Mick seems to agree:

“Penn was good in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (or maybe he got a free pass because that film had Phoebe Cates’ delightful tats in it), but he’s still a weapons-grade prick.”

Mick, if you ever make it to NYC, Ms. Cates owns a small boutique called Blue Tree. She is supposed to be very nice to shoppers. I don’t think she’ll show you her tats but who knows…

Monty writes:

“This is the “hero” who turned up at the New Orleans disaster with a camera crew, and a rowing boat, only to have them film him sinking. Then, as now, it was all about Sean Penn, and what a wonderful human being he is.”

I remember that as well. What an idiot.

The popularly understood meaning of the document as far as I (and the world’s political historians) are concerned is the meaning enshrined in its own text. I don’t know who these people are who “popularly” understand the Monroe doctrine to mean something other than it says and so would repeat the necessity of using the proper terms. We are on a slippery animal-farm style slope when we cannot be bothered arguing against an interpretation as obviously wrong as this one.

Anyway, despite our disagreement and the sometimes abrasive nature of our postings (I apologise for my contribution to that), I thought it was a genuinely intersting debate.

Cheers

But you can choose not to go along with their wilful ignorance of the document – it is up to you.

There is a danger in accepting a totally different meaning to a very clear and straightforward document (no matter how many people use such a meaning.) Marxist tracts in the hands of a Stalinist no doubt “mean” something very different to what the author intended as well but unless one is trying to score cheap political points I think most people would accept the difference.

It could be that they are being ahistorical and that Monroe might be turning in his grave, but I didn’t coin the term or reinvent its meaning, and nor do I have any influence over those who have.

You mean Noam Chomsky?

What you argued was that a spread of historical events (which started with a context-free Monroe doctrine) amounted to evidence of an American empire. All I have done is pointed out to you that you were wrong to do so and that there are actual documents you could have quoted which would have made more sense (some of which may have been “amended ” to the Monroe doctrine – although how you would like your own doctrine to be inverted in around eighty years and then used as evidence of the opposite to your intentions is something you may like to ask yourself.)

The Monroe doctrine is a particular historical document from a particular historical context. Anybody arguing that it “justifies” anything outside that context is being ahistorical and wilfully ignorant when there exist far more precise terms to describe what they mean.

Anyway I still think your evidence for the existence of a US Empire is a bit threadbare.

But what you are arguing is patently ridiculous. The Roosevelt Corollary was an addition (or ammendment if you prefer) to the Monroe Doctrine. From that moment on (actually, it was more a process than a ‘moment’, but I hope you get the point), the Monroe Doctrine became formally imperialist in its aims.

Those who argued (then and later) for the original interpretation and use of the doctrine, were superceded by those who ammended and reinterpreted the doctrine.

Or as Wikipedia puts it:

“As the United States emerged as a world superpower, the Monroe Doctrine came to define a recognized sphere of control that few dared to challenge (Britannica 269). In 1904, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted the right of the United States to intervene in Latin America in cases of “flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American Nation” (Britannica 269). This was the most significant amendment to the original doctrine and was widely opposed by critics, who argued that the Monroe Doctrine was originally meant to stop European influence in the Western Hemisphere (Britannica 269).”

From then on, the Monroe Doctrine was understood by both successive US governments and the people of Latin America to be interventionist / imperialist in its designs.

I prefer to use the modern definition of the Monroe Doctrine, because everyone who matters in the politics of the Americas understands it in that way. Pedants are entitled to their own ecentricities, if they so wish.