Quote:
Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit
Ted may have been living more off the charisma of his brothers though than his own. It'd be difficult to overstate the near mythical appeal of the Kennedy brothers on a certain generation of American liberal.
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I agree Ted was second rate compared to John and Robert, but still had skills and influence to be the leading senator from the Northeast, why the people of Mass gave him a pass on Mary Jo, I know not, lol. Maybe they just felt sorry for him knowing the family weakness, they can't navigate machinery, be it a car, boat, plane, even things with no motor, like a pair of ski's.
I really enjoyed Tony T's post on Trujillo. Another happy ending with him dying in a shoot out, he deserved it for all the torture he metered out, like the man he kidnapped and boiled alive for giving an unflattering speech about him in the US. He could have used some of the diplomacy talents Ceausescu had, but really, life under Ceausescu was much worse I think, than living under Trujillo. By the 1980's, the Chow had borrowed a large sum of money from the IMF to build an oil refinery that ended up operating at 10% capacity. To pay back the loans, the Chow cut off the heat and electricity for all but 2 hours a day in the mornings, and exported all the food, leaving people to live on starvation rations and work 70 hours a week. He built a ostentatious palace ridiculous in size and scale, in the capitol while at the same time, forcing homeowners in large sections of the city to tear down their own homes (at the owners expense) for his landscaping projects.
At least Trujillo seemed to care enough about the Dominican Republic to invest some of his fortune in keeping up with infrastructure projects and creating jobs. Trujillo created national parks where logging was banned, he built roads, schools, hospitals in the border regions with Haiti and modernized rural areas. He supported citizens in the border region whom were being overrun with Haitian immigrants. There were reports of cattle theft and other harassment of the local Dominican ranchers and concern that if immigration was not stopped, Haiti could eventually attempt to make land claims in international courts. One also has to remember that 100 years prior, Haiti had invaded and ruled the Dominican Republic for several decades. I'm sure the occupation was not nice, and Haitians tend to kill white people, such was the case with French immigrants that came to Haiti after slavery had been abolished. Certainly it would have been better if Trujillo had not slaughtered them, and drove them back across the border, but he did the Parsley test to make sure they were Haitian blacks, not Dominican blacks.
If Trujillo was really that racist against blacks, why did he invite so many black American baseball players to the Dominican Republic? He treated them very well, they received good pay for playing on first-class, un-segregated teams. The great Negro league star Satchel Paige pitched for Los Dragones of Ciudad Trujillo, a team organized by Trujillo. He also accepted thousands of Jewish immigrants and declared war on Germany, so he must not have believed in the stuff the Nazi's were selling.
Granted the lighted Trujillo wall decorations which people were required to display in their homes was a bit much, but at least they had money for electricity. Also, the neon God & Trujillo signs in public areas, at least he put God's name first, I think this shows great restraint on his part. The suit and tie thing, and shoe rental requirements in the capitol city... this probably did wonders in keeping vagrants and panhandlers to a minimum, California should try that.
Yes, Trujillo was an ass, but I'd rather live under his rule than just about any communist leader in history, with the exception of Tito whom I think would be a small step up from Trujillo. I would much prefer Franco over Trujillo.
The Venezuelan president that was car bombed by Trujillo kinda deserved it, he and Castro planned and carried out an invasion of the Dominican Republic and it failed. You can't **** off a strong man like Trujillo in such a bold way and expect him not to come for you.