At 12:10 PM 10/31/2007, Joseph Riggs wrote:
Latin America still has a lot of bad feelings due to US interference
in the "Banana Republics". While Castro's bad in Cuba, it's easy to
forget that initially a lot of Americans thought that he'd be a good
thing because he got rid of the US supported strongman Somoza. And
these days in Venezuela, Chavez uses bad feelings toward the US to
help keep his popular support high by making references to a
supposedly inevitable US invasion of the country to remove him from
power (going so far as to apparently hold mock beach defense drills
to help prepare his army to defeat the supposed American
invasion). The reference to the "Halls of Montezuma" in the
Marines' Hymn is an actual reference to when US troops entered
Mexico City in the mid-19th Century. I had a blond-haired, blue-ey!
ed friend who spent a couple of years in one of the countries a
while back (Costa Rica, iirc, though it's been so long that I don't
remember for sure), and when he got back he told how kids would
sometimes follow him down the street chanting, "CIA! CIA!"
Seems overblown to me, at least in Central America. I've visited a
number of countries there, with family in tow, and we never had any
problems. The countries visited were well-off and tourist-friendly,
though; Costa Rica, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Puerto
Rico, and Jamaica (the worst of the lot, oddly enough).
South America, and particularly Chavez's regime, seem to be the core
of anti-U.S. sentiment in this hemisphere, with strong backing from
Cuba and a bit more from Mexico (though that's iffy, as Mexico is a
strong ally in other respects). The rest of Central and South America
seems to be either unstable (Colombia) or mostly positive toward the U.S.
As for Russia - I'm not really sure how that could have happened,
either. Siberia is currently viewed as part of "Russia Proper", and
it would be unlikely that Russia would voluntarily give it up.
Siberia's really in no position to govern itself, either. Not sure
what could happen to change that.
It would also seem unlike Russia to voluntarily become a subordinate
part of someone else's alliance. If I had to guess, it would be
that the HRL seized Siberia once technology made it feasible to
think about extracting all of the resources under the frost. Either
a Russian collapse triggered the invasion, which caused the AEU to
sieze Moscow, or Moscow joined the AEU to keep the HRL from seizing
the rest of the country.
That's possible, I guess. Doesn't seem to fit the style of any of the
countries in the HRL, but who knows. I find Russia's collapse utterly
believable, though.
1.) The idea behind CB is just so "out there" (i.e. four Gundams
stopping all war) that I can't help but try and figure out "what's
really going on"
Agreed.
2.) While both the Union and the HRL have put anti-Gundam programs
in action almost immediately, AEU has been VERY quiet (we've
literally seen nothing from them except hand-wringing by their
council) - almost suspiciously so. IMO we, the viewers, are being
carefully focused away from the AEU, which suggests to me that the
proverbial plot twist out of left field is going to involve the AEU.
Also agreed. But then, that presupposes competant writing; it's also
possible the writers just don't know what to do with it and, as such,
are ignoring it until inspiration strikes (if it does).
As noted in your earlier post, all of the characters in the series
have been fairly agreeable people (if somewhat withdrawn in certain
cases) - with the possible exception of the nut that was acting as
test pilot for the AEU's mobile suit (and in that case, the
individual merely has too high of an opinion of himself). That
doesn't mean that there isn't room for some truly twisted
characters, of course, since we're only on episode 4. But given how
much of the leadership of each faction we've seen, it's nice to see.
Yeah, that is a nice change. Evil for the sake of being evil gets
stale after awhile, as does misguided pie-in-the-sky idealism. It's
nice to see people acting like people for once, and that gives me
hope even if CB is full of fruitcakes.
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