A Long Summer....Requiem for White America

This summer of 2009 has been among the most bigoted in recent memory. I think it started off with inner city kids who wished to use a pool and were denied access because they were children, poor and black. Never a good combination in the US where black children are at risk at serious developmental issues just for being darker in skin tone. I quote what one of these unfortunate children said:

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child," (Source - NBC News Philadelphia)

This white backlash was not only against African Americans. Oh no, it wouldn't be fun unless the Hispanics of the US who are viewed as the Germanic Tribes against a New Rome were also targeted in this race war. President Obama wished to add Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and backlash was not founded upon her ability, just the fact she was hispanic! Granted, her choice of language when describing the situation of minorities was terrible yet she was trying to say that a minority would be more empathetic in a case towards a fellow minority than a WASP. This is fact. However, Republicans under Gingrich call her a racist for alluding to the fact that white people are sometimes racist. They certaintly weren't racist when they shot a black man execution style in a subway in California, or during Rodney King or even when they lynched black people for 'crimes' they committed against the pure virginal White women of Dixie.

The reason why some top Republicans are labelling Obama's associates racists is merely to alienate Obama from white voters. The overwhemingly middle class voters who brought him to victory last year. It's working too. His poll numbers are dropping and have been dropping since May, which is when this fracas over Sotomayor began. Calling Obama a terrorist-Muslim/Marxist who also happens to be a socialist didn't work. Did I mention they tried to call him a crypto-Arab though his ancestors are Luo (a Nilotic tribe in Kenya) and French-Irish? Strange. The whole Republic strategy is aided when Glenn Beck calls him a "racist". This word is thrown around too much.

I'm going to define racism. Racism is:

1. A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. A policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. A hatred or intolerance of another race or other races

Obama is so racist he has a rainbow coalition in his cabinet...or maybe he's so wily that he's hiding it from everyone. That explains that Rev. Wright business! Sadly, I don't have time to venture into Black Nationalism today, it's a hard concept to swallow and so is Obama being a racist. Now, wandering into the wilderness which is the Henry Louis Gates Jr. debacle. I must say, I liked his programs on PBS but the whole situation between him, Officer Crowley who arrested him and Obama is blown way out of proportion. It was race-profiling but it's only significant because Gates is a bourgeoise black man. If he and Obama didn't share that trait, no one would know. Race profiling happens every day for various reasons. Whites towards inability to dance and utter lack of 'cool'. Asians with academic achievements and a desire for economic conquest via the People's Republic of China. Finally, Blacks regarding athletics and crime. Did Gates jr create a crime? No. But he made all black people realize they're at risk for racial profiling and that has every rich black person indignant. They should be. They don't need to know that Lil Wayne's new minstrel song "Whip It Like a Slave" applies to them too.

One would think in a normal nation, the classes are based on wealth. In the US, they are of course but race is a sinister thing which no one can escape. It's a social construct which seems to trap millions in relative poverty to the rest. Fear not, White America is ending and it will end by around 2050 as minority groups reach 50% of the population. Demography is the future, no one can change that.

Adventures While Playing Civilization IV

I've found a new addiction. A game called Civilization IV. Basically, you get to create and run your own country/empire/civilization and compete with other ones to win through points gained, building a spaceship to Alpha Centauri, destroying all the other civs, dominating the planet population and land-wise or just being elected a diplomatic victory through the UN.

I played as the Romans, there's a number of interesting Civs in the game such as Ethiopia, the Aztecs but for the Romans. It was easy to make war and re-create the Roman Empire. As soon as I was able to get the Iron-Working technology and produce Praetorians I conquered France since it was the easiest kill and also because they only possessed one city. It was an easy campaign. Then I used those forces against Iberia conquereing Spain much the same. After these conquests I took my army back to Rome, added catapults to the group and used a Great General ( a unit used to rally troops sort of) to wage war against Greece. A tough campaign but easily ended. I used the troops from the Greek campaign and landed them in Egypt using galleys to conquer the Nile River valley while settling North Africa at the same time. In this way, I managed to conquer France, Iberia, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, North Africa and Egypt rapidly. It was time to rest, rebuild and get ready for the next round of conquests. I had noticed I was missing two important territories in my Empire. Palestine (controlled by the Arabs) and the British Isles (controlled by England).

The Middle Ages was not a dark time. It was a time of rapid technological advancement as my libraries and strong culture made my Empire top dog. China, India and Russia were my lessers but still strong. Germany was a threat too. It controlled Northern Europe including Scandinavia. I also remembered that these Germanics were the fall of Rome. I mustered a medieval army of Knights, Maceman, Trebuchets and even some Praetorians to conquer Berlin. I failed. Their longbowmen were too strong and they even retook an earlier reconquest of Munich ( Austria in our world). I was disappointed but not discouraged. I realized I had the most power military in that Digital World. It was time to slaughter some digital people. I massed another army using another Great General to take Damascus (the modern day Levant). I took the city but then to my dismay Persia declared war on me too. I soon lost an army in the Middle East and worst. Damascus. I even tried to invade England, Norman style. I failed at that too. I vowed that it would one day be mine. I just needed to rebuild another Army and wait for the right technologies to come along even though at this point, my opponents were close to technological parity.

I doubled my research efforts building things in my cities which would increase my rate of research and it worked. By the 1600s I had musketmen, cuirassier and was on the verge of riflemen. Other civilizations like the Egyptians (whom survived my conquest in East Africa) and the Malinese became my vassals and now lived to serve me and my imperial discretion. My population rapidly increased too. In the game, it was around some 15 million but if it was real. I'm sure it'd be around 150 million or so. Only the Chinese had more people. Not surprised there. In the map I was playing with, the editor had given the Chinese tons and tons of food resources. Europe had a lot but if it had been divided, individual countries would get scant food. Africa had a few cows but only Egypt and North Africa had enough. It mirrored reality. My caravels also found the New World. The Aztecs controlled ALL of North America and I realized they'd be a powerhouse in a few centuries. The Aztec leader Montezuma was a right old grump too. Not willing to share maps or food resources. The Inca were more compliant, and much weaker. Did I mention I did all this killing, while being Buddhist? The Buddhist religion founded in Mecca ( I know, I love this game) had half of the world's people as adherents. The New World was largely Jewish. I founded a few religions myself (Islam, Confucianism, Taoism). Other civilizations had found Hinduism and Christianity.

By this time I was ready for war. A bit more closer to home though. I possessed rifleman, cavalry, airships, cannon and was working towards getting the railroad technology. It was a 19th century army waging war on a medieval Germany. In rapid succession, I had conquered modern day Germany, Austria, Poland and the Baltic states. Germany had Scandinavia to take refuge in and I had blockaded them. I also raised their new capital to have terratorial control of Denmark (their culture was choking my new empire). They sued for peace and became my vassal. From this war, I had gained a massive army. I also used my Great General to increase the production of units in future wars by settling them in cities to build war academies. I built even more cannons, rifleman and had access to machine guns. I would need them to defend my conquest from Arabs and Persians. Little did I know, this war would put me at peril to losing everything.

Since I surrounded Palestine in two directions. I sent two armies. One from Africa, which I was settling, particularily in South Africa where I had to send troops to fight the Germans who had already settled there. Also, Nigeria and the Northern Congo. Nigeria had oil and the Northern Congo had rivers which I could use to farm to get a large population and to build cottages and watermills to get much production and gold. My European army came from Anatolia. I declared war on the Arabs and conquered Damascus quickly. I settled both my armies in the cities and prepared for a large siege. The Persians, Chinese, Mongols declared war on me soon thereafter. A Persian Army of what I estimate to be 250-300,000 troops was on the march. The Mongols had taken Munich in central Europe and a small Chinese contingent was there too. I destroyed the Chinese first and sent a spy unit to their homeland to cause unrest. I took back Munich which took away any reserves in case of an another attack on Europe and by this time I had the tech to get infantry. I was industralizing by building factories and was building a mighty Military-Industrial-Complex to fight this First World War. I upgraded all my rifleman to infantry and withstood thousands of Persians and Arabs destroying their armies.

I made peace with the Arabs who feared further attacks, as well as the Mongols and Chinese but the Persians would not yield. It did not matter. They didnt have an army anymore. There army lay dead on the plains of Armageddon. Then, the unthinkable happened. The Russians declared war on me and a massive army, larger than the Persian one had taken Munich and was on the verge of breaking out of it to take my European empire. I took drastic measures. I drafted millions into my Army. Spend thousands of tons of gold (basically millions of dollars to requip an European army) and forced march my Middle Eastern Army to Central Europe to stop the Russians while leaving a sizeable garrison to take on any Persian attackers. It was a reverse Stalingrad. I lost thousands to weaken the Russian army and stop their advance. Millions more were drafted to block their escape from the Alps. It worked because my Infantry Army arrived and destroyed the Russians to a man. The army then invaded Russia, destroyed St Petersburg (what is Kiev) and threatned Moscow. The Russians begged for peace and I gave it to them while forcing them to pay me millions in reparations.

The war was costly. I estimated I killed 4 million Russians but the effect on me was greater. I went from a population of 25 million to 18 million and had to pay for a massive army. Russia became a Chinese vassal as did Mongolia and the Indians and Chinese were battling for Asian supremacy. As the two superpowers in Asia fought on, it gave me breathing space to rebuild, get back my population and get tanks, bombers, fighters and artillery to get my revenge on the Arabs and Persians who probably brought Russia to wage war on me. It was a mad pace for this for construction to manufacture this new model army. I put up to (an estimate) 300,000 + troops in Damascus. I didn't need huge armies because I was still more technologically adept than the Persians who were using rifleman. Did I mention it was the year 1913 when declared war on the Persians. The Second World War in the time period of the First World War. I had a different strategy though. One of tactical defensive and strategic offense. It was simple. I knew the Persians loved making big armies and so I realized one would march on Damascus. It was huge of course (larger than the last one) but it was primitive. Rifles against machine guns, bombers and tanks. They kept attacking for what seemed forever ( I took a nap, Civ IV is turned based so i had to watch them attack and attack for 20 min). They Persians even tried attacking Corinth ( my city in Central Anatolia which was great for producing tanks). The Arabs just tried to distract me. This time, the Chinese were distracted by the Indians so they couldn't assist the homeland of their faith.

I conquered the Middle East after killing some 500,000+ Persians and Arabs troops and destroyed Persepolis. Persia was so broken, it became my vassal. The Arabian peninsula was a slower campaign and soon the Arabs relocated to Brazil and became vassals to Montezuma (drat!). Still, I had control over most of the world's oil. My Roman Empire was missing Britain though. That would soon change. Russia broke free of China and became my vassal too. It was time to invade England. I realized how difficult it is to do so. Kudos to the Normans. It was an island fortress. The English nearly had a tech parity with me, they just lacked tanks and airplanes and they had a modern navy. I had to have a sneaky invasion.

I created a HUGE Marine Corps and put them in transports, well before the invasion. Also, I put many tanks in transports too. I brought in paratroopers which would be key in the conquests and infantry to garrison my newly captured territories. Submarines, battleships and destroyers would defeat the English navy while my airplanes based in France and Norway (courtesy of the Germans) would bomb and strafe them as well as English cities. England was weakened by the time I invaded too. A influenza pandemic had reduced them to 5 million people from a high of 12 million. Sucks to be English. It helps to build hospitals. The war began in 1940 with me bombing London senseless and landing paratroopers on the outskirts of the city for a special reason; to distract any troops wishing to reconquer London. The British had a Great General attached to an infantry corps so I had the paratroopers as well as my other troops promoted to be strong against gun units like the English infantry. After the bombing and airdrops, I had my navy mop up the English and my marines invaded the city. I lost half of my marines right there but my tank army settled in after the conquest and would be used to conquer the last city on the isle of Britain called Hastings (at the neck of where the Scottish Lowlands begin). I also prepared my remaining transports to land troops in Ireland and Iceland (yes, the British controlled Iceland).

Compared to the other games I played. Every bit of land of Earth was occupied by someone. Whether they be Chinese, Indian, Roman, Egyptian whatever. Furthermore, most of my wars consisted of sieges but the AI actually attacked me full frontally during battles. Like the one I had against the Persians in the first Romano-Arab/Persian War aka World War I. The conquest of England was easy. I waged an exercise of blitzkrieg to be honest with a little bit of island-hopping. The English population dropped to 3 million but that's life in video-game I guess. Now, my Roman Empire was complete. I also realized another problem. How was I going to win this game, I had the most points but I didn't want a weak points victory. Another option was domination. How was I going to invade India and China who had near tech parity again? Or even the Aztecs who were now fighting the Indians for control of Australia? Impossible. So was domination. I had 33% of the world's population and that was quickly dropping due to Aztec, Chinese and Russian babies. A quarter of the Earth's land but that wasn't enough. Diplomatic victory, everyone hated me (or was jealous of my power). I had to build a spaceship to another galaxy. It was a weak win but I had to do it.

I build laboratories, forges, ironworks and wonders such as Rock and Roll, Spaceship Elevator, Apollo Program (built in 1933) and all sorts of other things to increase my power culturally and scientifically such as the Sid's Sushi Corporation which gave me tons and tons of wealth. So much so, I ended the tech tree by discovering fusion! I converted all my money from science into culture and espionage. Internationally, worse things happened. India began losing another war with the Aztecs and a more important one with China. In each war with China, the Chinese got closer to the subcontinent and now they were taking its cities using massive infantry armies, artillery etc. The Indians had run out of troops. Though this was bad, it still distracted my enemies. Some 20 years late, I was still working on my ship when the Aztecs declared war on the Chinese to finish their job in Australia and other Pacific isles. I wondered who would fight over Australia though, it had few food resouces...mostly minerals and it primarily desert except for some costal areas but maybe the Aztecs need it more than the Sino-Indians did. I gave those barbarians technologies to fight the Chinese better. It didn't matter. I was going to be out of this galaxy in like 20 years. The war ended but now the Chinese had tanks and planes. Things were going to get ugly unless I left this miserable rock. Then I built the Manhattan project and began to feel better. Much better.

2 turns away from winning a Space Race victory and I had built 22 nuclear ICBMS and a Missile Defence Shield against any Chinese attack if they had the technology, but luckily the Chinese hadn't had access to uranium but they did adopt State Property as a Economic Civic which made me hate them more and think of a plan. A turn away from victory. I declared war on the Chinese. I had a bigger population than them by 20 or 200 million in real life, though I trailed them in the 16th-20th centuries. Chinese opposition had always stymied me by sending spies/terrorists to raise insurrections or to blow up temples and hydro plants. That was going to end, now. I launched all of my nuclear missiles. All of them on the largest Chinese cities. Irradiated every Chinese person alive and some Indians too. The Chinese population dropped from 58 million to something like 20 million. The Aztecs took their spot of having the second largest population. They begged for peace, but it didn't matter. I was way richer than them anyways and I had built 2 more nukes the following turn. I clicked the end turn button to find myself winning a respectable victory in 1983.

I looked back on what destruction I had wrought and smiled. It was a damn good game.

The Obama Doctrine - Kills Bugs Dead

Lately, my mind has been preoccupied by the Af-Pak War. The stakes are getting worse. While progress seems to be made in Pakistan, the war gets worse in Afghanistan. Even with the insertion of thousands of US Marines battling along side British troops the Taliban just fled into the mountains to fight another way. I would expect the Pakistani Taliban to do the same and return to Swat valley secretly after the refugees have returned to wage terror again. The whole war is just depressing.

As Obama pours in more troops, more civilians are bound to die. Why can't they realize that Pashtun zeal is ignited against the foreign invader. They revel in fighting the conqueror. Especially if that conqueror is non-Muslim. This is the Pashtun as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. The other ethnic groups (like the Tajiks/Uzbeks) wait anxiously to see how long the US will stay in Afghanistan. Not long in my opinion.

President Obama is not a president who even likes dealing with foreign leaders. To him, change must happen at home. Woe betide the outside world who took his message to heart for it was not meant for you, it was meant for the American people. The American people are of course his prime focus. So much so, it reeks of isolationism but not the type we remember from history. The type in which engagement is largely rhetorical to keep up prestige instead of actual and meaningful. For instance, the Palestinian Problem. Mr Obama says he wishes to achieve the final solution for it yet all he's been doing is shuttling his envoy Mr. Mitchell back and forth. Netanyahu may now believe it is more popular for him in Israel to defy Obama than to listen to his statements on stopping the construction of new settlements. To Netanyahu, building those settlements is the manifest destiny of the Jewish state. To the Palestinians, it's ethnic cleansing. Slow, methodical and deliberate. And it's working.

Like the fly that Obama swatted, he views the Middle East in this way. Merely a distraction from getting Universal Healthcare and other socialist ideals that the US cannot maintain for long anyway. Another aspect of Obama which struck me was his relationship with Africa. He went to Ghana, a decent West African nation which is trying to reshape its image and economy to preach to Africans. Africans do not wish to be preached to anymore. It was this same preaching which caused the economic conundrums which doomed African economies in the 70s and 80s and which are just started to recover now while dealing with healthcare problems of their own (maybe Obama might look into that). You see, in Post-Independance Africa when it came to the economy the Big Men of Africa were lost. Which way should they follow; the Free Market Path or the State Property Path. Either way, they both were fucked.

Those who become capitalists watched corporations take billions through useless economic schemes like a certain dam project in Ghana or watched minerals get hauled away with little economic benefit to the people of the nation. Dictators teamed up with corporations to protect their mutual interest: Money. Those who followed the State Property path watched millions go into programs which made little sense and were sucked into the ideological struggle between the two economic systems caused millions to die across the continent. Huge projects with nothing to maintain them but Soviet aid were erected to the dismay of the people who were clearly not going to benefit from them. How could the Workers of the World unite when most of them are peasants farmers? Skip ahead 20-30 years to Obama's speech and you could hear uncomfortable groans when Obama spoke about graft. Isn't there corruption in the US too?

Besides the needless rhetoric we all agree that building stable societies and political systems are a must to have a successful nation, something which still doesn't exist in Iraq. Militarily, the Surge worked. This is a fact but politically it failed to reconcile the nation as analysts like Thomas Ricks are saying. Shi'ia vs Sunni vs Kurd vs Turkey could soon erupt when the US retreats from Mesopotamia. Life is like that a couple hundred miles up the World's Asshole. The US could NOT build a stable society in a few years what it did to Japan in decades. Same with Germany and South Korea. Then again, Germany was Western and Japan was Westernized. Iraq is the Yugoslavia of West Asia. We could see the whole thing unravel post 2011. Great.

The other flies Obama has to swat or at least ignore is Iran, North Korea and Russia. With Russia he's tried rapproachment. He realized Russia is not his enemy. Just a bit annoying when it feels threatned by missile shields and the Blob which constitutes NATO swallowing each ex-Soviet Republic in its path. I'd be scared if I was a Kremlin bureaucratnik too. Obama reassuring Russia isn't reassuring enough hence exercises with the crumbling Russian army in the Caucasus just after NATO and Georgia finish theirs. North Korea is just totally lost right now. Politically they know they're dead so sabre-rattling every month is the only option left. It sure is scaring South Korea and Japan though. Their missile couldn't even get halfway to Hawaii so the US, not so much. Iran now fears the power of Obama. Global populism shaked the foundation of the Islamic Republic but instead of pressing forward, Pres. Obama has just left the Iranians to pick up the pieces. Letting them recover from this onslaught of unrest and the elephant in the room is China. The People's Republic is bankrolling you. How things have changed!

The Chinese realize they're not getting any of their loans back (they're clearly retarded) as the US budget expands and expands gobbling up any money it can possibly consume. They want a new currency, threatning the dollar isn't wise. If they did that, China and Wal-Mart might not be peas in a pod anymore.

Obama's doctrine isn't formalized but after a few months in office we're starting to see the non-interventionist rhetorical style in which it functions. However, his populist message is effect enough to galvanize people across the world. If only it could galvanize policies that could CHANGE the world. That would be change we could all believe in.

That Good Old-Fashioned Voodoo

The more I keep reading about the History of Haiti, the more I can't help but feel sorry for that country. They have the absolute worst luck I think compared to their neighbours like the Dominican Republic, Cuba etc.

Haiti was the first independant nation in Latin America. The second independant nation in the Americas right after the United States of America. The first Black republic created by former slaves. Finally, it spread revolution to other Latin American nations and inspired leaders like Simon Bolivar. The Haiti we know today pales in comparison to its glorious past. Constant political dysfunction, environmental degradation (there are very few trees left in Haiti. Trees!) which cause mudslides due to their being no roots to support soil, AIDS is a major killer and so is famine (people are forced to eat mud on the worst occasions and they share with their neighbours) and finally pretty bad tropical storms. It is the poorest country in its hemisphere. The history of Haiti has always been gruesome though.

Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the Arawak Aboriginals lived there. Basically having a chill time living life on a Carribbean island until Columbus raped them, gave them Old World diseases, enslaved them etc. By the end of the century, there were very few Arawaks left. Not to worry, a new source of slaves was found. Though it was very far away, the slaves were numerous and were hardy. These slaves were West Africans of course. Millions of them were shipped to the Carribbean and hundreds of thousands were constantly shipped to Haiti because they were worked so hard the slaves couldn't sustain their population due to mortality rates. Haiti went from being Spanish, to being French as just as terrible.

European powers were heavily interested in the Carribbean at this time because of the commodity of sugar. It made Europeans fatter, more energetic and it helped their teeth rot faster with or without the aid of the breads they already consumed. Also, it made their puddings a bit sweeter and their bellies even more distended. France was willing to trade the colony of New France (modern day Quebec) to keep Guadeloupe. Sugar was money. All that money *ahem* sugar needed people to grow it. It's not easy to cut sugar cane, the shaft is tough. Extremely hard to break, you need a machete to cut it easily and this is well before Industrialization. Haitians didn't have it as tough as the Zanj or East African slaves in Southern Iraq but what they had to deal with was pretty bad nonetheless.

From sunrise to sundown, while getting verbally abused and beaten. Surviving on maize, beans and whatever scraps of meat they were able to find. This was the life of the Carribbean slave. Insurrections were common and escaped slaves would form maroon colonies in the hills of mountainous Haiti yet Haiti or Saint-Dominigue as it was called by the French produced most of the world's sugar and coffee by the mid 18th century.

Compared to the other slave colonies in the Carribbean such as Jamaica, Barbados etc. The Haitians managed to keep a form of African religion chiefly from Benin called Vodou or Voodoo. Because of the nature of slavery, most Haitians slaves were born in Africa so they managed to keep their religion alive contrasted with the natural increase of English slaves in the Carribbean. Also, the English separated slaves who spoke the same language to stop insurrection. Another interesting aspect of Haiti was the population of mixed-race inhabitants. The English abhorred such a practise and besides English ladies were more willing to relocate in the Carribbean and US South but French, Spanish and Portuguese ladies were not. They became the middling class because they were able to own land and were born free.

The French Revolution changed the lives of Haiti's 500,000 blacks and 30,000 whites forever for a lot of reasons. Some of the most important reasons are that the Declaration of the Rights of Man also applied to the free mixed-race people of Haiti and free blacks too. The slaves were the biggest pawn in this game and they chose to act first by rebelling on masse, setting fire to plantations, killing slave-owners, forming armed militias under leaders like Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Britain soon invaded to attempt to seize the rich colony (although 90% of its people were dirt poor). The British army of 60,000 were soon defeated.

Things in France rapidly changed as the Jacobins who endorsed freedom were replaced by Napoleon who wished to keep the status quo. His troops were defeated not without the loss of the supreme Haitiian leader Toussaint. Though Haiti would not be prosperous ever again, it's former riches were being hounded by the French who demanded reparations for the right to be independant and their eyes. Also, sugar plantations could not be re-instated without near-slavery conditions and Haiti was a republic founded upon liberty. Dessalines declared himself the First Emperor of Haiti. The first leader of a tropical republic which was quickly losing economic status as rich whites fled the country. Another leader tried to introduce feudalism to keep the plantations running but that failed. Haiti was unstable ever after having too many Emperors for the Black half of Hispaniola.

Today, Haiti is nearly the same. Of course it's former Emperors like Papa Doc Duvalier would never call themselves that but that's what they were. Who knows if Haiti has a chance. I doubt it. Of course I like to be the optimist but Haiti's people need too many things to have a shot at development. Starting with a political system that actually functions for one thing. But when one really looks at the history of Haiti. They never had a shot in the first place. Their agricultural system was going to never allow them to transition easily to the Industrial period. They had only one commodity resource unlike Brazil and they had destroyed their political and moneyed elites (Whites). It's a 19th Century Zimbabwe and a 21st Century tragedy.