Showing posts with label scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scandal. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Walter Cronkite et al Covers Watergate: HUSH MONEY

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite, who died in 2009 at age 92, played a key role in reporting what is known as the Watergate Scandal. His extensive stories were aired in 1972.

As this video indicates, subsequent reports owned as much to Cronkite as well as the Washington Post team of Woodward and Bernstein. Former Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee, credited Cronkite with convincing people that 'Watergate' was a substantial story, a story of national importance.
"In October 1972, Cronkite devoted two segments, back to back, to the Watergate story. The first was 14 minutes, the second eight. I think that second night was curtailed by CBS chairman William S. Paley because Paley was scared of it. The fact that Cronkite did Watergate at all (let alone at that length) gave the story a kind of blessing, which is exactly what we needed—and exactly what The Washington Post lacked. It was a political year, and everyone was saying, "Well, it's just politics, and here's the Post trying to screw Nixon." We were the second-biggest newspaper in the country trying to scramble for a good story—whereas Cronkite was the reigning dean of television journalists. When he did the Watergate story, everyone said, "My God, Cronkite's with them."

--Ben Bradlee, Former Editor Washington Post

Watergate Recalled: Hush Money


Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Monday, May 28, 2007

The Government of the United States is Illegitimate

The implications of a recent Democratic capitulation are not yet known and may not be felt immediately. Many are too stunned to write clearly about it. Many have tossed it off - politics as usual.

There is a new malady: Bush fatigue, characterized by the following symptoms: 1) fed up; 2) pessimism about the future of America, the free world, the world; 3) anger and frustration with a government completely uncaring (remember Katrina), out-of-control, unaccountable, unresponsive to anything or anyone but an increasingly tiny elite of corporate robber barons, militarists, and a hand-full of media moguls. In any case, John Edwards was correct. Democrats should have manned the barricades and left the consequences of veto to fall on Bush's stupid head.
In the meantime, Democrats have promised to come up with a new strategy with regard to Iraq. It is hoped, however that Democrats understand that this is not politics as usual. Bush has become a rogue President, a reckless practioner of brinkmanship over leadership, of platitudes over policy. I cannot pretend to know what was said behind closed doors. I cannot begin to fathom what Faustian pacts had been made leading up to the Democratic compromise. I cannot begin to understand the nature of Bush's strangle hold on what we thought had been a Democratically controlled Congress. I am tempted to ask: was Congress threatened? And, if so, with what? And how?

I am at a loss to explain what is most surely the weirdest, the oddest, the strangest exercise of power known to history. By rights in a normal world, a drooling idiot would be challenged to find his way out his front door. He would not be expected to rule. But to compare Bush to drooling idiots is not politically correct. It is unfair to idiots.

All theories fail to satisfy save one: the US government is no longer legitimate. For some time now, the rest of the world has known what Americans have denied to themselves. The Bush administration has betrayed the people and subverted the rule of law. It has no claim to legitimacy. The illegitimate Bush regime is the sheer exercise of raw, arrogant power hell-bent on illegitimate wars of conquest and oil. The government of the US has become Mass Murder, Inc.

This administration is guilty of the ruthless prosecution of unjust and ongoing war crimes and atrocities resulting in the horrible deaths of innocent civilians often with the unspeakable horrific use of white phosperous. The rest of the world saw clearly what Americans simply would not. It saw in the the Bush regime an arrogant, brutal, unjust and criminal junta, a militant gang of usurpers, thugs in suits.

Let the Bush apologists and fellow-travelers protest and howl. Screw 'em! They are but his complicit enablers. The truth will be told: the Bush cabal are Nazis or worse! Hitler had the good sense when all was lost to shoot himself. Who will provide Bush a new rope with instructions on its use?

A short recent history. Bush thugs stole both the election and "re-election". Goppers themselves called it a coup d'etat and so it was -characterized by felonious, violent assaults on ballot re-counters in Florida. I am not the only one still outraged by this treasonous attack.

Later, when Bush had Iraq in his cross hairs, he began a truly Hitlerian campaign of lies, smears and transparent bullshit. Many were fooled. Beyond forgiveness, however, were members of Congress - Democrat and Republican alike -who knew better yet climbed on board the gravy train. Not all were mere accessories after the fact. It is exceedingly impolite, however, to salivate publicly at the mere mention of lucrative defense contracts.

By now, Bush's case for war is known to have been a deliberately concocted fraud perpetrated upon the American people. Nothing said by Bush about 911 or about the war in Iraq has been, in any way, true. That debate is won. That case is closed. The verdict is in and Bush has been found a callous, deliberate liar. For me, the issue is: why is Bush not yet rotting in a dank cell when thousands of innocent Texans still languish in the Bush gulags down in Texas? Why have not formal charges been lodged at the International Tribunal to bring this mass murderer to trial for his crimes? Why are the rich, the powerful, the NEOCON connected still free to walk about and endanger the whole of humankind?

It has been said that never before had an act of war been so adamantly and powerfully opposed. Bush did not merely "not listen", he presided over a deliberate and well-orchestrated campaign to demonize his opposition. His targets included Cindy Sheehan, whose own sacrifice for Bush's vainglorious ambitions, were derided. Lives, careers, reputations were ruined by this sorry ass gang of crooks who daily flout the values of our founding.

It was not only the people of the US who were targeted by these Neo-nazis. It was any voice anywhere in the world which dared speak against the tyranny, which dared oppose the Bush campaign to wage aggressive war in pursuit of world domination. A warning to Bush enablers who still indulge delusions of Bush's "divinity", his supposed relationship with "the Lord". Save it for your trial on capital crimes charges. See US Codes; Section 2441. It is not God that Bush talks to. In any case, spare me an idiot's ideology. I want justice.

At last, when all is known to have been black-hearted, malicious lies, Bush is reduced to repeating a failed strategy because abandoning his crime in the commission of it will prove the case against him. The appropriation bill, it is said, was signed in blood. Therefore, more American lives are required to pull Bush's sorry fat out of the fire. The future is now and it was forged with Bush's order to attack Iraq. There was an urgency to stop the war before it began. There is greater urgency now to remove Bush from office.

To whom do we now turn to achieve this? Not the Democrats. They have made their GOP-like pact with Ol' Scratch.

There is left but one solution. Revolution! It also fitting that the inspiration as well as the philosophical basis may be found in the history of this nation's creation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

- Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

No mere string of platitudes, the "Declaration" is a "revolutionary" document. It is the irrefutable case that when governments of any type become "illegitimate" it is the right of the people to abolish and replace them by any means. Moreover, the case is made that the "Crown" had become illegitimate in terms of its own precepts, primarily English law, common law, and principles espoused by the crown itself. After having established the principles compelling the American revolution, Jefferson went on to enumerate numerous, egregious violations of those laws and principles by the Crown.

There had been hope that Democratic opposition might work within the present framework to reign in a rogue and illegitimate regime. But continued democratic sellouts will change the paradigm, perhaps forever. Until Democrats put Bush's feet to the fire, they will remain a part of the problem. Until they redeem themselves, they have become Bush's complicit enablers.

During his campaign for the White House, Bush had said that he was a "uniter, not a divider". But, as he demonized Iraq in the run up to aggressive war, he said "you are either with me, or against me". I have bad news for Bush. Either he is for the Constitution or he is against it. Time and again he has proven himself to be against it. He has proven true the charge that he considers the Constitution a "goddamned piece of paper". Having flouted the very bases of legitimacy, it is time for Bush to go.

As long as the contagion was confined to Bush's illegitimate party and his illegitimate White House, impeachment, the only remedy short of revolution, might have been a viable solution. Now the contagion is no longer confined. The Democrats are equally complicit in the commission of Bush's capital crimes. What other recourse is there when Congress proves itself complicit in the crimes of the executive?

Bush has left in his wake a broken and illegitimate government. The people are left no choice but a substantive redress of serious and fundamental grievances having to do with the very legitimacy of every government institution. Is there nothing left America but revolution?

An update from an American serviceman at an American military cemetary in Europe:
Well, I was a generationally removed GI in Europe, and it was Memorial Day. I wonder what these poor bastards would think if they were here today and could check out this little video from Take Back The Media: what do you suppose would cross their minds if they were to discover that a descendant of Nazi sympathizers and war profiteers is now the de facto dictator of the nation that they served in the titanic struggle to destroy the Nazis? Would that be seen as cruelly ironic, maybe, or as a sick joke, or what?

About the only conclusion I can draw, on this Memorial Day, is that the Nazis actually won the war after all.

- Barstool Chronicles

Additionnal resources:






Sunday, May 27, 2007

Palast: Three Million Voters Challenged in Karl Rove's Fraudulent Scheme

An endemically crooked GOP regime is already planning the theft of the next election. This is a hard story to cover simply because there are so many headlines to choose from. Which one is the lead? You choose:
White House and Justice department officials conspire to cover up the role played by Karl Rove in the spreading US Attorney firing scandal
or
E-mails indicate Karl Rove is up to his neck in the White House firing of US attorneys
and the headline for this article:
Karl Rove's fraudulent scheme targets the voting rights of three million American voters
Investigative reporter Greg Palast is breaking this story this weekend, most prominently in this interview with Democracy now:


A brilliant reporter, Palast nevertheless benefited from a mistake that, with any luck at all, might bring this criminal White House down. From Les Enrages, we learn that 500 of some 5 million emails were delivered to Greg Palast by mistake. Intended for RNC.org they wound up in Palast's hands at RNC.com.


An act of "God" or the Smoking Gun? Will the mainstream media redeem itself by covering a story that promises to address the endemic crookedness of the White House itself? Sadly, the Democrats, are compromised with regard to Iraq, by rights their issue. Will they blow it with regard to the US Attorney firing scandal as well?

A jaded, tired, exploited populace would like to know: why does this story matter and why should we pay attention when nothing else has stuck? Who is not jaundiced when Bush has in fact gotten away - so far - with the commission of capital crimes?

There is a larger but related story. Unfortunately, the media has not excelled in covering "larger" stories. In this case, the deliberate, orchestrated firings of US attorneys are integral to this administration's enthusiastic attempts to subvert the rule of law in order to promote an extremist right wing agenda. This charge is made persuasively by Charles Tiefer, former solicitor of the House of Representatives. If true, it amounts to high treason, no less so than the criminal nature of Bush's prosecution of an ongoing war crime: Iraq!

Those benefiting from Bush's often criminal policies include war profiteers like Blackwater and Halliburton, religious zealots and ideologues intent upon establishing an anti-American, religious theocracy and other extremist organizations who oppose many of the rights guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights. That's why I call Bush's policies in this regard "treasonous". Differing on policy is one thing. Conspiring with subversives, as Bush has done, is another. It is subversive to engage in activity which is in itself illegal with the end view being the absolute destruction of the US Constitution.

A final word of advice for Democrats: you can still redeem your party but only if, for once, you forget the advice of corrupt consultants and stupid focus group talking points. Instead - do what IS right! That is, oppose the utter criminality of this destructive administration with every means necessary and legal. Bring the Congress to a halt if need be. Revolutionary times demand revolutionary action. End this war and end the stranglehold Bush has on democracy!

Additional resources:







Monday, October 16, 2006

Remembering the past but making the same old blunders

As the GOP once again descends into scandal, depravity, and treason, it must be pointed out that the more things change the more they stay the same. I wrote the following article shortly after the election of Bill Clinton when it was hoped that a new broom would sweep clean. It is a look back at the Reagan/Bush years —an era that I had hoped was gone forever. While Bill Clinton did not promise to undo every horror perpetrated by the back-to-back debacles of Reagan/Bush, he was a breath of fresh air sweeping across a fetid bog, a GOP cesspool. Would that it had lasted but a bit longer!

The last presidential election turned out to be a referendum on "values" after all —though the outcome was not what Dan Quayle had in mind when he attacked Murphy Brown. The real values of the GOP were not family values at all. They were, rather, elitist values, a charade unveiled by a failing Reagan/Bush economy. With the ascension of Bill Clinton, it was apparent that it was "...the economy, stupid!", that the GOP White House had for twelve years gone through the motions in a bubble. It was a White House isolated from real problems, real issues, a real world. It was a White House [like that of Bush today] of delusions, spin, and demagogic sloganeering. It was Bush [Senior], himself, who said in his second debate: "I'm not sure I get it". That was one of only two things Bush Sr. was ever right about. The second was "voodoo economics".

But the Reagan/Bush dynasty did not fail. It succeeded in "getting government off the backs" of country club cronies, oil barons, the upper one percent of the nation. Reagan/Bush would be more fondly remembered had it failed. Sadly, twelve years of GOP success either created or rewarded a privileged aristocracy still clamoring for privilege and special treatment by the tax man. This is success that the country would do better without.

The rest of us pegged the family values talk for what it was: old fashion elitism, intolerance, bigotry. What historian Henry Steele Commager said of Warren Harding and the era of normalcy which followed his corrupt, scandal ridden administration can be said of the Reagan/Bush years:

Never before had the government of the United States been more unashamedly the instrument of privileged groups; never before had statesmanship given way so unreservedly to politics.

—Henry Steel Commager

The pundits blame the President's lack of "...the vision thing". However, vision belongs to those who see a need for change and make constructive proposal in good faith. George Bush [Sr] may have been sincere when he said things weren't so bad. They weren't! For him and his rich cronies. Hadn't Marie Antoinette said something similar? Let them eat cake! Had not Herbert Hoover, likewise, opined that the poor might do well to sell apples and oranges from a push cart?

Pat Buchanan's "hate speech" at the GOP National Convention proved to have been a throw back to bad ol' days, specifically, the administrations of Harding, Hoover, and Coolidge when American society was materialistic, intolerant, an era when membership in the Ku Klux Klan rose to millions.

Much of the problem is the character of the American rich —the GOP's core constituency. They are overly impressed with themselves. They imagine that they are the "upper class". They delude themselves by thinking themselves intelligent and citing their wealth in evidence. The nouveau riche are the most egregious offenders, more likely to think their wealth deserved.

The English aristocracy —by contrast —are educated at Cambridge and Oxford. An American Rhodes scholar was impressed with English university life and summed it up this way:

Three thousand young men, every one of whom would rather lose a game than play it unfairly.
Those are most certainly not the values that can be associated with the party that gave this nation a slogan: Greed is good. Those are not the values of a party knee deep in the Savings and Loan scandal. Those are not the values of the Boeskys, the Helmsleys, Iran/Contra, Watergate, and Iraq-gate.

As mentioned this essay was written in the twilight of Bush Sr's regime as Bill Clinton waited in the wings to take the oath of office. If Bush Junior had merely picked up where Iran/Contra and the Savings and Loan scandal left off, it would have been bad enough. Alas, Junior was not merely crooked, he has attacked the very foundations of our republic. He sold out to his "base" —a venal cabal of the super, super rich, the defense establishment, and the oil industry. He has placed two nations into the hand of this Axis of Privilege and ruthlessness —the United States and Iraq.