Given the thoughts and information in my head right now it’s a toss up between Truman and Johnson. From what I’ve been learning, the American industrialists and financiers who had been collaborating with the Nazis may have been treated extremely differently had Wallace been VP when FDR died - up to and including charged with treason. Instead, Truman oversaw the creation of the modern intelligence agencies headed by some of those very same Nazi collaborators, and gave the order to use nuclear weapons. Later on, JFK was resisting the entire intelligence and military complex advice on basically all foreign affairs, to the point where LBJ was getting briefings JFK wasn’t. The warmongers behind the scenes knew who would and wouldn’t listen to them. One of the last things JFK did as president was emphatically state that there would be no military action with regards to Vietnam. Then he got shot, Johnson became president, and all the MIC’s hopes and dreams came true.
I didn’t realize JFK was actually based. I know some terrible things transpired during his office (like all the rest) but I guess with this new information I wonder if perhaps he just saw through it and was just following what he thought was genuinely the right thing to do.
I think it goes to show that truly some people are good people just trapped in a wholly bad environment that is very good at convincing people on the fence to the work of evil.
Also I can’t imagine anything more terrifying as JFK that realizing they’re essentially grooming your VP to take your position while your body is still warm.
He did okay the Bay of Pigs invasion, though, which is a pretty big mark against him. (It also stands as probably the funniest US military fail up until Trump’s attempt to capture Nicolas Maduro got foiled by a bunch of Venezuelen fishermen just out doing their jobs). But I will agree that, along with FDR, he was lot less bad than many of the rest.
I don’t know if JFK was actually killed by order of the CIA or not – not discounting the possibility, just never really looked into it – but one of the most oddly chilling things I ever saw was footage of him and Johnson joking around at some public event not long before the shooting. To all appearances it looked genuine. If Johnson was really planning to kill him – well, it kind of makes you understand why Dante put “traitors to friends and guests” in the lowest circle of Hell.
Oliver Stone’s JFK: Through the Looking Glass was pretty informative I thought. Of course you also have people claiming he’s gone full tin-foil hat mode, but Oliver Stone did Ukraine on Fire, so I tend to at least respect his word.
A lot of information seems to point to it being the state department’s doing, including but not limited to Oswald himself likely being a friend-of-the-feds infiltrating communist groups and meetings, as well as spying on the USSR during his visit there. The official investigations behind the assassination were all certified clown fiestas, too, “we investigated ourselves and have found no signs of wrongdoing” lookin asses.
Definitely, its been a while since I’ve read the correspondence between the 2, but Marx praised his recognition of the fact that labor created value more than anything else.
From my understanding, this idea is ahistorical and Marx and Lincoln had rather limited correspondence, insofar that Lincoln never responded.
The quote is usually portrayed as…
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
However, if we continue...
Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class–neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families–wives, sons, and daughters–work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.
Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost. :::
The motherfucker is literally talking about the American dream of laborers becoming petit bourgeois. He declines to admit explicitly that class mobility is a fever dream, but admits that the ideal, incredible life for your average citizen is to aspire to deproletarianize and become a small business owner. And he audaciously claimed it’s a “generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all”. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, penniless beggar. Capitalism is here to stay and it’s utterly perfect the way it is. From my reading, Lincoln utilized an understanding of class politics the same way Bezos does today.
“He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country."
He does then go on to rightfully praise Lincoln for his actions against slavery.
Truman was maybe the worst president, unclear to me whether he was the most evil, though. Truman seemed a lot like a useful idiot. A dim bulb sympathetic to anticommunism and also happy to let others make the big decisions. Either as a dope or actually evil, a lot of evil shit was established under his watch.
EDIT: sorry, idk why I thought this thread was evaluating usonian rulers by evilness.
Given the thoughts and information in my head right now it’s a toss up between Truman and Johnson. From what I’ve been learning, the American industrialists and financiers who had been collaborating with the Nazis may have been treated extremely differently had Wallace been VP when FDR died - up to and including charged with treason. Instead, Truman oversaw the creation of the modern intelligence agencies headed by some of those very same Nazi collaborators, and gave the order to use nuclear weapons. Later on, JFK was resisting the entire intelligence and military complex advice on basically all foreign affairs, to the point where LBJ was getting briefings JFK wasn’t. The warmongers behind the scenes knew who would and wouldn’t listen to them. One of the last things JFK did as president was emphatically state that there would be no military action with regards to Vietnam. Then he got shot, Johnson became president, and all the MIC’s hopes and dreams came true.
I didn’t realize JFK was actually based. I know some terrible things transpired during his office (like all the rest) but I guess with this new information I wonder if perhaps he just saw through it and was just following what he thought was genuinely the right thing to do.
I think it goes to show that truly some people are good people just trapped in a wholly bad environment that is very good at convincing people on the fence to the work of evil.
Also I can’t imagine anything more terrifying as JFK that realizing they’re essentially grooming your VP to take your position while your body is still warm.
He did okay the Bay of Pigs invasion, though, which is a pretty big mark against him. (It also stands as probably the funniest US military fail up until Trump’s attempt to capture Nicolas Maduro got foiled by a bunch of Venezuelen fishermen just out doing their jobs). But I will agree that, along with FDR, he was lot less bad than many of the rest.
I don’t know if JFK was actually killed by order of the CIA or not – not discounting the possibility, just never really looked into it – but one of the most oddly chilling things I ever saw was footage of him and Johnson joking around at some public event not long before the shooting. To all appearances it looked genuine. If Johnson was really planning to kill him – well, it kind of makes you understand why Dante put “traitors to friends and guests” in the lowest circle of Hell.
Oliver Stone’s JFK: Through the Looking Glass was pretty informative I thought. Of course you also have people claiming he’s gone full tin-foil hat mode, but Oliver Stone did Ukraine on Fire, so I tend to at least respect his word.
A lot of information seems to point to it being the state department’s doing, including but not limited to Oswald himself likely being a friend-of-the-feds infiltrating communist groups and meetings, as well as spying on the USSR during his visit there. The official investigations behind the assassination were all certified clown fiestas, too, “we investigated ourselves and have found no signs of wrongdoing” lookin asses.
Also speaking of US Presidents that were better than others, Lincoln used to write letters to and from Karl Marx
Lincoln was arguably the closest thing to a working-class president we USonians have ever had
Definitely, its been a while since I’ve read the correspondence between the 2, but Marx praised his recognition of the fact that labor created value more than anything else.
From my understanding, this idea is ahistorical and Marx and Lincoln had rather limited correspondence, insofar that Lincoln never responded.
The quote is usually portrayed as…
However, if we continue...
The motherfucker is literally talking about the American dream of laborers becoming petit bourgeois. He declines to admit explicitly that class mobility is a fever dream, but admits that the ideal, incredible life for your average citizen is to aspire to deproletarianize and become a small business owner. And he audaciously claimed it’s a “generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all”. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, penniless beggar. Capitalism is here to stay and it’s utterly perfect the way it is. From my reading, Lincoln utilized an understanding of class politics the same way Bezos does today.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/first-annual-message-9
Frederick Douglass had this to say:
He does then go on to rightfully praise Lincoln for his actions against slavery.
Geopolitical Economy Report with Ben Norton, Aaron Good, and Seamus McGuinness, episodes on JFK:
https://youtu.be/5N5bs1IGLQo
https://youtu.be/vkslqu9_q0w
YouTube links were detected in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on Invidious, which is a YouTube frontend that protects your privacy:
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Truman was maybe the worst president, unclear to me whether he was the most evil, though. Truman seemed a lot like a useful idiot. A dim bulb sympathetic to anticommunism and also happy to let others make the big decisions. Either as a dope or actually evil, a lot of evil shit was established under his watch.
EDIT: sorry, idk why I thought this thread was evaluating usonian rulers by evilness.