Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:11 am Post subject: Due 12/09
Please write a minimum of 100-200 words responding to tonight's reading. Build off of your peers responses and include a question to facilitate their posts.
Here's one to get your juices flowing:
How does this reading complicate or change your understanding?
First of all, that was incredibly difficult to read. I don't know if it was the military vocabulary, the small type, or the author's tendency to wander, but I had a lot of trouble staying focused.
Although the writing was confusing, the information I got from it didn't really complicate my understanding. One thing that it helped me to understand was more of the reasons why the US supported so many dictators in Latin America. This quote was very explanatory:
"For Huntington and much of the modernization theory school, the main agent of history is the middle class; a society with a middle class is thus optimum. Anything less smacks of monarchy, and anything more is Communism. The worst of all outcomes is Communism, and therefore at times oligarchies or even monarchies can be tolerated if it means that the middle class might eventually flourish." (p. 106)
I know thats a long quote, but what I thought it seemed to be saying is that anything was better than Communism, even dictatorships (oligarchies). This is because a dictatorship is actually more similar to a democracy than communism, because it has a concentrated center of power and then a middle and a lower class underneath it. Communism puts everyone on an equal plane, which Huntington argues is not beneficial to the Third World because it disperses the power away from a central governing body. This dispersion makes it difficult for a country to fight poverty in a focused and efficient way.
My question: What do you think is closer to democracy, communist rule or a dictatorship?
I completely agree with Charlotte. This was a really tough reading, the authors writing was choppy and heavily worded. If you miss one or two sentences, the next make no sense what so ever.
To answer Charlotte's question, they are both pretty horrible options. But I think dictatorship is better than living under communist rule. Although dictatorship is the US's band-aid solution to not having to help out another country, it could eventually lead to a revolution and maybe things will clear up. But if the country is in Latin America and switches to communism, they will have the U.S. against them and there could be another 'Cuban Missile Crisis' but the U.S. could choose to use option three. Which would be bad and cause huge commotion. I think it's safer to live in a dictatorship at this time in the reading.
My question: How different would Latin America be if there were not Coups?
So I completely agree with Emily and Charlotte, this was an extremely wordy difficult reading. I found myself re-reading the same sentences over and over again.
Anywho, back to business:
The reading complicated everything for me! There were things that I understood but most of it was all mangled to me. Thankfully I did some pretty epic looking active reading. After reading the whole thing I went back and reread my notes and I think it makes sense.
I know we've talked about this before (or at least I know I've thought about this before) but I still find it very interesting how the U.S. only intervened with a country if it threatened something about the U.S. An example of this is in the very beginning when the reading is talking about the difference between Guatemala and Bolivia. How Guatemala was were the United Fruit Companies land was and so if Guatemala became socialist we'd lose trade, but since we had nothing invested in Bolivia we didn't care if they tried to be "anarchist". Did I get that right? Or am I completely off?
I agree with both Emily and Charlotte, that the ready was very dense, the beginning especially, was very choppy. The writer didn’t really seem to follow a timeline, which makes the reading hard to follow.
To answer Emily’s question, I’m not sure if Latin America would have been better or worse without all the coups. But I do think that the people would have felt a lot better (sorry for lack of words) if they had more a say in their ruling government. If I elected a leader and a few months later, “the U.S.” overthrew them, I would feel very offended, and probably in turn reject the new government.
I found the part when hen the reading was talking about the comparison between the U.S.’s involvement in Bolivia and Guatemala to be the most intriguing. “The difference between Guatemala and Bolivia is perhaps in the role that U.S. firms played in the economy of each country.” For the U.S everything is about money.
Was military modernization a good idea? / Was it better than the communism?
this reading actually helped me better understand what happened in Bolvia regarding the U.S. the rest of the reading confused me time wise though. I understnd the individual events but as a whole im confused when things happened. I thought the stuff about the MNR was really helpful in getting a better understanding of what was going on in Bolivia. I hadn't understood what was happening before the U.S. intervened until this reading.
One quote that i thought was very funny was, "Why would the U.S. government, the champion of democracy, initiate military regimes in places where these goverments would resort to brutality against the nation?"
We have talked about that a lot in class. The U.S. claims that underdeveloped areas should be supported by the U.S. Really though they do it to help the U.S. security.
my question is do you think U.S. citizens knew about all the bad U.S. involvment in Latin America
I agree with Sophie. The really was really clear and interesting when I was reading about Bolivia, but then I had a really hard time getting through the rest. Certain parts stood out though.
To answer Sophie’s question, I don’t think the U.S. citizens were completely aware of what was really going on in Latin America. I think the government probably told them what it wanted them to know. A lot of people listen to the government and believe anything it says, so it wouldn’t be hard for the government to censor the truth. Also the government had a huge hand in what went into the media, and this was another way they could censor or twist the truth to their liking. I’m sure that U.S. citizens had a very biased view of Latin America, seeing as the government would most likely only show their side of everything.
Something I thought was interesting, but is kind of just more evidence to back up something we have discussed before, was in the reading when it said “Bolivia’s tin would come to the United States regardless of who owned the mines…Nevertheless, the was no urgency to tackle the Bolivian reforms , because they did not affect the basic structure of U.S. dominance in the short term.” I thought this was interesting just because it was saying how the U.S. wasn’t worried about Bolivia’s reforms because it would not affect it in a bad way. If the reforms had been affecting the U.S. economy, or if they had involved politics that the U.S. didn’t agree with, the government would have intervened right away.
My question is, what do you think about the quote from the reading “Most new nations that demobilized and disarmed their populations fell prey to military intervention, often driven by imperialist pressure.” ?
Again I have to agree with Charlotte and emily, even when I was following the skimming technique I just felt as if I didn’t really understand the reading to the fullest extent.
But to answer Sophie’s question, I don’t think that Americans were aware of the trouble U.S had in Latin America. I feel as if Americans only knew about anything that had to do with Latin America if it revolved around their safety. This where I get kind of upset. Its as if the U.S just creates problems and when they finally have one back they like, excuse my language, but bitch about it.
But anyways I shall bless you with my question is can someone please summarize Paz and his goals? Please. I keep reading it and rereading it and the information never processes =]
Echoing everyone else, but man, this reading was dense! It took me like a bajillion years to get through it.... I kept zoning out. Which isn't to say that it wasn't interesting, because it was, it was just so tough to understand in certain parts.
Answering Rachel's question: I guess that statement is pretty true. It just sort of confuses me. Is the imperialist pressure internal or external? If it were external, I'd say the statement is true. We want to control another country because we don't agree with their policies/they are bad for us economically. It just seems strange/confusing to me that the United States would intervene on all new, unarmed countries precisely because they are demoblized and unarmed... or would it be because we disagree with their governmental policies in the first place? Maybe I'm answering the wrong question. If the imperialist pressure was internal, teh statement is also true because the mililtary pressure could be coming from a rebel group looking to incite a coup.
My question... what was the CIA's role in Bolivia?
To also answer Rachel’s question: what do you think about the quote from the reading “Most new nations that demobilized and disarmed their populations fell prey to military intervention, often driven by imperialist pressure.”?
The reading talked a little about how the US and many other countries though that the one single military (not militias) could not only protect the government but also help to rebuild it. We thought that the military could be used for good within the country as well as its defense. I feel like this is one of the main reasons why we would chose to assist coups in countries that were attempting to disarm their military. The reading stated, “Power lies in the hands of those who control the means of violence. It lies in the barrel a gun, fired or silent.” Because of this fact, the reading thought that a coup would be the quickest way to change the direction of a forming country.
My question is do you think the quote “…A coups such as this, to borrow from Marx’s description of ‘Asiatic states,’ leaves the ‘fundamental economic elements of society’ and the bulk of the population ‘untouched by the storms which blow up in the cloudy regions politics.’” Has any truth and why?
In Emily's post she talks about how the US only got involved when their was something at stake. I understand we had no direct trade with Bolivia, like we did Guatemala, but everything was at stake. If one country in our back yard becomes communist the rest might. The US had many failed attempts at Cuba, but they still tried. They saw communism as a disease, if there was one successful turn to communism in Latin America, then the rest would join in.
And to what Maggie said, the countries at the time had no idea that the US was funding these coups, they just thought it was brought up (which it was) and fueled by the citizens.
Oh and my question kind of goes of Charlotte's:
Of the two which should of the US be more accepting, dictatorship or communism?
Yeah this was dense as hell. I actually had to start twice because on my first attempt I failed to absorb any information.
This discussion in this reading focused a lot more on the literature regarding the events in Latin America, as well as Africa. This is what made the reading so dense; it wasn’t just facts, but educated analyses of the facts. Hard to digest.
I was amazed when I read that “From the end of World War II to the early 1970s, one scholar estimates that at the most, two hundred coups took place in Africa and Asia as well as Central and South America.” That’s almost one coup for every developing country in the world. W0w.
But in response to Emily (Sumner)’s question, I would estimate that almost every if not every single nation in Latin America would have taken great strides toward Communism by now. As we have read, there have been coups in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Brazil and Chile, to name a few. Certainly a nation such as Venezuela, which we have not really discussed yet, would have done this if there were no pressure from the United States to stay off its bad side. As of today, a large portion of Venezuela’s natural resources, of which oil is no small part, have been nationalized. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, is no friend of the United States, and thus cares very little about the CIA’s opinion of him. I doubt a smaller, more United States-friendly nation such as Costa Rica would have taken such great strides, as Costa Rica certainly benefits from large amounts of American tourism each year.
My Question: How is reading someone else's analysis of the events which we are studying (not) beneficial to understanding why and how the events took place?
This reading made it seem impossible to make a stable friendly government in a developing world. The leaders of the country are in a complete catch 22. If they try to reform the system, then the military will stage a coup. If the build a militia to prevent a coup then they became dictators. If they don't help the US, then the US will instigate a coup, but following the US would ruin their own country. It seems that the only plausible way for the leader of a developing country to stay alive and in power is to becaume a dictator.
First of all, I WISH WE HAD A SNOW DAY TOMORROW!!!
Now, about the reading. This reading seemed pretty dense so I used Martha's technique to skim it. I actually enjoyed the reading and learned lots of new things. It was interesting that Bolivia ored as Europe's treasury and i was surprised to hear such a connection between Latin America and Europe because it seemed a long time since we read about Europe and L.A. Also U.S. did not intervene in Bolivia because U.S. knew that they were going to beneift from Bolivia anyways? I think this smar play of U.S. was very intelligent!
I found an interesting quote" The only way to avoid this menace is to educate the army politically in other words to nationalize it. and increase the militia" I was surprised that military is an obvious actor for social order. Because I thought military was the one who always screwed up the relationship between countires by forcing them to do something.
The author used the work "darker nation" and the way he defined it was amusing. I guess he defined it as a third world country where U.S. intervened a lot.
Also, it said "people have little rold in the creation of their own history." I agreed with the quote beause U.S. or other countries seemed to affect the country more than people who acutally live in that country.
It seemed as if many were having the same problem with this reading. The reading was really dense and didn't seem to connect much between every two or three sentences. It was hard to absord all the small bits of information that was pushed at us.
On topic, this reading showed the analysis of the decisions that the US put through during interventions. All the readings in the past (including this one) suggested that the US would only act when there is a viable threat to their "safety" or their economy. They have rigged many elections in Latin American countries, and this reading showed the ways in which the US worked to acheive their goals.
I think that dictatorship is closer to democracy. It seems to me that it is easier to overthrow a dictator compared to a whole government system that it put into place (communist).
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
First of all, I WISH WE HAD A SNOW DAY TOMORROW!!!
