WEBVTT - How the United States Built its Colonial Empire, Pt. 2 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:05.000 Media. 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:08.799 Hi, James, you know, talking with you goes by it 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.760 really quickly. It's almost like no time has passed since 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.320 we last recorded, but it's actually been a whole week. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.240 Crazy how time flies. Yeah, that's sad. It's the magic 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.959 of pocasts yep. In the last episode, we left off 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.520 by talking about how the US took over the Guano 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.240 Islands and how it established US expansion as a mission 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:35.000 of resource extraction. The Guano Islands were uninhabited, but this 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.480 episode is all about how the US overseas expansion took 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.760 over people as well as land. So to talk about 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.040 the five inhabited US colonies, we need to talk about 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:50.400 the Spanish Empire. Throughout the nineteenth century, Spain's expansive empire 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:55.200 shrunk considerably. Several of their colonies were either overtaken by 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:59.000 the US, as in the case of Florida, or became independent, 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.720 as in the case of Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and others. 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.720 By the end of the nineteenth century, the Spanish Empire 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.240 was on its last legs, but it did have a 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:16.080 few remaining colonies Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Cuba, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.160 the Philippines and to a lesser extent, Puerto Rico had 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:23.160 been fighting insurrectionary wars against Spain for years by the 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:27.000 time that eighteen ninety eight rolled around. In a final 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.880 bid to keep some type of control over them, Spain 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.280 gave Cuba and Puerto Rico autonomy, meaning that they could 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:39.319 form a local government. Meanwhile, Spain entered into a truce 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.399 with the Philippines with promises of future reforms. However, their 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:48.680 insurgencies essentially continued. This wouldn't last long because the US 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.520 government invaded the Spanish colonies a few months later as 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.280 part of the Spanish American War. As I've talked about, 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.280 the end of the nineteenth century was marked by the 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.480 wish to expat and America's influence beyond its continental borders. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.960 It had partially done this with the purchase of Alaska, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.200 as well as the coming annexation of Hawaii, which would 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.320 happen in great part because the US needed a military 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.720 outpost in the Mid Pacific to support operations in the 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.399 Philippines and Guam. However, it still wanted more, and Spain's 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.440 weakness presented the perfect opportunity. So throughout the years before 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.120 eighteen ninety eight, the government had been talking about intervening 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.680 in Cubas struggle for independence. This was done for yellow journalism, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:36.920 which we talked about a little bit in the last episode. 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.639 But essentially the newspapers were talking kind of directly to 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.000 the United States government, being like, we need to spread 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.919 liberty to them and freedom, we need to teach them 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.440 how it goes. And this was of course mixed with 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.040 manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine where they wanted to 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.000 quote unquote protect American hedgemony in the new World. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.639 I'm trying to remember who said this uplift civilized and 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.679 christianized our little brown brothers. 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.080 Was it McKinley. 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.800 It seems like it would be. But when I searched 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.440 that specific thing in quotation marks, I don't. 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:16.400 Oh wait, So William Howard Taft, the first American Governor 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.880 General of the Philippines and later US President, used the 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.960 phrase quote little brown brother in cables to McKinley, So 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:23.680 maybe it was there. 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.560 Okay, Yeah, I think I may have, like combined to 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.040 quotations the paternalist racism there is fantastic. I'll drop it 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:34.679 in later when we're talking to somebody else. I was 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.840 trivit's Cuba, of which country they were referring. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.600 To, I'm in based on how Puck rhythm, we could 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.680 all be the Little Brown Brothers, right, yeah. 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:44.280 That is the stereodote. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:49.720 They're getting cool, absolutely so. Speaking of protecting US business 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:54.480 interests overseas, in January eighteen ninety eight, the United States 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.880 sent a warship, the USS Main, to Havannah Harbor, to 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.760 safeguard American business interests there as well as US citizens. However, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.000 the USS Main sank about a month later, and while 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.560 the cause was likely an internal fire according to recent experts, 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.600 the contemporary opinion in the United States blamed it all 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:20.120 on Spain. Right, there was this smattering of yellow journalism 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:21.760 that was like, you know, they did it. Oh yeah, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.680 the Spain did it to us, even though they didn't 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:26.680 really have a way to prove that, especially not in 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:27.640 eighteen ninety eight. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.800 Yeah. Yeah, And like the whole like going to the 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.000 bottom of the ocean to look at the USS Main, 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.720 it's a thing like there there have been a series of, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.400 like I guess underwater archaeology is what it is, expeditions 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.279 to ascertain exactly which duration it blew out, and like, yeah, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.080 the various ones have had various conclusions. I think you 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.480 rightly phrase it here. It doesn't matter what caused the explosion. 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.680 It became a fact absolutely the Yellow Press, that the Spanish. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.279 Did absolutely, And I think it's really interesting that there's 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.360 still and I understand that that why you want to 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.920 like have a genuine conclusion, But the fact that it's 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:10.080 still being litigated more than what is it like one 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.760 hundred and twenty eight, one hundred forty years after a 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:15.800 little bit more, a little bit lesser, a little bit more, 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.680 is still, you know, kind of this conception of American 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.560 nation building where it couldn't be that the press got 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:25.400 it wrong, that the government got it wrong, and that 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.480 it became a fact in the media. And that's why 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.720 the US invaded Cuba and other Spanish colonies, right that 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.440 the US kind of has to prove itself innocent in 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.560 this regard, so per how to hide an empire? The 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.159 US government and the US media wanted to intervene, but 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:48.040 anti impeerless in Congress, imagine that didn't want Cuba to 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.200 be annexed to the United States, so to ostensibly show 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.799 that they didn't have colonial ambitions, Congress passed the Teller 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:00.280 Amendment that stated that they would not annex Cuba. However, 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.799 Congress said nothing of Spain's other colonies. I should also 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.400 say that before the US officially entered the war that year, 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.159 Teddy Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had sent 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:17.240 ships to essentially surround all of the colonies, not just Cuba. Yeah, 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.760 so they were kind of pretty clearly preparing for something, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:21.640 you know. Yeah. 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:22.560 Yeah. 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.479 So the US went to war in eighteen ninety eight, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.200 and it won pretty handily in large part. And this 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.200 is the stuff that a lot of American history books 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.000 won't tell you because of the help of the independence 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:39.320 movements that had already been fighting in these colonies for decades. However, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.120 the US did as the US does and essentially discarded 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.599 these independence movements ambitions once they had helped the US 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.640 win the war, showing once again that allies are not 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.039 necessarily friends. I feel like this is a recurrency, a 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.680 lesson that has to be taught and learned throughout American. 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.240 History, right, you know, yeah, many, many, many such cases. 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.120 Yep. In my opinion, nowhere is this more evident than 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:10.000 in the Philippines, where the Liberation movement declared independence from 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.720 Spain in June of eighteen ninety eight, yet it went 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.960 unrecognized by the US. Instead, the US choreographed a mock 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.080 battle with Spain that eventually led to them handing over 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.000 their colony to the US per how to hide an empire. 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.200 The Americans lack of recognition for the Filipino independence movement 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.080 would eventually lead to the Philippine American War, where the 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:37.600 US trampled and devastated the Filipino insurgency that wanted independence 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.080 from one conqueror Spain originally and their newest conqueror, the 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.040 United States. Yeah, you know, ostensibly they came in to 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:50.200 help these people and then essentially massacred them. 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:55.280 Yeah, little vexiological aside. The star and triangle device that 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.480 you see on like loads of flags has its like 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.480 birth in this period. I believe it begins with Marti 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:06.560 and the Cuban independence movement. Obviously, like it characterizes many 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.720 of these states in their independence movement. But for a 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.880 while they're like that flag was like the symbol of 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:19.120 fighting against imperial conquest. That's why they incorporated it into 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.880 the Catalan flag, the independence cena that has the triangle, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.920 and then the Catalonia just as a thing without any 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.400 particular political ambition doesn't have the triangle and the star, 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.319 and then you have the red triangle for like socialistic, dependentist, 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:39.280 but like this blue triangle in flags, like it just 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.319 shows how these actions that reverberated around the world. Right, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.880 Like Spain had been the empire. Yeah, and they had 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.840 this in Spanish this week we call it the Anosauriblis 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.680 of eighteen ninety eight, right, like the complete collapse of 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.480 Spain's external possessions, and like for a while there people 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.520 are like, huh, yeah, empires can fall, we can defeat them. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.760 Unfortunately a new one took its place. 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.000 Yeah, exactly, empires can fall of the new empire slides 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.280 in there and like gues helps with the fighting, it 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.320 doesn't do all like you said, like these people have 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.800 been fighting, Like Martie was dead by the time Maricevelt arrived, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.120 but he had already begun the independence movement. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.240 And actually, now that you mentioned that about the triangle, 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.920 I didn't include it in this script, right, But the 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.920 Puerto Rican flag is actually directly based on the Cuban 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.520 flag as well. It was made in eighteen ninety five, 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.200 I believe by Puerto Rican exiles in New York who 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.080 were fighting for independence from Spain, and so they essentially 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.120 adopted this Cuban design but inverted the colors to show 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.200 kind of Caribbean solidarity and brotherhood. Yeah, and you know 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.040 it's been our flag ever since, right, And yeah, there's 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.800 a there's a thing about the Puerto Rican flag that 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:57.440 I'm not going to get into too much, but like, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.080 based on the kind of col of the blue in 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.800 the flag, is the political status that you support? Right? 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.680 That's kind of a myth, kind of a myth that 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.240 it has essentially become the fact, right right now. 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.160 I love a little hidden flag shit, like the the 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.079 Flounderians with their flag, Like if the lion has claws 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.280 or not, it denotes sarahs on independence. I think it 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.280 doesn't matter if that's what it was designed for. Again, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.440 it becomes true because everyone knows it to be true 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:28.840 and they're using it to signal that. 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.360 Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. In Puerto Rico, the light blue 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.240 is kind of the independence flag. That the medium blue, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.760 which is kind of the one that most often is 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.640 used depending on the place, is kind of the status 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.400 quo sometimes independence. And then the darker blue, somewhat of 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.480 the dark blue used in the US flag. Is the 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:49.800 one that stands for statehood. 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:50.600 That's cool. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.240 You shouldn't necessarily take this as fact, because you know, 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.120 sometimes it's hard for people to get their hands on 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.200 a specific color blue Puerto Rican flag, but you can 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.920 usually tell based on the flag that they're waving around 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:03.080 what they support. 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:03.520 Yeah. 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.400 Also, actually, speaking of flags, that the flag of the 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.600 Northern Mariana Islands, it goes hard. Have you seen it? No, 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:11.240 I haven't. 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.920 The Marshal Linds flags, fucking thig. Yes, I'm actually looking 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.480 at it right now. The marsh leis football shit. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:19.040 Let me send the epickero reques. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:20.960 Okay, Yeah, that's a sick one. Yeaheah. Wow. 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.080 There's a lot of very cool flag designs that I 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:25.959 witnessed while writing this script. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:27.680 Oh wow, No, yeah, that one's great. 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.679 So, speaking about the Philippine American War and the American 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.960 occupation of the Philippines post eighteen ninety eight, quoting from 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.240 Colonial Crucible, the four years of counter guerrilla warfare that 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.840 followed would make accurate intelligence and imperative forcing a marked 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:49.880 expansion of the military's limited capacities, particularly in the area 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.640 of operational field intelligence. During the campaign in Manila, the 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.040 US Army quote created a modern metropolitan police force that 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.840 applied military intelligence and data management to the problem of 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:08.200 political espionage, developing covert techniques of surveillance and penetration to 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.040 fight a dirty war in the city's slums and back 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.600 alleys end quote. And according to How to Hide an Empire, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:20.160 American gis tortured Filipino guerrillas by administering the quote unquote 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.400 water cure, a torture method similar to the waterboarding which 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.480 has happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan, right, and. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.720 In Cuba in the little US base, So we have 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.600 that as well, right, And you kind of see this 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.119 as part of the imperial feedback or the imperial boomerang 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:42.079 the colonization of the US's colonies has sent back into 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.439 the United States and how it's reverberated in future imperialist 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:48.760 or colonialist conquest. 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.200 Right, This one torture method, which is like very similar 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:59.600 actually to waterboarding, has reverberated throughout American counterinsurgency history. So 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.520 here you can see how the management of empire has 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:07.240 instructed the US's military apparatus in quelling nationalist movements the 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.439 world over. And this is obviously something that's come back 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:16.360 towards the American metropol particularly the kind of counterinsurgency used 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:22.520 in policing American military occupations. Right, This is very common 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.719 because quoting from Colonial crucible quote, colonial regimes only had 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.800 finite resources for costly social controls and generally shows to 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:35.280 apply them to policing prisons, in law enforcement, and kind 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:39.839 of the colonial of policing apparatus has reverberated throughout every 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:41.600 single empire's history. 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:41.920 Right. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.440 I'm thinking of Smedley Butler taking the policing techniques he 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.840 learned in Haiti back to Philadelphia with him the Filipino police, 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.360 kind of setting the scene for some of the policing 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.040 that would happen in the United States. This is like 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.680 very much a thing that happens the world over. Or God, 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:05.720 why am I blanking George orwell in India the policing 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.120 that he did and Burma sorry. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.400 Yeah, which was part of India at the time in 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:12.199 the British conception. 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.480 So or well, being a policeman there and kind of 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.440 seeing how it impacted back home. And we see this 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.360 the world over, right, in terms of militarization that the 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.280 military exports that the US has taken to many, many, 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.840 many countries the world over, is not reverberating back into 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.840 US streets. Yeah, and actually, in terms of ice and 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.360 the kind of paramilitary campaign of terror that they're doing, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.160 we're seeing the people that the US displaced in other 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.560 places kind of fleeing there, trying to get a safe 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.240 haven in the US. And the paramilitary tactics that were 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.400 used against their parents, grandparents, were great grandparents now being 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.160 used on them, right, so that the cycle of abuse 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:02.120 and violence doesn't really and said, yeah, so you know what, 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:08.040 won't invest resources in policing, prisons, in law enforcement these advertisers. 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.320 We can't say that for sure. It might be the 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.080 Washington State Highway Patrol again. 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.240 And we're back. Meanwhile, in Cuba, as I mentioned previously, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.080 anti imperilests in Congress passed the law that met the 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.520 US could annex it. However, that didn't mean there couldn't 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.960 be a military occupation, which lasted until nineteen oh two 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:44.600 when Cuba declared independence. However, the Plant Amendment stipulated that 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.400 the US could intervene in Cuban affairs, even invade if 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.960 they wanted to. It also meant that the US could 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.920 establish a permanent naval base there, which is now and 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.280 then called Guantanamo Bay. Very Actually, that might be the 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.080 one piece of like American overseas empire that I think 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.640 is very present in the American consciousness. Right, It's much 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.800 more so than like Puerto Rico or Guam or whatever. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.680 Yeah, the fact that it's like a cut out from 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.720 Cuba to this country, that like the whole thing of 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.440 this half of the Trump administration is hating Cuba and 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.360 be like, oh psych, we also own a little bit 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:22.440 of that island. 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.440 Right exactly, and own it like for more than a 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.800 century at this point as kind of a bastion of 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.800 continued control on it, right, because they couldn't annex it completely. 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:34.760 But if you just take a little small piece of 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.560 it and then use it for a lot of evil things, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:39.360 you know. 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.080 Yeah, to your point about it affecting the metropolitic, so 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.960 much of the worst parts of US history run through 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:51.120 that little naval enclave there, absolutely, like the worst parts 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.040 of the War on Terror. We're now using it for 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.480 a deportation camp, right, like it's where we do our 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:58.680 deniable crimes. 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.920 Yeah. Absolutely, that actually ties very much into a thing 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.320 that I'll give a little preview on which is why 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.639 the US Constitution does it really apply in the colonies. 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.280 So the US would go on to occupy Cuba two 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.120 more times from nineteen oh six to nineteen oh nine, 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.479 and once more from nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty two. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.199 Even after the US occupation ended, the US would go 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.520 on to have a very good relationship with the Batista 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:32.080 dictatorship because of American business interest in the Cuban archipelago. However, 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.720 the Cuban Revolution of nineteen fifty three would eventually mark 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.959 the end of this relationship, with the US oscillating between 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:43.040 wanting to outright take over or destroy Cuba again as 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.359 the current TRP administration wants to do, or to just 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.760 being kind of very critically wary of the government. Right, 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.920 there was a point in recent American history where tensions 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.800 between the two countries, and I say tensions, but it's 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.920 really an extremely lopsided kind of hate from the US's part. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.840 There was a time in recent memory where tensions were 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.160 kind of mellowing out. Then you could visit Cuba without 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:12.560 there being a major international incident. Under Obama, and similar 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.720 to the Philippines, Cuba became an important part of how 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.359 the US would portray itself overseas. There were several things 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.520 that happened in Cuba and have happened in Cuba that 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.560 have defined the colonial empire right like Guantanamo Bay, but 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:27.960 this time, I don't want it to be something so 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:34.320 dark so per colonial crucible. American forces occupying Cuba worked 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.480 ceaselessly to control the dreaded yellow fever in Havana and 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:39.880 the rest of the island. But like the public health 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.960 campaigns of other colonial powers, these efforts were not an 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.920 expression of medical beneficience. As elsewhere, public health in Cuba 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.880 served the needs of the colonizer rather than the colonized, 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.040 to protect commerce, maintain the labor force, safeguard troops and 0:18:55.119 --> 0:19:00.640 colonial administrations, and justify colonial rule. The eratica of yellow 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.359 fever in Cuba, an unprecedented success of colonial public health 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.640 achieved for the United States nearly all of these goals. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.160 American public health efforts in Cuba were a colonial enterprise 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.840 that provided economic and political benefits to important supporters of 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.240 the American imperial state. Demonstrated that American imperialism could succeed 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.040 where European powers had failed, and so inspired further American 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:29.240 colonial expansion in the region. So here you can kind 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.120 of see how even if the US is doing something 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.360 patently good like eliminated yellow fever in the Cuban archipelago, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.360 it's still because they want to further control Cuba and 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.119 its neighboring islands. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:43.160 Yeah. 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.720 So, a similar hookworm eradication campaign took place in Puerto Rico, 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.760 which remains a US colony to this day. This hookworm 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.440 eradication campaign would go on to inform a similar campaign 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.679 throughout the American South. However, as noted by how to 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.520 Hide an Empire, the Southern campaign largely succeeded in part 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:08.080 because of a million dollar philanthropic donation from John D. Rockefeller. Meanwhile, 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.360 a victim of colonial neglect, the Puerto Rico project received 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:15.560 only five thousand dollars, and no matter how many hookworm 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.359 pills Puerto Ricans took, they became reinfected again and again 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.320 because the government did not care to uplift them from poverty, 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:28.040 which would have significantly reduced hookworm rates. In comparison, the 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:33.920 US South essentially received this mega donation which helped them 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.880 uplift them as well as like investing in like school 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.440 and several other programs that made it, so this hookworm 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:44.760 infection wasn't so disastrous for the region. However, Puerto Rico 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:47.760 being a colony, they were like, you know, we don't 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.240 need to do as much. So here we see how 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.360 colonial health campaigns can be used to benefit the metropol 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.280 at the expense of the colonies. Yes, Cubans and Puerto 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.399 Ricans got help for their illnesses, but in one case 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.439 it was used to justify further colonization, and in the 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.040 other they were used essentially as guinea pigs to help 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.320 white people of the American South. Puerto Rico was under 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.159 military rule from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen hundreds and 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:18.040 was eventually placed under civil administration in nineteen hundred. Under 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.760 the Forker Act. Puerto Ricans would become American citizens seventeen 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.240 years later, just as the US was entering World War One. 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.600 It's commonly stated as a myth that we were made 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.840 citizens exclusively to become soldiers, and this is like half right. 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.480 The thinking by the US government was a citizenship would 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.360 convince Puerto Ricans to fight any foreign aggressors that could 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:44.800 possibly attack the archipelago, as well as help the US 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:49.360 military project military force into the Caribbean. I should say 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:51.280 that this is according to the book Soldiers of the 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.800 Nation by Hedi Frankierrierra. And actually Puerto Rico is called 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.520 the Gibraltar of the Caribbean in World War II because 0:21:57.520 --> 0:21:59.639 of its coastal defenses, got it. 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:00.360 Yeah. 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.800 However, it wouldn't be until nineteen forty nine that we 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.400 were able to choose our own governor and we became 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:11.440 quote estalla livrasociello or commonwealth in nineteen fifty two. I'm 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:15.239 going to spare the political conjecture. Truthfully, estallo liver ras 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:19.359 socielo is kind of a nonsense statement. It's essentially just 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.080 colony with a fancier name, right, right, There is not 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.479 really any difference between Puerto Rico and Guam in this sense, right, 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:30.440 Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, same as the Northern Mariana 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:35.240 Islands actually, but there is really no difference legally from 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.359 other colonies by being called an estalla liv rasocielo. 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:39.720 Yeah. 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.520 And speaking of political repression by the US government, the 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:47.159 Puerto Rican independence movement has waxed and waned over the years. 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.520 All the while the movement has faced pretty brutal political 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.439 repression throughout all that time, including being bombed by the 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.240 Air Force during the nineteen fifty Hadyuya Uprising, one of 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.200 the few times that the US has bod its own citizens, 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.800 as well as the longest domestic surveillance program in US 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.480 history that spanned roughly six decades and track somewhere over 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.880 one hundred thousand people according to the book Las Carbetas 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:18.159 by Tamon Bocqueberees and Jose Jrier col Morrera. Here, like 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.359 the Philippines, we see how the US's imperial quelling of 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.800 nationalist movements would go on to boomerang back to the metropol. 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:29.120 Las Carpetas as the program is colloquially known, preceded co 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:31.760 intel Pro and its DNA can be found throughout the 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.800 domestic surveillance programs that we know of and surely those 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.760 that we don't. And I want to stop here to 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:40.920 speak a little of the Puerto Rican status debate, because 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:42.600 I've seen a lot of people who don't know anything 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:45.479 about it acting like experts on Twitter dot com. 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.320 Over the years shocking. 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:53.320