WEBVTT - Part One: The Deadliest School in History 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.120 Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the show about the 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:10.400 worst people in all of history? UM, and boy howdy, 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.319 is it an appropriate week for an episode of this 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.960 show about the worst people in all of history? Because today, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.280 UH is the day that UM, I don't know. It's 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:23.880 one of the days that a series of horrific wildfires 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.239 have gripped my entire state, forcing ten percent of its 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.000 population to flee. And there are armed militiamen setting up 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:35.760 checkpoints based on racism in paranoia in small rural areas. 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.800 And that may seem like it's not connected to other 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.760 things in history, but it's actually connected very directly to 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.160 the subject of our podcast today, which is a little 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.159 something called the School of the America's UH. And the 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.880 way that these two tied together is very fascinating. And 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.640 the oh you just heard UH is my guest today 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.920 Joel Monique, who is a culture critic and a podcast 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.320 You know, the thing that this is that you're listening 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.280 to a podcast producer. You produced the things that that 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.760 are occurring right now in everyone's ears. Joel, how are 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:14.759 you doing? I'm hanging in there. We're in the apocalypse done. 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.080 It's orange and the sky is gray. I am just 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.280 trying to keep it. It feels weird to keep going, 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.679 Like I feel like I have to change something actively 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.240 in my life to reflect the chaos outside. I haven't 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.600 figured what that is yet. I don't know that's how 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.240 I'm doing. I don't know how I'm doing. It's chaos. Yeah, 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.840 we need a German word for how surreal it is 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.280 to like go out to a grocery store or meet 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.640 a friend for lunch, as like plumes of smoke the 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.920 size of skyscrapers drift by and and like the smell 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.840 of death fills the air, and fascist militias begin like bivouacking, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:56.680 you know, twenty minutes away from your door. It's surreal, um. 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:01.000 But you know what's not surreal is how fashional the 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.840 introduction of this episode was. I got right in there, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.080 like I directly connected it to a thing that was 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.120 going on. I just I'm real proud of that. Proud 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.840 of you, Robert, Thank you. School of the America's is 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:19.440 uh spoilers horrific uh c I a slash Defense Department 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.720 UM operation that that led to the overthrow of like 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.120 a dozen different democratically elected governments in Latin America over 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.919 the course of several decades. Um, oh yeah, no, it's 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.040 a bad thing. School the America's is a bad thing. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.160 It's a bad It was a real terrible thing that 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.120 existed for a while, only happened on this podcast on 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.160 Our Home the episode it does tie in rather directly 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.360 to what's going on right now in the United States 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.359 because a lot of the things we're seeing the government 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:55.760 clamping down on unrest, you know, illegal arrests, suppression of 0:02:55.840 --> 0:03:02.800 political opposition, the disappearance of political activists, the increasing um 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:08.160 interorganization between state law enforcement uh in different sort of 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.280 militias and paramilitary groups. All of that stuff that's happening 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.240 right now that people are getting really terrified about in 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.400 the United States is exactly the stuff that we've been 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.520 doing in Latin America in a number of different countries 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.760 for decades, going back to when like our parents were kids. Um, 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.480 and today is the episode about how a lot of 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.680 that was organized. So a lot of the things that 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.240 are happening in America today have their genesis and things 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.360 the United States was doing the Latin America and we're 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.640 going to learn about that. So that's going to be good. Yeah, listen, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.240 I really am because the more people from who've been 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.400 in countries where they're like, oh, yeah, no fascists took 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.400 over here, They're like, pay attention to this small detail here, 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:53.560 and I'm like, oh okay, and then they're like, and 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:55.840 let me show you how that expanded into something that 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.520 was horrible. Try to stop this before it becomes a fire. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.600 Uh sorry, that's maybe bad phrasing right now. So it 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:05.800 actually I think it compares really well to a fire 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.760 because it's one of those things where you don't have 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.560 to have this kind of problem with fires like you 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.480 can there there are ways that people dealt with, you know, 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.640 the propensity and the fact that this both like every 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:24.040 the West Coast needs to burn a lot every year. Um, 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.159 it doesn't need to lead to hundreds of thousands of 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.440 people losing their homes because it's it can be managed 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.000 in predictable ways. But I mean, we they do control 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.040 fires and like put them out and get rid of 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.000 a lot of the nurseries that we have that exist 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.760 to just like raise a bunch of trees for commodification, 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.680 which you know are are much worse in terms of 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.800 like areas, like like they contribute to making an area 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.520 of vulnerable to fires, we can bury our power lines, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.200 we can shut off power access to areas. Like, there's 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.479 a whole lot of things that can be done. And 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.560 we want to solve a problem after it's become a 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.880 problem never before. And the calamity that Oregon in California's 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.799 experiencing right now, a lot of people saw it coming, 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.200 just like a lot of people have seen the rise 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.200 of fascism coming for decades in the United States, and 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.680 instead of doing anything about it, we had that one 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.280 TV show where Um Flavor Flav he does this like 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.520 he had this he was looking for a wife. If 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:26.479 I'm remembering correctly, Um, expect to be the next Reverence. Yeah, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:28.920 I blame the rise of fascism in the United States 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.960 entirely on Flavor Flav. Actually, Um, I would read that 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:36.520 essay Robert Flavor Flav well known the backer of the 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.160 c I A. Uh So let's look, I think we 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.800 should start. If we're gonna we're gonna explain the school 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.599 of the America's and how the United States did what 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.000 is now happening in the United States to uh a 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.920 huge chunk of the world and Americans didn't pay attention. 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.039 If we want to really tell that story. We have 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.200 to go back in time almost as well. It's our 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:01.560 almost two centuries to eighteen twenty, you know, at that point, 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.160 and the US was only established in like or you know, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.000 the whole Revolutionary War kicked off in seventeen seventy six, 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.840 So the US was like younger than a lot of 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.279 presidential candidates now um in in eighteen twenty three. But 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.160 it had started to get like enough power and geographic 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.920 reach that it was beginning to like look south at 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.039 what was going on in Central and South America. UM. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.080 And you know, there were at that point all these 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.920 kind of powers, these these rates, these burgeoning nations, and 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.520 in what we call Latin America to day, we're starting 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.760 to in a really effective way, throw off kind of 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.000 the yoke of colonial oppression. They were there were a 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.880 bunch of revolutions, they were kicking out their European masters, 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:44.960 and kind of President Monroe, who was the guy in 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:46.960 charge of the US at that point, looked at all 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.479 this going on, um, and he started what came to 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.000 be known decades later as the Monroe Doctrine, where he 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.800 was basically like, hey, europe um, if you know, European 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.479 powers aren't allowed to take over any new chunks of 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.040 Latin America. Like, we the United States are not going 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.760 to stand for that. Um, this is the area that 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:07.960 we have influence in and you're not allowed to like 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.680 keep coming in. It was for a country that had 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:14.800 like just gotten the ship kicked out of it in 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.200 the War of eighteen twelve and like barely held on 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.160 it was it was it was quite a statement to make, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:22.480 but it was hard for the European powers to like 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.800 get troops and shipped down to South America, so you know, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.400 the US had a big advantage there. It was basically 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.280 like the Monroe would came to and the Monroe started 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.240 making that, like made this statement in like eighty three, 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.240 but the Monroe doctrine didn't get start to be called 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.680 the Monroe Doctrine to like eighteen fifty. But it was 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.040 basically the US saying to Europe, stay the funk out 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.680 of our backyard. And this was initially kind of like 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.720 an aspirational thing because we didn't really have the ability 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.560 to project any power down there. But over the decades, 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.040 as the United States grew into more of a functional 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.040 nation and gained more sort of military and naval power, 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.560 it became something that like we actually had the ability 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.880 to back up somewhat. So Yeah, Now, there were a 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.520 few different, big reasons why the United States felt it 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:08.600 was so important, you know, even as early as the 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.240 eighteen twenties to start telling Europe to stay the hell 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.480 out of Latin America. One of the reasons was that 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.120 Europeans of the mid eighteen hundreds were like they were 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.760 just the messiest bitches in the world. Um, Like, they 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.080 were constantly at war with each other, huge these huge, 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.480 terrifying what seemed like you know, like you look at 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.440 the Napoleonic wars and stuff, you look at that through 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:28.280 a lens of like where ship wasn't it looked like 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.119 the end of the world to a lot of people, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.800 and these revolutions that were just horribly bloody um. And 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.520 so the monarchs in the street, there's no lawless you have. 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.360 There's like a widespread starvation at that time, right because 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.319 we're having like horrible droughts and things, and so the 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.880 lower classes all suffer. Yeah, it feels very similar. Yea, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.040 and Napoleon is raising you know, you've got starting like 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.920 European war lords are raising, like armies that are in 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:56.920 the hundreds of thousands that look that are like a 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.320 significant chunk of the entire US. It just seemed like 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.520 a nightmare to a lot of Americans. UM and Europe 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.360 was just seen as such, like what they like the 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.960 the result of European squabbling and fighting was seen as 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.680 so apocalyptic that the US. There were a lot of 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.320 people in the U S who like thought about the 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.480 idea of, like, what if they start coming back to 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.640 South America and trying to make new colonies, like it 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.640 will inevitably lead to horrible, horrible wars right at our 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:23.760 doorstep that will pull us in. So there was there 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:25.640 was and that's a that was a reasonable thing at 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.880 the time to be scared at, Like the stuff that 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:29.839 the year the British Empire was like getting up to 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.480 all sorts of horrible bloody ship in India and Afghanistan, 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.000 um in part as a result of their conflicts with 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.040 Russia at this time. UM. So like the idea that 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.520 like that that South America might become another European battleground, 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.160 like that was a real thing to be afraid of 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.480 the U S. What Like the President Monroe wasn't being 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.079 unreasonable when he was like, uh, this is we don't 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.760 want to let this happen. So there was a reasonable 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.960 reason for the Monroe doctrine. There were also like racist 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.000 reasons for it, which one of which is that like 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.800 the US didn't want any competition when it came to 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:06.480 politically dominating Latin America. Um. Yeah, so lots of lot 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.480 a lot of former slaves down they're just chilling right 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.959 to be recolonized. Yeah, it's not them. They have kings 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.960 and ships, so stay over there. Yeah. And there were 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.880 a lot of folks like the people who went on 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.280 to be like part of the Confederacy, who you know, 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.839 once upon a time, we're looking at Latin America and like, well, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.000 eventually we're gonna have to like, that's a lot of 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.160 that's going to wind up being ours too. I Mean 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.280 it makes sense that if we think about manifest destiny 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.840 just being like we're going to conquer all of the 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.880 I'm sorry to as we beheathens. Uh. Yeah. It always 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.000 kind of surprised me that we didn't continue to go 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.520 further down south aggressive takeover. A lot of folks wanted 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:49.040 to um, like a lot of Americans wanted to um. 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.520 And there were even cases of like like Confederate survivors 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.679 sort of like packing up and moving down into Latin 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.080 America to establish plantations and try to keep you know, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.280 their ship going for a while, just like similar things 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.800 actually kind of happened with the Nazis. But so time 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:06.800 goes by, you know, the Monroe Doctrine gets his name 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.839 in eighteen fifty. It becomes like more and more kind 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.440 of solid US policy every year, you know, the decades 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.040 go by, the United States becomes more and more of 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.320 a world power. It has a big civil war, it 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.280 has a couple of wars with Mexico, um, and by 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.120 and by, you know, time passes. The nineteen hundreds come 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.040 and the United States finds itself with a dude named 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:31.560 Teddy Roosevelt in the Oval Office. So Teddy tr Yeah, 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:33.200 we all, we've all heard of Teddy, and he was 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.120 He's like, he's one of these guys that if you 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.920 if you don't think too much about aspects of what 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.920 he believed, he's a fun dude to read about. Oh man, 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.760 people love the burly back. He hunted his own bear. 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:50.280 And then he's like, yeah, yeah, people people love him. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.320 If you don't think too much about what he actually believed. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.320 I would see that drunk history is just Ron Swanson 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.240 virgin Teddy Roosevelt. That's a well and it is it 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.680 is the truth most of our If you're a white 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.640 person and you didn't talk about the things that he 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.160 believed about race, you probably could get along with Teddy 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.600 Roosevelt because he was a fun guy outside of the 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:18.000 horrific genocidal racism. Every history's teacher's favorite president, Like this 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.480 is going to get boys to read. Yeah. Um, but 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.200 he was also like as as hardcore and imperialist as 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.920 you can. Like, it doesn't get more imperialist than fucking 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.000 Teddy Roosevelt. Um. He'd gone out of his way to 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.000 fight in a hysterically unjust war of colonial domination down 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.880 in Cuba. Um. And he's one of the reasons that 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.840 we all have owned Guantanamobe today, which is, you know, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.199 have you ever do you enjoy partly on in Guantanamobe? Joel, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.640 I do not. It weirds me the hell out. We've 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.839 committed human atrocities there. Uh, it seems like a place America, 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.600 the land of the Free sition maybe not half I disagree. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.640 I love the fact that we just to own part 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.000 of Cuba and use it just to torture people, and 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.120 we don't talk about it all that often. I think 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.400 it's a great thing to just forget about and just 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.400 keep doing forever. Um. I love that Obama campaigned on 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.560 getting rid of that and then just stop talking about it. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.080 Because what a fucking cool country. So by the turn 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.680 of the twentieth century, Teddy's Teddy's the president, and the 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.840 US is like a full continental power, right like we've 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.120 we've we've achieved more or less our final form, like 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.480 you can see, like the United States is the United States, 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.000 and it's a real you don't want to you wouldn't 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.600 want to funk with her. So Roosevelt like has the 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.480 ability to project power now. And he was a big 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.199 believer in the Monroe doctrine, and more to that, he 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.640 wanted to kind of expand what the the idea behind 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:46.200 the Monroe doctrine because he thought the United States had 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.199 a right and a duty to act as the policeman 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.000 of the America's And I know in the early two thousands, 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.040 like we all started talking about America as like world 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.680 police um as like a bad thing. But Roosevelt would 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:00.880 have used those terms, and he thought it was a 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.000 good thing. He thought, it's it's what we we ought 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.280 to be doing, but not in the world, just in 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:11.160 our hemisphere. Oh, very reasonable man. So you know, one 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:13.839 of the things that Roosevelt gets concerned with is that 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.200 Venezuela is in a huge amount of debt to a 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.760 bunch of creditors in Europe, and he's worried that this 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.880 is going to lead to her being invaded by European powers, 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.880 which would destabilize Latin America and again lead to this thing. 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.840 There's not entirely unreasonable thing, because nineteen o four, if 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:32.400 you're at all aware of what's happening, most people know 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.120 some horrible European war is coming. So again you've got 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.600 this mix of he's an imperialist, but also he's just 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.440 kind of looking at what Europe is doing and like, 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.880 we gotta keep this ship away from as far away 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.040 from us as possible, which again, not an entirely unreasonable 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:51.000 thing to want to do. Okay, I guess yeah, So 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.320 he's he's he's got both these racist reasons for what 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.880 he's doing and these pretty reasonable reasons. It's a mix 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.280 of things. Uh. And in nineteen o four he issues 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.160 what's known as the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe doctrine quote, 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.000 the United States would intervene as a last resort to 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.880 ensure that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.040 obligations to international creditors and did not violate the rights 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.600 of the United States or invite foreign aggression to the 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.480 detriment to the entire body of American nations. That's how 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.000 our own State Department summarizes it. So we're not just 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.600 the police, were also the bank. Yeah, kind of. He's like, basically, 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.680 I don't want Europe coming in here to like ensure 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.520 its own debts, so we will police and invade Latin 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.760 American nations on behalf of European powers to keep them 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.320 out of here. White nonsense. Yeah, that is some white nonsense. 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.120 And again that quote I read is from our own 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:44.920 State Department's Office of the Historian, and it goes on 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.880 to note quote as the corollary worked out in practice, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.120 the United States increasingly used military force to restore internal 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.120 stability to nations in the region. Roosevelt declared that the 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.880 United States might exercise international police power in flagrant cases 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:04.200 of such wrongdoing or impotence. So that's very broad stability. Yeah, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.480 remember what our state department calls stability. The people who 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.720 live in those countries might not have called stability. Just 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:17.120 a thing to keep in mind. So tr we we again, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:18.680 we tend to think about like the stuff he did 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.000 as a person. His actual presidential policy is pretty overlooked, 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.200 in part because he's like, he's in power right before 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:28.120 all the cool ship century starts to happen, so like, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.000 you know, nobody really gives a ship. Most average person 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.120 on the street about like fucking nineteen hundred and nineteen fourteen, 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.480 you know, World War One starts and people start to 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.760 get interested. But his corollary to the Monroe doctrine would 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.280 go on to become one of the most tragically influential 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.680 decisions made by a US president. More than a century later, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.960 the United States is still operating under the logic Teddy 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.000 Roosevelt enshrined and policing large chunks of Latin America, always 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.160 in the name of internal stability, but somehow never really 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.600 helping to further that cause. Now you fast forward a 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.280 couple of residents, right, uh, so tr has his time 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:04.119 in the sun, and then it's nineteen twelve and this 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.080 cool cat named Woodrow Wilson is running for president UM 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.840 now Wood Drow. As part of his like election campaign, 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.760 he starts shopping around something at campaign rallies called the 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.360 Pan American Treaty UM. And his idea for the Pan 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.560 American Treaty would have been a little bit like creating 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.119 a US, like a not a U S, but an 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.680 American EU. Right, So the you've got like this continent, 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.560 all these states in it that have been independent, start 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.320 to like form common economic and trade zones and stuff 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.359 and in and in Wilson's mind, the Pan American Treaty 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.400 was going to include the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.679 which were then kind of the most powerful nations in 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.080 the region. Now, I found a really good master's thesis 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.880 from a guy who's a historian now named Dr Matthew Hassett, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.840 and he kind of summarizes the goal of the Pan 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.960 American Treaty, and I'm gonna quote from him. Now. His 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.359 plan contained two main points. The first was mutual guarantees 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.359 of political independence under republican forms of government and mutual 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.160 guarantees of territorial integrity. The second was that the signatories 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.440 to the treaty would acquire complete control within its jurisdiction 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.240 of the manufacture and sale of munitions of war. The 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.639 wording of these points is telling, and the first signatories 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.880 must guarantee the survival of republican forms of government. Wilson 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.000 believed peace and security rested on the establishment and maintenance 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.280 of liberal democracies. Memor nations would only ensure the maintenance 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.480 of republican forms of government. However, the United States would 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.080 send in the Navy and the Marines to ensure compliant governments, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.280 regardless of how they came to power. So number one, 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:36.520 he's ensuring, you know, quote unquote republican forms of government, 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.440 and there's a difference between a republican government and a democracy. 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:45.280 Number Two, he's he's insisting that these this new political 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.600 union that he's working for, would acquire like complete control 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.760 of the manufacture, of sale and of munitions um, which 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.880 which essentially is saying like the United States and her 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.960 allies are going to have complete control of what weapons 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.560 get made and where the get distributed. That's that's the 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.480 idea as early as nineteen twelve. And well, we must 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:09.240 now pause here because imagine a world. It's just crazy 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.720 to me how quickly we're like Oh, I don't care 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.680 what's happening with any of the people that actually live there, 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.159 like their entire indigenous community, that there are forms of government, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:25.560 and like I'm trying to imagine the braun the floors 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:29.680 it takes to just walk into somebody else's neighborhood, district 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:32.000 country and be like, no, this is how we do 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.680 things now. So also, you can only buy guns from us, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.520 Please do each other with our weapons. And also, like 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.520 whatever indigenous concern whatever concerns you as indigenous people have, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.000 the thing that matters most to us is making sure 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.600 that arms sales are respected and that the kind of 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:49.639 governments we like come to power, and we'll send our 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.080 troops in if you funk with either of those things, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.240 which are the only things we care about in your 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.960 whole country, with whatever history it has, Like funk that ship. 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.119 We're here for selling guns and ensuring a form of 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.159 government that we can dominate. So that's cool. Wilson was 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.800 known as was what's known as a reformer imperialist. Now 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.120 that means he did reject a lot of the obvious 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.159 cruelties of European style colonialism, with like permanent and direct 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.600 military occupation of foreign lands, but he still wanted the 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.959 US to be able to loot and culturally dominate an 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.800 entire content. He was still willing to use the military 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.240 to do that. Just ask the people of Arrack Cruz. Um. Now, 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.320 he framed this as simple compassion on his part. He 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.439 thought the United States should use its power to ensure 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.480 good government in nearby lands. And he never bothered to 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.280 define what good government was, but he was emphatic that 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.840 the U. S should use the basically use the Marines 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:44.280 to violently force Latin American governments to have what he 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.320 would consider to be good governments, which is where you 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.639 ever hear the catchphrase like sending the Marines. It's not 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.080 really used that much now, but it's like, um, deal 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:55.359 with a problem, right, he send in the Marines. Um. 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:57.359 Like it was the thing they used to say, like, well, 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.879 my grandpa was like a young man, um and it 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.880 But it comes out of this period because Wilson basically says, 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.800 if anything starts happening in these Latin American governments that 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.040 we don't approve of in the United States, will send 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.280 in the Marines to fuck them up. Um. Because the Marines, 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.879 the Marine Corps kind of like historically the people we 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:19.679 send in to funk up folks. Hardcore like training program 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:26.400 and I've yes, extremely that's a big part of it. Um. 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.520 And they like boats, which are useful for traveling places. 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.840 I've been told, so you know what is also useful 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:38.399 for traveling places, Joel. The products and services that support 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:43.280 this podcast, including our main sponsor, the United States Marine Corps. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.800 The United States Marine Corps. Do you need some guys 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.399 on boats to funck to funk people up? Because that's 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:55.000 essentially the Marine Corps. They're coming and they're gonna get you. Yeah, 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.760 they have helicopters too, but they will just replace your president. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:12.280 That's not what they're famous. Yeah, products, we're back. Thank you, 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.480 United States Marine Corps. It was a weird choice to 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:20.840 sponsor this podcast, but but but we appreciate it. Um. 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:22.440 I don't know, I don't know where to take I 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:24.679 don't know where else to take this joke. Woodrow Wilson 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.320 laid out his vision of the future very openly in 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.240 campaign speeches. In declaring that the United States had a 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:34.160 special place on the world stage as a disseminator of democracy, 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.840 he told crowds, we are chosen and prominently chosen to 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:39.720 show the way that to the nations of the world, 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.840 how they show walk in the paths of liberty? Uh? 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:46.480 Now the the guy, the historian who wrote this master's 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.400 thesis that I found. Dr Hassett argues that Wilson's dedication 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.959 to spreading democracy was real, kind of within Wilson's conception 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.159 of democracy, but it was also heavily compromised by his 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:01.919 outrageous racism. Um and doc Or Hassett rights, Wilson's racism 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:04.080 obscured his vision of a new world order. While the 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:08.320 president of Princeton University, Wilson successfully persuaded all African Americans 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.840 to withdraw their applications for admission. Josepha's Daniels, a wilson 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.720 campaign manager and later his secretary of the Navy, stoked 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.320 racial fears in East St. Louis to garner votes. Once 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.680 in office, Wilson told darky stories and jokes during cabinet 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.320 meetings and presided over the segregation of the Department of 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.360 the Treasury, Post Office and the Bureau of Engraving. These 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.120 offices had been desegregated since the end of the Civil War. 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:31.639 Wilson refused to condemn the lynching of blacks, and the 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.720 only federal actions taken regarding racial conflict was to keep 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:38.080 African Americans from attaining equality. So that's Wilson is the 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.480 guy who, like in nineteen twelve, expands segregation. Um, that 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:45.119 is the craziest thing, especially knowing like what's around the 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:47.800 corner for black people in government jobs, Like if you 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.120 like post like nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties, we see 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:52.520 a lot of black people starting to work for the 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:55.200 post Office. Like the only like quote unquote respectable job 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:57.800 you can get as black person is like doing some 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:02.280 type of government work. Um, usually like low level, uh 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:05.879 foot blue collar kind of stuff. I would argue that 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:09.359 maybe the only respectable government job that exists as the 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:13.160 post office, um and park rangers. Post office and park rangers. 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:17.080 What else do we really need? We love you guys, yeah, 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:21.720 so uh yeah, it's this is this is important not 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:24.160 just because like, oh, here's a story about another racist 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:28.640 American president, but because this plays directly into what Wilson 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:31.560 is thinking about what he's doing in Latin America. Because 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:35.240 Wilson is a guy who does believe in democracy, Like 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:38.760 he worked himself ill trying to push forward this vision 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:40.560 he had of the League of nations. And like one 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:42.440 of the problems when whenever we have someone who's terrible 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.080 and Woodrow Wilson's a horrible person, I think people tend 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:48.760 to just kind of write it off as that and 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:51.640 assume they don't really believe things. And Wilson is a 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:56.040 big believer in his what he considers to be democracy, um, 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:59.440 which people and in democracy it's a republic. Right, That's 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:01.600 a big thing for him, is it's not he's not 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:04.520 a fan of like this like a pure democracy. He's 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:09.359 like a populist democracy. Um. Wilson believes that you should 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:13.359 have a republic dominated by white people who are able 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:17.000 to direct things and act as patient stewards for their 0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:21.560 racial inferiors. Wilson believed that democracy was the fullest form 0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:24.600 of state life, and non white people's were not ready 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:26.560 to take part in that, which is why you need 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:28.960 a part of why you need a republic um. He 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:31.760 believed that they needed to undergo what he called a 0:25:31.840 --> 0:25:34.560 period of political tool in order to know how to 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:37.440 be good democratic citizens. So this this is like very 0:25:37.560 --> 0:25:40.240 vital information to me, Robert, because it helps me understand 0:25:40.359 --> 0:25:43.680 like why some people still hold these beliefs, Like it's 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:46.679 it's hard to wrap your mind around I think. I mean, 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:49.240 I don't like, I'll just be for myself, like from 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:51.879 living in black skins, sometimes it's hard to be like, okay, 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:54.399 but where where is this hate rooted in? And I 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:59.160 understand from a larger perspective, like, Okay, you've believed that 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:01.240 because of the way history has been taught to you. 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:03.880 I know a lot of racist white people believe like, oh, 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:06.520 white people invented everything, and white people are the ones 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:09.320 who like colonize the world, and we made sure you 0:26:09.359 --> 0:26:12.160 believed in God or like saying things, and we invented 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:15.240 all of the science that clearly we're like the superior race. 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:18.399 But like to hear on a governmental level, like this 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:22.800 idea of we can train the blackness, the part we fear, 0:26:22.920 --> 0:26:24.480 the part that doesn't sit right with us, the part 0:26:24.480 --> 0:26:27.240 that isn't like us, out of you, and then that's 0:26:27.320 --> 0:26:30.399 like the world that will be better, Like that's how 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:32.960 we uplift and make the world better is by removing 0:26:33.080 --> 0:26:36.760 It's like it's horrifying, it's so scary, Like it's because 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:40.280 it's happening right now. It is happening right now. And 0:26:40.440 --> 0:26:41.960 one of the reasons I think this is so important 0:26:41.960 --> 0:26:44.680 to understand is that Number one, there are a lot 0:26:44.720 --> 0:26:47.679 of people today who will say the same basic things 0:26:47.840 --> 0:26:51.000 about the US and its actions and the way that 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:55.080 it influences and sort of changes the political course of 0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:59.000 other nations, like like political lives right now. There's people 0:26:59.000 --> 0:27:02.800 who will argue the same basic things Wilson will argue, Um, 0:27:02.960 --> 0:27:05.919 they will not argue the same things domestically. And the 0:27:05.920 --> 0:27:08.720 fact that because because you can't admit that right, you 0:27:08.760 --> 0:27:12.600 can't sit down. You can, as an American today say hey, 0:27:12.640 --> 0:27:15.600 like these people need to learn from us the ways 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:18.399 of democracy, and it's our responsibility to teach the right 0:27:18.440 --> 0:27:21.000 like that that we fucking Afghanistan and Iraq and like 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:23.200 a bunch of plays all around the world, like that's 0:27:23.280 --> 0:27:25.400 that's going on today, And there's people who will argue 0:27:25.400 --> 0:27:29.000 forcefully for that. You can't say black people aren't ready 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:31.800 to be full democratic citizens and they need our tutelage 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:34.040 as white people, which is why we have to oppress them. 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:38.679 You can't say that openly in mainstream politics anymore. But 0:27:38.800 --> 0:27:42.240 the fact that people argue for that in foreign countries 0:27:42.400 --> 0:27:45.119 shows you what they believe about the domestic situation. And 0:27:45.160 --> 0:27:49.399 if they Yeah, looking at Woodrow Wilson, I think is 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:52.280 important because we see, we can see the truth of 0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:55.399 what the people who believe that ship internationally are saying. 0:27:55.400 --> 0:27:58.400 What they also believe domestically. They're the same as Woodrow Wilson. 0:27:58.640 --> 0:28:01.439 They haven't changed. It's just not acceptable to say what 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:05.359 he says or what say what he used to say. Um, 0:28:05.440 --> 0:28:07.919 I think that's important for people to kind of understand. 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:13.000 We don't. It's vital age. So Dr Hassett goes on 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:15.119 to write, quote the supposed need for a period of 0:28:15.160 --> 0:28:18.880 tutelage was Wilson's method of justifying interventions in Latin America 0:28:19.040 --> 0:28:22.120 and the disenfranchisement of blacks in the United States. Non 0:28:22.160 --> 0:28:24.800 whites needed the guidance of whites, often lasting many years 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:27.359 until they were ready to operate autonomously in a democracy. 0:28:27.600 --> 0:28:29.560 Of course, it was white too then decided when their 0:28:29.560 --> 0:28:35.120 pupils passed their Civics courses. Yeah, probably like us. Yeah, 0:28:35.400 --> 0:28:38.280 when when a majority. I feel like, especially if I 0:28:38.360 --> 0:28:43.000 look at like countries like Colombia and Brazil and the 0:28:43.040 --> 0:28:47.080 way that white passing people were sort of allowed to 0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:50.160 ascend the ranks while we look at read a lot 0:28:50.160 --> 0:28:54.360 of stories of like brown, black, indigenous former slaves talking 0:28:54.400 --> 0:28:57.160 about like where their class system is at and how 0:28:57.800 --> 0:29:01.440 similar almost exact actually the way it has worked in 0:29:01.480 --> 0:29:04.840 America has fostered over there as well. This the idea 0:29:04.840 --> 0:29:08.720 of segregation, idea of like even even the basic like 0:29:08.840 --> 0:29:11.000 non political stuff like the idea of good hair and 0:29:11.040 --> 0:29:13.360 who gets to be on billboards and things like that. 0:29:13.760 --> 0:29:19.280 It is absolutely insane. Even their attempts to like d desegregate, 0:29:19.360 --> 0:29:22.680 like to desegregate and to bring in like black people 0:29:22.760 --> 0:29:26.880 has had like horrifyingly racist connotations. If we look at 0:29:26.920 --> 0:29:29.440 like a lot of Spanish soaps where you're just like, 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:33.000 good lord, is this still where we're at representation wise? 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:34.920 And then sometimes I'll just slick around here too and 0:29:34.920 --> 0:29:37.040 be like, oh, well, you know, I can, I can 0:29:37.040 --> 0:29:39.080 complain and and maybe I get a little bit about 0:29:39.080 --> 0:29:41.280 on my Woodrow Wilson box and be like they should 0:29:41.320 --> 0:29:45.800 learn from us in the ways we've desegregated. Our Hollywood 0:29:45.800 --> 0:29:49.360 system are media empire, but we haven't. We still have 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:52.560 so many issues here as well, and how we represent 0:29:52.680 --> 0:29:57.920 black people. Yeah, we don't seem to be good at it. 0:29:58.760 --> 0:30:05.760 We're good at a tear gas though gas. We know 0:30:05.800 --> 0:30:09.680 how to beat the hell out of a protest if 0:30:09.760 --> 0:30:14.760 you if you want entire city blocks tear gas. I 0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:17.320 know some guys who are just pros at it at 0:30:17.320 --> 0:30:18.680 this point. Oh my god. And now we know how 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:21.400 to fence off the White House, so really defense off 0:30:21.440 --> 0:30:24.080 the White House. Yeah, we're growing anyway, So back to 0:30:24.240 --> 0:30:28.200 back to Wilson. Let's talk about So Wilson gets elected. Uh, 0:30:28.240 --> 0:30:31.480 this North American you know, Pan American Treaty thing gets signed. 0:30:32.040 --> 0:30:35.480 It takes a while though, it's not signed until but yeah, 0:30:35.640 --> 0:30:38.080 World War One happens and Wilson like, lets the US 0:30:38.120 --> 0:30:40.640 get pulled into that cluster fuck um, And it takes 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:44.120 until after the war when the League of Nation gets established. 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:46.000 The Pan American Treaty gets signed as part of a 0:30:46.040 --> 0:30:49.040 bunch of international League of Nations pacts, but kind of 0:30:49.080 --> 0:30:50.520 like a lot of the rest of the League of 0:30:50.640 --> 0:30:53.560 Nation ship, it doesn't amount to much, but the impulse 0:30:53.600 --> 0:30:56.160 that the pact represented, this idea that the US could 0:30:56.280 --> 0:30:59.920 could group up with the strongest nations in Latin America, 0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:02.800 sell them arms, and use them to dictate. However, one 0:31:02.800 --> 0:31:06.920 in the continent lived without using US troops. That idea 0:31:07.360 --> 0:31:11.360 never like went out of vogue. In the US government, um, 0:31:11.480 --> 0:31:14.120 up until the present day. And and just so you 0:31:14.160 --> 0:31:16.360 know where kind of we are eventually headed in here, 0:31:16.520 --> 0:31:19.640 it's equally popular with Republicans and Democrats. So like, no 0:31:19.640 --> 0:31:22.160 matter where you land on this, Joe Biden loves him 0:31:22.240 --> 0:31:25.280 some fucking we'll talk about playing Columbia maybe a little bit. 0:31:25.320 --> 0:31:29.080 That's but yeah, so uh, World War two kind of 0:31:29.120 --> 0:31:31.760 distracts the United States from affairs in you know, it's 0:31:31.800 --> 0:31:33.719 its own hemisphere for a while. We're not we're not 0:31:33.800 --> 0:31:36.400 focusing so much on Latin America during that whole war 0:31:36.440 --> 0:31:38.120 thing because it's you know, a lot of stuff is 0:31:38.120 --> 0:31:40.760 going on in the other parts of the world. Um, 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:42.680 we have other people to kill. We have we have 0:31:42.760 --> 0:31:46.719 so many people to kill. Um and thankfully like some 0:31:46.800 --> 0:31:51.440 of them deserve it, which is better than we usually do. Um. Yeah. Yeah, 0:31:51.560 --> 0:31:53.720 World War two was the time where some of the 0:31:53.760 --> 0:31:57.080 people we bombed from this guy deserve to die. Man, 0:31:57.440 --> 0:32:03.000 how we have forgotten so quickly is crazy, demi So 0:32:03.320 --> 0:32:06.640 uh yeah. It also like World War two also saw 0:32:06.680 --> 0:32:09.160 the sudden pull out of European military advisors from a 0:32:09.160 --> 0:32:12.560 lot of South American states because while like they hadn't 0:32:12.600 --> 0:32:16.080 been like European colonialism never kind of in the in 0:32:16.160 --> 0:32:19.320 the modern era, got was even vaguely on the same 0:32:19.400 --> 0:32:22.200 levels like what happened in Africa. UM, because of the 0:32:22.240 --> 0:32:25.040 Monroe doctrine. There were still it was still a lot 0:32:25.080 --> 0:32:27.720 of European involvement in Latin America. They were they were 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:29.600 selling arms to a lot of these states, and they 0:32:29.640 --> 0:32:32.560 would send in military advisors to train their militaries. And 0:32:32.600 --> 0:32:34.360 it was a way both of European states kind of 0:32:34.360 --> 0:32:37.680 projecting power, and of course it was very profitable. UM. 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:39.719 And if you were in Latin America, you were an 0:32:39.760 --> 0:32:41.600 up and coming state and you wanted to get because 0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:44.080 there were all these wars between Latin American powers in 0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:47.320 this period of time to constant, constant, really horrific wars. 0:32:47.760 --> 0:32:49.680 So if you're one of these states, you have a 0:32:49.720 --> 0:32:51.440 lot of enemies all around you, and you want to 0:32:51.440 --> 0:32:54.240 get a jump on your opponents. UM. You you want 0:32:54.240 --> 0:32:56.480 to be partnered with some state that has a more 0:32:56.520 --> 0:32:59.400 advanced military, both access to better guns and access to 0:32:59.440 --> 0:33:04.040 better sort of training UM and like military organizational techniques. 0:33:04.480 --> 0:33:07.240 And you know, the US was certainly in a more 0:33:07.280 --> 0:33:09.320 advanced state than a lot of Latin America at this point. 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:13.080 But Europe was the gold standard prior to World War Two. Um, 0:33:13.160 --> 0:33:15.640 So a lot of these Latin American countries before World 0:33:15.680 --> 0:33:18.280 War Two, they have like German, or French or Italian. 0:33:18.360 --> 0:33:21.000 Unfortunately Italian you don't want them as military advisors. But 0:33:21.040 --> 0:33:23.040 ideally you'd have like the Germans or the French or 0:33:23.080 --> 0:33:26.760 something advising your military. Like Argentina spent about a century 0:33:27.440 --> 0:33:30.440 using German officers to train their militaries. And actually up 0:33:30.520 --> 0:33:32.760 until like the present day, you can find pictures of 0:33:32.760 --> 0:33:34.400 the ship from the nineties. I don't know if it's 0:33:34.280 --> 0:33:37.400 continued pass that you can add pictures of Argentine soldiers 0:33:37.600 --> 0:33:39.840 giving the Fascist salute because that's how they were trained 0:33:39.880 --> 0:33:42.600 to salute, like a lot of actually one of Hitler's 0:33:42.640 --> 0:33:46.080 best friends, you know, best friends who Hitler then had killed. 0:33:46.240 --> 0:33:49.360 Um this guy, uh, like the leader of the brown 0:33:49.400 --> 0:33:53.880 Shirts went and trained Argentine soldiers while the Nazis were 0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:56.080 in power. So like a lot of different Latin American 0:33:56.120 --> 0:33:58.959 states have European advisors and stuff. But by the end 0:33:59.000 --> 0:34:01.640 of the Second World War, Europe was kind of broken 0:34:01.680 --> 0:34:04.160 as a military power. Even the states that had won 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:07.560 were in ruins h France and Germany were like bled white, 0:34:07.720 --> 0:34:11.120 and the governments of Latin America like started having needing 0:34:11.160 --> 0:34:13.680 to look to the United States for military training and 0:34:13.760 --> 0:34:16.480 for equipment, because the US has all the guns at 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:18.560 this point, and it has a huge military, It has 0:34:18.560 --> 0:34:20.040 a lot of excess shipped to sell, it has a 0:34:20.120 --> 0:34:22.560 lot of soldiers to send over to train them. Um, 0:34:22.600 --> 0:34:25.879 and Europe just doesn't so me at the same kind 0:34:25.880 --> 0:34:28.200 of time, while all these Latin American states are starting 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:31.080 like turning from Europe to the United States for advice 0:34:31.120 --> 0:34:33.160 on how to have armies, the guys that sort of 0:34:33.160 --> 0:34:35.919 the top of the political establishment in the US, we're 0:34:35.960 --> 0:34:38.239 kind of starting to realize the position the end of 0:34:38.239 --> 0:34:40.520 World War Two had left them in. And you know, 0:34:40.560 --> 0:34:42.560 everyone knows in a World War two the US is 0:34:42.640 --> 0:34:44.279 kind of the big power in the world. But I 0:34:44.320 --> 0:34:47.239 don't think a lot of people know how what a 0:34:47.320 --> 0:34:50.680 dominant position we had. At the end of World War Two. 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:53.719 The United States was in control of fully half of 0:34:53.760 --> 0:34:58.719 the planet's wealth. What yeah, half of the wealth in 0:34:58.800 --> 0:35:05.319 the world was controlled by the United States. Um. Yeah, 0:35:05.760 --> 0:35:08.480 like I'm trying. I mean, I guess it makes sense 0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:09.719 if you think about like how much of the world 0:35:09.880 --> 0:35:13.120 was like absolutely death and made it just totally fu 0:35:13.719 --> 0:35:17.160 and how clean. Like it's always I love studying like 0:35:17.560 --> 0:35:19.560 what was happening as we come out of World War 0:35:19.600 --> 0:35:23.080 two culturally because the idea of like all of these 0:35:23.080 --> 0:35:27.160 women being forced back into their homes so rapidly asked 0:35:27.200 --> 0:35:30.839 to reduce their status and power in not just in 0:35:31.040 --> 0:35:34.600 like outside of their homes, not just in businesses and stuff, 0:35:34.600 --> 0:35:36.880 but in the government too, Like we had risen up 0:35:36.920 --> 0:35:39.560 to take so much power. And then this idea of 0:35:39.600 --> 0:35:42.279 like black people who had come back from the war 0:35:42.520 --> 0:35:45.160 and the way they were treated is basically like you 0:35:45.160 --> 0:35:47.040 didn't do anything for me, and you're still just a 0:35:47.040 --> 0:35:49.680 black person. There's so much people like there were so 0:35:49.719 --> 0:35:54.760 many opportunities for quick development on a social level that 0:35:55.280 --> 0:35:58.800 because I think because we had money, accent and access 0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:02.040 to guns and power and because we're really feeling ourselves, uh, 0:36:02.360 --> 0:36:05.760 was squashed so quickly and scary to think about how 0:36:05.880 --> 0:36:08.319 both when we are in power and when we are 0:36:08.360 --> 0:36:11.239 out of power we tend to take a dumb on 0:36:11.280 --> 0:36:15.120 everybody who isn't a white male. Yeah, it's the real 0:36:15.200 --> 0:36:17.160 One of the real tragedies of World War two is 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:18.720 at the end of it, the US had the power 0:36:18.800 --> 0:36:23.400 and influence to do literally anything UM. And we basically 0:36:23.480 --> 0:36:27.760 chose to hoard that wealth and power and compromise every 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:30.359 single thing we've ever claimed as a as a core 0:36:30.440 --> 0:36:33.200 belief of this nation UM, in order to try to 0:36:33.320 --> 0:36:35.719 keep it for as long as possible. And that this 0:36:35.800 --> 0:36:38.400 kind of thinking. People talk directly about this in the 0:36:38.480 --> 0:36:41.399 US government. And I'm gonna quote now from a State 0:36:41.440 --> 0:36:44.239 Department policymaker named George Kinnon, who was one of like 0:36:44.640 --> 0:36:47.680 the most influential minds in the US during the Cold War. 0:36:48.000 --> 0:36:51.239 This is something George Kinnon wrote in nineteen forty eight, 0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:53.640 and he's talking about kind of how he's talking about 0:36:53.719 --> 0:36:56.279 U S policy in Southeast Asia at this time. But 0:36:56.360 --> 0:36:58.640 it applies to kind of the the way that the 0:36:58.680 --> 0:37:01.279 men in charge of our government post World War Two, 0:37:01.440 --> 0:37:03.600 we're looking at the whole world. So this is something 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:07.920 George Kinnon wrote for the State Department. We have about 0:37:07.920 --> 0:37:10.680 fifty of the world's wealth, but only six point three 0:37:10.680 --> 0:37:14.719 percent of its population. This disparity is particularly great as 0:37:14.800 --> 0:37:17.640 between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:20.560 we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. 0:37:20.840 --> 0:37:23.600 Our real task in the coming period is to devise 0:37:23.640 --> 0:37:26.680 a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain 0:37:26.800 --> 0:37:31.520 this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. 0:37:31.560 --> 0:37:33.960 To do so, we will have to dispense with all 0:37:34.000 --> 0:37:37.319 sentimentality and daydreaming, and our attention will have to be 0:37:37.360 --> 0:37:41.719 concentrated everywhere on our most immediate national objective. If we 0:37:41.800 --> 0:37:45.000 need not deceive ourselves, that we can afford today the 0:37:45.120 --> 0:37:51.759 luxury of altruism and world benefaction. Wow, just laying it 0:37:51.840 --> 0:37:55.960 all out there now. Kennon was watching his nation, Like 0:37:56.000 --> 0:37:57.799 the specific thing that prompted him to write this as 0:37:57.840 --> 0:38:00.200 he was watching the United States start to flail round 0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:02.560 in China because at this point China civil wars still 0:38:02.560 --> 0:38:05.560 going on. We're backing, you know, the quote unquote democratic 0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:08.839 sort of side of things, the Republicans or whatever, which 0:38:08.880 --> 0:38:12.360 is not working out great, and we're starting like ship 0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:15.080 in South Korea, like that's beginning kind of like we're 0:38:15.080 --> 0:38:16.759 starting to see that like what what was called at 0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:19.400 the time, French indo China, like a bunch of ships 0:38:19.440 --> 0:38:21.520 going to go wrong there right, Like France is starting 0:38:21.560 --> 0:38:24.960 to get fucked up by Vietnamese rebels and it's it's 0:38:24.960 --> 0:38:27.400 becoming obvious to folks in the State Department that Southeast 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:29.000 Asia is going to be a place where the US 0:38:29.320 --> 0:38:32.600 either has to just kind of abandon to the influence 0:38:32.640 --> 0:38:35.719 of these quote unquote communist powers or it's going we're 0:38:35.719 --> 0:38:39.080 gonna burn a lot of treasure in lives fighting there. Um. 0:38:39.160 --> 0:38:41.960 So Kennon at the time is kind of specifically referring 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:44.360 to US policy in Asia. But again, the pattern of 0:38:44.400 --> 0:38:46.440 thinking that he talks about up there, this idea that 0:38:47.120 --> 0:38:49.480 the most important thing is to maintain the position of 0:38:49.520 --> 0:38:51.960 disparity we have with the rest of the world, and 0:38:52.000 --> 0:38:55.920 we can't we can't let ourselves. Um, you know, I'm reminded, 0:38:55.960 --> 0:38:58.800 like we can't let ourselves be human, like think about 0:38:58.800 --> 0:39:02.120 altruism and stuff. You have to think about holding onto power. 0:39:02.200 --> 0:39:05.640 And it does make me. Um, it reminds me reading 0:39:05.680 --> 0:39:08.959 that of a quote from Yard Kipling's White Man's Burden. Um, 0:39:09.120 --> 0:39:12.480 take up the white Man's burden. You dare not stoop 0:39:12.600 --> 0:39:15.720 to less nor call too loud on freedom to cloak 0:39:15.760 --> 0:39:19.239 your weariness. Like it's the same, the same pattern of thought, right, 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:23.360 Like where you can't you can't let yourself what's important 0:39:23.440 --> 0:39:27.280 is maintaining this position of disparity and maintaining our position 0:39:27.280 --> 0:39:29.439 of power. And you can't let whatever we we claim 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:32.040 to believe, you can't let that matter more to you 0:39:32.120 --> 0:39:36.440 than continuing to dominate. Um, that's it's interesting to me. 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:38.160 You can draw it like it's the same kind of 0:39:38.160 --> 0:39:40.440 thinking that you see in the British Empire too. It 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:43.480 just got transferred over to us when we took power. 0:39:43.680 --> 0:39:48.920 So again, this is Kennan talking about Southeast Asia, but 0:39:48.960 --> 0:39:51.279 it's you can generalize it to a lot of how 0:39:51.320 --> 0:39:53.680 a lot of American leaders in the late forties are 0:39:53.719 --> 0:39:56.480 thinking about Latin America. I want to read one more 0:39:56.560 --> 0:39:59.160 quote from George Kennon's right up there before we before 0:39:59.160 --> 0:40:03.120 we continue on, we should cease to talk about vague 0:40:03.200 --> 0:40:07.000 and for the Far East unreal objectives such as human rights, 0:40:07.239 --> 0:40:11.040 the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day 0:40:11.160 --> 0:40:13.160 is not far off when we are going to have 0:40:13.239 --> 0:40:17.600 to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are 0:40:17.640 --> 0:40:23.799 than hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. Wow. I'm gonna 0:40:23.920 --> 0:40:26.400 use a slogan from Don Draper and it's I have 0:40:26.520 --> 0:40:30.000 a life and it goes in only one direction forward 0:40:30.480 --> 0:40:34.800 And this whole like mentality of late forties, like needing 0:40:34.840 --> 0:40:39.040 to not just like you have almost all of the power, 0:40:39.520 --> 0:40:42.319 like that breakdown a fifty of the wealth to six 0:40:42.400 --> 0:40:47.680 percent of the population ideology that like we have to 0:40:47.760 --> 0:40:50.160 continue to build on that. But why would you? How 0:40:50.200 --> 0:40:53.120 could you possibly need to build like that? Is the 0:40:53.239 --> 0:40:57.120 most mind fucked thing ever. I can't imagine being like, oh, 0:40:57.200 --> 0:40:59.520 I have fifty of everything, how do I get more? 0:41:00.080 --> 0:41:03.520 Like yeah, and and and like the idea that like 0:41:03.600 --> 0:41:07.719 we have to immediately discard our beliefs about democracy and 0:41:07.840 --> 0:41:10.840 human rights in order to maintain the power that we 0:41:10.920 --> 0:41:14.680 currently holdings more important than the power. Yeah, and again, 0:41:14.680 --> 0:41:17.040 this isn't the period after which like kind of America, 0:41:17.200 --> 0:41:18.719 Like I think a lot of people who looking at 0:41:18.760 --> 0:41:20.920 the story, I think that like America's like idealism was 0:41:20.920 --> 0:41:25.920 broken by Vietnam. This is nineteen forty eight, right, we 0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:28.800 It wasn't like the Cold War wasn't even like really 0:41:28.960 --> 0:41:31.280 up to what it would become like there was still 0:41:31.360 --> 0:41:33.239 like World War two had just ended. Fascism have just 0:41:33.239 --> 0:41:35.839 been beated, and immediately were like, well nothing matters more 0:41:35.880 --> 0:41:38.439 than keeping all this money that we've got. Funck human rights. 0:41:38.520 --> 0:41:41.040 That's the people in those influential folks in the State 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:44.839 Department are saying this ship. So again, Kennan was writing 0:41:44.840 --> 0:41:47.560 about Southeast Asia there, but you really can generalize what 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:50.360 he's saying to what a lot of US State Department 0:41:50.360 --> 0:41:53.000 and in sort of military thinkers in Latin America belief. 0:41:53.080 --> 0:41:57.640 These people supported straight power, and they found themselves kind 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:02.080 of discarding unrealistic objectives like human rights because straight power 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:04.799 is they thought that they would have claimed that it's 0:42:04.800 --> 0:42:07.120 more realistic. It's really that it's just easier. It's easier 0:42:07.160 --> 0:42:10.680 to shoot people than to try to improve their material conditions, um, 0:42:10.719 --> 0:42:13.320 even though improving their material conditions probably does cost lesson 0:42:13.440 --> 0:42:16.680 as a general rule. So the school of the America's 0:42:16.719 --> 0:42:19.600 became this thing that we're talking about today. The actual 0:42:19.600 --> 0:42:22.319 focus of our article was what became these men's kind 0:42:22.320 --> 0:42:24.600 of the lynchpin in their plan to do that in 0:42:24.680 --> 0:42:27.200 Latin America. UM. And it's also sort of a It 0:42:27.280 --> 0:42:29.839 acted as kind of a fulfillment of Woodrow Wilson's dream 0:42:29.880 --> 0:42:32.600 the United States being able to act as a police 0:42:32.640 --> 0:42:37.320 force for Latin America to ensure good what we would 0:42:37.320 --> 0:42:41.160 consider good governance. So the US spens the first few 0:42:41.239 --> 0:42:43.400 years after World War two kind of rebuilding Europe and 0:42:43.440 --> 0:42:45.279 starting to sunk around in Asia, and there wasn't a 0:42:45.280 --> 0:42:48.120 lot of military manpower to spare in Latin America. So 0:42:48.160 --> 0:42:50.759 the decision was made to do something more subtle than 0:42:50.760 --> 0:42:53.640 the Pentagon traditionally, did you know, rather than just like 0:42:53.719 --> 0:42:57.279 sending in troops and like building bases. In nineteen forty six, 0:42:57.280 --> 0:43:00.960 the Army established a new training school for foreign soldiers 0:43:01.040 --> 0:43:03.160 in the Panama Canal zone, which is still under US 0:43:03.200 --> 0:43:06.319 control right Panama. The Panama Canal is like owned by 0:43:06.320 --> 0:43:08.360 the United States at this point, and it's it's not 0:43:08.480 --> 0:43:11.719 its own independent thing. Our government is basically like it's 0:43:11.760 --> 0:43:15.200 a little US outpost in Latin America. And so they 0:43:15.320 --> 0:43:18.880 build a new school there to train officers from all 0:43:18.920 --> 0:43:21.280 around Latin America. And they call it the Latin American 0:43:21.320 --> 0:43:24.880 Training Center ground Division. And at this point Ground Division 0:43:24.960 --> 0:43:26.400 is just kind of like what I'm going to call 0:43:26.480 --> 0:43:28.439 the schools. This is what it's named before. It's called 0:43:28.440 --> 0:43:31.880 the School of the America's. So in nineteen forty seven, 0:43:31.960 --> 0:43:34.760 the United States had signed the Rio Treaty with twenty 0:43:34.800 --> 0:43:37.600 different Latin American nations. Now, this was kind of an 0:43:37.600 --> 0:43:39.600 expansion of a lot of the ideas that Wilson had 0:43:39.640 --> 0:43:42.160 had back in nineteen twelve. It was a mutual defense 0:43:42.200 --> 0:43:45.920 pact meant on paper to provide a unified hemispheric front 0:43:45.960 --> 0:43:49.640 against like a foreign invasion. Um, this was all window dressing. 0:43:49.719 --> 0:43:52.040 The real agenda of the treaty had nothing to do 0:43:52.120 --> 0:43:55.040 with mutual defense for the hemisphere and everything to do 0:43:55.120 --> 0:43:58.160 with the maintenance of US political dominance in the region 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:01.000 and control over raw material. And I'm gonna quote now 0:44:01.160 --> 0:44:03.400 from a book, a really good book called The School 0:44:03.400 --> 0:44:06.680 of the Americas by Leslie Gill. Quote, Well, the United 0:44:06.719 --> 0:44:09.680 States dedicated itself to containing the global expansion of the 0:44:09.680 --> 0:44:13.560 Soviet Union and persecuted domestic critics with varying degrees of intensity. 0:44:13.760 --> 0:44:16.560 It assigned its Latin American allies the task of guarding 0:44:16.560 --> 0:44:20.840 against the threat post by internal subversion. National Security Doctrine 0:44:20.880 --> 0:44:24.000 n s D provided the broad rationale for fighting communists 0:44:24.040 --> 0:44:27.320 by assigning the maintenance of internal order to Latin American 0:44:27.400 --> 0:44:30.440 security forces and by delegating to the United States the 0:44:30.480 --> 0:44:33.799 task of guarding the ramparts of the Western hemisphere from 0:44:33.800 --> 0:44:37.640 external aggression. So you see what what's what's being done here, 0:44:38.120 --> 0:44:40.040 This is being framed as like we need to protect 0:44:40.080 --> 0:44:43.320 our hemisphere from like a Soviet invasion. What's really happening 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:45.600 is the US so because it doesn't have a lot 0:44:45.600 --> 0:44:48.080 of troops to spare at the moment, is setting up, 0:44:48.280 --> 0:44:51.960 arming and training Latin American national militaries to act as 0:44:51.960 --> 0:44:55.280 internal security forces to keep communism out of Latin America. 0:44:55.600 --> 0:44:59.400 That's what's being done here. We're building a continental police 0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:03.320 force to enforce American political ideology on an entire continent. 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:08.239 When the school, like when the school opens, right, and 0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:12.160 there's this because I'm trying to picture like the type 0:45:12.160 --> 0:45:15.319 of person that goes into this, like I know, the 0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:18.160 type of person who believes they can go into the 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:21.080 police force and change it and make it a force 0:45:21.160 --> 0:45:25.920 in a space for good. Very normal soldiers at first, 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:29.120 so initially and this is like you hear a lot 0:45:29.120 --> 0:45:31.080 of folks on the left on like Twitter and stuff 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:33.719 talk about the School of the Americas, and generally most 0:45:33.719 --> 0:45:35.799 of what they talk about is stuff that happened kind 0:45:35.840 --> 0:45:37.960 of later on when there was and we'll talk about 0:45:37.960 --> 0:45:40.239 like all the torture classes and ship that happened, But 0:45:40.320 --> 0:45:42.920 that wasn't how it started. It started as very normal 0:45:43.000 --> 0:45:46.600 military training. It's first class was a bunch of Argentine 0:45:46.680 --> 0:45:49.240 soldiers who were being taught to use US anti aircraft 0:45:49.320 --> 0:45:51.240 guns that their nation had just been allowed to purchase. 0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:53.480 So it was not there's nothing really shady there, right, Like, 0:45:53.520 --> 0:45:56.279 they buy these advanced weapons from the US that are 0:45:56.400 --> 0:45:59.360 primarily defensive in nature, and they need to be trained 0:45:59.400 --> 0:46:02.080 in how to use them. Um so the actual classes, 0:46:02.080 --> 0:46:03.719 the goal of the ground school at first, there's nothing 0:46:03.719 --> 0:46:06.400 really you wouldn't call that shady, right, Like, that's a 0:46:06.480 --> 0:46:08.880 reasonable thing to do if you believe selling arms as 0:46:08.920 --> 0:46:10.920 reasonable as reasonable We're like, oh, yeah, you should train 0:46:10.960 --> 0:46:13.520 them how to use the guns. Okay, that's fine. And 0:46:13.560 --> 0:46:15.239 the most dangerous thing that's going on here is not 0:46:15.280 --> 0:46:17.839 the actual curriculum of the school. It's what's happening around 0:46:17.880 --> 0:46:20.719 that curriculum. But yeah, we'll we'll talk about that in 0:46:20.760 --> 0:46:22.919 a little bit. I want to quote something Leslie gil 0:46:23.000 --> 0:46:25.920 writes here about sort of what the defense industry is 0:46:25.920 --> 0:46:28.200 starting to do in Latin America in this period. Quote, 0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:31.560 defense manufacturers sought out new markets for their wears, and 0:46:31.640 --> 0:46:36.440 Congress created generous military aid programs facilitating arms transfers not 0:46:36.480 --> 0:46:39.200 only helped secure US access to raw materials and the 0:46:39.239 --> 0:46:43.120 general cooperation of regional militaries. It also tied Latin American 0:46:43.160 --> 0:46:46.440 militaries to the use unless the continued purchase of technology 0:46:46.440 --> 0:46:49.600 produced in the United States. The Defense Establishment referred to 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:54.719 the ladder as standardizing Latin American militaries. Yeah, and the 0:46:54.760 --> 0:46:57.040 Caribbean Defense Commander put up bluntly when he stated that 0:46:57.120 --> 0:47:00.520 standardizing Latin American armies with US equipment further the quote 0:47:00.719 --> 0:47:03.960 penetration of the United States and the military system of 0:47:04.000 --> 0:47:07.319 any countries, so that such nation becomes dependent on us. 0:47:08.000 --> 0:47:13.040 What's but you can standardize the equipment that they use, 0:47:13.440 --> 0:47:15.840 and then you make them dependent on you. They can't 0:47:15.920 --> 0:47:19.000 fight you, they can't rebel against you, they can't resist 0:47:19.080 --> 0:47:23.080 you if they need your factories to produce the weaponry 0:47:23.120 --> 0:47:26.120 that allows them to defend themselves from their neighbors. This 0:47:26.160 --> 0:47:30.719 is devious as hell. Yes, it's extremely insidious, because now 0:47:30.719 --> 0:47:33.799 we also know everything you have. We knows and can 0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:36.279 advance our ship before we give you access to the 0:47:36.320 --> 0:47:39.719 advanced ships. We're always one step ahead. Oh my god. Yeah, 0:47:39.719 --> 0:47:41.880 there's a lot going on here. U s weapons were 0:47:41.880 --> 0:47:44.160 again considered the most advanced on the planet at the time, 0:47:44.239 --> 0:47:48.840 and Latin American militaries were very much comparatively technologically backwards 0:47:48.880 --> 0:47:51.120 compared to the United States. In this period, a lot 0:47:51.160 --> 0:47:53.040 of them had recently been at war with each other, 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:55.719 so there was really very reasonable fear of invasion, of 0:47:55.760 --> 0:47:59.239 losing territory. It had just happened for a lot of them. Um. 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:02.080 So there says understanding that number one, you can defend yourself, 0:48:02.080 --> 0:48:05.360 you can gain massive local advantages by buying US guns. 0:48:05.400 --> 0:48:07.200 But it also on the U s side, it gives 0:48:07.239 --> 0:48:10.680 us this permanent influence in national politics because the ammunition 0:48:10.719 --> 0:48:13.040 that these weapons need, the parts that they need, the training, 0:48:13.280 --> 0:48:16.080 their reliant on the United States for all of that. 0:48:16.960 --> 0:48:19.760 But the thing that was truly insidious about the Ground 0:48:19.800 --> 0:48:22.840 School had nothing to do with weaponry and everything to 0:48:22.880 --> 0:48:24.960 do with what I would consider to be the deadliest 0:48:24.960 --> 0:48:29.719 fantasy in human history, probably the American Dream. And that's 0:48:29.719 --> 0:48:31.800 what we're going to talk about after we get back 0:48:32.000 --> 0:48:39.120 from the real American dream, which is products and services. Yeah, right, 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:44.880 let's do it. Buy some things, buy some things products. 0:48:50.600 --> 0:48:53.560 All right, we're back, and we're talking about the thing 0:48:53.600 --> 0:48:55.840 that was most dangerous about the American School. And this 0:48:55.880 --> 0:48:57.400 is the thing that everybody I see talking about this 0:48:57.400 --> 0:48:59.560 ship on Twitter, like really does seem to miss which 0:48:59.600 --> 0:49:02.040 is not that, Like they're not wrong about the torture 0:49:02.080 --> 0:49:04.000 programs being awful and like everything else we're going to 0:49:04.080 --> 0:49:06.320 talk about, but I don't see this being referenced and 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:09.000 something that strikes the hope of having a dollar and 0:49:09.000 --> 0:49:12.799 a dream. Yeah, this is what and this is this 0:49:12.880 --> 0:49:14.920 is really fascinating to me. So in the late nineteen 0:49:14.960 --> 0:49:17.759 forties and fifties, right, the US winds up after the 0:49:17.760 --> 0:49:19.600 war with all of the money in the fucking world, 0:49:19.680 --> 0:49:22.200 and this leads to an unprecedented explosion in like the 0:49:22.280 --> 0:49:27.479 rates of home ownership, vehicle ownership, employment, job security, regular people. 0:49:27.560 --> 0:49:31.000 Suddenly we're gaining access to labor saving devices like washing 0:49:31.000 --> 0:49:34.400 machines and dishwashers, luxury products like television. It was a 0:49:34.520 --> 0:49:37.080 it was a heady period of time, and it it 0:49:37.160 --> 0:49:40.120 was easy to kind of when you see regular working 0:49:40.160 --> 0:49:43.040 people making these kinds of gains, it's easy for the 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:46.640 propaganda of like this is because there's something special and 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:50.600 beautiful about this, this dream America has what life can be. 0:49:50.640 --> 0:49:53.480 It's very easy to sell that when you've got because 0:49:53.480 --> 0:49:55.320 this is a period you do have to like obviously 0:49:55.400 --> 0:49:57.920 the benefits in this period weren't evenly shared, but like 0:49:58.080 --> 0:50:01.080 black people, you know, made a lot of like wealth 0:50:01.080 --> 0:50:04.760 improvements and stuff in this too. Everybody did. It wasn't 0:50:04.760 --> 0:50:07.760 evenly distributed. But you can look at damn near anybody 0:50:07.760 --> 0:50:10.040 in the United States who's working class in like the 0:50:10.120 --> 0:50:12.880 late forties, early fifties and be like, God, damn, there 0:50:12.960 --> 0:50:16.520 might be something to this us, this American dream thing, um. 0:50:16.560 --> 0:50:20.920 And the rest of the world isn't benefiting from that, right, Um. 0:50:20.960 --> 0:50:23.440 But they're look, they're they're able to look in from 0:50:23.480 --> 0:50:26.440 the outside and they're able to see what's happening in 0:50:26.480 --> 0:50:29.959 the United States. And the soldiers who are being sent 0:50:30.080 --> 0:50:33.279 from other Latin American countries to Panama to partake in 0:50:33.320 --> 0:50:37.280 the ground school, because Panama is run by the United States, 0:50:37.680 --> 0:50:40.880 they get to live in that world for a brief 0:50:40.920 --> 0:50:44.160 period of time. These students, most of whom had come 0:50:44.200 --> 0:50:47.200 from lower middle class families and very very poor nations, 0:50:47.360 --> 0:50:49.640 are able to get a glimpse into the American way 0:50:49.640 --> 0:50:52.640 of life. Um. They're they're they're getting paid money, they're 0:50:52.640 --> 0:50:56.479 getting they're able to buy American products, and so they're there. 0:50:56.520 --> 0:50:59.880 They kind of get get a taste of what American 0:51:00.040 --> 0:51:02.960 are enjoying in the late forties and early fifties. So 0:51:03.160 --> 0:51:05.759 in the in the Ground School starts to offer a 0:51:05.800 --> 0:51:09.000 special training program for Argentine officers and enlisted men that 0:51:09.160 --> 0:51:13.319 mixed technical training with what Leslie Gill calls cultural persuasion. 0:51:13.920 --> 0:51:16.360 The U. S Army officials at the Ground School wanted 0:51:16.400 --> 0:51:18.600 badly to make a good impression on the Argentines, who 0:51:18.600 --> 0:51:21.360 would broadly lean towards the axis during the war. Because remember, 0:51:21.440 --> 0:51:23.560 Germany had taught their army a lot, a bunch of stuff. 0:51:23.880 --> 0:51:26.279 So as Argentina was one of the great powers of 0:51:26.360 --> 0:51:29.800 Latin America, gaining their trust successfully, you know, and drawing 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:31.719 them into the bosom of US power was seen as 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:33.920 a really important thing to do. Um. It was a 0:51:33.920 --> 0:51:36.759 critical step and kind of locking down the continent in 0:51:36.800 --> 0:51:40.640 the whole hemisphere quote from leslie Guilt. They dwelled on 0:51:40.719 --> 0:51:43.640 every aspect of the training program, they being the US trainers, 0:51:43.640 --> 0:51:47.320 which they believed carried considerable symbolic weight for the United States. 0:51:47.680 --> 0:51:51.120 One individual effused that it is no exaggeration to state 0:51:51.160 --> 0:51:54.160 that the cooperation and the solidarity of the Western Hemisphere 0:51:54.239 --> 0:51:57.319 nations depends to a great degree upon the impressions which 0:51:57.360 --> 0:52:00.920 the Argentine personnel take back with them to their native country. 0:52:01.440 --> 0:52:05.360 Army officers described the Argentines as extremely high type personnel 0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:08.840 who are probably well qualified. They told everyone who interacted 0:52:08.840 --> 0:52:11.040 with them to learn the customs of the Argentine Army 0:52:11.160 --> 0:52:14.240 and to recognize the insignia used to designate particular ranks. 0:52:14.440 --> 0:52:17.840 Most importantly, the officials advised course instructors from the fifty 0:52:17.840 --> 0:52:21.120 six Anti Aircraft Artillery Group to instill among the trainees 0:52:21.360 --> 0:52:24.160 faith in the weapons, and in this way to draw 0:52:24.200 --> 0:52:27.280 a connection between the powerful weapons in the United States. 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:31.200 They asserted that if the Argentines had confidence in the weapons, 0:52:31.280 --> 0:52:34.040 they would have confidence in the United States, and this 0:52:34.160 --> 0:52:37.479 confidence would spread when the Argentines returned home and taught 0:52:37.520 --> 0:52:40.680 others to use the guns. Building confidence in the United 0:52:40.719 --> 0:52:43.600 States was a complex undertaking that involved much more than 0:52:43.640 --> 0:52:47.319 impressive weaponry. The Argentine trainees held strong opinions about their 0:52:47.400 --> 0:52:51.239 national and racial superiority visa the other Latin Americans, and 0:52:51.280 --> 0:52:54.920 these views did not go unappreciated by their North American hosts. 0:52:55.520 --> 0:52:59.600 So fortunately for this whole dream of getting Argentina on 0:52:59.640 --> 0:53:01.120 the U S A side. If there's one thing you 0:53:01.120 --> 0:53:03.920 could rely on US military planners in Night to know 0:53:04.000 --> 0:53:06.480 how to do, it was how to be super fucking racist. 0:53:06.719 --> 0:53:09.840 So officers at the Ground School wrote that it was essential, 0:53:10.120 --> 0:53:13.319 in view of the nationalistic feelings of the Argentine and 0:53:13.360 --> 0:53:15.919 their belief in certain racial theories, that they be made 0:53:15.920 --> 0:53:19.200 to feel they enjoy equal privileges with American officers and 0:53:19.280 --> 0:53:23.640 enlisted men. Like most places in the American Empire, the 0:53:23.640 --> 0:53:26.760 Ground School and Panama was was pretty segregated. White American 0:53:26.800 --> 0:53:29.080 soldiers ate better food, lived in better dorms, and enjoyed 0:53:29.160 --> 0:53:32.480 higher standards of comfort than their Latin American students. Uh 0:53:32.520 --> 0:53:35.680 So they start issuing the Argentine soldiers passes that distinguished 0:53:35.719 --> 0:53:38.160 them from other Latin American students at the Ground School 0:53:38.160 --> 0:53:41.280 and grant them privileges such as special food rights, exemption 0:53:41.320 --> 0:53:44.720 from maintenance duties carried out by darker skinned Latin Americans. 0:53:44.840 --> 0:53:47.040 And you know, obviously the US military and Panama has 0:53:47.120 --> 0:53:50.120 kind of its own racial theories. Um. They believe that 0:53:50.160 --> 0:53:52.799 like white suffered more from prolonged exposure to intense heat 0:53:52.800 --> 0:53:55.560 and humidity than than other people's, were more susceptible to 0:53:55.640 --> 0:54:01.960 certain diseases. Um, yeah, so I laugh because racism is 0:54:02.080 --> 0:54:05.239 so easy, Like I get it, Like we we've I've 0:54:05.280 --> 0:54:08.319 been talking a lot about racism. I write about you know, 0:54:08.760 --> 0:54:13.440 black representation in media and this, Like it's so davidly 0:54:13.520 --> 0:54:17.400 easy to see, like the comfort racism provides, Like my 0:54:17.480 --> 0:54:19.759 skin is so fair? How can I possibly do the 0:54:19.800 --> 0:54:21.960 labor this person is to look at their dark skin 0:54:22.000 --> 0:54:25.279 and the side right off of it, this is where 0:54:25.280 --> 0:54:29.360 you belong. And you know, the idea that we essentially 0:54:29.400 --> 0:54:34.680 brainwashed people to believe that, like if we think about you, 0:54:34.760 --> 0:54:38.600 the way that the way racism separates and divides makes 0:54:38.640 --> 0:54:42.080 it nearly impossible to come together and have those conversations 0:54:42.080 --> 0:54:46.000 that allow you as like a community to grow and develop. 0:54:46.080 --> 0:54:48.480 So this idea of like, oh, make sure the lighter 0:54:48.600 --> 0:54:52.239 skin like Latin Americans understand that they're better, so that 0:54:52.320 --> 0:54:55.200 as a country they can never will always be unrest 0:54:55.360 --> 0:55:00.640 in that space that is so sick. Yeah, it's really 0:55:00.719 --> 0:55:03.239 fucked up. Um, And there's this, there's this, So what's 0:55:03.239 --> 0:55:06.080 happening there is like white people kind of believed had 0:55:06.120 --> 0:55:08.719 been like dark skinned people in Latin America and the 0:55:08.760 --> 0:55:11.560 Canal Zone had been doing all the physical labor because 0:55:11.560 --> 0:55:13.680 of this belief that like white people like they just 0:55:13.719 --> 0:55:16.920 weren't weren't as suited to hard labor. And we we 0:55:16.960 --> 0:55:20.719 add the Argentinean soldiers in like we treat them as 0:55:20.760 --> 0:55:23.600 white people as part of a propaganda campaign to kind 0:55:23.600 --> 0:55:25.480 of get the number one, to separate them from other 0:55:25.560 --> 0:55:28.719 Latin Americans further, um, and to kind of get them 0:55:28.719 --> 0:55:31.200 on our side. Um. So there's this kind of immediate 0:55:31.200 --> 0:55:34.760 willingness to like start racially playing the people's of Latin 0:55:34.760 --> 0:55:38.440 America against each other. Um. Now yeah, so this is 0:55:38.520 --> 0:55:42.560 this is uh has a big impact on Argentinian soldiers, 0:55:42.560 --> 0:55:44.400 and it provides them with a taste of the American 0:55:44.440 --> 0:55:46.360 way of life, a sample of what it's like to 0:55:46.400 --> 0:55:49.600 be a white American um. And this meshes well with 0:55:49.680 --> 0:55:51.600 kind of the other tastes they were offered at the 0:55:51.640 --> 0:55:54.600 ground school. Students were paid to attend, and as Panama 0:55:54.600 --> 0:55:55.960 was under you as control, it's a place where they 0:55:56.000 --> 0:55:58.400 could buy a lot of consumer goods. This included a 0:55:58.440 --> 0:56:01.000 lot of labor saving devices and luxury products that would 0:56:01.000 --> 0:56:03.560 have been unavailable back in these students home countries, things 0:56:03.560 --> 0:56:06.759 like laundry machines and dishwashers and blenders in the late 0:56:06.760 --> 0:56:08.960 forties and early fifties. A lot of this stuff was 0:56:08.960 --> 0:56:11.040 was just kind of like magic to many of these 0:56:11.040 --> 0:56:13.320 soldiers coming into the Canal Zone, and the fact that 0:56:13.360 --> 0:56:15.440 they could buy this stuff. Now when we're being like 0:56:15.920 --> 0:56:19.239 able to kind of participate in this this racially segregated 0:56:19.280 --> 0:56:22.000 society on the top of it for a period of time, 0:56:22.680 --> 0:56:24.640 not only does it reinforce the idea in their mind 0:56:24.640 --> 0:56:26.840 that the US is this kind of all powerful utopia, 0:56:27.160 --> 0:56:29.080 but it lets them feel like they're a part of it. 0:56:29.600 --> 0:56:33.400 Um And yeah, so that's that's a big aspect of 0:56:33.440 --> 0:56:35.560 what the American you know, at this point called the 0:56:35.560 --> 0:56:38.239 ground school is trying to do with these solds. To 0:56:38.280 --> 0:56:41.520 be fair, though, Robert, I still find washing machines and 0:56:41.520 --> 0:56:46.600 dishwashers to be magical. I hate them, not a fan. 0:56:46.920 --> 0:56:49.799 Not a fan. Well, I like washing machines, I don't 0:56:49.800 --> 0:56:53.480 like dishwashers. So, uh, school instructors worked hard to keep 0:56:53.520 --> 0:56:57.200 their students occupied constantly with very little unstructured downtime, and 0:56:57.239 --> 0:56:59.719 this too was part of the grander strategy Leslie Gill 0:56:59.840 --> 0:57:02.200 right quote. They did so for two reasons. First, they 0:57:02.200 --> 0:57:04.480 hope to convey to the students a particular vision of U. 0:57:04.600 --> 0:57:07.759 S citizens is industrious and successful. Second, they wanted to 0:57:07.840 --> 0:57:10.080 keep students in the canal zone and out of Panama. 0:57:10.320 --> 0:57:13.760 Officials worried that disorders created by students, such as public drunkenness, 0:57:13.840 --> 0:57:16.320 expressions of immorality, or fights, would provoke the ire of 0:57:16.360 --> 0:57:19.640 Panamanian authorities and cause of public relations difficulty for the 0:57:19.680 --> 0:57:22.480 US military. The Commandant did not mince words when he 0:57:22.480 --> 0:57:24.400 told a group of staff officers that in addition to 0:57:24.480 --> 0:57:26.440 taking care of these people and making them welcome and 0:57:26.480 --> 0:57:29.840 happy while here, they must be kept busy, organize their instructions, 0:57:29.840 --> 0:57:31.760 make the schedule so that they do not have too 0:57:31.840 --> 0:57:34.400 much free time, give them organized athletics that they will 0:57:34.400 --> 0:57:36.200 stay in the zone and out of Panama. They are 0:57:36.240 --> 0:57:38.959 here to learn the equipment and technique. They must carry 0:57:39.000 --> 0:57:40.480 with them the impression that this is the way we 0:57:40.520 --> 0:57:44.440 work and why we are a great nation. So again, 0:57:44.480 --> 0:57:46.880 this is all there's there's there's this kind of basic 0:57:46.920 --> 0:57:49.560 military training going on, but there's also this much deeper 0:57:49.640 --> 0:57:53.160 cultural training and what what the United States is and 0:57:53.320 --> 0:57:55.600 kind of us pushing like this is what your country 0:57:55.640 --> 0:57:59.000 should be. Um. This reminds me a lot of the vow. 0:57:59.120 --> 0:58:04.080 I don't know if you guys are Yeah, there's not 0:58:04.200 --> 0:58:07.240 enough set about that. Yeah, you're very like yeah, the 0:58:07.280 --> 0:58:09.680 brainwashing the way like a lot of the way they 0:58:09.680 --> 0:58:11.520 treat them like children. This idea of like, oh no, 0:58:11.800 --> 0:58:14.040 the devil and I don't mind, is the devil's workshop, 0:58:14.160 --> 0:58:16.800 Like make sure they're they're kept busy, because who knows 0:58:16.800 --> 0:58:18.760 what they'll get up to on their own devices. Like 0:58:18.800 --> 0:58:21.120 that wasn't, at least from what I just heard. It 0:58:21.120 --> 0:58:23.040 wasn't based off of like, oh, these are like young 0:58:23.120 --> 0:58:25.640 kids who are getting rowdy, Let's give them something constructive 0:58:25.680 --> 0:58:27.959 to do. It's like they might embarrass us, so let's 0:58:27.960 --> 0:58:31.480 make sure they stay under our thumb. Like yeah, so 0:58:31.560 --> 0:58:35.720 much of racism is infantilization of a people, and I 0:58:35.840 --> 0:58:39.400 it's yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on here. So 0:58:39.720 --> 0:58:41.840 for more than a decade, this kind of goes on, 0:58:41.880 --> 0:58:44.520 and the ground school quietly trains hundreds and then eventually 0:58:44.600 --> 0:58:47.680 thousands of soldiers from not just Argentina, but Guatemala, Chula 0:58:47.920 --> 0:58:50.480 and a bunch of other countries in Latin America, and 0:58:50.520 --> 0:58:52.640 these men walked away from their months. It was often 0:58:52.680 --> 0:58:55.560 like a year long course in Panama with more than 0:58:55.600 --> 0:58:58.320 just an expanded understanding of US weapon rate. They left 0:58:58.360 --> 0:59:02.040 with deep and personal knowledge of the wonders of American culture, 0:59:02.280 --> 0:59:06.440 American capitalism, the benefits that it could bring. And they 0:59:06.640 --> 0:59:10.240 they walked away in a lot of cases, with an understanding, 0:59:10.280 --> 0:59:13.560 a personal, brief and fleeting understanding of how good it 0:59:13.600 --> 0:59:17.080 felt to be a winner in that society. So these 0:59:17.120 --> 0:59:21.520 young ambitious men get this taste of America at its height, 0:59:21.800 --> 0:59:23.640 and then they go home to their own nations, which 0:59:23.720 --> 0:59:27.080 much must have felt like crude backwaters by comparison, there's 0:59:27.080 --> 0:59:29.120 not a lot of luxury goods and appliances to buy. 0:59:29.240 --> 0:59:31.960 People don't work in the same way like this capitalism 0:59:32.040 --> 0:59:34.280 thing that has taken over the whole world now hadn't yet. 0:59:34.280 --> 0:59:36.360 And it's this kind of like what what's one of 0:59:36.440 --> 0:59:38.400 the things that a lot of Latin American cultures are 0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:42.960 known for, you know, really really um putting a lot 0:59:42.960 --> 0:59:45.240 of emphasis on this idea of like a siesta or whatever, 0:59:45.280 --> 0:59:48.040 Like you don't always work all the time. There's like, culturally, 0:59:48.040 --> 0:59:50.120 you build in periods of rest because it's healthy to 0:59:50.200 --> 0:59:52.400 rest even in like the middle of the day. We 0:59:52.440 --> 0:59:54.920 don't fucking do that in America. We drink coffee so 0:59:54.920 --> 0:59:57.600 that you can work through you know, a sixteen hour shift. Right. 0:59:57.920 --> 1:00:01.200 So these guys, these these young ambitious men, get a 1:00:01.240 --> 1:00:06.320 taste of you know, American main manic work culture and 1:00:06.440 --> 1:00:09.160 the kind of the kind of benefits that it can 1:00:09.200 --> 1:00:10.680 bring in terms of like the things you get to 1:00:10.720 --> 1:00:13.320 own when you partake in it and succeed. And then 1:00:13.360 --> 1:00:16.160 they go home to these countries where like people don't 1:00:16.200 --> 1:00:19.000 have the same attitude towards work and don't have access 1:00:19.040 --> 1:00:21.080 to a lot of the same luxury goods and appliances, 1:00:21.080 --> 1:00:23.880 and they draw connections between all this stuff, and they 1:00:23.920 --> 1:00:26.960 start to they start to place blame on segments of 1:00:27.000 --> 1:00:29.400 their society for why they don't get to enjoy the 1:00:29.440 --> 1:00:31.880 same things they enjoyed, you know, in the Panama Zone, 1:00:32.120 --> 1:00:35.480 including the fact that indigenous cultures in these regions valued 1:00:35.560 --> 1:00:39.400 leisure and community over relentless capitalism um, and including the 1:00:39.400 --> 1:00:40.960 fact that there were a lot of left wing movements 1:00:40.960 --> 1:00:43.760 who were arguing that like things should be nationalized rather 1:00:43.840 --> 1:00:47.480 than this kind of free for all Lasi fairship that 1:00:47.560 --> 1:00:49.720 the US really wanted to push in all these Latin 1:00:49.720 --> 1:00:54.240 American countries because it benefited larger and already established American corporations. 1:00:54.280 --> 1:00:57.640 So not only you know, they're frustrated when they come back, 1:00:57.680 --> 1:01:00.120 and they also have a ready group of people than 1:01:00.160 --> 1:01:02.560 their own countries to blame for the fact that things 1:01:02.640 --> 1:01:05.400 aren't the way they want them to be at home 1:01:05.840 --> 1:01:08.080 now that they know how, you know, things are in 1:01:08.120 --> 1:01:10.840 the United States. So a lot of these soldiers, you know, 1:01:10.880 --> 1:01:13.360 they would finish their time in their respective militaries after 1:01:13.480 --> 1:01:15.360 going to the ground school, and they go on and 1:01:15.400 --> 1:01:17.600 do something else. But a significant number of them went 1:01:17.600 --> 1:01:20.200 on to be career officers, and since training at the 1:01:20.240 --> 1:01:23.240 ground school was prestigious, they often rose high in the 1:01:23.320 --> 1:01:26.600 ranks of their national militaries. As the fifties rolled along, 1:01:26.640 --> 1:01:29.800 there were a series of left wing revolutions in Latin America. 1:01:29.920 --> 1:01:33.360 In nineteen fifty two, Bolivia had a left wing coup, 1:01:33.480 --> 1:01:35.720 you know, kind of socialisty that brought in a new 1:01:35.760 --> 1:01:38.360 government that was dead set on nationalizing every mine in 1:01:38.400 --> 1:01:40.960 the country, which at that point we're basically owned by 1:01:41.000 --> 1:01:44.080 a bunch of US based corporations. Then, of course there's 1:01:44.080 --> 1:01:46.480 the Cuban Revolution of nineteen fifty nine, which brought that 1:01:46.520 --> 1:01:49.240 bearded heart throb Castro, you know, into the hearts and 1:01:49.280 --> 1:01:53.920 minds of everybody, um. And then kind of it seems 1:01:53.960 --> 1:01:55.720 like in the early fifties, the left is on the 1:01:55.800 --> 1:01:59.320 rise in Latin America. UM. And it was in the 1:01:59.320 --> 1:02:01.440 eyes of a lot of these officers who have been 1:02:01.480 --> 1:02:04.240 thoroughly if you know, you compared you compared it earlier 1:02:04.280 --> 1:02:07.120 to a cult. They've been thoroughly enraptured by the cult 1:02:07.240 --> 1:02:10.320 of the American way of life. It seems like these 1:02:10.560 --> 1:02:13.640 these left wing movements are hell bent on stopping Latin 1:02:13.680 --> 1:02:17.600 America from ever achieving that same dream. So the US 1:02:17.640 --> 1:02:20.320 government gets caught off guard by all of these revolutions, 1:02:20.320 --> 1:02:23.200 as it generally is, by everything that happens uh and 1:02:23.280 --> 1:02:25.680 Latin America like they saw it as basically our property. 1:02:25.720 --> 1:02:28.320 And suddenly, like the Russians are parking nuclear missiles in 1:02:28.360 --> 1:02:32.400 Cuba seventy miles off the Florida coast. So US officials 1:02:32.480 --> 1:02:34.120 kind of panic and they're afraid that they might start 1:02:34.160 --> 1:02:35.920 to lose the whole region to this new wave of 1:02:36.000 --> 1:02:39.560 left wing politicians. The prevailing kind of political wisdom at 1:02:39.560 --> 1:02:41.600 the time was something called the Domino theory, which stated 1:02:41.720 --> 1:02:44.240 the fall of one nation to communism would start this 1:02:44.320 --> 1:02:49.640 like horrible chain reaction would doom the whole continent, because yeah, yeah, 1:02:49.760 --> 1:02:51.160 and there's no way that people could be like, what 1:02:51.200 --> 1:02:53.560 have we just had free healthcare and we didn't let 1:02:53.640 --> 1:02:57.320 random foreign companies own everything in the country, And it's like, no, 1:02:57.480 --> 1:03:00.920 that the only that only leads to identical things, to 1:03:01.000 --> 1:03:03.480 Stalinism and Maoism. You could you couldn't just do that 1:03:03.560 --> 1:03:06.680 and then keep just like whatever. It's a very frustrating 1:03:06.760 --> 1:03:10.320 idea that people have. So the US, like Panics, as 1:03:10.360 --> 1:03:13.160 these revolutions start to take hold and they start turning 1:03:13.160 --> 1:03:16.240 to this network they have in Latin America of all 1:03:16.280 --> 1:03:20.720 of these military officers who are dedicated pro US capitalists 1:03:20.720 --> 1:03:23.120 just kind of waiting in the wings, furious at these 1:03:23.200 --> 1:03:26.120 damn commies who are like pulling their people away from 1:03:26.120 --> 1:03:28.640 the promised land of being able to buy washing machines. 1:03:29.120 --> 1:03:32.400 So by the time the Cuban Revolution succeeded, nearly about 1:03:32.440 --> 1:03:34.880 eight thousand students had graduated the ground school, and these 1:03:34.880 --> 1:03:37.960 guys were a good start, But Washington realized that kind 1:03:37.960 --> 1:03:40.600 of the revolutions sweeping Latin America were of such a 1:03:40.640 --> 1:03:42.120 scope that they were gonna need a lot more than 1:03:42.200 --> 1:03:46.000 eight thousand dudes to put a lid on all of this. Now, 1:03:46.080 --> 1:03:49.200 President Kennedy is the guy who issued orders for the 1:03:49.280 --> 1:03:53.439 Ground School to start training students in counter insurgency. US 1:03:53.480 --> 1:03:55.760 Special Forces were sent to the Ground School and they 1:03:55.760 --> 1:03:58.440 start teaching courses and traveling around to these countries too 1:03:58.480 --> 1:04:01.680 and teaching people. And you the exact nature of the 1:04:01.680 --> 1:04:05.320 counter terrorism courses that start getting counterinsurgency courses that start 1:04:05.320 --> 1:04:08.480 getting taught after Kennedy gives the order. UM Professor Michael 1:04:08.520 --> 1:04:12.560 McClintock describes them as the legitimization of state terrorism as 1:04:12.560 --> 1:04:15.680 a means to confront the sinse subversion and insurgency. And 1:04:15.720 --> 1:04:20.200 that's really what's. Yeah, the we start backing state terrorism 1:04:20.240 --> 1:04:23.040 in order to stop left wing politics in Latin America. 1:04:23.120 --> 1:04:26.200 That's what happens in this period. And that's again people 1:04:26.240 --> 1:04:29.200 accusing me of like going after the right wing. That's JFK. Like, 1:04:29.280 --> 1:04:31.800 let's just keep that all in mind. That that's sucking JFK. 1:04:31.960 --> 1:04:36.000 Who does this, right? Um, So, in nineteen sixty three 1:04:36.040 --> 1:04:38.600 they change the name of the Ground School to the 1:04:38.640 --> 1:04:41.480 School of the America's that's when that that alteration happens, 1:04:41.720 --> 1:04:44.280 and this new name kind of reflected its expanded role 1:04:44.320 --> 1:04:46.440 as a tool in the hands of the US government. 1:04:46.680 --> 1:04:48.880 So in nineteen sixty seven, just a couple of years later, 1:04:49.200 --> 1:04:51.160 that's when che Guevara, who had kind of gotten his 1:04:51.200 --> 1:04:54.720 start as acute like fighting with Castro, launches a guerrilla 1:04:54.800 --> 1:04:57.680 campaign and Southeast Bolivia. Uh, and the School of the 1:04:57.720 --> 1:05:00.920 America's you know, had started kind years before this a 1:05:00.920 --> 1:05:03.800 is left wing sort of militancy, and Bolivia had grown 1:05:03.800 --> 1:05:06.920 they started taking in more and more Bolivian students. Um. 1:05:07.080 --> 1:05:10.000 And so it was US trained soldiers who captured she 1:05:10.160 --> 1:05:13.600 Guavara shortly after his arrival in the country. Um. And 1:05:13.840 --> 1:05:17.320 you know, once he was captured, the U s forces, 1:05:17.400 --> 1:05:19.680 like who were kind of actually embedded there, actually wanted 1:05:19.760 --> 1:05:23.360 him at least a lot most of the stories you'll here, 1:05:23.360 --> 1:05:25.080 like wanted him to just kind of be taken into 1:05:25.120 --> 1:05:27.000 custody because they thought that killing him would turn him 1:05:27.000 --> 1:05:28.560 into a global martyr who had his face on a 1:05:28.560 --> 1:05:32.040 bunch of T shirts and music festivals for decades. Um. 1:05:32.080 --> 1:05:34.640 But the soldiers we'd trained were like, no, let's just 1:05:34.720 --> 1:05:37.840 murder him. So they murder him, and yeah, now he's 1:05:38.440 --> 1:05:43.280 he's on all sorts of T shirts. Um. Yeah, yeah, Well, 1:05:43.360 --> 1:05:44.960 I mean I mean, and you know, I'm not a 1:05:44.960 --> 1:05:48.480 big fan of schet, but it clearly like one of 1:05:48.480 --> 1:05:51.720 the things that's funny to me is that you've got 1:05:51.840 --> 1:05:53.520 some of the guys who were some of the US 1:05:53.560 --> 1:05:56.320 guys who were in the field instructing these troops are 1:05:56.320 --> 1:05:58.720 smart enough to recognize what's going to happen if, say, 1:05:58.760 --> 1:06:02.880 gets executed, But the actual soldiers in charge, these Latin 1:06:02.880 --> 1:06:06.240 American officers had learned so well from the United States 1:06:06.360 --> 1:06:09.040 who was doing nothing in this period but creating martyrs, 1:06:09.080 --> 1:06:11.160 that they like, they can't even listen to the direct 1:06:11.200 --> 1:06:13.840 advice in the field because they've been inculcated in this 1:06:13.960 --> 1:06:16.480 US style of thinking that that that yeah, they just 1:06:16.560 --> 1:06:20.600 murder this guy. It's very funny. So yeah, by opening 1:06:20.680 --> 1:06:22.800 up more slots in the school of the America's to 1:06:22.880 --> 1:06:25.680 students of a different nation, the US was able to 1:06:25.720 --> 1:06:29.600 kind of modulate like which countries got floods of these 1:06:29.680 --> 1:06:33.920 motivated far right um military officers who were willing to 1:06:34.000 --> 1:06:38.640 like take power and execute camp basically act as death 1:06:38.640 --> 1:06:41.720 squads against leftists. So they do that in Bolivia, right, 1:06:41.760 --> 1:06:43.160 which is a big part of like why ship what 1:06:43.240 --> 1:06:45.200 she's doing there doesn't work as the US had already 1:06:45.200 --> 1:06:50.800 flooded Bolivia with these trained and uh motivated um kind 1:06:50.800 --> 1:06:54.480 of right wing idealogue soldiers. UM. And we do that 1:06:54.520 --> 1:06:56.720 in every country that we start to see the left 1:06:56.720 --> 1:06:59.680 wing take offense. So in nineteen in the nineteen sixties, 1:06:59.720 --> 1:07:01.840 that chill lay in left wing starts to organize and 1:07:01.880 --> 1:07:05.800 gain political power um, led by a charismatic socialist named 1:07:05.800 --> 1:07:08.720 Salvador Allende UM and one of one of you know 1:07:08.880 --> 1:07:10.680 for an understanding who a end was he was. He 1:07:11.000 --> 1:07:13.840 was a big backer of better educational policy. He wanted 1:07:13.880 --> 1:07:17.840 better education for like indigenous people, poor people in in 1:07:17.840 --> 1:07:20.800 in Chile. He want a monster pay for this by 1:07:20.920 --> 1:07:24.400 nationalizing a lot of the different resources in Chile because 1:07:24.400 --> 1:07:27.640 like corrupt politicians prior to him had made these very 1:07:27.720 --> 1:07:31.280 much illegal deals with US companies that basically gave them 1:07:31.360 --> 1:07:34.560 all of Chile's resources for for nothing. UM. So he 1:07:34.640 --> 1:07:36.440 was like, well, let's stop that ship. Let's use the 1:07:36.480 --> 1:07:38.800 money from the resources that we have in our country 1:07:38.880 --> 1:07:41.800 to make life better for our people. And a bunch 1:07:41.800 --> 1:07:45.320 of Americans with financial interest in stealing Chile's resources are like, oh, 1:07:45.360 --> 1:07:47.840 that doesn't seem like a good idea. UM. And so 1:07:47.880 --> 1:07:50.480 in the early late fifties early sixties, the School of 1:07:50.520 --> 1:07:53.360 America starts taking in more Chilean soldiers under the guys 1:07:53.400 --> 1:07:55.640 that will train them how to be more effective soldiers. 1:07:55.880 --> 1:07:58.640 And we'll also teach them about how salvadorai Ende and 1:07:58.680 --> 1:08:03.200 everybody like him need be fucking murdered. Um. So yeah, 1:08:03.240 --> 1:08:06.840 this again starts under the Kennedy administration. Um. But you know, 1:08:06.960 --> 1:08:09.680 as as the whole Kennedy thing doesn't work out so well, 1:08:09.720 --> 1:08:11.840 things actually do work out for a while for the 1:08:11.960 --> 1:08:15.720 Chilean Left. Something happen. Yeah, Bernard Montgomery Sanders made a 1:08:15.760 --> 1:08:19.000 couple of key decisions there. So as the as the 1:08:19.080 --> 1:08:22.280 Chilean Left begins to win more victories, they start kind 1:08:22.280 --> 1:08:25.280 of quietly inviting the U S starts quietly inviting more 1:08:25.280 --> 1:08:27.840 and more Chilean soldiers into the School of the America's um, 1:08:27.880 --> 1:08:30.519 and in fact, more Chilean soldiers trained at the School 1:08:30.560 --> 1:08:33.120 of the Americas than soldiers from any other country during 1:08:33.160 --> 1:08:36.040 the nineteen seventies. Between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy five. 1:08:36.760 --> 1:08:40.080 I have a quick question, are they like I know 1:08:40.120 --> 1:08:42.200 that the job like when if you graduate from school, 1:08:42.200 --> 1:08:44.280 you're more luckily to get a job. That's higher up 1:08:44.280 --> 1:08:46.439 in the ranks, which probably means more money. But is 1:08:47.000 --> 1:08:50.720 there other financial incentives from going to the school that 1:08:50.760 --> 1:08:54.400 like allow these people to maintain their power like or 1:08:54.439 --> 1:08:57.559 is there proper strictly come from their training. It gets 1:08:57.560 --> 1:09:00.960 them better positions, which gives them con troll of more 1:09:01.000 --> 1:09:03.559 and more men and higher numbers of their men are 1:09:03.600 --> 1:09:06.439 also trained at these schools, and they don't get money 1:09:06.600 --> 1:09:09.200 directly from that, but the fact that they're in this 1:09:09.240 --> 1:09:12.479 position means that suddenly there's this opportunity to Hey, if 1:09:12.520 --> 1:09:15.840 we take over, right, we have all the guns, we 1:09:15.920 --> 1:09:19.200 have the millet, we are the military. If we take over, well, 1:09:19.240 --> 1:09:21.599 then we can get all that money for ourselves and 1:09:21.640 --> 1:09:25.040 we can personally start to enjoy the benefits of this 1:09:25.200 --> 1:09:28.280 like this, this lucrative American life, Like we can get 1:09:28.439 --> 1:09:31.400 rich like that. That can happen for us if we 1:09:31.479 --> 1:09:34.120 take over the country. If we stop these resources from 1:09:34.120 --> 1:09:36.960 being nationalized and going to all of the people, we 1:09:37.040 --> 1:09:39.320 can just sell them, access to them to the United 1:09:39.360 --> 1:09:41.599 States and get this ship for ourselves. This is happening 1:09:41.600 --> 1:09:43.759 all over Latin America. That that's why all these people 1:09:43.760 --> 1:09:46.040 get fucking rich. A lot of them do, like when 1:09:46.040 --> 1:09:48.960 they when they do their coups is because like they 1:09:48.960 --> 1:09:51.400 take over the country and then they get to sit 1:09:51.439 --> 1:09:54.800 down with all these corporations who had backed the overthrows 1:09:54.840 --> 1:09:56.639 of the governments in these nations and say like, hey, 1:09:56.920 --> 1:09:58.559 we can keep this ship flowing to you, but like 1:09:58.640 --> 1:10:00.960 daddy needs a little cut, and it's cheaper to you 1:10:01.000 --> 1:10:03.920 than giving than the entire nation getting a cut, because 1:10:03.920 --> 1:10:06.000 all you gotta do is help me and my buddies out. 1:10:06.120 --> 1:10:09.599 But yes, there that's the financial incentive. And a lot 1:10:09.600 --> 1:10:12.000 of these guys, by the way, the ones who are 1:10:12.040 --> 1:10:14.880 really smart, wind up buying homes and property and immigrating 1:10:14.880 --> 1:10:17.000 to the United States. There's a bunch of America, Like 1:10:17.280 --> 1:10:19.920 they're a bunch of the School of the America's graduates, 1:10:19.920 --> 1:10:22.760 help overthrow their governments, loot their own countries, and then 1:10:22.760 --> 1:10:24.920 flee to the United States when things start to turn 1:10:24.960 --> 1:10:29.439 against them politically. It happens all the fucking time up 1:10:29.439 --> 1:10:31.519 to the present day. You know, we'll talk about Olivia 1:10:31.560 --> 1:10:33.720 a little bit at the end um of this of 1:10:33.760 --> 1:10:38.160 this series. So when Salvador and finally gets elected president 1:10:38.320 --> 1:10:40.960 of Chile. You know, the whole sixties were pumping soldiers 1:10:41.040 --> 1:10:42.880 who are you know, trained to be these right wing 1:10:42.920 --> 1:10:46.240 idealogues into Chile, and the Chilean left is rising politically, 1:10:46.280 --> 1:10:50.120 and I and finally gets elected president in nineteen seventy. Um, 1:10:50.280 --> 1:10:51.960 and you know, now he's going to be in a 1:10:52.000 --> 1:10:55.000 position to actually nationalize all these resources, help the Chilean 1:10:55.000 --> 1:10:58.080 people and kind of funk over some big US corporations 1:10:58.080 --> 1:11:00.880 that have financial interests in Chile. So as soon as 1:11:00.920 --> 1:11:04.120 this happens, as soon as I gets elected, and in fact, 1:11:04.160 --> 1:11:07.000 a little bit before he actually gets elected, talking the 1:11:07.000 --> 1:11:09.920 White House turns to cooing him out of power. Um, 1:11:10.000 --> 1:11:12.680 Henry Kissinger says, I don't see why we need to 1:11:12.720 --> 1:11:15.320 stand by and watch a country go communist because of 1:11:15.360 --> 1:11:20.720 the irresponsibility of its people. Because it's the seventies, so Nixon, Yeah, yeah, 1:11:20.800 --> 1:11:24.000 Nixon's in charge now. Yeah. But again, same basic idea 1:11:24.080 --> 1:11:26.240 under Nixon and JFK. And in fact, you look at 1:11:26.280 --> 1:11:28.200 that quote from Henry Kissinger, we don't why would we 1:11:28.200 --> 1:11:30.040 stand by and let a country go communist because it's 1:11:30.040 --> 1:11:35.760 people are irresponsible. That's the same attitude that Woodrow Wilson professed, 1:11:36.000 --> 1:11:39.320 you know, sixty years ago earlier. Too ignorant to run 1:11:39.360 --> 1:11:42.920 your own country. Yeah, the most bad ship thing. I've 1:11:43.040 --> 1:11:47.639 ever never understand that. Yeah, and of course Nixon expresses 1:11:47.680 --> 1:11:49.320 and again we have this on tape. That's what we know. 1:11:49.360 --> 1:11:52.719 Like Kissinger said that ship um, and Nixon is terrified 1:11:52.760 --> 1:11:55.760 that the nation might become another Cuba, which, like, I 1:11:55.760 --> 1:11:58.240 don't want to whitewash the bad things Castra did, but 1:11:58.360 --> 1:12:01.040 Cuba also has some of the best disaster response in 1:12:01.080 --> 1:12:03.479 the world and more doctors than basically any other country. 1:12:03.479 --> 1:12:08.200 Like it's not exactly the nightmare story of Commune, but whatever. Um. 1:12:08.240 --> 1:12:11.559 You know, every nation, because it's a nation, has bad 1:12:11.600 --> 1:12:13.599 shipped to it too. But like I it's just so 1:12:13.680 --> 1:12:16.680 crazy to me people looking at Cuba as this like 1:12:16.840 --> 1:12:18.680 nightmare when it's like, well you want to look at 1:12:18.720 --> 1:12:21.200 the grand scheme of every nation on the planet, They're 1:12:21.280 --> 1:12:24.240 like not in the worst part of the places in 1:12:24.240 --> 1:12:27.920 the world to be Yeah, I don't know whatever. Um. So, 1:12:28.080 --> 1:12:32.280 under Nixon, the US backs ends far right opposition for 1:12:32.320 --> 1:12:34.840 several years and it engages in a program of vicious 1:12:34.920 --> 1:12:38.680 economic sabotage aimed at collapsing the Chilean economy. Uh and 1:12:38.720 --> 1:12:41.479 thus you know, all support in the new president. So 1:12:41.520 --> 1:12:44.400 the CIA starts reaching out to officers in the military 1:12:44.439 --> 1:12:47.479 who were solid right wing anti communists. Uh. And one 1:12:47.479 --> 1:12:49.040 of the men that they reach out to is a 1:12:49.080 --> 1:12:53.120 general named Augusto Pinochet, um who I guess that name 1:12:53.200 --> 1:12:55.679 is at least familiar to a lot of people. Uh. Now, 1:12:55.760 --> 1:12:57.800 there's some debate as to whether or not Pinochet was 1:12:57.840 --> 1:12:59.840 the main architect of the coup that followed, which he 1:13:00.040 --> 1:13:02.200 claimed um or if he was just brought in at 1:13:02.200 --> 1:13:04.400 the last minute as a bunch of other members of 1:13:04.400 --> 1:13:07.360 the coup claim. And again, Pinochet's a liar, so I'm 1:13:07.360 --> 1:13:09.439 not going to say what the actual truth is here. 1:13:09.720 --> 1:13:11.840 But he gets involved at a certain point, and he 1:13:12.120 --> 1:13:14.320 was not a graduate of the School of the America's. 1:13:14.360 --> 1:13:17.320 But basically a hundred percent of the other officers who 1:13:17.320 --> 1:13:19.960 were involved in the plot against Diende, including the guys 1:13:20.000 --> 1:13:23.040 who started the plot, were all graduates of the School 1:13:23.080 --> 1:13:25.920 of the America's. How did Pinochet like just get ahead 1:13:25.960 --> 1:13:28.439 of all of them. He's real smart. He's a very 1:13:28.720 --> 1:13:31.280 very very very cunning political operator, right, Like you just 1:13:31.320 --> 1:13:33.080 have to give it to them sometimes, Like he was 1:13:33.120 --> 1:13:35.799 good at what he did, which was become the dictator 1:13:35.800 --> 1:13:40.240 of Chile. Yeah, it's kind of like, how did Stalin 1:13:40.320 --> 1:13:41.880 wind up in power, because if you look at the 1:13:41.880 --> 1:13:43.160 way things were kind of at the start of the 1:13:43.200 --> 1:13:46.280 Bolshevik Revolution, he probably isn't the guy you would have 1:13:46.280 --> 1:13:48.360 guessed would wind up with all of the power. But 1:13:48.479 --> 1:13:51.439 he does. And it's a very complicated story as to how. Um, 1:13:51.439 --> 1:13:53.639 but it boils down to he's real fucking smart dude 1:13:53.960 --> 1:13:59.719 and hot. Well that is overblown, but he was very intelligent. Um. 1:14:00.040 --> 1:14:02.679 Get a lot of acne scars that get that, get 1:14:03.080 --> 1:14:06.639 photoshops out of skin shame him. I am gonna skin 1:14:06.760 --> 1:14:11.720 shave the dictator of the Soviet Union. Yeah, I'm not. 1:14:12.360 --> 1:14:14.160 I'm not. That's not the thing to and I actually 1:14:14.160 --> 1:14:17.400 they were like small box cars. Um. So yeah. The 1:14:17.840 --> 1:14:20.559 so all of these, basically all of the Chilean officers 1:14:20.600 --> 1:14:23.160 who start this plot to overthrow all End and organize 1:14:23.200 --> 1:14:25.280 the military against them are graduates of the School of 1:14:25.320 --> 1:14:28.240 the Americas, and these men saw Allende, who sought to 1:14:28.320 --> 1:14:31.640 improve public education and ensure Chile's resources were shared for 1:14:31.640 --> 1:14:34.200 the benefit of its people, as a threat. I End 1:14:34.400 --> 1:14:37.640 meant a future without shiny new American malls filled with 1:14:37.680 --> 1:14:40.120 shiny new luxury goods that they could buy with the 1:14:40.160 --> 1:14:43.120 bribes they received from the Western resource extraction companies that 1:14:43.160 --> 1:14:47.360 wanted Chile's wealth um So. In September of nineteen seventy three, 1:14:47.400 --> 1:14:50.479 a large group of Chilean officers, again basically all of 1:14:50.520 --> 1:14:53.240 whom were graduates of the s o A launch a coup. 1:14:53.479 --> 1:14:56.240 They surround the presidential palace and President i Ende is 1:14:56.240 --> 1:14:59.400 found dead from a self inflicted gunshot wounds. Shortly thereafter, 1:14:59.600 --> 1:15:01.559 there's the bait over whether or not he shot himself, 1:15:01.560 --> 1:15:03.479 whether or not an AID shot him, if the military 1:15:03.560 --> 1:15:05.240 killed him. We don't really need to get into that. 1:15:05.280 --> 1:15:07.600 He's certainly murdered by this coup, Like whether or not 1:15:07.640 --> 1:15:10.679 he pulled the trigger. He dies because there's a coup 1:15:10.680 --> 1:15:15.080 against him. Um yeah. So General Pinochet winds up in 1:15:15.120 --> 1:15:17.120 power and he would hold. He would stay in power 1:15:17.200 --> 1:15:20.960 until nineteen nine. During his reign, Chilean soldiers continued to 1:15:21.000 --> 1:15:23.439 train at the School of the America's. They learned fun 1:15:23.520 --> 1:15:27.480 new counterinsurgency tactics to suppress the left, like throwing suspected 1:15:27.520 --> 1:15:30.719 leftist militants out of helicopters. They learned how to torture, 1:15:30.800 --> 1:15:33.200 and they practice their new skills on tens of thousands 1:15:33.200 --> 1:15:36.400 of their fellow Chileans between twelve hundred and thirty two 1:15:36.479 --> 1:15:39.920 hundred people were executed by Pinochet, more than eighty thousand 1:15:39.960 --> 1:15:43.040 were interned, and again tens of thousands were tortured. Now, 1:15:43.439 --> 1:15:47.240 Pinochet himself didn't, you know, attend the School of the America's, 1:15:47.400 --> 1:15:50.400 but the head of his secret police, Manuel Contreres, did 1:15:50.439 --> 1:15:53.160 graduate from the s o A. Another graduate of the 1:15:53.320 --> 1:15:56.559 s o A was the deputy director of Pinochet's secret police, 1:15:56.960 --> 1:15:59.600 and so also another graduate of the s o A 1:15:59.760 --> 1:16:02.560 was the head of the Via Grimaldi, which was Pinochet's 1:16:02.600 --> 1:16:06.040 notorious torture castle. He had a castle where you tortured people. Uh, 1:16:06.040 --> 1:16:08.720 and the Via Grimaldi was was particularly famous for its 1:16:08.720 --> 1:16:11.479 signature punishment, which was rape. Like that was like one 1:16:11.520 --> 1:16:13.760 of the things that's notorious about this is like male 1:16:13.880 --> 1:16:16.479 or female, you get sent here. One of the things 1:16:16.520 --> 1:16:18.519 that happens, you're gonna get that you're gonna get really 1:16:18.560 --> 1:16:22.400 really raped, um like either by individuals or by individuals 1:16:22.439 --> 1:16:24.840 like using objects. And it's kind of it's to humiliate 1:16:24.880 --> 1:16:27.160 the men. I guess it's to humiliate the women too. 1:16:27.240 --> 1:16:30.320 But like this is like a lot pretty much every 1:16:30.479 --> 1:16:33.160 torture prison that exists rape as a part of it. 1:16:33.200 --> 1:16:36.360 But I'm wanna say it's just their guantanamo, but this 1:16:36.600 --> 1:16:45.439 it's particularly a thing here that is so uh. It's 1:16:45.439 --> 1:16:50.840 wild to me that in the desire for not just things, 1:16:50.920 --> 1:16:52.320 not just the ability to buy, and not just the 1:16:52.320 --> 1:16:56.160 American dream, but like prosperity and future and like growth 1:16:56.160 --> 1:17:00.160 and development, we all, like we as human being is 1:17:00.160 --> 1:17:02.400 always seem to take a step back to the dark age. 1:17:02.439 --> 1:17:05.400 Is like build a castle with giant walls and like 1:17:05.479 --> 1:17:09.600 assault people as a firm of development so that we 1:17:09.640 --> 1:17:13.040 can all be better. Like where is the logic? Well, 1:17:13.080 --> 1:17:15.160 you know, I think they had this building and it 1:17:15.240 --> 1:17:17.720 was a good place for a prison, and they you know, 1:17:17.840 --> 1:17:20.519 for whatever reason. One of the things you find studying 1:17:20.520 --> 1:17:22.439 in the School of the Americas is that when people 1:17:22.479 --> 1:17:26.920 are trained in how to punish leftists by the US military, 1:17:26.960 --> 1:17:30.719 they wind up raping their prisoners all the fucking time. Um, 1:17:30.760 --> 1:17:33.679 it's a huge thing for s O A graduate big rapists. 1:17:33.920 --> 1:17:39.280 Graduates of the s O A huge fans of rape 1:17:39.320 --> 1:17:42.760 as a method of violent political control. Are we just 1:17:42.800 --> 1:17:46.160 seeing the same thing? And oh my god, there's a 1:17:46.200 --> 1:17:48.800 country right now where there's a coup happening and they 1:17:48.880 --> 1:17:52.799 just forced a guy to like assault himself with a bottle. 1:17:53.600 --> 1:17:57.960 Oh yeah, yeah, I forget where that was. I think so, yeah, 1:17:58.000 --> 1:17:59.760 that wouldn't have anything to do with the U. S. 1:17:59.800 --> 1:18:04.000 Real because Belarus not um not a lot of ties 1:18:04.080 --> 1:18:06.880 with the Belarusian Belarusian soldiers aren't being trained by the 1:18:06.920 --> 1:18:09.800 US military. Like that's one you can't That's that's kind 1:18:09.840 --> 1:18:12.920 of more rushes into things, but also like just kind 1:18:12.960 --> 1:18:15.760 of bellary. How different are we from like I feel 1:18:15.800 --> 1:18:18.439 like so much of our tactics are just very similar 1:18:18.479 --> 1:18:21.120 in the same results. This this is the thing. And 1:18:21.280 --> 1:18:24.120 again it's the thing when you start talking about like um, 1:18:24.280 --> 1:18:26.280 you know, people will talk about will praise the things 1:18:26.280 --> 1:18:28.639 that let's go back to Cuba, the things that Cuba 1:18:28.640 --> 1:18:30.200 do is right, and someone will bring up like all 1:18:30.200 --> 1:18:32.439 of the horrible human rights things that are real things 1:18:32.439 --> 1:18:34.560 the Cuban government has done some fucked up ship like 1:18:34.600 --> 1:18:36.760 a lot of like LGBT people, you know, what was 1:18:36.760 --> 1:18:38.840 happening during the AIDS crisis. A lot of reasons to 1:18:38.880 --> 1:18:42.240 criticize the Cuban government, But you try to find a 1:18:42.320 --> 1:18:45.040 single thing the Cubans did that the United States isn't 1:18:45.040 --> 1:18:48.280 also doing. In this period, two members of multiple foreign 1:18:48.360 --> 1:18:52.040 nations into its own nation. Um Like, we've got we've 1:18:52.040 --> 1:18:53.760 got no leg to stand on when it comes to 1:18:53.760 --> 1:18:57.400 criticizing these people, just because you personally didn't get brought 1:18:57.520 --> 1:19:01.240 taken into a rape castle and molested to death. Um Like, 1:19:01.439 --> 1:19:03.519 we trained people in how to do that, and then 1:19:03.560 --> 1:19:05.840 we were like, it's good that they're doing this. Let's 1:19:05.880 --> 1:19:07.960 be their friends while they do it, because this is 1:19:08.000 --> 1:19:09.960 what we want them to do because it gets us 1:19:10.000 --> 1:19:15.599 copper like funk everybody. Um So, yeah, the Via Grimaldi 1:19:15.840 --> 1:19:17.799 fucked up place. And I'm gonna quote from a report 1:19:17.800 --> 1:19:20.880 in Amnesty International on it. Quote. They took us to 1:19:20.880 --> 1:19:23.040 an interrogation room where they had a metal bunk bed. 1:19:23.280 --> 1:19:25.519 There was another detainee on the top, and my partner 1:19:25.560 --> 1:19:27.800 was tied to the side. They were interrogating all three 1:19:27.840 --> 1:19:30.040 of us at the same time, taking turns to electrocute 1:19:30.080 --> 1:19:32.880 us one after the other. The interrogation session lasted through 1:19:32.880 --> 1:19:36.240 the night into the next morning. Jesus Christ. Yeah, Now, 1:19:36.280 --> 1:19:40.000 in Via Grimaldi, detainees would be electrocuted, water boarded, They 1:19:40.040 --> 1:19:42.519 had their heads forced into buckets of urine and excrement. 1:19:42.600 --> 1:19:45.240 They were suffocated with bags. They were hanged by their 1:19:45.280 --> 1:19:47.639 feets or their their feet or their hands and beaten. 1:19:48.320 --> 1:19:52.000 Women obviously were raped, and for some detainees the punishment 1:19:52.080 --> 1:19:55.439 was death. Um. The dark, cramped cells they were held 1:19:55.479 --> 1:19:58.360 in was just like, yeah, that was that was that 1:19:58.439 --> 1:20:01.280 was that was the world you lived at. Um. One 1:20:01.360 --> 1:20:04.040 detainee later recalled, after an interrogation, you would be thrown 1:20:04.080 --> 1:20:05.640 back in your cell. They would shut the door, and 1:20:05.680 --> 1:20:08.000 then the first thing you would experience as someone coming closer. 1:20:08.160 --> 1:20:10.160 They would hold you, help you lie down, take the 1:20:10.160 --> 1:20:12.559 blindfold off, and put some water to your lips. The 1:20:12.600 --> 1:20:14.800 electric shocks would make you stream with sweat and you'd 1:20:14.800 --> 1:20:19.240 get extremely dehydrated, so very thirsty. And about forty hundred 1:20:19.320 --> 1:20:21.120 people went to this place over the course of the 1:20:21.120 --> 1:20:23.040 time Pinochet was in charge. A lot of them never 1:20:23.080 --> 1:20:24.719 made it out. We'll never know how many died. They're 1:20:24.960 --> 1:20:29.360 huge numbers of people are still missing. UM horrible. Yeah. 1:20:29.720 --> 1:20:32.200 General Carlos Pratt's was one of the few members of 1:20:32.240 --> 1:20:35.479 the Chilean military command who remained loyal to President i Ende. 1:20:36.040 --> 1:20:37.559 For this, he and his wife were murdered by a 1:20:37.560 --> 1:20:40.719 car bomb in nineteen seventy four in Buenos Aires. Before 1:20:40.800 --> 1:20:44.520 his death, he mused on exactly how his former comrades 1:20:44.560 --> 1:20:47.400 in the Chilean military had, in his kind of words, 1:20:47.479 --> 1:20:51.360 confused Chilean national interest with the interest of the United States, 1:20:51.400 --> 1:20:54.879 betraying their own people. Because again, because of these ideas 1:20:54.920 --> 1:20:58.320 they buy into about like American the American way, like 1:20:58.360 --> 1:21:02.120 this American dream they want for themselves, they send thousands 1:21:02.160 --> 1:21:05.080 of their own people off to die. So this this general, 1:21:05.160 --> 1:21:07.679 who is one of like the loyal to the people 1:21:07.760 --> 1:21:11.160 of Chile generals, is kind of before his own murder, 1:21:11.280 --> 1:21:14.120 musing on how this happened. And this quote from him, 1:21:14.160 --> 1:21:18.040 I think is really really telling. As far as the 1:21:18.040 --> 1:21:21.240 internal enemy is concerned, the opinion acquired by those who 1:21:21.320 --> 1:21:23.800 have attended courses at the School of the Americas and 1:21:23.880 --> 1:21:27.280 others organized by the Pentagon has been increasingly prevalent. Many 1:21:27.320 --> 1:21:30.040 of these soldiers have responded to the stereotypes and thoughts 1:21:30.040 --> 1:21:33.280 which were inculcated into them during these courses, and, believing 1:21:33.320 --> 1:21:35.880 they were liberating the country from the internal enemy, have 1:21:36.000 --> 1:21:39.040 committed a crime which can only be explained by their ingenuousness, 1:21:39.080 --> 1:21:42.479 their ignorance, and their political shortsightedness. I used to tell 1:21:42.479 --> 1:21:44.680 the President that we should send our officers to know 1:21:44.720 --> 1:21:46.639 what it was like in the countries of Europe, Africa, 1:21:46.680 --> 1:21:49.320 and Asia, so as not to copy or imitate their 1:21:49.360 --> 1:21:51.560 armed forces, but so that they could widen their horizons 1:21:51.560 --> 1:21:53.559 and understand that the world does not begin to end 1:21:53.600 --> 1:21:57.240 in the Schools of the Pentagon. So this is kind 1:21:57.240 --> 1:21:59.439 of his blame, you know that, this is him specifically 1:21:59.439 --> 1:22:02.400 saying that, like the the the mindset, it's not the 1:22:02.479 --> 1:22:05.360 specific training at the at the School of the America's 1:22:05.360 --> 1:22:07.080 that has as much an impact on why these men 1:22:07.160 --> 1:22:11.080 do the things they do as the mindset the inculcated 1:22:11.080 --> 1:22:13.240 in them. It turns them into It turns them into 1:22:13.280 --> 1:22:17.960 the same kind of right wing, uh extractionary monsters that 1:22:18.000 --> 1:22:20.240 are currently government governing our own country and that have 1:22:20.400 --> 1:22:23.559 for a while determined US public policy. It turns them 1:22:23.560 --> 1:22:27.800 into little fucking Nixon's right. That's that's what's happening here now. 1:22:27.840 --> 1:22:31.160 Another famed School of the America's graduate was Hugo Banzer. 1:22:31.560 --> 1:22:33.920 He graduated from the s o A in nineteen fifty six. 1:22:34.120 --> 1:22:36.679 He went home to Bolivia. He rose through the ranks, 1:22:36.720 --> 1:22:39.320 and he became a general. In nineteen seventy one, he 1:22:39.360 --> 1:22:42.960 seized total power during a violent coup. He immediately closed 1:22:43.040 --> 1:22:46.679 universities and banned all political parties and activity. He jailed 1:22:46.760 --> 1:22:49.680 labor leaders, arrested three thousand political opponents, and had more 1:22:49.720 --> 1:22:52.800 than two hundred of them executed. Under Banzer's rule, the 1:22:52.840 --> 1:22:55.120 basement of the Ministry of the Interior was turned into 1:22:55.160 --> 1:22:57.880 a torture chamber, or more than two thousand prisoners were 1:22:57.880 --> 1:23:00.640 held for his good work. Bands are to spot on 1:23:00.640 --> 1:23:02.680 the Wall of Fame back at the School of the 1:23:02.680 --> 1:23:08.800 America's now shiit, Yeah, it sucks. It's It's one thing 1:23:08.840 --> 1:23:12.320 to go down there like mega school, brainwatch a bunch 1:23:12.320 --> 1:23:14.880 of people, spread them across the entire continent and allow 1:23:14.920 --> 1:23:17.160 them to take over. It is entirely another to be 1:23:17.200 --> 1:23:20.400 like this is a prime example of the students were 1:23:20.439 --> 1:23:22.960 trying to create. This is this guy did it. This 1:23:23.040 --> 1:23:24.600 is what we want you to do. I mean, you 1:23:24.600 --> 1:23:28.240 couldn't be more direct, You couldn't be more so. Now, 1:23:28.320 --> 1:23:31.080 remember how I kind of started talking about the ground 1:23:31.200 --> 1:23:33.000 school and like what it was trying to do to 1:23:33.040 --> 1:23:35.719 the minds of soldiers by talking about these Argentine soldiers 1:23:35.720 --> 1:23:38.519 who were like the first way into that school. Well, 1:23:38.880 --> 1:23:40.680 one of the men in that first wave was a 1:23:40.760 --> 1:23:44.040 young officer named Leopoldo Gaultieri, and he went on to 1:23:44.200 --> 1:23:46.920 again become a general because it's great for your career 1:23:46.960 --> 1:23:49.080 to go to the School of the America's UH, and 1:23:49.120 --> 1:23:51.519 eventually he helped carry out a military coup that took 1:23:51.560 --> 1:23:55.160 power in Argentina. In the late nineteen seventies, he became 1:23:55.160 --> 1:23:58.639 the dictator of Argentina UH and as the dictator School 1:23:58.680 --> 1:24:01.439 of the America's graduate gult Erry presided over more than 1:24:01.560 --> 1:24:09.439 thirty thousand executions other countries alone. We have to stop 1:24:09.479 --> 1:24:12.400 doing this ship right, stop messing with us other countries. 1:24:12.439 --> 1:24:15.080 And I mean honestly, right now, most of you have 1:24:16.360 --> 1:24:19.000 keep that up, like keep this coronavirus energy. Later, like 1:24:19.040 --> 1:24:22.120 protect your citizens. That's nuts. It's fun. A lot of 1:24:22.120 --> 1:24:24.519 stuff's fun. There's a lot I could say about this. 1:24:24.600 --> 1:24:26.639 One of the things that so fucked is that like 1:24:27.320 --> 1:24:31.280 we funk all these countries over and help them established dictatorships, 1:24:31.400 --> 1:24:33.240 and because of how badly it goes, you get this 1:24:33.280 --> 1:24:35.639 attitude that the U s should never do anything else ever, 1:24:35.720 --> 1:24:37.600 so that when the people of these countries rise up 1:24:37.640 --> 1:24:41.960 against their dictators UH, there's basically no nobody, there's no 1:24:42.160 --> 1:24:45.400 you can't you can't make a political argument for helping them. Um, 1:24:45.520 --> 1:24:47.240 because of how bad it works. Every time we like 1:24:47.439 --> 1:24:50.040 it's this, and it just it compounds the heart. It's 1:24:50.080 --> 1:24:54.080 just all fucked. Everything's fucked. Um. I wish a lot 1:24:54.120 --> 1:24:55.760 of different and there's a lot of people. If I 1:24:55.800 --> 1:24:58.080 could unborn people, there's a lot of people that would 1:24:58.160 --> 1:25:02.040 make not have been born. Um. And most of them 1:25:02.040 --> 1:25:04.840 are Americans. So over the decades that it was open, 1:25:04.960 --> 1:25:07.360 the School of the America's is known to have graduated 1:25:07.400 --> 1:25:10.719 at least eleven students who became dictators, which is a lot. 1:25:11.200 --> 1:25:14.439 That's so many dictators for one school. Is there any 1:25:14.479 --> 1:25:18.920 school competing with them for a number of dictor No, No, 1:25:19.080 --> 1:25:25.160 there's not, Like, Um, it's that so many fucking dictators 1:25:25.160 --> 1:25:28.960 from a single school. Yeah. I don't think anywhere has 1:25:29.000 --> 1:25:32.280 that kind of pedigree. Um, not even fucking Harvard. So 1:25:33.040 --> 1:25:37.559 the school. Yeah, many of the school's deadliest graduates weren't 1:25:37.560 --> 1:25:40.799 always the ones who became world leaders. Though. More than anything, 1:25:40.960 --> 1:25:45.080 School of America's men were the willing instruments of dictators, 1:25:45.120 --> 1:25:48.200 the happy killers who made the right wing authoritarian wave 1:25:48.280 --> 1:25:50.879 that crashed over Latin America in the seventies and eighties 1:25:50.920 --> 1:25:54.840 possible el Salvador in general, Juan Zapato was a graduate. 1:25:55.000 --> 1:25:58.920 He planned the assassination of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, 1:25:59.080 --> 1:26:01.840 and their teenaged honor. The crime of these Jesuits was 1:26:01.880 --> 1:26:05.080 providing humanitarian aid to suffering left wing peasants. We'll talk 1:26:05.120 --> 1:26:07.479 a lot more about Catholics and jesue being murdered in 1:26:07.520 --> 1:26:09.760 the next episode, because they're a big part of in 1:26:09.840 --> 1:26:12.280 Latin America. They get killed all the time by these 1:26:12.360 --> 1:26:15.880 right wing death squads because like, say, what you all 1:26:15.800 --> 1:26:18.160 about the Catholic Church in Latin America. A lot of 1:26:18.200 --> 1:26:21.760 Catholic and Jesuit leaders are like, oh, there's all these 1:26:21.760 --> 1:26:25.240 people starving to death, and like we should help them. 1:26:25.479 --> 1:26:27.519 And those people are also left wing, so you've got 1:26:27.600 --> 1:26:29.760 to murder those priests and stuff. It's this whole thing, 1:26:30.200 --> 1:26:35.639 um all about Oscar Romero a bit, Yeah, um Jesuits, Yeah, 1:26:35.680 --> 1:26:38.439 It's like it's I of the things the Catholic Church 1:26:38.439 --> 1:26:41.280 has done, this is the best of them, is their 1:26:41.320 --> 1:26:44.160 attempts to reduce the horrors happening in Latin America in 1:26:44.200 --> 1:26:48.559 this period of time. Probably so uh Zapeta, against School 1:26:48.560 --> 1:26:50.600 of the America's graduate, was involved in two hundred and 1:26:50.600 --> 1:26:53.640 ten summary execution, sixty four tortures and a hundred and 1:26:53.640 --> 1:26:57.879 ten illegal detentions during his career. US training certainly influenced 1:26:57.920 --> 1:27:00.120 how he did what he did, but it's important to 1:27:00.160 --> 1:27:03.720 remember that a very deliberate campaign of US propaganda influenced 1:27:03.800 --> 1:27:06.759 why he did what he did. Leslie Gill, the author 1:27:06.800 --> 1:27:08.720 of that book The School of the Americas that I 1:27:08.800 --> 1:27:12.080 keep citing, interviewed a number of graduates of the school, 1:27:12.160 --> 1:27:14.880 including a Bolivian colonel who told her about the El 1:27:14.960 --> 1:27:17.519 Salvadoran soldiers he'd met there. And this guy is really interesting. 1:27:17.520 --> 1:27:19.720 We'll hear from him in part two because he's very 1:27:19.760 --> 1:27:21.519 critical of the School of the Americas and what he 1:27:21.600 --> 1:27:23.919 learned there, but he also went like he has this experience, 1:27:23.960 --> 1:27:25.559 he knows all these people who go there, so he's 1:27:25.560 --> 1:27:29.360 able to talk from direct experience about how would influences 1:27:29.360 --> 1:27:31.880 them as human beings and changes the way they think, 1:27:32.040 --> 1:27:33.840 which is part of why this book, The School of 1:27:33.880 --> 1:27:36.960 the Americas by Leslie Gill is such an incredible resource 1:27:37.000 --> 1:27:39.080 that really, if you care about this, you should buy 1:27:39.120 --> 1:27:42.800 and read. It's a very readable and and very detailed 1:27:43.479 --> 1:27:46.040 breakdown of what happened there. Um so I'm going to 1:27:46.080 --> 1:27:48.840 read a quote from this Bolivian colonel. He's talking again 1:27:48.880 --> 1:27:51.439 about the El Salvadoran soldiers he met at the School 1:27:51.479 --> 1:27:54.719 of the Americas. Those guys thought about three things. First, 1:27:54.760 --> 1:27:57.080 they wanted to train themselves well. Second, they wanted to 1:27:57.080 --> 1:27:59.560 buy pickup trucks and drive them back to El Salvador. 1:27:59.680 --> 1:28:01.240 When I finished class at the end of the day 1:28:01.280 --> 1:28:03.160 and went to the library, they would go out and 1:28:03.200 --> 1:28:05.360 look for cheap pickups to buy. And third, they had 1:28:05.360 --> 1:28:07.400 a lot of relatives. And this is during this is 1:28:07.400 --> 1:28:09.320 after nine, this is the period where the School of 1:28:09.320 --> 1:28:11.840 the America's has moved to the United States. And third, 1:28:11.880 --> 1:28:13.439 they had a lot of relatives who they wanted to 1:28:13.439 --> 1:28:15.800 see in the United States, especially Washington, and it was 1:28:15.840 --> 1:28:17.800 not the first time that they've been to the United States. 1:28:17.840 --> 1:28:19.960 They admired the United States and the same way as 1:28:19.960 --> 1:28:22.120 the Bolivians who trained at the School of the America's. 1:28:22.640 --> 1:28:27.519 So like this is um like like that. That's interesting 1:28:27.520 --> 1:28:29.160 to me. These guys when they get trained at the 1:28:29.160 --> 1:28:30.760 School of the Americas in the US, like the first 1:28:30.760 --> 1:28:32.759 thing they want to go do is buy cheap pickups 1:28:32.800 --> 1:28:35.440 and drive them back home. Against this thing, this continuous 1:28:35.439 --> 1:28:39.400 thing from the nineteen forties of being an American, the 1:28:39.439 --> 1:28:41.680 thing that I've been inculcated and is this idea of 1:28:41.720 --> 1:28:46.280 like easy access to luxury goods. That's huge for these guys, um. 1:28:46.360 --> 1:28:48.720 And they have family members who have moved here and 1:28:48.760 --> 1:28:51.240 like become part of the culture. They're they're very much 1:28:51.600 --> 1:28:53.960 in their head in a lot of ways, they're Americans, 1:28:54.400 --> 1:28:57.479 and they're frustrated by the fact that other people in Bolivia, 1:28:57.560 --> 1:29:00.320 most of their countrymen, don't want their country to be 1:29:00.360 --> 1:29:03.040 more like the United States, and the only thing way 1:29:03.080 --> 1:29:05.240 they can sort of it's the same thing you're seeing 1:29:05.240 --> 1:29:07.120 now with all these right wing militias in the United 1:29:07.120 --> 1:29:09.800 States who see folks on the left here who want 1:29:09.880 --> 1:29:12.240 things that are different from them, and the only thing 1:29:12.280 --> 1:29:14.720 they can think to do is kill them, because at 1:29:14.720 --> 1:29:16.680 the end of the day, like that's the kind of 1:29:16.720 --> 1:29:19.760 people that they are, and they have guns. Um, And 1:29:19.800 --> 1:29:21.720 it's the same thing going on in Latin America. It 1:29:21.720 --> 1:29:24.840 happens here, it happens there first, right, it happens there 1:29:24.880 --> 1:29:27.200 first is part of an organized plan by the United States, 1:29:27.200 --> 1:29:30.200 and it happens here sort of by this is just 1:29:30.240 --> 1:29:32.040 the way things are going to go you have all 1:29:32.080 --> 1:29:34.560 these people who believe the same thing, who here in 1:29:34.600 --> 1:29:36.320 the United States to believe the same things as the 1:29:36.439 --> 1:29:39.920 officers were training in Latin America about the American Dream, 1:29:40.320 --> 1:29:42.200 and they also come to believe the same thing about 1:29:42.400 --> 1:29:46.439 communists and Marxists and whatnot, making it impossible for them 1:29:46.520 --> 1:29:49.880 to live that dream by stopping the heedless extraction of 1:29:49.920 --> 1:29:52.880 resources and trying to build a more equitable society. And 1:29:52.960 --> 1:29:55.680 both groups come to the same conclusion, these soldiers in 1:29:55.760 --> 1:29:58.679 Latin America and these militia dudes in the United States, 1:29:58.720 --> 1:30:01.320 which is murder everyone who disagrees with me and doesn't 1:30:01.360 --> 1:30:03.400 want me to have a cool truck. There's like a 1:30:03.560 --> 1:30:06.360 level of absolutism to the American dream, which is like 1:30:06.479 --> 1:30:09.479 this idea of all or nothing, which is to me 1:30:09.800 --> 1:30:13.280 so fraught with like, I don't want to live my 1:30:13.360 --> 1:30:16.200 life on terms of like pass or fail, you know 1:30:16.240 --> 1:30:18.840 what I mean, And then how that extends then to 1:30:19.880 --> 1:30:22.880 us versus them, and then pass that to you either 1:30:22.920 --> 1:30:28.400 live our way or die. I'm obsessed with this idea 1:30:28.560 --> 1:30:30.880 of like, especially if when you start to look at 1:30:30.920 --> 1:30:33.000 like the items that they obsess over, like not only 1:30:33.120 --> 1:30:35.720 is there like a very strict uniform code, Like if 1:30:35.760 --> 1:30:38.080 you've ever been in a protest with a ship tone 1:30:38.080 --> 1:30:40.439 of undercover cops, you can pick them out so fast 1:30:40.479 --> 1:30:43.479 they can't break that like uniform. Look. But then to 1:30:43.560 --> 1:30:47.599 this idea of like trucks, like trucks being a symbol 1:30:47.680 --> 1:30:51.800 not just of masculinity but of like freedom at the 1:30:51.840 --> 1:30:54.439 expensive others? Is that the way you say that, like 1:30:54.520 --> 1:30:56.960 this idea of like it's what is it about a 1:30:56.960 --> 1:30:59.840 pickup truck that makes you feel so much more? Is 1:30:59.840 --> 1:31:01.760 it the height? Is it the fact that you can 1:31:01.800 --> 1:31:04.040 haul a lot of things. I don't understand boys in 1:31:04.080 --> 1:31:07.320 their toys. I mean I I just bought I. I 1:31:07.400 --> 1:31:12.519 have a large off roading vehicle and they're fun. I 1:31:12.560 --> 1:31:17.280 wouldn't you know, uh, shoot babies to death and light 1:31:17.320 --> 1:31:19.599 a church on fire to have access to an off 1:31:19.680 --> 1:31:24.240 roading vehicle. But they do have a power to them. Um, yeah, 1:31:24.280 --> 1:31:26.040 I don't know. Like, there's a lot there's a lot 1:31:26.080 --> 1:31:29.080 to be said about what trucks mean within the context 1:31:29.160 --> 1:31:31.200 of the American dream and within sort of the American 1:31:31.240 --> 1:31:33.960 willingness to do violence both to the world, like to 1:31:34.000 --> 1:31:36.599 the environment and to individuals around them. Like, there's actually 1:31:36.640 --> 1:31:40.160 a lot I think that should be ethnographically studied about 1:31:40.160 --> 1:31:43.479 how Americans view trucks. UM, but that is too much 1:31:43.560 --> 1:31:45.360 of a topic for this We're near the end of 1:31:45.360 --> 1:31:47.439 our episode and kind of before we close out, and 1:31:47.479 --> 1:31:49.719 in part two, we're gonna talk a lot more about 1:31:49.920 --> 1:31:51.800 you know, we're gonna talk about the Almosote massacre. We're 1:31:51.840 --> 1:31:54.519 gonna talk about Oscar Romero. We're gonna talk about horrible 1:31:54.520 --> 1:31:56.519 things that happened in Guatemala, and we're gonna talk about 1:31:56.560 --> 1:31:59.519 kind of what happens in the United States when the 1:31:59.520 --> 1:32:02.080 School of the America's moves there and how it operates 1:32:02.080 --> 1:32:05.559 when it leaves Latin America, and and it's it's it's 1:32:05.600 --> 1:32:11.240 operated off of Columbus, Ohio after n UM, so like Columboids. 1:32:11.280 --> 1:32:13.840 That's what they call people from Columbus. Uh, we're talking 1:32:13.840 --> 1:32:17.040 about your backyard next episode. Hey, bastard fans, best start 1:32:17.040 --> 1:32:19.200 a renos whatever we call you. Just jumping in here 1:32:19.240 --> 1:32:21.360 to let you know that I made a mistake. Uh, 1:32:22.200 --> 1:32:25.240 I said Columbus, Ohio. There, it's actually Columbus, Georgia. Um. 1:32:25.439 --> 1:32:27.240 The School of the Americas in the United States was 1:32:27.280 --> 1:32:30.120 outside of Fort Bidding. I do apologize for the error. 1:32:30.200 --> 1:32:33.080 I've never actually made a mistake before in my entire life, 1:32:33.200 --> 1:32:36.599 so I you know, we we we regret uh this 1:32:36.680 --> 1:32:39.320 being my first one. I want to cite a passage 1:32:39.360 --> 1:32:41.200 from an article on the School of America's that I 1:32:41.200 --> 1:32:43.639 found in the Thomas Jefferson Law Review that just kind 1:32:43.640 --> 1:32:46.479 of runs through a horrific laundry list of the different 1:32:46.520 --> 1:32:48.960 things graduates of the s o A did to give 1:32:48.960 --> 1:32:53.240 you an understanding of just how widespread the destruction from 1:32:53.240 --> 1:32:55.639 this school is. It's almost impossible to keep in your head. 1:32:56.600 --> 1:32:59.759 So I'm gonna read that quote now. Pedro Pimentel Rios, 1:32:59.760 --> 1:33:02.240 who an El Salvadoran soldier trained in the s o A, 1:33:02.360 --> 1:33:05.000 participated in the Dos Aires massacre, which resulted in the 1:33:05.120 --> 1:33:08.680 killing of two hundred and one people. Soldiers systematically murdered men, 1:33:08.720 --> 1:33:11.680 women and children, bludgeoned villagers with a sledgehammer, threw them 1:33:11.680 --> 1:33:14.960 down a well, and raped women and girls. Haitian colonel 1:33:15.000 --> 1:33:18.599 Frank Romain directed the Saint Jean Bosco massacre. As Father 1:33:18.680 --> 1:33:21.920 Jean bertrand Aristide was saying mass armed men broke into 1:33:21.920 --> 1:33:24.920 the church, killing twelve parishioners and wounding at least twenty seven. 1:33:25.160 --> 1:33:27.280 They then doused the church with gasoline and set it 1:33:27.320 --> 1:33:30.960 on fire. Honduran general Romero Veasquez led the two thousand 1:33:31.080 --> 1:33:34.759 nine military coup and Honduras that overthrew a democratically elected government. 1:33:35.000 --> 1:33:38.120 Beasquez is the third sa A graduate to overthrow governments 1:33:38.120 --> 1:33:42.360 in Honduras Nicaragua. During the Samosa dictatorship, more than four 1:33:42.400 --> 1:33:45.240 thousand National Guard troops graduated from the the s o A. 1:33:45.560 --> 1:33:48.040 Many of them became, contrast, responsible for the deaths of 1:33:48.080 --> 1:33:51.599 thousands of Nicaraguan peasants. Between nineteen forty seven and nineteen 1:33:51.600 --> 1:33:54.439 seventy nine, more soldiers from Nicaragua attended the school than 1:33:54.479 --> 1:33:58.080 from any other country Peru. Telmo Hurtado directed the massacre 1:33:58.120 --> 1:34:00.919 of sixty nine men, women and children and Echo Marca. 1:34:01.000 --> 1:34:03.360 After separating the women and children from the men, his 1:34:03.479 --> 1:34:05.679 unit raped them, ordered them into buildings, and then set 1:34:05.680 --> 1:34:10.400 them on fire, where they burned alive. That's a tiny 1:34:10.680 --> 1:34:14.880 it's five, maybe, of the of the crimes committed by 1:34:15.000 --> 1:34:19.040 s o A graduates. Um, that's just one pair. I 1:34:19.040 --> 1:34:21.360 could have picked a bunch of different ones. Just summarizing 1:34:21.360 --> 1:34:23.120 the fucking nightmares that come out of this place. And 1:34:23.120 --> 1:34:25.519 we're going to talk about a massacre that makes all 1:34:25.560 --> 1:34:28.280 of those look tiny tomorrow the almazote mascor we're talking 1:34:28.280 --> 1:34:31.320 about it on Thursday. I should say, um, not cool 1:34:31.479 --> 1:34:38.559 stuff hard hard, It's hard to like process right right? Well, 1:34:38.600 --> 1:34:40.400 I mean I think like I can won't you to 1:34:40.400 --> 1:34:41.920 say something? And I'm like, oh, but no, that's happening 1:34:41.960 --> 1:34:44.520 right now, Like how could you hate your fellow countrymen 1:34:44.880 --> 1:34:47.519 so much that you burned them on non we we've 1:34:47.920 --> 1:34:51.640 been stopping you from getting a truck. How dare you 1:34:52.080 --> 1:34:55.320 stop the progress of all of us? I must progress 1:34:55.560 --> 1:34:59.160 faster or even just the idea of like it's hard 1:34:59.200 --> 1:35:02.240 for me to Okay, So I have two thoughts. One 1:35:02.280 --> 1:35:04.840 is I've been so poor. I've almost been homeless before. 1:35:05.080 --> 1:35:08.959 I understand looking at a life of ease and coveting 1:35:09.000 --> 1:35:12.960 it and and being like that temptation of like what 1:35:13.040 --> 1:35:14.920 would you like and really having to face the question 1:35:14.960 --> 1:35:16.519 of like what would I do in order to have 1:35:16.640 --> 1:35:20.479 access to those things? Right? Like it's I have like 1:35:20.560 --> 1:35:23.639 some level of sympathy for the boys that went into 1:35:23.640 --> 1:35:27.640 this school and we're inundated with opportunity, Like that's the 1:35:27.760 --> 1:35:30.439 opportunity is a hell of a drug, Like, especially when 1:35:30.479 --> 1:35:31.960 it's fed to you in such a sense of like, 1:35:32.320 --> 1:35:34.080 if you work hard, it's going to be there for you. 1:35:34.120 --> 1:35:35.880 All you have to do. It's all within you, right, 1:35:36.000 --> 1:35:38.960 Like that that part of the American dream of like 1:35:39.000 --> 1:35:41.120 it's already in there, you just have to tap into 1:35:41.240 --> 1:35:43.280 it hard enough. Is what I think drive some people 1:35:43.360 --> 1:35:45.600 right over the line, um, because you don't want to 1:35:45.600 --> 1:35:46.880 be a thing that stops yourself. That should be the 1:35:46.920 --> 1:35:50.559 easiest hurdle to overcome. And then I'm thinking about like 1:35:50.960 --> 1:35:53.880 these men who returned to home, and like, there must 1:35:53.920 --> 1:35:58.280 be such a level of like self hate to look 1:35:58.320 --> 1:36:01.920 at people that look like you or have shared experiences 1:36:01.920 --> 1:36:05.840 as you and then not just violently rape them, but 1:36:06.000 --> 1:36:11.000 also burn them alive, women and children, and like it's just, yeah, 1:36:11.120 --> 1:36:13.320 I commend you on your ability to continue to find 1:36:13.320 --> 1:36:15.920 bastards after all these people. I truly wouldn't be like 1:36:15.960 --> 1:36:19.280 I hate you for what you've done. I can't understand it. 1:36:19.360 --> 1:36:23.840 And I'm mystified, Um, at the level of hate and 1:36:23.880 --> 1:36:26.760 destruction we as human beings are able to cause. It's 1:36:26.760 --> 1:36:32.120 just it's never ending. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing, and 1:36:32.160 --> 1:36:34.439 it is one of those things like I'm not going 1:36:34.479 --> 1:36:37.840 to pretend I don't see why part of what these 1:36:37.840 --> 1:36:40.080 people find appealing because like I am, I am someone 1:36:40.120 --> 1:36:42.599 who I don't think I'm I think as an adult, 1:36:42.640 --> 1:36:45.439 i've ever been taken in by the American dream as 1:36:45.520 --> 1:36:48.919 a an ideal, but I have been taken in by 1:36:48.960 --> 1:36:52.000 like I grew up poor and or at least poor 1:36:52.080 --> 1:36:54.400 by I don't know, kind of white people standards, right, 1:36:54.479 --> 1:36:56.519 Like we weren't we weren't in the streets, but with 1:36:56.800 --> 1:36:59.280 my parents were worried about like being bankrupt and stuff, 1:36:59.320 --> 1:37:01.879 and like it was it was really like economic anxiety 1:37:01.960 --> 1:37:04.800 is a huge part of my youth and it has 1:37:04.920 --> 1:37:11.240 kind of it did propel me to focus on making money, right, 1:37:11.400 --> 1:37:14.439 Like I I that has always been a huge thing 1:37:14.560 --> 1:37:17.240 for me is being able to like live comfortably on 1:37:17.280 --> 1:37:20.920 my own without any help from anybody. And that's not 1:37:21.000 --> 1:37:23.960 a healthy part of my personality. Like it's it's not 1:37:24.000 --> 1:37:26.400 a good thing that I that I did. It's a 1:37:26.439 --> 1:37:29.519 thing that I did because of the way in which 1:37:29.560 --> 1:37:32.080 I grew up in sort of an inability. I had 1:37:32.120 --> 1:37:36.120 to kind of um like this constant fear that I 1:37:36.160 --> 1:37:38.880 had to say before I could accomplish anything else, Like 1:37:38.920 --> 1:37:42.240 I had to not be scared about finances before I 1:37:42.240 --> 1:37:45.599 could do other things because of the it's not a 1:37:45.640 --> 1:37:48.439 good thing, right, it's it's not a it's not a 1:37:48.439 --> 1:37:51.720 good thing, but it's a I get how powerful the 1:37:51.760 --> 1:37:54.760 thing is. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the 1:37:54.840 --> 1:37:56.920 gentleman you were describing who went to the school but 1:37:57.040 --> 1:38:00.880 didn't come out brainwashed. Yeah. It's a really interesting and guy, Yeah, 1:38:01.040 --> 1:38:03.120 how did you? How were you like one of I 1:38:03.120 --> 1:38:06.240 imagine very few people who were like no, this is 1:38:06.320 --> 1:38:10.760 insane happening around us. There's some people who just kind 1:38:10.800 --> 1:38:15.200 of have that ability, even within you know, training regiments 1:38:15.200 --> 1:38:17.960 that are designed to I have a friend who was 1:38:18.080 --> 1:38:20.200 um who was in you know we're talking about the 1:38:20.200 --> 1:38:21.880 Marines and Marines, and like one of the things he'll 1:38:21.920 --> 1:38:23.880 say about basic training is that like he kind of 1:38:23.880 --> 1:38:26.519 immediately realized, like, oh, this is a game, and I 1:38:26.560 --> 1:38:29.920 have to pretend to agree with and believe and react 1:38:29.960 --> 1:38:33.280 in certain ways in order to succeed at it and 1:38:33.280 --> 1:38:36.000 and and get through this part that like I know 1:38:36.080 --> 1:38:38.160 what they're trying to do and how they're trying to 1:38:38.200 --> 1:38:40.160 alter me, and I have to pretend like it's having 1:38:40.160 --> 1:38:42.400 this effect so that I can get through this part 1:38:42.520 --> 1:38:44.760 and and do the stuff I guess that I want 1:38:44.800 --> 1:38:47.800 to do right like some some people just have. And 1:38:48.080 --> 1:38:49.680 you get the feeling from this guy that he kind 1:38:49.680 --> 1:38:51.360 of like goes to this school and he doesn't agree 1:38:51.400 --> 1:38:53.479 with a lot of what's happening and he but he's 1:38:53.520 --> 1:38:57.240 able to see what's happening to other people there. And 1:38:57.840 --> 1:39:01.439 it's good you know that he went and did that 1:39:01.479 --> 1:39:04.080 and brought back this experience so we're able to understand 1:39:04.080 --> 1:39:07.000 it on a human level. Right, we need witnesses. Yes, 1:39:07.920 --> 1:39:12.360 not bad that this guy brought that experience to us. Yes, yes, yes, 1:39:12.400 --> 1:39:15.639 this is exactly what James Baldwin talks about, is being 1:39:15.640 --> 1:39:18.639 a witness. It's a it's a legitimate role. Some people 1:39:18.840 --> 1:39:21.559 frown upon it because you're literally like I think some 1:39:21.560 --> 1:39:23.599 people view a witness is like just taking up space 1:39:23.600 --> 1:39:27.599 and documenting the story. But by not participating and by 1:39:27.640 --> 1:39:31.920 not stopping, you can better explain how things happened. And 1:39:32.040 --> 1:39:35.439 it's it's just as important as our quote unquote heroes 1:39:35.479 --> 1:39:37.519 who are are changing the world for the better. Like 1:39:37.600 --> 1:39:40.840 it's it's where would we be without understanding how we 1:39:40.880 --> 1:39:42.880 got here in the first place? Yeah, I mean, and 1:39:42.920 --> 1:39:45.120 it is one of those things like one of the critiques. 1:39:45.160 --> 1:39:47.880 I mean, obviously, like like Leslie Gill and her book, 1:39:48.000 --> 1:39:50.800 like they didn't stop anything. You know, the School of 1:39:50.840 --> 1:39:54.559 the America's was kind of already passed its period of 1:39:54.600 --> 1:39:57.720 real influence, of major influence by the time, you know, 1:39:57.760 --> 1:40:01.280 her book came out. But it's important that it be 1:40:01.400 --> 1:40:05.360 documented that we understand this stuff because it if if 1:40:05.400 --> 1:40:07.360 the information is allowed to get out to the people 1:40:07.360 --> 1:40:10.559 it needs to, it can act in building our cultural 1:40:10.560 --> 1:40:12.600 immunity to some of this stuff. And we have to 1:40:12.640 --> 1:40:15.519 have we have to let it do that. We have to. 1:40:16.320 --> 1:40:21.240 We can't we can't not learn these lessons, which is 1:40:21.320 --> 1:40:23.960 why I think and you get the feeling one of 1:40:24.000 --> 1:40:25.800 the this is really The School of the Americas is 1:40:25.840 --> 1:40:28.639 such an amazing book to me because of the depth 1:40:28.920 --> 1:40:32.120 Leslie gil goes into the number she talks to instructors 1:40:32.120 --> 1:40:34.240 at the school and in from different errors, She talks 1:40:34.240 --> 1:40:36.439 to people who went there, She talks to their victims, 1:40:36.439 --> 1:40:40.600 like she she is really you can see motivated and 1:40:40.640 --> 1:40:42.680 she is She's a person who had spent a lot 1:40:42.680 --> 1:40:45.400 of time living in and around and like writing about 1:40:45.520 --> 1:40:48.519 Latin America and Latin American issue. She's a very very 1:40:48.880 --> 1:40:54.439 um competent um, you know, ethnographer, I guess you'd say, um, 1:40:54.479 --> 1:40:56.439 but you get this feeling that it was there was 1:40:56.479 --> 1:40:58.760 this kind of she understood how important it was for 1:40:58.840 --> 1:41:01.800 the story of what this place did to people, how 1:41:01.960 --> 1:41:05.480 it succeeded in its goal, in the consequences, how crucial 1:41:05.520 --> 1:41:07.920 that is to get out to people, because I mean, 1:41:07.920 --> 1:41:10.160 for one thing, it's happening in Oregon right now, like 1:41:10.200 --> 1:41:13.240 we're seeing School of the America's ship starting just the 1:41:13.320 --> 1:41:16.920 earliest stages, thankfully not the mass grave stages, but the 1:41:17.000 --> 1:41:19.639 things that could lead to that if people aren't careful, 1:41:20.040 --> 1:41:26.080 like it's it's happening here, So we should understand what 1:41:26.280 --> 1:41:30.000 happened over there. Um that we did to these people, 1:41:30.120 --> 1:41:32.439 you know that that we did in a lot of cases, 1:41:32.520 --> 1:41:34.479 and and a lot of them did too, like you know, 1:41:34.520 --> 1:41:36.640 not too. I don't want to, like you don't want to. 1:41:36.680 --> 1:41:38.800 One of the problems sometimes with criticizing like the US 1:41:38.880 --> 1:41:41.240 influence on places like this is like then you you 1:41:41.240 --> 1:41:43.639 you don't criticize the fact that there's a lot of 1:41:43.680 --> 1:41:45.800 you know, folks who live in those countries and come 1:41:45.840 --> 1:41:47.280 from those countries who did a lot of fund up 1:41:47.280 --> 1:41:51.320 ship too. But like we what happened over there, the 1:41:51.439 --> 1:41:54.080 violence they committed in our name was part of a 1:41:54.160 --> 1:41:58.200 plan that US leaders had and executed, and that's important 1:41:58.200 --> 1:42:03.439 to know. So Joe out. We'll talk more later. Let's 1:42:03.439 --> 1:42:06.800 start two. Is it coming? I look forward to it. 1:42:07.040 --> 1:42:12.759 You want to plug anything? Uh, if you're intrigued by 1:42:12.800 --> 1:42:15.559 any of the comments I made about black representation in 1:42:15.600 --> 1:42:18.040 America and the horror story that that is. I am 1:42:18.120 --> 1:42:20.719 recapping Lovecraft Country for the A V Club right now. 1:42:21.280 --> 1:42:25.919 Uh is a doozy. There is a lot happening, especially 1:42:25.960 --> 1:42:27.560 if I don't know when this will be released. But 1:42:27.600 --> 1:42:29.600 if y'all have seen episode five, then you know what 1:42:29.720 --> 1:42:32.720 goes down. Um, so yeah, check that out. Otherwise, you 1:42:32.760 --> 1:42:35.200 can find me all over the internet at Joel Monique. 1:42:35.280 --> 1:42:37.479 That's j O E L L E M O N 1:42:37.520 --> 1:42:40.559 I q U E. Uh. Yeah, come chat with me 1:42:40.600 --> 1:42:43.639 about the crazy bastards. You muys talk about always fascinated 1:42:43.680 --> 1:42:46.760 by the show, and uh, you can't find me at 1:42:46.800 --> 1:42:49.479 those same places online because I am not Joel Monique. 1:42:49.600 --> 1:42:53.320 So that's the end of You can follow Robert on 1:42:53.360 --> 1:42:55.479 Twitter and I right, okay, you can follow us on Twitter. 1:42:55.600 --> 1:42:59.200 Scarab bastards thought we have a t public store. Uh, 1:42:59.600 --> 1:43:02.000 don't do it. I don't know. I was trying to 1:43:02.000 --> 1:43:03.840 explain to them where they couldn't find me because I 1:43:03.840 --> 1:43:05.599 thought that would be useful to people. Yeah, but they 1:43:05.600 --> 1:43:09.479 contact you. Post is important, all right, Well, thank you 1:43:09.520 --> 1:43:23.360 everybody Twitter. Uh, don't be in a fire, um,