11/18/2025

 Tuesday, November 18, 2025

1961 JFK sent 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam

1966 US Roman Catholic bishops ended the rule against eating meat on Fridays

1978 In Jonestown, Guyana, 918 members of the Peoples Temple were murdered or committed suicide under the leadership of cult leader Jim Jones

2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reversed US policy regarding Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal after 24 years

2021 US judge exonerated Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam for the killing of Malcolm X in 1965, saying they were "wrongly convicted", after 55 years 

2024 Alex Jones posts on X : "Trump pledges to use military on land and sea to dismantle drug and human trafficking networks in the United States. 

In bed at 9:30  and up at 5:40.  41°, wind chill 30°, high 42°, rainy day.  

Meds, etc.,  Morning meds at   a.m.   

Ken Burns' The American Revolution, and George Washington.  We have watched, as best we could, this terrific documentary on PBS.  I say 'as best we could' because we watch it as it is broadcast, from 7 to 9 p.m., after dinner and during the time our old bodies start to nod off at the end of the day.  The tendency to nod off is encouraged by the calm, steady voice of the series' principal narrator, Peter Coyote, Burns's favorite.  So we miss parts of the story.  Last night and the night before, I said to myself, 'I need to watch this again when I'm more alert.'  We have both learned a lot from it, much more than we learned from school books.  Burns and his co-creators put flesh and blood on the bare bones of history.  They paint vivid portraits of the characters in the drama and pictures of the conditions in which they operated.

I was particularly interested in the portrayal of George Washington.  Physically, he was 6 feet, 2 inches tall, towering over John Adams who was the average male height of 5 feet, 7 inches for that era, and James Madison, who was 5'4".  Washington, like many of the Founding Fathers, was rich, not in liquid assets, but in land and slaves, the two principal sources of wealth in the era, at least in the Southern slave states.  He derived his wealth from his marriage to the widowed Martha Dandridge Custis.  Martha was widowed at age 26 and thereby inherited 17,000 acres of land and about 300 slaves.  Marrying George relieved her of the burden of managing  5 plantations and overseeing all those slaves, while she was grieving the loss of her first husband, two of their children, and her father.  George was an experienced military commander from his service to the British crown in the French and Indian War, and he commanded respect from all, but it's hard to respect him as a human being because of his slaveholding.  We speak of his home at Mount Vernon as a farm or a plantation, but it was a slave-labor camp, as were all the 'plantations' reliant on forced labor from enslaved workers.  Washington, like Jefferson and Madison and many others, bought and sold slaves.  He used overseers to control them, to derive the greatest advantage from their forced labor.   He used them as collateral for debts.  He broke up slave families when it suited his purposes.  Some, like Jefferson but apparently not Washington, used them to satisfy their sexual desires.  Washington came to question the rightness of slavery in his old age and ordered that his slaves be freed upon Martha's death, but throughout his life, he was an enslaver, treating his slaves as assets to be managed so as to produce the greatest profit for him.  Wikipedia has an interesting section titled "Washington and slavery," which is worth reading.  It's hard for me to think of Washington as a champion of human rights or of democracy, knowing his history.  (Martha was even worse!)  

I commend the makers of the series for pointing out that the forces fighting the British were not just White colonists, but also Free Blacks and Native Americans, and that there was resistance to the Blacks serving from the enslavers, who were, even then, always worried about Black Independence, and slave uprisings.  The wealth of the plantation owners depended on White Supremacy and Black enslavement.  I also commend the series honest treatment of the horrors of battle for the soldiers and militiamen involved.

Two years ago, I wrote: 

Is it really so hard to imagine the U.S. as a fascist nation, controlled by contemporary Confederates, neo-Nazis, homegrown SA, SS, and Gestapo?  Is it really so hard to understand why most Democrats want Joe Biden to get the hell out of the race, why his age, his negative charisma, his VP, his mumbling and bumbling scare the shit out of anti-Trumpers?  He turns 81 on Monday.  Can we even imagine what he will be like at age 82, 83, 84, 85, or 86?  I despair.

Cassandra in Aeschylus's Agamemnon: “Apollo himself was the one who laid hands on me, desiring my bed.  I promised him my body, then cheated him.  Therefore, he gave me this gift — that though I see all things clearly, no one ever believes me.”   But, everyone and his brother believed that Biden needed to get out of the race, everyone but Biden, and Jill, and Hunter, and the 'inner circle'.  Will he ever be forgiven for enabling Trump's second term?

Three years ago, I rewatched Ken Burns's The Vietnam War, and wrote:

It was 57 years ago, and my head is still haunted by Vietnam.  So many feelings, survivor's guilt, Moon Mullins and Jay Trembley and 58,000  more, shame at cowardice in avoiding the direct killing MOSs, confusion at my what? ambivalence about those fighting there and the protesters, relived anxiety about CACO duty in Philadelphia, cynicism about politicians and the Pentagon, Kent State, Cambodia, Sterling Hall bombing on my 29th birthday, turbulence at secular Madison, quietude at Marquette, religion and God and Catholic culture, how many dead, how many injured, physically, emotionally, genetically, ignorance, indifference, red pill blue pill, go along to get along, complicity, and it all resurfaced with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Classified memo from Robert McNamara to LBJ: "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny, backward nation into submission, on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one."

McNamara's infamous memo was written on November 7, 1967, when I was 5 months out of the Marines and we were a few months before the start of the Tet Offensive and the beginning of the end of our losing effort "to pound a tiny, backward nation into submission, on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed."  What fools we were.  What fools we are.  And now it's almost 60 years ago that I left Vietnam, and my head and soul are still haunted by it.  

Trump hosts MBS, the Saudi crown prince and murderer, in the White House.  Mohammed bin Salman is coming to the White House to visit with his fellow spirit, Donald Trump, today.  MBS was found by America's intelligence community to be the guy who ordered the death and dismemberment of Jamal  Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and critic of the Saudi regime.  This is to say, our government has identified this guy as a murderer of a troublesome newspaperman affiliated with the Washington Post, and he'll be a welcome, red carpet guest of our government.  How low can our government sink?

Mary Bruce of ABC asked the crown prince, "Your royal highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust—”  Trump responded, "“Who are you with? . . . “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial.  A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”  So much for the CIA.  So much for the American intelligence community.  Memories of the Helsinki Summit in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018.  ""I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be... I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."  Unbelievable?  If only.

The House voted 427 - 1 to order the administration to reveal the Epstein files.  The Senate is expected to follow suit, and Trump has said he would sign the bill.  He and his apparatchiks have had 10 months to scrub the files of incriminating and embarrassing documents, videos, and photographs.  And to classify stuff they want to withhold.  And to liberally redact portions of texts to hide, not only the names of victims but also the names of 'Johns.'  Larry Summers has issued a public mea culpa and announced that he is leaving public life, all of which suggests that he may well be one of those to whom Epstein and Maxwell trafficked underage girls. Sic transit gloria mundi.  Who else?  How did Donald Trump know to name him for investigation?  How long has he known?  What is the source of his knowledge?  Is Bill Clinton shaking in his boots?  Who else?  Alan Dershowitz?  Why was he not named by Trump?  Could it have anything to do with the fact that Dershowitz was one of Trump's lawyers in the first impeachment trial, in January 2020, and wrote a book with the catchy title "The Case Against Impeaching Trump" (2018).

So proud