From: an12070@anon.penet.fi (Zen Master)
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 21:27:01 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: McCarthyism vs. Watergate vs. Kennedy Assassination
Message-ID: <9311200525.AA25278@anon.penet.fi>
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In all cases the people at the top could have insisted there was a
paranoid `witchhunt' or `hysteria' going on.

But in all cases, there *were* some intensely subversive and corrupt
conspiracies going on. In the 50's, the Rosenberg-Soviet espionage ring
was in full circle, stealing pricelessly valuable Atom Bomb secrets.
The Rosenbergs were executed as traitors despite massive public uproar
and appeals all the way to the Supreme Court and President Eisenhower
(who was unmoved). The problem with McCarthyism was not that it was
completely illegitimate (it was fueled by some actual conspiracies),
but that it was carried to extremes.

In Watergate, we had a corruption to the very highest levels of our
executive branch of government, and a grotesque coverup that has so
deeply shakened and poisoned honest people's trust in government for
decades. The probes by Congress were met with evasion, stonewalling,
and counterattacks. Nixon has been viewed as one of the most damaging
presidents (to the institution of the presidency) ever to have been elected.

In the Kennedy Assassination, according to a recent Newsweek, again
there were coverups, but only by our own government to try to suppress
the leaking of any information that might upset the American public
into calling for retaliation against e.g. Cuba or the Soviet Union.
They tried to comfort the public with a rapid investigation with
foregone conclusions, rather than any systematic inquiry into the Truth.

It seems to me that all are examples of how evasion, stonewalling, and
counterattacks on Truth-seeking probes, by high-ranking officials
seeking to promote unsavory or criminal personal `agendas' and their
own respectability at all costs, led to monstrous consequences that
demolished public trust in their most delicate and hallowed
institutions for decades. Truly black consequences.

Cypherpunks, you call it.
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