I've noticed a trend in recent posts that I find it upsetting. Many of them have a decidedly anti-corporate slant. Many more have an alarming pro-Latino tone. I recognize this as something that needs to be remedied, obviously.

Imagine my relief when I discovered this news story concerning banana giant Chiquita's disclosure that its Colombia subsidiary has made protection payments to various groups the US government defines as terrorist organizations. It's got everything I'll need for a complete reversal of my stance on both corporations and Latinos -- a huge multinational with annual revenues well in excess of a billion dollars and a country filled with people that are, as far as my understanding goes, Latino. Or Hispanic. Whichever. Plus, there's the banana thing, so I can almost certainly throw some double entendre in. So let's get this show on the road, shall we?

Sure, it's a disturbing revelation, but don't let the Justice Department's use of the term "terrorist" lead you into thinking that Chiquita is paying for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Bridgade's dynamite and duct tape or the IRA's Guinness. Colombia has been at war with itself for the last 40 years. The laughable but internationally sanctioned government, propped up by the CIA and funded by US drug enforcement money, remains powerless to control a multitude of guerrilla groups. Most of these factions are drug cartels that carry political banners, and virtually all of them extort money from international corporations under threat of kidnapping, assassination, and sabotage. Chiquita's disclosure of payoffs to one such group, the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia -- a group that's said to have committed some of the worst human rights violations in the country's history, to Justice Department investigators is the first public admission of what's been long understood among businessmen to be the price of doing business in Colombia.

That Chiquita must endure investigation and the resulting public relations nightmare as a result of admitting to making payments that are, essentially, a Colombian tax is absurd. Instead, blame the impotent and hopelessly corrupt Colombian government for failing to provide the security that encourages the kind of international investment that will provide real wealth to the Colombian people, as opposed to the DEA's breadcrumbs or the drug trade. Or, better and more rightly, blame the US government. Under our shiny new doctrine of preemption, isn't it our responsibility to ensure that the assets of a corporation based in Cincinnati aren't threatened by a known terrorist group? And perhaps the Justice Department should investigate the DEA, or, better, both the legislative and executive branches of our government. After all, they created the means and market for funding groups like the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia when cocaine was criminalized in 1914.

What I'm saying is, Chiquita isn't the bad guy here. Think about all the great things the banana industry has for the people of South America -- remember that "daylight come" song? If you've got to blame something, blame both of the United State's currently active unwinable wars -- on terror and on drugs. Or blame those motherfucking Colombians. Chiquita's just doing what it takes to give us nice, firm bananas. Because nobody wants to put a soft banana in their mouth.

Analogcabin @ 8:13 AM
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