Posts Tagged ‘MITT ROMNEY’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Social commentary on November 22, 2024 at 12:11 am
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 plunged the American Right into a depression.
Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just didn’t prove as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
Then fate intervened.
The torch had barely gone out at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Ukraine vs. Russia
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And that didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”—Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for its reestablishment. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards European institutions—especially NATO.
So it was almost a certainty that Putin would retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he began moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea. Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimean peninsula and backed separatists who captured large swathes of eastern Ukraine.
On December 3, 2021, the Washington Post reported: “The Kremlin is planning a multi-front offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops” against Ukraine.
And where there is activity by Russians, American Rightists are eager to turn such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR): ”It is a result of a year of Joe Biden’s impotence and incompetence towards Russia in particular and in foreign policy more generally.”
Cotton had vigorously defended President Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the face of Russian aggression.
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine.
Then, on July 25, Trump telephoned Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the military aid.
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest—and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no legitimacy except the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Latin and Central America
Similarly, the Soviet Union forced many nations—such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion—as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans—who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens—want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine—even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2024 at 12:09 am
After taking office as President on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump continued to hurl threats of violence against those he hates.
“Trump’s language of violence started with immigrants when he launched his presidential campaign in 2015,” wrote Washington Post Reporter Eugene Scott. “There is a direct line from his language to real violence against immigrants and other innocent Americans caught in the maniacal mass shootings of the past year.
“And this cancer is spreading: to Congress, to the media, to the intelligence community, to foreign allies. There is no end in sight as Trump becomes increasingly unhinged and the GOP remains frozen in abject silence.”
On October 2, 2019, Journalist Nina Burleigh wrote: “Since 2015, TV-watching Americans have been subject to the deimatic spectacle of more than 400 rallies (at least 80 since his election) in which Trump sometimes openly and more often coyly urged supporters to violence. These spectacles have conditioned many Americans to fear him and his more enthusiastic supporters.”
Supporters giving the “Seig Heil” salute to Donald Trump
“Over the last few days, the President’s rhetoric of violence and hate has spread,” stated an October 3, 2019 press release by America’s Voice, a liberal immigration group.
“As Jamelle Bouie noted yesterday, ‘Over the weekend, in a rage over impeachment, President Trump accused Representative Adam Schiff of ‘treason,’ promised ‘Big Consequences’ for the whistle-blower who sounded the alarm about his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and shared a warning — from a Baptist pastor in Dallas — that impeachment ‘will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.’”
Trump’s opponents have good reason to fear. And not simply the public demonstrations by the President’s fanatical base. They should fear the secret fantasies of the Right.
Those secret fantasies have been revealed in a series of Right-wing videos featuring graphic acts of violence against those whom the Right—and Trump—hate.
From October 10 to 12, 2019, attendees of the American Priority Conference at the Trump National Doral Miami resort enjoyed many of those videos.
One of these, “The Trumpsman,” featured a digitized Trump shooting, stabbing and setting fire to such liberals—and even conservatives—as:
- Former President Bill Clinton
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
- Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
- Former President Barack Obama
- Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders
- Utah Senator Mitt Romney
- The late Arizona Senator John McCain
And legitimate news media—such as CBS, BBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post—were also depicted as among Trump’s victims.
The video was produced by Rightists who believed it reflected what Donald Trump would do to his enemies if only he could get away with it. And given his near-constant calls for violence against his critics, they were absolutely correct.
But the video’s critics were wrong to call for its suppression.
On the contrary—it should have bene widely seen for what it was: The Mein Kampf of Donald Trump and his fanatical followers, in and outside the Republican party.
Like Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, it depicted the future America can expect if the Right gains the power to live out its murderous fantasies. And the fantasy Right-wingers prize most: The brutal extermination of everyone who refuses to submit to their Fascistic tyranny.
“The Trumpsman” is part of a growing genre of pro-Trump memes that routinely earn thousands of views on sites like YouTube and Twitter. Many superimpose the faces of Trump and his chief supporters slaughtering Democrats, liberal celebrities and/or members of the media.
The event’s organizer, Alex Phillips, hurriedly claimed that the “unauthorized video” was shown “in a side room” at the American Priority Conference.
But there was an upside to this exercise in Right-wing porn. Democrats could have run TV ads showing limited clips from “The Trumpsman” video.
Unfortunately, the majority of Democrats lack the courage to attack their Right-wing enemies with the same ruthlessness used against them. That’s why they lost most Presidential elections of the 20th century.
Americans should be constantly warned: These videos were not made by liberals to parody the values and goals of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.
These videos were made by Right-wingers—and reflect the true values and intentions of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.
The boiler-plate rhetoric that gushes out of Republican conventions—about love of family, God and flag—is the public mask of the Right.
The videos that depict Right-wingers ruthlessly slaughtering anyone who dares to disagree with them reflect the real face of the Right.
Of course, most Americans never imagined that a President would:
- Refuse to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election;
- Spend four years lying that he had lost through massive voter fraud;
- Incite a mob to attack Congress while it counted Electoral College votes—which he knew proved he had lost in 2020.
Trump’s opponents should stop deluding themselves that: “Surely he’ll never do that.”
Whatever they fear he will do, he will do.
Like all predators, he will stop only when he meets a stronger opponent.
Germans—and the rest of the world—learned that about Adolf Hitler. But only when it was too late.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 31, 2024 at 12:14 am
On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.
About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.
Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.
Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.
At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Of this he served only nine months before being released.
Hitler used his time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria, to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf–—“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—for a revitalized Germany and the conquest of other nations.
Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924
Published in 1925, it was long ignored by all but the most fanatical Nazis. But as Hitler gained increasing numbers of votes in a series of elections, many people—inside and outside Germany—began paying attention to its contents.
By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages.
Most of those who bought the book never read it. Its style was bombastic, repetitious and illogical. The first edition contained grammatical errors, reflecting a self-educated man.
Few who read it took Hitler’s intentions seriously. Comedians portrayed him as a wildly gesturing crank who screamed constantly.
Hitler made no effort to hide his program for Germany under his rule. His candor led many people to believe he was a lunatic who could be safely ignored.
He was especially insistent on the need for eliminating world Jewry and conquering the Soviet Union.
On the former topic he wrote: “The nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated.
“If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.”
A mere 17 years later, Hitler’s “Thousand-Year Reich” would translate those words into horrific action in a series of extermination camps equipped with gas chambers.
Hitler was equally insistent that Germany needed to find Lebensraum—“Living space”-–in the east. And by “east” he meant “Russia.”
Specifically: “And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago.
“We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future.
“If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.”
Hitler finally attained power on January 30, 1933. He realized that Germany was not yet strong enough to impose its will on other nations. So he set out on a secret crash program to make Germany the strongest military power in Europe.
In 1936, he set out on his “mission of Providence”:
- March, 1936: Ordering German troops to reoccupy the demilitarised zone between France and Germany (the Rhineland), in violation of the Versailles Treaty, which ended World War 1.
- July, 1936: Sending troops to Spain to support the Fascist army of General Francisco Franco.
- March 12, 1938: Occupying Austria and “unifying” it with Germany (the “Anschluss“).
- September 29, 1938: Bullying British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain into surrendering Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland districts to Germany.
- September 1, 1939: Ordering the invasion of Poland, which unintentionally launched World War II.
- June 22, 1941: Ordering the invasion of the Soviet Union.
- 1941: Secretly ordering “the Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” resulting in the extermination of at least six million Jews.
Only after Hitler set out to conquer, first Europe, then the Soviet Union, did his victims and intended victims realize that Mein Kampf had given them a deadly warning. A warning too many of them had refused to heed.
By the time World War II ended:
- Fifty million men, women and children were died—most of them dying in agony.
- The Soviet Union, having crushed Nazi Germany, become a world power.
- Poland and eastern Europe—once captives of Nazi Germany—now found themselves captives of the Soviet Union.
- The United States, untouched by the war, emerged as the world’s superpower—and the only country strong enough to contain the Soviet Union.
But Adolf Hitler isn’t the only would-be dictator to give ample warning of his murderous intentions.
And, like most Germans in the Weimar Republic, which preceded Nazi Germany, most Americans refuse to take that warning seriously.
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In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2024 at 12:59 am
On November 13, 2012, Dave, a conservative friend of mine who reads my blog, sent this email to a friend:
Warren,
This is the propaganda blog editor friend of mine in San Francisco that I talked about during my presentation last Thursday evening at the Opera House.
As you can see, he is a typical unbiased uournalist…. As I said, I love the guy dearly and truly have the utmost respect for his ability and intellect (although it’s sometimes pointed). Nonetheless, I thought you and others would get a kick out of this blog.I would suggest that you log onto his site and read some of his other postings. You will then see why I am such an admirer….
* * * * *
Thus, here is my philosophy as a blogger for those of you who read my blog.
Many years ago I worked as an investigative reporter, covering local police and courts for a small Utah newspaper
As a reporter, I adhered strictly to a policy of objectivity: Reporting only what I knew to be true. And in crime-related stories, reporting only what I knew I could legally prove to be true.
For example: You might feel absolutely certain that So-and-So committed a crime. But to avoid libel suits, you had better have the proof in legal documents. And if you can find sources who are willing to back up those legal documents, so much the better.
Another thing: As a straight journalist, you have no right to inject your opinion into anything you write.
So if you write a story about a mayor or councilman you know is corrupt, you don’t have the right to add: “This guy needs to be tossed out of office and indicted.”
If a prosecutor says that, quote him. But your opinion doesn’t matter.
As a blogger I editorialize by pointing out what these facts mean (at least to me) and offering, when possible, a proposed solution to problems.
Take my column about Right-wing columnist Ann Coulter.
On November 13, 2012, I posted a column entitled, “Tears for the Miss America Nazi.”
Coulter had been outraged that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had not deprived Barack Obama of a second term as President.
First, I laid out her recent, public weeping over the re-election of President Obama. Then I quoted comedian Bill Maher and political commentator Chris Matthews on their reactions to Coulter’s comment that “There is no hope.”
Ann Coulter
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
So far, I had adhered to journalistic principles of fairness and objectivity—the who, what, when, where, how and why of journalism.
Only in the last six paragraphs of my column did I venture an opinion.
First, I laid out the historical precedent for what I intended to recommend. When her Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide, Magda Goebbels murdered her six children. Then she and her husband, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, killed themselves.
Magda and Joseph Goebbels and their children
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-086-03 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Then I offered the depressed Coulter an option she might not have considered: She could follow the example of Magda (minus the husband and children that Magda had and Coulter lacked).
Not that I expected her to do so.
Frankly, I didn’t consider Ann Coulter a legitimate journalist. She and Rush Limbaugh were the ultimate propaganda icons for the Republican party. They made a career out of attacking the integrity and patriotism of anyone who dared to disagree with them.
For example: Take Coulter’s book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.
One of her heroes is Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who unleashed a wave of hysteria across America with his slanderous accusations of massive Communist infiltration of the Federal Government.
Joseph McCarthy
Coulter maintains that McCarthy was a true patriot, and that he—not his victims—was the true victim of history.
This is on a par with rewriting history as the son of Laventi Beria, Joseph Stalin’s infamous secret police chief, has attempted. He insists that his father was a good man who was forced by Stalin to do bad things.
Jesus was right: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I hugely admire those who seek out the truth and speak it forcefully, without fear or favor.
And I despise those who ride to fame, power or wealth on a carpet of lies and evasions. Although I have written heavily about the infamies of the Right, I realize there is plenty of stupidity, arrogance and criminality on the Left.
I don’t believe that any person, agency, political party or corporation has a monopoly on virtue, intelligence or judgment. On the contrary: Members of agencies, political parties and corporations should be held to the highest level of scrutiny. This is especially true when those institutions hold vast power over the lives of ordinary citizens.
Throughout the last half-century Republicans have dominated American politics—and the lives of Americans. Thus I have written far more about their all-consuming lust for absolute power than I have on the usually secondary role played by Democrats.
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In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 22, 2024 at 12:49 am
History seems to have repeated itself.
On October 12, hundreds of Donald Trump followers were left stranded in the California desert after a rally in the Coachella Valley.
Despite the intense heat that soared to over 100 degrees, thousands of passionate Trump supporters braved the elements to hear the former President speak. During the rally, some supporters reportedly collapsed because of the stifling heat.
Prior to the event, buses were provided to transport supporters to the rally location. Trump loves to brag about the size of his rallies, so no effort was spared to bus them into Calhoun Ranch, which was situated about five miles from where they had parked their vehicles.
He spoke for almost 90 minutes, then left the stage at about 7 p.m.
Donald Trump
That was when chaos erupted.
Instead of being shuttled away from the venue, many Stormtrumpers were left stranded in 93 degree heat. No buses showed up to return them to their cars, which were miles away. This left many attendees scrambling to find their way home.
“Apparently the buses are no longer coming,” one Stormtrumper posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, more than three hours after the rally.
“There used to be like 20 buses when we were being brought here, but now there’s only like three buses operating. It’s just chaos, absolute chaos. All of us are stranded here, everyone is stranded here.”
Two hours after the rally, another Stormtrumper railed on X: “Parking lot is a two-hour walk. Countless elderly stranded here and can’t walk anymore. No restroom facilities accessible anymore. Something nefarious went down tonight to spark a riot.”
He claimed that a bus driver had told attendees that “ALL of the fuel stations for BUSES (not cars) were completely depleted,” which meant some of the bus drivers were stranded without gas.
“There were apparently 60 buses employed for this event,” he added, “and the fuel reserves were completely depleted or never refilled before the event. Smells like sabotage!”
A Trump campaign bus
In fact, the only villain at work lay in Trump’s complete indifference to his supporters after they filled seats for TV cameras at the rally.
“Thousands of people were stranded after the Trump rally in Coachella on Saturday night. The Trump campaign provided buses to bring people to the rally but no busses showed up to take them back to their cars,” Republicans Against Trump posted. “Trump doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
A similar “Screw your followers” event had occurred almost 12 years earlier, on November 6, 2012.
President Barack Obama soundly defeated Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney and won a second term in the White House.
Then—according to NBC reporter Garrett Haake:
“From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.
“Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.”
The Romney campaign—having no more use for its loyal staffers—had given them the heave-ho.
More than 2,000 years ago, the ancient historian, Plutarch, in his biography of Alexander the Great, made this timeless observation about human character: “And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
“Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.”
Clearly, sometime before Election Night, arrangements had been made to cancel those credit cards. And why not? Whether he entered the White House or returned home, those who had sacrificed so much of their time and energy would now be completely useless to Romney.
Romney was not only rich (with an estimated fortune of at least $250 million) he had made it clear that the rich were the only group he truly cared about. This was, after all, the candidate who made statements like:
- “I have friends who are owners of NASCAR Teams.”
- “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs.”
- “Corporations are people, my friend.”
- “Forty-seven percent are dependent upon government.”
- “I like being able to fire people.”
So when the curtain finally dropped on Romney’s six-year quest to become Plutocrat-in-Chief, there was no reason for him to do anything but exit quickly and let his loyal followers fend for themselves.
In giving his concession speech, Romney paid tribute to those who had sacrificed so much on his behalf:
“To the team across the country—the volunteers, the fundraisers, the donors, the surrogates—I don’t believe that there’s ever been an effort in our party that can compare with what you have done over these past years. Thank you so very much.”
For Mitt Romney it was Exit, Stage Right (there is no Stage Left for a Right-wing Republican) and time to let his followers fend for themselves.
Twelve years later, Donald Trump would reach the same conclusion.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 7, 2024 at 12:20 am
March 6, 2024, marked the 188th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, a crumbling former Spanish mission in the heart of San Antonio, Texas.
It’s been the subject of novels, movies, biographies, histories and TV dramas (most notably Walt Disney’s 1955 “Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier”).
Perhaps the most extraordinary scene in any Alamo movie or book occurs in the 1993 novel, Crockett of Tennessee, by Cameron Judd.
And it is no less affecting for its being—so far as we know—entirely fictional.
The Alamo
It’s March 5, 1836—the last night of life for the Alamo garrison. The next morning, 2,000 men of the Mexican Army will hurl themselves at the former mission and slaughter its 200 “Texian” defenders.
The fort’s commander, William Barrett Travis, has drawn his “line in the sand” and invited the garrison to choose: To surrender, to try to escape, or to stay and fight to the death.
And the garrison—except for one man—chooses to stay and fight.
For the garrison, immortality lies only hours away. Or does it?
An hour after deciding to stand and die in the Alamo, wrapped in the gloom of night, David Crockett is seized with paralyzing fear.
“We’re going to die here,” he chokes out to his longtime friend, Persius Tarr. “You understand that, Persius? We’re going to die!” 
“I know, Davy. But there ain’t no news in that,” says Tarr. “We’re born to die. Every one of us. Only difference between us and most everybody else is we know when and where it’s going to be.”
“But I can’t be afraid—not me. I’m Crockett. I’m Canebrake Davy. I’m half-horse, half-alligator.”
“I know you are, Davy,” says Tarr. “So do all these men here. That’s why you’re going to get past this.
“You’re going to put that fear behind you and walk back out there and fight like the man you are. The fear’s come and now it’s gone. This is our time, Davy.”
And then Tarr delivers a sentiment wholly alien to money-obsessed men like Donald Trump—who comprise the richest and most privileged 1% of today’s Americans.
“There’s men out there with their eyes on you. You’re the only thing keeping the fear away from them. You’re joking and grinning and fiddling—it gives them courage they wouldn’t have had without you.
“Maybe that’s why you’re here, Davy—to make the little men and the scared men into big and brave men. You’ve always cared about the little men, Davy. Remember who you are.
“You’re Crockett of Tennessee, and your glory-time has come. Don’t you miss a bit of it.”
The next morning, the Mexicans assault the Alamo. Crockett embraces his glory-time—and becomes a legend for all-time.
David Crockett (center) at the fall of the Alamo
David Crockett (1786-1836) lived—and died—a poor man. But this did not prevent him from trying to better the lives of his family and fellow citizens—and even his former enemies.
During the war of 1812, he served as a scout under Andrew Jackson. His foes were the Creek Indians, who had massacred 500 settlers at Fort Mims, Alabama—and threatened to do the same to Crockett’s family and neighbors in Tennessee.
But as a Congressman from Tennessee, he opposed then-President Jackson’s efforts to force the same defeated Indians to depart the lands guaranteed them by treaty.
To Crockett, a promise was sacred—whether given by a single man or the United States Government.
David Crockett
And his presence during the 13-day siege of the Alamo did cheer the spirits of the vastly outnumbered defenders.
Crockett, with his fiddle—and a Scotsman named MacGregor, with his bagpipes—often staged musical “duels” to see who could make the most noise.
Contrast this devotion of Crockett to the rights of “the little men,” with the attitude of Donald Trump, the alleged billionaire former President of the United States.
Donald Trump
Throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump made such statements as:
- “…I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I’m using my own money. I’m not using lobbyists, I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”
- “I did a lot of great deals and I did them early and young, and now I’m building all over the world….”
- “So I have a total net worth, and now with the increase, it’ll be well over $10 billion.”
- My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest—and you all know it.”
- “My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
Unlike Crockett, who defended the weak, Trump boasted of his power:
“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Those who give their lives for others are rightly loved and remembered as heroes. Those who dedicate their lives solely to their wallets and egos are rightly soon forgotten.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 20, 2023 at 12:23 am
On November 6, 2012, Ann Coulter, the Right-wing activist and propagandist, was devastated by the re-election of President Barack Obama.
In lamenting the defeat of Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, she unintentionally explained why Republicans would soon engage in voter suppression and even violence to secure and/or maintain absolute power:
“Mitt Romney was the president we needed right now, and I think it is so sad that we are going to be deprived of his brain power, of his skills in turning companies around, turning the Olympics around, his idea and his kindness for being able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts.”
Mitt Romney
In short: America was now “a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas.”
When you can’t win with better ideas, you try to win with deceit and violence.
Donald Trump was another Republican who unintentionally previewed the methods he would employ eight years later on losing the 2020 Presidential election.
In 2012, he was a real estate mogul and host of the “reality show” The Apprentice.
Donald Trump
When it became clear that Romney was not going to be America’s 45th President, Trump went ballistic on Twitter. Among his tweets:
- More votes equals a loss…revolution!
- Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.
- We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!
- The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!
- He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
To put Trump’s rants into real-world perspective:
- According to Trump, the electoral process works when a Republican wins the Presidency.
- It only doesn’t work when a Democrat wins.
- “We should march on Washington” conjures up images of another Fascist—Benito Mussolini—marching on Rome at the head of his Blackshirts to seize power. Which, in a democracy, is treason.
- “The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”
Ironically, the 2012 Republican Platform had fully embraced preserving the Electoral College: “We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or any other scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.
“We recognize that an unconstitutional effort to impose ‘national popular vote’ would be a mortal threat to our federal system and a guarantee of corruption as every ballot box in every state would become a chance to steal the presidency.”
And the loser didn’t win: He lost.
Obama got 60,652,238 votes. Romney got 57,810,407.
Fast forward to November 9, 2016, with returns clearly projecting a win for Trump over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Although Clinton got almost 2.9 million more popular votes, he swamped her in the Electoral College—-304 votes to Clinton’s 227.
Suddenly, for Trump, the Electoral College wasn’t “phoney.”
Similarly, Coulter no longer felt dismayed. She felt rejuvenated—for she had found her perfect Presidential candidate.
Appearing on the Right-wing radio program, “The Eric Metaxes Show,” she had said: “What is the point of talking about abortion or anything else unless you get Donald Trump in to build the wall, deport illegals, end this ‘anchor baby’ nonsense, stop importing 100,000 Muslims a year, in addition to two million Third Worlders per year. It’s madness what this country has been doing.”
Ann Coulter
Four years later, on November 4, 2020, Trump found himself facing defeat at the hands of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden. Suddenly he reverted to the sore loser of 2012:
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it, we will not stand for it.”
“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote such a success.”
Immediately after the election, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud.
From November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
After running out of legal options to remain as “President-for-Life,” Trump played his final card: On January 6, 2021, he incited a violent attack on the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes.
But by May, 2017, four months after Trump had taken office as President, Ann Coulter had abandoned him. Her chief complaint: He hadn’t built the wall along the United States-Mexican border he had promised to erect.
“We want the ruthless businessman we were promised,” she told the conservative website, The Daily Caller.
“This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.”
In short: She had backed a monster to wreak destruction on those she hated—and he failed her.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 11, 2023 at 1:48 am
In late July, 2016, Donald Trump’s new spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, accepted an impossible mission that even “Mission: Impossible’s” Jim Phelps would have turned down:
Convince Americans that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed by a truck-bomb in Iraq in 2004.
Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on August 2, Pierson said: “It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagements that probably cost his life.”
Katrina Pierson
Totally ignored in that scenario:
- President George W. Bush lied the nation into a needless war that cost the lives of 4,486 Americans and wounded another 33,226.
- The war began in 2003—and Khan was killed in 2004.
- Barack Obama became President in 2009—almost five years after Khan’s death.
- Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State the same year.
- Obama, elected Illinois U.S. Senator in 2004, vigorously opposed the Iraq war throughout his term.
Twitter users, using the hashtag #KatrinaPiersonHistory, mocked Pierson’s revisionist take on history. Among their tweets:
- Hillary Clinton slashed funding for security at the Ford Theater, leading to Lincoln’s assassination.
- Obama gave Amelia Earhart directions to Kenya.
- Remember the Alamo? Obama and Hillary let it happen.
- Obama and Clinton kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
Not content with blaming President Obama for the death of a man he never sent into combat, Pierson claimed that Obama started the Afghanistan war.
Appearing again on CNN, Pierson said the Afghan war began “after 2007,” when Al Qaeda “was in ashes” following the American troop surge in Iraq.
“Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time,” Pierson said. “Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”
In fact, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
When your spokeswoman becomes a nationwide laughingstock, your own credibility goes down the toilet as well.
In July, 2016, an Associated Press/GfK poll found that half of Americans saw Donald Trump as “racist”—and only 7% of blacks viewed him favorably.
There are numerous reasons for this:
- His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
- His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya–and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
- His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.
Since 1964, blacks have overwhelmingly voted for Democratic Presidential candidates. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s won their loyalty with his support for and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
President Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed it—as did the majority of his party.
Since 1964, fewer than six percent of blacks have voted for Republican Presidential candidates. Whites have not only remained the majority of Republican voters but have become the single most important voting bloc among them.
To counter this, Donald Trump turned to his Director of African-American Outreach: Omarosa Manigault.
Trump made the appointment just hours before the first night of the Republican National Convention.
Omarosa Manigault
Manigault is best known as the villain of Trump’s reality-TV show, “The Apprentice”—where she was fired on three different seasons. Her credentials include a Ph.D. in communications, a preacher’s license, and topping TV Guide’s list of greatest reality TV villains in 2008.
During the Clinton administration she held four jobs in two years, and was thoroughly disliked in all of them.
“She was asked to leave [her last job] as quickly as possible, she was so disruptive,” said Cheryl Shavers, the former Under Secretary for Technology at the Commerce Department. “One woman wanted to slug her.”
In her role as Trump’s ambassador to blacks, Omarosa inspired others to want to slug her. Appearing on Fox Business, she ignored Fox panelist Tamera Holder’s question on why blacks should support Trump, and then mocked her “big boobs.”
Manigault wasn’t bothered that blacks regarded Trump so poorly in polls: “My reality is that I’m surrounded by people who want to see Donald Trump as the next president of the United States who are African-American.”
Appointing as your public relations director a woman who gratuitously insults and infuriates people is not the move of a smart administrator—or Presidential candidate.
Manigault followed Trump into the White House as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison. There her arrogance and rudeness got her fired in December, 2017.
She had known Trump since 2004. But it was only in a 2018 tell-all book, Unhinged, that she claimed she had discovered that her idol was a racist, a misogynist and in mental decline.
To make things worse for Trump, she had secretly taped conversations between herself and him. Asked to justify this, she offered: “You have to have your own back or else you’ll look back and you’ll have 17 knives in your back. I protected myself because this is a White House where everybody lies.”
Thus, after all these demonstrations of Trump’s incompetence as an administrator, millions of hate-filled Americans rushed to the polls to support him—because “he says what I’m thinking.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2023 at 12:16 am
Former President Donald Trump now faces criminal indictment for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
His defense: He’s blaming his lawyers for advising him to use illegal means to stay in power after losing the contest to former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Everything that President Trump did was with the advice of lawyers and counsel. That’s an absolute defense to a criminal case,” said his attorney, John Lauro.
Yet Trump has an embarrassing record for picking those who tell him what he wants to hear—and firing them when their advice contradicts his desires.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump hired Paul Manafort as his campaign manager to bring stability to his often scattershot campaign.
Paul Manafort
But Manafort came with longstanding ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine—and Vladimir Putin.
For years, Manafort worked for Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin protege who was deposed as Ukraine’s president in 2014 amid widespread demonstrations.
In August, the New York Times unearthed handwritten ledgers that listed $12.7 million in cash payments to Manafort from Yanukovych’s political party between 2007 and 2012.
In 2018, Manafort would be found guilty on eight counts:
- Filing false tax returns;
- Bank fraud;
- Failing to disclose a foreign bank account;
- Conspiracy to defraud the United States; and
- Witness tampering.
Trump’s own ties to Putin were already facing increasing scrutiny for:
- His and Putin’s public expressions of admiration for each other’s toughness;
- The removal from the Republican party platform, written at the convention in Cleveland in July, of references to arming Ukraine in its fight against pro-Russian rebels who have been armed by the Kremlin; and
- Trump’s inviting Russia to find 30,000 emails deleted from the private server used by Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
Added to Manafort’s embarrassing ties to Russia was another minus: He and Trump didn’t get along. Trump had begun calling him “low energy”—a term he once aimed at his GOP rival, Jeb Bush.
Manafort wanted Trump to become self-disciplined and solely attack his Presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. Instead, in late July, Trump ignited a days-long feud with members of a Gold Star family, costing him support within the veterans community.
Manafort also wanted Trump to establish a conventional chain-of-command organization typical of a Presidential campaign. But Trump resisted, preferring to improvise and rely on his instincts and the counsel of his family.
In late August, Trump fired him.
Foreign policy usually plays a major role in Presidential elections. Yet Trump seemed ignorant and unconcerned about it.
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consulted about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
In late August, 2016, former Republican Congresswoman (2007-2015) Michele Bachmann claimed that she was now advising Trump on foreign policy.
Michele Bachmann
A member of the Right-wing Tea Party, Bachmann said that diplomacy “is our option” in dealing with Iran—but wouldn’t rule out a nuclear strike.
Among the statements she made:
- “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'”
- “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”
- “President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition….U.S. taxpayers are now paying to give arms to terrorists, including Al-Qaeda.”
- “I’m a believer in Jesus Christ. As I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end time history.”
A woman who believes that God causes earthquakes and hurricanes, and that mankind has arrived at “End Times,” could hardly be a comfort to rational voters.
Another Trump adviser was former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. His assignment: Prepare Trump for the upcoming fall debates with Clinton.
Ailes’ appointment came shortly after he was fired, in July, 2016, from Fox News on multiple charges of sexual harassment.
At first, only Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson dared accuse him. But then more than two dozen women came forward to accuse Ailes of sexual harassment.
On September 6, Carlson reached an out-of-court settlement with the parent company of Fox News for a reported $20 million.
At least two other women settled with Fox, an anonymous source told the New York Times.
All of which made Ailes the poster boy for sexual harassment.
Trump has been married three times and has often boasted of his sexual conquests—including ones he believes he could have had.
Shortly after the 1997 death of Princess Diana, he told a radio interviewer he could have “nailed” her if he had wanted to.
In a mid-March, 2016 CNN/ORC poll, 73% of female voters saw Trump negatively. Associating with a notorious sexual harasser like Roger Ailes could only make him even more unpopular among women.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 9, 2023 at 12:13 am
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
“When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
So wrote the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli more than 500 years ago in his famous treatise on politics, The Prince.
And his words remain as true in our day as they were in his.
In fact, he could have been writing about the ability of Donald Trump to choose subordinates.
Niccolo Machiavelli
As a Presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly previewed his administrative incompetence—which he continued to demonstrate as President.
His favorite daughter, Ivanka, bitterly insisted: “My father values talent. He recognizes real knowledge and skill when he finds it. He is color-blind and gender-neutral. He hires the best person for the job, period.”
But a close look at those he picked to run his campaign for President totally refutes this.
From the outset of his campaign, Trump polled extremely poorly among Hispanic voters. Among the reasons for this—Trump’s verdict on Mexicans:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
And he promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
So statements like those of his supporters Marco Gutierrez and Ed Martin could only inflame Hispanic voters even more:
Founder of Latinos for Trump Marco Gutierrez told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks every corner.”
At a Tea Party for Trump rally at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Festus, Missouri, former Missouri Republican Party director Ed Martin reassured the crowd that they weren’t racist for hating Mexicans.
“Donald Trump is for Americans first. He’s for us first. It is not selfish to support, or to be for, your neighbor, as opposed to someone from another nation. And Mexico, Mexicans, that’s not a race. You’re not racist if you don’t like Mexicans. They’re from a nation.”
Donald Trump
Then there were the inflammatory words offered by Wayne Root, opening speaker and master of ceremonies at many Trump events. Root told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling that people on public assistance and women who get their birth control through Obamacare should not be allowed to vote:
“If the people who paid the taxes were the only ones allowed to vote, we’d [Republicans] have landslide victories. But you’re allowing people to vote. This explains everything! People with conflict of interest shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you collect welfare, you have no right to vote.
“The day you get off welfare, you get your voting rights back. The reality is, why are you allowed to have this conflict of interest that you vote for the politician who wants to keep your welfare checks coming and your food stamps and your aid to dependent children and your free health care and your Medicaid, your Medicare and your Social Security and everything else?”
Wayne Root
According to a March, 2016 Gallup poll, 70% of women—or seven in 10—had an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
Such comments as Root’s could only make Trump even more unpopular with women. Not to mention anyone who received Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security.
Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Steve Bannon, was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness in 1996, after an altercation with his then-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, in Santa Monica, California.
Picard also said in a 2007 court declaration that Bannon didn’t want their twin daughters attending the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles because many Jewish students were enrolled there.
Steve Bannon
This undoubtedly contributed to Trump’s unpopularity among women, it also made him unpopular among Jews—especially in heavily Jewish states like New York and Florida.
In addition: Bannon and another ex-wife, Diane Clohesy, were registered to vote at a vacant house in Florida, a possible violation of election laws in a key swing state.
Republicans have vigorously denied voting rights to tens of thousands on the pretext of “voter fraud.” More than a dozen states still have voting restrictions in place since 2012.
A Washington Post investigation found just 31 credible cases of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of an estimated 1 billion ballots cast in the U.S. during that period.
Meanwhile, voting rights groups were fighting back—and winning.
“Voter ID” laws in Texas, Wisconsin and North Carolina were found discriminatory against minorities—who traditionally vote Democratic.
With evidence of Republican fraud like that supplied by Trump’s own campaign manager, victories against “Voter ID” laws may well increase.
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SPHERES OF IINFLUENCE–FOR RUSSIA AND AMERICA
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Social commentary on November 22, 2024 at 12:11 amThe collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 plunged the American Right into a depression.
Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just didn’t prove as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
Then fate intervened.
The torch had barely gone out at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Ukraine vs. Russia
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And that didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”—Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for its reestablishment. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards European institutions—especially NATO.
So it was almost a certainty that Putin would retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he began moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea. Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimean peninsula and backed separatists who captured large swathes of eastern Ukraine.
On December 3, 2021, the Washington Post reported: “The Kremlin is planning a multi-front offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops” against Ukraine.
And where there is activity by Russians, American Rightists are eager to turn such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR): ”It is a result of a year of Joe Biden’s impotence and incompetence towards Russia in particular and in foreign policy more generally.”
Cotton had vigorously defended President Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the face of Russian aggression.
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine.
Then, on July 25, Trump telephoned Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the military aid.
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest—and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no legitimacy except the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Latin and Central America
Similarly, the Soviet Union forced many nations—such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion—as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans—who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens—want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine—even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
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