Secretary of State and Salary: Antony Blinken $221,400 per year
Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request: $58.5 Billion
State Department Staffing: over 13,000 foreign service staff, over 11,000 civil service employees, over 45,000 locally employed staff
Mission: The mission of the Department of State is to represent America’s foreign policy abroad, and to advance the interests and security of the American people.
The Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity.
Creation: July 27, 1789 as the Department of Foreign Affairs
Historical Facts: September 26, 1789 - Thomas Jefferson becomes first Secretary of State
December 4, 1821 - The United States acquired its first foreign property as a gift from Sultan Moulay Suleiman of Morocco in Tangiers
July 1, 1862 - The internal revenue act charged a fee for the first time to acquire a passport
January 1, 1866 Secretary of State William ...
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
