John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PASTOR CHUCK BALDWIN IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“These Are The Dates That Destroyed America, 1865 – 2016”
"Ever since Lincoln’s presidency, virtually every battle that free men have fought for the principles of limited government, State sovereignty, personal liberty, etc., has stemmed directly from Lincoln’s usurpation of power and subjugation and forced union of what used to be 'Free and Independent States'"
https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/dates-destroyed-america/ri17307
This article, well-written and highly readable, is a strange grab bag of well-informed truths and unpleasant fantasies.
A truly American product, a tapestry of hard-headed thinking and bizarre mythical ideas with no relationship to reality, as in its specifically religious points such as that about the end of prayer in schools or the legalization of same-sex marriages
Some of his points about the evolution of the United States are dead-on, as his discussion of Lincoln and the Civil War.
That is exactly what the Civil War really was about, ending an America that was basically a set of associated and somewhat-cooperating mini-states. The war molded America, by force of arms, into a single giant of a country. Despite later embroidered legends about the Great Emancipator, slavery had relatively little to do with Lincoln’s motivation, although it formed an integral part of the society of the South, what I would describe in many ways as a true Jeffersonian society, and it was that society’s norms and conventions that the South fought to preserve.
The effort to fight the war created almost revolutionary industrial changes in the North, as with mass production of soldiers’ uniforms and equipment. Many new concepts were born, as with ready-made sizing and new materials used. Railroad building, important to the movement of troops and materiel, flourished in the North. The South badly lagged with its agriculture-based economy.
There were many military technology experiments, from the beginnings of machine-guns to the use of observation balloons and iron-clad ships and even a primitive submarine.
Unfortunately, this activity also had the side-effect of making America a true world power, and one that would set out on a new series of conquests, beyond those it had undertaken in its drive West and events like the Mexican War.
However, the effects of the Civil War I condemn are not the ones the author condemns. He is fixed on regret that the Jeffersonian republic died, something I believe was a very good thing because Jefferson was on the whole a pernicious, narrow, and prejudiced man, contrary to his public billing.
For an assessment of Jefferson, see:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
The author is also correct about the important role of the Kennedy assassination. It was indeed effectively a coup by powerful unelected forces like the CIA against an elected President, about the last strong and determined one America has had. It was followed by a national descent into vast and meaningless imperial wars on a global scale.
It marked the end of an elected president exercising serious authority over such entities as the Pentagon and CIA and FBI. Presidents since that time have not just been guided by informed advice from such agencies, they have been guided, full stop.
And he is right about the set of events stemming from 9/11, including passage of the insidious Patriot Act, the creation of the unwarranted Department of Homeland Security, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the needless destruction of much of the Middle East which followed.
He doesn’t really tie these together, but I think it pretty clear they represent a series of steps to see the “birth of a new Middle East,” an unbelievably arrogant phrase if ever there was one, and an associated effort at home to “gird the loins” for the task with immense new institutionalized spying and intrusion into people’s lives and basically an effort to create a kind of Fortress America, a truly large-scale copy of many of the practices of Israel in its occupation of people who do not want to be occupied.
The domestic changes and preparations reflect anticipation of the “blowback” effects from the Middle East as its cities would be destroyed and its people maimed and made into refugees and killed in the millions.
Whoever was responsible - and it certainly wasn’t just the patsy, the radical Osama bin Laden and his merry band of men who lived in rude caves in faraway Afghanistan – the course of the United States and the world was terribly changed. The event represents a second internal American revolution, after the Kennedy assassination which had ensconced the power of unelected agencies in the governing of the country.
You do not have to believe that American agencies were directly responsible for 9/11 to recognize that they exploited the opportunity it represented to capture great new authorities and to embark on a terrible crusade abroad.
For many reasons, we know the effect of two airplanes passing through what were literally suspended outer curtain walls did not collapse those massively strong towers. Someone had to have arranged for the destruction of the central cores, immensely strong structures (Discussed in the first reference link below).
There will be a long and costly price to pay for this crusade, something just as blunderingly stupid as the original Crusades of the Middle Ages.
The price will be in lost authority of, and in respect for, the United States in the world, something well underway already. No one loves a bully or a patently dishonest actor in world affairs. The price will be in having created new forces it doesn’t even understand or know how to deal with, as the truly massive flows of refugees its bombing and overthrows have created.
And, of course, the price will be in tremendous permanent losses of individual freedom and privacy, not only in America but in all the “Western” countries America now so dominates.
But, ultimately its price will be in the United States having accelerated a natural evolution in the world that its establishment is not happy about, the evolution away from a world of “America as Leader of the Free World” and towards a multi-polar world, a world in which other states and blocs play important roles in world events.
Concerning 9/11 and the events which followed, see:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/john-chuckman-comment-author-says-9-11-was-an-operation-by-israel-i-dont-know-but-if-israel-was-involved-i-know-to-a-certainty-so-was-the-cia-review-of-some-dark-chapters-in-recent-american-his/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/john-chuckman-comment-more-crap-about-the-saudis-and-9-11-this-time-from-a-retired-fbi-agent/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/john-chuckman-comment-cbc-news-swims-in-the-muck-with-the-corporate-press-idiot-article-on-a-sustained-response-to-syria-the-neocon-goal-gifted-to-america-9-11-questions-as-pertinent-as-eve/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/john-chuckman-comment-important-new-fbi-documents-about-9-11-are-released-an-excellent-article-on-them-will-they-just-go-ignored-much-as-that-last-most-revealing-document-released-on-the-kennedy/
Concerning the Kennedy assassination, see:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/john-chuckman-comment-on-re-opening-the-kennedy-assassination-investigation-why-it-would-be-a-waste-of-time-the-nature-of-truth-where-empire-or-great-power-is-involved-some-truth-about-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-death-of-george-h-w-bush-what-his-presidency-really-told-us-about-america-in-the-late-20th-century-and-a-link-to-an-intriguing-video-concerning-the-kennedy-assassinatio/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/john-chuckman-comment-a-new-book-on-cia-murders-of-western-leaders-plus-another-important-book-lead-to-my-revaluation-of-the-kennedy-assassination/
