Anandamide Supplements - How The Bliss Molecule Works

https://www.soma-analytics.com/anandamide-supplements/

Anandamide is a little-known chemical that may have a really dramatic impact on your sense of wellbeing. It’s a neurotransmitter – a messenger in your brain – that binds to the brain and body’s cannabinoid receptors. In doing so, it creates an overall sense of wellbeing and happiness.

Many people know it as the ‘bliss molecule’. In fact, its name is derived from the word Ananda, Sanskrit for happiness, joy, or pleasure.

Its impact doesn’t end there, however. There are several mechanisms through which it can boost your overall health and mental wellbeing.

As it binds to your cannabinoid receptors, which are the receptors that the central psychoactive compound in marijuana binds to, you may assume that you can only really manipulate anandamide by using cannabis. Though cannabis use will indeed increase your anandamide levels, it’s far from the only way of doing so. There are even some anandamide supplements to help with this.

So what exactly is anandamide? In brief, it is a neurotransmitter, as above, created from arachidonic acid, which is a long-chain essential fatty acid. It is one of the more important endocannabinoids.

Endocannabinoids are produced within the body and bind to cannabinoid receptors.

Scientists found it whilst looking into THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is cannabis’ key psychoactive component. THC receptors were found in the human brain, which initially puzzled researchers. Why would we naturally have developed them? There was a missing link.

This missing link was anandamide, which binds to these otherwise seemingly superfluous receptors. When it was discovered, researchers decided to search more thoroughly for cannabinoid receptors in the human brain and body. It turned out that we are chock full of them.

They are very widely spread throughout our bodies, as well as existing in multiple regions of the human brain.

For example, researchers have found them in the central nervous system, liver, kidneys, lungs, spleen, reproductive organs, the gastrointestinal and urinary tracts, and even in white blood cells.

Due to the widespread nature of cannabinoid receptors, anandamide has plenty of effects.

Its effects all told are also incredibly profound. Anandamide plays plenty of disparate roles, including in memory, sleep, pain relief, and appetite.

The endocannabinoid system (the sum total of endocannabinoid compounds and their receptors) works as something of a regulator, helping to keep the body and brain in homeostasis, a state of balance.

Conversely, an anandamide deficiency may be at the heart of many conditions. Some researchers have posited that it may be a root cause for a wide range of chronic conditions including depression, recurring migraines, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and even certain neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.

There is even tentative data suggesting that anandamide can suppress cancerous cell production.

As you can see, then, there are some fantastic benefits to be gained from optimizing anandamide levels. There are plenty of physical benefits, as mentioned above. However, mostly anandamide is known for the profound mental health benefits that it offers – it is called the ‘bliss molecule’, after all.

Because of this, low or even sub-optimal levels of anandamide in your system can lead to a lack of happiness and contentment, an increase in feelings of anxiety and fear, and heighten perceptions and symptoms of stress to often unmanageable levels.

Hence the endocannabinoid system, including anandamide, represents a major new avenue of research for those looking to treat or diminish symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and even post-traumatic stress disorder – all psychiatric diseases with close ties to stress.

Current research suggests that inhibiting FAAH (fatty acid amide hydrolase) may help in treating symptoms of cognitive dysfunction, anxiety disorders, drug addiction, and traumatic stress. FAAH is an enzyme that breaks down anandamide, making it available in far smaller quantities. Inhibiting it should raise the amount of anandamide left in your system.

It’s long been known that certain cultures and peoples have different happiness levels. Though cultural factors do indeed play a part, modern researchers postulate that there may also be a genetic factor at play. Our genetic makeup can affect our anandamide levels.

Specifically, there is a direct link between the gene variant rs324420 and anandamide levels. It inhibits levels of FAAH, which as we saw above breaks anandamide down. The presence of gene variant rs324420 is therefore highly correlated with anandamide levels, which in turn is highly correlated with happiness levels.

Cultures in which citizens tend to rate themselves as very happy also tend to see more gene variant rs324420 in their populations.

Geographical areas where we tend to see this occurring include parts of western Africa, northern Europe, and northern Latin America. The converse can be seen in areas of eastern Asia and the Middle East – here, we see depleted levels of gene variant rs324420, lower levels of anandamide, and lower levels of self reported happiness.

Not everything is so open to fate, however. There are plenty of factors outside of your genetic makeup that can manipulate anandamide levels; there are plenty of external contributors you can make the most of to improve your happiness and wellbeing by boosting your levels.

For instance, a link has been found between cannabis use and anandamide levels. The link also extends to memory, flagging up a strong correlation between the three.

This is due to anandamide’s role in memory production. It plays a key role in memory consolidation. With this in mind, researchers have looked at the possible effects of marijuana use on mental decline, specifically those whose work focusses on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Stimulating your brain’s cannabis receptors with anandamide can protect your brain against inflammation – thought to be a leading cause of cognitive decline – and stroke. Though cannabis use is known to impair memory formation in youth, in later life its anti-inflammatory properties can protect against cognitive decline and even inspire new brain cell formation.

You don’t need much, either. Just a small dose of cannabis – ‘one puff’ – can noticeably improve memory in older adults.

You can eat to be healthy and happy. We’ve known this for a long time. In some cases, this is because certain foods can increase anandamide production. Though there are only a couple that are known to do so, they are common enough and tasty enough that including them in your diet should be no real chore.

Firstly, and happily, chocolate is one of the main anandamide-boosting foodstuffs out there. It really does make you happier. Chocolate actually contains over 1,500 known biochemicals. These include the likes of tryptophan, serotonin, caffeine, phenethylamine, and theobromine, all of which can improve your mood. It will make you happier regardless of anandamide…

Except that it also contains plenty of anandamide. And it also contains compounds like it that can inhibit anandamide’s break down and can inspire your brain to naturally create more anandamide. Some researchers even postulate that this might be behind chocolate’s almost addictive nature.

All taken together, these chemicals should cheer you up a great deal. However, the sugar found in most commercial forms of chocolate make it unsuitable for a healthy diet in the long run. Adulterated chocolate will also be less potent. Therefore, try to go for as pure a form as you can manage, reaching for cocoa powder and cacao nibs rather than sugar-laden chocolate bars.

Secondly, black truffles also deliver plenty of anandamide. Botanical name tuber malanosporum, black truffles are fungi native to France, Italy and Spain. They typically grow under deciduous trees, most notably oaks. Truffle hunters traditionally used pigs to unearth truffles buried underground, though these days dogs are typically used – they are less destructive and far less likely to eat the valuable truffles!

Dogs and pigs are particularly good at rooting truffles out likely because they have plenty of anandamide receptors. This leads them to hunting with great gusto.

However, black truffles are a delicacy. Though cheaper than white truffles, they are prohibitively expensive, still being one of the priciest foodstuffs in the world. An ounce will set you back about twenty bucks.

It’s therefore a good idea to go with chocolate – your credit card statements will look a lot better for it.

Though no other foods are known for explicitly delivering exogenous anandamide, there are still a few ingredients out there that may help to spike your body’s natural levels. They are worth including in any dietary protocol, especially if you feel you need a bit of a mood boost.

Pepper is a good bet. Both black pepper (piper nigrum) and spicy long peppers (piper longum) contain plenty of guineensine. This compound increases anandamide activity in your body.

Then there is anything containing the compound kaempferol. Kaempferol is a flavonoid, a natural compound sourced from plants. Specifically, kaempferol can inhibit FAAH production. As we have seen, FAAH breaks anandamide down. Less FAAH generally equates to more anandamide.

Certain fruits and vegetables contain usable quantities of kaempferol. Fruit sources include apples, grapes, raspberries, blackberries, and peaches. For vegetables, we’re looking at greens like broccoli, sprouts, green beans, lettuce, spinach, and cucumbers, as well as potatoes, squashes, and tomatoes. You will also find it in decent amounts in green tea.

You can also get plenty of anandamide precursors in your diet. It’s made from arachidonic acid, which as we have seen is an essential fatty acid. More of it in your diet may lead to an increase in anandamide. You can source arachidonic acid from animal products like meat, fish, and eggs.

It can also be synthesised from linoleic acid, another common fat. Safflower, sunflower, canola, and olives all contain large amounts of linoleic acid, so cooking with these oils could help to boost your anandamide levels. However, you should handle the first three with caution as they are all pro-inflammatory, which could have drastic long term health consequences. Go light on them. Try to cook with olive oil as much as possible.

Then we come to supplements. There are a few supplements that can help to boost your anandamide levels, many of which can improve your cognitive health and wellbeing more generally in addition.

Firstly, if you’re worried about your cognitive health and performance, a good quality nootropic supplement may help. There are plenty of good ones out there – NooCube, VyvaMind, Mind Lab Pro, to name just a few.

I particularly like NooCube, though I have used all three to great effect. Mind Lab Pro is effective, pure, safe, represents great value for money, and works incredibly well. It will sharpen up your thinking, give you greater clarity and more energy, and should bring some quite profound mental health benefits over time.

Aside from nootropics, there are a few supplements that can directly support use or efficacy of anandamide within your body. 

Palmitoylethanolamide (or PEA), is a good one. It’s a naturally occurring compound produced by your body to help fight inflammation. It has also been linked with enhanced anandamide activity. Exogenous sources are generally isolated from egg yolk, peanut meal, or soybean lecithin.

CBD oil can also work well. It’s taken from hemp, though it doesn’t contain THC, the psychoactive ingredient mentioned above – it won’t bind to your cannabinoid receptors to give you a high. You can buy it as a nutritional supplement at most health food stores or online.

CBD oil works partially by inhibiting FAAH action, allowing for an uptick in anandamide levels.

Then there is marijuana itself. Do beware, there are some profound side effects associated with marijuana use. Don’t use it if you suffer from any kind of psychiatric disorder or if it’s illegal where you live. Always consult your doctor before using it. However, if you and your doctor deem it safe and appropriate, it should increase your anandamide levels.

THC binds to your cannabinoid receptors, performing a similar role to anandamide.

However, it can overdo things. As above, one puff is enough. Even then, it can overpower your cannabinoid receptors. This can make it counterproductive, especially when looking to overcome anxiety – it can greatly increase anxiety.

About a fifth of us also have less FAAH in general due to our natural genetics. Those with less FAAH tend to be less anxious. They will also tend to benefit from or become addicted to marijuana less than others.

They are also more inclined to experience a depressive response to cannabis.

Do also note that in most of the population – certainly in adolescents and younger adults – cannabis use can impair your memory and learning abilities.

It isn’t all about what you eat (or smoke!) It can also be about what you do. Several lifestyle factors have been linked with heightened anandamide levels and efficacy.

States of heightened focus have been linked with greater anandamide output. At these times, anandamide floods into your brain to keep you hyper directed, alongside certain other mood boosting chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and endorphins.

If you want to boost your mood, find an activity that absorbs you fully. This could be exercise. It could be meditation. Even simple, engrossing tasks like reading or doing jigsaw puzzles can work wonders for happiness and relaxation.

Try to avoid distracting tasks that force you to switch attention all the time – scrolling on your phone or disappearing down rabbit holes online are prime examples of behaviors to steer well clear of.

Exercise has benefits beyond concentration. Anyone who has been involved in physical training for some time will know the high you can get from it. This is often attributed to endorphins and dopamine. However, there is increasing evidence that endocannabinoids such as anandamide lie behind this high.

Exercise will increase levels of anandamide in your bloodstream whilst also making your anandamide receptors far more sensitive.

Anandamide cannot be overlooked if you’re trying to live a happy, calm, healthy lifestyle. You need to pay attention to it if you feel you could benefit from a mood boost – and who couldn’t, really?

Lifestyle factors play a large role. Exercise, relax, and find things you can focus on. Eat well, including plenty of the foodstuffs mentioned above, and consider supplementing. Supplementation specifically for anandamide and more generally for cognitive health and wellbeing can change your life.

You should find your mood elevated, your cognitive function improved, and your stress levels greatly diminished when you begin to take notice of anandamide.

Now listening to Tequila Sunrise by various artists and Core by Stone Temple Pilots...

On Broadway in Vancouver. Spring of 2019.

Broadway is a major east-west thoroughfare in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In Vancouver’s numbered avenue grid system, it runs in place of a 9th Avenue, between 8th and 10th. The street has six lanes for most of its course. Portions of the street carry the British Columbia Highway 7 designation.

The route begins as “West Broadway” at the intersection of Wallace Crescent and 8th Avenue, in the affluent residential neighbourhood of West Point Grey, a few kilometres east of the University of British Columbia (UBC). Past Alma Street, Broadway takes over from 10th Avenue as one of Vancouver’s major thoroughfares, as it enters Greek West Broadway (or Greektown) section of Vancouver’s Kitsilano district. East of here are several blocks of generally trendy, upscale shops interspersed with low-rise apartment blocks and small supermarkets. The surrounding neighbourhoods generally consist of large, older homes dating from the early twentieth century, many of which have been subdivided into rental suites.

As Broadway approaches Arbutus Street, the commercial establishments become larger before transitioning into a mix of small to mid-size apartment blocks. East of Burrard Street, the apartment blocks get progressively taller, and commercial establishments larger and busier. Between Burrard and Main Street, Broadway can be considerably congested by vehicular traffic. Past Granville Street, Broadway yields completely to medium-to-large commercial structures and high-rise apartments and condominiums. Between Cambie and Main, the commercial establishments become smaller and somewhat more downscale.

At Ontario Street, two blocks west of Main, the route becomes “East Broadway.” After bisecting Main and Kingsway, traffic on Broadway eases somewhat, and the character returns to a mix of small-to-medium apartment buildings and commercial establishments, interspersed with older homes – all considerably less affluent than those to the west. At Commercial Drive, Broadway passes by the Commercial–Broadway SkyTrain Station. Past here for several blocks, the neighbourhood consists predominantly of older residential homes.

As Broadway travels east of Renfrew Street, the neighbourhood once again becomes mixed, with older homes to the north and larger industrial, commercial, and warehouse establishments to the south. Broadway finally ends at Cassiar Street, just short of the Vancouver-Burnaby boundary, where it becomes the Lougheed Highway.

Broadway was created at the turn of the 20th century, along with other gridded roads south of False Creek, to meet the needs of an expanding population in Vancouver. The name of the route was changed from 9th Avenue to Broadway in 1909, at the behest of merchants around Main Street (at that time the hub of Vancouver commerce), who felt that it bestowed a more cosmopolitan air. Commercial establishments originally spread out around the intersections of Cambie and Main Streets, while the character of the rest of the route remained predominantly single-family dwellings.

By the 1970s, the length of Broadway had become a major arterial route in Vancouver, conveying commuters from downtown to the neighbourhoods of the west and east sides. With the growth of UBC and the expansion of the Vancouver General Hospital (one block south of Broadway between approximately Oak and Cambie), traffic demands accelerated. In the 1990s, the agency then responsible for public transit in Greater Vancouver — BC Transit — introduced an express bus route, the 99 B-Line, to help reduce congestion. The Vancouver transportation plan for Broadway notes that congestion is such that the bus service is at capacity, and will not be eased until a new rapid transit line is built paralleling the street. It is anticipated that the SkyTrain’s Millennium Line will be extended to Central Broadway by 2021; the extension is expected to connect with Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, at the intersection of Broadway and Cambie Street.

 

ABLEISM? Common disability Tropes in media. Inspiration Porn, Toxic Positivity, Curing Disability.

Ableism is a significant problem especially in the media, they write characters that are either miraculously cured or are portrayed as tragic, they use disabled people as inspiration whilst treating them as one dimensional or they continue the narrative that the only way to be happy as a disabled or chronically ill person is to push through your condition and act almost like it doesn’t exist. These things are all problematic and don’t help real life disabled people to accept and love themselves and do nothing to educate the public on what having a disability is like!  

I talk about the problems I see with these types of portrayals of disabled characters and reel people by the media but there are lots more issues to address that I didn’t get to in this video, like able bodied actors playing disabled characters, a clear lack of disabled writers, producers, directors etc to accurately portray life with a disability and the over prevalence of disabilities that are faked and sported by the Villan of the story! 

Have you noticed any other common ableist tropes in the media? (let me know in the comments) 

Thank you so much for watching!! Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to see more videos from me every other SUNDAY! 

About Me: 

My name is Elinor, I am a 22-year-old sociology student who has been living with ME/CFS for 6 years. I also have anxiety and depression as co-morbid conditions!  I started making YouTube Videos consistently about my experience with chronic illness and mental health struggles in June 2020 and I’m aiming to hit 1,000 subscribers this year! I also love fashion, connecting with people in the community and being creative!!

Just finished watching Beyond Glory (1948) and Old Boyfriends (1979)...

Just finished watching Jumping Jacks (1952) and Black Horse Canyon (1954)...

The cowboy conquest and Richard Nixon's foreign policy

Airstream by Ralph Goings, 1970

In this post, I will quote from ‘Power Shift: The Rise of the Southern Rim and Its Challenge to the Eastern Establishment’ (1975) by Kirkpatrick Sale. "The pattern of Richard Nixon's foreign policy was set early in 1969 at a meeting of the National Security Council staff in the west wing of the White House. The new president made very clear to the men assembled that he himself was going to be the boss of the country's foreign policy - domestic policy can run by itself, as he used to say, but foreign policy needs a presidential hand - and that he would be using Henry Kissinger, head of the NSC staff, rather than William Rogers, Secretary of State, as his right-hand man. Then he launched into a furious assault on the State Department and its handling of foreign policy, an attitude he no doubt carried with him from his McCarthyite days, and finally declared that it was going to be the president's own staff in the White House that would take charge of foreign policy in the new administration, not those "striped-pants faggots" in the State Department. His audience was stunned, as well it might be, but it was privileged at least to be given such a revealing portrait of the Nixon mind and its attitude toward American foreign policy: Nixon saw himself as the great international wheeler-dealer, he intended to build up his own bureaucracy whose loyalty and obeisance he could always check, and he would be giving no power to the snobbish Eastern Ivy Leaguers he imagined infested Foggy Bottom. That was the first indication, but it would not be the last, that the Cowboy Strategy operated just as much in foreign as in domestic affairs. Take Vietnam. As tragic as it seems, there is little doubt that Nixon prosecuted that war for four years and several million lives, in spite of the fact that he knew he could not prevail, because he did not want to do anything that looked like acknowledging the humiliation of American defeat - thus losing him the support of the superpatriots of the Southern Rim and threatening his reelection in 1972. Cowboy Strategy called for the elaborate machismo of military might to disguise the awful truths that America's army could not fight, its money could not triumph, its power could not conquer. Cowboy Strategy meant accompanying every demonstration of peace-seeking with massive demonstrations of warfare - hence the saturation bombing of Hanoi just before the visit to Peking, the mining of Haiphong before the summit meeting in Moscow, the Christmas bombing of Hanoi before the final cease-fire. Cowboy Strategy meant postponing the final defeat until after the 1972 elections and then accompanying it with such elaborate shenanigans around homecoming soldiers and released prisoners of war that it could be given, at least in receptive quarters of the Southern Rim, the guise of victory. Cowboy Strategy mean pumping enough money and materiel into South Vietnam to support Thieu even after the cease-fire, following Kissinger's oft-stated goal that there should be "'a decent interval' - two to three years - between the withdrawal of U.S. troops and a Communist takeover in Vietnam." Dean Acheson, a wily yankee, with antennae carefully tuned toward Nixon's strategy, perceived all this in the last weeks before his death. As recounted by fellow yankee Emmet John Hughes, he laid bare the Nixon "rationale" for the protracted war: The essence of this rationale argued that the nation's reactionary right would rise in wrath against a hasty retreat, and the disengagement therefore had to be artfully "staged" to blur the truth and avoid the backlash. "Kissinger sums up White House motivation in one pithy phrase," the former Secretary of State explained. "He says we must at all costs avoid an orgy of recrimination." Thousands of Americans were killed during four years of a military withdrawal staged to appease militant patriots and to protect the President's political right flank. It was because of this prolongation that the first serious cracks began to show themselves in the wall of support which the business community and its followers had erected before 1968. Both Northeastern and Southern Rim capitalists, of course, wanted to keep Southeast Asia open for the American empire, and both therefore hoped to pacify Vietnam. But there were certain costs that the yankee community wanted to avoid, and as the balance of payments grew steadily worse, as inflation kept mounting, as the social dislocations at home became ever sharper, and as the futility of the operation grew more apparent, more and deeper cracks appeared, more Wall Street businessmen joined the ranks of the polite dissenters. Nixon, ever the politician, sought to keep the revolt from growing by his detente visits to Russia and China and his staged announcement that "peace is at hand" just before the 1972 elections, and that was enough - along with the business world's antipathy to George McGovern - to put almost the entire capitalist spectrum in the Republican camp in 1972. But this early sign of a split in the business ranks should have been a clear signal that the Cowboy Strategy was playing too fast and loose with the yankee vision and that perilous times were ahead. Nor was Vietnam the only evidence of the fabricated bellicosity of this strategy. Nixon continually delighted in rattling his nuclear weaponry - remember it was he who described himself to the Pope as the most powerful man in the world, and made it sound like a threat - and in reminding less fortified nations (India, the Middle East, Japan) that they were at the mercy of American might. Even his posture with the Soviet Union, though it could unbend for occasional treaties which Nixon saw as being in American interests, was arrogant and pugnacious, born of the essentially Cold War attitude (which he shared with the Metternichian Kissinger) that global diplomacy was a perpetual power struggle which always necessitated a show of strength and a presumption of treachery. Hence, to prove to Russia more than anyone else that America was not a pitiful, helpless giant: the vehement prosecution of the Vietnam War, the mobilization of troops after the Soviet-backed invasion of Jordan, the abandonment of SALT talks after their political purpose had been served, the recurrent deployment of American fleets, and the military alert during the Yom Kippur war. As literary critic Alfred Kazin has put it in his romantic way: "The drives, the "battle" that Nixon proudly says is "always with me," the necessity to obliterate an opponent rather than to persuade him, the computerized, militarized football-stadium language that vindictively brings all loyalties down to the "team" as the corporate ego in which a man may find his necessary virility, the lack of any cultural ties outside the overwhelming monoliths of American power - these are the "operabilities" behind Nixon's Mein Kampf, born of mid-century American toughness and drive and planetary megalomania fascinated by and envious of Soviet ruthlessness. Bit by bit our old scruples have been eroded by a new value system that recognizes no truth that is not part of what is "operable."" After the settlement of Vietnam, the linchpin of Nixon's cowboy foreign policy became the economic penetration of foreign markets, most especially for cowboy interests. The administration poured millions of dollars into the Middle East, sent its CIA operatives as ambassadors to Iran and Lebanon, and expended enormous diplomatic energy for a cease-fire, all in order to protect the long-range interests of the oil internationals, old and new. It let the traditional alliances with Europe fall into shambles, earning the enmity of virtually every government on the Continent, while it concentrated instead on openings to the Pacific (China, Southeast Asia) and the Caribbean, especially for the new overseas operations of technical and aerospace runaway plants. It badgered Japan to get better protection for the textile industry, nurtured Russia to get better markets for the agribusiness sector, coddled Greece for the protection of shipping and oil interests, and cultivated the Middle East for its reinvestments of "petrodollars" into American real estate, banking, and defense products. But above all, the administration finally got America caught up with the rest of the world in its relations - especially its trade relations - with Russia and China. True, the detente with Russia and the opening to China seemed to be a dangerous defilement of the Cowboy Strategy - and indeed both stirred up considerable passion among the Far Right in the United States - but in fact they were both carefully, almost surgically, limited to the establishment of markets and investments to the benefit of American, especially cowboy, capital. Not at any point did they threaten any of the interests that the cowboy ideology held dear: despite the arms agreements with Russia, there was no limitation whatsoever in the production of weaponry of the relative superiority of American power; despite normalization with China, there was no withdrawal from Southeast Asia or Pacific military posts except in Vietnam. Ultimately it seemed that most cowboys agreed with the businessman in a cartoon of the time who argued, "They may be atheistic Red Chinese Communists, but I can't help thinking that there's 800 million potential consumers over there." The reason for the American penetration of these new markets was put with disarming frankness by Alfred Wentworth, head of the Chase Manhattan Bank office that opened up in Moscow in 1973, a yankee who certainly understood cowboy principles: "The Soviet Union" - he should have added China as well - "is the last great undeveloped market for the U.S." Certainly yankee businesses could take advantage of those markets - Nixon, after all, was never one to deny opportunities to American business of any stripe - but the importance of opening them up under the Nixon aegis is that the cowboy industries could share in the bonanza as well, and, insofar as their success depended on government favors, could generally count on being given the larger shares. Particularly important this when it is remembered that in an earlier era, before the cowboy challenge had been mounted, yankee firms swarmed all over Europe, developing hegemonic markets that outsiders could not break - but here at last in Asia and Russia was a chance for the newcomers. Trade with China was only in its infancy when its American midwife was forced from office in 1974, but even so the preeminent role of the Southern Rim was clear enough. Cotton exports had reached the point where the United States stood as China's largest foreign supplier, enjoying annual sales of nearly $400,000, and the State Department expected them soon to amount to "as much as a quarter of the U.S. cotton crop"; tobacco sales, though insignificant in total world-wide trade, started off at some $150,000 a year and seemed encouraging enough to cause several Carolina plants to reorient part of their operations toward this market; fertilizer plants, a product of the Rim's agribusiness know-how, were eagerly sought by China for its vast agriculture, with the first $70 million factory scheduled to be built by a Texas firm; and total contracts from the Chinese for the American construction industry, according to an American official, stood at no less than $1 billion by 1973. An indication of the cowboy clout here was the composition of the executive board of the high-level business council formed in 1973 with American government backing "to promote American trade with China": seven of them were certifiable yankees - David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan, Donald Kendall of Pepsico, and the like - but they were outnumbered by the ten bona-fide cowboys, ranging from David Packard of Hewlett-Packard to Anthony Bryan of Texas's Cameron Iron Works. That just would not have happened ten years before. Trade with Russia has, of course, been far greater in volume and sales - about $9 billion per year through the 1970s, but the same pattern emerges there, too. To be sure, there have been hundreds of firms outside the Southern Rim which have taken advantage of the new relaxations of the Nixon era and moved in with everything at their disposal; the Kamaz truck complex, for example, put together by Chase Manhattan Bank in 1972, is almost totally a yankee enterprise, and a $270 million one at that. At the same time, however, a whole range of new corporations, some not even in business when the West European market opened up after World War II, were quick to embrace this new opportunity for overseas expansion and for a slice of the potentially multibillion-dollar Russian market. Cook Industries, the Memphis grain dealer, has been the beneficiary of some $20 million worth of the grain trading with the Soviet Union; Dresser Industries of Dallas had done $27.5 million worth of business by the middle of 1974 and confidently predicted quadrupling of its volume within a few years; Texas Industries, Cameron Iron, and M. F. Kellog, three diverse Texas businesses, all won contracts for sales to or plants in the Soviet Union in the 1970-73 period; and Occidental Petroleum of California has signed an enormous $20 billion fertilizer deal with the Soviet Union involving the construction of a 1,500-mile pipeline, the shipment of Florida phosphates, and the development of ammonia plants over the next ten years. And still the plum of the whole Soviet-American detente has yet to fall. So far the Russians have indicated willingness to go ahead with two massive natural gas schemes, one piping gas to Black and Barents Sea ports, the other to the Pacific - both of which are to be constructed and operated by cowboy consortiums. The Black-Barents scheme would be operated by El Paso Natural Gas (Texas) and Occidental Petroleum (California), and would be constructed by Bechtel (California) and Williams Brothers (Oklahoma) - the size of that deal is estimated to be around $10 billion just to start with; the Pacific operation would be operated by Tenneco and Texas Eastern Transmission, would be built by Brown & Root (all Texas) - and that would have an initial cost of $15 billion. Everything has been held up on the American side, and not even Nixon's pressure was able to force Congress into the trade agreement guaranteeing these investments in the Russian wastelands; still, since the ultimate product - natural gas - is badly needed in the American economy, one of the two schemes is almost certain to be approved. Look at that: and without any striped-pants faggots, either. In retrospect, it may be that Nixon's greatest contributions will in fact have been in the area of foreign affairs, though not for the reasons ("a generation of peace") he predicted. If the end to American imperial hegemony over the world is supplanted by a new penetration of the markets in both semi-developed (Russia) and developing (China) countries, if "neo-imperialist" arrangements are in fact struck allowing a non-national kind of exploitation of world resources, and if upstart American industries are placed in a strong position in the fight for these considerable treasures, then the Cowboy Strategy will have achieved its most lasting effect in the transformation of American foreign policy. Quite clearly, for good or ill, the Nixon Administration was one of the most important in the history of the American republic. It began a process of rearranging priorities that had been settled, or so it was thought, for the previous half-century at least. It was the embodiment of new power, new money, new influence, new dynamism. It attempted to establish a new structure for the American Presidency, a new reordering of the American economy, a new design for American power. And it did so with a brashness, an imperiousness, a force, that eventually betrayed it into bestirring its rivals into action."