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Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and we're in Hell.
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But also this is the Stordia's Unknown, a podcast where
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we talk about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and
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deals with heavy topics like this is some corruption and genocide.
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But more than that, it's also by resistance, power and community,
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things that we're gonna need. Also, it's our present, not
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also the past. That's true. Yeah, it never ended. No,
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it's our present, past in our future well hopefully not future,
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but yeah, I mean it is what it is. We
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are what we are. Here we are, they are what
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they are, and here we are. Yes, okay, doctor Seuss,
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I know what's wrong with me? Oh yeah, it's January
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twentieth as we're recording, so yeah, yeah, all right. Today
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we're continuing our discussion of the Panama Canal. Do you
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want to say anything before when I start? Nothing related
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to the Panama Canal zone, just womb lands the song
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if you know, you know it's stuck in my head,
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deep in my womb land. Please stop before it gets
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stuck in my head. I'm not saying that out loud anymore.
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It's gonna stay in here, thank you. Okay, So last
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episode we talked about how coated a canal in Central
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America was the French effort to build a canal, and
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how the Panama Canal came to be under US control, Yeah,
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because the US was feeding for it right, right, and
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they hadn't feaning for it for a long time, and
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how it came under control of the US through the
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nineteen o three And I realized I was saying, I
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like Spanish, but it's hey, it's an English name, so
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for the US, Okay, that's what I'm gonna say. Not
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I was like, I blah blah blah whatever. So under
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the the Treaty nineteen from nineteen oh three, the hey
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bo now Varia treaty, that makes more sense. Yeah. And
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last episode I mentioned that I'm just laughing that you
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were saying time. Yeah, I feel dumb, but we love
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you know hi. Yeah, last episode I mentioned that Panamanian
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elites were more than happy to accommodate the US elites
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and basically sold out Panama. But I didn't get into specifics,
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and I still won't get into specifics too much for
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the take of time. But I felt like it was
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important to kind of like explain a little bit more
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because I was confused with the I looked into it
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a little bit more. And anyway, the name of the
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treaty comes from John Hay and Philippe bow Varia, who
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signed the treaty. John Hay was the US Secretary of
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State and Philippe bo Now was acting as a representative
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for Panama. Even though he was not from Panama. He
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was French, and he actually had not set foot in
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Panama since eighteen eighty seven. Geez. And there's a longer
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story to that that you can read about on one
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of the links. Let me say which link in case
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anyone wants to look more into that. That one is
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the one that says read dot Duke, press dot edu
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and then blah blah blah blah. But okay, you'll see
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which one it is. Yeah, okay. So bo Now would
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also become Panama's first minister, even though he hadn't said, well,
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did he go back to Panama? At least I think
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he did. I didn't look more into that. He probably did.
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I'm assuming, okay, like I would hope, so if you
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became the minister. Yeah. Bo Now was a French engineer
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and investor, and he was one of the major bankrollers
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behind the Pandamanian separatist movement. He was also an investor
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in the French company that had been trying to build
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a canal in Panama. So he had a lot of
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steak in the US purchasing the rights to the canal
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from the company that he had investments in, and so
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he made a lot of money when that did happen.
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It's not what it always comes down to. I thought
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I added a little bit more here, but I didn't.
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But just off the top of my head, Hey, the
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US representative, whatever the hell he was, he had stake
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in the railroad company, so they all had money in this. Yeah.
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So that's as much as I'm getting into that. Okay,
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Well more context always hopes. Anyway, issues between Banama and
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the US arose pretty much immediately over the Port of
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Panama and which country would control it. Last episode we
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talked about the treaty, and the treaty said that Bantama
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had given in perpetuity and this means forever, by the way,
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because I didn't explain that last episode either, just in
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case anyone didn't know. So, Bantama had given in perpetuity
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to the US a five mile zone on either side
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of the canal. But there was one exception to that,
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and that was the cities of Panama and Cologne and
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their ports. They were not included. Those were supposed to
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be always for Panama. Yeah, they were excluded from the treaty.
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But not even two months after the treaty, the US
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started arguing about the language of the treaty, which specifically
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said the ports adjacent to the city, because they wanted
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more control over everything, right of course. See, it's like
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the if you give a mouse to cookie, Yeah, but
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the US is not a mouse, the like this fucking
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evil I don't know monster, and they're just like more more, yeah,
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or the other saying about I gave you my hand
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and you took my arm or whatever you know, and
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then you like fucking bit my entire arm or something
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and you tore my arm off. Yeah, and then you
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just kept going and yeah, devoured catibalism. That's what we're
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talk about here, exactly how the saying goes, Yes, word
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for word. There's a lot more to be said about
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all of that, which the book erased does get into.
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But I guess to me, the most important thing to
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know about this was how Panamanians viewed themselves and their
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government versus how the US viewed Panama. At this point,
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Panemanians viewed their government as a progressive republic until very recently.
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At that point, they had been a part of Columbia,
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who had abolished slavery ten years before the US and
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enacted loss granting freedom of press, separation of church and state,
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and universal manhood suffrage meaning black people, black men could vote.
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I don't know about people. I just know about black men. Actually, okay,
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I'm not sure if women were included and included yeah,
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probably not, no, because what year was this? In? Nineteen
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oh three? Okay, and I think for this well ten
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years before that would be eighteen okay, ninety three. I
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think around this time is when all the suffrage movement
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from women started, but I don't think it happened yet.
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And then the book she talks only about black men,
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so I'm assuming women couldn't vote at this point. Yeah. Yeah.
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Throughout this time, while Panama was under Columbia, they were
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acting as their own state, so they still have their
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own governments and things like that, right, Okay, And anyway,
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compared to the US, I mean, they had abolish slavery,
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like they were miles ahead and write, you know, progressive
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views and movements. Yes, right, but the US and the
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West would never see Panama in this way, of course not. Yeah,
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so Teddy Roosevelt saw black people from the Caribbean as backward,
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inferior beings who needed an American guiding hand, as was
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a typical view back then. I was gonna say he
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also didn't view black people in the US very well either,
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despite right inviting who did he invite through some well, no,
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I think it was. No, I could be wrong. I
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don't remember. I'm not sure. The black like leader leader
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in some like he invited him to the White House,
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and people praise him for that, but it's like you
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still know he was like racist and eugenesis, right like
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in other words of you rooted in paternalism and super superior,
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superior reality. Yeah, I said it, you didn't, You didn't.
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Such was this paternalistic view that Americans wrote bandamask Constitution
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in advance of Bandomas independence and Bunao Vadiya's wife sued
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Banama's first flag. She made the flag Banama. Oh wow.
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So they they were just like, we're just gonna do
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all this for you because you're too stupid to do
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it yourselves. Yeah, not surprised, not at all. Banama viewed
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themselves as smaller and less powerful, but equal to the
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United States. Oh no, what a mistake, Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah.
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Ultimately they fucked around and found out that's selling out
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to the US is not the wind that they thought
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it would be, and it never is it never will be. Yeah.
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So we has more contexts here, and we're going to
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talk about the prevalent view that the West had of
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the tropics, which I don't think will be surprising to
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anybody because it's like stuff we've touched on already, like
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when we talked about eugenics, when we talked about the
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bath rights. Basically, I don't know everything, yeah, because everything
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is connected, yes, and we mentioned that in another episode,
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and yes that it's on the Bengo card that off. Yeah.
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But yeah, even though that we've talked about these things already,
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I think it helps to build an understanding of how
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the US approached the development of the Pama Canal in Panama.
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So a hot topic in the US at the time
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was you guessed it eugenics? Whoa? Whoa? Who would have thunk?
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No way? Popular books like The Control of the Tropics
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by Benjamin Kidd and an Introduction to America Expansion Policy
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by James Morton Callahan pushed the belief that white people
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from the US and Europe were superior to people of
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color or to quote from the Control of the Top Tropics.
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It popularized the idea of quote the absolute ascendancy in
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the world today of white people from the US and
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Western Europe over the colored racist and quote, I'm rolling
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my eyes so hard right now. And it's also important
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to note that this book was published in eighteen ninety
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eight when the US was taking over the Spanish colonies
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of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, and the US
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justified political control of these colonies and later Panama through
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the belief that they were bringing civilization and democracy to
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these regions, which is part from the truth. And it's
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still a justification that the US uses around the world today. Yeah.
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I mean, honestly, anytime you hear like we're bringing democracy, no,
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they're just making terror. That's a red flag. Yeah, it
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should be a red flag. Yeah, some people still like
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fall for it. Some people believe that the military gives
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us our freedoms. How a man to get freedom from
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from a military base in across the world. Like, no,
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you think the military base in the Philippines is gonna
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give us freedom? Okay, dumb. In the American Expansion Policy Book,
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James argued that people in the Tropics were unable to
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live under democratic institutions, stating the trend of modern history
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seems to be toward colonization and protectorates. And this is
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a state that is controlled and protected by another. In
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other words, equality for less civilized peoples, and that it
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will be futile for any first class power to fold
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its hands and stand aloof from regions which, although they
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cannot perhaps be colonized by whites, must be governed by
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a base in the temperate zones by the US and
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other nations whose duty is to undertain work in the
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interest of all as a trust for civilization. All that
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to basically say, in his view, these regions need the
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US to become civilized. Yeah, but really what the US
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needed was their resources, yes, yeah, and to steal them
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all and make any off of it. Right. So, while
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Panama had counted on keeping control of their ports and
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sharing control of the zone, the US believed that only
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they were civilized enough to control the ports and the
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canal only they were smart enough. Yeah, it did not
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matter to the US at all that the Port of
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Panama had a four hundred year history as an international port.
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It's also important to note that Panama had reason to
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expect the US to keep its word about the treaty
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because they already had experience in working with foreign powers,
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since the canal was the third largest infrastructural project being
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undertaken by foreign power in Panama, unfortunately known as debiant
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right right. So first US capital built the Banama Railroad
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in the eighteen fifties, then the French company started the
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construction of the Banama Canal in the eighteen eighties, and
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throughout all of that, Colombia, which Panama was a part of,
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then kept political jurisdiction over the towns and territory. So
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Panama had no reason to think it would be different
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this time. But the US government isn't like other girls.
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It's worse. Yeah. And then on top of that, the
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president in charge of the US government at this point
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in time was Teddy Roosevelt, who truly truly believed that
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the US was better than everyone and Americas were better
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than everyone, and that he needed to what you've said it,
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You've said her already. They needed to be in control,
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and they needed to help everyone right become more civilized
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and all that. And so I mean, just look at
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and again, I'm going to do a separate episode on
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him and the country surrounding him. But the US National
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Park System being what it is today, none of that
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happened if it wasn't for him believing that white people
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were better. So yeah, I read the transcript, and I
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still want to listen to an episode. But I read
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the transcript from the Panama Canal episode from the podcast
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Under the Shadow, and they actually interview Marik sa Lasso,
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who is the author of the book that I read.
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Oh cool, in this episode. But in their episode they
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get more into Roosevelt's beliefs and they talk about a
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speech which I think is the quote I said from
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Roosevelt last episode. I think it comes from that speech
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that they talk about in their episode. And I guess
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this speech has a name because it like birthed a concept.
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Let me scroll down to find it. What was it?
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The good neighbor policy. It's it's like all of those
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things are basically the same but the Roosevelt corollary, Oh, yes,
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this is the corollary to the Monroe doctrine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,