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**A quick poll.. do we have a poll mechanism ? ** We should.
**Were you aware **that Woodward of Watergate fame was, before his journalistic career an officer in the Navy, one trusted enough to handle nuclear codes?
Were you aware 'Deep Throat' of Watergate was deputy director of FBI, someone who had many reasons to hate Nixon ?
I was aware of the latter, but not of the former. I thought he was just a young journalist, not a young journalist fresh off from fed-land with a top secret clearance.
There's this incredible segment by Tucker Carlson that basically lays out a theory Nixon was not as big a crook as we think, and that he was set up because he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head.
To sum it up, the claim is that Watergate was a palace coup, where the secret services overthrew the US government, and have kept it under control ever since through influence operations.
It does look persuasive to me. Too persuasive, if you were pulling a coup of this sort, would you make one of the protagonists a retired naval officer with that kind of background ? Ok, I'm done expressing my confusion and astonishment with what I've learned today. If this isn't content fit for themotte, please let me know!
Supplementary viewing: Interview with 'Kay Griggs' , talking about deep state influence ops and what the military gets up to in secret. Was allegedly filmed during her divorce as a 'dead man' measure. Her husband was involved with it and drank / talked too much to her.
It's eight hours, I mean, anyone wants a rabbit hole to fall down through. I feel like I should watch it at some point, though there's probably an analysis somewhere.
It seems to be fairly tame conspiracy stuff: some classic secret societies, homosexuals, political murder, drug running, saudis, etc. However, the nice lady talking about is, if she says who she is, in a position where she may have actually learned something. If she made it up, it's a great performance, if she hasn't, it's not very surprising.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4fdS5cdtPOA
Maybe this is already answered by the proponents of this theory, but why didn't Nixon say anything?
Was there any media favorable to him ? "The press is the enemy, the professors are the enemy, the establishment is the enemy. Write that down on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it".
Heh, seems like he had a problem with the 'Octopus' before it was even defined!. That's Neema Parvini's extension of Yarvin's 'Cathedral' - an attempt at describing the managerial regime [1]that is more sovereign in western democracies than the elected representatives, and acts primarily through the combination of influence in bureaucracies & NGOs & corporations.
Because maybe then he'd not have gotten off lightly. He got pardoned, nothing really happend to him except his reputation was ruined.
Had he tried to play hardball, it could have caused a far bigger upset, which is not what you want when you're engaged in a cold war and have appearances to keep up.
Also. he might have ended up in prison had he refused to play ball.
Or just perhaps ended up being felled by a sudden heart attack from all that stress?
[1]: article by Malcolm Kyeuyne, aka 'Tinkzorg'. He's written some good essays, analysing situation through more or less sane-ish marxist lens but has recently been seen moving towards more respectability recently, by using his modest yet capable intellect writing hitpieces on the online right for Compactmag. Why exactly going after someone twitter anon with 140k followers who goes by 'Raw Egg Nationalist' is even necessary is .. unclear.
So Nixon agreed to not publicize evidence of a coup, agreed not to provide evidence of his innocence regarding his involvement with the Watergate break-in, agreed to resign in disgrace with a forever burnt reputation, etc etc because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say. He further agreed to keep quiet for the next 20 years of his life and he did not confide his knowledge to anyone to publish after his death. Is this a fair summary of your position? If not, which part would you disagree with?
All that is preferable to years in prison or a sudden heart attack followed by a funeral, which were all options on the table, no ?
I'm pretty sure he must have known nobody would have believed him anyway after the media was through with him. And didn't the truth essentially get out with the 1984 book by Hougan ?
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"Believe"? The theory is that they're part of the conspiracy.
Ok, is that the only disagreement you have with my summary? If so, do you believe "Nixon resigned in disgrace after trying and failing to cover up his link to a burglary at the DNC headquarters" is too implausible an explanation?
That's the neatest part of it; it's even the literal truth. Just not the whole of it.
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That would have seemed outlandish to me too before the 2020 elections. Then I seem to recall it being the height of stupidity to talk about shit you know is happening and is subverting the democratic process but don't have evidence for. It was beyond stupid, it was poor gamesmanship and pathetic and made you look sad and stupid and like a tantrum throwing child.
Those are the options here. There was no path to the future for Nixon which didn't result in disgrace and forever being tied to corruption, the only choice was did he want to do it while making an enemy of real power, or come out relatively unharmed?
"Nixon resigned in disgrace after trying and failing to cover up his link to a burglary at the DNC headquarters."
"Nixon was the victim of a palace coup for [insert reasons]. He agreed to not publicize evidence of this coup, agreed not to provide evidence of his innocence regarding his involvement with the Watergate break-in, agreed to resign in disgrace with a forever burnt reputation, etc etc because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say. He further agreed to keep quiet for the next 20 years of his life and he did not confide his knowledge to anyone to publish after his death."
Do you believe the second is the more plausible explanation of the two? If so, why?
Is my opinion not clear? You're so hyper focused on getting everyone to use the language you prefer that you are missing the answers they are giving. It actually feels like you are trying to put people in boxes so you can dismiss their opinion without attempting to understand it.
No. I read your post I'm responding to multiple times and didn't really understand it (e.g. "it being the height of stupidity to talk about shit you know is happening and is subverting the democratic process"). Hence why I asked clarifying questions instead of just respond with "what?"
Ok, although I don't see how the question you asked clarifies the bit you don't understand. I do not believe the second is the more plausible of the two, I would be very surprised if anyone did since the first one has been the prevailing opinion of the zeitgeist for 30 years and is also the more parsimonious explanation. Nevertheless the second explanation is more plausible to me today than it used to be.
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I'm not that familiar with the whole Watergate scandal, but you've never seen anyone in a situation where even telling the truth would end up looking like they're refusing to stop digging their own hole?
What would he say, and why would anyone believe him?
What's an example of a scenario where someone telling the truth looked (at least at the time) like they were digging their own hole?
Ages ago, during some twitter spat, an NYT journalist sent a screenshot because he was trying to prove something. Unfortunately for him, that screenshot included a browser tab of a hentai website, which lots of people started commenting on. He defended himself by saying he was just trying to prove to his wife that tentacle porn exists, because she found the idea so bizarre. He even ended up sending screenshots of the conversation with her.
Now, imagine the conversation took place only verbally, and face to face, and there were no screenshots to send. Wouldn't "I swear, I wasn't fapping to it, I just wanted to show it to my wife!", sound like the dumbest excuse someone invented on the spot?
To bring it back to Nixon, curious_straight_ca's recommendation of "Wait! I know who shot JFK! The same people are after me!" would have the same result, unless his evidence was bulletproof.
The best I can piece together is that Kurt Eichenwald claimed to have received an anti-semitic flyer. Someone doubted his story and he tried to "prove" it by posting a photo of it. If the suspicion is that he faked the flyer, I don't know what posting a photo of a flyer proves (color printers exist after all). The Hentai tab is not relevant to the authenticity of the flyer.
If the phenomena you're describing ("be careful about exposing the truth because you might end up digging a deeper hole for yourself") is so widespread as to serve as a generalizable cautionary tale, I would assume there would be plenty of examples. Is Eichenwald's story the best one you can think of?
The flyer is not relevant to the hentai tab, which was the example I was giving. Why are you trying to change it?
I never said it's widespread. In fact, I think it's pretty rare, but it happens so it shouldn't be discounted.
Why? The scenario we're discussing is when someone would end up looking bad by saying the truth, which means there's a lot of evidence that ends up being misleading. However often that happens, in order to show you an example of that, I'd need to find a sub-group of that scenario, where originally the evidence was strongly pointing one way, but it later was proven to be misleading, which is even more rare.
Which is why I asked you have you never been in that position? Has no one ever lied to others about you, and you were at least temporarily unable to prove they were lying?
I could come up with one or two more if I jogged my memory, but before I do I want to make sure there's a point to that. Originally I thought you asked for an example because you didn't understand the type of scenario I'm talking about. This question makes it look like your questions are rhetorical. That you're not curious, but trying to win an argument.
I interpreted your response to my "why didn't Nixon say anything?" question to posit the theory that Nixon decided to stay quiet because he was concerned that his attempt to tell the truth would make it look like he's just digging his own hole further. My assumption is that he would only have this concern if there was a generalizable cautionary tale establishing it as a viable danger, otherwise why else would he preemptively decide to stay quiet?
Did I misunderstand your response?
I don't know. Your responses seem almost tailor-made to maximize misunderstanding, and I don't want to get into the weeds of what does you mean by "generalizable" or "viable".
Can we start with my original question, have you ever been in a situation like the one I described, or at least knew anyone that was? If not, do you see how in the Eichenwald example I gave telling the truth could make him look worse, if he didn't have supporting evidence?
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This example was interesting as it involves Kurt Eichenwald, a notorious and well-documented pathological liar and fantasist.
Edited to add: as well as having a documented history as a pedophile, or as he would have it, a financial contributor to a major internet hub of pedophilic activity ("research").
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He'd say who shot JFK, which the tucker clip claims he knew (??)?
Lots of people would believe him without checking too much (tucker is without him saying anything!), and more competent people might be able to independently verify parts of it.
That's exactly the kind of thing I think would only make him look desperate and sad.
Assuming Nixon is a rational human being, he would have evidence for his belief. What prevented Nixon from presenting this evidence?
Not having access to it. Or part of the evidence being testimony from people no longer aligned with him.
"Nixon did not have any special knowledge about who killed JFK"
"Nixon knew who killed JFK, but didn't have access to this evidence or everyone he knew who could corroborate his knowledge refused to testify and he didn't tell this to the public/press because he was worried he would look crazy and he didn't confide to anyone to release after his death."
Do you believe that the second scenario is more plausible than the first? If so, what argument would you use to convince someone who disagrees?
Not saying it's more plausible, just that it shouldn't be dismissed.
More evidence would have to come out in order for me to be able to make an argument like that.
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