Showing posts with label Nixon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nixon. Show all posts

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Political cartoons: a walk down memory lane

Ever wonder what cartoons were floating around during world events during your life?  I chose the cartoon and a blurb from an online source on the historical climate of the time from random moments.  

If you're wondering how to get blogging, just join me and do this very same exercise:  it will uniquely introduce you to the world connected by its fingertips.

April 18, 1961
My birthday

The Bay of Pigs Invasion happened the day before my birth.  Mere hours after.  I know I blog about the state of the world when I was born, in general terms, that bomb shelters were the norm.  Emergency drills community wide were never a surprise.  My father, in the Canadian air force, on stand by (think of being on on call and lock down combined).



SOURCE: http://blogs.baylor.edu/bayofpigs/


The invasion began on April 17, 1961 when the Cuban-exile invasion force, known as Brigade 2506 along the Bay of Pigs. Unfortunately Castro’s regime was prepared and they were immediately under attack.  Two of the ships transporting the soldiers were sunk and half of the air support for the Brigade was shot down. On top of that the weather was worse than expected and the men were unprepared for the attack. They eventually ran out of dry equipment and ammunition. Castro’s retaliation was much quicker than the rebellion forces were prepared for as he sent out 20,000 troops out to the beach and he poured airplanes in the sky within 24 hours of the attack. There seemed to be no sign of relief so in a last stich effort President Kennedy sent six unmarked fighter planes to help defend the brigade. However the emergency planes arrived too late and 1200 exiles surrendered and 100 were killed in the attack. The 1200 who surrendered were thrown in various prisons around Cuba.  In the end the US surrendered tractors and other goods to Cuba in exchange for the release of the prisoners.


July 20, 1969

I remember this day very clearly.  It was hours before my family's lift off where we were flying to German to spend five years.  At 8 years old, I was enraptured by the scene unfolding before the television:  a great event in history.  We were at my aunt's house, all gathered around the TV, kids laying on the floor, with elbows holding up our chins, face up to the tube.

I



Political cartoonists like to reference back to relatable events that associate with current events.


August 1974

We returned from Europe in August 1974 after a five year hiatus.  We didn't really get much news from across the pond, as television watching was scarce simply because it was in German.  Newspapers were rare.  This was what was unfolding:




WATERGATE. The largest scandal of Richard M. Nixon's presidency unfolded with the burglary on 17 June 1972 of the National Democratic Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington, D.C. The burglars were employees of the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP, called "CREEP" by Nixon's opponents) and were supervised by members of the White House staff. Watergate came to symbolize the efforts of the Nixon administration to subvert the democratic order through criminal acts; the suppression of civil liberties; the levying of domestic warfare against political opponents through espionage and sabotage, discriminatory income tax audits, and other punitive executive sanctions; and attempted intimidation of the news media. President Nixon's direct role in White House efforts to cover up involvement in the Watergate break in was revealed in a tape of a 23 June 1972 conversation with White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Nixon discussed a plan to have the CIA pressure the FBI to cease investigation of the Watergate case by claiming that national security secrets would be threatened if the Bureau widened its investigations. It was after this so-called "smoking gun" tape was made public on 6 August 1974 that President Nixon resigned from office on 9 August 1974.  SOURCE:  ic gale group.










Fast forward to recent events:











...... to be continued