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Saved by @CodyyyGardner

This is a great question from @HeerJeet and it has very old roots. In my book, I discuss a similar period of anxiety in the 1960s about the possibility of Air Force officers being involved in a coup. Thread.

 Given the size of the US military in WW2, afterwards there was a spike in concern that some of these demilitarized veterans would be amenable to radicalization and supportive of insurrection. These fears heightened after the coups in France/Algiers in 1958 and 1961.
This was the peak era of the Cold War, so anti-communist anxiety was layered over top. The Right feared that communist infiltrators in the government would subvert the Republic. The Left feared that anti-communist military officers would launch a preemptive, paranoid coup.
Note as well that the foundation for these fears was rooted in a novel concept that journalist Edward Hunter had recently coined, "brainwashing." The idea was that US POWs held by North Korea had been brainwashed into accepting communism & might act as a fifth column back home.
You can see that particular paranoia in cultural artifacts from the time like "The Manchurian Candidate," novel in 1959 and the hit 1962 movie starring Frank Sinatra and the incomparable Angela Lansbury. Those sneaky commies nearly infiltrated the Oval Office itself, oh no!!
But there was another variant on this fear, not that communists themselves would infiltrate and overthrow America, but that overzealous military officers would launch a coup in the paranoid determination to defeat communism both real and imagined.
This was a recurring plot in film and tv in the early 1960s, from "Dr. Strangelove" (general obsessed with "precious bodily fluids" being corrupted by Soviet fluoridation) to "7 Days in May" (foiled coup to remove the heroic president and his cabinet).
Indeed, in "7 Days in May" the villain is an air force general and former flying ace. This was no accident as the character was modeled after several actual right-wing military officers of the time, including Edwin Walker, Douglas Walker, and Curtis LeMay.
President Kennedy had actually read the novel "7 Days in May" and was convinced it was more than fiction & an actual imminent threat. So much so that he invited the filmmaker to film the movie at the White House; they even used anti-Kennedy protestors outside as impromptu extras!
Why was Kennedy so paranoid that he thought 7 Days in May felt like a documentary instead of fiction? (In his defense, so too did many at the time, with "Variety" writing, it is "an exploration of what could conceivably happen momentarily.")
1) In 1960 there had been a big scandal involving a training manual being used by the Air Force. In 1958, the National Security Council had ordered the military to conduct anti-communist education of all servicepeople.
The US Air Force had been particularly...enthusiastic. In this training manual, they illustrated the supposed threat of domestic communism by alleging that they had infiltrated every branch of government, the Democratic Party, labor unions, and the National Council of Churches.
They used as "evidence" materials from conservative anti-communists, especially right-wing radio broadcaster Billy James Hargis. Hargis told the press that the National Council of Churches "has done more to nurture Communism than any single organization" in the US. Well, then!
The National Council of Churches was the largest religious organization in America at the time and had significant pull in Congress, which subsequently pulled the offending manual.
The NCC also asked Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn to arrange a series of floor speeches defending the org. One of those speakers was none other than John F Kennedy, who said, "Our Government cannot...select any religious body for either favorable or unfavorable treatment."
Kennedy's adept handling of the "religious question"--his Catholicism and calls for religious tolerance--helped him win a crucial primary in West Virginia three weeks later and, of course, the presidency.
So you can imagine why Kennedy was particularly attuned to the threat of subversion of his administration via the military and right-wing misinformation, and from the Air Force in particular.
2) I won't belabor this point since it's a significant subject in my book, but just a year or two later that same broadcaster, Billy James Hargis, linked up with Edwin Walker, a general that Kennedy had just forced to resign for his anti-communist conspiracism.
Walker & Hargis called their presidential test run "Operation Midnight Ride." This was not a reassuring name if you were worried about a coup, an angry ex-general holding political rallies under the banner of revolutionary Paul Revere! One if by Congress, two if by White House!
Ultimately, the Hargis/Walker campaign didn't go anywhere, though it was a precursor to a campaign that did do surprisingly well, that of George Wallace and ex-Air Force General Curtis LeMay in 1968.
3) The final thing I'll mention here is that these left-wing fears of a right-wing military coup peaked in 1964 with the presidential bid of Barry Goldwater. Why?

Because Goldwater was a major general in the Arizona Air National Guard.
As an aside, both Goldwater and LeMay were big fans of the B-52 Stratofortress, with Goldwater flying one and LeMay fighting for the funds necessary to build them.
Why is that a big deal? Well, the B-52 was a strategic bomber, which meant that it's main function in the pre-ICBM era was to deliver nuclear payloads. It's the plane in Dr. Strangelove and all those movies that starts WW3.
Lyndon Johnson's campaign created one of the most infamous political ads of all time to suggest that Goldwater--who, again, flew these aircraft--would, if elected president, drop nukes willy-nilly and start a world war.

https://t.co/7OV18V2neW
It is hard for folks today to understand just how intense and widespread this fear of a right-wing military coup that kickstarts WW3 was. JFK truly believed it, LBJ traded on it. Movies featured it in their plots.

But that fear extended even further to...Lee Harvey Oswald.
Months before Oswald assassinated JFK, he first took a shot at ex-general Edwin Walker when he was at home on a break between Operation Midnight Ride rallies. But Oswald's bullet deflected off the kitchen window frame and only wounded Walker while he was doing his taxes.
When Oswald's wife questioned why he thought he had the right to shoot Walker, he replied, "Well, what would you say if somebody got rid of Hitler at the right time?"
Fear of a military coup--perhaps especially via the Air Force--was pervasive across the entirety of the Left in the early 60s.

Indeed, it was why so many folks initially assumed a right-wing assassin had shot JFK in Dealey Plaza later that year.
And why some of the first conspiracy theories about the assassination percolated up on the Left, not the Right, and involved the belief that right-wing military generals had conspired to have Kennedy killed to stop him from stopping the Vietnam War.
As for why the Air Force in particular tends to be the locus of these kinds of fears--whether real or imagined and whether in the 1960s or today--I don't have as firm an answer.
I can tell you that in the 1960s a big reason was that the limits of our technology meant that every Air Force pilot, once up in the sky, had the final authority to decide whether to drop nukes or not.
Unlike with ICBMs, which have a whole set of processes to start a launch (the nuclear football, multiple launch keys in multiple sites, etc), a B-52 only needed the agreement of the two pilots to drop.

That means two 20-somethings could start WW3 if they so chose.
That's an awesome amount of responsibility to invest on so slight a set of shoulders. It's no wonder that it freaked out people at the time! It's freakin' me out right now just thinking about it!
The fragility of the entire system is highlighted by just how damn often B-52s with nuclear payloads had accidents, like when a crashed B-52 nearly detonated Goldsboro, NC.

https://t.co/CQ85HMipz9
All of that to say, it would be significantly easier for an Air Force General to launch a coup than a general of any other branch.

All you'd need would be a small cabal of officers. One group takes the White House; the other takes flight in a B-52 armed with nukes.
Now, that doesn't translate today, so it's likely any connection has more to do with the particular structure / culture of the branch and training system. Keep an eye out for William Schultz's forthcoming book on that topic, "Jesus Springs."
If you're interested in learning more about Operation Midnight Ride, check out @sissenberg's excellent article: https://t.co/jpXIomH6RF
And, of course, my book dives into the whole wild world of right-wing radio broadcasters like Billy James Hargis and JFK's illegal efforts to shut them down.

https://t.co/Y0UNuumUMg

More from Paul Matzko

Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
I wrote a book about the Fairness Doctrine and how it was responsible for one of the worst episodes of government censorship in US history.

So I am somewhat alarmed at the calls percolating on Twitter for a new, internet Fairness Doctrine. This is a thread about why that is.

Let's start with what most people think when they hear "Fairness Doctrine." They imagine a time at an indeterminate point in the past when mass media was reasonable, balanced, equitable, and fair. It was a veritable golden age of mass media and the Fairness Doctrine was to thank.

Back then, radio & tv stations couldn't just air their opinions, spreading unchecked misinformation. No, they had to let the other side of any given issue have a say, giving the good guys a chance to check the bad guys when they told bald lies.


However, the problem with this narrative is that it is almost entirely a myth. In actuality, the Fairness Doctrine was a tool wielded by political interests in order to suppress dissident speech & prevent activists (from both Left & Right) from exposing the lies of the powerful.

But telling that story requires going back before the first major test of the Fairness Doctrine in 1963, before the rules were created in 1949, all the way back to the first meaningful attempt at federal regulation of radio in 1927.
CULTURE
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
Based on the latest info I could find, here's why what happened on Jan. 6th was worse than we thought.

It was coordinated. This was not merely a crowd of protestors accidentally incited to storm the Capitol by the intemperance of the President & other speakers at the rally.

Security experts are combing through the online chatter leading up to the rally and have found extremist groups planning violence. People came w/ malice aforethought, thus armored insurrectionists pushing to the front of the crowd, pipe bombs, & so

But it gets worse. The feds seem to be investigating several Republican members of Congress for connections to the organizers of the rally. (The FBI has warned lawmakers in closed door hearings that they may be shocked with what comes out.)

Indeed, at least one member of Congress, Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) alleges that these GOP members gave some of the insurrectionists tours of the Capitol building on January 5th, the day before.

The implication is that these GOP congressmen used the walkthroughs to familiarize the insurrectionists with the building layout so that they could push into the building and confront their colleagues who were opposed to overturning the electoral ballot count.
GOVERNMENT
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Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
Having spent 2020 telling covid denalists that they were overly optimistic about the pandemic, I now look forward to spending 2021 telling covid maximalists that they are overly pessimistic about the end of the pandemic.

Telling a denialist in May that we shouldn't open bars back up = telling a maximalist in February that we should open schools back up.

Look, folks, the math is straightforward. ~13% of Americans have been vaccinated as of this

And the 7 day average continues to rise; we're approach 2 million vaccine doses per day. Meaning that we'll double that ~13% much faster than the two months it took us to get there.


So it's entirely reasonable that absent any other intervention, we should expect to hit ~30% vaccinated by the end of March.
SOCIETY
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
If a critical mass of people on twitter generate enough Section 230 hot takes, all that energy fuses to create renewed interest in the #FairnessDoctrine.

I wrote a book on the FD so let me walk you through why reviving it would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

First, the Fairness Doctrine was responsible for the most successful episode of government censorship of the past half century. While the Fairness Doctrine was technically created to encourage fair and balanced coverage of “controversial issues of public importance"...

...in the 1960s the Kennedy administration weaponized it to punish conservative radio critics. You see, fairness is in the eye of the beholder--which is the FCC--and the person who appoints the commissioners--the president--gets a say in what looks fair or foul.

(JFK also launched targeted IRS audits of his right-wing radio antagonists; the power to tax is the power to destroy, after all.) Stations responded to the secretly government-organized pressure by dropping conservative broadcasters in order to avoid Fairness Doctrine complaints.

And lest you think this Fairness Doctrine stuff is just conservative bellyaching, bear in mind that the Nixon administration used the threat of Fairness Doctrine enforcement to help bring television network heads to heel.
CULTURE
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
The New York Times article about SlateStarCodex is finally out and it is...bad. There's a lot I could parse, but let me just walk you through one paragraph that is so misleading as to be

Take the first sentence of this paragraph. Now, technically the clause--"who proposed a link between race and IQ"--could simply modify "Murray" and have nothing to do w/ SSC.


But 99% of readers are going to assume that the clause actually defines SSC's alignment with Murray. In other words, the author is strongly implying that SSC shares Murray's racist beliefs.

And that would be big(!)...if it were at all true. It is not. Indeed, if you go to the hyperlink, you'll find that SSC's purported "alignment" has nothing to do with Murray's "Bell Curve."

What SSC & Murray agree about is that poverty is partly hereditable and thus very sticky, so much so that the proposition job retraining programs will meaningfully address mass economic disruption is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
TECH

More from Government

PunisherPatriot
PunisherPatriot
@PunisherPatrio3
(Thread) Mid-2020 GITMO Update: Arrests, Indictments, & Executions


So before we get started, let us first understand that before Trump was POTUS GITMO (Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp) was a fraction of the size it now is. This can be clearly confirmed by the following visuals, identifying a significant amount of expansion...

for what is expected to be tens of thousands of new ex-elite prisoners. Well, those who are not executed via military tribunal at least. ow, if you are not aware of these indictments I am referring to, that makes perfect sense because they are still sealed and not yet...

Public knowledge. Please allow me to enlighten you. These equate to roughly 222,00 sealed indictments and pertain to the most disturbing and corrupt crimes against humanity. These range from human trafficking, organ trafficking...

child sex trafficking, slavery, treason, terrorism, fraud, misuse of AI, genocide, brainwashing, defamation, 5G endangerment, religious discrimination, misrepresentation, censorship, privacy infringement, and prevention of saving humanity from biotech endangerment.
GOVERNMENT
Dr Duncan Robertson
Dr Duncan Robertson
@Dr_D_Robertson
The Government is making the same mistakes as it did in the first wave. Except with knowledge.

A thread.


The Government's strategy at the beginning of the pandemic was to 'cocoon' the vulnerable (e.g. those in care homes). This was a 'herd immunity' strategy. This interview is from


This strategy failed. It is impossible to 'cocoon' the vulnerable, as Covid is passed from younger people to older, more vulnerable people.

We can see this playing out through heatmaps. e.g. these heatmaps from the second


The Government then decided to change its strategy to 'preventing a second wave that overwhelms the NHS'. This was announced on 8 June in Parliament.

This is not the same as 'preventing a second wave'.

https://t.co/DPWiJbCKRm


The Academy of Medical Scientists published a report on 14 July 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' commissioned by the Chief Scientific Adviser that set out what needed to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe over the winter
GOVERNMENT
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1.
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This is VERY Long but it will end with a MEGA BOOM!
Bookmark it and read it in small bits to digest it all.

This info, comes from some reputable anons and my own digging, compiled together as a superthread!
InevitableET, IPOT... to name a few.

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-They needed to get away from the Republic and create a Democracy in order to drive us towards socialism and inevitably a dictatorship (National Socialist Party aka NAZI)


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🐝Susan DeVoe 🦖 Team Pe...
@IndyDeVoe
A brief review of the goings-on in #GOP #Indiana:

Our senators are too busy telling the #BigLie to tell the truth about the former president's attack on our democracy.

My rep isn't standing up for much of anything but wants Nancy Pelosi to answer for the breach of the Capitol.

The #GOP super majority in the #IN legislature is now

eliminating gun permits.

removing protections from our few remaining wetlands.

limiting charitable cash bail.

taking over the Indianapolis police force.

removing the few protections Indy tenants have from bad landlords

continuing to allow 'fun' coyote hunts for prizes.

limiting the governor's ability to deal with emergencies like COVID19 - because of course! Indiana only has 12000+ #COVID19 deaths so overreach is an issue.

trying to undo Indy referendum's to upgrade our bus routes.

while continuing efforts to limit women's access to reproductive healthcare, w/ a forced ultrasound law going into effect just a couple weeks ago.

And then there are the coal ash ponds.

@IndyStarSarah reports on our water quality being up for

from the article by @IndyStarSarah:

"Ash from Indiana's coal-burning power plants is contaminating groundwater across the state, rendering it unsafe to drink. But unlike some other states, Indiana is not requiring utility companies to remove the toxic ash from leaky pits."
GOVERNMENT
Martin Daubney
Martin Daubney
@MartinDaubney
THREAD: So @UKLabour think they can win back the red wall by "use of the union flag, veterans & dressing smartly?" Here's why this is ludicrous fantasy

1. You don't "use" the union flag & especially veterans. You believe in them, from the patriotic heart. Anything else is lies


2. How can Keir Starmer pretend to love the Union flag, when he knelt to BLM, who set fire to it at the Cenotaph? No way will patriots swallow this co-opting of the flag for votes

3. Labour MPs are secretly or even openly ashamed of our flag & history, esp Corbynistas


4. Labour want to win back working class voters? First, believe in Brexit. Except Starmer led Labour's #PeoplesVote movement to cancel Brexit & most Labour MPs are ardent Remainers, so there goes that one

5. Labour are so soaked in identity politics, their top brass believe the white working classes are "privileged" - even though WWC boys are the least likely to go to Uni & perform worst at school. Instead, they are fixated with minority projects, so get minority numbers of votes

6. Trans issues: huge majority of British people are not "transphobic" & want people to live happily. But they don't want trans women in women's toilets, jails, changing rooms or sports. That is a majority position. Crying "transphobe" doesn't help: it repels moderate voters
GOVERNMENT

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Architecture in India was an extremely rich form of expression and highly developed science, with a deep heritage of spirituality in it. #FreeHinduTemple


The centre of all architectural development was the temple and temple or Mandir was the earthly home of God, and like the launching pad for the devotee’s consciousness to soar toward the Divine and the spiritual world.


The murti or deity of the Divine would be placed in the temple sanctum, around which all temple activity would revolve.

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some of which include the Mauryan, Ashoka, Gupta, Satavahana, Chedi, Chandella, Chalukya, Solanki, Pallava, Shola, Hoysala, Vijayanagar, and others.

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(Thread)


The narrative set by left historians about one of their favorite poster boys "Gh0ri" is that he went unchallenged upon entering the Indian subcontinent with one king falling after another.(1)

They conveniently deleted this event. Why? An agenda aimed at making us feel weak and inferior against the invaders in an attempt to glorify them. Simple strategy: To destroy a civilization tamper their history.(2)

Gh0ri defeated Prithviraj Chauhan at the 2nd Battle of Tarain in 1192 and laid the foundation of Delhi Sultanate. What is not well known is the fact that 14 years before he won this battle, he was defeated by the queen of Gujarat "Naiki Devi"!(3)

In 1173 Md Gh0ri had conquered the Ghaznavids in Afghanistan. A ruthless, persistent and deceptive Gh0ri was successful in conducting massive raids deep inside Indian territory.(4)
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1/x Fort Detrick History
Mr. Patrick, one of the chief scientists at the Army Biological Warfare Laboratories at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., held five classified US patents for the process of weaponizing anthrax.

2/x
Under Mr. Patrick’s direction, scientists at Fort Detrick developed a tularemia agent that, if disseminated by airplane, could cause casualties & sickness over 1000s mi². In a 10,000 mi² range, it had 90% casualty rate & 50% fatality rate


3/x His team explored Q fever, plague, & Venezuelan equine encephalitis, testing more than 20 anthrax strains to discern most lethal variety. Fort Detrick scientists used aerosol spray systems inside fountain pens, walking sticks, light bulbs, & even in 1953 Mercury exhaust pipes


4/x After retiring in 1986, Mr. Patrick remained one of the world’s foremost specialists on biological warfare & was a consultant to the CIA, FBI, & US military. He debriefed Soviet defector Ken Alibek, the deputy chief of the Soviet biowarfare program
https://t.co/sHqSaTSqtB


5/x Back in Time
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First thread of the year because I have time during MCO. As requested, a thread on the gods and spirits of Malay folk religion. Some are indigenous, some are of Indian origin, some have Islamic


Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits

Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their


Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time

Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods
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Kolaru Pathigam-Thevaram hymn composed by ThiruGnana Sambandar- #Thread

In Tamil Kol means planets,Aru means cut- set of songs in Kolaru Pathigam addresses all Navagrahas& last 2 lines of every song with end a plea to Bhagwan Shiva to reduce/erase the ill effects of Navagrahas


கோளறு பதிகம் - This pathigam was sung by Thirugnana Sambandar at Thirumaraikadu Kshetram -Vedaranyam,Tamilnadu

Thirugnana Sambandar & Appar(Thirunavukkarasar) travelled together to various Shiva Alayam to spread shivam & bhakti among people.They both reached Thirumaraikadu.


Thirumaraikadu(Vedaranyam) -
Appar & Sambandar were asked to enter the temple through side entrance.The main door was locked by Vedas many years ago.Appar&Sambandar sang devotional hymns praising Shiva, after which the gates opened & closed.After which main door opened for all.


After darshan of Bhagwan Shiva at Thirumaraikkadu,Sambandar received a message to travel to Madurai.
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