Re: OT For Frank and Andre

Hi

I don't always like to interlineate answers, but I find your comments
interesting, and I hope you will bear with me.
"jrw" <jrwilmott@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1192381694.863179.207510@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Richard,

It is difficult to cover all the points raised in your last response
to my previous post. I hardly agree with anything you have written,
so in short order.. I am not anti-American, my better half hails from
Syracuse NY, my two children are both US citizens. In fact I am
strongly pro-American.


I really was not calling you anti-American....I am not subtle, at least not
in certain ways, and would have if I felt that. I think the attitude is
that, and I think you were signing on to that attitude by saying what you
did as if American bugaboos were different than other countries. That was my
point. I meant that point, but not more.

Steve Silverman has answered your point regarding Ken Livingston, let
me just add a few others; He does have Jewish friends, but like so
many on the left, there is certainly an anti-Israeli bias. The
problem for the left is trying to square the circle of supporting an
anti-gay, anti-women, anti-secular culture into something that they
can use to oppose the Jewish state, it is faintly ridiculous in my
view. I believe that he is a bloody fool, he panders to a delinquent
left wing constituency with the most appalling nonsense. His
insistence that the US Embassy staff should pay the congestion charge,
he would never say that about the Chinese Embassy, or the insulting
remarks he made about the ambassador. He is no Michael Bloomberg.


I agree on all of this, but it doesn't mean anything to me that he has
Jewish friends. So so Lenore Fulani here (a notorious anti-Semite) and so
did Richard Nixon. As to the rest, I completely agree with you that there is
something completely self-destructive and involuted about a left wing that
pronounces itself progressive and aligns itself with the most medieval
trends in modern history. Not that it surprises me, but it rather delights
me in a grim way. Liberals here are worse off - many of the old-time
Liberals embrace Israel and are strong philo-Semites with one hand (so to
speak) and then embrace everything that would destroy that with the other.

Many political figures in the US have made remarks about Jews that
would have ended any mainstream politicians career in the UK. May I
remind you of James Baker's pithy comments on the subject. No cabinet
minister would have survived the ensuing outrage. The Nixon tapes are
full of snide antisemitism. Furthermore, Britain cherishes its Jews,
whose impact on the country has been more than beneficial. No other
country has been so shaped by so few people in recent times. Hayek,
Popper, Wittgenstein, just to name a few. Very few British subjects
have any idea how many politicians are Jewish, because we just don't
care, we seem them as an essential part of the fabric.

The Nixon comments were really not public until after he left office, or at
least not until the tapes were disclosed, and when they were, it hurt him.
There have been local comments about Jews (for example, in the Chicago
Democratic convention of 68, when one of the Democratic (Jewish) senators
was excoriating the actions of the Chicago police, the cameras caught Mayor
Daley (pere) shouting anti-Semitic comments. But what Livingston did was not
just that, as you know, but to make specific Holocaust comments related to a
Jewish reporter. I don't think that any politician could survive that in
this country....certainly not any elected politician. Baker was NOT an
elected politician, and certainly not the major of the largest and most
important (and supposedly, most cosmopolitan) city in the country.

As to your comments about Britain, I think they are not for here or now, but
in any case I wasn't making a comment about whether Britain had an
anti-Semitic trend (although it's abundantly clear that its universities do)
any more than any other country. I was really not being
holier-than-thou....I was trying to show that each country has different
areas in which the public will tolerate (or not tolerate) certain
issues...for the US, it is obviously sexual morality (in the most
narrow-minded meaning of the word morality, granted). But other countries
have just the same things, and that was my point.


Please tell me about the rehabilitation of the Mosley's? They were so
welcomed back into British society that they lived abroad, first in
Ireland, then in France, where they entertained the lunatic fringe of
the French right wing, which is of course much larger than it is in
the UK. They may have been friends with the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor, but just in case you don't know, they were hardly welcomed
back in British society either. Both of them were buried in France.

They were released early on a compassionate basis. I can come back to this
point, but putting them in jail was in part justified as protective custody,
and they were treated as guests, essentially, while in prison. They may have
lived abroad for a long time, but they were not in exile, and Diana is
buried with her other sisters, in England, by the way, not France. Again, we
had Lindberg - I am not pointing a finger, but I am saying just what I said
above - I am NOT attacking England, but trying to put something American in
context. Just to correct the record though, on the Mosleys, while they were
virulent anti-Semites, they were married in Berlin in the private rooms of
Goebbels and in the presence of Goebbels and Hitler, who remained a close
friend, but their lives in England were not interfered with until the war
began - despite the anti-Semitism and underming of Britain generally - and
even after they were relucantly interred, Churchill himself did everything
possible to make them comfortable, including letting them live together,
have a little prison garden, and have visits with friends.

I do not think you can compare the philandering manner with the of the
politicians you mentioned, none of them were as sexually magnetic
individuals in the same that Kennedy or Clinton were. Beria was a
psychopath for heavens sake.

Well, we don't disagree about Beria.

Richard, I am surprised at your assertion regarding the Bay of Pigs,
I would advise you to read at least one book on the subject. The
invasion was planned by the Eisenhower administration, with Nixon
playing an important role in the planning. Or do you think that the
Kennedy administration worked overtime as soon as they arrived into
office to plan an invasion in April of that year. Again there is
ample evidence to show otherwise.

Yes, I know it was planned by Eisenhower, but Kennedy was under no
compunction to give it a green light, or to engage in the assasination
attempts of Castro.

Kennedy's role in the build up of the Vietnam war is highly debatable,
and is too deep a subject for this thread. All I will say is this, in
his last interview with Walter Cronkite he struck a very cautious note
of increasing US involvement in Vietnam. There is evidence for both
sides of the argument.

Yes, I agree. We'll never decisively know. But we know what he did up to the
point of his assasination.

I do not agree with your assertion that he was self destructive,
certainly a man who enjoyed sex with many women, and lets be honest
Judith Exner was a very beautiful women. One has to say that despite
his affair, his Brother never stopped chasing Sam Giancana. How many
Mafia kingpins were arrested during the Eisenhower years? How many
more were arrested during the Kennedy administration?

As you know, the whole Mafia issue was screwed up by J Edgar Hoover - the
theory is that he was intent on Communists (which I can understand), but
I've always wondered if they 'had' something on his private life - he
certainly seemed to spend a lot of time trying to get things on other
people's personal lives. But what in the world does Exner's beauty have to
do with anything? Come on now.


With regards to race... Can you point to one comment made by President
Eisenhower or Vice President Nixon on the subject? Their silence is a
crying shame and a disgrace to the Republican Party, as was made plain
by Colin Powell.

You mean, the Colin Powell who served in the Bush administration? That one?
Kennedy certainly made lots of comments, of all kinds, but did nothing, and
it is pretty well established that he wasn't going to do anything at least
until the 64 elections. I've never heard anyone before you really say that
he was anything but a very light-weight paper tiger as to race.Ultimately,
reluctantly or not, Ike moved in federal troops to Little Rock. You seem
unaware that until Johnson, there were very strong racist trends (ie, white
racist) in the Democratic Party that Kennedy didn't buck at all, and that
Johnson actually did.

With regards to the Evangelical Movement, it has, almost fatally
contaminated the radical right in the US. They had won all the
arguments, and the left still has nothing like a coherent philosophy
in the States. I have to say the good works of William Buckley, the
political initiatives of Newt Gingrich, and the thinking of Milton
Friedman will come to naught at this rate, which is a tragedy. This
administration will be remembered for many things, none of them good.

Well, we agree on that one. But there's not one Evangelical Movement, that's
where you have it wrong. There are many, and many of them are important
additions to a viable and vibrant conservative democratic (small d)
governemnt.

My answers I know are brief and certainly some subjects are fairly
complex, all the same, the facts I have made reference to are quite
awkward...

No, I very much appreicate your your comments.

All best
Richard

Best regards


John



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