Banana Wars

Ever heard the term "Banana Republic"? This term is used to describe a politically unstable country with a shady and corrupt government, and a dependence on the exportation of one particular product, like bananas or minerals. What's left out most of the times, is that these banana republics with their corrupt regimes are an invention of American corporations...

Like every other problem in the world, banana republics aren't a problem caused by governments, rather an invention by corporations to protect their money and power. By the late 19th century, three American multinational corporations (the United Fruit Company, the Standard Fruit Company, and the Cuyamel Fruit Company) dominated the cultivation, harvesting, and exportation of bananas, and controlled the road, rail, and port infrastructure of Honduras. Honduras was in fact the original banana republic as the term was coined by American writer O. Henry in his 1904 book "Cabbages And Kings", set in a fictional country called Anchuria that was meant to resemble Honduras, which he labeled a "banana republic". Whenever the fruit companies needed armed forces to secure their position of power over the small central- and south American nations that provided both the natural resources and cheap labor they needed to ensure the mega-profits they've come accustomed to, they hired American marines. This period of empire-building by American corporations is now known as the Banana Wars:

The Banana Wars were occupations, police actions, and interventions on the part of the United States in Central America and the Caribbean between the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the inception of the Good Neighbor Policy in 1934. These military interventions were most often carried out by the United States Marine Corps, which developed a manual, The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars (1921) based on its experiences. On occasion, the Navy provided gunfire support and Army troops were also used.
_{source: Wikipedia}

One famous American soldier that was frequently employed in these armed conflicts was a certain Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, whose pamphlet War Is A Racket I've mentioned many times in previous writings and which I encourage everyone to read. War is, and has always been, an extension of economics much more than a purely political endeavor; in the famous expression "war is the continuation of politics by other means" the word "politics" should by right be replaced by "economics". Nothing has changed since the banana wars, as war in the middle-east is now waged on behalf of oil- and gas companies as well as the appropriation of other resources that are vital for a wide spectrum of corporate needs. Why do you think the American oligarchy is so interested in "liberating" the peoples of Venezuela and Bolivia from their "corrupt socialist governments"? Oil and lithium, that's why.

Anyhow, today's video is about the dire warning Smedley Butler gave us, long before president Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex in his farewell address on January 17, 1961; a long time ago there was a fruit-company industrial complex that waged the banana wars, and moved Smedley Butler to criticize America's empire-building and American fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. His life's story is very interesting, fascinating and enlightening, so please watch this video about a veteran's warning...

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