Who is or was the most evil American ever? (poll eventually)

[Bossy Monkey]

Or to put it another way, is either Bush or Cheney the most evil American ever? I'm leaning towards Cheney at this point. (Destroying Walter Reed for fun and profit? Halliburton! Imagine! And this is just his latest atrocity.)

I'm open to any suggestion from any field of endeavor or any period of history. If you can come up with one person responsible for the Civil War or one person responsible for the Republican gains after Nixon (Richard Viguerie, say), I'm open to anybody. Or if you wanna go serial killer and trot out Gacy or Lake/Ng, by all means go for it. As I say in the subject line, if this gets any traction, a poll will result sooner or later.

[Virginia Dare]

1. I'm kind of partial to Poppy Bush at this point...n/t

[Megahurtz]

35. You Said It! n/t

[dysfunctional press]

71. babs is the only one who even comes CLOSE to poppy.

it's their world, we just live in it.

[Greybnk48]

2. I'd say President Cheney

but his puppet president (*) should not be absolved of guilt since he allowed himself to be used. * may be dumb, but he's not that dumb.

[jobycom]

3. Would Columbus count? Not a US citizen, but linked to America.

[Bossy Monkey]

64. Dishonorable mention, I'd think; he never even made it to the continent

Good choice for worst Dominican ever, though.

[TomInTib]

4. I am going for GHWB.

If for nothing more than the firestorming of the City of Angels (Panama).

[mnhtnbb]

93. There's a terrific documentary called "The Panama Deception"

which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, in 93? I think, about the invasion of Panama.
You can order it through The Empowerment Project

http://www.empowermentproject.org/films.html

[Joey Liberal]

5. President Cheney n/t

[meldroc]

6. Cheney.

He's even worse than Poppy Bush. He makes Nixon look like a Boy Scout.

He's responsible for the deaths of 3100+ American troops and 650,000+ Iraqis.

He needs to swing for his crimes.

[Donnachaidh]

7. my moneys on Barbara Bush

SHE'S the anti-christ. REALLY. :wow:

[maveric]

8. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Spreading hate through Jesus throughout. Cheney is up there too. Rummy. Coulter...
As far as serial killers go, I can name several but I'll keep it polital/socio.

[Selatius]

9. Emperor Cheney ranks near the top of the list.

There are likely others as hate-filled and greed-filled as Cheney, but you don't know their names, and they intend to remain in the shadows where you can't see.

[Journeyman]

10. Edmund Ruffin. . .

Southern "fire eater," unrestrained advocate of slavery and Southern exceptionalism, fired the first shot at Ft Sumter and thereby sparked the Civil War. Didn't start the war by himself but contributed greatly to the bile that led to it.

[rasputin1952]

27. On the other end of that war, I'd go w/John Wilkes Booth...

I think the South would have been treated far more fairly during Reconstruction if Lincoln had lived.

Lincoln, being the first real Republican, might have changed the course of the nation's history if he had lived to see the end of his second term; his death certainly changed the course of this nation. One mans act in Ford's Theater took this nation down a perilous road for a long period of time.

[Virginia Dare]

43. For the reasons that you state...

I wonder if it was truly one man's act that led to Lincoln's death?

[rasputin1952]

51. There was most certainly a conspiracy involved, but up what heights is

unknown.

The idea was to take out Lincoln, the VP and a portion of the Cabinet. I find it difficult to believe it went much higher than Booth though. Looking at what evidence is available, it appears that Booth, a serious Southern sympathizer, but not to the point where it would take him away from the stage, money and women he had access to in DC and the North, but not to the point where he would join the Confederate Army.

He was the quintessential "patriot w/o spine" when it came down to the case of personal sacrifice. But when you add the "drama" of the situation, I can see where he would be the head honcho in this event. I don't think he was going to play second fiddle to anyone.

In Booth's own journal he had written, during his escape to the South, that he was astounded that he had been vilified by the South. His main request from the people he encountered was to find out what the news was saying about him. Far from being a "savior", Southerners immediately knew this would not be a "good" thing for them; they had seen what a well equipped Northern Army could do, and there were plenty of places yet to burn and plunder if the Union so decided.

I think there may have been a cover-up after Boston Corbett shot him, (I'm not sure it was him, and for that matter, he and the others were under explicit orders to bring Booth back alive). Corbett should have been court-martialed, but he became a minor celebrity in the West where people paid him to hear the story and bought him alcohol galore.

The North was hell-bent on bringing anyone to justice, and if there had been others, I'm almost positive they would have been found out. It did however, establish an easy justification for the treatment of Southerners but the Army, Carpetbaggers and others that went South to exploit the area.

One thing is for sure, if that shot had not been made that night in Ford's Theater, we would be a different country at this point in our existence. Whether that be good or bad is an "if", but things evolved because of that single act.

[Virginia Dare]

83. It's pretty clear he was a narcissistic sociopath...

and was able to charm people into doing just about anything for him apparently, especially women.

I've read a couple of books lately speculating on different conspiracy theories surrounding Lincoln's death. Some historians now believe that there was a large network of spies in place ready to smuggle Booth out of the country, but for reasons not completely known he didn't make it, of course his injury may have been a factor. It's highly unlikely that Booth himself could have organized something this complex. The theories seem to widely differ as to what degree J. Davis and other high ranking Confederate officials were involved however.

I have a friend whose great-grandfather was a physician in Washington D.C. and supposedly did the autopsy on Booth, and they had a lock of hair which he had supposedly taken from him. Pretty cool, if it's true.

[rasputin1952]

85. A lock of Booth's hair would indeed be a great family keepsake!

Can you give me some titles or links to some of the books/sites you've done some research on? I'm always open to new ideas, and some of them may well be plausible if not provable. While it is small and dated, "The Day Lincoln Was Shot", by Jim Bishop (1955); does an excellent job of an hour by hour aspect of what the principles were doing that day.

I find that era of American history fascinating. Several years ago my son and I stopped at Antietam and Gettysburg. While at Gettysburg, we were at "The Angle" where the N. Carolinians had breached the Federal position near the "Copse of Trees". My son asked me, he was 14 at the time, "Who were the good guys and who were the bad?". I told him there were neither good nor bad sides in this war, they were Americans all, they just believed in different ways to run a country. Personally, I am glad the Federals won, if it had been the other way around, we would most likely have wound up like Europe, a continent of
relatively small states generally bickering among them selves and occasionally going to war when the notion hit them that they were "slighted" in some way.

[Virginia Dare]

86. "American Brutus" was very good imo...

very well researched, and I also enjoyed "Manhunt". I have a special interest in Booth, as I grew up not far from Surrattsville.

http://www.amazon.com/Manhunt-12-Day-Chase-Lincolns-Killer/dp/0060518502/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-7724010-4297732?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173366852&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/American-Brutus-Wilkes-Lincoln-Conspiracies/dp/0375759743/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4/102-7724010-4297732?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173366852&sr=8-4

[rasputin1952]

87. Thanks....

Does the old Inn/house still stand, the one Mary Surratt ran? I hope so, it would have great historical value.

When I go back East this Summer, I'd stop down that way. I had an aunt that lived in Smithsburg,MD.
Years ago, she took me to Antietam and explained everything as if she had been there. She was a retired teacher, and my uncle was a retired history prof. Their house was literally a museum, lots of CW stuff in that house...after she had a stoke, an atty in the family sold everything out from under her, literally everything. Some of that stuff was priceless to me, I would have found a museum for that would have put it up for display.

It was also rumored that their house was part of the Underground RR, but that was long before they moved into it. Never found any real proof myself, but there were some interesting places in the cellar that easily could have hidden 3-4 people.

[Virginia Dare]

88. Yes, it does..

the house still stands and is available for touring. I haven't been up that way in a while, but I do know that the area has changed quite a bit in the last 20-30 years, a lot more developed than it once was. Ford's Theater is also a very interesting place to visit, the balcony where he is shot is maintained exactly as it was that night, and the house across the street where he died is also open to the public.

That's a shame about your aunt and uncle, I hope those items eventually find a way back to a museum or other appropriate venue.

[rasputin1952]

89. Smithsburg MD has changed into something I didn't recognize at all...

When I was a kid, my brother and I would walk down to the local market and buy Penny Candy. If we had pennies left, (not likely...:) ), we'd put them on the tracks if a train was coming. It was something to watch as a kid...but that reminds me too that the locomotive was a big black coal burner, complete with steam whistle...:D

I better shut up, I'm showing my age...

[KamaAina]

37. And in the middle, Capt. Henry Wirz

in charge of torturing Union POWs at the notorious Andersonville prison camp in Ga., which, it turns out, ended up prefiguring Abu Ghraib.

[Thothmes]

80. Ruffin

Agreed, thou at the end of the war he did have the decency to commit suicide.

[EstimatedProphet]

90. Ed Gein

[hogwyld]

11. Poppy and Barbara Bush

For no other reason than having Jr. and him being unleashed upon the masses.

[bearfan454]

12. cheney nt

[sakabatou]

13. Cheney

[devilgrrl]

14. Edward Bernays

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

[louis-t]

17. Didn't they name a sauce after him?

Giggle.

[terrya]

15. Jeffrey Dahmer comes awfully close.

[NoPasaran]

16. Not necessarily the most evil himself

But the one whose actions may have had the most evil consequences: Eli Whitney. The inventor of the cotton gin made the commercial cultivation of cotton profitable, leading to the extension of the plantation system worked by slave labor west of the Appalachians.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Celine Dion.

Oh, wait, she's Canadian.

[ToeBot]

84. Yeah, the most Evil Canadian! n/t

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. Andrew Jackson was no saint

He was a big advocate for removal of Native Americans from their lands and sanitizing the eastern part of the United States of their presence. He signed into law the bill he helped promote, the Indian Removal Act which resulted in the removal of about 90 tribes. It included the deaths of 4,000 men, women, and children during the Cherokee "Trail Of Tears" in which a major part of the Cherokee tribe was removed from Georgia and the Carolinas to Oklahoma and along which many died from cold and starvation. It was a death march presided over gleefully by a sitting U.S. President. The General that Jackson sent to remove the Indians refused to obey orders. Then President Jackson appointed Gen. Winfield Scott to do the dirty work. People like Davy Crockett, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster were very vocal i condemning the policy. The irony is that the Cherokee tribe saved Andrew Jackson's life before he became President at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The latter battle was part of a campaign led by Jackson to clear Alabama of its Native American presence and hundreds of Indians were killed by Jackson's forces. The President who appears on our $20 bill is not exactly a heroic figure to Native American peoples, in fact quite the opposite.

[LeftishBrit]

24. I agree - he was a genocidal bastard IMO

There are plenty of other baddies, though. Cheney. Joe McCarthy. Tim McVeigh. Evil in different ways, but all evil.

[Virginia Dare]

34. Andrew Jackson may have suffered from PTSD...

He was imprisoned, beaten and tortured by the British when he was a teenager. That could have contributed to his seemingly unstable mental condition.

[Uncle Joe]

38. If I remember correctly a British Soldier slashed him with his sword,

because Jackson wouldn't shine his boots.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

44. Too bad any heroic deeds he might have performed in his youth

were far overshadowed by the cold-blooded murderous, savage, and genocidal behavior he engaged in and presided over later in his life when he decided to kill Native Americans by the hundreds and then deport the remaining ones off their lands. Apparently, he wasn't so far gone in the head that he didn't use this image as the great Indian killer to launch his Presidential campaign and then get elected, after which he continued to campaign against Native Americans.

[Virginia Dare]

47. No argument there...

the point is, that often one act of evil can lead to another, it daisy chains throughout history.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

49. Maybe true - I don't know where sociopathic evil comes from but that might explain it

After Jackson won the battle of Horseshoe Bend, do you know what his men did? And they did this with his full knowledge and approval. They cut off the noses of the dead and dying Red Stick Indians, of which there were hundreds, to establish a body count and they used the skin of the dead to make bridles for their horses. The Nazis could have taken notes.

[Virginia Dare]

81. Our history has been whitewashed...

Americans really have no inkling of the brutality and violence that existed in the American frontier, many of us think of it as some sort of romantic ideal where heroic adventurers went out into the wilderness and conquered the land and the people out of shear will and superiority. What happened to the native peoples of this country was nothing short of a holocaust, which has never been adequately atoned for. I will agree with you that Andrew Jackson had a large role in it.

Something else that has been lost in history is that U.S. policy against our native peoples really goes back to George Washington, who was also an enthusiastic proponent of their removal from the territory, by force if necessary.

[bobbie]

20. Lyndon Johnson is a finalist for sure

Murderous bastard.

[VelmaD]

33. put him in perspective

He did sign the Voting Rights Act and he did a lot to help people in poverty through the Great Society programs. While he has the blood of many who died in Vietnam on his hands...he isn't as bad as those who have gotten people killed in wars of choice AND had domestic policies that hurt Americans at home as well.

[ceile]

45. Exactly

And the man decided not to run for relection. It is said that guilt from those killed in Vietnam contributed to his heart attack. While Vietnam was truly horrendous, this country would not be where it is today, socially, if not for LBJ.

[bobbie]

55. Please read my post about the real LBJ

Learn the facts about this criminal and then decide what you think about him.

[WI_DEM]

53. he also had many of JFK's "best and brightest" advising him to go into Vietnam

he inherited and kept many Kennedy Administration officials like Dean Rusk, Robert MacNamara, McGeorge Bundy who were the top foreign policy people for JFK and they advised him on Vietnam as they would have advised JFK. I think he also came to the conclusion that the war in Vietnam was not winnable and led to his taking himself out of the '68 campaign (don't fool yourself that LBJ would not have been nominated in '68--at that time most states were controlled by the state parties and had caucuses and LBJ would have easily received a majority of delegates to the '68 convention. George Meany and the AFL-CIO were behind him as were most of the organized democratic party including many in the civil rights movement). He began the effort in that 3/31 speech to de-Americanize the war and also was working on peace talks with the North which Nixon in October, 1968 sabatoged, so that it would hurt Humphrey.

[bobbie]

60. Do you know the facts about LBJ and President Kennedy in regards to Vietnam?

President Kennedy ignored his so-called hawk "advisers" (they're another story) and *ordered* "all US personnel out of Vietnam" by 1965. This is documented in National Security Action Memorandum #263, in conjunction with the MacNamara-Taylor report.

Kennedy's determination to avoid war was one of the main reasons why he was murdered. War profiteers (such as Brown & Root, LBJ's biggest financial backers; and Bell Hellicoptor--another company that controlled LBJ) needed a war to get gov't contracts and get rich.

LBJ gave that to them. Within four days of his swearing in he had reversed NSAM #263 and replaced it with his own NSAM #273, escalating US involvement in Vietnam. Within months LBJ rammed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution thru congress based on a total lie. Brown & Root got incredibly rich; they're now called "Halliburton." LBJ gave us Halliburton...

Those facts, and many others, make it clear that LBJ should be at or near the top of any list of evil bastards.

And these facts aren't even scratching the surface.

[bobbie]

54. I do have him in perspective. After he helped murder President Kennedy...

He eventually took the civil rights legislation that JFK had planned to push through in his second term, watered it down considerably, and got the watered down weaker legislation passed.

President Kennedy, if allowed to live, would have immediately ended the Vietnam war (proof is in National Security Action Memorandum #263 and the accompanying McNammara-Taylor Report). Johnson, four days after the real President's death, reversed NSAM #263 and replaced it with NSAM #273--escalating the troop presence in Vietnam. He then perpetrated the Gulf of Tonkin lie/resolution and... we know the rest. How many killed?

But his supposed reputation as a civil rights prez is sickening and untrue. He merely tried belatedly to carve a legacy after his complicity in JFK's murder and his role in getting countless people killed in Vietnam, by *stealing* Kennedy's proposed legislation and weakening it.

You do know that if he hadn't become president the when he did he would have been in prison, don't you?

Look at the cover of Life Magazine from November, 1963 shown here:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbakerB.htm
Johnson was going down because of the Bobby Baker scandal. In fact if JFK had been killed just a few days later it would have been too late to save his VICE presidency:

"Of even more pressing concern to Johnson in 1963 was the Senate Rules Committee investigation of the activities of Johnson protege Bobby Baker. While working for Johnson as Secretary to the Senate Majority Leader, Baker had fronted for syndicate gamblers in profitable investments, used his connections to Johnson in numerous schemes to receive kickbacks for political services rendered, and was part of an organized effort to solicit prostitutes for politicians for blackmail purposes. Former Attorney General Richard Kleindienst once summarized the Baker-Johnson relationship: "Lyndon Johnson was involved with Bobby Baker up to his elbows."

Yet another scandal in which Johnson was being implicated involved the awarding of a $7 billion defense contract for the development of the TFX fighter plane to the General Dynamics plant in Ft. Worth, TX.

On Nov.22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated, a closed session of the Senate Rules Committee heard sworn testimony from a Bobby Baker associate, Don Reynolds. Reynolds told the committee of a "big lobbyists sex party" in New York, at which he saw a suitcase filled with money. Baker told him that the money was a $100,000 payoff that was headed to Lyndon Johnson for his role in securing the Ft. Worth TFX contract. His testimony was broken off by the news that the President had been shot in Dallas.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who loathed Johnson and wanted him dropped from the ticket in 1964, was strongly pushing investigation into all of these cases. In addition, according to a Kennedy aide, the Attorney General possessed a thick file on Johnson's 1950's ties to mobster Carlos Marcello. Johnson biographer Robert Caro wrote of him: "For years, men came into Lyndon Johnson's office and handed him envelopes stuffed with cash. They didn't stop coming even when the office in which he sat was the office of the Vice-president of the United States." In late 1963, Johnson and the financial and political alliances that had backed him were seriously threatened. Only his ascension to the Presidency could stop these investigations."
http://www.holysmoke.org/kh/kh412.htm

[formerrepuke]

21. Andrew Kehoe (1872-1927)...Anti-tax fanatic who blew up a public school in protest:

I intend to return to this topic in a couple of months, on the 80th anniversary of this abomination.. so that someome remembers.

From Wikipedia:
"Andrew Kehoe was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of a school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm."

"...the disaster was a series of bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. The bombings constituted the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history, claiming more than three times as many victims as the Columbine High School massacre."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_school_disaster

Evil is NOT always determined by the body count, IMHO.

[NoGOPZone]

22. Jerry MacGuire and the others who tried

to overthrow FDR during the Thirties.

[Greyhound]

31. Oops, didn't see your reply before I posted mine. Great mind DO move alike.

:hi:

[-..__...]

23. Roy Cohen and Joe McCarthy.

Actually... I'd have to say Cohen was the worst of the two.

[rasputin1952]

40. You can add J. Edgar Hoover to that bunch....

vile little man....

[Madspirit]

25. At least with serial killers

At least with serial killers you can probably find some pathology. Bush is plainly Evil. I can't say Phelps because the man really is mentally ill. Go to his "God Hates Fags" site if you have any doubts. The man is a raving lunatic. So to be completely evil, on my list, the person has to be somewhat sane. George Bush, SOMEWHAT sane and completely Evil. A liar, a killer, etc. He tops my list.
Lee

[dkofos]

26. * dick are at the top of my list

[lpbk2713]

28. 'Rev' Jim Jones

Talk about yer Kool-Aid .....

[saltpoint]

29. The not-very-famous ministers and townspeople who engendered the

colonial-era witch-hunts against innocent women;

the specific Cavalry commander who ordered that Native Americans be given smallpox-infested blankets;

the man or men who ordered the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy; and

John Negroponte for his role in subverting liberty and personal freedoms in Central America during the Reagan administration.

Those are my finalists.

[Greyhound]

30. Mostly we've named politicians. I'm surprised no one has mentioned their masters, so here goes...

In no particular order;

John Rockefeller
Henry Ford
William Kristol
Gerald C. MacGuire
Douglas MacArthur
Prescott Bush
Irenee Du Pont
Grayson Murphy
Robert Clark
John J. Raskob
John Davis
J.P.Morgan
Nelson W. Aldrich
Frank A. Vanderlip
Henry P. Davison
Paul M. Warburg
Abraham Piatt Andrew
George Custer
Randolph Hearst
Andrew Carnegie


These men are all directly responsible for the degradation and destruction of the American ideal.

How many have you ever heard of?

[Virginia Dare]

32. I would add Grover Norquist in as well...

and why Custer? Wasn't he just following orders?

[Greyhound]

39. List is far from complete.

Included Gen. Custer because he regularly exceeded his orders and caused many more problems, he relished the slaughter, that's why Little Big Horn was so extra-satisfying. Unfortunately, like all asshole officers, his troops paid for his mistakes and arrogance.

[Virginia Dare]

41. True, one could argue that unlike so many of the others...

justice was served on Custer, like you say, others paid for his arrogance as well. He was nothing if not ruthless.

Enjoyed the list, thanks! :hi:

[Madspirit]

61. I love your post

Yes, the Puppet Masters should be named.
Lee

[Thothmes]

82. Masters

not sure how you think a lieutenant colonel in the post civil war army could be considered any ones master, other than the 600 troopers of the 7th Cavalry.

[Greyhound]

91. He wasn't, it was an off-the top-of-my-head list, but you must admit that many of the ones

named are, in fact, the architects and prime motivators of the mess our country is.

[sofa king]

36. Alan Welsh Dulles

Architect of the overthrows of democratically-elected governments from Guatemala to Iran, member of the Warren Commission, Board Member of the United Fruit Company (a CIA front-company later bought by George H. W. Bush's Zapata Corporation), protector of Nazis (Operation Paperclip), innovator in the use of drug coercion (MK-Ultra), mentor of E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, and Porter Goss.

When history looks back at the evil that America did in the 20th Century, it won't be able to mention the deeds without mentioning Alan Dulles.

Oh, yes--and a Republican, to nobody's surprise I am sure. He was the chief advisor to Thomas Dewey's Presidential campaign in 1948.

[Greyhound]

92. Great addition, no list of perpetrators is complete without him on it, thanks.

In a more contemporary vein, we should also include the infamous John Negroponte, his record is nearly as sordid and foul.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

42. Henry Killinger.

[Disturbed]

48. Kissenger actually received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Vietnam debacle could have ended four years earlier had it not been for his evil advice to Nixon. The final Accords were similar to the ones agreed upon four years before. Nixon and Kissenger prolonged the slaughter for political reasons.

[ceile]

46. McCarthy n/t

[rug]

50. John D. Rockefeller

[conscious evolution]

57. I second that.

He started the whole shebang.No Rockefellow no BFEE.

[AshevilleGuy]

52. In addition to the ones already named: Jesse Helms

I can never forgive voters in my state for electing that incubus four times. Not only his vile homophobic poison, but his support for Pinochet in Chile and the murderous "Generals' Junta" in Argentina in the 1970s and 80s. He had absolutely no problem with either of these nazi regimes, and did every thing he coukd in the Senate to help them out. Idiot voters knew nothing of this and cared even less.

Oh, yeah, he also supported the fascist governments in Guatemala and in Salvador. And murderous rebel armies in Angola and Mozambique.

In a slightly more superficial vein: sometime compare a picture of Helms and one of hitler - their eyes are almost identical!!!

[jannyk]

56. Cheney or McCarthy get my vote...

of course, there's so much we don't know yet about Cheney - history may have him way out in front all by himself.

[Arkham House]

58. Ezra Pound

...the fact that he had remarkable gifts makes him more evil than other people, in my book...his broadcasts from Italy during World War II were disgusting, hymns to the Holocaust, "warning" American Jews that their "turn was next". I can't think of anyone who matches him as a moral cesspool...

[devilgrrl]

59. American Monsters - A great book to go with this thread!

http://www.amazon.com/American-Monsters-Rats-Blackhats-Plutocrats/dp/1560255544/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0537929-2803858?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173308027&sr=1-1

This book features the creme-da-scum of US History, definitely a MUST READ.

Book Description
Among our most celebrated and notorious Americans, these monsters are the corrupt, greedy, power-mad, and vicious betrayers of the dreams of fair play and equal opportunity, the practitioners of a catalog of anti-democratic vice: from anti-Semitism and union-busting to racism and murder. Organized in Dantesque circles, American Monsters remembers history a little differently than it is taught in school. Indian exterminator President Andrew Jackson, Jew-baiting propagandist Henry Ford, and nearly forty other malefactors whose evil cores have been relegated to footnotes, are brought to account. From Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Roger Taney, to robber barons and captains of industry like Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie; from Ezra Pound and Col. Tom Parker to cops and criminals like Alan Pinkerton and Charles Manson, American Monsters is provocative and entertaining history that you won't read anywhere else. With specially commissioned essays by veteran chroniclers such as Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, Ishmael Reed, Steve Earle, Danny Schechter, Nat Hentoff, James Ridgeway, Joe Conason, Michael Wolff, Danny Goldberg, Will Blythe, and Legs McNeil, this collection of national malfeasance-edited by award-winning columnist Jack Newfield-holds up a dark mirror to the national character.

[ellisonz]

62. Nathan Bedford Forrest

[FVZA_Colonel]

72. I'll second that.

I've never seen any evidence that would suggest anything other then the fact that he was a violent, immoral son of a bitch.

[Hubert Flottz]

63. LIEberman is working toward that goal.

He might even pass Bush and Cheney if he gets a chance.

[realisticphish]

65. I'm hesitant to mention Bush or Cheney

The recency effect is pretty heavy here.

[Bossy Monkey]

66. On the other hand, they smeared habeas corpus, which was almost 800 years old

Sometimes the distance of time isn't needed to gauge the proportions of a disaster.

[realisticphish]

68. granted

but so did Lincoln :shrug:

Fuck me, I'm defending Shrubco :scared:

[rasputin1952]

74. So did FDR, but those were national emergencies...

and quite within the Constitution.

How long the Japanese were kept might be argued, but Italians and Germans were carted off to a lesser degree as well.

Amendment V has been used to confer the power to halt Habeus:

<snip>

...except in the cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Miltia, when in actual service service in time of War or public danger;...

<snip>

Now I know it is a stretch, but that's how some people, especially the judiciary have cast it. Personally, I believe they overstepped, but looking at the times and the situations, it is understandable to an extent. I may not agree w/it, but I can understand it.

[realisticphish]

75. oh, yeah

Believe me, I think those two are EVIL, but I just don't know if they're the MOST evil. They're certainly the most evil right NOW :)

Though, i suppose they could claim that this is a time of "public danger." However, they DIDN'T declare it; they just freakin did it.

[rasputin1952]

77. As far as what bush and Cheney have done to our society...

It is truly unprecedented...I am hoping the GOP is beaten to a pulp for next 50 years, it will take that long to correct this stuff...:grr:

I truly believe they are smoking cigars rolled in the Constitution and drinking sparkling wine from the skulls of children.

[BlooInBloo]

67. Gov. Wallace? Sen McCarthy? Henry Ford?

[champt10]

69. You Have to distinguish...

Between criminal and non criminal(Ignoring the feeling that Bush and cheney are criminals), because it is obvious that a mass murder is more evil than a lot of the people listed. If we take out criminals, for me it is Cheney and Sean Hannity.

[gulliver]

70. Depends on your point of view. If you are pro-America, then...

Cheney is the most evil American hands down. But he's a hero to our enemies.

[Initech]

73. I gotta go with Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon

The two men who engineered this insane breed of religious conservatism we have now.

[Jennicut]

76. The entire Bush family

Their crimes against humanity are too long to count. They befriended all the other "players", Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. They are pure EVIL. They have caused more deaths than any serial killer. Check out oldamericancentury.com or other similar websites for a history of this family. Nazi sympathizers, dictator lovers (Saddam, until he disobeyed Poppy), biological and chemical weapons sellers, started the Iraq war, played shady part in 9/11, messed up on purpose in Katrina. I could go on but I would be here all night.

[Chomskyite]

78. tie: Henry Kissinger and J. Edgar Hoover

HK can probably be held responsible for more civilian deaths than any other foreign policy maker. Hoover was the pioneer of unaccountable government secrecy and the use of government resources to intimidate, harass and blackmail.

[Wetzelbill]

79. Carrot Top definitely has to be up there nt

[Double T]

94. The entire bush crime family...........

pure evil!!

[jail_them]

95. It Would HAVE To Be Dictated By The Most Hurt

People who start wars are evil because they know in advance thousands of innocents will be executed on their orders.

People who bilk the public are evil and they hurt many lives - like enron or the S&L scandal.

The people who flooded the cities with drugs and guns are evil.

The people who let Katrina have her way with folks are evil. Whoever dropped the bomb on Japan.

The people who turned the Spaniards loose upon the americas were truly evil. The people who okayed slavery were truly evil.

The people who okayed the Inquisition may have been the most evil - but, it's hard to say.

Whoever pushed this oil-guzzling, planet-killing lifestyle on the world was pretty evil.


Maybe the most evil are the ones that kill people - and, no, I don't mean the average serial. There are super-serial-killers out there no one talks about:


Pedro Alonso Lopez (300+)
H.H. Holmes (200+)
Luis Alfredo Gavarito (140)
Hu Wanlin (100+)
Javed Iqbal (100)
Delfina & Maria de Jesus Gonzales (91+)
Bruno Ludke (80)
Michael Swango (60 +/-)
Andrei Chikatilo (52+)



Dr. Jack Kevorkian (130) - I don't pretend to know his motives - maybe he was helping people?


http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/serial.html