Boycotts Quotes

What oven gets overlooked in the history leading up to the Civil War was the terribly repressive atmosphere that developed in the South itself over the issue of slavery. There were some abolitionists in the South, and most of the slaves were held by a relatively few wealthy men. Many with no slaves or only one or two, might go either way on the slavery issue and the various fugitive slave laws. And Northern abolitionists sometimes would come South to investigate and report on the conditions of the slaves of the South. While still in the Union, many Southern areas made a mockery of the Constitutional protections of freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Censorship and repressive activities invaded privacy, and the South, for both Northerners and English travelers, no longer had the charm of the past. Note the use of the term “reign of terror”. Bunch was a seasoned diplomat experienced at reporting on conditions.

The Ayatollah was the Spiritual Leader of Hezbollah, one of the largest terrorist organization in the world at the time. He was even a strong supporter of suicide bombers killing civilians. Unlike many other terrorists, he also supported government economic action.

A local pilot who knew the local waters was necessary to help a large ship to dock in a port. Most of the pilots were patriots and those who weren’t were intimidated by the Continental Congress and the patriots in the community. At this point there was no formal battles yet of the Revolution. The British authorities were really angered that they could not safely land a British ship in the ports of their own colonies. This is another example of the American Revolution starting before the battles of 1776.

Allen had expressed the concern of the United States that Egypt had purchased Russian arms and was falling into the Russian camp in the Cold War. The United States could not sell arms to Egypt because they wanted to use them to attack Israel.

This quotation not only has historical significance by showing that there was a female involvement in Pan-Arab politics in the 1920s, but has political significance today and it ironically is quoted more by Israeli Defenders than by the opposition to the existence of the Jewish state. Most modern Arab politicians find it not in their political interest to seem to approve of an independent woman having leadership in the Middle East. The Israeli defenders quote it to refute 3 arguments that many political enemies of Israel make: There were no significant number of Jews in Israel until after the Holocaust when the UN decided that they could have Arab land. The land in Israel was seized by the Zionists or ceded to them by the UN and Jews had no legitimate right to any land in the Palestinian area; and that there was no hostility to the Jews until they established a Jewish State in the area. The most damaging fact to the Arab extremist argument. There were so many Jews buying land that there was a movement to try and persuade Arabs not to sell land to Jews and to buy land from Jews.

Bethe was the head of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos and was one of the Senior Scientists who developed the Atomic Bomb. At the time, he was very enthusiastic about scientists helping to stop the Germans and Japanese from winning WWII. He had been a refugee from Nazi Germany and became a great American Patriot. However, when there were tens of thousands of nuclear weapons—enough to destroy the entire population centers of the earth several times over, he urged a reduction and finally made this plea the year before he died. See {628438} for a recent expression of the principle of individual scientist’s responsibility.

In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. Islamic country newspapers however, when it comes to what is perceived as material insulting to Islam, as typified by this editorial, feel that their religion should never be insulted despite the fact that Saudi Arabian media constantly insult Christianity and Judaism. Their justification of this gross double standard is that Islam is the “true” religion.

There was, well before the American Revolution, a restriction on the importation of British goods into the American colonies. Partially this was to pressure Parliament to stop some of its most repressive lawmaking. But it also supported what had become a very lucrative protectionist monopoly of large American merchants. See {636861}.

Before the 1968 election, President Johnson, and gotten the North Vietnam Communists to agree to Peace Talks with the U. S. and South Vietnam. Then Candidate Nixon thought that if the peace talks were ongoing and making progress, there would be more support for the Democrats and Nixon's opponent Hubert Humphrey. So Nixon secretly send a secret emissary to South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu telling him that he would not get a very good deal because President Nixon claimed that President Johnson was too eager to end the Vietnam war. He suggested that if Thieu boycotted the peace talks, then when Nixon was elected, he would guarantee a much better deal for South Vietnam and Thieu personally. President Thieu boycotted the peace talks and there could be no progress. However there is a Federal Law, the Logan Act, that makes it a felony for a private American citizen to conduct or interfere with foreign policy or negotiations with a foreign government. President Johnson found out about Nixon—s sabotage of the Peace Talks, called Nixon and threatened him with prosecution if he interfered further. LBJ had decided that with the left wing at odds with the U. S. Government over the Vietnam War, a prosecution of Nixon would cause the Right Wing to challenge the government also and the country didn—t need further polarization. He would do that only if Nixon did not heed the President—s warning. But when Nixon won the election and became President, he was terribly anxious that his pre-election crimes would be made public, and spent much of his time and staff effort trying to find out who knew about his politically self-serving felony and who might make his crime public. See {583264}.

Note that Britain was blockading Boston in the middle of 1775, some time before the outbreak of battles in Concord and Lexington in 1776. What Gates did not tell Lord Dartmouth, and maybe did not know himself, was that the skilled Massachusetts sailors smuggled a great deal through the blockade in small boats at night landing in the many inlets and coves in the Boston area. Also, do not think of Boston in 1775 as today. At that time most people had, in the city, their own farms and gardens and grew much of their own food. The Boston Commons was a common area for grazing sheep. So the British Blockade of Boston was not very effective.