Does Everything Relate to the Roosevelts, Or What?

(c)2010 F. Bruce Abel

Readers of this blog, or of my mind, know that I believe it does appear that everything in the world relates to everything else. I believe I latched onto this thesis from Brand Blandford (sp.), philosophy professor at Yale in one of those large lecture courses in Woolsey Hall.

Genny lives in Manila and our last trip there raised huge questions of Why the Philippines? I just finished reading The Imperial Cruise, by James Bradley, 2009, Little, Brown. If you want an eye-opener that will change your view of the history of Americca in the far east, America in WWII, even; America today, even, get this hardbound book.

This cruise, by Teddy Roosevelt's daughter star, Alice, later Alice Longworth, and with Wm Howard Taft, serves as the vehicle to expose the tour-de-force racist thinking of Teddy and also the simplistic, disastrous, secret dealing with the Japanese, also based on cocamamie racist theories, that "gave" Japan permission to take over Korea, and a lot of other things.

OK, so that's Teddy.

Now I re-realize that Teddy's grandson Kermit, perhaps thinking along the Rooseveltian imperial lines, was the almost-equal disastrous CIA "meddler" in our country's history, in 1953 single-handedly -- he had been told to come home after things didn't go right with Mohammad Riza Shah -- overthrowing Mohammad Mossadegh, putting spine in the Shah, and setting up our troubles in the Middle East which continue today.

So, two people. Two related people. Two Roosevelts. All "caused" the world to shift on its axis not once but twice! And I haven't even thought about Franklin! Or the Bush's.

Now I remember the book I was raving about six years ago or so: All the Shah's Men, An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.