|
South America, between the successful leftist movements in so many countries, and the U.S./European financial sharks and multinationals that were bleeding them dry before they started bleeding us. This current (late 20th/early 21st century) round of "shock and awe" economics began in South America before it hit us. Argentina, for instance, went belly up--and others suffered near meltdown, as onerous World Bank/IMF policies (arranged by rightwing governments, to the benefit of the rich, but with no benefit to the poor--just debt) destroyed social programs (education, medical care, pensions), destroyed labor protections, and opened the country's resources to plunder and ruin by outside profiteers. In Bolivia, for instance, the rightwing government sold the water system in one city to Bechtel, which proceeded to increase the cost of water to the poorest of the poor, even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater! This was the last straw for the poor majority in Bolivia and their leftist leaders. Enter Evo Morales, a union organizer, privatization protester, former small peasant farmer and 100% indigenous indian, who was catapulted by this movement into the presidency. He has just accomplished a miracle--the new Bolivian Constitution, passed last Sunday with 62% of the vote, which not only remedies centuries of slavery and bigotry against the majority indigenous, but also sanctifies the right to water as a basic human right.
Rotters would never tell you this story. They favor Bechtel squeezing the poor of every last peso for a resource that is basic to human life. It is stories like this one, and the grass roots movements and leftist leaders at the heart of them, that the World Social Forum is all about. How does the vast poor majority secure basic human rights and a decent life, with the world run by cruel and powerful profiteers, who are accountable to no one. (We certainly haven't held Bechtel accountable. They are our spawn, these monstrous international looting machines.) So-o-o-o, Rotters seethes with hatred for these successful leftists, and tries to make them loot like silly children deprived of their Bush effigy-burning party, and longs to slit their throats and throw them out of helicopters, as the fascist juntas used to do to uppity peasants, community organizers and decent politicians (leftists).
My point is not anti-Obama. We are a much different country than Bolivia, or Argentina, or Venezuela or even Brazil. I wasn't talking about the left here (--although there were many participants from the U.S. at this World Social Forum*). I was just pointing out Rotters use of Obama, and hopes for Obama--that he will "divide and conquer" the left (that is, the hopes and dreams and hard work of the majority) in South America, and help defeat them, and put fascists back in charge. That is the obscenity of this article.
*As for the Left here, we have our out-of-control war machine to worry about, and our central position as the home base of multinational corporations who have been fucking over the whole world in our name, and now are fucking us over as well. We are where Argentina and these other Latin American countries were ten, fifteen years ago. We've only just begun to have any kind of grass roots movement at all. Our democracy is in tatters. We have much work to do to repair it, and to even get to square one, in dealing with monsters like Bechtel or Exxon Mobil or Halliburton. Hugo Chavez basically kicked Exxon Mobil out of Venezuela, with the support of his people (60% approval rating). We can hardly imagine doing such a thing, let alone how to do it.
Chavez did not nationalize the oil. It was nationalized long before Chavez, as it is in many other countries. What he did was to re-negotiate the contracts with the oil multinationals to get a better deal for Venezuela and its social programs. And Exxon Mobil, alone among the multinationals, refused to dicker. They were expecting Bush-Cheney to assassinate Chavez and overthrow the elected government. Why should they have to negotiate with that peasant? Well, that didn't work--because the Venezuelan people have created such sturdy democratic institutions and grass roots organization, and Chavez was able to say "Adios!" to Exxon Mobil.
I don't think that's possible here--yet. We are so used to being ruled by illegitimate entities like Exxon Mobile, who now even hijack our military for their corporate resource wars, and run our elections with 'TRADE SECRET' code in all the voting machines, that we have much work to do, to educate ourselves and others, and to restore the democratic strength needed to elect a president like that. And Obama has so much work to do, just to get the basic rule of law re-established, and try to mitigate this economic horror, that I don't think we can expect him to be FDR. ("Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred!"--FDR.) It is too dangerous--for him, and for us. Diebold & brethren, and the "military-industrial complex," and the corpo/fascist media, have too much power. We need to pull together and try to restore order--and work together to throw off these wretched corporate rulers, as so many of the South American peoples have done.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
