But there was a strike against the Government run Banana Industry which unlike the traditional “Banana Republic” isn’t a government owned by the Banana Industry. Close enough though, they’re bought and Paid (on long credit terms) for by American Fat-Cats who believed and their descendants still do that their money and American (not Rich) soldiers providing the Assassinations necessary to maintain that money entitles them to own the whole world. Especially those nations physically closest to our Arbitrarily assigned borders.
By the way, Corporate Warfare and Corporate Welfare are two of the key components of Fascism.
The government forces attempted to take the Union leaders prisoner, and killed two union members and wounded 120 others (by Government count) three of whom are in hospitals in comas. And under arrest. Probably for violently attacking a Police Billy Club or Gun Muzzle with their foreheads. Repeatedly throwing their heads under the stomping Jack-boots of the Police even after being handcuffed. The workers, Indigenous people mostly, (that’s code for “held in perpetual povertyslavery on the basis of Race” by the way) responded by taking 4 of the cops prisoner. Only the Right Wing code for that is “hostages”. One of the causes of the strike was the Puppet Government of Panama (guess which American Corporate Government holds the puppet strings) trying, of course not on American orders, that would be silly to contemplate… passed laws forbidding Union Activity especially strikes.
The government “graciously” suspended enforcement of the law, temporarily until they can find some way to get enough American gunboats and Marines into the country to put the Union down for good errr… I mean, find some way to Legally enforce it.
Panama wasn’t the Original “Banana Republic”, although it follows the model, have U.S. Corporations, backed by the Military, which they’ve exempted themselves from paying the bills thereof, incite a “revolution” in the country which doesn’t have strong laws to force the people to surrender their lands, resources, freedoms and especially their labor to the corporate Overlords. The “revolutionaries” run into resistance from the non-cooperative government, then call for the United States government to send soldiers to come and rescue them. It’s how the Republic of Texas was formed. How the U.S. took over Hawaii. Puerto Rico. Panama. Iraq….
How we got a third of the land area of the Republic of Mexico after our Former Puppet General Antonio Jose y Maria Lopez de Santa Ana didn’t provide quite the level of cooperation they had expected.
Why Panama was re-taken from the Former Puppet Dictator Manuel Noriega refused to cooperate with the Reagan-Bu’ush Regime, in yet another arranged Coup. Panama was taken from the Republic of Colombia in the exact same manner because Colombia was leaning toward allowing a French firm to build the Canal (which was going to be built regardless)
Noriega helped finance the Banana Republic attempted coup in Nicaragua allegedly by being a go-between for Oliver North and the Medellin cocaine growing and marketing industry. The part about the North connection is “erased” in the American Memory Hole OR WAS IT?
The original “Banana Republic” was Honduras. Honduras which has ONCE MORE been taken down in a Coup against a populist “dictator” who made the horrendously Anti-American decision that the labor and resources of the Nation of Honduras belongs to the PEOPLE of Honduras, and not to the American Corporate Overlords. The true and exact reason the U.S. government condemns the nations of Cuba and Venezuela as “rogue states” because they actually stand for the national interests of THEIR OWN nations rather than the Corporate Owners of the United States.
And anybody who resists Corporate Fascism anywhere in the world is declared under the still-in-effect Bu’ush Regime directives like the so-called “Patriot” act to be a Terrorist.
A staple of army surplus stores since the days Banana Republic was the Starbucks of olive drab, the Israeli Paratrooper Bag was marketed as the Swiss Army Knife of handbags. Beside the ludicrous notion that an airborne assault fighter would shoulder a single-strapped man-purse, the red logo of a winged parachute raises another incongruity. For what pretext does a nation’s defensive force have “paratroopers?” I know the US/UK imperial powers label their entire military as being for defense, but they’ve got client states to dominate. Every nation’s special forces are now synonymous with SWAT, basically unconstitutional deployment of paramilitary forces against their own populations. Even if we grant governments this tool of repression, they don’t use parachutes. Paratroopers are the advance team for an invading army, dropped behind enemy lines to demolish another’s defenses against the main assault. And that’s why Israel is so unsuccessful in defending itself, it’s attacking.