Bolivian legislators abandoned a besieged La Paz on June 9 to convene in Sucre, nearly 500 miles to the southeast, in order to select a new president. But demonstrators had other ideas. Blockades were lifted so that truckloads of protesters could race to Sucre to prevent parliament from naming right-wing Senate leader Hormando Vaca Diez as the successor to the… return to article
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Reader Comments (23)Page 1 of 1 pages“A June 12 poll showed 76 percent support for nationalization.” Of course! When given the choice, the people will universally opt for socialism.
“[T]he United States was working behind the scenes to pave the way for Vaca Diez.” What did you expect? The Bush/CIA death squad never met a fascist dictator it didn’t like. (Noriega, Hussain, Shah, Pinochet, Strossner, etc.).
MAS should take control of the gas field and tell Shell to F--- off.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 15, 2005 at 9:41 PM Of course the only reason Shell and the US are so interested in meddling is the gas and oil. Which goes to show the value to the nation of this assest if it can be nationalised, rather than profits going to offshore companies. I hope the people stay strong in the demands for what is after all theirs!
Posted by Green on Jun 15, 2005 at 11:32 PM Well, the “US” has no interest in Bolivia, period. Maybe the Bush crime familiy, the CIA death squad, or some other individuals have an interest there (like using Panama’s Noriega as a cocaine freight forwarder). The American people, however, have no interest there.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 16, 2005 at 5:46 AM To Lefty: I hope you agree with me that for us, citizens of the third world, it’s hard to find the difference between what you call “American people” (by the way, we are american too)and US govertnments or corporations because all we see are the results of their policies and it is pretty obvious that they don’t take into considerations our people’s interests. Back in the south of South America we are still trying to recover from Mr. Kissinger’s deeds, the IMF loans granted to friends of the military government and later nationalized and there isn’t any single south american country which hasn’t suffered, one way or the other, the greed of the empire, the CIAS’s intromision, the pressure on local governments to give in to so-called neoliberal policies.
I see what I see and I don’t hear many voices in your country raised against the empire’s predatory policies. Worst of all, your present president was re-elected and nobody has asked him seriously to tell the truth about anything.
I wish I could tell you we know the U.S. citizens think different but their voices never reach us.
Posted by Mariluz on Jun 16, 2005 at 1:23 PM Mariluz:
I know it’s hard to see the difference. Even Americans who vehemently oppose the policies of the Bush crime family, corporate fascism, etc., regularly (figuratively) take the blame for the crimes of these murderous fascists by referring to these criminal acts as being perpetrated by “us” “we” “Americans.”
“We” are not at war against terrorism, Bush and the Saudi Royal family are. It is Bush and the Saudi Royal family who the terrorists oppose. America (its citizens) never supported Saddam Hussain, the Shah of Iran nor cocaine trafficing through Panama. The Bush led CIA did amongst other crimes against humanity.
Having said that, the Americans who voted for Bush, support each and every crime committed by the Bush crime family, knowingly or not. They - the Bush family, the neo-cons, the giant mulinational corporations, and the republican constituency have respect for no one in the world and are despised by everone in the world (with the exception of the eunuch, Tony Blair). They can’t get along with anyone. They are the enemy of America and the World.
Most Americans are are utterly oblivious to the global operations of the CIA death squad, including republicans, for which there is no excuse. They are ignoramuses of the highest order and deserve the treatment that will, sooner or later, come to them.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 16, 2005 at 3:28 PM Dear Lefty, thanks for your words,I sincerely hope there are many more like you. When they say we envy your democracy I could cry because it must be terrible to feel you have the “creature” at home and to be surrounded by people who like it. Anyway, a planetary conscience is beginning to develop and I hope the next generation will be able to enjoy a more compassionate and intelligent society, although we all know it won’t be easy and the type of education children receive, plus the rubbish provided by the media doesn’t help much. Good wishes.
Posted by Mariluz on Jun 16, 2005 at 4:29 PM http://www.narconews.com
interesting coverage on Bolivia & many other South of the Border stories
Posted by michael roloff on Jun 16, 2005 at 6:24 PM Speaking as an American citizen, I am deeply ashamed of my country’s activities abroad. Our polcies toward Latin America in particular, during the Cold War and long before, excite every fiber of moral indignation I posses. All I can say is, people here live in appalling ignorance of their nation’s history.
It is pleasing to see neoliberalism choke on its excesses and come unravelled. It remains to be seen what will replace it. Communism is a dead letter, and nobody wants a return to military dictatorship. Presumably some sort of left-populism, along the Venezuelan model, is rising. Such a program would ideally combine greater spending on education and social services, nationalization of key natural resources (which can work if done properly), land reform, and limited protectionism. I say, have at it. It’s long overdue.
Posted by Matthew K. on Jun 17, 2005 at 1:01 AM Matt,
I think that a balanced socio-capitalist system we have could work very well. The problem is that the balance has swung too far in favor of capitalism and privitization, due exclusively to the corporate corruption of the government (at all levels) and corporate brainwashing of the public.
As a general premise, the law of supply and demand, and the marketplace tends to encourage competition for quality and price and to bring out the highest productivity of an individual and a society.
However, there are exceptions to that general premise. There are some things to which supply and demand just don’t work well, like medicine. And there are some products and services a society wants and needs that just shouldn’t be provided by those whose primary motivation is profit, because they issues issues that irreconcileably conflict with profit, and which are more important than profit. The armed forces, prison system, utilities, highways, medicine (again) would be examples of things that I think the government could and should provide more fairly and efficiently that businessmen.
Totalitarian capitalists would argue that there is no product or service the marketplace could not provide in a better quality at a cheaper price than the government, and that all things government are bad. That’s called having your brain washed and waxed.
Having said that, to those able to engage in independent thinking, the most important aspect of a successful socio-capitalist system is to recognize that socialism and regulation of capitalism must be balanced the most desirable outcome. That balance must be flexible and subject to change as society (technology, information, social priorities) modernizes. To leave that issue solely to the marketplace is folly. The marketplace is extremely harsh and not consistent with a modern, compassionate, civil society. JMHO.
The problem with the government is when it allows itself to be corrupted by capitalists and churches. Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state” was not just an issue of religious freedom. The Church of England had completely corrupted the British government. Perhaps a constitutional amendment mandating “a wall of separation between commerce and state” is in order. It’s a very difficult problem. Whereas the government has no legitimate interest in religion, it has a legitimate interest in commerce. Public health, safety and welfare, the government’s only legitimate interest, are dependent on the success of commerce. The amendment would have to be carefully and narrowly tailored to prevent corruption, and still allow government to implement policies designed to balance social welfare and commercial success, which are inextricibly intertwined. Again, JMHO.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 17, 2005 at 9:04 AM Once again, reality vindicates Marxist theory
Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 17, 2005 at 12:24 PM I find the notion of a constitutional amendment to limit corruption somewhat quixotic. As long as there are institutions with lots of money and an interest in seeking rents and favors, there will be corruption, and more mundane influence peddling. No constiutional amendment can prevent that. Probably the best thing that can be done is simply to curb the power of large corporations with social controls over investment, and through redistributative tax and welfare policies. Even these ideas are simply a treatment, not a cure. There’s no silver bullet.
As regards Latin America, the perennial issue is how to slough off the old vested interests—landowners, mercantile capitalists, importers, as well as foreign capital and imperialist governments—while at the same time encouraging the growth of a domestic capitalist class. Hopefully this can be done without compromising the condition of Latin America’s workers and peasants.
This was actually attempted by the nationalist governments of the postwar era, through so-called “import substitution policies” (protectionism). These experiments, which were aimed at sheilding companies from foreign competition rather than on export-led growth, as in the East Asian model, and carried no expiration dates or productivity-improvement goals, were overall failures. Future protectionism must come with strings attached, and accompanied by land reform and educational improvements.
Hope this provides a useful blueprint.
Posted by Matthew K. on Jun 17, 2005 at 12:30 PM Mariluz wrote:
[I]t’s hard to find the difference between what you call “American people” (by the way, we are american too) . . .
Perhaps this is the wrong forum on which to be so pedantic, but this is something that has bothered me for a while. We are Americans because we’re called the United States of America, just as citizens of the United States of Mexico are Mexicans. When speaking in continental terms, we are North Americans, and Bolivians are South Americans. In Europe I would often have the silly argument of whether or not they are indeed two continents (though Europeans somehow think that Europe is a different continent from Asia and recoil at the term ‘Eurasia’).
Bolivians can indeed claim that they too are Americans, but it is imprecise and hence confusing (like a graduate of the University of South Carolina saying he went to USC). A lot of people get pissed off at me for pointing this out, but I’m only trying to help. Sorry.
Posted by rocco on Jun 18, 2005 at 6:28 AM Max said:
“Once again, reality vindicates Marxist theory” Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on June 17, 2005 at 1:24 PM
Not really Max. Communist totalitarianism is no less a failure than totalitarian capitalism ===> libertarianism. Public health, safety and welfare are the legitimate interests of government. Economic prosperity is a very important factor in those interests, and IMHO, can best be achieved through a balancing of socialism and capitalism.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 18, 2005 at 4:36 PM LAtin AMerica has always been part of the USA’s imperialistic plans. Who’ll be next? My country, Uruguay, has one of the largest and purest reserves of water ( pockets of pure water) in the continent. AS they say , water will be the 21st century’s oil… you’ll be warming your homes with our gas and quenching your thirst with our water. We’ll be ...here at all?
Posted by Pablo on Jun 20, 2005 at 7:24 PM Since socialism and central planning have been
total failures in every place on planet earth,what state of internal psychosis could
you be in to imagine that they are universally
approved ? among some illiterate indians in some
South American backwater ? Oh, wow !
Latin America has suffered fronm five centuries
of big government including all the failures
of nationalized industries.
What swamp are you people residing in ?
Old left troglodytes..................
Why don’t you start a newspaper and title it,
1917 ?
Average age of donor to Demo National Committee
is 83.
Posted by Jack Barnes on Jun 21, 2005 at 12:13 PM Jack Barnes,
I don’t care what you’ve heard, but your ideas about socialism are false. Socialism is not a system of government, nor an economic policy. It isn’t the interference with the national economy, of the state ownership of porperty. Socialism is an epoch in human development. Like the Neolithic era. It is an entire historical epoch, hopefully one that follows capitalism (also an epoch). It thus has never been attempted.
Socialism can only be a global system, that results from a global worker’s revolution. It also has to be consciously planned and democratically created by workers, through the soviets.
What has been falsely called socialism is nothing but state-capitalism. Money remains, class divisions remain, the black market remains, and the the world market remains. Most importantly, commodity production remains. Marxism describes capitalism as an EPOCH characterised by a society of generalised commodity production. Marxism does not describe capitalism as a national ecomony based on free markets and private property.
Marx thought it was a given that private property was a key component of capitalism. But Engels, the co-author of the Communist Manifesto said private property was not a necessity. A few years after Marx’s death as he witnessed the growth of both joint-stock companies and state-ownership, he said:
“the transformation, either into joint-stock companies, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces… The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually becomes the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.”
Regardless of what many leftists have said, Sweden, France, and yes the USSR are/were NOT socialist, and couldn’t have been; according to genuine Marxist theory, of course.
Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 21, 2005 at 1:13 PM Oh, please ! The USSR implemented all the planks
of the Communist Manisfesto and the western
countries that you list implemented most of
the Communist Manisfesto.
If you eliminate the private owners, private
capital, private investment, private property
and the profit motive you have eliminated
capitalism. The term capitalist class makes
no sense with those components removed.
Chomsky and other socialists invented this trick
40 years ago of calling anything they do not
like state capitalism, it is just a transparent
effort to get socialism off the hook for its
manifold failures.
To have everyone in the world “own” a one six-
billioneth quota of everyone else is absurd,
in the end it HAS to be a small vanguard class
that runs everything.
Posted by Jack Barnes on Jun 21, 2005 at 1:58 PM Chomsky invented the idea of state capitalism? I don’t blame you for what you don’t know so let me just inform you. There was a whole current in the Communist International called the communist left (or left communists). Amadeo Bordiga in Italy, Anton Pannekoek in Holland, Sylvia Pankhurst in Britain, Herman Gorter in Germany just to name a few. They were screaming about state capitalism in the early 20’s. They were kicked out of the Comintern by Stalin in 1924!! This was back when nobody knew if “socialsm” would fail or not. Was Chomsky even born then? Anyway Engels about state capitalism before Lenin was a child.
Chomsky… You are FUNNNYYUYY
The fact still remains that capitalism is an epoch of generalised commodity productions. The society is characetrised by class relations between producers and parasites. These parasites can be private owners of factories, major stock holders of major companies, or bureaucrats of the politburo. The same basic 1% rules, and lives large while the masses struggle to get by.
As for the USSR, it actually was a soviet state for a couple of years. The Bolsheviks constituted a majority in the soviet government, but there were several members of the Social Revolutionary Party (a peasant-based party) and even a few Mansheviks(Social-democrats) present. The theory of the Bolsheviks with their slogan of “all power to the soviets” was based on the idea that the Russian revolution would fail if it remained a National revolution. They believed thier revolution was the first phase of a global revolution. It turned out they were right. The revolution spread from 1917-1923 to several European countries. Hungary and Bavaria were declared soviet republics in 1919. It just so happened that the revolutions failed, as most revolutions tend to. And the Bolshevik party itself became the spearhead of the counter-revolution under Stalin. It was a betrayal from within, but its causes were objective not subjective. The soviets were doomed to lose power if the world’s workers didn’t succeed in following the Russian example. This was the very prediction of the Bolshevik party in 1917.
The growth of state capitalism is the product of the crisis of capitalism. I has expressed itself in several ways: first in Stalinism, then in Fascism, then in Social Democracy and today in the good old USA where the military expenditure alone gobbles up sums of money surpassing the entire economy of Africa. The state is compelled to take over in decadent capitalism, as each national clique desperately tries to sieze as much of the glutted world markets as they can.
The Communist Manisfesto calls for all the things you said, but the economy still remains capitalist as long as there’s a global market. The counterrevolution always triumphs after national revolutions. We Marxists are still awaiting the global proletarian revlotuion. Give us 20 years of so.
Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 21, 2005 at 10:04 PM Max, thanks for your posting.
It deserves more attention than
I’m able to give it at the moment,
so let me reread it and get back to
you.
You’re typing’s fine, we all make
little mistakes, a product of being
tired.
Posted by Jack Barnes on Jun 22, 2005 at 11:28 AM More problems than are apparent are involved in drilling the 5000 ft. wells to get to the energy reserves high in the Andes. Still, the Bolivian people have a unique opportunity to develop their country using the gas revenues from foreign sales. Cautious estimates of nearly 29 trillion cubic ft. are exceeded by more realistic ones of over 52 trillion and some go as high as almost 80 trillion cubic ft. Just over 1% of the market value of the gas is to low even considering the costs and trouble of drilling and pumping the gas out of the Andes to markets in North America. The taxes on the companies profits will certainly be low given the historic tendency of oil companies and other primary extractive industry TNCs to underprice for local tax purposes the raw product to upstream refiners and processors which boost the final products price and thus company profits. This is called transfer pricing and over time it usually costs poor countries billions in lost revenue. As it looks some report that the final take of the Bolivian Government will be about 18% of the final market value of the piped natural gas. The Chileans will likely absorb a certain amount of the profits as the pipeline will go down to port through their country. Many companies will be involved in the project from construction contractors to drillers to transportation firms. Certainly there will be the usual corruption in local government that will rake some off. Hopefully for the Bolivian people energy prices will remain profitable enough and supplies abundant enough for there to be sufficient proceeds for the needed development of a country like Bolivia.
Posted by steve on Jul 17, 2005 at 7:10 AM Dear sir /madam
I want to come and invest in your country and i need to know the state of your currency and your economy.
Thanks
Warms regard
Kodubanjo Amina Gbogboga
Posted by Kodubanjo Amina Gbogboga on Jul 17, 2005 at 2:00 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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