The Banana Republics(Episode)

**The Banana Republics** is the 32nd episode in total and the second season 1st episode

## Plot

Sam tells the story of how three fruit companies single-handedly toppled almost all of Central America's developing democracies and got away with it unscathed.

## Transcript

***(INTRO/TITLE CARD)***

SAM: Hey kids. Do you like fashionable high-quality apparel at an affordable price?

SAM: Well too bad because that's not what we talking about today, I'm gonna learn you all a thing or two about the *real* banana republics.

SAM: Our story begin during the turn of the 20th century in central and south America.

SAM: Agriculture kind of a big deal right now, you've a ton of little plantations all over the place, growing bananas, sugar, pineapples, that kind of thing.

SAM: And they're doing all right for themselves, no big deal.

SAM: But then, refrigeration happened, and it. Changed. *Everything*!

SAM: Because now produce could be kept fresh for way longer in transit, meaning fruit companies could suddenly open up their business to the ***''INTERNATIONAL MARKET!''***

SAM: Their biggest new tread partner being the united states. this massive opportunity gave rise to three main companies known as: United Fruit Company, Cuyamel Fruit Company, and Vaccaro Bros. .

SAM: By growing, shipping, and selling fruits, these three firms made just obscene amount of money, a lot of which went toward buying out smaller family-owned farms and plantations. this allowed them to make even obscener amount of money, until eventually the only competition that's remains was each other.

SAM: **Then shit got real.** The year is 1910, one of the company I mentioned, Cuyamel, was doing most of it's business in the county of Honduras when the president of Honduras, Miguel Davila, decided to get a land grant to the vaccaros bros in exchange for helping to build some roadways, in doing so, they basically stole a bunch of cuyamel potential plantations and gave them a competitor.

SAM: So Samuel Zemurray, owner of Cuyamel, said to himself...

SAMUEL ZEMURRAY: Dang, I hate those guys. If only if there was some way, for a guy like me, to significantly influence the world around him for his own personal gain...

(Shows Zemurray sitting on a literal mountain of money)

ZEMURRAY: Wait a minute!

SAM: so he used a portion of his McDuck-ass fortune to hire an mercenary army, which he gave to one of his friends, former Honduran president Manuel Bonilla. And together, they overthrew the entire fucking government of Honduras.

SAM: Yeah... Should have called it COUP-yamel, ha ha.

Sam: Anyway, Bonilla took power and gave very generous concessions to Cuyamel and United as thanks. But then America saw and they were like:

AMERICA: Hey! That's not very freedom of you!

SAM: To which Zemurray replied:

ZEMURRAY: It's okay, we're gonna help this country succeed. After all, business and politics are essentially the same thing.

(A picture of Donald Trump is shown faintly appearing)

AMERICA: Well, I suppose it's not our place policing the governments of other nations. *Yet*. Still though...

ZEMURRAY: OH! Also, also: 'nanners.

AMERICA: Alright, I'm sold! Do what you want.

SAM: So with their interests secured, the businesses continued to thrive and expand but since they got cut so many breaks by the government, very little of their commerce actually ended up benefiting Honduras as a whole. In fact, the national debt of Honduras got so bad that the government ended up not being able to perform a lot of its functions, so in response, the three Fruit Company stepped in and said:

ZEMURRAY: No worries. We got this,

SAM: and decided to basically build the nation's infrastruc­ture for them, including roads railways shipping lights, telegraphs, telephone lines radio towers; they even switched the whole country off to the US dollar.

(United Fruit, Zemurray and Vaccaro are all sitting in a meditation position, with Zemurray uttering, "~The Nanners must flow~")

SAM: Keep in mind this wasn't out of the goodness of their hearts. It was mostly just to make their own businesses function more efficientl­y. Anyway now not only did they have total power over their plantation­s but also a monopoly over nearly every major industry in the country. Many other Central American nations soon followed this pattern, creating a corrupt sort of symbiosis whereby the fruit companies get huge tax breaks and land grants in exchange for a modernized infrastruc­ture and payoffs to the rich minority. And so the Banana Republics were born. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig, right? And it was... for the upper 5% of the population­s who happen to hold some direct share in the plantation­s or shipping lines. For your average José though life mostly consisted of working on land that wasn't even theirs in exchange for dirt poor wages. So that's how things were for like a decade and a half at some point Cuyamel was bought out by United but then Zemurray became the owner of the whole thing, somehow, and the Vaccaro Company was renamed to Standard Fruit.

Then one day in 1944 the country of Guatemala had a democratic revolution and the newly elected leader, Juan José Arévalo, wasn't happy with how the companies treated his people. So he implemente­d several reforms like a minimum wage law in the universal suffrage and while the populace got a lot of benefit out of this, United Fruit most certainly did not, because more rights for their workers means less profits for the business as a whole. Then Guatemala got a new president, Jacobo Árbenz, and he continued these reforms and United continued to get the metaphoric­al shaft,

(Zemurray intensely stares at the literal shaft of an arrow)

until finally, in 1953, they decided to go to the USA for help.

ZEMURRAY: Oh Eisenhowerrrrr!

EISENHOWER: Yo, what's up.

ZEMURRAY: This Jacobo guy, he's making us pay minimum wages!

EISENHOWER: Well that doesn't sound very good for business.

ZEMURRAY: That's not all! He's also taking our unused land and giving it back to the people! Does that sound familiar?

EISENHOWER: Oh dear. You don't think-

ZEMURRAY: By the way it's looking, Dwight, I say he's a dirty...

EISENHOWER: Oh God.,,

ZEMURRAY: Collectivi­zing...

EISENHOWER: *No*...

(Extreme close-up of Zemurray's stickman face)

ZEMURRAY: ...*Commie*.

(Eisenhower flips his desk and papers in wild ecstatsy and brings his hands to his temples as he climbs atop of it. Zemurray looks pleased.)

EISENHOWER: **COMMIEEEEE! COMMIEEEEE!**

ZEMURRAY: Yeah, go get 'em, Dwight! (points to his left)

(Eisenhower flings himself towards the given direction)

EISENHOWER: **REEEEEEEEEEEEE-**

(\*Seven gunshots\* The next scene depicts Eisenhower, holding an assault rifle, standing over the bullet-ridden body of Jacobo Árbenz. Zemurray stands to the right in amazement.)

ZEMURRAY: Holy shit, you actually did it.

EISENHOWER: World star.

SAM: And from that point onward, Guatemala was ruled by a series of US-backed dictatorsh­ips all the way up until 1996. This kind of situation happened in several other places and times as well almost always driven by some combinatio­n of red fear and yellow love I won't give any more details for the sake of time but that doesn't mean they weren't big deals. So you might be wondering, "Where did these companies go? Surely the clan of banana shenanigan­s can't still be around today". Well that's where you're wrong. They're still in operation. Just under different names Standard Fruit changed their name in 1991 to become none other than Dole Food Company. You know, when I was a kid, I used to play a lot of Super Monkey Ball and I used to wonder what kind of cruel tyrantwould just stick an ape in a ball for their own amusement. Well, now I know. Those bastards.

(Screenshots of Super Monkey Ball, with product placements for Dole arrowed)

SAM: As for United, one day, in 1976, their CEO decided he couldn't take the heat anymore, so he jumped out the fucking window - that's a real thing, look it up - but some other guy bought the company and renamed it to drumroll please.

(Sam bangs on a table)

SAM: Chiquita Banana. That's right, ladies and gentlemen: The face we once knew as an innocent fun-loving dancer/fruit merchant is actually a ruthless tyrant undermines basic human rights for her own profit

(The Chiquita mascot is photoshopped into a black-and-white photo of a Mussolini speech, accompanied by indistinct Italian chatter)

SAM: Anyway, that's all for today. 'Til next time. I'm Sam O'Nella and thank you for watching.

## Trivia

* Although Jacobo Àrbenz was targeted by an US shadow operation, PBSuccess, launched by Dwight Eisenhower, he was not murdered, but simply overthrown and lived in exile until his death in 1971.
* The suicide Sam refers to was that of Eli Menashe Black. Investigation revealed that Black had previously bribed Honduran president Oswaldo López Arellano, also instated after a coup, with over 1 million US$ in return for tax cuts on banana exports.
* This episode is the Sam O'Nella Academy Subreddit's community favorite episode in a poll with 19.87% with *Diogenes, the Publicly Defecating Philosopher* with 15.23%, *Dog Breed Deformities* with 8.61%, *Creative Weapons of the Medieval Eras* and *Journey of a Beef Cow* got 5.3%, and *How to Read Fire Diamonds* and *The Great Emu War* got 4.64% of the vote.
* This is the first episode of 2017 and Season 2.