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.
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