The Pentagon Papers, we all need a review, seriously.

Skeptic Ginger

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Skeptic Ginger
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In advance of the movie release, The Post, planned this January, MSNBC is replaying the 2009 documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. This documentary should be a mandatory lesson in every high school in this country.

Inspired by war protestors who left places like MIT to go to jail protesting the war, Daniel Ellsberg was being eaten inside by what he knew about the Vietnam War: Presidents had been lying to the public from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon.

If that young person, a university student with so much promise, was willing to go to jail to end the Vietnam war, Ellsberg knowing what he knew had to risk jail himself

The most critical thing in the documentary to me (not counting the SCOTUS decision on freedom of the press) was the hypocrisy of Nixon calling Ellsberg "a traitor, making a decision on his own he knew what was right for the country," (paraphrased only slightly).

Let that hypocrisy sink in. It's stunning.

But not as stunning as the Nixon tapes revealing Nixon was ready to drop nuclear bombs 'to save face' essentially. Kissinger talked Nixon out of it.

The third most critical thing was the courage of the NY Times, then The Post, who both published excerpts, then Senator Mike Gravel who read the papers into the Congressional Record, forever preventing them from being suppressed.
 
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Ellsberg supports Assange, Snowden and "Chelsea". A commie, obviously. This post shows you where Skeptic Ginger stands. Kontaktschuld, baby. And Mike Gravel is a truther. Merry Christmas.
 
Childlike Empress said:
Ellsberg supports Assange, Snowden and "Chelsea". A commie, obviously. This post shows you where Skeptic Ginger stands. Kontaktschuld, baby. And Mike Gravel is a truther. Merry Christmas.
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The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. CE, who has spent the last couple of years defending Trump Putin and Mother Russia calling Ginger a commie. Russia the country that took Snowden in.

Ellsberg is a hero in my book for the Pentagon papers. That doesnt mean we have to agree with him on everything.

Your argument is silly CE.
 
Not to put too fine a point on this, officers who were assigned to what would later become MAC-V (Military Assistance Command - Vietnam) immediately after the fall of Dien Bien Phu reported up the chain of command that any war between the Viet Minh and what became South Vietnam was going to fail.

For folks interested in the subject matter, I'd also highly recommend the book "a Bright and Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bright_Shining_Lie
 
acbytesla said:
The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. CE, who has spent the last couple of years defending Trump Putin and Mother Russia calling Ginger a commie. Russia the country that took Snowden in.

Ellsberg is a hero in my book for the Pentagon papers. That doesnt mean we have to agree with him on everything.

Your argument is silly CE.
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I believe they left off the sarcasm emoji.
 
acbytesla said:
The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. CE, who has spent the last couple of years defending Trump Putin and Mother Russia calling Ginger a commie. Russia the country that took Snowden in.

Ellsberg is a hero in my book for the Pentagon papers. That doesnt mean we have to agree with him on everything.

Your argument is silly CE.
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I'm a commie? :sdl:

For the record, I don't know of a single thing I disagree with on Ellsberg.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm a commie? :sdl:

For the record, I don't know of a single thing I disagree with on Ellsberg.
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I get it. But CE just made an ad hominem fallacious attack regarding the Pentagon Papers by mentioning other unrelated associations. Ellsberg support for Snowden and Chelsea Manning are irrelevant.
 
acbytesla said:
I get it. But CE just made an ad hominem fallacious attack regarding the Pentagon Papers by mentioning other unrelated associations. Ellsberg support for Snowden and Chelsea Manning are irrelevant.
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I don't pay any attention to a certain couple of posters in this forum. Snowden and Manning are best left out of this thread and for that I thank you.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I don't pay any attention to a certain couple of posters in this forum. Snowden and Manning are best left out of this thread and for that I thank you.
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Yeah, Mike Gravel later in life became a 9/11 Truther, and wasn't he the one who took a few $10K from some twoofing fundraiser and disappeared from the Movement?

People are neither right on everything all their lives nor wrong on everything all their lives. A hero today can be a fool tomorrow, nothing stopping them. Even Truthers are right when they are right, and many are surely able to be right on anything other than 9/11 (where they are wrong by my best definition of the term "9/11 Truther").

My skeptical heuristics is:
If a person was right on an important issue they looked into yesterday, they could still be wrong on the next, but I would tentatively consider them right if they are my only source and their story is plausible.
If however someone was wrong on an important issue that they looked into yesterday, I am more skepical next time and would not believe them if they are the only source I have.

If I believe the Pentagon papers revealed something sinister, it is not because Mike Gravel, specifically, read them into the record.
 
Oystein said:
Yeah, Mike Gravel later in life became a 9/11 Truther, and wasn't he the one who took a few $10K from some twoofing fundraiser and disappeared from the Movement?
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What does that matter? It doesn't.

People are neither right on everything all their lives nor wrong on everything all their lives. A hero today can be a fool tomorrow, nothing stopping them. Even Truthers are right when they are right, and many are surely able to be right on anything other than 9/11 (where they are wrong by my best definition of the term "9/11 Truther").
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Again, so what? None of this has anything at all to do with the single act of reading the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record.

My skeptical heuristics is:
If a person was right on an important issue they looked into yesterday, they could still be wrong on the next, but I would tentatively consider them right if they are my only source and their story is plausible.
If however someone was wrong on an important issue that they looked into yesterday, I am more skepical next time and would not believe them if they are the only source I have.

If I believe the Pentagon papers revealed something sinister, it is not because Mike Gravel, specifically, read them into the record.
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I'm sorry you have a personal issue with Gravel. It's not the least bit relevant here.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Ginger, Oystein is agreeing with you.
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Exactly. And since Gravel is a prominent figure in the history of the Pentagon Papers, so much that the very OP mentions him by name, shedding a light on him, or having an opinion about him, or providing a bit of bio is hardly an illegitimate sidetrack.
 
Oystein said:
Exactly. And since Gravel is a prominent figure in the history of the Pentagon Papers, so much that the very OP mentions him by name, shedding a light on him, or having an opinion about him, or providing a bit of bio is hardly an illegitimate sidetrack.
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What I find funny about Gravel is that he seems to have been a truther for about 10 minutes. Just enough to take their money. And lets for argument sake that Gravel did believe further investigation in 911 conspiracy ideas was warranted. He's not the first person to believe something silly.

I remember once that I believed that there was this being that created the universe and all living things and he came down to earth in human form just so we could pound nails through his arms and legs. How silly is that?
 
acbytesla said:
I remember once that I believed that there was this being that created the universe and all living things and he came down to earth in human form just so we could pound nails through his arms and legs. How silly is that?
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So did I, and I once believed that there was a second gunman behind the stockade fence at the top of the grassy knoll.

I look back at that and wonder how I could ever have been stupid enough to believe either of those things.
 
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smartcooky said:
So did I, and I once believed that their was a second gunman behind the stockade fence at the top of the grassy knoll.

I look back at that and wonder how I could ever have been stupid enough to believe either of those things.
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There was a time I believed there was a second shooter: right after the HSCA concluded there was, based on the police recording. It sounded very scientific, so it wasn't an entirely stupid reason. However, I still believed that if he had been behind the stockade fence, then he missed, because the evidence said JFK was shot twice from Oswald's direction. I also didn't see any reason to assume a second shooter must be FBI or Mafia, or that Oswald was a pawn of anyone. Now that the "audio evidence" has been debunked, I no longer believe there is any evidence of a second shooter. Ditto for the Big Guy in the Sky.
 
Wait, I'm confused: did someone think Jesus was a second gunman? Because all the Biblical evidence suggests Jesus was a knife man, not a shooter.
 
So I take it something about my thread title, the OP, or my reply to Oystein pissed people off?

Maybe someone will start another thread on the topic when the movie comes out in Jan. :rolleyes:
 
TragicMonkey said:
Wait, I'm confused: did someone think Jesus was a second gunman? Because all the Biblical evidence suggests Jesus was a knife man, not a shooter.
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Are you sure you aren't confusing him with Judas of the Sicarii, notorious shiv-mechanics?

Jesus was the guy known for putting ears back on, not cutting them off.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So I take it something about my thread title, the OP, or my reply to Oystein pissed people off?

Maybe someone will start another thread on the topic when the movie comes out in Jan. :rolleyes:
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I actually remember those days, and no more cared then about what Gravel did later than I do now. When he did it, it was stupendous.

Elesberg was a hero, of course.
 
What’s the question? Issue?
Anyway:
Wiki— For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property, but the charges were later dismissed after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.[5]

In June 2011, the entirety of the Pentagon Papers was declassified and publicly released.[6]
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
What makes you think that?
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No one is interested in the discussion, that's fine, I'm a big girl.

The documentary is playing again on MSNBC on Jan 7 if anyone is interested. It's also available for downloading for personal use (not sure but it looks free) and you can buy the DVD.

http://www.mostdangerousman.org/

I'm anxious to see the movie "The Post" but I'll be waiting for it to come out on DVD unless my son wants to see it and we can go together.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
No one is interested in the discussion, that's fine, I'm a big girl.

The documentary is playing again on MSNBC on Jan 7 if anyone is interested. It's also available for downloading for personal use (not sure but it looks free) and you can buy the DVD.

http://www.mostdangerousman.org/

I'm anxious to see the movie "The Post" but I'll be waiting for it to come out on DVD unless my son wants to see it and we can go together.
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Want a discussion? Assuming Nixon did not go after the guy, should he have been found guilty for copying and leaking it?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
No one is interested in the discussion, that's fine, I'm a big girl.
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It's a leap to go from "people have been discussing an aspect of the OP different to the one I was interested in discussing" to "something that I've posted has annoyed people", especially as the latter implies that people are deliberately not focusing on what you'd like them to focus on just to annoy you.
 
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