Frantz Fanon Concerning Violence Essay

Born out of the independence of a subordinate nation, the United States of America aggressively pursued a desire for expansion of power and influence in other countries through diplomacy and force so that they could gain political or economic power – or both. In this brief paper we will discuss the ambition for the U.S. to overthrow the government and economy of other nations, how it was rationalized, and which countries were subject to the foreign policies that the U.S. was going to subject them to; willingly or by force.

The United States has influenced many nations in the world throughout history. Some of the ways the U.S. has been able to dominate poor countries are with military action and corporate activities that allowed the United States to influence their governments. Since the United States extends its power with the previously mentioned methods, it is recognized as an imperialist nation. The United States has specifically demonstrated imperialistic forces in Latin America. The effects that the United States’ imperialism had on Latin American economies and politics were negative since it brought violence and caused the poor to struggle even more. When the United Sates government did not like policies that Latin American presidents were creating, they would take military actions to force American ideologies into Latin American countries’ governments by installing puppets into their governments. Generally, these countries would have flourished economically without the United States, but since the U.S. became involved with the countries’ policies, their economies have weakened because the U.S. wants the benefits of controlling countries’ resources without being responsible for the people who reside there. This pattern of the United States’ imperialistic behavior has been demonstrated many times in Latin America.

The United States has been an important part in the history of all of Latin America. Many times, the United States influenced Latin American countries with its economic, political, and military power. The United States looked down at Latin America as its backyard, constantly using its influence to benefit from the land and supporting dictators in the region. The United States used this power to effectively influence Latin America for decades, even when the U.S. faced communism as a new threat during the Cold War. The United States feared the communist influence of the Soviet Union in countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, because the “evil empire’s” plan for world domination included infiltrating Latin America. Even though these

In Empire’s Workshop, Greg Grandin argues that the United States engineered a destructive domestic fusion of religious fundamentalism, hawkish neoconservatism, and nationalism - to justify it’s engagement in a jingoistic, self-serving foreign policy in Latin America. Furthermore, his work details the preemptive clash against perceived communist elements, and places the ideological disagreements regarding private-property, as the primary mover in US actions. By examining the Guatemalan coup of 1954, which Grandin describes as the Central Intelligence Agency’s “first full-scale covert operation” in Latin America, we can assess the prototypical reasoning behind US intervention. Moreover, the thorough assessment of the motivations of American

Recently, and especially since the 1990s, a popular conception of the world is that the age of empires and superpowers is waning, rapidly being replaced by a kind of global community made up of interdependent states and deeply connected through economics and technology. In this view, the United States' role following the Cold War is one of almost benign preeminence, in which it seeks to spread liberal democracy through economic globalization, and, failing that, military intervention. Even then, however, this military intervention is framed as part of a globalizing process, rather than any kind of unilateral imperialist endeavor. However, examining the history of the United States since nearly its inception all the way up to today reveals that nothing could be farther from the truth. The United States is an empire in the truest sense of the word, expanding its control through military force with seemingly no end other than its own enrichment. The United States' misadventure in Iraq puts the lie to the notion that US economic and military action is geared towards any kind of global progression towards liberal democracy, and forces one to re-imagine the United States' role in contemporary global affairs by recognizing the way in which it has attempted to secure its own hegemony by crippling any potential threats.

Reading the book Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez, has been very informative to me and has changed my perspective on U.S. foreign policy. Each account of the families from the different Latino countries has similar underlying trends that can be found because of the U.S. involvement in their countries. Every single instance of U.S. involvement in Latin American countries seems to evolve around the idea of greed and profit. The U.S. is like a business that only cares about the income of money and not about the morality of their actions. On top of all the injustice the U.S. government has employed, they don’t bother to own up to their mistakes and they tend to sweep their involvement under the rug. For example, the Iran-Contra scandal mentioned in the book of the Reagan administration was the result of using drug money from Iran to buy weapons for the Nicaraguan contra rebels against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. It infuriates me that the U.S. would support a dictator that suppresses the rights of its citizens and all the while they want to take down the established, popular Sandinista government. The U.S. wants to do all this so that the new government will support U.S. interests in Nicaragua. When the scandal was uncovered, all Reagan could say was “I’m sorry” and “It won’t happen again” even though our involvement had the result of many lives lost in that war/rebellion. Unfortunately, this theme did not only occur in Nicaragua

As was laid out in the previous section, the United-States always had a ‘hegemonic presumption’, the conception that Latin America was inferior, a supposition that gave the right to Washington to intervene in the region’s political and economic affairs (LeoGrande, 2007:384). This second chapter will explore how the U.S. intervened in Latin America, more specifically after the World War II. Indeed, the U.S. benefitted greatly from the aftermath of the war. A subsection will be dedicated to the Pink Tide in Latin America, with a focus on the U.S. foreign policy under President GW Bush and President Obama. The overthrown Presidents of Honduras and Paraguay were part of this movement and their outset signals a reversal in the region.

The United States had developed the idea of isolationism and neutrality during war of foreign to protect their peace, country, people, interests. But a problem is that the American interest located in or dependent on foreign countries led the united states to intervene in those ares. The United States "jobs, growth, price stability, and economic security in the United States all depend substantially on events abroad and the interaction with them of internal economic developments and policies. The United States is no longer a self contained continent, but rather an integral component of a deeply interdependent global economy". Overthrow: America 's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, this is a book of short stories about the overthrow of 14 countries by the United States since 1893 started with Hawaii and ended with Iraq. Through this book, we will talk about the reasons behind that led the United States to overthrow these governments, and the tactics used in the different countries.

Since World War II, America has often been considered and called upon to serve as the world’s policeman. But is it a role we have performed effectively – and perhaps more importantly, is it one that we should continue to play? With opinion polls showing the American people’s overwhelming reluctance to serve a military role in foreign countries, it is time to consider whether the title of “world’s policeman” is one we should keep. Studying American interventions in the world since WWII offer some lessons and insights into both America’s desire – and ability – to police the world, and leads to the unavoidable conclusion that we are the only nation capable of preventing the all-too common atrocities, genocides and acts of aggression that destabilize continents and create untold human suffering.

American attitudes towards Latin America can be summed up as an extension of larger global directives, and the exclusion of foreign powers in the region. This was highlighted especially during the Cold War as US involvement was essentially in competition with the USSR. Latin America was therefore a mere pawn in the larger context of US-Soviet competition for global dominance. The actions and methods used are also characterized by the lack of an international authority, or an atmosphere of inter-state anarchy, which shaped their calculations in the endeavor to increase their influence over Latin America. When one analyzes the situation, it seems only rational that the United States treated its southern neighbors so, due to the geographical

Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over dependent territories. In the words of Fanon, in the reading The Wretched of the Earth, “National liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the na­tion to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event.” (Fanon, 1). Frantz Fanon was one of many authors who supported decolonization struggles occurring after World War II. He breaks down decolonization into two senses: one being the physical act of freeing a territory from external control of a colonizer, and the other being the psychological act of freeing the consciousness of the native from the alienation caused by colonization. Fanon particularly advocated that violence was justified by overthrowing colonial oppression. In his reading, The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon wrote on why and how colonialism must be stopped. Fanon argued that the colonial infrastructure must be destroyed. “Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is clearly an agenda for total disorder. But it cannot be accomplished by the wave of a magic wand, a natural cataclysm, or a gentleman’s agreement. Decolonization, we know, is an historical process: In other words, it can only be understood, it can only find its significance and become self coherent insofar as we can discern the history-making movement which gives it form and substance,”

There are three components of the US empire in Latin America. These components are punitive idealism, free market absolutism, and right-wing Christian mobilization. Punitive idealism justifies a hostile diplomacy in order to advance “freedom.” America has the right to do whatever they needed to do in order to achieve their goal. It was believed that “if America acted with moral certainty to defend its national interests, the consequence would, by extension, be beneficial for the rest of the world.” (78). No matter how America acted, as long as they had their own objectives in mind, they would help the rest of the world. There were many at home who did not see eye to eye with Washington. In recent events, America could be seen in two ways. As

At the end of the World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the war as the world’s two leading superpowers. In the post war world, the U.S. and the Soviet Union both engaged in a Cold War aiming to have the most influence around the globe through the spread of their respective ideologies (communism and capitalism) and political systems (representative democracy and socialism). One particular place where this struggle for influence was seen was Latin America, specifically Chile, which faced the possibility of a democratically elected Marxist president by the name of Salvador Allende. The U.S. assumed that Allende, having communist ideals, would install a totalitarian government in Chile similar to that of Stalin’s regime if he was to be elected into office. The U.S also viewed Allende as a threat to U.S national security because his presidency in Chile could create a “domino effect,” whereby the fall of one Latin American country to communism would lead to the fall of countries elsewhere in the Americas, which was a major threat to the United States considering its proximity to Chile and other Latin American countries. Thus, the United States sent its CIA to Chile in order to prevent Allende’s ascendancy to the presidential seat in Chile by any means necessary, even if those means contradicted U.S principles such as the right of a free press, constitutionality, free elections, and peace.

In the film 'Four Days in September,' the United States was seen country withpower an oppurntity for the Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8) which was consisted of students trying to get political prisoners released. Hence kidnapping the United States Ambassador to Brazil was a way of getting media attention, and to possibly create a leverage to negotiate terms. In the film 'Machuca' the United States was seen as a commanding force that felt the need to secure themselves, without looking out for the people. In film we see where the miliatry came in and took over the schools and eradicated members of the lower class community. In the documentary 'The Battle of Chile,' The United States was seen as the oppessor by running a military coup

The third interesting point is on the cars in Rhode Island which are titled “Colonial Toyota.” It is very surprising how a company can be comfortable with branding their cars with such a scary name. The fourth and last interesting issue in the documentary is how police brutality in the past destabilized the eyes and minds of the colonized. The colonized persons were treated with cruelty such that they had a lot of fears