In this episode and the next, we’re going to look at two instances in the early Cold War of American-sponsored and -instigated overthrows of democratically elected governments, and their replacement by unpopular, USA-backed dictatorships. Of course, I’m talking about Iran and Guatemala in the early-1950s. This episode will set the context and cover Iran. Next time we’ll cover Guatemala and consequences of these sorts of operations.
Join Prof CJ as he discusses:
A quick sketch of the Dulles Brothers (John Foster & Allen) who played such key roles in these sorts of operations in the 1950s
A look at the historical context (ie, early Cold War)
A sketch of Iranian PM Mohammed Mossadegh, and why the Dulles Bros (and the corporate interests they served) wanted him overthrown
How the CIA overthrew Mossadegh and replaced him with Shah Reza Pahlavi
The aftermath of this operation and its legacy, which is still being felt today
Ep. 0032: Uncle Sam vs Democracy, Part 2: Operation PB Success
Encouraged by their success against Iran’s democratic government (covered in last episode), the Dulles Brothers’ next move was against the small central American country of Guatemala, where a left-of-center government appeared to be threatening the interests of the United Fruit Company.
Join Prof CJ as he discusses:
The immediate backstory on Guatemala, including the dominance of American corporations over the country, its democratic revolution in 1944 and the election of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman to the presidency in 1951
The Arbenz government’s Decree 900, aimed at redistributing unused land to poor peasants
The CIA’s Operation PB Success, a largely psychological campaign that succeeded in overthrowing Arbenz in June 1954
How the CIA itself, after ousting Arbenz, failed to find any real evidence that Arbenz was in league with the Soviets
The brutal aftermath of this coup, which caused suffering and oppression in Guatemala for decades and killed over 200,000 people
A brief thought experiment of how Americans might respond if they were put in an analogous situation
Some discussion of the concept known as “blowback”
This is the little-known story of how Florida became a part of Team America. (Spoiler: It wasn’t totally voluntary…)
Join Prof CJ as he discusses:
The background to the war: what was going on in Florida leading up to the war, & who the Seminoles were, including the so-called ‘Black Seminoles’
Why the United States coveted Florida almost from day one of getting its independence
The destruction of the so-called “Negro Fort” by American forces in 1816
The immediate issues that led to fighting beginning in late 1817, culminating in Andrew Jackson’s invasion of West Florida in 1818
How Jackson exceeded his orders (which just allowed him to retaliate against hostile Indians), and went so far as to seize Spanish installations and execute two Brits who were found in the area
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’ successful negotiation of a treaty in 1819 formally transferring Florida (East and West) to the US without provoking war or major retaliations from either Spain or Britain
How, even after the American takeover of Florida, Americans continued to see the Seminoles as a major problem, one that would be ‘dealt with’ beginning in the 1830s with the Second Seminole, which was much larger and costlier than the First, and which we’ll cover next episode
The troubling precedent set for the American Republic by Jackson’s actions in this undeclared war
Last time, we covered the First Seminole War; this time, we get to the nastier sequel.
The Second Seminole war was the US government’s longest and most expensive Indian War. It also had many parallels to later campaigns in harsh environments against determined guerrilla fighters, and many lessons which, unfortunately, were not learned, as the nation did its best to consign the conflict to the ‘memory hole’ soon after its end. Long before the Philippines War, and even longer before Vietnam, there was this brutal war…
Join Prof CJ as he discusses:
The 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek, which tried to confine the Seminoles to a reservation in central Florida, requiring most of them to relocate, cutting off their access to the coasts, denying their freedom of movement, and requiring them to assist in the capture and return of escaped slaves
The election of Andrew Jackson as president in 1828, which would have disastrous consequences for Southeastern Indians, including the Seminole
The Indian Removal Act and subsequent attempts to bribe or dupe the Seminoles into relocating out West
The rise of Osceola
The beginning of violence in 1835 with the so-called ‘Dade Massacre’ and assassination of the US Indian Agent Wiley Thompson
How US General Thomas Jesup captured Osceola by betraying a flag of truce, something even most white Americans found dishonorable
Osceola’s captivity and death from illness within a few months
The brutal Battle of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day, 1837
Continued Seminole guerrilla operations and American countermeasures, which sought to grind them down
The cessation of fighting in 1842, by which time the Seminole population of Florida had been reduced by approximately 94% in 20 years due to death and deportation
A brief mention of the much smaller Third Seminole War (1855-58)
Some concluding thoughts about this war from historians who have written about it extensively, and from Prof CJ
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This is not a historical narrative of any particular fascist regime or regimes. Instead, it’s an exploration of what fascism — arguably the most slippery of modern “isms” to define — really is.
Join Prof CJ as he discusses:
Some quotes from the father of Fascism, Benito Mussolini, to get things started
Why fascism is tougher to nail down than other isms
What fascism is and isn’t, including some criticism of the standard “Left-to-Right” political spectrum
A look at some of the defining elements of fascism, using John T. Flynn’s As We Go Marching (1944) as a starting point
An excerpt from the Nazi Party’s platform dealing with their economic planks, and possible American parallels
Is there a New Counterculture movement? If so, what is it? Can we define it, or at least describe it? Might you be a part of it, even if in a small way, even if you don’t realize it?
Join Prof CJ as he discusses:
Why cultural, artistic, and/or intellectual movements are often hard to identify without hindsight (either after they’ve fizzled out entirely, or at least jumped the shark)
What the Old Counterculture was, and its problems
Defining what the New Counterculture is (as CJ sees it) by describing a nonexistent, archetypal New Counterculturalist individual in terms of his or her age, religiosity, career, political views, lifestyle, etc.
CJ’s take on the degree to which he himself (at least somewhat) fits the mold
Reasons why the New Counterculture has more potential to achieve lasting, positive change
(image Revolt Submit Switch Stock Photo courtesy Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net)
Finally back (and recovered!) from the trip to Ireland, so the DHP returns with a listener emails episode.
Join CJ as he discusses:
A few words about his recent trip to Ireland
Thoughts on Islam
SJW’s vs. the Alt. Right
Parallels between the present-day US and Weimar Republic Germany
The tendency of elites to want to deprive the lower orders of comfort and luxury items, even in cases where doing so will bring them (the elites) no real material gain
Potential windows of opportunity for anti-interventionists to have changed Team America’s foreign policy path in the early- and mid-twentieth century
The Austrian school of economics & money
Thanks to listeners Skip, Dicon, Jeff, Brett, and Justin for the questions!
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Greetings, Comrades! We’ve had a rough February – and we didn’t manage to fix all of our errors in the previous podcasts, but…here we are nonetheless. This show was one of the hardest ever to make, and I really hope you’ll not only enjoy it, but will also take some time to understand the depth of the tragedy. Today’s picture is – Pripyat. Empty, irradiated and ghastly, it stands there to remind us of the evils of ignorance.
Please, support us on Patreon (or here) and leave us good ratings on iTunes. And check out Lesser Bonapartes and other Dark Myths shows!
