I would be interested to know how you feel the US and others "beat down" people in Latin American nations because they wanted control of their resources.
The prime example might be Guatemala. They elected a president in what was considered a fair vote. The United Fruit Company lost a decision in the Guatemalan courts regarding, I believe, the non-use of land they owned or controled. Apparently, the law allowed the land to be distributed by the gopovernment in such cases. I am somewhat unclear on those facts, but what followed was very clear. Allen Dulles was head of the CIA. John Foster Dulles was Sec of State. One or the other of them also represented United Fruit or had close ties to the company. The US over threw the elected government, flying in the new chosen president on a US Embassy plane. The US seal is shown prominently in the open door of the arriving aircraft. Land reform ended. There followed decades of government by death squad, with 1-200k people murdered in the most horrible of ways. I visited Guatemala 2-3 times and knew an Anerican priest who had to leave the country because he was threatened by depth squads. Carter cut off military aid due to human rights violations. Sadly, Israel then sold them arms. The military had Uzis and Galil's. When Reagan came in he changed things, and restored support. He praised Efrain Rios Montt, who when democracy returned, was convicted of mass murder. He had been killing every living thing in some villages, but said he would accept execution for his crimes so long as Reagan was put up against the wall next to him, as the latter supported him. During Reagan's time, 1% of Guatemalans asking for asylum got it. Things got better under the first Bush.
In Nicaragua, FDR said to its corrupt president Somoza, "he's a son of a bitch, but he's OUR so of a bitch."
US was also involved intervening in the Dominican Republic, Chile, Panama to break it away from Colombia in order to build a canal, Grenada and El Salvador. In Cuba, the Platt Amendment allowed the US to intervene any time it wanted, I believe. I worked with a Cuban exile in 1960-61 as a teen. He told me "I hate Castro, but the US got what it deserved in Cuba." See Godfather II. It was our whore house.
The Platt Amendment for APUSH About the Author: Warren Hierl taught Advanced Placement U.S. History for twenty-eight years. He has conducted 250+ AP US History workshops for teachers. He was a member of the committee that wrote the original Advanced Placement Social Studies Vertical
apprend.io
Any comment on what Julius Kwasi has written? :
Why Most African Countries are Poor
Department of Social Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University in Kumasi, Ghana
'Behind some of the more outer causes of poverty in most African countries, lies in culture; the beliefs, ideologies and values that many Africans hold.
For example, many Africans think an easy going lifestyle or live now and don’t make any plans for the future and they see it as the best way to live. While this may have some advantages, this stands often in the way of development and taking responsibility.
Most notorious slum in these poor countries in Africa, many of slum inhabitants have mobile phones, despite the abject poverty there. Another striking fact is that many of these African citizens who are well off (very small wealthy class) do little to nothing to help their country forward.
While they may help their own family and tribe through favouritism or even outright corruption, there is very little feeling of responsibility for the country and the whole population"
Sounds like many Thirld World countries where a small group of elites control resources while the rest of the country goes hungry. The US has often talked and even acted a good game in opposition to this sort of thing, but especially during the Cold War, our anti-communism often trumped our pro-democracy tendencies. In my view, our approach resembled that of the Catholic Church during the Inquisition: heresy (communism) led to eternal damnation, therefore anything done to fight it was ok, an evil, but a lesser one. People joked that if your torturer was left-handed it was worse than a right-handed torturer. Or that mini-Hitler's were prefereable to anyone like Castro. This theory was advanced by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who became Reagan's ambassador to the UN. It's why the US disregarded treaties and attacked Nicaragua during Reagan's time.
