1953 - 2014: 61 years of US subverting democratic regimes

No country on Earth has a sorrier record of undermining democratically elected governments than the US. It has been a bi-partisan approach to America's warped sense of national self interests for many decades and shows no inclination of ending. Let us count the ways.

In 1953, the Eisenhower administration conspired with the Brits to overthrow the democratically elected President of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh because he wouldn't support US and British oil interests and possibly have aligned Iran with the USSR. That action has poisoned US-Iran relations to this day, with our 2014 version of American war mongers itching for another chance to oust a legitimate Iranian regime.

Just a year later the US did the same to the government of Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala. The Dulles Boys: Allen and John Foster, who together ruled over US foreign policy under Ike, engineered the coup to benefit the United Fruit Company, making millions off favorable land deals granted them by Guatemala's previous military rulers. Guatemalan coup fun fact? The Dulles Boys were big investors in United Fruit Company.

Fast forward to 1973, when Tricky Dick Nixon, just a year before resigning in disgrace, green lighted the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende. Elected on the socialist ticket in 1970, Allende promoted reforms making the Chilean working class more equal. In Washington, D.C. Nixon said "Nyet", allowing the CIA to assist the military coup that deposed Allende in September, leading to 17 years of brutal military rule under Gen. Augusto Pinochet who murdered thousands of Allende's supporters. Allende didn't wait for the ax to fall on him, committing suicide after vowing never to resign.

Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide has the distinction of over being overthrown twice with Uncle Sam's help; first in 1991, then in 2004 after winning a second election in 2000.

Let's not forget Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, whose brief 2002 ouster was aided by US operatives in the George W. Bush administration. Even though the US instantly recognized coup strongman Pedro Carmona as the legitimate Venezuelan leader, Chavez was returned to power by popular support within two days. Red faced Uncle Sam said, "Excuuuuse Me!"

In 2009, the Obama administration got into the "dump elected leaders not towing the US line" act when it stood by during the coup that ousted Honduras President Jose Manuel Zelaya under the pretense it really wasn't a coup, when all the evidence screamed "COUP" in unmistakably clear terms. Since US didn't like Zelaya's reforms, it simply pretended the coup wasn't a coup.

Don't forget last year's coup against elected Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi. While the US claimed neutrality in the effort to oust Morsi in 2013, we now know US activist organizations associated with the State Department, like National Endowment for Democracy, bankrolled numerous opposition leaders in the run up to Morsi's removal in likely violation of Egyptian law and contrary to US governmental regulations banning the use of taxpayers' money to finance subversive activities targeting democratically elected governments.

And it took just a few weeks in 2014 for Uncle Sam to add another notch on his belt of elected leaders sent packing when the Ukraine government wouldn't play ball under Uncle's rules. The next time a faux super patriot chimes "America - love it or leave it", remember the real slogan is from whoever rules in Washington: "America - obey it or be deposed".

Adams and Adegbile: More in common than first letter of last name

At first blush there does not appear to be any connection between our second president John Adams and Obama administration nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Debo Adegbile. But look again. Yesterday, the Senate voted down Adegbile's confirmation solely on the grounds that Adegbile once defended convicte...d cop killer Mumia Abdu-Jamal from unfairly receiving the death penalty. Adegbile did this as required by his job as director of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. Many individuals and groups, including Amnesty International, intervened in Abdu-Jama's case and they prevailed in having his death sentence reduced to life based on appellate court determination that unfair sentencing procedures tainted the death sentence determination.

Adegbile, in providing legal council to the condemned, was engaging in one of the most sacred tenets of American democracy: the right of every person to fair and vigorous legal representation. That distinguishes America from many despotic lands that laugh at the need to provide council for those deemed "undesirable." Yet, all Senate Republicans, and an Un-Magnificent Seven Democrats played politics with a worthy nomination, by demonizing Adegbile for representing American values far better than they do.

That brings us back to second president John Adams. In 1770, 8 British soldiers, being tried for murder after e Boston demonstrators were killed in in the Boston Massacre, couldn't procure legal representation. Adams, an aspiring revolutionary leader, risked his political future by taking the case. He got 6 soldiers acquitted and a reduced verdict of manslaughter for the 2 who did the shooting. Apparently, folks in Adams' time took American ideals much more seriously than the 52 US Senators who torpedoed a great potential public servant over his choice of client. Adams was elected to the Massachusetts General Court while preparing for the trial, Vice President in 1787 and President in 1796. And Adegbile? Let's hope he gets a second chance at the top Civil Rights Division job based on Majority Leader Harry Reid's procedural vote against him to retain the right to resubmit. If the senators who don't practice American ideals today were around in 1770, Adams wouldn't have become President, and Paul Giamatti would have lost the best acting gig of his career.

NED: Nice name; malevolent organization

Secretary of State John Kerry may claim Uncle Sam is not behind the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine,  but NED sure is. NED stands for National Endowment for Democracy, a mis-named group if their ever was on. Launched in 1983 by Reagan administration hardliners like CIA Director William Casey,  NED was designed to be a form of shadow CIA to funnel money to foreign political movements taking US positions against the Soviet Union. Casey, we now know from declassified Reagan era documents, also designed NED to fund think tanks and opinion leaders to influence hard line foreign policies; something the CIA was forbidden to do by its Charter. Here we are 31 years later and even though the Soviet Union disbanded and the Cold War essentially ended, NED is still around working to subvert former Soviet controlled nations like Ukraine into abandoning Russia to tilt westward, ensuring US hegemony in the region. And let democracy be damned in the process.

How so? NED used NGO's, non-governmental organizations, to funnel millions to Ukraine in economic projects that essentially helped fuel the rebellion against duly elected president Viktor Yanukovych. While NED was not pleased that neo-Nazis and virulently national anti Semitic thugs help the protests succeed in Yanukovych's ouster, it did nothing to stop them.  NED and their neocon supporters also got the mainstream media to conveniently erase both NED's machinations and the neo-Nazi involvement from the spontaneous democratic narrative foisted on a gullible and clueless American citizenry.

Turn on the news and all you hear is endless demonization of Russian president Vladimir Putin, including how he may have lost touch with reality and gone mad. You won't hear one word about how Putin saved Uncle Sam's bacon by brokering a resolution to the Syrian crisis just as the US was about to unleash a senseless and murderous bombing campaign. Nor will the nightly news utter a peep about how Putin helped defuse the fake Iran nuclear crisis preventing the neocons from getting their next shooting war. 

The real war Americans should worry about is not the one that may break out in Ukraine. Its the one that's already broken out between the wise and cautious Obama administration seeking sensible solutions to critical trouble spots, and the bloodthirsty neocon led NED which seeks more wars both hot (Iran, Syria) and cold (Russia).

Music Pick: Oscar Brown, Jr.

Oscar Brown, Jr. (1926-2005) was a multi talented Chicago artistic legend - singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, actor and civil rights activist - who never quite became the national star he deserved to be. A ...South Sider, he was huge in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood during my time there in 60's and 70's. I still remember well his musical review 'Summer in the City' performed at the old Harper Theater. The feature 'Dat Dare', from his 1960 album 'Sin & Soul', is as good a song as you'll ever hear about the wonder, joy and responsibility of parenthood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oi3aohVooI

21st century John Kerry much worse than 20th century version

In one the most stunning utterances of hypocrisy in American diplomatic history, Secretary of State John Kerry had this to say about possible Russian mobilization in the Crimea to protect Russian interests in this semi-autonomous region of the Ukraine which are now in jeopardy due to an American and EU sponsored coup against the duly elected Ukrainian government using neo-Nazi thugs:

"It is really a stunning, willful choice by President Putin to invade another country…You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext."

That sure is astonishing of Secretary Kerry in light of the following invasions and interventions Kerry's country, the Good Ol' USA, has engaged in this century: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and now Ukraine. This senior citizen remembers well the 20th century version of John Kerry, a wounded and decorated Vietnam vet who spent much time last century trying to end senseless interference with other lands instead of trumpeting new ones. Forty-three years ago next month Kerry told Congress this about our criminal and failed Vietnam War:

"Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, 'the first President to lose a war'. We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

The 21st century Kerry sold his soul for power and fame to the war party which now jeopardizes every sensible US, Russian initiative in Syria and Iran to gin up another needless quagmire, this time turning Ukraine into the next failed state. All things considered, I'll take the 20th century version of Kerry who fought for peace, over the 21st century version who shills for the war party.

Freddie Lee Hall mentally challenged; Florida morally challenged

Freddie Lee Hall gets his day in court today. It's not an ordinary court, but the Supreme Court of the United States. Hall, 68, has been on Florida's Death Row on and off since the 1980's for a kidnapping and murder, crimes of which his guilt is not in question. What is in question is whether Hall's low IQ precludes Florida from killing him in violation of the Supreme Court's 2002 ban on state sponsored murder of the mentally disabled as a violation of Eighth Amendment prohibition against 'cruel and unusual punishment'. The Supremes didn't qualify what constituted "mentally disabled" opening a loophole for states to set the bar low to kill the most undesirables possible. Florida, along with several other blood lusting states, have the lowest threshold for strapping on the electrodes, a cool 70 IQ points. Hit that magic number and you die. Hall did and will unless the High Court says "NO". While his most recent scores ranged from 69 to 74, putting a bulls eye on his back, he's tested as low as 60 in nine tests over a 40 year period beginning in 1968. One judge in his many cases concluded he has been mentally disabled his entire life since at least the 1950's. Oddly, that 74 IQ score still makes Hall considered mentally disabled under Florida law and eligible for public assistance and help getting a job.

Hmmm, in Florida if your IQ test hits 75 you're still mentally disabled enough for public assistance. But test 70 after a heinous crime and you're no longer mentally disabled; just eligible for assistance in walking the Green Mile. While Freddie Lee Hall is mentally challenged, Florida is just plain dumb.  

USA No. 1 in regime change

We've sure come a long way since first president George Washington warned Americans to stay out of foreign entanglements. The latest country to experience American sponsored regime change, whether outright criminal war (Afghanistan and Iraq), dropping bombs to help the insurgents (Libya), abandoning our favorite pro-Western thug when rebels gained momentum (Egypt), conspiring with Israel and Saudi Arabia to arm al-Qaeda tinged rebels, (Syria), is Ukraine. After months of machinations with pro-Western groups, including neo-Nazi ultra nationalists, Uncle Sam finally got his guy, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, declared new Ukrainian Prime Minister. We know he's our pro-West puppet choice because the secretly recorded phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Pyatt, revealed our plan. Nuland coolly schooled Pyatt on the need to dump one opposition leader and popular former boxer Vitali Klitschko, because he lacked experience, and that "Yats (Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience" Nuland then snidely dismissed our partner in this mayhem, the European Economic Union, with the now infamous "F--- the EU" comment.  Nuland previously told Ukrainian businessmen the US had invested over $5 billion to help Ukraine achieve its "European aspirations" and take "Ukraine into the future that it deserves" Translation: dump Russia and follow the West.

So just as Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Egypt and Syria are either killing fields of civil war or newly established tyrant states, Ukraine is spiraling out of control due in part to mindless, senseless interference of the American war party and its European allies. Maybe we should tweak the famous aphorism that know-nothings tout when befuddled by the madness in front of them. Red, White and Blue: These colors don't run - except to change your government.