No, Latin America is neither our backyard nor front yard.
Biden's defense of imperialism
Rights are to be taken, not requested; seized, not begged for. — José Martí (Inside the Monster: Writings on the United States and American Imperialism)
For me, President Biden’s interminable press conference Wednesday was little more than a stumbling, bumbling, bone-chilling, outright defense of American imperialism and Cold War liberalism.
Having reread this half-a-dozen times, I’m now wondering if Biden was actually trying to say something positive here and just got tangled up in his own verbiage, or was he really dredging up the old imperialist Monroe Doctrine to make a new claim on illusory US power in today’s Latin America. Either way, he’s scary.
We used to talk about, when I was a kid in college, about “America’s backyard.” It’s not America’s backyard. Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard.
Backyard…front yard. What’s the FK is the difference? The colonial mentality is still the same.
I say, illusory because no counties in today’s Latin America or the Caribbean accept that war-torn doctrine and haven’t accepted it since the Cuban revolution in 1959, the Sandinista revolution 20 years later, or in last month’s presidential election in Chile.
Just a reminder, as if you needed one. — American nuclear subs are now patrolling the South China Sea, Russia and the US are facing off on Ukraine, and the Atomic Doomsday Clock is now at 100 seconds to midnight.
Have a good night.