If the administration really has ended the Monroe Doctrine, that's a huge thing...

[Ken Burch]

But it can't just be a simple declaration, as Secretary Kerry made earlier in the week.

It needs to be a massive change in policy and behavior.

The administration needs to declare that it will accept

1)That the resources of the nations of the Americas exist, first and foremost, for the good of the people of the countries in which they exist

2)That all of the cultures of the Americas(not just Spanish and Anglo-Saxon, but indigenous, multiracial, and African as well)must be preserved and treated with full respect by all.

3)That all our country did in the past to the countries South of us was wrong, and that none of those things will be done again.

THAT is what ending the Monroe Doctrine would really mean.

And doing that would be, for the first time in this country's history, true greatness...for true greatness means embracing true humility and true unselfishness.

[The Blue Flower]

1. Thank you

Very well put. And it is a huge, huge thing.

[Glorfindel]

2. I thought the Monroe Doctrine ended when the Ray-gun administration

sided with the UK against Argentina during the Falkland Islands war.

[WinkyDink]

3. Better hurry; the Chinese are incorporating South America.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/china-heads-to-south/857194.html

China's global hunt for crucial energy supplies is taking it into America's backyard, with two Chinese state firms winning production rights to a multi-billion-barrel deepwater oilfield off Brazil.

[Major Hogwash]

4. Hillary is not going to run then.

It's my new meme.

[former9thward]

5. The people of the Americans ended the Monroe doctrine.

Not the U.S. Someone named Castro put that in the garbage can in 1959.

[FarCenter]

6. Latin America sees straight through John Kerry's 'Monroe' speech

Given the long list of acts of intervention in Latin American politics during the 20th century – none of them justified by the actual threat of a European invasion – Kerry's announcement on the end of the Monroe doctrine should be celebrated. But the real issues that separate US policies from Latin American interests today are no longer found in overt political and military intervention.

And the real concerns of US policy in the region were all but ignored in the speech. There was merely a passing mention to drugs in Colombia, when billions of dollars and active collaboration with armed forces in the region support US prohibitionism against increasing opposition from Latin American societies and even politicians. The steep human cost of drug enforcement in Latin America, all for the benefit of US public health, was not even acknowledged. Nor was migration mentioned by Kerry, maintaining the fiction that immigration policies that harass and, during the Obama administration, deport record numbers of Latin Americans back to their countries of origin are not also a matter of foreign policy. Perhaps the fiction is necessary considering the human rights cost of prolonged detention, expulsion and the separation of families that those policies entail. And Kerry also failed to mention the elephant in the room: the growing interactions of the region's most dynamic economies with China, a customer for raw materials but also an investor that competes with US companies in several sectors. The Monroe doctrine, after all, only referred to European influence. It is not surprising that such a short-sighted, predictable speech has not elicited any reactions.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/21/latin-america-john-kerry-monroe-doctrine-speech

[rug]

7. It's obsolete since the government states it has the right to unilateral intervention everywhere.

[indepat]

8. "...for true greatness means true humility and true unselfishness," concepts wholly antithetical

to the core essence of a right-wing ideology which has permeated every major branch of government and much of society: hence, such heresy will never be tolerated by TPTB.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Nah. It means France and Great Britain can resume colonial activity in the region

without us going to war against them. I suspect you think it means we will stop fucking with Latin American governments we don't like. It doesn't mean that.