[HN Gopher] The Myth of Bananaland
___________________________________________________________________
The Myth of Bananaland
Author : crescit_eundo
Score : 102 points
Date : 2024-12-08 16:58 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (worldhistory.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worldhistory.substack.com)
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Some trivia alluded to in the article:
|
| The UFC fleet had its own maritime flag
|
| The UFC is the only company known to have a CIA code name
|
| Also, this is not related to Hawaii. The US colonization of
| Hawaii also involved fruit plantations.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| It's crazy to think people still deny current US involvement in
| other countries, given all this past evidence.
|
| Just look what Chevron is doing today: UFC 2.0.
|
| https://youtu.be/9OtIAZMqrZE?si=11uBrlWr-pSL4APj
| smallerfish wrote:
| Who denies US involvement in other countries? That seems a
| little bit of a straw man.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> Who denies US involvement in other countries?_
|
| You haven't been on HN long enough if you never saw it.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Because colonialism is used as a lazy cope out for all
| uncomfortable discussions. Shit in a mans yard in the
| past, and you are responsible for all future ills that
| befall him. And its such a lazy cope out- just proof the
| first sin of the past - and then its allover, no self-
| responsibility, not good things, no bad things, no
| history- just original sin was proven, im done here. And
| people are sick and tired of it- while the world is
| filled with counter- examples to that narrative just
| filling the news.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Are you saying western colonialism has no impact on the
| world of today? Not just colonialism from 200 years ago,
| but the colonialism happening today.
|
| You're moving the goalposts on the original sin, while I
| was discussing the issues of today or at least recent
| past (Iranian revolution was only in 1979, Invasion of
| Iraq was in 2003, Arab spring in 2011, Taliban rule form
| 2021).
|
| You can't just wave away decades or even centuries of
| oppression and intervention in other countries' affairs
| that changed them forever (that sill happen to this day
| BTW, and by the same powers), with "whatever mate, it was
| in the past", as if you broke my phone screen in junior
| school. No mate, it wasn't just in the past, it's still
| happening.
|
| Except colonialism today is less about large sailing
| wooden ships and conquistadors with muskets straight up
| stealing your shit from your town at gunpoint and
| shipping abroad along with slaves, but more alphabet
| agency black-ops and monetary/economic levers to topple
| your leader and replace him with a friendly puppet one
| who will willingly and legally sign off your country's
| resources and your peoples' labor to western corporations
| as salves, for way below market price. This isn't the
| original sin anymore, this is its modern version.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by
| now. You can see the multi-polar world if you squint- and
| all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be
| just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things
| they do to gain power on western influence or history,
| but actually doing the same thing they did before the
| west rolled up. We are just not that important. Never
| were actually, just lucky and luck is running out. Others
| now colonialize happy ever after in the original english
| image and if asked- tell you that they do it for "western
| interests" or customers.
|
| And its bullshit. And the audience walks out on that
| story, wherever its told. It has no explanation power
| any-more and if you tell a story without explanation
| power, it just gives credence to the assholes you pushed
| of the stage. Thus tooting that horn, is like glueing
| MAGA WAS RIGHT to every fence in town.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by
| now._
|
| I'll have to leave you right there, since I can't reason
| someone through argumentation from a position they did
| not reason themselves into in the first place, so this
| will go nowhere.
| piva00 wrote:
| > A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by
| now.
|
| Absurd take...
|
| Some examples:
|
| Brazil's democracy was put on hold during the whole
| period of growth post WW2, it has social impacts to this
| day both in wasteful investments done through 20+ years
| of dictatorship saddling the country with debt and
| disinvestment being paid to this day by current
| generations: lack of education, bad infrastructure, a
| fragile democracy since only 2 generations of voters have
| lived completely under it.
|
| The whole Middle East has sectarian violence caused by
| the borders drawn from colonial powers in control of
| regions up to the 1960s. The same is true for African
| civil wars ringing out to this day, nations (aka tribes)
| split into 2-3 countries to be more easily controlled by
| different colonial powers.
|
| To this day the USA meddles directly with governments
| south of it, the doctrine of strong-arming what the USA
| considers its backyard is still strong, American
| influence in South American politics is everywhere.
|
| > and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out
| to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the
| things they do to gain power on western influence or
| history, but actually doing the same thing they did
| before the west rolled up
|
| As I mentioned, colonial powers drew borders to divide-
| and-conquer nations who are now fighting each other from
| all the bad blood caused by these divisions, do you
| actually really believe some 4-5 decades would be enough
| to erase all the infighting encouraged by colonial powers
| to keep the locals weak and scattered?
|
| I really can't believe someone thinks the issues of
| colonialism can't have echoes way past the end of the
| colonial age...
| varelaseb wrote:
| Absolute cope. Objectively wrong.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Imperialism has definitely fucked over lots of countries,
| and I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time,
| trying to pin everything on imperialists does just as
| much as to erase people from history as the imperialist
| threat you're inveighing against.
|
| One of the dramatically underappreciated aspects of
| imperialism is the degree to which it involves local
| political actors attempting to solicit foreign (imperial)
| support and/or intervention to service their local
| political needs. This isn't always the case, but it's
| important not to whitewash the influence of such local
| concerns. It's thus especially telling that one of your
| "examples" of modern imperialism is actually something
| that was entirely a spontaneous, endogenous reaction to
| local politics and local concerns that literally left all
| of the "imperialists" flat-footed exclaiming "wait,
| what?"
| ttyprintk wrote:
| That describes the typical straw man in the argument.
| Many people with some university preparation try to take
| a position that empathy for the suffering of ordinary
| people is greater if you performatively believe in
| systems and colonization.
| keybored wrote:
| But they said current involvement.
|
| > > It's crazy to think people still deny current US
| involvement in other countries, given all this past
| evidence.
|
| Although the past is used as a sort of implied argument
| here.
| reaperman wrote:
| What is a "cope out"? I've never seen that term and
| googling doesn't show a definition for that phrase. You
| use that same phrase - "a lazy cope out" - twice.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Spell check for "cop out" which is a slang idiom "to
| evade".
| varelaseb wrote:
| I don't think it's an autocorrect error. Cop doesn't get
| turned into cope. I think the guy just think's it's "cope
| out" from seeing the word cope thrown around in similar
| contexts.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Right, a spelling flame, got it.
| ks2048 wrote:
| In some tech circles, it's not denial of involvement, but
| that involvement is good and needs to be stronger.
|
| See the recent viral monologue from the CEO of Palantir
| where he says we need to dominate and have everyone live in
| fear of us (and if you disagree, you're a woke pagan).
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| We hear that all the time from all sides though. This is
| a bit reductive, but the people who commonly shout "The
| US shouldn't be the world police!" are the same people
| who are begging the US to send more and more money and
| munitions to Ukraine.
| rascul wrote:
| Some might be. Don't put them all together, though.
| 0dayz wrote:
| Seriously that channel? The same channel who said it's nato
| and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
|
| Who also did a fluff piece on north Korea?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> The same channel who said it's nato and the west's fault
| that Russia is invading Ukraine?_
|
| I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them
| showing US political and financial involvement in Ukraine.
|
| _> Who also did a fluff piece on north Korea?_
|
| Someone didn't get the humor and sarcasm I guess.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| An AI summary of that channel's Ukraine video does fall
| into a narrative I've seen in the West:
|
| 1. Eastern states joined NATO for defense
|
| 2. This redirected Russian aggression to Chechnya,
| Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
|
| 3. Thus, the invading forces must themselves be acting
| with circumspection about NATO
|
| This reasoning tends to prefer analysis rather than
| emphasize what invading armies do to civilians. We know
| what's happening to civilians in each of those invasions.
| We do not know (and should not care) if each soldier has
| an opinion of NATO.
| gruez wrote:
| >>The same channel who said it's nato and the west's
| fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?
|
| >I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them
| showing US political and financial involvement in
| Ukraine.
|
| They stopped short of saying it explicitly, but it was
| strongly implied. The whole video basically lists out all
| of russia's motivation for the war, and then concludes
| with "now there's a war in europe [...] if there was only
| someone who have predicted it, someone with power to stop
| it" followed by a few sound bites/clips strongly alluding
| to Western defense officials.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4eNy4FCs8
| 0dayz wrote:
| >I don't remember them saying that. I do remember them
| showing US political and financial involvement in
| Ukraine.
|
| They intentionally leaves out sources they claim to have,
| they cut crucial parts of video evidence (such as Joe
| Biden's statement, which changes the entire statement)
|
| There's tons more:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0p9-kjKdfY
|
| >Someone didn't get the humor and sarcasm I guess.
|
| By that logic then I guess glazing Nazi Germany is fine
| because it's just sarcasm & joke bro.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _There 's tons more_
|
| You need to understand that not everyone shares your
| addiction to YT's dopamine-jerking content feeds. In any
| case, no one has time to dig through that video to find
| whatever "evidence" you think is buried there.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Seriously that channel? The same channel who said it 's
| nato and the west's fault that Russia is invading Ukraine?_
|
| Such crazy talk!
|
| Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war
| coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including
| shoving it in its very borders, which it has long declared
| a "red line", would ever cause an invasion?
|
| It's not like everybody from real-politic scholars to the
| most experienced of foreign affairs like Kissinger
| explicitly said it was a bad idea, and that this will be
| the result!
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war
| coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including
| shoving it in its very borders, which it has long
| declared a "red line"_
|
| Except that's not what happened. In you know, actual,
| physical reality.
|
| It's just what the aggressor _told you_ , in its
| propaganda.
| throw1231210 wrote:
| I think "in its very borders" was supposed to mean "to
| its very borders". That is not Russian propaganda.
| Ukraine in NATO being "the brightest of red lines" comes
| from a leaked telegram from CIA director William Burns:
|
| https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2023/08/the-crucial-
| ques...
| aguaviva wrote:
| _I think "in its very borders" was supposed to mean "to
| its very borders"_
|
| And we could forgive them for that small particular
| exaggeration, if that was all it was. But they took extra
| special care to double down on the "pushing" part, and
| dial it up a notch, to " _shoving_ [it] its borders ",
| which is unmistakably an intentional use of emotionally
| manipulative language. Which is the precise moment which
| qualifies what they said as propaganda.
|
| As to what you're saying:
|
| _Ukraine in NATO being "the brightest of red lines"_
|
| Except there was no concrete "push" in Ukraine's case.
|
| Ukraine's NATO membership application was formally
| rejected _by NATO_ in 2008. This was very, very big news
| at the time, and Merkel still can 't keep bragging about
| it.+ Despite NATO's also offering some secondary,
| mollifying words about Ukraine "eventually" joining the
| alliance, there was no significant action taken to move
| that forward in the critical window of 2008-2014, when
| Russia invaded.
|
| In fact, in 2010 Ukraine's path to NATO took a very
| significant step backward, when its parliament voted to
| abandon the goal of NATO membership and re-affirm
| Ukraine's neutral status.
|
| And as for the phrase "brightest of red lines": If you
| actually pull up the text of the cable, it specifically
| refers to the MAP, or Membership Application Plan, which
| was explicitly _denied_ to Ukraine in 2008, as indicated
| above. Precisely due the level-headed advice of people
| like Burns et all. But Russia invaded in 2014 and 2022
| anyway. Because its actual reasons were never rationally
| connected to NATO expansion in the first place.
|
| And yet - whatever sources you've been reading seem to
| have left you with the impression that Burns's "brightest
| of red lines" had in fact been crossed, and that this is
| what "caused" the invasion.
|
| Why is that?
|
| + https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e8y1qly52o
| pessimizer wrote:
| > 2014, when Russia invaded.
|
| Did anything else happen in Ukraine before that happened?
| Maybe somebody overthrew the government and installed a
| puppet who eventually left office with a 6% approval
| rating? Maybe a bunch of US congressmen literally flew
| out to show their support?
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Maybe somebody overthrew the government and installed a
| puppet_
|
| And when you're completely cornered on one line of
| disinformation, not just maybe but sure enough --
| somebody will chime in with another.
|
| The coup/puppet narrative in relation to these events is
| simply bogus. You can do your homework on it if you want,
| or not. I don't particularly care.
| throw112ka wrote:
| > And yet - whatever sources you've been reading seem to
| have left you with the impression that Burns's "brightest
| of red lines" had in fact been crossed, and that this is
| what "caused" the invasion.
|
| Mainstream Western press like the Guardian and CNBC, both
| of which are fiercely pro-Ukraine now. In 2014, before
| the Crimea invasion:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/29/ukr
| ain...
|
| _Nato 's eastward expansion was halted by the Georgian
| war of 2008 and Yanukovych's later election on a platform
| of non-alignment. But any doubt that the EU's effort to
| woo Ukraine is closely connected with western military
| strategy was dispelled today by Nato's secretary general,
| Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who declared that the abortive
| pact with Ukraine would have been "a major boost to Euro-
| Atlantic security"._
|
| Notice that the Guardian's mention of "fascists" is also
| Russian propaganda now (given the propensity of the
| Western media to call anyone and anything "fascist" I do
| not attach too much value to that part, but it is there.)
|
| Before the 2022 invasion, from CNBC:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/biden-didnt-accept-
| putins-re...
|
| _President Biden didn't accept Russian leader Vladimir
| Putin's "red lines" on Ukraine during their high-stakes
| video call that came as Russia's military builds its
| presence on the Ukrainian border._
|
| _Namely, that means the U.S. isn't accepting Putin's
| demand that Ukraine be denied entrance into the North
| Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is the world's most
| powerful military alliance._
|
| > Why is that?
|
| Because they are standard mainstream sources. You seem to
| think that only a concrete and signed membership plan is
| a red line, whereas even CNBC cites Putin's red lines.
|
| I agree by the way that the invasions by Russia are
| horrible, but please let's not rewrite history.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _You seem to think that only a concrete and signed
| membership plan is a red line,_
|
| It's the only one that the commenter was referring to.
|
| _Whereas even CNBC cites Putin 's red lines._
|
| Except you're shifting goal posts. The "red lines"
| referred to by the CNBC are entirely different (and
| separated by 13 years) from those referred to by the
| previous commenter. And anyway that's just CNBC's
| misreading of the events. Suffice it to say there was a
| lot more to Putin's noises at the time. More
| specifically, by that point the West did not (as you are
| strongly implying) have the option of deterring the
| invasion by simply complying with some specific,
| reasonable request Putin was making.
|
| The only thing we really know about whichever of Putin's
| supposed "red lines" were supposedly crossed (thus
| "causing" this whole thing) is that no one seems to be
| able to articulate what they supposedly were.
|
| And then we have this:
|
| _given the propensity of the Western media to call
| anyone and anything "fascist"_
|
| There is no such "propensity" within Western media. Or
| any other significant tendency. This is just complete
| nonsense.
|
| Another day, another throwaway account with a throwaway
| argument.
| akjfh wrote:
| > Another day, another throwaway account with a throwaway
| argument.
|
| Another day, another one of the 1000,000 Ukranian males
| in Western Europe evading military service while
| lecturing Westerners?
| aguaviva wrote:
| No, I'm Victoria Nuland's and Jens Stoltenberg's secret
| lovechild.
| 0dayz wrote:
| >Who would have ever thought that pushing a cold-war
| coalition eastwards towards an ex-superpower, including
| shoving it in its very borders, which it has long
| declared a "red line", would ever cause an invasion?
|
| This is weird thing with anyone saying "NATO FAULT NATO
| FAULT", NATO explicitly DIDN'T want the eastern European
| countries to join, it was the eastern Europeans who
| begged and begged to be let in, including Ukraine and the
| west rejected them.
|
| And even IF this was the case somehow that NATO pushed
| themselves into these countries:
|
| 1. Why did Russia give the thumbs up for these countries
| to join?
|
| 2. Why did Russia try and attempt to join NATO at one
| point
|
| All of this by the way happened with Putin in charge, so
| unless we all believe in the dead-putin theory something
| doesn't add up here with the framing of "NATO FAULT".
|
| >It's not like everybody from real-politic scholars to
| the most experienced of foreign affairs like Kissinger
| explicitly said it was a bad idea, and that this will be
| the result!
|
| So you're saying that real-politik experts believe if
| Ukraine had joined back in say 2008 they today would've
| been invaded by Russia? Since it's in 2022 not 2008 they
| got full-blown invasion after having having been trying
| to be neutral and DESPITE that Russia still kept meddling
| in their affairs as if it was Belarus, leading up to 2014
| crisis.
|
| I would love to know how exactly Russia would be able to
| pull that off against the full NATO military force.
| mu53 wrote:
| Its not completely unfounded. The top US diplomat to the
| USSR for 20 years predicted a conflict if the US expanded
| the NATO alliance further east after the USSR fell.
|
| This lines up with what Russia says. "We do not want a
| military alliance that was built to destroy us expanding to
| our border."
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Predicted a conflict if the US expanded the NATO
| alliance further east after the USSR fell._
|
| Except Russia formally greenlighted at least partial NATO
| expansion (to CZ, HU, and PL) via a formal treaty it
| signed with NATO in 1997. Which right there, should
| suggest to you that there's something deeply broken with
| this narrative.
|
| _" We do not want a military alliance that was built to
| destroy us expanding to our border."_
|
| NATO wasn't built "to destroy" Russia.
|
| You can say that NATO annoys Russia, or "is built to
| challenge Russia's influence outside its borders" if you
| want.
|
| But to say it was built, or at any point even remotely
| intended "to destroy Russia" is just dumb, emotional
| manipulation.
| zakki wrote:
| I guess "us" in this context also means USSR. So NATO
| destroyed USSR and now they want to destroy Russia by
| expanding their "territory" closer and closer to Russia.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _So NATO destroyed USSR_
|
| Well, we can see this conversation is going at least.
|
| In any case there's evidently no meaningful relationship
| to the actual word "destroy" in play here.
|
| Seems they meant "irritates" or "offends".
| ttyprintk wrote:
| The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia was so strong mid-
| century that a certain kind of self promotion propelled
| someone into CIA decision making. Agents could dose LSD to
| random workers, in public. Agents could take LSD on the job.
| The same government which tolerated that also needed to
| emphasize the importance of diplomacy to avoid a nuclear
| first strike. Even though Russian radar specialists avoided
| war by remaining calm, it's true that global revolution was a
| widespread priority and tropical leaders who wanted favors
| tended not to be calm.
|
| The objectives and contradictions are very different now. The
| first 14 James Bond movies were trying to avert a madman
| obsessed with triggering a nuclear first strike. The next 13
| were not. The cool Russians who avoided hysteria devoted a
| generation of resources on real bad decisions made in
| Afghanistan. The only constant is how you're treated if you
| get in the way of profit.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia_
|
| Ironically, the anti-communist paranoia is also what
| brought a lot of rights and perks to workers in the US and
| Europe.
|
| The ruling elite had to concede some demands to the working
| class to prevent the read scare from spreading.
|
| Now that threat is gone, we're seeing a claw-back
| (defanging unions, etc).
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I like the labor lens for seeing turning points in the
| Cold War. The oil crisis delegitimized socialist and
| communist plans. So I'm not sure those plans mattered in
| union gains. Polish Solidarity is a great example.
| dylan604 wrote:
| read scare? I know some books are scary, but quite the
| typo from red scare. just in case someone wasn't familiar
| with the term.
| rolandog wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I'm livid at the scope of injustice,
| corruption, and lack of accountability...
|
| From a previous discussion [0]:
|
| > I wish they'd not bury the lead here's what it is: For
| three decades, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of cancer-
| causing oil waste into the rivers and streams of the Amazon
| Rainforest in Ecuador.
|
| > This produced a devastating environmental catastrophe that
| resulted in the deaths of thousands of Indigenous peoples and
| farmers. Even today, Indigenous communities continue to face
| imminent risk of death due to exposure to Chevron's toxic
| waste.
|
| > https://chuffed.org/campaign/free-donziger/bb
|
| > The youtube video description doesn't even explain it.
|
| Here's a link to their Patreon to continue to support such
| informative creators [1], and a link to the Free Donzinger
| campaign [2].
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41848861
|
| [1]: https://www.patreon.com/Boy_Boy
|
| [2]: https://chuffed.org/campaign/free-donziger/bb
| eesmith wrote:
| > The UFC fleet had its own maritime flag
|
| Which, to be fair, is not surprising.
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/House_flags_(shipping)#Fo...
| shows the UFC flag. There is a more complete list of house
| flags at https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us~hf.html ,
| including from two other fruit companies.
|
| > The UFC is the only company known to have a CIA code name
|
| FWIW, https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=WUOUTDONE
| claims WUOUTDONE was the CIA name for the El Paso Natural Gas
| Company.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Awesome, thank you.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| The Dole who took over Hawaii (Sanford Dole) was cousin to the
| pineapple company guy (James Dole). So, not the same guy, but
| also not unrelated either.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Thank you. Wish I could correct what I said.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Doesn't suprise me since the Dulles brothers (Secretary of
| State and head of CIA respectively) were owners and on the
| payroll for nearly 40 years.
|
| "John Foster Dulles, who represented United Fruit while he was
| a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell - he negotiated that
| crucial United Fruit deal with Guatemalan officials in the
| 1930s - was Secretary of State under Eisenhower; his brother
| Allen, who did legal work for the company and sat on its board
| of directors, was head of the CIA under Eisenhower; Henry Cabot
| Lodge, who was America's ambassador to the UN, was a large
| owner of United Fruit stock; Ed Whitman, the United Fruit PR
| man, was married to Ann Whitman, Dwight Eisenhower's personal
| secretary. You could not see these connections until you could
| - and then you could not stop seeing them."
|
| https://archive.org/details/fishthatatewhale00cohe
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _UFC is the only company known to have a CIA code name_
|
| What does this mean? The CIA presumably has cryptonyms for all
| sorts of entities.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| Brazilians always had a beef with the Banana Republic thing. They
| took it personally as a criticism. There is a famous 'carnaval'
| tongue in cheek song that was composed as an 'answer' to "Yes, we
| have no bananas":
|
| Yes, we do have Bananas[1]
|
| Yes, we do have bananas/ Bananas to give and sell/ Baby girl,
| bananas have vitamins/ Banana makes you healthy and strong/
|
| Coffee goes to France, yes/ Cotton goes to Japan, for sure/ For
| the whole world, man or woman/ Bananas for whoever wants it/
|
| Mate for Paraguay, no way/ Gold from our pockets, no way/ We are
| part of the crisis, if it comes/ Bananas for whoever wants it/
|
| [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_N7ajW96I
| dekken_ wrote:
| you might enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgydTdThoeA
| durkie wrote:
| What is amazing to me is that this post references an "epidemic
| of slipping on banana peels", was posted within a day of a
| wonderful (33 minute long!) video about the history of slipping
| on banana peels, and neither references the other!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8W5GCnqT_M
| galleywest200 wrote:
| > Have you ever seen anybody slip on a banana peel? I,
| personally, have not. But if you watch old movies and cartoons,
| it seems like everybody was sliding around on discarded banana
| peels.
|
| This actually happened to me once in Capitol Hill in Seattle. I
| slipped, looked down, and it was a banana peel. One of the few
| times I wish someone saw me make a mistake so I could have had a
| witness.
| conductr wrote:
| I think what old movies left out was how much litter was on
| streets and sidewalks, so slipping on a peel may actually have
| been more common
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Happened to me as well. My guess is it's more the absence of
| banana peels on the ground that makes it rare, not that they
| aren't slippery.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| The history of the United Fruit Company is covered in detail in
| the book "The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of
| America's Banana King". It details how Samuel Zemurray rose from
| poor fruit peddlar, to one of the most powerful men in the world.
| It is an interesting read.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Very nice book!
| selimthegrim wrote:
| His house is now occupied by the president of Tulane
| University.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >The photo below is captioned with casual racism: One way of
| carrying bananas: At the docks of the United Fruit Co.,
| mechanical carriers, so perfected as not to bruise the fruit,
| have replaced the leisurely negro.
|
| Nitpick:
|
| That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then so dismissing it as
| simple racism reduces the historical insight that can be gleaned.
| The idle black man stereotype comes from the 1960s and later and
| originates in the US. Prior to that they would be stereotyped the
| latin Americans are typically stereotyped today, hard working but
| low class laborers, so the commentary from the period that was
| added to the photo actually raises the question why these dock
| workers were being considered leisurely.
|
| Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...
|
| Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue
| signaling.
| teachrdan wrote:
| >> Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...
|
| > Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue
| signaling.
|
| Pretty sure the post you're referring to is wondering why the
| original caption referred to the "leisurely negro". The
| alleged virtue signaling you refer to seems to be an honest
| misunderstanding by the author of the Myth of Bananaland.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then
|
| The stereotype has always been that black people are so lazy
| that the only time we show intelligence is in the creative ways
| we use to get out of work. It's a slaveholder's stereotype and
| a justification for torture. This is the stereotype now, this
| was the stereotype then, and this stereotype has been applied
| to any group of slaves or low-waged workers who were ethnically
| distinct from the people who benefited from their labor.
|
| That's why they wrote that.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _That wasn 't a prevailing stereotype back then [...] The
| idle black man stereotype comes from the 1960s and later and
| originates in the US._
|
| I dispute that and present this racist cartoon from the 1940s:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_Me_Mama_with_a_Boogie_Be...
|
| More like it can be found. Lazy black people was a common trope
| in minstrell shows and similar.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| For an example from a century earlier, the "father of
| American minstrelsy" Jim Crow
| https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/who/index.htm
| johnea wrote:
| A millennial's rambling monologue about his childhood, century
| old pop songs, and a bunch of other stuff having little or
| nothing to do with United Fruit. (sorry, I only scanned half way
| through it, I just couldn't take anymore)
|
| This type of post is so common it really needs a unique
| identifying tag to prevent misleading potential readers.
|
| People can write whatever they want in their blags, but it
| shouldn't be presented as any kind of "news", hacker or
| otherwise.
| dmonitor wrote:
| I think the contrast between the pop culture representation of
| bananas vs the behavior of the united fruit company makes the
| article a fun read.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-11 23:00 UTC)