The article at least mentions the Banana Massacre in which UFC massacred striking banana workers but I think it paints a very misleading picture. This wasn't just a one-off event. It's something that still continues to this day. UFc now goes by Chiquita but even in the past decade its been caught at least once paying off gangs to assassinate would-be labor leaders. These are gangs that, after intense international pressures, the US had placed on terrorist lists.
This isn't just "history". This is the reality of how this fragile tropical fruit that requires a mind-blowing supply chain to arrive to the Northern hemisphere is somehow the cheapest fruit in the grocery store.
I agree that the violence around bananas are part of what keeps it cheap, but probably the amount of time an unripe banana can be stored, the ease of packing, and the relatively low weight for something so easy to pack and ship contribute significantly too
Brazilians always had a beef with the Banana Republic thing. They took it personally as a criticism. There is a famous 'carnaval' tongue in cheek song that was composed as an 'answer' to "Yes, we have no bananas":
Yes, we do have Bananas[1]
Yes, we do have bananas/
Bananas to give and sell/
Baby girl, bananas have vitamins/
Banana makes you healthy and strong/
Coffee goes to France, yes/
Cotton goes to Japan, for sure/
For the whole world, man or woman/
Bananas for whoever wants it/
Mate for Paraguay, no way/
Gold from our pockets, no way/
We are part of the crisis, if it comes/
Bananas for whoever wants it/
What is amazing to me is that this post references an "epidemic of slipping on banana peels", was posted within a day of a wonderful (33 minute long!) video about the history of slipping on banana peels, and neither references the other! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8W5GCnqT_M
> Have you ever seen anybody slip on a banana peel? I, personally, have not. But if you watch old movies and cartoons, it seems like everybody was sliding around on discarded banana peels.
This actually happened to me once in Capitol Hill in Seattle. I slipped, looked down, and it was a banana peel. One of the few times I wish someone saw me make a mistake so I could have had a witness.
Another explanation I once heard was that that slipping on horse manure was actually the more common experience, and a banana was a polite substitute for movies.
This never occurred to me and seems entirely plausible given that horse manure was constant annoyance in higher traffic areas. The problem was so serious early auto advocates cited the reduction in manure as a major benefit.
TL;DR - At the turn of last century, suing for personal damages experienced a peak where people would fake an injury. It's literally where the trope in the old moves came from.
The reason banana peels had so much mindshare in the late 1800s was that they were the only thing the rats wouldn't drag away and eat, so you'd see them everywhere. People weren't going to slip on pizza slices.
Doesn't suprise me since the Dulles brothers (Secretary of State and head of CIA respectively) were owners and on the payroll for nearly 40 years.
"John Foster Dulles, who represented United Fruit while he was a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell – he negotiated that crucial United Fruit deal with Guatemalan officials in the 1930s – was Secretary of State under Eisenhower; his brother Allen, who did legal work for the company and sat on its board of directors, was head of the CIA under Eisenhower; Henry Cabot Lodge, who was America's ambassador to the UN, was a large owner of United Fruit stock; Ed Whitman, the United Fruit PR man, was married to Ann Whitman, Dwight Eisenhower's personal secretary. You could not see these connections until you could – and then you could not stop seeing them."
The Dole who took over Hawaii (Sanford Dole) was cousin to the pineapple company guy (James Dole). So, not the same guy, but also not unrelated either.
I was wrong and there are numerous other companies that are coded as operations.
My understanding is that the UFC operated a fleet of fruit shipments which also transported tourists. That seems like a pretty comfortable setting for CIA agents.
I myself don’t know the cryptonym, maybe begins with YO-.
My understanding is that a lot of primarily cargo ships back then also had passenger service. At https://archive.org/details/great-whitefleet-united-fruit-co... you can read how UFC's "Great White Fleet" used ships "intended for general fruit carrying and passenger service between New York, West Indian and Central American ports."
The passenger service existed "to satisfy the tropic-hunger of the North", and the pictures show the luxury.
It's still possible to be a passenger on a modern freighter, but not at that level of luxury.
>>The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
>I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them showing US political and financial involvement in Ukraine.
They stopped short of saying it explicitly, but it was strongly implied. The whole video basically lists out all of russia's motivation for the war, and then concludes with "now there's a war in europe [...] if there was only someone who have predicted it, someone with power to stop it" followed by a few sound bites/clips strongly alluding to Western defense officials.
I love it when people go off the beaten path to prove that wrong opinions about one unrelated topic somehow must automatically disprove true facts about a completely different topic. It's the playbook of trolls. Whataboutism at it's finest.
...you say as you unilaterally assert that you're correct without trying to refute any of my previous points (ie. that the video didn't blame the west explicitly but strongly implied it).
>I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them showing US political and financial involvement in Ukraine.
They intentionally leaves out sources they claim to have, they cut crucial parts of video evidence (such as Joe Biden's statement, which changes the entire statement)
You need to understand that not everyone shares your addiction to YT's dopamine-jerking content feeds. In any case, no one has time to dig through that video to find whatever "evidence" you think is buried there.
>You need to understand that not everyone shares your addiction to YT's dopamine-jerking content feeds. In any case, no one has time to dig through that video to find whatever "evidence" you think is buried there.
I can't help it if you can't watch a video without feeling as if it's meant to be some "dopamine rush" for you, that's a you problem.
It does not in any way shape or form discard it from being evidence.
Especially when I specifically pointed out 2 issues with the boyboy video, which I assume you also haven't watched (or does boyboy somehow get a pass?) which then begs the question of why you're even replying.
It just seemed weird that you thought nothing of pointing to a 48 minute video about mostly unrelated topics, as if anyone would actually fish through all that to get to the nuggets of pertinent information that you're suggesting are buried in there somewhere.
An AI summary of that channel’s Ukraine video does fall into a narrative I’ve seen in the West:
1. Eastern states joined NATO for defense
2. This redirected Russian aggression to Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
3. Thus, the invading forces must themselves be acting with circumspection about NATO
This reasoning tends to prefer analysis rather than emphasize what invading armies do to civilians. We know what’s happening to civilians in each of those invasions. We do not know (and should not care) if each soldier has an opinion of NATO.
Its not completely unfounded. The top US diplomat to the USSR for 20 years predicted a conflict if the US expanded the NATO alliance further east after the USSR fell.
This lines up with what Russia says. "We do not want a military alliance that was built to destroy us expanding to our border."
It is completly unfounded. He was wrong and if he was still alive hed probably acknowledge that he was wrong. Russias invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO (besides the fact that if we had been wise and invited Ukraine into NATO this stupid war wouldn't have happened). It is an imperialistic war that seems to reconquer Ukraine and to be an empire again. Also Yelstin admitted in the 90s that Poland and other countries had the right to join NATO. Russia or at least Putin is saying that Ukraine has never existed and must be reconquered just like the old conquering czars did. The NATO bullshit excuse is the lowest level of propaganda and I'm sure even that are surprised how many people fall far it. NATO was not built to destroy Russia or the Soviet Union (which are separate things) and Ukraine was not seeking to join NATO in 2014 (and had no chance of joining NATO in 2014 and 2021 as everyone including Russia was well aware of).
Predicted a conflict if the US expanded the NATO alliance further east after the USSR fell.
Except Russia formally greenlighted at least partial NATO expansion (to CZ, HU, and PL) via a formal treaty it signed with NATO in 1997. Which right there, should suggest to you that there's something deeply broken with this narrative.
"We do not want a military alliance that was built to destroy us expanding to our border."
NATO wasn't built "to destroy" Russia.
You can say that NATO annoys Russia, or "is built to challenge Russia's influence outside its borders" if you want.
But to say it was built, or at any point even remotely intended "to destroy Russia" is just dumb, emotional manipulation.
I guess "us" in this context also means USSR. So NATO destroyed USSR and now they want to destroy Russia by expanding their "territory" closer and closer to Russia.
the USSR is not russia and they dont want to destroy russia. NATO not expanding teritory (it has none, its merely a defwnsive military alliance) like say russia is trying to do. Members choose to join NATO in large lart to protect themselves from russia.
And NATO didn't destroy the USSR the whole corrupt thing collapsed in of itself driven by bad economy and the forces of liberalism and nationalism.
I think geopolitics is signifcantly more complex than you make it out to be. If you consider how specific you are about word choices over actions, you are repeating the western narrative verbatim.
The signatories to the treaty in 1997 may not have understood how the Russian population at large would perceive NATO expansion. When it happened, the russian people responded differently than they did in a much more idealistic period.
Destroying, irritating, and annoying are easy to understand between individuals, but in talking about nation states, what do these really mean? One nation state can annoy another into an economic collapse thus destroying it.
Everything thing you say ignores what the Russians have been saying about NATO expansionism, and I think that is more key to understanding both sides of the issue. I only suggested that actions of NATO contributed to the "irritation" that drug Russia into conflict.
> Everything thing you say ignores what the Russians have been saying about NATO expansionism, and I think that is more key to understanding both sides of the issue.
The trouble with this narrative is that it has no connection with reality whatsoever. It is a cover story produced to lull distant foreigners into sleep; it is not connected to the actual developments in Russia or Russian relations with its neighbors. Nobody takes this story seriously in Russia; it is not discussed in military or policy circles. It is a pretext very much in the same tradition as German excuses for invading Poland.
Few people can offer better insight into "understanding both sides" than Andrei Kozyrev, the first foreign minister of Russian Federation, in office 1990-1996 and in charge of rebuilding foreign relations of the entire country after USSR's demise. And he openly calls this narrative bullshit and people who fall for it idiots. Most key figures from pre-Putin Russia hold the same view.
NATO is a pain in the butt for Russia for the very simple reason that Russia still carries imperialist desire to roll over its neighbors, and a country being in NATO makes it much more difficult for them to invade. Without support from allies, Ukraine would've lost years ago, but with international support, they persist and have caused incredible losses to Russians. It's simple calculus. Without NATO, Russian invasion of Poland would face only the fairly limited Polish conventional forces. With NATO, they would be potentially facing anything up to US carrier groups and British nuclear missiles. Risks associated with invading their neighbors go way up if they are in NATO, enough to deter from invading.
Understanding this, joining NATO and other international organizations has been a top foreign policy priority for most countries in Eastern Europe. "Expansionism" is a completely wrong word to use when the initiative for joining NATO has always been very intense in Eastern Europe, out of fear of Russian invasion, against lukewarm and skeptical acceptance by the existing members, who believed such fears to be overblown.
If you consider how specific you are about word choices over actions, you are repeating the western narrative verbatim.
And this take showcases the fundamental problem with giving a fuck about major narratives, and our perceived overlap with or opposition to them.
As in: "Oh gosh, in taking position X, it looks like I'm overlapping with the received narrative, which happens to roughly include position X. Which is Bad, because that narrative is on the whole Bad. Therefore I should check myself and start importing positions from, or expressing empathy with narratives from the supposedly opposite direction. Because the enemy of my enemy can't be such a bad guy, once you get to know him", or something like that.
Which seems to be what drives about 90 percent of the "If you just listen to Putin, it turns out he actually has a point with Ukraine" take. (Along with an uncritical acceptance of the web of factual distortions about what actually did happen).
When it happened, the russian people responded differently than they did in a much more idealistic period.
Except it wasn't "the Russian people" responding back then. And it certainly isn't "the Russian people" who decided to launch the current invasion.
One nation state can annoy another into an economic collapse thus destroying it.
Okay I guess, and evidently you're alluding to the 90s shock therapy advice given to Russia and associated shenanigans. Fine enough, but that wasn't "NATO". And it's when one starts boldly and utterly conflating the two (I'm guessing on the principle that they're both "The West") where things start to get loopy.
Everything thing you say ignores what the Russians have been saying about NATO expansionism, and I think that is more key to understanding both sides of the issue.
That's the thing -- we don't get to hear from "the Russians" as a people in any meaningful sense these days. By and large, we only get to hear what its current regime says (and the various statements it pretends to believe). Which has some relation to what Russians as a people think, but is at best a highly distorted and manipulated representation of what they think.
I only suggested that actions of NATO contributed to the "irritation" that drug Russia into conflict.
Your words said a lot more than that, I'm afraid. Let's replay the tape:
This lines up with what Russia says. "We do not want a military alliance that was built to destroy us expanding to our border."
It's extremely difficult to read this other than as conveying: (1) You do think this is what "Russia" (meaning its people) thinks, (2) That it's a reasonable position we should have empathy with and extend credibility to, (3) including, implicitly but unavoidably the "NATO was built to destroy Russia" part.
Instead of treating it as the obvious hogwash that it is, that no reasonably sane and informed person would ever believe.
>Seriously that channel? The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
Such crazy talk!
Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared a "red line", would ever cause an invasion?
It's not like everybody from real-politic scholars to the most experienced of foreign affairs like Kissinger explicitly said it was a bad idea, and that this will be the result!
Russians and Russia boosters really need to have a think about exactly why it is that so many of their former allies in Eastern Europe were incredibly eager to join NATO as soon as they could.
>Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared a "red line", would ever cause an invasion?
This is weird thing with anyone saying "NATO FAULT NATO FAULT", NATO explicitly DIDN'T want the eastern European countries to join, it was the eastern Europeans who begged and begged to be let in, including Ukraine and the west rejected them.
And even IF this was the case somehow that NATO pushed themselves into these countries:
1. Why did Russia give the thumbs up for these countries to join?
2. Why did Russia try and attempt to join NATO at one point
All of this by the way happened with Putin in charge, so unless we all believe in the dead-putin theory something doesn't add up here with the framing of "NATO FAULT".
>It's not like everybody from real-politic scholars to the most experienced of foreign affairs like Kissinger explicitly said it was a bad idea, and that this will be the result!
So you're saying that real-politik experts believe if Ukraine had joined back in say 2008 they today would've been invaded by Russia? Since it's in 2022 not 2008 they got full-blown invasion after having having been trying to be neutral and DESPITE that Russia still kept meddling in their affairs as if it was Belarus, leading up to 2014 crisis.
I would love to know how exactly Russia would be able to pull that off against the full NATO military force.
Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared a "red line"
Except that's not what happened. In you know, actual, physical reality.
It's just what the aggressor told you, in its propaganda.
I think "in its very borders" was supposed to mean "to its very borders". That is not Russian propaganda. Ukraine in NATO being "the brightest of red lines" comes from a leaked telegram from CIA director William Burns:
I think "in its very borders" was supposed to mean "to its very borders"
And we could forgive them for that small particular exaggeration, if that was all it was. But they took extra special care to double down on the "pushing" part, and dial it up a notch, to "shoving [it] its borders", which is unmistakably an intentional use of emotionally manipulative language. Which is the precise moment which qualifies what they said as propaganda.
As to what you're saying:
Ukraine in NATO being "the brightest of red lines"
Except there was no concrete "push" in Ukraine's case.
Ukraine's NATO membership application was formally rejected by NATO in 2008. This was very, very big news at the time, and Merkel still can't keep bragging about it.† Despite NATO's also offering some secondary, mollifying words about Ukraine "eventually" joining the alliance, there was no significant action taken to move that forward in the critical window of 2008-2014, when Russia invaded.
In fact, in 2010 Ukraine's path to NATO took a very significant step backward, when its parliament voted to abandon the goal of NATO membership and re-affirm Ukraine's neutral status.
And as for the phrase "brightest of red lines": If you actually pull up the text of the cable, it specifically refers to the MAP, or Membership Application Plan, which was explicitly denied to Ukraine in 2008, as indicated above. Precisely due the level-headed advice of people like Burns et all. But Russia invaded in 2014 and 2022 anyway. Because its actual reasons were never rationally connected to NATO expansion in the first place.
And yet - whatever sources you've been reading seem to have left you with the impression that Burns's "brightest of red lines" had in fact been crossed, and that this is what "caused" the invasion.
5 years after Russia invaded in 2014. Which made any objections its regime might have had about Ukraine's potential NATO membership plainly and irrevocably moot.
That's why the only years that matter (in terms of the "Ukraine/NATO caused it all" hypothesis) are 2008-2014.
Once Russia's regime did chose to invade, any moral capital it may have had in regard to the issue was instantly extinguished.
> And yet - whatever sources you've been reading seem to have left you with the impression that Burns's "brightest of red lines" had in fact been crossed, and that this is what "caused" the invasion.
Mainstream Western press like the Guardian and CNBC, both of which are fiercely pro-Ukraine now. In 2014, before the Crimea invasion:
Nato's eastward expansion was halted by the Georgian war of 2008 and Yanukovych's later election on a platform of non-alignment. But any doubt that the EU's effort to woo Ukraine is closely connected with western military strategy was dispelled today by Nato's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who declared that the abortive pact with Ukraine would have been "a major boost to Euro-Atlantic security".
Notice that the Guardian's mention of "fascists" is also Russian propaganda now (given the propensity of the Western media to call anyone and anything "fascist" I do not attach too much value to that part, but it is there.)
President Biden didn’t accept Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s “red lines” on Ukraine during their high-stakes video call that came as Russia’s military builds its presence on the Ukrainian border.
Namely, that means the U.S. isn’t accepting Putin’s demand that Ukraine be denied entrance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is the world’s most powerful military alliance.
> Why is that?
Because they are standard mainstream sources. You seem to think that only a concrete and signed membership plan is a red line, whereas even CNBC cites Putin's red lines.
I agree by the way that the invasions by Russia are horrible, but please let's not rewrite history.
You seem to think that only a concrete and signed membership plan is a red line,
It's the only one that the commenter was referring to.
Whereas even CNBC cites Putin's red lines.
Except you're shifting goal posts. The "red lines" referred to by the CNBC are entirely different (and separated by 13 years) from those referred to by the previous commenter. And anyway that's just CNBC's misreading of the events. Suffice it to say there was a lot more to Putin's noises at the time. More specifically, by that point the West did not (as you are strongly implying) have the option of deterring the invasion by simply complying with some specific, reasonable request Putin was making.
The only thing we really know about whichever of Putin's supposed "red lines" were supposedly crossed (thus "causing" this whole thing) is that no one seems to be able to articulate what they supposedly were.
And then we have this:
given the propensity of the Western media to call anyone and anything "fascist"
There is no such "propensity" within Western media. Or any other significant tendency. This is just complete nonsense.
Another day, another throwaway account with a throwaway argument.
Did anything else happen in Ukraine before that happened? Maybe somebody overthrew the government and installed a puppet who eventually left office with a 6% approval rating? Maybe a bunch of US congressmen literally flew out to show their support?
Not possible, it is banned in some parts of the EU. Publicly funded German TV is available, however. This is from the German equivalent of the BBC, titled "Coup in Kiev: What role did the fascists play?":
It uses the word "coup", but then says that the majority of the protesters demonstrated for a free Ukraine and were against the corruption of Yanukovich.
The rest of the article is about the Swoboda party, which is ultranationalist and had good contacts to the German NPD. The NPD is a fringe party without any substantial numbers of voters that is classified as ultra right wing.
It then mentions a Neonazi (their words) called Jarosch and his party "Right Sector". It goes on to say that the "Right Sector" was instrumental in ousting the old regime physically on the barricades.
It says that the members then established new security forces that replaced the police.
It is, and that talking point is listed on united24media.com. But this subthread, where someone was accused of watching RT, was about the events leading up to the Maidan uprising.
Actually, to the extent that it was about Ukraine, the entry point was that day's version of the "because NATO" thread. When that hit a wall (as it always does), someone flipped it over the "Nazi puppet regime" narrative.
What actually happened in Ukraine was that the president went back on his promise to try to work towards join the EU (possibly due to threats from Putin) and some young Ukranians organized a protest on social media because they saw the EU as the only hope for a bright Ukrainan future (if you want to know why just look at the economy and corruption levels in former communist EU countries compared to Ukraine) and the President as going back on his word and throwing it away. Instead of considering their points or even trying to ignore them he tried to suppress the protests with extreme violence and ridiculous anti protest laws people thought might lead to dictatorship like in neighboring Russia or Belarus. The Ukranian people didn't like this and the protests grew and grew and grew. The EU and US encouraged the political opposition to make a compromise with the President even if it was unsatisfactory. But then the police who has been fighting the protesters got cold feet that the president would throw them under the bus in the deal, so they disappeared and the President decided to do the same. Since he abandoned his country and his post the legislature had no choice but to remove him from office including many from his own party. A couple of US politicians voiced support for the people protesting for their rights against a corrupt and increasingly authorian leader, I see why they did it but how is that relevant to any of this?
Also Poroshenko wasn't in any way installed or a puppet, he was elected by Ukranians in an election that was fair and free followed by another fair and free election which he lost in a landslide. That's democracy.
Poroshenko may have not been the best leader but he was tons better then Yanukovych and it was pretty hard to run Ukraine even before Russia invaded.
Yanukovych (along with several members of the Rada) fled for his life from Right Sector and other fascist goons. The coup came after Yanukovych had already agreed to early elections.
Yanukovych chose to abandon his country and his duty without warning. He had options. Did he fear for his life due to the violence he had started, maybe. But there was no coup. He abandoned his country (he didn't try going to a different part of the country where there were fewer protests) and the legislature removed him because of it. They couldn't wait for him to decide to come back whenever he felt comfortable.
Sounds like you're assuming that the Maidan sniper massacre was Yanukovych's doing. There is good reason to believe it was orchestrated by the far right because they didn't want a peaceful solution.
Ivan Katchanovski is a Ukrainian-born Canadian political scientist who is definitely not a Russian sympathizer. He has studied the history of the Maidan uprising and argues convincingly (IMO) for this conclusion.
He also has a very interesting podcast with Robert Wright where he discusses this, among other issues related to the Ukraine war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rvx_M3_Yi0
I also recommend following his twitter account if you're interested in a fairly neutral perspective on the Ukraine war: https://x.com/I_Katchanovski
The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia was so strong mid-century that a certain kind of self promotion propelled someone into CIA decision making. Agents could dose LSD to random workers, in public. Agents could take LSD on the job. The same government which tolerated that also needed to emphasize the importance of diplomacy to avoid a nuclear first strike. Even though Russian radar specialists avoided war by remaining calm, it’s true that global revolution was a widespread priority and tropical leaders who wanted favors tended not to be calm.
The objectives and contradictions are very different now. The first 14 James Bond movies were trying to avert a madman obsessed with triggering a nuclear first strike. The next 13 were not. The cool Russians who avoided hysteria devoted a generation of resources on real bad decisions made in Afghanistan. The only constant is how you’re treated if you get in the way of profit.
I like the labor lens for seeing turning points in the Cold War. The oil crisis delegitimized socialist and communist plans. So I’m not sure those plans mattered in union gains. Polish Solidarity is a great example.
Not at all, the global left at the time was actually into things like racial and gender equality and so on, it was not just a paranoid delusion among elites in the USA. So called communist states actually built people's armies, actually brought people out of poverty and taught them to read and write and study, actually sent soldiers to colonies to fight the colonisers.
The anti-left propaganda obviously did not want to put these things into focus, since it had clearly inspired rather successful revolutions and reform projects in Europe and elsewhere. Instead we got these medicalised narratives where socialism or communism is presented as a viral epidemic, or leftist leaders described as profoundly evil persons bent on subjugating the world under tyranny.
Thanks for sharing. I'm livid at the scope of injustice, corruption, and lack of accountability...
From a previous discussion [0]:
> I wish they'd not bury the lead here's what it is: For three decades, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into the rivers and streams of the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador.
> This produced a devastating environmental catastrophe that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Indigenous peoples and farmers. Even today, Indigenous communities continue to face imminent risk of death due to exposure to Chevron’s toxic waste.
In some tech circles, it’s not denial of involvement, but that involvement is good and needs to be stronger.
See the recent viral monologue from the CEO of Palantir where he says we need to dominate and have everyone live in fear of us (and if you disagree, you’re a woke pagan).
We hear that all the time from all sides though. This is a bit reductive, but the people who commonly shout "The US shouldn't be the world police!" are the same people who are begging the US to send more and more money and munitions to Ukraine.
(Almost) uniquely, Ukraine is a just cause that's actually winnable and popular with the people of Ukraine. It's very, very different from the banana republics that this thread started with.
Because colonialism is used as a lazy cope out for all uncomfortable discussions. Shit in a mans yard in the past, and you are responsible for all future ills that befall him. And its such a lazy cope out- just proof the first sin of the past - and then its allover, no self-responsibility, not good things, no bad things, no history- just original sin was proven, im done here.
And people are sick and tired of it- while the world is filled with counter- examples to that narrative just filling the news.
Are you saying western colonialism has no impact on the world of today? Not just colonialism from 200 years ago, but the colonialism happening today.
You're moving the goalposts on the original sin, while I was discussing the issues of today or at least recent past (Iranian revolution was only in 1979, Invasion of Iraq was in 2003, Arab spring in 2011, Taliban rule form 2021).
You can't just wave away decades or even centuries of oppression and intervention in other countries' affairs that changed them forever (that sill happen to this day BTW, and by the same powers), with "whatever mate, it was in the past", as if you broke my phone screen in junior school. No mate, it wasn't just in the past, it's still happening.
Except colonialism today is less about large sailing wooden ships and conquistadors with muskets straight up stealing your shit from your town at gunpoint and shipping abroad along with slaves, but more alphabet agency black-ops and monetary/economic levers to topple your leader and replace him with a friendly puppet one who will willingly and legally sign off your country's resources and your peoples' labor to western corporations as salves, for way below market price. This isn't the original sin anymore, this is its modern version.
Imperialism has definitely fucked over lots of countries, and I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time, trying to pin everything on imperialists does just as much as to erase people from history as the imperialist threat you're inveighing against.
One of the dramatically underappreciated aspects of imperialism is the degree to which it involves local political actors attempting to solicit foreign (imperial) support and/or intervention to service their local political needs. This isn't always the case, but it's important not to whitewash the influence of such local concerns. It's thus especially telling that one of your "examples" of modern imperialism is actually something that was entirely a spontaneous, endogenous reaction to local politics and local concerns that literally left all of the "imperialists" flat-footed exclaiming "wait, what?"
A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.
You can see the multi-polar world if you squint- and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things they do to gain power on western influence or history, but actually doing the same thing they did before the west rolled up.
We are just not that important. Never were actually, just lucky and luck is running out. Others now colonialize happy ever after in the original english image and if asked- tell you that they do it for "western interests" or customers.
And its bullshit. And the audience walks out on that story, wherever its told. It has no explanation power any-more and if you tell a story without explanation power, it just gives credence to the assholes you pushed of the stage. Thus tooting that horn, is like glueing MAGA WAS RIGHT to every fence in town.
> A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.
Absurd take...
Some examples:
Brazil's democracy was put on hold during the whole period of growth post WW2, it has social impacts to this day both in wasteful investments done through 20+ years of dictatorship saddling the country with debt and disinvestment being paid to this day by current generations: lack of education, bad infrastructure, a fragile democracy since only 2 generations of voters have lived completely under it.
The whole Middle East has sectarian violence caused by the borders drawn from colonial powers in control of regions up to the 1960s. The same is true for African civil wars ringing out to this day, nations (aka tribes) split into 2-3 countries to be more easily controlled by different colonial powers.
To this day the USA meddles directly with governments south of it, the doctrine of strong-arming what the USA considers its backyard is still strong, American influence in South American politics is everywhere.
> and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things they do to gain power on western influence or history, but actually doing the same thing they did before the west rolled up
As I mentioned, colonial powers drew borders to divide-and-conquer nations who are now fighting each other from all the bad blood caused by these divisions, do you actually really believe some 4-5 decades would be enough to erase all the infighting encouraged by colonial powers to keep the locals weak and scattered?
I really can't believe someone thinks the issues of colonialism can't have echoes way past the end of the colonial age...
>A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.
I'll have to leave you right there, since I can't reason someone through argumentation from a position they did not reason themselves into in the first place, so this will go nowhere.
That describes the typical straw man in the argument. Many people with some university preparation try to take a position that empathy for the suffering of ordinary people is greater if you performatively believe in systems and colonization.
What is a "cope out"? I've never seen that term and googling doesn't show a definition for that phrase. You use that same phrase - "a lazy cope out" - twice.
I don't think it's an autocorrect error. Cop doesn't get turned into cope. I think the guy just think's it's "cope out" from seeing the word cope thrown around in similar contexts.
The history of the United Fruit Company is covered in detail in the book "The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King". It details how Samuel Zemurray rose from poor fruit peddlar, to one of the most powerful men in the world. It is an interesting read.
Another good book on this, covering the CIA's part in this history is David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Talbot's coverage of the '54 coup was particularly gripping, and very depressing.
>The photo below is captioned with casual racism: One way of carrying bananas: At the docks of the United Fruit Co., mechanical carriers, so perfected as not to bruise the fruit, have replaced the leisurely negro.
Nitpick:
That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then so dismissing it as simple racism reduces the historical insight that can be gleaned. The idle black man stereotype comes from the 1960s and later and originates in the US. Prior to that they would be stereotyped the latin Americans are typically stereotyped today, hard working but low class laborers, so the commentary from the period that was added to the photo actually raises the question why these dock workers were being considered leisurely.
The stereotype has always been that black people are so lazy that the only time we show intelligence is in the creative ways we use to get out of work. It's a slaveholder's stereotype and a justification for torture. This is the stereotype now, this was the stereotype then, and this stereotype has been applied to any group of slaves or low-waged workers who were ethnically distinct from the people who benefited from their labor.
My grandfather who was raised on a dairy farm in what is now Bellevue, WA, once said to me in reference to the hills east of Lake Sammamish where Army truck drivers trained during WWII: “the best driver is the American Negro.”
I’ve read that some of the roots of these negative stereotypes of laborers and/or their entire races as well as Southerners generally may come from historical prevalence of hookworms in some members of those populations, which can present itself with symptoms such as low energy.
> Hookworm is endemic in tropical Africa and was brought to North America in the bowels of African slaves where it became a regional affliction below the Mason-Dixon Line. In the 19th century, probably as much as 40% of the region’s population harbored the parasite. So prevalent was hookworm infection and for so long was it a feature of Southern rural life that Americans mistook the physical appearance of hookworm sufferers to be the distinct genetic expression of an unfortunate economic and social class.
> This regional stereotype for the poor white rural population (the “Georgia Cracker”) exhibited, in varying degrees, a prematurely aged, emaciated appearance with striking lankness of frame and slackness of muscle, a misshapen boney scarecrow look with a peculiar “fish eyes” stare, and a sallow complexion. These lethargic and shambling (interpreted by the outsider as lazy and ignorant) poor white farm folk were a hallmark of the Deep South. One Northern visitor caught this when he described the physical appearance of the white inhabitants surrounding Andersonville “as listless and apathetic in look, lank and haggard in form.”
Do you have a citation for Africans having adaptations against hookworms? That seemed like the stronger claim made to my reading.
I’m not aware that such a heritable adaptation to endemic pathogens was possible in this case, but then again, I was surprised to learn about the link between sickle cell disease and malaria.
> Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue signaling.
Pretty sure the post you're referring to is wondering why the original caption referred to the "leisurely negro". The alleged virtue signaling you refer to seems to be an honest misunderstanding by the author of the Myth of Bananaland.
It's ah, so interesting to see what Greeks looked like in the US imaginary in years past.
The illustration of the Greek fruit seller in the article (from a sheet music cover of the "Yes! We have no banans" song [1]) is from the 1920's a time when Greeks had just started emigrating to the US. I confess the man in the picture looks like more of a Turkish stereotype to me, or maybe like a Moorish pirate (what are those huge ear rings!).
Anyway, interesting stuff. It's always surprising to see how your kind is seen by people in faraway lands.
For instance, I would be really curious to know how the Japanese might have seen my people, but there's never been a big migration to Japan from Greece so we'll never know. But I'm guessing: big noses. And even bigger moustaches!
United Fruit didn't stop with Guatemala. It became Chiquita which gave money to the AUC paramilitary group in Colombia who forced poor farmers to sell their land for cultivation
And in 1954, the CIA protected United Fruit’s interests by overthrowing the Guatemalan government, which had threatened to take some of the company’s land — much of which was being held in reserve, not even cultivated — and redistribute it. The American ambassador to the country used the Cold War to justify the ousting of President Jacobo Arbenz even though Arbenz was not quite a communist. The ambassador, John Peurifoy, famously said that "if Arbenz is not a communist, he will certainly do until one comes along."
Dwight Eisenhower tried to put a good face on things by explaining that
The people of Guatemala, in a magnificent effort, have liberated themselves from the shackles of international Communist direction and reclaimed their right for self-determination . . . I pay tribute to the historic demonstration of devotion to the cause of freedom given by the people of Guatemala and their leaders.
But it was clear what had really happened. The American-led coup installed a dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, who repealed the constitution, established concentration camps for his enemies, and arrested thousands of dissidents. After his assassination in 1957, the country was plunged into a terrible civil war.
>Have you ever seen anybody slip on a banana peel?
There is actually a famous case everyone studies in law school torts class about negligence and duty of care where a woman slips on a banana peel,
Anjou v. Boston Elevated Railway Co. (Mass. 1911).
There is even a joke that goes along with it: the case was lost on appeal.
A millennial's rambling monologue about his childhood, century old pop songs, and a bunch of other stuff having little or nothing to do with United Fruit. (sorry, I only scanned half way through it, I just couldn't take anymore)
This type of post is so common it really needs a unique identifying tag to prevent misleading potential readers.
People can write whatever they want in their blags, but it shouldn't be presented as any kind of "news", hacker or otherwise.
The article at least mentions the Banana Massacre in which UFC massacred striking banana workers but I think it paints a very misleading picture. This wasn't just a one-off event. It's something that still continues to this day. UFc now goes by Chiquita but even in the past decade its been caught at least once paying off gangs to assassinate would-be labor leaders. These are gangs that, after intense international pressures, the US had placed on terrorist lists.
This isn't just "history". This is the reality of how this fragile tropical fruit that requires a mind-blowing supply chain to arrive to the Northern hemisphere is somehow the cheapest fruit in the grocery store.
I agree that the violence around bananas are part of what keeps it cheap, but probably the amount of time an unripe banana can be stored, the ease of packing, and the relatively low weight for something so easy to pack and ship contribute significantly too
And almost every instance the US is promoting "self-determination" or "liberation" of certain countries.
Brazilians always had a beef with the Banana Republic thing. They took it personally as a criticism. There is a famous 'carnaval' tongue in cheek song that was composed as an 'answer' to "Yes, we have no bananas":
Yes, we do have Bananas[1]
Yes, we do have bananas/ Bananas to give and sell/ Baby girl, bananas have vitamins/ Banana makes you healthy and strong/
Coffee goes to France, yes/ Cotton goes to Japan, for sure/ For the whole world, man or woman/ Bananas for whoever wants it/
Mate for Paraguay, no way/ Gold from our pockets, no way/ We are part of the crisis, if it comes/ Bananas for whoever wants it/
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_N7ajW96I
What is amazing to me is that this post references an "epidemic of slipping on banana peels", was posted within a day of a wonderful (33 minute long!) video about the history of slipping on banana peels, and neither references the other! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8W5GCnqT_M
> Have you ever seen anybody slip on a banana peel? I, personally, have not. But if you watch old movies and cartoons, it seems like everybody was sliding around on discarded banana peels.
This actually happened to me once in Capitol Hill in Seattle. I slipped, looked down, and it was a banana peel. One of the few times I wish someone saw me make a mistake so I could have had a witness.
I think what old movies left out was how much litter was on streets and sidewalks, so slipping on a peel may actually have been more common
Another explanation I once heard was that that slipping on horse manure was actually the more common experience, and a banana was a polite substitute for movies.
This never occurred to me and seems entirely plausible given that horse manure was constant annoyance in higher traffic areas. The problem was so serious early auto advocates cited the reduction in manure as a major benefit.
Happened to me as well. My guess is it's more the absence of banana peels on the ground that makes it rare, not that they aren't slippery.
I'm a little surprised no one's mentioned the root source of banana-peel-slipping: fraud.
https://sundaymagazine.org/2010/11/26/the-woman-the-banana-p...
TL;DR - At the turn of last century, suing for personal damages experienced a peak where people would fake an injury. It's literally where the trope in the old moves came from.
The reason banana peels had so much mindshare in the late 1800s was that they were the only thing the rats wouldn't drag away and eat, so you'd see them everywhere. People weren't going to slip on pizza slices.
Interesting! I'm still waiting to hear about a car slipping on a banana peel though (a la Mario Kart).
Some trivia alluded to in the article:
The UFC fleet had its own maritime flag
The UFC is the only company known to have a CIA code name
Also, this is not related to Hawaii. The US colonization of Hawaii also involved fruit plantations.
Doesn't suprise me since the Dulles brothers (Secretary of State and head of CIA respectively) were owners and on the payroll for nearly 40 years.
"John Foster Dulles, who represented United Fruit while he was a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell – he negotiated that crucial United Fruit deal with Guatemalan officials in the 1930s – was Secretary of State under Eisenhower; his brother Allen, who did legal work for the company and sat on its board of directors, was head of the CIA under Eisenhower; Henry Cabot Lodge, who was America's ambassador to the UN, was a large owner of United Fruit stock; Ed Whitman, the United Fruit PR man, was married to Ann Whitman, Dwight Eisenhower's personal secretary. You could not see these connections until you could – and then you could not stop seeing them."
https://archive.org/details/fishthatatewhale00cohe
Ah, this is the missing piece: using the tremendous power of the secret state for personal gain.
And now we have Elon Musk and the rest of the billionaire cabal that were behind Trump.
> The UFC fleet had its own maritime flag
Which, to be fair, is not surprising. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/House_flags_(shipping)#Fo... shows the UFC flag. There is a more complete list of house flags at https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us~hf.html , including from two other fruit companies.
> The UFC is the only company known to have a CIA code name
FWIW, https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=WUOUTDONE claims WUOUTDONE was the CIA name for the El Paso Natural Gas Company.
Awesome, thank you.
The Dole who took over Hawaii (Sanford Dole) was cousin to the pineapple company guy (James Dole). So, not the same guy, but also not unrelated either.
Thank you. Wish I could correct what I said.
> UFC is the only company known to have a CIA code name
What does this mean? The CIA presumably has cryptonyms for all sorts of entities.
I was wrong and there are numerous other companies that are coded as operations.
My understanding is that the UFC operated a fleet of fruit shipments which also transported tourists. That seems like a pretty comfortable setting for CIA agents.
I myself don’t know the cryptonym, maybe begins with YO-.
My understanding is that a lot of primarily cargo ships back then also had passenger service. At https://archive.org/details/great-whitefleet-united-fruit-co... you can read how UFC's "Great White Fleet" used ships "intended for general fruit carrying and passenger service between New York, West Indian and Central American ports."
The passenger service existed "to satisfy the tropic-hunger of the North", and the pictures show the luxury.
It's still possible to be a passenger on a modern freighter, but not at that level of luxury.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54Gua... page on "Abbreviations and Cryptonyms" says UFCO, UNFC, and UNIFRUIT were used for United Fruit Company. The Danish Wikipedia mentions UNIFRUIT at https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%27s_kodeord but the English one does not.
It's crazy to think people still deny current US involvement in other countries, given all this past evidence.
Just look what Chevron is doing today: UFC 2.0.
https://youtu.be/9OtIAZMqrZE?si=11uBrlWr-pSL4APj
Seriously that channel? The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
Who also did a fluff piece on north Korea?
>The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them showing US political and financial involvement in Ukraine.
>Who also did a fluff piece on north Korea?
Someone didn't get the humor and sarcasm I guess.
>>The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
>I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them showing US political and financial involvement in Ukraine.
They stopped short of saying it explicitly, but it was strongly implied. The whole video basically lists out all of russia's motivation for the war, and then concludes with "now there's a war in europe [...] if there was only someone who have predicted it, someone with power to stop it" followed by a few sound bites/clips strongly alluding to Western defense officials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4eNy4FCs8
I love it when people go off the beaten path to prove that wrong opinions about one unrelated topic somehow must automatically disprove true facts about a completely different topic. It's the playbook of trolls. Whataboutism at it's finest.
>It's the playbook of trolls.
...you say as you unilaterally assert that you're correct without trying to refute any of my previous points (ie. that the video didn't blame the west explicitly but strongly implied it).
>I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them showing US political and financial involvement in Ukraine.
They intentionally leaves out sources they claim to have, they cut crucial parts of video evidence (such as Joe Biden's statement, which changes the entire statement)
There's tons more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0p9-kjKdfY
>Someone didn't get the humor and sarcasm I guess.
By that logic then I guess glazing Nazi Germany is fine because it's just sarcasm & joke bro.
There's tons more
You need to understand that not everyone shares your addiction to YT's dopamine-jerking content feeds. In any case, no one has time to dig through that video to find whatever "evidence" you think is buried there.
>You need to understand that not everyone shares your addiction to YT's dopamine-jerking content feeds. In any case, no one has time to dig through that video to find whatever "evidence" you think is buried there.
I can't help it if you can't watch a video without feeling as if it's meant to be some "dopamine rush" for you, that's a you problem.
It does not in any way shape or form discard it from being evidence.
Especially when I specifically pointed out 2 issues with the boyboy video, which I assume you also haven't watched (or does boyboy somehow get a pass?) which then begs the question of why you're even replying.
It just seemed weird that you thought nothing of pointing to a 48 minute video about mostly unrelated topics, as if anyone would actually fish through all that to get to the nuggets of pertinent information that you're suggesting are buried in there somewhere.
An AI summary of that channel’s Ukraine video does fall into a narrative I’ve seen in the West:
1. Eastern states joined NATO for defense
2. This redirected Russian aggression to Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
3. Thus, the invading forces must themselves be acting with circumspection about NATO
This reasoning tends to prefer analysis rather than emphasize what invading armies do to civilians. We know what’s happening to civilians in each of those invasions. We do not know (and should not care) if each soldier has an opinion of NATO.
Its not completely unfounded. The top US diplomat to the USSR for 20 years predicted a conflict if the US expanded the NATO alliance further east after the USSR fell.
This lines up with what Russia says. "We do not want a military alliance that was built to destroy us expanding to our border."
It is completly unfounded. He was wrong and if he was still alive hed probably acknowledge that he was wrong. Russias invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO (besides the fact that if we had been wise and invited Ukraine into NATO this stupid war wouldn't have happened). It is an imperialistic war that seems to reconquer Ukraine and to be an empire again. Also Yelstin admitted in the 90s that Poland and other countries had the right to join NATO. Russia or at least Putin is saying that Ukraine has never existed and must be reconquered just like the old conquering czars did. The NATO bullshit excuse is the lowest level of propaganda and I'm sure even that are surprised how many people fall far it. NATO was not built to destroy Russia or the Soviet Union (which are separate things) and Ukraine was not seeking to join NATO in 2014 (and had no chance of joining NATO in 2014 and 2021 as everyone including Russia was well aware of).
Predicted a conflict if the US expanded the NATO alliance further east after the USSR fell.
Except Russia formally greenlighted at least partial NATO expansion (to CZ, HU, and PL) via a formal treaty it signed with NATO in 1997. Which right there, should suggest to you that there's something deeply broken with this narrative.
"We do not want a military alliance that was built to destroy us expanding to our border."
NATO wasn't built "to destroy" Russia.
You can say that NATO annoys Russia, or "is built to challenge Russia's influence outside its borders" if you want.
But to say it was built, or at any point even remotely intended "to destroy Russia" is just dumb, emotional manipulation.
I guess "us" in this context also means USSR. So NATO destroyed USSR and now they want to destroy Russia by expanding their "territory" closer and closer to Russia.
the USSR is not russia and they dont want to destroy russia. NATO not expanding teritory (it has none, its merely a defwnsive military alliance) like say russia is trying to do. Members choose to join NATO in large lart to protect themselves from russia. And NATO didn't destroy the USSR the whole corrupt thing collapsed in of itself driven by bad economy and the forces of liberalism and nationalism.
So NATO destroyed USSR
Well, we can see this conversation is going at least.
In any case there's evidently no meaningful relationship to the actual word "destroy" in play here.
Seems they meant "irritates" or "offends".
I think geopolitics is signifcantly more complex than you make it out to be. If you consider how specific you are about word choices over actions, you are repeating the western narrative verbatim.
The signatories to the treaty in 1997 may not have understood how the Russian population at large would perceive NATO expansion. When it happened, the russian people responded differently than they did in a much more idealistic period.
Destroying, irritating, and annoying are easy to understand between individuals, but in talking about nation states, what do these really mean? One nation state can annoy another into an economic collapse thus destroying it.
Everything thing you say ignores what the Russians have been saying about NATO expansionism, and I think that is more key to understanding both sides of the issue. I only suggested that actions of NATO contributed to the "irritation" that drug Russia into conflict.
> Everything thing you say ignores what the Russians have been saying about NATO expansionism, and I think that is more key to understanding both sides of the issue.
The trouble with this narrative is that it has no connection with reality whatsoever. It is a cover story produced to lull distant foreigners into sleep; it is not connected to the actual developments in Russia or Russian relations with its neighbors. Nobody takes this story seriously in Russia; it is not discussed in military or policy circles. It is a pretext very much in the same tradition as German excuses for invading Poland.
Few people can offer better insight into "understanding both sides" than Andrei Kozyrev, the first foreign minister of Russian Federation, in office 1990-1996 and in charge of rebuilding foreign relations of the entire country after USSR's demise. And he openly calls this narrative bullshit and people who fall for it idiots. Most key figures from pre-Putin Russia hold the same view.
NATO is a pain in the butt for Russia for the very simple reason that Russia still carries imperialist desire to roll over its neighbors, and a country being in NATO makes it much more difficult for them to invade. Without support from allies, Ukraine would've lost years ago, but with international support, they persist and have caused incredible losses to Russians. It's simple calculus. Without NATO, Russian invasion of Poland would face only the fairly limited Polish conventional forces. With NATO, they would be potentially facing anything up to US carrier groups and British nuclear missiles. Risks associated with invading their neighbors go way up if they are in NATO, enough to deter from invading.
Understanding this, joining NATO and other international organizations has been a top foreign policy priority for most countries in Eastern Europe. "Expansionism" is a completely wrong word to use when the initiative for joining NATO has always been very intense in Eastern Europe, out of fear of Russian invasion, against lukewarm and skeptical acceptance by the existing members, who believed such fears to be overblown.
If you consider how specific you are about word choices over actions, you are repeating the western narrative verbatim.
And this take showcases the fundamental problem with giving a fuck about major narratives, and our perceived overlap with or opposition to them.
As in: "Oh gosh, in taking position X, it looks like I'm overlapping with the received narrative, which happens to roughly include position X. Which is Bad, because that narrative is on the whole Bad. Therefore I should check myself and start importing positions from, or expressing empathy with narratives from the supposedly opposite direction. Because the enemy of my enemy can't be such a bad guy, once you get to know him", or something like that.
Which seems to be what drives about 90 percent of the "If you just listen to Putin, it turns out he actually has a point with Ukraine" take. (Along with an uncritical acceptance of the web of factual distortions about what actually did happen).
When it happened, the russian people responded differently than they did in a much more idealistic period.
Except it wasn't "the Russian people" responding back then. And it certainly isn't "the Russian people" who decided to launch the current invasion.
One nation state can annoy another into an economic collapse thus destroying it.
Okay I guess, and evidently you're alluding to the 90s shock therapy advice given to Russia and associated shenanigans. Fine enough, but that wasn't "NATO". And it's when one starts boldly and utterly conflating the two (I'm guessing on the principle that they're both "The West") where things start to get loopy.
Everything thing you say ignores what the Russians have been saying about NATO expansionism, and I think that is more key to understanding both sides of the issue.
That's the thing -- we don't get to hear from "the Russians" as a people in any meaningful sense these days. By and large, we only get to hear what its current regime says (and the various statements it pretends to believe). Which has some relation to what Russians as a people think, but is at best a highly distorted and manipulated representation of what they think.
I only suggested that actions of NATO contributed to the "irritation" that drug Russia into conflict.
Your words said a lot more than that, I'm afraid. Let's replay the tape:
It's extremely difficult to read this other than as conveying: (1) You do think this is what "Russia" (meaning its people) thinks, (2) That it's a reasonable position we should have empathy with and extend credibility to, (3) including, implicitly but unavoidably the "NATO was built to destroy Russia" part.Instead of treating it as the obvious hogwash that it is, that no reasonably sane and informed person would ever believe.
>Seriously that channel? The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
Such crazy talk!
Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared a "red line", would ever cause an invasion?
It's not like everybody from real-politic scholars to the most experienced of foreign affairs like Kissinger explicitly said it was a bad idea, and that this will be the result!
Russians and Russia boosters really need to have a think about exactly why it is that so many of their former allies in Eastern Europe were incredibly eager to join NATO as soon as they could.
>Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared a "red line", would ever cause an invasion?
This is weird thing with anyone saying "NATO FAULT NATO FAULT", NATO explicitly DIDN'T want the eastern European countries to join, it was the eastern Europeans who begged and begged to be let in, including Ukraine and the west rejected them.
And even IF this was the case somehow that NATO pushed themselves into these countries:
1. Why did Russia give the thumbs up for these countries to join?
2. Why did Russia try and attempt to join NATO at one point
All of this by the way happened with Putin in charge, so unless we all believe in the dead-putin theory something doesn't add up here with the framing of "NATO FAULT".
>It's not like everybody from real-politic scholars to the most experienced of foreign affairs like Kissinger explicitly said it was a bad idea, and that this will be the result!
So you're saying that real-politik experts believe if Ukraine had joined back in say 2008 they today would've been invaded by Russia? Since it's in 2022 not 2008 they got full-blown invasion after having having been trying to be neutral and DESPITE that Russia still kept meddling in their affairs as if it was Belarus, leading up to 2014 crisis.
I would love to know how exactly Russia would be able to pull that off against the full NATO military force.
Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared a "red line"
Except that's not what happened. In you know, actual, physical reality.
It's just what the aggressor told you, in its propaganda.
I think "in its very borders" was supposed to mean "to its very borders". That is not Russian propaganda. Ukraine in NATO being "the brightest of red lines" comes from a leaked telegram from CIA director William Burns:
https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2023/08/the-crucial-ques...
I think "in its very borders" was supposed to mean "to its very borders"
And we could forgive them for that small particular exaggeration, if that was all it was. But they took extra special care to double down on the "pushing" part, and dial it up a notch, to "shoving [it] its borders", which is unmistakably an intentional use of emotionally manipulative language. Which is the precise moment which qualifies what they said as propaganda.
As to what you're saying:
Ukraine in NATO being "the brightest of red lines"
Except there was no concrete "push" in Ukraine's case.
Ukraine's NATO membership application was formally rejected by NATO in 2008. This was very, very big news at the time, and Merkel still can't keep bragging about it.† Despite NATO's also offering some secondary, mollifying words about Ukraine "eventually" joining the alliance, there was no significant action taken to move that forward in the critical window of 2008-2014, when Russia invaded.
In fact, in 2010 Ukraine's path to NATO took a very significant step backward, when its parliament voted to abandon the goal of NATO membership and re-affirm Ukraine's neutral status.
And as for the phrase "brightest of red lines": If you actually pull up the text of the cable, it specifically refers to the MAP, or Membership Application Plan, which was explicitly denied to Ukraine in 2008, as indicated above. Precisely due the level-headed advice of people like Burns et all. But Russia invaded in 2014 and 2022 anyway. Because its actual reasons were never rationally connected to NATO expansion in the first place.
And yet - whatever sources you've been reading seem to have left you with the impression that Burns's "brightest of red lines" had in fact been crossed, and that this is what "caused" the invasion.
Why is that?
† https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e8y1qly52o
Ukraine formally enshrined the goal of NATO membership into its constitution in 2019.
5 years after Russia invaded in 2014. Which made any objections its regime might have had about Ukraine's potential NATO membership plainly and irrevocably moot.
That's why the only years that matter (in terms of the "Ukraine/NATO caused it all" hypothesis) are 2008-2014.
Once Russia's regime did chose to invade, any moral capital it may have had in regard to the issue was instantly extinguished.
Fair point!
> And yet - whatever sources you've been reading seem to have left you with the impression that Burns's "brightest of red lines" had in fact been crossed, and that this is what "caused" the invasion.
Mainstream Western press like the Guardian and CNBC, both of which are fiercely pro-Ukraine now. In 2014, before the Crimea invasion:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/29/ukrain...
Nato's eastward expansion was halted by the Georgian war of 2008 and Yanukovych's later election on a platform of non-alignment. But any doubt that the EU's effort to woo Ukraine is closely connected with western military strategy was dispelled today by Nato's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who declared that the abortive pact with Ukraine would have been "a major boost to Euro-Atlantic security".
Notice that the Guardian's mention of "fascists" is also Russian propaganda now (given the propensity of the Western media to call anyone and anything "fascist" I do not attach too much value to that part, but it is there.)
Before the 2022 invasion, from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/biden-didnt-accept-putins-re...
President Biden didn’t accept Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s “red lines” on Ukraine during their high-stakes video call that came as Russia’s military builds its presence on the Ukrainian border.
Namely, that means the U.S. isn’t accepting Putin’s demand that Ukraine be denied entrance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is the world’s most powerful military alliance.
> Why is that?
Because they are standard mainstream sources. You seem to think that only a concrete and signed membership plan is a red line, whereas even CNBC cites Putin's red lines.
I agree by the way that the invasions by Russia are horrible, but please let's not rewrite history.
You seem to think that only a concrete and signed membership plan is a red line,
It's the only one that the commenter was referring to.
Whereas even CNBC cites Putin's red lines.
Except you're shifting goal posts. The "red lines" referred to by the CNBC are entirely different (and separated by 13 years) from those referred to by the previous commenter. And anyway that's just CNBC's misreading of the events. Suffice it to say there was a lot more to Putin's noises at the time. More specifically, by that point the West did not (as you are strongly implying) have the option of deterring the invasion by simply complying with some specific, reasonable request Putin was making.
The only thing we really know about whichever of Putin's supposed "red lines" were supposedly crossed (thus "causing" this whole thing) is that no one seems to be able to articulate what they supposedly were.
And then we have this:
given the propensity of the Western media to call anyone and anything "fascist"
There is no such "propensity" within Western media. Or any other significant tendency. This is just complete nonsense.
Another day, another throwaway account with a throwaway argument.
[flagged]
No, I'm Victoria Nuland's and Jens Stoltenberg's secret lovechild.
> 2014, when Russia invaded.
Did anything else happen in Ukraine before that happened? Maybe somebody overthrew the government and installed a puppet who eventually left office with a 6% approval rating? Maybe a bunch of US congressmen literally flew out to show their support?
You should consume less of Russia Today's products.
Not possible, it is banned in some parts of the EU. Publicly funded German TV is available, however. This is from the German equivalent of the BBC, titled "Coup in Kiev: What role did the fascists play?":
https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/panorama/archiv/2014/...
It uses the word "coup", but then says that the majority of the protesters demonstrated for a free Ukraine and were against the corruption of Yanukovich.
The rest of the article is about the Swoboda party, which is ultranationalist and had good contacts to the German NPD. The NPD is a fringe party without any substantial numbers of voters that is classified as ultra right wing.
It then mentions a Neonazi (their words) called Jarosch and his party "Right Sector". It goes on to say that the "Right Sector" was instrumental in ousting the old regime physically on the barricades.
It says that the members then established new security forces that replaced the police.
What does the BBC say?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
The same U.S. that complains about election interference in Romania is picking candidates in Ukraine after the revolution.
The NPD is a fringe party without any substantial numbers of voters
As is Svoboda, these days.
It is, and that talking point is listed on united24media.com. But this subthread, where someone was accused of watching RT, was about the events leading up to the Maidan uprising.
Actually, to the extent that it was about Ukraine, the entry point was that day's version of the "because NATO" thread. When that hit a wall (as it always does), someone flipped it over the "Nazi puppet regime" narrative.
What actually happened in Ukraine was that the president went back on his promise to try to work towards join the EU (possibly due to threats from Putin) and some young Ukranians organized a protest on social media because they saw the EU as the only hope for a bright Ukrainan future (if you want to know why just look at the economy and corruption levels in former communist EU countries compared to Ukraine) and the President as going back on his word and throwing it away. Instead of considering their points or even trying to ignore them he tried to suppress the protests with extreme violence and ridiculous anti protest laws people thought might lead to dictatorship like in neighboring Russia or Belarus. The Ukranian people didn't like this and the protests grew and grew and grew. The EU and US encouraged the political opposition to make a compromise with the President even if it was unsatisfactory. But then the police who has been fighting the protesters got cold feet that the president would throw them under the bus in the deal, so they disappeared and the President decided to do the same. Since he abandoned his country and his post the legislature had no choice but to remove him from office including many from his own party. A couple of US politicians voiced support for the people protesting for their rights against a corrupt and increasingly authorian leader, I see why they did it but how is that relevant to any of this?
Also Poroshenko wasn't in any way installed or a puppet, he was elected by Ukranians in an election that was fair and free followed by another fair and free election which he lost in a landslide. That's democracy.
Poroshenko may have not been the best leader but he was tons better then Yanukovych and it was pretty hard to run Ukraine even before Russia invaded.
Yanukovych (along with several members of the Rada) fled for his life from Right Sector and other fascist goons. The coup came after Yanukovych had already agreed to early elections.
Yanukovych chose to abandon his country and his duty without warning. He had options. Did he fear for his life due to the violence he had started, maybe. But there was no coup. He abandoned his country (he didn't try going to a different part of the country where there were fewer protests) and the legislature removed him because of it. They couldn't wait for him to decide to come back whenever he felt comfortable.
Sounds like you're assuming that the Maidan sniper massacre was Yanukovych's doing. There is good reason to believe it was orchestrated by the far right because they didn't want a peaceful solution.
Ivan Katchanovski is a Ukrainian-born Canadian political scientist who is definitely not a Russian sympathizer. He has studied the history of the Maidan uprising and argues convincingly (IMO) for this conclusion.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266855828_The_Snipe...
He also has a very interesting podcast with Robert Wright where he discusses this, among other issues related to the Ukraine war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rvx_M3_Yi0
I also recommend following his twitter account if you're interested in a fairly neutral perspective on the Ukraine war: https://x.com/I_Katchanovski
Maybe somebody overthrew the government and installed a puppet
And when you're completely cornered on one line of disinformation, not just maybe but sure enough -- somebody will chime in with another.
The coup/puppet narrative in relation to these events is simply bogus. You can do your homework on it if you want, or not. I don't particularly care.
The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia was so strong mid-century that a certain kind of self promotion propelled someone into CIA decision making. Agents could dose LSD to random workers, in public. Agents could take LSD on the job. The same government which tolerated that also needed to emphasize the importance of diplomacy to avoid a nuclear first strike. Even though Russian radar specialists avoided war by remaining calm, it’s true that global revolution was a widespread priority and tropical leaders who wanted favors tended not to be calm.
The objectives and contradictions are very different now. The first 14 James Bond movies were trying to avert a madman obsessed with triggering a nuclear first strike. The next 13 were not. The cool Russians who avoided hysteria devoted a generation of resources on real bad decisions made in Afghanistan. The only constant is how you’re treated if you get in the way of profit.
>The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia
Ironically, the anti-communist paranoia is also what brought a lot of rights and perks to workers in the US and Europe.
The ruling elite had to concede some demands to the working class to prevent the read scare from spreading.
Now that threat is gone, we're seeing a claw-back (defanging unions, etc).
I like the labor lens for seeing turning points in the Cold War. The oil crisis delegitimized socialist and communist plans. So I’m not sure those plans mattered in union gains. Polish Solidarity is a great example.
read scare? I know some books are scary, but quite the typo from red scare. just in case someone wasn't familiar with the term.
Paranoia?
Not at all, the global left at the time was actually into things like racial and gender equality and so on, it was not just a paranoid delusion among elites in the USA. So called communist states actually built people's armies, actually brought people out of poverty and taught them to read and write and study, actually sent soldiers to colonies to fight the colonisers.
The anti-left propaganda obviously did not want to put these things into focus, since it had clearly inspired rather successful revolutions and reform projects in Europe and elsewhere. Instead we got these medicalised narratives where socialism or communism is presented as a viral epidemic, or leftist leaders described as profoundly evil persons bent on subjugating the world under tyranny.
Thanks for sharing. I'm livid at the scope of injustice, corruption, and lack of accountability...
From a previous discussion [0]:
> I wish they'd not bury the lead here's what it is: For three decades, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into the rivers and streams of the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador.
> This produced a devastating environmental catastrophe that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Indigenous peoples and farmers. Even today, Indigenous communities continue to face imminent risk of death due to exposure to Chevron’s toxic waste.
> https://chuffed.org/campaign/free-donziger/bb
> The youtube video description doesn't even explain it.
Here's a link to their Patreon to continue to support such informative creators [1], and a link to the Free Donzinger campaign [2].
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41848861
[1]: https://www.patreon.com/Boy_Boy
[2]: https://chuffed.org/campaign/free-donziger/bb
Who denies US involvement in other countries? That seems a little bit of a straw man.
In some tech circles, it’s not denial of involvement, but that involvement is good and needs to be stronger.
See the recent viral monologue from the CEO of Palantir where he says we need to dominate and have everyone live in fear of us (and if you disagree, you’re a woke pagan).
We hear that all the time from all sides though. This is a bit reductive, but the people who commonly shout "The US shouldn't be the world police!" are the same people who are begging the US to send more and more money and munitions to Ukraine.
(Almost) uniquely, Ukraine is a just cause that's actually winnable and popular with the people of Ukraine. It's very, very different from the banana republics that this thread started with.
Some might be. Don't put them all together, though.
That kind of bullying is why countries turn to China.
Xi Jinping painting China as the champion of free trade versus the isolationist America. It strikes a chord with my country let me tell you that.
>Who denies US involvement in other countries?
You haven't been on HN long enough if you never saw it.
Because colonialism is used as a lazy cope out for all uncomfortable discussions. Shit in a mans yard in the past, and you are responsible for all future ills that befall him. And its such a lazy cope out- just proof the first sin of the past - and then its allover, no self-responsibility, not good things, no bad things, no history- just original sin was proven, im done here. And people are sick and tired of it- while the world is filled with counter- examples to that narrative just filling the news.
But they said current involvement.
> > It's crazy to think people still deny current US involvement in other countries, given all this past evidence.
Although the past is used as a sort of implied argument here.
Are you saying western colonialism has no impact on the world of today? Not just colonialism from 200 years ago, but the colonialism happening today.
You're moving the goalposts on the original sin, while I was discussing the issues of today or at least recent past (Iranian revolution was only in 1979, Invasion of Iraq was in 2003, Arab spring in 2011, Taliban rule form 2021).
You can't just wave away decades or even centuries of oppression and intervention in other countries' affairs that changed them forever (that sill happen to this day BTW, and by the same powers), with "whatever mate, it was in the past", as if you broke my phone screen in junior school. No mate, it wasn't just in the past, it's still happening.
Except colonialism today is less about large sailing wooden ships and conquistadors with muskets straight up stealing your shit from your town at gunpoint and shipping abroad along with slaves, but more alphabet agency black-ops and monetary/economic levers to topple your leader and replace him with a friendly puppet one who will willingly and legally sign off your country's resources and your peoples' labor to western corporations as salves, for way below market price. This isn't the original sin anymore, this is its modern version.
Imperialism has definitely fucked over lots of countries, and I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time, trying to pin everything on imperialists does just as much as to erase people from history as the imperialist threat you're inveighing against.
One of the dramatically underappreciated aspects of imperialism is the degree to which it involves local political actors attempting to solicit foreign (imperial) support and/or intervention to service their local political needs. This isn't always the case, but it's important not to whitewash the influence of such local concerns. It's thus especially telling that one of your "examples" of modern imperialism is actually something that was entirely a spontaneous, endogenous reaction to local politics and local concerns that literally left all of the "imperialists" flat-footed exclaiming "wait, what?"
> "to service their local political needs"
You are very much correct, and "their local political needs" are generally large amounts of money being transfered to them personally.
Corrupt locals screwing over everyone else for their own benefit are an integral part of imperialism, not an exception to it.
A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now. You can see the multi-polar world if you squint- and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things they do to gain power on western influence or history, but actually doing the same thing they did before the west rolled up. We are just not that important. Never were actually, just lucky and luck is running out. Others now colonialize happy ever after in the original english image and if asked- tell you that they do it for "western interests" or customers.
And its bullshit. And the audience walks out on that story, wherever its told. It has no explanation power any-more and if you tell a story without explanation power, it just gives credence to the assholes you pushed of the stage. Thus tooting that horn, is like glueing MAGA WAS RIGHT to every fence in town.
> A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.
Absurd take...
Some examples:
Brazil's democracy was put on hold during the whole period of growth post WW2, it has social impacts to this day both in wasteful investments done through 20+ years of dictatorship saddling the country with debt and disinvestment being paid to this day by current generations: lack of education, bad infrastructure, a fragile democracy since only 2 generations of voters have lived completely under it.
The whole Middle East has sectarian violence caused by the borders drawn from colonial powers in control of regions up to the 1960s. The same is true for African civil wars ringing out to this day, nations (aka tribes) split into 2-3 countries to be more easily controlled by different colonial powers.
To this day the USA meddles directly with governments south of it, the doctrine of strong-arming what the USA considers its backyard is still strong, American influence in South American politics is everywhere.
> and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things they do to gain power on western influence or history, but actually doing the same thing they did before the west rolled up
As I mentioned, colonial powers drew borders to divide-and-conquer nations who are now fighting each other from all the bad blood caused by these divisions, do you actually really believe some 4-5 decades would be enough to erase all the infighting encouraged by colonial powers to keep the locals weak and scattered?
I really can't believe someone thinks the issues of colonialism can't have echoes way past the end of the colonial age...
>A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.
I'll have to leave you right there, since I can't reason someone through argumentation from a position they did not reason themselves into in the first place, so this will go nowhere.
Absolute cope. Objectively wrong.
That describes the typical straw man in the argument. Many people with some university preparation try to take a position that empathy for the suffering of ordinary people is greater if you performatively believe in systems and colonization.
What is a "cope out"? I've never seen that term and googling doesn't show a definition for that phrase. You use that same phrase - "a lazy cope out" - twice.
Spell check for “cop out” which is a slang idiom “to evade”.
I don't think it's an autocorrect error. Cop doesn't get turned into cope. I think the guy just think's it's "cope out" from seeing the word cope thrown around in similar contexts.
Right, a spelling flame, got it.
The history of the United Fruit Company is covered in detail in the book "The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King". It details how Samuel Zemurray rose from poor fruit peddlar, to one of the most powerful men in the world. It is an interesting read.
Another good book on this, covering the CIA's part in this history is David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Talbot's coverage of the '54 coup was particularly gripping, and very depressing.
His house is now occupied by the president of Tulane University.
Very nice book!
>The photo below is captioned with casual racism: One way of carrying bananas: At the docks of the United Fruit Co., mechanical carriers, so perfected as not to bruise the fruit, have replaced the leisurely negro.
Nitpick:
That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then so dismissing it as simple racism reduces the historical insight that can be gleaned. The idle black man stereotype comes from the 1960s and later and originates in the US. Prior to that they would be stereotyped the latin Americans are typically stereotyped today, hard working but low class laborers, so the commentary from the period that was added to the photo actually raises the question why these dock workers were being considered leisurely.
Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...
> That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then
The stereotype has always been that black people are so lazy that the only time we show intelligence is in the creative ways we use to get out of work. It's a slaveholder's stereotype and a justification for torture. This is the stereotype now, this was the stereotype then, and this stereotype has been applied to any group of slaves or low-waged workers who were ethnically distinct from the people who benefited from their labor.
That's why they wrote that.
My grandfather who was raised on a dairy farm in what is now Bellevue, WA, once said to me in reference to the hills east of Lake Sammamish where Army truck drivers trained during WWII: “the best driver is the American Negro.”
> That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then [...] The idle black man stereotype comes from the 1960s and later and originates in the US.
I dispute that and present this racist cartoon from the 1940s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_Me_Mama_with_a_Boogie_Be...
More like it can be found. Lazy black people was a common trope in minstrell shows and similar.
For an example from a century earlier, the "father of American minstrelsy" Jim Crow https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/who/index.htm
I’ve read that some of the roots of these negative stereotypes of laborers and/or their entire races as well as Southerners generally may come from historical prevalence of hookworms in some members of those populations, which can present itself with symptoms such as low energy.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...
That was specific to Southern whites. The hookworms came from Africa; blacks were already adapted to them.
Citation?
Here, try this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20120220133040/http://www.weldon...
> Hookworm is endemic in tropical Africa and was brought to North America in the bowels of African slaves where it became a regional affliction below the Mason-Dixon Line. In the 19th century, probably as much as 40% of the region’s population harbored the parasite. So prevalent was hookworm infection and for so long was it a feature of Southern rural life that Americans mistook the physical appearance of hookworm sufferers to be the distinct genetic expression of an unfortunate economic and social class.
> This regional stereotype for the poor white rural population (the “Georgia Cracker”) exhibited, in varying degrees, a prematurely aged, emaciated appearance with striking lankness of frame and slackness of muscle, a misshapen boney scarecrow look with a peculiar “fish eyes” stare, and a sallow complexion. These lethargic and shambling (interpreted by the outsider as lazy and ignorant) poor white farm folk were a hallmark of the Deep South. One Northern visitor caught this when he described the physical appearance of the white inhabitants surrounding Andersonville “as listless and apathetic in look, lank and haggard in form.”
Do you have a citation for Africans having adaptations against hookworms? That seemed like the stronger claim made to my reading.
I’m not aware that such a heritable adaptation to endemic pathogens was possible in this case, but then again, I was surprised to learn about the link between sickle cell disease and malaria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_resistance_to_ma...
> Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...
Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue signaling.
>> Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...
> Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue signaling.
Pretty sure the post you're referring to is wondering why the original caption referred to the "leisurely negro". The alleged virtue signaling you refer to seems to be an honest misunderstanding by the author of the Myth of Bananaland.
It's ah, so interesting to see what Greeks looked like in the US imaginary in years past.
The illustration of the Greek fruit seller in the article (from a sheet music cover of the "Yes! We have no banans" song [1]) is from the 1920's a time when Greeks had just started emigrating to the US. I confess the man in the picture looks like more of a Turkish stereotype to me, or maybe like a Moorish pirate (what are those huge ear rings!).
Anyway, interesting stuff. It's always surprising to see how your kind is seen by people in faraway lands.
For instance, I would be really curious to know how the Japanese might have seen my people, but there's never been a big migration to Japan from Greece so we'll never know. But I'm guessing: big noses. And even bigger moustaches!
_______________
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas#/media...
United Fruit didn't stop with Guatemala. It became Chiquita which gave money to the AUC paramilitary group in Colombia who forced poor farmers to sell their land for cultivation
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/chiquita-made-killing-col...
Oh wow:
And in 1954, the CIA protected United Fruit’s interests by overthrowing the Guatemalan government, which had threatened to take some of the company’s land — much of which was being held in reserve, not even cultivated — and redistribute it. The American ambassador to the country used the Cold War to justify the ousting of President Jacobo Arbenz even though Arbenz was not quite a communist. The ambassador, John Peurifoy, famously said that "if Arbenz is not a communist, he will certainly do until one comes along."
Dwight Eisenhower tried to put a good face on things by explaining that
But it was clear what had really happened. The American-led coup installed a dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, who repealed the constitution, established concentration camps for his enemies, and arrested thousands of dissidents. After his assassination in 1957, the country was plunged into a terrible civil war.>Have you ever seen anybody slip on a banana peel?
There is actually a famous case everyone studies in law school torts class about negligence and duty of care where a woman slips on a banana peel, Anjou v. Boston Elevated Railway Co. (Mass. 1911).
There is even a joke that goes along with it: the case was lost on appeal.
you might enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgydTdThoeA
A millennial's rambling monologue about his childhood, century old pop songs, and a bunch of other stuff having little or nothing to do with United Fruit. (sorry, I only scanned half way through it, I just couldn't take anymore)
This type of post is so common it really needs a unique identifying tag to prevent misleading potential readers.
People can write whatever they want in their blags, but it shouldn't be presented as any kind of "news", hacker or otherwise.
I think the contrast between the pop culture representation of bananas vs the behavior of the united fruit company makes the article a fun read.