A New Domino Theory

College of Political Knowledge

If you are an old fart as I am the term “domino theory” brings back the good old days of the ‘war on communism’….but it has a different meaning today……at least to my way of thinking…..

Just what is the ‘domino theory’?  Thanx to encyclopedia.com for the breakdown……..

The domino theory was articulated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in an April 7, 1954, news conference in which he worried that if communism remained unchecked, the free world might endure “the ‘falling domino’ principle. [In that case] you have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you have the beginning of a disintegration [of democratic countries] that would have profound influences”. According to that principle, a change in one country will “spill over,” setting in motion the political transformation of an entire region.

Of particular concern to American leaders at that time was the ongoing crisis in southeastern Asia, where the loss of Vietnam could be expected to lead to eventual Communist domination of Thailand, Indonesia, and perhaps New Zealand and Australia (Gaddis 1982). The application of the domino theory, however, was not limited to southeastern Asia. The growing momentum of communism and the falling of dominoes animated national security debates over American policies toward Western Europe and Latin America as well. After the Eisenhower administration, the Democratic administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson continued to believe that setbacks in southeastern Asia in general and Vietnam in particular would have dire consequences.

Fears of dominoes falling were based primarily on two mutually reinforcing concerns. The first was that if the United States failed to support an ally against Communist agitation, Communist movements in neighboring countries and their Soviet and Chinese sponsors would be emboldened. Communist success would breed success, and failure to stem the tide early would push countries out of the American orbit, with disastrous long term consequences. Second, that perception of threat was amplified by concerns that the inability of an American-sponsored government to suppress domestic insurgents or outside provocateurs would signal that the United States could not be counted on as a reliable alliance partner. In that case the insecurities of allied countries and the demonstrated inability or unwillingness of the United States to help overcome them would lead countries to pull away from the United States. On both counts American decision makers feared that seemingly small reverses in peripheral countries ultimately would lead to a massive redistribution of cold war power as country after country fell to Communist pressure.

Although the rhetoric of falling dominoes most often was used to articulate the dangers from the unchecked spread of Soviet expansion, some noted that dominoes might be induced to fall the other way as well. Soon after the end of the World War II (1939–1945) conservatives in the Truman administration advocated “rolling back” Soviet advances in Europe. Although the lexicon of falling dominoes had not been coined yet, the basic logic was the same: It was hoped that American successes would demonstrate the power of the West and the poverty of the Soviet alternative. If that policy was successful, it was hoped that it might set into motion a counterdomino effect in which European Soviet-styled authoritarian regimes were felled by a mix of domestic and Western pressure. The Soviets’ continued de facto and then de jure domination of Central and Eastern Europe frustrated those early reactionary impulses to roll back the postwar status quo. Thereafter, the world’s dominoes were seen as leaning against the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Sorry about the long dissertation on the subject but it was necessary…..

Now that the stage has been set……the idea of the domino theory is rearing its ugly face….yet again….this time it is the whole right to work thing…….and now that Repubs have control of most of the states the attacks on labor is beginning its final push before it is too late……

Most Southern states have been right to work for decades and the Repubs have seen that it has worked well for the elimination of unions nd organized labor…..and now the states in the rust belt that have changed government to the GOP the attacks have begun…..Indiana is the most visible for now but it will continue…..when one falls the next one will be in the sights of the GOP…..watch Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois…..and so on…..and now Utah is joining the war on the workers…..

Utah’s measure was introduced by Republican Rep. Keith Grover, who did not return a call seeking comment. However, he denied during an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune last week that he was influenced by what was happening in other states.

And all the rhetoric will be that it will create jobs….and it does….but they are low wage jobs with little to no benefits……The truth, however, is that the misnamed “right-to-work” legislation–better known to its opponents as the “right-to-work-for-less”–will have a devastating financial hit on working-class Hoosiers if it becomes law.