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They take a third world country whose rich elite has already ripped the country off, so that big loans are needed to stay afloat; they impose draconian repayment conditions on the loans, such as defunding of social programs, privatization of services (water systems, transportation, etc.--with big jackups in cost), and also opening of the country to global corporate predator rape (resource extraction; sweatshop labor); the rich then rip off the loan money, and leave the poor to pay the debt. These policies have created many basketcase economies around the world, and enormous suffering of a kind that is difficult to remedy. For instance, opening a country to U.S. agricultural dumping destroys small local farmers; the local food supply and distribution networks are lost; farming skills passed down through generations are lost; and farm land is lost. Further, if there are no resources for education and help to small farms and businesses, a downward spiral is created that is difficult to reverse.
Two prime examples are Argentina and Jamaica--but every third world country that has gone through this has been devastated. Argentina was rescued, in part, by Venezuela--the seed of the Bank of the South. Argentina's economy was a disaster, after years of World Bank/IMF financing, and corporate predation/"free trade." Things were so bad that the people simply revolted. An alliance of the poor and the middle class went round with tiny hammers, and broke every bank ATM display window in Buenos Aires, in protest. Three governments later--in quick succession--they finally got a good leftist government--that of Nestor Kirchner--which promised to get Argentina out of World Bank debt and never get into it again. People began to create their own co-ops and ad hoc economic systems, because nothing was working, and their money was worthless. Venezuela--flush with oil profits, and having a highly successful leftist government with high ideals of Latin American self-determination and regional cooperation, then entered the picture, and bought up some of Argentina's debt on easy terms (terms that promoted, rather than destroyed, social justice programs), and Argentina began to recover. All indicators are now up--it's a great success story. And Venezuela thus not only gave the World Bank/IMF a big black eye, it created a healthy trading partner, for itself, Brazil and other countries. Argentina is one of the best examples of the success of Bolivarian ideas--and was so successful, in fact, that other countries want in. Thus, the current founders of the Bank of the South--Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, etc.--who understand the benefit of loaning money among themselves, to get out of foreign debt and re-start their economies on better principles.
I noticed that Venezuela and Cuba are going to help Jamaica build a first class international airport, to assist with tourism. Jamaica is a harrowing disaster of World Bank/IMF financing and "free trade." I saw a documentary in which old farmers were weeping at the devastation wrought on them by U.S. ag dumping. All they wanted to do was farm--to feed their local communities with fresh produce--and to pass their skills along to their children. They had lost everything. And the bastards who had incurred the loans, and the ag dumping, also had created a "free trade zone," on the docks, where products are manufactured OUTSIDE of Jamaican jurisdiction--no labor law enforcement, no taxes--placed directly on tankers and shipped away. If Jamaicans want jobs, they can go work in these sweatshops for shit wages, with no labor protections.
There is quite a huge small farmer movement, worldwide, which has shown its collective power at WTO meetings and elsewhere. One South Korean farmer committed suicide at the WTO meeting in Cancun, a couple of years ago--in despair, and in protest. There have been thousands of such suicides in third world countries. But the collective effort to reverse global corporate predator incursions has been effective and successful, in some places. The small farmer movement is a big factor in South American politics.
As Argentina's recovery was the seed of the Bank of the South, the Bank of the South is the seed of something bigger--a South American "Common Market" and common currency are being discussed. That's where it's all aiming--at Latin American SELF-DETERMINATION--the dream of Simon Bolivar, the revolutionary hero who freed South America from colonial rule, and for whom the Bolivarian Revolution is named. These developments in South America are going to profoundly affect us here in the United States--mostly for the better, I think. It's time that we, as a country, re-committed ourselves to non-monopolistic, non-predatory "fair trade." We were once a country of small businesses, that underwent periodic "trust-busting" reforms, on the principle of a truly free market--one without global corporations and monopolies. Financial power concentrated in too few hands has always been anathema to us. The global corporate predators who rule over us now have hijacked our election system--with electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations--and have frozen their overweaning power in place, completely preventing desperately needed reform. It's time to bust them again. And, in order to do that, the first thing we must take care of is restoring transparent vote counting (which is still doable, at the state/local level). The South Americans have already done a decade of work on transparent elections and the strengthening of democratic institutions. That's why they are so far ahead of us in dealing with the global corporate predators who operate from our shores, and also in repulsing the fascist and highly corrupt U.S./Bush "war on drugs." Although we may suffer economic hardship, inflicted on us by the global corporate predators, as the South Americans get their act together, in the end I'm sure we will benefit greatly from these examples of successful rebellion, grass roots organization and peaceful, democratic change. If the South Americans can do it--after all they've suffered--so can we.
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