European Countries Quotes
The Catholic Church was allied with the Fascists in Spain in the 1930’s. In the Spanish Civil War many Americans supported democracy and the Republicans. Historically in these days the Church had been associated with the power establishment and when there was a revolution as in Mexico, the Church was seen to have been part of the problem and its assets were nationalized and its influence diminished. Spellman and the Vatican were worried about the same thing in Spain and hence allied themselves with Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. As a result of backing the wrong side morally at that time, the Church after WWII became a leader in advocating freedom and democracy in many parts of the world, but still had historical ties to the right wing elements of a new nations in South America.
At the time, the few private companies that provided American Internet service did not want to increase the bandwidth speeds to homes. Those businesses who needed more bandwidth paid dearly for it, but consumers could not afford those rates. With fiber optics, it cost no more to provide higher bandwidth than lower. But then the Internet providers would not be able to make the huge profit margins on the corporate accounts. In much of Europe, however, the Government rules and regulations required a higher standard of performance for the public in general. In the US, the Government did not want to regulate the performance standards of the private sector with respect to the Internet. Clinton argued that the problem should be solved by the private sector, but if they could or did not, he argued that government should set the rules to solve the problem. The software and hardware companies were driving American digital technology forward, but the few communications company were working to maintain the status quo on bandwidth.
At the time, the major European countries were in a competitive scramble for colonies in Africa—so much so that there were very few independent territories left. The maps and borders of Africa were really decided by the Europeans.