When that failed to restore the economy, the world elected to start with a new war: WWII. Germany had been buried by the Western powers following WWI -- and now the country threatened to assert itself once more. Russia was in the middle of its own revolution: Stalin was liquidating the kulaks and rounding others up and shipping them off to the Gulag. That did not help Russia's economy any more than FDR's Alphabet program -- but it did not matter: war was on the horizon. Japan was being strangled by Western powers: the American military-industrial-congressional complex essentially forced Japan to attack -- and then sat back and let it happen when Japan finally decided to bomb Pearl Harbor. Thus, America got its excuse to enter the war and align itself with the new world order that would be the outcome.
Latin-American Nationalism
Neocolonialism sprang up as a result of Western Imperialism. America in particular was now re-colonizing Latin America -- but it was doing so primarily through the corporate infrastructure. Latin-America was to made into a drone for American self-interest: it was to be exploited; its raw materials were to be used; its people were to be experimented upon; and its culture (especially if it was Catholic) was to be destroyed.
The indigenous peoples of Latin-America were also prey to a new kind of spirituality that was being brought into their culture by way of a Marxist interpretation of Scripture. This was being done by the new Liberation Theologians, who helped lead a number of social revolutions in Latin-America supposedly on behalf of the people and their cry for economic reform.
Like the Marxist philosophy that underscores Liberation Theology, Gustavo Gutierrez's theology placed primary importance upon "praxis," asserting that Christian corporal works of mercy must necessarily be "worked." A re-interpretation of theology is what underlined the praxis: for example, "sin" took a less personal connotation and was imbued with a more "social and economic perspective. Gutierrez's theology is, essentially, a reaction against capitalistic relationships; in which supply and demand govern men's behavior with one another.
Latin-America, however, came to identify this new struggle between spiritual, cultural, and economic spheres in a literary genre that became known as magical realism. Magical realists, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez depicted a world that was cut off from the old world values of the past, yet distrustful of the advances of the present. This idea of blending cultural traditions can be seen in any of Marquez's narratives. "An Old Man with Enormous Wings," for instance, can represent the supernatural order of the Old World spirituality, which would have been part of the religion of the conquistadors of Latin America, which was adopted by the natives. At the same time, the Old Man can be seen as a symbol of the modern loss of faith -- or the abandonment of those Old World ideals: he is not seen as an angel but as a kind of sideshow attraction: tickets are sold to see him; he gets bugs; people look to him for entertainment, nothing more; and finally he flies away. All that is associated with him is a kind of materialistic gain -- which in a sense is concomitant with New World ideologies, or rather with the ideals that flowered following the destruction of Christendom and the emergence of Enlightenment doctrine.
The Banana Wars also played a part in neocolonialism. As America continued to flex its muscle around the world, it steadily invaded into Latin America and began exploiting the land the people for its own corporate interest. The Latin-American national identity was now at odds to make itself known. Converted by the Spanish in the 16th century, Latin-America was now being overrun by corporatists, socialists, and capitalists. Its old world spirituality was in decline, and a new world order was pushing it to the brink of extinction.
Cold War
The fact that the means of production had essentially changed overnight plunged the international community into a new Imperialism and force fed the world the idea that no one was safe. Just as America preferred (in theory)...
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