Stats for nerds
2recommend
4mentions
4people
2021–2023years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A lot of cogent analysis here, but I’m surprised the author doesn’t seem to know about the economic and political forms of warfare which the US has been pursuing as a cheaper alternative to conventional war.
To use Venezuela as an example, the author says no one has tried to invade it (which is actually not even true, see below) but also the US has been imposing crippling sanctions for over 15 years in an attempt to punish the people and weaken the government.
Moreover there was a US supported coup attempt in 2002 and one basically cooked up entirely by the US in 2020 (Operation Gideon). This was a plan to actually invade the country by boat with a small force to try to take control of the government.
This is part of a pattern of behavior for the US in the 20th century. The book Washington Bullets does a good job cataloguing the various interventions of this form.
- > I don't know about this case
I understand your confusion. The capitalist class push a different narrative, a narrative which makes others’ exploitation, as well as our own, seem normal - as well as portraying capitalist production as the only viable system of production.
If you’re genuinely interested in exploring this from a systemic perspective, I can recommend Zak Cope’s ‘The Wealth of Some Nations’, as well as Vijay Prashad’s recent book ‘Washington Bullets‘, or anything written by him really.
- Alternatively, palpably growing discontent with material conditions and depleting trust in America's ideological production considers the above account risible Whig history.
The competing account is exactly opposite: the hitherto antiquated idea of a benevolent liberal "end of history" is torn to shreds, as research made widely available even in English variously showcases that the CIA was involved in various genocides (such as Indonesia's) in order to preserve its geopolitical and economic supremacy, to say nothing of exposes about how the FBI tried to goad MLK Jr. into suicide, and other stuff of that sort.
Books such as Vincent Bevins's "The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World" (2020) and Vijay Prashad's "Washington Bullets" (2020) are part of this budding understanding, whose foothold is firm both academically and in terms of popularity.
But I think in the end it's always better to hear it from the perpetrators themselves, such as in the words of the so-called "Wise Man" of American Foreign Policy George Kennan, who reported, from the U.S.'s own declassified archives:
>We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v01p2/...
As pertains to Chile in particular, far from a hands-off relationship that approved of Pinochet and sent a few economists, the CIA was deeply involved in _causing_ the economic crisis that the Chilean right attributed to Allende, as reported by the New York Times in 1974:
C.I.A. Is Linked to Strikes In Chile That Beset Allende
>The Central Intelligence Agency secretly financed striking labor unions and trade groups in Chile for more than 18 months before President Salvador Allende Gossens was overthrown, intelligence sources revealed today. They said that the majority of more than $8‐million authorized for clandestine C.I.A. activities in Chile was used in 1972 and 1973 to provide strike benefits and other means of support for anti‐Allende strikers and workers.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/20/archives/cia-is-linked-to...
As for the idea that Chileans are broadly grateful for this historical path imposed upon them thus far: we'll see.
- > UN is a joke.
I just finished reading "Washington Bullets" [1]. (Part of) It is a crash course into how and why institutions like UN, IMF etc. are they way they are.
And honestly, I just feel paralyzed after reading the book. These institutions just don't have the clout by design.
[1]: https://www.librarything.com/work/25426761/book/200164537
