by Oui
Tue Jan 6th, 2026 at 11:16:31 PM EST
Dole and Chiquita in Central America ... corruption, bribes, dictatorship and death squad training @ School of the Americas
Explore the history of the notorious United Fruit Company and how its influence over the banana industry impacted Central America.
In December 1910, the exiled former leader Manuel Bonilla boarded a borrowed yacht and set sail for Honduras in hopes of reclaiming power by whatever means necessary. Bonilla had a powerful backer: the notorious organization known throughout Latin America as "El Pulpo". It was a U.S. corporation trafficking in, of all things, bananas.
John Soluri investigates the United Fruit Company.
Banana Boats and Gun Boats: The Rise of United States Influence, 1899-1932
Continuing where the Promised Land left off in late 19th Century ... expansion, land grab and destruction indigenous peoples, cultures and society.
Oil and the Middle East: full circle from Mossadeq in 1953 to Khamenei in 2026 ...
Trump Coup Normalizes Regime Change, Israeli Criminality | Tikun Olam |
The world is entering a veritable nuclear winter of dictatorship and mass violence. In fact, given the breakdown in global order, taboos once thought unthinkable are now not only thinkable, but inevitable. As I wrote in yesterday's post, nuclear arms are no longer weapons of last resort. Only a fool would believe Netanyahu or Trump would not use such a doomsday weapon, if it permitted him to realize an otherwise unattainable goal.
As for Latin America, it has known the American boot since the days of the Monroe Doctrine. America has created countries, overthrown governments, stolen its resources, imposed lackey-leaders, and bellied up to its dictators. The very term "banana republic" described American satellite states whose agricultural plenty was raped by tinpot dictators on behalf of US corporate interests.
For example, Henry Kissinger orchestrated the Chilean coup, which violently overthrew the Marxist Pres. Salvador Allende and installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet as our puppet. Rather than surrender to the goons, Allende killed himself, becoming a martyr, resisting US-backed tyranny to the end. Decades of violent repression followed, including the murders of tens of thousands of leftists, some of them US citizens.
Then there was Bush overthrowing Manuel Noriega in Panama and Reagan invading Grenada to overthrow revolutionary leftist, Maurice Bishop. Not to mention our cozy relationship with dictators Fulgencia Batista in Cuba (see Godfather II) and Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. We enjoyed a similar relationship with "Baby Doc" Duvalier in Haiti. After he was overthrown, we essentially washed our hands of the country and watched it devolve into chaos and mass violence. It has become a drug-running web of gangs. Not even a narco-state, because there no longer is a state. We made the mess and walked away, making it someone else's problem.
Similarly, Trump has added Cuba to the list of future vassal states, claiming "it is ready to fall" (undoubtedly he's prepared to give it a push). More recently, Trump pardoned the drug dealing former president of Honduras. We are a toxic, malevolent force in Latin American politics.
America has returned to its colonial past. Latin America has, or threatens to become our sphere of influence, to do with what we wish regardless of what the citizens want. Trump's detestation of historical precedent sets back US-Latin American relations by a century. It may take decades and barrels of blood before we can return to some semblance of decency.
Trump's Alliance with the Anglo-Saxon Community of Europe
It is shocking that world leaders and international institutions have either offered fulsome praise for the US coup; or bland calls for "calm and restraint" (whatever that means). They have determined that ousting Maduro and catering to the whims of an American dictator trump human rights and the principle of territorial sovereignty-values that once stood for something.
The sheer effrontery of Macron presuming that Venezuelans are "rejoicing" while US war planes bomb their capital and a US dictator tells them he runs their country. This is no less an insult to the "dignity" of Venezuelans than Maduro was.
This should come as no surprise, since some of those countries (Britain, France, etc.) were once colonial powers, guilty of the same crimes Trump is now committing. While it would be hypocritical for them to condemn the coup considering their past, at least they would be standing for humane values they now claim to believe. Instead, they have reverted to the worst excesses of their past. It is a shameful betrayal. They will pay for it when the bill comes due.
One would have to be a fool to think that Trump's invasion will have no repercussions beyond Venezuela and its neighbors. Trump already has nearby states in his sights. He's explicitly warned Cuba, Columbia, and even Mexico that they are, or could be next. The sky's the limit as far as his vision of imperial grandeur is concerned. Nor is his appetite confined to this hemisphere: he's already launched a massive bombing campaign against Iran. As Tom Lehrer once sang, "Who's next?" Greenland? Denmark? Panama? South Africa? No doubt, policymakers and generals are preparing billions in new military spending to defend against Trump's depredations.
An excellent opinion piece in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant ...
Opinion: Face to face with Trumperialism, Europe is confronted with the ghost of our own past
What Donald Trump is displaying with the attack on Venezuela is nothing more than the colonial script that Europe itself has written for centuries, argues Yarin Eski. Only bigger, better, and stronger.
A group of shamans and healers hold signs with photos of world leaders during a New Year's ritual by the ocean in Lima, Peru. They predicted, among other things, the fall of Nicolás Maduro. (Photo Paolo Aguilar / EPA)
If you look at one of the many world maps of oil reserves that have gone viral in recent days, you could already sense before US President Donald Trump's speech that he's all about black gold. Hundreds of billions of barrels of it are said to exist in Venezuela.
Democratizing autocracies (which is impossible in itself, precisely because it involves Trump) no longer even needs to be considered a cover-up. Combating illegal drug trafficking is no longer just presented as a fallacy, as the CIA often did in the past. Of course, he was never concerned with the so-called "war on drugs": he even admitted without a trace of shame that the belligerent attacks on Caracas and the kidnapping of Maduro were about oil.
Trump's Freudian slip during his speech said it all: "I watched last night one of the most precise attacks on sovereignty. I mean, it was an attack for justice."
Trumperialism
It is raw imperialism, or perhaps more accurately, Trumperialism: aggressive, colonial, and totalitarian, aimed at seizing Venezuela's natural resources. Trump is arguably worse in this regard than Vladimir Putin. Geopolitical analyses already suggest that by securing Venezuelan oil, the United States will be virtually immune to disruptions to its energy supply from the Gulf States. It could even serve as a buffer for Trump should he wish to attack Iran in the future.
Even though Europe doesn't possess enormous oil reserves, Trump has us in his sights as well. A growing, US-driven narrative claims that we in Europe are suffering from a "civilizational erasure." Within this MAGA framework, Trump then positions himself as the supposed "savior" of Western civilization.
The same risks apply here, with similar outcomes as for Venezuela: an illegitimate "justification" for oppression, intervention, and ultimately for domination under the guise of "recivilization." That might well require more war - which would only suit Trump well, both to postpone the 2028 US presidential election and to once again divert attention from the Epstein files.
