How to Keep Track of Our Crumbling Empire? Let's Put Occupied Countries on Our Coins

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Jason Mark

How to Keep Track of Our Crumbling Empire? Let's Put Occupied Countries on Our Coins
There's likely some international law against issuing currency for another country. But we shouldn't let something like national sovereignty get in the way.

December 20, 2010 |


You've probably heard the old joke that Americans learn their world geography by having to locate where exactly a country is after we invade it. If only. College students -- I can tell you from some lecturing experience -- respond with blank stares when told about the U.S. military headquarters in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar. And ask any dude on the street about Djibouti and you're likely to be told that it's a hip-hop song or one of those caffeine-booze drinks, not the dusty outpost in the Horn of Africa where a couple thousand U.S. Marines stand watch over vital sea lanes. Many of us might be able to pinpoint Colombia (it's south of Mexico, right?), but would be surprised to learn of the half-dozen U.S. bases there.

So how can Americans get a better sense of the far-flung garrisons of the U.S. empire past and present? One way, I thought recently, would be to issue specially designed quarters for all of the places our armies have ever occupied. It would be a lesson in history and geography -- right in our pockets.

If you're like me (and admit it, many of you are), then you've developed a real fondness for the U.S. Mint's 50 State Quarters effort. According to the Mint, the specialty quarters -- five new state coins every year for a decade -- were one of the most popular numismatic programs in history. One survey found that some 130 million people collected the quarters. For most people, quarter collecting was just a hobby. But the program has had a real educational benefit as teachers use the coins as part of their lesson plans. Now students' lunch money offers the fun fact that both Ohio and North Carolina like to claim ownership of the Wright Brothers.

Inevitably, the Mint ran out of states. And so last year -- in the numismatist's version of chasing the dragon -- the Mint began issuing quarters for U.S. territories. Now we've got a coin with Duke Ellington (for the District of Colombia) and one for the Northern Marianas Islands (bet you didn't know we had a commonwealth in the far Western Pacific). The Mint's next plan is to issue a quarter for a national park, monument or battlefield in every state. That's nice. But also redundant: After all, we already have quarters with Yosemite (California) and the Grand Canyon (Arizona). .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/world/149267/how_to_keep_track_of_our_crumbling_empire_let%27s_put_occupied_countries_on_our_coins/

[RZM]

1. As far as Djibouti goes

I don't think France would much appreciate us putting it on a coin. As a former French colony, it maintains closer ties with them than us.

As an aside, the Wright Brothers definitely 'belong' to Ohio. They were raised there and lived there most of their lives. They designed and built their planes there as well. There were a couple specific reasons why they chose Kittyhawk for the sight of the first flight. It was sparsely populated (there was intense competition at the time to build a working plane and they were worried about espionage), it had sustained winds, and sand dunes as well. The sand was desirable because such terrain would limit damage to the plane since they knew they might be crashing.

As soon as their planes got a bit better, they did much of the subsequent testing back in Dayton.

LOL, sorry for the tangent, but it's a subject near and dear to my heart :)

[Igel]

2. We had occupied countries on our stamps for a while.

East European countries, that is.

That was in the '50s. In the '70s and '80s, most of the people I knew didn't think of those countries as occupied at all.

The '90s were quite a shock to those particular people. Some, I'm convinced, continue to suffer from the shock, trying to tell me it was a kind of Western subversion to undermine and weaken other countries to export Western malevolence.