When I reflect on my affinity for closely watching and supporting the social democratic reforms that are
taking place in Latin America, I realize that my interest is driven by observing an exciting political and social dynamic unfold. These winds of change are being forged by average people who are fed up with being exploited, and who have decided to take a stake in their own future. I am no longer naive enough to believe that what's happening in Central and South America could happen in the U.S - not in my lifetime, anyway. However, it does give me hope for the future, especially knowing that the United States of Halliburtonmicrosofttexaco almost certainly will collapse under its own economic (and social) weight, at least eventually...
(much more after the jump)
What the policy of U.S. dominionism has heretofore failed to acknowledge is that the social democratic reforms taking root south of the U.S. border do not appear to be grounded in
faux populism. Tin-pot dictators who spout empty populist rhetoric gain a quick following, but tend to flame out just as fast when their personally corrupt motives become clearer. Those are the kind of leaders that the U.S. government has historically found easier to deal with by either co-opting or deposing them.
From Mexico to Brazil, the new leadership that is emerging has a much different feel to it, and I think that ignoring a growing indigenous movement in individual countries has been a miscalculation by U.S. administrations as far back as at least the Reagan. In the past five years, with the Bush II administration completely distracted by other matters around the world, the political soil for true social democratic reform in Latin America has only become more fertile. Most importantly, local cells of discontent have become connected on a national scale. Better communication (and thus, organization) have allowed the leadership of individual "local interest" groups to recognize that they have a common bond and goals: the elimination of economic oppression and exploitation of both indigenous people and natural resources by a largely western-driven concept of multinationalism and economic globalization.
The tide is changing.
Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center describes one small slice of Bolivia's political transformation thusly -- resistance is not futile...
I have been pondering recently the similarities between the Borg and the forces of global market economics. Global market fundamentalism does indeed promise to bring us more and more together - in the Borg sense. One world. One market. One culture (materialism). One view of how we relate to nature (privatize and exploit it). One way to live. Absorption requires no cerebral drilling. It is accomplished by a series of tools: the power of markets to forces us to act in certain ways in order to chase economic survival, the conditionalities of global economic institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, and the promise that unfettered markets are the pathway to economic prosperity.
And translated into other words, the message is the same: Resistance is futile.
Any people or nation that does not choose to play by the new economic rules is destined to miserable poverty.
All this is why, I think, Bolivia has captured so much public attention around the world. Since the Cochabamba Water Revolt in 2000, the poor of this country have embarked upon their own bold five-year mission to where no one has gone before. They have resisted and they have won. I guess Star Trek never made it to the Andean television screen...
Schultz's entire article is exceptional (particularly for a Star Trek fan such as me), and I urge anyone who wants to understand the underpinnings of World Bank and IMF economic thuggery to assimilate Jim's elegant metaphor.
I've blogged before about water (here, here, and here) and the control of water rights as being the most basic form of economic leverage that an outside agency can impose on a developing nation. Everyone needs clean water. From business and industry to individuals, water connects everyone. Where there is no water, there is no manufacturing or other heavy industry. Where there is no water, there is no agriculture. Where there is no (or little) water, there is overt or covert war over this precious resource.
The battle for Bolivia started back in 2000 as an uprising against World Bank / IMF imposed privatization of water supplies. It has expanded to the development rights of a less socially critical (but more economically important) resource - natural gas rights.
In the coming few months (Bolivia's elections are upcoming in December), we'll get a sense of just how strong the social democratic movement has grown in the schizophrenic Bolivian political landscape. What will be most difficult is for any politician or political party in Bolivia to bring the competing interests together in a common cause - national self sufficiency. If this lofty goal is ever accomplished, true free and fair trade, and a seat at the table of international prosperity, can emerge from the ashes economic (and social) chaos. All boats are lifted.
Isn't that what true democracy is all about?