My husband who usually ignores politics just made a good point

[proud2BlibKansan]

We are watching the coverage of Mrs. King's funeral and I asked if he heard that Carter mentioned that the Kings were spied upon.

He said "yes they were and you are old enough to remember WHO spied on them. The Democrats!"

Just thought I would throw that out there.

[stop the bleeding]

1. I'm just a little too young, I'll have to believe ya unless someone proves

otherwise.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Bobby Kennedy was attorney general

Clinton talks about it in his bio.

[lvx35]

60. delete

[mikeiddy]

2. It was wrong then and is still wrong now (NT)

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. I agree

[Greeby]

3. Worth reminding him

J Edgar Hoover had effective control of the Presidency. A President either did what Hoover wanted, or he would release the blackmail file on them

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. And what party did Hoover belong to?

[Greeby]

18. Tyrants anonymous?

:shrug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. Well I thought he was a Dem

but I could be wrong.

[Pirate Smile]

45. Coolidge appointed him - a republican.

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. And that makes him a Repub?

[Pirate Smile]

51. What the hell makes him a Dem? He was appointed by a Republican.

I don't think I would assume he was a Democrat based on those facts.

[Kelvin Mace]

25. Hoover was a power unto himself

Few dared cross him. Even Nixon was afraid of him.

That said, wrong is wrong. No skin off my nose that a Kennedy was responsible. I don't worship at that altar.

[DBoon]

56. Democrat or Republican, Hoover did what he wanted

He had enough blackmail material on JFK to keep the entire administration in line.

His decades-long control over presidents was proof that power corrupts, and that illegal surveillance is pure evil.

[lvx35]

61. Hoover was a REPUBLICAN

http://www.americanpresident.org/history/herberthoover/

crashed economy, homophic yet homosexual, spying on the people, and you think he was a DEM?

[TahitiNut]

78. (cough!) J. Edgar ... not Herbert.

:eyes:

[lvx35]

89. Oh, we're talking about MLK era.

Sorry, was just scanning that thread.

[evlbstrd]

4. No, it was Hoover.

By the mid-sixties, that cross-dreesing hypocrite bastard was well out of control. He had shit on every politician that mattered. And you know he used it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. And Bobby Kennedy was right there with him helping with that spying

Read Clinton's bio.

I had completely forgotten about all of this until hubby reminded me tonight.

[evlbstrd]

21. The more things change,

the more they stay the same.
Power corrupts. You know all that stuff.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. In all fairness, I have heard that Bobby regretted doubting Dr. King

and by the time he ran for prez, he had become a great admirer of MLK.

[evlbstrd]

37. Is it any wonder he was shot?

He and Hoover already hated each other, from the time Bobby had been Jack's AG. He became a real threat when it looked like he was going to get the Democratic Party nomination.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Yes, I have always suspected that there was lots more to his murder

than we will ever know. I remember when Hoover died, my dad said he was taking a lot of secrets to his grave with him. I didn't really understand what he meant then, but I sure do now.

[evlbstrd]

52. I had an excellent American History teacher in high school.

We always talked about current events, and what had happened in the years leading up to them. Then a great professor in college, your stereotypical left-wing ivory tower radical prof. He had classes for major chunks of the 20th century, and I took every one.

[proud2BlibKansan]

94. I was raised by an excellent American History teacher

You would have loved my dad. We had the best discussions at the dinner table when I was a kid.

Since we invaded Iraq, I keep remembering how my dad used to say that we had better pray the US stays out of the middle east because once we go over there, we will never be able to get out. He said one of the most arrogant things our govt could ever do would be to think we can solve any problems in the middle east.

[evlbstrd]

99. Damned if your dad wasn't right.

The Crusades have been festering for a very long time.
History is so inconvenient sometimes.

[FreedomAngel82]

102. And also with Bobby

wasn't he going to nominate King as his VP? I think I've heard that before but I'm not sure.

[JuniperLea]

8. J. Edgar Hoover was a Democrat???

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. I believe he was

The Democrats were the conservative war mongers in the 60s.

[Kelvin Mace]

28. Some were

many weren't. The war wasn't even questioned on the GOP side.

[proud2BlibKansan]

40. They were a rather ineffective group then

But I do like to remind them today that a Republican prez (Eisenhower) was the one who took us into Vietnam in the beginning.

[Kelvin Mace]

90. And pretty ineffective now

<g>

[proud2BlibKansan]

91. Yes, that is true

[Pirate Smile]

49. He wasn't so stop saying it or at least get some proof.

[TahitiNut]

84. There were conservatives and liberals in both parties in the 60s.

The split was NOTHING like we have now where the Republicans are 60% fascist, 30% conservative sycophants, and 10% moderate sycophants, and the Democrats are 60% liberal, 20% moderate, and 20% brain dead.

[me b zola]

93. That being said...

I can't help but thinking about how much things are similar to now. Most uninformed Dems kind of blow with the wind--and right now, as in '68, many Dems want to identify themselves with those who seem "mainsteam". So now, the dlc pumps out repuke type talking points, and many Dem voters believe that is the word from the Democratic Party, much like in '68 when we had real ant-war candidates, but the $$$$ Dems wouldn't let that vote go through the convention in Chicago.

[proud2BlibKansan]

95. Very true

But I think I still dislike a few Dems today, as I did in the 60s. I also still despise the Republicans.

[SharonAnn]

97. In the 60's and 70's I was a liberal Republican. I wouldn't have

belonged to the Democrats because the Southern Democrats were extremely racist and sexist (in general) and usually they controlled the agenda.

However, things changed later. I felt like a misfit in the Republican party and became an Independent. Then (thanks to Molly Ivins) I realized that my beliefs were best supported by the Democratic Party. So, I've been a Democrat for almost 30 years.

[TahitiNut]

101. I've always been an independent, but my votes reflected what you've ...

... described. I couldn't even begin to stomach George Wallace and his ilk. Bill Millikin (R) was an excellent Governor of Michigan, second only to Soapy Williams (D) during my lifetime. I hade a great deal of respect for Everett Dirksen (R - Bard of Pekin) despite disagreeing with him more than half the time and abhored the Daley Machine (ward-heeled) in Chicago.

[FreedomAngel82]

103. He was a republican!

He accepted the republican nomination in 1928.

Link: http://www.americanpresident.org/history/herberthoover/

Upon accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1928, Herbert Hoover predicted that “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.

[TahitiNut]

92. No. J. Edgar Hoover was a Fascist, without a doubt.

There wasn't a left-wing organization that Hoover didn't infiltrate and list on an "enemies list." Besides being a fervent anti-Communist for two decades before McCarthy and HUAC, Hoover surveiled Albert Einstein from the very beginning because Einstein was an avowed and demonstrated anti-Nazi before it became 'fashionable.' Hoover spied on all the men who joined the Abraham Lincoln Battalion that fought the Franco Fascists in Spain. Hoover was a political cousin to Henry Ford, infamously antisemitic. Hoover was a racist, antisemitic fascist.

[MichiganVote]

9. It was Hoover who had the spying fetish--on everyone

[Jon8503]

22. You are correct Michigan. Hoover was not a Democrat, nor was

he a Republican. Hoover only belonged to the "Hoover" party. He spied on anyone that he felt might benefit him at present or future. He took numbers and called in favors. Hoover was probably the most feared and powerful man while he was in power. I don't know where he got his fashion points from though.

He also was always suspicious of Dr. King and it was Hoover who did the spying. President Kennedy did not and Bobby did not. Bobby was going after the Mafia Kingpins of which leads into other matters that came back to him.

However, the only spying I know of done by the Democrats was always done by legal means.

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. Read Clinton's bio

It is the most recent book that talks about Bobby spying on MLK and several other Civil Rights leaders. I remember first hearing about this back in the 70s. Bobby's justice dept had all kinds of wiretaps on MLK.

[MichiganVote]

54. Hoover started going after the communists and left the Mafia behind

resulting in an upsurge in organized crime after decades of better than average law enforcement. The guy had a classic paranoid personality disorder. As such, affiliation in any party would have been unthinkable. Hoover drew the FBI away from its central tenets and moved into a giant tool to feed his mega mental illness.

[PSPS]

11. Wasn't it Hoover -- a Coolidge appointee?

Coolidge was a typical laissez-faire Republican.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. That doesn't mean Hoover was a Repub

And he was way out of control by the time the Civil Rights battles were going on in the 60s. Coolidge was dead by then.

[madfloridian]

13. J. Edgar Hoover, FBI

Dirt on everyone.

He was obsessed with King.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. So was the administration.

[punpirate]

14. Well, in fairness...

... Andrew Young relates a story of JFK taking King into the Rose Garden so he could talk to him without chance of being bugged and explaining that Hoover had King under surveillance and there was little JFK could do about it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Yes he did

Didn't JFK also try to talk Bobby into leaving Dr. King alone?

[punpirate]

55. I'm not sure that Bobby was the instigator of that...

... surveillance, but, maybe JFK tried to get Bobby to get Hoover to ease up. By 1962, most in the White House had come to the conclusion they were going to be doing something to legitimize the civil rights movement and at that time, MLK was the de facto leader of that movement. I'm just not sure from my recollections--Bobby was hell-on-wheels at the time about communists, and, no doubt, Hoover fed that trait as much as he could, because Hoover was convinced that King was in league with the Soviet Union, that it was the Soviets' way of fomenting unrest, although there was not a shred of proof of that.

My own feeling about Hoover was that he saw prominent black leaders as all cut from the same cloth as Paul Robeson (who did have some rather generic communist inclinations), along with the fact that Hoover believed earnestly that there was an existing power structure in the country that shouldn't be tampered with in any way. Anything that smacked of instability in that power structure--especially something that he might interpret as class warfare--had to be put down. For those reasons, I would guess that Hoover was the driving force behind the surveillance of King. Everyone knew that Hoover had his files on everyone who was anyone, and on plenty of nobodies, too, and the underlying threat that he would use them if he didn't get what he wanted was always there.

[mmonk]

15. So that justifies today's spying on Americans?

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Of course not

We just need to remember that it isn't exclusively a Republican activity.

[mmonk]

30. That's true.

And everybody remembers the dixiecrats as well during the sixties.

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. The Dems do have some dirty laundry too

We can't forget that.

[Jon8503]

58. Yes, the democrats have dirty laundry, anyone in power ends up with

some dirty laundry. However, the spying being done by this administration does not equate with spying in the past democratic administrations. I am sure there was some unethical spying by them but on the whole, it was not like what is going on now and what possibly is the goal of what the present administration is reaching for.

Hoover was running the show pretty much in the spying field. I'll try to get that book Lib but all in all, it was Hoover who was trying to destroy Dr. King. The Kennedy's were not looking at him the same way.

I'll give you dirty laundry and sure some spying but I don't think it even comes close to what we are talking about today.

[proud2BlibKansan]

63. No you are right. What is happening today is much worse.

[Kelvin Mace]

33. Nope, yo are correct

Of course, this begs the question as to whether RFK had a warrant. If he did, then the spying was morally reprehensible, but sadly legal. Bush is two for two. Immoral and illegal.

[proud2BlibKansan]

43. I don't know whether he had a warrant or not

I suspect not.

[Mr_Spock]

85. You do know the FISA law was not in effect yet?

It's unlikely there were any guidelines.

Also, this is common knowledge, why is everybody acting like they were unaware of this spying?

I knew about it at the time when I was a child in the 60's.

[Laelth]

48. Hmm ...

It's not the activity that's the problem. There are many, warranted ways that the federal govt. might spy on people. This is OK.

The FISA law that Bush Broke, however, wasn't passed until the late 70's. Hoover didn't break the law. RFK didn't break the law. Bush broke the law when he ordered spying without a warrant. That's grounds for impeachment.

For goodness sake, don't lose sight of the ball.

-Laelth

[Mr_Spock]

82. "For goodness sake, don't lose sight of the ball."

So true.

Somebody is making lame excuses already as to why we should back off.

Fucking pathetic!!

[Mr_Spock]

81. Democrats are spying now??

If not, what's the point in talking pre-FISA, pre-Nixon spying - it was commonplace for both party's then?

Showing that you didn't know your history until he said that is not productive and seems to imply that something that happened 40 years ago before a law was passed to create accountability is even relevant.

It's not.

[proud2BlibKansan]

96. Those who don't remember history

are condemned to repeat it.

[MoonRiver]

26. Touche!

:D

[JuniperLea]

29. School yard mentality

Well, Bobby, Eddie and Milhouse did it! Neener neener!


Chumps and chimps... jeez.

[proud2BlibKansan]

46. That's not the point

It is just important that we know and understand our history.

[JuniperLea]

107. Time lines are important too

When were certain laws passed and by whom... makes a world of difference in their accusations.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

24. I was under the impression that the Hoover FBI was McCarthyist

Wasn't McCarthy a right winger? So was Reagan, who was involved with the McCarthy/Hoover FBI. Seems to me the FBI of McCarthyism and anti-Communism was Republican.

[proud2BlibKansan]

50. Yes I believe he was

But many Dems in the 60s were very conservative and could be called right wingers by today's standards.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

66. Well, this country has come a long way

Far from being this perfect nation, this "perfect nation" began with the framers giving women zero rights, children zero rights, and claiming that black people were only 3/5 human. I'm one of those people that doesn't worship the constitution. You won't get arguments from me that this country has had a lot of growing up to do, and that it has a tremendous amount of growing up to do. However, while Democrats are not socialists (as we'd like them to be), in a contest between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans have been the poster kids of fascism of the U.S. for quite a long time. They are now the big fascists.

I wasn't born here, but I feel completely free to say that the system of election left this country by the forefathers is a piece of crap. I'd also say that as far as checks and balances in the U.S. government, it's a myth.

Now I'll get off my soapbox. :headbang:

[proud2BlibKansan]

72. Great post!

You can get on that soapbox anytime you want as far as I'm concerned! :)

[Malikshah]

31. It's the principle---if folks can't see that, then there's no help for

them.

[Spazito]

34. Yep, it was Bobby Kennedy that first authorized the wiretapping

of Dr. King as per the official Senate report from 76:

The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau's disposal. Wiretaps, which were initially approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were maintained on Dr. King's home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965; the SCLC headquarter's telephones were covered by wiretaps for an even longer period. Phones in the homes and offices of some of Dr. King's close advisers were also wiretapped. The FBI has acknowledged 16 occasions on which microphones were hidden in Dr. King's hotel and motel rooms in an "attempt" to obtain information about the "private activities of King and his advisers" for use to "completely discredit" them. 2

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIb.htm

[Pirate Smile]

35. A bit about Hoover from Wiki

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in its present form and its director from May 10, 1924 until his death in 1972. Hoover was appointed acting director of the FBI by President Coolidge to reform and clean up the bureau, which was considered a haven of corruption. During his tenure, Hoover attained extraordinary power and unusual discretionary authority, while also feuding with many adversaries. Some of his contemporary detractors and now some historians suspect or accused him of having links to the Mafia, of gathering information for the purposes of blackmail, of being a closet homosexual, and of 'passing' as white while persecuting others with similar preferences and family history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

[madfloridian]

38. Hoover misused by far the power he was given. Link.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-katzenbach16jan16,0,2941426.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

"In October 1963, Hoover requested Atty. Gen. Kennedy to approve a wiretap on King's telephone. At that time, taps had to be approved by the attorney general and did not require court approval in the form of a warrant. The basis for the tap was King's close association with Stanley Levison, who Hoover said was a prominent member of the Communist Party with great influence over King in civil rights matters.

Bobby was furious. Hoover's charge that King was a pawn of the communists could potentially taint the whole movement and bring into question everything we were doing to vindicate the constitutional rights of black citizens. It was hard to think of an issue more explosive.

To understand just how explosive, one has to remember that Hoover was both popular and enormously powerful, with great support in Congress. Some of that support was based on admiration, some on fear that he had damaging personal information in his files. Much support came from conservative Southern Democrats, opposed to King, who chaired virtually every important congressional committee. Hoover was formally a subordinate of the attorney general who could, technically, fire and replace him. That's a big "technically." No attorney general, including RFK and myself when I succeeded him, could fully exercise control over him. And none did.

When Hoover asked for the wiretaps, Bobby consulted me (I was then his deputy) and Burke Marshall, head of the Civil Rights Division. Both of us agreed to the tap because we believed a refusal would lend credence to the allegation of communist influence, while permitting the tap, we hoped, would demonstrate the contrary. I think the decision was the right one, under the circumstances. But that doesn't mean that the tap was right. King was suspected of no crime, but the government invaded his privacy until I removed the tap two years later when I became attorney general. It also invaded the privacy of every person he talked to on that phone, not just Levinson. But what we didn't know during this period was that Hoover was doing a lot more than tapping King's phones"

[Laelth]

64. Thanks madfloridian.

I wasn't aware of the context of the spying on MLK. That explains a lot.

-Laelth

[madfloridian]

67. It does help to see it in context.

Thanks.

[liberalitch]

39. Hoover took to doing a lot of it without any prompting from....

anyone....
he really was a terrible racist....
Have him read Kenneth O'reilly's Racial matters..... that should clear that condition up.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-4476913-8467169?url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&field-keywords=racial+matters

[Straight Shooter]

41. Oh, I see. Democrats were spying on thousands of Americans.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Not the same. Not the same at all.

Hoover, these days, would be a neocon, no doubt about it. In fact, he would be the head of the CIA, not the FBI. Or maybe he would be in Negroponte's position.

[Pirate Smile]

44. I don't think anyone here every thought it would be OK if it was

Democrats doing what Bush is doing.

The point is that the law was put into place to stop all Presidents and their Administrations from doing it.

[Ksec]

53. Geez How far back do we wanna go?

Im more interesting in how the Reds are ruining this country today. History is history.

[rooboy]

57. Since when were "Democrat" and :"Republican" personality types?

Who gives a shit about the party affiliation of who spied on him? America has sadly turned into a football game where one side tries to kick the shit out of each other with the constitution being the ball. Eventually the ball becomes so battered and worn that it gets tossed out.

[The_Casual_Observer]

59. I guess that makes it right then.

[mtnsnake]

62. What, are we supposed to go after Dems for something decades ago?

I don't think so. That was then and this is now.

If someone can rig me up with a time machine, I'll go back and chastise those evil Dems, though.

[proud2BlibKansan]

65. Who said anything about going after them?

Just remember they weren't saints.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

69. Pssst!

I think this all has something to do with the fight between American libs, whereby some say, "I'm more lib than you!", and the others say, "I'm lib but the election system sucks and we either change it, or we have to kowtow to corporations."

(Meantime we make the mistake of voting for Nader-types).

[EFerrari]

68. Oops!

Lol! He's right. :)

[never cry wolf]

70. Easy there people, remember the times, remember the era

We're talking about the early '60's here, the civil rights movement was in it's infancy, blacks still had separate drinking fountains and there was some violence, instigated by the good ole boys agin those uppity niggas. I would wager that RFK spied upon the KKK as much as MLK. As AG of the US, it was his job to keep tabs on potential powderkegs that may bring harm to the country be they in the right or wrong. At that time in lily white, wonder bread, middle class, post WWII murica he would have had little choice as to whether or not he could keep an eye on what was perceived by most as an extremely radical movement and concept.

[chaumont58]

71. I've never heard that before. I thought Hoover's FBI....

did the spying. How does that get to the 'Democrats?'

[Sarah Ibarruri]

73. I guess it gets there through the desire to attack the Democrats?

:popcorn:

[Mr_Spock]

87. Dems were hawks in the 60's

Doesn't anybody know anything about history?

Johnson was a bastard & Kennedy was no angel himself when it came to the Cold war.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

98. The entire U.S. was against Communism

I wasn't born here, and I still marvel at Americans spewing terror about Communism even today. As I understand it, there were even propaganda courses in American high schools here as late as the 70s, titled, "Americanism vs. Communism." What a bizarre whacko world the U.S. is.

I don't recall, however, Democrats being the ones that developed, shaped and baked the plans on promoting nationwide terror of Communists and Communism.

[Katherine Brengle]

74. Hey, no one ever said that Dems can do no wrong--and before the

Civil Rights Movement, many Dems were Southern Dems--not the same as what we consider a Democrat today.

[Generic Other]

75. When the Democrats did it I was freaked out too

I don't like to be spied on by my government.

[cantstandbush]

76. So were a lot other people. Most of them the same ones upset now. n/t

[Lexingtonian]

77. "The" Democrats....

People who don't recognize that an awful lot changed about both Parties in 1968 are political morons.

[Mr_Spock]

79. Everybody knows that, it's why we have to be vigilent AND there is a law

now that was partially brought about by this and Nixons spying.

What exactly is your point anyway?

[carolinalady]

80. That is discussed in Clinton's book. The Dems do not have

such a rosy history in civil rights. I am glad we changed, but more of the young ones need to learn the history.

[never_get_over_it]

83. Apparently the folks at the funeral

didn't have too big a problem with the Kennedys did you see the reception Teddy got - and he told the story how RFK got MLK out of some bogus four month hard labor sentence for a traffic violation

Two wrongs don't make a right and since that was all a really long time ago - lets worry about today's problems and learn from the past.

[Mr_Spock]

86. Two wrongs don't make a right

Tell me about it!!

What the FUCK is the point of this post?

[karlrschneider]

88. The irony is of course that the Repugs point out Dem transgressions

as if it justifies their own.

[Greyhound]

100. Another argument for a clean start. We do like to blame the

re:puke:s for everything, and they're responsible for more than their fair share, to be sure, but we (Democrats) made the rise of this cabal possible.

[ramblin_dave]

104. Al Gore mentioned this recently

In Martin Luther King Day address, Gore compares wiretapping of Americans to surveillance of King

And on this particular Martin Luther King Day, it is especially important to recall that for the last several years of his life, Dr. King was illegally wiretapped-one of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government during that period.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Text_of_Gore_speech_0116.html

[izzybeans]

105. That's why I viewed Lowery's comments as nonpartisan.

The misdirection coming from more than one old white men. Carter addressed the moral issue that cuts accross both parties.

[WyLoochka]

106. Sorry proud, but citing a comment

made by a person who "usually ignores politics" in such a way as to imply that this comment should be granted some kind of authority here on DU is a little insulting.

Please read the article Madfloridian linked to written last month by the AG who succeeded RFK, Nicholas Katzenbach, and then try to pursuade your uninformed husband, whose habit is to "ignore politics," to read it.