Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Watergate.....Nixon

I've been reading articles....and I don't think it's possible to read them all....on the Nixon "Tricky Dicky" (love that) and Watergate.....conspiracy; which it absolutely was.....wiretapping, breaking and entry.....wow so much has changed (uh, that was sarcasm in case you missed it). This is fascinating stuff.....like I said I only began to read up on this. Also on "Deep Throat" aka Mark Felt....as the source for the dirty secrets, an investigation that started with the FBI, ironic because they had done the exact same thing: unlawfully spying on people who were not criminals, who hadn't done anything illegal and weren't endangering anyone.......the worst really and done with deliberate malice; to destroy the Civil Rights movement.....THEY the FBI were the criminals.....it's all really horrifying and makes me sick to think about it. Unfortunately, there is often corruption in law enforcement, in America. Well, everywhere. White House Chief of staff H.R. Haldeman and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman were among dozens who were found guilty and went to jail (for a whole 18 months).
Now, almost 40 years later, among others Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. are undergoing massive arrests for more or less the same: they have been, for who knows how long, illegally spying on people, famous and not....in America and the U.K. In New York, there is little being done about it, even though they have done this here not just in the U.K. This didn't end with Anthony Pellicano going to prison; spying is very much alive and well. And it's all a crime under Federal law, but it's happening. Rebekah Brooks was just arrested. The Reuters report had this to say: (Reuters) - Rebekah Brooks, a former editor and close confidante of Rupert Murdoch, was arrested for a second time on Tuesday in a phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the British establishment and embarrassed Prime Minister David Cameron. Embarrassed? To put it mildly. This isn't the government committing these crimes....but .....well, it's said that the ties are extremely close...it takes money to carry this out, it's people who unfortunately got into a position where they could do this almost unchecked for a very long time. I could go on and on about this; but it's going on here in NYC, not just London. Where are the arrests here? I'm digressing, excuse me.

Mark Felt aka "Deep Throat"

It was.....burglary...of the Democratic National Committee...with the intention of spying on members, their rivals. Deliberate.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Well there's scads of material on this...which I plan to read, but I can only give my personal take on this that it's before my time, so I never knew much about this. But I would love to go back if I could and walk around during this time, New York or Paris. I mean if I could go back in time. I don't mean necessarily to the scene below....lol....there was no internet then, no iphones or whatnot.....people smoked (ugh!), the city was famously bankrupt and a dangerous place but there was so much happening just.....how to describe? Kind of like out of the ashes came this new creature.....