The Ten Worst Americans Ever

     I was going to post something on how the words "empire" and "imperialism" have lost all meaning in the current political context in much the same way that "democracy" lost meaning during the Cold War. But I drank so much champagne last night that I woke up in the morning still drunk, wanted my head detached, and still can't keep anything down except Pepto-Bismol. So...I didn't.

     Rather, I decided to create a list of the Top Ten Worst Americans. Those who made the list did so because they were both powerful and bad. Atrocious human beings with no influence escaped, as did serial killers.

1. Andrew Jackson: Slaveowner, Indian-killer, treaty-breaker, deliberate smallpox infecter, Trail of Tears,  imperial president. All around jackass. The person I would most like to be in a room with when I had a baseball bat. I really, really don't like this guy.
2. Nathan Bedford Forrest: Slavecatcher, cavalry raider, quasi-terrorist, founder of the KKK. Enough said.
3. John Calhoun: mastermind of the civil war and vociferous defender of slavery. Person most responsible for the respectablility of secession, paranoid fears of Northern aggression, and the guy who brought the idea that that "slavery is necessary for freedom" to its most absurd heights.
4. Richard Nixon: Watergate and Cambodia. Good enough to get you in to this exclusive club.
5. Pat Robertson: Reactionary, theofascist bigot who is more responsible than anyone else for the political rise of the wingnut Christian Right
6. Ronald Reagan: his non-response to AIDS and his support for various Central American dictators easily gets him a spot on the list.
7. Al Capone: worst of the 20's gangsters. Probably a worse person than those above, but his body count is a lot lower.
8. Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn: they didn't kill anyone, but they made up for it with an ugliness of tone.
9. Henry Ford: anti-Semite, religious bigot, and Nazi sympathizer. Also, bit of an asshole interpersonally.
10. Benedict Arnold: betraying West Point to the British in a fit of pique lame.

Some runner ups: the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, Louis Farrakahn, George W. Bush, Pete Rose.

Comments

[Rad Geek]

Can we get a dishonorable mention for Frankling Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Curtis LeMay? I think that the massacre of 500,000 - 1,000,000 civilians during the terror-bombing of Japan may even be a tad worse than Right-wing demagoguery, or turning over a fort to the bloodybacks.

[exemplar of benevolence]

How about John Wilkes Booth?

[Patrick]

I don't really want to get into this here, but I think that claim Rad Geek is not sustainable. Nor do I really think that "terror bombing" is an accurate characterization of the American campaign.

Why do I think this? Well, the fact of the matter is that high explosive/high altitude bombing a la Germany simply wasn't possible. Japanese industry was always almost entirely enmeshed witin the residential areas. Further, the tailwind made accurate bombing impossible.

Anyway, setting aside this issue, people who wish to critize the United States can't have it both ways:

If the United States had not used conventional bombing to utterly destroy Japanese industry and commerce, then the deployment of the atomic bomb would have been irrefutably necessary, and millions more would have died as Japanese resistance was sustained all over Asia.

I am willing accept the idea that the United States should not have engaged in that behavior despite the fact that more civilians almost certainly would have died in the long run if they hadn't (I almost feel that way), but I don't think I can accept that people who disagreed are truly evil people.

[Kevin Carson]

I think the person responsible for the "respectability of secession" was probably Madison, who noted that a state could only enter the union by the sovereign act of its own people in Convention, and that the Constitution only went into effect among the states ratifying it.

You don't have to be a neo-Confederate twit like the Kennedy brothers, or waste political capital defending the south as "the good guys," to believe that secession was a sovereign right and that Lincoln was a tyrant. If I'd been around in the 1850s, I'd have been more likely to support New England secession over the fugitive slave laws.

[Kevin Carson]

Patrick,

Atomic bombing would not have been irrefutably necessary. It was only necessary *given* an idiotic policy of unconditional surrender. Given that the U.S. had gone a long way toward driving the Japanese back into the home islands by August 1945, and the Russians went a lot more of the way in the Manchurian campaign, there was absolutely no good reason for wasting lives in an amphibious invasion. Especially since the U.S. granted the main Japanese condition for surrender, leaving the Emperor on the throne, even AFTER the atomic bombing.

[Rad Geek]

Patrick,

You seriously mistake me if you think that I endorse the low-altitude firebombing of over 100 Japanese cities by LeMay's forces at the orders of Roosevelt and Truman. They are included in the figures when I say that somewhere between half a million and one million Japanese civilians were massacred in the course of the terror-bombing. I do not think that the difference between nuclear terrorism and "conventional" terrorism by means of low-altitude firebombing is worth investing with any great moral weight. My complaints are directed against the campaign as a whole, not the use of nuclear weapons at the end of it. As for how to describe the aims of both the firebombing and the atomic bombing, Truman and LeMay made it quite clear, when LeMay said "There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders," and Truman said, "It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth."

It was also made clear when they steadfastly refused to give any specific warnings to civilians to evacuate the areas that they were planning to incinerate. (You could object that they couldn't warn the civilians without warning the military. That's true, but irrelevant, if you claim that the purpose was to degrade the military-industrial infrastructure, which couldn't easily be moved on short notice, rather than massacre the population.)

If you want to give a brief in favor of terrorism at the level of entire cities in order to coerce unconditional surrender, then you're free to do so, but you do have an intellectual responsibility to call it what it is.

In any case, all of this to one side, whatever you may think of Truman or Roosevelt, based on his own public statements and the reminiscences of the soldiers who served under him, it ought to be pretty clear that Curtis LeMay -- who actually planned and carried out the details of the bombing campaign -- was nothing short of a bloodthirsty maniac who reveled in death and destruction. (He continued the theme after WWII, becoming the chief nuclear hawk among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, coined the phrase "bomb them back into the Stone Age" in reference to the Vietnam War, and became the Vice Presidential candidate for George Wallace's 1968 Presidential campaign, on a platform of white supremacy and more militant anticommunism.) Seems like this is much clearer qualification for a Worst Ten list than sleazy politicized televangelism.

Patrick: "Anyway, setting aside this issue, people who wish to critize the United States can't have it both ways:"

This is a false dichotomy. If you don't accept that unconditional surrender followed by occupation was a necessary or proper goal for the war effort, then you needn't sign on to either the nuclear incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the continuation of the firebombing and an eventual marine invasion.

[Patrick]

Kevin and Rad Geek, I think the point about unconditional surrender concerning the dropping of the atomic bombs is a good one, and it is one that I have made on this blog before.

The quote from Truman is taken out of context since it was concerning the threat of nuclear weapons and not firebombing.

I want to be clear that I don't think Curtis LeMay is good man, and I certainly wouldn't disagree with your characterization of him.

BUT, LeMay did try a conventional precision bombing campaign, and he had strong reason to believe that such a campaign could not work.

And while the unconditional surrender discussion is important for the atomic bomb, it simply isn't for firebombing.

It is inconceivable that the Japanese would have surrendered in any fashion prior to the firebombing campaign. In fact, as the post war Survey Group (the famous but controversial report arguing that the Japanese would have surrended anyway) said, it was the firebombing and blockade that made Japanese surrender even possible.

While the unconditional surrender of the Japanese might not have been a legitimate war goal, certainly the following were:

1) The removal of the genocidal imperialist militarist leadership from its monopoly on the political process

2) The disarmament of Japan

3) The removal of Japanese forces from their overseas conquests in China, Indochina, Korea, Philipines, Burma, and Indonesia...

My argument is simply this: this goals MIGHT have been attainable without the firebombing campaign (it is not clear) or without a marine invasion of Japan, but only at the cost of years, millions of civilian lives, and hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

Perhaps FDR and Truman should have paid that price...I am tempted to believe they may have been obligated to do so. But I don't think I can call a person who disagrees with that assessment a monster or evil.

But you are right, I think Curtis LeMay makes an excellent candidate for the list.

[Patrick]

I would also like to respond to some of the remarks that seem to characterize the Americans as bloodthirsty murderers. Consider the following:

1) The United States used B-29's for conventional daylight precision bombing from China for almost 6 months with essentially no appreciable success. In fact, the only success was the precision incendiary bombing of Hankow harbor in Singapore.

2) Curtis LeMay commanded this group for several months and did not engage in area attacks.

3) The person initially chosen to lead the Marianas bombers was General Hansell: an expert tactician in high altitude precision bombing.

4) Despite Hansell's expertise, the best bomber in the world, and tactical surprise, the Marianas group engaged in 4 months of utter futility, affecting the Japanese war machine not at all. And casualties amongst bombers approached the catastrophic ten percent per mission mark.

5) Hansell was replaced by LeMay in Jan 1945. LeMay proceeded to stick with precision non-incendiary bombing for almost 2 months. The high cross-winds and the perpetual cloud cover combined with the dispersed nature of Japanese industry to prevent attacks from being carried out successfully.

6) Feb 25 1945 marks the first use of massed incendiaries, but the attacks were targeted on industrial centers and were done during daytime.

7)Incendiaries are incredibly inaccurate from high altitudes, low altitude attacks during daytime were impossible, and targeting at night was rudimentary at best. The command chose in March of 1945 to engage in area incendiary attacks flying at low altitude at night.

8) The US generally dropped pamphlets on populations that were about to be targeted.

Anyway, I understand those who criticize the move to area attacks. But these attacks were seen as tactics of the last resort and were resisted, even by LeMay, until it was clear that no other option for an effective aerial campaign against Japan existed.

Now, as I said, part of me strongly wants to condemn what they did. But before I do, it must be acknowledged that their attacks were the only way for our bombers to significantly erode Japan's war-making capacity. And it is true that not doing so would have had significant dire consequences to many civilians throughout Asia.

[Caligula]

Traitors---Bendict Arnold is a major figure as a SYMBOLIC traitor,
but an ineffective one. ALGER HISS, on the
other hand.........

[The Good Son]

Speaking of traitors how about Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee. These men led to the deaths of about 300,000 union soldiers...

[Caligula]

killing 300,000 aggressors, Suh, while
defending the sovereignty of their native
states and the sanctity of property rights

[Medium Rari]

Who out there can imagine an end to the "Evil Empire" under Mondale or Dukakis??? Not that the world is a safer place to be in now...

In addition, the far left "Act Up" movement of the Gay/Lesbian poulation more or less shot themselves in the foot under Reagan by pitching a fit tantamount to a four year old being denied candy in insisting more or less that AIDS was THE health concern for ALL Americans. Mike Royko wrote about this in a 1990 editorial regarding a contoversial CTA ad (I recall from my Chicago days) depicting same sex couples along with a bi-racial hetero couple smooching. The ad read somthing like; love doesn't kill but greed and ignorance do. The ad totally missed the point of HOW AIDS is contacted, and did not even help those at risk for this disease, opting instead to politicize this health issue, as Royko pointed out. Of course one should never let reality intervene with their Machiavellian goals.

[Roy W. Wright]

I have yet to see a list mention Abraham Lincoln, and this is a crying shame.

[MacBearTwo]

Judging from the responses, I think you struck a nerve with this category. However, regardless of how well intentioned and alcohol poisoning influenced they may be, your selections have a few flaws. Having once been afflicted by both (good intentions and alcohol), I offer the following:

Proposed Additions

William Clarke Quantrill - without ever reaching the age of 30, this misfit was responsible for countless death and destruction in the border states. Quantrill was a butcher who used the War to pursue his own agenda of banditry, bigotry and terrorism.

Lt. William Calley - as the token scapegoat for the men and officers of Charlie Company who purposely and savagely butchered over 500 Vietnamese old men, women, children and babies at My Lai, and then covered it up for over a year. (An honorable mention for Colin Powell who investigated and failed to find any evidence of a massacre).

William Randolph Hearst - for starting a war to improve circulation for his newspapers and win his competition with Pulitzer, somewhat reminiscent of Mortimer and Randolph Duke's $1 bet in Trading Places but far less funny.

John D. Rockefeller - for sending in a private army to break the miners' strike in Ludlow, Colorado which resulted in the infamous Ludlow Massacre.

J. Edgar Hoover - You don't really believe Oswald was a lone gunman do you? or that Jack Ruby was just a patriot with a pistol?

Proposed Deletions

Ronnie - OK, I admit to having a soft spot for Dutch but failing to adequately fund AIDS research in the 80s is just not even close to the failure of other contemporary presidents to stop (take your pick) Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Darfur, Ethnic Cleansing, etc., etc.

Benedict Arnold - as noted above by Caligula, Arnold's treason is a pissant of a footnote in history and pales besides the acts of Hiss and Tokyo Rose.

Henry Ford - I have no love for him but if being an asshole qualifies one to be on the list, it needs to be a lot bigger. As for being an anti-semite/Nazi sympathizer, that was a pretty big club in this country in the 30's.

Andy-by God- Jackson - I know this one is close to you but in the context of his time I just don't see Andy as an embodiment of evil. Certainly fightin injuns and owning slaves didn't make him bad among his peers. Like it or not, that is what this country did at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. And then there was that bank thing.

Proposed move

T. D. Nixon - This is the One who deserves to be at the top of your list. Just ask anyone who was there. No redeeming social qualities. No extenuating circumstances.

[Caligula]

Of course, Caligula agrees with Mr. Wright;
the tyrant Lincoln destroyed the old
Constitutional Republic.
Caligula lauds and is in broad general
agreement with MacBearTwo, BUT if you're
gonna pillory W.C. Quantrill, give equal
thumbs down to the Jayhawkers, John Brown,
and other "irregulars" on the other side
who did more or less the same stuff. And,
hey! John D. Rockefeller tried to buy his
way into Heaven by founding the University
of Chicago.

[Medium Rari]

In high school we used to say: "Dick Nixon, before he dicks you."

[Kevin Carson]

If Davis and Lee were traitors, does that also apply to the Federalists who seceded from the Articles of Confederation? The Articles stated that the union under them was perpetual, and that they could be amended only with the unanimous consent of the member-states. The 1787 Constitution, on the other hand, went into effect not on unanimous approval of the Confederation, but (after nine ratifications) between the states approving it.

Now as it was, North Carolina and Rhode Island remained independent well into Washington's presidency, and R.I. only ratified under threat of economic blackmail (a punitive tariff by Congress). And the ratification in N.Y. and Virginia was a close call.

So what if all four of those states had refused to ratify, and had undertaken a war to compel the seceding nine to honor their obligations under the Articles? After all, they would have been under much stronger legal justification than Lincoln was. Would it have been fair under those circumstances to blame the war deaths on the traitors at Philadelphia?

[Mike]

You folks have serious historical myopia. Start educating yourselves. www.inforwars.com