The repeating of American history.

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Only because when I tried to edit it the original disappeared. History is repeating itself and one wonders if this is what we have to look forward to every hundred years. For those that may not wish to read further, it is about American government policy then, and now. All information freely available and if necessary I can send the sources to whomever. Some are noted and others available from the best seller "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen. I found the similarities interesting. Early 1900's. A President. Two major anti-democratic policies - racial segregation of the federal government and military intervention in foreign countries. This will mainly deal with the intervention in foreign countries, his racism is an "Internal" matter for Americans to deal with themselves. Under this President, America landed troops in Mexico (1914), Haiti (1915), Dominican Republic (1916), Mexico again (1916 and then 9 more times while this President was in office - where American 'interests' owned more of Mexico than interests from anywhere else - including Mexico), Cuba (1917), Panama (1918). While in office he kept troops in Nicaragua to determine the Nicaraguan president and to force a treaty preferential to the States. The new Russian Com.munist government of the time, nationalized all petroleum assets and as a consequence, Standard Oil of New Jersey was the "major impetus" behind American opposition. In 1917, he began sending monetary aid to the "White Russian" side of the Russian civil war. In 1918, authorized a naval blockade of the Soviet Union and sent forces to Russia (Murmansk, Archangel and Vladivostok) to assist in the overthrow of the Russian Revolution. Politically supported by Britain and France and jointly with forces from japan, (his version of the coalition of the willing) the joint American-japanese invading force made it as far as Lake Baikal supporting Czech and White Russian forces that had self-declared an anti-government HQ in Omsk. Had "frontlines" as far west as the Volga River until the White Russians disintegrated in 1919. American-japanese forces finally left Vladivostok April 1, 1920. He attempted to keep this invasion hidden from congress and the public. Helen Keller spoke out in 1919 - "Our governments are not honest. They do not openly declare war against Russia and proclaim the reasons. They are fighting the Russian people half-secretly and in the dark with the lie of democracy on their lips." Ultimately, he was unable to keep it secret but it was kept from the public as much as possible. Interventions in Cuba, Dom. Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua installed and propped up the dictators - Batista, Trujillo, the Duvaliers, and the Somozas. After invading Haiti in 1915, under pressure from First National Bank of New York, forced the Haitian legislature to install his "preferred" candidate as president. When Haiti refused to declare war on Germany, "he" dissolved the Haitian legislature then supervised a referendum on a new Haitian constitution. Ended Haiti's tradition of individual ownership of small tracts of land in favor of large plantations. American forces forced peasants in shackles to work on road construction crews. When Haitian citizens rose up and resisted in 1919, nearly 3,000 Haitians were killed. George Barnett, a Marine General, stated in a New York Times article, October 14, 1920 entitled "Reports unlawful killing of Haitians by our Marines" - "ractically indiscriminate killing of natives has gone on for some time" and "the most startling thing of it's kind that has ever taken place in the Marine Corps." Here is how Marine Corps General Smedley D Butler put it in 1931: I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers...I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints." His was the first administration to be obsessed with Com.munism. He participated in barring Russia from peace negotiations after WW1 and helped oust Bela Kun, the leader of Hungary. He had three bedrock "ism's" - colonialism, racism and anti-communism. When Ho Chi Minh appealed to this president at Versailles during the peace negotiations after the end of WW1, to assist Vietnam gain self-determination and freedom from France, this president refused to listen and France maintained control over Vietnam. This president reasoned that self-determination was alright for some countries - as noted in his 1918 "14 Point Plan" that gave independence and restoration of sovereignty to Belgium, but not Latin America or South East Asia. There is of course the potential that the Vietnam war could have been avoided if this president had supported the call for self-determination because there would then have been no need for Vietnam to nationalize its oil industry - the true impetus to the Vietnam war. This president constantly questioned the loyalty of those he termed "hyphenated Americans" - "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready." He set up the Creel Commission on Public Information which saturated the States with propaganda linking Germans to barbarism. He put forth the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 - said by some as probably the most serious attack on the civil liberties of Americans since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. He tried to strengthen the Espionage Act with a provision giving broad censorship powers directly to the president. With his approval, his postmaster general used new censorship powers to suppress all mail that was socialist, anti-British, pro-Irish, or that in any other way might have threatened - in his view - the "war" effort. Robert Goldstein, who produced a movie "The Spirit of '76" - a film about the revolutionary war that depicted the British "unfavorably" served 10 years in prison for the film. After the war, in 1920, this president vetoed a bill that would have abolished the Espionage and Sedition acts. He was asked in his last days as president, by his Attorney General - Palmer - to release Eugene V. Debs, serving time for a speech attributing WW1 to economic interests and denouncing the Espionage Act as undemocratic but he refused and Debs stayed in prison until Warren Harding pardoned him. He recommended "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." During his time in office this president was widely despised. His policies -controversial and unpopular in 1920 - became "ordinary" by 1950. The results of his actions reverberated throughout the country and world and still are. Sound "similar?" One difference, this president was a member of the Democrat club. One hoped for similarity though: The democratic candidate who was seen as successor to the president noted above was crushed by a non-entity who never even campaigned - and from the "opposite" party (even back then it was only a "two-party on the outside, one-party on the inside" kind of government). Year - 1920 Popular Votes Warren G. Harding (R) - 16,143,407 James M. Cox (D) - 9,130,328 Electoral Votes Warren G. Harding - 404 James M. Cox - 127 As Neitchze wrote: "There are three approaches to history: monumental, antiquarian and critical (the last defined as "the history that judges and condemns"). Nietzsche also spoke of "creative forgetfulness" as essential to historical memory; what is not memorialized tells us as much about a society's sense of the past as what is. Need I add, "those who ignore history are destined to repeat it?" Let's hope that by the 22nd Century, there wont be a poster on some forum bemoaning a third iteration of this "repeat."