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citizens think of it. South America is moving very fast toward their own Common Market that does not include us. We are being EXCLUDED, as our economy gets tanked by Bushite/global corporate predator looting, and their economies become integrated, prosperous and aimed at social justice, as they increasingly take local control of natural resources, use resources like oil to bootstrap the poor, kick the World Bank/IMF out of their region, kick U.S. military bases out of South America (which Ecuador and Paraguay are going to do - it may take longer in Central America), reject the corrupt, failed U.S. "war on drugs," create new institutions like the Bank of the South (regionally controlled development funds), and seek self-determination, cooperation and fair trade with mixed socialist/capitalist economies.
WE are meanwhile becoming the biggest "banana republic" on earth.
Every effort of the Bush Junta to topple democratic countries in South America, to "divide and conquer," to slander and lie about the new leftist democracies and their leaders, to use the usual old CIA dirty tricks, funding of rightwing groups, funding/instigating coup plots, has failed. Their recent effort to instigate a war between Colombia ($5.5 BILLION in Bush-U.S. military aid), and Ecuador/Venezuela failed. The leftists (especially Chavez) are too smart for them. Their wild, desperate allegations that the presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela are "terrorist-lovers" are laughed at. They seem to have successfully planted the notion in North American minds that Chavez is a "dictator," but it doesn't matter. Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, recently said, "You can fault Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy." He also called Chavez "the great peacemaker" (for preventing the war that Bush client state, Colombia, tried to start). The South Americans know what's what, so it doesn't matter what WE know. We've lost control of our government anyway (to Bushite-controlled "trade secret" voting machines), so OUR views are irrelevant. It's a wonder that our corporate news monopolies bother to propagandize us. (Well, I do think they fear us--so maybe that's why. If we ever get rid of the rigged voting machines, we will bust their news monopolies good and properly. They know this.)
When Rafael Correa was running for president of Ecuador, neck and neck (50/50) against the biggest banana magnate in the country, reporters asked him what he thought of Hugo Chavez's remark to the UN that Bush is the Devil. Correa's reply: "It's an insult to the Devil." His numbers soared and he won the election with 60% of the vote. I don't know for sure if that reply is what got him the landslide, but it certainly didn't hurt.
The South Americans have the Bushites on the run. That's why Bill Richardson is on his way to visit Chavez (on Obama's behalf). The ostensible reason is to ask for Chavez's help in getting three U.S. military contractor hostages released by the Colombian FARC guerrillas. But the real reason is that the Bushites have "lost" South America, and these new leftist governments that have swept elections all over the continent need to be reckoned with, whether the Bush Junta likes it or not. Exxon Mobil just lost its case in a London court in their dirty rotten effort to freeze $12 billion of Venezuela' assets (in a dispute over Venezuela's 60% share in its own oil--a deal that Norway's Statoil, France's Total, British BP and even Chevron agreed to). Paraguay just elected leftist Fernando Lugo (the beloved "bishop of the poor") as president, overturning 60 years of corrupt, rightwing, Bush-friendly rule. The Bushites are on the run. They are renegades everywhere but here, where they are still allowed to parade around as legitimate rulers, and get quoted in the newspaper as if they were respectable people whose opinions matter. They have power, but no legitimacy. That reality is masked here, by the toady corporate press and collusive Democrats. But it's out in the open in South America.
So, either we get rid of the rigged voting machines and restore democracy here, or WE are going to become as irrelevant to South America, and to the world, as the Bushites have become.
I'm not saying that the Bushites can't still cause great suffering and grief in South America or other places. They can. And they have plans to. They are currently trying to instigate a civil war in Bolivia, with Bush-backed white separatists intending to split off the gas/oil-rich eastern provinces from the central government of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a mostly indigenous country)--the most worrisome Bushite trouble spot in South America, at the moment. And they will, no doubt, use the billions they've stolen from us in Iraq, Blackwater mercenaries and other forces, to keep causing trouble in South America, even if the U.S. government changes hands, and regains its senses. Their goal is to restore corporate predator control of the resources (especially the oil in Venezuela and Ecuador). Rumsfeld and others have their plans. I'm just saying that they will FAIL. And in so far as our government engages in any more of this crap in South America, our country will be completely discredited and on the outs.
That's what the Bushites have done to us. We are a waning power, plundered by Bush's pals, the super-rich and various global corporate predators and powerful, foreign, anti-democratic countries (Saudi Arabia, China). And we have lost all moral and ethical credit--that others attributed to us, as a people, even if our government didn't live up to our ideals. We are sullied. We are powerless. Our democracy is in tatters. And it's rather a wonderful comeuppance for us, that the things our people have always stood for--honest elections, open government, fairness and justice, the rule of law, the Geneva Conventions, the UCMJ, the UN Charter, upward mobility for the poor, decent public services for all, human rights, civil rights--have SUCCEEDED in South America, while the Bushites have destroyed them here.
U.S. power in South America has almost never been used for the good. We have prospered to a considerable degree on the backs of the poor there. So I don't mean that Bushite "loss" of South America is bad. It couldn't be more just and right. But I think it's terribly sad that we, the people of the U.S.--the poor, the middle class, the majority--cannot work cooperatively with the countries in our own hemisphere for our mutual prosperity, good government and on even bigger projects like saving the planet. We've lost three decades (since Reagan) on all of these goals. I don't know if Barack Obama hopes to turn this around, in any meaningful way, or that he can even be elected here, if he does intend REAL--democratic with a small d--policy. Richardson's overture to Chavez may be a positive sign, both that Obama means well, and that our corporate rulers have reached the limit of what they can gain from the Bush Junta, and intend to back off on creation of a full-on nazi junta in the U.S.--Argentina's Dirty War, writ large here. I think they're backing off. I hope I'm right. And if they do, we have the social movements, the peasant farmers, the indigenous, the trade unions, and all the leftists in South America to thank for it--at least in part--for they helped to block Neo-Con goals of world domination.
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