fbaezer
Well, it's time you showed up, you lazy bastard.
Can you steer me to a good source (or sources) on what's going on down there? I've held back on saying anything positive about Chavez because I'm ill-informed about the situation. My interest has been in seeing US interests balanced in the region by someone (anyone!) else.
blatham wrote:fbaezer
I've held back on saying anything positive about Chavez because I'm ill-informed about the situation. My interest has been in seeing US interests balanced in the region by someone (anyone!) else.
Evidently the lack of information and understanding inhibits Blatham from saying only positive things.
The problems of South America have their origins there. We did not cause them.
fbaezer wrote:To despise Bush will not make me like all others who despise him.
To despise Chávez will not make me like all others who despise him.
Both men are despicable, IMHO.
Bush is an obvious adversary for the progressives everywhere.
Chávez speaks as if he were a progressive. He's nothing but an authoritarian populist. [cont.]
Fbaezer speak truth <nods>
If one is defined by his enemies, then Bush is doing fairly well. "Progressives" is a label self-applied by those who advocate more and more government-based "solutions" to the problems of society and economy. In the Western world it is precisely the "Progressive" governments that are facing the most systematic crises of economic stagnation and demographic decline.
I prefer freedom and individual initiative.
Poverty brings its own unfreedom.
Trying to write a sentence now using 'unpoverty'.
nimh wrote:Poverty brings its own unfreedom.
Certainly poverty limits one's easy choices, but one can still be both poor and free. Socialism, managed economies, and social democratic management of the affairs of people limit freedom, stifle initiative, reward idleness, and eventually yield economic stagnation and .... poverty.
My personal definitions: Progressives put the stress on 1) social justice and 2) individual freedom. Conservatives put the stress on 1) personal security and 2) individual freedom.
I agree with nimh, poverty brings its unfreedom.
As I condemn the Gulags brought by left wing totalitarianism, I cannot condone the Gulag of Illiteracy or the Gullag of Hunger.
I guess I wouldn't argue with your taxonomies about progressives and conservatives fbaezer, though I don't think that they capture the whole or even the essential difference between them.
Social justice is a difficult term to define. Do you mean equal opportunity or equal outcome - a huge gulf separates the two.
Most of what is termed "Progressive" social policy is designed to insure equal outcomes. In my view such policies lead to stagnation, the suppression of initiative and uniform poverty. The polar opposite yields its own brand of injustice with winners and losaers who remain stuck in their respective positions. Clearly one must steer a middle course, but with due regard for the fact that killing the goose that lays the golden eggs is not a beneficial policy, even if the carcass is divided equally.
It has become very popular here to criticize the inequality of American society. Certainly by any reasonable measure America's income distribution involves greater inequality than (say) that of Europe, However this statistic doesn't take owned or inherited property into account, and that somewhat diminishes the difference. Even so, because we have a much higher GDP/capita than almost all Euroipean countries those in (say) the bottom decade here are better off than the corresponding population of many of those European countries. With respect to South America, the distribution of wealth here is far less unequal - even than that in the Venezuela that Blatham so loudly cheers. The same is true of Mexico. There has been great progress made in Mexico during the last generation and happily it is continuing, However, in comparison we are a very "progressive" society.
Illiteracy and hunger where they exist in the world are most often the result of exploitation at the hands of local elites who through control of property or, more often, the government condemn their underclasses to ignorance and poverty. In Zimbabwe and other African countries this is done through theft, graft and political thuggery; in India it was done by a bureaucratic structure that purported to protect the public welfare, but which in fact stifled productive economic activity (what a change now that it has been dismantled). Freedom is generally the first and most important step in the resolutiojn of these problems. Even limited freedom to pursue selfish economic self-interest as in China can have great beneficial effects.
The track record of the Platonists who would impose their prescriptions for right behavior on others are not nearly so good as that of those who pursue freedom of initiative.
Dear georgeob1, you manage to turn almost every discussion into a one of political philosophy.
Of course my taxonomy was oversimplified, not an essay. It was meant mostly to respond to other oversimplifications: that being a progressive doesn't equal to a statolatrist (a worshiper of the State).
Of course equal opportunity is preferable to equal outcome -and easier to attain- but, then again, there are different ways to measure equal opportunity.}
I'll give you a good example of equal opportunity. Mexican public high schools have several different levels, from UNAM high schools (that grant you a place in the National University if you have a C+ average) to Conaleps (terminal technical schools). There is one huge exam for every jr. high graduate and each chooses his/her preferences on a scale. Places are given from the highest score to the lowest. Everyone gets a place, but the good schools get full before those with average score get a chance.
It should be obvious, but I still write it: 1) the better schools are filled with middle and lower-middle class kids, 2) kids from private jr. high schools usually land in the best schools, 3) the lower ranked schools are filled with poor kids.
I will add: 4) since most of the better schools are in better off city areas, you have a higher demand/offer ratio in worse off areas, where the score needed to enter tends to be actually higher.
Public University funding (most public universities in Mexico are free) affects negatively the Gini Coefficient (statistical income distribution), still it is an element of social equality, since most of the students are good and would not be able to pay a private university.
What does the populist Latin American left think about this system? That it's "neoliberal". That the entrance to public universities should be by a draw.
I am not kidding.
blatham:
Hi, man!
Just a small sample of the real Chavez:
Human Rights Watch report on Venezuela; march 2005
I'm not very positive about Chavez, but I think it important to take into account the situation that faces him. The presence of the United States casts a major shadow on his country and that of his Latin American neighbors. Leaders of Latin America are defined primarily in terms of their position vis-a-vis the United States. If they should be elected and are socialists, they might be assasinated (like Allende). If they are military dictators who oppress their people with virtually the same vigour as Saddam Hussein, but cooperate with the U.S., they are more likelly to prevail (Pinochet).
Regardless of Chavez' non-democratic but populist leanings, I continue to buy Citgo gasoline mainly in protest against American oil companies whose policies I am, as an American, obliged to oppose.
Hi back at ya...always a pleasure.
Yes, I am familiar with the restrictions on Presidential criticism (along with other government targets) and with the manipulations of the judiciary.
My understanding of the present climate (throughout the region) is that there's a widespread dissatisfaction with the economic and social consequences of IMF policies forced on various governments down there. Does that reflect your understanding?
fbaezer wrote:Dear georgeob1, you manage to turn almost every discussion into a one of political philosophy.
Of course my taxonomy was oversimplified, not an essay. It was meant mostly to respond to other oversimplifications: that being a progressive doesn't equal to a statolatrist (a worshiper of the State).
You are correct in that observation. Hope it is not tiresome. The fundamental principles interest me far more than the passing issues or even the derived doctrines that are the source of so much passing (and often contradictory) controversy.
Your description of the Mexican school system is illustrative - an attempt to create as much equality as possible without destroying the meritocracy required for the system to function, and to preserve as much meritocracy as possible without destroying equality. The doctrinaire types on both sides can do much harm. We have a roughly similar system here (though even state university fees have become expensive), but with a degree of stratified grading based on race. It generates lots of often needless controversy based on doctrinaire disputes which don't reflect basic principles either.
"Statolitrist" - that's a new one for me. Most of the self-styled Progressives I see here are indeed worshipers of the state and the contemporary theology of political correctitude. They certainly look first to the state for the correction of problems relating to human behavior. Perhaps you see a different breed in Mexico.
And now we must keep a watch on Bolivia's Morales. Latin America seems to be turning left, at the level of government. I think we can thank Bush for that.
JLNobody wrote:And now we must keep a watch on Bolivia's Morales. Latin America seems to be turning left, at the level of government. I think we can thank Bush for that.
A truly stupid comment. The dysfunctional social, political and economic conditions that have created the present turmoil in Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Coilombia have their roots in centuries old patterns. It is absurd to blame them on The United States or Bush.
Don't fool yourself. Latin American has--in addition to its home-grown problems--been the economic playground of the U.S.. You are right, however, that I cannot blame it all on Bush. Virtually all of our presidents, after Roosevelt, have contributed to the conditions of Latin America. Don't be naive. The saying about Mexico is on the lips of all poor Mexicans. "Woe to us. So far from God and so close to the United States."
Firstly, I should apologize for the undue opening comment.
I believe the quote you offered ("Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States") is usually attributed to the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.
While I agree that the Mexicans do indeed have a legitamate historical beef against us, that is certainly not true of the Andean countries, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, or Chile. The fact is that Chile and (to a lesser extent) Brazil are doing quite well now Their governments have applied conservative (for them) economic policies, and they are dealing with their long-standing social and economioc problems. Brazil is a huge country with great (but so far unrealized) potential. Lula is working to get a unique position in the world for his country, but I dont see the frictions between us as particularly significant. The rest of the continent has only itself to blame for its troubles. I cannot imagine just what may be the "contributions" to their bad conditions that you believe we have made; how we could be respoinsible for the unresolved long-term historical contradictions that have held them back; or what we coulkd reasonably have done to improve things for them. Ahn example -- Juan Domingo Peron was not a CIA invention - he was a home grown product of the fantasies of Argentine culture. Same goes for the rest of them.
The following is from a PBS news discussion on the recent election of Morales in Bolivia but it ranges to cover the region. I'll paste in the first bit of the discussion. The link at the end will take you to the full transcript and you can watch the video of it as well.
Quote:Why the political shift?
MARK WEISBROT: Well I think you're seeing this across South America as you just showed on the map. What you have here is primarily the result of a 25-year economic failure. People here don't really understand or appreciate this. But you've had very little growth in all of Latin America over the last 25 years.
The total growth of income per person, which is the most basic measure that economists have to measure economic progress, has been only 10 percent.
Now if you look at the prior 20 years, 1960 to 1980, it grew by 82 percent. So you've had a 25-year period now; a whole generation-and-a-half of people in Latin America have really lost out on any chance to improve their living standards.
And this is really the primary issue that's driving these elections that we've seen in Argentina, in Brazil, in Venezuela, in Uruguay, in Ecuador and now in Bolivia.
And, of course, also the rhetoric that he has about, you know, what he says he's against imperialism, against U.S. imperialism, and he talks about that a lot. And of course in Argentina Kirschner talks a lot about the IMF.
Well, Bolivia is an example of that. They've been under IMF agreements almost continuously for nearly 20 years. And their income -- and they've done what they were told to do. They privatized even the Social Security system there. And their income today per person is less than it was in 1980.
So this is an economic failure that Latin Americans tie to the United States. And even more than the issues around drugs or the Iraq war or any other issues where they have disagreements with the current administration, it's this difference over economic policy that's driving the, I think, the conflict here.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/july-dec05/bolivia_12-20.html#
About the last blatham's post.
Rightly or wrongly, it is true that most Latin American blame on the US the inability of economic reforms to improve the average person's quality of life.
A bold equation is being made: IMF=US.
And the IMF is, on this side of the world, a three letter four-letter word.
Since the structural, historical and cultural problems are harder to see, it's easy to get angry when you read that the IMF asks you to tighten your belt ONCE AGAIN.
God, did I hate the IMF during the 80s! It was like wearing cast for six long years.
