They spent months redacting and erasing evidence of Trump in the files before releasing some of them. They forgot to redact the identities of the victims!
Even with all that redaction and suppression he is still mentioned thousands of times and there more photos of him with Epstein than me with my family.
Shouldn’t someone investigate?
Country Blues
The insistent African beat was imported into the USA along with the captured Blacks destined for a life of slavery in the cotton fields of the Deep South, especially the plantations of the Mississippi Delta which was particularly productive.
African slaves were prevented from carrying on their native traditions and forced to adopt the dress, housing, language, religion and attitudes of their ‘masters’. In particular the use of drums was prohibited. The plantation owners were terrified of an insurrection. They thought that the black slaves could communicate though drumming. They might seek to get organised. However, music was encouraged. It was seen as a harmless recreational outlet. It had its uses in the workplace. Work chants in the field and ‘Shouts’, with songs such as where the song ‘Pick a bale of cotton’ was derived, were useful to promote productiveness. Black musicians even provided entertainment for white plantation owners. It raised morale. The black musicians were introduced to western style instruments – including such instruments as banjos, guitars, harmonicas, pianos, and mandolins – and western style music including hymns, folk songs, country reels and popular ballads. It all went into the mix.
The mix fermented for a hundred years or so before coming together as a distinctive style of music around the turn of the 20th century. It was inevitable. The black musicians had taught themselves the rudiments of western instruments and in so doing had introduced the African beat and rhythms of their African heritage. When this was applied to hymns the end result was Gospel. With Blues it was a little more complicated. The Blues was a name given to a musical form that had a great deal of variety. It evolved differently in different parts of the country. It incorporated the various prevailing musical influences from the black slaves’ environment and distilled it into a new musical style. These influences included Gospel, traditional Folk, Hillbilly country music and popular ballads. When these musical forms amalgamated with the intrinsic African rhythm the result was the 12-bar blues.
In some forms the Blues was seeped in emotion, agonising and soulful, as it attempted to communicate the trials and tribulations of being an oppressed people living in extreme hardship in a tough environment. In this form it often acted as a catharsis for the pent-up frustrations resulting from ill-use and mistreatment. In other forms it told the story of stolen pleasures, of women, violence and drinking that were also part of black man’s everyday life and part of the hardship within which he lived. But the Blues was not always sad. In other forms it was fast and beaty, used as dance music at the country barbeques known as ‘Jukes’. These songs were happy and carefree and reflected the good times when people would get together to eat, drink, dance and have a good time. These ‘Jukes’ would have people playing solo or in little combos known as ‘Jug Bands’. A whole genre of Blues was concerned with risqué songs based on double entendres that were well beyond the normal scope of white music. The Blues was also incorporated into the Spirituals, Gospel and Work songs of the era. A lot of these itinerant musicians would move around, tailoring their repertoire to the occasion or audience. It was not unusual for them to perform a range of Blues styles as well as popular songs and ballads. What was recorded was not always what being played.
The times were hard and musicians tended to choose instruments that were fairly cheap to buy. When they couldn’t afford an instrument they improvised – creating Diddley Bo’s out of nails and piano wire or the side of their wooden shacks, or commandeering washboards, thimbles, spoons or bottles. An early Jug Band, such as Bo Carter’s Mississippi Sheiks or Sleepy John Estes Jug Band, might consist of guitar, mandolin, washboard, jug, harmonica and spoons.
Many of the early Country Blues performers were blind or crippled. There was no welfare. If you couldn’t work the fields you would starve to death. The way out was to become a musician and play the ‘Hollers’ and ‘Shouts’ to accompany the workers in the field, to busk on street corners or play the dives and Jukes. This was how Peg-leg Howell, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Sonny Terry and Blind Snooks Eaglin made a living. Others, like Blind Jimmy Johnson augmented their playing by being preachers. It was play or starve.
If you were busking you had to capture an audience. This led to the whole tradition of showmanship that culminated in some of the wild acts of Chicago Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll and persisted through to Rock Music of today. Tommy Johnson was famous for doing handstands while he played his guitar. Later T-Bone Walker would play his guitar behind his head while doing the splits or walk his guitar round the sage playing it with one hand. It was the sort of stuff that led into Chuck Berry’s duck-walking, Bo Diddley’s square guitars and Screaming Jay Hawkin’s macabre voodoo act.
Unlike most of the sophisticated popular white music of the 30s and 40s, with its ditties and crooning, the Blues was real. It did not try to couch reality in candy or look at the world through rose-tinted view of the world. It spoke of real feelings that hadn’t been sentimentalised and the realities of life bringing, drink, sex and even death out from under the carpet. It was precisely because of this earthiness that contemporary white bourgeoisie audiences found it primitive, vulgar and crude. They saw it with the eyes and ears of their day. It was the decadent music of a primitive race. They condemned it as immoral and of no musical worth. Those same characteristics were what attracted white British youth in the 60s. They saw it as real music.
This music had limited commercial viability though it was recorded, like all music, for profit and not love. It was recorded in tiny converted rooms at the back of record stores and released on small independent ‘Race’ labels that catered for the black population.
This was the age of segregation.
The black population might be poor but they knew how to have a good time and they liked to let their hair down. They had their drinking holes, brothels and even their own radio stations like WKAI in Memphis. Beale street in Memphis and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, like many other black areas were jumping and jiving with Blues and Jazz. The radio stations played ‘The Devil’s Music’ and featured shows hosted by Blues Singers who acted as DJs such as BB King, Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin’ Wolf. These shows were usually sponsored by commercial businesses who wanted to advertise their goods to the large black market.
There was a wide range of different styles ranging from the barrel-house Boogie Woogie that emanated from the New Orleans brothels, to the finger picking blues runs of the Texas Blues troubadours to the searing slide-guitar style of the Mississippi delta.
In the 1930s the Delta style often used a National Steel Guitar in order to gain volume when playing in the open air without the use of a P.A. It was open chorded and fretted with a slide on the third finger or a penknife or lighter. The slide was sometimes a length of copper tube but often the neck of a bottle – hence the term Bottle-neck guitar. Sliding the bottle up and down the frets created a shrill oscillating note or chord and was perfected by many of the early musicians such as Charlie Patton, Son House and Robert Johnson. This style was to prove extremely successful when amplified by City Blues musicians such as Elmore James and Muddy Waters.
In the 1930s the Country Blues reflected the life of the southern black share-cropper. It dealt with their struggles, pleasures, pains, fears and preoccupations. The Blues, as described by the great Bessie Smith (an early Jazz/Blues singer who frequented the vaudeville circuit), may have been nothing but a ‘low down dirty feelin’ but even when expressed in the most abject hopelessness there was still an underlying strength to it that suggested that just around the corner ‘the sun was gonna shine someday’.
The fact that the Blues rarely expressed any political content or hatred towards their white oppressors was not because it was not there. It was probably because it was extremely dangerous for black people to express those kind of views. The Klu-Klux-Klan was rampant and ‘justice’ was summary and violent. Any blacks who crossed the line were likely to find themselves burnt, raped, hung or castrated. It was no wonder that it was rare to find those sentiments expressed. There were probably many examples of more radical song-writing but they were reserved for private audiences and rarely found themselves preserved on record.
The recorded heritage of Country Blues is the result of numerous sessions in makeshift studios in the back of hotel rooms, shops and even in the open field on very primitive portable recording equipment that often recorded directly on to vinyl. The output of many major artists, such as Blind Willie McTell, is limited to a few sessions and many early recordings and artists were only preserved due to the efforts of an enlightened white man by the name of Alan Lomax. He toured the South hunting out the relatively unknown artists and recording them on his portable equipment. He followed up rumour and tracked them down discovering new talent on the way. Many artists, including Muddy Waters and Son House, have their early recordings and future careers due to Alan Lomax. He preserved their art for posterity.
Many of these brilliant artists died or faded into obscurity before they could ever come to the attention of white audiences but in the 60s many found themselves rediscovered and their careers resurrected. They were suddenly popular on the white college circuit, in Greenwich Village, the Newport Folk Festival and were rapturously received in Europe. Artists like Sleepy John Estes, Blind Willie McTell, Bukka White, Son House, Muddy Waters, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, James Cotton and a host of others were brought over to Europe on Blues packages. I’m glad they were. It meant I got to see them play at the Hammersmith Odeon. They were old men but they still played with vigour and dynamism. Son House had us all standing on our seats and yelling. Many of these were performing in front of white audiences for the first time and sadly were soon dead. But they had delved back into their repertoires to dig out those gems from the 1930s and 40s and brought them to life. They filled many gaps in our understanding of the Country Blues. It is just a great shame that greats like Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Memphis Minnie and Elmore James didn’t live to see that day when they were lauded by white audiences and treated like the talented men and women they were.
Through the limited recording output of these Blues singers we are able to trace the development of this style through the 1920s with artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Texas Alexander, Blind Willie Johnson, and Charlie Patton through to the thirties with Son House, Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Blind Willie McTell, and on to the 1940s with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins before amplification kicked in after the war.
In the 1940s it provided the rhythmical structure that gave rise to many forms of Rhythm & Blues such as Boogie Woogie, City Blues, and Doo-Wop. These were the seminal force behind Rock ‘n’ Roll. In that sense it is possible to view these early exponents of Country Blues, and in particular men like Arthur Big Boy Crudup, Robert Johnson, and Son House as being the founding fathers of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Where would we be without them?
| Artist | Stand out tracks |
| Son House | Death letter blues Pearline Delta blues Walking blues The pony blues |
| Robert Johnson | Dust my broom Sweet home Chicago Come on in my kitchen Crossroad blues Love in vain Terraplane blues Walking blues Last fair deal going down Stop breaking down blues Milkcow’s calf blues |
| Bukka White | Shake ‘em on down Fixin’ to die blues Parchman Farm blues |
| Sleepy John Estes | Ollie blues Broke and hunger Black Mattie The girl I love she got long curly hair |
| Skip James | Devil got my woman Hard time killing floor I’m so glad |
| Big Joe Williams | Baby please don’t go |
| Kokomo Arnold | Milk cow blues Busy bootin’ The twelves Salty dog |
| Bo Carter | Pig meat is what I crave Banana in your fruit basket What kind of scent is that Don’t mash my digger so deep |
| Hambone Willie Newbern | Rollin’ & Tumblin’ |
| Tommy Johnson | Canned heat blues Cool drink of water |
| Charlie Patton | Spoonful blues Shake it and break it High water everywhere |
| Furry Lewis | Shake em on down |
| Blind Lemon Jefferson | Match box blues Broke and hungry |
| Blind Willie McTell | Statesboro blues Broke down engine |
| Blind Willie Johnson | Dark was the night cold was the ground You’ll need somebody on your bond Nobody’s fault but mine God moves on the water |
| Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee | Sitting on top of the world Rock Island Line Step it and go |
| Memphis Minnie | Chauffer Blues Hot stuff Selling my chops Dirty mother for you Bumble bee blues You dirty mistreater |
| Peg Leg Howell | Tishamingo blues |
| Lightnin Hopkins | Katie Mae Let me play with your poodle Blues in the bottle Bottle up and go |
| Leroy Carr | How long how long blues Mean mistreating Mama |
| Texas Alexander | Leevee camp moan |
| Gus Cannon | You can’t blame the coloured man |
| Bessie Smith | T’aint nobody’s business if I do Careless love St Louis blues I’m wild about that thing Gimme pigfoot Do your duty |
| Victoria Spivey | Black snake blues Dope head blues Organ grinder blues |
| Lucille Brogan | Shave ‘em dry |
Rock Routes: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781514873090: Books
Rock ‘n’ Roll Music
Rock ‘n’ Roll is nothing more than black Rhythm & Blues played by white musicians with a bit of Country & Western thrown in for good measure. There are exceptions to this but this definition allows us to see the complicated interwoven relationship that exists between the music that became known as Rock ‘n’ Roll and its black cousin Rhythm ‘n’ Blues. Throughout their short evolution the two styles have become so closely associated that it is almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. Indeed there is a great deal of confusion as to which type of music an artist is playing within the confines of a single performance or album.
Does it matter?
Not really. It only matters if you want to explore the various avenues that lead to the stuff you love.
You might find a few more things to get enthusiastic about.
You may get to understand why you appreciate it.
It is possible to trace the roots of Rock music right back to the 18th and 19th centuries with the introduction of African rhythms and beat to the European Folk Tradition. This was a meeting of spirits that was to reach fruition in the Southern States of America, particularly New Orleans in Louisiana and Memphis Tennessee. It was a merger that first gave rise to Country Blues, Cajun and Gospel. It led to Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, Jazz, Bluegrass, Honky Tonk and Country Boogie. In the early part of the 1950s it gave birth to a vigorous hybrid that came to be known the world over as Rock ‘n’ Roll.
It took the world by storm and altered all our lives. It was a revolution. It was strongly allied to the prevailing youth culture of teenagers that emerged after World War 2.
The very name itself set the whole tone for everything that followed. It was coined by Alan Freed who borrowed it from the black slang for sex. It set generation against generation and rocked the world. It instigated a sexual revolution and social change on unheard of proportions. It upset the prevailing racial and gender attitudes and provoked the move to equality and freedom that prevails today. It set in motion a climate of questioning that altered the deferential way people thought about politicians.
The moment Elvis shook his hips the world would never be the same. Even Elvis did not have a clue that would happen. He was as bemused as everyone else. It took on a life of its own. It was powerful.
To understand where it began and where it went we have to go back to the very beginning. The story of Rock begins with the fusing of the two cultural traditions in the latter part of the 19th century to produce a new type of music that we now refer to as Country Blues. This was first written about by W C Handy who recalls hearing a black musician playing this style of music at the railway station in Tutwiler Mississippi in 1903. He was playing an old guitar by running up and down the frets with a penknife. W C Handy was hearing Country Blues, bottle-neck style, for the first time. He was captivated.
Rock Routes: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781514873090: Books
Introduction
Rock is dead. That is what Jim Morrison proclaimed in 1970. He was wrong.
Rock is alive and well.
Rock as a universal unifying force for Youth Culture is dead. For most young people it would appear that music is incidental to their life. It has become a consumable product to be bought and discarded. For those to whom it is central it has become an easy recognisable cult with dedicated devotees.
It was not always the case.
In the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s music was the focus for social change. It was the unifying force for fashion, politics, attitude, morality and social perspective. Rock was the vehicle that youth culture rode on. Its influence was universal. Rock ‘n’ Roll, Beat music, Psychedelia and Punk were world-wide phenomena. It is salutary to look back at the 60’s psychedelic phenomena and see long-hair bands complete with kaftans, bell-bottoms and accoutrements springing up all over the world including Peru, Afghanistan, Australia, Tokyo, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Everyone wanted to be part of the scene. They all wanted to be the Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Hendrix or Doors.
Everything now is controlled by the ‘Biz’ and run for profit.
I guess it was ever thus. It did not seem like it though. It seemed that the music was a revolution that was changing the world. It was made by us and controlled by us. It was not a product. It was an emotional portrayal of how we felt. It was ours, of us, by us and for us.
But then I’ve always been an idealist.
Well – I lived through it all. I’ve seen most of them and got to meet some of them. I have enjoyed a life-time of Rock Music. It has been central to everything I have done. It has affected my philosophy and impinged on every aspect of my life. I’ve lived it.
I am sitting here in 2013 looking forward over the next few weeks to a programme that includes Nick Harper, Roy Harper, The Magic Band, North Mississippi Allstars and Leonard Cohen. Wow! I’m looking forward to it. I’m 64 and still rockin’.
Back in the 1980s I ran an adult education on the history of Rock Music. I had great fun even though it cost me a fortune. My vinyl collection grew exponentially.
This book is an extension of that course. I first wrote a four volume book totalling 1500 pages entitled Rock Strata. It told the whole story of Rock Music through from the early 1900s to 1982. A publisher loved it. He loved my charts. He just thought it was a little too long. He wanted me to cut it down to 200 pages.
This is the rewrite of that attempt!
This book is the history of Rock Music up until 1982. I stopped there. I could have continued but it all rather broke up into fragments. There have been a number of those fragments that I continue to love but others I get frustrated by. I hate overproduced muzac for the hard of thinking. I hate product.
Rock Routes: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781514873090: Books
Trying to explore the impact of coming face to face with a scientifically/technologically superior culture is difficult. One has to base it on the impact of European cultures on the indigenous populations of South America, Australia and North America.
Chapter 11 – Conflict
Billy Smythe had discovered his forte. His reception at the Ashley Arms had unleashed a force within him. Billy was buoyed up and raring to go. From the moment he had been hoisted up on to that bar he’d felt transformed. A bubble had burst inside him. All his fears and lack of confidence had melted away. The ‘new’ Billy Smythe could take on the world.
Charlene orchestrated from behind the scenes. She put out a stream of messages through social media that miraculously all seemed to go viral. They highlighted a string of grievances that drew attention from right across the world. It was Charly who publicised the date and a time of their next meeting and ensured it received the maximum publicity. She was good with words.
For their next foray they’d hired the community centre. This time they had a proper stage, seats, a table and an actual podium. All very professional. There was even a PA if they wanted it. Billy declined. He was happy projecting to a crowd. The idea of a microphone was scary. He didn’t really know how to use one. How close did you have to be? How loud did you talk? No, he was better off doing what he was familiar with – talking to people.
They aimed to get their early to get set up. There were seats to set out in the hall and a last check that everything was working. Nobby had set up a bar at the back and was hoping to make another killing. Taking on the lizards was thirsty work.
‘How many you expecting?’ Foxy asked, looking to Billy for guidance. The place would hold a few hundred. It looked a little vacuous when empty.
Billy looked nonplussed.
‘I reckon there was about a couple of hundred at the Ashley,’ Charlene chipped in. ‘Probably a few more.’
‘Might be a few more, a few less,’ Denby suggested.
‘The novelty will have worn off,’ Debbie conjectured.
‘I don’t know,’ Cheryl replied. ‘People I’m talking to are all up in arms. They want something done. I’ve had a huge response on line. There might be more than you think. Hell of a buzz on social media. Some people took viddies of Billy and they’ve gone viral.’ She looked up at him admiringly. ‘Our Billy’s quite a celeb!’
Billy blushed. He liked this newfound admiration.
‘I reckon we should lay out all three hundred,’ Charlene suggested. ‘If they’re not needed there’s nothing lost.’
A half hour before the event people started trickling in. The trickle turned into a steady stream and the seats began to fill. Ten minutes off and every seat was taken. Still people came. The aisles, sides and back were full and more and more were coming. The capacity was three hundred but there had to be at least twice that.
Billy peered out from behind the curtains. The whole place was heaving, people pushing and jostling to get to see.
‘Bloody hell,’ Billy muttered to Charlene, ‘what’s the Health and Safety limit on this place?’
‘Never you mind, Billy,’ she grinned, as proud as punch. Her campaign had obviously worked better than any of them could have hoped.
Not only was the hall jam-packed but once again crowds were building up outside. John, who had become increasing paranoid, kept checking through the curtains. ‘No sign of any lizards,’ he reported.
‘I reckon you’ll need that PA,’ Foxy remarked. He and Denby quickly activated the system and Foxy had the idea of directing a speaker through the open window.
It was five minutes late by the time things were ready. The crowd were restless but began to settle in anticipation as if they were at a gig.
At last Billy and the others were ready.
They’d planned it out. Seven of them trouped out on to the stage and took their seats to a lot of clapping and cheers. Then Billy emerged and walked to the podium and the place erupted, stamping, clapping, cheers and whistles. He raised his hands to acknowledge them. This time there was no sign of trepidation on his part.
‘Thank you! Thank you for coming!’ His voice boomed. He backed away from the mic.
Huge cheers greeted him.
‘We need to do something about these overgrown lizards, don’t we?’ Billy asked the question, getting the mic about right.
Rooooaaaarr!! Came the reply.
With that he launched in.
He’d not really planned it but it was all there in his head. Now it came spilling out in a stream of vitriol: How we didn’t need them here lording it over us. How they were trying to keep us quiet and shut us up – taking away our nationality and culture – that we were English and had thousands of years of history – thousands of years without ever being conquered – thousands of years of history and culture that they wanted to steal. We had to stand up and fight just like Saint George had done.
St George – the great English knight who was an example for us all. He’d killed that great fire-breathing scaly dragon.
According to Billy our overgrown lizards were nothing compared with that fearsome dragon. We could trounce them if we wanted!
Then he turned his attention to Ron Forsythe and that Global Government. They were trying to foist some silly, poncy mouthpiece on us to keep us quiet. All this talk of equality and unity. All smoke and mirrors. We didn’t want some poncy writer. What he he know about running the country? It was a ploy. Well, all this talk of unity was just an excuse for tyranny. This talk of global government was just an excuse to take our country away from us. Who needs a bunch of lizards telling us what to do? They could take their wonderful technology and screw themselves with it. We didn’t need it, or them. They should go back to where they came from!
The whole diatribe was punctuated with rapturous cheers. He seemed to hit every button. By the time he finished he had them all singing Jerusalem. ‘And did those feet…..’
If he had said the word he could have had them all marching to the nearest alien base to storm the place. They’d have followed him to hell and back.
When it was over they were inundated with people asking what they could do, looking to Billy and the others for answers, leadership, ideas. Their blood was up. They wanted action. They thought Billy might provide it.
‘You were magnificent Billy,’ Charlene chortled, taking his arm as they walked home. All the way people were coming up to them wanting to shake his hand, wanting selfies. It was like he was a star.
‘Fucking hell!’ Denby said, coming to a dead halt. They all stopped and stared. Denby had his phone in his hand. ‘There’s fucking viddies of you all over the web. It’s going viral, man. You’re a fucking superstar, Billy!’
They all looked. Already snippets of Belly’s performance were trending and going viral.
‘Can I get a selfie with you,’ Foxy asked cheekily.
Once the bewilderment had dissipated and Ron had stop asking ‘why me’ and acceptance slowly set it. Hard on its heels came anger. He was being used. They were setting him up as head of a token human government while, behind the scenes, they orchestrated their take-over. This charade was nothing more than a means of reducing resistance. Cunning and deceitful. They were tightening their grip day by day and wanted it made easy. Ron was their tool. He could see the endless stream of arrests. The internet was full of terrible scenes that made Trump’s ICE arrests look tame. Where were they dragging all those people? Were there mass execution centres? Would he find mass graves if he were to look? A wave of nausea welled up inside him at the thought. They were expecting him to put his name to this sacrilege. It felt like sanctioning Hitler’s extermination policy. What the hell was going on? How the hell was he expected to trust them?
Spending hours in a small room with a nine foot lizard equipped with fangs and titanium-edged claws was intimidating but you got used to it. After a short while he began to glimpse her personality. Soon he was seeing Chameakegra as a person, a real person, with a real personality..
Despite the horrendous scene on the internet he warmed to her. Chameakegra explained how the excision was necessary to cleanse society, that the removals were not as bad as they seemed and the people taken would be rehabilitated. He wanted to believe her but it flew in the face of the repulsive scenes he was seeing on line.
Chameakegra spent time with Ron. She knew it was important to win him over. She shared her vision for the future and the more she talked the more he came to see it. Could he buy into this? Could he even believe it? A world where there was no such thing as racism and violence, no wars and cruelty; a world with free energy, clean rivers and seas and the revival of nature. It sounded too good to be true. Could he believe her?
A short while ago the USA was the undisputed leader of the Western World, the champion of Western values and Democracy.
Then came Trump.
In one short year all that changed.
Firstly, Trump clearly sided with our mutual enemy Putin over Ukraine and threw Europe into confusion.
Then he threatens Canada and Greenland and threatens the future of NATO.
He pulls out of the UN – the bastion of Western vales.
Trump makes disparaging remarks about allies, flattering remarks about enemies and gives support to various right-wing groups who are threatening to overturn Western values in Europe.
As a result alliances are threatened, the USA is not only untrustworthy but is actually seen to be working against the alliances forged over 80 years – increasing global instability and empowering our enemies.
The result is that the Western Allies are forging alliances WITHOUT the USA.
Trump proceeded to throw a spanner into the whole complex global trade network by using tariffs as a weapon. He stupidly thought that he could blackmail the world into doing what he wants and in the process extort huge sums of money out of other countries.
He didn’t seem to understand that trade is a two-way business and that other countries has essential resources or skills that the US did not possess.
Countries retaliated with their own withdrawal of services/goods or retaliatory tariffs.
Countries began looking for alternative markets and cutting the USA out of the loop.
Trump clearly doesn’t believe in democracy. Not only does he openly admire despots and dictators – like Putin and Kim Jung Un – but he seeks to undermine democracy his own country. He is seeking to control the democratic process, take charge of the mechanisms, control how it is done, control the courts and legislators and hold the sort of elections that give Putin 99% of the votes. He wants to be the USA dictator and sees that’s how it’s done.
He wants to rule the world and is setting himself up as the leader with his Board of Peace – loaded with dictators and despots – like Putin, Milei, Netanyahu and Lukashenk – a more scurrilous bunch of authoritarian warmongers you could not assemble. He thinks they can replace the UN and rule the world by force. It’d be like the Third Reich made real.
The destruction of trust will be detrimental to everyone, including the USA most of all. For short-term gain he has ruined long-term relationships, alliances and trade.
America will become increasingly isolated, poorer and irrelevant.
Put a fool in charge backed up by a bunch of useless sycophants and don’t be surprised at the outcome. Only the fool and his sycophants come out of it in profit! (Billions so far!)
Quantity not quality.
Redaction and omission.
This feels a lot like putting a fox in charge of the hen house.
We’re being swamped with trivia and info against certain individuals who have been thrown to the wolves – Mandelson, Prince Andrew and others – but all damning mention of Trump has been carefully massaged out of the reports.
Strange that. Put Trump and the White House in charge of what’s released and they spend months doctoring the releases and then look to stifle all criticism under an avalanche of irrelevant material with snippets of salacious criminal activity.
I don’t buy it.
It’s like putting Al Capone in change of tax revenue.
