Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Echoes Of Watergate As The January 6th Committee Hearings Prepare To Begin

 Wednesday June 8th, 2022


My Dear America:

This Thursday Night at 8:00 PM The January Sixth Committee will begin a Prime Time Review of what they have uncovered through over a years worth of investigating what in the hell happened in and around The Capitol Building in Washington on January 6th, 2021.  Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year and a half it is likely that much of what the Committee has to say will be old news to most of us.  The Committee has promised, however, some breakthrough, bombshell revelations and I, like most of us in the world of reality, look forward to finding out what went on and why.  

Clearly Donald Trump and his Republican Allies, including Fox News are not nearly as anxious to have Trump's Dirty Laundry aired in Prime Time or in any time period on Television.

As we prepare to watch the January Sixth Hearings I am having some feelings of Deja Vu as I think back to what I felt was the most exciting Television Spectacular Series that I ever saw during the 1970's, The Senate Watergate Hearings.

I wrote a lot at the time during the Watergate Hearings, which I was lucky Enough or unlucky enough, depending on how you looked at it, to get to watch nearly every day.  I was recovering from surgery at the time and the Watergate Hearings were pretty much the only Television Programming on during the day for a lengthy period of time.  I became hooked quickly and the more that was revealed during the Watergate Hearings the more horrified I became.

I began reacting to the Watergate Hearings by copying a technique that I had learned from a book by Albert Camus'.  I began writing letters addressed to "My Dear America" commenting on what I was seeing, hearing and feeling during the daily hearings.  

(Let me stop here and advise the readers of this Blog that I turned my largely emotional reactions to the Senate Watergate Hearings into a book titled "Letters To A Lost Nation: A Watergate Chronicle".  My book is probably not the most comprehensive book on Watergate.  Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Books, "All The President's Men" and "The Final Days" would probably fit the bill on that score.  My book does, however, give a fairly sincere reaction of an average American to the Incredible scandal that was Watergate.  For anyone interested in buying my book it is available in Paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and in several other E Book Formats on Smashwords.com)

I do recommend my book for anyone who wants to read  the details of "A Brief History Of Watergate" and a comprehensive listing of Major Figures involved in the Watergate Scandal, as well as my reactions to the testimony of many Watergate Figures and an effort to follow up on what happened years later to those Major Watergate Figures.

To make a long story very short "Watergate" was essentially the following:

A Security Guard at the upscale Washington D.C. Apartment, Hotel and Office Complex called the "Watergate" discovered during the morning of June 17th, 1972 that one of the doors to the Watergate had tape on the lock and he called the D.C. Police who while checking the Watergate Complex discovered 5 Individuals in the offices of the Democratic Party.  One of the individuals arrested was James McCord, who was a retired CIA Officer.  The other 4 individuals arrested were Cubans who also had ties to the CIA.  Through dogged investigation by Woodward and Bernstein and other Journalists, the D.C. Police and the FBI the Watergate "Burglars" were tied to E. Howard Hunt (Another Former CIA Officer) and G. Gordon Liddy (A Former FBI Agent).  Both Hunt and Liddy had connections to the White House and also connections to the Committee To Elect The President (CREEP).  What followed the Watergate Break in was a shit show of epic proportions which led to numerous individuals connected to the White House and the Committee To Re Elect the President, not only getting fired, but also going to jail.

The Watergate Hearings were televised on every Network live for a good length of time.  The Senate Watergate Committee was made up of some of the most interesting individuals in the United States Senate on both the Republican And Democratic sides.  The hearings became a national obsession and were almost addictive to me.

During a discussion with Lawrence O Donnell following her MSNBC Program on Monday Night Rachel Maddow discussed the fact that she was an infant during the Watergate Hearings.  Listening to her discuss this with Lawrence O Donnell made me realize that many people might never have seen or even heard of The Senate Watergate Hearings that consumed much of my life during the Seventies.  

I don't know how addictive the January Sixth Committee Hearings will be.  It seems to me that many people in the United States have already made up their minds about Donald Trump and his Republican Supporters and, quite Frankly, if they haven't seen the light about Trump by now I don't think that they are going to pay much attention to what is coming in the Hearings.

I think that Watergate was a lesson for many and should have been a lesson to us all but obviously wasn't.  

Watergate was, for the most part, a corruption of the Nixon White House that spread from the top into various Government Agencies.  At the end of it Richard Nixon finally had the decency to resign.

Donald Trump also corrupted every Government agency he touched but even though he was impeached Twice he still attempted to hold onto power by means of a violent insurrection and an attempted Coup. We should have learned our lesson long ago from Watergate but apparently the lesson didn't take.

I would like to advise Anyone interested in watching some interesting Television and learning about Watergate at the same time to check out two very interesting Television Series.  

CNN has just begun broadcasting a Series on Watergate on Sunday Nights that is being produced and hosted by John Dean, who those who remember Watergate will recall was the man who was targeted by the powers that be in the Nixon White House to be the Patsy for Watergate but instead turned the tables on Richard Nixon and Company.  In the Watergate hearings Dean blew the doors off the White House.  Dean has been a contributor to CNN for years now.  It is about time that he got around to telling the Watergate Story.  So far it looks as though Dean and CNN are doing a good credible job in telling the true Watergate story.

Another take on Watergate is currently being presented on the Paramount Plus streaming Network.  The Show is called "Gaslit" and tells the story of Watergate and the Nixon White House from the perspective of Martha Mitchell, who was the wife of Attorney General and Committee To Elect the President Leader, John Mitchell, who was in the end also sacrificed by the White House in order to save Richard Nixon's Ass. This series stars Julia Roberts as Martha Michell and Sean Penn as John Mitchell.  I have to say that Sean Penn's makeup is incredible and so is that of Julia Roberts.  They both do an awesome acting job in addition to looking so much like the characters they portray.

It is interesting to me to watch these Television Series just as the shit is ready to hit the fan on Thursday night.  

It drives me crazy to see so many Republicans continue to stand with Donald Trump as he lies his ass off about how he was shafted out of his "Landslide Victory" in 2020.  Clearly no Republican in their right mind still believes this Bullshit Story.  But they continue to parrot Trump.  

I have a dream today that after watching the January Sixth Committee Hearings that Republicans everywhere will come to their senses and stop lying about Donald Trump's Landslide election victory.

I will continue to have this dream but I don't really have much faith that this dream will come true.

What I hope will come true is that every Democrat watching the January Sixth Hearings will get motivated enough to get ready to vote in the November Election for the Democrats who are running and telling the truth about January Sixth, 2020.

That Dream has a better chance of coming true.


Sincerely Yours

Jerry Gallagher



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