Posted on by rjonakait

Whither Venezuela?

President Trump hints that the United States will attack Venezuela’s homeland even though there is no declaration of war or other congressional authorization for such a hostile act. Trump has been a norm breaker, but in this instance, he would not be, for the United States has a long record of invasions and incursions into Caribbean countries. I heard from several people who had watched Ken Burns’s The American Revolution that his version was not the history that they had been taught in school. Even fewer of us were taught about our colonial adventures in Latin America.

Although Americans coveted Cuba throughout the nineteenth century and the United States had tried to purchase the island from Spain, America sent troops into Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Even though the conflict was concluded before the year’s end and even though Cubans had been fighting for their independence from Spain for decades, America occupied the island until 1902. We pulled out and allowed Cuba its independence only after she agreed to the Platt Amendment which permitted the United States to intervene when needed for “good government” and agreed further to lease us Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity for a handful of dollars. With the Platt Amendment as justification, we had troops in Cuba from 1906 to 1909, sent them back in 1912, and ruled Cuba militarily from 1917-22.

American troops, however, have been sent to more Caribbean places than Cuba. Using civil unrest as a justification, the United States sent troops into the Dominican Republic in 1916. They stayed there for eight years. More recently, 42,000 of our troops were ordered into the Dominican Republic in 1965. They left a year-and-half later.

We did not ignore the other part of Hispaniola. We occupied Haiti in 1915 and continued to do that for two decades, finally withdrawing our troops in 1934. In 1994, the United States again sent troops into Haiti to “restore democracy” and did again ten years later as part of a multinational force. Haiti, however, remains a troubled, failed country.

Our Haitian occupation was long, but we occupied Nicaragua even longer, from 1912-1933. We say that our Afghanistan war was our longest, but our armed forces were in Haiti and Nicaragua for nearly as long.

During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917), the United States occupied Veracruz and sent troops to chase Pancho Villa.

We, however, intervened with more than just our military in Latin American countries. In 1954, the CIA led the overthrow of the Guatemalan government; the CIA directed the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Moreover, the United States has tried to coerce our neighbors through sanctions, boycotts, and embargoes including those on Cuba and Nicaragua.(We did not limit such actions to the Americas. Daniel Immerwahrin “The United States Is an Empire” collected in Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past [2022], states that the United States during the Cold War secretly interceded sixty-four times in other countries to oust a government or tilt an election, often in support of authoritarians.)

Our actions in the Caribbean were designed in part to keep Europe out of the Western Hemisphere, following our self-proclaimed Monroe Doctrine, which, by the way, has no basis in international law. Thus, part of the reason for our occupation of Mexico’s Veracruz was to keep Germany, with whom Mexico was friendly, at bay. We occupied Nicaragua for those decades partly to make sure that no other country would build a waterway to compete with the Panama Canal.

Sean Mirski in We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus (2023) also suggests that the United States was discomfited by some countries’ debt. Some Latin American countries borrowed profligately from Europe and could not pay their bills. Under international law, the creditors were entitled to use force to collect the money owed to them. This was often a simple procedure when tariffs were the chief source of a country’s revenue. The creditors were allowed to seize the customhouse and collect the duties. The United States was concerned about this kind of European intervention in the Western Hemisphere with the additional concern that the Latin American countries would grant the Europeans more concessions in order to have their sovereignty restored. Facing these possibilities, America thought it was better for it to intervene and use the customs revenues to pay the Europeans. This was often beneficial for the Latin American countries where corruption was so endemic that little tariff revenue made its way to the public fisc. The Americans did not skim the money, or at least not at the same rates, as the native tax collectors. As a result, the debtor nation often saw its revenues increase.

Europe learned to play America in these circumstances. European interventions were expensive, and those foreign powers often actually wanted America to do it instead. America soon recognized that the debt and corruption problems would recur unless the countries became stable and lived within their means. This then required United States to become more involved in the internal affairs of the Latin American countries often leading to military interventions and authoritarian governments.

This pattern can be seen in the Dominican Republic which, in 1907, agreed that United States could appoint a receiver to collect customs duties until the outstanding Dominican debt was paid. Even so, or perhaps as a result, the next decade saw an eight-year occupation of the Republic by the United States.

America, however, intervened, invaded, occupied, and meddled because of more than concern about Europeans getting footholds in the Americas. We were also seeking to protect our own businesses. Our first occupation of Haiti came at the urging of what is now Citibank. Many American businesses urged the occupation of Veracruz. American companies often had massive holdings in Caribbean countries. For example, by 1926, United States companies owned 60% of Cuban sugar industry and imported 95% of the sugar crop.

The United States also claimed an interest in preventing communists from getting power in the Americas. For example, Lyndon Johnson said he was sending troops into the Dominican Republic to protect American lives and property but also to prevent establishment of communist dictatorship. Reagan placed embargoes on Nicaragua because of fears the country was becoming communist.

However, as Stephen Kinzer says specifically about Foster Dulles in The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (2013), America foreign policy in general “could not distinguish between indigenous nationalism and imported communism.”

Furthermore, our foreign policy has often conflated support for large, multinational corporations with opposition to communism. Guatemala is a case in point. Seventy years ago, Jacobo Árbenz, the head of the Central American country, wanted land reform. He meant to purchase uncultivated acreage for the government to be redistributed among the people. Eighty-five percent of the United Fruit Company’s vast holdings in Guatemala were in those very uncultivated lands. The corporation cried “communism.” They cried even more when Guatemala offered to pay what United Fruit claimed the land was worth for tax purposes. The corporation wanted ten times that amount. Our country’s response: Overthrow the Central American government, which we did.

Over the years our interventions succeeded in keeping European countries from grabbing significant influence in the region. They also succeeded in increasing the profits and influence for a number of multinational companies. They may have kept the price of bananas and other commodities lower than otherwise. However, they did not improve the lives of most of those in the region, and they did not improve the working lives of most Americans. Finally, our actions did not lead to democracies or stable governments, and thus our interventions continued.

Now the United States seems poised for military action on Venezuela’s home soil. It is almost impossible to gauge the likelihood of success because the goals are murky. A stated goal has been the elimination of “narcoterrorism” to reduce overdose deaths in this country. If that were the real reason, we could declare victory now. Few of the drugs bought in the U.S. come from Venezuela, and these drugs cause almost none of the overdose deaths. Maybe we want Venezuela’s oil. They have a lot of it, and it’s being inefficiently managed. The real goal, however, seems regime change. We want Nicolas Maduro to leave office. Many people do. He is an illegal, brutal ruler overseeing a failing economy. It is not surprising that many citizens have now left Venezuela. But even if regime change is the goal, it is not clear why Trump and Rubio are singularly fixated on Caracas and not other countries with brutal rulers. Rubio may have a far too personal interest. His family fled Cuba, and Rubio has always resented Venezuelan support of Cuba.

History does not necessarily repeat itself, but history often holds lessons. We have forced many regime changes in Caribbean countries. Peace and bonhomie seldom followed. Instability with harsh conditions for the people of those nations often has. Whither Venezuela?

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I often think that I get those quotidian 50/50 choices wrong more than half the time. When I try to insert the USB cable, or the polarized plug, or pull on the up/down shade cord, push or pull the door, or similar everyday tasks, I seem to get it wrong far more often than I get it right. I keep meaning to keep track for a week to see if my perception is correct, but I have so far failed to perform this crucial experiment.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Picasso.

There is much talk that Trump is destroying democracy, but as pointed out in Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past. (2022) by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer,“Majoritarian democracy may not sound like something so unusual for an American president to embrace, but the conservative movement had treated it with suspicion for decades.” In the 1960s, conservatives said again and again that United States is a republic, not a democracy. However, Akhil Reed Amar in his essay “Founding Myths” in Kruse and Zelizer’s book maintains that at this country’s founding many Americans treated “republic” and “democracy” as broadly the same.

Often when Trump starts rambling, I think of the statement by Fran Lebowitz: “Generally speaking, it is inhumane to detain a fleeting insight.”

“Neurosis seems to be a human privilege.” Freud.

I am now so old that I regularly watch “Wheel of Fortune” and some non-sports shows on CBS.

A wise person said: “Alas! It is man’s fate to keep on growing older long after he is old enough.”

“Life should consist in at least fifty per cent pure waste of time, and the rest in doing what you please.” Isabel Patterson.

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another—it’s one damn thing over and over.” Edna St Vincent Millay.

“The biggest problem people have is leisure. Anybody can handle a jam-packed day.” Peg Bracken.

I have finally learned that a good listener is generally thinking about something else.

I have also learned that bores are people who would rather talk about themselves when I’d much rather talk about me.

I believe in being a gentleman if Oliver Herford is right when he said, “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.”

I believe in being on time. However: “The trouble with being punctual is that there’s nobody there to appreciate it.” Harold Rome.

I believe in love. “Love is a wonderful thing and highly desirable in marriage.” Rupert Hughes.

However: “I think unconditional love is what a mother feels for her baby, and not what you should feel for yourself.” Helen Gurley Brown.

“Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born.” George Bernard Shaw.

Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

It Was So Age-Inappropriate What I Read

My grade and high schools must have had libraries, but I have little memory of them. I certainly don’t remember any controversies surrounding what books they should or should not shelve. On the other hand, I have many memories of the Mead Public Library, the facility that served the entire town of 45,000. I went there obsessively. It was a two-story building with the adult section on the entrance floor and the children’s books upstairs.

I gave little thought to who or how it was decided what books were in the children’s library. The decision, no doubt, was made by the librarians as to what was age appropriate. Appropriateness, I would guess, had to do with reading ability. Third graders were not ready for War and Peace or Descartes. Such books would be in the adult section.

Now, however, books are kept from children not just because of vocabulary, complexity, or length. Instead, the books in many places are segregated because the subject is not considered age-appropriate or, as an Arkansas statute says, because the book will be “harmful” to the young reader or even because it may make a reader “uncomfortable.”

Take Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman. It has been frequently removed from shelves for being age-inappropriate, but it is written with a simple vocabulary and structure with innocent, colorful illustrations. It is not age-inappropriate for first and second graders because it is too difficult to read. Instead, some adults insist it is age-inappropriate because of its subject matter. The book readily accepts as normal a same-sex relationship, although nothing in the book states that Heather’s mothers have sex. Is this age inappropriate? The answer should be no.

If children are asking about a topic, a book in age-appropriate language is not inappropriate. It is only natural for curious kids to wonder why they have a mother and father while another child has two mommies or only one parent or only a grandmother. Books written at a suitable language level about divorce, single motherhood, and untimely death are appropriate for kids who wonder about such things. The same is true for a family with two mothers or fathers. Heather has been banned not because young’uns are not inherently interested in the topic but because adults are uncomfortable with it.

Some book removers go further when books for kids deal more directly with sexuality. They maintain that the goal of the authors and librarians is to groom or indoctrinate children. If the fear is that schoolkids will be transformed into  gay or trans or nonbinary people, it’s just plain silly…worse, ignorant. On the other hand, these books introduce the concept that gay, lesbian, trans, nonbinary, and other queer folk should be accepted into the community, should be free from legal and societal discrimination, should be treated with the same respect as we treat others. (I recall there being something in the Bible about loving thy neighbor as thyself.) However, if that’s the kind of dangerous indoctrination the censors fear, they may be right.  

Attacking books because of their sexuality might mask broader concerns than just gay sex.  What comes to mind is what Masha Gessen wrote about Vladimir Putin in The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. When Putin feels politically vulnerable, he launches anti-gay attacks. He has produced his own version of don’t-say-gay laws by enacting legislation that bans “homosexual propaganda.” Putin has also anticipated those loyal Americans who don’t want topics taught that might make school kids uncomfortable. Russia under Putin “protects” kids not merely by eliminating reference to homosexuality. He has also banned “any mention of death, violence, suicide, domestic abuse, unhappiness, and, really, life itself.” In putting in place these restrictions, Putin has said that he is defending “traditional values.” As far as I am aware, however, he has not said that he was promoting “family values.” When he is criticized, Putin has been a master at diverting that criticism by attacking gays.

When I hear concerns that books are in the library for purposes of  “indoctrinating” children, I think back to what I recall of my elementary school reading. I remember few of the books I consumed except for a series which I labeled in my mind the “orange biographies” because they all had orange bindings. Of appropriate length and vocabulary for a third grader, they were hero books with an emphasis on the childhoods of the likes of Thomas Edison or Andrew Jackson, but they also contained enough about the subject’s adulthoods for me to learn a bit of history. These books have stayed with me on some level, forming some of my background knowledge about various personages and historical eras. Looked at another way, however, they were books that indoctrinated.

Although the spouse remembers an orange biography about the first woman doctor, almost all were about men. Although there might have been biographies about Booker T. Washington or Washington Carver, almost all were about whites. They were about “great” white men with little, if any, suggestion that “ordinary” people did important things. They were all about Americans as if “foreigners” could not or did not contribute to a better world. The books were a subliminal indoctrination into the American myth that any American child (at least any white male) could become a great person—just work hard and live right and, perhaps, be a little adventurous. The subliminal corollary to this belief, however, is that if you or your parents have not become rich, are not powerful, or are not important, it is your or their fault. (David Maraniss reports in A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Family that the playwright Arthur Miller thought Americans had the tendency to blame themselves for economic shortcomings and not the economic system. He theorizes that this proclivity to blame oneself prevented America from ever facing a real challenge to the economic system.)

So yes. Reading indoctrinates. By using a much less charged synonym, however, we also know that reading teaches. That is, of course, why education should present all sorts of information and all sorts of views to children. Presentation of only one viewpoint might be indoctrination; presenting more than that gives a child a true opportunity to learn.

(The fear by conservatives of indoctrination in our schools is not new, but the concern over subject matter has not remained constant. I found it amusing when I read that William “Big Bill” Thompson ran for Chicago mayor in the 1920s on an America First platform charging that the English monarchy was planting pro-British propaganda in the Chicago schools. Sarah Churchwell, “America First” in Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.)

Concluded June 19