Unstoppable Changes in Latin America, Correa

[AlphaCentauri]

Asuncion - Nothing or no one can stop the current important changes in Latin America in the people's interest, asserted in this capital Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who will conclude on Tuesday a two-day official visit to Paraguay.

After receiving in a ceremony the Marshal Francisco Solano Lopez collar, considered the highest Paraguayan distinction, Correa highlighted the crucial moments that the region is undergoing, boosted by a new generation of presidents that have focused their actions on social justice.

This historic turn, these democratic, participatory, and inclusive spaces are synonym of a profound humanism, the Ecuadorian president remarked, during the mentioned ceremony at the Government Palace.

The visitor referred later to the agreements he signed with his Paraguayan peer Fernando Lugo, those that will be pacts to be executed in the interest of our people and to act together in the international scenario.

These agreements will not be simple documents to be perpetuated in a photograph or let forgotten in archives, he asserted.

Both heads of State signed several cooperation accords, related to migratory, consular, and environment issues, cultural assets restitution and others.

The Ecuadorian President will travel on Tuesday, accompanied by the host president, to the southern Itaipua department, known as Paraguay's granary, where they have planned to meet local zbusinesspeople and producers.
http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/march/25/lam01.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Great comments, good news. Glad to hear Correa reiterate the reality

that Latin America means business. Now. Can't hear it often enough! Hoping every day for their success.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3086/2766030016_c8345a585f.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/0gDNcgA5gMccb/610x.jpg

[EFerrari]

2. I recently watched Greg Palast doing an ad for a LinkTv fundraiser

saying he knew Chavez pretty well but that Correa was "a whole 'nother level" of rebelling against American hegemony. (Okay, he didn't say "hegemony" but he did say a whole 'nother level.)

[Judi Lynn]

3. Now THAT'S some good news, that is! Greg Palast is an outstanding presence,

a superior journalist, one of the very few LEFT to help learn what remains of the truth that hasn't been hidden from us, yet.

Here's an illustration I just found, looking at images of the book "Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo Galeano.

This is the FIRST TIME I've seen this!

http://www.aaanet.org.nyud.net:8090/press/an/infocus/Heritage_In_Focus/Babb1.jpg

A Nicaraguan artist's depiction of an armed Ronald
Reagan sitting atop a women who represents the
"open veins" of Latin America, on display at a
cultural center. Photo by Florence Babb

[EFerrari]

4. Wow! I have to steal that and save it for the next time

these right wing nutcases try to celebrate that brute. :thumbsup:

[Judi Lynn]

5. Here's the site where I found it, and it doesn't mention who painted it, or

who the little figures represent, although I presume they are extensions of his power.

http://www.aaanet.org/press/an/infocus/Heritage_In_Focus/Babb.htm

I wish the picture could be clearer as I'd really like to know more about this!

I hope the complete truth about Reagan's REAL work as President will be completely well known in our lifetimes. It's a shame to realize there are so many clueless idiots driving cars, going in and out of the same stores, restaurants, who have no idea whatsoever yet about what has really been happening all this time.

No accident that they don't know. If consciousness were raised to the point the public felt a moral connection to the actions of their country the real slugs of the human race wouldn't be in control any longer.

[Peace Patriot]

6. "Humanism"! Haven't heard that word in a lo-o-o-o-ong time!

I think that, in Latin America, we're looking at more than a revived political revolution; we're also looking at the comeback of the truncated religious revolution of Pope John XXIII. The political revolution that began with eviction of the heinous Batista regime in Cuba was cut short by the bullets in Dallas (and Los Angeles*), given what James Douglass reveals in "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters." Douglass establishes that JFK was killed by the CIA to stop his peace initiatives to Castro and to Krushchev. JFK was intending to END the "Cold War." Douglass is coming from a religious perspective. He has been a member of the Catholic Worker community since his youth, and was a regular correspondent with Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who sought nuclear disarmament. Douglass believes that our society must comes to grips with this evil (the "unspeakable")--that our own people killed JFK out of war greed and paranoia--and to him it is both a spiritual and a political matter. And on the political end, JFK stands out as the only U.S. president, besides FDR, to conceive a just policy toward Latin America.

Simultaneous with JFK's backchannels to Castro and Krushchev, seeking a complete end to the conflict and world peace, Pope John XXIII was revolutionizing the Catholic Church, in his short tenure, in so many ways that it is difficult to count them all. One key change was Liberation Theology--the recognition that to be a Christian requires being a revolutionary advocate of the poor. And another was ecumenism--which was more than a new openness to other religious faiths; it was also a radical change toward humanism, a philosophy that originated in the 15th/16th centuries' Renaissance, and specifically in the rejection of the Medieval Church view that life was meant to be miserable and peasants and slaves should therefore accept their lot--they will be rewarded in Heaven. Humanism is, above all, a philosophy of delight in the potential of human beings--a celebration of our scientific and artistic achievements, and the application of our spirits to creating a good society and a good life for everyone here on Earth. Humanism overturned a thousand years of Church medievalism (i.e., fascism). Pope John XXIII attempted to, at long last, incorporate humanism into Catholic theology, and Church policy, and the everyday lives of Catholics.

Both movements--the peace movement that was already beginning way back in 1963, and which JFK was already attuned to, and had hoped to lead in his second term, and the ecumenical movement in the Catholic Church--were smashed by the war profiteers and the greedy and the fascist among us. I straddled both movements in my youth, as Douglass did, and I can state from experience that the suppression of the ecumenical movement was deliberate. Liberated Catholics would have led the revolution here to dismantle the U.S. war machine--just as they tried so hard, at such great and horrific sacrifice, to further the social justice movement in Latin America.

When I look at these photos of Rafael Correa and the former bishop, now president, of Paraguay--and knowing what I know about them--and read Correa's reference to "humanism," I see far, far more than a political event. Ecumenism--the love of humanity--is back. Real Christianity--the true revolution that occurred 2,000 years ago (and was totally suppressed by the 5th Century A.D., by the Bushwhacks of that era)--and that was revived by Pope John in the 1960s--is alive and well in Latin America.

----------

*(Douglass' second book in this trilogy will be about RFK, and I believe his thesis will be similar--because in the first book he establishes that Bobby was his brother's only ally in his strategy to end the "Cold War" completely.)

[Judi Lynn]

7. It's good to learn there's a book out on this subject. Few people seem to know Kennedy was working

on removing the barriers to an honorable relationship with Cuba.

There's a documentary which gets recycled on the Discovery channel regularly, which can be counted on appearing probably twice a year or more often, on this very subject. Here's a website which discusses the material:

Kennedy Sought Dialogue with Cuba

INITIATIVE WITH CASTRO ABORTED BY ASSASSINATION,
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm

~~~~~~~~~
One of his aides went ahead and met with Che Guevara and had a serious conversation with him. His remarks regarding that meeting are archived.

And it does appear the timing would indicate a real rush to get him out of the picture, as he was VERY close to totally restructuring the U.S. position on Cuba.

It would be worth a lifetime of waiting to see the progress which was sabotaged so long ago is going to be completed, one way or another.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Yes, and how ironical and beautiful it is, that the new "Renaissance" is originating

in South America! I often marvel at this. We are becoming the "banana republic" now (the world's biggest), while they--who suffered so much oppression--have given new life to democracy and to humanism.