14 ms·

Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged

200 points by acqbu 4y ago

anonymousiam 4y ago
Haiti has been taken advantage of many times in history. Here's a more recent example: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37826098 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37826098
boomboomsubban 4y ago
Why hire an artist to draw portraits of the scumbags responsible? Surely the pictures used for models are available if you need to show them at all. Printing that next to an American showing off his "hunt" of Hatians is just bizarre.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Four of those five illustrations is a redrawing of the public domain photographs wikipedia has for each (Roger L. Farnham doesn't have a wikipedia page, but I bet his portrait was redrawn from a public domain photograph too.)
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Not sure if it's public domain but I found the Farnham reference photo on image search, complete with the polka dot bowtie. A strange use of an artist's time
dan353hehe 4y ago
https://archive.ph/eq9C0 https://archive.ph/eq9C0
deleted 4y ago
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sitkack 4y ago
That wasn't an invasion, that was just Civil Asset Forfeiture. That is a difficult read on a Sunday morning. > Some historians cite tangible gains, like hospitals, 800 miles of roads and a more efficient civil service, but they also point to the American use of forced labor, with soldiers tying up civilians in ropes, making them work for no pay and shooting those who tried to flee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jovenel_Mo%C3%AFse#Planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jovenel_Mo%C3... Those old black and white photos of troops boarding a ship to Haiti in 1915 is focused through a lens to arrive at the present here, https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1439989195871825921 https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1439989195871825921 The phrase "America is the worlds police" is now understood in its rightful context. America keeps its own peace by killing and shaking down those who it can.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  Smedley Butler had some things to say about this too: https://man.fas.org/smedley.htm https://man.fas.org/smedley.htm
  - sitkack 4y ago
    I had never heard of Smedley Butler before, powerful speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler The excerpt isn't long. > War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. > I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. > I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. > There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. > It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. > I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. > I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. > During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. You can see him in archival footage talking to the Bonus Army in Washington DC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOsIB5VMSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOsIB5VMSQ Analysis of speech to Bonus Army https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/marine-medal-of-honor-smedley-butler-bonus-army/ https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/marine-medal-of-honor-sm... 10 minute newsreel https://youtu.be/Q_vJH2nrMl8?t=120 https://youtu.be/Q_vJH2nrMl8?t=120 This is phenomenal, MacArthur, Patton and Eisenhower led the removal of the Bonus Army from Washington DC and showed their colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Angelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Angelo This is shit we should have learned in history class.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
"American interests", an euphemism used to this day to refer to whatever's most profitable for american capitalists and industrialists. It can be found in actual government documents released today. The context almost always consists of some country not making life easy for some american "stakeholder". Makes me cringe every time I read those words.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- elliekelly 4y ago
  You should read “The Fish that Ate the Whale“ by Richard Cohen. The American government did insane things in Central and South America for/on behalf of the banana industry.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Alternatively there's also "I Was a Gangster for Capitalism" by Smedley Butler, who was actually in Haiti.
- FargaColora 4y ago
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Conspiracy theory? I thought it was common knowledge and accepted fact. Haven't you heard all the oil jokes? "Oil discovered in Antarctica, the US says it will liberate the penguins from the fascist tyranny with WMDs of the snow". And that's only for the obvious stuff, banana republic was literally coined after US companies' exploitation. I can recommend "I was a Gangster for Capitalism", really good book.
  - lizardactivist 4y ago
    There's nothing extraordinary about historical facts. The U.S. propaganda machinery has not yet been able to erase all its wrongs and crimes from history, even though it's actively working at it.
robonerd 4y ago
> In September 2003, Amiot Métayer was found dead, his eyes shot out and his heart cut out, most likely the result of machete-inflicted wounds. He was, prior to his death, the leader of the Gonaives gang known as "The Cannibal Army." After his death, his brother Buteur Métayer swore vengeance against those he felt responsible for Amiot's death—namely, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Buteur took charge of the Cannibal Army and promptly renamed it the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti. Well then...
- bombcar 4y ago
  Sounds like one of the more successful rebranding efforts, thought Cannibal Army has a certain ring to it.
  - muro 4y ago
    The word "zombie" also has origins in Haiti.
jmclnx 4y ago
Interesting read, I never understood why Haiti has had so many financial issues over the years. I think France and the US should pay off all its debts as restitution to what was done over the years.
- 0des 4y ago
  - sitkack 4y ago
    Righting a wrong is never satire.
  - brnaftr361 4y ago
    Well for one, it's a nation, which is a legal fiction. Haiti and Haitians are not the same thing. That is to say all the previous action of said nation, including the accrual of debts, hadn't ought to be a real liability to the Haitian people. It's precisely inheriting your parent's debt on a magnitude that is baffling. Moreover if one examines the rate of interest it's quite probable that the sum total of principal has been paid. Finally, they had ought to be allowed to default. Risk is one of the reasons given to justify interest, if the lender isn't actually accepting risk, the interest should be close to nothing. If anything such debts had ought to be forgiven simply as a product of the moral imperative of noblesse oblige. What it really is, is a smokescreen for imperialism to keep the capital gradient in check and forward the Western agenda.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Why should I pay something that happened centuries ago and I have nothing to do with it? Collectivism at its worst.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Because you benefit from the society those actions created. There is a direct causal through-line between those actions and some of the benefits you enjoy.
bannedbybros 4y ago
jmyeet 4y ago
Nothing has changed. For all the polarizing division in US politics on the issue of foreign policy (and even on many domestic issues) the two major parties are completely aligned to protect and benefit the capital-owning class. Sanctions on Cuba? This is not because Cuba or Castro is "bad". We have absolutely no problem propping up horrific dictators as "allies" when it suits us (eg Pinochet, MBS, Saddam Hussein until it didn't suit us, even Erdogan, arguably even Netanyahu). What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations. Sanctions on Venezuela? Again, Venezuela took the unacceptable step of nationalizing their oil assets. And with Russia's unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine now threatening the energy sector, suddenly the Venezuelan sanctions aren't as important as we made out [1]. Sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War? Consider the words of our then UN Ambassador later Secretary of State Madeline Albright [2]: > In that now-iconic interview, veteran journalist Lesley Stahl questioned Albright – then the US ambassador to the United Nations – on the catastrophic effect the rigorous US sanctions imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had on the Iraqi population. > “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?” > “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” The US government works for the Bezoses, Gates, Buffetts and Musks of the world. Never forget that. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/venezuela-oil-sanctions-chevron/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/venezuela-oi... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-madeleine-albright-as-who-she-really-was https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
- DANK_YACHT 4y ago
  Sanctions on Cuba could also be due to the Cuban missile crisis. That was a pretty big deal.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Fair is fair: capital is what builds economies, capital wins wars, capital allows culture to form, capital makes resources available. And capital will go where it is best protected. So a country that lets it's capital get destroyed is pretty much fucked. This is the fundamental issue with most forms of communism, socialism and theocracy: they're perpetually short of capital. Places like Northern Europe work very hard to simultaneously protect capital and human assets. And that's good. And we should emulate that. But all to often people try to down grade capital instead of upgrading people. The places people so often think of as alternatives (Venezuela as a recent example) all too often fall for this error and doom themselves.
lizardactivist 4y ago
I wonder what nation will be the U.S. governments next target now that they're finished with Afghanistan.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  In the balkans, people actively rooted for trump, because they were afraid that another clinton will start another war here. What I find really sad is, that the same people who have ukraine flags and "putin bad" everywhere, ignore eg. US soldiers that were just sent to somalia, and a bunch of other us/nato missions, eg syria, libya, not to mention "allies", from saudis to israel.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    People don't have the time or inclination to understand the world, so they focus on the targets pushed out in front of them, especially if you can paint them as comic book villains so people don't have to take too much time figuring out who they side with.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      It's not that... if americans kept to themselves and dealt with their internal politics (like massive student debt, screwed up health system, etc.) noone from outside would care about the american presidents. If one of the options like to drop bombs all over the world, to "protect americas freedom" (or whatever the excuse is), then even the outside people start caring.
    - stjohnswarts 4y ago
      If there is a comic book villain in modern leaders then it's Putin; belligerent, racist, sexist, using religion to justify his white supremacist policies, referring to Stalin as his favorite leader, etc. I mean there is literally nothing "good" about him.
  - ciphol 4y ago
    By "the balkans" I presume you mean Serbia? The country that twice committed ethnic cleansing and genocide against its neighbors until the Clinton administration made them stop?
themgt 4y ago
US troops are still (illegally) occupying territory in Syria to "protect oil fields" or something - odd how we never hear about that in the context of our newfound deeply held belief in inviolability of national sovereignty and borders. Anyhow, Haiti is a truly tragic story. Just in terms of the real estate it's sitting on there's a massive opportunity for anyone who could get the country semi-functional to build a thriving tourism industry. Haiti's GDP per capita in 1990 was higher than China's[1]. I'm skeptical of the ability of history from 100-200 years ago to explain why there's been such a massive divergence since. Put another way, if you looked at the picture in 1990 where China and Haiti GDP per capita have been similar for decades with Haiti often in the lead, what facts would have led you to correctly predict the massive divergence over the next 30 years? The events of 1914 or 1803 in Haiti? But the opium wars, China being subjugated by Japan, Mao killing ~45 million of his own people would not similarly handicap China? See also Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, etc. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gdp+per+capita+haiti%2C+china https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gdp+per+capita+haiti%2C...
- raegis 4y ago
  > ... what facts would have led you to correctly predict the massive divergence over the next 30 years? The events of 1914 or 1803 in Haiti? The U.S. has been meddling in Haiti's affairs ever since, threatening leaders who dare to raise the minimum wage, among other things. Your skepticism of "history from 100-200 years ago to explain" seems more like a straw man argument. The comparison between Haiti (10 million residents) and China (1 billion residents) is kind of strange, for GDP per capita is not dependent on the work of independent individuals. You take the total for the country and divide by the number of individuals, so any country with a billion residents and the ability to produce and set wages without restrictions has a massive advantage over any country with 1 percent of their population. Lastly, your comparison with China could be done with a hundred other countries, so you could easily dismiss their history just the same. There's a lot going on you might not be aware of.
rayiner 4y ago
Haiti was independent for more than a century before the US invasion. What was it like before that? As someone from a third world country, I’m ambivalent about these “blame the white people” stories.
- azinman2 4y ago
  I think you should read up more on the history of Haiti.
- viksit 4y ago
  The article that should have been posted is this : https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB Tldr - France and french banks forced haiti to pay reparations for having earned their freedoms for so long that 2.53 out of every 3 dollars they made for centuries went to “white people”. This led to a loss of 25 billion dollars conservatively or 200 if you’re being real. The US just took over as the next colonial power.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  It was once maybe the richest and most densely populated place on earth. http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/authors/chomsky/year/y501_008.htm http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/authors/chomsky/year/y501_008....
  - samatman 4y ago
    Searching for "rich" and "wealth" in that document doesn't turn up a demonstration of the claim, which I find extraordinary. Would you mind quoting the part which you believe does?
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      >Saint Domingue was the wealthiest European colonial possession in the Americas," Hans Schmidt writes, producing three-quarters of the world's sugar by 1789, Though I believe the poster was asking about the economy post independence.
  - 4y ago
viksit 4y ago
An amazing article that should be required reading apart from this one is this : https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB (Part of the same series on Haiti, and truly shows the scope of the rot). TL;DR - France and french banks forced haiti to pay reparations for having earned their freedoms for so long that 2.53 out of every 3 dollars they made for centuries went to “white people”. This led to a loss of 25 billion dollars conservatively or 200 billion if you’re being real. The US just took over as the next colonial power. They even helped get rid of the only President in decades to have brought this whole thing up as an issue again.
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Interesting. I’m reading “Harsh Times” — an awesome novelization of essentially the same phenomenon in Guatemala. Independence. Was that a trap for Haiti? Would they have been better off as a vassal state of France? Should they have just fought the French again? Is there a counterfactual that suggests what could have been done differently?
- funstuff007 4y ago
  They would have been better off being a member of the Commonwealth.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  While it's possible to imagine a history where the French free the slaves and somehow still convince them to work on the sugar plantations, resulting in a better outcome for everyone, reaching such a set up would have been a Herculean task. It's hard to view independence as a bad outcome for the slaves without such a scenario. >Should they have just fought the French again? Without the distraction of the French Revolution, I can't picture France losing that war. From the article, the US lost ~15 men in the 1915 war to ostensibly conquer the country, throughout most of the 19th century France likely could have won with similar ease. That's surely what the Haitians believed, as they only agreed to the indemnity due to gunboat diplomacy. > Is there a counterfactual that suggests what could have been done differently? The best counterfactual is the US, where the French acknowledged and supported us allowing a new nation to be built. Nobody gave Haiti support, save a couple thousand Polish soldiers. At most, maybe without the 1804 massacre of the French the Haitians would have gotten somewhat better treatment. But as they were already given such poor treatment, I doubt it'd have vastly improved things.
1024core 4y ago
> Haiti became the first and only country where the descendants of enslaved people paid the families of their former masters for generations This just makes me so sad. Here's the thing: what's in the past is over; what can we do about it today is all that matters. Wouldn't be great if the French decided to spend a couple of billion dollars to set up schools, hospitals, colleges, etc. in Haiti? Everybody makes mistakes. But it takes real courage to own up your mistakes and fix them.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  > Everybody makes mistakes. But it takes real courage to own up your mistakes and fix them. Yes, but like you said, this happened in the past. The current French citizens are not the ones who made these mistakes. For the same reason that we don't punish the children for the crimes of their parents, we shouldn't be accusing people today of the crimes of their ancestors. I agree that it would be amazing if the French decided to help restore Haiti, but it's not beneficial to cast blame on the French people of today and demand reparations. At the very least, if we demand reparations of them today how far back do we go and who else do we demand reparations from? The Germans committed atrocities against the Jews less than 100 years ago, but nobody is demanding reparations there? What about Mao Zedong, also less than 100 years ago? Or how about the evils going on right now in places like Saudi Arabia[0], Afghanistan[1], or the very alive slave trade of over 21-45 million people right now[2]? [0]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/saudi-arabia-10-reasons-why-women-flee https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/saudi-arabia-10-reasons-... [1]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-deprive-women-livelihoods-identity https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-depr... [2]: https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/human-trafficking-awareness-2022 https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/human-traffickin...
  - DFHippie 4y ago
    If your grandfather robbed a family and left them impoverished, yes, you are not responsible for the theft, but you continue to benefit from it, and you are the one who can choose to make amends, not your grandfather. If a Swiss banker today is in charge of the gold extracted from the teeth of Jews, Romani, communists, homosexuals, etc. murdered in concentration camps, must he give it back to the descendants of the victims? He was neither a Nazi nor the banker the Nazis sent the gold to originally. He is not responsible for their actions, but he is now the steward of this stolen wealth. What is his responsibility at this point? Money seems different from gold because it is fungible and abstract. Your standard of living may be based in part upon some historical theft, but which part and how much? There isn't a particular dollar bill or pound note you can point to as stolen. Gold melted down from fillings isn't like that. But this just speaks to the poverty of our imagination, not anything morally relevant.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sorokod 4y ago
Obligatory reference to Smedley Darlington Butler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
stjohnswarts 4y ago
So I take it I'm supposed to feel guilty for something my ancestors did? Sorry but I don't. Take it as a warning that corps have government tied around their finger and have for centuries, sure I can agree with that. I looked up some other articles by the authors they all seemed to have a heavy handed opinion overlaid over what should be simple reporting, so take this article with a grain of salt.
- cayblood 4y ago
  You're partaking of the spoils of your ancestors, and the material losses they caused can be directly traced to the living citizens of Haiti today. It's not really that much about guilt, but about actual liability.
- Unearned5161 4y ago
  exactly what cayblood said Too often people take these articles and say "well I didn't do that" "what do I have to do with it" "that happened hundreds of years ago, there's a whole new set of people nowadays". It's not just the actions in the moment, but the fact that actions have an effect over time. Take for example a country that loses a certain number of men in some battle many years ago. Well some of those men would have gone on to work on the land and have offspring, now no longer. Because of that, there was a hit to birth rates, and food production, which in turn affected nourishment country wide, and a smaller next generation adjusting for growth. Which later in turn affected GDP overall and other certain critical economic factors. The point is that actions don't happen in isolation, one might know this as the butterfly effect. How does this implicate "the white man that lives in america"? Because of all of this plundering and horrid behavior done on foreign soil and because of the slavery that happened in this country, it was a large contributing factor to bringing us to where we are now. And in the same way that it contributed to our success, it detracted from those oppressed group's success. We now live in a world that whether we like it or not, is founded on these horrible truths, and whether we like it or not there are groups of people, countries even, that are worse off because of that, sometimes significantly so. This is the foundation for conversations about reparations. What can we do now to balance the playing field, a field that we ourselves didn't throw out of balance, but that we are in the singular position to fix.
itissid 4y ago
Their financial freedom just twisting in the wind of what can be termed as neo colonialist capitalism. I edited the wiki page of C.I.C bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Industriel_et_Commercial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Industriel_et_Comm... today after reading the part of NYTimes about French involvement in late 19th century before the Americans decided to join the party. More people should know that almost every big bank in the west has a very shady past.

200 points by acqbu 4y ago

Haiti has been taken advantage of many times in history. Here's a more recent example: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37826098 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37826098

boomboomsubban 4y ago

Why hire an artist to draw portraits of the scumbags responsible? Surely the pictures used for models are available if you need to show them at all. Printing that next to an American showing off his "hunt" of Hatians is just bizarre.

robonerd 4y ago
Four of those five illustrations is a redrawing of the public domain photographs wikipedia has for each (Roger L. Farnham doesn't have a wikipedia page, but I bet his portrait was redrawn from a public domain photograph too.)
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Not sure if it's public domain but I found the Farnham reference photo on image search, complete with the polka dot bowtie. A strange use of an artist's time

dan353hehe 4y ago

https://archive.ph/eq9C0 https://archive.ph/eq9C0

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sitkack 4y ago

That wasn't an invasion, that was just Civil Asset Forfeiture. That is a difficult read on a Sunday morning. > Some historians cite tangible gains, like hospitals, 800 miles of roads and a more efficient civil service, but they also point to the American use of forced labor, with soldiers tying up civilians in ropes, making them work for no pay and shooting those who tried to flee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jovenel_Mo%C3%AFse#Planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jovenel_Mo%C3... Those old black and white photos of troops boarding a ship to Haiti in 1915 is focused through a lens to arrive at the present here, https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1439989195871825921 https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1439989195871825921 The phrase "America is the worlds police" is now understood in its rightful context. America keeps its own peace by killing and shaking down those who it can.

QuercusMax 4y ago
Smedley Butler had some things to say about this too: https://man.fas.org/smedley.htm https://man.fas.org/smedley.htm
- sitkack 4y ago
  I had never heard of Smedley Butler before, powerful speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler The excerpt isn't long. > War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. > I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. > I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. > There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. > It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. > I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. > I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. > During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. You can see him in archival footage talking to the Bonus Army in Washington DC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOsIB5VMSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOsIB5VMSQ Analysis of speech to Bonus Army https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/marine-medal-of-honor-smedley-butler-bonus-army/ https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/marine-medal-of-honor-sm... 10 minute newsreel https://youtu.be/Q_vJH2nrMl8?t=120 https://youtu.be/Q_vJH2nrMl8?t=120 This is phenomenal, MacArthur, Patton and Eisenhower led the removal of the Bonus Army from Washington DC and showed their colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Angelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Angelo This is shit we should have learned in history class.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

"American interests", an euphemism used to this day to refer to whatever's most profitable for american capitalists and industrialists. It can be found in actual government documents released today. The context almost always consists of some country not making life easy for some american "stakeholder". Makes me cringe every time I read those words.

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elliekelly 4y ago
You should read “The Fish that Ate the Whale“ by Richard Cohen. The American government did insane things in Central and South America for/on behalf of the banana industry.
- sofixa 4y ago
  Alternatively there's also "I Was a Gangster for Capitalism" by Smedley Butler, who was actually in Haiti.
FargaColora 4y ago
- sofixa 4y ago
  Conspiracy theory? I thought it was common knowledge and accepted fact. Haven't you heard all the oil jokes? "Oil discovered in Antarctica, the US says it will liberate the penguins from the fascist tyranny with WMDs of the snow". And that's only for the obvious stuff, banana republic was literally coined after US companies' exploitation. I can recommend "I was a Gangster for Capitalism", really good book.
- lizardactivist 4y ago
  There's nothing extraordinary about historical facts. The U.S. propaganda machinery has not yet been able to erase all its wrongs and crimes from history, even though it's actively working at it.

robonerd 4y ago

> In September 2003, Amiot Métayer was found dead, his eyes shot out and his heart cut out, most likely the result of machete-inflicted wounds. He was, prior to his death, the leader of the Gonaives gang known as "The Cannibal Army." After his death, his brother Buteur Métayer swore vengeance against those he felt responsible for Amiot's death—namely, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Buteur took charge of the Cannibal Army and promptly renamed it the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti. Well then...

bombcar 4y ago
Sounds like one of the more successful rebranding efforts, thought Cannibal Army has a certain ring to it.
- muro 4y ago
  The word "zombie" also has origins in Haiti.

jmclnx 4y ago

Interesting read, I never understood why Haiti has had so many financial issues over the years. I think France and the US should pay off all its debts as restitution to what was done over the years.

0des 4y ago
- sitkack 4y ago
  Righting a wrong is never satire.
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  Well for one, it's a nation, which is a legal fiction. Haiti and Haitians are not the same thing. That is to say all the previous action of said nation, including the accrual of debts, hadn't ought to be a real liability to the Haitian people. It's precisely inheriting your parent's debt on a magnitude that is baffling. Moreover if one examines the rate of interest it's quite probable that the sum total of principal has been paid. Finally, they had ought to be allowed to default. Risk is one of the reasons given to justify interest, if the lender isn't actually accepting risk, the interest should be close to nothing. If anything such debts had ought to be forgiven simply as a product of the moral imperative of noblesse oblige. What it really is, is a smokescreen for imperialism to keep the capital gradient in check and forward the Western agenda.
systemvoltage 4y ago
Why should I pay something that happened centuries ago and I have nothing to do with it? Collectivism at its worst.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Because you benefit from the society those actions created. There is a direct causal through-line between those actions and some of the benefits you enjoy.

bannedbybros 4y ago

jmyeet 4y ago

Nothing has changed. For all the polarizing division in US politics on the issue of foreign policy (and even on many domestic issues) the two major parties are completely aligned to protect and benefit the capital-owning class. Sanctions on Cuba? This is not because Cuba or Castro is "bad". We have absolutely no problem propping up horrific dictators as "allies" when it suits us (eg Pinochet, MBS, Saddam Hussein until it didn't suit us, even Erdogan, arguably even Netanyahu). What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations. Sanctions on Venezuela? Again, Venezuela took the unacceptable step of nationalizing their oil assets. And with Russia's unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine now threatening the energy sector, suddenly the Venezuelan sanctions aren't as important as we made out [1]. Sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War? Consider the words of our then UN Ambassador later Secretary of State Madeline Albright [2]: > In that now-iconic interview, veteran journalist Lesley Stahl questioned Albright – then the US ambassador to the United Nations – on the catastrophic effect the rigorous US sanctions imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had on the Iraqi population. > “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?” > “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” The US government works for the Bezoses, Gates, Buffetts and Musks of the world. Never forget that. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/venezuela-oil-sanctions-chevron/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/venezuela-oi... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-madeleine-albright-as-who-she-really-was https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...

DANK_YACHT 4y ago
Sanctions on Cuba could also be due to the Cuban missile crisis. That was a pretty big deal.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Fair is fair: capital is what builds economies, capital wins wars, capital allows culture to form, capital makes resources available. And capital will go where it is best protected. So a country that lets it's capital get destroyed is pretty much fucked. This is the fundamental issue with most forms of communism, socialism and theocracy: they're perpetually short of capital. Places like Northern Europe work very hard to simultaneously protect capital and human assets. And that's good. And we should emulate that. But all to often people try to down grade capital instead of upgrading people. The places people so often think of as alternatives (Venezuela as a recent example) all too often fall for this error and doom themselves.

lizardactivist 4y ago

I wonder what nation will be the U.S. governments next target now that they're finished with Afghanistan.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
In the balkans, people actively rooted for trump, because they were afraid that another clinton will start another war here. What I find really sad is, that the same people who have ukraine flags and "putin bad" everywhere, ignore eg. US soldiers that were just sent to somalia, and a bunch of other us/nato missions, eg syria, libya, not to mention "allies", from saudis to israel.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  People don't have the time or inclination to understand the world, so they focus on the targets pushed out in front of them, especially if you can paint them as comic book villains so people don't have to take too much time figuring out who they side with.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    It's not that... if americans kept to themselves and dealt with their internal politics (like massive student debt, screwed up health system, etc.) noone from outside would care about the american presidents. If one of the options like to drop bombs all over the world, to "protect americas freedom" (or whatever the excuse is), then even the outside people start caring.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    If there is a comic book villain in modern leaders then it's Putin; belligerent, racist, sexist, using religion to justify his white supremacist policies, referring to Stalin as his favorite leader, etc. I mean there is literally nothing "good" about him.
- ciphol 4y ago
  By "the balkans" I presume you mean Serbia? The country that twice committed ethnic cleansing and genocide against its neighbors until the Clinton administration made them stop?

themgt 4y ago

US troops are still (illegally) occupying territory in Syria to "protect oil fields" or something - odd how we never hear about that in the context of our newfound deeply held belief in inviolability of national sovereignty and borders. Anyhow, Haiti is a truly tragic story. Just in terms of the real estate it's sitting on there's a massive opportunity for anyone who could get the country semi-functional to build a thriving tourism industry. Haiti's GDP per capita in 1990 was higher than China's[1]. I'm skeptical of the ability of history from 100-200 years ago to explain why there's been such a massive divergence since. Put another way, if you looked at the picture in 1990 where China and Haiti GDP per capita have been similar for decades with Haiti often in the lead, what facts would have led you to correctly predict the massive divergence over the next 30 years? The events of 1914 or 1803 in Haiti? But the opium wars, China being subjugated by Japan, Mao killing ~45 million of his own people would not similarly handicap China? See also Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, etc. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gdp+per+capita+haiti%2C+china https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gdp+per+capita+haiti%2C...

raegis 4y ago
> ... what facts would have led you to correctly predict the massive divergence over the next 30 years? The events of 1914 or 1803 in Haiti? The U.S. has been meddling in Haiti's affairs ever since, threatening leaders who dare to raise the minimum wage, among other things. Your skepticism of "history from 100-200 years ago to explain" seems more like a straw man argument. The comparison between Haiti (10 million residents) and China (1 billion residents) is kind of strange, for GDP per capita is not dependent on the work of independent individuals. You take the total for the country and divide by the number of individuals, so any country with a billion residents and the ability to produce and set wages without restrictions has a massive advantage over any country with 1 percent of their population. Lastly, your comparison with China could be done with a hundred other countries, so you could easily dismiss their history just the same. There's a lot going on you might not be aware of.

rayiner 4y ago

Haiti was independent for more than a century before the US invasion. What was it like before that? As someone from a third world country, I’m ambivalent about these “blame the white people” stories.

azinman2 4y ago
I think you should read up more on the history of Haiti.
viksit 4y ago
The article that should have been posted is this : https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB Tldr - France and french banks forced haiti to pay reparations for having earned their freedoms for so long that 2.53 out of every 3 dollars they made for centuries went to “white people”. This led to a loss of 25 billion dollars conservatively or 200 if you’re being real. The US just took over as the next colonial power.
Synaesthesia 4y ago
It was once maybe the richest and most densely populated place on earth. http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/authors/chomsky/year/y501_008.htm http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/authors/chomsky/year/y501_008....
- samatman 4y ago
  Searching for "rich" and "wealth" in that document doesn't turn up a demonstration of the claim, which I find extraordinary. Would you mind quoting the part which you believe does?
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    >Saint Domingue was the wealthiest European colonial possession in the Americas," Hans Schmidt writes, producing three-quarters of the world's sugar by 1789, Though I believe the poster was asking about the economy post independence.
- 4y ago

viksit 4y ago

An amazing article that should be required reading apart from this one is this : https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB https://nyti.ms/3G3zNKB (Part of the same series on Haiti, and truly shows the scope of the rot). TL;DR - France and french banks forced haiti to pay reparations for having earned their freedoms for so long that 2.53 out of every 3 dollars they made for centuries went to “white people”. This led to a loss of 25 billion dollars conservatively or 200 billion if you’re being real. The US just took over as the next colonial power. They even helped get rid of the only President in decades to have brought this whole thing up as an issue again.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

Interesting. I’m reading “Harsh Times” — an awesome novelization of essentially the same phenomenon in Guatemala. Independence. Was that a trap for Haiti? Would they have been better off as a vassal state of France? Should they have just fought the French again? Is there a counterfactual that suggests what could have been done differently?

funstuff007 4y ago
They would have been better off being a member of the Commonwealth.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
While it's possible to imagine a history where the French free the slaves and somehow still convince them to work on the sugar plantations, resulting in a better outcome for everyone, reaching such a set up would have been a Herculean task. It's hard to view independence as a bad outcome for the slaves without such a scenario. >Should they have just fought the French again? Without the distraction of the French Revolution, I can't picture France losing that war. From the article, the US lost ~15 men in the 1915 war to ostensibly conquer the country, throughout most of the 19th century France likely could have won with similar ease. That's surely what the Haitians believed, as they only agreed to the indemnity due to gunboat diplomacy. > Is there a counterfactual that suggests what could have been done differently? The best counterfactual is the US, where the French acknowledged and supported us allowing a new nation to be built. Nobody gave Haiti support, save a couple thousand Polish soldiers. At most, maybe without the 1804 massacre of the French the Haitians would have gotten somewhat better treatment. But as they were already given such poor treatment, I doubt it'd have vastly improved things.

1024core 4y ago

> Haiti became the first and only country where the descendants of enslaved people paid the families of their former masters for generations This just makes me so sad. Here's the thing: what's in the past is over; what can we do about it today is all that matters. Wouldn't be great if the French decided to spend a couple of billion dollars to set up schools, hospitals, colleges, etc. in Haiti? Everybody makes mistakes. But it takes real courage to own up your mistakes and fix them.

_gabe_ 4y ago
> Everybody makes mistakes. But it takes real courage to own up your mistakes and fix them. Yes, but like you said, this happened in the past. The current French citizens are not the ones who made these mistakes. For the same reason that we don't punish the children for the crimes of their parents, we shouldn't be accusing people today of the crimes of their ancestors. I agree that it would be amazing if the French decided to help restore Haiti, but it's not beneficial to cast blame on the French people of today and demand reparations. At the very least, if we demand reparations of them today how far back do we go and who else do we demand reparations from? The Germans committed atrocities against the Jews less than 100 years ago, but nobody is demanding reparations there? What about Mao Zedong, also less than 100 years ago? Or how about the evils going on right now in places like Saudi Arabia[0], Afghanistan[1], or the very alive slave trade of over 21-45 million people right now[2]? [0]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/saudi-arabia-10-reasons-why-women-flee https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/saudi-arabia-10-reasons-... [1]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-deprive-women-livelihoods-identity https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-depr... [2]: https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/human-trafficking-awareness-2022 https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/human-traffickin...
- DFHippie 4y ago
  If your grandfather robbed a family and left them impoverished, yes, you are not responsible for the theft, but you continue to benefit from it, and you are the one who can choose to make amends, not your grandfather. If a Swiss banker today is in charge of the gold extracted from the teeth of Jews, Romani, communists, homosexuals, etc. murdered in concentration camps, must he give it back to the descendants of the victims? He was neither a Nazi nor the banker the Nazis sent the gold to originally. He is not responsible for their actions, but he is now the steward of this stolen wealth. What is his responsibility at this point? Money seems different from gold because it is fungible and abstract. Your standard of living may be based in part upon some historical theft, but which part and how much? There isn't a particular dollar bill or pound note you can point to as stolen. Gold melted down from fillings isn't like that. But this just speaks to the poverty of our imagination, not anything morally relevant.

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sorokod 4y ago

Obligatory reference to Smedley Darlington Butler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

stjohnswarts 4y ago

So I take it I'm supposed to feel guilty for something my ancestors did? Sorry but I don't. Take it as a warning that corps have government tied around their finger and have for centuries, sure I can agree with that. I looked up some other articles by the authors they all seemed to have a heavy handed opinion overlaid over what should be simple reporting, so take this article with a grain of salt.

cayblood 4y ago
You're partaking of the spoils of your ancestors, and the material losses they caused can be directly traced to the living citizens of Haiti today. It's not really that much about guilt, but about actual liability.
Unearned5161 4y ago
exactly what cayblood said Too often people take these articles and say "well I didn't do that" "what do I have to do with it" "that happened hundreds of years ago, there's a whole new set of people nowadays". It's not just the actions in the moment, but the fact that actions have an effect over time. Take for example a country that loses a certain number of men in some battle many years ago. Well some of those men would have gone on to work on the land and have offspring, now no longer. Because of that, there was a hit to birth rates, and food production, which in turn affected nourishment country wide, and a smaller next generation adjusting for growth. Which later in turn affected GDP overall and other certain critical economic factors. The point is that actions don't happen in isolation, one might know this as the butterfly effect. How does this implicate "the white man that lives in america"? Because of all of this plundering and horrid behavior done on foreign soil and because of the slavery that happened in this country, it was a large contributing factor to bringing us to where we are now. And in the same way that it contributed to our success, it detracted from those oppressed group's success. We now live in a world that whether we like it or not, is founded on these horrible truths, and whether we like it or not there are groups of people, countries even, that are worse off because of that, sometimes significantly so. This is the foundation for conversations about reparations. What can we do now to balance the playing field, a field that we ourselves didn't throw out of balance, but that we are in the singular position to fix.

itissid 4y ago

Their financial freedom just twisting in the wind of what can be termed as neo colonialist capitalism. I edited the wiki page of C.I.C bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Industriel_et_Commercial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Industriel_et_Comm... today after reading the part of NYTimes about French involvement in late 19th century before the Americans decided to join the party. More people should know that almost every big bank in the west has a very shady past.