Your view of the root cause of much of the general "mess" we are in

[NRaleighLiberal]

In other words, where did it all start to come apart at the seams in so many ways - in as many ways as you can imagine (leaving lots of space for your interpretations).

As in which policies/decisions/reactions to particular events - for example, I list Monicagate because of the incredible waste of money and time and potential progress...so not blaming Bill, but the efforts to impeach.

This is not an easy question...just curious as to the range of responses.

29 votes, 6 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Assassination of JFK
	7 (24%)
	Nixon presidency/Watergate
	4 (14%)
	Reagan presidency
	18 (62%)
	Bush 1 presidency
	0 (0%)
	Clinton presidency/Monicagate
	0 (0%)
	Cheney (er, Dubya) "presidency" in all its "glory"
	0 (0%)
	Obsession (for all sorts of reasons) with hoping for/causing President Obama to fail
	0 (0%)
	6 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Lizzie Poppet]

1. It's hard to overstate what a disaster the Reagan presidency was. (nt)

[Go Vols]

8. yes it is

quite hard.

[Newest Reality]

2. Well,

You could say it started with a basic ignorance and that that continued with karma (action/intention/cause and effect) within the dependent arising of all phenomena (interdependent relationships), since beginningless time, but that is bigger, more abstract sounding context and is probably seen as "meta" or apolitical.

The wheel does go 'round and 'round though. We do tend to get lost in the contents and ignore the process. The process is like knowing how to tie a shoe. The content is the particular pair of laces on a particular shoe, etc. A process is the formula or structure that can be applied to various situations and circumstances, so it is a functional and demonstrable aspect of experience.

Now...back to your regularly scheduled thread. Excuse me.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Thread win so far!

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Hard to put a good spin on Reagan and the horrible people who gave him power.

He was elected a second time with thousands of Americans dead from AIDS and not so much as a word out of Reagan. Among other things.
Our current slate of candidates includes two Reagan era Democrats one of whom was a Reagan official. It's not that distant from this Party and millions of Democrats voted for Dutch Death. I'll never forget that.

[Scootaloo]

5. Out of the options presented, Reagan

In reality? The reactionary anti-left panic in the US around the turn of the century that set the stage for everything since.

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. +1. great response. thanks!

[IDemo]

6. Nixon and Watergate

Followed by Ford's subsequent pardon of Nixon, which effectively sanctioned illegal behavior from then on.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. Yeah, Reagan was a disaster, but the Nixon sleaze era started it all.

So many of the same cronies that filled the seats of power from Reagan's administration on, cut their teeth under that crook, and learned the lesson that if you're in power, anything can be swept under the rug.

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. Majestic 12, Roswell, Operation Paper Clip

I know go ahead and laugh...........
And then Eisenhower's warning and farewell address.

But Remember
the NAZIS never surrendered
only the German Army Did.

And don't forget the right tried to kill FDR

FOIA has documented all of this data.
from the government's own files.

[1939]

20. The German government did surrender

Adolph Hitler (dissatisfied and disillusioned with both Goering and Himmler) in his last days designated the commander of the German U-boat force, Admiral Doenitz, as his "heir". Doenitz surrendered the Third Reich to the allies. Individual Nazis, seeing the looming war crimes trials the allies were planning, took one of four courses of action: they committed suicide, they surrendered, they escaped Germany, or they cut a deal with the US, Brits, or Russkies.

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. Admiral Doenitz, was never an official member of the NAZI party

though he was a war criminal.

[1939]

31. Strange thing about the war crimes trial of Doenitz

1. He was charged with "waging aggressive war" and it turned out that he was still a junior officer at the time and had no part in the decisions to go to war.

2. He was charged with waging unrestricted U-boat warfare and US admirals were prepared to testify that the US submarine force did the same thing in the Pacific that the U-boats did in the Atlantic..

3. He was charged with numerous attrocities by the U-boat commanders such as machinegunning lifeboats and evidence showed that he demanded investigations and courts-martial in each documented case.

4. Finally they decided that since he was leader of the Third Reich for a couple of weeks, that was enough, and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

[hifiguy]

10. Capitalism.

Though I voted for Zombie King Raygun.

[fadedrose]

12. The 1%, drug laws, racism, religion, colonialism

not just in the US, but everywhere. Too many people living in poverty, too many people going to jail for buying/using drugs and the sellers getting richer and more powerful, religious people killing people not of their faith, richer countries taking advantage of poorer one, nation building, leaders changed...

It's all the presidents..all the world's leaders, all of us too.

[LadyHawkAZ]

13. Organized greed

I feel it dates back to long, long before Reagan or even Nixon.

[mnhtnbb]

14. I have to go back to the assassination of JFK.

I have never believed Oswald acted alone. What a coincidence that
JFK, RFK, and MLK, Jr. are all assassinated. I do not believe in coincidences.
Can you imagine if any one of them--or all of them--had lived how different
this country would be?

I don't believe we would have seen a Reagan presidency without JFK being eliminated,
and Nixon being elected..

I have to go back to JFK.

[hifiguy]

15. Do read James Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable.

Painstakingly documented/researched, totally woo-free, and profoundly frightening.

[RufusTFirefly]

28. Profoundly frightening. But also profoundly sad.

Reading it filled me with longing for what we lost.

Otherwise I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Douglass' book.

[hifiguy]

34. It is more or less the last word.

No dangling threads, every conclusion backed with masses of documentary evidence that are cited in full. Douglass connected all the dots except one: who gave the order. And that we will likely never know, though I'd bet a hundred bucks that Allen Dulles was intimately and centrally involved in the decision.

[hedda_foil]

23. I agree 1000%. But I'd take it back to 1947, when the CIA was born and the Dulles boys took over.

What could go wrong with a couple of war criminal siblings running all aspects of US foreign policy? Kennedy not only fired Alan after the Bay of Pigs, he was about to dismantle the CIA itself. Oh, and shut down the U.S. role in Vietnam Nam, of course.

[hifiguy]

37. I have thought for many years that Allen Dulles was directly connected

to the hit on JFK. And since he was appointed to the Warren Commission he could write himself and the CIA out of the history entirely. Funny how that happened.

[hedda_foil]

46. Indeed. ^^^^^

[0rganism]

16. i'd say it goes back to the assassination of RFK

that was really the end right there, a hard wall erected right in front of American progressives, the end of the '60s such as they were, the end of the possibility of a Kennedy presidential dynasty. after JFK and MLK, that was the shot that killed old-school liberalism.

it took Reagan to really bury it, but that was the killing blow.

[Art_from_Ark]

49. I agree with that assessment

The death of RFK was a stunning blow to old-school liberalism from which we have yet to recover. And Reagan gleefully buried it in a pauper's grave.

[WinkyDink]

17. I believe that 11/22/63 was the Ur-moment, the moment after which (and re-emphasized in 1968) ALL

politicians and especially Presidents understood on literal pain of death exactly who and what were in charge.

JFK, MLK, RFK. assassinated. Teddy almost killed in an airplane crash; JFK, Jr., killed in one. Was Ted supposed to die later at Chappaquiddick?

Attempts on the lives of Ford (Twice! Member of the Warren Commission, the one who adamantly refused to allow Jack Ruby to testify in D.C.; later pardoned Nixon), Wallace, and Reagan (which would have immediately made a member, with the Bin Ladens, of the Carlyle Group and erstwhile CIA Chief, President).

IOW: ike was right. It's the M-I C, Stupid. (Ain't it funny what some men might do for control of many billions of dollars?!)

[TransitJohn]

18. It started with the deliberate decision to leave the USA on a wartime footing after WWII ended.

All else stems from that.

[RufusTFirefly]

32. Agree

Two years, 1934 and 1947, were pivotal in taking us down our current path.

1934 was when the Business Plot was revealed, but despite damning conclusions by the McCormick-Dickstein Committee, was largely ridiculed or ignored. It gave the corporatists a reprieve that enabled them to refine their strategy and try again.

1947 marked Truman's signing of the National Security Act, which reorganized the military, put us on a quasi permanent wartime footing, and directly led to Eisenhower's prescient warning in his farewell address.

[Vinca]

19. I'm torn between Reagan and right wing hate radio/television.

Compared to today's GOP, Reagan was a leftie and today's GOP exists because of the Rush Limbaughs of the world. I guess I'm leaning more toward the hate industrial complex.

[lpbk2713]

22. It started with Tricky Dick being caught red-handed.

And because he had to leave the Oval Office in shame the GOP swore to get even. That's why they ran a movie star (albeit B Grade) for Prez, because of his name recognition. Plus the fact that they blind sided Jimmy Carter just about every way they could think of. After RayGun and 41 things just swirled down the toilet and many of the voters who accepted the MSM version of things mistakenly accepted their thievery and ineptitude as just "bad luck" and not much was said or done. Shit-for-Brains continued on even more blatantly after the GOP rigged the elections for him, not once but twice. Many regard him as the worst president of modern times.

[NRaleighLiberal]

33. I also see Watergate as the start of endless payback/attack that leads us to today's

completely broken system.

[lpbk2713]

36. Admittedly mine is a simplified analysis.

But I tried to contain it in a few lines.

[Shrek]

24. The Electoral College

It inevitably led to a de facto two-party system and the rank partisanship and tribalism that comes with it.

[madokie]

25. reagan by a long shot

[Dawson Leery]

26. Nixon and his Southern Strategy.

Tricky Dick empowered the racists to become politically involved. He catered to them promising to protect them from the
"evil forces" (blacks/working women/immigrants/intellectuals, etc).

It is unforgivable what the SOB did.

[TBF]

27. Personally I recall the Reagan presidency

with the tax breaks for the super rich (capital gains cuts) but I have a feeling the unraveling started with killing MLK, JFK and Bobby Kennedy. If there had been an option for Eisenhower's final speech I would have picked that - all of this was in the cards quite awhile ago. Fast forward 65 years and the gap between rich & poor is monumental, and we are held in check with the Patriot Act.

[Iggo]

29. Wilful ignorance. (n/t)

[Binkie The Clown]

30. The invention of agriculture.

For the first time it became possible for some people to accumulate more food than they needed This resulted in stockpiling, which was leveraged by those in control of the stockpiles to exert the power of their wealth over others.

Agriculture made systematic greed possible. Everything else descends from that. Right on the heels of agriculture came governments, soldiers, wars to amass more agricultural lands to grow more crops to feed more soldiers and non-productive "elite". After that came greed on the part of the non-elite, which was the foundation of capitalism, or the power of tradesmen and merchants to amass wealth from the labor of the less greedy.

Ever since that point, natural selection, in the form of the market, has favored the most greedy, which includes those greedy for wealth, and those greedy for power.

[NRaleighLiberal]

35. thanks to all - there is a huge heap of deep thinking and well reasoned responses here.

I suspect that the right answer to some degree is bits of all of the above - but that Reagan fellow....

[Peregrine Took]

38. The Warren Commision Report, Viet Nam. the release of the hostages, Iran Contra,

election of old man Bush via the horrid Willie Horton ads, phony ass selection of Shrub, etc etc.

All of the were riddled with lies and cover ups and we the people knew it.

[NightWatcher]

39. Religion has been pissing me off a lot lately

I've seen the minds of my family members turn from college educated instruments into mush over the last twenty years. Because of "god" they are willing to do whatever some puppet master tells them. You might think that this increased religiosity would turn them into 24 hour kumbaya singing peaceniks, but it has done the polar opposite. They hate damn near everyone who doesn't follow along with their hate. They take their orders from mega preachers, hate radio, and manipulative politicians...and they do so without critical thinking.

Right wing politicians took over religion about the time that Reagan took over and it's gotten nothing but worse since that day.

So I'm pretty pissed at religion right now, and no I don't want to hear about your faith or how you can be progressive or exercise critical thinking at the same time you exercise belief in some "god" right now.

[NRaleighLiberal]

41. another great point. thanks for making it.

couldn't agree more.

[AgingAmerican]

40. As the GOP moves further to the right

The Democratic party keeps adopting the positions previously held by them, driving everything to the right. This is the problem.

[Initech]

42. Nixon and the Southern Strategy.

Reagan's "landslide" election was a direct result of the GOP catering to the wants and needs of the Southern voter - you know the three G's - god, guns and gays. Everything else has been a direct result of that bullshit.

[Octafish]

43. War Inc removed JFK...what McCain called ''The Intervention in Dallas.''

It was the phrase McCain used during a debate in '08. Weird word, perhaps ''Intervention'' is a code for removal from office by assassination.



These three DUers noticed:

Hootinholler:

Anyone else notice McCane referred to the Kennedy assasination as an intervention?


chimpsrsmarter

From the debate-McCain" before the intervention of the tragedy at Dallas."


stubtoe

Poppy Bush warned FBI -- AFTER -- JFK assassinated.

In the hour of the death of President John F. Kennedy, Texas oilman George Herbert Walker Bush named a suspect to the FBI in a "confidential" phone call. He then added he was heading for Dallas. Skeptics need not take my word for it, that's what Poppy told the FBI:

Here's a transcript of the text:

TO: SAC, HOUSTON DATE: 11-22-63

FROM: SA GRAHAM W. KITCHEL

SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY

At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.

BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.

BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLINE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT.

BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395.

# # #

Gee. Why was Poppy Bush in Dallas when JFK was assassinated? Was he on official business? I suspect he was on Secret Government business. After all, his eldest dim son bragged during his Texas Air National Guard and Harvard grad school days that his daddy was CIA. Seeing how he would go on to become President, as would that dim son, I believe it's vitally important that we learn the Truth.

Here's an FBI document from the same week of the assassination in which FBI Director J Edgar Hoover briefed one "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency." Some strange coincidence there, wot?

Here's a transcript of the above:

Date: November 29, 1963

To: Director
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of State

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director

Subject: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963, advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U. S. policy, which is not true.

Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the U. S. but to all of Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba.

An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination.

The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of this Bureau.

# # #

I do remember that GHWB was head of the CIA when the Church Committee and Pike Committee were looking into the CIA assassination programs. He made things all friendly-like and turned what had been a serious hunt for truth under previous DCI Colby into another dog-and-pony show that was big on show and light on facts.

Regarding Dallas: Now I don't know if Poppy was a trigger man, was only there to watch what happened or what just happened to be there. I do know Poppy Bush has never explained these memos. He's never even admitted where he was the day JFK was killed.

What's more, Poppy Bush sheltered mass-murdering jet-bombing terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles.

The United States and the world haven't been the same since November 22, 1963. And not a single major player in the nation's mass media have stepped up and demanded a real investigation. So, it's up to us, We the People.

[WiffenPoof]

44. I Got To Thinking....

I think it was when they started naming stadiums after companies and products. Pretty much when it began.

[moondust]

45. Financialization & globalization.

Both took off during the Reagan/Thatcher years.

Financialization is a term sometimes used in discussions of the financial capitalism that has developed over the decades between 1980 and 2010, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity), and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization

Financialization rewards gamblers and "connected insiders" who already have more than they need, in many cases MUCH more than they need.

Globalization undermines the bargaining power of labor.

A consumer economy that provides jobs needs buyers. Such an economy is undermined by the concentration of wealth. No matter how much wealth they accumulate, fat cats are not going to keep buying a lot of microwave ovens and automobiles they don't need just to be nice guys and keep people working. In the past Obama has talked some about "bottom-up economics".

TheRump has suggested collecting tariffs on automobiles built offshore and then shipped back to dealers in the U.S. for sale. Such a tariff would seem to make their selling price competitive with autos made by Americans in the U.S. at higher wages. Why wouldn't this parity model work broadly? (Screaming "protectionism!" at the top of your lungs is not a valid argument.)

[Glitterati]

47. Blue Dog Democrats

Simple. Democrats who refuse to behave like Democrats and stand for NOTHING but corporate shills.

[northoftheborder]

48. the Gingrich Republican Congress