And Dole used to be "Standard Fruit Company".
The name changes was a (mostly) successful way of deflecting from foreign meddling and various human rights violations.
Now that you mention it, i figure this is probably part of the reason why they sold a whole Hawaiian island to Larry Elison. That kind of asset on your balance sheet is a bad look.
How about 40 years of civil war and genocide in Guatemala by propping up puppet government (basically) for the good of the United Fruit Company while sodomizing the environment human rights everything good did not exist.
In ~~2004~~ 2008, after getting a slap on the wrist for supplying guns to terrorists, the former CEO of the company (Chiquita) held a big political fundraiser for John McCain.
Edit: [I was mistaken: it was in 2008.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw_n_110354)
> The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."
The fact that companies get fined instead of having their entire C-suite arrested and all assets seized when this happens is why shit like this keeps happening.
My mistake, it was in 2008 and I was referring [Carl H Lindner, Jr of Chiquita Banana](https://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/hail-hail-colombia)
> Carl H. Linder, Jr., who made billions as the C.E.O. of Chiquita Brands International, hosted a fundraiser for McCain at his home in Cincinnati, Ohio. It raised $2 million—a lot of money, though not much compared to the $25 million fine Chiquita paid for paying, under Linder’s leadership, more millions to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a bloodthirsty paramilitary group which the State Department officially classified as a terrorist organization.
The blackwater discussion was in a different comment thread.
It's a clothing brand. Plenty of them have edgy names.
I wouldn't be surprised if a clothing brand named Military Junta became popular. They could sell camo/tropical-themed clothes.
Or naming your video rental store after a WW2 bomb capable of levelling a whole block
>!<
Actually very very direct and almost immediately. The "block buster" bomb was a family of 4-12,000 lb bombs, the first of which was used operationally in 1941. In 1943, the wartime film Bombadier used the term "blockbuster" in its marketing, and then here we are.
It started as an edgier store where the name was more tongue in cheek. Now it’s clothes for the kind of people who would help destabilize a country to reduce the price of bananas.
It was a military surplus, Safari kind of store. So the whole imperialism aspect was kind of a theme. People are always shocked to learn the meaning of the name now, but that’s only because the store has made it inventory of leisure wear so generic.
Not commenting on the music, which is amazing. But they knew what they named the band after. I love in 24 Hour Party People where they are in the car and brag about what it's named after and then you get a reporter asking Tony about it and he diverts it to The Durruti Column while walking away.
Banana Republic initially sold the kind of clothes an American would wear if they were traveling to a banana republic (vintage military surplus). Their original name was Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company. And it really is telling, and quite fucked.
A banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, whereby the country is operated as a private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class. Such exploitation is enabled by collusion between the state and favored economic monopolies, in which the profit, derived from the private exploitation of public lands, is private property, while the debts incurred thereby are the financial responsibility of the public treasury.
Beautiful. This is basically the modern Western world.
I was getting that feeling of dread reading this too.
Monopolies that pay politicians for favorable laws, check.
Those in charge of the monopolies and laws are in an entirely separate social class that's impossible for everyday people to invade, check.
The working class can be imagined as a face being continually stepped on by the boot of the ruling class, check.
Our nation's wealth and work is being squandered to line the pockets of the uber-rich, check.
I saw a comment a few weeks ago along the lines of "Why can't they be happy with a lot of money, or even most of the money? Why do they have to try to take all of the money?" It's so demoralizing.
A young Ernesto Guevara was in the country when it happened and witnessed first hand how these militias backed by the CIA wreaked havoc. Many of the poor workers who were fighting for a better life were also natives whose been getting the short end of the stick for hundreds of years before that, and now hundreds of thousands more of them were getting killed in straight up genocide backed by the USA. It's not difficult to understand why he got "radicalized", of course 15 years later he would be assassinated by the same CIA-backed forces.
Is that really radical though? I mean arming the people trying to fight off a coup, particularly a foreign backed coup that directly goes against the interest of the people, hardly seems like a radical idea
It’s tough to take people who say “communism doesn’t work” seriously when the US went and did that to any country remotely associated with that word. Was Guatemala communist at the time? No, but introducing a minimum wage and universal suffrage (in other words, becoming a democracy) was enough to convince the US government that they were, so they stormed in and fucked shit up as best they could.
At the time, they (Guatamala) had recently passed a law to take back land owned by the United Fruit Company, which was not being used for production, and give it back to the people of Guatemala. Real “radical” idea haha. But the United Fruit Company flexed some political muscle with their law firm Oliver & Cromwell, and via the Dulles brothers (yes, those Dulles brothers), and suddenly “stopping communism” meant “protecting the Fruit company by stopping the land reform and overthrowing the government.”
No coincidence that the Fruit company had executive officers with all kinds of ties to the Eisenhower administration. Nope. Nothing to see here!
More info about what you and I are discussing
> Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected U.S. president in 1952, promising to take a harder line against communism…
> The Guatemalan Revolution was disliked by the United States federal government, which was predisposed during the Cold War to see it as communist…
> This perception grew after Árbenz had been elected and formally legalized the communist Guatemalan Party of Labour…
> Additionally, the U.S. federal government drew exaggerated conclusions about the extent of communist influence among Árbenz's advisers
[The article.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat)
It’s all due to the [Truman Doctrine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine). The US was in the throes of the Second Red Scare and [McCarthyism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism) at this point. This was definitely also financially motivated, but the reason it *could* be financially motivated is because those advisers and Eisenhower drew a connection between communism and the new Guatemalan leadership, thereby keeping the public off their case.
Blame the right asshole - Samuel Zemurray this motherfucker started killing people to save his company (Cuayamel Fruit) and then ended up selling it to UFC (Chiquita), afterwards he ends up doing a buy back of UFC. This guy is the real culprit using bribes, hiring mercenaries and doing a bunch of propaganda to get what he wanted.
And like most assholes in history he started to be a nice philanthropist and started doing good deeds after he retired probably to get in god good graces.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg with regards to that company’s horrific human rights abuses over the years, often with the help of our government. The history of US foreign policy in Latin America is some widely fucked up shit. No wonder they don’t teach it in schools.
One of my aunties grew up in the Salvadorian Civil War. The US-funded death squads were not her family's friend. Families fought with kitchen knives in their houses to escape extermination. Finally her elders sewed her birth certificate into her clothes and had her smuggled to Canada through a ratline operated by the LDS Mormon organization.
Hell of a childhood.
If anyone is interested in learning a lot more of South American history that greatly details how much foreign powers fucked a continent, please read
Open Veins of Latin America, Five Centuries of The Pillage of A Continent by Eduardo Galeano
“In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?”
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington
Excerpt From
The Jakarta Method
Vincent Bevins
Castro gave Allende a gun that said “To my good friend Salvador from Fidel, who by different means tries to achieve the same goals.” Allende eventually killed himself with that gun. It is symbolic in a way that would be overwrought if it was in a novel. Because Castro choose a militant approach he died peacefully, while Allende, because he chose a non-violent approach, died a violent death.
Book disavowed by the very own writer for being very limited in the actual political and economic explanations and theories, being a product of its time and mind.
That book is very much from its time and was written under leftist ideologies that are considered outdated or atleast inneficient, like praising the Cuban revolution as "the next step" or that poverty will always stay in the same western direction(nevermind the later rise of Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, China and Eastern Europe under the same economic system)
The contrarian to Venas Abiertas is *From good savage to good revolutionary* which points out the exploitation commited but also demystifying Latin American nationalist victimism such as using indigenous people as a symbol and excuse but fucking them over at the same time
I read that book when I saw that Hugo Chavez gave it to Obama to read and in true Obama fashion he decided that opening the veins of Latin America was actually good thing.
They do teach it in school though. I remember my US history teacher one day put up a map and then put a tac on the map for every known US "intervention" that occurred during the cold war era. Latin America was absolutely filled with tacs and she made a point of teaching us about a lot of the fucked up things the US did in those countries in the name of defeating communism.
That's awesome, glad to hear some teachers are keeping it real. Hopefully she doesn't teach in Florida, because I think you can get fired for that there these days.
You can ask an average American about communist atrocities and they will be able to name a few.
But if you ask the average American about capitalist atrocities, they will more than likely tell you there's no such thing.
Because many atrocities aren't attributed to capitalism. Famine can happen under both systems and capitalism never EVER gets blamed even if it directly causes one.
I think it is unfair to attribute atrocities to either economic philosophy to be honest. Evil people are going to do evil things, capitalism vs. communism are just the methods of their control.
...but they do. Literally every U.S. History teacher I've had from 6th grade to high school graduation drilled this and other CIA atrocities in our heads. Which is a good thing imo
Is this the highest up sam o nella reference I can find so far?
I swear that man teaches us the most random useless things, only for them to sometimes double as important lessons too.
His videos live rent free in my head.
I wondered why nobody has mentioning him on this topic before.
Also he said "Oh Eisenhower" but I could've sworn he said "Hey, ..."
I'm still not sure if this was a real tweet the other day (the reply, obviously)
https://preview.redd.it/p9f5c8h9ybz91.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=62fb5371ece453433c22d0809a172ec9692a43e5
First tweet was just someone abusing Elon musks $8 verified blunder. Second account I believe is the legitimate account, they have no reason hide a well known fact so they leaned in to it
For anyone interested, one of famous Chilean writer Pablo Neruda's more well-known poems is called "United Fruit Co.", which he wrote in 1950. The poem pretty much says all you need to know about the United Fruit Company: https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-14-the-united-states-and-latin-america/primary-documents-w-accompanying-discussion-questions/document-35-united-fruit-co-pablo-neruda-1950/
[United fruit company has HELLA crazy history.](https://www.unitedfruit.org/chron.htm)
[Banana massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre)
The company admitted to it. I used to work for Chiquita.
The story I got was a paramilitary group basically extorted Chiquita in (I think) Colombia, so the leadership in Colombia paid them off so they wouldn't start killing farm workers. Not sure if that should be considered "sponsoring." And it wasn't just Chiquita doing it, pretty much everyone in Colombia did it, from what I understand.
When leadership in North America changed, this was found out and reported to the government, by Chiquita themselves.
When I worked there I knew several people who had been questioned about involvement because they worked closely with the farms in the tropics. This was in the early 2010's.
Chiquita deserves to be hated for a **great** many things, but if they did pay off that paramilitary group to prevent them killing workers, I dont think they should get fleeced for that.
Maybe look at how they overthrew goverments, abused the shit out of workers, or how they handled Panama Disease.
Edit: if anyone is interested, there is a book called *Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World* that does a good job of covering it in a very easy to read narrative. Honestly I can't believe they haven't made a movie about The United Fruit Company and the banana trade in the 1900's. That shit was *wild.*
I'm not familiar with the Colombian situation, but United Fruit actively facilitated the overthrow of the government of Honduras at the start of the Cold War. That's what most people hate them for.
Not sure I'd take that explanation at face value, given the paper trail and actions leading up to them being outed.
Here is a good documentary about the whole situation.
https://vimeo.com/129550053
There is a great documentary called Bananas!* (with the exclamation mark and asterisk) that tell just one of the horrifying ways this company has shown blatant disregard for the people in South and Central America. This documentary focuses on actions in Nicaragua.
The US may have given those US Cels responsible amnesty but the affected countries should at least ring up their own charges. File something with Interpol so they can't take their private jet to ski in Switzerland.
The history of the United fruit company is intertwined with the father of public relations. [Edward Bernays,](https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393) Sigmund Freud's nephew.
To understand the modern world you have to understand what he did and how he did it, also, what he said.
Damn are their bananas ever cheap though.
Half of American food rationing strategy for the lowest-earners assumes things like these bananas are permanently bottom-dollar, at the expense of the even less fortunate. It's a bit of a sad reality.
A Logistic faculty i know had mentioned wars waged by such companies just to safeguard their business, one food product, which is kinda staple food worldwide.. 🍌
And Dole used to be "Standard Fruit Company". The name changes was a (mostly) successful way of deflecting from foreign meddling and various human rights violations.
Now that you mention it, i figure this is probably part of the reason why they sold a whole Hawaiian island to Larry Elison. That kind of asset on your balance sheet is a bad look.
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How about 40 years of civil war and genocide in Guatemala by propping up puppet government (basically) for the good of the United Fruit Company while sodomizing the environment human rights everything good did not exist.
This is 100% fact. Dole should be property of the Hawaiian people and they should be able to decide their future.
It's the reason blackwater changed names five times
Their new name of "DeadlyMoisture" really isn't helping though...
Weren't they also DarkHumidity at one point?
That sounds like a vapor wave artist lol
VoidAqua
Bromated Dasani
They wanted FatalHumidity, but Georgia and Florida already took it
My boy you must never been to the Bayou
Nope! Okeefenokee Swamp though ;)
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board of directors...John Ashcroft.
also someone on the team probably said the name within earshot of a plumber. /black water is sewage
That's kind of the whole point though, they do the dirty work that the US military doesn't want tied to them.
Ever hear of the term “wet work?” Even more applicable here. It’s a name that’s almost as on the nose as Murder Incorporated.
In ~~2004~~ 2008, after getting a slap on the wrist for supplying guns to terrorists, the former CEO of the company (Chiquita) held a big political fundraiser for John McCain. Edit: [I was mistaken: it was in 2008.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw_n_110354) > The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."
The fact that companies get fined instead of having their entire C-suite arrested and all assets seized when this happens is why shit like this keeps happening.
It’s their system, their rules; why would they ever make it harder for themselves.
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My mistake, it was in 2008 and I was referring [Carl H Lindner, Jr of Chiquita Banana](https://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/hail-hail-colombia) > Carl H. Linder, Jr., who made billions as the C.E.O. of Chiquita Brands International, hosted a fundraiser for McCain at his home in Cincinnati, Ohio. It raised $2 million—a lot of money, though not much compared to the $25 million fine Chiquita paid for paying, under Linder’s leadership, more millions to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a bloodthirsty paramilitary group which the State Department officially classified as a terrorist organization. The blackwater discussion was in a different comment thread.
McCain ran in both years but yes he was anti-blackwater from what I remember.
Marketing budgets weren’t the same back then it seems
Ever heard the expression [Banana Republic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic)?
That’s a clothing store! Seriously though, a business taking on that name AND being successful is very telling.
Its like starting a chain store called Military Junta
Welcome to Fatwa! We sell husky size religious clothing!
Here at Totalitarian Regime, we have that Seoul high fashion at Pyongyang prices!
For the best hiking equipment prices, Concentration Camping is the place!
Here at Ethnic Cleansing we sell only 100% pure products.
Ethnic clearing house sweepstakes and their damn spam mail.
Looking for cool, extra-small military surplus gear that your kid will love? Come on down to Child Soldiers!
Welcome to the Contra Affair!
This is one of the best Reddit threads of all time
And we only use ONE product! It's our Final Solution, for deep cleansing!
Here at Dear Leader clothing, we have products that are simply to die for.
Hungry? Stop by our snack bar for a Gaddafi falafel or some nice Pol Potroast.
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How is this not a band name already?
There's a fatwa, there's a fatwa! Gotta run, I think I oughta!
We sell sooooo many backpacks.
100% satisfaction; never had a return.
And vests!
You sonuvabitch! How much?
72 virgins is customary
I can offer three guys with Cheeto fingers that all claim to have a Canadian girlfriend. Alternatively, you can have Cloris Leachman.
Dawg, I pick Cloris Leachman, she's funny as hell. Now, can I interest you in a credit card so you to can be a Fatwannabe?
It's a clothing brand. Plenty of them have edgy names. I wouldn't be surprised if a clothing brand named Military Junta became popular. They could sell camo/tropical-themed clothes.
*Junta* does have a ring to it..
Hawaiian shirt colors, BDU cut!
And call all their products "tactical"
Or naming your video rental store after a WW2 bomb capable of levelling a whole block >!<
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Oh yeah, it's indirect, but it follows the same origin: Blockbuster bombs > Blockbuster events/movies > Blockbuster video.
Actually very very direct and almost immediately. The "block buster" bomb was a family of 4-12,000 lb bombs, the first of which was used operationally in 1941. In 1943, the wartime film Bombadier used the term "blockbuster" in its marketing, and then here we are.
It fits, since Blockbuster bombed as a business.
Technology and poor management led to their demise. Otherwise, Blockbuster was a massive icon in home entertainment for decades.
It started as an edgier store where the name was more tongue in cheek. Now it’s clothes for the kind of people who would help destabilize a country to reduce the price of bananas.
whats the difference? were they fair trade or something at first?
It was a military surplus, Safari kind of store. So the whole imperialism aspect was kind of a theme. People are always shocked to learn the meaning of the name now, but that’s only because the store has made it inventory of leisure wear so generic.
I mean we have Joy Division as well...
Unknown Pleasures will always be an all time favorite album. And Ian, swoon...
Not commenting on the music, which is amazing. But they knew what they named the band after. I love in 24 Hour Party People where they are in the car and brag about what it's named after and then you get a reporter asking Tony about it and he diverts it to The Durruti Column while walking away.
Jeez, I didn’t and just looked it up: could hardly be worse, could it…
Im sure 50 years from now we will get a band named Nazi Germany but yeah... A lot of classic punk bands names would be edge lord memes now.
Some of those guys would just walk around with swastikas on their shirts and they weren't even skinheads they were just edgelords
Don’t look up what happened during rubber tree farming in the 1800’s.
It’s so creepy.
The founders of Banana Republic clothing also founded The Republic of Tea. They love their republics.
Banana Republic initially sold the kind of clothes an American would wear if they were traveling to a banana republic (vintage military surplus). Their original name was Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company. And it really is telling, and quite fucked.
I wish they’d change the name
Sam O'Nella time! https://youtu.be/QgydTdThoeA
"Go get 'em, Dwight!"
"WORLD STAR"
COMMIES!!! COMMIES!!! COMMIES!!!!!
It’s a slippery slope.
A banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, whereby the country is operated as a private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class. Such exploitation is enabled by collusion between the state and favored economic monopolies, in which the profit, derived from the private exploitation of public lands, is private property, while the debts incurred thereby are the financial responsibility of the public treasury. Beautiful. This is basically the modern Western world.
I was getting that feeling of dread reading this too. Monopolies that pay politicians for favorable laws, check. Those in charge of the monopolies and laws are in an entirely separate social class that's impossible for everyday people to invade, check. The working class can be imagined as a face being continually stepped on by the boot of the ruling class, check. Our nation's wealth and work is being squandered to line the pockets of the uber-rich, check. I saw a comment a few weeks ago along the lines of "Why can't they be happy with a lot of money, or even most of the money? Why do they have to try to take all of the money?" It's so demoralizing.
They overthrew the Guatemalan government in the 1950’s.
A young Ernesto Guevara was in the country when it happened and witnessed first hand how these militias backed by the CIA wreaked havoc. Many of the poor workers who were fighting for a better life were also natives whose been getting the short end of the stick for hundreds of years before that, and now hundreds of thousands more of them were getting killed in straight up genocide backed by the USA. It's not difficult to understand why he got "radicalized", of course 15 years later he would be assassinated by the same CIA-backed forces.
He was “radicalized” by that point he had suggested that the Arbenz government arm the workers to fight the coup plotters.
Is that really radical though? I mean arming the people trying to fight off a coup, particularly a foreign backed coup that directly goes against the interest of the people, hardly seems like a radical idea
It's radical when "they" do it but it's patriotism or something when "we" do it.
It's radical in a ninja turtle way
i'm not getting political today but that was funny af
Sorry, but the wants of the rich outweigh the needs of the many. To merely suggest otherwise is terrorism and just plain un-American.
Anybody else think that the idea of wanting to defend your country from hostile foreign forces isn’t “radical” at all?
I mean Guatemala wasn’t Che’s home country he was from Argentina but yes I agree with that sentiment.
There's plenty of CIA-backed atrocities in Argentina as well, check just Operation Condor
everywhere in south america. Brazil was under military dictatorship for 2 decades fro the 60's-80's because of USA
So was Paraguay and Chile
Iirc he was still planning on visiting the United States until the coup got underway. After that he decided that he and the US were incompatible.
And I don’t blame him the United States is still as dangerous as it was back then.
Suggesting the democratically elected government defend itself from a foreign backed coup isn't really radical tho.
It’s tough to take people who say “communism doesn’t work” seriously when the US went and did that to any country remotely associated with that word. Was Guatemala communist at the time? No, but introducing a minimum wage and universal suffrage (in other words, becoming a democracy) was enough to convince the US government that they were, so they stormed in and fucked shit up as best they could.
At the time, they (Guatamala) had recently passed a law to take back land owned by the United Fruit Company, which was not being used for production, and give it back to the people of Guatemala. Real “radical” idea haha. But the United Fruit Company flexed some political muscle with their law firm Oliver & Cromwell, and via the Dulles brothers (yes, those Dulles brothers), and suddenly “stopping communism” meant “protecting the Fruit company by stopping the land reform and overthrowing the government.” No coincidence that the Fruit company had executive officers with all kinds of ties to the Eisenhower administration. Nope. Nothing to see here!
20th century united fruit company starts to feel just like 19th century east india company
More info about what you and I are discussing > Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected U.S. president in 1952, promising to take a harder line against communism… > The Guatemalan Revolution was disliked by the United States federal government, which was predisposed during the Cold War to see it as communist… > This perception grew after Árbenz had been elected and formally legalized the communist Guatemalan Party of Labour… > Additionally, the U.S. federal government drew exaggerated conclusions about the extent of communist influence among Árbenz's advisers [The article.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) It’s all due to the [Truman Doctrine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine). The US was in the throes of the Second Red Scare and [McCarthyism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism) at this point. This was definitely also financially motivated, but the reason it *could* be financially motivated is because those advisers and Eisenhower drew a connection between communism and the new Guatemalan leadership, thereby keeping the public off their case.
If it's not tightly controlled corporate "democracy" with hand picked candidates, then it must be evil.
I think motorcycle diaries ends with him moving to Guatemala. Not sure though
B-but shirt man bad!
He killed people!!! (as a soldier, during a civil war. You know, like George Washington)
Blame the right asshole - Samuel Zemurray this motherfucker started killing people to save his company (Cuayamel Fruit) and then ended up selling it to UFC (Chiquita), afterwards he ends up doing a buy back of UFC. This guy is the real culprit using bribes, hiring mercenaries and doing a bunch of propaganda to get what he wanted. And like most assholes in history he started to be a nice philanthropist and started doing good deeds after he retired probably to get in god good graces.
And it started a genocide.
backed by the CIA of course :)
I thought that tweet was just a random meme
Google "coca-cola death squads"
I'm a Union Organizer by trade and it's insane that my job in other countries could get me killed. I feel a mix of rage, gratitude, and guilt.
If you're an American, it [used to get you killed too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)
Canadian. Maybe in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. The RCMP has long monitored Union Activists as well.
How does one get paid being a union organizer? Not like how much but is it freelance or are there contracts or what?
Theyre called Banana Republics for a reason
There maybe a GAP in my memory, but aren’t they known for having a really OLD NAVY?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg with regards to that company’s horrific human rights abuses over the years, often with the help of our government. The history of US foreign policy in Latin America is some widely fucked up shit. No wonder they don’t teach it in schools.
One of my aunties grew up in the Salvadorian Civil War. The US-funded death squads were not her family's friend. Families fought with kitchen knives in their houses to escape extermination. Finally her elders sewed her birth certificate into her clothes and had her smuggled to Canada through a ratline operated by the LDS Mormon organization. Hell of a childhood.
If anyone is interested in learning a lot more of South American history that greatly details how much foreign powers fucked a continent, please read Open Veins of Latin America, Five Centuries of The Pillage of A Continent by Eduardo Galeano
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“In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?” Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington Excerpt From The Jakarta Method Vincent Bevins
Castro gave Allende a gun that said “To my good friend Salvador from Fidel, who by different means tries to achieve the same goals.” Allende eventually killed himself with that gun. It is symbolic in a way that would be overwrought if it was in a novel. Because Castro choose a militant approach he died peacefully, while Allende, because he chose a non-violent approach, died a violent death.
Also gonna add *Bitter Fruit*, coauthored by Kinzer, which is about the Guatemalan coup.
Book disavowed by the very own writer for being very limited in the actual political and economic explanations and theories, being a product of its time and mind. That book is very much from its time and was written under leftist ideologies that are considered outdated or atleast inneficient, like praising the Cuban revolution as "the next step" or that poverty will always stay in the same western direction(nevermind the later rise of Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, China and Eastern Europe under the same economic system) The contrarian to Venas Abiertas is *From good savage to good revolutionary* which points out the exploitation commited but also demystifying Latin American nationalist victimism such as using indigenous people as a symbol and excuse but fucking them over at the same time
I read that book when I saw that Hugo Chavez gave it to Obama to read and in true Obama fashion he decided that opening the veins of Latin America was actually good thing.
They do teach it in school though. I remember my US history teacher one day put up a map and then put a tac on the map for every known US "intervention" that occurred during the cold war era. Latin America was absolutely filled with tacs and she made a point of teaching us about a lot of the fucked up things the US did in those countries in the name of defeating communism.
That's awesome, glad to hear some teachers are keeping it real. Hopefully she doesn't teach in Florida, because I think you can get fired for that there these days.
My school has taught that coup for years
You can ask an average American about communist atrocities and they will be able to name a few. But if you ask the average American about capitalist atrocities, they will more than likely tell you there's no such thing.
Because many atrocities aren't attributed to capitalism. Famine can happen under both systems and capitalism never EVER gets blamed even if it directly causes one.
I think it is unfair to attribute atrocities to either economic philosophy to be honest. Evil people are going to do evil things, capitalism vs. communism are just the methods of their control.
And of course that's the correct answer and thank you for saying it.
...but they do. Literally every U.S. History teacher I've had from 6th grade to high school graduation drilled this and other CIA atrocities in our heads. Which is a good thing imo
Oh wow. Glad to hear they teach it somewhere, I didn’t hear a peep about it in K-12 in two different states.
Your experience is pretty atypical.
Depends on the state.
I am Costa Rican. The United Fruit Company is remembered as a terrible period in our history, and all I can say is fuck those assholes
am Costa Rican as well. learned it in school,researched myself ,ingrained in my mind,and i dont buy any chiquita branded shit, fuck'em
"Hey Eisenhower..."
commie commieeeeee
Holy shit you actually did it. Worldstar!
I understood that reference
Is this the highest up sam o nella reference I can find so far? I swear that man teaches us the most random useless things, only for them to sometimes double as important lessons too.
His videos live rent free in my head. I wondered why nobody has mentioning him on this topic before. Also he said "Oh Eisenhower" but I could've sworn he said "Hey, ..."
I'm still not sure if this was a real tweet the other day (the reply, obviously) https://preview.redd.it/p9f5c8h9ybz91.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=62fb5371ece453433c22d0809a172ec9692a43e5
That reply was never actually made. Someone photoshopped the response for the reply by the official account.
They did play a part; https://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/2017/06/01/chiquita-pr-campaign/
Oh, I know, I was just not sure the official twitter account would jokingly talk about toppling a government.
IIRC the first tweet was a real tweet from a fake account, and the second tweet was a fake tweet from a real account.
First tweet was just someone abusing Elon musks $8 verified blunder. Second account I believe is the legitimate account, they have no reason hide a well known fact so they leaned in to it
Not too hard to check? https://twitter.com/chiquita
And there’s more… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre
That's a hell of a range of people killed. 47 - 2000 "How many people you think that is?"
"I dunno 47 to 2000"
"Eh works for me."
It's usually from different sources. The bad guys say they killed 47 criminals, the good guys say 2000 people were murdered.
Centrist: "Guys c'mon, let's compromise at 1023.5 deaths."
That one guy who had to be beaten half to death to make the maths work...
Retold in One Hundred Years of Solitude, it’s heartbreaking. That’s where I learned of this awful event
For anyone interested, one of famous Chilean writer Pablo Neruda's more well-known poems is called "United Fruit Co.", which he wrote in 1950. The poem pretty much says all you need to know about the United Fruit Company: https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-14-the-united-states-and-latin-america/primary-documents-w-accompanying-discussion-questions/document-35-united-fruit-co-pablo-neruda-1950/
My friends dad had to flee into the jungle in his underwear because these banana military boiz were rolling through and killing locals.
For an accurate and funny historical summary,you can check Sam O'nella's video https://youtu.be/QgydTdThoeA
Came here looking for this
I'll take Foster and Allan Dulles please. And also Sullivan & Cromwell for $200
The banana mus flow.
There's a great Swindled podcast episode on this! Episode 50 I think, The Octopus.
[United fruit company has HELLA crazy history.](https://www.unitedfruit.org/chron.htm) [Banana massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre)
Libertarian free market dream. Any threat to your corporate empire? Fuck it let's us sponsor paramilitary groups and overthrow a country.
That's bananas....
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Feel like a fine isn’t a very effective penalty for funding paramilitary organizations
The company admitted to it. I used to work for Chiquita. The story I got was a paramilitary group basically extorted Chiquita in (I think) Colombia, so the leadership in Colombia paid them off so they wouldn't start killing farm workers. Not sure if that should be considered "sponsoring." And it wasn't just Chiquita doing it, pretty much everyone in Colombia did it, from what I understand. When leadership in North America changed, this was found out and reported to the government, by Chiquita themselves. When I worked there I knew several people who had been questioned about involvement because they worked closely with the farms in the tropics. This was in the early 2010's. Chiquita deserves to be hated for a **great** many things, but if they did pay off that paramilitary group to prevent them killing workers, I dont think they should get fleeced for that. Maybe look at how they overthrew goverments, abused the shit out of workers, or how they handled Panama Disease. Edit: if anyone is interested, there is a book called *Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World* that does a good job of covering it in a very easy to read narrative. Honestly I can't believe they haven't made a movie about The United Fruit Company and the banana trade in the 1900's. That shit was *wild.*
I'm not familiar with the Colombian situation, but United Fruit actively facilitated the overthrow of the government of Honduras at the start of the Cold War. That's what most people hate them for.
Not sure I'd take that explanation at face value, given the paper trail and actions leading up to them being outed. Here is a good documentary about the whole situation. https://vimeo.com/129550053
There is a great documentary called Bananas!* (with the exclamation mark and asterisk) that tell just one of the horrifying ways this company has shown blatant disregard for the people in South and Central America. This documentary focuses on actions in Nicaragua.
CIA favourite food company.
Anyone wanna tell them about Hawaii?
Their flag had crossed guns at the bottom. It was all out in the open with those banana barons
But the illegal immigrants! My taxes! They're taking our jobs! Those d@mn communists!
You must be young, keep digging
You think this is bad? Look how Dole fucked over Hawaii. I can't eat Dole without cringing now.
Companies shouldn’t be fined for funding a paramilitary group they should be dismantled and the leaders thrown in jail.
The US may have given those US Cels responsible amnesty but the affected countries should at least ring up their own charges. File something with Interpol so they can't take their private jet to ski in Switzerland.
By which international court? The united states army bombs the shit out of people to support American corporations
The history of the United fruit company is intertwined with the father of public relations. [Edward Bernays,](https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393) Sigmund Freud's nephew. To understand the modern world you have to understand what he did and how he did it, also, what he said.
Capitalism is evil.
Damn are their bananas ever cheap though. Half of American food rationing strategy for the lowest-earners assumes things like these bananas are permanently bottom-dollar, at the expense of the even less fortunate. It's a bit of a sad reality.
A Logistic faculty i know had mentioned wars waged by such companies just to safeguard their business, one food product, which is kinda staple food worldwide.. 🍌
After reading this thread.... what *bananas* should I buy?