Venezuela Watch

Well, generally speaking those who criticize or ridicule the "capitalist free market" are considered left-wing in this world. Nothing particularly devious about that. I'd personally consider it, if anything, a compliment, but that's just me.


This was the quote I'm referring to:

First: "Don't worry guys. Soon [..] you guys can sing in chorus about the righteousness of the capitalist free market and deny it could have been anything else had any thing to do with it."

Fbaezer answered, and you responded to him: "I don't know you. But I don't really consider you one of the "guys" I refer to."

So who were you referring to? There's practically noone on this thread ready to praise "the righteousness of the capitalist free market". Well, George (bless his heart). Most of the people you are arguing against here are critics of the capitalist free market themselves.

So your attempt to make out that the only reason people criticize Chavez must be that, you know, they're just those who would "sing in chorus about the righteousness of the capitalist free market" anyway is bullshit, and strikes one as a facile way to dismiss the actual examples they bring of things Chavez is wrong about. You are simply not being honest or fair when you're arguing like this, it's a straw man you're using, to deflect, rather than analyse arguments.


BUT NOBODY DOES. Well, George perhaps. Otherwise this is a straw man, an escapist response. How many times do we need to repeat this? Yes, what the CIA has done throughout the decades in Latin-America is Very Bad. We know. And? How does that make any wrong on the part of Chavez any better?

I am refereing to "you guys" (anybody it applys to) of demonizing Chavez while turning a blind eye to a massive relevance of his accusers motives and their history in Latin America. As if the IMF, the World Bank and the U.S. government are somehow good examples of capitalism and the freemarket trying to "save" Venezuela from the Mad dictator Chavez.

It's f**king stupid.

Did you see in the HRW report where they push loans from Global banks and U.S. intervention.

The world bank and the other bank are Monopolist. Is monopoly good for the free market? So if I am against bank monopolies of land and labour how does that make nessisarily make me part of this "leftest" club?

If a bank (capitalism) or the government (communism) control all the land and labour do you think the 80% of the people in Venezuela living in poverty or the people working in the sweat shops in China give a **** what you call it, Left wing? Right wing? I don't.

"Chavez is like Lenin!"

"Chavez is a dictator that is destroying democracy!"

" Look, Hes hurting people there! Bush and the World Bank should save them!"

It's ludicrous. It's becoming comical. Everytime I check out this Chavez thing it makes my case stronger. You post an HRW report of Venezuela and theres a recommendation for a World Bank loan right in the middle and a recommendation for the U.S. government to intervene in it to.

Is mother teresa supposed to be the president of Venezuela and ask the U.S. and the C.I.A. pretty please don't f**k us up and take our land, oil and labour while they use EVERY means possible to do so

Whatever Nimh.

"When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint; but when I asked why people are poor, they called me a communist."
- Brazilian Bishop Don Helder Camara

Amigo,

You are flailing about against imaginary enemies. No one here has advocated either American intervention or that of the IMF for Venezuela. The responsibility and the power for the administration of Venezuelan political and economic affairs are, and have long been, in the hands of Venezuelans. That they have failed to overcome the racial, social, and economic barriers that have for so long plagued so many South American countries is no one's fault but their own. (It is noteworthy that some countries, such as Chile have overcome them, and others such as Mexico and Brazil have made substantial progress in this.) Throughout most of the past century Venezuela has enjoyed rather large external revenues from the production and sale of its considerable petroleum resources. That it has largely wasted these riches and has failed to invest in the education and social & economic development of its people is a regrettable thing, but it is certainly not the fault of the United States, The IMF, or the World Bank.

Now Hugo Chavez has come along, a populist, authoritarian, demagogue in the tradition of Juan Peron of Argentina, Guetilio Vargas of Brazi, and perhaps Fidel Castro of poor, unhappy Cuba.. He is indeed spending the state's money on a number of highly touted programs for the poor and disenfranchised - just as did his predecessors in this sorry game. The unfortunate fact is that he is doing little to advance the creation of productive enterprise among the Venezuelan people, of any economic class. The money (and the expropriated property of others) are being cast about in highly visible programs to enhance the power and prestige of the new leader and the continued allegance - and dependance - of the social classes on whom his power is based. (He needs and wants their continued dependence on his authoritarian rule, and they will become victim to the illusion of a benevolent dictator who will solve their problems for them.) We can all hope that the results for the Venezuelan people will be far better than what these methods have achieved in other countries, but that hope is not supported by reasoned analysis of previous such experiences. Quite the contrary: the usual result is increased social discord; a diminished spirit of enterprise resulting from the expropriation of property and the attendant culture of economic dependence on government; a popular addiction to fantasies of external agents who have supposedly created local troubles, instead of constructive action in place to correct the local barriers to development; and a loss of the spirit of democracy and self government.

You can continue your fantasies as you wish. However please note that the IMF is a monopoly only in the sense that it is the lender of last resort. No other banks are competing to serve the borrowers it services. No country is forced to apply for an IMF loan, and no bank would grant loans under the relatively generous terms it establishes. It does, however, require the repayment of existing loans as a precondition to the granting of further loans. Do you find that to be an intolerable condition?

London Mayor Ken Livingstone on Hugo Chavez
Not a difficult choice at all

Chavez and Venezuela deserve the support of all who believe in social
justice and democracy

By Ken Livingstone

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1774913,00.html The Guardian
May 15, 2006

(Ken Livingstone is the mayor of London)

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela will today become the second head of
state - after the Queen - to be welcomed to London's City Hall. When it
comes to the social transformation taking place in Venezuela, the
political qualifications often necessary in our imperfect world can be
set aside. It is crystal clear on which side right and justice lies. For
many years people have demanded that social progress and democracy go
hand in hand, and that is exactly what is now taking place in
Venezuela.

It therefore deserves the unequivocal support of not only every supporter
of social progress but every genuine believer in democracy in the
world.

Venezuela is a state of huge oil wealth that was hitherto scarcely used
to benefit the population. Now, for the first time in a country of over
25 million people, a functioning health service is being built. Seventeen
million people have been given access to free healthcare for the first
time in their lives. Illiteracy has been eliminated. Fifteen million
people have been given access to food, medicines and other essential
products at affordable prices. A quarter of a million eye operations have
been financed to rescue people from blindness. These are extraordinary
practical achievements.

Little wonder, then, that Chavez and his supporters have won 10
elections in eight years. These victories were achieved despite a private
media largely controlled by opponents of the government. Yet Chávez's
visit has been met with absurd claims from rightwing activists that he is
some kind of dictator.

The opponents of democracy are those who orchestrated a coup against
Chavez, captured on film in the extraordinary documentary The Revolution
Will Not Be Televised. It is a film that literally changes lives. By
chance, a TV crew was in the presidential palace when the military coup
of April 2002 against Chavez took place. It captured minute by minute
the events that unfolded.

Anti-Chavez gunmen, in league with the coup organisers, opened fire on a
pro-Chavez demonstration. As guns are commonplace in Venezuela, some in
the crowd returned fire. US television stations manipulated these images
by editing out the gunfire aimed at the pro- Chavez crowd to claim that
anti-Chavez demonstrators had been attacked.

A million people took to the streets of Caracas to demand Chavez's
release. The moment when the army deserted the coup leaders and went over
to support the demonstrators is shown on film.

It is a sign of how little David Cameron's Conservative party has changed
that London Tories are boycotting today's meeting with Chavez. This
contrasts, of course, with the Tories' longstanding feting of the
murdering torturer General Augusto Pinochet. To justify their position
they ludicrously compare Chavez to Stalin. Sometimes it is necessary to
choose the lesser of two evils. Britain fought with Stalin against
Hitler. But with Chavez the choice is not difficult at all. He is both
carrying out a progressive programme and doing so through the mandate of
the ballot box.

George Bush's refusal to respect the choices of the Venezuelan people
shows that his administration has no real interest in promoting democracy
at all.

Not since the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power have people faced
a clearer or more important international choice. In Venezuela millions
are struggling to take their country out of poverty. They are doing so by
means that are among the most democratic in the world. Both are
inspiring.

Today Venezuela is being opposed largely on the basis of lies. We have to
make sure Venezuelans have to face nothing worse. It is the duty of all
people who support progress, justice and democracy to stand with
Venezuela.

[email protected]

P.T. Barnum was correct. There's one born every minute....

The same rhetoric was lavished on the Leninist "reformers" in the former Soviet Union, and in some quarters is still used for the tyrant Fidel Castro. Oddly the results are always the opposite of the partisan rhetoric.

The fact is that apart from expressions of contempt for Chavez' rhetoric and regret at the damage he is doing to what there was of Venezuelan democracy (not very much in fact) the United States and other democratic countries have taken no action against Chavez. He, on the other hand takes every opportunity to foment the illusion that he is the beseiged protector of the Venezuelan people and gratuitously offend democratic countries. In fact no one outside Venezuela is very interested in him. He is yet another reincarnation of a very familiar pattern of authoritarian demagogues of the political left and right who have so impeded the development of South American countries.

George, I read your post. I cosidered all your points. Then I read blueflames. Then I read this in your next post



I think Barnum might have been wrong. Apparently one is born every 30 seconds.

I can no longer fetch the facts for "you guys". It's a waste of my time. I will only tell you one more thing.

I will always learn more from you then you will ever learn from me.

Perhaps. That depends entirely on your willingness to learn. Without it the resuklt will be just a tie.

george, history was recorded as it happened and you can try to revise it but fruitlessly. "Venezuela coup linked to Bush team"

Specialists in the 'dirty wars' of the Eighties encouraged the plotters who tried to topple President Chavez

Observer Worldview

Ed Vulliamy in New York
Sunday April 21, 2002
The Observer

The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.
Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere.

It also also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan.

One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

The Bush administration has tried to distance itself from the coup. It immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona. But the coup was sent dramatically into reverse after 48 hours.

Now officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.

The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.

Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan's National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House.

North was convicted and shamed for his role in Iran-Contra, whereby arms bought by busting US sanctions on Iran were sold to the Contra guerrillas and death squads, in revolt against the Marxist government in Nicaragua.

Reich also has close ties to Venezuela, having been made ambassador to Caracas in 1986. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and political leaders in the Latin American country. The objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market.

Reich is said by OAS sources to have had 'a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup' over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent.

On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democra tic rule, as he had resigned and was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the US would support the Carmona government.

But the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for 'democracy, human rights and international opera tions'. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as 'Hemispherism', which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.

It led to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the sponsorship of regimes and death squads that followed it in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and elsewhere. During the Contras' rampage in Nicaragua, he worked directly to North.

Congressional investigations found Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion. Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George Bush senior.

A third member of the Latin American triangle in US policy-making is John Negroponte, now ambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16, tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said Negroponte had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez' at the beginning of the year.

More than 100 people died in events before and after the coup. In Caracas on Friday a military judge confined five high-ranking officers to indefinite house arrest pending formal charges of rebellion.

Chavez's chief ideologue - Guillermo Garcia Ponce, director of the Revolutionary Political Command - said dissident generals, local media and anti-Chavez groups in the US had plotted the president's removal.

'The most reactionary sectors in the United States were also implicated in the conspiracy,' he said.

Venezuela intends to import the bulk of weapons from Russia - ambassador

19 May. Venezuelan Ambassador to Russia Alexis Navarro Rojas in an interview with Interfax expressed the intentions of his country to negotiate Russian arms deliveries to Venezuela.

"Venezuela needs to renew its arms systems. Several years ago we decided that we won't buy weapons from the United States and that the bulk of new orders will be placed with Russia. Our military experts have studied the parameters of the arms that Russia is offering and concluded that they are the best in the world," the ambassador said.

Rojas said there are several reasons why Venezuela is switching from importing U.S.-made weapons to Russian-made products, including the "aggressive foreign policy of Washington" and "irresponsibility in the fulfillment of contracts."

"The weapons we are getting from Russia come with guarantees of further maintenance services and personnel training," he said.

The Venezuelan government is preparing for talks on the delivery of Su-35 fighters from Russia, Rojas said.

"Our pilots have flown on Su-27 and Su-30 fighters already. They have simply fallen in love with the aircraft. They have also tried piloting Su-35. Now we are waiting for talks to begin," he said.

Russia has already delivered Mi-17 helicopters, which Venezuela is using for transportation and also for border patrols to prevent drug trafficking. The delivery of Mi-26 and Mi-35 helicopters is also expected, Rojas said.

In the near future Venezuela will also receive 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. "Some people are trying to underestimate the importance of the weapons, but they are very important for us as we will use them to replace outdated guns that had been used for over 55 years," the ambassador said.

http://www.interfax.com/17/157962/Interview.aspx

(Meet John Negroponte and the South America Iraq conection -Amigo)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5457

The bearable lightness of being John Negroponte's conscience

"It may have been a long trek politically for John Negroponte from proconsul in Honduras to proconsul in Baghdad. But for a man with no noticeable moral conscience the distance is a very short step. Along with his colleague John Maisto, now US Representative to the Organization of American States, Negroponte worked efficiently to cover-up and explain away atrocities and human rights abuses so as to expedite Ronald Reagan's terrorist war in Central America."

"With his well-documented record in Central America, Negroponte is certainly the right man to represent the Bush regime in Iraq. He is the very model of a totally Teflon torture manager. The fact that neither Congress nor mainstream media ever grill Negroponte seriously on his record in Honduras does much to explain the catastrophe in Iraq. We can try and hide the truth about ourselves in the attic like the portrait of Dorian Gray. But the ugliness and the horror remain there all the same."

-------------------------------

(The "El Salador option" -amigo)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120300881.html

Iraq's Death Squads

Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page B06

OF ALL THE bloodshed in Iraq, none may be more disturbing than the campaign of torture and murder being conducted by U.S.-trained government police forces. Reports last week in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times chronicled how Iraqi Interior Ministry commando and police units have been infiltrated by two Shiite militias, which have been conducting ethnic cleansing and rounding up Sunnis suspected of supporting the insurgency. Hundreds of bodies have been appearing along roadsides and in garbage dumps, some with acid burns or with holes drilled in them. According to the searing account by Solomon Moore of the Los Angeles Times, "the Baghdad morgue reports that dozens of bodies arrive at the same time on a weekly basis, including scores of corpses with wrists bound by police handcuffs." The reports followed a raid two weeks ago by U.S. troops on a clandestine Baghdad prison run by the Interior Ministry, where some 170 men, most of them Sunni and most of them starved or tortured, were found.

The danger this development poses to Iraq, and to the prospects of a successful end to the U.S. mission there, ought to be obvious. A dirty war conducted by the Iraqi government against one ethnic group will make civil war inevitable. It will render impossible a political accord among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, while increasing the likelihood that Iraq will splinter. U.S. commanders will be unable to hand responsibility off to Iraqi forces without inviting a bloodbath, and the training mission that President Bush described at length in his speech on Wednesday will be utterly discredited. If there is to be any chance of achieving Mr. Bush's goals of a united and democratic Iraq that protects the rights of its minorities, the state-sponsored death squads and torture chambers must be dismantled.

------------------------

(War is peace American Democracy -Amigo)

http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4300

John Negroponte, the US National Intelligence Director, provided testimony on Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on "global threats." Negroponte, who was the US ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005, was immediately promoted to his current position after his presence in Iraq. Ironically, he warned the committee on Tuesday, "If chaos were to descend upon Iraq or the forces of democracy were to be defeated in that country ... this would have implications for the rest of the Middle East region and, indeed, the world."

Warning of the outcome of a possible civil war in Iraq, Negroponte said sectarian civil war in Iraq would be a "serious setback" to the global war on terror. Note - he did not say it would be a "serious setback" to the Iraqi people, over 1,400 of whom have been slaughtered in sectarian violence touched off by the bombing of the Golden Mosque last week in
Samarra.

No, the violence and instability in Iraq would be a "serious setback" to the global "war on terror."

But it's interesting for him to continue, "The consequences for the people of Iraq would be catastrophic," whilst feigning his concern. Because generating catastrophic consequences for civilian populations just happens to be his specialty.

That there was an attempt to stop Chavez' hijacking of the democratic process in Venezuela by the local opposition, first through the election commission and later by an abortive coup is well known. That the supporters of this resistance might have sought the assistance of the United States is quite obvious. Equally obvious would be the assumptiion that they received a sympathetic hearing here. However the Unitted States made no serious effort to aid them or to topple the then new Chavez government. We could have done so quite easily, and with confidence of success. The problem is that the opposition in Venezuela was not a hell of a lot better from our perspective than Chavez himself.

It is easy and convenient for the apologists of supposed South American victimhood to blame the U.S. and the CIA for evetything bad that happens there, and even for wishing or trying to do things that don't happen. However, the unhappy fact is the many social, political and economic malignancies that have for so long infected most South American countries are more than sufficient causes for the backwardness and misery that exists there. In a list of the difficulties and challenges standing in the way of progress in South America the CIA wouldn't make page 10. There can be no freedom or justice in a country where the police are for sale, and unhappily that is the case in every country on the continent except for Chile. The United States didn't cause these long-standing problems, and we can't solve them either. The solutions must arise from within. and Hugo chavez is most certainly not a solution for Venezuela .

Source: New Zealand Herald Weekend, Saturday May 20, 2006, print edition, page B 10.

Oh ****.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5827392,00.html

Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos

Wednesday May 17, 2006 11:16 AM

By JULIE WATSON

Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.

Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos - a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.

Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls.

A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

http://walmartwatch.com/battlemart/archives/san_salvador_atenco_mexico_violence_erupts_as_merchants_displaced_for_a_wal/

On May 3, 2006, a group of flower vendors in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, were forcibly removed from the streets to prepare for the coming of a Wal-Mart store.

The vendors from People in Defense of the Land Front (Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra) were occupying a space in the Texcoco market when they were were attacked by state police. The vendors were dispersed, but they returned to reoccupy their space before dawn, backed-up by people from the nearby municipality of Atenco.

Instead of selling flowers, the vendors were now armed with machetes and Molotov cocktails. The police attacked the vendors again, this time with tear gas and batons. During the confrontation, a 14 year-old boy was killed from the impact of tear gas hitting him in the chest. More than forty people were arrested. Zapatista rebel leader, Subcomandante Marcos, called for his regional coordinators throughout Mexico to organize themselves in solidarity with the Texcoco vendors.

George, Here is one for "you guys". Really! This is a very good article everybody should read that has been folowing this crazy ass of a thread.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/denis_macshane/2006/05/chavez_is_populist_not_a_socia.html

From article;

"Chavez is a populist, not a socialist
Nor is he a dictator. But the people of Venezuela deserve better."

"I described Chavez as a "populist demagogue" and I did so as a political scientist because that is a fair description."

*Evidence of the Political Agenda
*HRW's Credibility Gap

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v3n11/AnalysisofHRWFailureToInvestigateWrongdoing.htm

It is indeed, and it reinforces precisely the argument I have been making.

The only real beneficiary of the policies Chavez is pursuing in Venezuels will be Hugo Chavez. He will entertain the country with fantasies of foreign enmity and the danger of invasion. He will squander the oil wealth of Venezuela on handouts to his constituents, and he will stay in power. When the money runs out and Hugo is gone, Venezuelans will discover they have nothing to show for it - no physical infrastructure for the ciountry; no educational system; and, most importantly, no institutions or traditions for self-government, and no spirit of enterprise to drive their future economic performance. This is what Peron bequeathed to Argentina, and they still haven't recovered from it. This also is the fate that awaits poor, unfortunate Cuba. (Castro didn't have any oil, but for a long while he had the Soviet Union which was willing, for political purposes, to subsidize him and supply the equivalent revenue. Cuba today is a good example of what Venezuela will be later with Hugo when the oil income runs out.)

George, I was hoping you were going to read that. It is a very good comentary. I'm going to read it again.

Socialism is sweeping south America. Is it any wonder why? Did you read what happened in Mexico. I put a link a couple post up at the top of the post.

This is going to be very interesting and perhaps very sad. You can bet your life many eyes and minds are on Venezuela and south America.

general elections in Peru, April - June 2006 ?????

Collective bargaining and profit sharing.

The unhappy truth is that South America, along with Africa, is falling further behind in a rapidly changing world. Asia is advancing rapidly in decidedly unsocialistic ways, and even many parts of the Arab or Moslem world are advancing - despite the serious distractions of authoritarian governments, unresolved religious conflicts, and excessive dependence on windfall (in the sense that they didn't produce it themselves) oil wealth.

The causes of this situation are not new; unresolved racial and social divisions; weak social and physical infrastructure; the lack of a tradition of honest self-government; and generally corrupt political and public institutions. These issues must be tackled directly - there is no magic external solution for them, socialistic or capitalistic or otherwise.

It is not fashionable to say it, but a major element of the problem (to the extent that it is a problem) that we face with Mexican and Central American immigration is the failure of these countries to develop an environment in which these people can achive what many of them do achieve simply by coming here. The truth is that the great majority of these immigrants work hard and both enrich themselves and benefit us by coming here. The problem is there are more than we can handle . Mexico, as a part of its general failure as a government is unwilling to face its own responsibilities in the matter, preferring to blame the U.S. for the resulting difficulties.

There is nothing wrong with these people. They, like ourselves, are victims and beneficiaries of the facts of history. However neither they nor anyone else will succeed in solving their problems by blaming others, or looking for promised magic from authoritarian demagogues.

The South American nations have no real tradition of working together or regionally to address their problems. In the past each of them looked singly to various European patrons for trade and cultural influences. As far as I can see, that hasn't changed very much in the past 40 years or so. The U.S. has pushed for regional trade associations to address this issue directly, but so far with only limited success.

Their various revolutionary political movements have generally been either too authoritarian, too abstract, idealistic, and impractical, or too corrupt to be effective in any lasting way. Despite all this some real progress has been made, most notably in Chile and also in Brasil and Mexico. However recent news reports remind us that much more is required.

Blaming the United States is merely the narcotic too often used to hide their own responsibility.