Here Lie the Fossils of Young John Kerry

It's possible that the only interesting thing John Kerry has done in his government career was to chair the Senate's 1987 hearings on narco-corruption, particularly when the topic turned to the intersection between drug trafficking and U.S. intelligence. Now The Memory Hole is putting the transcripts of those hearings online.

Between that episode, his subsequent investigation of the BCCI scandal, and his early days with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, it was easy to mistake the young senator for a throwback to the post-Watergate Congress of 1974: disillusioned, somewhat anti-authoritarian, and eager to investigate the national security state. I even remember commenting, around 1991 or so, that I may disagree with most of Kerry's policy prescriptions but that it was nice to have folks like him around, stirring up trouble and exposing official misdeeds. Then the BCCI probe petered out, Kerry seemed to lose interest in turning over rocks, and we were left with nothing but yet another northeastern corporate liberal.

I guess that's a throwback of sorts too, but it's not a kind I'm particularly interested in conserving.

Comments

[codebang]

I think that Kerry is a victim of a form of politics-induced narcolepsy; after awhile, any normal human being is going to start getting tired of stirring things up and just join the herd.

This would also explain the general lack of Senatorial success when running for POTUS, since the voting population apparently doesn't consider herd membership a good thing.

cheers

[Hans]

I'm not sure what the voting population considers good presidential qualities, but looking at our choices, it's either unending expansion of the state, or unending expansion of the state and perpetual war.

We could use a lot more disillusionment in gov't these days..

Regards

[codebang]

We could use a lot more disillusionment in gov't these days..

I'm doing my part by attempting to present reasonable and well-thoughtout explanations for why gov'ts behave the way they do.

works every time.

and it's either unending expansion of the state, or unending expansion of the state and perpetual war.

it appears to me more like just two different flavors of "unending expansion of the state and perpetual war".

I hope the sun comes out soon.

[Total Info]

See also Dem Mena Bones & Kerry on how Kerry's hearings glossed over the Bush connection to drugrunning.

[kwais]

OK, so who do you got for 2008?
How do you bring down the leviathon that the government has become?
There are two things that I can use to pick who I will vote for; Are they credibly promising to lower taxes?, and are they going to deregulate firearms ownership at all?
Bush has one of those right, and is not actively wrong on the other.

[Gadfly]

A rich, intellectually curious Renaissance man vs. a rich, Texas oil driller with a shady past.

Choose.

[Karl Kraus]

John Kerry's cousin was a contestent on the "millionaire show" last night. she won 75.000 E. and she had a hairstyle that reminded me of the "afro" hairstyle we can see on classic basketball games from the 70s.

but she was a nice lady and it was great to see her success there. now, if only the government would not steal at least 50% of her winnings. c'est la vie.

regards.

[Andrew]

America can suffer Kerry for a President, as she suffered Clinton, and still be a great nation...but it won't become a very different nation-- more free. Kerry is NOT an "agent of change". Not even to the extant that Clinton was, pressing for free trade.
With Bush, things like social security reform, school vouchers and open borders are at least in the public discussion. Kerry's priority (and who can say what will happen if a Democrat President gets another crack at it) will be some form of national health insurance.
It's that simple.

[thoreau]

Speaking of nat'l health insurance...

I got this joke from a guy on CSPAN: I support Canadian health care for the US. In Canada, taxpayers foot the bill for health care. I support any system in which I get to see the doctor and the Canadians have to pay for it!

Thank you, I'm here all week, folks. Don't forget to tip your waitress!

[dj of raleigh]

Kerry, a "Renaissance man"...how so?
For the new birth of fine arts, his intellectual achievements, or what?

Make neither more or less of him than he is.

Perhaps he is more of an eigthteenth century man,
one of the leisure class, dabbling in the politic,
living with and as the richest of the rich,
but talking of the needy poor and wanting middle class.
The man is not self-apparent, but a bit of an enigma.

How will he handle the Iranian nuclear problem?
Can he give a straight answer to the question?
He will be embraced by EU & UN members, will he return it?

The loose casual swagger of the one vs the fixed pompous air of the other...
choose.

There's no one sure way to look at a forced choice.
I don't know how, or if, I will vote yet.

[M. Simon]

Iran Contra hearing were explosive.

Ollie North was gutted (he was allied with the narco trafficers).

The CIA was shown to be dependent on funds earned from drug dealing.

And before this you can read McCoy "The Politica of Heroin".

Catherine Austin Fitts on "Narco Dollars"

The truth really is out there. No one seem interested in the deep politics IN AMERICA of the drug war. Wm. Colby former head of the CIA says the illegal drug business is run from the very top. I do not think you could call him a tinfoil hat kind of guy.

Isn't it suspicious that candidates (Demo and Repub) who are in any way moderate about the drug war become viscious drug warriors after a few weeks in office.

And yet no body I know in the "official" press is connecting the dots. The last major reporter to possibly be on to what was happening was Danny Casselero. Ever hear of the "Octopuss"? Drugs have fingers in every pie economic and political.

MAP http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/ is a resource to be mined in that respect. (I have made my contribution of articles).

Think of the new drug testing in schools effort not as an attempt to get kids off drugs but to create another constituentcy for the drug war. If you think of it that way it makes way more sense. Every one is focusing on the mechanics. No one is focusing on the politics. Or where the money will go. Who are the drug testing labs. Who will get the money?

It seems that drugs make prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists stupid.

[IC]

Catherine Austin Fitts was fired as an assistant in HUD by Bush the first, denied millions in payments as a contractor during the Clinton era and is a link on every conspiracy, drug, astrology, hatchet politico site on the net claiming that 911 planes were remotely controlled and and 93 isn't there, or anything else you can think of, or imagine.

Fitts is either the only person knowing all the dark secrets showing that the government is really the true mafia or she and her magic computer program is to politics what Area 54 is to alien watchers.

Feed me the facts please, for her name stinks like puke all over the internet to my nose.

[Bj]

He just needs to remember: "I DO NOT RECALL." If he says that, he's golden.

[dj of raleigh]

Digging up bones? What will be reconstructed?

John Forbes Kerry is in general a double edged, two-sided person, taking two positions, at least, if one at all. He is a skier, swordsman, and guitar player (I can't imagine his singing voice), a pilot and boat commander, as well as national debating champion, lacrosse/soccer/hockey player (America can be thankful for hockey) but his appearance is not a healthy one, botox not withstanding. He had prostate cancer last year and says he is cured.

Kerry supports free public education but has always been in private schools. He is an American who is somewhat European having been largely raised in Europe, in Norway, in West Berlin for a time, Swiss schooled and already being called the Frenchman (French daily Le Figaro has named him ?the most admired Frenchman of all time.? )- he is fluent in French - and his mother, one of the Forbes family, was herself born in Paris and the family still maintains a house in Brittany, where the family summered as John grew up. His maternal grandfather was a Forbes (born in China where the Forbes family profited from the opium & china trade). His maternal grandmother was descended from the original Boston blue blood Winthrops and shares common ancestry with FDR and President George Bush.

So, yes, Bush and Kerry are distantly related!

Kerry's paternal grandfather, who converted from Judaism to Roman Catholic when immigrating to America, committed suicide in the 20s. His paternal grandmother, a Hungarian had siblings who perished in Nazi concentration camps. Kerry has relatives in Austria today. He sounds like a patch to fix the EU/US divide. If only he had Arab family and religious connections.

Kerry is married to a white African-American, multi-lingual millionairess of Portuguese descent who was schooled in Apartheid South Africa (which she says she protested). Teresa Kerry is also a recovering, former Bush-voting Republican. While Teresa Heinz Kerry worries about the haves-vs-have-nots in the USA, it is her fortune that would make hubby John the third richest President ever, behind JFK and perhaps Washington. Kerry is already the richest Senator. Kerry has more than a few trust funds of his own from his family.

His first marriage, in which he had two daughters, was annulled (don't you love the Catholic chuch)in the late 80s. He's divorced, but he is not. She later wrote a book about the depression of politics.

Kerry was against the Vietnam war when he joined to go fight in it, became a war hero who came home early to put on civilian clothes, run for office and become a noted, book writing, medal tossing, demonstrating anti-war protest leader.

Kerry has a Kennedy connection besides mansions on the cape. He copied JFK using their common JFK initials often. He was photographed with JFK on yachts and other events, and later worked on Teddy's first Senate campaign. He dated Jackie Kennedy's half-sister, which allowed him to meet JFK personally. He is a Yale man, a fellow Skull & Bones man (3 yrs. senior) to W. Bush. He is a corporate oriented, special interest tied, Boston bound New England liberal lawyer and aristocrat with wealthy bonds, including his initials, JFK, where his 'F' stands for Forbes.

The cowboy vs the Frenchman, coming to a news stand near you! Reads like a old French novella, but you can't make this stuff up, folks!

[Andrew]

joe

I doubt seriously that a Kerry administration (if there is one) would be either "the cleanest administration" we have ever had, or particularly "more like America"

...although there wouldn't be any Republican White House staffers for the media to pursue, and Kerry would doubtless be an ardent fan of affirmative action, and gestural politics generally.

The spectacle of a sixty-something geeser leching on the staff, would be even less appetising than the forty-something yayhoo.

[joe]

There was a lot less skullduggery after 1991, with the Cold War over and the Reagan/Bush gone. What should Kerry have done during the Clinton administration - investiaged blow jobs and land deals?

He's the same John Kerry as when he busted North and BCCI, which makes him the perfect person to clean up after the dirty birdies in the current admin.

[dhex]

"cocaine politics" is a well-researched read if you can stand the stink it leaves in your nose.

though the idea of john kerry cleaning anything with those patrician hands of his is rather amusing.

[Shelley]

I have a friend who remembers those hearings. There was a lot of drug trafficing in Western Massachusetts at the time that involved actual police officers and children as young as ten or eleven. Some parents there were very happy that the hearings were happening and tried to talk with a Kerry aide. They were told the ONLY way kerry would listen to them would be if they would publicly stand at a microphone at the hearings. His office would not allow even a single aide to talk with them privately about the actual incidents they witnessed. There was no way to get this investigated and prosecuted.

Kerry was quoted in one of the Boston papers after the hearings were over as saying that he would have followed up on the parents' request if he had known they had any credibitily.

This quote may have been in the Boston herald.