Hugo Chavez once said

Hugo Chavez once said "Imagine if the U.S. declared peace on the world, brought home all its troops, and started producing food and medicine to help the world's poor."

Now that's what we need to hear from leaders. Too bad Canada is led by a warmonger.

New Latin Left

I'll be taking a look at Ali's book. And yes, Dyer definitely has some interesting insight into the situation in Latin America.

I will be watching to see what direction Ortega takes, but there can be no doubt he's a far more watered down version of the Sandinista he once was, and that's being very kind. Nicaragua, however, has been decimated by failed neo-liberal economic policies. So much of the population lives in terrible poverty now that it is next to unrecognizable as the place it was even from the late '80s. Ortega will have to begin to initiate more progressive policies, both to get help from Venezuela and to show he can alleviate some of the truly massive suffering of the poor.

Cuba and Venezuela are certainly ever more tied at the hip. It will be interesting if they do try for some sort of federated arrangement. But like Dyer says, it would have to be a relatively loose federation. If the Cubans as a whole are anything, they are an intensely nationalistic and proud people. Whatever Cubans' feelings about their government, they are proud to be Cuban and they want a Cuba run by Cubans. That, along with a profound understanding of many of the real accomplishments of the revolution, is why there hasn't been any unrest over Castro's illness. None of them want Cuba to be run by Americans again (and when I say Cubans I do not mean. Cuban-Americans).

Dyer thinks the Americans will throw "unlimited" amounts of money at Cuba once Castro dies to try to effect an economic takeover. I suppose that is a possibility, but given the amount the Americans are currently spending on war I suspect the amounts of money they might have available will be far from "unlimited". What's more the Cuban-American terrorist groups that have been supported by the CIA since the Cuban revolution are almost guaranteed to try and sabotage any easy rapprochement. They are a truly murderous bunch.

I can only hope that, if there is any post-Castro transition, it will be slow and smooth. One that enables Cubans to preserve their truly remarkable accomplishments in health, medicine and education, while enabling a gradual opening of trade with the U.S., so Cubans can see an improvement in their standards of living. They need to avoid at all costs a Russian style shock transition where the nation's assets are sold off for pennies to a tiny powerful elite of oligarchs, while the rest of the population gets to live in squalor, and can only press their noses against the glass of the new Yankee shops stocked with the latest iPods and designer clothes. The corruption of corporate capitalism will simply destroy Cuba. I don't believe Cubans will let that happen. Hopefully, they will be able to realize something along the lines of what Vietnam is doing, as that would be far better for the Cuban population as a whole.

Although, if Cuba does enter some sort of federated arrangement with Venezuela, who knows what Latin America could look like in 20 or 30 years. Imagine a Latin American trading block along the lines of the EU. It certainly would make sense for them from an economic stand point, and they have far fewer language and cultural barriers than Europeans do. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Bechtel

....tried to privatize the very clouds over Bolivia
http://www.democracyctr.org/bechtel/
And we're supposed to tsk! tsk! South America for going "pink"?

isn't it?

Mighty strange stuff coming down the pike: We are more or less aclimatized to the (dis) information that Ortega "lost" the hearts and minds of his country while attempting to stand up to Ollie and Reagan. Should he have "rolled over" sooner?
Now Glen Beck (CNN this evening"News") seems to be carting out this (and other collapses of "populist" movements when faced with the threat or reality of Yanky F-18s bombing out your snot) as a failure of "communist" or "grass roots" government.

Lets see:
You find yourself not in favour in washington, you carry on with whatever activity the US Government has dissagreed with and the jets appear low and fast. Or worse - as Ortega found out. T'anks God for my annonimaty but thetyee should purchase a couple of Beaufort Ak- Ak

which "everything that has

which "everything that has been privatized (ie, corporatized) will be nationalized."

A good idea that vwe should adopt with the added proviso - without compensation, serious jail time for the criminals like Campbell who stole our property and community and worker control of these de-corporatized industries.

Proviso

Considering that they got the goods for nothing, there is nothing to "compensate" for..........

Tariq Ali's revenge?

Since Tariq Ali is taking his revenge on the "apostates of the left," it might be interesting to review some his comments made on a television panel filmed in Oxford by Canadian Television in 1970:

"...he was asked 'Do you believe, sir, that society today has reached the point where you see you have to use violence to achieve your ends?' Comrade Ali replied:

'I would say that this is largely a tactical question, depending precisely on the degree of opposition which we encounter in our struggle for socialism. But briefly, the answer is yes. I think that to achieve the ends we believe in to the establishment of a socialist republic, I believe that a certain element of violence is absolutely necessary.'

Another provocative question was: 'When you were president of the Oxford Debating Union did you not invite Governor Wallace of Alabama to speak at the Oxford Union?'

Comrade Ali answered: 'Yes. Do you know why? Because we would have killed him.'

That did not come off so well, and Comrade Ali was soon explaining:

'Of course, when I say, "Kill him," I don't mean it necessarily literally. It's a tactical question. If I believed we could get away with killing him we would. It is a question of if you are organized to do so. I don't think we are. I meant kill him politically. That is what we wanted to do, but that wouldn't have taken place because Wallace wouldn't have got further past Oxford Station.'

Comrade Ali did what he could to turn the provocative questions into a high-level dialogue on the difference between 'individual terror' with mass support and 'individual terror' without mass support.... 'At times, he said,

'I think that individual terror becomes necessary. I don't believe in individual terror as a principle; I am completely opposed to it. I'll give you a concrete instance. I don't believe in solving this particular argument by shooting off a few people, who are making rude noises. Nor do I (believe) that individual terror can in itself bring you any nearer to what we believe in. Of course not. I believe that individual terror is justified when you have a mass movement, when you have mass support inside a particular society, then it is justified.'"

(The above quote is from "The Leninist Strategy of Party Building" by Joseph Hansen, Pathfinder Press, 1979)