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Sorry, you're correct. I was inaccurate with my claim. The antipathy towards the US is much stronger in Central America and the Andean regions (Bolivia, Peru,

Sorry, you're correct. I was inaccurate with my claim. The antipathy towards the US is much stronger in Central America and the Andean regions (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, etc) As for being childish, the US has done a whole lot to earn that enmity. I'd recommend reading Open veins of Latin America, by Eduardo Galeano. It's a difficult read, due in no small part to the author's support of the Cuban Revolution and Castro's government. It helps, however, to recognize that the book was written in 1971, long before it became apparent that the Cuban experiment with Communism had some serious humanitarian costs, despite its successes. At the time, Cuba was the only real counterpoint to American economic imperialism in Latin America, so it's easy to see why he would offer such strong support for that regime. Despite that, the book is meticulously researched and cited, and many of the events it details are frankly despicable. It's also by no means an attack on the US, as it covers 500 years of history since the Spanish invasion of the continent. It really is a good read.

masklinn 16y ago
> As for being childish, the US has done a whole lot to earn that enmity. That's quite an understatement.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Some people have done a lot, sometimes with government support, but those are a tiny minority when compared to the people they represented. You shouldn't judge a people by the actions of their leaders.
  - alex_c 16y ago
    > You shouldn't judge a people by the actions of their leaders. That becomes a difficult argument beyond a certain point. Especially if the leaders are (in theory, at least) representing the people.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      The point is that "in theory" a democracy represents the ideals of all its people. Usually, a democracy represents a fraction of the will of a people. Plus, the fraction that agrees with everything the leader does is even smaller.
      - potatolicious 16y ago
        The problem that line of argument runs into is that the American people has also failed to hold its democratically elected government responsible for the shadier things its done (I'll stop just short of calling them atrocities, though some of it crosses that line). Hell, the sorry state that much of Latin America is in right now is largely directly attributable to the direct intervention of the USA (see redthrowaway's post re: coups and installation of brutal military dictatorships friendly to US interests). These crimes have essentially gone unpunished, or hell, unanswered entirely back at home. When the government purports to represent the people, the people rightly bear responsibility for its actions. While it is unrealistic to expect said government to do no wrong and always abide by the democratic principles on which it is founded, at the very least its abuses, once known, need to be reigned in by the very people who put them in charge. This is largely not happening.
        rbanffy 16y ago
        I agree apathy and ignorance, usually fueled by propaganda, played a role in this mess, but to blame all Americans for that misses the point. Americans should have held their representatives responsible, but they failed to even get interested. How many Americans can point Chile or Nicaragua on a map?
        rdtsc 16y ago
        They get free public education for a reason. That was a fairly outrageous proposition back in the day. (More so than free healthcare would be nowadays). But they get primarily so they make rational voting decisions. Math and literature is nice as a side-effect but that was not the original intent. Now when they see their kids getting left behind and brainwashed by the school system they should be doing something about it. Otherwise they should be held responsible for being apathetic.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    You should judge a people if they fancy themsevles a democracy (especially if they think their democracy is so good it deserves to be "exported" to other countries!)
    - sigstoat 16y ago
      and should you judge the people if they fancy themselves a federal republic?
      - rdtsc 16y ago
        I see what you are saying. Technically we are a federal republic but that doesn't matter in this particular argument. We (US) are boasting at being a democracy to the rest of the world. In the propaganda domain we are a democracy. Our citizens have the potential of affecting the political establishmnt through voting. This comes in constrast to say North Korea, China or Lybia. If their government does something outrageous, one can blame the people to some extent, but they should also get plenty of slack since standing up and otherthrowing the leadership would take a lot lives, blood, and suffering. It is not just a walk to the voting booth. In general one can argue that the people of a country should be the responsability for their government's action in proportion to their ability to influence that government's actions.
        rbarooah 16y ago
        It's only one walk to the voting booth if there's an alternative available to vote for. Significant changes in US politics have cost lives, blood, and suffering.
        rdtsc 16y ago
        The first step is for the majority to recognize the dysfunction of our democracy. People have to realize that self-censorship and self-imposed oppression is keeping them down. As long as the large majority are drinking the kool-aid they will just end up being manipulated powerful elites and they will vote against their own interests. On the other hand, in US most people still have access to the voting booth, and to alternative media channels via the internet. Aside from being added to various shadow 'watchlists' most American can (still!) join an activist group or can try to contant their elected official without a fear of imprisonment, torture and death. But in more general terms, I was referring mostly to the propaganda domain, in which we project ourself to be a beacon of democracy. I was offering a potential contra-propaganda point that citizens of such self-professed democracies should be held accountable for the actions of their government. Whether we are an actual functioning democracy is another story (I don't think we are ...).
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    "Some people have done a lot?" -CIA backs military coup in Chile to overthrow democratically elected president. Cue almost 20 years of brutal military dictatorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973 -Funding and arming right-wing paramilitary militias in Nicaragua to overthrow another democratically elected government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua#Sandinistas_and_the_Contras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua#Sandinistas_and_the_C... -Hell, blanketting the entire damned continent in brutal military dictatorships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_%E2%80%93_United_States_relations#1970s:_the_era_of_the_juntas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_%E2%80%93_United_... -Overseeing said brutal dictators' plans to assassinate political dissidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor -Training the armies of said dictatorships in the methods that made them notorious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas#Human_rights_violations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas#Human_ri... And that's just before the "War on Drugs" era. The US has earned the enmity of Latin Americans the honest way.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      How many people were really involved? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Is that a significant part of all other Americans who didn't know what their government was doing?
      - rdtsc 16y ago
        They think they live in a democracy and are even willing to export it, therefore they should be responsible for the actions of whoever they voted (or didn't vote).
        rbanffy 16y ago
        I understand what you say, but I maintain that most of them cannot understand what is going on. They were educated this way and are no more responsible for their government actions than are North Koreans or Iranians (or Portuguese, Greek and Irish) for theirs. They have been lied to for generations.
huherto 16y ago
Indeed, there is a lot of hate in the Latin America which is harvested by many politicians for their own political gain.(in the same way that Palin and Co harvest hate against illegal immigrants) One day the U.S. will have to acknowledge to start the healing process. It is amazing, the other day I was watching "The history of the U.S" and they completely skipped how the U.S. took California, Arizona and New Mexico.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  You were probably watching "The history of the U.S. made in U.S." and there is the difference between that and the real history of the U.S.
  - huherto 16y ago
    Sorry for the sloppy reference. I think it was in "The History Channel". They described the American invasion to mexico in about five seconds just showing how the U.S. suddenly grew. The show was very entertaining but skipped on one of the main passages of history.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      "one of the main passages of history." A small correction of perspective: it's the history of two countries, and it's only a major passage for one of them. This asymmetry is one of the main reasons of international disputes.
      - huherto 16y ago
        Thanks for your reply. I know you mean well. I could argue that it is the history of California, and it is important just because of the relevance of California to the world.
        rbanffy 16y ago
        :-) Someday I must learn more about the history of other places.
KaeseEs 16y ago
It was clear quite a long time before 1971 that Castro's regime 'had humanitarian costs', as you euphemize'; note that Che did all his torturing and murdering before he died in 1967.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sedachv 16y ago
"It's a difficult read, due in no small part to the author's support of the Cuban Revolution and Castro's government. It helps, however, to recognize that the book was written in 1971, long before it became apparent that the Cuban experiment with Communism had some serious humanitarian costs, despite its successes." I don't understand why leftists have gotten into the habit of apologizing for collateral damage. The US never did. You can be thoughtful of "Amnesty International morality" (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n23/neal-ascherson/victory-in-defeat http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n23/neal-ascherson/victory-in-defea...) but if it's your overriding criteria we'll all just end up living in Paul Treanor's democracy, and that's a depressing thought.

masklinn 16y ago

> As for being childish, the US has done a whole lot to earn that enmity. That's quite an understatement.

rbanffy 16y ago
Some people have done a lot, sometimes with government support, but those are a tiny minority when compared to the people they represented. You shouldn't judge a people by the actions of their leaders.
- alex_c 16y ago
  > You shouldn't judge a people by the actions of their leaders. That becomes a difficult argument beyond a certain point. Especially if the leaders are (in theory, at least) representing the people.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    The point is that "in theory" a democracy represents the ideals of all its people. Usually, a democracy represents a fraction of the will of a people. Plus, the fraction that agrees with everything the leader does is even smaller.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      The problem that line of argument runs into is that the American people has also failed to hold its democratically elected government responsible for the shadier things its done (I'll stop just short of calling them atrocities, though some of it crosses that line). Hell, the sorry state that much of Latin America is in right now is largely directly attributable to the direct intervention of the USA (see redthrowaway's post re: coups and installation of brutal military dictatorships friendly to US interests). These crimes have essentially gone unpunished, or hell, unanswered entirely back at home. When the government purports to represent the people, the people rightly bear responsibility for its actions. While it is unrealistic to expect said government to do no wrong and always abide by the democratic principles on which it is founded, at the very least its abuses, once known, need to be reigned in by the very people who put them in charge. This is largely not happening.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        I agree apathy and ignorance, usually fueled by propaganda, played a role in this mess, but to blame all Americans for that misses the point. Americans should have held their representatives responsible, but they failed to even get interested. How many Americans can point Chile or Nicaragua on a map?
        rdtsc 16y ago
        They get free public education for a reason. That was a fairly outrageous proposition back in the day. (More so than free healthcare would be nowadays). But they get primarily so they make rational voting decisions. Math and literature is nice as a side-effect but that was not the original intent. Now when they see their kids getting left behind and brainwashed by the school system they should be doing something about it. Otherwise they should be held responsible for being apathetic.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  You should judge a people if they fancy themsevles a democracy (especially if they think their democracy is so good it deserves to be "exported" to other countries!)
  - sigstoat 16y ago
    and should you judge the people if they fancy themselves a federal republic?
    - rdtsc 16y ago
      I see what you are saying. Technically we are a federal republic but that doesn't matter in this particular argument. We (US) are boasting at being a democracy to the rest of the world. In the propaganda domain we are a democracy. Our citizens have the potential of affecting the political establishmnt through voting. This comes in constrast to say North Korea, China or Lybia. If their government does something outrageous, one can blame the people to some extent, but they should also get plenty of slack since standing up and otherthrowing the leadership would take a lot lives, blood, and suffering. It is not just a walk to the voting booth. In general one can argue that the people of a country should be the responsability for their government's action in proportion to their ability to influence that government's actions.
      - rbarooah 16y ago
        It's only one walk to the voting booth if there's an alternative available to vote for. Significant changes in US politics have cost lives, blood, and suffering.
        rdtsc 16y ago
        The first step is for the majority to recognize the dysfunction of our democracy. People have to realize that self-censorship and self-imposed oppression is keeping them down. As long as the large majority are drinking the kool-aid they will just end up being manipulated powerful elites and they will vote against their own interests. On the other hand, in US most people still have access to the voting booth, and to alternative media channels via the internet. Aside from being added to various shadow 'watchlists' most American can (still!) join an activist group or can try to contant their elected official without a fear of imprisonment, torture and death. But in more general terms, I was referring mostly to the propaganda domain, in which we project ourself to be a beacon of democracy. I was offering a potential contra-propaganda point that citizens of such self-professed democracies should be held accountable for the actions of their government. Whether we are an actual functioning democracy is another story (I don't think we are ...).
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  "Some people have done a lot?" -CIA backs military coup in Chile to overthrow democratically elected president. Cue almost 20 years of brutal military dictatorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973 -Funding and arming right-wing paramilitary militias in Nicaragua to overthrow another democratically elected government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua#Sandinistas_and_the_Contras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua#Sandinistas_and_the_C... -Hell, blanketting the entire damned continent in brutal military dictatorships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_%E2%80%93_United_States_relations#1970s:_the_era_of_the_juntas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_%E2%80%93_United_... -Overseeing said brutal dictators' plans to assassinate political dissidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor -Training the armies of said dictatorships in the methods that made them notorious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas#Human_rights_violations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas#Human_ri... And that's just before the "War on Drugs" era. The US has earned the enmity of Latin Americans the honest way.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    How many people were really involved? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Is that a significant part of all other Americans who didn't know what their government was doing?
    - rdtsc 16y ago
      They think they live in a democracy and are even willing to export it, therefore they should be responsible for the actions of whoever they voted (or didn't vote).
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        I understand what you say, but I maintain that most of them cannot understand what is going on. They were educated this way and are no more responsible for their government actions than are North Koreans or Iranians (or Portuguese, Greek and Irish) for theirs. They have been lied to for generations.

huherto 16y ago

Indeed, there is a lot of hate in the Latin America which is harvested by many politicians for their own political gain.(in the same way that Palin and Co harvest hate against illegal immigrants) One day the U.S. will have to acknowledge to start the healing process. It is amazing, the other day I was watching "The history of the U.S" and they completely skipped how the U.S. took California, Arizona and New Mexico.

rdtsc 16y ago
You were probably watching "The history of the U.S. made in U.S." and there is the difference between that and the real history of the U.S.
- huherto 16y ago
  Sorry for the sloppy reference. I think it was in "The History Channel". They described the American invasion to mexico in about five seconds just showing how the U.S. suddenly grew. The show was very entertaining but skipped on one of the main passages of history.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    "one of the main passages of history." A small correction of perspective: it's the history of two countries, and it's only a major passage for one of them. This asymmetry is one of the main reasons of international disputes.
    - huherto 16y ago
      Thanks for your reply. I know you mean well. I could argue that it is the history of California, and it is important just because of the relevance of California to the world.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        :-) Someday I must learn more about the history of other places.

KaeseEs 16y ago

It was clear quite a long time before 1971 that Castro's regime 'had humanitarian costs', as you euphemize'; note that Che did all his torturing and murdering before he died in 1967.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sedachv 16y ago

"It's a difficult read, due in no small part to the author's support of the Cuban Revolution and Castro's government. It helps, however, to recognize that the book was written in 1971, long before it became apparent that the Cuban experiment with Communism had some serious humanitarian costs, despite its successes." I don't understand why leftists have gotten into the habit of apologizing for collateral damage. The US never did. You can be thoughtful of "Amnesty International morality" (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n23/neal-ascherson/victory-in-defeat http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n23/neal-ascherson/victory-in-defea...) but if it's your overriding criteria we'll all just end up living in Paul Treanor's democracy, and that's a depressing thought.