presidents discussion 11.odt - Richard Nixon u2013...

Richard Nixon – watergate, nixon went out for half of US private power. Namely the democratic
power.
The press was subordinated to power,
the watergate exposures happened to occur at the exact same time as another set of exposures, called
cointel pro. Cointel pro was a program of subversion, carried out by the FBI, under 4 administrations,
began during eisenhower.
Aimed at all social left movements, women, blacks, laborers. Went as far as political assassination.
Capital controls were dismantled by nixon, before this private capital was much more regulated. This
was accurately predicted to show lower wages, higher cost of living, and higher profits for the
economic elites. There as also an attack on the welfare state. Lower growth of productivity and trade
during this time. The elimination of capital controls brought in a bunch of policies of protectionism for
the capitalist class.
Gerald Ford – Wasn’t in office for very long, but he was able to endorse the Indonesian invasion of
east Timor, they pretended to oppose it. immediately after the invasion the US formally joined the
security counsel in its condemning of Indonesia’s genocidal war crimes, but Ambassador moinahan, his
instructions were to render the UN utterly ineffective in any actions it might take to counter the
invasion. He did this with success in his own words.
60000 people were killed in the first months, went on to 100s of thousands,
formally announced a boycott of weapons, but secretly increased the supply of weapons including
counter insurgency weapons for the Indonesian government.
Jimmy Carter – the Indonesian atrocities peaked in 1978, and carters flow of weapons increased.
Once the flow of weapons was blocked by human rights groups in congress, he arranged for israel to
send us sky-hawks to Indonesia, for them to complete their genocide, killing roughly a quarter of the
population.
He won the Nobel peace prize for the camp David agreements, presented as diplomatic triumphs, but
they were catastrophic. This agreement was accepting Egypt’s offer for peace that was delayed for 7 or
so years. Carter raised aid to Israel to more than 50% of the total aid worldwide, and they used it as an
opportunity to attack their northern neighbor, first in 1978 then in 1982.
Ronald Reagan – first president to be condemned by the international court of justice for the unlawful
use of force, meaning international terrorism, in the war against nicuragua.