The Muscovite Candidate

[Econoline]

This piece has some relevance to this thread; I've spent enough time copying and pasting and formatting it, so I'm not going to take the trouble to also include all the links that are in the original article. Link to the article is in the title:

Trump, Putin and the Pipelines to Nowhere
You can’t understand what Trump’s doing to America without understanding
the “Carbon Bubble”

If you’re an American, you’re likely misinformed about the most dire crisis in our world.

American journalists, pundits and media executives have largely convinced themselves that climate change is not a serious political issue, because they think the polls tell them that. A majority of American voters regularly tell pollsters they don’t think climate change is a critically important election issue, so therefore the media decides it must not be an important political issue at all.

Unfortunately, that conventional wisdom blinds us to both to the actual bedrock reality of this era, and to — as I see it — the defining aim of the in-coming Trump administration: delaying climate action.

Trump has surrounded himself with more oil industry and oil industry connected people than any president in history (even George W. Bush). You can’t understand what’s going on with Trump unless you understand the oil industry… and you can’t understand the oil industry without understanding climate change.

Understanding Climate Change

[I'm not going to quote this next section, except for the last 2 sentences; It's a repetition of the basics of the greenhouse effect and global warming/climate change which I assume you all have already heard enough about.] [ ... ] Because we have no real choice but to act — and, in fact, climate action will make most people not only safer, but better off — big changes are coming, far sooner than most Americans understand.

But some people totally understand: the ones who stand to lose money from these changes.

The Carbon Bubble

The need to keep within our global carbon budget means we must leave most of the coal, oil and gas on the planet unburnt.

But also, we’ve already set in motion extremely serious climate change. Even if we act decisively now, we will be wrestling with the impacts of that pollution for centuries. So one half of our task is to become zero-carbon societies, but the other is to ruggedize in the face of worsening problems, in many cases by abandoning places that cannot be saved and practices that cannot be continued.

Here’s the blunt reality: the pressure to cut emissions and respond to a changing climate are going to alter what we do and don’t see as valuable. Climate action will trigger an enormous shift in the way we value things.

If we can’t burn oil, it’s not worth very much. If we can’t defend coastal real estate from rising seas (or even insure it, for that matter), it’s not worth very much. If the industrial process a company owns exposes them to future climate litigation, it’s not worth very much. The value of those assets is going to plummet, inevitably… and likely, soon.

Currently, though, these assets are valued very highly. Oil is seen as hugely valuable, coastal real estate is seen as hugely valuable, industrial patents are seen as hugely valuable.

When there’s a large difference between how markets think assets should be valued and what they are (or will) actually be worth, we call it a “bubble.”

Experts now call the differences between valuations and worth in fossil fuel corporations, climate-harmful industries and vulnerable physical assets the “Carbon Bubble.” It is still growing.

And here’s the thing about bubbles: they always pop.

People whose job it is to measure risk in financial markets are extremely concerned about the magnitude of the Carbon Bubble and the damage it will do as it bursts. Because when it bursts, trillions of dollars of imaginary assets will simply vanish in a very short time.

Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England and chair of the Financial Stability Board — the global institution designed to try to prevent market panics and crashes — gave a bombshell talk at Lloyds last year, saying he thought letting the Carbon Bubble continue to grow exposed global markets to a risk on the level of the 2007 subprime crisis.

In other words, one of the most knowledgeable financial authorities on the planet has come to think that the difference between what the high-carbon part of the economy is priced at and what it’s worth is so enormous that letting it grow and then suddenly pop could crash financial markets worldwide.

And he’s far from alone. Scores of experts warn that the Carbon Bubble is one of the biggest threats to the global economy. The way to increase the resilience of global markets, they say, is to act on climate, but to do so with bold-yet-predictable pacing. If we do that — they say — we will still see the Carbon Bubble deflate, but markets should be able to adjust, and panic can be avoided. Climate action will stave off financial disaster as well ecological catastrophe.

This is a win-win for everyone, except those heavily invested in those Carbon Bubble assets now. For these investors, the Carbon Bubble is a good thing: the longer it lasts, the more they reap the benefit of high valuations and large dividends. For them, the larger the Carbon Bubble swells, the more money they make.

The Perception War

There is no long game in high-carbon industries. Their owners know this. They don’t need a long game, though: their investment horizons are years (or even months), not decades. Investors don’t even need successful companies, actually — as we’ve seen time and time again with hostile takeovers, pump-and-dumps, stock buybacks and other financial looting tactics. All they need is the perception of the inevitability of future profit, today. That’s what keeps valuations high.

Here’s something critical it took me a long time (and the patience of a few smart friends) to understand: the Carbon Bubble will pop not when high-carbon practices become impossible, but when their profits cease to be seen as reliable.

As it becomes clear that these assets will not produce profit in the future, their valuations will drop — even if the businesses that own them continue to function for years. The value of oil companies will collapse long before the last barrel of oil is burned; the value of beachfront hotels will collapse long before rising tides flood their lobbies.

Put another way: The pop comes when people understand that growth in these industries is over and that, in fact, these industries are now going to contract. That’s when investors start pulling out and looking for safer bets. As investors begin to flee these companies, others realize more devaluation is on the way, so they want to get out before the drop: a trickle of divestment becomes a flood and the price collapses. What triggers the drop is investors ceasing to believe the company has a strong future.

Because that risk already exists, the pop is way closer than most people understand.

A crisis in investor confidence is the biggest threat to fossil fuel companies — not environmentalists, regulations, clean energy competitors or climate agreements.

The Carbon Lobby and the Trump Gang

For high-carbon industries to continue to be attractive investments, then, they must spin a tale of future growth. They must make potential investors believe that even if there is a Carbon Bubble, it is decades away from popping — that their high profits today will continue for the foreseeable future, so their stock is worth buying.

How would you maintain this confidence?

• • You’d dispute climate science — making scientists’ predictions seem less certain in the public mind— and work to gut the capacity of scientists to continue their work (by, for instance, defunding NASA’s Earth Sciences program).
  
  • You’d attack global climate agreements, making them look unstable and weak, and thus unlikely to impact your businesses.
  
  • You’d attack low-carbon competitors politically, attempting to portray the evidence that they can replace high-carbon industries as fraudulent (or at least overly idealistic).
  
  • You’d use every leverage point to slow low-carbon industrial progress — for example, by continuing massive subsidies to oil and gas companies, while attacking programs to develop new energy sources.
  
  • You’d support putting a price on carbon, since this makes you look moderate and engaged, but you’d make sure that the definition of a “reasonable” price on carbon was so low and took so long to implement that it was no real threat to your business, and at worst would replace the dirtiest fossil fuels with others (switching for example from coal to gas).
  
  • You’d ally with extremists and other sources of anti-democratic power, in order to be able to fight democratic efforts to cut emissions through the application of threats, instability and violence.
  
  • Most of all, you’d invest as heavily as possible in new infrastructure and supply. For oil and gas companies, this means new exploration and new pipelines. Why would you do this, if you know you may have to abandon these assets before they’ve paid off? Two reasons: First, it sends a signal of confidence to markets that you expect to continue to grow in the future. Second, it’s politically harder to force companies to abandon expensive investments than it is to prevent those systems from being built in the first place — the mere existence of a pipeline becomes an argument for continuing to use it. This, too, bolsters investor confidence. (Note that whether these assets are eventually abandoned or not is of little concern to current investors looking to delay devaluations).

Here’s the kicker: If you were going to put in place a presidential administration that was dedicated to taking these actions, it would look exactly like what we have now: a cabinet and chief advisors in which nearly every member is a climate denialist with ties to the Carbon Lobby.

Trump wants ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his Secretary of State. You might remember that Exxon has been a main driver of climate denialism, as well as being one the largest polluters in history. Tillerson also has close ties with Vladimir Putin.

Not long ago, Tillerson was quoted as saying “The world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not.” Think that one over. This is the man who would be America’s face to the world.

Trump has also put forward a host of other appointees who are overt climate denialists and generally also have financial ties to industries threatened by the Carbon Bubble. These include Rick Perry, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Energy and a close ally of Big Oil; Scott Pruitt (EPA Administrator — a virulent climate denialist); Nikki Haley (U.N. Ambassador, also known for suppressing climate science as Governor); Steve Bannon (Chief Strategist, and just generally gross); Ryan Zinke (Secretary of Interior — who strongly supports more oil and gas exploration on public lands): Jeff Sessions (Attorney General and climate regulation opponent); Elaine Chao (Secretary of Transportation, who will be tasked with getting a huge fossil fuel infrastructure plan through Congress, working with her husband, Mitch McConnell); James Mattis (Secretary of Defense, who is not a denialist but does have oil industry ties); Michael Flynn (National Security Advisor — and former oil industry lobbyist); Larry Kudlow (Council of Economic Advisors — a climate denialist and frequent defender of the Koch brothers); Wilbur Ross (Commerce Secretary — holds “hundreds of millions of dollars” in oil and gas investments); even Betsy DeVos (Education Secretary) is sister to Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who is investing heavily in African oil and gas fields, “places where he thinks his expertise in providing logistics and security can give him a competitive edge.”

This is a cabinet custom-built to protect carbon industry investors… especially, perhaps, one.

No One Cares More about the Carbon Bubble than Putin

Trump’s ties to Russian espionage suddenly make more sense in this light.

If you were going to ask why a country like Russia would risk a war to interfere with American politics, look at what the Russian economy is.

Russia is a petrostate. It’s the number one gas exporter and number two oil exporter in the world, but it’s economy is otherwise stagnant and out-of-date. Those oil and gas assets are controlled by a small number of oligarchs gathered around Putin, the former head of the KGB. Those oligarchs may be the one group of investors who stands to lose the most from the popping of the Carbon Bubble.


Russia’s major national asset is their potential to develop Arctic oil fields opened up by climate change — which won’t happen if investors pull out of oil. If it’s obvious that this oil is unburnable, there’s no point in building all those oil-drilling platforms and pipelines. But if the perception is that the Carbon Bubble won’t pop for decades, then getting one’s hands on millions of barrels of Arctic oil will pump valuations way up. By one estimate, these oil fields could be worth at least $500 billion.

I don’t have any special insight into what Russia did or didn’t do, but if you’re looking for a reason why they would want to disrupt our election, there’s 500 billion of them.

Now, add in all the other Bubble-expanding projects and ploys, pipelines and hotels, and you begin to see the magnitude of the scam here. The difference between the Carbon Bubble deflating rapidly now and popping spectacularly in a decade or more could mean literally trillions more dollars in profits for the kind of people now helicoptering into Washington.

But that same delay would also bring on climate catastrophe, damage our democracy and bring financial ruin for the investors who are left holding those assets when the bubble pops. If history is any guide, those investors will be pensions and mutual funds and small timers — in other words, regular people.

It is not hyperbole to say that swelling the Carbon Bubble is not only not in the interests of the United States, it increases threats to our economy and national security, puts Americans at risk, undermines our prosperity and weakens our nation. It’s hard to call defending high carbon interests anything but unpatriotic.

People who are looking to understand what the Trump gang is up to would do well to consider his gang’s actions through the lens of the Carbon Bubble. Understand that the amounts of money at stake are vast, nearly inconceivable to most of us, and highly concentrated in the hands of the people in Trump’s cabinet and their close friends and business allies.

Journalists are unused to thinking about climate change as being an economic and financial issue — much less the core political issue of our day — so for a lot of us this whole problem is invisible, despite the credibility of everyone pointing it out. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, frankly, because we are so cognitively unprepared to see the Bubble in front of us. That we are so blind to these risks is a tragedy.

We need to focus: The most serious political fight on the planet — the need to end use of coal, oil and gas — is at the center of America’s current political crisis.

[liberty]

The truth is not always pleasant , but it is still the truth. Putin is a greater leader than anyone we have our side. We have a couple military leaders that may be match for him, but no one in government. And the Russian people are superior to us hands down. We out number them two to one, but three quarters of our people are militarily worthless. The only thing we have going for us is that Trump would use nukes before he would allow a Russian army to occupy Alaska; his ego would not allow him to lose.

That's one of the most bizarre and wrong-headed posts I think I've ever seen...

First of all Vladimir Putin is a murdering, plundering, authoritarian thug who is a threat to his neighbors and throughout the world. (Most recently, he has been committing war crimes in Syria by targeting military attacks against relief convoys and hospitals; just the latest in a long list of crimes) ..

I have not argument with anything you said, but it is irrelevant; it has nothing to do with greatness. Alexander the Great did not win the name Great by being democratic, non aggressive or nice. He became the Great by succeeding in dominating others.

He gets good press in history, but he could be brutal. When he arrive on the steppes of Central Asia and was frustrated by his inability to draw the nomadic tribes in to battle. He suffer their raids until Fall, but when the grass was nice and dry and the crops were ready to harvested. He sent his mounted warriors out in concentric waves hundreds miles out into the steppes with orders to kill, destroy and burn everything they could find especially horses and the grasslands. We don’t know how successful he was, but his intent was to cause massive starvation. He couldn’t defeat the nomads but he could punish them. He could be gentile to those that accepted his dominance, but a brutal stone cold killer to those that opposed him.

When your opponent has great ability it is foolish believe him to be a weakling. We need to fear Putin and respect his ability.

[liberty]

This has started me thinking some time back Obama was making noises about how evil nukes were and his desire to get rid of them all. I am not sure we have any tactical nukes. Strategic nukes would do us no good no one would use ICBM or other strategic nukes unless they were first attacked by the same weapons. Perhaps trump should do an inventory to see how many battle field nukes we do have. If it should turn out we don’t have any ,because Obama got ride of them, ( excuse the vulgarity) we then have permission to start shitting all over ourselves and seek terms form Putin because we are screwed to the point of no return.

[Bicycle Bill]

If it should turn out we don’t have any ,because Obama got ride of them, ( excuse the vulgarity) we then have permission to start shitting all over ourselves and seek terms form Putin because we are screwed to the point of no return.

I don't know what's worse — a whack-job like Trump who was quoted as saying "if we've got nukes we should use them" or a fifth columnist like liberty who suggests that we don't have them and should kiss Putin's ass (excuse me, "seek terms form Putin" [sic]) because of it.

Y'know, there are certain things that not everybody and their kid sister needs to know.  How many tactical nukes America has, where they are located, or even if we have any capable of being deployed whatsoever is one of those things.  So long as Putin, or Jinping of China, or Kim Jong-un of Korea, or any other crackpot out there believes we have them and would use them, then we've got them.

It's a Schrodinger's box type of thing.  Is the cat dead or alive?  You have to open the box to know for sure.
Same thing with tactical nukes.  Do we have them or not?  Again, you need to open the box and use them to know for sure.  And as with Pandora's box, once you open it you aren't going to be able to put back what was in it.

-"BB"-

[liberty]

If it should turn out we don’t have any ,because Obama got ride of them, ( excuse the vulgarity) we then have permission to start shitting all over ourselves and seek terms form Putin because we are screwed to the point of no return.

I don't know what's worse — a whack-job like Trump who was quoted as saying "if we've got nukes we should use them" or a fifth columnist like liberty who suggests that we don't have them and should kiss Putin's ass (excuse me, "seek terms form Putin" [sic]) because of it.

Y'know, there are certain things that not everybody and their kid sister needs to know.  How many tactical nukes America has, where they are located, or even if we have any capable of being deployed whatsoever is one of those things.  So long as Putin, or Jinping of China, or Kim Jong-un of Korea, or any other crackpot out there believes we have them and would use them, then we've got them.

It's a Schrodinger's box type of thing.  Is the cat dead or alive?  You have to open the box to know for sure.
Same thing with tactical nukes.  Do we have them or not?  Again, you need to open the box and use them to know for sure.  And as with Pandora's box, once you open it you aren't going to be able to put back what was in it.

-"BB"-

Bill, bluffing is a very danger thing which I personally never do. To the mind set of some men sacrificing an army in a gamble to win a prize as large as Alaska is acceptable. If he is wrong and we have the battlefield nuke he losses a army and he become the propaganda victim of a war criminal that used nukes, but we don’t have the nukes he wins a great prize in Alaska and eventually all of North America.

[Bicycle Bill]

So what do you propose?  We bring out a couple of them and set 'em off somewhere just to prove we've got 'em?  I do believe that would be a violation of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty, among a bunch of other things.

And then there's the matter of the radiation, potential fall-out, etc.  We're not talking about shooting off a 4th of July firework or detonating an old 16-inch shell from the USS Wisconsin here.

-"BB"-

[dales]

IT'S GOT TO BE YUUUGEE!

[liberty]

If it should turn out we don’t have any ,because Obama got ride of them, ( excuse the vulgarity) we then have permission to start shitting all over ourselves and seek terms form Putin because we are screwed to the point of no return.

I don't know what's worse — a whack-job like Trump who was quoted as saying "if we've got nukes we should use them" or a fifth columnist like liberty who suggests that we don't have them and should kiss Putin's ass (excuse me, "seek terms form Putin" [sic]) because of it.


-"BB"-

That is correct, but what is the alternative. Either fight to win or submit anything else would be a waste of life and a war crime.

Submission wouldn’t be too bad on most of us. They look just like us; teach our children to speak Russian and in a generation or so we could claim we have always been Russians.

Scooter may have trouble finding a closet, but the rest of us could adapt. Don’t get me wrong I prefer freedom, but you have to survive first before you can be free.

And then there is this:

The Muscovite Candidate
by Bicycle Bill
“I don't know what's worse — a whack-job like Trump who was quoted as saying "if we've got nukes we should use them" or a fifth columnist like liberty who suggests that we don't have them and should kiss Putin's ass (excuse me, "seek terms form Putin" [sic]) because of it”

What you want me to write stuff I don’t believe? Isn’t that called propaganda?

[Big RR]

That is correct, but what is the alternative. Either fight to win or submit anything else would be a waste of life and a war crime.

perhaps Liberty, but then that's where the strategic arsenal comes into play, isn't it? If it's a choice between two unthinkable options--submission or fighting--I could see many supporting the launch of strategic nukes, and I imagine the Russians could as well. And it is this possibility of total destruction that makes you scenario unlikely--I doubt the Russians would chance it to annex American territory, although they might chance it with other countries which do not have this capability. Putin seems like a jerk, but I doubt he's stupid or that he would take that chance.

[liberty]

That is correct, but what is the alternative. Either fight to win or submit anything else would be a waste of life and a war crime.

perhaps Liberty, but then that's where the strategic arsenal comes into play, isn't it? If it's a choice between two unthinkable options--submission or fighting--I could see many supporting the launch of strategic nukes, and I imagine the Russians could as well. And it is this possibility of total destruction that makes you scenario unlikely--I doubt the Russians would chance it to annex American territory, although they might chance it with other countries which do not have this capability. Putin seems like a jerk, but I doubt he's stupid or that he would take that chance.

Well, Big I don’t think that anyone other than a crazy would use strategic nukes unless the country was being attacked in kind. Perhaps not even that if the president was someone like Carter and Clinton. But tactical nukes are something different the can be as small as an artillery shell. They produce a lot less destruction and radiation, that is if they exist.

[Big RR]

Perhaps, but if submission is the only alternative to use of strategic nukes, I'm not so sure--and I'd bet the Russians are not so sure either. That's why MAD worked for so long--because no one is sure. An attack on American territory might just be a sufficient impetus to escalate to this level--and I doubt the Russians would chance it. Likewise, I doubt we would chance it either and attack Russia.

[liberty]

As a nation we once had grit, but we lost it. Sooner or later all nations fall.
General Aetius in the end could not save the Romans but perhaps Trump will save us.

Fighting for the enemy:

USS Kitty Hawk riot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
USS Kitty Hawk riot

Friends and family of Kitty Hawk SOS sailors wait at Fleet Landing in San Diego to distribute copies of the "Kitty Litter," the sailors' anti-war underground newspaper.
The USS Kitty Hawk riot, sometimes called the Kitty Hawk mutiny, was part of widespread antiwar protests within the US armed forces which took place as part of a movement called SOS (Stop Our Ships/Support Our Sailors) on the United States Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk on the night of 12/13 October 1972, off the coast of Vietnam while participating in Operation Linebacker of the Vietnam War. A report by the House Armed Services Committee concluded that the rebellion had been precipitated by orders received to return to Vietnam from Subic Bay. These orders were given after incidents of sabotage by American sailors had disabled USS Ranger and USS Forrestal. Kitty Hawk was eventually forced to retire to San Diego and was removed from the war.[1]
The riot was led by African-American crew members who responded violently when Marines attempted to disrupt their protest meetings. Three had to be evacuated to shore hospitals for further treatment. Forty-five to sixty Kitty Hawk crewmen were injured in total. The ship's captain, Marland Townsend, and executive officer, Commander Benjamin Cloud (who was African-American), dissuaded the rioters from further violence. This allowed the carrier to launch her Linebacker air missions as scheduled on the morning of 12 October. Nineteen of the rioters were later found guilty by the Navy of at least one charge connected to the riot.
The incident was publicized in The New York Times. Subsequent unrest on Kitty Hawk′s sister ship Constellation was, in a similar fashion, described by the media as a "racial outbreak" in an effort to downplay the antiwar movement within the armed forces. However, many of its crew were active participants in the SOS movement, having earlier produced a petition with 1,500 signatures to allow Jane Fonda's antiwar show to perform on board, produced their own antiwar newsletter (as did Kitty Hawk, entitled Kitty Litter), and supported dozens of servicemen who refused to board for Vietnam duty.

[dales]

Since you wanted to bring race into the issue, gnaw on this for awhile:

Port Chicago disaster


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. Munitions detonated while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others. Most of the dead and injured were enlisted African-American sailors.

A month later, unsafe conditions inspired hundreds of servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. Fifty men‍—‌called the "Port Chicago 50"‍—‌were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor, as well as a dishonorable discharge. Forty-seven of the 50 were released in January 1946; the remaining three served additional months in prison.

During and after the trial, questions were raised about the fairness and legality of the court-martial proceedings.[1] Due to public pressure, the United States Navy reconvened the courts-martial board in 1945; the court affirmed the guilt of the convicted men.[2] Widespread publicity surrounding the case turned it into a cause célèbre among certain Americans; it and other race-related Navy protests of 1944–45 led the Navy to change its practices and initiate the desegregation of its forces beginning in February 1946.[3][4][5] In 1994, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated to the lives lost in the disaster.

[Lord Jim]

Gee, you mean Lib found a way to work a post about black people behaving badly into this discussion?

[Econoline]

Facebook post from Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian:

This scary hilariousness was just tweeted. You know what's really humiliating? (A) Not being able to *win* with dignity; and (B) using a corrupt, enemy despot's words to scold your fellow Americans. Besides, Putin, who rigs elections and kills dissenters, can lecture any of us about about losing graciously? Oh, my sides!

[liberty]

Since you wanted to bring race into the issue, gnaw on this for awhile:

Port Chicago disaster


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. Munitions detonated while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others. Most of the dead and injured were enlisted African-American sailors.

A month later, unsafe conditions inspired hundreds of servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. Fifty men‍—‌called the "Port Chicago 50"‍—‌were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor, as well as a dishonorable discharge. Forty-seven of the 50 were released in January 1946; the remaining three served additional months in prison.

During and after the trial, questions were raised about the fairness and legality of the court-martial proceedings.[1] Due to public pressure, the United States Navy reconvened the courts-martial board in 1945; the court affirmed the guilt of the convicted men.[2] Widespread publicity surrounding the case turned it into a cause célèbre among certain Americans; it and other race-related Navy protests of 1944–45 led the Navy to change its practices and initiate the desegregation of its forces beginning in February 1946.[3][4][5] In 1994, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated to the lives lost in the disaster.

dales wrote:
Since you wanted to bring race into the issue
Well, in this case the activity of the blacks involved was incidental; it just happened to be one of the most memorable. There were also many white Ame ricans that supported the Viennese communist. I have no proof ,but it would not surprise me that the Forrestal incident was sabotage that the navy covered up:

"In July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. An electrical anomaly had caused the discharge of a Zuni rocket on the flight deck, triggering a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million (equivalent to $512 million today), not including the damage to aircraft.[2][3] Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and US Pacific Fleet Commander Ronald J. Zlatoper were among


As for the port Chicago disaster is concerned it happen in war time. In war time things are done that would not happen in peace time. The only thing that enlisted man has a right to expect is that the officer dies along with his men.

[dales]

What a clumsy side-step.

Climb back beneath your rock.

[liberty]

What a clumsy side-step.

Climb back beneath your rock.

I don’t do side step; I am straight forward, why shouldn’t I be. What is there to lose? I just say what is on my mind.

[dales]

No, you're too stupid.

[Bicycle Bill]

Since wes isn't around (HA!) to do it, I guess I'll have to be the one to post this here...



-"BB"-