Communist Spider Bananas Episode 2

In the conclusion of our quick overview of the CIA sponsered coupe in Guatamala you get to hear a VERY sexy voice rendition of a misionary asking for money.
Links:
twitter @threefeetnoslip
Laura's links
Twitter: @eloise_Bark_
etsy: thirdeyesparkle
www.laurelanalyticsandconsulting.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Seven mercenaries behind you in your house, going, we're gonna
give me three thousand dollars. I need to go to
Jamaica and do the Lord's work. Welcome back. It's episode
two of Communist Spider Bananas Banana Spiders Banana Spiders.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Nader Bananas implies that the banana is a spider.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
We don't know. But this is also the Alphabet Boys podcast.
Here with me again as always and always wonderful is Laura,
who is also my wife and actually knows a little
bit about banana republics. So you know we're gonna we're

(00:53):
gonna lean on her this episode.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Oh God, why for some because.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
You bring a unique perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
My unique perspective is I'm not a history major slash professor.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yes, but as you made very clear last time, sociology.
You learn more in sociology about these events than you
did in history. So we're hoping for some sociology.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Bring it. I'll give you some group some group series,
group series called group saying theory. By the way, group think,
group think.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's very much. That's a very group saying. That's a
very like that feels like something. Mark Zuckerberg makes all
of his employees do for fifteen minutes before they can
actually get to work.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's probably actually what he based Facebook on group.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Bought it, join in for a group think. That's that's
Mark Zuckerberg in my head. That's how he sounds that
he has emotions. Oh no, those aren't emotions. That's just
he just talks like a dandy. Yea m good, more
like button.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
We're getting a little skexy there.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I was thinking skexy or the decade spot from Oh God.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
And here we're witnessing the ADHD. Mind blank, let's go kexy.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
No, it wasn't skexy the hedonism bot from Rick and Morty. No,
older Fry and Bender and Futurama.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I never watched that. Remember, you tried to get me
to watch it, and I just.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I made you watch the episode with Fry's dog to
watch you weep, and then you refuse to watch anymore.
All right, So let's do a little recapping of where
we left off. So I believe we left off with
discussing the utility of vans last time, and how CIA

(02:56):
had essentially set up or helped set up the Guatemalan
Liberation forces with.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Them, and they made pamphlets rain like manna.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yes, we had raining pamphlets and the powerful Voice of Liberty,
Voice of Liberation broadcasting all throughout Guatemala. As we move
into the actual nuts and bolts of this invasion.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Okay, we're not in the nuts and bolts yet.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh, that was the nuts and bolts of the pre invasion.
We've just been getting ready. We haven't entered. Remember, Armez
is just rubbing his moist invasion member around the opening
of Guatemalan democracy.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Sounds like the first three guys I ever slept with.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, they're just slamming it between the thoys.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
The pre invasion to be the invasion.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, yeah, I could see that. It's just find a
moist spot and go to town Castillo. Armes's force of four
hundred and eighty men had been split into four teams,
ranging in size from sixty to one hundred and ninety eight,
and on June fifteenth, nineteen fifty four, these four forces

(04:20):
left their bases in Honduras and El Salvador and assembled
in various towns just outside of the Guatemalan border. The
largest force was supposed to attack the Atlantic harbor town
of Puerto Berres, while the others attacked the smaller towns
of Esquipalas, Huaipa, and Zacappa, and those are all perfectly pronounced.

(04:47):
The Guatemalans Army's largest frontier post was Zacapa. The invasion
plan quickly faced difficulties, probably because they only had like
four hundred and eighty dudes. But the sixty man force
was intercepted and jailed by Salvadorian policemen before it even
got to the border. Hilariously, yes, just the police arrested them.

(05:11):
At eight twenty am on the eighteenth of June nineteen
fifty four, Castile Armis led his invading troops over the border.
Ten trained saboteurs preceded the invasion with the aim of
blowing up railways and cutting telegraph lines. At about the
same time.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Cas Armis is telegraph lines, Yeah, telegraph lines. Telegraph telegraph
lines in the nineteen fifties.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
As I say, we were like in the mid twentieth century,
and they're cutting off telegraph.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Telegraph lines, okay, yeah, because you know why, I mean, this.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Explains why they like had pamphlets raining from the sky,
because you know, that's the best way of communication.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
And you know, it's like when you think about how
like the imperialist like come back to all of the
you know, but we left them better than we found them.
Like the like the argument of we're civilizing this area.
It's like, well, we built railroads and we put in

(06:15):
all this infrastructure, and it's like the infrastructure doesn't work.
It only works to take natural resources and pump them
out of the country. They don't actually work for the
country itself. Like the railroads don't go anywhere they need
them to. They just go to the bananas and then
to the port and that's it. Much like how they

(06:36):
don't have telephones, they have a telegraph telegraph, yeah, because
it was probably built by the banana people. And bananas
don't talk, but they can send telegraphs.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I think you can like hook up wires to bananas
and they run electricity. I know you can do with potatoes.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
I've seen a potato clock. What if they used the
spiders to send lots of telegrams at once. You could
send eight different lines at once on a like eight
different types.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Like instead of like pigeon carriers, you've got spider carry
spider telegraph. I just like see a spider with like
a little roll of a note like strapped to it,
just got a little cigar and it's it's like, onward,
my friend, take this to the America's fort.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
He just got here fucking twenty twenty two, and he's like,
we need the reinforcements. But now my envisionment was like
a bunch of the little clickies for telegraphs and like
a spider operating all eight.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
With like a little hat, a little cigar.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, And then like there's a spider on the other
end receiving the like the teletype, and he's like in
an office and it's.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Like the teletype of silk.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
It's got to be silk, right, Well, it's coming out
of another spider, right.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
There's a midway spider between.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
It's a telepathic spider link. I don't know where this
all came from, but at this point, telegraph communist spiders
with little cigars and hats gone boji bye. Look at these.
We've got a uptick in Guatemalan liberty talk. That's sendab
always in green down that.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I really like how the Guatemalan spiders have a New York.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Accent sending the Marines. For some reason, communist spiders talk
like nineteen twenties stock traders anyway, shit cut the telegraph lines.
At about the same time Castile Armis's plane flew over
the pro government rally in the capitol, the US Psychological

(08:36):
Strategy Board ordered the bombing of the Matamoras Fortress in
downtown Guatemala City, and a US F forty seven warplane
flown by a mercenary pilot bombed the city of Chiquama.
Castile Armists demanded Castile Armis demanded Urbanez's immediate surrender. The

(08:58):
invasion provoked a brief panic in the capital, which quickly
decreased as the rebels failed to make any striking moves.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
This feels really familiar. Yeah, like I don't know, maybe
like a year ago familiar.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, around January it was cold. It was yeah, it
was cold. It was like a lot of what seemed
like a lot of people. And they thought like, Oh,
we're going to have so much support when we get there,
and then they fly over the capitol and it's like,
oh shit, there's a pro government rally going on. Maybe

(09:31):
we have misread this situation. Anyway. Bogged Down by supplies
and lack of transportation, Castillo Armas's force took several days
to reach their targets, although their planes blew up a
bridge on the nineteenth of June. I like, how it's
just let's go blow one bridge. This seems like m
the only bridge they had. Maybe it was their bridge.

(09:54):
You can't use our bridge for communisty.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
It was the railway bridge. And so like the.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Spiders were getting across the water, swimming spiders just on
the back of fucking frogs, and then they like and
not deny or the way we are, and then they
bite the frog. God. When the rebels did reach their targets,

(10:20):
they met with further setbacks. The force of one hundred
and twenty two men targeting Zakappa were intercepted and decisively
beaten by a garrison of thirty guatemalansers.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
As opposed to endecisively right, Well, there was no doubt
or like moral question. It was just it was all
decided preemptively right.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
It's like they're thirty Guatemalan soldiers and they beat the
shit out of one hundred and twenty two invading dudes,
and they came home turf advantage very much so, with
only thirty men escaping death or capture.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Take their cannons.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
The force that attacked Puerto Byras, was dispatched by policemen
and armed dockwars with many.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Of the rob But you don't fuck with the dock workers, no,
because they know how to fucking swing some rope and
metal around.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
They probably just have like a fucking chains beating out
of them.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
So here's the My ex taught me how to defend
myself with a hair dryer. And at first you think
it's like the big bludgeon. It's just like, yes, shit,
I know, I got out again. But it works. Okay,
it works because he taught me, like, you don't hit
with the big bludgeon end, which is what you would think,

(11:34):
because it gets hot, you can like heat it up.
It gets hot, it's heavy, right, But that's not what
you uses the weapon. Instead, what you do is you
use that as like an anchor to hold on to,
and then you take the cord and you like swing
it like a lasso, and then you can whip them
with the plug end and that would actually cause more
damage than just chucking a hair dryer at him entirely.

(11:56):
So I'm imagining these dock workers have like done a
very similar method of like they're holding on to like
some anchor point and they have a rope that's tied
to something metal, and they're just like, whoy out, just
over because I mean, you're gonna You're not gonna get
close to someone who has like a twenty foot weapon

(12:16):
or a lunatic running at you. I'm a lasso of truth.
They probably not that these dockworkers were lunatics, but like
encountering someone, I.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Mean, I don't know what their weapons were it is.
I didn't look that up, but I would imagine that
it's probably guns.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
We wanted the sociologist's perspective.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
There's the sociologists per sociologist's perspective is that.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
We should use your strength.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
We don't need AR fifteen's. We need more hair dryers.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
You know what. Hair dryers don't run out of bullets,
just like my big ass wrench, it doesn't run out
of bullets.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, but you have to get close to somebody with
a hair dryer.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
You only need like five feet And I.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Feel like if they close too fast, like you couldn't
get up enough momentum.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh you totally can. You just need like one big circle,
that's all you need. Like think of like the fire
throwers or the fire spinners like the circus performers and
festival people.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yeah, we went to that person's backyard and there's that
chick to it exactly Yeah, that's all you need. You
just need like one one whip and whip it good
exactly so, and.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
It doesn't run out of bullets.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
But I feel like they could just go anyway. We won't.
We'll have another podcast about the effectiveness of hair dryers
in future wars. Honestly, I'm into it if someone wants
to create, Like, we don't use guns anymore unless you
know how to wield a hair dryer cable, you know, deliciously,

(13:49):
you know, I think I think it'd be better.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
I think I bet you we could make a whole
episode of you giving me random scenarios and I will
give you random weapons to make.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Out of it, because I'm over here. Like, just choke
them out. Just take the cable and like garrot them.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
I mean first you like hit them in the head
and then they're you know, like stunned, and then you
choke them out.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
I mean, no one is expecting to get hit with
the cable of.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
A hair droll exactly. The weapon and the plugs hurt,
they hurt I've had this done to beat they hurt?

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Why did someone hit you with the plug? Well, oh
oh yeah, that sounds right. So, with many of the
rebels fling back to Honduras, in an effort to regain momentum,
the rebel planes tried air attacks on the capitol. These attacks,
called Little Mati, caused little material damage but had a

(14:43):
significant psychological impact, leading to many citizens to believe that
the invasion force was far more powerful than it actually was.
The rebel bombers needed to fly out of the Nicaraguan
capital of Managua. As a result, well, they had a
very limited payload. A large number of them substituted dynamite

(15:05):
or Molotov cocktails for bombs in an effort to create guns.
In an effort to create loud bangs with a lower payload,
the planes targeted ammunition depots, parade grounds, and other visible targets.
So essentially they're like, we can't actually we don't have bombs,
so let's trump a bunch of molotov cocktails out of
our planes, these World War two era planes that the

(15:28):
CIA has given them, which is hilarious because we're going
to take over this government with like four planes and
one hundred or four hundred and eighty guys, it doesn't
work unless the CIA is involved.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
But like when you think about Molotov cocktails dropping from
a plane, like the velocity of which it's falling, I
feel like would either cause the Molotov cocktail to preemptively
explode or extinguish entirely.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
I mean, since it's burning on they probably are using
like a gasoline Malotov cocktail, I would imagine instead of
an alcohol one.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Like hoping the vapors keep it going.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, because like air wouldn't extinguish, like rushing air wouldn't
extinguish a gasoline flame. I wouldn't think. I don't know.
I just I just report you decide anyway, Early in
the morning on the twenty seventh of June nineteen fifty four,
a CIA Lockheed P thirty eight M Lightning, which by

(16:34):
the way, one of my favorite planes of all time.
I will fight you this is cooler than the P
fifty one Mustang. We will all meet in a field
and have a fight about this.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
If you guys want, you absolutely can, because I have
no fucking clank.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's a dual fuselage plane.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Anyway, one day I'm going to get on a horse
topic and you're gonna have to.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Just sit through that, oh dear. Anyway, it attacked Porthos
Jose and dropped napalm bombs on the on the British
cargo ships SS spring Fjord.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Okay, now that definitely sounds like a US thing. Yes,
napalm bombs. That's a youth that's totally trademarked.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
M Yeah, on the British, which was a which was
on charter to a US company and was being loaded
with Guatemalan cotton coffee. The incident costs the CIA one
million US dollars in compensation. On the twenty second of June,
another plane bombed the Honduran town of San Pedro de Coppen.

(17:35):
John Dulles claimed the attack had been conducted by the
Guatemalan Air Force, thus avoiding diplomatic consequences.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
So what you're saying is they kept fucking up. Oh yeah,
and like shit, we gotta pay restitution over here. Shit,
blame it all the Guatemalans. We didn't do it.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah. Well, and you got to think, because these they're
hiring mercenaries to do these flyover mercenaries not missionaries.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Missionaries are mercy.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
They're mercenaries that mate in the missionary position. We'll get
David Edinburgh to do a.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Missionaries are mercenaries that get paid by gofundmes from their church.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we're like really like a
crossing a bridge there to make that one work. But
we'll go with that.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
LEVI gets me.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
I mean, anybody who grew up in an evangelical household
gets you because of how like you're just living your
life and suddenly there's seven mercenaries behind you in your
house going we're getting give me three thousand dollars. I
need to go on to Jamaica and do the Lord's work.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
I just want to say, I'm really proud, after being
a grandchild of a preacher and coming from a very
long line of preachers, teachers and nurses, that I never
went on a mission trip.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Yeah I never did either.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Ever, I did a drama skit about one, but I
never actually went on one.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Well, we all eventually growing up, How we did? We
all did an interpretive dance about some type of thing
with Jesus.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
At some point. Do you want to how I got
out of it?

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Money?

Speaker 2 (19:12):
No, No, how I got out of effort that, Yeah,
we did. How I got out of going on mission
trips was I said, God, God's not leading me there.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
I mean, you do have to do that, like you
have to sink into the evangelical quagmire and use their
own rhetoric against them.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
God led me to having access to security key cards
and going in every room I wanted to, including all
the prop rooms, and finding things they hide. I mean, yeah, okay,
back to the mercy.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
At least we digress. So the CIA has to pay
a million dollars in compensation to these two places. The
handful of bombers that the rebel forces had been gun
with we're shot down by the Guatemal Army within a
few days, causing Castile Armis to demand more from the CIA.
Eisenhower quickly agreed to provide these additional planes bolstering the

(20:11):
rebel force. William Pauley had a crucial role to play
in the delivery of these aircraft. You know what else
plays a crucial role in delivering arms to rebel forces
to overthrow governments that were voted in by a democratic collection.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
The advertisers that help us keep doing this.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yes, but I mean they don't directly do just listen
to the ads. Guys, I'll get a penny and we're back.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
I just want to say that when we got back
to you make the cutest little smirk.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Well, that signs it's cuter Thanquatemalan banana spiders.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, they're actually really frightening if you look at them.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
I've never seen a banana spider, and I have chosen
to envision them as the little spiders with hats.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
No, no, no, no, they're more like a Huntsman spider,
like kind of across between a Huntsman spider and like
a tarantula. They're actually in the tarantula family. They're giant,
and you should watch videos of like them blowing air
into bananas to like get them out of there, blowing
air and.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Oh, people blowing air. I thought, you know, the spiders,
and I was like, I don't think that's how spiders work.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Why would spiders blow air that.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Kind of lung. There you see a spider panting. I
don't think that's how that works. That's the noise. Turtles
make babies, all right. So the Arbinez government originally meant
to repel the invasion by arming the military, age populous workers, militias,

(21:55):
and the Guatemalan Army. Resistance from the armed Forces, as
well as public knowledge of the secret arms purchase, compelled
the president to supply arms only to the army. From
the beginning of the invasion, Arbnez was confident that Castile
Armos could be defeated militarily and expressed his confidence in

(22:17):
the public in public, but he was worried that a
defeat for Castile Armes would provoke a direct invasion by
the US military, which it probably would have at that point.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
I mean, the US military is waiting for literally anything.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
They're probably off, They're probably in a secret underwater base,
just jerking it to the idea of invading a South
American socialist country just twenty four hours a day. This
also contributed to his decision to not armed civilians, lacking
a military reason to do so. This could have cost

(22:57):
him the support of the army. Carlos Enrique Ideas, the
chief of the Guatemalan Armed Forces, told arbin Is that
army civilians would be unpopular with his shoulders soldiers and
that the army would do its duty remember that phrase.
Arbanez instead told Diaz to select officers to lead a

(23:19):
counter attack. Diaz chose a court of officers who were
all regarded to be men of personal integrity and who
were loyal to Arbanis.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Why does not always have to be personal integrity.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Because you gotta love Jesus to be a good person.
I guess I don't know.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
I'm picking them because they have good integrity. I mean,
what even does that mean?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
They're mostly worried about, like them getting over to the
rebels and being like, you know what, I like fascism
and joining them. I guess people who are true to
the cause of It's so easy.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
To fake integrity. It's so easy. Yeah, tell me more
about that, honey, pots work.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeahs.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
I like how you're like questioning our marriage right now.
You're like, wait a second.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Tell me more about it's easy to integrity.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
As a Gemini speaking here, Oh, it's really easy to
be like, I'm so loyal to you, I'm going to
do this, and then just be like they're not looking.
I'm gonna do what I want, like facing something off integrity. No, No,
it's just it's bullshit.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yes, I agree that you probably.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Should not hop out because then if they fuck up,
you can be like, wow, they're disingenuous it's not my
fault for picking them.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
I mean, usually the best way to do it is
to bribe people, because then you have something exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Then you see people's real, like real side there. You
don't need to go with integrity, you need to go
with their authentic self.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I love distracting you from
what you're trying, right, I need to do something about
like just highlighting something. On the night of the nineteenth
of June, most of the Guatemalan troops in the capital

(25:17):
region left for Zacappa, joined by smaller detachments from other garrisons.
Arminez stated that the invasion was a farce, but worried
that if it was defeated on the Honduran border, Honduras
border would use it as an excuse to declare war
on Guatemala, which would lead to a US invasion. Because

(25:39):
of the rumors spread by the Voice of Liberation, there
were worries throughout the countryside that a fifth column attack
was imminent. Large numbers of peasants went to the government
and asked for weapons to defend their country. They were
repeatedly told that the army was successfully defending our country. Nonetheless,
peasant volunteers assisted the government war effort, manning roadblocks and

(26:00):
donating supplies to the army. Weapon shipments dropped by rebel
planes were intercepted and turned over to the government.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
You know what would be really helpful right now? But hairdryers.
I feel like ropes with metal at the end.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
I don't know. I don't feel like that's going to
be an effective weapon.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
You come out from behind the tree and hit someone
over the head with that.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, But if the dude has a plane and just
dropping nay palm on you, I don't think you're going
to be able to.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Like guns are going to make it better.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
I mean, yeah, they shot down several.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, so if they're dropping nay palm on you, you
can away at that point. Okay, you can be farther
away with a rope.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, but you can't hit the plane from farther away
with the sling rope.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's why you wait for ground attacks.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I feel.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Fight me.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
I love the like kill that you're willing to die
on somehow. Hair dryer end ropes are going to replace
M sixteen's in Guatemala.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
They don't run out of bullets. Government's not going to
give you guns anyways. You gotta get innovatives.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
I mean, I am all for universal armament, but.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Probably make some bananas explode.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Why are we anyway Urbanez instead, Now, I already went there.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
The peasants were trying to get guns from the government,
and they were turning over the aid. Yes see, I'm listening.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
That's good. The Arbanez government was also pursued diplomatic means
to try to end the invasion. It sought support from
El Salvador and Mexico. Mexico declined to get involved, and
the Salvadorian government merely reported the Guatemalan effort to purifoy.
Arbanez's largest diplomatic initiative was in taking the issue to

(27:59):
the United Nation Security Council. On the eighteenth of June,
the Guatemalan Foreign Minister petitioned the Council to take measures
necessary to put a stop to the aggression, which he
said Nicaragua and Honduras were responsible for, along with certain
foreign monopolies which have been affected by the progressive policy

(28:19):
of my government. The Security Council looked at Guatemala's complaint
at an emergency session on the twentieth of June. The
debate was lengthy and heated both Nicaragua and Honduras, denying
any wrongdoing, and the US stating that Eisenhower's role as
the general in World War II demonstrated that he was
against imperialism. The Soviet Union was the only country to

(28:41):
support Guatemala. When the US and its allies proposed referring
the matter to the Organization of American States, the Soviet
Union vetoed the proposal. Guatemala continued to press for a
Security Council investigation. The proposal received the support of Britain
and France, but on the twenty fourth of June it
was by the US, the first time the US had

(29:03):
ever gone against Britain and France in a vote.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
I really like, how like the US is the problem
here and they still get a vote on whether or
not they should continue being the problem.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Oh yeah, well, it's just like to place this in
a current day thing. Just because Russia was the one
invading Ukraine, they still got a vote on the Security
Council response to it by the U N.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I feel like that that's like cheating in monopoly. It's
which you know a lot of Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
The point of monopoly is to cheat and to win.
It's in the name.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
I'm over here, like I'm the fascist with risk and
you're over there as the crony capitalist with monopoly.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
That is what I do only in board games.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
So so like how the UN is like if this
is south of the American border, we don't give a shit. Yeah,
like there it's by American US border.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah. The US accompanied this with threats to the foreign
offices of both countries that the US would stop supporting
their other initiatives. UN Secretary General dag very long and
what I can only assume is Swedish last name. Hamar

(30:23):
Shored called the US position the most serious blow so
far aimed at the United United Nations. A fact finding
mission was set up by the Inter American Peace Committee,
but Washington used its influence to delay the entry of
the committee until the coup was complete and a military
dictatorship was installed.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Does it sound familiar at all?

Speaker 1 (30:47):
No, not at all. There's not just a pervading blueprint
for how to do this and do it successfully. And
I do love that they're like Eisenhower was a general
in World War Two. Obviously he's against everything that could
possibly be construed as imperialism. Meanwhile, Arbenez was initially confident

(31:10):
that his army would quickly dispatch the rebel force. The
victory of a small garrison of thirty soldiers over one
hundred and eighty strong rebel force outside of Zacappa strengthened
his belief. By the twenty first of June, Guatemalan soldiers
had gathered at Zacappa under the command of Colonel Victor
m Leone, who was believed to be loyal to Arbenez.
Leon told Arbenez that the counter attack would be delayed

(31:33):
for logistical reasons, but assured him not to worry, as
Castile armies would be defeated very soon. Other members of
the government were not so certain. Army Chief of Staff
Perineo inspected the troops at Zacapa on the twenty third
of June and returned to the capital. Believing that the
army would not fight afraid of a US intervention in

(31:54):
Castile Armez's favor, he did not tell Arbenez his suspicions,
though PGT leaders also began to have their suspicions. Acting
Secretary General Alvardo Monzon sent a member of the Central
Committee to Zacappa to investigate. He returned on the twenty
fifth of June reporting that the army was highly demoralized

(32:15):
and would not fight. Mozon reported this to Arbinez, who
quickly set another investigator. He too returned with the same report,
carrying an additional message for Arbenez from the officers at Zakappa,
asking the president to resign. The officers believed that, given
US support for the rebels, defeat was inevitable and Arbenez

(32:36):
was to blame for it. He stated that if Arbenez
did not resign, the army was likely to strike a
deal with Castillo arms and march on the Capitol with him.
During this period, Castillo Armes had begun to intensify his
aerial attacks with the extra planes that Eisenhower had approved.
They had limited material success. Many of their bombs were

(32:57):
just surplus material from World War II and failed to
even explode. They just kind of plunked. Nonetheless, they had
a significant psychological impact. On the twenty fifth of June,
the same day that he received the army's ultimatum, arban
Has learned that Castillo Armis had scored what later proved
to be his only military victory, defeating the Guatemalan garrison

(33:19):
at Chiquamia Chiquamula.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Historian Piero Chiqua Mila, Chiqua, Maya, c h.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
I q U i n U l A, Chickwamila, Chickuamila Anda, Chiquamula, Chiquamula.
Historian Pierre Gleazisis had stated that if it were not
for US support for the rebellion, the officer corps of

(33:50):
the Guatemalan Army would have remained loyal to Arbinus because
although they were not uniformly supporters of his, they were
more wary of Castillo Armas and also had strong nationalist views.
As it was, they believed that the US would intervene militarily,
leading to a battle they could not win. And this

(34:12):
is just to interject here. We have to remember this
is before Vietnam and the lessons that were learned by
the rest of the world by watching the US get
its proverbial ass handed to it for ten years in Vietnam.

(34:38):
And so these guys are like, I don't want to
screw with the American military. We've just seen World War two, Like,
I don't want to mess with it, Whereas in reality,
because of the topography of Guatemala, they probably could have
resisted for a very long time, possibly even one even
with full US support.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
I'm sorry topography, so you're saying land battle, so.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Ropes, that doesn't even that doesn't go together anyway. So
once again, just reinforcing Vietnam hasn't happened. We don't have
this the vision of or the idea of. No, you

(35:29):
probably could just wage a guerrilla war until America decided
to fuck off, pretty much so. On the night of
the twenty fifth of June, Arbenez called a meeting of
the senior leaders of the government, the political parties, and
the labor unions. Colonel Dayaz was also present. The president

(35:51):
told them that the army at Zakappa had abandoned the
government and that the civilian population needed to be armed
in order to defend the country. Diaz raised no objections,
and the unions pledged several thousand troops between them.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Is it Diaz or Diaz.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Daaz ds. When the troops were mustered the next day,
only a few hundred showed up. The civilian population of
the capital had fought alongside the Guatemalan Revolution twice before,
during the popular Uprising of nineteen forty four and again

(36:34):
during the attempted coup of nineteen forty nine, but on
this occasion, the army, intimidated by the United States, refused
to fight. The Union members were reluctant to fight both
the invasion and their own military. Seeing this, Diaz reorganized,
renegged on his support of the president, and began plotting

(36:56):
to overthrow Arbinez with the assistance of their senior army officials.
They informed PUFUOI of this plan, asking him to stop
the hostilities in return for Arbinez's resignation. Purifoy promised to
arrange a truce, and the plotters went to Arbenez and

(37:16):
informed him of their decision. Arbinez, utterly exhausted and seeking
to preserve at least a measure of democratic of the
democratic reforms that he had brought, agreed without demure. After
informing his cabinet of his decision, he left the presidential
palace at eight pm on the twenty seventh of June

(37:37):
nineteen fifty four, having taped a resignation speech that was
broadcast an hour later. In it, he stated that he
was resigning in order to eliminate the pretext for the
invasion and that he wished to preserve the gains of
the October Revolution of nineteen forty four. He walked to
the nearby Mexican embassy seeking political asylum. Two months later,

(37:58):
he was granted safe pass to the country and flew
to exile in Mexico. Some one hundred and twenty Arbinas
loyalists or communists were also allowed to leave, and the
CIA stated that none of the assassination plans contemplated by
the CIA were actually implemented. On June thirtieth, nineteen fifty four,

(38:20):
the CIA began a comprehensive destruction process of documents related
to Operation PBS Success. When an oversight committee of the
United States Senate in nineteen seventy five investigated the history
of the CIA's assassinations program and requested information about the
CIA's assassin assassination program as part of Operation PBS Success,

(38:44):
the CIA stated it had.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Lost all the records as you do.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
As you Do. Journalist Annie Jacobsen states that the CIA
claim of no assassinations having taken place is extremely doubtful.
In May nineteen ninety seven, the CIA stated that it
had rediscovered some of its documents that it said that
it was lost, that said that it had been lost.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Hey, we found a box in the back, guys.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
It was behind Kissinger's papers.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
We found out someone with a lot of integrity was
bribed to find.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
That box, probably or someone died and like.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Someone with a lot of integrity, so much integrity, so
much just pouring out of their asshole.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
The names of assassination targets had all been redacted, which
made it impossible to verify whether any of the people
on the CIA assassination lists were actually killed as part
of the operation. Do you know what else gets killed
as part of the operation of everyday life? My thought
process high prices. By advertising these wonderful goods and services,

(40:00):
they slaughter high pricing.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Sure, like Walmart.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
We got to have competition, or else the communist win
will be back back. So that was a lot of
thick yeah information.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
I like how you forgot to slide your microphone forward
before we came back. Well, you know, after you paused
and gave me like five countdowns because I wouldn't shut up.
You had all that time to move your microphone. I
could have done it at any time. I made a choice.
I stuck with it.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
So after all of that meat and potatoes, We're going
to kind of speed through a couple sections here of history,
because if you really want to learn about the details
of what happened here, There's lots of great sources. It's
very well documented. Essentially what happens after Urbanist steps down

(41:01):
and flees to Mexico with his family. There is a
series of power struggles within the government, and what happens
is through the manipulation that the US State Department and
the CIA put in place with the Oh Lord what

(41:28):
was his purefoy, the ambassador, they are able to through
nefarious and often.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Threatening means, lots of integrity, so.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Much integrity, so much so that there were hundreds of
thousands of dollars paid out in bribes to make this happen.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Naturally, Armas.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Eventually becomes the leader of a military junta or junta
junta tunta, and then soon after he became president and
was asserting his presence, he faced a coup almost immediately

(42:18):
from young army cadets who were very unhappy with the
army surrendered to him, and the fact that you know,
it was an authoritarian takeover, and the US promptly recognized
the new government, and with this blessing, Armes crushed the coup,

(42:39):
leaving thirty dead and ninety one wounded. Elections were held
in early October from which all political parties were barred
and no one was allowed to actually run against Armis,
and he was the only candidate. He won the election
with ninety nine percent of the vote.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
I wonder how that happened.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Right, It's like, I don't you know, it's democratic. I
got ninety nine percent.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Of the vote, stop to steal.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah. So a lot of the rest of the world
was just like, wow, this is just American imperialism, like
blatant American imperialism. And this is like, this is right
at the beginning of because America has this huge glut
of goodwill towards it at this time from you know, yeah,

(43:33):
I mean they they and they're they're just losing it
quickly because they're you know, sponsoring all these coups and uh,
military overthrows and whatnot, and so the oh my gosh,

(43:53):
excuse me. However, the coup had broad support among US
politician Paul Titians. Historians have written that the foreign policy
of both Republican and Democratic parties expressed an intransigent assertion
of US hegemony over Central America, making them predisposed to

(44:16):
seeing communist threats where none existed. Thus, Eisenhower's continuation of
the Monroe Doctrine had continued bipartisan support. The coup met
with strong negative reactions in Latin America. A wave of
anti United States protests followed the overthrow of Arbenez, and
these sentiments persisted for several decades afterwards. Historians have pointed

(44:39):
to the coup as a reason for hostile reception given
to US Vice President Richard Nixon when he visited Latin
America four years later.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I'm pretty sure Nixon claims that, like everybody has hostility
against him.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
I Richard Nixon, I'm pretty sure was number one was
probably And this is in a room full of drunk dudes.
Richard Nixon is the drunkest out of all of them.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
I just see him as that relative that like nobody likes,
but he blames everybody for not liking him, right without
looking at the freaking common denominator, right, Well, they're all crazy.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
These women are crazy, exactly. I'm Richard Nixon. I like
sometimes I vomit down the Secret Service's sleeves because I
can't find a trash can in time.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
I just see him as like a bulldog reincarnated, but
not like he's a bulldog character, but like literally a
bulldog in a person switched places.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah, and that's Nixon, just asthmatic, horrible, has that soft
palette symptoms, so many jowls, mad genetics. I mean, going
back to our first episode, we're gonna do a callback.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Let's see if I can remember what the callback is.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Richard Nixon was also played a key role in the
season of American Horse Story.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yes, yes, because this is where I did said our
cat is Eisenhower reincarnated because of his mannerisms.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yes, and I did like how the show did actively
portray Nixon just getting Drunker and Drunker and Drunker and
Drunker as the years went on. Yes, to the point
that under him, just everybody, he literally wire tapped himself.
Like that was the reason we found out about Watergate

(46:47):
is because Nixon was so paranoid he wire tapped himself.
So anyway, Richard Nixon's a horrible person. He might have
been the worst president, like that whole because you had
Nixon and Kissinger And we're going to get into all
this this one of our upcoming episodes. So a State

(47:11):
Department study found that negative public relations to the coup
had occurred in eleven Latin American countries, including a few
that were otherwise very pro American historian John Lewis Gaddis
stated that knowledge of the CIA's role in coups in
Iran and Guatemala gave the agency an almost mythic reputation

(47:33):
throughout Latin America and the Middle East as an instrument
with which the United States could depose governments it disliked
whenever it wished to. And yeah, that's kind of kind
of what it was all about. Was even more important
than the actual overthrow of these small governments, was putting

(47:59):
into you the the heads of leaders or would be
leaders of stays. Yeah, of just you have to line
up if your politics don't line up with American interests,
corporate or otherwise, we're just we're just gonna overthrow you,

(48:20):
which is what America did for still.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Does did did did? We stopped doing that in the
Land of Dreams.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Good old early two thousands. So, in a weird link
to this, the next operation was Operation pbe History, and
that was a CIA's effort to analyze all of the
documents from the Urbanez government because they kind of had

(48:53):
to justify the ninth that the coup, like, well, we're
going to get in there and find all these links
to the Soviets, and they found not thing, literally zero.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
This is like when you go on your relative's closet
and find out they're part of the KKK and you're like, no,
it was a secret. They were a spy. They had
so much integrity.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Right, It's like he always was just he was. He
went to he went to South America, a lot in Argentina,
making another yes, all the Nazis went to Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I got that. There we go Operation paper Clip.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
And so hilariously, the CIA was doing this because they're like,
oh shit, we can't justify this number one to the
next administration that's coming in. And we also what was.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
The next administration coming in?

Speaker 1 (49:46):
After Eisenhower was.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Yeah, totally gonna put you on spot right now.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Not Ford. Ford was after Nixon?

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Was it Nixon after Eisenhower?

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Eisenhower, UM, oh, you gotta look at it. I do,
because I can't now you've put me on this.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
JFK.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
No, JFK was nineteen sixty.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
My BET's on JFK the non history person here, My
bets are on according to.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
The marriage Oh, you're right, John F.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Kennedy, the American horror story timeline.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Yeah, nineteen fifty three to nineteen sixty one. Eisenhower and
then Kennedy and then.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
I all smarted the history nerd. Huh, I guess I betted,
I betted.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Hey, they were all fascists. Who cares? But yes, you did,
you definitely did. I have to get back to where
I was.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
They had to explain it to the next administration.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
JFK, who was a Democrat and was a little bit
less imperialist. This is tiny unless it's Cuba. And he
had a big he was on everything. Uh, he was
Doctor feel Good was pumping him full of opiates and

(51:33):
barbituates and amphetamines. It's fun man to be president in
the sixties.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
What a time to be.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Light me up, Doc, give me some of them meths.
So hilariously. Of course, CIA didn't find any links to
the Soviet Union. The CIA decided to, well, we need
to extend this operation so we can find some So
they double the team size and they bring in operatives

(52:05):
from foreign from more departments, including the State Department and
the USIA, and the task force was given the cover
name of the Social Research Group to avoid a confrontation
with Guatemalan nationalists.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
That does not sound like an adequate research name.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Right. Once again, these are the guys from that are
like based out of Miami, that are like just coming
up with bullshit and they're just like, I don't know
or not Miami. They're based out of Florida in some
just out of the way place that they decide to
set up. So they're not coming up with good names.

(52:44):
So the CIO the CIA opted to leave the documents
in Guatemalan possession, instead funding the creation of a Guatemalan
intelligence agency that would try to dismantle the communist organizations
the US. The National Committee of Defense against Communism was
created on the twentieth of July and granted a great

(53:07):
deal of power over military and police functions. It's almost
like they wanted to copy and paste this back into
the United States with the CIA being in its place.
The personal the personnel of the new agency were also
put to work analyzing the same documents that the United
States had just gone over. The operation was terminated on

(53:31):
the twenty eighth of September nineteen fifty four, having examined
five hundred thousand documents and finding zero links to the
Soviet Union from the Guatemalans.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Imagine that a consequence, you'd think someone would have like
forged a document at that point, someone with a lot
of integrity would have forged a document that tried to
link it.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Yes, it was.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
It was before Wikipedia was invented and we could cross
reference things. Like all someone needed was a typewriter and
some you know, blackout sharpie to make it look like
it was classified.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Right. See, they really needed you in them.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
They're so dark, like.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I'll have fucking Trotsky in here, reanimated here in a minute.
A consequence of this operation was that the CIA did
open a file on the Argentinian communist Shay Gerera. So
without this we don't have the fun t shirts, probably

(54:39):
because he probably doesn't get like picked.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Up and killed. You're referring to like the founder of
Banana Republic, right.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Shagar Era. Yeah, No, Shagar Era is a you know
the famous like shirts with the guy and the beanie
or not the beanie fedora that Sigar Era. He was
a famous Argentinian communist that worked very hard.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
To Akabad has entered the chat. He knows we're talking
about him. No, buddy, no, because I was gonna I
was going to touch on the founder of Banana Republic.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Okay, that's a good time. Now, that's a good time.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Okay. So the founder of Banana Republic, I can never
remember his name, but this is how I know about
Banana Republics and it's because the founder, I believe it
goes back to those trains you were talking about full
of cotton and stuff that were napalmed boat but yes,
you said trains, No, it was.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
A boat by the British.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Anyways. Anyways, so from what I remember from my race
and ethnicity class so I could be wrong, here is
that the founder of Banana Republic, the clothing line was
part of that product line of like the cotton being

(56:09):
moved and began exploiting the people who ran the Banana
Republic farms or the banana farms into like making textiles
for him and called his brand Banana Republic after them.
And that's how we like have that expensive line here

(56:30):
in the States. You're cross checking me, aren't you.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Oh yeah, I've never heard, please do, because.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
This was like ten years ago that I learned this.
But that's how we have the clothing line Banana Republic
is because it's similar to like how the Hiltons. The
reason we have such massive hotels is because they were
literally built on the back of slavery from the Hilton family.
It's the same kind of thing, but it's this guy
who built it on the backs of the Guatemalan Banana Republics.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
H It's owned by GAP now.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
A big surprise. I think it was owned by like
Tommy Bahama for a minute.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Let's see, I'm not seeing anything about that. Let's see

(57:28):
now they literally just founded it from what I can
see now, this is of course, I am sure that
there is some horrible background to the Banana of Public
store because you know, it's just a clothing store.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Like how it's called a low end luxury clothing and
accessory retailer.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Right, But it was founded in nineteen seventy eight, Yeah,
so it's relatively new. It was originally called Banana Republic
Travel and Safari Clothing Company to complement.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
The safari and travel lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Yeah, that sounds about.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
That sounds about okay. So he was a reporter. Yeah,
so then it probably does have links to like the
reporting of the Guatemalan Banana Republics.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Probably, I would not doubt it. We'll have to do
a Banana Republic episode.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
I mean, it's also possible that my professor just like
bullshitted his way through that, because there's a lot of
things about that professor that I will not go into here.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Probably so as kind of a direct result of what
happened in Guatemala at this time period, the CIA gets
big head and decides that they can do whatever they
fucking want, which immediately led to the failed Bay of
Pigs invasion, which what's a whole story unto itself, which

(59:01):
we will go into. And so now it's kind.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Of found it. Oh my god, I found it. Okay, sorry,
go ahead. As it turns out, Banana Republic refers to
a politically unstable nation economically dependent on the exportation of
a limited resource product.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
That is what banana. That is what the original phrase was.
But that's why they like used it as a company
name too. But he was a journalist, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
He was probably trying to be like, hey, we named
it the Braves after the Native Americans that used to
be here.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
I mean, I guess, like, if it makes a white
people thing to do, I was going to say, I've
never seen I've only ever seen white people in that store. Anyway.
So Armis's dependence on the officer corps and the mercenaries
had put him that had put him in power, led
to widespread corruption. It's all the integrities, and the Eisenhower

(59:58):
administration was soon subsidizing the Guatemalan government with millions of
US dollars. Arms also reversed the agrarian reforms of Arbenez,
leading to even the US embassy to comment that it
was a long step backwards from the previous policies. Armis
was assassinated in nineteen fifty seven, hopefully very slowly and painfully.

(01:00:21):
The UFC did not profit from the coup. That is,
the Fruit Company. They did not profit directly from the coup.
Although it regained most of its privileges, its profits continued
to decline, and it was eventually merged with another company
to save itself from bankruptcy. Despite the influence which some
of the local Catholic Church leaders had in the coup,

(01:00:43):
anti Catholic restrictions which had been enforced under previous governments
in Guatemala would resume in the nineteen sixties, as many
anti communist governments felt the Church had too much sympathy
towards socialist parties. That is hilarious because the Vatican has
always been not very socialist, but the South American arm

(01:01:05):
of the Catholic Church has been very worker friendly. Let's
say that's why the current pope is very much like,
maybe we should take care of the poor. The rolling
back of the progressive policies of the civilian governments resulted

(01:01:25):
in a series of leftist insurgencies in the countryside starting
in nineteen sixty. This triggered a thirty six year Guatemalan
civil war between the US backed military government of Guatemala
and the leftist insurgents, who frequently had a large degree
of popular support. This gendus was a actual genocide that

(01:01:51):
was backed by the US military, which included scorched earth
campaigns against the indigenous Maya population and then nineteen eighties,
and when you look at this, this is the this
is what directly led to the downfall of the Maya
people because at one point they were a very large
contingent of the population of Guatemala, probably the largest remaining

(01:02:19):
native population or indigenous population left in Central America. And
it led directly to because they were very much a
supporter of the anti military policies and the more socialist
side of the equation because they were very well acquainted

(01:02:42):
with how Westerners treated you know, other people besides Westerners.
They were they supported them, and so when the anti
communist governments would get in power, they would just kill
and rape and scorch earth entire villages and you know,

(01:03:05):
peoples off the face of the country. So with all
of that, the civil war came to an end in
nineteen ninety six with a peace accord between the guerrillas
and the government of Guatemala, which included an amnesty for
fighters on both sides. The civil war claimed the lives

(01:03:26):
of an estimated two hundred thousand civilians. US President Bill
Clinton apologized to the nation of Guatemala in March nineteen
ninety nine for the atrocities committed by the US backed dictatorships.
The apology occurred during a meeting in Guatemala which involved
leaders from various sectors of the country's society, including indigenous

(01:03:50):
people and women. Clinton stated, for the United States, it
is important that I state clearly that support for military
forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread
repression was wrong and the United States must not repeat
that mistake, which we totally didn't for three years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Didn't he do? Like the Bosnia thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
He bombed an aspirin factory.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Not Bosnia, No, not Bosnia, Bolivia, it was Bosnia. It
was Bosnia, Bosnia.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Okay, he'd already done that, So now we this is
a whole new because.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
I think he did something in Bolivia too. There are
a lot of bees going on there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
I would not be surprised. They're all I have. Every
president's a war criminal, like all of them anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Also, Banana Republic clothing was founded on upcycling vintage war
clothes from the Banana Republic wars.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
That's why all of their clothing looks like a British
man came in it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Yeah, so that's why that's why it's called Banana Republic
because they upcycled the former military uniforms. What you're saying, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I can honestly say I've never spent a dime at
the Banana Republic because of any of that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Just poor. I want to say, Tommy Bahama had like
a similar origin story. Sorry, I had to like set
the record straight with that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
I feel you it was bothering me. No, And it's like,
you know, they probably used some slave later in Haiti,
slave labor in Haiti or something. The apology came soon
after the release of a Truth Commission report that documented
US support for the military forces that committed the genocide.
In May twenty eleven, the Guatemalan government signed an agreement

(01:05:46):
with arbin as a surviving family to restore his legacy
and publicly apologize for the government's role in ousting him.
This included a financial settlement for the family. A formal
apology was made at the National Palace by Guatemalan President
Alvero kolom on twentieth October twenty eleven to Jacob Arbenez Villanova,

(01:06:07):
the son of the former president and a Guatemalan politician.
Comb stated, it was a crime to Guatemalan society and
it was an act of aggression to a government starting
its democratic spring. The agreement established several forms of reparation
for the next of kin of Arbenez Guzman. So the

(01:06:34):
kind of the overarching theme and why I started with
this story for this podcast had a lot to do
with how absolutely blatant the CIA operated in that while
at the time it was secret, you had half a

(01:06:56):
million documents like now here's this is exactly what we did.
The ambassador knew about it. The President literally ordered it
then knew about it. Yeah, the UN knew about it.
Guatemala was literally reaching out to everyone it could saying,
this shit is happening right now, and we are a

(01:07:19):
sovereign nation and we are being our government, which is
democratically elected as being attacked by an outside force that
has been marshaled, trained and equipped by the United States,
which they never could actually say the United States because
they knew that they would just fucking you know, the
US had nukes and they were brown people felt and

(01:07:44):
American people would just see, you know, it's like, well,
you know, I guess bananas are going to be more expensive.
And so it's very much a template for the CIA
going forward how it operates the late nineteen seventies when
some stuff happens that we'll go into. CIA don't necessarily

(01:08:08):
get better, It just gets worse at doing bad things
around that time because they changed their mandate. I mean,
the CIA doesn't the Senate finds out the Truth Commission
and all that stuff that was going on that's still
going on, Like the Truth Commission is still reviewing documents,
you know, these are these are things that are still

(01:08:29):
happening actively, Like you're still getting declassified CIA documents from
this time period, like the jfk P papers which were
supposed to be released late last year and haven't been released,
and no one knows why.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
Well they you know, distracted us with COVID UFO.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Well the UFO won very much so, but they blamed
COVID for not being they're not ready, they haven't been
reviewed or something like that. They've delayed it twice. And
not that I think that, like the CIA is going
to publish that oh yeah that was, this was or

(01:09:10):
we have three guys there shooting at the president or whatever.
I don't think that, but it does not help the
CIA's case that they're like, no, no, you can't see
these documents.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
I just really want to get to the point where
we talk about the Gateway project.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
The Gateway project is gonna is gonna be. We might
do that next, because that's a fun one. Not nearly
as many people die.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Spoiler. I've gone through the Gateway tapes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
I remember when you were doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
I still have them.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Because you were you went. You didn't get all the
way through them, did you. No, you like to the
eleventh and they go to the ninth or the tenth one,
the ninth or the tenth. I do have the documents too, Yeah,
I'll have to. I'm excited about that one because it's
one I don't know a lot about. The Gateway documents.
Were the CIA trying to essentially establish a psychic force

(01:10:09):
within the army. If you ever saw the movie Men
Who Stare At Goats, it's about that kind of where
they're just they have a bunch of psychics and people
and training to be able to give these weird ass
tapes to people like agents and teach them how to be.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
They're trying to teach them how to be telepathically linked, yes,
and like how to be psychically linked. It's not that
they like when it got a bunch of psychics, it's
they were trying to see if they could teach someone
to be psychic and do it on a military level.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Because I know the CIA and the FBI have both
used a lot of psychics in the past.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
We are notable people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Yes, yes, I mean not as much. They probably didn't
have as much of an effect as Reagan's astrologer. Very true,
because that woman was nuts. Well, it technically wasn't Reagan's
it was his wife, but I mean after he got shot.

(01:11:17):
It was pretty much their astrologer called the shots on
when they could be places, which is really great. When
Soviet Union found out about it and hired a competing
astrologer to try to just fuck with them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Just makes me think of Yanna from Lunatics.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Yeah, yannas Yanas. I just see Janna like cuddling up
on Reagan and brushing his face. Right, Tell Yana, what's
the problem. Well, I've got these goddamn Chinese. I'm trying
to maintain an on talented power. I'm just gonna go

(01:11:55):
talk to Kissinger again. I guess because he lechustrated all
the other death camps. Seems like a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
This has been so much fun.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
It is fun, fun, so fun, David, I'm loving this
journey for us, loving it, loving it so On that note,
this was the end of our two parter on the guatemal.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
And Communist banana Spiders.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Yeah, communist banana spider.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
I'm sad to see them go.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
It was a beautiful rendition. I believe we still get
banana spiders and bananas though.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
I mean, as long as we stay in Central and
South America. There's a good chance.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
I mean, yeah, bananas are clone.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Unless we get to Brazil and we get into botfly territory.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
I mean, do they stop having banana spiders at that point?

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
I'm just saying, like botflies are more prevalent.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
How do you know? I know the territorial range of
banana spiders and bought for lies? Is it a terror thing?
Like I'm more afraid about fly so I know exactly
where their territory is.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
There is typically an insect in just about every large
country that I know about that keeps me from wanting
to go there. Like I can name like five in Australia,
it's just Australia. And then there's the acid spinning wasps
in Japan.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
That sounds fun.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
And then like you have the murder hornets that came
over here from there too.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
I thought they were from Africa, like there were some
hybridized African be I believe.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
They are hybridized with the acid spitting wasp.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
I believe why why nature?

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
But like there, and then there's like the giant walking
stick bugs, and then you have like the giant grasshoppers. No, no, no,
you know what I thinks. No, they're different, like class altogether.
They are legit like a giant grasshopper. It has to
do with the wing structure.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I do because locus can fly over long distances where
grasshoppers cannot.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Yes and tobacco colored stuff. I am okay with bugs
as long as I know what bugs I'm okay with.
There's several bugs out there I'm not okay with. Yeah,
like the bullet ant.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
Now that doesn't seem to have a point in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
No, No, it doesn't. No, Or the calkillar ant. See
what happens when you get me on tangents about bugs?
Do you see? Do you see what happens?

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
It's a calcular ant?

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Okay. So a calcular ant, also known as the red
velvet ant, is relatively the size of like an inch
and a half to two inches, and that is what
she said, relatively. And it's red and black, and it's
got like a red like a large red abdomen with
black spots on it. And it is a very very

(01:14:56):
very very very venomous ant known as the calcular ant
because it can bite. The theory is that bites a
cow and can kill a cow.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
I did a report on it in fourth grade. Why
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Was it like pick an animal that can kill?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
It was like pick a bug in this particular part
of the country, or pick pick something living, and like
people chose like plants and stuff, and I'm like cow
killer ant.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
I feel like it's because you had early access to
the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
I did. Yeah, because I had lots of act I
had free rain.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Access to Komodo dragons. I'm not gonna lie fourth grade.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
I want to say it was like on a country
in South America.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
It was peak Kmodo dragon time. For me. This is
my favorite animal. I know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
I've been married to you for almost eight years.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
You know that it is considered venomous, even though it
doesn't carry its own venom.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
I can't tell if you're about to dad joke me.
Or it's because of its diet. No, it's because like
how koalas are technically.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
Poisonous, poisonous to themselves. We eat leaves, there is no
nutritional value. No, So the like ecological the ecology of
their mouth is so toxic that the way that they
kill animals larger than them is they will sneak up

(01:16:28):
on them and like a water buffalo, and they will
bite them and then they wait and their spit is
so toxic that it will send the animal into toxic
shock and kill it within like two days. Just the
amount of bacteria and viruses.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
And I'm sure there's a joke somewhere in there about
like one of my ex relationships or like how some
people view like my relationship with you, Why am I toxic? Not?
You know, Memoto Dragon, You're not toxic, I know, but
like the jokes that were made at the beginning of
our relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
By your parents, yes, mostly your dad. Yes, yeah, you
can still leave anyway. On that note, I think that
it is a good place to call this one an
entire pod. This is a whole pod.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
This is a whole pod. So we move from the
communist banana spiders into the calculaar ants.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
We're once again at like much longer than I intended,
But you know what, it all works out in the end.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
That's what happens when you bring me on.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
Board, everything ends up lasting longer. See you guys next time.
It's