All the good news (comes from South America)
Throughout 2005, as the news from Europe and the English-speaking world proved almost invariably depressing, it was always a huge relief to turn to South America, which provided social democrats with a steady diet of almost unadulterated good news.
Of course, things had gotten off to a very good start in August 2004, with the reaffirmation of Chavez's revolution in Venezuela, the victory of Frente Amplio candidate Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay on October 31, 2004, as well as gains for Chile’s progressive coalition in the municipal elections the same day and for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
Then, in early 2005, at the APEC meeting held in Santiago, 'George W. Bush was greeted by thousands of Chileans, protesting his trade and military policies and telling him to go home.' (SOURCE) In early November, there was more to gladden a leftwinger's hearts when 'Latin America scored a major victory over US economic and political domination in the Summit of the Americas in Argentina.' (SOURCE) Once again, George Bush was persona non grata, and it is unlikely that the world will soon forget the spectacle of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona lamblasting Bush in front of thousands of cheering spectators, Chavez by his side.
Then, on December 18 elections in Bolivia handed a decisive victory to Evo Morales, leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). Morales achieved the seemingly impossible when he became not only Latin America's first indigenous president, but also the first Bolivian presidential candidate in a very long time to win an outright majority. As one commentator points out, 'With Morales' election, 80 percent of South America's population now live under left or center-left governments.' (SOURCE) Now, socialist Michelle Bachelet has won the presidency of Chile with 53.5 percent of the vote. Whatever the tepid nature of Bachelet's socialism, it is a profoundly symbolic victory for a victim of the American-backed military coup which swept President Allende from power in 1973. (SOURCE)
What underpins the radical shift South America is making to the left is the fact that, unlike elites almost anywhere else, there is an alternative vision of the future - a vision that is the product of the region's persistent thwarting by American power and global institutions that are mere proxies for international financial power. As Deborah James writes,
'Latin American leaders have been more successful in challenging the Bush administration's policies than Democrats in the US, because their opposition to Bush is based on a vision for a truly alternative economic model. Regional integration has built stronger relationships of trust among Latin American and Caribbean nations, looking to solve development problems by investing in their workforces and pooling collective resources.' (SOURCE)
The sad fact is that almost everywhere else, the custodians of the alternative economic models, the social democrats, have been infiltrated and compromised. We know that Clinton was former CIA and that Blair was former MI5. The day will probably come when we will learn who people like former German chancellor Gerhart Schroeder, Swedish PM Goran Persson,* and Australian Labor party leader Kim Beazley were really working for.
* On Persson, I found the following article enlightening:
'Swedes recently have become used to seeing their prime minister wearing a yarmulke. During the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in late January, Prime Minister Göran Persson addressed a World Jewish Congress event and a remembrance ceremony on separate nights in the Great Synagogue of Stockholm.
Included in the massive Swedish press coverage of the international conference was a short article about the variety of kipot seen in the synagogue and on the heads of visiting religious Jews. Aftonbladet, the afternoon tabloid newspaper, noted that Persson's kipa neatly covered his bald spot.'
The article also reveals that Persson plans to devote a substantial amount of Swedish taxpayers' money to the cause of, presumably, Holocaust indoctrination and making Swedes generally more Zio-friendly (don't forget that they recently had to assassinate Persson's sidekick, foreign minister Anna Lindh, because she was forthrightly pro-Palestinian and had a good chance of becoming prime minister herself one day):
'At the concluding press conference of the Stockholm forum, in response to a question from The American Jewish World, Persson explained that 40 million crowns from the Riksbank, the Swedish treasury, will go to the Swedish Jewish community to support educational and cultural programming.' That works out at 2,000 crowns per Swedish Jew.
What's more, the Swedish government will leave it up to the Jews to decide how to spend the money:
'He expressed the hope that other donors would enlarge the fund, and emphasized that spending decisions would rest with the Jewish community.' (SOURCE) This is interesting, because these days governments tend to attach conditions to the money they give away. It looks to me like Jewish groups are exempt from the usual conventions of public financing.
You have to wonder about these neoliberals in social democrat clothing who flaunt their Holocaust consciousness and sensitivity to the Jewish community on every possible occasion. Are these pseudo-social democrats possibly crypto-Jews? And if so are they starting to come out of the closet?
Of course, things had gotten off to a very good start in August 2004, with the reaffirmation of Chavez's revolution in Venezuela, the victory of Frente Amplio candidate Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay on October 31, 2004, as well as gains for Chile’s progressive coalition in the municipal elections the same day and for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
Then, in early 2005, at the APEC meeting held in Santiago, 'George W. Bush was greeted by thousands of Chileans, protesting his trade and military policies and telling him to go home.' (SOURCE) In early November, there was more to gladden a leftwinger's hearts when 'Latin America scored a major victory over US economic and political domination in the Summit of the Americas in Argentina.' (SOURCE) Once again, George Bush was persona non grata, and it is unlikely that the world will soon forget the spectacle of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona lamblasting Bush in front of thousands of cheering spectators, Chavez by his side.
Then, on December 18 elections in Bolivia handed a decisive victory to Evo Morales, leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). Morales achieved the seemingly impossible when he became not only Latin America's first indigenous president, but also the first Bolivian presidential candidate in a very long time to win an outright majority. As one commentator points out, 'With Morales' election, 80 percent of South America's population now live under left or center-left governments.' (SOURCE) Now, socialist Michelle Bachelet has won the presidency of Chile with 53.5 percent of the vote. Whatever the tepid nature of Bachelet's socialism, it is a profoundly symbolic victory for a victim of the American-backed military coup which swept President Allende from power in 1973. (SOURCE)
What underpins the radical shift South America is making to the left is the fact that, unlike elites almost anywhere else, there is an alternative vision of the future - a vision that is the product of the region's persistent thwarting by American power and global institutions that are mere proxies for international financial power. As Deborah James writes,
'Latin American leaders have been more successful in challenging the Bush administration's policies than Democrats in the US, because their opposition to Bush is based on a vision for a truly alternative economic model. Regional integration has built stronger relationships of trust among Latin American and Caribbean nations, looking to solve development problems by investing in their workforces and pooling collective resources.' (SOURCE)
The sad fact is that almost everywhere else, the custodians of the alternative economic models, the social democrats, have been infiltrated and compromised. We know that Clinton was former CIA and that Blair was former MI5. The day will probably come when we will learn who people like former German chancellor Gerhart Schroeder, Swedish PM Goran Persson,* and Australian Labor party leader Kim Beazley were really working for.
* On Persson, I found the following article enlightening:
'Swedes recently have become used to seeing their prime minister wearing a yarmulke. During the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in late January, Prime Minister Göran Persson addressed a World Jewish Congress event and a remembrance ceremony on separate nights in the Great Synagogue of Stockholm.
Included in the massive Swedish press coverage of the international conference was a short article about the variety of kipot seen in the synagogue and on the heads of visiting religious Jews. Aftonbladet, the afternoon tabloid newspaper, noted that Persson's kipa neatly covered his bald spot.'
The article also reveals that Persson plans to devote a substantial amount of Swedish taxpayers' money to the cause of, presumably, Holocaust indoctrination and making Swedes generally more Zio-friendly (don't forget that they recently had to assassinate Persson's sidekick, foreign minister Anna Lindh, because she was forthrightly pro-Palestinian and had a good chance of becoming prime minister herself one day):
'At the concluding press conference of the Stockholm forum, in response to a question from The American Jewish World, Persson explained that 40 million crowns from the Riksbank, the Swedish treasury, will go to the Swedish Jewish community to support educational and cultural programming.' That works out at 2,000 crowns per Swedish Jew.
What's more, the Swedish government will leave it up to the Jews to decide how to spend the money:
'He expressed the hope that other donors would enlarge the fund, and emphasized that spending decisions would rest with the Jewish community.' (SOURCE) This is interesting, because these days governments tend to attach conditions to the money they give away. It looks to me like Jewish groups are exempt from the usual conventions of public financing.
You have to wonder about these neoliberals in social democrat clothing who flaunt their Holocaust consciousness and sensitivity to the Jewish community on every possible occasion. Are these pseudo-social democrats possibly crypto-Jews? And if so are they starting to come out of the closet?
