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

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

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

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

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