arraya: You’re welcome on the Goethe/Faust reference. My grandma left Germany in 1935 (she was a teacher at a girl’s college near Heidelberg), and she used Goethe to illustrate quite a few morality lessons, as well as to show how a country as educated and intelligent as Germany could bring Hitler to power and ecstatically so.
On another note, and referencing another post: Have you read up at all on Smedley Butler and the US/USMC during the Banana Wars? I’d be curious as to your thoughts. I spent three years down there during the mid-1980s and it completely altered my view of the world, to say the least.
You mentioned Butler regarding uncovering a planned coup during the 1930s, but I was interested to see if you knew of his exploits during the Banana Wars. He was like the Zelig of the 1920s and 1930s, and was a driving force behind the Marine Corps’ SMW (Small Wars Manual), which has become the bible of counterinsurgency. It was written in 1940, and we were using it in the 1980s. Fascinating read.
