Bolivia's Minimum Wage Raise and how the Socialist Left Should Follow

[AProgressiveThinker]

Watch my new video on Bolivia's Socialist government raising the minimum wage and basic salary and why the Socialist Left in the United States should be inspired and drawn forth by this example into action!

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[dotymed]

1. Viva Evo Morales!

Last edited Wed May 14, 2014, 07:46 AM - Edit history (1)

Of course he REPRESENTS the Indigenous people who elected him.
Chavez was a mentor. Morales was lucky that Bolivia did not have as much oil as Venezuela.
Shaking off the bonds of empire has helped his country flourish. I am not aware of (yet) the U.S. trying to destroy his "peoples movement." When he was first elected, there was an outcry from the oligarchs...
The young man reporting is informed if just a little too loud. I am glad that he is enthusiastic though, I hope he reaches more young people and informs them of the evils of empire.
"Our" empire is collapsing and devouring Americans now. We either end this or our suffering will increase.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The U.S. tried to overthrow the Morales government in 2008,

with a violent white separatist movement funded and organized right out of the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and several U.S. agencies, that were being used to spy and disrupt (USAID, DEA, et al), out of the country, and got firm, unanimous backing from Unasur--an organization of all South American countries that had only been formalized a few months before. Backing Morales (who had just won re-election by a big majority) was the first action that Unasur ever took.

Bolivia does not have as much oil as Venezuela (nobody does) but it does have huge natural gas reserves, also lithium (needed for electronics) and other natural resources. Argentina and Brazil pressured the white separatists (who wanted to split Bolivia in two, and take Bolivia's gas reserves with them). These countries were the biggest purchasers of Bolivian gas. They told the white separatists they wouldn't trade with them. Venezuela aided Bolivia in other ways (financial advisers, for one thing, to help with nationalizing Bolivia's gas). Chile, and specifically Chilean president Michele Batchelet (who was just recently re-elected in Chile), called the Unasur meeting for the defense of Bolivia and its elected government.

I don't know what plots our "military-industrial complex" may be running in Bolivia today. The 2008 coup attempt was Bush Junta. But I think we can be sure that our MIC and its government continues plotting the overthrow of this and every other democratically elected Leftist government in the region. That is what our MIC and its government does. This has not changed. The methods may be subtler overall*, for the time being (Bush Junta methods were backfiring, big time); the goals are the same: rich elites in charge of LatAm governments, with strong and brutal militaries (trained here) to support them, who will make deals (U.S. "free trade for the rich&quot for their own enrichment, and give the country's resources, public programs and its labor force, to multinational corporations.

------

*(Honduras was not subtle. It was a U.S.-backed overthrow of the elected president, for the benefit of the local 1%, multinational corporations and the Pentagon. It occurred six months into the Obama administration, likely Bush Junta planned, but Obama/H.Clinton's response was to legitimize the fascist coup government and to tolerate the savage murders, by the fascists and their death squads, of labor leaders and other advocates of the poor and many journalists, along with torture, imprisonment and other punishments of leftists, aimed at decapitating the leftist movement--including one actual decapitation of a leftist protest organizer, whose headless body was left in the road for all to see and be afraid. In short, Obama/H.Clinton might as well have plotted this coup d'etat--and are, at the least, in thrall to those who are really running things.)

[TBF]

2. It's interesting - he's more of a capitalist

than I would like but there is no doubt he has brought Bolivia from poverty to prosperity in a short time - "No wonder Mr Morales is popular. With the opposition divided, he is likely to cruise to a third term in an election in October. But most of the decline in poverty has come from service-sector jobs and higher wages, according to Mr Gray."

An article in the Economist about Morales for folks who haven't been following his popularity in Bolivia: http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21601522-evo-morales-popular-not-invulnerable-bolivias-rentier-republic

[Peace Patriot]

4. The Economyst is an unreliable publication, and can be devious and treacherous...

...especially regarding the hugely successful Leftist movement in South America.

Unreliable and devious:

Much more than the other members of South America’s awkward squad—the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa—he can claim to lead a genuine social revolution. Bolivia, which was the poorest country in South America a decade ago, has a strong collectivist tradition. Although Mr Morales exaggerated when he once compared Bolivia to apartheid South Africa, he is a powerful symbol of social inclusion. --from the OP

The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has not been a "genuine social revolution"? That is simply a lie. Women, African-Venezuelans, the Indigenous and the poor (and mostly brown) majority have all experienced a huge upgrading of their human and civil rights in Venezuela. Venezuela has not only been the most fulsome social revolution; it was the first--it inspired the others! The Economyst is LYING about this--outright, bald-faced, damnable LIE.

"South America's awkward squad"??! Christ.

Morales "exaggerated" when he compared Bolivia to apartheid South Africa? Absolutely not! As recently as the 1960s, Indigenous Bolivians were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks! They were beaten and killed with impunity. They were robbed and enslaved. Indigenous were beaten and murdered recently, in the white separatist insurrection in 2008. The white separatists intended to create white enclaves in the eastern provinces (where the big gas reserves are), and split off from Bolivia, while retaining subdued Indigenous as servants and slaves. Bolivia was very like apartheid South Africa. There is no exaggeration.

Treacherous and threatening:

Eventually the gas boom will fade. And then? Peru invests much more than Bolivia, where an overvalued currency and wage rises have priced out local production. The rentier foundations of the plurinational republic will one day cave in, upsetting Mr Morales’s balancing act and prompting the return of mass protest. That day is a while off, but it will come.--from the OP

"...WILL one day cave in...". "It WILL come." This is typical Wall Street-ish garbage from their brethren in the former British Empire. And we can be quite sure that the fBE's nasty little 'intelligence' liars, creeps, spies and warmongers--who dragged England into the Iraq War against the will of 80% of the English people who opposed it--are hotly conspiring with Canada's corporate moguls, our corporate moguls, multinational corporate moguls, the CIA and other entities to MAKE IT HAPPEN, to make the Morales government FAIL.

The Economyst is one of their propaganda horns. It is as bad as the Associated Pukes, Rotters, the New York Slimes and all the rest of the lying liars of Global Corporate.

Do get all the information you can about any given situation, but do, also, read between the lines, and understand the deviousness and treachery of the Corporate Press. This is a clever piece. It fools you into thinking it's giving you the straight truth about Morales and other LatAm matters. It is not.

[TBF]

5. Thanks for the analysis -

I do like to read the WSJ and Economist to find out what they are up to amongst other sources. To be honest I have read criticisms of Evo Morales from both right and left. What would be your take on him?

[Peace Patriot]

6. Morales turned an apartheid state, run by a white oligarchy, into a democracy.

That alone puts him on a plane with Nelson Mandela--as to historic accomplishment and personal risk. He did not do it alone. Neither did Mandela. But he, like Mandela, rose to the immensely difficult challenge of leadership during a complete transformation of a society, for the better, by peaceful means.

But not only that--and here he exceeds Mandela--he has transformed the economy for the better, by nationalizing Bolivia's main natural resource, gas, re-negotating the contracts to get a better deal for Bolivia (he doubled Bolivia's revenues) and using the funds to start improving Bolivia's huge rich/poor discrepancy, including establishing pensions for the first time. He has also been a passionate advocate for the environment ("Pachamama," Mother Nature--revered by the Indigenous) and one of the important presidential activists on global warming. And, not incidentally--after throwing the DEA out of Bolivia--he legalized the coca leaf (not cocaine; rather the medicine leaf which has been used by the Indigenous for thousands of years).

Also to Morales' credit--here, too, exceeding Mandela--he not only overcame a white separatist insurrection led by the U.S., but has weathered on-going U.S. hostility. Mandela, after a certain point, had U.S. and E.U. support. Not Morales. And I think the reason why is economics. Morales has been bold in solving centuries of endemic poverty as well as racism. He is a socialist. Wall Street COUNTS ON there being a vast poor majority, which makes it easier to impose slave-like labor conditions, and easier to buy governments and loot resources. Morales specifically rejects this greed mentality. So the U.S. government, acting for multinational corporations, Wall Street banksters and Pentagon profiteers, hates him, and is no doubt behind some of the criticism of Morales. The USAID certainly funds and trains rightwing groups, which thus gain far more currency than their numbers merit, and these groups, of course, get trumpeted by the Corporate Press; the CIA is notorious for infiltrating leftwing groups, as well as news organizations. So it is very, VERY difficult to tell the difference between genuine criticism (by the right, the left, or others) and corporate propaganda.

Morales should be subject to criticism like all leaders should be. But we must always keep in mind how powerful and how devious the Wall Street propagandists are--and that includes all of the Corporate Press.