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January 18, 2025
The Gaggle Book Club: "The Dark Side of Camelot" By Seymour Hersh

Each week, the Gaggle Book Club recommends a book for Gagglers to read and—most important—uploads a pdf version of it.

Our practice is that we do not vouch for the reliability or accuracy of any book we recommend. Still less, do we necessarily agree with a recommended book's central arguments. However, any book we recommend will be of undoubted interest and intellectual importance.

Today's book club selection is Seymour Hersh's "The Dark Side of Camelot." Published in 1997, the book offers a very negative view of President John F. Kennedy and his administration, challenging the mythic image of "Camelot" and the idealized portrait of Kennedy family's legacy of public service. Hersh presents JFK as a deeply flawed figure whose private behavior and shady political dealings had serious consequences for the country.

Much of the story Hersh recounts has been well known, though meticulously obscured, for years. Kennedy's Mob connections, his incessant womanizing, his addiction to drugs, his poor health, the outright theft of the 1960 election were hidden from public view by the keepers of the Kennedy Flame. As Hersh makes clear, Kennedy's extramarital affairs were not just a personal peccadillo of his. They were evidence of a recklessness that on more than one occasion endangered national security. When it came to sharing mistresses with a Mob figure such as Sam Giancana, Kennedy's recklessness could have cost him his life.

Hersh is no less critical when it comes to JFK's foreign policy. He has little time for the approbation invariably reserved for JFK's supposed deft handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Hersh rightly points out, there would have been no missile crisis had the Kennedy administration not foolishly insisted on placing medium-range Jupiter missiles in Turkey, within easy range of Crimea--the summer vacation spot of Soviet leaders.

On Vietnam, JFK was an unmitigated disaster, signing off on the disastrous 1963 coup that led to the overthrow and murder of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem. The coup led the destabilization and near-collapse of South Vietnam. It was an act of extraordinary recklessness, and Kennedy's failure to anticipate its long-term consequences demonstrated his unerring poor judgment.

The myth of "Camelot" surrounding John F. Kennedy’s presidency, Hersh argues, was a carefully crafted facade that obscured serious moral, ethical, and political failings. More than any other president in U.S. history, Kennedy prioritized personal pleasure and political ambition over integrity and national security. The Kennedy legacy was built on image management and manipulation, and it has had deleterious lasting consequences for American politics and society.

Hersh is a great writer. The facts he uncovers are fascinating. Even if you don't believe everything Hersh claims, even if you don't accept all of the sordid details Hersh recounts here, even if you refuse to credit all of the sordid witnesses and their sordid allegations, the picture Hersh presents of JFK is a damning one.

Seymour_M._Hersh_-_The_Dark_Side_of_Camelot-Back_Bay_Books_(1998).pdf
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Monday Night At The Movies: "Come And See" (1985)

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02:22:49
TG 1934: U.K. (Half-Heartedly) Threatens To Recognize Palestinian State

George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle discuss U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's threat to recognize a Palestinian state --but only under certain conditions--and wonder what, if any, difference a British recognition would make.

01:32:40
The Gaggle Music Club: Ottorino Respighi’s "Ancient Airs and Dances"

This week's selection of The Gaggle Music Club is Ottorino Respighi’s "Ancient Airs and Dances." The composition consists of a set of three orchestral suites composed between 1917 and 1932, based on lute pieces from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) was an Italian composer, musicologist, conductor and orchestrator. He studied composition in Bologna and later trained in orchestration under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia. The Russian master-orchestrator strongly influenced Respighi's approach to tone color. Respighi went on to become one of the most important figures in Italian music in the early 20th century. A significant part of Respighi’s output was devoted to reviving and reinterpreting early music. He created orchestral versions of lute pieces, Gregorian chant and harpsichord works. Unlike his contemporaries in Italy, he had little time for atonality and serialism.

For "Ancient Airs and Dances," Respighi, a skilled musicologist, drew on transcriptions of...

00:44:59

BREAKING: President Trump delays Tariffs until Aug 7.
(except Canada Aug 1)

Canada: 35%
EU: 15%
China: 55% with prior tariffs
Vietnam: 20% baseline
Indonesia: 19%
Philippines: 19%
Japan: 15%
South Korea: 15%
India: 25%
Brazil: 50%
Cambodia: 36%
Bangladesh: 35%
Laos, Myanmar: 40%

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/responses/what-kind-great-power-will-india-be

18 hours ago

Disclose.tv:
NEW - Trump said to warn Jewish donor that MAGA is "starting to hate Israel."

Read more: https://www.disclose.tv/id/s90cg7cb5m/

@disclosetv

JUST IN - U.S. imposes sanctions on Palestinian Authority and PLO officials, including denying visas, for failing to meet commitments.

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/07/sanctioning-officials-of-the-palestinian-authority-and-members-of-the-palestine-liberation-organization

@disclosetv

NEW - Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says, "Germany is returning to support Nazism" after Germany's Foreign Minister met with Netanyahu today amid speculation that Berlin may recognize the State of Palestine.

@disclosetv

JUST IN - Trump grants Mexico 90-day extension to reach trade deal, temporary tariffs remain in place.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114948452793702817

@disclosetv

6 minutes ago

Fuck NO! I will never comply nor participate in this crap. I own my data and you have no rights to my personal property. Everyone should refuse this. Keep your own medical records, on paper, and only share with trusted health providers if strictly necessary.
Citat
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
·
31 iul.
NOW - Trump launches "Digital Health Tech Ecosystem" to "bring healthcare into the digital age," with trusted partners like OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Microsoft AI, and Google. https://x.com/sasha_latypova/status/1950977183280930860

My friend is in the business of buying wholesale steel rebar, steel beams, steel sheets, etc. from inexpensive overseas producers and then selling it downstream to American homebuilders who build budget homes.

He got an email from his customs broker this afternoon that their order from Hanoi, Vietnam will be subject to either 50%, 70%, 110%, or 135% tariff tomorrow.

50% penalty for foreign steel.

Another 20% penalty for Vietnam.

Another 40% transshipment ...

January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

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