Gabriel Sheeley

“It's impossible to examine questions we refuse to ask.”
― Chuck Klosterman, But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

“You see, the Communist Party in the United States never grew because it didn't have the right roots, he concluded. But in Indonesia, we have so much injustice and exploitation. There's a relation between the material conditions of our society and the ideology which flowers here. And injustice is very fertile soil for its roots to grow.”
― Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

“Those of us who refuse to concede that global capitalism represents the planet's best future, and that Africa and the former third world are destined to remain forever ensconced in the poverty of underdevelopment, are confronted with this crucial question: how can we encourage radical critiques of capitalism as integral to struggles against racism as we also advance the recognition that we cannot envision the dismantling of capitalism as long as the structures of racism remain intact?”
― Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

“Washington took Howard Jones' advice and moved closer to the Indonesian armed forces to construct an anti-communist front. In 1953 and 1954, there were about a dozen Indonesian officers training in the United States, and that number dropped to zero in 1958, the year Alan Pope bombed Ambon. In 1959, Zero became 41, and by 1962, there were more than 1,000 Indonesians studying operations, intelligence, and logistics, mostly at the Fort Leavenworth Army Base.

This new approach dovetailed with a growing consensus within the United States that the military should be given more power and influence in the third world, even if it meant undermining democracy.”
― Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World