Clouds Gather Over Bolivia’s Change Process as US Intervenes

[Judi Lynn]

Clouds Gather Over Bolivia’s Change Process as US Intervenes

February 16, 2016
by W. T. Whitney



Progressive political movements in Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil have recently encountered reverses. Bolivian President Evo Morales is his country’s longest serving president and first indigenous one. Now his 10 – year old socialist and anti-imperialist government faces a hurdle.

On February 21, 2016 Bolivians will vote on a referendum aimed at modifying Bolivia’s constitution to allow the president and/or vice president to be reelected twice instead of once. Partisans of Morales and Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linare’s change – oriented government will cast a “yes” vote. But defenders of the old order are rallying, and the United States is at their service.

Under Morales, the Bolivian people have made striking gains. So much so, writes former Cuban National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon, that “Never has so much been done, in such a short time, for the emancipation of a people subjugated for centuries.”

Poverty, for example, is down 25 percent, extreme poverty 50 percent. The minimum salary is up 87.7 percent, and, between 2005 and 2012, the state’s budget for healthcare rose from $195 to $600 million. Rates of infant and maternal mortality have fallen dramatically. Funding for these changes derived from nationalization of hydrocarbon extraction.

The economy has grown at an average annual rate of 5.1 percent, tops in the region. Internal economic demand is up and, “rather than exports, is the principal motor of economic growth.” Inflation in Bolivia is the second lowest in South America.

Argentinian journalist Juan Manuel Karg catalogued other advances. Some 40 percent of the population receives social security benefits including retirees, students – to keep them in school – and expectant mothers. The government has enlarged and improved 700 education centers and enrolled 955,000 people in literacy programs. In 1992 owners of large land holdings controlled almost 40 percent of all land, but in 2015 the state had charge of 24.6 percent of land; indigenous peoples, of 23.9 percent; and owners of small and mid-sized holdings, of 18.2 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/clouds-gather-over-bolivias-change-process-as-us-intervenes/

Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016144474

[Peace Patriot]

1. Ah, me! Will this story ever, ever change, of the U.S. being on the wrong side...

...and doing everything it can to destroy democracy in Latin America?

Well, it might.

Have you seen the video interview of Bernie Sanders, as mayor of Burlington, VT, when he'd just come back from Nicaragua, during the time when Reagan's thugs (the bloody 'contras') were killing teachers and mayors to overthrow the elected leftist government? Sanders created a sister city program with Managua. If elected president, Sanders may not be able to stop the CIA--no president since JFK has bucked their power--but he will most certainly influence State Department policy and possibly CIA use of our embassies for destructive activities.

Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. will start truly supporting democracy in our hemisphere, at least--and in so far as the CIA permits it.

My, my, I need to curtail cynicism. I do think Sanders can win, maybe by a landslide, not only because, when people have a chance to hear him, they like and trust him, and approve of his policies, and believe that he means what he says. But also because the Republican candidates are so bizarre and out of touch, and Clinton is so corrupt and her corruption is becoming so widely known. (I mean, $600,000 from Goldman Sachs! Good grief!) Getting the nomination away from the corrupt, Corporate-controlled Clinton campaign will be harder for Sanders than winning the general election. He is by far the best candidate that the Democratic Party could put forward. And, if that happens, we will have ourselves the first non-interference U.S. president in the modern era.

[Zorro]

2. Oh the horror!

The US supporting democracy in Bolivia!

Evo wants no opposition to his plan to remain in power in perpetuity.

[flyfreebird]

3. Supporting democracy?

Since when has the empire supported anything close to democracy in Latin America? Lets review...
Chile, where I live, nope...Argentina, nope...Brazil maybe, nope... Venezuela, nope...Colombia, nope...
Bolivia, nope...I could on, but hopefully you get the point. Cheers.

[Judi Lynn]

4. So glad to see this post! You're clearly someone who's not in favor of exploitation

of the rest of the world just because it can be done.

As you've noticed, there are some dregs who worship the idea of walking over the backs of everyone who can't do anything about it. Bullying just for the general hell of it, and rubbing it in that there's no one who can stop it, and pretending anyone who opposes murderous, greedy, treacherous, dirty business is unpatriotic.

Even the slow learners should, by now, have a glimmering that perhaps their childhood educations were light on truthful accounts of history. The former Vice-President's wife, Lynne Cheney, busied herself in actually rewriting an American history book, with Texas schools more than happy to start using her version in schoolrooms, as they bring up more completely befuddled Texas schoolchildren.

Stupidity is in the blood of many people taking up physical space in the U.S. It's also mingled with truculence. Leftovers from the Civil War, no doubt.

What a blast of fresh air, reading your comments.

Welcome to D.U., flyfreebird.