OTHER PEOPLE THINK
John Cage, 1927
in Richard Kostelantez (ed.), John Cage. An Anthology, New York, Da Capo Press, 1991, p. 45-48:
"Today the United States is a world power. [.] It is the popular belief that we have promoted friendly relations with all Latin America. Our Foreign Policy has, in general, aimed to promote the general welfare of the southern people. Without our intervention in Ecuador, that country, because of its unsanitary conditions, would be spilling its poison over the New World. [.] Because of Uncle Sam's military power, Venezuela has been protected from Germany, Cuba from Spain, Mexico from France; we have defended all weak countries from European domination. [.] All in all, our intervention in Latin America has been actuated by altruistic motives.
Why, then, is there any misunderstanding between the Latins and the Anglo-Saxons of this continent? There are two sides to every question. For other people think otherwise.
Concerning the question of American Intervention in Latin America, many people are thinking otherwise. [.] This thought, that has penetrated the intellectual life of the Latin Republics so effectively, has been influenced by the actions of certain citizens of the United States. The great majority of these are capitalists who have zealously invested money in the Southern Republics and eagerly exploited them. They have not the hope of progress of others, but only the desire for their own material advancement. They are of the family of the utterly selfish. [.] In the eyes of the Southern People, these men are the United States. [.]It was to protect the 'Lives and Property' of just such money-grasping men as those in Bolivia that the United States Marines entered Nicaragua fifteen years ago. They are still there. Having taken charge of the politics of that country, they have been careful to keep a Conservative in the Presidency. The Admiral in charge, reporting to Washington, noticed that only one-fourth of the country was Conservative, and that all of his actions were done against three-fourth of the Nicaraguans. [.] Other people began to think that no government could exist in Central America without the sanction of the United States. [.]
Many have feared our interference in the past. Many will hate our intervention in the future. [.]
What are we going to do? What ought we to do? One of the greatest blessings that the United States could receive in the near future would be to have her industries halted, her business discontinued, her people speechless, a great pause in her world of affairs created, and finally to have everything stopped that runs, until everyone should hear the last wheel go around and the last echo fade away. [.] Then we should be capable of answering the question, 'What ought we to do?' For we should be hushed and silent, and we should have the opportunity to learn that other people think".
