Blogging the democratic revolution
A plastic-explosives bomb went off in downtown La Paz, Bolivia, today, killing two people at a hotel. An American and a supposedly Uruguayan woman were arrested. Police say they have confessed to doing it. The event is strange in itself. Miguel B. at MABB noted (well, until he changed his post!) that this hasn’t happened on a regular basis since the military regime in the 1970s. I recall one car bomb in front of Petrobras headquarters in Santa Cruz in the past year but that is all. There’s a whole lot of chaos in Bolivia, but it’s not the kind…
Eduardo at Barrio Flores has an item you’ve got to see to believe – some Bolivian minister is publicly saying he wants coca – that’s right, COCA – fed to schoolchildren, given its nutritious qualities. Ummm, tasty, delicious, crispy, chewy … coca leaf! If you thought it was white-trash heaven to fill the baby bottle with Coca-Cola, wait till you see these Bolivian green Cheerios! Cripes, this is what we call the slippery slope, first coca would be made legal, now it will be fed to children. Heck, it should be required chewing for everyone, given this guy’s mentality. Dogs,…
Miguel Buitrago at MABB has radical information – Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales may not after all be the best of fraternal socialist buddies – the problem starts because Chavez is up to no good trying to take over Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, something I could see coming from a mile away – Chavez ruined his “own” reserves, why wouldn’t he want to steal someone else’s? The guy has no sense of ownership or stewardship, he is pure, 100% brigand, and Morales is naive. But maybe not THAT naive. Miguel’s two must-read items on this most-welcome news here and here.…
Bolivia, at the center of the South American continent, seems to have everyone’s attention. Miguel at MABB describes the now-strong interest of major nations on poor small Bolivia, including everything from the U.S.’s drug eradication efforts to Brazil’s and the Andean Community’s energy interests. My short conclusion? Things have changed, this is no business as usual. A revolution of sorts has happened. Hence, the new world out there in Bolivia. Miguel’s interesting item is here. UPDATE: More on this topic from Boli-Nica, who’s been doing some fine blogging lately. His item is here.
Boli-Nica has come out from hibernation for this to state, in his richly colorful way, that he is not impressed! It’s a must-read here. More to follow – must get some other stuff done.
Miguel Buitrago at the excellent MABB blog has a list of all the attendees and a map of how the procession will go. It’s everything you need to know about the Morales inaugural, which I am watching closely. Read it here. One of our posters, Jonathan, provided an excellent link to show that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro will not be coming. I find that interesting as heck because Morales, practically the day after he was elected, got on a PDVSA jet and jetted off to see the bearded bastard. Does this mean Castro’s in bad health? Or could it be…
Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has discovered something a bit different for Global Voices this week, with unusual blogs showing growing readership in Bolivia – yes, soccer blogs. Don’t laugh – of course this is revolutionary – this is a hemisphere that has had ‘soccer wars!’ Check it out here.
At least in principle. He will enrage the left by this statement. Strike up the band and play, “the world turned upside down.” Good sense has come to the mind of Evo Morales! As long as he continues on this path, he’s gonna make it to the finish line. Keep going, Evo! And boy is this going to make Hugo Chavez mad!!! The story is here.
The topic of the week is Bolivian president-elect’s understated style of dressing. Leftwing Evo Morales doesn’t actually own a suit, but only street clothes, something that’s creating a bit of a sensation around the world. On Morales’ first unofficial World Tour to meet assorted leaders in places like Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa and China, riding there on a Venezuelan PDVSA state oil company jet, he encountered baleful looks in ultra-formal Spain, and phony expressions of sympathetic support from the nominally communist Chinese for his dressed-down look. I don’t have a problem with him being who is he and in…
Brazil announced today that its state oil company, Petrobras, would spend $18 billion to develop its Santos Basin offshore natural gas reserves in a bid to reduce its dependence on imported natural gas, explicitly, from nationalization-minded leftwing Bolivia. Eighteen billion. That’s big money. A whole Iraq-War trove of cash. A massive, history-changing investment. Why the hell doesn’t the U.S. get a clue from Brazil! The U.S. is a veritable soup of regulations and special interests that prohibits development of its own abundant natural gas and oil reserves. That’s why U.S. upsteam energy companies can find almost nowhere to drill –…
I Believe Only In The Power Of The People by Evo Morales December 24, 2005 Thank you for the invitation to this great meeting of intellectuals “In Defense of Humanity.” Thank you for your applause for the Bolivian people, who have mobilized in these recent days of struggle, drawing on our consciousness and our regarding how to reclaim our natural resources. What happened these past days in Bolivia was a great revolt by those who have been oppressed for more than 500 years. The will of the people was imposed this September and October, and has begun to overcome the…
David Sasaki and Juliana Rincon Parra at Global Voices have something very special in their Bolivian blog roundup – a slew of translations from the original Spanish. If you had always wanted to be able to read the Spanish blogs but couldn’t do it, they’ve opened that window and have a long, beautifully done roundup from the Spanish-language Bolivian bloggers. Well worth a click here.
They grossly undercounted the amount of support shown by Evo Morales in that strikingly well-executed election this past Sunday. Boz goes into several reasons why in an extremely interesting post here.
Far-left and strongly anti-U.S. Evo Morales has won a decisive victory as president of Bolivia with over 50% of the popular vote, preventing any moves in Congress to deliver the election to any other candidate. There was nothing fraudulent about it, and voter turnout was an amazing 80%. Bolivians who are celebrating this are happy because Morales is the first-ever indigenous Aymara president the nation has ever had. For people who have been shut out from the existing system, for whatever reason, it’s a great step forward to see one of their own in the highest office in the land.…
…according to exit polls. The AP report is here: COCHABAMBA, Bolivia (AP) – Bolivia’s Socialist presidential candidate Evo Morales, who has promised to become Washington’s “nightmare,” held an unexpectedly strong lead over his conservative rival in Sunday’s election, according to two independent exit polls. The wide margin means Morales, a coca farmer who has said he will end a U.S.-backed anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating the crop used to make cocaine, will likely be declared president in January. “If (the U.S.) wants relations, welcome,” Morales said after voting, holding a news conference where piles of coca leaves were spread atop…
Source: El Universal Two years of riots, roadblocks, and instability have culminated in today’s impossibly important presidential election in Bolivia. Bolivia matters because as Bolivia goes politically, so goes South America. The country is often compared to Tibet but politically, it could also (imperfectly) be compared to Iowa, Ohio, or Peoria, Illinois. What direction this wind blows may influence events all over the continent. There’s more to that, though. Far-left Evo Morales is the current frontrunner. If he gets 50% plus 1 vote, he becomes president outright and if he gets less than that, the election moves into the Senate.…
Bolivians elections are advancing rapidly as Jorge Quiroga and Samuel Dorian Medina try to forge an alliance that can take on far-left Evo Morales who is currently in the lead but is by no means a certain winner. Morales is threatening mayhem if he does not win. His lead is extending but Bolivian voters have a history of moving against the frontrunner at the very end of a campaign so anything can happen. A quick roundup: Miguel Centellas of CIAO! has the latest poll showing Evo Morales in a decisive lead with 34% of the vote. Miguel Buitrago of MABB…
As Bolivia’s Dec. 18 presidential campaign, one that will influence the entire direction of a continent kicks, into high gear, Eduardo Avila has compiled a comprehensive roundup of what’s being said in the Bolivian blogosphere. There are the usual good analytical blogs, but he’s found some photo blogs and new names we’ve not seen in the past. The whole this is on Global Voices and is well worth a click here.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa has a brilliant – and I mean a most brilliant – essay, both in original thought and in exquisite writing – on Bolivia and the dangerous role of Evo Morales. He points out that Morales’ problem is not globalization, as Morales so drearily claims, but something most people don’t realize: U.S. subsidies and dictator-coddling, something that propped up Bolivian tinpots for years and encouraged them to nationalize their countries instead of listen to reason, pay their way, and engage markets. These sad layers of U.S. policy have ended all possibility of economic growth. He’s right. It beautifully…
Carlos Alberto Montaner always gets it right, but he’s done it this week with special brilliance. He warns that Bolivia is on a suicide path with the likely election of Evo Morales, but also notes that the failure of the current ruling class over so many decades is to blame, something I believe too. It’s certainly how Hugo Chavez got a foothold. He is hearing the same things I am hearing: that Bolivia will become a drug haven under Morales, that Brazil will be the first victim, that a breakup of the state is likely, and that a war with…
Eduardo Avila of Barrio Flores has this week’s Bolivian blog roundup, in what I suppose I could call ‘The Special Sandalista Edition’ as it is chiefly focused on the writings of foreigners writing about Bolivia, and some of them, who shall be nameless, are knee-deep in Sandalista do-goodery that is utterly unsalable in their home countries. But that’s not the only kind of foreigner who blogs about Bolivia – there are all kinds – normal humanitarian workers, Lonely Planeters, curious outsiders, people working in the country. For a Bolivian, it must be a really fascinating experience to see their country…
Miguel Buitrago has uncovered new polling numbers in Bolivia as the elections close in there in less than a month. He’s got terrific insights and observations about the narrowing lead of Evo Morales in the election, along with some anomalies we might not have expected, like the fact that Morales is doing well in Santa Cruz, a place we expected the opposition to take, and that Oruro, a very old traditional – and beautiful – mining town, expected to be a Morales stronghold, apparently is up for grabs. Miguel suspects the government (I think that means non-Morales forces) to likely…
Miguel Buitrago at the first-rate MABB blog has the whole dynamic explained. The short story is this: Based on current polls, far-left leader Evo Morales is in nearly a tie with his nearest rival. Due to how legislative seats are distributed in the Senate, Morales may not get the majority of votes he needs in the upper house of Congress to become president. In the lower house, the outcome is more uncertain. If the polls are right, this is very good news in one sense – that Morales won’t be able to confiscate land and energy through the power of…
Just a month to go before Bolivia’s elections and Eduardo Avila has a roundup of the week’s sentiment from Bolivia’s growing blog community. His excellent Global Voices roundup is here.
Hardcore leftwing ‘activists’ aligned with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Cuban despot Fidel Castro and Bolivian coca-growing champion Evo Morales have served legal papers charging genocide to Bolivia’s finest former president, the elderly Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a superb democratic revolutionary leader who in the early 1990s slew South America’s highest-ever inflation rate, began Bolivia’s natural gas expansion and set his country on the road to first-world prosperity – until he was detestably ousted from power by communistic road-blockers acting as a gang of thugs. He was the first Bolivian I had ever met. I talked with him and wrote about…