Funes: We must follow own path

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wednesday, 09.15.10
Funes: We must follow own path
BY JIM WYSS AND TIM JOHNSON
[email protected]

Staking out a middle ground in a highly polarized region, El Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said he was not interested in U.S.-style capitalism or Venezuela-inspired socialism but policies that made his nation ``effective and efficient.''

Speaking at the Americas Conference in Coral Gables on Tuesday, Funes brushed off the idea that his government might try to adopt the ``21st century socialism'' that Venezuela has tried to export to allies such as Nicaragua and Bolivia.

``In El Salvador, it's not possible to build socialism and much less 21st century socialism, which I really cannot define and is not clear to me,'' said Funes, 49. ``I don't think is clear to many of the political actors in the region.''

With the backing of former leftist guerrillas of the FMLN, Funes broke the stranglehold on power of his country's political right-wing in elections last year.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/15/1825270/funes-we-must-follow-own-path.html

[EFerrari]

1. El Salvador is so compromised, it's nearly impossible to decode

what Funes is saying through the filter of The Miami Hurled. But I guess the ousting of President Zelaya was a great big signal.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Yup, he's in a very dicey position, with Honduras right on his border...

...where U.S. corpo-fascists and rightwing, Colombian-style death squads now rule. There is little doubt that El Salvador is "next"--on the list of democracies that Jim DeMint, John McCain, John "death squad" Negroponte, Otto Reich & brethren want to topple. It is probably the "softest" target in the Central American/Caribbean region, say, compared to Nicaragua--their old killing ground--which I'm sure is high on the list. El Salvador is already pretty much a U.S. client state. Nicaragua has made much progress in the other direction, and the more progress they make, the more difficult becomes the overthrow. Honduras, where they struck first, was the weakest target they could identify, because, unlike the highly developed grass roots leftist movements that put Ortega in power in Nicaragua, Chavez in power in Venezuela, Morales in power in Bolivia and other such events, the democracy movement in Honduras was just getting off the ground, and the president--elected from the oligarchy, as a "centrist" ("don't rock the boat" type)--had a change of heart, and newly identified with the unions and the poor majority. And the people of the country were really not ready for what happened next--a full on, U.S. supported, rightwing military coup. In Venezuela, the attempted coup there occurred four years into Chavez's presidency, after a half decade of the grass roots organizing that put him in office.

So Funes has to be careful. Obviously, the El Salvadoran grass roots have gotten organized. Funes would not be president if they weren't. But if operatives like Negroponte can just go ahead with their plots, under a Democratic administration--and one that had promised "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America--with Hillary Clinton coming into it, and covering it over with democracy cosmetics--what would these Bushwhacks not do, if ES&S/Diebold returns them to the White House?

I shudder to think of the mayhem they could inflict, even if they ultimately fail. I think they will fail, in the war scheme that I see the outline of ("circling the wagons" in the Central American/Caribbean region, and netting in Venezuela's oil (biggest oil reserves on earth), as a launching pad for economic warfare against South America and its common market plan). I think Roman Empire II has reached the "decline and fall" stage, and I only hope that the "fall" here is gentler than the one suffered by the denizens of the first Roman Empire (chaos, barbarism and a thousand years of darkness). I don't think that "history repeats itself," exactly. It is more like gyre, as William Butler Yeats believed, in which there are repeating themes and repeated opportunities to improve the human lot. We do not have to "decline and fall" brutally. We can, instead, give up our empire gracefully while recovering our own democracy and reaching out to others in a cooperative and equitable spirit. There was a REASON that the United States of America became a "beacon of hope" to other people in the world, despite its flaws and even despite its horrors (such as the pogrom against the Indians). It has been the most amazing experiment in democratic rule, and in peaceful cultural diversity, in human history because of its ability to change--to respond to bigotry with laws against it, to recompense the injured, to expand the voting franchise, to address a capitalist depression with a "New Deal," and so many other instances of the ability of a huge country, through democratic means, to alter its course for the better.

It IS possible. We CAN do it. And, by God, we have some good examples of peaceful, democratic change right here in our hemisphere, in Latin America, which we would do well to study for applicable lessons here.

Meanwhile, the "caesars" and the "rich senators" plot to continue their unsustainable exploitation of everything and everybody. And small, egregiously exploited countries like El Salvador, now isolated between Honduras and the Pacific, need to be careful what they aspire to, until better regional conditions prevail. They are very vulnerable.

The better regional conditions could occur with the next elections in Mexico, for instance. A strong leftist came within 0.05% of winning the last presidential election in Mexico (what is widely believed to have been a stolen election). And even the rightwing president is beginning to balk at the U.S. "war on drugs" (catastrophic U.S. militarization of problems) and hasn't been able to privatize Mexico's constitutionally protected oil resource. National interests may turn the tide toward sovereignty and independence in Central America (as it did, for instance, in Paraguay, whose rightwing government rescinded its non-extradition laws and its immunity for U.S. soldiers prior to a leftist government being elected, because these were necessary to inclusion in trade groups and regionally-controlled banking). Non-militarized Costa Rica, now inflicted with the U.S. military, might rebel and cast out the traitors who did this. Panama could also reverse its rightwing, pro-U.S. stance, with an uprising in the labor movement. Guatemala seems stable, with its leftist government--Colom having survived some plots against him. And the South American common market could eventually take Central America into its orbit.

It looks like Lula da Silva's Workers' Party is going to win big again in Brazil. Chavez's popularity has now been restored to its previous level--a bit higher, actually (65% according to the most reliable poll in Venezuela), and the Chavistas will probably retain their majority in the legislature. Bolivia and Ecuador are doing very well, economically, with their leftist governments--despite the Bushwhack-induced worldwide depression. These pillars of the leftist leadership of Latin America--Lula da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa--and others (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay), are committed to regional integration and eventual common market. They do NOT want any further U.S. interference in their region, and they made it very, very clear that they considered the rightwing coup in Honduras to be the U.S.'s doing and to be intolerable. Thus, Central America is already included in their thinking--that is, Latin America as a whole. Their goals and their collective strength could strengthen El Salvador.

[EFerrari]

4. My friend, someone who survived being kidnapped and held by

for a year by government forces during the war, tells me that El Salvador is already technologically occupied by the US. They used our no fly list, they use our currency. Rolando says that landing there is pretty much like landing in any US city.

The empire is re-asserting itself in Central America -- maybe because it's fairly easy. Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama. I haven't seen any movement in El Salvador itself but that may be because it is already occupied by other means.

[Peace Patriot]

5. But they did elect Funes/FMLN, which means some grass roots organization.

I don't know if it would mean successful resistance to a coup. All I'm saying is that the leftist movement in Honduras didn't put Zelaya in office, exactly--he was a "dark horse" leftist, from a 'Tweedle Dee/Tweedle-Dum' party--whereas somebody in El Salvador got Funes/FMLN elected, though the FMLN has an armed resistance/leftist revolutionary history. To me, this means that El Salvador may be less vulnerable too a coup than Honduras was.

I know what Funes did, re ALBA (withdrew El Salvador from considering membership) just AFTER the Honduras coup. That was such a blatant example of El Salvador's client state status, and of the limits and dangers that Funes must take into account as to bold moves on behalf of El Salvador and its people. I wouldn't be surprised if he got a "visit": 'Join ALBA and you're next!' That was a big item on the list of Zelaya 'crimes'--Honduras joining ALBA. The U.S. is playing rough, very rough.

If you look at some of these other democracy revolutions, prior to the left winning presidential and other elections--say, Venezuela, or Bolivia, or any of them--you see similar conditions that, at the time, would look overwhelming--U.S. "war on drugs" militarization, U.S.-dominated World Bank/IMF stranglehold on the country, governments with rightwing/rich elites hanging onto power with tooth and claw, currency tied to the dollar, corporate privatizations everywhere, and so on. El Salvador is in similar straits. I don't know if it's an advantage or a disadvantage to have a moderate leftist like Funes elected, as to getting a serious restructuring of the country under way, with a strong leftist movement. He's rather too much like Obama--hemmed in by powers that override the common good, and not very bold. But I certainly wouldn't say that a rightwing government would be "better" just because it might spark more and better organized grass roots opposition. It is what it is. As with Obama, you just cringe at the concessions to the right, because it seems obvious that boldness, on behalf of the people, is the only way to go. Obama has so much ammunition, after what these Bushwhack fuckers did to us--ammunition he doesn't use. Funes has a similar armory, but doesn't use it. They are both too afraid. I can't say they don't have reason to be, but it is still quite dismaying. Neither we nor the El Salvadorans are going to get very far with tepid measures that do not address fundamental problems boldly, creatively and with courage, as with the "New Deal" or "21st century socialism."

Funes has got to be kidding when he says that he doesn't know what that is ("21st century socialism"). It is free universal medical care, free education through college, fair wages, job creation, encouragement of public participation, use of a country's resources to benefit the people who live there, national sovereignty over corporate rule, cooperation/integration with other social justice-minded countries, and other palpable, public good policies that have been enacted by current leftist democracies. But he has to plead ignorance--or feign ignorance--or he thinks he does, because of the corpo-fascist thugs eyeing him with sharpened knives at the ready.

[EFerrari]

6. Funes' position is very much like Obama's, I couldn't agree more.

Let's see if he is able to be more than a front man for capital and keep his head attached to his shoulders.

[Wilms]

2. k&r n/t