Back home!

Well guys and gals, Dr. T Finally sent the part i needed for this piece of crap they called a time machine. So i took of and crash landed back in Las Vegas. Literally...I did not forget to put the landing gear down, i just opted to not. That damn machine needs to be scraped so i desided that it was my civic duty to help it along. Anyway Going back in time to this era opened my eyes to a time that to be honest, is a little confusing to us. I mean really think about it. We were taught as children that the United States is in no way like its Cousin across the pond. Empires are bad, the teacher would say to us. Then we go to collage and find out that we ourselves used to start revolutions in other countries for our own benifits and then overtake the country. Its kindof shocking. And you ask yourself, "Self? Why is this so important to me?" Well guys ill tell you. You see its not 1898 but we still show signs our old past as an Empire. We still (for the time being) hold a naval base in cuba. We also head over to other countries and, in the case of Iraq, a country that has had its own laws for centuries, we hand them a copy of our constitution and tell them to play along. Its really interesting.
There are a multatude of reasons why the United States got involved in the Spanish American war, when it did. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 looked at any European Country trying to take over another country in the Western Hemisphere as an act of agression. With Spain, this gave The U.S the mentality to toss out the "compeditor." The United States ousted Spain from Florida in the early 1800s, we had no problem doing it again. The war against Spain in 1898 therefore must be seen then in regional context, the latest desision to oust Europe From the Western Hemisphere." (Paterson, United States Intervention in cuba, 1898).
Americans at the time had a "godlike" outlook when it came to smaller nations. The leaders figured that in the case of smaller nations, we, the united States knows more than you. John Offneer calls out,"McKinley cut the cubans out of wartime desisions and peacemaking negotiation." (John Offner, An Unwanted War). This to me does not show an interest in helping to "free a nation from the teriny of european control." But Still, Why cuba? Well cuba is so close to the States! As Louis Perez states from his novel Cuba and the United States, "North Americans considered Cuba essential to the Polotico-military security of the United States." (Perez, xiv). The McKinley government tried to buy cuba from Spain for a modest 300 million but was turned down, and with a revolution going on off the coast, the US "felt" that their national intrests were at stake so they intervened to stop the "problem."
I would actually like to bring up a question at this time... Could another cause of this war be the mentality of the guilded age? What i mean by this was that this was happened during the end of a age where monopolies were gaining control of industry. Could this act of building an Empire in fact be The Governments idea of getting involved in the Guilded Age? Of course they probably were not thinking about it like that but lets look at some things here. Because of the mass production of steel, and inventions like the steam engine, the United States was able to retire its aging "Sailing Fleet" and built steel, steam powered sailing vessels capable of traving faster than the ships they replaced. this allowed the navy to become the fourth most powerful navy at the time. Which in my own idea is just one way of expressing your domestic "guilded" ideas abroad. in this case its not the poor people of the country that get poorer while the rich get richer, but the bigger nations become more powerful, while the smaller nations in this case become less and less significant.
I feel another reason why the United States decided to get involved in this conflict was the financial situation at home. The US was going through a rough patch, much like we are right now. It needed a way to change, to hopfully turn itself around. A war would change the topic from free silver to a "quest to fufill our manifest destiny. Views would change from a cross of gold, to seeing cuba as a beautiful damsill in destress, who needs to be resucued by the yank, and will conform to the United States Ideals, along with the Philippines. The Philippines was not located in the vacinity of the United States so you might ask yourself, why was this so important? Well China and the Asia... By keeping this area clear of Spanish and other whicked European countries, we...The United States would not only have another port to keep out Pacific Squardon/ Fleet, and Trade with China would help to improve our economy. So all we were trying to do was limit the compition... Another popular view at the time...look at J.P Morgan and Andrew Carnegie.
Well i can say...its been a fun ride though...I have descovered by being there and looking over documents, that this war really made our territories the way they are today, and to be honest, still infulences our ideas when it comes to dealing with other nations, especially ones who are less fortunate than those of the major powers...