Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately - Printable Version +- Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora) +-- Forum: Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Applied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Framing the Discourse (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-35.html) +--- Thread: Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately (/thread-3930.html) |
Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately - Helen Reyes - 12-06-2010 I'll think about it some more, Mark. I think your point is very good, that the people there, surrounding the issue at the time, have a viewpoint we have to exert effort to recreate. From what I can tell we basically agree on the modern state of Israel in its present incarnation. Helen Thomas is also someone who was there at that time and her perspective was rejected out of hand and a little too easily. On the other hand, was there an alternative scenario available? Was there a way for Arabs and Jews to live in the same area in peace? Was there a possibility to creat a Jewish state in Europe, before or after WWII? Not that the answers to those questions can in any way serve to pardon or justify crimes against humanity and crimes against peace committed by an inner core of the Netanyahu regime in recent days. PS It's intereting that Truman subverted the UN plan by recognising Ben-Gurion's UDI, just as the UN was getting started as an international forum, under the auspices of the US and the other victors of WWII. Of course the "United Nations" was the name of the military alliance in WWII that defeated the Axis powers, including the Big Three but many others, such as free China. It was founded as a military organisation and became the post-war League of Nations. And just as the US sabotaged the LoN, so did they ruin the UN at its inception. Any thoughts on that? Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately - Mark Stapleton - 13-06-2010 Helen Reyes Wrote:PS It's intereting that Truman subverted the UN plan by recognising Ben-Gurion's UDI, just as the UN was getting started as an international forum, under the auspices of the US and the other victors of WWII. Of course the "United Nations" was the name of the military alliance in WWII that defeated the Axis powers, including the Big Three but many others, such as free China. It was founded as a military organisation and became the post-war League of Nations. And just as the US sabotaged the LoN, so did they ruin the UN at its inception. Any thoughts on that? I guess Truman did indermine the UN at the outset by recognising BG's declaration of independence so quickly. According to Clark Clifford, the US recognised Israel five minutes after BG's declaration, beating the Soviets by seven minutes. Imo, Truman was pressured into it by the Zionists who had bailed out his struggling campaign in 1948 with a large injection of cash, co-ordinated by that ever reliable fundraiser, Abe Feinberg. There was quite a strong Zionist presence around Truman at that time. If you read his interview in the Truman library oral histories, there's no doubt Israel was the closest thing to Feinberg's heart. Clark Clifford said recognising Israel was the right thing to do without explaining why exactly, and James Forrestal was opposed to the creation of Israel and he got thrown out of a tall building for his trouble, after being replaced as Secretary of Defense by a strong supporter of Israel. Part of Clifford's interview: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/oral_his.htm Quote:[95] Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately - Keith Millea - 14-06-2010 Need a laugh today?I sure do. http://www.counterpunch.org/ketcham06142010.html June 14, 2010 Scenes From the Butcher Block The Re-Education of Helen Thomas By CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM Moab. Note: These thoughts were implanted in Helen Thomas’ brain after a long and grueling surgical intervention conducted by Likudnik neurosurgeons, who were assisted by U.S. Congressmen, the White House press pool and a dozen rhesus macaques dressed as newspaper publishers. The surgeons found that sections of Thomas’ conscience were difficult to get at. IMPLANT: Israel the best. Best. Love Israel. Love love love. Chosen ones. Big time. All the time. Must. Kiss. Israeli. Ass. Now! Do it! Chosen! No questions for Israelis. Freedom, truth, beauty, justice – Western values on the barricades. When Palestinians kill, terror. When Israelis kill, freedom and justice. Our falafel better than Arab falafel. THOMAS’ CONSCIENCE: Lying shithead hypocrite assholes. IMPLANT: Helen, listen to me: you are just an old bag of bones with a pen. We are the CHOSEN ONES! Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel Israel – THOMAS’ CONSCIENCE: Oh to hell with Israel already. Don’t we have more important things to think about – [Surgeon 1 to Surgeon 2: “Need some help here.” Fellow American journalists enter in chains carrying press passes, whose dull edges they use to poke at Thomas’ exposed brain-flesh] JOURNALISTS IN CHAINS: Oh ee oh. Oh ee oh. IMPLANT: Helen, good little Helen: Come. Yes. That’s it. Now…wittle Isweal thweatened, googoo gaga. Need help, need money and weapons to make cwadle of civiwization safe for peace and justice. Isweal make kaka in Amewican mouth! Tasteee Fweedom Kaka! THOMAS: Lies and terror – state terror. Nothing but state terror. [Surgeon 2: “Lost cause?” Surgeon 1: “Shut her down.” They turn to the Journalists in Chains. In a single balletic motion, the Journalists drop their pants and piss on her. Thomas’ conscience is no match for the flood of urine that buoys her up and out of the room. Journalists, with pants around ankles, congratulate each other.] Christopher Ketcham, a freelance writer in Brooklyn, NY, is writing a book about secession movements. Contact him at cketcham99@mindspring.com Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately - Keith Millea - 15-06-2010 http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner06152010.html June 15, 2010 Helen and Martha Helen Thomas' Watergate Scoop By FRED GARDNER The alacrity —the relief— with which her fellow journalists allowed Helen Thomas to be offed is shameful but understandable. She showed them all up. She was the only one whose questions weren't mealy-mouthed, the only anti-war voice in a roomful of enablers. Polite reviews of her career credit Thomas with gender-related firsts and longevity. None acknowledge the role she played in exposing the Watergate cover-up. It was Helen Thomas who lent a sympathetic, respectful ear when Martha Mitchell claimed that the burglary of Democratic Party files had been planned at the highest levels in the White House. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear… John Mitchell, Martha's second husband, was a successful Wall St. lawyer whose firm hired Nixon after Tricky Dick lost his bid to become Governor of California in 1962. Six years later, with the U.S. military mired in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson resigned, the Democrats split into pro- and anti-war camps, and Nixon was elected president. John Mitchell moved to Washington to be attorney general. At first, Martha Mitchell, a belle from Arkansas, actually believed Nixon's lip-service about the wives of his cabinet members playing an active role in his administration. She soon became disenchanted. She hated the way, at parties, "the men went off by themselves for cordials and cigars on the sun porch and the women went to another room." She would look at the women in the living room "in their beautiful gowns, lined up like dolls in a museum and think 'We're nothing but window dressing!'" She hated Chief Justice Warren Burger because he gave her a lecture about smoking. Martha Mitchell overheard a lot of things that dismayed her. Occasionally she would place a nocturnal phone call to a reporter —Helen Thomas of United Press International was her favorite— to share observations. Nixon viewed her as a vague threat. He feared and hated women in general, according to Martha. "I didn't even exist," she told Winzola McClendon, a reporter who became her biographer; "nor in my opinion, did any woman, as far as Richard Nixon was concerned. He wanted men around him." Martha wanted John to leave the government and return to his law practice in Manhattan. According to McLendon's revealing biography, she dreamed of throwing dinner parties for his sophisticated private-sector clients, far away from Haldeman, Ehrlichman and the other low-level management types who ran the White House. John promised that they would get out of Washington after the '72 election. He resigned as Attorney General that spring so he could run the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). Mitchell's strategy called for Nixon to remain in the White House and act "presidential." He feared that if Nixon were out campaigning, the American people might pick up on just how bizarre his personality really was. By the spring of 1972, the Republicans' top drawing card at campaign events was none other than Martha Mitchell. When Henry Kissinger had to bow out of a June 16 fundraising event in Newport Beach, CREEP assigned Martha. That's where she was —partying with Charlton Heston, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and John Wayne— on the night of the Watergate break-in. The party was a drag and Pat Nixon snubbed Martha, as usual. Back at the hotel Martha wanted to discuss the snub with John, but he was huddled with his aides. They didn't tell her that five CREEP operatives had just been caught trying to steal files from Democratic Party headquarters. Keeping the about-to-break news from Martha was literally the first step of the Watergate cover-up. Next morning John flew back to D.C. to direct the disinformation campaign, after convincing Martha to stay in California because she needed rest. Martha got an LA Times and read that James McCord, a CREEP employee, had been arrested. The story contained a statement by her husband that she knew to be a lie: "A man identified as employed by our campaign committee was one of five persons arrested at the Democratic National Committee headquarters... The person involved is the proprietor of a private security agency who was employed at our committee months ago to assist with the installation of our security system... We want to emphasize that this man and the other people were not operating either in our behalf or with our consent." John Mitchell had delegated two people to stay with Martha at the Newporter Inn: his secretary, Lea Jablonsky, and a security guard named Steve King. Martha kept drinking Scotch, smoking Salems and growing more and more agitated as her husband refused to take her phone calls. On June 22 she called her Washington apartment and told John Mitchell's aide, Fred LaRue, that if her husband didn't quit politics immediately, she would leave him. She added that she was going to tell the press. She then called Helen Thomas of UPI. While Martha was on the phone with Thomas, Steve King --alerted by LaRue or Mitchell-- ran into her bedroom, threw her onto the bed and ripped the phone out of the wall. "The conversation ended abruptly when it appeared someone took away the phone from her hand," Helen Thomas reported. "She was heard to say 'You just get away.'" When Thomas called back the hotel operator told her, "Mrs. Mitchell is indisposed and cannot talk." The White House put out the story that Martha was about to be institutionalized. Back at the Newport Inn, her guards wouldn't give her food but plied her with liquor. She eventually negotiated the right to fly back east. She checked into the Westchester Country Club and called UPI to declare, "I'm leaving him until he decides to leave the campaign. It's horrible to me... I'm not going to stand for all those dirty things that go on. If you could see me you wouldn't believe it. I'm black and blue. I'm a political prisoner... They don't want me to talk." In his famous comeback interview with David Frost in September '77, Richard Nixon said, "If it hadn't been for Martha, there'd have been no Watergate, because John wasn't mindin' the store." Nixon told Frost that Martha was mentally unbalanced and that "John was practically out of his mind about Martha in the spring of 1972. He was letting Magruder and all these boys, these kids, these nuts, run this thing." It was a total lie. In the spring of 1972 Martha Mitchell was a highly active, visible and popular member of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. They turned her into a crazy drunken dame. In All The President's Men there's a turning-point scene in which Jason Robards, the editor of the Washington post (played by Ben Bradlee) tells Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford (played by Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward) that he just can't let them make unsubstantiated allegations about the president of the United States —as if the Attorney General's wife hadn't been making the same allegations for months to Helen Thomas! Woodward and Bernstein didn't break the story, they confirmed it. Fred Gardner is editor of O'Shaughnessy's. He can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com Helen Thomas Retires Effective Immediately - Ed Jewett - 15-06-2010 I'd be wary of replaying the Watergate events again in a different context but I do take note of the presence of yet another "successful" Wall Street lawyer sitting inside the heart of government power at times when some sort of shenanigan or two was going down. There oughta be a law... |