Miscellaneous Notes From Recent Readings

I am preparing some thoughts about the situation in Honduras but do not have time to give a full weigh-in yet so I will just extract a few items from a jar on one of the shelves of my memory.

1. Eisenhower and Patton, around 1918 or 19, were responsible for training tank commanders for use in war. Eisenhower had wanted to go to the war itself but had been good at training infantry so they kept him home. (He treated it more like football practice than war, and made it more lively.) Well, both Patton and Ike felt that a 3 m.p.h. tank was not good. They wrote letters to every superior officer they could find in Washington saying the tank should not be used to accompany the infantry (hence the slow speed) but rather to disrupt the enemy. They were told in no uncertain terms that if they did not stop writing these letters they would be court martialed. History later demonstrated who was right.

2. The Nazi Blitzkrieg was so swift that France fell in six weeks.

3. On one occasion General Rommel, in his lead tank, was so far ahead of his army as it sped forward that he rode into a French village all by himself without any support. The French forces were fleeing before he got there. The German army was (my memory fails me here) either 35 miles behind or 35 minutes.

4. Whittaker Chambers, editor of Time magazine in the late 1940's, had been a communist in the 30's but Josef Stalin's behavior, eliminating nearly everybody on his own side, led him to flee the Communist party. Chambers had been a conduit of U.S. secrets, getting them transported to the Soviet Union. Alger Hiss was his "inside contact."

5. Chambers became a witness for the prosecution in one of the biggest trials of the century. Hiss had been an aide to FDR and the notion that a communist was so close to the pinnacle of power helped feed the Red Scare of the early Cold War. Hiss had worked in the State Department and was a member of the delegation that accompanied FDR to Yalta in 1945.

6. Hiss lost, and went to jail for perjury. He denied ever having been a spy or communist.

7. Allen Weinstein wrote a book about the case called Perjury. His aim was to prove Hiss was innocent. In researching the book he was able to draw upon previously inaccessible information from the Soviet archives. The inescapable conclusion: Hiss was guilty.

8. For some reason people to this day attempt to proclaim Hiss' innocence. Hiss died in 1996.

9. The country of Rhodesia was named after the guy for whom the Rhodes Scholarship was named. Cecil Rhodes owned diamond mines and was a big believer in Colonialism and the supremacy of the the Anglo-Saxon race, proof that smart people can have stupid ideas. Sadly, such ideas were in vogue for a time. (See Rudyard Kipling's poem White Man's Burden.)

10. Today the once Brit colony of Rhodesia has been broken up into Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Crisis: Zimbabwe Cholera Epidemic

"We stand, as it were, on the shore, and see multitudes of our fellow beings struggling in the water, stretching forth their arms, sinking, drowning, and we are powerless to assist them." ~ Felix Adler

One of the recurring themes on this blog has been the hunger, disease and destitution which has become the lot of so many in today’s crowded, complex world. The reasons I cite these situations are many, but chiefly (a) a strong desire for fellow Americans to keep things in perspective. We are fortunate in unimaginable ways that we often take for granted. Let’s not. And (b) when we have the means that we contribute toward solutions rather than remain ignorant or indifferent.

The Zimbabwe cholera epidemic is a frightening reality which ought not be part of our modern times. Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil involves characters that become immersed in a cholera outbreak nearly a century ago. The film adaptation, starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, is a movie based on a fictional novel. We somehow do not want this to be real life, and in point of fact divorce ourselves somewhat from the realities by seeing them re-enacted on the silver screen.

Unfortunately, the tragic realities in Zimbabwe are not a fiction, are quite devastating and appear to be out of control. While it is true that eighty percent of all disease in the world is caused by unsafe drinking water, no one anticipated the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe as doctors have abandoned hope due to a breakdown in the country’s infrastructure.

A simple Google search uncovers news accounts on this epidemic from all parts of the globe. Meanwhile, our local papers speak only of the hunger, lack of drinking water, and illegal poaching. Starvation is rampant, as is disease. But in our papers here in Minnesota there is no mention of the spreading cholera crisis.

Many years ago I learned a little about this awful disease which causes extreme diarrhea and dehydration to such an extent that death is almost certain within days. The “rice water stools” gave me the creeps when I learned about this symptom of the disease. I also recall reading that Tschaikovsky was so depressed after the poor reception of his Sixth Symphony (one of my favorites) that he deliberately drank cholera-contaminated water to end his life, which did indeed occur three days later.

No one in Zimbabwe is choosing cholera. It’s a horrible way to die.

A China news report reads: More people die in cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe

And another story declares, Cholera threatens 1.4 million people in Zimbabwe: MSF

A Canadian news report by Kelly MacParland puts a more cynical spin on it...

Robert Mugabe's latest gift to Zimbabwe: An outbreak of cholera
Robert Mugabe’s latest gift to the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe is an outbreak of cholera that has killed dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of victims.

Reports from Zimbabwe indicate the outbreak began weeks ago and has spread quickly through rural areas and shantytowns to reach Harare, the capital. After initially trying to smother news of the situation, Mr. Mugabe’s government has been forced to acknowledge the situation, while continuing to try to minimize the casualties.

Don't know how far this goes, or how it will end. I only know we have much to be grateful for and let's not take it for granted.

The China Factor

I remember in my youth when Communism was portrayed with two faces. The Russia face, which was aggressive and seeking world domination. And the China face, which was home grown and contained its interests within its own borders. This was, purportedly, how the world was and why Moscow was the big bad wolf during the Cold War.

Of course this view was simplistic. It is our nature to hope for simplistic solutions to everything. In point of fact, Chinese Communism was likewise vigorous, with tentacles in South America and Africa as well as Southeast Asia and even connections to the Middle East.

The June issue of Fast Company magazine has a detailed feature story by Richard Behar called "China Invades Africa." It’s an eye opening account of current events in the African subcontinent as multi-national corporations and Chinese opportunists battle for natural resources. According to Behar, “The sub-Sahara is now the scene of one of the most bare-knuckled resource grabs the world has ever seen.”

In the 1800’s European Colonialism divvied up Africa and exploited the peoples there, but rebellions and persistence with a pinch of conscience mixed in helped to peel back the blanket. Perhaps journalism contributed by revealing what was going on in the “dark continent” just as journalists helped reveal British brutality in the face of Ghandi’s non-violent uniting of disparate groups in India.

The situation in Africa today is this: the Continent has natural resources that the world needs. And preserving the environment, or helping the vanquished masses, is not on the agenda here.

What follows here is a brief intro to a longer backgrounder by the Heritage Foundation. It’s a good read, and gives a measure of insight into why there will continue to be problems in Africa in the 21st Century.

China's Influence in Africa: Implications for the United States
by Peter Brookes and Ji Hye Shin

Amid growing concerns about the People’s Repub­lic of China’s burgeoning influence around the globe, Beijing has now set its sights on Africa. China’s inter­est in Africa is not new. In the 1960s and 1970s, Beijing’s interest centered on building ideological sol­idarity with other underdeveloped nations to advance Chinese-style communism and on repelling Western “imperialism.” Following the Cold War, Chinese interests evolved into more pragmatic pursuits such as trade, investment, and energy.

In recent years, Beijing has identified the African continent as an area of significant economic and stra­tegic interest. America and its allies and friends are finding that their vision of a prosperous Africa gov­erned by democracies that respect human rights and the rule of law and that embrace free markets is being challenged by the escalating Chinese influence in Africa.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) aids and abets oppressive and destitute African dictatorships by legit­imizing their misguided policies and praising their development models as suited to individual national conditions. Beijing holds out China’s unique develop­ment model—significant economic growth overseen by a disciplined, one-party totalitarian state with full authority, if not control, over all aspects of economic activity—as an example for others to emulate.

Moreover, China rewards its African friends with diplomatic attention and financial and military assis­tance, exacerbating existing forced dislocations of populations and abetting massive human rights abuses in troubled countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe. As a consequence, Chinese support for political and economic repression in Africa counters the liberalizing influences of Africa’s tradi­tional European and American partners. China’s vigorous campaign to develop close ties with indi­vidual African nations also reflects Beijing’s global quest to isolate Taiwan diplomatically (seven of the 26 countries that have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan are African).

If interested in more, you can read it here

EdNote: I am not encouraging you to lose sleep over this, but as the future unfolds, you might find it helpful to have seen some of it coming.