What if the US has always been a banana republic?
The country’s industrial success at the turn of the last century was perhaps due to huge untapped raw material resources in the form of oil, metals, forests, etc. Low hanging fruit. All the science and progress thereafter was made by smart European migrants and their children, such as Tesla, Einstein, Oppenheimer, von Braun, etc. But at the core, the American state is about total corruption and mob rule.
Without oil and migrant engineers, the US would be more like Honduras or Nicaragua.
Violence and gangs in the cities, exclusive walled areas for the rich, and roads, bridges and infrastructure in poor condition. The people are uneducated, eat junk food and are extremely overweight. A day at Disneyland is more like a convention for people wearing XXXL. Most towns are dull, with glass skyscrapers in the centre, no real urban life, no place for pedestrians, small shops, restaurants and bars. Wide motorways cut right through the urban landscape, if you want to shop you have to go to a ‘shopping mall’, and then home to the villa suburb.
Moreover, the undisputed hallmark of the Banana Republic is the political life. Political opponents are jailed and accused of made-up offences.
Former President Donald Trump was convicted yesterday on very strange charges; among other things, he allegedly paid money in exchange for silence in an adulterous affair, which, according to the prosecution, he did not disclose to the US tax authorities. It is a long logical tripwire, it is not even proven beyond reasonable doubt that he was unfaithful, but what does that matter in a banana republic, where it is important to get at the political opponents with all available means?
It is with this country that we have allied ourselves if war comes. This is the country that is demanding that we empty our military stores and pass them on to yet another corrupt country, Ukraine. It is this country that has given us Pride Month, where we celebrate men having oral and anal sex with each other. People can do what they want in the bedroom, sure, but is it worth celebrating? And for a whole month? This is the country that pushes issues of post-colonialism, racialisation, gender issues and transsexuality as if they were the most important thing in the world. Perhaps more important than the well-being, security and prospects of ordinary people?
America is above all grand theatre. Hollywood and war. There is no common thread for those who seek logic and reason. The banana republic is nowadays mostly a blackened peel, which people can slip on, at worst.
