Cuba | William Dudley Bass on Earth at the Brink

Trump’s Imperialist Ambitions destroys the PostWar Order

We Americans do not need to expand the borders of our nation. Donald Trump has forgotten, if he ever did know it, the maxim of the super rich: “Control, don’t own. Control everything, own nothing.” Besides, he’s talking about trodding over some of our closest military allies and trading partners and adding them all to his fantasy map of a new empire.

NATO would rupture into a most unnecessary schism at the worst possible time. If NATO self-destruct, it will damage the United States and empower Russian and Chinese efforts to keep taking over their neighbors. Trump will unwittingly or maybe deliberately turn lose wannabe conquerors everywhere. The Orange Man who would be a dictator probably doesn’t care. His MAGA cultists and allied Alt-Right mafias won’t care. These actions, however, will impoverish us Americans. To return to empire building in this 21st Century will tank our economy, deplete our treasury, overextend our quiet, de facto pretend-we-really-aren’t-empire-altho-we-are, turn powerful allies against us, turn comparatively weak dictators into allies. These consequences may well cost us unimaginable lives. We Americans will end up broke and shooting at each other if we keep going on like this.

The incoming President of the United States of America wants to conquer, buy, or otherwise annex several North American countries to a new American Empire. The old empire hasn’t ever gone away, but Americans like to pretend they’re anti-imperialists, genuinely dislike empires, and generally are uncomfortable reigning as overtly racist, colonial overlords. After all, the USA was birthed in a long, chaotic revolutionary war that saw a chain of British colonies along the eastern North American seaboard win their independence from a king. The American Revolution was itself part of a protracted 127 years long world war between multiple empires and kingdoms called the Second Hundred Years War (1688-1815).

So of course Americans, championing their constitutional democratic republic, want to keep their empire hidden. They prefer a network of vested commercial interests, financial control, and economic influence secured by hundreds of military bases and intelligence webs. Trump doesn’t care. He just powers in, bursting down doors and yanking open the curtains so he can see and to show off to the world what he finds. For he is a master finders keeper transactionalist. He doesn’t rob. That’s too stealthy. He takes. National security is usually the excuse. It’s often is the truth, ironically, but he doesn’t hide or deny such things. No discretion or backchannel negotiations. Continue reading →

Silent are the many Class War dead buried beneath the myths of Camelot

Watching Jackie felt like eating jagged broken glass thru my eyes as if eyeballs were little, bloody mouths wired directly into my brains. The movie is intense, jarring, and rich with excellent and challenging performances. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Texas six days before Thanksgiving 1963 was a sucker punch to the American gut.

One could quibble about actress Natalie Portman’s attempt at Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy’s accent, but her harrowing performance rivets and horrifies. Portman becomes Jackie with such wrenching intensity it’s as if we’re invading the former First Lady’s privacy. The film portrays the Journalist, played by Billy Crudup, as an unnamed man but understood to be Theodore H. White, a historian and journalist turned propagandist and Camelot mythmaker.

The movie is in part a portrayal of a woman’s grief and shock at the public murder of her husband while at the pinnacle of their power. The film also, less convincingly but nevertheless disturbingly, illuminates the collusion between the chain-smoking former First Lady and the Journalist to control the public narrative and secure the myth of the American Camelot as “truth.” In its own unique way, Jackie reflects the legacy of Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama enmeshed with blood and brains in the way of American movies.

What makes this collusion even more bizarre was Jackie’s sterilization of her dead husband’s true legacy. To his credit, JFK was in many ways a traitor to his class of wealthy, bourgeoisie capitalists, and this article addresses this further down. Jackie Kennedy, however, fought, plotted, connived, and strategized to elevated JFK to the lofty, neo-feudal status of Camelot. A powerful and determined person, she was also relentless and ferocious as she grabbed the helm of history. Continue reading →

William Dudley Bass on Earth at the Brink

Adventures & Reflections; Analysis of Current Affairs; Philosopher & Storyteller

Tag Archives: Cuba

Dangers for a New American Empire

Jackie Screams in Silence