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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!CLEMSON.BITNET!DGPAZ
- Message-ID: <HISTORY%92072210524567@RUTVM1.BITNET>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 10:51:00 EDT
- Sender: History <HISTORY@RUTVM1.BITNET>
- From: DGPAZ@CLEMSON.BITNET
- Subject: Re: Anarchism
- Lines: 56
-
- On Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:34:22 EDT Lenny <LABBEY@GTRI01.BITNET> said:
- > Perhaps you think that the Cubans would have prefered to remain in the
- > Spanish "sphere of influence"?
- >
- No. The Cubans wanted their independence from Spain, and revolted
- as early as the 1870s.
-
- > The mean old imperial americans really did do nasty things to the Cubans
- > when they forced them to break away from the sweet Spaniards, didn't they?
- >
- The Americans did not force the Cubans to break away from Spain. The
- Cubans did that on their own. What the Americans did was to force
- the Cubans to accept independence on American terms, not on
- Cuban terms.
-
- > I continue to forget that we are the world's villians, and that the
- > guys with firing squads working overtime are wearing the white hats.
- > You will have to forgive me.
- > P.S. Do you ever step down from the Culpa USA cross?
-
- Once again, Lenny seems to be arguing that if one denies that
- US foreign policy is perfectly altruistic and always benign,
- one must be maintaining that US foreign policy is absolutely
- wicked and the worst of all.
-
- I do not share that manichaean view of foreign policy. Rather,
- it looks to me like the late nineteenth century was a time of
- imperial expansion in the west, and that the United States,
- being a western country, was behaving much like other powers.
-
- I suggest that Lenny read up on the Ostend Manifesto, the Platt
- Amendment, and the Roosevelt Correlary to the Monroe Doctrine.
- These documents actually existed.
- I also suggest that Lenny try to put himself in the perspective
- of people who are not Americans.
-
- The United States is not the world's most perfect society. There
- is no such thing as the world's most perfect society. Some
- societies are much more desireable (in my view) than others, and
- the United States certainly is one of those societies. But it is
- naive to think that the US, or any other society, is "perfect."
-
- I was corrupted as a youth by having graduate-school friends
- who were Canadians, Britishers, Australians, New Zealanders,
- and even Ugandans. Instead of stopping up my ears, I listened
- to their views about the United States.
-
- I also made the mistake of having relatives
- who were Mexican citizens living in Mexico, and whose views about
- the United States came from a non-American perspective.
- Instead of ignoring or dismissing their views, I made the
- mistake of actually listening to them, and even of trying to
- figure out for myself the validity of their views.
-
- Denis Paz
- dgpaz@clemson.bitnet
-