Before the Age of the Donald - Part 12
On November 8, 2016 Republican Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election over his Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many people on the left just freaked out. How could this man whom many called a foul mouthed, racist, misogynist candidate beat a brilliant centrist woman? It seemed to some to be impossible.
In fact it was very easy.
Trump cobbled together a coalition of business friendly people with many white working people. These working people weren't poor but they didn't like the new diversity of white, but also brown, black, and yellow skinned Americans that they could see in the streets of any U.S. city.
These people also didn't trust Hillary Clinton or her husband the former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Trump's debating style also turned off some people. He spoke the way the main characters in many t.v. reality shows mouthed off. Hardly surprising since he'd starred in a t.v. reality show himself called 'The Apprentice'. "The man's never been in politics," one American I know said. "He knows nothing about the way the country's run." Yet Trump's lack of any political experience played as a plus for him. Right now many Americans loathe politicians and being a non-politician gives you a great advantage.
Then,too, Trump is worth billions of dollars. "I'm worth three billion dollars," he once said. Whatever his net worth, Trump is very rich. Many Americans and many Canadians too worship the wealthy. Finally many Americans felt angry at the new world of free trade agreements, changing technology and the seemingly inbred world of high tech billionaires, political insiders, lobbyists, spin doctors, and Washington, D.C. politicians. Hillary Clinton seemed to symbolize this world that most people could never join. Trump called these new rulers "the elites"
"Make America great again," the hotel magnate declared again and again, to applauding crowds. His anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican rap harked back to supposedly simpler more virtuous time when America ruled the globe or at least seemed to. All of this was enough to win him the presidency even though Hillary Clinton won 2 million more votes than he did.
So how good or bad will a Trump presidency be?
Wednesday 30 November 2016
Tuesday 29 November 2016
Before the Age of the Donald by Dave jaffe - Part Eleven
Before the age of the Donald - Part 11.
As Vladimir Putin tightened his hold on the Russian Federation, the Cold War was restarted. Violence broke out in the former U.S.S.R. republic of Georgia, that was now a new country. In Georgia there were many Abkhazians, an ethnic group that now wanted to secede from Georgia.
The Georgian army crushed this rebellion. Yet in 2008 Russians supported the Abkhazians. And then Russia moved to help South Ossetia, a region of Georgia that also wanted to leave Georgia. As tensions mounted in Georgia, trouble also broke out in the Ukraine, another former republic of the U.S.S.R. that now like Georgia was an independent country. Both Russia and the United States tried to bring the Ukraine into their orbit.
The U.S. through the National Endowment for Democracy funded pro-western groups in the Ukraine. With the establishment of this fund U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said in 1986,"We in the U.S. can now do legally what we used to do illegally through the C.I.A."
In 2013 the then pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovych suspended completing an agreement with the European Union. A group called Euromaidan took to the streets and drove Yanukovych from power. He fled to Russia. A new pro-western leader Peter Poroshenko who made himself rich in making chocolate, took power.
The Ukraine nearly split apart. Pro-Russian and Russian speaking groups in the eastern and southern Ukraine clashed with pro-western and Ukrainian speaking forces in the western Ukraine. Over 8,000 people died in the battles.Then Vladimir Putin launched a counter stroke. He sent Russian troops into the Crimean area of the Ukraine and later annexed it after a referendum approved of the Crimea joining Russia. Russia had ruled the Crimea up to 1954 when then-U.S.S.R. leader Nikita Khruschev had handed it over to the Ukrainian republic. In the Crimea was the port of Odessa where many ships that were now part of the Russian navy were stationed.
"Putin wanted a warm water port for his navy," one western observer said. "And now he's got it."
The Cold War was definitely back. Eastern European nations that had once been part of the U.S.S.R. dominated Warsaw Pact were now scared of a Russian invasion. So were former Soviet republics. Meanwhile tensions between the U.S. and Russia were also on the boil in the Middle East. The U.S. and some other U.S. allies and their troops tried to overthrow Syrian leader Bashir Assad. But Russia backed Assad and sent troops to Syria to support him. Meanwhile conflict simmered in the Ukraine.
Putin wasn't Stalin. He didn't kill millions of people like Stalin had. His troops probably killed 50,000 people in Chechnya. He is a tyrant like most of Russia's past rulers whether they were czars or communists. In any case Russia's brief flirtation with democracy under Mikhail Gorbachev was long over. Russian politics were just back to normal.
As Vladimir Putin tightened his hold on the Russian Federation, the Cold War was restarted. Violence broke out in the former U.S.S.R. republic of Georgia, that was now a new country. In Georgia there were many Abkhazians, an ethnic group that now wanted to secede from Georgia.
The Georgian army crushed this rebellion. Yet in 2008 Russians supported the Abkhazians. And then Russia moved to help South Ossetia, a region of Georgia that also wanted to leave Georgia. As tensions mounted in Georgia, trouble also broke out in the Ukraine, another former republic of the U.S.S.R. that now like Georgia was an independent country. Both Russia and the United States tried to bring the Ukraine into their orbit.
The U.S. through the National Endowment for Democracy funded pro-western groups in the Ukraine. With the establishment of this fund U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said in 1986,"We in the U.S. can now do legally what we used to do illegally through the C.I.A."
In 2013 the then pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovych suspended completing an agreement with the European Union. A group called Euromaidan took to the streets and drove Yanukovych from power. He fled to Russia. A new pro-western leader Peter Poroshenko who made himself rich in making chocolate, took power.
The Ukraine nearly split apart. Pro-Russian and Russian speaking groups in the eastern and southern Ukraine clashed with pro-western and Ukrainian speaking forces in the western Ukraine. Over 8,000 people died in the battles.Then Vladimir Putin launched a counter stroke. He sent Russian troops into the Crimean area of the Ukraine and later annexed it after a referendum approved of the Crimea joining Russia. Russia had ruled the Crimea up to 1954 when then-U.S.S.R. leader Nikita Khruschev had handed it over to the Ukrainian republic. In the Crimea was the port of Odessa where many ships that were now part of the Russian navy were stationed.
"Putin wanted a warm water port for his navy," one western observer said. "And now he's got it."
The Cold War was definitely back. Eastern European nations that had once been part of the U.S.S.R. dominated Warsaw Pact were now scared of a Russian invasion. So were former Soviet republics. Meanwhile tensions between the U.S. and Russia were also on the boil in the Middle East. The U.S. and some other U.S. allies and their troops tried to overthrow Syrian leader Bashir Assad. But Russia backed Assad and sent troops to Syria to support him. Meanwhile conflict simmered in the Ukraine.
Putin wasn't Stalin. He didn't kill millions of people like Stalin had. His troops probably killed 50,000 people in Chechnya. He is a tyrant like most of Russia's past rulers whether they were czars or communists. In any case Russia's brief flirtation with democracy under Mikhail Gorbachev was long over. Russian politics were just back to normal.
Monday 28 November 2016
The Age of the Donald by Dave Jaffe - Part Ten
The Age of the Donald - Part Ten by Dave Jaffe
"The Cold War is over," people around the world said in 1991. "And the United States has won the war," Americans chimed in. Yet by 2016 everything had changed. The Cold War was back and once again the U.S. clashed with not the Soviet Union but its biggest republic namely Russia. How had this happened?
It was simple really. The more Russia swing towards the western world and the U.S., the worse things became for the Russian people. Under Boris Yeltsin the head of the Russian Federation the country started to come apart. Massive inflation tore into people's savings and shrunk the savings to nothing. Crime in the streets skyrocketed. Chechens rose in revolt in Chechnya and Russian troops couldn't suppress the uprising.
Oligarchs, many of whom were former communist leaders took over mines, mills and factories and made millions of dollars. Also Yeltsin unleashed soldiers on the elected Russian politicians in the Russian parliament when they defied his will. People in Russia started to get angry. Of course not all people did.
One woman in her thirties named Marina lived in Moscow during this time. She saw no great changes. "There were more people sleeping in the street," this woman said. "There was more crime. But overall I didn't notice much change at all." Other Russians didn't share Marina's view.
In 2000 Vladimir Putin a former KGB or secret police agent took over as president of the Russian Federation. "Putin imposed order," a Ukrainian visitor to Russia and Canada said. "Not law and order. Just order." Putin sent troops back into Chechnya and crushed the Chechen rebels. He cracked down on all dissent. Television stations, newspapers, radio and the government messages on the Internet, gave out one consistent message: Vladimir Putin is your new president. No criticism is allowed.
Common criminals were thrown in prison. Some dissidents were killed. Oligarchs who defied Putin were imprisoned or fled the country. After 9/11 Putin co-operated with the U.S. and other countries in fighting terror. Yet as Putin cracked down on dissent, tensions rose between the U.S. and Russia.
By 2010 many former satellites of the former U. S.S.R like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland Bulgaria and Romania had joined the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. The United States planted nuclear missiles in many of these former communist countries. Also some former Soviet republics had also signed up into NATO and gratefully accepted nuclear missiles from the U.S.too.
Russia's rulers claimed that these missiles broke a non-nuclear promise made to them by U.S. president George H.W. Bush to Russia in the late 1980"s. Maybe so, but the missiles remained. "They're pointed at Iran," some U.S. officials claimed. Still, this wasn't true. They were aimed at Russia. Then came more problems. And soon the Cold War started up again.
"The Cold War is over," people around the world said in 1991. "And the United States has won the war," Americans chimed in. Yet by 2016 everything had changed. The Cold War was back and once again the U.S. clashed with not the Soviet Union but its biggest republic namely Russia. How had this happened?
It was simple really. The more Russia swing towards the western world and the U.S., the worse things became for the Russian people. Under Boris Yeltsin the head of the Russian Federation the country started to come apart. Massive inflation tore into people's savings and shrunk the savings to nothing. Crime in the streets skyrocketed. Chechens rose in revolt in Chechnya and Russian troops couldn't suppress the uprising.
Oligarchs, many of whom were former communist leaders took over mines, mills and factories and made millions of dollars. Also Yeltsin unleashed soldiers on the elected Russian politicians in the Russian parliament when they defied his will. People in Russia started to get angry. Of course not all people did.
One woman in her thirties named Marina lived in Moscow during this time. She saw no great changes. "There were more people sleeping in the street," this woman said. "There was more crime. But overall I didn't notice much change at all." Other Russians didn't share Marina's view.
In 2000 Vladimir Putin a former KGB or secret police agent took over as president of the Russian Federation. "Putin imposed order," a Ukrainian visitor to Russia and Canada said. "Not law and order. Just order." Putin sent troops back into Chechnya and crushed the Chechen rebels. He cracked down on all dissent. Television stations, newspapers, radio and the government messages on the Internet, gave out one consistent message: Vladimir Putin is your new president. No criticism is allowed.
Common criminals were thrown in prison. Some dissidents were killed. Oligarchs who defied Putin were imprisoned or fled the country. After 9/11 Putin co-operated with the U.S. and other countries in fighting terror. Yet as Putin cracked down on dissent, tensions rose between the U.S. and Russia.
By 2010 many former satellites of the former U. S.S.R like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland Bulgaria and Romania had joined the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. The United States planted nuclear missiles in many of these former communist countries. Also some former Soviet republics had also signed up into NATO and gratefully accepted nuclear missiles from the U.S.too.
Russia's rulers claimed that these missiles broke a non-nuclear promise made to them by U.S. president George H.W. Bush to Russia in the late 1980"s. Maybe so, but the missiles remained. "They're pointed at Iran," some U.S. officials claimed. Still, this wasn't true. They were aimed at Russia. Then came more problems. And soon the Cold War started up again.
Friday 25 November 2016
Before The age of the Donald by Dave Jaffe - Part Nine
Before the Age of the Donald - Part Nine
In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. A communist revolution overthrew the ruler of the country. Yet then the new communist rulers started killing each other. And the vast number of people living in the countryside rose in rebellion against their new rulers based in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul.
"The tribesmen living in Afghanistan outside Kabul," a friend of mine said who visited Afghanistan in the late 1970's, "are really tough people. The Soviets are in for a hell of a fight."
Soon the whole of Afghanistan was a war zone. The U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski saw an opportunity to hurt the Soviet Union. They started to funnel arms and guns into the hands of the rebellious tribesmen.
Yet the Soviet invasion had restarted the Cold War. In the 1980 U.S. presidential election, the long time anti-communist Republican Ronald Reagan beat Carter. Reagan loathed the Soviet Union which he dubbed 'The Evil Empire'. "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev," Reagan said when he visited the famous wall in West Berlin. Here East German police had shot dead hundreds of East German citizens when they tried to jump the wall and get into West Berlin.
Reagan also presided over a massive U.S. arms military buildup. This placed great pressure on the Soviet Union. Yet Mikhail Gorbachev now headed up the Soviet Union and to everyone's surprise he started to dismantle the repressive apparatus of the U.S.S.R. By the late 1980's it seemed that the Soviet Union was transitioning into a real democracy.
Nearly all censorship was scrapped. People spoke out in the media about all the many flaws and faults they were living under. And soon the Eastern European satellites were in revolt. Communist ruled countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and East Germany threw off their communist dictators and Gorbachev let it happen.
"They're doing it their way," a Soviet spokesperson said, echoing Frank Sinatra's famous hit song called 'My Way'. Genuine elections were held in some republics in the U.S.S.R. and Boris Yeltsin took over as head of the republic of Russia in a fair contest. He unleashed a torrent of criticism at Mikhail Gorbachev who didn't respond with violence.
Only in Romania was there real violence. Over 5,000 people died when Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceceascu sent his troops to crush protestors. The crowd then got hold of the dictator and killed him and his wife. Democracy seemed to be flourishing in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Yet this moment of reform didn't last too long. An ugly nationalism started to surface in some of the republics. The food distribution system started to fall apart. And hard line communists were outraged at Gorbachev's liberalism. In 1991 a group of these people launched a coup and tried to restore the old days of top down rule. Boris Yeltsin stood up to their army and the coup failed. Then Yeltsin proclaimed the end of the U.S.S.R.
The Soviet Union now splintered into 15 separate republics with the republic of Russia as the biggest one of them. All these republics became separate countries. The U.S.S.R. and communism were now history. "Socialism is finished," conservatives all over the world said as they rejoiced in the demise of the Soviet Union. And for now they were right.
A few years before this, the Soviet Union withdrew its army from Afghanistan after killing 600,000 people. The Afghani tribes people had helped defeat the Soviet Union and bring it to an end. 1991 was truly an amazing year in the history of the 20th century.
In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. A communist revolution overthrew the ruler of the country. Yet then the new communist rulers started killing each other. And the vast number of people living in the countryside rose in rebellion against their new rulers based in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul.
"The tribesmen living in Afghanistan outside Kabul," a friend of mine said who visited Afghanistan in the late 1970's, "are really tough people. The Soviets are in for a hell of a fight."
Soon the whole of Afghanistan was a war zone. The U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski saw an opportunity to hurt the Soviet Union. They started to funnel arms and guns into the hands of the rebellious tribesmen.
Yet the Soviet invasion had restarted the Cold War. In the 1980 U.S. presidential election, the long time anti-communist Republican Ronald Reagan beat Carter. Reagan loathed the Soviet Union which he dubbed 'The Evil Empire'. "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev," Reagan said when he visited the famous wall in West Berlin. Here East German police had shot dead hundreds of East German citizens when they tried to jump the wall and get into West Berlin.
Reagan also presided over a massive U.S. arms military buildup. This placed great pressure on the Soviet Union. Yet Mikhail Gorbachev now headed up the Soviet Union and to everyone's surprise he started to dismantle the repressive apparatus of the U.S.S.R. By the late 1980's it seemed that the Soviet Union was transitioning into a real democracy.
Nearly all censorship was scrapped. People spoke out in the media about all the many flaws and faults they were living under. And soon the Eastern European satellites were in revolt. Communist ruled countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and East Germany threw off their communist dictators and Gorbachev let it happen.
"They're doing it their way," a Soviet spokesperson said, echoing Frank Sinatra's famous hit song called 'My Way'. Genuine elections were held in some republics in the U.S.S.R. and Boris Yeltsin took over as head of the republic of Russia in a fair contest. He unleashed a torrent of criticism at Mikhail Gorbachev who didn't respond with violence.
Only in Romania was there real violence. Over 5,000 people died when Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceceascu sent his troops to crush protestors. The crowd then got hold of the dictator and killed him and his wife. Democracy seemed to be flourishing in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Yet this moment of reform didn't last too long. An ugly nationalism started to surface in some of the republics. The food distribution system started to fall apart. And hard line communists were outraged at Gorbachev's liberalism. In 1991 a group of these people launched a coup and tried to restore the old days of top down rule. Boris Yeltsin stood up to their army and the coup failed. Then Yeltsin proclaimed the end of the U.S.S.R.
The Soviet Union now splintered into 15 separate republics with the republic of Russia as the biggest one of them. All these republics became separate countries. The U.S.S.R. and communism were now history. "Socialism is finished," conservatives all over the world said as they rejoiced in the demise of the Soviet Union. And for now they were right.
A few years before this, the Soviet Union withdrew its army from Afghanistan after killing 600,000 people. The Afghani tribes people had helped defeat the Soviet Union and bring it to an end. 1991 was truly an amazing year in the history of the 20th century.
Thursday 24 November 2016
Before the Age of the Donald by Dave Jaffe - Part Eight
Before The Age of the Donald by Dave Jaffe continued
World War Two devastated the U.S.S.R. . In 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the U.S.S.R. killing over 20 million Soviet people. The U.S.S.R. survived and played an enormous part in defeating Germany. For a time in World War Two the U.S.S.R. was allied with the United States, Great Britain, China and Canada. In 1944 it pushed the Germans back and its troops entered Eastern Europe.
There's no doubt that the U.S.S.R. and China took the most casualties in the second world war. "You gave us time," Stalin told Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference in 1944. "You gave us money," Stalin said pointing to the U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "And," he said pointing to himself and his advisors, "we gave blood."
Stalin kept power in the U.S.S.R. until his death in 1953. The U.S.S.R. at the time of his death was a ruthless top down communist dictatorship that had killed millions of its own people. Yet at the same time it was now also a world power second only to the United States. The two countries were locked in a world wide struggle for power. This was the Cold War. Never before and never since was the Soviet Union so powerful and so feared.
The downside of being one of Stalin's assistants was well explained by his successor Nikita Khruschev. "You never knew when you went to see Stalin," Khruschev said in effect," whether you'd emerge alive." When Khruschev took power as one of Stalin's successors, he and his associates killed Lavrenti Beria, who had been one of Stalin's most murderous henchmen.
Later Khruschev ousted all of his rivals to emerge as the Soviet union's top leader. Yet Khruschev didn't kill his defeated rivals. In 1956 he addressed a secret communist meeting and denounced Stalin for his crimes. He closed down the terrible gulag prison camps and freed their 3 million prisoners.
Yet there were limits to change in the Soviet Union. The Hungarian Revolution in 1956 was drowned in blood as Soviet troops and their Warsaw Pact allies rolled into Budapest and other Hungarian cities, and crushed the uprising. The U.S. tagged Khruschev with the title, "The Butcher of Budapest."
In 1964 Khruschev himself was removed from power but he wasn't killed. Leonid Brezhnev emerged as the U.S.S.R."s new leader of the Soviet Union. He tightened things up but there was no repeat of Stalin's terror.
Brezhnev cracked down on the 1968 revolt in Czechoslavakia and the emerging dissident movement in the Soviet Union. Yet life in the Soviet Union improved for most people as it did in most of the Soviet-dominated countries in Eastern Europe. Then there was the United States that was the U.S.S.R.'s formidable rival. Despite its war in Vietnam its economy boomed. Thanks to U.S. aid the countries of western Europe and Japan had become prosperous lands.
By this time in the late 1960's the U.S.S.R. faced another formidable foe namely the Mao-ruled Communist country of China. In the late 1960's China and the U.S.S.R. were mortal enemies and nearly went into a full scale war with each other. In Yugoslavia to the U.S.S.R's west , Josip Broz or "Tito" as he was called remained in power. He was a communist who had stood up to Hitler, Stalin and Khruschev. Yet he remained in power. So life in the world of the richer countries kept improving.
But then came Afghanistan.
World War Two devastated the U.S.S.R. . In 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the U.S.S.R. killing over 20 million Soviet people. The U.S.S.R. survived and played an enormous part in defeating Germany. For a time in World War Two the U.S.S.R. was allied with the United States, Great Britain, China and Canada. In 1944 it pushed the Germans back and its troops entered Eastern Europe.
There's no doubt that the U.S.S.R. and China took the most casualties in the second world war. "You gave us time," Stalin told Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference in 1944. "You gave us money," Stalin said pointing to the U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "And," he said pointing to himself and his advisors, "we gave blood."
Stalin kept power in the U.S.S.R. until his death in 1953. The U.S.S.R. at the time of his death was a ruthless top down communist dictatorship that had killed millions of its own people. Yet at the same time it was now also a world power second only to the United States. The two countries were locked in a world wide struggle for power. This was the Cold War. Never before and never since was the Soviet Union so powerful and so feared.
The downside of being one of Stalin's assistants was well explained by his successor Nikita Khruschev. "You never knew when you went to see Stalin," Khruschev said in effect," whether you'd emerge alive." When Khruschev took power as one of Stalin's successors, he and his associates killed Lavrenti Beria, who had been one of Stalin's most murderous henchmen.
Later Khruschev ousted all of his rivals to emerge as the Soviet union's top leader. Yet Khruschev didn't kill his defeated rivals. In 1956 he addressed a secret communist meeting and denounced Stalin for his crimes. He closed down the terrible gulag prison camps and freed their 3 million prisoners.
Yet there were limits to change in the Soviet Union. The Hungarian Revolution in 1956 was drowned in blood as Soviet troops and their Warsaw Pact allies rolled into Budapest and other Hungarian cities, and crushed the uprising. The U.S. tagged Khruschev with the title, "The Butcher of Budapest."
In 1964 Khruschev himself was removed from power but he wasn't killed. Leonid Brezhnev emerged as the U.S.S.R."s new leader of the Soviet Union. He tightened things up but there was no repeat of Stalin's terror.
Brezhnev cracked down on the 1968 revolt in Czechoslavakia and the emerging dissident movement in the Soviet Union. Yet life in the Soviet Union improved for most people as it did in most of the Soviet-dominated countries in Eastern Europe. Then there was the United States that was the U.S.S.R.'s formidable rival. Despite its war in Vietnam its economy boomed. Thanks to U.S. aid the countries of western Europe and Japan had become prosperous lands.
By this time in the late 1960's the U.S.S.R. faced another formidable foe namely the Mao-ruled Communist country of China. In the late 1960's China and the U.S.S.R. were mortal enemies and nearly went into a full scale war with each other. In Yugoslavia to the U.S.S.R's west , Josip Broz or "Tito" as he was called remained in power. He was a communist who had stood up to Hitler, Stalin and Khruschev. Yet he remained in power. So life in the world of the richer countries kept improving.
But then came Afghanistan.
Wednesday 23 November 2016
Before The Age of the Donald - Dave Jaffe by Dave Jaffe
Before the Age of the Donald - Part Seven
"War is the midwife of revolution." the communist leader V.I. Lenin said. In 1904 and 1905 Lenin's statement nearly came true. Japan and Russia went to war. The Japanese inflicted a bloody naval defeat in a great sea battle. Peoples all across the Russian empire rose in revolt. Yet this revolt was crushed.
Then came the First World War. The German army smashed the Russian armed forces in one great land battle. Once again the Russian people rose in revolt. This time they succeeded. The Russian czar stepped down and handed power to a social democrat named Kerensky in 1917. Yet Kerensky insisted on keeping Russia in the war. Life in Russia just got worse. Soldiers deserted the front, peasants revolted in the countryside, and workers in factories formed themselves into soviets.
Then in October 1917 Vladimir Lenin overthrew the elected Constituent Assembly. "We need peace, land and bread," Lenin's Communist Party proclaimed. Yet soon White armies formed to crush the Revolution. Russia descended into civil war. Millions of Russians were killed in the fighting. Meanwhile western troops invaded Russia. "We must strangle this baby in its cradle," Winston Churchill said of the revolution.
The Communists finally defeated their opponents by 1921. Yet Russia, now renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a bleeding waste land. The U.S.S.R. had a problem. It was the only communist country in the world and it was surrounded by hostile nations. How would it survive?
Lenin allowed for some capitalism to flourish with the communist party in control. Yet Lenin's successor Josef Stalin had a more brutal solution. "Socialism in one country," he said. World revolution that could rescue an impoverished U.S.S.R. was off the table for now.
In the late 1920's, Stalin purged his rivals and launched a ruthless program of industrialization. Grain was taken at gun point from Ukrainian peasants to feed city workers. The farmers protested and Stalin had many of them killed. Then his army herded the peasants into collectives and millions of them starved and died. Stalin then launched purge after purge of the U.S.S.R. No group escaped his wrath. "Stalin killed everybody," one British journalist said. Robert Conquest claims that Stalin killed 20 million people. This figure may be too high. Yet other estimates put the number of Stalin's victims at somewhere at between 8 and 11 million people.
Then came another disaster for the U.S.S.R. It was called the Nazi invasion.
"War is the midwife of revolution." the communist leader V.I. Lenin said. In 1904 and 1905 Lenin's statement nearly came true. Japan and Russia went to war. The Japanese inflicted a bloody naval defeat in a great sea battle. Peoples all across the Russian empire rose in revolt. Yet this revolt was crushed.
Then came the First World War. The German army smashed the Russian armed forces in one great land battle. Once again the Russian people rose in revolt. This time they succeeded. The Russian czar stepped down and handed power to a social democrat named Kerensky in 1917. Yet Kerensky insisted on keeping Russia in the war. Life in Russia just got worse. Soldiers deserted the front, peasants revolted in the countryside, and workers in factories formed themselves into soviets.
Then in October 1917 Vladimir Lenin overthrew the elected Constituent Assembly. "We need peace, land and bread," Lenin's Communist Party proclaimed. Yet soon White armies formed to crush the Revolution. Russia descended into civil war. Millions of Russians were killed in the fighting. Meanwhile western troops invaded Russia. "We must strangle this baby in its cradle," Winston Churchill said of the revolution.
The Communists finally defeated their opponents by 1921. Yet Russia, now renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a bleeding waste land. The U.S.S.R. had a problem. It was the only communist country in the world and it was surrounded by hostile nations. How would it survive?
Lenin allowed for some capitalism to flourish with the communist party in control. Yet Lenin's successor Josef Stalin had a more brutal solution. "Socialism in one country," he said. World revolution that could rescue an impoverished U.S.S.R. was off the table for now.
In the late 1920's, Stalin purged his rivals and launched a ruthless program of industrialization. Grain was taken at gun point from Ukrainian peasants to feed city workers. The farmers protested and Stalin had many of them killed. Then his army herded the peasants into collectives and millions of them starved and died. Stalin then launched purge after purge of the U.S.S.R. No group escaped his wrath. "Stalin killed everybody," one British journalist said. Robert Conquest claims that Stalin killed 20 million people. This figure may be too high. Yet other estimates put the number of Stalin's victims at somewhere at between 8 and 11 million people.
Then came another disaster for the U.S.S.R. It was called the Nazi invasion.
Tuesday 22 November 2016
Before the Age of the Donald - by Dave Jaffe: Part Six
Before the Age of the Donald - Part Six
"Russia," Winston Churchill once pointed out, " is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Churchill was talking about the Russian Empire or the U.S.S.R. as it was known under communism.
Yet perhaps Churchill continued, there was a key to understanding Russia. "That key is Russian national interest." Churchill here told the truth. Russia's national interest trumped all of its other concerns. And to survive throughout its long history, Russia was and is ruled by tyrants.
So far this story of the world before the rise of Donald Trump has focused on the United States and some of it bad deeds. Yet Russia's rulers have also done some terrible things. Russia first pops up in the history books in the 9th century as the Kievan Russ. Here in what is now the Ukraine, a Slavic duchy was founded. It soon cleaved to Orthodox Christianity.
For the next 900 years it spread eastward, conquering, absorbing and subduing one ethnic group after another. By the 19th century it had reached the Pacific Ocean. As the U.S. and Canada moved westward, crushing one First Nations group after another, Russian soldiers did the same on the other side of the world.
As a result, Uzbeks, Tartars, Kirghiz, and many other peoples ended up living under the Russian heel. Russia also sometimes moved westward. In the 18th century it sliced off part of Poland too and absorbed many Polish people into the Russian Empire. Yet unlike the U.S. and Canada, Russia never developed into a democracy. The czars ruled Russia with an iron hand and often tyrannized their subjects. Many times their subjects rose in revolt, led by people like Stenka Razin, Bolotnikov and Pugachev. Yet the czars crushed all these uprisings in blood. Czars like Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were not warm and fuzzy rulers. They were tyrants whose word was law.
One exception to these rulers was Alexander the Second who in the 19th century freed the serfs. He did this at about the same time that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln freed the African American slaves. Yet like Lincoln, Alexander received no thanks for this. He was killed just like Lincoln was. Yet his killers unlike the killer of Lincoln, namely John Wilkes Booth, the czar's killers were not pro-serfdom. They belonged to an anarchist terrorist group called the Zemlya Volya, or the People's Will. They wanted a revolution in Russia. They were caught for their crime and then executed. By the end of the 19th century the czars still ruled the roost.
Yet then came the First World War.
"Russia," Winston Churchill once pointed out, " is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Churchill was talking about the Russian Empire or the U.S.S.R. as it was known under communism.
Yet perhaps Churchill continued, there was a key to understanding Russia. "That key is Russian national interest." Churchill here told the truth. Russia's national interest trumped all of its other concerns. And to survive throughout its long history, Russia was and is ruled by tyrants.
So far this story of the world before the rise of Donald Trump has focused on the United States and some of it bad deeds. Yet Russia's rulers have also done some terrible things. Russia first pops up in the history books in the 9th century as the Kievan Russ. Here in what is now the Ukraine, a Slavic duchy was founded. It soon cleaved to Orthodox Christianity.
For the next 900 years it spread eastward, conquering, absorbing and subduing one ethnic group after another. By the 19th century it had reached the Pacific Ocean. As the U.S. and Canada moved westward, crushing one First Nations group after another, Russian soldiers did the same on the other side of the world.
As a result, Uzbeks, Tartars, Kirghiz, and many other peoples ended up living under the Russian heel. Russia also sometimes moved westward. In the 18th century it sliced off part of Poland too and absorbed many Polish people into the Russian Empire. Yet unlike the U.S. and Canada, Russia never developed into a democracy. The czars ruled Russia with an iron hand and often tyrannized their subjects. Many times their subjects rose in revolt, led by people like Stenka Razin, Bolotnikov and Pugachev. Yet the czars crushed all these uprisings in blood. Czars like Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were not warm and fuzzy rulers. They were tyrants whose word was law.
One exception to these rulers was Alexander the Second who in the 19th century freed the serfs. He did this at about the same time that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln freed the African American slaves. Yet like Lincoln, Alexander received no thanks for this. He was killed just like Lincoln was. Yet his killers unlike the killer of Lincoln, namely John Wilkes Booth, the czar's killers were not pro-serfdom. They belonged to an anarchist terrorist group called the Zemlya Volya, or the People's Will. They wanted a revolution in Russia. They were caught for their crime and then executed. By the end of the 19th century the czars still ruled the roost.
Yet then came the First World War.
Monday 21 November 2016
Before the Age of the Donald - by Dave Jaffe: Part Five
Before The Age of the Donald - Part Five
In 2013 the Gross Domestic Product of the United States stood at nearly 17 trillion dollars. Only China's GDP came near to that figure,though to-day in 2016 its economy's size has surpassed that of the U.S.A.'s. With this tremendous economy the U.S. has weighed in heavily on the lives of other countries. It is the controlling power in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As a result when countries fall into economic hard times they have to go to the IMF and the World Bank to rescue their countries. Often the U.S. demands that these countries slash their social programs to pay their debts, and these debtor lands have to do what they're ordered to do. This is yet another way that the U.S. has inflicted pain on poorer lands.
Yet there's not doubt that the U.S. has influenced the world in a positive way too. It was the first country in the world to invent the mass market. To-day hundreds of millions of people in the world, maybe billions, live in an affluence that our great grandfathers and grandmothers could never have imagined. This affluence is due to the United States that showed the way to the rest of the world.
"I'm living in a style that the kings and queens of the past would have envied," a friend of mine said in his later years. My friend lived in a small apartment in Vancouver's West End. Yet he had hot and cold running water, electricity, access to modern medicare and modern ways of travel. He had visited many countries, and ate meals that were nourishing and tasty. In nearly all the western countries of the world most people live as he does and the U.S. did help make this happen.
The U.S.,as president Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed years ago, has another advantage on the rest of the world: It invented mass culture. When the late Gore Vidal was asked why he called his one of his novels 'Hollywood', he replied, "Because that's all that America will be remembered for." True or not, the American film industry that's based in Los Angeles has been turning out films for close to a century. And when television came of age in the late 1940's millions of Americans along with many other people were soon watching American t.v. programs.
The United States also invented jazz and then rock'n roll now called 'rock music'. During the Cold War the U.S. government subsidized modern art that many people in communist countries and capitalist ones found hard to understand. Yet Eastern European and Soviet youth didn't want to look at abstract expressionist paintings. They wanted to listen and dance to rock music. Back in the Cold War days they couldn't do this. Now they can. In fact American mass culture to-day rules the world. It is another weapon in the arsenal of the U.S. of A. and gives it another immense advantage over rival countries.
So like billions of people worldwide I have been heavily influenced by the U.S. of A. I don't hate America as that woman that I mentioned at the beginning of this piece claimed. I just wish it would be more progressive in its politics.
In 2013 the Gross Domestic Product of the United States stood at nearly 17 trillion dollars. Only China's GDP came near to that figure,though to-day in 2016 its economy's size has surpassed that of the U.S.A.'s. With this tremendous economy the U.S. has weighed in heavily on the lives of other countries. It is the controlling power in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As a result when countries fall into economic hard times they have to go to the IMF and the World Bank to rescue their countries. Often the U.S. demands that these countries slash their social programs to pay their debts, and these debtor lands have to do what they're ordered to do. This is yet another way that the U.S. has inflicted pain on poorer lands.
Yet there's not doubt that the U.S. has influenced the world in a positive way too. It was the first country in the world to invent the mass market. To-day hundreds of millions of people in the world, maybe billions, live in an affluence that our great grandfathers and grandmothers could never have imagined. This affluence is due to the United States that showed the way to the rest of the world.
"I'm living in a style that the kings and queens of the past would have envied," a friend of mine said in his later years. My friend lived in a small apartment in Vancouver's West End. Yet he had hot and cold running water, electricity, access to modern medicare and modern ways of travel. He had visited many countries, and ate meals that were nourishing and tasty. In nearly all the western countries of the world most people live as he does and the U.S. did help make this happen.
The U.S.,as president Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed years ago, has another advantage on the rest of the world: It invented mass culture. When the late Gore Vidal was asked why he called his one of his novels 'Hollywood', he replied, "Because that's all that America will be remembered for." True or not, the American film industry that's based in Los Angeles has been turning out films for close to a century. And when television came of age in the late 1940's millions of Americans along with many other people were soon watching American t.v. programs.
The United States also invented jazz and then rock'n roll now called 'rock music'. During the Cold War the U.S. government subsidized modern art that many people in communist countries and capitalist ones found hard to understand. Yet Eastern European and Soviet youth didn't want to look at abstract expressionist paintings. They wanted to listen and dance to rock music. Back in the Cold War days they couldn't do this. Now they can. In fact American mass culture to-day rules the world. It is another weapon in the arsenal of the U.S. of A. and gives it another immense advantage over rival countries.
So like billions of people worldwide I have been heavily influenced by the U.S. of A. I don't hate America as that woman that I mentioned at the beginning of this piece claimed. I just wish it would be more progressive in its politics.
Friday 18 November 2016
Before The Age of the Donald - Part Four: by Dave Jaffe
Part Four of Before the Age of the Donald by Dave Jaffe
There's a brighter side to the United States and that's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. There's the economy of the U.S. of A. and it has turned America into the most powerful nation on earth.
America's economy is still moving ahead despite the fact that China's G.N.P. now surpasses that of the U.S. of A.'s. Now some big businesses for instance may be going down the tubes.Yet older more traditional firms like General Electric, General Motors and the Ford Motor Company are still raking in the profits.
In the late 20th century and the early 21st century, a host of new firms based on the new information technology have soared above the economic horizon. Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and other firms have changed the face of the economy and the world. Unbounded by feudal or socialist restraints, American entrepreneurs have always been on the cutting edge of technology. They still are. And the CEO's of these new firms and older ones have become billionaires. Their super wealth has sometimes helped other Americans become modestly rich too.
America invented the mass market and many people appreciate this. "I'm going to the States this afternoon," one of my neighbours told me recently. "I'm going on a shopping spree." This man and his wife aren't alone. Every weekend thousands of Canadians wait in endless car lines to then pour into border towns like Blaine in Washington State. There they load up on food, gas and even clothes.
"Even with the lower Canadian dollar, I'll still save money on gas," my neighbour tells. me. The U.S. market still delivers many bargains. Two women I know go farther afield to seek out American bargains. Every few months they fly into San Francisco to buy clothes in the huge Bay Area malls. "The Americans have clothes that are awesome," one of the woman tells me.
Of course in recent years, the American economy hasn't been a bonus for many Americans. Wages and salaries for most people have remained flat for the past thirty years. One study showed that in recent years, two groups have gained in the world economy. That's the middle and rich groups in East Asia and the richest one per cent in the U.S. of A,. and around the world. The rest of the world hasn't seen many gains at all.
Yet America's economy still keeps it immensely powerful.
There's a brighter side to the United States and that's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. There's the economy of the U.S. of A. and it has turned America into the most powerful nation on earth.
America's economy is still moving ahead despite the fact that China's G.N.P. now surpasses that of the U.S. of A.'s. Now some big businesses for instance may be going down the tubes.Yet older more traditional firms like General Electric, General Motors and the Ford Motor Company are still raking in the profits.
In the late 20th century and the early 21st century, a host of new firms based on the new information technology have soared above the economic horizon. Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and other firms have changed the face of the economy and the world. Unbounded by feudal or socialist restraints, American entrepreneurs have always been on the cutting edge of technology. They still are. And the CEO's of these new firms and older ones have become billionaires. Their super wealth has sometimes helped other Americans become modestly rich too.
America invented the mass market and many people appreciate this. "I'm going to the States this afternoon," one of my neighbours told me recently. "I'm going on a shopping spree." This man and his wife aren't alone. Every weekend thousands of Canadians wait in endless car lines to then pour into border towns like Blaine in Washington State. There they load up on food, gas and even clothes.
"Even with the lower Canadian dollar, I'll still save money on gas," my neighbour tells. me. The U.S. market still delivers many bargains. Two women I know go farther afield to seek out American bargains. Every few months they fly into San Francisco to buy clothes in the huge Bay Area malls. "The Americans have clothes that are awesome," one of the woman tells me.
Of course in recent years, the American economy hasn't been a bonus for many Americans. Wages and salaries for most people have remained flat for the past thirty years. One study showed that in recent years, two groups have gained in the world economy. That's the middle and rich groups in East Asia and the richest one per cent in the U.S. of A,. and around the world. The rest of the world hasn't seen many gains at all.
Yet America's economy still keeps it immensely powerful.
Thursday 17 November 2016
Before the Age of the Donald by Dave Jaffe - Part Three
Before the Age of the Donald - Part Three
One of my blogs on poetry horrified a woman who read it. "You're so full of hate and anger," she told me. "You're so anti-American. Just stay away from me." I never did speak to that woman again. But I get her point. My writings on the U.S.A. scared her as they scared a landlord I knew who read my writings.
Now so far this story on the U.S. of A. has trashed this country of 300 million people. Yet to be fair to America part of its problems come from the fact that it's a great power. Many of the Americans like the ones who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, think that their country's declining in power. In fact it remains the most powerful nation in the world.
There's three or four reasons for this. First off, America's military power is still awesome to behold. It has 1.3 million people in its armed forces and spends about $650 billion (U.S.) every year on its military and weapons. The U.S. also has 750 military bases around the world and has at least 46 counterintelligence agencies. As a result of these and other government agencies, U.S. leaders often know more about certain countries than those countries' own leaders know.
America's violence at home and overseas has sometimes been exaggerated. Yet this streak of violence does exist. And it was there right from the county's beginnings. The South African writer Ronald Segal claimed that America was born in violence. Here, Segal was referring to the American Revolution of 1776 to 1783 that threw out the Americans' British overlords and set up a new country. "America," said the late American activist Tom Hayden, "was born out of a genocidal impulse." Hayden was referring to the fate of the First Nations of the U.S.A. White people slaughtered indigenous people by the tens of thousands as the white people moved across the continent.
So the U.S. like other great powers often uses war to get its way. To-day U.S. forces are fighting, killing and dying in Iraq and Syria. If you have what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called ' a military industrial complex' you tend to use it and America surely has done that. America's armed forces have laid waste to many lands and this makes the country still the most powerful nation in the world. In the last ten years of more, it has killed Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Libya's Moammar Gaddafi. All of these men were hostile to the U.S. of A. and now they're all gone.The U.S. military machine wiped them out.
Their fate tells the world a message. "Don't mess with the U.S.A.," it says. "Or you'll pay a price." The American war machine still makes it a very powerful nation.
One of my blogs on poetry horrified a woman who read it. "You're so full of hate and anger," she told me. "You're so anti-American. Just stay away from me." I never did speak to that woman again. But I get her point. My writings on the U.S.A. scared her as they scared a landlord I knew who read my writings.
Now so far this story on the U.S. of A. has trashed this country of 300 million people. Yet to be fair to America part of its problems come from the fact that it's a great power. Many of the Americans like the ones who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, think that their country's declining in power. In fact it remains the most powerful nation in the world.
There's three or four reasons for this. First off, America's military power is still awesome to behold. It has 1.3 million people in its armed forces and spends about $650 billion (U.S.) every year on its military and weapons. The U.S. also has 750 military bases around the world and has at least 46 counterintelligence agencies. As a result of these and other government agencies, U.S. leaders often know more about certain countries than those countries' own leaders know.
America's violence at home and overseas has sometimes been exaggerated. Yet this streak of violence does exist. And it was there right from the county's beginnings. The South African writer Ronald Segal claimed that America was born in violence. Here, Segal was referring to the American Revolution of 1776 to 1783 that threw out the Americans' British overlords and set up a new country. "America," said the late American activist Tom Hayden, "was born out of a genocidal impulse." Hayden was referring to the fate of the First Nations of the U.S.A. White people slaughtered indigenous people by the tens of thousands as the white people moved across the continent.
So the U.S. like other great powers often uses war to get its way. To-day U.S. forces are fighting, killing and dying in Iraq and Syria. If you have what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called ' a military industrial complex' you tend to use it and America surely has done that. America's armed forces have laid waste to many lands and this makes the country still the most powerful nation in the world. In the last ten years of more, it has killed Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Libya's Moammar Gaddafi. All of these men were hostile to the U.S. of A. and now they're all gone.The U.S. military machine wiped them out.
Their fate tells the world a message. "Don't mess with the U.S.A.," it says. "Or you'll pay a price." The American war machine still makes it a very powerful nation.
Tuesday 15 November 2016
Before The Age of Donald - Part Two by Dave Jaffe
Before The Age of Donald - Part Two by Dave Jaffe
What took place in Brazil in the last 50 years wasn't an aberration. It's part and parcel of U.S. foreign policy. Wherever the United States goes in the world its government works to overthrow or undermine all left wing governments and even slightly left tilting leaders.
Republican and Democratic governments alike often conspire to overthrow leaders who don't respect U.S. governments or American owned businesses.. If elected governments often financed by the United States, can do the job, so much the better for America. Yet if that doesn't work, the U.S. will push for the military in most countries to do the dirty deed. And if the country's military aren't up to doing the work, then U.S. armed forces will invade a country and kill many people.
"The destruction was mutual," former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said about the U.S. backed war in Vietnam and later in Indochina. Yet here Carter wasn't telling the truth. The U.S. lost close to 60,000 troops in this terrible war. Over 180,000 Americans in uniform were wounded there. These are huge casualties by any measure and even at the time I lamented these terrible statistics.
Yet the U.S. forces in Indochina killed close to 50 times as many people. Between 1954 and 1975 the U.S. armed forces killed over 2 million Vietnamese, 650,000 Cambodians, and 300,000 Laotians. To-day nobody I know of talks about this. When U.S. president Barack Obama visited Laos, he didn't even apologize for the U.S. war in Laos that killed one tenth of the Laotian people.
The communists in Cambodia, known now as the Khmer Rouge, took power in 1975. They then killed over one and a half million people. This was genocide and was a terrible act. Everybody or at least many people know about this., for the media publicize this fact again and again. Yet very few media outlets mention the U.S. killings in Cambodia or in Vietnam or Laos.
From 1954 to the present day, the United States government helped overthrow leaders in the following countries: Cambodia, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Grenada, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Bolivia (twice), Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil and the Congo. These are the ones I remember or found through my own research and the work of others. Yet there may have been other places that I haven't mentioned.
Once in power many of the leaders of the countries mentioned above, plundered their countries's treasuries, tortured and/or murdered left wing people, crushed all unions and throttled all democratic movements. They also opened their country's borders to unrestricted U.S. investment.
"They want we've got," U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson told American troops at the height of the Vietnam War. "And they're not going to get it." Whatever President Donald Trump does to some of his citizens it will have been done before by many governments who owe their rule to U.S.- backed money and power. I truly hope it won't be as bad.
What took place in Brazil in the last 50 years wasn't an aberration. It's part and parcel of U.S. foreign policy. Wherever the United States goes in the world its government works to overthrow or undermine all left wing governments and even slightly left tilting leaders.
Republican and Democratic governments alike often conspire to overthrow leaders who don't respect U.S. governments or American owned businesses.. If elected governments often financed by the United States, can do the job, so much the better for America. Yet if that doesn't work, the U.S. will push for the military in most countries to do the dirty deed. And if the country's military aren't up to doing the work, then U.S. armed forces will invade a country and kill many people.
"The destruction was mutual," former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said about the U.S. backed war in Vietnam and later in Indochina. Yet here Carter wasn't telling the truth. The U.S. lost close to 60,000 troops in this terrible war. Over 180,000 Americans in uniform were wounded there. These are huge casualties by any measure and even at the time I lamented these terrible statistics.
Yet the U.S. forces in Indochina killed close to 50 times as many people. Between 1954 and 1975 the U.S. armed forces killed over 2 million Vietnamese, 650,000 Cambodians, and 300,000 Laotians. To-day nobody I know of talks about this. When U.S. president Barack Obama visited Laos, he didn't even apologize for the U.S. war in Laos that killed one tenth of the Laotian people.
The communists in Cambodia, known now as the Khmer Rouge, took power in 1975. They then killed over one and a half million people. This was genocide and was a terrible act. Everybody or at least many people know about this., for the media publicize this fact again and again. Yet very few media outlets mention the U.S. killings in Cambodia or in Vietnam or Laos.
From 1954 to the present day, the United States government helped overthrow leaders in the following countries: Cambodia, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Grenada, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Bolivia (twice), Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil and the Congo. These are the ones I remember or found through my own research and the work of others. Yet there may have been other places that I haven't mentioned.
Once in power many of the leaders of the countries mentioned above, plundered their countries's treasuries, tortured and/or murdered left wing people, crushed all unions and throttled all democratic movements. They also opened their country's borders to unrestricted U.S. investment.
"They want we've got," U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson told American troops at the height of the Vietnam War. "And they're not going to get it." Whatever President Donald Trump does to some of his citizens it will have been done before by many governments who owe their rule to U.S.- backed money and power. I truly hope it won't be as bad.
Monday 14 November 2016
The Age of the Donald - Part One by Dave Jaffe
Part One by Dave Jaffe
During the just recent 2016 U.S. presidential campaign a friend of mine looked south and said, "If Donald Trump wins the election, the United States will get a government like the ones they've imposed on many other countries."
My friend may be right or wrong. Yet on November the 8th, 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump led the Republican Party to victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many Americans are already started protesting about a Trump presidency. Still, hundreds of millions of people around the world live or survive under terrible governments that would never have taken power if the U.S. government hadn't helped these rulers take control of their country. And sadly enough most Americans don't even care or know about what harm their powerful country has done to so much of sthe world.
Take Brazil for instance which is the biggest country in South America. In 1964 a group of Brazilian generals overthrew a democratically elected government in this Portuguese speaking country. For the next 20 years or so they ruled the men and women of Brazil with an iron hand.
They slashed social programs to the bone, crushed strikes, throttled all democratic movements, and handed large parts of the country's resources over to big businesses many of whom were American-owned. The United States government back in Washington, D.D. helped the generals come to power. The American government had already set up the infamous School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia where Latin American generals were taught how to seize power and also inflict torture on political prisoners.
In turn, the Brazilian generals helped the U.S. government overthrow mildly leftist and straight socialist governments all across Latin America in the 1970's. At last due to the struggles of unionized workers and union leaders like the famous Lula, democracy returned to Brazil and then later to the rest of the continent.
Yet when Lula led his Workers Party to power in a democratic election in the 21st century, then U.S. president George W. Bush didn't like this result at all. And for the last five years at least, the U.S. government has openly plotted against Lula's successor., Dina Roussief. At last in 2016, Roussief was removed from power by the Brazilian legislature. Now Brazil is run by elected conservatives who want to put Roussief in prison.
"This is a constitutional coup," one Brazilian legislator said. And there's no doubt that the C.I.A.
and the National Endowment for Democracy helped the Brazilian right wing take power.
During the just recent 2016 U.S. presidential campaign a friend of mine looked south and said, "If Donald Trump wins the election, the United States will get a government like the ones they've imposed on many other countries."
My friend may be right or wrong. Yet on November the 8th, 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump led the Republican Party to victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many Americans are already started protesting about a Trump presidency. Still, hundreds of millions of people around the world live or survive under terrible governments that would never have taken power if the U.S. government hadn't helped these rulers take control of their country. And sadly enough most Americans don't even care or know about what harm their powerful country has done to so much of sthe world.
Take Brazil for instance which is the biggest country in South America. In 1964 a group of Brazilian generals overthrew a democratically elected government in this Portuguese speaking country. For the next 20 years or so they ruled the men and women of Brazil with an iron hand.
They slashed social programs to the bone, crushed strikes, throttled all democratic movements, and handed large parts of the country's resources over to big businesses many of whom were American-owned. The United States government back in Washington, D.D. helped the generals come to power. The American government had already set up the infamous School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia where Latin American generals were taught how to seize power and also inflict torture on political prisoners.
In turn, the Brazilian generals helped the U.S. government overthrow mildly leftist and straight socialist governments all across Latin America in the 1970's. At last due to the struggles of unionized workers and union leaders like the famous Lula, democracy returned to Brazil and then later to the rest of the continent.
Yet when Lula led his Workers Party to power in a democratic election in the 21st century, then U.S. president George W. Bush didn't like this result at all. And for the last five years at least, the U.S. government has openly plotted against Lula's successor., Dina Roussief. At last in 2016, Roussief was removed from power by the Brazilian legislature. Now Brazil is run by elected conservatives who want to put Roussief in prison.
"This is a constitutional coup," one Brazilian legislator said. And there's no doubt that the C.I.A.
and the National Endowment for Democracy helped the Brazilian right wing take power.
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