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A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

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Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#111

Post by haldujai »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #59
baxtr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my main argument when people say: "What they are doing is exactly the same what we did in Iraq/Afghanistan" etc. Yes, it might be true. The big difference: In the West you can actually go out on the street and protest against the acts of your government.

They're fundamentally different wars in their motivation as well. The US invaded foolishly invaded Iraq and Afghanistan with the ultimate end goal of destroying evil power structures Sadam/Taliban and trying to establish liberal institutions. No one was trying to destroy local cultures or languages. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, just like WW2 Germany's, has the end goal of genociding Ukrainian culture and subjugating…

Ah yes, the ultimate goal of the Iraq war was to liberate the Iraqi citizens from the evil Baathist regime stockpiling WMDs and totally not protecting American oil interests and destabilizing a competitor to our friends in the Gulf.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#112

Post by throwaway6734 »

bombolo wrote: post #99
throwaway6734 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What superpower has been more benevolent than the US? >Clearly USA is advantageous for you (and me!) but I wouldn't presume it is for the majority of people. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty due to the economic system that has been maintained via US power.

> Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty due to the economic system that has been maintained via US power. Have they? Why do so many south americans emigrate then, if their continent has been rendered so rich and prosperous by the USA?

Yes they have.

You're strawmanning. Progress != Perfection and South American countries have agency as well

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#113

Post by photochemsyn »

trabant00 wrote: post #2

I've been thinking a lot about these kind of scenarios lately: Autocratic regime holds power over a territory with a long history of violent instability. The regime is guilty of corruption, nepotism, human rights violations, suppressing dissidents, etc. This is I think a requirement for it to hold power given the conditions. If the regime collapses even greater violence and general horrible stuff happens. There are p…

Consider another view of the scenario:

A small group of dictators and their affiliates holds power in a small country with abundant natural resources, which a foreign entity harvests at relatively low costs - only having to pay and protect the dictatorship, while the vast majority of the population lives in squalor and poverty, only having access to low-wage menial labor.

Democratization of the economy would entail vast economic losses for the foreign power, due to a steep rise in the cost of the raw materials (see Arab oil crisis), or the conversion of the country to an industrial power that doesn't export raw materials or agricultural produce, but instead manufactured goods, causing it to become a global power (see China).

In this scenario, the role of the CIA is to sabotage all economic and political development in the country - much as the British throne and its affiliated Crown Corporations attempted to do in the American colonies for the 100 years preceding the American Revolution. When people say, "the USA acts as an economic imperialist in Latin and South America", this is the kind of thing they're talking about.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#114

Post by jtbayly »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #108

And it hasn't been translated into English yet? This is a viral marketing campaign if ever I saw one; it should be a publisher's wet dream. "The nobel-prize winning novel that the CIA doesn't want you to read! "

FTA: "Mr. President—out last summer in David Unger’s lucid new translation"

I assumed that was a translation into English.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#115

Post by vlovich123 »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #96
serallak wrote: post #84

Something I do not understand ... From the link: > But its 1946 debut reflected a delay of more than a decade by the country’s real dictators, who disrupted the novel’s genesis and sent its author into exile. And in this act of suppression, Asturias’s censors and exilers were aided by the US, specifically the CIA. From Wikipedia: the CIA was founded September 18, 1947. How did the CIA "specifically" helped delay the…

The official formation of the CIA was also only a formality, it essentially already existed in its components and other forms, e.g., the OSS. You can’t get so fixated on the official title, it’s the underlying people and their motivations that are the thing. It’s why people have such a hard time understanding and believing the “deep state” and why it hates even being called that because it identifies them. What the w…

“deep state” is insanely vague. Does it mean the part of the government that has lots of secrets it fights tooth and nail to make sure is never revealed and even potentially engages in illegal acts? Or does it mean bureaucracy?

From what I’ve heard most people complaining about the “deep state” they always seem to express their complaint about the bounds of normal bureaucracy and less about secret/covert/illegal activities.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#116

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

jtbayly wrote: post #114
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #108

And it hasn't been translated into English yet? This is a viral marketing campaign if ever I saw one; it should be a publisher's wet dream. "The nobel-prize winning novel that the CIA doesn't want you to read! "

FTA: "Mr. President—out last summer in David Unger’s lucid new translation" I assumed that was a translation into English.

My mistake! The translator name helped me locate the novel:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/mr-president-18

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#118

Post by FpUser »

trabant00 wrote: post #2

I've been thinking a lot about these kind of scenarios lately: Autocratic regime holds power over a territory with a long history of violent instability. The regime is guilty of corruption, nepotism, human rights violations, suppressing dissidents, etc. This is I think a requirement for it to hold power given the conditions. If the regime collapses even greater violence and general horrible stuff happens. There are p…

>"suppressing the release of that information to protect the fragile stability and prevent a possible greater evil"

It is one thing to not start bloody revolution. Hiding information however is never good in my opinion. Rather criminal in my book,

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#119

Post by the_af »

throwawayAsdFoo wrote: post #105
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh,,, gaddafi, saddam come to the top of my mind.

The iraq war was based on lies and financial interest. Do you really want to pretend, Saddam was the primary goal? And that nation building was accomplished, sir! And gaddafi was toppled over french/sarcozy interest. One who doesn't know history is doomed to repeat it. Post hoc justification of own atrocities is exactly the sort of cognitive failure that patriotic delusion (and thus the future of such) can cause.

Plus neither Iraq nor Libya ended up well. So they are examples of what not to inflict upon a country.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#120

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

trabant00 wrote: post #2

I've been thinking a lot about these kind of scenarios lately: Autocratic regime holds power over a territory with a long history of violent instability. The regime is guilty of corruption, nepotism, human rights violations, suppressing dissidents, etc. This is I think a requirement for it to hold power given the conditions. If the regime collapses even greater violence and general horrible stuff happens. There are p…

"Possible" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

This is essentially a version of the colonialist argument - the natives are brutal, uncivilised, and unable to govern themselves properly. So even though our methods are sometimes violent and result in significant death and suffering, we are reluctantly compelled to exercise our civilising influence on this unfortunate situation.

It's just rhetoric. What's really going on is the "civilising" empire is plundering the smaller nation of resources, and is quite happy to act through local despots, dictators, and torturers to further that - until they stop being useful.

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