Thursday, November 6, 2014

On the trail of invisible men

Wichita native Bryce Brown went from a running back prospect people were comparing to Bo Jackson, to a virtual unknown over the course of his three year college career.


The rise and fall of a top-ranked high school athlete can be over with quicker than the fall from grace of just about any other prominent public figure in America today. I use the phrase "public figure" without any irony, as the performance of these young men is often even closer scrutinized than the track record of elected officials in many states, most obviously in the football obsessed ones like Alabama and Florida. Much of this has to do with the proliferation of easy access to information regarding recruits and the recruiting process afforded by a plethora of internet sites, many of which didn't even exist five or six years ago. There's also significantly more high school football being broadcast nationally. Not only are there the yearly all-star contests like the Army All-America Game, ESPN frequently televises games featuring high school powers like California's Mater Dei and De La Salle. This has led to a pattern of anointing future stars as if they've already arrived, at times before they've even stepped on a college field. During my twenty-plus years of following football, I've seen many of these hyped prospects come and go. In this piece, I'll examine a few who went bust and a few who were successes, on a trip down memory lane:

Chris Galippo: Coming out of Servite High School in Anaheim back in 2007, Galippo was ranked ahead of future NFL stars like Carlos Dunlap, Cam Newton and Dez Bryant on ESPN's list of the top 100 high school football prospects that year. As you can see in the video below, he was a one man wrecking crew at Servite.
Galippo was named MVP of the Army All-America game that year, and he committed to USC at a time when the Trojans were the most successful program in college football. He was glowingly compared to pro linebackers like Brian Urlacher in write ups in Parade magazine and elsewhere, and expected to be the backbone of a USC defense that already boasted a beastly group of linebackers, including future NFLers Brian Cushing and Rey Maualuga. So, why isn't Galippo a household name today? Injuries would seem to be the most obvious culprit. During his time at USC, he suffered through two back surgeries in his first two years of college, and though he rebounded to start over 20 games for the Trojans, it was clear to NFL scouts that he never became the elite linebacker he showed flashes of becoming as a high schooler. After running a rather pedestrian (for a modern linebacker, anyway) 4.81 40 yard dash at USC's Pro Day, he went undrafted. He was waived by the Colts three months after being signed as an undrafted free agent in 2012 and now covers prep football for Fox Sports West. Fun fact: Galippo was part of a trio of Servite alums who played together in high school and all ended up at USC. The two guys in the trio who were highest ranked by ESPN, Rivals etc. when they committed were Galippo and wide receiver D.J. Shoemate, both of whom are now out of football. The third guy, viewed almost as an afterthought, was offensive lineman Matt Kalil, who went on to become the fourth overall pick in the 2012 draft and currently starts for the Minnesota Vikings.

Joe McKnight: Coming out as the only player in the 2007 class ranked ahead of Chris Galippo by ESPN, McKnight was touted as a can't miss running back prospect. Widely expected to commit to LSU since its campus was only a stone's throw from his high school, McKnight surprised a lot of Louisiana denizens when he chose to become the heir apparent to Reggie Bush at USC.
Looks like the years have taken a bit of a toll on Mr. McKnight...
After showing flashes of why many recruiting services had him ranked as the number one prospect in the country during his Freshman year, McKnight went into the 2008 season with a lot of hype. Sports Illustrated had him as one of the ten players on their preseason Heisman watch-list. Unfortunately, like Galippo, he was hampered by injuries relatively early into his college career, with nagging hand injuries leading to fumbling problems and missed games during a disappointing Sophomore campaign. The following year, McKnight was one of several current and former USC players singled out by the NCAA for receiving impermissible benefits of one form or another, and ended his college career serving out a suspension after a roundly disappointing season by USC which culminated in an Emerald Bowl berth. Some draft analysts pegged McKnight as a possible mid to late round steal after he declared for the 2010 draft, arguing that he simply hadn't realized his potential due to all the chaos around him at USC. The New York Jets traded up twelve spots to select him in the 4th round, and while he was useful in the return game he wasn't able to earn much time as a featured back, even on a team that was starting people like Bilal Powell and Shonn Greene every week.

After being released by the Jets, McKnight spent the 2013 year out of football, then proceeded to sign a contract with the Kansas City Chiefs prior to the start of this season. He looked promising doing return work for the Chiefs, and he caught two touchdown passes from Alex Smith a couple weeks ago against the Dolphins, but his season was cut short by an ACL tear in the Chiefs next game. I think McKnight came to USC with almost impossibly high expectations, both because he's simply not as good of a ball player as Reggie Bush, and the role of running backs in both the pro and college game has changed so drastically. One of the reasons Bush was so dynamic was that he was able to adapt to a pass happy offense like that used by so many programs today, and basically act as extra receiver when needed. Despite the fact that McKnight may have had better straight line speed than just about anyone who's ran the ball at USC, his hands were never as good as Bush's and he lacked that undefinable slippery, elusive quality that so many gear running backs have. Bush may be a larger man, but he definitely seemed harder for opposing defenses to get ahold of than McKnight did. I still think we'll see more of McKnight in the NFL as a return specialist if nothing else, but unfortunately when you come into the spotlight with as much hype as he did that sort of finish to a career leads to many a football fan slapping you with "bust" status.

Tennessee's 2009 Class: Lane Kiffin. The name brings forth a variety of emotions from football fans, most of them associated with disgust. Prior to his time at Tennessee, though, Kiffin was known by many simply as that young dude who got hired and fired by Al Davis over the course of about 14 games as head coach of the Raiders. He'd been a pretty good offensive coordinator at USC before landing the Raiders job and it just so happened the University of Tennessee was looking for a new head coach around the same time Kiffin was let go by the Raiders. Kiffin accepted the job and began his tenure with a boastful press conference where he talked about defeating then national champion Florida in their matchup that year. He also brought a staff loaded with big names into Knoxville with him.  First among them were his dad, Monte, defensive coordinator of a 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team which won the Super Bowl, and Ed Orgeron. Orgeron was a recruiting wizard who'd worked as Pete Carroll's Recruiting Coordinator at USC from 2001-2004 helping land players like Reggie Bush and Mike Williams, followed by a stint as head coach at Ole Miss where he quite impressively brought in a class ranked in the top 15 nationally in 2006 at a long-time SEC whipping boy. Not surprisingly, it took little time for Kiffin and his staff to start making waves on the recruiting front.
Just look at this shifty bastard


They were accused of all sorts of unsavory methods and tampering regarding the recruiting process, but other than a nasty exchange involving then Florida coach Urban Meyer and Kiffin taking potshots through the media at one another, nothing much came of the allegations. In fact, when National Signing Day 2009 rolled around going into Kiffin's second season in Knoxville, it looked like his tactics had paid off. Tennessee surprised everyone by landing running back Bryce Brown, the number one prospect in the entire class according to most recruiting services, along with four other players ranked in the top 100: safety Janzen Jackson, wide receiver Nu'Keese Richardson, linebacker Jerod Askew and running back David Oku, who they were able to poach from Nebraska even though he played high school ball in Lincoln and had been thought of as a Husker lock for months.
Here's what Janzen Jackson's been up to lately...

It didn't take long for what was almost a dream situation for UT to implode. On the night of November 12, 2009, Janzen Jackson, Nu'Keese Richardson and a third UT player named Mike Edwards thought it would be a good idea to jack somebody at a local convenience store. This is what went down, according to Knoxville PD:  Richardson approached the driver’s side of a parked car wearing a hooded sweatshirt and holding an air-powered pellet pistol, and he instructed the people inside to “Give me everything you have.”
Edwards, approaching from the passenger side wearing a hooded sweatshirt, said, “Do what he says.” 
Because Jackson hadn't directly participated in the robbery, he was only suspended for two games. However, the other two players were dismissed from the program altogether. Jackson showed more flashes of being something special during his time on the field than anyone else in the class, being named to the SEC All-Freshmen team his first year, and second team All-SEC as a Sophomore. Unfortunately, he did something that caused a UT program which already had him under a microscope to release him from the team for "unspecified reasons". Jackson ended up transferring to FCS division McNeese State and finishing his collegiate career there. As you can see from the video above, it's currently unlikely he has much football in his future, although he did play for the CFL's Toronto Argonauts this year. Bryce Brown played one season for the Vols where he looked pretty pedestrian as Montario Hardesty's backup. He left UT and announced he was transferring to Kansas State shortly after the start of spring practice in 2010, and even after landing at a program with talent supposedly inferior to an SEC team like the Vols the former number one recruit in the land was a member of the K-State team in name only. After being named by former Miami booster, and convicted Ponzi schemer, Nevin Shapiro as one of the players he'd given "impermissible benefits" to (Brown had actually verbally committed to Miami before surprising everyone and committing to play for Kiffin at the last second) Brown left K-State in the middle of what would have been his Junior year and declared his intention to enter the 2012 NFL Draft. He's currently something like the fourth or fifth running back on the Buffalo Bills depth chart. Although he did set a program record for kickoff return yardage as a Freshman, David Oku was unable to get much playing time in what was a fairly crowded backfield even despite his and Brown's struggles, and ended up transferring to Arkansas State. Jerod Askew was dismissed from the program for a "violation of team rules" right around the same time Jackson was. I have no idea what he's doing now, but it's safe to say it's probably not playing football since I can find next to nothing on him online. Oh, and Kiffin? He bolted back to USC, this time as a head coach, less than a month before National Signing Day 2010.

Willie Williams: It's amazing the saga of Willie Williams hasn't been made into a movie yet. It would be the near polar opposite of The Blind Side. He went to six high schools in five years, had been arrested more than five times (usually for burglary or burglary-related indiscretions) before his 18th birthday, and he just happened to be a linebacker prospect so insanely athletically gifted that high school coaches in the Miami area, not at all strangers to having future NFL players around them, compared him to Lawrence Taylor with a straight face. His recruitment attracted so much attention from football fans that the Miami Herald temporarily gave him a column in the sports page detailing his trips to various colleges which produced gems like this, from his visit to Auburn:
During the wait, several of the female hosts, nicknamed the ''Tigerettes," offered him some of their spinach dip.
''You know how it is, those girls are supposed to be there to cheer you up,'' Williams said. "But I told them, 'I ain't no animal, and I ain't going to eat no plant.'
"But they kept pushing it toward me. It was disgusting. I told them, 'I'm from Miami. I don't eat that. You farm people are used to it, but not me.'"
Some footage of Williams in action, during his time at a community college in Los Angeles

Williams ended up doing what many expected he would from the beginning, and decided to stay home and play for "Da U". Despite making his raw talent more than evident in practice, Williams had problems with the playbook and Miami's coaching staff from the start. He routinely ignored advice and direction from Miami's coaches, he slacked off in practice and (unsurprisingly) possessed a strong sense of entitlement. In the words of former Hurricanes running backs coach Don Soldinger:   “His skills—unmatched. But he just didn’t give a s---. He was a dog. He didn’t care. That’s the frustrating part. I mean, wake the f--- up. You just wanted to slap the s--- out of him.” Williams never got to show whether or not he'd live up to his Freshman hype, tearing his lateral collateral ligament during a late August practice. He would miss the entire 2004 season. During the 2005 season he came back to lead Miami in special teams tackles, but made just 17 tackles when he was actually in the game as a linebacker and continued to exasperate Miami's coaching staff. Following a sub-par season for both Williams and Miami football as a whole, Williams informed the school of his intent to transfer in the Summer of 2006.

First he said he was going to transfer to the University of West Virginia. They didn't want him. Then it was Tennessee. They didn't want him, either. Even mid-major, non-powerhouse schools Troy and Fresno State turned down transfer requests from Williams. He eventually ended up at a West Los Angeles College, a community college where he only played five games but looked like a men among boys, albeit against a much lower level of competition. It was enough to finally get another Division 1 program to take a chance on him. Louisville's athletic director at the time was an old college friend of the coach at West L.A., and following his recommendation, decided to offer Williams a scholarship. Williams came to school repeating a line about turning his life around, changing his ways and all that jazz, and looked pretty good once he made it out on the field for the Cardinals. Just as things were looking up for him, Williams was pulled over by Louisville police and found to have marijuana in his car. He was subsequently kicked off the team, and made his way to Union College, an NAIA school in Kentucky where he again dominated against lesser competition. When his college eligibility ran out, no NFL team decided to roll the dice on Williams, even as an undrafted free agent, and he quickly faded from the public eye and the collective memory of college football fans. As for the question of where Willie is now, well, he quickly fell back into his old ways after it became clear he wouldn't have a career in football:
On July 1, a suspect entered through the rear door of a house that appeared unoccupied. When confronted by the homeowner, who had merely been upstairs, the tall, black man with the thin mustache claimed to be a salesman. He pointed to his name tag (W-I-L-L-I-E) and his stack of papers. When the resident threatened to call the police, W-I-L-L-I-E bolted for the door and drove off. A neighbor heard the hubbub and scribbled down the license plate number.
This car belonged to a person who lived in Edgewood, Ky.
He was neither tall nor black nor sporting a thin mustache. His daughter, however, was dating someone who fit that very description: Willie Arthur Williams—former college football player, current fitness center membership salesman.
When the police arrived to arrest him, Williams fessed up. Sort of.
"He admitted he was at those residences," said Fort Mitchell Police Detective Tim Berwanger. "At the residence here, he said he never went in, but was just canvassing the area trying to sell subscriptions" to the fitness center. "At the residence in Fort Thomas, he said he wasn't trying to break in, but may have knocked on the door too hard."
Less than one year later, a Kenton County jury found Williams guilty of second-degree burglary and being a persistent felony offender. Based upon his past misdeeds, as well as a burglary conviction in Georgia in 2010, the jury recommended a 15-year sentence. Judge Patricia Summe agreed.
As you are reading this, Willie Williams is in a Kentucky prison.

Ben Olson and Jake Heaps: Many parallels exist between these former top high school QB prospects.They were both ranked number one at the position coming out of high school, they were both billed as "high character kids", (in part due to their LDS faith) they both ended up at BYU, then transferred to another program and they both currently wallow in obscurity. Olson was a 6 foot 5 "prototype" QB who piled up California high school records playing for one of the state's best programs at the time in Thousand Oaks HS. He was recruited by pretty much every major program in the country, but decided on BYU because of their acceptance of his desire to go on a Mormon mission. Olson was absent from the field for two years while on that mission, and when he returned to BYU he was unable to beat out John Beck for the starting job, resulting in a transfer to UCLA in 2005. His career there was marked by three consecutive season ending injuries, and he'd end up only playing in 11 games with the Bruins while having a roundly disappointing collegiate career. Heaps grew up just outside Seattle and was the center of a heated recruiting battle between BYU and the University of Washington, which had just hired former USC offensive coordinator/QB guru Steve Sarkisian to be their new head coach. He ended up at BYU and showed enough promise as a Freshman to be allowed to split time with established starter Riley Nelson in a two QB system. Nelson went down with a season ending injury early in the year against Florida State, and Heaps was unexpectedly handed the reins of the team. Heaps seemed to live up to the hype, breaking Ty Detmer's record for Freshman touchdown passes at BYU and leading the team to a New Mexico Bowl victory where he was also named the game's MVP.  His Sophomore season was not as rosy. Following an unimpressive five game stretch to start the season, Heaps was benched for his old friend Riley Nelson who undeniably outplayed him en route to being named BYU's new starter. In December of his Sophomore year, Heaps announced he would be transferring to another school. He ended up at Kansas just after former Notre Dame head coach and New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis had signed on to coach the team, and many saw him as a perfect fit for Weis's usually pass happy offense. However, Heaps never saw the field at KU after being outplayed in spring practice by junior college transfer Michael Cummings. Heaps has since transferred a second time and is sitting on the University of Miami's bench right now hoping to show the NFL something in 2015 and 2016 with the two years of college eligibility he still has.

Both of these cases exemplify one of the newer factors impacting the college football landscape, especially when it comes to quarterbacks with NFL aspirations: transfer-itis. It used to be a quarterback would bide his time on the bench at a high-profile program just to get a shot at starting, if even for only one year. Some still do, and it works out for them in some cases such as that of Matt Flynn. Flynn parlayed one solid season starting at LSU as a fifth-year senior into becoming a late round draft pick, who then showed enough promise stepping in for Aaron Rodgers after he went down with an injury in 2012 to convince the Seattle Seahawks to sign him to probably the most generous contract ever given to a former back-up who at that time had started in about five NFL games. More often than not, though, these high profile QB recruits bolt from a program if they aren't made the starter by their Sophomore year. For some, this works out. Nick Foles left Michigan State for Arizona after it became clear he wouldn't start over Kirk Cousins, and ended up being a relatively successful starter there and parlaying said success into a job with a franchise whose current QB was a convicted dog killer nearing his 35th birthday with a history of injuries. Following another one of the aforementioned injuries, he ended up as the Eagles starting QB,, and until his injury last Sunday he was enjoying a pretty good run and looking at a nice new contract in the near future. Very often transferring is road to future obscurity, though, as it was with Olson, and as it almost always is in case of guys who transfer more than once such as Heaps.

Former one star recruit Patrick Willis

So, is the recruiting machine that hypes so many of these kids up broken? I wouldn't necessarily argue that, as we've also seen hyped five star recruits like Julio Jones, Robert Quinn and many others excel in both college and the pros in recent years. The fact that these kids are being evaluated when they're still growing also is one of the potential monkey wrenches that can get thrown into the process. Colorado's own Calais Campbell was a scrawny wide receiver his Freshman and Sophomore year but by the time he was a Senior he was a 6 foot 8 defensive end on his way to starting at the University of Miami. Similar to the pro draft, high school recruiting is simply something that's near impossible for coaches and prognosticators ever to be 100% right about.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

More documentaries I've been watching

Corruption, Cocaine and Murder in Trinidad: This Vice report goes into detail on the problems currently being experienced by the people of Trinidad, which seem to parallel the troubles Jamaica went through in the '70s and '80s. As in Jamaica, the country's status as a major drug trans-shipment point combined with political parties using street gangs as proxies has resulted in an exponential rise in violent crime. The country has a total population about equal to the city of Dallas, yet had over 500 murders in 2013. It was also interesting to learn about the 1990 attempted coup in Trinidad and Tobago, the only such coup carried out by Islamist militants in the Americas, ever.

Is the South China Sea on the brink of war?: This piece from the Australian Broadcasting Company focuses on maritime territorial disputes involving pretty much every nation that touches the South China Sea. Because of the possibility of oil and gas deposits in the Sea, a small chain of islands called the Spratlys on the southern edge of the sea have become a major flashpoint. This video showcases the difficult task a detachment of soldiers from the Philippines faces while stationed on a desolate atoll where they're constantly harassed by the Chinese Coast Guard. 


"Banished": Another Australian report, this one tells the story of a community of convicted sex offenders in Florida. Most of them come off very repentant and human in their interviews, and just like the local pastor featured on the video, I was forced to re-examine my own views on these types of offenders. Both as someone who believes punishment should only be one of the goals of our prison system, and as a Christian I don't think it's fair for me to write these individuals off completely. If I believe murderers can re-enter society without hurting anyone, how can I say any different about these guys?

Arkansas: The worst place to be a renter in America: Staying in the US, the short documentary from Vice deals with the ridiculous laws dictating the landlord/renter dynamic in the state of Arkansas. The state has what are by most any measure the most unfair laws on the renter side of the equation of any state in the Union, even their own state legislature thinks so. However, a very influential real estate lobby is in favor of the status quo down there, and it doesn't look like things will change any time soon.

Greece: The Hidden War: This excellent two-parter from the BBC focuses on the largely forgotten Greek Civil War of 1947-49. Occurring even earlier than the Korean War, it was arguably the first "hot" war of the Cold War era. Before watching the video, I was unaware that even back in late 1944 when World War Two was still raging, Greek Communists and British soldiers were killing one another in Greece. After a brief and not always effective cease-fire, conflict between the Communists and supporters of the British-backed King flared up again in 1947, and led to the first battlefield use of napalm, the Truman Doctrine and many other events which would shape the latter half of the 20th century. Part 2 is accessible from the same youtube account.

Football and Fascism: Another BBC production that explores the relationships Hitler, Mussolini and Franco had with national soccer teams and soccer culture in their respective countries. Full of interesting info on things like Mussolini's transparent effort to rig the 1934 World Cup, and the Spanish Civil War roots of the Real Madrid/FC Barcelona rivalry.


In Search Of: This long running series from the '70s and '80s hosted by Leonard Nimoy is one of my favorite programs of all-time. Some of the info they use is dated at this point but pretty much every episode focuses on something both interesting and mysterious. The two above are on the Honey Island Swamp Monster, a Bigfoot-like cryptid reported for years in the wilds of Southern Louisiana, and the infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper. Some other episodes I'd recommend are the entries on the Lost Dutchman mine, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and Captain Kidd's New England "Money Pit". They should all be accessible from the same channel as the episodes posted here.

Slave labor shrimp: This rather short investigative report aims to expose the prevalence of slave labor in the Thai fishing industry, which is one of the largest suppliers of shrimp to the Western market. Migrants, primarily from Cambodia and Burma, looking for a better life in their more prosperous neighbor are all too often forced into slave labor on Thai fishing trawlers thanks to the close relationship between human traffickers, corrupt Thai authorities, and Thai seafood companies with more regard for their bottom line than human lives. The investigation also looks into the relationship certain large Western retailers like Costco and Tesco have with some of these rather dubious Thai companies. The report does feature some fairly graphic and sad stuff, so be warned.

The Karlton Hines Story: Karlton Hines was one of the most celebrated high school basketball stars in late '80s New York City, part of a group of street ballers turned pro and college stars that also included guys like Kenny Anderson and Lloyd "Sweet Pea" Daniels. Sadly, he went the route of many a blacktop legend before him, got into the drug game, and threw away a scholarship to play for Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and a likely NBA career. The footage of Karlton in his glory days included here is still something any fan of basketball will enjoy, and while his story is tragic it's a great look into the era when playground courts, rather than AAU teams, were where the next generation of basketball stars were discovered.

Inside ISIS and the Iraq Caliphate: It seems as if recent events in Iraq have quickly taken over from the crisis in The Ukraine as the primary fuel for fear-mongering about our uncertain world from US news outlets. This fairly brief report goes into the short history of the group known as ISIS, how they operate and why they've had recent battlefield success against the Iraqi Army. Vice News also, as usual, has a very good series of ongoing reports on the current situation in Iraq on their youtube channel.

Swaziland: Gold Mine of Marijuana: When one thinks of the world's major weed producing countries, Swaziland is likely a name that doesn't come to many people's minds right off the bat. This two-parter from Vice focuses on the tiny nation's largely Mom and Pop-dominated network of marijuana growers, and how they go about trying to smuggle their product into neighboring South Africa and elsewhere.

The Wedtech Scandal: This vintage C-SPAN broadcast from 1990 is centered on an interview with journalist and author James Traub, writer of a book on disgraced defense contractor Wedtech, and the politicians they took down with them. The best thing about old C-SPAN broadcasts, beyond the usually interesting material are the incoherent ranters who occasionally call in and get cut off. This episode definitely has one of those. This channel has a wealth of old stuff recorded from C-SPAN if you're at all interested. Some info on Wedtech:
The Wedtech Scandal was the name of an American political scandal that came to light in 1986 involving the Wedtech Corporation.

The company had been founded in Bronx County, New York by a Puerto Rican named John Mariotta, and originally manufactured baby carriages. But after a number of years, Mariotta brought in a partner, Fred Neuberger, and began focusing on winning small business set-aside contracts for the Department of Defense...Wedtech had won many of its defense contracts without competitive bidding under a Small Business Administration program that gave preference to minority-owned businesses, despite the fact that Fred Neuberger, not a member of any minority, owned a majority of the company's stock, thus disqualifying Wedtech as a minority-owned business. To keep Neuberger's controlling ownership secret, the company committed fraud, forging papers that claimed Mariotta was still the primary owner of the company.

When Wedtech went public, it gave shares of stock to law firms (as payment for legal services), including Squadron, Ellenoff, Plesent & Sheinfeld. Some of the law firms employed members or relatives of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Bronx Congressmen Mario Biaggi and Robert Garcia. Both would later be forced to resign their seats due to their roles in the scandal and were subsequently jailed, as were State Senators Clarence Mitchell III and Michael Mitchell of Maryland. With undisclosed holdings in Wedtech, they used their positions to help Wedtech win federal work.






Thursday, June 19, 2014

The Ukraine is not the only flashpoint the West should be paying attention to

Rival anti-government and pro-government marches in Bangkok have become increasingly violent, with the police and military often caught in the middle. 


The world seems to currently be saturated with popular protest movements in a way not seen since the 1980s. At the dawn of that decade, the Solidarity movement in Poland was the genesis of popular protests in Eastern Europe that would later bring down the Warsaw Pact, citizens of South Korea and Taiwan were engaging in demonstrations against oppressive military dictatorships in both countries, and dissidents across Latin America were standing up against the military juntas and corrupt autocrats that had come into power all over the region during the Cold War.
A series of vintage TV news reports on the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea.

What's important to keep in mind is that these movements did not reach their goal overnight. Many in the West have criticized the Arab Spring uprisings in the Mideast for failing to create a flowering of liberal democracies overnight, but expecting as much was unrealistic and ridiculous. The aforementioned movements of the early '80s took nearly a decade to accomplish their aims, and there isn't any reason to expect the protest movements of today to fair any better. There are however major differences affecting the bulk of the protest movements today that were not present in the '80s. While movements at that time in eastern Europe and elsewhere were fueled by overwhelming popular discontent and apathy, or at times even support, from state security apparatuses and armies that were often just as fed up with their leadership as the protestors, anti-government movements today in places like Thailand and Venezuela face opposition from pro-government groups who are just as determined as they are. It's all led to the creation of several powder kegs that may not get the publicity currently enjoyed by the Ukrainian crisis, but are in many ways just as potentially volatile.

Venezuela
A protest largely made up of newspaper workers and journalists in Caracas in February of 2014

 While certain Western news outlets have characterized the ongoing anti-government protests in Venezuela which began late last year as a Left vs Right conflict, the reality is far more complicated. The majority of those who first took to the streets were members of student organizations with far from right-wing ideologies who'd been protesting since Hugo Chavez was still in office. Moreover, the majority of the opposition politicians (including the most prominent opposition Presidential candidate in the last election, Henrique Capriles) who have gotten behind the protests are leftists themselves, which makes the regime's characterization of them as "fascists" completely laughable. The genuine incompetence of the Maduro Administration, a stagnant economy weighed down by inflation and a skyrocketing rate of violent crime in Venezuela's cities have led many who even previously voted for Maduro and Hugo Chavez to take to the streets. On the other hand, this is very much a divided country. Maduro still enjoys unwavering support from a large portion of Venezuela's urban and rural poor, along with the military, police and the National Bolivarian Militia, a "political army" created by the late Chavez that's over one hundred thousand strong. The government is also allegedly using armed pro-Maduro partisans known as "Colectivos" to discourage the protestors. Their favorite tactic seems to be riding into protests on motorbikes and beating the hell out of anyone unfortunate enough to get too close with blunt instruments.

This is also a situation where the anti-government vs pro-government mob dynamic mentioned above is in effect, which complicates things to no end. Venezuela is a country where guns and heavier ordinance are easily obtainable, due to the porous borders with Colombia and Brazil, corruption in the police and military ranks and the strong presence of organized crime in the region. This would make escalating an already violent and volatile situation into a civil war relatively easy for an interested party on either side of the divide. The bulk of the opposition does seem to believe that isn't the answer, thankfully. In all likelihood, Maduro will lose the next Venezuelan presidential election unless he finds some way to engineer a miracle economic turnaround. Would an Egypt-style coup/popular overthrow of the current government be justified? Probably. However, as we've seen in Egypt, such actions often just create more problems for a country already dealing with turmoil. Hopefully Maduro will be smart enough to stop characterizing a legitimate show of popular discontent as a US-orchestrated coup plot, and actually engage in some sort of real dialogue with his opposition. His prior actions as leader of Venezuela don't lend much hope to that option, unfortunately.

Thailand
A Vice News report on the protests and unrest in Bangkok

Thailand is another place where deeply divided public opinion has manifested itself in the form of rival street protests. Yingluck Shinawatra, the Prime Minister until she was barred from the job by Thailand's highest court, is the younger sister of the country's deeply polarizing former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra. Not too long ago, Thaksin was the richest man in Thailand, a media and corporate mogul whose rise to power was not all that different from fellow billionaire Silvio Berlusconi's in Italy. His appeal was strong for the many millions of rural voters living away from the financial hub of Bangkok who saw him as a self-made success challenging the political establishment. The generous subsidies he promised to the nation's many farmers also helped his appeal there. On the other hand, many in the capitol and in other areas of the country where manufacturing, the tech sector and other fields are the largest employers saw Shinawatra as a corrupt, opportunistic populist whose rise to power had been due to basically buying the votes of millions of rural and poor Thais. This led to Thaksin being overthrown in a military coup backed by a significant portion of the Thai public (not unlike the recent coup to unseat Mohammed Morsi in Egypt) in 2006, with tacit support from the King of Thailand. The country is a constitutional monarchy where the duties of royalty are largely ceremonial, but the King undoubtedly enjoys more popular support than any member of either major political party. The forces that brought Shinawatra down still found it impossible to quell his appeal, and 2011 saw a new party headed by his younger sister Yingluck come to power. Much of her support came from former Thaksin voters living in the same areas, and her opposition was again largely made up of Thailand's middle and upper-class living in the Southern part of the country.

 From the beginning, Mrs. Shinawatra's government not only faced roadblocks from a less than enthusiastic Thai royal family, military and judiciary, but organized street protests as well. The country, and especially the capitol, became divided between "Yellow Shirts" opposed to the Shinawatra family, and "Red Shirts" who revere Thaksin and Yingluck with a near religious fervor. Since late 2013, both sides have engaged in almost daily mass marches in and around Bangkok and have developed armed wings to complement their respective movements. The opinion of many Thais on the ground is that the military remains loyal to the royalty and the Yellow Shirts, while most of the police support the Red Shirts thanks to the increased pay and benefits they were given under the Shinawatras. As in Venezuela, despite a lot of rhetoric in support of open violence by both sides, the situation has yet to develop into a full civil war. Secession talk from the Shinawatra's stronghold in Northern Thailand, where their hometown of Chiang Mai is located, has been going on for awhile now, but it appears unlikely to amount to any action. A break-up of Thailand would be economically disastrous not just for the country itself, but for the whole of Southeast Asia. As of May 22, 2014 the Thai Army has yet again declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution. This is a fairly common event in Thailand and one that is likely welcomed by many of the Yellow Shirts, but it again speaks to the fragility of democracy in the country. 

Continuing chaos in North and West Africa
Boko Haram, continuing to live up to its goal of becoming the "African Taliban"
Despite Boko Haram being arguably the most brazen and dangerous terrorist group in West Africa for around five years now, they'd largely escaped the attention of many Westerners until they kidnapped over 200 young women from a girl's school in the town of Chibok about a month ago. The reality of the situation in Northern Nigeria is that Boko Haram has turned the area into a war zone.Though they seem to look up to the Taliban, they've demonstrated an even greater operational capacity than that group over the past year or two. While the Taliban is currently on the run from three different nation's armies and riven by internal conflict, Boko Haram seems dedicated to a singular goal of turning Nigeria into an Islamic Emirate governed by Sharia law, and the Nigerian military has fallen short in nearly every effort made to combat the group. Boko Haram has been responsible for bombings and shootings in the capitol city of Abuja, along with near daily raids on rural villages in Nigeria's North, demonstrating their capacity to impact both Nigeria's central government and the lives of the average citizen with relative impunity.

One of the reasons this is possible is that since the '90s Nigeria's elected officials have worked to make the possibility of the military coups which plagued the nation throughout the 20th century less likely by restricting the power and size of the military, and cutting arms spending. This has had the unwanted side effect of leaving their military incapable and unprepared to secure an Eastern border area covered in rainforest and wetlands. Another aspect of the problem is Nigeria's religious and ethnic divide between the largely Christian and urbanized West and Southwest, and the largely Muslim and rural North and East. In the years since the end of military rule, the political leadership of Nigeria has rotated between Christian and Muslim-dominated governments. There is now concern, justified or otherwise, from the Muslim population that President Goodluck Johnathan will upset this balance, and use the deteriorating security situation as justification for declaring a state of emergency so he's able to stay on after the end of his current term. As of mid-June, the kidnapped girls are still unaccounted for  and Boko Haram is still freely operating in Northern Nigeria and border regions of Cameroon. It doesn't look like the situation will change anytime soon.

The myriad problems I covered in my previous blog focusing on this region are still plaguing other countries, as well. After slipping into the ether following a combined offensive by Malian and French troops, Islamist rebels in Northern Mali have again reared their head and chased the national army from the regional hub of Kidal. In the Central African Republic, the largest humanitarian crisis on the continent is being spurred on by civil conflict which now has entered a frightening phase of sectarian violence, pitting Christian against Muslim. In Libya, a general who was Gaddafi's right hand man prior to a falling out in the '90s has launched a campaign, independent of any oversight or direction from the central government, to drive Islamist militias out of cities like Misrata and Benghazi. While many civilians in those cities support his aims, they're also understandably leery of a guy who was a high-ranking member of a repressive dictatorship for years.

I have no idea how any of these crises will turn out, and I'm not advocating any sweeping direct action from Western powers regarding any of them. However, when a conflict that evokes the heady days of US vs Russia tensions in the 20th century erupts, it's easy to forget that there are many areas just as volatile, if not more, than the Eastern Ukraine is at the moment. Despite events like the recent downing of a transport plane by separatists armed with Russian surface-to-air missiles that killed 49 Ukrainian soldiers, the militias holding parts of that country hostage have had their asses handed to them in most of their engagements with Ukraine's regular army. I don't foresee the instability there lasting much longer, while on the other hand the situations elsewhere I've highlighted have already been going on for years. Hopefully nobody will still be writing about them a few years from now.

Sources

Support for Nicolas Maduro drops to 37%:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-venezuela-politics-idUSBREA440HH20140505

Islamist violence in the Sahel: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27930747

Thailand court ousts Prime Minister: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2014/0507/Thailand-court-ousts-prime-minister-making-more-turmoil-likely-video

Thailand under curfew: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27527927

Vice's excellent Russian Roulette series of reports: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlLN9E2kcY

Nigerian President vows "total war" against Boko Haram: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27619290

Everyone in Venezuela isn't protesting for the same reasons: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/venezuela/140212/everyone-venezuela-protesting-toilet-paper-maduro-chavez

War crimes committed in the Central African Republic: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27727465

Rogue Libya General's forces bomb Islamist camp: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27610768

Libya Congress to vote after renegade General's threat: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/25/us-libya-crisis-idUSBREA4O05R20140525

The Venezuela Rising series of reports from Vice News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U6OfjxTPPQ&list=PLw613M86o5o7JMOImqZ6tGwK7kkzufe0S

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Some interesting documentaries I've watched recently


The staggering scale of metal theft in the UK
I came across this while looking through various BBC documentaries on youtube. It appears metal thieves, especially those stealing large quantities of copper wire, may be causing even more damage across the pond than they are in the US. This documentary largely focuses on  the British Transport Police trying to deal with this epidemic, but we also get an interesting quick detour to the London Metal Exchange to discuss the cause of skyrocketing metal prices.

Sectarian violence in Lebanon: The Warlords of Tripoli
This is a very intense documentary about the recent explosion of violence in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, directly related to the Syrian Civil War. The city is divided between Sunni Muslims and Alawites, who are now unfortunately mostly known by those of us in the West as the sect that Bashar Assad belongs to. A street smaller than most residential streets in the U.S. separates the communities, and gunfights (along with conflict featuring even heavier ordinance) have become increasingly common between them. In true Vice style, this is one of the documentaries where you can easily see the host and crew had to be half-crazy to even consider participating.

Wild Indonesia: Magical Forests
Part of the BBC's Natural World series, filmed back in 2000. It's an exceptionally intriguing look at the diverse wildlife of this island country's forest regions, with great footage of rare and unusual species like flying foxes, the Sumatran tiger and echidnas.It also provides a window into the culture of some of of New Guinea's natives.

Return of the Cossacks

Russia's somewhat notorious Cossacks have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, helped along by Putin's government and its affinity for anything classically Russian. I've always had an interest in the Cossacks, in large part because my Great Grandfather on my Father's Mother's side was likely conceived as the result of a Cossack raid on his village. As you'll see in this video, the Cossacks still possess the same psychotic patriotism and proclivity to persecute ethnic minorities they were always renowned for.

Khat Power: The latest war on drugs


Another great Vice documentary, focusing on the current crackdown on the use of Khat, a leaf that when chewed has basically the same effect as a cup of espresso. That hasn't stopped authorities in the West from getting up in arms over the drug, and claiming that profits from its sale support the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabab even though evidence to the contrary is readily available. Just another case of morons in countries where legally available prescription opiates and alcohol end more lives and force more people into rehab than anything else getting worked up over something they don't understand and haven't researched, in my humble opinion.

The Other Side of Suez


Another great BBC documentary, this one focuses on the Suez Crisis of 1956 and its parallels with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I think one of the great unlearned lessons of the Cold War, in particular by those who act like US leaders in one case or another exhibited cowardice by avoiding direct confrontation with the USSR, is that both the UK and France were more aggressive than us with regard to what they claimed was Communist expansionism in the '50s and '60s and it backfired horribly for them. Thankfully for the entire world, the U.S, largely stuck to Theodore Roosevelt's idea of walking softly and carrying a big stick, as evidenced by President Eisenhower's fury over British actions shown in this documentary.

The Story of Ireland

This is part 1 of 5 of a BBC series on the history of Ireland from from pre-Roman times to modern day. It does a lot to dispel the notion that Ireland is a purely Celtic nation, showing that it's been subject to waves of immigration and conquest since even pre-Roman times, but if you examine the youtube comments (almost always a bad idea) you'll see that there's still a lot of inane opposition to this proven fact.

I'll be back with a longer update on increased military spending and nationalist animosity in East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa soon, God willing.