7 ms·

South America has a long tradition of interchangeable strongman governments, none of whom had any real interest in advancing the needs of citizens. Plenty of po

South America has a long tradition of interchangeable strongman governments, none of whom had any real interest in advancing the needs of citizens. Plenty of populist autocrats that paid lip service to social advancement, very little actual public service. It's understandable that the US would get a little jaded regarding which regimes to back. I can easily see how a CIA official, tasked with determining how to best advance US interests in the region, but otherwise having a good bit of autonomy, would come to the conclusion that whichever regime was most amenable to the American way of doing things would also be the best steward of the public interest. It's not like they had a bunch of upstanding, self-sacrificing public servants to choose from, and they deliberately chose the wannabe gangbangers to support. And Latin Americans themselves weren't much help either, often eagerly buying into the cults of personality that the strongmen built up. Hence the public fascination with thugs like Che and Escobar. I think you'd find that there's a real, discernible difference between Chinese strong-arming and American interventionism, on both ideological and practical levels.

linuxkerneldev 11y ago
> South America has a long tradition of interchangeable strongman governments, none of whom had any real interest in advancing the needs of citizens. This statement is generally true. Areas that were setup as encomiendas ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomienda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomienda ) right from the period of Pizzaro and Cortez have retained that exact flavour. Individual strong men rule because that's exactly what was setup. Any "citizen" (ie: indigenous person, slave, or otherwise disenfranchised individual) who tried to go against this system or even escape its clutches was punished severely. It is extremely hard to break that structure. If you wonder why that did not happen in North America, it was because the North was much more sparsely populated and so the colonizers had to setup systems that gave rights to everyone (except of course the sparse indigenous population that needed to be exterminated since it could not be "encomienda"-ed), just so that the companies that sponsored the colonization in North America (like the Virginia company) could turn a profit. It is noteworthy that the Virginia company for example, did actually plan to use the same encomienda approach but was startled to find that there weren't enough compliant indigenous people to enslave. They then switched to trying to strongarm the colonialist/settlers but this had disastrous results. It was only thereafter they gave rights, and privileges to "citizens". This all happened when they became desperate to get a return on their investment. So yes, your statement is absolutely true. Long tradition indeed. Since 1492 in fact.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  To lay the blame Latin America's political failures wholesale on the West is to greatly overestimate the West and underestimate Latinos, not to mention to completely misunderstand geopolitics. One of the first things that gets forgotten about colonialism is how utterly tiny the European population was in comparison to the natives. Without the cooperation of the natives, Europeans could get nowhere. Natives were not the pathetic, stupid rubes that people often seem to think they were. They had their own political systems, agricultural systems, militaries. Sure, the locals were shocked when the white men with the powerful guns landed, but you can bet that every single one of their leaders had contingency plans in place for just how to deal with Cortes and his contemporaries once their political usefulness ended. Europe simply didn't have the manpower to field large enough armies in the New World to get what they wanted by force. South America has always been geographically stunted compared to North America. It cost too much to get there, what they had wasn't of interest to Europe, the terrain inhospitable. I think we vastly overrate how much damage Europeans did directly.
  - linuxkerneldev 11y ago
    > South America has always been geographically stunted compared to North America. I believe you are very much mistaken unless your definition of "geographically stunted" and "has always" is different than what is generally accepted. The facts show clearly that prior to 1492, Central and South America were where the larger, more organized, more sedentary, more productive civilizations were. That's why the Incas, Mayas, Olmecs, Aztecs, were all NOT in North America. So any theory of "geographical stunting" would need to explain what changed in the geography after 1492. > Without the cooperation of the natives, Europeans could get nowhere. I'm surprised that anyone would believe this "cooperation" of the natives. I have a simpler explanation. "Natives" did not cooperate willingly. Instead, through our vastly superior military technology, we imposed "cooperation" on the natives in Central and South America, while in the North, we imposed something completely different as already explained above. In the Central and South American region, we setup political and military structures to preserve ourselves at the top and keep the entirety of the other population at the bottom and also to prevent their escape. That was the defined purpose of the encomiendas. We wanted to do the same in the North but could not. North America escaped this fate precisely because the native population was far too sparse to enable viable encomiendas. So our corporations had to find alternate ways to gain profit, and that turned out to be, by enabling and giving rights to the settlers/colonialists. That difference is effectively the primary cause of what has given rise to the vastly different fates between the 2 regions.
dragonbonheur 11y ago
I'm sure you can find an equally great excuse for the reasons the CIA taught Pinochet's cronies how to torture people by putting one electrode to their gums and attaching another electrode to their genitals and passing several amperes through their bodies. Or maybe you have a great justification for why they taught others how to hook up metal spring beds to the electric grid with the aim of getting sincere confessions and apologies out of people. I'm equally sure the tens of thousands people that were "disappeared" by the regimes your glorious and righteous CIA sponsored really look forward to your justifications.
- adventured 11y ago
  The CIA doesn't run nations and they didn't put Pinochet into power. You're drastically inflating their power over the world. The CIA are opportunists. You might start by applying responsibility to the countries in question for the actions of their own governments, and their own citizens who did the torturing and disappearing - while simultaneously not ignoring any terrible things the CIA has done. Trying to proclaim the CIA is responsible for everything is just silly, they're a bit player.
  - dragonbonheur 11y ago
    Really? Allende must be very impressed at how wise, educated and enlightened you are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_Chile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_... http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20000919/ http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20000919/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor I'd say the CIA is the prime reason we got Al Quaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and all the other shitty orgs that the Great and Glorious United states of America is so scared of these days. Keep building bro.
    - dizzyviolet 11y ago
      I think you're proving his point though. If they were that powerful, they'd just hit the "Turn off Daesh and Al Qaeda" switches at the controls, wouldn't you think? It isn't as simple as you're making it. The CIA has been successful and very not successful in its history.
seren 11y ago
Arguably I am not very versed in US politics and South American Interventionism, but the Guatemela Coup d'état [0], wich was supposedly lobbied by a fruit company is hard to read differently than a US corporation pushing its own interest. I know this is a tu quoque fallacy but you can not expect any powerful state or actor to not wield its power to advance its own agenda just because it is "evil". (Actor being US, China, EU, Google, Amazon, etc) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
chillacy 11y ago
> would come to the conclusion that whichever regime was most amenable to the American way of doing things would also be the best steward of the public interest I doubt public interest meant the populace of the governments they were dabbling in. They're looking first after the CIA's interests, next after the US government, next after US citizens, and maybe finally everyone else. Honestly, the "real, discernible" difference to me is that I'm american and they're not. I can deal with having a rational conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of playing international politics like a zero sum game, but masking jingoism with the guise of absolute morality leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
user_0001 11y ago
>>South America has a long tradition of interchangeable strongman governments, none of whom had any real interest in advancing the needs of citizens I can think of 6 democratically elected socialist leaning governments attacked / disposed of by the US and US based interests and am barely knowledgable of Latin American politics

linuxkerneldev 11y ago

> South America has a long tradition of interchangeable strongman governments, none of whom had any real interest in advancing the needs of citizens. This statement is generally true. Areas that were setup as encomiendas ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomienda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomienda ) right from the period of Pizzaro and Cortez have retained that exact flavour. Individual strong men rule because that's exactly what was setup. Any "citizen" (ie: indigenous person, slave, or otherwise disenfranchised individual) who tried to go against this system or even escape its clutches was punished severely. It is extremely hard to break that structure. If you wonder why that did not happen in North America, it was because the North was much more sparsely populated and so the colonizers had to setup systems that gave rights to everyone (except of course the sparse indigenous population that needed to be exterminated since it could not be "encomienda"-ed), just so that the companies that sponsored the colonization in North America (like the Virginia company) could turn a profit. It is noteworthy that the Virginia company for example, did actually plan to use the same encomienda approach but was startled to find that there weren't enough compliant indigenous people to enslave. They then switched to trying to strongarm the colonialist/settlers but this had disastrous results. It was only thereafter they gave rights, and privileges to "citizens". This all happened when they became desperate to get a return on their investment. So yes, your statement is absolutely true. Long tradition indeed. Since 1492 in fact.

vinceguidry 11y ago
To lay the blame Latin America's political failures wholesale on the West is to greatly overestimate the West and underestimate Latinos, not to mention to completely misunderstand geopolitics. One of the first things that gets forgotten about colonialism is how utterly tiny the European population was in comparison to the natives. Without the cooperation of the natives, Europeans could get nowhere. Natives were not the pathetic, stupid rubes that people often seem to think they were. They had their own political systems, agricultural systems, militaries. Sure, the locals were shocked when the white men with the powerful guns landed, but you can bet that every single one of their leaders had contingency plans in place for just how to deal with Cortes and his contemporaries once their political usefulness ended. Europe simply didn't have the manpower to field large enough armies in the New World to get what they wanted by force. South America has always been geographically stunted compared to North America. It cost too much to get there, what they had wasn't of interest to Europe, the terrain inhospitable. I think we vastly overrate how much damage Europeans did directly.
- linuxkerneldev 11y ago
  > South America has always been geographically stunted compared to North America. I believe you are very much mistaken unless your definition of "geographically stunted" and "has always" is different than what is generally accepted. The facts show clearly that prior to 1492, Central and South America were where the larger, more organized, more sedentary, more productive civilizations were. That's why the Incas, Mayas, Olmecs, Aztecs, were all NOT in North America. So any theory of "geographical stunting" would need to explain what changed in the geography after 1492. > Without the cooperation of the natives, Europeans could get nowhere. I'm surprised that anyone would believe this "cooperation" of the natives. I have a simpler explanation. "Natives" did not cooperate willingly. Instead, through our vastly superior military technology, we imposed "cooperation" on the natives in Central and South America, while in the North, we imposed something completely different as already explained above. In the Central and South American region, we setup political and military structures to preserve ourselves at the top and keep the entirety of the other population at the bottom and also to prevent their escape. That was the defined purpose of the encomiendas. We wanted to do the same in the North but could not. North America escaped this fate precisely because the native population was far too sparse to enable viable encomiendas. So our corporations had to find alternate ways to gain profit, and that turned out to be, by enabling and giving rights to the settlers/colonialists. That difference is effectively the primary cause of what has given rise to the vastly different fates between the 2 regions.

dragonbonheur 11y ago

I'm sure you can find an equally great excuse for the reasons the CIA taught Pinochet's cronies how to torture people by putting one electrode to their gums and attaching another electrode to their genitals and passing several amperes through their bodies. Or maybe you have a great justification for why they taught others how to hook up metal spring beds to the electric grid with the aim of getting sincere confessions and apologies out of people. I'm equally sure the tens of thousands people that were "disappeared" by the regimes your glorious and righteous CIA sponsored really look forward to your justifications.

adventured 11y ago
The CIA doesn't run nations and they didn't put Pinochet into power. You're drastically inflating their power over the world. The CIA are opportunists. You might start by applying responsibility to the countries in question for the actions of their own governments, and their own citizens who did the torturing and disappearing - while simultaneously not ignoring any terrible things the CIA has done. Trying to proclaim the CIA is responsible for everything is just silly, they're a bit player.
- dragonbonheur 11y ago
  Really? Allende must be very impressed at how wise, educated and enlightened you are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_Chile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_... http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20000919/ http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20000919/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor I'd say the CIA is the prime reason we got Al Quaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and all the other shitty orgs that the Great and Glorious United states of America is so scared of these days. Keep building bro.
  - dizzyviolet 11y ago
    I think you're proving his point though. If they were that powerful, they'd just hit the "Turn off Daesh and Al Qaeda" switches at the controls, wouldn't you think? It isn't as simple as you're making it. The CIA has been successful and very not successful in its history.

seren 11y ago

Arguably I am not very versed in US politics and South American Interventionism, but the Guatemela Coup d'état [0], wich was supposedly lobbied by a fruit company is hard to read differently than a US corporation pushing its own interest. I know this is a tu quoque fallacy but you can not expect any powerful state or actor to not wield its power to advance its own agenda just because it is "evil". (Actor being US, China, EU, Google, Amazon, etc) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...

chillacy 11y ago

> would come to the conclusion that whichever regime was most amenable to the American way of doing things would also be the best steward of the public interest I doubt public interest meant the populace of the governments they were dabbling in. They're looking first after the CIA's interests, next after the US government, next after US citizens, and maybe finally everyone else. Honestly, the "real, discernible" difference to me is that I'm american and they're not. I can deal with having a rational conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of playing international politics like a zero sum game, but masking jingoism with the guise of absolute morality leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

user_0001 11y ago

>>South America has a long tradition of interchangeable strongman governments, none of whom had any real interest in advancing the needs of citizens I can think of 6 democratically elected socialist leaning governments attacked / disposed of by the US and US based interests and am barely knowledgable of Latin American politics