“Rhetorical Bluster” by Joshua Golden

Hail to the thief.

Flexing executive power, the newly minted POTUS immediately announced his order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This arbitrary change of a long established geographic designation does nothing beyond arrogantly signal a new era of Manifest Destiny, the 19th century’s informal doctrine of righteous domination of US expansionist interests as both justified and inevitable.

Colloquially known as the “Spanish sea,” from Spain’s first ‘New World’ voyages of conquest, Golfo de México first appeared on a world map in 1550 and has been the common name ever since. Though political considerations have altered geographic place names, historical precedent and common usage is most often the reason a location has a specific name.

But maybe he’s on to something. The enormous Mississippi River watershed, is the largest drainage basin of the Gulf of Mexico, which makes the USA a primary cause of the Gulf’s despoilment with the usual modern stew of chemical and sewage pollutants, periodically enhanced by the sluicing of massive flooding. While agricultural runoff has led to a large increase of nitrogen and phosphorus causing frequent “red tide” algae blooms and hypoxic dead zones. Further harm has been done by offshore oil extraction.

The most memorable of many oil spills in the gulf was caused by the 2010 catastrophic explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Contracted by Transocean to British Petroleum for exploration off the Louisiana coast, the negligent “accident” resulted in an unchecked 4.2 million barrels of crude oil pumping into the Gulf waters. The resulting oil slick quickly expanded to cover hundreds of square miles of ocean, threatening marine life, coastal wetlands, and the livelihoods of Gulf Coast shrimpers and fishermen. The ultimate cost of the spill, amounted to $145.93 billion. At the time comedian Stephan Colbert suggested renaming it the Gulf of America, reasoning sarcastically: “I don’t think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore. We broke it, we bought it.” There are 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells beneath the gulf, generally not checked for potential environmental problems.

Further South territorial prerogative has coalesced into a demand that Panama hand over the canal that shares their name, or else… “We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should never have been made,” Trump said during his inaugural speech. Referring to a ratified treaty that President Jimmy Carter negotiated.

A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.

An interoceanic canal to provide faster transit and higher profits to shipping magnates and their importing and exporting clientele, was a long imagined project, considered as early as 1513. Naturalist Alexander von Humboldt analyzed 5 potential routes In 1811, favoring a canal through Nicaragua as the best choice. President Grant established an Interoceanic Canal Commission In 1870, which also favored the superiority of a Nicaragua canal.

During the California gold rush, steamships carried “49ers” to California, and almost all of the gold returning to the East Coast through Panama, where mule trains and canoes provided transportation across the isthmus.

Shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt also favored a Nicaraguan canal, but couldn’t attract enough investment to build it. Instead operating a steamship line to Nicaragua and ferrying passengers across Nicaragua by steamboat via lake and river, with only a 12-mile carriage ride between the Pacific and Lake Nicaragua. Vanderbilt was one of the richest Americans in history, and one of first recipients of the term “robber baron,” applied to businessmen who used ruthless and unscrupulous practices to amass their wealth with; unrestrained consumption of natural resources, influencing the highest levels of government, wage slavery, acquiring competitors to create monopolies and/or trusts that control the market, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors.

William Walker, a manifest destiny driven American mercenary, filibustered into Mexico and Central America with colonial intentions. He took control of the Nicaraguan government for 10 months in 1856. As that nations president he antagonized Vanderbilt by expropriating his transit company. Vanderbilt’s actions to regain control of his steamships, was instrumental in Walkers ouster but the new Nicaraguan Government refused Vanderbilt’s effort to resume his transit business. Servicing the ports of the newly completed Panama railway that modernized transit through the isthmus, he eventually developed a monopoly of the California steamship business.

Panama was then controlled by Columbia. But the canal began as a French project in 1878. Construction began in 1881 through dense jungle rife with venomous creatures., but it was yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases that killed thousands of workers. The role of mosquitos as a disease vector was then unknown. Around 25,000 people died, largely Jamaican and French workers. The high mortality rate, made it difficult to maintain an experienced workforce and the French effort went bankrupt in 1889 after spending $287 million ($9.73 billion in 2023 dollars) the savings of 800,000 investors were lost.

Leveraged by the United States Panamanian independence from Colombia was proclaimed in 1903 followed by a hasty treaty that granted sovereign rights to the United States in the canal zone. The US would continue building the canal, then administer, fortify, and defend it. The US spent 500 million to complete the canal ($15.2 billion in 2023 dollars.) About 5,600 workers died from disease and accidents during the 10 year US construction phase of the canal. The majority were laborers from the British Caribbean colony of Barbados.Trump implied that 38,000 American lives were lost in the building of the Panama Canal, the actual number of Americans who died was around 350. With popular support by Panamanians negotiations began in 1974 resulting in a Treaty guaranteeing the permanent neutrality of the canal and control of the canal ceded to Panama in 1977.

In response to Trump’s claims on the canal Panamanian president José Raúl Mulino denied that the United States was being unfairly charged or that anyone besides Panama was in full control of the canal, and affirmed that the canal was part of the country’s inalienable patrimony. With the motto “Pro Mundi Beneficio,” Latin for “For the Benefit of the World.” Around 14,000 ships a year utilize the canal with 40% of all U.S. container ships pass through the canal locks.

Tokenomics

Engineering the drivers of value once took a lot of effort, Billions invested, multitudes toiling, (and historically dying) and machinery grinding. These days, so we’re told, a keystroke here and a click there, and wealth can be yours.

The digital coin called $TRUMP touted ahead of Donald’s inauguration quickly became one of the most valuable meme coins. The value of a single coin shot up to $75 within a day, the market capitalization of $TRUMP hovered around $7 billion with only 200 million of the 1 billion tokens released. The remaining 800 million tokens are owned by affiliates of the Trump Organization. Meaning, on paper, Trumps share exceeds $30 billion. Valuation has since has fallen to $29. One cause of the volatible dip in value came after Trump said: “I don’t know much about it other than I launched it, other than it was very successful.” Temporarily upsetting the industry that had high hopes that crypto-favorable policies would follow their investment in Trump. During the campaign, Trump, in a bid for crypto cash pledged he would be a “crypto president.” Four days into his reign Trump ordered the creation of a cryptocurrency working group tasked with proposing new digital asset regulations and exploring the creation of a national cryptocurrency stockpile.

The driver of cryptocurrency is the Blockchain: An open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. Blockchain technology has the potential to fundamentally change the way all transactions, contracts, and even voting and governance is done. Unfortunately it is most associated with crypto currency like Bitcoin or Non Fungible Tokens marketed to meme collectors and speculators. Media stories about digital tokens and coins are rife with shady operators and get rich quick schemes. Touted as the inevitable future of currency, but explained with the cautious sidebar of crypto criminals on the Dark Web. Or the extreme power consumed to mine bitcoins. The risks and rewards of secure and established crypto coins really depend on the value of money, as usual, early adopters did well. Though block chain is perfect for making verifiable transactions, it is a questionable place to park legal tender and be assured of its value, unless you already have too much money. Virtual crypto-coins are now on track to become bonafide instruments in financial markets.

China was the first country to ban bitcoin exchanges, easily restricted by its web censorship systems, but the nature of decentralized Blockchain transactions allowed market activity to continue offshore. The Chinese courts have now allowed personal ownership of crypto currency but is not allowed for business use, to curtail crime and prevent economic instability, and for concerns that crypto-currencies were facilitating capital flight and bypassing financial restrictions.

Of course these are some of the benefits of a fungible symbols of value untethered to national treasuries or regulation. The successful launch of $TRUMP is an awfully convenient way for funds to flow into the presidents pocket in exchange for off the record agreements, incentives or supportive largesse of any kind.

Money as a tool of power and exploitation continues, but an alternative currency that is not controlled by government or financial institutions, but rather verifiable peer to peer transactions is not a bad idea. It’s as plausible as the ridiculous system of monetary values we have accepted. A new concept of tokenization of intellectual property, “minting” cryptocurrency based on the value of creators, where investors speculate on the rise or fall of creative careers becoming share holders of popularity, investing in tradable tokens for a percentage of future contracts and royalties is already happening with Blockchain.

There are thousands of cryptocurrency coins and anyone can create one. But, marketing a meme that promises nothing more than a share in fearless leader’s wealth extraction operation is harvesting cash by peddaling vapor, a trading card farce of celebrity which must delight his craven avarice, as the numbers flicker in his digital wallet. 

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