Tag Archives: US history

This is an excellent backgrounder. But where did the American deep state come from? Has it always been there?In fact, the evolution of the deep state (and this choice of term, “evolution” as opposed to “creation”, will be explained later) is — some might say ironically — found in a nearly 140-year old anti-corruption “reform” measure; one that was explicitly focused upon depoliticizing the civilian component of the United States government.... The architects of the reform also failed to...

Good read!  Controversy over money is nothing new in US history, since it has been a lively political issue. The arguments are not chiefly about money, although couched in terms of money, economics, and finance, but rather, politics, which involves winners and losers in the policy game. Historically, sound money advocated have been the wealthy, and functional finance people have been ordinary citizens aka "the little people" (h/t Alan Simpson).History News NetworkMMT and Why Historians...

One of the bankers was Prescott Bush, later senator from Connecticut, father of President G. W. H. Bush, and grandfather of President G. W. Bush. The whistleblower was Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler.Big ThinkRemembering when bankers tried to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictator Matt Davis

The thing that almost all of the framers really agreed on is that a broad franchise for electing representatives makes things too responsive to the popular will; and that even where the franchise is appropriately, in their view, restricted to white men with sufficient property, with even more property required for standing for office, a legislature unchecked by a more elite upper house still makes things too responsive. New ideas were out there. They urged not direct democracy but access to...

Backgrounder. A historical view dissension, divisiveness and civil war in the US.The American ConservativeWe Were Made for Civil War Michael Vlahos | professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the US Naval War College, adjunct faculty member, Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences , former Director of the Security Studies Program at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, and formerly with Johns Hopkins University...

In a wide ranging interview with The Hill on Tuesday conducted in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked to give his take on the biggest mistake in American history.Considering just how open-ended a question that is, it's perhaps surprising that he merely went back less than a couple decades into the Bush presidency, though Trump's base will certainly welcome it as it hearkens back to his "America First" foreign policy vision of the campaign trail.“The worst single mistake ever made in...

Denial — from the highest levels of government to mainstream media still reluctant or refusing to even say or print the word torture to a public which still embraces torture despite its barbarity and inefficacy — is the order of the day when it comes to facing America’s tortured history. Our nation’s failure to honestly examine its darkest deeds raises the all-too-real prospect of their repetition, a chilling possibility that seems likelier than ever given Trump’s choice of Haspel, someone...

Snarky backgrounder. Humorous read of some sorry history, centered around former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson.The Vineyard of the SakerNY Times: 1949 – When China lost that ‘elusive’ quality needed for AnglobalizationThe Saker

MAGA. Steve Bannon seem to have either forgot about or is ignorant of Friedrich List and the National System and a lot of other American populist and economic nationalist history. Or he is just pumping the big names that most people recognize and relate to. Breitbart News Bannon to Charlie Rose: Trump Combined ‘Jacksonian Populism’ & ‘Hamiltonian Economic Nationalism’ to Galvanize Working-Class Americans Tony Lee

Useful short summary of Strauss & Howe's generational theory, chiefly The Fourth Turning, and Steve Bannon's interpretation of its implications for America and the world. Financial SenseThe Apocalyptic Vision of Stephen K. Bannon Stratfor