Category Archives: International

General T&T, International, USA

Biden/Harris and the Diverse Faces of US Imperialism

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By Dr Tye Salandy
November 13, 2020

Dr Tye SalandyI remember when Barack Obama won his first term as US President in 2008. Late that night, I heard a massive noise of joyful screams and applause from the neighbourhood, the moment his victory was confirmed. At that point, I knew we were in for a rough ride. In the immediate aftermath, my colleague at Trinicenter.com wrote an insightful piece titled President Barack Obama: Change…What Change? that was prophetic of Obama’s presidency. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yet his two terms showed an appetite for war-making and violence, albeit cloaked beneath polished words, diplomacy and the goodwill of many people excited to see a non-white face leading the White House. Obama, Biden and Hilary Clinton oversaw the illegal invasion of Libya, turning a stable country into a zone of conflict. Critics would describe Obama as being more “Bush than Bush” as covert drone strikes were dramatically increased, some estimate ten times more than what occurred under George Bush Jr. Despite a seemingly tense relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister, he signed a $38 billion military aid package to Israel. Under the fancy rhetoric of “hope” and “yes we can”, mass surveillance programmes expanded internally and externally.
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General T&T, International, USA

Who will lock up the President?

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By Raffique Shah
November 10, 2020

Raffique ShahIt was a critical juncture in the history of the United States of America, when its outgoing president, having lied his way to sitting in a position of close-to-supreme power back in 2016, was poised to steal the keys to the Oval office for the second time, in plain view of hundreds of millions of Americans who had just exercised their right to elect a president and other high government officials, a momentous occasion that the rest of the world monitored with a mixture of disbelief and trepidation.
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Elections, General T&T, International, USA

Basta Trump; Welcome Biden

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 09, 2020

A presidency born in a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace appeared on the edge of ending in a lie about his own faltering bid for re-election.

—Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt’s 5:15 am on Friday morning. CNN has announced that Joe Biden has taken a lead in Ruby Red Georgia by 917 votes and many of us believe we can begin to exhale. We are about to get a president who will allow us to breathe again.

At 5:39 am, the NY Times headline announces: “Biden edges into a lead in Georgia as Nation awaits winner.” It was almost as though most of these outlets wanted to breathe a sigh of relief: “We have had enough of Trump.”
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General T&T, International, Politics, USA

The racial ghosts of the past

By Dr Selwyn Cudjoe
November 02, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI place myself in the category “too scared to believe it even though I wish for a positive outcome”.

I refer to Tuesday’s US presidential election and what the polls wish us to believe. In spite of what the polls say about Joe Biden’s lead, I can’t get over the 2016 presidential election where Hillary Clinton was supposed to make mincemeat out of Donald Trump.
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General T&T, Health, International, USA

President Trump’s Disruptive Power

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 05, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeWhen I arrived in the U.S. in 1964, the presidential contest between Lyndon Johnson (Democrat) and Barry Goldwater (Republican) was underway. They disagreed on many issues (for example, the use of the atomic bomb in warfare and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War), but their major difference revolved around how to tackle the legal barriers that prevented African-Americans from voting in federal and state elections. This initiative was the culmination of ten years of sustained struggles by African-Americans against all forms of discrimination against them.
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General T&T, International, Oil and Gas, USA, Venezuela

How the U.S. Failed at Its Foreign Policy Toward Venezuela

By Vijay Prashad and Érika Ortega-Sanoja
August 10, 2020 – venezuelanalysis.com

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair (CounterPunch)On August 4, 2020, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Venezuela. Appearing before the committee was U.S. State Department Special Representative Elliott Abrams. Abrams, who has had a long—and controversial—career in the formation of U.S. foreign policy, was assaulted by almost all the members of the Senate committee. The senators, almost without exception, suggested that Abrams had been—since 2019—responsible for a failed U.S. attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro.
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Africa, Caribbean, England, France, General T&T, Haiti, International, Racism Watch

Emancipating old narratives of ‘emancipation’

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…and examining colonials’ ‘deceitful bait-and-switch’

By Claudius Fergus
August 16, 2020 – wired868.com

Photo: ESC director of regional and African affairs Khafra Kambon (right) poses with the Emancipation monument.In defiance of the rapid community spread of Covid-19, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, kept the promise he made on Emancipation Day 2019 to unveil T&T’s first emancipation monument—the only live public event on Emancipation Day 2020.

Like many thousands of other Trinbagonians, I missed the commemorative spectacles of the longest day in the Pan-African Festival’s calendar. But instead of regrets, the occasion motivated me to reexamine the intellectual underpinnings and contradictions of Britain’s 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act.
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Elections, General T&T, International, Politics, Protest

Election an illusion of power

By Raffique Shah
July 01, 2020

Raffique ShahIt’s difficult to get a good grasp of what’s happening on the ground regarding the general election, which will be held in the next three months. It seems that Covid-19, the virus that has impacted the world like nothing else in history, and fundamentally changed the way we live to the extent that we have coined virtually a new lexicon to comprehend its effects, said virus has relegated the election to a side-show, almost a non-event.
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