okay storytime.
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okay storytime. let's talk about the united fruit company because people keep saying "this is unprecedented' and it's really not. the us has been doing this to latin america for over a century. we just got less formal about it for a while
united fruit was an american company that grew bananas. sounds boring and harmless
it was not
by the early 1900s they owned massive amounts of land across guatemala, honduras, costa rica, panama, colombia, cuba. not just farms. railroads. ports. telegraph lines. the infrastructure
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okay storytime. let's talk about the united fruit company because people keep saying "this is unprecedented' and it's really not. the us has been doing this to latin america for over a century. we just got less formal about it for a while
united fruit was an american company that grew bananas. sounds boring and harmless
it was not
by the early 1900s they owned massive amounts of land across guatemala, honduras, costa rica, panama, colombia, cuba. not just farms. railroads. ports. telegraph lines. the infrastructure
if you wanted to ship anything in or out of these countries you went through united fruit. they didn't just operate in these nations. they were the economy. the governments served at their pleasure
and when a government got uppity- tried something like land reform or labor rights or 'maybe our country shouldn't be owned by a foreign corporation -united fruit called washington
and washington sent the cia
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if you wanted to ship anything in or out of these countries you went through united fruit. they didn't just operate in these nations. they were the economy. the governments served at their pleasure
and when a government got uppity- tried something like land reform or labor rights or 'maybe our country shouldn't be owned by a foreign corporation -united fruit called washington
and washington sent the cia
guatemala 1954. jacobo árbenz was democratically elected. started redistributing unused land to peasants. this included land united fruit was hoarding and not even using. they were just sitting on it to control the market
united fruit's lobbyists told eisenhower this was communism. it was not.(not that it would matter if it were) it was a mildly progressive land reform policy. the cia overthrew arbenz and installed a military dictatorship anyway
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