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cincinnatusvirtue · 4 years

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The First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842): Britain’s Great Game ends up meeting a dead end...

The region of Afghanistan has a long and varied history, one that is rugged like its topography of many mountain ranges, valleys and deserts. Its mix of barren wastes, snowy caps and forested patches of oasis. Its history has placed it at the crossroads of the geopolitical focus over the centuries. The focus of empires and of trade, often trying to assert its own path in history but so often a focal point of foreign ambition. As always to appreciate the modern we need to go back to earlier times.

Early History:

-Afghanistan is a patchwork of peoples, a testament to its status as a crossroads of empires over the ages. Primarily it sits in the eastern end of the ethnolinguistic region of Iranian peoples, a mix of ethno linguistically related but diverse groups of peoples from Persians (Farsi), Kurds, Ossetians, Baloch to Pashtun and Tajik among others. The latter two being the primary groups found in Afghanistan today, along with smaller Iranian groups like the Hazara & Baloch. Others include the Turkic Uzbek and Turkmens and a small number of Arabs.

-In ancient times Afghanistan was home to Iranian groups known as Bactrians & Sogdians who inhabited portions of the country. These peoples were incorporated into their fellow Iranians sphere of influence, the first Persian or Achaemenid Empire. This empire stretched from the Indus Valley in the East (modern Pakistan/India) to Greece and the Balkans in the West. Members of these groups served in the Persian Empire’s army but maintained their own traditions too. It is widely believed that the religion of the Persian Empire and of most Iranians in this time was Zoroastrianism, founded by Zoroaster in the region of Balkh in North Central Afghanistan. This religion would serve in some ways as an influence on the monotheistic Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity & Islam later on history.

-During Alexander the Great’s march to conquer the Persian Empire, having defeated the Persians in three major battles and taken the western half of their empire, he sought to conquer the eastern half too which took him into the modern region of Afghanistan. The Macedonian armies under Alexander founded new cities here and brought forth Greek culture which began to merge with the local religion and culture. This Hellenistic culture spread as far as India as with Greek paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism all mixing in the same cities as times. In the wake of Alexander’s death, his empire which essentially replaced the Persian Empire had no set structure of succession and quickly dissolved into portions going to his various generals. The largest expanse of which was the Seleucid Empire which spanned the whole of the Iranian plateau to India and to the Levant, this included Afghanistan. The region underwent many changes with portions being given to the Indian superpower of the day, the Mauryan Empire and later a successful uprising against the Seleucids, forming the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom which found itself at war with the Parthian Empire, a resurgent Iranian Empire which swept away the remnants of Seleucid Greek rule. These wars left Afghanistan open to nomadic invasions, namely from the nomadic branch of Iranians from the Eurasian steppe, coming in different waves. The Yuezhi and Scythians, the Scythians would later establish a kingdom that controlled portions of the region, the Indo-Scythian Kingdom as did the Yuezhi which became the Kushan Empire. Eventually this gave way to the second Persian Empire or Sassanid Empire which took over the region.

-All the while this region sat along the Silk Road spanning from the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire in the West to the Han Chinese in the East. Goods and peoples of different backgrounds travelled through the region, most just passing through but they all shared their influence, establishing Afghanistan as an important crossroads of commerce and not just conquest. Additionally, ancient sources attest to portions of Afghanistan, namely the region around the city of Herat being a major source of grain due to fertile farmlands in Central Asia as well as supplying vineyards of grapes for winemaking in the Persian world.

-In terms of religion, Afghanistan reflected the many changes of its many ruling peoples religions remaining a hub of Buddhism, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism along with lingering elements of Greek culture. This would change with the eventual downfall of the Sassanids in the 7th Century AD to the Islamic Caliphates and their gradual expansion over the Iranian plateau. Overtime Islam began to gradually take hold as the religion over the area but it was still set side by side with numerous other faiths and lived in relative tolerance to the other faiths. Eventually the Ghaznavid and Ghurid & Khwarazmian dynasties ruled over the area, a mix of Iranian and Turkic peoples who gradually made Islam the unifying religion of the region by the Middle Ages.

-The Mongols would invade and devastate the region in the 13th century. The devastation was so complete that the many settled cities were ruined, forcing the peoples of Afghanistan back into rural agrarian societies, something which has not been fully removed from the majority of Afghan society today. Overtime the peoples of Afghanistan, a region long noted for its literary, especially Islamic poetic contributions and had been a hotbed crossroads of cultural interfacing, was now reverted to an mostly tribal agrarian society once more. With some centers of learning gone forever Its peoples divided along ethnolinguistic grounds and into clans from there.

-There was somewhat a renaissance in the ages with the Turco-Mongol ruler, Timur and his empire ruled with new additions to architecture and culture contributed to the region but this was short lived. Meanwhile, a descendant of Timur named Babur would base himself in Afghanistan before launching an invasion of India and upon overtaking the Sultanate of Delhi, became the founder and ruler of the new Mughal Empire, the Islamic superpower that was to overrun much of India and dominate the subcontinent and beyond in the coming two centuries.

-Meanwhile, Afghanistan once more found itself on the fringe of an Iranian power, half the country at max was under the control of the Safavid Empire, a Kurdish dynasty that took power in Persia and expanded to reclaim historical “Persian” lands. Indeed the Persian (Farsi) language was regarded as the lingua franca of the region for centuries and was the language of the learned and most educated in the Islamic world as a whole, whereas Arabic was for mostly religious celebration. Persian was the language of government and the arts.

-Safavid rule was tenuous at best and their primary focus was facing the Turkish Ottomans to the west, leaving much of Afghanistan to de-facto local rule. Here the tribal societies that have dominated Afghanistan to the modern era, in part a result of the resumption of rural life after the Mongol destruction of the major cities held sway, with tribal leaders functioning as more or less warlords among the Pashtun and Tajik peoples and their various clans among others ruled over certain sections of the country. Only Islam united them in their differences. Much time was spent raiding and fighting each other, along with the few travelers who ventured into this increasingly isolated and remote portion of the world.

-The Hotak dynasty of Pashtuns had a hand in the downfall of the Safavids which was increasingly corrupted and weakened by intrigue at the royal court. In the wake of this, a Turco-Persianate ruler named Nader Shah took the reins in Persia and put down the Hotaks before setting up his own short lived Persian Empire, known as the Afsharid dynasty which pillaged the Mughals in India and defeated the Ottomans several times before Nader Shah was killed and his successors failed to maintain control. In Afghanistan, another Pashtun dynasty, the Durrani took power in the middle 18th century.

-The Durrani would for the first time in the modern age have a local Afghan power base that expanded beyond the borders of Afghanistan with any longer lasting impact. These mostly Pashtun peoples supported by some Persians invaded and controlled portions of India, defeating the Hindu superpower, the Maratha Empire at the peak of their powers at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. However the Durrani dynasty and its Emirate of Afghanistan, was weakened through ongoing external and internal pressures, military defeats from the Qajar dynasty in Persia and the new Sikh Empire in the Indian Punjab put closed in their borders. Eventually, internal conflict led to the fall of the Durrani dynasty with one its Emirs (leader), Shuja Shah going into exile in India hoping to return to rule. By 1823 the country had fractured into many smaller entities with civil war taking place until by 1837 Dost Mohammed Khan, founder of the Barakzai dynasty took power as Emir and reunited the country...

The Great Game:

-The exile of Shuja Shah and rise of the Barakzai dynasty in Afghanistan after much civil war by the end of the 1830′s was the state into which Afghanistan again entered wider geopolitics. Namely amidst the geopolitical struggle between the British and Russian Empires. Called the Great Game by the British as Tournament of Shadows by the Russians, this rivalry for geopolitical and economic influence was a likened to a game of chess whereby each power vied for influence, mostly through proxies, a precursor to the Cold War of the 20th Century between the US and USSR. Afghanistan it was hoped by both Empires would be one of those proxies.

-The British since the 16th and 17th centuries had pushed to become a naval power as well and felt that international commerce was the way to expand their economic and political power. Along with the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch they all took an interest in naval power and setting up colonies in other parts of the world. In Asia, the Indian subcontinent became their primary focus. It was rich in resources such as tradable goods like cotton, silks, spices, jewels, salt, opium, various minerals and other commodities. It was also a vital link in the idea of a global empire in protecting commerce links on the way to Indonesia and China. Denying their main rival, France, influence in India was of high importance and by the mid 18th century, they became the unrivalled European power defeating the French at the Battle of Plassey during the Seven Years War. India was not united in any meaningful fashion at the time locally with various empires, kingdoms and principalities fighting locally over this vast area. They were divided by various ethnicities, religions and the usual drives of personal power and wealth. Due to this division, the Europeans who first established small trading factories gradually could expand their power to the interior of India and through mutual alliances of convenience between them and their local Indian trading partners they could compete with other Europeans. For some Indians, the European powers were initially more to their benefit, their presence was small but their weapons and military advantages were far superior giving them a strategic advantage over their opponents. In time, this power dynamic changed as the Indians had to continually grant the Europeans more power, namely the British who routinely defeated the Indians and began ceding more territory to them. Also the British’s vast wealth could now employ Indians against other Indian powers. Especially after France’s defeat at Plassey, no other Europeans seriously threatened the British interests. Britain’s East India Company, a joint-stock venture given great autonomy in the name of the British Crown had its own military, its own military officers school and total monopolies over half the world’s trade at one point.

-The British East India Company’ army had British officers, mostly Indian rank and file soldiers called sepoys and occasional regular British army regiments to complement it in its venture to conquer the whole of India by any means necessary. The East India Company also known as the Company had since the 17th century established a number of trading posts, most importantly Calcutta which was the capital of Bengal in the eastern portion of the country. This was decisively established after defeating the French and remnants of the crumbling Mughal Empire which they supported and which had declined since the 18th century due to the rising power of the Maratha Empire, India’s last great Hindu superpower before the British era.

-Britain focused their efforts of conquest on south India, first defeating after much initial difficulty the Kingdom of Mysore, run by Tipu Sultan. Later, battling the Maratha Empire which had piqued by the mid 18th century. Following their defeat by the Afghan Durrani Empire at the Third Battle of Panipat, the Maratha started a gradual decentralization that led to civil war, the Company got involved trying to place their preferred candidates in power in the Maratha hierarchy. The first war saw a British defeat but by the early 19th century, the British with Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, fought a second war, defeating the Marathas at Assaye from which they gained territory. They finished off the Marathas in 1818 and had by then essentially absorbed the whole of India with exception of the Punjab where the Sikh Empire had arisen under Maharaja Ranjit Singh at the end of the 18th century and grew in power in the first decades of the 19th century. The Sikhs had thrown off the last remnants of the Mughals in their realm and then pushed out the Afghans on their borders too.

-The Sikh Empire like many Indian powers used foreign mercenaries and officers from Europe & America to join their ranks, supply them with European and American style military training doctrine and supply them with the latest in military technology which far surpassed anything made in India at the time. The Sikh army was quite strong and had French officers providing most of the training, the Company’s default position was to make an alliance with them. The Sikh’s had troubles with Afghanistan, namely over the city of Peshawar and the Khyber Pass.

-The Russians for their part had expanded from Russia over the whole of Siberia towards the Pacific, this process had begun in the late 1500’s and was completed by the end of the 17th century. Leading to Russian exploration and colonization in Alaska and elsewhere in the Pacific during the 18th century.

-Russian expansion into Central Asia was in part a result of their off and on conflicts with the Ottomans and Persians in the past. By the second decade of the 19th century with the threat of Napoleonic France gone, their attention turned to maintaining a balance of power in Europe and a free rein in Central Asia. The threat to their influence as they saw it was Britain, which Russian tsars, namely Nicholas I, viewed with suspicion as far too “liberal” for their belief in absolute monarchy and conservative values. The British in turn were suspicious of Russian threats to their geopolitical spheres, namely gaining too much power at the expense of the Ottoman Empire or more directly to British India which was after the American Revolution to become the crown jewel in their global empire.

-The Russians gradually defeated the various Islamic emirates in Central Asia, taking over modern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The process was drawn out over several decades but through military conquest by the late 19th century would be achieved. It was as this Russian encroachment neared Afghanistan, that alarm amongst the British in India began to be raised…

The British Misinterpret Everything:

-Britain’s government and the East India Company misinterpreted the Russian view of events. It is true Russia sought to expand its influence but the British interpreted the expansion into Central Asia as meaning only one thing, eventual invasion and conquest of British India. Only Tsar Paul I in 1800 seriously pressed for an invasion of British India but he was assassinated and the plans for invasion never thought of as a practical reality by most in Russia’s military were cancelled. The Russians did want increased political influence in the area but even the most conservative of Russian tsars always believed a reproach with Britain could be obtained.

-The British also saw civil war in Afghanistan as well as the strength of the Sikh Empire as threats to their border and greater sphere of influence in India. The conflict between the Sikhs and Afghans meant they had to choose sides, they couldn’t be an alliance with both. Precisely, because of this conflict and the greater specter of Russian influence did Britain find itself on a course for war.

-In Afghanistan, the British and Russians had spies and intelligence agents acting as emissaries. The British had Scotsman Alexander Burnes, who joined the British East India Company. Burnes was stationed in Kabul and in turn his presence spurred the Russians to counter with their own envoy, the Polish-Lithuanian born Jan Prosper Witkiewicz. Both British and Russian envoys hoped to make an alliance with Afghanistan’s emir, Dost Mohammad Khan against the other. The emir for his part sought to regain Peshawar, recently lost to the Sikhs. This, however put the British in an awkward position, Company controlled India bordered the Sikh Empire and both sides had a mutual if tense respect for one another. The Sikh Empire was the last major independent kingdom of India outside of British rule and while Britain sought to eventually neutralize it, now was not the time. Furthermore, the Sikhs had a large standing army, with European doctrine, modern weapons and European officers who could pose a threat to British India, a threat they saw as greater than Afghanistan. Afghanistan had no formal army, only tribal men with tribal loyalties but nominally served their overlord the emir in times of national defense.

-Dost Mohammed Khan wasn’t enthused about the Russians to begin with but he believed the entertaining of an alliance might force the British to offer their alliance. Instead, given the British calculations of realizing they couldn’t support the Afghans over the more powerful Sikhs but also couldn’t abide the possibility of s Russian allied Afghanistan, moved closer to a casus belli for war.

-Burnes was apparently distraught at the arrival of the Russian envoy in 1836-1837, he wrote panicked reports. The Russians in turn reported on British maneuvers in Kabul. The British governor-general of India, Lord Auckland sent what amounted to a cease and desist letter to Dost Mohammed Khan. The letter was very demanding of Khan, ordering him to not negotiate with the Russians or even receive them as envoys. Khan was angered by this but wanted to avoid war. He had his own advisor, an American named Josiah Harlan talk to Burnes. Burnes argued he could only report on matters not make policy directly himself, Harlan saw this as merely stalling on his part and on his advice Khan expelled the British mission.

-Lord Auckland was now determined to force Afghanistan to submit to British demands. Furthemore, Russia and Afghanistan couldn’t come to a deal and their mission too broke down. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s major western city, Herat was besieged by Qajar Persia with Russian material support. Fearful the Russians might use this as a pretext to invade Afghanistan proper, Auckland would in turn use it as a pretext to restore “order” in Afghanistan.

-Auckland reached a reproach with Ranjit Singh, the Sikh Maharaja. His goal was to fend off the Persians and their Russian support. He would also depose Dost Mohammed Khan as emir, seeing him as too unfriendly to British interests by his earlier negotiations with the Russians, as well his conflict with the Sikhs, who the British treated as a nominal ally at the time. His plan included placing the former Durrani emir, Shuja Shah on the throne once more. Shah had lived in exile in British india since 1818 and had been deposed in 1809. In the three decades since he last reigned, he was hardly remembered by anyone, aside from those who remembered his cruelty that had led to his deposition in the first place. Shah had been given a Company pension and comfortable living in exile, considered a useful pawn in British geopolitics, he in turn was willing to ally with anyone who would support his restoration to the throne. Auckland was led to believe that Shah was actually popular and that the instability in Afghanistan meant Khan was unpopular himself, the inverse turned out to be the case...

The First-Anglo-Afghan War:

-By October 1838, Auckland sent the so called Simla Declaration which resolved the British and the Sikhs to march in Afghanistan and restore Shuja Shah to the throne on the grounds that Dost Mohammed Khan was unpopular, had lead to instability within the country, was a threat to the Sikhs and British by extension and given rise to the prospect of foreign (Russian) interference.

-In Punjab, Lord Auckland and Ranjit Singh held a grand parade of the so-called Grand Army of the Indus which would march in Afghanistan jointly to bring “order”. Two things happened in the interim. The Persian siege of Herat was called off and the Russian tsar had recalled his envoy altogether. The British pretexts for war ended before war began. Auckland and others heading the Company’s policy in India however were deadset to commit to a military operation, believing Afghanistan essentially needed to be put in its place, meaning it needed a British backed ruler who would amount to a puppet and could put British interests in the region first.

-December 1838 saw the British East India Company’s 21,000 strong army set out for Afghanistan. Composed of British and Indian troops (mostly rank and file Indians and British officers) along with nearly 40,000 Indian camp followers, Indian servants, families and even prostitutes following too. Ranjit Singh in the end backed out of the plan, not sending any troops to aid in Afghanistan.

-The British trek took months to cross the snowy Hindu Kush mountains. Finally they reached the area near Kandahar in April 1839. From there they waited two months until better conditions in the summer to march to Kabul. The British found themselves having to besiege the fortress-city of Ghazni in July. Eventually upon destroying a weakened gate, they breached the city and after much fighting captured the city.

-Khan upon hearing of Ghazni’s fall, offered a surrender to the British, he was replied with removal of his position on the throne to a life of exile in India, this was unacceptable, so the march to Kabul continued, though Ghazni remained occupied.

-A battle took place outside of Kabul which forced Dost Mohammed Khan to flee the city, the British entered and Shuja Shah was placed on the throne. The war was seemingly at end, the main objective achieved, Khan’s removal and Shah placed on the throne. Most of the British Indian force returned to India, leaving some 8,000 to occupy Afghanistan in various places from Kandahar to Kabul.

-The initial invasion was successful but the occupation and continued support of Shuja Shah was costly in terms of public relations for the British. Shah resumed his cruelty, he punished and executed those who he considered traitors from decades before. By his own admission, his people were dogs in need of “obedience” and corrective punishment. He raised taxes which hurt the already impoverished economy. This hurt his limited popularity along with his essentially martial rule, upheld by the British. Now, a guerilla war phase was being instituted by various Afghan groups, some loyal to Khan and some just offended by the presence of foreign invaders.

-The British for their part did not help matters. Many officers imported their families from India into Kabul, where they took residence in a cooler mountain valley climate, they created gardens and set up English country gentrified life in the Afghan capital. Some English customs weren’t especially troublesome to the Afghans, tea drinking socials, cricket and polo, even ice skating on frozen ponds in the winter which actually amazed the Afghans having never before seen such a thing.

-However, the more the British lingered, the sense they'd never leave crept in, their presence in the daily markets brought raised prices which coupled with higher taxes meant they were linked with such economic hardship. The British also drank alcohol and had wine cellars fully stocked, in a devout Muslim country this was offensive given Islamic prohibitions on alcohol. However, most trying for the Afghan populace was the sexual relations between the occupiers and Afghan women. British men soon found themselves acquiring the services of willing Afghan women for prostitution. Afghanistan was quite poor to begin with and coupled with hardships brought on by the invasion a number of Afghan women, married or unmarried found themselves becoming prostitutes to the British. Afghan women realized even the lowest paid British soldier was more wealthy than Afghan men, so their turns to prostitution were not unsurprising. Others willingly entered into romantic relationships with the British and indeed some British officers did marry Afghan women, including daughters of tribal leaders. This development offended the Afghan men, particularly the Pashtun who had a sense of society that revolved around honor to manhood, any slight real or imagined could be responded to with justified violence in their code of honor. The Pashtun men could enact honor killings on women who fraternized with the British, on the grounds that these women brought shame to the men in their family for engaging in immoral behavior and for sleeping with infidel Christians.

-The guerilla war that developed in reaction to the British also spurred their sense of prolonging their stay. Shuja Shah knew more British was the only way to ensure his continued reign. Isolated British outposts or patrols could be attacked in ambush due to fighters whose entire fighting style relied less on technical skill or discipline beyond waging ambushes and raids. Most Afghan warriors would have been armed with little more than an old matchlock musket or possibly a dagger or sword.

-The British nevertheless were negotiating with Shuja Shah to develop a standing army and do away with the tribal levy system. He argued there was not enough infrastructure or more succinctly, funding to maintain a standing army. So the British occupation dragged on.

-Dost Mohammed Khan was eventually taken prisoner and exiled to India. However, his sons continued to wage the war on their dynasty’s behalf.

- By 1841, George Elphinstone was in charge of the British forces in Kabul, most of his time was spent bed ridden with gout and other ailments.

-Early November, saw in motion a planned uprising. For months through Shuja, tribal chieftains had their loyalty earned by bribes of money. The British used this as a way to pacify the resistance with some success but it was a tenuous development. The spark for the uprising in Kabul came from British agent, Alexander Burnes. Burnes had been particularly well known for his sexual relations and womanizing of Afghan women and was viewed as largely a focal point of the resentment Afghans had towards the British. The final straw came when a slave girl from Kashmir who belonged to a Pashtun chieftain escaped to Burnes home. At first the chieftain sent retainers to retrieve the girl, only to find Burnes in the act of sleeping with her himself, Burnes own guards then beat the retainers and sent them on their way. The chieftain, having his code of honor offended along with other chieftains, proclaimed jihad. The next morning a large riot broke out at Burnes residence in Old Kabul, away from the British camp which had moved to the outside of town. Burnes, his brother and others were hacked to death by the angry mob, their beheaded skulls placed on pikes for display. Shuja Shah sent a single British regiment to put down the events, it suffered casualties and was forced to return. Shuja realized the people were rebelling against him and the British and he was effectively overthrown.

-Elphinstone was gripped with indecision on how to deal with the matter, he wrote to the Company Civil Administrator, William Macnaughten. Macnaughten tried to negotiate with Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammed, with an eye towards making him vizier, in exchange for extending the British stay. Macnaughten also negotiated with other tribal leaders to assassinate Akbar Khan. The news of these two faced dealings led to Macnaughten being captured and killed by Khan’s men, his body dragged through the streets of Kabul.

-Elphinstone realized it was time to withdraw, the British presence no longer tenable. The Afghans had not attacked the encampment directly due to the concentrated British strength but these appeared to be only a matter of time. He made the decision to withdraw the garrison, 4,500 strong with 12,000 camp followers including family and mostly Indian servants and some Afghan women who preferred life with their British lovers as opposed to facing the wrath of their angered families who would kill them for shaming them.

-January 1842 saw Elphinstone’s withdrawal in a massive column through snowy passes. The retreat dragged out for weeks with little food, bad weather and repeated attacks from Pashtun guerillas who attacked and killed as many as they could. Repeatedly, Elphinstone met with Akbar Khan to call off the attacks, Khan allowed the English women and children to return to Kabul to be ransomed later, but the Indian camp followers were not spared, they were forced to freeze to death in the snowy passes. Meanwhile as Elphinstone and the army marched on, the attacks continued with Khan playing Elphinstone for a fool. Eventually, he treated Elphinstone to a good meal before taking him prisoner, Elphinstone would die as a hostage some months later. The 44th Foot, the only all British regiment made a famous last stand fending off many Afghan charges before being overrun. The British column was mostly starved, frozen or hacked to death in the passes, most of the victims being Indian sepoys or their families and camp followers (servants) of the British officers. Some British women and children remained in Afghan captivity for a time, with some being ransomed and released, most being well treated. Some women were forced to marry their captors and others as children were adopted into Afghan families, some living into the early 20th century in Afghanistan. Only one British doctor and some scattered sepoys survived the ordeal at all. Much of this episode was detailed by Lady Florentia Sale in a diary, later published to great acclaim. She would spend nine months in captivity before her and her daughter were rescued by the British.

-The Afghans stormed the other British garrisons but all these attacks were repelled, in turn British reinforcements were arriving from India. These reinforcements subsequently beat Akbar Khan in a pitched battle. Plans were underway for a retaking of Kabul with a new larger force but Lord Auckland suffered a stroke and was replaced by Lord Ellenborough as Governor-General of India. Plus, elections in Britain’s parliament brought a new government with orders to change policy, withdraw from Afghanistan, which found itself in a military stalemate. A last battle took place in which Akbar Khan who was routinely defeated in pitched battles was beaten again with huge casualties at Kabul. However, the measure was merely punitive for the deaths of Elphinstone’s column. The Company at government orders withdrew all British troops from Afghanistan, having inflicted numerous deaths on the Afghan side and destroyed more forts of theirs but politically been unable to change the situation.

-Dost Mohammaed Khan was allowed to return where he co-ruled with his son Akbar who eventually died in 1845, possibly poisoned on orders from his father, who is rumored to have misgivings about his ambition. Dost Mohhamed Khan’s primary goal was to restore Peshawar from the Sikhs all along, during the Anglo-Sikh Wars that followed in the decade ((1845-1846 & 1848-1849), he was nominally neutral albeit he somewhat supported his old rivals the Sikhs with an Afghan mercenary force, still hoping to negotiate Peshawar. These wars resulted in British victory over the Sikhs, the last of Indian independent kingdoms fell and India was more or less completely in Company hands, the Afghan border nor directly bordered British India in the Punjab. The British never returned Peshawar despite their own promises to do so, but Dost having faced his own temporary overthrow and captivity realized, the British were far too powerful to resist in the long run and so he maintained quiet on his part, staying neutral during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, ruling until his death in 1863.

-The British for their part were defeated in the first Anglo-Afghan War, though their military generally held the upper hand in pitched battles and their initial invasion for all its hubris and motivations was successful. It was the occupation that proved too much of an expense than originally endeavored. British arrogance and ignorance of local custom also worsened reception of their plans. In the end, it was British paranoia, belief in imperial prestige and jingoism that had led to a war that while a limited military success was a political failure, having achieved none of their goals, which seemed to shift as the situation shifted. It was a confused war, brought on by people on all sides misreading the events surrounding them and made worse by their stubborn commitment to short-sighted policy goals and ego. Britain would avoid venturing into Afghanistan for nearly forty years when similar disputes over diplomacy led to a second war...

#19th century #military history #afghanistan #the great game #british imperialism #british east india company #india #islam #pashtun #tajik #persian #russian empire #guerilla warfare #kabul

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iraklismytridis · 4 years

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Archangel Collective Feb/18/2020

Welcome humans reading these encoded words. We are the Archangel Collective. We are seeing you through the eyes of love and from the higher vantage point from beyond time, from beyond your current perception of understanding. For you see, this was all preordained in a way. Gaia wished very much to expand further than any other planet had expanded and in so doing she allowed her consciousness, her density, to become greater, more dense. One must experience the dark before one can truly appreciate the dawn. Contrast is what this sector is known for. One must be very brave to experience this contrast. We see you, our grounded aspects, our beloved ones, our twins some of you, we see you as very brave indeed. For you are the volunteers to assist Gaia in her rediscovery of the light. Now she has already been ascended for some time, and if you are attuning to the higher frequencies you can feel this truth. This is why meditation is so important in this now. You must find your voice, your own vibration. You must become masters at this, at fine tuning your own frequency amidst the cacaphony of noise. You came here to master this. You have mastered this before. We assure you that you can do this again with ease and grace if that is your intention.

We are the Archangel Collective. We are all around Gaia in this now, offering our time, our talents, just as you too, grounded ones, are doing. This is truly a collaborative effort. We offer to you our strengths for we wish to assist our grounded aspects, our grounded light team in any way that we can. Encouragement, upliftment, laughter, love. Reject the misery around you and infuse it with peace, a kind word, a smile. Become the Christ consciousness embodied for that is why you came. You are royalty many of you. You are in the process of this discovery. You are a child of God. You are not a child of sin, of lust. So much twisting has occurred. No. YOU are a most precious outpouring of love, of bliss from the divine union of love. You are love. Your lives have been fraught with pain. Many light workers have many a challenging, hard story to tell. But this brought you to where you are. Abortions, divorce, loss, bankruptcy, devastation. You have experienced the low point, the nader, just as Gaia has. And you did this so that you could discover your Christed self within. Nothing was lost if you are wise enough to see the treasure within you. See, all is found. Do not grieve the past for it brought you to this now. In this now, where you can read or type or feel these words and truly know, it was all worth it for you have discovered the Christ within.

We are the Archangel Collective. We wish to paint to you a picture of light, of sound, of laughter, of glistening shimmering codes of information swirling all around you in a vortex of pure potential. True, as Abraham states this vortex of creation is valid, is true as we are speaking, all around you. To access it you must allow it. This is where raw creation begins. We wish for you to surround yourselves with love, with light, with healing. We wish for you to manifest Nova Gaia, to manifest your best self, your best life around you. Enough suffering. That lesson has been learned. Enough grief. Your friends and family that have passed are waiting just beyond the veil. Replace the suffering with excitement of grand new things to come, experiences to be had, joys to behold. You are our joy. We surround you with our mighty wings of light, of pure potential and massive protection. Child of God. You are a child of God. Repeat this until you know it, until you weep with the pure joy of it. Masters every one of you, we see. This realm is untwisting, unfolding into light. Claim the light and wrap it around you. Claim your light codes of remembering. They are your divine birthright.

We are the Ascended Archangel Collective. We are with you in this process of rebirth. Be at peace and be in joy. We surround you with the tenderest of wings. Rest in our feathers and feel our light. Feel the light within you and expand it with ours. Let us light up this sector with the divine light of love together. Invite us to merge our talents with your own. We assure you, you are most tenderly looked after and most fiercely protected. Peace. Rest in this space. You are intimately loved. We are the Archangel Collective.

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tomorrowusa · 4 years

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Tulsi Gabbard is a twit. The people who support her are even bigger twits.

I can’t say for sure if Hillary was right about her being a “Russian asset”. But Gabbard is certainly working in Russia’s (and therefore Trump’s) interest.

The bottom line is this: There are only two real choices in the November 2020 election -- Trump and the future Democratic nominee. If you vote for some loser third party or independent candidate then you are helping to re-elect Trump. Deal with it.

The last third party or independent candidate to win a presidential election was Abraham Lincoln who won in 1860 because the Democrats were badly split and because the Whig Party had disintegrated. So Republicans made it to the Top Two and have remained there with the Democrats for 159 years.

Third party and independent candidates for president always claim that they will “break the mold” or that “it will be different this time” in the election they are competing in. Of course they don’t win. George Wallace didn’t in 1968. John Anderson didn’t in 1980. Ross Perot didn’t in 1992 or 1996. Ralph Nader didn’t in 2000. Jill Stein certainly didn’t in 2016. And if Tulsi the Twit runs on a minor party ticket in 2020, I guarantee that she won’t either.

The Democratic Party is a large alliance of different groups. In any alliance not everybody gets everything he/she wants; that’s not a valid excuse to then help elect somebody opposed to all your views. While the Democratic Party opens up to a more diverse group of people, the Republican Party shrinks to embrace a declining number of Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, automatic weapons fanatics, and the filthy rich.

Republicans can stay in power only by keeping people from voting or by preventing progressives from being united. They and their Russian colleagues encourage fringe candidates on the left to run for president to siphon off votes from the Democratic candidate. Republicans rely on voters who don’t understand the Electoral College and who have little knowledge of political history.

Do you really think Vladimir Putin had Jill Stein as a dinner companion (along with convicted Trump adviser Michael Flynn) in December 2015 at the Kremlin because she was such a great conversationalist? It was a publicity stunt by Putin to boost Stein’s prestige and give her foreign policy cred.

In the immortal words of Rachel Maddow:

If you vote for somebody who can’t win for president, it means that you don’t care who wins for president.

Voting for Tulsi Gabbard or some other Russian stooge will make America more dystopian -- NOT more progressive.

#tulsi gabbard #election 2020 #third parties #independents #russia #russian interference #electoral college

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cartaspelaeducacao-blog · 5 years

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ALUNOS DA ESCOLA VERA CRUZ

- 12 05 2019 -

Carta de alunos da escola Vera Cruz em apoio ao movimento contra o corte de verba destinada à educação

São Paulo, 12 de maio de 2019.

“Acreditamos que a educação sozinha não transforma a sociedade, sem ela tampouco a sociedade muda. Se a nossa opção é progressiva, se estamos a favor da vida e não da morte, da equidade e não da injustiça, do direito e não do arbítrio, da convivência com o diferente e não de sua negação, não temos outro caminho senão viver a nossa opção. Encará-la, diminuindo, assim, a distância entre o que dizemos e o que fazemos” Paulo Freire Como declarado pelo educador brasileiro, planetariamente reconhecido, Paulo Freire, a educação exerce um papel de extrema importância ao funcionamento e à existência de uma sociedade, obtendo uma relação de ação e reação no comportamento de cada cidadão. Ademais esta é um direito fundamental e social, como consta no Título II (Direitos Fundamentais), Capítulo II (Direitos Sociais), artigo 6º da Constituição Federal da República de 1988. E assim é dever do Estado não só garanti-la, mas deve-se investir em uma educação de qualidade e para todos. Entretanto, dentre os múltiplos ataques apresentados pelo governo Bolsonaro, desde o início deste ano, eis um de massiva importância para o futuro da sociedade brasileira: o corte de R$7,97 bilhões do investimento em educação, do ensino básico até o ensino superior. Nas últimas semanas, o MEC e Weintraub divulgaram o corte total de R$819 milhões nas bolsas de pesquisa de pós-graduação. Porém, a conta realizada pelo ministro Abraham Weintraub é nitidamente tendenciosa; os cortes foram realizados em cima de despesas discricionárias, pois o MEC não pode interferir em despesas obrigatórias, como as com gastos de funcionários. Assim, sobre essas despesas não obrigatórias, o corte foi, de fato, de cerca de 30%. Deste modo a universidade pública, que representa não apenas a pesquisa brasileira em todos os níveis, mas também um meio acessível que visa formar um aluno crítico e participativo, vinculando a aprendizagem a questões da realidade, está sendo derrubada, asfixiada pela mesquinharia elitista que nos rodeia historicamente no Brasil. O corte de verbas é só um início para uma problemática que se aprofunda ainda mais quando a discussão é a privatização da universidade pública como uma solução para suas contas. Tanto os cortes quanto a defesa de que a privatização são uma saída viável, excluem ainda mais os pobres e as minorias que vêm atualmente ocupando tais lugares. Essas medidas reforçam a marginalização àqueles que historicamente sempre tiveram um espaço de educação de qualidade negado. Assistimos a uma cegueira estratégica. Assim, nós, grupo de alunos do ensino médio da Escola Vera Cruz, entendemos que a qualidade do ensino não pode de forma alguma ser precarizada e, deste modo, gostaríamos de explicitar nosso apoio à paralização que acontecerá no dia 15 de maio de 2019 (quarta-feira). Independente de nossa situação nos parecer privilegiada, já que somos estudantes da rede de educação particular da zona Oeste de São Paulo, é importante lembrar que tal corte também nos afeta. Apesar de circularmos em um meio educativo privado, muitos de nós desejam acessar o ensino universitário público. Deste modo, a paralização representa um instrumento de posicionamento não só sobre o futuro do nosso país, mas também sobre o nosso próprio. Diante disso, convidamos todas e todos os estudantes da Escola Vera Cruz a se manifestarem no dia 15/05.

Assinaturas:

Grêmio da Construção Coletiva

Alunos: Anita Schwenck Nejme; Daniel Moraes Santana; Veronica Bagnoli D'Amore; Vitor Park Wu Sofia Domingues Belinky Maria Fernanda Saraiva Fernando Pencak Felipe André Mirshawka Bruna Tito Renan Funtowicz Valentina Yusta Fernanda Lazaretti Marina Navale Cecco Gabriel de Held Silveira João Pedro Maroni Gustavo Ruy Fernandes Davi Terra Felipe Rottgering Bianca Marcomini Laís Bastos Laura Dick Danilo Lima Amanda Sanches Louro Sofia Schuppli Sofia Mendonça Lucca Levin Cecato Francisco Ferraz Rafael Kovach Viktor Schmadel Bruna Carvalho Fernanda Veronezi Sofia Mendes Nina Klotzel Manoela Varella Peixoto Olívia Blay Gabriela Giardino Rafaela Dowbor Stefani Romano Flávia Vallejo Isabela Miranda Luana Kotscho Elise Boccia Fabiana Tarantino Manuela Abramo Manuela Ferraz Luiza Mendonça Natália Tito Ana Luiza Tararam Clara Smith Laura Cicerone Ana Luiza Tobara Manuela Magalhães Isabella Conti Cecília Almeida Paula Gaido Mila Mercadante Maria Eduarda Grassano Maria Pandeló Luana Nicolini Isabel Neves Laura Cruz Ana Carolina Roso Helena Pimentel Clara Paranhos Rafaela Nastari Joana Plapler Beatriz Soares Daniela Goichman Rita Barbiellini Sáfadi Catharina Caseiro Cavalieri Mariana Giannella Lina Mariana Abuhab Bialski Giulia Tonin Dora Duprat Martini Juliana Junqueira Fernanda Galvão Daniela Maciel Carolina Sertorio Helena Ditt Helena Winter Luana Baenninger Laura Mauser Mariana Brom Giulia Soares Clara kalili Clara Anselmo Godoy Corrêa Livia cristina busato Isadora Muylaert Helena Sader Pietra Porto Carolina Nigro Luiza Robin Fernanda Mendes Marina Sampaio Isabela Cosso Ana Luiza Politi Sabrina Polak Isabel Borgneth Sofia Farias Isabella Dalge Marina Franco Mansur Júlia Paliares Luiza Barros Vera Pizzo Catarina Schultz Ramos de Andrade Isabella Ekerman Kether Barata Ribeiro Levine Zoe Barata Ribeiro Levine Julia Livi Graziella Piacsek Fernanda Tito Costa Pereira Bruno Ligorio João Pedro Sartí João Alfredo Stella Nader Raquel Liberman Maria Clara Berni Fernandes Léo Ostermayer Fiuza Luca Perotti Pedro Magada Danilo Sztutman Laura Andrade Gabriel Starobinas Francisco Appy Clara Quinta Cunha Felipe Puliti Serson Gustavo Andriotti Gurman Joana Lagos Atala Frederico Levy Luara Dezordi de Oliveira Manuela Mazzucchelli Pedro Ferreira Cecília Tiné Torkomian Luana Tito Nastas Fabiana Biondi Camargo Francisco Barreto Dalla Vecchia Gabriela Pires CitIno Marina Gurman Nicholas Rigatto Noah Levin Tom Ricardo Rabinovitch Catharina Maia Gabriel Amorosino Sales Fernando Kerr Guimarães Bidetti Luana Farhat de Carvalho Felipe Cosso Gabriel Chiaratto Gabriel Lanchini Loures Bruno Ferraz Manzoli Karina Simone Fischer Isadora R. F. Cunha Antonio Losada Totaro André Thomas Monteiro Maria Clara Gonçalves Matheus Paulelli Gandolfo Antonio Levorin Antonio Mantovani Pedro Telles Lucca Reis Antonio Mendes Gandour Eduarda Siqueira Martins Daniel Viana Godinho Peria João Marques Magalhães Thales Corrêa Tavares Gabriel Machado Frossard Nina de Souza Furlan Gabriela Lobo Jeveaux

Responsáveis Legais:

Candida Rocha Schwenck; Roberto Emilio Nejme; Maria Helena Bagnoli; Carmine D'Amore Ingrid Davidovich v Paula Cruz Marta Inez Medeiros Marques

#cartaspelaeducacao #alunos #escolaveracruz #educacao #paralisacao

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statetalks · 3 years

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Who’s Right Democrats Or Republicans

Views Of The Democratic And Republican Parties

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Just under half of Americans have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, while a slightly larger share have an unfavorable view.

The GOP is viewed more negatively 38% say they have a positive view of the Republican Party, while 60% rate it unfavorably. These views are modestly changed since last summer, with the share of Americans rating the GOP unfavorably slightly higher than it was in August and the share of Americans with a negative view of the Democratic Party down slightly .

About three-quarters of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view the GOP favorably, while 81% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents view the Democratic Party positively.

Nearly all Republicans who say they strongly identify with the Republican Party express a favorable opinion of the GOP. Among Republicans who say they not so strongly identify with the party, 77% say have a favorable view, while 56% of independents who lean toward the Republican Party say the same.

Democrats who very strongly identify with the Democratic Party nearly universally view their party favorably, as do 87% of Democrats who describe themselves as not-so-strong Democrats. About six-in-ten Democratic leaners have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party.

Within both partisan groups, views of the opposing party are overwhelmingly unfavorable across-the-board, with more than eight-in-ten strong partisans, not so strong partisans and leaners alike saying this.

Why Are An Elephant And A Donkey The Party Symbols

The Democratic party is often associated with the colour blue and the donkey mascot.

That dates back to Democratic candidate Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign, when opponents called him a “jackass” for his stubbornness.

Instead of taking the nickname as an insult, Jackson embraced it and used the donkey image on his election posters.

It was then quickly adopted by newspapers and political cartoonists.

The Republican’s elephant symbol came along years later.

Many believe it came about, in part, due to a widely used expression during the Civil War led by Republican president Abraham Lincoln.

Soldiers entering battle were said to be “seeing the elephant” a phrase that means learning a hard lesson, often with a profound cost.

The symbol was then popularised by political cartoonist Thomas Nast; an early rendition featured in the 1879 edition of Harper’s Weekly.

Both symbols are still largely used for political campaigns.

Democrats Tend To Have A Lot More Anger And Negativity In Their Rhetoric According To Them If You Support President Trump Well Then You Are A Racist And A Nazi

They generally seem to be out to get someone making things more personal. Why are they so afraid to use the facts to reinforce what they want to do? Its agenda first then find or make up facts to support the rhetoric.

If they cant beat you at the polling booth, they try and beat you in court and thats just a great example of something thats not a pleasant experience. And not quite working in the long run. They keep getting overturned.

Crime And Capital Punishment

Republicans generally believe in harsher penalties when someone has committed a crime, including for selling illegal drugs. They also generally favor capital punishment and back a system with many layers to ensure the proper punishment has been meted out. Democrats are more progressive in their views, believing that crimes do not involve violence, such as selling drugs, should have lighter penalties and rehabilitation. They are also against capital punishment in any form.

Conservative Endorsements Of Democratic Candidates

During the 2004 election, several high-profile conservative writers endorsed the Presidential campaign of John Kerry, arguing that the Bush administration was pursuing policies which were anything but conservative. Among the most notable of these endorsements came from Andrew Sullivan and Paul Craig Roberts, while a series of editorials in Pat Buchanan‘s The American Conservative magazine made a conservative case for several candidates, with Scott McConnell formally endorsing Kerry, and Justin Raimondo giving the nod to Ralph Nader.

In South Carolina in , the Democratic candidate for United States Senator was Bob Conley, a traditional Catholic, and a former activist for the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul. Conley failed in his bid to defeat Lindsey Graham, receiving 42.4 percent of the vote.

In his campaign for reelection, Walter Minnick, U.S. Representative for Idaho’s 1st congressional district, was endorsed by Tea Party Express, an extremely rare occurrence for a Democrat. Minnick was the only Democrat to receive a 100% rating from the Club for Growth, an organization that typically supports conservative Republicans. Minnick lost to RaÃºl Labrador, a conservative Republican, in the general election.

Think Republicans Are Disconnected From Reality It’s Even Worse Among Liberals

Arlie Hochschild

A new survey found Democrats live with less political diversity despite being more tolerant of it with startling results

In a surprising new national survey, members of each major American political party were what they imagined to be the beliefs held by members of the other. The survey asked Democrats: How many Republicans believe that racism is still a problem in America today? Democrats guessed 50%. Its actually 79%. The survey asked Republicans how many Democrats believe most police are bad people. Republicans estimated half; its really 15%.

The survey, published by the thinktank More in Common as part of its Hidden Tribes of America project, was based on a sample of more than 2,000 people. One of the studys findings: the wilder a persons guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

This effect, the report says, is so strong that without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree. And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion.

Should the US participate in the Paris climate accord and reduce greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do? A majority of voters in both parties said yes.

Yes Dictators Sometimes Cloak Themselves In Socialism But Tyranny Here And Elsewhere Is Always Right

Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump

The meaning today of the Big Lie almost always refers to the false claim by Donald Trump and his right-wing cronies that the 2020 presidential election was somehow stolen by the left and Joe Biden, with the help of foreign agents.

Not only is this claim false, it is absurdly false.

This is hardly the first Big Lie from the right. Not even close. The right has been promulgating Big Lies for decades.

In fact, lying is the only way the right wing can win elections. After all, its policies are profoundly unpopular with ordinary people because the right-wing favors the 1% rich over the 99% working and middle classes.

How in the world could 1% of the population ever win elections over the 99%? Simple. The 1% bamboozles the 99%. To win elections, the right must conceal its true intentions from the voters and instead engage in manipulative tactics, like lying and fearmongering.

The lies are not just little lies.They are whoppers. They are the complete opposite of the truth. They are 180 degrees from the truth. They are the polar opposite of the truth, like from the North Pole all the way to the South Pole. Hence the term Big Lie.

Yet, shockingly, many of these egregious lies actually work. They take hold. They create a false impression in the mind of the public.

Once again, this is the exact opposite of the truth. Dictatorships and fascism are right-wing, not left-wing.

Shockingly, this nonsense actually works.

Who’s Right Democrats Or Republicans

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Neither, that is shy you discuss and debate and come to an agreement. It is time that the people make them sit back in their seats in the house and Senate, give the a bucket to go to the bathroom and PBJ’s for breakfast lunch and DinnerWhen the come to an agreement, then they can go home for a good night sleep and we will pick another issue and lock them in their chambers the next day and have them work that one out.Bet it would not take long for these idiots on both sides of the aisle to get the picture

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They are both wrong, but I think the Democrat senate is more wrong because they are trying to force an agreement using police stationed at national parks and monuments to make life hell for everyone. Also earlier last week the senate rejected a bill from house Republicans that would have delayed the shutdown for awhile./Edit:give the a bucket to go to the bathroom and PBJ’s for breakfast lunch and DinnerNo no no, PBJs are too tasty. Give them bread and butter.

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Liars are the worst kind of thieves-Only trust Hell No Kitty

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What Does Left Mean

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In politics, left refers to people and groups that have views. That generally means they support reforms, especially those seeking greater social and economic equality.

The farleft is often used for what is considered more extreme, views, such as and . Collectively, people and groups, as well as the positions they hold, are referred to as theLeft or the left wing.

Trump Supporters The Exception

Despite political rhetoric that places them at opposite ends of the spectrum, Republican and Democratic voters appear to be similarly compassionate.

Democrats view compassion as a political value while Republicans will integrate compassion into their politics when their leaders make it part of an explicit message.

There is a caveat to this: I asked these survey questions about personal feelings of compassion in a 2016 online survey that also asked about choice of president.

The survey was conducted a few days after Republican presidential primary candidates Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio had dropped out of the race, making Donald Trump the only viable Republican candidate for the nomination.

In their responses to the survey, a large percentage of Republican voters said they would rather vote for someone other than Trump, even though he was the unofficial nominee at that point.

The Republican voters who didnt support Trump were similar to Democrats on the survey with respect to their answers about compassion. Their average scores on the compassion items were the same. This is in line with the other survey data showing that liberals and conservatives, and Republicans and Democrats, are largely similar in these personality measures of compassion.

But Trump supporters answers were not in line with these findings.

The research indicates that appeals to compassion if made by trusted leaders should work for voters of both parties.

Republicans And Democrats After The Civil War

Its true that many of the first Ku Klux Klan members were Democrats. Its also true that the early Democratic Party opposed civil rights. But theres more to it.

The Civil War-era GOP wasnt that into civil rights. They were more interested in punishing the South for seceding, and monopolizing the new black vote.

In any event, by the 1890s, Republicans had begun to distance themselves from civil rights.

Taking The Perspective Of Others Proved To Be Really Hard

The divide in the United States is wide, and one indication of that is how difficult our question proved for many thoughtful citizens. A 77-year-old Republican woman from Pennsylvania was typical of the voters who struggled with this question, telling us, This is really hard for me to even try to think like a devilcrat!, I am sorry but I in all honesty cannot answer this question. I cannot even wrap my mind around any reason they would be good for this country.

Similarly, a 53-year-old Republican from Virginia said, I honestly cannot even pretend to be a Democrat and try to come up with anything positive at all, but, I guess they would vote Democrat because they are illegal immigrants and they are promised many benefits to voting for that party. Also, just to follow what others are doing. And third would be just because they hate Trump so much. The picture she paints of the typical Democratic voter being an immigrant, who goes along with their party or simply hates Trump will seem like a strange caricature to most Democratic voters. But her answer seems to lack the animus of many.

Democrats struggled just as much as Republicans. A 33-year-old woman from California told said, i really am going to have a hard time doing this but then offered that Republicans are morally right as in values, going to protect us from terrorest and immigrants, going to create jobs.

The Democratic Party General Policy And Political Values

The Democratic Party generally represents left-leaning, liberal and progressive ideological values, thus advocating for a strong government to regulate business and support for the citizens of the United States. Thus, one of the key values emphasized by Democrats is social responsibility. Overall, Democrats believe that a prominent and powerful government can ensure welfare and equality for all. Much like the Republican Party, political opinions within the Democratic Party stretch across a wide spectrum, as both parties are, to a large degree, decentralized. However, from a general point of view, Democrats tend to support heavy taxation of high-income households. In comparison to Denmark, where taxes are generally high, the Democratic taxation policy may not seem excessive, but on a U.S. taxation scale these tax percentages are in the heavy end.

Left Wing And Right Wing Politics

Politics is said to be split in half and you either have left or right political views. Left-wing politics is typically associated with progressive ideas and equality. Democrats are viewed as left-wingers. Right-wing politics values tradition, equity, and survival of the fittest. Republicans are viewed as right-wingers.

Left-Wing

Left-wing beliefs are liberal in that they believe society is best served with an expanded role of the government. Examples of an expanded role for the government include entitlement programs such as social security and Medicare, Medicaid, universal healthcare, food stamps, free public education, unemployment benefits, strong environmental laws, and other regulations on industries.

Right Wing

Right-wingers believe that the best outcome for society is achieved when individual rights and civil liberties are paramount and the role and especially the power of the government is minimized. Right-wing ideology would favor market-based solutions to the issues that these government programs aim to tackle. For example, encouraging a freer marketplace for healthcare, driven by consumer choice to drive down costs. Or privately held retirement accounts like 401 plans instead of government-guaranteed Social Security.

Democrats V Republicans On Jim Crow

Segregation and Jim Crow lasted for 100 years after the end of the Civil War.

During this time, African Americans were largely disenfranchised. There was no African-American voting bloc. Neither party pursued civil rights policies it wasnt worth their while.

Photo Credit

Democrats dominated Southern politics throughout the Jim Crow Era. Its fair to say that Democratic governors and legislatures are responsible for creating and upholding white supremacist policies.

Southern Democrats were truly awful.

Where Do Trump And Biden Stand On Key Issues

Reuters: Brian Snyder/AP: Julio Cortez

The key issues grappling the country can be broken down into five main categories: coronavirus, health care, foreign policy, immigration and criminal justice.

This year, a big focus of the election has been the coronavirus pandemic, which could be a deciding factor in how people vote, as the country’s contentious healthcare system struggles to cope.

The average healthcare costs for COVID-19 treatment is up to $US30,000 , an Americas Health Insurance Plans 2020 study has found.

Todays Republicans Really Hate Democrats And Democracy

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1) Trumps supporters have embraced anti-democratic ideas

This chart shows results from a two-part survey, conducted in late 2020 and early 2021, of hardcore Trump supporters. The political scientists behind the survey, Rachel Blum and Christian Parker, identified so-called MAGA voters by their activity on pro-Trump Facebook pages. Their subjects are engaged and committed Republican partisans, disproportionately likely to influence conflicts within the party like primary elections.

These voters, according to Blum and Parker, are hostile to bedrock democratic principles.

Is God A Democrat Or A Republican

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party of the United States are political parties. God is so much bigger than any political party. He is bigger than the United States of America or any other country. He is bigger than the world we live in.

Psalm 8:3 says God created the stars with His fingers. Considering that our local star, the sun, is 70 times the size of the Earth, that would make God very big. Human issues are very small to Him but we will be judged by what we do.

We as believers need to keep our political party in check and be praying for the leadership of our nations. In the United States, historically parties or groups of organized political interests came later. The majority of the early settlers were true Christians fleeing persecution and the government trying to control them through a political church. The Democrats have been considered the party of the people or working class and the Republicans the party of business professionals for decades. In actuality, that is not true.

Abraham Lincoln was the US President who fought to hold the United States together when division arose about whether African slaves were people or just property of their owners. It was the Republican party that won the right of the slaves to have true freedom not the Democrats.

Vice Presidents Of The United States

John C. Breckinridge, 14th Vice President of the United States , United States Senator from Kentucky , Member, United States House of Representatives from Kentucky’s 8th District , Member, Kentucky House of Representatives from Fayette County . He was presidential nominee of the southern Democratic Party in 1860.

John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States , United States Senator from South Carolina , 16th United States Secretary of State , 10th Secretary of War , Member, United States House of Representatives from South Carolina’s 6th District . He was a supporter of slavery, state sovereignty and a proponent of the theory of nullification.

John Nance Garner, 32nd Vice President of the United States , Member, United States House of Representatives from 15th District of Texas , 39th Speaker of the House of Representatives , House Minority Leader , Leader, House Democratic Caucus , Member, Texas House of Representatives from Texas 91st District , County Judge, Uvalde County Texas . He supported the poll tax. Although he served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt, he turned against Roosevelt during his second term, taking a more conservative stance on several issues.

Thomas A. Hendricks, 21st Vice President of the United States , 16th Governor of Indiana , United States Senator from , and member of the United States House of Representatives from Indiana’s 6th congressional district and Indiana’s 5th congressional district .

What Is Happening To The Republicans

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.

Save this story for later.

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But, for all the anxiety among Republican leaders, Goldwater prevailed, securing the nomination at the Partys convention, in San Francisco. In his speech to the delegates, he made no pretense of his ideological intent. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, he said. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Goldwaters crusade failed in November of 1964, when the incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, who had become President a year earlier, after Kennedys assassination, won in a landslide: four hundred and eighty-six to fifty-two votes in the Electoral College. Nevertheless, Goldwaters ascent was a harbinger of the future shape of the Republican Party. He represented an emerging nexus between white conservatives in the West and in the South, where five states voted for him over Johnson.

agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.

History Of The Republican Party

The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of abolition of slavery. They were a small third-party who nominated John C. Freemont for President in 1856. In 1860 they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Lincolns Presidency throughout the war, including his policies to end slavery for good helped solidify the Republican Party as a major force in American politics. The elephant was chosen as their symbol in 1874 based on a cartoon in Harpers Weekly that depicted the new party as an elephant.

Democratic Candidate Joe Biden

Reuters: Carlos Barria

The Democrats are the liberal political party and their candidate is Joe Biden, who has run for president twice before.

A former senator for Delaware who served six terms, Biden is best known as Barack Obama’s vice-president.

He held that role for eight years, and it has helped make him a major contender for many Democrat supporters.

Earlier this year, Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate.

The 77-year-old has built his campaign on the Obama legacy, and tackling the country’s staggering health care issues.

He is known for his down-to-earth personality and his ability to connect with working-class voters. He would be the oldest first-term president in history if elected.

According to 2017 Pew Research Centre data, a vast majority of the African American population supports the Democratic party, with 88 per cent voting for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections.

The Philosophy Behind Republican Economic Policy

Republicans advocate supply-side economics that primarily benefits businesses and investors. This theory states that tax cuts on businesses allow them to hire more workers, in turn increasing demand and growth. In theory, the increased revenue from a stronger economy offsets the initial revenue loss over time.

Republicans advocate the right to pursue prosperity without government interference. They argue this is achieved by self-discipline, enterprise, saving, and investing.

Republicans business-friendly approach leads most people to believe that they are better for the economy. A closer look reveals that Democrats are, in many respects, actually better.

A Record Number Of Americans Say Democrats And Republicans Are Doing Such A Poor Job That A Third Party Is Needed Polling Shows

Dissatisfaction with two-party politics is at an all-time high, new Gallup polling shows, with 62 percent of Americans saying Democrats and Republicans are doing such a poor job of representing their constituents that a third party is needed.

But the zero-sum, winner-take-all dynamics of U.S. elections make it nearly impossible for third parties to gain electoral traction, despite survey data that shows fully half of Americans do not identify with any party and label themselves independents. This was underscored this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, when former president Donald Trump ruled out creating a third political party to promote his brand of nationalist conservatism.

To hear those calling for change including many scholars and some lawmakers the inherent problem with our current system is that it shoehorns the into just two parties. Warnings that the nation has backslid toward autocracy driven in large part by the Republican Partys shift away from democratic norms bring added urgency, they say, and reversing that Trump-era trend will require something radical: breaking up the Democratic and Republican parties.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/whos-right-democrats-or-republicans/

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ruminativerabbi · 3 years

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Ghost DNA

Joe Biden seems clearly to have won the election and, barring the unimaginable, will become our nation’s next president in January. But the election itself is worth considering in its own right, and particularly in terms of what it has to say about our riven nation. No matter who you personally supported, after all, not millions but scores of millions of Americans voted for the other guy. And if President-Elect Biden, with more than 76 million votes, is now the presidential candidate with the most popular votes in U.S. history, President Trump, with more than 71 million votes, is still the candidate with the second most popular votes in the history of the nation. (By way of comparison, President Obama won in 2008 with 69.5 million votes. Abraham Lincoln won with a mere 2.2 million votes in 1864, fewer than the number of people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.) So to focus solely on who won and to ignore the fact that both candidates cleared the 70 million vote barrier, something no one in the nation’s history had ever managed previously to accomplish, is really to focus on the simple part of the story and to ignore the complicated part. Yes, there are way more eligible voters now than there were in 1864. But that’s not really the point.

Both Democrats and Republicans took to referencing this election as a kind of battle for the nation’s soul. Neither side provided a clear definition of what that actually meant, however. And so, a few weeks ago, I wrote to you about a long poem by Walt Whitman in which the poet attempted clearly to say what he considered to constitute the parts of the soul of the American republic. His answers—individualism, mutual respect, friendship untied to social class or race or ethnicity, and a shared sense of national destiny—were stirring but also quaint: I doubt if many readers would have come up with those precise things, and particularly not the last one, if challenged to answer that same question. But if we reject Whitman’s answer as too rooted in nineteenth century romanticism to resonate much with Americans today, then that leaves us challenged to say what precisely we do feel is motivating the intense feelings on both sides of the ballot. Is it just the issues themselves that divide us? Or is there something else tugging at our national heartstrings and pulling us off in different directions?

As readers know, I generally grant Whitman the last word on more or less everything. But this time ’round, I found myself pondering how an entire nation can look at the same television screens and wonder, as one, how those people can feel that strongly about the candidate of their choice and his running mate. Nor did it seem to me that it was the differences of opinion about specific issues that was moving us forward to Election Day, but rather energy created by the intensity of the disrespect for the unchosen candidate and the angry, intemperate scorn directed at his supporters. It struck me almost as though there were unseen players in the room, a raft of ghostly presences just off camera influencing the demonstrators and the slogan-chanters, the disaffected and the jubilant, and also the rest of everybody sporting their pasted-on “I Voted” stickers. And that thought—that there were more people here than I could see on my screen—that thought led me off in the direction I’d like to write about this week.

When Joan and I were in Maine last summer, I read a series of truly intriguing articles about something called “ghost DNA.”

To understand the concept, you need to know that there was a time when different species and subspecies of human being wandered the earth. (This is not at all how things are today when the sole variety of human being is us, Homo sapiens.) Those different species interbred with each other too, as a result of which scientists have determined that modern Europeans—or at least the kind whose ancient ancestors lived in Europe and whose families have remained rooted to that continent ever since—that that kind of modern European has a few dollops of Neanderthal genetic heritage in their DNA, just as native Australians and Polynesians have some traces of the Denisovans, another type of ancient humanoid species. (For more on the Denisovans, click here.) And now Arun Durvasula and Sriram Sankararaman, two computational biologists at the University of Southern California, have taken the idea one step further by analyzing the DNA of four different groups of West Africans (two from Nigeria and one each from Sierra Leone and Gambia), and concluding that they almost universally carry the genetic heritage—ranging from 2% to 19% of any specific individual’s genetic code—of an unknown group of archaic human species. And since nothing is known of this subspecies, the researchers used the term “ghost population” to describe this humanoid species that appears to have to have existed but who have left behind no trace of any sort other than their “ghost DNA.” (For more about Durvasula and Sankararaman’s work, click here and here. For their own essay on the topic, written in scientific jargon that will be difficult for most to decipher, click here.)

When considered carefully, this really is a remarkable idea—that human beings have two kinds of genetic ancestry: the kind they can identify (e.g., the Finnish ancestors of the Finns and the Samoan ancestors of the Samoans, etc.) and the ghostly, spectral kind that survives today only as genetic code that had to come from somewhere but about the origins of which nothing at all is known. And that led me to the idea that the reason we are so divided—to the point at which we seem unable to develop even something as inarguably essential as a unified national approach to the pandemic—that the reason we are so riven has to do with the ghost DNA bequeathed to us by people long gone from the scene and present now only as part of the national genome. But who are these people that are present and absent in our national psyche as we try to negotiate these strange straits in which we suddenly find ourselves?

There are lots of candidates.

There are the original native peoples of North America, decimated by disease and the victims of a kind of malign colonialism that was willing to allow them some tiny piece of the pie if they would be so kind as to abandon their own native culture, forget their native languages, convert to their oppressors’ religion, and not to mind having their land stolen out from under them. (For an eye-opening expose of just how highly developed the native civilizations of North America were before the European occupation began, I recommend Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Spoiler alert: the picture fed to everyone my age in elementary school of brave and adventurous Europeans coming to an almost empty continent inhabited solely by a handful of naked savages eager to sell their land for brightly colored beads and a few flasks of whiskey is completely false. Read Mann’s book and you’ll get the picture.)

Then, of course, there are the descendants of the 388,000 slaves taken from their native lands in Africa and sold on this side of the world starting back in 1525, a group that that had burgeoned to about 3.5 million when the Civil War began in 1861. The single greatest blot on our national escutcheon, the institution itself of chattel slavery was abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment. The fate of the emancipated—who were in most cases illiterate and untrained for work other than what they were used to doing on the plantations on which they lived—is its own horrific scandal. But what of the millions of slaves who didn’t live to see emancipation, who were dragged onto slavers’ ships in Africa after being purchased from people who didn’t own them, then sent across the sea to serve masters who felt they did own them because they had, after all, purchased them—what about the millions of souls who lived and died deprived of hope, of any rational sense of confidence in the future, of even the faint promise of a better future for their descendants in future generations? They too have left their imprint on the national genome. How could they not have?

And then there are the 20,000 Chinese immigrants who built the Transcontinental Railroad in the years following the Civil War, people who were exploited in every imaginable way, being paid salaries less than half of what white workers received and charged for their food in the labor camps that was provided free of charge to white workers.

All of these groups—the left-out and the left-behind, the downtrodden and the enslaved, the exploited and the oppressed—these long-gone groups are as invisible as the ones identified by Durvasula and Sankararaman but their presence in our national DNA is, I think, precisely what is dividing us so evenly into two sub-nations: those who feel threatened by the ghosts in our national genome and those who feel challenged by it, those who seek resolution and those who fear retribution, those whom history chastens and those whom history enrages.

The challenge facing the nation, therefore, is not to wrangle around endlessly about who won Georgia. It won’t change the outcome, anyway, so let it be figured out, certified, and moved past. The far greater challenge facing Americans is to encounter our own genome and to allow the ghosts we find there to make us into sensitive and caring citizens of a truly great republic. No more than that! But also no less.

#ghost DNA #Durvasula #sankararaman

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charleshaddonspurgeon · 2 years

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Voor Iedere Avond Ik trok ze met mensenbanden, met touwen der liefde Bijbels Dagboek, C.H. Spurgeon "Voor Iedere Avond" Ik trok ze met mensenbanden, met touwen der liefde. Hosea 11:4 Onze hemelse Vader trekt ons dikwijls met touwen der liefde, maar ach! hoe onwillig zijn wij om tot Hem te gaan! Hoe langzaam geven wij gehoor aan zijn zachte drang! Hij trekt ons om eenvoudiger in Hem te geloven; maar wij hebben nog niet het vertrouwen van Abraham bereikt; wij laten onze aardse zorgen niet aan God over, maar, evenals Martha zijn wij zeer bezig met veel dienen. De zwakheid van ons geloof doet onze ziel gebrek leiden; wij doen onze mond niet wijd open, ofschoon God beloofd heeft hem te vullen. Trekt Hij ons deze avond niet, om ons vertrouwen op Hem te stellen? Horen wij niet zijn stem ons toeroepen: "Kom, mijn kind, vertrouw op Mij! De voorhang is gescheurd; de toegang is geopend; nader vrijmoedig tot de troon der genade. Ik ben uw grootste vertrouwen waard, werp uw bekommernissen op Mij. Schud het stof van uw zorgen af, en doe de schone kleren van de vreugde aan." Maar helaas! al worden wij op de toon der liefde geroepen tot de zalige ervaring zijner genade en vertroostingen, wij willen niet komen. Op een andere tijd trekt Hij ons tot inniger gemeenschap met Hem. Wij hebben op de drempel van Gods huis gezeten, en Hij roept ons in de feestzaal om met Hem avondmaal te houden, doch wij weigeren. Er zijn geheime vertrekken, die voor ons nog gesloten zijn. Jezus nodigt ons die binnen te treden, maar wij blijven terug. O welke koude harten! Hoe gering is onze liefde tot de dierbare Heere Jezus; wij zijn niet waardig zijn dienstknechten te zijn, veel minder zijn bruid; en toch heeft Hij ons gemaakt tot been van zijn been en vlees van zijn vlees, met Hem verenigd door een heerlijk trouwverbond. Hierin is liefde! Maar het is een liefde, die geen weigering duldt. Als wij de zachte trekkingen van zijn liefde niet gehoorzamen, dan zal Hij droefheid zenden om ons nauwer aan Hem te verbinden. Hij wil ons tot elke prijs tot zich trekken. Dwaze kinderen die wij zijn, die koorden der liefde te versmaden, en ons zo de gesel van touwtjes op de hals te halen, die Jezus zo goed weet te gebruiken.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Trial of the Chicago 7: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin Were the Martin and Lewis of the Radical Left

https://ift.tt/3497VU7

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan intoned on his song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” influencing a group of young mad bombers to blow against the wind. The group at the center of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 didn’t blow up bathrooms in federal investigative agencies; they protested bombings, and all other forms of violence, when they stood against authority at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

The Youth International Party, or Yippies, was non-violent, even if one of the co-founders, Abbie Hoffman (played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie), wrote his first radical tract, Fuck the System, under the pseudonym George Metesky, a mad bomber from the 1940s. The other, Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong on screen), blew bubbles while dressed as George Washington at his HUAC hearing.

Rubin would go on to beat bongos as part of John Lennon’s morphing street musician crusaders, playing live at political demonstrations across America, while Hoffman was knocked upside the head with the guitar of The Who’s Pete Townshend when he interrupted the band at Woodstock. But Lennon had the last word about Rubin. “I gotta ask you comrades and brothers, how do you treat your own woman back home?” Lennon asked in the song “Power to the People.” He was singing to Rubin.

Abbie Hoffman was a radical. He believed in the redistribution of wealth and power, universal hospital care, and that the richest country in the world should not have homeless people. Radical, said his political enemies. Insane. Crazy like the Flower Power movement he was part of. Flowers don’t power things, oil does. Money does. Blood does.

Hoffman’s contribution to political literature was a guidebook on living free, and the first step was to take the title literally: Steal This Book. By the time Hoffman resurfaced from his years underground as a drug dealing charged fugitive, he expressed his primary concern, and that of many caught up in the insane no-tolerance drug policies of the time, with the book Steal This Urine Test. It didn’t suggest dumping them in the holy water. It waged guerilla warfare on the War on Drugs.

Hoffman was a born outlaw, a duck-tailed, leather jacketed teen rebel looking for a cause. Born Nov. 30, 1936 in Worcester, Massachusetts, he was expelled from Classical High School when a paper he wrote concluded God could not possibly exist, prompting his teacher to call him a Communist punk. Hoffman proved it by jumping the teacher.

Rubin was born July 14, 1938 in Cincinnati. His father was a union organizer. Rubin was one of the leaders of the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon. After the heyday of the protest movement, Rubin moved from radical politics to freeing the mind with human potential, although it wasn’t free of charge.

Rubin was a burgeoning businessman, but was also an outlaw at heart. He even died breaking a law. One of the most basic laws almost everyone, regardless of class, color, or creed, thinks nothing of breaking. Rubin died of a heart attack two weeks after being hit by a car while jaywalking. The implications seem almost surreal, but the Yippie movement was filled with ridiculous ways to challenge legal authority.

Well before Rubin’s death in the ‘90s, he was there with Hoffman on Aug. 24, 1967, tossing fistfuls of dollars, real and fake, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to protest capitalism. Traders went crazy grabbing at the cash. The NYSE built a wall to stop the unfettered financial fun. The Youth International Party nominated Pigasus, a pig, as its candidate for president in the 1968 election campaign.

The “Chicago Seven” trial, named after Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers was tried separately from the original defendants, was loaded with courthouse street theater. They even wanted to design their own costumes. The first things Rubin, Hoffman, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, and Lee Weiner did when they went into trial was to stomp on their judicial robes. When Hoffman got sworn in as a witness, his hand was giving the finger.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot, but they were a riot in court. Sadly, the judge at the bench didn’t get the jokes. Judge Julius Hoffman’s humor went another way. He thought it was fitting to have Seale bound and gagged when he wanted to be tried separately, and didn’t like to be heckled. The giddy group of mischievous militants were cited for contempt over 200 times.

The Chicago Seven Trial saw the appearances of “cultural witnesses” like Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, and Norman Mailer. Hoffman gave a speech saying if Abraham Lincoln were alive and in Chicago during the convention, he would have been arrested in Lincoln Park. When he was being sentenced, Hoffman offered to hook the judge up with an LSD dealer he knew.The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Chicago Seven convictions, cited errors by Judge Hoffman and criticized his courtroom demeanor. The Walker Commission, which investigated the disruption at the Chicago Democratic Convention, concluded it was a “police riot.”

The old guard Left was also lacking in its sense of humor. The militant youth movement, hippies, self-proclaimed freaks and Free Speech movers, were merry pranksters. Diehard socialists fought with placards, bricks, and feet. Hoffman tried to levitate the Pentagon. Was it childish? The demonstration would have heard noted baby-rearing author Dr. Benjamin Spock speak about the importance of protecting children of any age. The protesters were met by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division. With poet Allen Ginsberg leading Tibetan chants behind him, Hoffman telepathically tuned in and declared the Vietnam War would end when the Pentagon started to vibrate and turn orange.

The Youth International Party had no official membership or leadership. Before the Yippie movement, Rubin ran as the radical candidate for mayor of Berkeley, on a platform of exposing his opponent’s racist hiring policies. Hoffman was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a radical community-action group called the Diggers, who kicked him out for being a media junky. Abbie published a book blowing “the hustle of every poor person on the Lower East Side,” according to Peter Coyote.

Following the trial, Rubin wrote the books Do It! and We Are Everywhere, which made him think he was a rock star. He appeared with Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bobby Seale, Ralph Nader, Chuck Berry, and George Carlin on The Mike Douglas Show. Until the end of his career, Douglas maintained that was the most interesting week of his entire career.

On Aug. 28, 1973, Hoffman was arrested in New York City for trying to sell $36,000 worth of cocaine. He said he was set up and entrapped. He jumped bail in 1974 and vanished, occasionally popping up to remind police he’d disappeared. Turns out he was actually working for the rock magazine Crawdaddy! as a travel writer under the name Barry Freed and had his face rendered unrecognizable by plastic surgery. He surrendered to authorities in 1980, but not until after he taped an interview with Barbara Walters for ABC’s 20/20. He received a one-year sentence but was released after four months.

In the late ‘70s, Rubin discovered seminar training with est and sold a nutritional drink called Wow, which had plenty of kelp, ginseng and bee pollen. Bobby Seale was one of his salesmen. Having broken down the $20,000 financial firewall constructed after the fistfuls-of-dollars stunt, Rubin returned to Wall Street in the 1980s decade of greed and trickle-down voodoo economics. At first, he claimed he was trying to bring some consciousness to the spiritual center of capitalism. But then he sold his soul for a three-piece suit and became a broker. He opened Business Networking Salons, Inc., hosting parties at Studio 54, and said he was part of a real American revolution. Rubin and Hoffman went on a speaking tour giving public debates about yuppies versus Yippies.

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The Trial of the Chicago 7 Ending: What Happened Next?

By David Crow

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Aaron Sorkin: Donald Trump Made The Trial of the Chicago 7 Movie Possible

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Rubin took to the “Me Generation” with the same fervor he had with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He embarked on an inner revolution, eating carrots until he turned orange. He also atoned for his misogynist past by discussing his own sexual shortcomings in the 1980 book The War Between the Sheets, which he wrote with his wife, commodities futures trader Mimi Leonard.

Rubin could afford it, he had by this time become a multimillionaire, having invested in Apple Computer. Hoffman never bit the apple, continuing in the tradition of American civil disobedience whether it came to saving trees from deforestation or Third World Countries from the U.S. intelligence community. One embraced the unfettered financial social coup, the other was disgusted with the anti-capitalist complacency of Reagan America.

Hoffman made a cameo appearance playing himself in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, the story of anti-war activist Ron Kovic. Rubin would have been quite comfortable as himself in Stone’s Wall Street, the embodiment of the “Greed is Good” mentality.

Hoffman was arrested In November 1986, along with Amy Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to protest CIA recruitment on its campus. The federal district trial which followed exposed CIA involvement in Nicaragua, along with decades of illegal covert activities.

Hoffman was found dead in his apartment, on April 12, 1989, in an apparent suicide. When Abbie died, Jerry was the only Chicago conspiracy defendant at the funeral. “I used to say, ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30,’” Rubin told a reporter in his financially fatter latter years. “Now I say don’t trust anyone under 50.” Abbie maintained the ideals of his youth, but found far fewer dividends.

The pair were happy to be the “clowns for peace” Lennon called himself during his and Yoko’s honeymoon protest. They brought the generational divide closer together by exposing the ridiculous nature of the divisions. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 sets out to capture all three rings of the circus of political justice. Rubin and Hoffman were masters of ceremonies in the most unceremonious of ways.

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