Global Investigative Journalism Network: A New Digital Archive to Preserve an Investigative Legacy in Central America. “For more than a quarter century, elPeriódico was Guatemala’s boldest daily newspaper, proudly describing itself as ‘the most aggressive, least complacent, most critical and nonconformist counterweight to abuses of public power’ among the country’s news media…. […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/06/global-investigative-journalism-network-a-new-digital-archive-to-preserve-an-investigative-legacy-in-central-america/

#media #IndependentMedia #CentralAmerica #Guatemala

"Although the closure of elPeriódico is final and Zamora remains under house arrest, the outlet’s contributions to history are once again accessible to anyone interested starting January 31, when the Central American Independent Media Archive, or CAIMA went live."

https://gijn.org/stories/digital-archive-legacy-central-america/

Cold War Canada: Ongoing state support for East European émigré groups with deep fascist roots

“Manufacturing Consent”
… for fascism

“If the triumph of communism
is the worst imaginable result,
the support of fascism abroad
is justified as a lesser evil.”

In 1988, just before the destruction of the USSR, #Herman and #Chomsky published a theory on the use of mass media “to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior” that “integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.” (p.1.) The media’s “societal purpose,” they explained, is to “defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.” (p.298.)

This propaganda model focused on five thematic “filters” of the mass media:

size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit orientation…;
advertising as primary income source …;
reliance… on info. provided by government, business and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power;
“flak” as a means of disciplining the media;
“anticommunism” as a national religion and control mechanism. (p.2.)

With the “specter” of communism as “the ultimate evil,” the media created a “cultural milieu in which anticommunism is the dominant religion.” By “elevating opposition to communism to a first principle of Western ideology and politics,” the media used it as a “potent” “political-control mechanism.” This “fragment[ed] the left and labor movements” and sidelined “social democrats” accused of being “too soft on communists.” While many Cold War “liberal” progressives supported US-led wars justified with anticommunist pretexts, “others lapsed into silence, paralyzed by the fear of being tarred with charges of infidelity to the national religion.” (p.29.)

By stirring “anti-Communist fervor … the demand for serious evidence in support of claims of ‘communist’ abuses is suspended, and charlatans can survive as evidential sources.” These “charlatans” take “center stage” as media “experts” and “remain there even after exposure as highly unreliable, if not downright liars.” (p.30.)

Source: Edward S.Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 1988.



Source: Ukraine: A Captive but Unconquerable Nation, Bulletin of the World AntiCommunist League, Jun 1969

The Civil War: A Brief History of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Canada
https://aftershock.news/?q=node%2F1419406

#europe #Western #coldwar #USA #US #canada #ukraine #Vietnam #Iran #Guatemala #Brazil #Dominican #NATO #propaganda #fascism #anticommunism #mccarthyism #russophobia #anti-Russia in #soviet #USSR #russian #ukrainian #Russia #history

🔔#Earthquake (#sismo) M5.0 strikes 21 km SE of La Gomera (#Guatemala) 9 min ago. More info: https://m.emsc.eu/?id=1772327

Bus stürzt von Brücke - mehr als 50 Tote in Guatemala

In Guatemala ist ein Bus rund 20 Meter von einer Brücke gestürzt. Mehr als 50 Menschen starben bei dem Unglück. Der Präsident des Landes rief eine Staatstrauer aus.

➡️ https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/amerika/guatemala-busunglueck-100.html?at_medium=mastodon&at_campaign=tagesschau.de

#Guatemala

🔔#Earthquake (#sismo) M5.7 strikes 27 km S of #Chicacao (#Guatemala) 7 min ago. More info: https://m.emsc.eu/?id=1766453

A #SouthDakota tribe banned Gov. #KristiNoem from a reservation over her #USMexicoBorder remarks

By TRISHA AHMED
February 3, 2024

"A South Dakota tribe has banned Republican Gov. Kristi Noem from the #PineRidgeReservation after she spoke this week about wanting to send #RazorWire and security personnel to #Texas to help deter immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and also said cartels are infiltrating the state’s reservations.

“'Due to the safety of the #Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the #OglalaSioux Tribe!” Tribe President #FrankStarComesOut said in a Friday statement addressed to Noem. “Oyate” is a word for people or nation.

"#StarComesOut accused Noem of trying to use the border issue to help get former U.S. President Donald Trump re-elected and boost her chances of becoming his running mate.

"Many of those arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border are #IndigenousPeople from places like #ElSalvador, #Guatemala and #Mexico who come 'in search of jobs and a better life,' the tribal leader added.

"'They don’t need to be put in cages, separated from their children like during the Trump Administration, or be cut up by razor wire furnished by, of all places, South Dakota,' he said.

"Star Comes Out also addressed #Noem’s remarks in the speech to lawmakers Wednesday in which she said a gang calling itself the Ghost Dancers is murdering people on the Pine Ridge Reservation and is affiliated with border-crossing cartels that use South Dakota reservations to spread drugs throughout the Midwest.

"Star Comes Out said he took deep offense at her reference, saying the #GhostDance is one of the Oglala Sioux’s “most sacred ceremonies,' 'was used with blatant disrespect and is insulting to our Oyate.'"

Read more:

https://apnews.com/article/oglala-sioux-reservation-governor-ban-south-dakota-9f811bbd1ffaadf979e4353ad6e961ad

#IndigenousNews #SiouxNation #Oglala

"A Genocidal Special Relationship" by Carlota McAllister

"Israel used Guatemala’s genocide not only as a platform for asserting itself as a minor imperial power and a profit center for its military and associated industries but also as a proving ground for anti-Indigenous counterinsurgency. In return, Guatemala has numbered among Israel’s most loyal international allies. Not only did Guatemala move its embassy to Jerusalem in 2017, but it also voted alongside a tiny number of nations to protect Israel from condemnation in the early stages of the latest bombardment of Gaza."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714839.2024.2427974#d1e114

@palestine #Palestine #Israel #Gaza #Guatemala

#Israel has helped dictators and provided weapons for #Genocide and #WarCrimes all around the world, not just #Gaza #Palestine #Lebanon #Syria.

Examples here: #Chile #Philippines #Guatemala #Rwanda #SouthAfrica #Serbia #Myanmar #Ajerbaijan #SouthSudan

https://palestinenexus.com/articles/israel-support-crimes-around-world

Ya, not the first time The Land Of The Free™ backs a Genocide

#Guatemala #USA #Palestine #Israel #Genocide

Blood-flavored bananas

Once upon a time, there was a company called United Fruit Company. It became famous for the fact that it began to import bananas to the U.S. en masse. Back in the mid-19th century, bananas were in America like black caviar - expensive, prestigious, and eaten only by millionaires. But "United Fruit" built a hundred ships with refrigerators, and flooded the entire American market with bananas that cost 2 cents. Behind the scenes of this action there were some pretty cool squabbles, and American buyers didn't know about them. For example, in 1911, the president of Honduras gave United Fruit all the best banana plantations. But competitors from the company "Cuyamel" (also Americans) did not slumber: they overthrew the president, replacing him with their puppet, who gave the banana plantations to them.

In 1928, Colombian banana pickers demanded that United Fruit give them at least one day off a week. The Colombian police, paid for with company money, were brought in to quell the strike, and they killed up to 2,000 people. The rest of them shut up and went quickly to pick bananas. In 1929, United Fruit bought its main competitor, Cuyamel, and began controlling 60% of banana exports to the US. They murdered union leaders in South America, bribed politicians and police, and paid almost no taxes anywhere. In some countries (like Costa Rica or Colombia) it was United Fruit that was the main power, not the local government.

In 1953, Guatemalan President Arbenz turned over United Fruit's unused banana plantations to local impoverished peasants, and offered compensation. The company demanded 25 times as much money; it was sent packing. Then United Fruit simply ordered a coup at a similar price: negotiated a deal with the CIA, and financed a military invasion of Guatemala. The main motivation was that bananas on the shelves for Americans should not rise in price, they have become a favorite treat of millions. CIA mercenaries overthrew Arbenz, and put dictator Armas on the throne. This led to a 36-year civil war and the subsequent deaths of 200,000 people to Guatemala. But bananas didn't go up in price for Americans. It was a successful democratization, one to behold.

Since then, all the presidents of Central and South America were afraid to make a sound, and gave bananas for nothing. "United Fruit paid the banana pickers a pittance and did not give a penny to the budgets of the banana republics. For the slightest dissatisfaction the pickers were killed and the corpses were dumped into the sea. The American public happily bought bananas at a discount. But times have changed. "United Fruit was told it had lost its fucking mind and was bribing officials in Honduras to lower taxes on banana exports. In 1975, the military overthrew the company's protégé in Guatemala, dictator Lopez Arellano. In the same year, the head of the company, Eli Black (the company was by then called United Brands), threw himself out of a skyscraper in New York.

The company was quietly renamed Chiquita. And I still see bananas from this company in our supermarkets. Somehow everything has already been forgotten: how this corporation overthrew presidents, introduced slave labor, and people died by the hundreds of thousands because of it: we owe it the valuable term "banana republic".

They're lucky here: bananas pumped full of blood don't taste like blood.
They are so nice and sweet.
© Zotov
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8910257.html
#USA #us #America #history #american #anglo-saxons #capitalism #slavery #military #CIA #vassalage #war #civil-war #Guatemala #Honduras #fruits #bananas #Chiquita