Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:34 am Post subject: Due 11/24
Please write a minimum of 100-200 words in response to tonight's reading
. For this post, your challenge is that you must respond to something one of your classmates has already posted. Remember to include a question to make that easier!
I think this reading further illuminated the idea that the U.S. only helped, or got involved with, Latin America when they had other motives or were getting something out of it. For example, on page 20 in the reading it talks about how the U.S. wanted four things from Latin America. They wanted “support at the UN…eradication of communism in the hemisphere; access to strategic raw materials; and military cooperation.” The way the U.S. attempted to get these things was by sneakily manipulating and brainwashing the people of Latin America through media and products. The reading says that the U.S. built libraries for Latin America, where people could read English-language books and other media, but the U.S. did not do this to benefit Latin Americans; they did this in order to get what they wanted.
Something I think was really messed up was the idea that “The easiest way to secure anti-communism was to support dictators,” (20). I think it is really horrible that the U.S., a country that prides itself in democracy and freedom, promoted dictators in Latin America just so they could get what they wanted. The U.S. did not care at all about what this would do to Latin American countries, but just about what they wanted and their fight against communism. The U.S. showed how far they would go to gain control and succeed in their motives when they overthrew the president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz. I can’t believe that the U.S. government went so far as to turn Arbenz’s men against him and stage a fake attack just to gain back land for growing fruit. And then the fact that after Arbenz was overthrown, Guatemala was thrown into a state of violence and ruin over the next four decades, just makes the situation worse. Way to go U.S.
My question is, what do you think about the fact that the U.S. and Latin America had a lot of similarities and integrations of their cultures, through media and entertainment, tourism, and “popular culture,” but that the governments still could not agree? What do you think this says about the governments? What do you think this says about the everyday people of these countries?
Reflecting on the quote Rachel mentioned on page 20 is ("The easiest way to secure anti-communism was to support dictators.") The reason US supported dictatorship was so they could put their focus elsewhere and come back to it later. It was the easiest way, and the US was all ready biting off more than they could chew. Although that was extremely messed up and I don't agree with the US promoting dictatorship, I think that was what made the most sense to the government at the time.Something that really disturbed me was that one of the only things the US gave to Latin America was military training (pg 20). Sure, it's great for a country to have a strong military to protect their people, but honestly, the money could have gone to places where the money was more needed (ex education, technology, ect...).
In response to Rachel's question:
I think the government was not quite ready to be just like the US and didn't want to give up their own country/ culture. They still had hope that their country could be as successful and don't like people telling them how it should be run.
My Question:
On page 23 it talks about the Cuba and how it wasn't ready for a revolution. Why do you think Cuba decided to have a revolution at this time? Also why do you think Cuba had such a huge grudge on the US?[/u]
@Rachel-- I think integrations and similarities of media, culture, entertainment, tourism and pop culture that the U.S. and Latin American relates lot to what we were learning about the U.S. in the 1950s'. I don't know if this is all a load of BS, but here it goes...
The 1950s' was a lot about things seeming a lot better than they actually were. Behind the facade of the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence, the housewife mom, the "Father Knows Best" dad, the two kids and the dog, people were really repressed and struggling (ex. the housewife alcoholism epidemic that Martha was talking about the other day). In addition to all that stuff, we were experiencing a red scare and dealing with a lot of rising racial tensions, etc,etc,etc. To distract ourselves from these problems, we used media and entertainment to escape. Shows like "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" were popular because they perpetuated the suburban ideal, which is something we all want because it represents happiness and security. While things in real life might be bad, things are great in tvland and thus we try to live vicariously through these kinds of shows. I don't think this representation of "how life is supposed to be" is exclusive to American TV, which is why Latin American media explored a lot of the same themes. The 1950s were the golden age of television so everyone, everywhere was beginning to use pop culture as a distraction from the harsh realities of daily life. Another reason Latin American media might so closely mirror ours is the fact that Latin America was really looking up to us at this time. We were supposed to help them build up their governments and economies. Our own personal political system was the perfect model of democracy and they wanted to emulate us. One way of doing this is making the media more "Americanized."
Going off of Emily's ides about how the government just wanted the easiest way to "deal" with Latin America, I think that this whole reading was about how the US didn't really care what their actions did to Latin America, they just wanted their actions to benefit America and "The War on Communism". Thats in quotes because of the example they gave about the overthrow of the Guatemalan president. It's unreal that the goverment staged that, just to be able to keep land that they originall stole from the people of Guatemala. But I defintaly believe that that is something the United States would do.
During the whole reading, i was baffled by how much crazy shit the US did but i was surprised, I was wondering if anyone else felt this way? And why do you think we aren't surprised?
Joined: 24 Nov 2009 Posts: 15 Location: undisclosed, MA.
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:24 am Post subject:
To Emily Sumner,
The book went into some detail about why the Cuban revolution happened. for one thing, it said that batista's military wasn't very organized.
From other sources, I found that most Cubans did not think too highly of America, but the rich ones supported relations with the U.S., often because they themselves owned the casino's and industries that relied on U.S. tourists.
What i'm saying is that maybe this rift between the rich and working class amounted to a socialist revolution, even though Cubans were comparatively richer then other latin-american countries like guatemala.
But maybe the biggest factor was Fidel Castro. He made his ideas very public with radio broadcasts. He had a heroic story about surviving the sinking of a ship. He gained a lot of sympathy from the media, and he was just a very charismatic leader. You might think charisma can't do that much, but when hitler joined the German Worker's Party, it had only fifty-five members. (not to compare the two in any way: i'm just saying that an individual leader can make a big difference in politics.)
Q?
In the Guatemalan section, both sides (yes, both) argue on page 22 that the debacle with United Fruit was not really about fruit, but about the spread of communism. Is this really true? was the U.S. looking for an excuse to attack, or was it because of the material and industry it wanted to preserve? either way lame, but i wanted to know...
BONUS QUESTION: when the reading said 'a stoned vice president', was the author also referencing that old joke about how Nixon got stoned on the great wall?
i think that the reason they did end up having a revolution was mostly because Fidel Castro led them too it. Even though Cuba itself didn't necessarily nned a revolution since they were doing fine financially, Fidel Castro found it to be a good target for one. On p. 23 it says "Castro saw Cuba as the next logical place for a revolution that would radically free Latin America from the control of U.S. imperialism." It would be drastic since the U.S. and Cuba had been pretty well intertwined up until that point.
The thing that surprised me most in this reading was how SNEAKY the U.S. was. An example is the fake attack on Arbenz. They used coca cola bombs and didn't actually have their army invade..
my question is: what do you think U.S. citizens or Guatemala citizens thought of this.. was it a smart plan.. or a cowardly one?
Sophia, in response to your question, I think that the US citizens did not know what to think of this fake attack. It talks about how when the Guatemalan government decided to take the fake US invasion to the UN Washington denied any involvement. I would guess then that it was difficult for US citizens to make a decision on if they agreed with it because they were not sure that the US government was even involved. In contrast I think that the people form Guatemala must have been terrified. The strongest country in the world was threatening to invade their country. They must have also been angry that the US would make a decision like this after all of the good things that their leader had done for their country. In the end the leader at the time left office out of fear and a new crueler leader took over.
My Question: The article talks briefly about how the US used propaganda to instill their ideas on Latin American countries. It says that the USIA used gray propaganda and the CIA used black propaganda. Why do you think Latin America didn’t bring this up to the UN or make in more publicly known? What do you think the US people would think of this had they know what the USIA and CIA were doing?
Sophia, in response to your question, I think that the US citizens did not know what to think of this fake attack. It talks about how when the Guatemalan government decided to take the fake US invasion to the UN Washington denied any involvement. I would guess then that it was difficult for US citizens to make a decision on if they agreed with it because they were not sure that the US government was even involved. In contrast I think that the people form Guatemala must have been terrified. The strongest country in the world was threatening to invade their country. They must have also been angry that the US would make a decision like this after all of the good things that their leader had done for their country. In the end the leader at the time left office out of fear and a new crueler leader took over.
My Question: The article talks briefly about how the US used propaganda to instill their ideas on Latin American countries. It says that the USIA used gray propaganda and the CIA used black propaganda. Why do you think Latin America didn’t bring this up to the UN or make in more publicly known? What do you think the US people would think of this had they know what the USIA and CIA were doing?
To follow up on what Sophie said...
I think U.S. found their method of bringing down Arbenz to be a smart plan. I have to admit while I was reading about how the CIA turned Arbenz's army against him the first thing that popped into my head was Mean Girls. How they take down that queen bee lady by taking out her main recourses to her popularity. The people of Guatemala either thought it was cowardly, or they didn't really notice what was going on. But to make an educated guess, I'd have to say they thought we were cowardly. Guatemalans seemed to like Abrenz as it's quote on page 22 (the 38 side of the page), "...but look what [Abrenz] did for Guatemala, the labor code, the Agrarian Reform, the Institute of Social Security, the Atlantic highway. I have my pension because of him." Obviously, people of Guatemala liked him and I doubt they appreciated us running him out of the country.
SO what I've noticed in the readings is basically if anyone doesn't agree with the U.S. we immediately accuse them for being communist. Does anyone else besides me find this a little ridiculous?
I would like to answer Ryan’s question (where was the UN when the US was using propaganda to mess with Latin America) with yet another question. Where was the U.N throughout all of this stuff? Where were they when the U.S overthrew the Guatemalan government? Why did they not try to stabilize many of the unstable governments in Latin America? I have heard that the U.N is fairly ineffective, but the US seemed to put a great deal of effort in insuring that the governments that came into power would support them in the U.N. This means that not only does the U.N have power but that Latin American countries had a sway of politics in them. I would imagine though that many of the issues addressed in this packet took second trump to the cold war and rebuilding of Europe after WWII.
The answer for Rachel's question.
i think U.S. and Latin America had lots of similarities and interests in culture, media, entertainments because they always had the relationship of curiosity. While they interdepended on each other, they set the stereotypes and positive ideology that increased the number of tourist to Latin America. However, I understand that U.S. government wanted to deny this similarity between these two countries because U.S. stood better than Latin America financially and had more power. Just like U.S. did before with the relationship with Latin America, it wanted to infleucne Latin America and to make them to follow U.S. while denying their needs when L.A. asks for it. I think this relationship went back and forth.
In response to Emily’s question, I think that the people of were sick of having to rely on the US for everything and that all they saw their currant government doing was making deals with the US and making their country more reliant on the US. As for why they had such a bid grudge against the US, on page 23 somebody who had visited Havana said “I was enchanted by Havana—and appalled by the way that lovely city was being debased into a giant casino and brothel for American businessmen over for a weekend from Miami. My fellow countrymen reeled through the streets, picking up fourteen-year-old Cuban girls and tossing coins to make men scramble in the gutter. One wondered how many Cuban—on the basis of this evidence—could regard the United States with anything but hatred.” This first hand account shows how most people from the US treated the people in Cuba (and probably in other parts of Latin America) with intense disrespect. As for why then, the reading talks about how Fidel Castro was very charismatic and so he could get a lot of people to listen to him and believe what he had to say. Also, Che had witnessed another attempted revolution so he sort of knew what to do differently.
The reading talked a lot about how the CIA secretly did a lot to over through governments—if it was secret how come we know about it?
At the end of class when Martha asked us to predict if the third wave will work, I expected the complete opposite. Peron, an 'evil' dictator from Argentina who sympathized with Nazi Germany thought of both the US and Communists as his allies. But then the reading said the US thought "the easiest way to secure anti-communism was to support dictators". It was still upsetting even though the US might of been in support of dictatorship, so they could pursue other matters. It definitely reminded me of The Truman Doctrine. A Doctrine that told Americans to invest in world peace and freedom, was only to protect our own trade market.
When reading I realized why the US only gave Latin America military training. Like Emily said they could of provided bigger necessities like education and technology, but those things, unlike military training, allow Latin America to still remain dependent on America. By providing military training it shows the illusion of support and co-dependence but is stopped short.
And to try to answer Ryan's question; "What do you think the US people would think of this had they know what the USIA and CIA were doing?"
I think they would probably feel stupid. I definitely would of, if I was tricked into believing slander. I think that was a really big problem, people trusted the government too much, as well as the media and other news outlets. I think if they knew about the mass amount of propaganda that shaped their opinions, that mainly made them in support of the governments decisions, they'd think twice. Now I believe their is more dissent with propaganda... at least during the Bush administration. Do you think propaganda was the best/ the only measure the US could of taken to influence the ideas of Latin American Countries.
This is in response to the question government still being unable to agree after integrations through media.
It is true that Latin American and the US went through a lot of integration during this time period. We may not know the real motives of the US, but it was clear from the packet that Latin America was still seen as inferior to the US. Like posted before the 4 things that the US wanted from Latin America were support at the UN, eradication of communism, "exploitation?" of raw materials, and military cooperation. The US did use sly tricks by using the media or a fake helping hand (for example building of libraries which was not introduced to improve education but rather to integrate US concepts to the people of Latin America). Althought these so called "integrations" seemed to benefit the US by brainwashing the people in Latin America, in my opinion, Latin America was still holding onto their traditions and beliefs. Latin Americans may have integrated a lot through influence from the US, but I believe the image that they had towards the US from the past prevented the government from agreeing. The people also may seem to be familiar with US culture, but in my opinion the stereotypes and the negative image towards the US, is what prevented from being totally sucked in by the US.
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The answer for Rachel's question.
