Obama and Bush are both worse than Nixon or any other cold-war President.

I'm tired of hearing about historians ramble on about how bad Richard Nixon was. Would you please open your eyes?? What about the hundreds of millions of people both Obama and Bush wiretapped? What about all the constitutional laws they've been breaking in the name of "protecting our freedoms"? What about indefinite detentions? What about the Patriot Act? What about ending the fourth amendment as we know it and ending sexual privacy as we know it as well? Obama and Bush make Nixon look like a guy who had restraint. All Nixon did was bomb a few countries and wiretap some people. Bush and Obama bombed the **** out of everyone, and, wiretapped everyone.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


Kennedy was the last REAL president IMO. He sacrificed himself to expose the cabal, God rest his soul.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


Yeah, I've noticed that the current state of the control grid was just a dim gleam in the eye of RMN. At the time I thought Nixon's administration was as bad as it would ever get. I was sure we'd turn it around, and never allow that level of criminality into our government again.

Boy, was I ever naive....

reply to post by solarstorm


Kennedy was a good man at heart but even his historical record isn't so great. Just look at the people that were around him. They were a bunch of neocons. I don't know if there would have been any difference if Kennedy was in office during Vietnam or not. He might've wanted to be pushed to be tougher on the Vietnamese because his cabinet might have pressured him into it more.

reply to post by Ex_CT2


I wish that we would have some of your generation's problems. I miss the old days where people would get in trouble just for getting a wiretap on someone. Ok, I'm only 23 so I don't remember those old days, but, you get my drift. You lived through those times... but, now, people feel that they must accept their national security letters and they MUST accept big brother. I used to think that 1984 was really depressing and had a sad ending, but, I think, I understand it now. It was a reflection on society at large rather than that individual person.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


An interesting excerpt from Salon.com:

There are no smoking guns in the new materials, but at a time when — in comparison to the current crop of GOP candidates — Nixon’s reputation is undergoing a bit of a positive face-lift, it’s always good to be reminded of the whiny, self-pitying, defensive, dissembling reprobate we knew and loathed back in the bad old days.

He brushes off the whole sordid scandal as “this silly, incredible Watergate break-in” and says, “I want the jury and the special prosecutors to kick the hell out of us for wire-tapping and for the plumbers and the rest because obviously you may have concluded it was wrong.”
.
.
.

Perhaps the strangest artifact in the latest document dump isn’t the grand jury testimony but Nixon’s recollections of the famous incident at the Lincoln Memorial in 1970 early on the morning of a massive antiwar demonstration just days after the killings at Kent State. He paid an unannounced visit to the monument and talked with a group of the student protesters camped out nearby.

“I know you, probably most of you think I’m an SOB but, ah, I want you to know that I understand just how you feel,” he says he told the demonstrators. “What we all must think about is why we are here … What are those elements of spirit which really matter?

“… I just wanted to be sure that all of them realized that ending the war and cleaning up the city streets and the air and the water was not going to solve the spiritual hunger which all of us have, and which of course has been the great mystery of life from the beginning of time.”

As he leaves, he tells one of the students, “I just hope your opposition doesn’t turn into blind hatred of the country. Remember, this is a great country for all of its faults.”

Of course, as Nixon got down with the kids, J. Edgar Hoover’s counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO, was getting down and dirty, not only spying on and infiltrating the antiwar movement but also deliberately trying to subvert and disrupt it — with Nixon’s approval.

Such violations of civil liberties echo through to the present day: obstructions of justice, abuses of power, the tapping of emails and phone calls, black site detentions and “enhanced interrogations,” to name just a few. In his new book Glenn Greenwald recalls the words Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John: “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”

Make of it what you will....

reply to post by Ex_CT2


The author of that article has a fair point. I almost forgot about COINTELPRO, so, Nixon did have some pretty bad stuff going on, as did the other Cold War Presidents did. So it's good that Presidents don't do that anymore. However, while COINTELPRO is not official policy anymore, the government still engages in many of the same practices, and I think what Obama and Bush are doing with the warantless searches, and infiltrating protest groups are far worse and more expansive than before. Especially given the fact that they can break into our homes now without a warrant.

What's your judgment, as someone who's lived through the times?

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
reply to post by Ex_CT2

 

The author of that article has a fair point. I almost forgot about COINTELPRO, so, Nixon did have some pretty bad stuff going on, as did the other Cold War Presidents did. So it's good that Presidents don't do that anymore. However, while COINTELPRO is not official policy anymore, the government still engages in many of the same practices, and I think what Obama and Bush are doing with the warantless searches, and infiltrating protest groups are far worse and more expansive than before. Especially given the fact that they can break into our homes now without a warrant.

What's your judgment, as someone who's lived through the times?

As you say, COINTELPRO is not "official" policy anymore. I guess our masters have found that it's best not to put all their rotten eggs in one basket. It's much better to have "secret interpretations" of laws, and even Executive Orders that the "current resident of the White House" (as I refer to him) refuses to let Congress even see. Presumably it's best not to allow those who might object to get a good handle on what you're up to.

Technologically we're far beyond the primitive tools that were available back then. Obviously. Hoover and Nixon could never hope to capture, record, and catalog every phone call, every (they didn't have e-mail then, so we'll just say) communication, every (hmmm.... they didn't have the Internet then, so we'll just say) "Telex." I don't know whether they'd have been that ambitious even if they could; I think they would have been satisfied with capturing every exchange of their (real or imaginary) enemies.

In the end, I don't think Nixon was nearly as evil as the rotters we've had lately. I think he suffered from some twisted idealism. Hoover... not so much. I think he was truly, deeply evil. He was willing to go as far as he was allowed to. He didn't care about the law. I just think he was restrained (to the extent that he was) by the few decent men above and around him.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


I'd like to hear yours or anyone else's further thoughts on this, but it's well past my bedtime. Thanks for the post and good night....