Reply #10: What does Obama need to do?

[Peace Patriot]

Ask Exxon Mobil--thrown out of Venezuela.
Ask Bechtel--thrown out of Bolivia.
Ask Dyncorp--about to be thrown out of Ecuador.
Ask the World Bank--whose "portfolio" in Latin America is rather empty these days.
Ask the U.S. Federal Reserve--re: UNASUR's discussions about going off the U.S. dollar.
Ask any number of U.S. global corporate predators and war profiteers hungry for oil, cheap labor, markets for their shoddy Chinese-made goods, potable water, fallow ag land to convert to biofuels, lithium, gold and other minerals, social programs and services to privatize and loot, coca fields to poison with toxic pesticides, Amazon hard woods, willing governments through which to cycle U.S. military dollars, etc.

Our corpo/fascists have been desperate to, a) stop the leftist tide in Latin America, or--failing that, b) put a new face on their greedbag, exploitative, ill intentions.

When Paraguay elected a leftist president last summer, followed by El Salvador electing a leftist president this year--adding two more to the long list of Latin America countries who have had it with U.S. domination, and who have been able, by their own efforts, to restore democracy in their countries, in spite of every effort and many U.S. tax dollars used to defeat that development--it became clear to me that the U.S. government--as the representative of our global corporate predators (not of we, the people)--would be on the defensive in Latin America for some time to come. And this is true, in my opinion, whether we have Democrats or Pukes in power here. The U.S. President represents U.S. financial interests. Period. He wouldn't be U.S. President if he did otherwise. He may be more sympathetic with "we, the people." He may be more sympathetic with the vast poor of Latin America. But his chief obligation is to the predatory global corporations who operate from our shores. And those interests do not like having to deal with uppity brown people who take democracy seriously. They would prefer to kill their leaders and advocates--as they do in U.S.-dominated Colombia, and have done throughout Latin America in the past--but, if they can't kill them, and can't destroy their sovereignty, and can't freely walk all over them and rob them blind, then they need some serious P.R. to worm their way back in.

That's how I see Obama's position at the Summit of the Americas. He's dealing with a Latin America that is in full rebellion against U.S. (i.e., corporate) domination.

The Cuba issue is one of those issues around which other important issues swirl--and there has never been such a big and serious movement against the U.S. embargo of Cuba as there is now. Latin American leaders see now as the time to assert their sovereignty and their independence, as to foreign policy, and Cuba is the thorn sticking in their hides. They have had it with being dictated to, on Cuba. They cannot send a ship with Latin American goods to Florida if it has stopped in Cuba. This is an interference in their trade rights as sovereign countries, and they see no reason for it--just U.S. arrogance and stupidity--not to mention hypocrisy on "free trade."

One of the most interesting things I have read, recently, was a joke, told by Michele Batchelet, president of Chile, to a group of U.S. investors. The context was the Bushwhack sponsorship of a fascist coup attempt in Bolivia, this last September. Batchelet had called the meeting of UNASUR, at which she achieved unanimous backing of the Morales government against the white separatists, who were being funded and organized out of the U.S. (Bushwhack) embassy. Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and others worked closely together to support the elected (and very popular) Morales government and defeat the secessionists. Batchelet then asked a group of investors she happened to be addressing in the U.S., "Why has there never been a coup in the United States?" Her answer: "Because there is no U.S. embassy in the United States."

Har-har. They laughed. She laughed. All of Latin America is laughing. It is their time. As Evo Morales has said: "The time of the people has come." Democracy, the will of the people, the will of the majority, has never been so ascendant in Latin America. It is an unstoppable movement, a tide of history. And, as King Canute said (and demonstrated--according to legend), a monarch may seem very powerful, but he cannot stop the tides.

The U.S., under the Bushwhacks, with Exxon Mobil and brethren in full control of our government, has been unable to stop this tide. Obama's job is to help them ride it out--to surf it, in a sense. And he has proven to be quite a surfer--a skill and a mindset that he possibly learned in Hawaii. If you cannot hold back the tide, you try your skillful best to ride it in.