Bill Black

[santafe2]

Re: Bill Black

I don't agree with this. Brazil, Venezuela & Argentina are obvious examples of independent, even anti-US countries/regimes. Maybe I'm not understanding your term "within the orbit of the United States".

It was referred to as the "pink tide". That is, socialist or socialist leaning governments popping up around South America. One assumes this was in reaction to the US no longer actively overthrowing any and all governments of Central and South America with which we disagree. However, our business interests and the IMF continue to put pressure on any and all governments that are not "business friendly". For example, Brazil's socialist leaning Worker's Party President is about to be sent packing in favor of a government lead by it's VP who is signaling that they will be more "business friendly". I think all of these countries remain within the orbit of the US but I also think you're correct that they have more latitude than they had previously. See Allende's Chile in the early 1970s as an example of the traditional CIA style.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Bill Black

History of Panama...

Well, I first found out about this about 40 years ago, when I was doing a study of the balance of payments for the oil industry. And I went to Standard Oil, whose treasurer met with me to walk me through their balance sheet. And I said, I can’t figure out whether Standard Oil and the other oil companies make their money at the producing end of oil, or at the distributing end of refining and selling it. And he said, well, we make our earnings right here in New York, in the Treasurer’s office. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, we sell the oil that we buy from Saudi Arabia or the near East at very low prices to the tanker company that’s registered in Panama or Liberia. And they don’t have an income tax in their country, because they’re not a real country. And we sell then the oil to the downstream distributors in the United States or Europe. We sell that crude oil at a very, very high price. So high that there’s no profit to be made at all in refineries or selling the oil. So we don’t pay the tax collector in Europe anything. We don’t pay the American government anything. All of our earnings are reported as being made in the tankers.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...&jumival=16116

Bill Black

[jk]

Re: Bill Black

more history of panama: panama was a region of columbia when the canal was dug. the u.s. financed a "revolution" that broke it off from columbia. then secty of the treasury paul mellon sent a telegram to someone [attache, admiral, i forget] asking about how the revolution was going BEFORE the revolution started.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Bill Black

Brazil, Venezuela & Argentina are obvious examples of independent, even anti-US countries/regimes.

2016 Bloomberg
“Wall Street Is in Charge in Argentina (Again)”

2015 Counterpunch
"Venezuela: a Coup in Real Time”

Brazil...

The current version of Brazilian*democracy*is very young. In 1964, the country’s*democratically elected left-wing government was overthrown by a military coup. Both publicly and before Congress, U.S. officials vehemently denied any role, but — needless to say — documents and recordings subsequently emerged proving the U.S. directly supported and helped plot*critical aspects of that coup.

The 21-year, right-wing, pro-U.S. military dictatorship that ensued was brutal and tyrannical, specializing in torture techniques used against dissidents that were taught to the dictatorship*by the U.S. and U.K. A comprehensive 2014 Truth Commission report documented that both countries “trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques.” Among their*victims was Rousseff, who was an anti-regime, left-wing guerilla*imprisoned and tortured by the military dictators*in the 1970s.

The coup itself and the dictatorship that followed were supported by Brazil’s oligarchs and their large media outlets, led by Globo, which — notably — depicted the 1964 coup as a noble defeat of a corrupt left-wing government (sound familiar?). The 1964 coup and dictatorship were also supported*by*the nation’s extravagantly rich (and overwhelmingly white)*upper class and its small middle class. As democracy opponents often do, Brazil’s wealthy factions regarded*dictatorship as protection against the impoverished*masses comprised largely of non-whites. As*The Guardian put it upon release of the Truth Commission report: “As was the case elsewhere in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, the elite and middle class aligned themselves with the military to stave off what they saw as a communist threat.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/18/...-of-democracy/

[santafe2]

Re: Bill Black

Brazil...

The current version of Brazilian*democracy*is very young. In 1964, the country’s*democratically elected left-wing government was overthrown by a military coup. Both publicly and before Congress, U.S. officials vehemently denied any role, but — needless to say — documents and recordings subsequently emerged proving the U.S. directly supported and helped plot*critical aspects of that coup.

The 21-year, right-wing, pro-U.S. military dictatorship that ensued was brutal and tyrannical, specializing in torture techniques used against dissidents that were taught to the dictatorship*by the U.S. and U.K. A comprehensive 2014 Truth Commission report documented that both countries “trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques.” Among their*victims was Rousseff, who was an anti-regime, left-wing guerilla*imprisoned and tortured by the military dictators*in the 1970s.

The coup itself and the dictatorship that followed were supported by Brazil’s oligarchs and their large media outlets, led by Globo, which — notably — depicted the 1964 coup as a noble defeat of a corrupt left-wing government (sound familiar?). The 1964 coup and dictatorship were also supported*by*the nation’s extravagantly rich (and overwhelmingly white)*upper class and its small middle class. As democracy opponents often do, Brazil’s wealthy factions regarded*dictatorship as protection against the impoverished*masses comprised largely of non-whites. As*The Guardian put it upon release of the Truth Commission report: “As was the case elsewhere in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, the elite and middle class aligned themselves with the military to stave off what they saw as a communist threat.”

I won't make excuses for the US during that period but one should understand that this left leaning government fell in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russians had not only placed a Communist government at our doorstep but had installed missile silos and were transporting nukes when the US made it clear, this would be WWIII. What transpired in Central and South America over the next 30+ years is despicable. We installed regimes in several countries who's atrocities are as great as any since the 2nd World War. There is no doubt Henry Kissinger is a war criminal but that said, when Castro won his little war, the US went bat-shit crazy regarding Western Hemisphere communism or anything that looked like it might move in that direction.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Bill Black

I won't make excuses for the US during that period but one should understand that this left leaning government fell in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russians had not only placed a Communist government at our doorstep but had installed missile silos and were transporting nukes when the US made it clear, this would be WWIII. What transpired in Central and South America over the next 30+ years is despicable. We installed regimes in several countries who's atrocities are as great as any since the 2nd World War. There is no doubt Henry Kissinger is a war criminal but that said, when Castro won his little war, the US went bat-shit crazy regarding Western Hemisphere communism or anything that looked like it might move in that direction.

I must open this comment with; I have good friends within the US whom I do not link with such. Your above comment does us all a service; you see, this is NOT about the US; it is all about what historians, (at the least the credible ones), will surely describe as the hard core administration. One of the great benefits to the image portrayed to us outside of the US; of the US; was the image of the US portrayed by Hollywood, as a wonderful nation totally dedicated to freedom and democracy. When in point of fact, beneath that image; largely hidden from view; even to citizens of the US, is, yes; IS, a small group totally dedicated to the domination of the entire planet who have, (yes, have, not had), created an internal system of control via systematic total secrecy; that always prevents any access to the truth of their actions. Indeed, at times, I feel sure; not even POTUS knows the full truth of their ongoing actions.

It is the result of these ongoing actions which we are debating here; NOT those of the majority of citizens of the US.

And yes, here in the UK, our own administration seems to be joined at the hip to the same mindset and intent. We have just as much history, perhaps even more, of the self same attitudes and intent; and again; I do not subscribe that the same applies to the majority of UK citizens.

So; how do we remove a deeply embedded "tick" from the skin of our respective nations; without war, or any form of violent revolution? My answer comes down to the use of words, which, in my most humble opinion, are the only mechanism with real clout. That we have to stand up and keep debating; it is the use of words that is the only solution. We have to continuously stand up and be counted. To tell it how it is.

[Woodsman]

Re: Bill Black

I won't make excuses for the US during that period but one should understand that this left leaning government fell in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russians had not only placed a Communist government at our doorstep but had installed missile silos and were transporting nukes when the US made it clear, this would be WWIII. What transpired in Central and South America over the next 30+ years is despicable. We installed regimes in several countries who's atrocities are as great as any since the 2nd World War. There is no doubt Henry Kissinger is a war criminal but that said, when Castro won his little war, the US went bat-shit crazy regarding Western Hemisphere communism or anything that looked like it might move in that direction.

I agree that the Caribbean fiasco casts a long shadow. Really, this is no place for it, but I have come to understand it as the Rosetta Stone to deciphering the last half of the 20th Century. Historians are only now starting to peel the onion. That said, I think we do make excuses when we perpetuate this traditional narrative of American victimhood. I understand that most people do no know that in October 1962 the United States was waging a war against Cuba that involved several assassination attempts against the Cuban leader, acts against Cuban civilians, and sabotage of Cuban factories. Most do not know that when the Eisenhower administration began this low intensity conflict, the endgame planners envisioned was a U.S. invasion of Cuba.

And still no one seems to know that the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations had by 1962 deployed such superiority in strategic forces that it had Soviet military and political elites convinced the United States intended to strike first against them. By contrast, Soviet strategic forces had fewer than fifty bombers and missiles that could hit the United States. The Americans deployed more than five hundred. The missile gap Kennedy so deftly exploited in his 1960 campaign against Nixon was real, except that it was in the U.S. favor, not the Soviets.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev sought to placate his and his generals anxieties by a rascally gambit that appealed to his vanity as an out of the box thinker - placing intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba. It also had the advantage of being a cheaper way to provide some deterrent against the feared U.S. attack, certainly less than it was expected to build the many new intercontinental ballistic missiles that would be required to deter a launch against the Soviet Union.

On the basis of documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act requests, it is clear why the Soviet and Cuban leaders were expecting a U.S. invasion of the island. Notably, former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara acknowledged at an historic 1989 meeting with former Soviet and Cuban officials that "if I had been a Cuban leader, I think I might have expected a U.S. invasion. Why? Because the U.S. had carried out the debacle the Bay of Pigs invasion as the intended provocation and vanguard of a future American invasion.

Previous to that there were covert operations. And with these newly available documents through the good offices of Dr. Peter Korbluth at the George Washington University's National Security Archive we can now read the details of American covert action programs combining sabotage, infiltration, and psychological warfare activities with military exercises and contingency operations for an invasion to overthrow the Castro government. Approved by President Kennedy in March 1962, the plans noted that the "final success" of the program would "require decisive U.S. military intervention." Although Kennedy never formally authorized an invasion, former administration officials acknowledge that Cuban intelligence had infiltrated exile groups and learned of plans for a potential invasion—which, ironically, was scheduled for October 1962.

Like our own military analysts, Soviet national security advisers worried about worst-case scenarios and U.S. actions made them very nervous. While the Soviet placement nuclear missiles ninety miles from the United States may have been an absurdly risky and dangerous way to discourage both U.S. aggression against Cuba and a U.S. first-strike against the Soviet Union, it was a predictable reaction to the circumstances. Taken together, these documents and the new scholarship they advance supports Khrushchev's longtime claim that the main Soviet motivation was the defense of Cuba against a U.S. invasion.

When combined with recent testimony by Soviet and Cuban officials, we have a clearer view of Soviet motivations to deploy nuclear weapons in Cuba. The declassified record shows that American officials were well aware that their deployment of Jupiter missiles near Soviet borders in Turkey and Italy in 1959 would be deeply resented by Soviet officials; even President Eisenhower noted that it would be a "provocative" step analogous to the deployment of Soviet missiles in "Mexico or Cuba. A declassified military history of the Jupiter system reveals that the rockets became operational in April 1962—an event that may have contributed to Khrushchev's proposal, made the very same month, to deploy similar weapons in Cuba.

Khrushchev, like Kennedy, perceived the crisis was spiraling out of control. Khrushchev knew (and Kennedy did not know) that the Soviets had deployed tactical nuclear missiles to Cuba. These battlefield weapons, intended for use against an invading army, had warheads nearly size the size of the Hiroshima bomb. Had a local Soviet commander fired one of these, it would have been the start of a general nuclear war. This was Khrushchev's and Kennedy's common fear. The fear of destroying all humankind, all life. Toughness and rigidity in such a situation makes it more likely that the other side will feel compelled to act equally macho. As such, I think that it was Kennedy's flexibility--finding a way to trade the missiles in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba--and Khrushchev's willingness to risk humiliation (he was deposed as General Secretary in 1964 in part because of the missile crisis) that brought the confrontation to a peaceful conclusion.

In Russian history texts, the Cuban Missile Crisis is called the Caribbean crisis. The confrontation between the superpowers took place on the high seas and for the Soviets that is where the crisis occurred. In Cuba, it is called the Crisis of October, to distinguish it from the many other confrontations Cuba has experienced with the United States. From the Cuban perspective, the crisis has never been resolved: war was avoided but the root cause of the dispute continued so long as the American desire to overthrow the Cuban government remained.

This, as you say, was the proximate cause of the "bat-shit crazy " policies of the next 50 years; the sad tale of the fall of Brazilian democracy being the next chapter in that story never told.

[jk]

Re: Bill Black

a few additional points of history:

although the u.s. did indeed withdraw its jupiter missiles from turkey as part of the deal, i think it's worth noting that this detail was kept secret - mostly from the american people - for some time.

also, khrushchev was indeed well aware of the jupiters in turkey, pointing at the ussr.

i think the credit for de-escalation goes to a somewhat mercurial khruschev and to bobby kennedy. days into the crisis the soviets sent a conciliatory message sent over the hotline, followed sometime later by an aggressive one. it was bobby's suggestion that the u.s. ignore the hostile one, and just reply to the conciliatory one. that's what led to the eventual agreement.

[Woodsman]

Re: Bill Black

a few additional points of history..

Thanks JK. Funny how we get from Bill Black to Kennedy. But since he's here, let me at least try to tie it back to Bill Black and the Sanders thing.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Bill Black

Thanks JK. Funny how we get from Bill Black to Kennedy. But since he's here, let me at least try to tie it back to Bill Black and the Sanders thing.

Thank you Woodsman, an important point to make. As I understand US history, both he and his brother were assassinated for those views. Where I differ today is to say that the underlying problem of the economy is lack of competition for the potential employee due to a lack of effective rules, mechanisms and institutions, specifically designed to deliver the competitive investment of free enterprise equity capital; to permit that competition to raise the underlying prosperity.

Today the trend is to deliver welfare rather than competitive investment to support the unemployed.

[Woodsman]

Re: Bill Black

Thank you Woodsman, an important point to make...

Policy aside for a moment, I simply think it's remarkable to hear a Democratic politician speak in such a manner. It's so rare to hear an American president speak with authenticity and conviction nowadays towards that constituency. To think this was once the center of American politics.

And now this seems so timely and relevant, too.

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred...

Our vision for the future contains more than promises."

-- Franklin Roosevelt Speech On the Eve of the Presidential Election 1936 - 'Government By Organized Money'

[Chris Coles]

Re: Bill Black

Policy aside for a moment, I simply think it's remarkable to hear a Democratic politician speak in such a manner. It's so rare to hear an American president speak with authenticity and conviction nowadays towards that constituency. To think this was once the center of American politics.

And now this seems so timely and relevant, too.

You have opened a memory of walking among the cherry blossom in DC surrounding the FDR Memorial celebrating his four terms and thus bring a better understanding as to why he was clearly so much loved as a leader. Considering his disabilities, he was a truly amazing man. FDR, Kennedy, who else stands so proud? None, as a Brit come to mind.

[vt]

Re: Bill Black

Reagan and his work with Thatcher. Both saved their economies.

Reagan even defeated communism without a shot being fired.

[shiny!]

Re: Bill Black

Reagan and his work with Thatcher. Both saved their economies.

Reagan even defeated communism without a shot being fired.

You sure about that?

The forgotten recession that irrevocably damaged the American economy

[Chris Coles]

Re: Bill Black

You sure about that?

The forgotten recession that irrevocably damaged the American economy

And then; some of us here in the United Kingdom, to this very day; believe that Thatcherism destroyed the manufacturing base of the nation we were once so proud of.

What was wrong with our economy then was that the majority of that manufacturing capacity was both owned and managed by the Civil Service; was not classically "Private industry". Thatcher and those around her, having no real knowledge of how to create new industry, saw no other way forward other than to destroy; in turn, blaming everything on to trade unions, when trade unions were only a dark symptom of the dreadful management of the civil service combined with no workable source of capital available to enable competition against the existing owners.

So they sold off everything to the "Market" and in the process, destroyed any chance of anyone here gaining access to the necessary free enterprise equity capital to make a fresh start, right from the bottom of those markets.

Today, the savings of the people are still targeted towards delivering sovereign debt to "government" and towards those same "Markets"; with still very little attempt to admit that the whole exercise has signally failed to address the underlying problem of the lack of prosperity right down at the grass roots of society.

Today the greatest industry here is welfare.