okay storytime.
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okay storytime. let's talk about the united fruit company because people keep saying "this is unprecedented' and it's really not. the us has been doing this to latin america for over a century. we just got less formal about it for a while
united fruit was an american company that grew bananas. sounds boring and harmless
it was not
by the early 1900s they owned massive amounts of land across guatemala, honduras, costa rica, panama, colombia, cuba. not just farms. railroads. ports. telegraph lines. the infrastructure
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okay storytime. let's talk about the united fruit company because people keep saying "this is unprecedented' and it's really not. the us has been doing this to latin america for over a century. we just got less formal about it for a while
united fruit was an american company that grew bananas. sounds boring and harmless
it was not
by the early 1900s they owned massive amounts of land across guatemala, honduras, costa rica, panama, colombia, cuba. not just farms. railroads. ports. telegraph lines. the infrastructure
if you wanted to ship anything in or out of these countries you went through united fruit. they didn't just operate in these nations. they were the economy. the governments served at their pleasure
and when a government got uppity- tried something like land reform or labor rights or 'maybe our country shouldn't be owned by a foreign corporation -united fruit called washington
and washington sent the cia
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if you wanted to ship anything in or out of these countries you went through united fruit. they didn't just operate in these nations. they were the economy. the governments served at their pleasure
and when a government got uppity- tried something like land reform or labor rights or 'maybe our country shouldn't be owned by a foreign corporation -united fruit called washington
and washington sent the cia
guatemala 1954. jacobo árbenz was democratically elected. started redistributing unused land to peasants. this included land united fruit was hoarding and not even using. they were just sitting on it to control the market
united fruit's lobbyists told eisenhower this was communism. it was not.(not that it would matter if it were) it was a mildly progressive land reform policy. the cia overthrew arbenz and installed a military dictatorship anyway
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guatemala 1954. jacobo árbenz was democratically elected. started redistributing unused land to peasants. this included land united fruit was hoarding and not even using. they were just sitting on it to control the market
united fruit's lobbyists told eisenhower this was communism. it was not.(not that it would matter if it were) it was a mildly progressive land reform policy. the cia overthrew arbenz and installed a military dictatorship anyway
forty years of civil war followed. 200,000 dead. most of them indigenous mayans. this is not ancient history
this ended in 1996
the term "banana republic" isn't a clothing store reference. it was coined to describe countries whose governments existed to serve american fruit company profits
that's the joke
that's what you're wearing
united fruit eventually rebranded. you know them now as chiquita. yes. the banana sticker. they were still funding colombian paramilitaries in the 2000s and got caught and paid a fine
IN THE 2000s
they paid a fine
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forty years of civil war followed. 200,000 dead. most of them indigenous mayans. this is not ancient history
this ended in 1996
the term "banana republic" isn't a clothing store reference. it was coined to describe countries whose governments existed to serve american fruit company profits
that's the joke
that's what you're wearing
united fruit eventually rebranded. you know them now as chiquita. yes. the banana sticker. they were still funding colombian paramilitaries in the 2000s and got caught and paid a fine
IN THE 2000s
they paid a fine
so when people say the us can't hold venezuela or won't know what to do there: they've been doing this for a hundred years. this is the original playbook. it never stopped. it just had a pr makeover for a while
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so when people say the us can't hold venezuela or won't know what to do there: they've been doing this for a hundred years. this is the original playbook. it never stopped. it just had a pr makeover for a while
@Taweret the US will not be able to get away with it.
Just look at Afghanistan
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@Taweret the US will not be able to get away with it.
Just look at Afghanistan
I’m curious how you think the US *didn’t* “get away with” Afghanistan. I don’t see that there were any meaningful consequences to the decision markers or the US as a whole.
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R AodeRelay shared this topic
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I’m curious how you think the US *didn’t* “get away with” Afghanistan. I don’t see that there were any meaningful consequences to the decision markers or the US as a whole.
️The US absolutely failed in Afghanistan.
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The US absolutely failed in Afghanistan.
Ah, I agree with that, they failed: but failing and getting away with it are very different things. “Failing upward” is just as much a thing for the US as a nation as it is for their ruling class of nepobabies.
