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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31034 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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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?

After Yale, Woodward began a five-year tour of duty in the United States Navy.[8] During his service in the Navy, Woodward served aboard the USS Wright, and was one of two officers assigned to move or handle nuclear launch codes the Wright carried in its capacity as a National Emergency Command Post Afloat (NECPA).[9] At one time, he was close to Admiral Robert O. Welander, being communications officer on the USS Fox under Welander's command.[

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

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.

Maybe this is already answered by the proponents of this theory, but why didn't Nixon say anything?

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.

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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