Author: Toby Zimmerman

Old Habits Die Hard in Haiti

Since Haiti’s independence from France in 1804, the United States has made a concerted effort to control politics and economics in Haiti to promote American interests in the Caribbean. Following the Haitian Revolution for independence, many southerners feared that slaves in America would take inspiration from the forceful expulsion of French colonialists. Slaveholders sought to […]

What J. Robert Oppenheimer Can Teach Us About China

On December 3, 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower issued a memo installing a “blank wall” between J. Robert Oppenheimer and any government operations, cutting him off from any future classified research and his atomic project. This communique was the conclusion of a months-long audit filled with anti-communist fear-mongering rhetoric. Led by Lewis Strauss, commissioner of the […]

Atlantic Herring v. Alphabet Soup

Capital letters have ruled the American government since 1933. Following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s implementation of the New Deal, three-letter agencies, also known as “Alphabet Soup Agencies,” have monopolized the American political system. From the FBI to the FDA, sequences of triplet capitals are omnipresent and inescapable. These organizations have become central to the basic […]

The JCPOA is Dead, Long Live the JCPOA

On the campaign trail in 2020, President Joe Biden promised a renewal of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In exchange for reduced sanctions to the tune of several billion dollars, Iran dismantled most of its nuclear program and allowed international inspections. The JCPOA was reached in July 2015 between Iran, the European Union, […]