What It Is; What Is Not
CGI
2026
Ricardo F. Morin
January 4, 2026
Oakland Park, Fl
Wannabe Axiom I
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The Monroe Doctrine is often treated as a historical policy. Increasingly, however, it operates as something more elemental: an axiom. In this form, it no longer argues its case. It establishes the conditions under which argument is permitted. An axiom does not persuade. It assumes.
When the Monroe Doctrine functions axiomaticly, it ceases to appear as a contingent claim about hemispheric order and becomes an unspoken premise about who may decide, when intervention is justified, and what forms of consent are considered sufficient. What requires examination is not the doctrine as written, but the axiom as it now circulates.
The Monroe Axiom asserts unilateral authority while presenting itself as regional responsibility. It presumes that stability in the Western Hemisphere is inseparable from U.S. primacy, and that this primacy does not require reciprocal authorization. Consent is not sought; necessity is interpreted. Decision precedes deliberation.
In its contemporary articulation, the axiom rarely declares dominance openly. Instead, it presents itself as reluctant, unavoidable, or benevolent. Intervention is framed not as choice, but as consequence. Exhaustion replaces consent. Democracy is invoked not as a process to be preserved, but as an outcome promised in advance. Once inevitability replaces argument, the axiom becomes self-sealing. Opposition is no longer disagreement; it is reclassified as denial of reality.
Attempts to rehabilitate the Monroe Doctrine by assigning it a benevolent purpose do not alter its structure. They merely obscure it. The ethical failure is evident, but the logical failure is decisive. An axiom of unilateral authority cannot be transformed into a mutual ethic through intention alone. Benevolence is not a constraint; it is a promise. Ethics requires limits that operate prior to the exercise of power, not assurances offered afterward. Nor can exhaustion confer legitimacy. Political fatigue may explain acquiescence, but it cannot generate authorization. What is endured is not thereby endorsed.
The Monroe Axiom fails the test of reciprocity. A principle that justifies intervention outward but rejects it when reversed is not a principle. It is asymmetry protected by habit. When unilateral authority no longer feels obliged to justify itself, ethical language ceases to clarify and begins to anesthetize. At that point, the axiom does not announce domination. It normalizes it.
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On the Reasoning Used to Claim Venezuela’s Oil Industry
The reasoning that leads to control of Venezuela’s oil industry relies on a deliberate conversion of ownership. Infrastructure developed in Venezuela by foreign companies is treated not as investment made under Venezuelan law, but as continuing possession by the United States. What was built within Venezuelan territory, regulated by Venezuelan authority, and later nationalized through Venezuelan law is recast as something that never fully belonged to Venezuela.
Under this reasoning, Venezuela’s decision to nationalize its oil industry is not treated as an exercise of sovereignty, but as a wrongful taking. A legal act carried out by a recognized state is retroactively reframed as the seizure of what the United States is said to have created and therefore retained. Time does not weaken this claim. It is used to reinforce it. Past participation is invoked as proof of permanent entitlement.
Once this redefinition is accepted, the decline of Venezuela’s oil industry is no longer understood as a domestic failure affecting Venezuelans. It is described as damage done to U.S. interests. Mismanagement inside Venezuela is translated into harm inflicted on the United States. Venezuela’s inability to maintain its own industry becomes evidence that it should no longer control it.
From there, the reasoning shifts again. Control of Venezuela’s oil industry is no longer described as appropriation. It is described as recovery. Seizure is renamed restoration. What is taken is said to have always been owed, merely withheld by incompetence or abuse. The language of correction replaces the language of domination.
The final conversion recasts Venezuela’s oil industry as a matter of U.S. security. Energy produced in Venezuela is treated as a requirement of American stability rather than as a commodity governed by agreement. Disruption within Venezuela is redefined as vulnerability within the United States. Under this framing, taking control of Venezuela’s oil industry is no longer presented as a choice, but as a defensive necessity.
What disappears entirely in this sequence is Venezuela’s standing as owner. Its jurisdiction over its own resources is treated as conditional on performance. When outcomes are judged unsatisfactory by an external power, ownership is quietly suspended. Venezuela’s oil ceases to be Venezuelan not by law, but by assertion.
This is the reasoning that makes seizure possible without naming it as such. Venezuela’s oil industry is taken not because consent has been given, nor because law has been upheld, but because entitlement has been declared. Interest is converted into right, right into necessity, and necessity into permission.
Tags: hegemony, hemispheric politics, implicit assumptions, legitimacy, Monroe Doctrine, normalization, unilateral power
Observations On Perception 
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