I just uploaded a rough mix of one of the tunes I’m working on for my next record on the page of the Kickstarter I’m running to support it.  You can check it out by clicking here, or on the photo above.

It’s called El Pulpo, a handle I got from the book Inevitable Revolutions by Walter Lafeber.  (See also Empire’s Workshop by Greg Grandin.)  It was a common nickname for the United Fruit Company used in Central America to describe the company’s predations.  Chiquita, the current descendent of UFCO, carries on the tradition in the 21st century:

“A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit against the produce giant Chiquita brought by thousands of Colombians for the murders of their loved ones at the hands of paramilitaries. Chiquita pleaded guilty in 2007 to giving funds to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as theAUC, a right-wing paramilitary alliance supported by top leaders and blamed for killing tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, beginning in the late 1990s. Chiquita sought protection from the lawsuits in part by citing the 2012 Supreme Court decision limiting the ability of people outside the United States to sue corporations for human rights abuses in U.S. courts. The judge in the case sided with Chiquita, but victims say they plan to continue legal action through the Torture Victim Protection Act and Colombian law.”

(from Democracy Now)

They’re tricky creatures.