What does a forty-seven-cent banana have to do with war, citizenship, and a mother's next meal? In this fictional audio drama, two community-college classmates confront American power in Latin America from very different places. Elena reads Smedley Butler's argument that war can serve commercial interests. Valentina, a Venezuelan immigrant rebuilding her professional life, hears hope in her mother's voice and cannot afford to treat that hope as an abstraction.
Set against the events discussed in January 2026, Blood & Fruit brings Butler's critique, the 1928 banana massacre, and the characters' family histories into an uncomfortable conversation. They can agree that power serves itself and still disagree about what survival requires. The question follows them out of the classroom and back to the vending machine.
Read the script: https://joelkdouglas.com/2026/01/13/blood-and-fruit/
Music by
Artist: rakey
Song: Limelight
