There's a United States of America. Why not a United States of Latin America? From Mexico to Central America to South America and to the Latin Caribbean. It could all be united as one Spanish speaking country. Of course, Brazil (since its Portuguese speaking) would probably be excluded. This new Latin union would challenge the U.S. as the leader of the Americas, and end American influence. If not combine under one government, then perhaps under a cooperative collection of governments. In the USLA, countries would work toward a common good, and the whole area would be free trade zone between the Latin countries, excluding the U.S. No more visas, passports, etc. would be needed. Citizenship would be insignificant.-- NHstud1216, Jun 17 2001 Organization of American States http://www.oas.org/Or, «Organización de los Estados Americanos». [egnor, Jun 17 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] WhoIs information for the above. http://206.117.147....who.cgi?dom=oas.org"1889 F Street Washington, DC". [StarChaser]History of El Salvador http://www.emulatem.../history/elhist.htmThe second link relates to El Salvador's participation in the UCAP. It's a dynamic page, so I can't link to it directly. Sorry. [StarChaser, Jun 17 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] History of El Salvador http://www.emulatem.../history/elhist.htmThe second link relates to El Salvador's participation in the UCAP. It's a dynamic page, so I can't link to it directly. Sorry. [Uncle Nutsy, Jun 17 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Oh yeah, that 200-year-old hatred and disunity thing.-- PotatoStew, Jun 17 2001 If you believe the sci-fi cliche, every geographical region is going to a "United States of Somewhere" soon anyway.-- mrkillboy, Jun 17 2001 I don't know if it exists or not, but NHstud seems to think it does, and yet he breezes by it as if it would be a trivial matter to overcome (assuming its existence in the first place).
I *do* know (and am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong) that many countries in Latin America are struggling or have very recently been struggling with problems such as civil wars, corruption, rebel factions, unstable and depressed economies, and decrepit infrastructure. Certainly, the situation is turning for the better in many areas, but things have quite a ways to go _internally_ for many of these countries before they band together _externally_ with their neighbors to challenge the USA. Which by the way, makes me wonder why there seems to be this widespread assumption that the US *needs* to be challenged.-- PotatoStew, Jun 17 2001 If Mephista is right, then there's a reason. I'm also not sure why internal improvement is a prerequisite for external alliance.
Anyway, isn't this the role of the OAS? And why is [NHstud1216] so big on merging countries, anyway?-- egnor, Jun 17 2001 Not a prerequisite for an alliance, but probably a prerequisite to merge together as a single country, as is explicitly stated in the idea. I mean, if your country is having a civil war and can't agree on its own leadership, what are the chances it's going to harmoniously and effectively merge with another country?-- PotatoStew, Jun 17 2001 Fun idea, replacing the view that Latin American countries haven't gotten along for various reasons with one in which the United States is directly responsible for the trouble among them. Has kind of a postcolonial-theory ring to it, even without appearances by "construction" and "instrumentality".-- Monkfish, Jun 17 2001 PotatoStew: You're right about the leadership problem, and also about infrastructure being an obstacle to the stated aim, challenging the US. Just combining a bunch of countries does not result in an instant superpower. A united Latin America would still be under-industrialized, economically weak, and militarily outclassed by First World nations.
Mind you, the idea has merit--if culturally similar countries can work together to solve common problems then so much the better. egnor's link shows that there's some effort being made.
Mephista, I'm not convinced that promoting disunity was/is the goal of the US' idiotic, treacherous, and downright contemptible actions in some of Latin America. Discouraging nationalization of "our" banana/coffee/sugarcane plantations, fighting the "red peril" no matter what the cost, and an ass-backwards "war on drugs" that targets foreign growers and ignores domestic demand seem to me to be the real driving forces over the last century or so.
But I could be wrong and probably am. Cheers!
[Mephista, again: you posted whilst I was writing. Just to be bickerous, what is proposed is not an alliance between individual nations but the creation of a single nation out of many. The examples you give don't seem to be of that sort. I would think that the hotch-potch of groups united as Malaysia, or the Soviet Union before the breakup, would be more similar to the proposed United Latin America.]-- Dog Ed, Jun 17 2001 Mephista, honey, thanks for your advice. You have so much to teach me.
Did you absorb the art of condescension at the teats of the same folks who taught you that history is best understood by remembering two or three rules and then filling in stock villains as you need them?-- Monkfish, Jun 17 2001 From 1821 to 1841, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica united to form the United Central American Provinces.
Despite the endorsement of Simon Bolivar (active much further south, but respected everywhere) who wanted a united Latin America, the UCAP proved unworkable and collapsed.-- Uncle Nutsy, Jun 17 2001 Back to the comment in the original idea about Brazil: I had read that Brazil is already a "United States of Brazil." What would that be, "Estados Unitos do Brasil," or something like that?-- beauxeault, Jun 18 2001 Well stars and bunions, if all it takes is a declaration of superpowerhood, I just might do it all by myself. Lemme check the War Budget, aka the penny jar...hmm. Wonder if the troops will take an IOU at least until we get Bolivia under our belts...-- Dog Ed, Jun 18 2001 Why???? would those countries want to join some "United States of Latin America? The free trade part of the idea is allready being baked. Second if there are no more visas/passports then drug cartells would be free to roam throughout the Americas. And what about Cuba? Finally, almost all of these countries are struggling democracies each with their own terroist group hiding in the jungle. These countries are barely secure enough to handle themselves much less some cockamany federalist idea such as this.-- JunkBugg, Jun 22 2001 Well, Nicaragua might want to restart the UCAP. If I remember correctly, the cordoba bills are based on plates originally intented for UCAP currency. So with a rewarmed UCAP, they'd be the smug ones that could recognize the "new" bills. Probably not much of a draw.
In this proposed union, what role would the world bank & IMF play? The judiciary perhaps? The loyal opposition?-- tenhand, Jun 23 2001 Any union these days would be very likely to use the US dollar. Most of those countries that haven't already switched entirely (Ecuador, El Salvador) or fixed their currencies to it are actively thinking it over. Between dollarization and trade agreements, there may be a kind of economic (monetary, at any rate) union among at least a handful of Latin American countries regardless of any zany schemes to fuse them politically.
(When El Salvador finally completes the change you will no longer be able to go to the bank and (legitimately) ask how many colons you can get for a dollar.)-- Monkfish, Jun 23 2001 random, halfbakery