-noam-chomsky/[/URL]
It's not like I had any love to lose for "Poppy" Bush. The strafing of lifeboats after sinking a trawler doesn't surprise me. I have also read a case being built that he bailed prematurely when his plane was hit and burning. This left the crew to go down with the plane.

The Highway of Death stories still make me cringe. This piece does not mention that Sadam was led down the garden path by a lying US representative. Was that April something-or-other, who told Sadam that the US had no interest in his dispute with Kuwait?
[QUOTE]The obsequious praise of the life and legacy of the now deceased mad-dog killer George H. W. Bush (1924-2018) on the supposedly liberal and left cable networks CNN and MSNBC this last weekend was really something.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]MSNBC or maybe it was CNN (I get the two confused) brought on a Wilson Center expert to remind us that part of what made the senior Bush so [I]wonderful [/I]was that he had previously been the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – as if the CIA wasn’t one of the most [URL="https://softskull.com/dd-product/the-cias-greatest-hits/"]evil, blood-drenched institutions[/URL]in the long record of human malevolence.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]You thought the war criminal [URL="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/03/the-mccain-death-tour-reaches-its-imperial-apotheosis/"]John McCain death trip[/URL] was bad? Hold on to your seats for the Orwellian, history-liquidating death orgy of imperialist killer Bush41.[/QUOTE][QUOTE](A younger George H.W. Bush would probably have enjoyed direct participation in the “turkey shoot.” [see Highway of Death] There are strong indications that, as a Navy pilot during World War II, Bush [URL="https://harpers.org/archive/1993/09/the-question-bush-never-got-asked/?fbclid=IwAR3Na_zqM1OKn92xzNHi4PW6dZPS00XcXvNkFhv_vUoBCiwJjj6i28VdLvE"]strafed two life boats[/URL] containing survivors from a trawler that Bush’s plane had just sunk in the South Pacific. That was a war crime under international military law.)[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Chomsky, who will turn 90 (still writing and giving interviews rich with deep knowledge and insight) in four days, is an intellectual and moral teacher and inspiration the likes of which one rarely encounters in the human record. In a remotely decent society possessing a genuinely open-minded and pro-democracy media, he would be a frequent, highly visible commentator on past and current history. His coming 90thbirthday would be cause for public celebration and an opportunity for honest reflection on how we might learn from our past and present in ways that could help us overcome the intertwined forces of empire, inequality, and doctrinal thinking.

It speaks volumes about the power of propaganda and thought control in the United States’ “corporate-managed democracy” ([URL="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/32amb6ff9780252066160.html"]Alex Carey’s phrase before[/URL] it became Sheldon Wolin’s phrase) that Chomsky has been publicly quarantined for decades by a “free” media that heaps undeserved and cringing, boot-licking praise on loathsome imperialist killers like John McCain and George H.W. Bush.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;501634][URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/03/a-killer-dies-a-teacher-lives-george-h-w-bush-v-noam-chomsky/[/URL]
It's not like I had any love to lose for "Poppy" Bush. The strafing of lifeboats after sinking a trawler doesn't surprise me. I have also read a case being built that he bailed prematurely when his plane was hit and burning. This left the crew to go down with the plane.
<snip>[/QUOTE]
I don't buy it. With the mission in which he was shot down, the circumstances mitigate strongly against it. He completed his bombing mission [i]after[/i] his plane was hit and set on fire. After which he piloted the burning plane away from the target and out to sea -- away from the tender mercies of the Japanese. And all the accounts [i]I[/i] have read say that all three men bailed out. One died because his chute didn't open. The other jumped out with Bush. Bush doesn't know which one, and never saw him after getting in the water.

As to that poor little innocent trawler: I suppose it would be unkind of me to point out that Bush was flying a TBF Avenger, a torpedo bomber -- a plane not especially suitable to doing strafing runs. It would probably also be unkind of me to point out that, after completing their missions, navy pilots were supposed to dump as much fuel and ordinance as possible before returning to base, to mitigate possible damage in case the plane crashed upon landing.

I unearthed the following from the Bent Prop Project legacy site page [url=https://legacy.bentprop.org/sap/sap7.htm]Fast Forward to 1993[/url], that being the year the San Francisco [i]Chronicle[/i] published accusations about the incident, and, it happened, that a dive crew found the sunken trawler:
[quote]The wreck was lying in a channel in a stiff current at 40 feet and clearly had been blown apart. Forty-nine years of stag coral were encroaching on the site, but enough of the deck remained to be searched. Immediately, we saw thousands of unspent rounds of small arms munitions lying on the stern side. A large gun mount lay on its side and I recognized a munitions box nearby which turned out to have 75mm anti-aircraft shells ready for action. We very rapidly solved two mysteries: the ship's location and that, in fact, it had been armed. So much linked small caliber munitions on the deck suggest strongly that lightweight Nambu-type machine guns had been present and could have even been readily carried into lifeboats. In short, this wreck was not an unarmed Japanese trawler and George Bush had never been a war criminal.[/quote]

Now, the CIA -- you might appreciate Caleb Carr's take on their handiwork in [u]The Lessons of Terror[/u]. Bottom line, he thinks that, in the interests of US national security, the organization should be abolished. Bush being head of the CIA was, in my book, a real black mark against him. Still, the guy Reagan had in charge there -- William Casey -- was an old OSS guy. One of Casey's little masterpieces was a little chat he had with the Saudis that resulted in a 1985 attempt to assassinate Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who was suspected of orchestrating the 1983 Marine barracks bombing and 1984 US Embassy bombing. The attempt, by means of a pickup loaded with plenty of explosives, did not kill Fadlallah, but [i]did[/i] kill about 80 other people, and wounded hundreds of others. Even at the time, most folks either knew or suspected the CIA was behind it, if for no other reason that it killed a lot of people but not the intended target.

Corrections accepted. Regardless of his record as an airman, his records as CIA director and as president are drenched in the blood of tens of thousands.

Casey was a name I was trying to remember. Was he something of a mentor to Bush in the spook business? I remember him for mumbling unintelligibly during Congressional testimony; a talent he was known for. His death shortly after seemed almost too convenient in terms of obfuscation.

[QUOTE=kladner;501684]Casey was a name I was trying to remember. Was he something of a mentor to Bush in the spook business? I remember him for mumbling unintelligibly during Congressional testimony; a talent he was known for. His death shortly after seemed almost too convenient in terms of obfuscation.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure, but I don't think Casey mentored Aitch as a spook. Aitch wasn't a trained spook. He was appointed DCI by President Ford. His tenure was geared to repair relations between the CIA and Congress, which had taken a real beating in the previous years, and to restore morale at the agency, which had also suffered greatly. Part of that was putting through reforms, which included a Senate oversight committee. His efforts seemed to have been largely successful. Aitch offered his resignation as DCI after Carter was elected, and Carter accepted.

My hazy recollection about Casey's testimony before Congress is that some of his testimony was misleading. At some point, I heard something about his maybe having a brain tumor. He begged off an appearance to testify before Congress "for health reasons." I suspected it was a pretext, but the next I heard about him, which wasn't long after, he was dead. I doubt he would have revealed much to Congress he didn't want them to know.

Fun story: One "asset" on the [strike]Company[/strike] CIA payroll since around 1971 was one Manuel Noriega of Panama. When Carter became President, his new DCI, Stansfield Turner, kicked Noriega off the payroll. When Ronnie Ray-gun became President, Noriega went back on the CIA payroll. By the time Aitch became President, Noriega had become such a problem that he was served with the most expensive arrest warrant in history -- "knocking on the door" was done by means of a military invasion of Panama, which also deposed him. (Noriega had been indicted by a US grand jury on drug trafficking charges. Noriega's men provided the perfect provocation by killing Marine First Lieutenant Robert Paz, who was one of a group of unarmed US military men who were headed to dinner in Panama City. They then detained a naval officer and his wife who witnessed the killing. The officer spent two weeks in hospital recovering from the beating they gave him.) The "Panama Defense Forces" were more political thugs than soldiers, and were no match for the US military.

Sadly, an adjacent heavily-populated neighborhood was burned down in the attack on PDF Headquarters. Also, after the cessation of hostilities, the Panama Defense Forces were disbanded. This had unfortunate consequences because, political thugs though they were, they were also what passed for the police there. Without a police force, the situation in Panama became rather chaotic.

First duty as President: Foment chaos!
 

[i]Il Duce[/i] does it again! A day after he enthused about how wonderful things were going to be in our trade relations with China, investors were coming to the conclusion that Trump and Xi hadn't actually [i]agreed[/i] to much. And then, [i]Il Duce[/i] threw a twitter-tantrum. Investors responded. The DJIA closed down 799.36.

Now we know that even Pugsley could become President. (Note, I deliberately did [i]not[/i] say "grow up to be" President.) I feel that Gomez and Morticia would be very proud of a son like [i]Il Duce[/i].

There is a Charles Addams cartoon in the collection [u]Monster Rally[/u] in which Gomez, grinning widely, is reading a teacher's report. Pugsley is standing by Morticia, with the envelope. His eyes are closed in blissful contentment, and his head is in Morticia's lap. Morticia has an arm around him and -- unique among all the Charles Addams cartoons I have seen -- Morticia is [i]smiling[/i]. The caption is as follows:

[quote]"In addition to refusing to cultivate any wholesome interest in group activities, he is perverse, crafty, and wanton in those in which he does engage. These are, I feel compelled to emphasize, far beyond the outcroppings of normal juvenile mischief; in fact, they are the evidences of what may be an extraordinarily morbid ingenuity. I have gone to such length in describing the situation because I know you will want to be thoroughly informed of the facts."[/quote]

"I surround myself with the best people. I know the best people." -- Donald Trump, in interview with Geraldo Rivera on [i]Rivera Live[/i] November 26, 1999

He's said pretty much the same thing, time and again, since.

After hearing about Rex Tillerson's interview with Bob Shieffer Thursday evening, [i]Il Duce[/i] tweeted that Tillerson -- who was his own pick as Secretary of State -- was "lazy as hell" and "dumb as a rock." This shows that [i]Il Duce[/i] has been leaving a bit off his stated sentiments. In view of his repeatedly trashing the "best people" he's hired and then fired, I think the quote would be more accurate as follows:

"I surround myself with the best people. I know the best people. [b]FOR ME TO POOP ON![/b] -- Trump, the Comic President

Tillerson made what I think is a very cogent statement:[quote]I will be honest with you. It troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues that they are satisfied with 128 characters.

I don’t want that to come across as a criticism of him. It’s really a concern I have about us as Americans, and us as a society, and us as citizens.[/quote]

I'm afraid the news media deserves a lot of criticism for ballyhooing [i]Il Duce[/i]'s twitter tantrums. I remember when Spiro Agnew was VP, and regularly spouted about the media. There was a cartoon (by Pat Oliphant IIRC) showing VP Agnew tearing through the newspaper, asking [i]Where the hell's my big statement about keeping kooks off the front page?[/i] It was in the paper, all right -- in the "Today's Spiro" feature, next to the crossword puzzle. I think [i]Il Duce[/i]'s twitter tantrums deserve similar treatment.

George H.W. Bush (1924-2018), American War Criminal
 

You decide.
[url]https://theintercept.com/2018/12/05/george-h-w-bush-1924-2018-american-war-criminal/[/url]
[QUOTE]The United States is now in the midst of a grotesque canonization of one of its imperial saints, George Herbert Walker Bush. This week on Intercepted: an honest memorial service for an unrepentant warmonger who dedicated his life to militarism, war, coups, regime change, and the lies of “American exceptionalism.” Jeremy Scahill details the crimes of Bush, the sick propaganda of the corporate media memorials, and the trail of blood, death, and tears Bush leaves behind. Independent journalist Arun Gupta covers decades of Bush, from his time at the helm of the CIA to the presidency. Gupta discusses Bush’s support for Manuel Noriega and his eventual invasion of Panama, the pardoning of Iran-Contra criminals, the dirty wars in Central America, the support for Saddam Hussein, and the launch of the Gulf War. Acclaimed Iraqi poet and scholar Sinan Antoon describes his life under the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Saddam, the horrors of the Gulf War, and how Bush’s destruction of Iraqi civilian society led to the rise of ISIS.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;502128]You decide.
[url]https://theintercept.com/2018/12/05/george-h-w-bush-1924-2018-american-war-criminal/[/url][/QUOTE]
There's just one thing to do: Enact the 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, popularly called the Ernst Amendment :smile:

Section 1: The United States of America is hereby declared responsible for every evil in the world. This includes, but is not limited to, Original Sin, the extinction of the dodo, the Black Death of the Fourteenth Century, and the crimes of the regimes of every nation on earth, past, present, or future. No other regime may be held responsible for its own crimes. This may be referred to as the New Doctrine of American Exceptionalism.

Section 2: It shall be unlawful for anyone to write, speak, publish, or even think that the United States, or any leader or citizen thereof, is, contrary to the New Doctrine of American Exceptionalism, capable of either goodness or virtue.

Section 3: Anyone who can plausibly be accused of violating Section 2 is, the Bill of Rights notwithstanding, to be immediately declared insane and confined, or shot without trial.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;502162]There's just one thing to do: Enact the 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, popularly called the Ernst Amendment :smile:

Section 1: The United States of America is hereby declared responsible for every evil in the world. This includes, but is not limited to, Original Sin, the extinction of the dodo, the Black Death of the Fourteenth Century, and the crimes of the regimes of every nation on earth, past, present, or future. No other regime may be held responsible for its own crimes. This may be referred to as the New Doctrine of American Exceptionalism.

Section 2: It shall be unlawful for anyone to write, speak, publish, or even think that the United States, or any leader or citizen thereof, is, contrary to the New Doctrine of American Exceptionalism, capable of either goodness or virtue.

Section 3: Anyone who can plausibly be accused of violating Section 2 is, the Bill of Rights notwithstanding, to be immediately declared insane and confined, or shot without trial.[/QUOTE]
Off on your hobby again. Do you have counter examples which balance the known evils of actual exceptionalism?