Blogging the democratic revolution
A lot has happened in Bolivia since last week. For one thing, elections were declared Dec. 18. That’s probably the most gripping story in the Bolivian blogosphere, and for obvious reasons – democracy has been put back on its rails – or well, apparently, the perspectives are different. Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has his first rate roundup of all the news reported around on Bolivian events at Global Voices. Read the whole thing here.
Miguel Buitrago has done a very valuable translation of an interview with Felipe Quispe, a Bolivian romantic indigenous leader running for president whose views are even more extremist than those of Evo Morales. It’s positively surreal but an absolute must-read for perspective on what an out-of-it space case this guy is in this election year. He discusses the coming bloodshed he sees as inevitable, his study of Machiavelli, his burning desire for power, his priority of employing all the unemployed intellectuals and his inability to compromise politically on anything. Quispe reminds of Grenada’s Eric Gairy. Read the whole thing here.
Breaking news – and likely trouble. An electoral board has ruled that the Dec. 4 presidential election will not go through, due to a redistricting dispute. Now, the possibility of roadblocks and using food as a weapon looms. The current caretaker president – who’s in office only because the last two presidents were thrown out by roadblockers – said he would resign if elections were not held by Dec. 4. Well, they’re not being held. I have a blogosphere reaction roundup to follow. But first, here is the news: Agencia EFE has the story here: Electoral court suspends Bolivia’s December…
Given that politicians tend to hone to their campaign financiers’ agendas, it’s pretty creepy to see that Evo Morales has gotten a new Web site – financed and hosted, not from his home country, as any self-respecting candidate for president would want, but brazenly from MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA. Morales, you will recall, is running for president of Bolivia on a legalize-cocaine election platform.UPDATE for Eduardo: Morales SAYS he’s not for legalizing cocaine, only the coca leaf, but there’s no such thing as cocaine without the coca leaf. I think his stance is a ruse. Morales also claimed he was ‘only’ for…
Right on the heels of the Bolivian factory workers’ history-making march to demand a free trade pact at the U.S. embassy gates, one of Hugo Chavez’s minions has come out to condemn free trade with all of the Americas (ALCA), and said MercoSur (a smaller non-U.S. trade bloc dominated by Brazil and Argentina) is the way to go. Something in the Bolivians’ actions has stuck in the chavista craw. There is something odd about how they are raging against trade with the U.S. so virulently all of a sudden. When we last heard from such people, they were ranting on…
As the U.S. attempts to spread democratic revolution around the world through the sharing of our hope, something insect-like is eating away at our national fabric and forcing growing numbers of us to wonder if the emporer might eventually not have clothes. It’s our country’s repeated failure to adhere to international agreements. I’m not talking about U.S. failure to heed corrupt multilateral organizations like the United Nations or bureaucratic-till-the-point-of-pointlessness organizations like the World Court or the European Union. On those matters I remain unyielding in criticism until they change. It’s something else. The U.S. is starting to get a reputation…
Thousands of Bolivian workers marched on the U.S. embassy yesterday to demand … A FREE TRADE PACT WITH THE U.S. Now who knew that? For god sakes give them their free trade pact! We’ll all benefit if we can buy Bolivian goods! I lift my first cup of Trader Joe’s Bolivian Blend coffee to toast these Bolivians as I wake to this terrific news! Best kind! Long live free trade with Bolivia! Source: Diario Correo del Sur Now let’s face facts: Bolivians do not want communism. Most Bolivians do not want Evo Morales as their next president. Bolivians especially do…
Eduardo Avila of Barrio Flores has a good weekly roundup of news from the growing Bolivian blogosphere. Go see it for its different thoughts on the political situation, particularly from a new blog he’s found by a Bolivian indigenous blogger who’s now at university – he comments on academic corruption but seems to have a sort of insular mentality that may be reflective of what we might see later in the political arena. Eduardo’s also found original posts on Bolivia’s book exchange program, an interview with a Bolivian orphan in Cochabamba, and blog by a Bolivian rock star who’s annoyed…
Miguel Buitrago of MABB on Bolivia has a chart showing that the regions in Bolivia that receive the most and the least government spending. Guess which ones are the richest and which ones are the poorest? Go see here. For those who claim more government spending means more wealth, that the rich are only rich at the expense of the poor, that there is only so much to go around, that the economic pie is only a matter of slicing and not expanding, that redistribution from rich to poor is the only answer, there are going to be some surprises.…
Boz has a fascinating collection of polls from around the Americas in several countries signalling the political temperatures in assorted hot spots like Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and others, all put together in a clean roundup of news. Don’t miss the weird Argentine soccer poll at the bottom. Well worth a click here.
As we have noted in previous roundups, Evo Morales is not the worst Marxist lunatic in the Bolivian political line-up. That honor may belong to Felipe Quispe. He is a far-leftist and indigenous-“rights” romantic who openly advocates violence and who has no chance of winning the December presidential election. So, with diminishing prospects, he says he will take up arms if he loses. Boli-Nica believes that Quispe may be acting in collusion with Evo Morales. If Quispe can make himself look like people’s worst nightmare – a crazed leftist intent on confiscating everything they own, he will indirectly make the…
Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has a Bolivian blog news roundup for the week at Global Voices with a good variety of posts. Read it here.
Miguel Buitrago of the excellent MABB blog has a fascinating post on the different political party programs of the candidates for Bolivia’s elections. He lines them all up side by side, helpfully laid out in bullet points. Read the whole thing here. My own analysis on one detail: Take a good look at the hard-left plan of action for the Evo Morales MAS program – and then notice the packaging – it bears all the earmarks of U.S.-based Sandalista organizations for its otherwise communistic program. Twenty years ago, did leftists package their collective farms and forced indoctrinations as ‘microenterprise’? Try…
I was going nuts, there was no Boli-Nica for weeks, and the whole world seemed … gray. At long last he is BACK and he’s got a funny new post up on Hugo Chavez’s latest scheme to build a ‘national computer.’ Boli, we want more! Boli describes Hugo Chavez’s latest schemes with state-financed computers, how it’s likely to be done and why it won’t work. By coincidence, a day or two ago, I put up a post on ‘rent-seeking,’ citing the estimable Tyler Cowen, describing the same dynamic. But in hilarity, Boli was matched by Boz, who wrote an even…
Both Venezuela and Bolivia will hold watershed elections this December 4. Political pictures, and the outlook for democracy, could change as a result. Venezuela will elect National Assembly members ahead of dictator Hugo Chavez’s planned “changes” to the constitution. Bolivia will hold long-anticipated presidential elections after the leftist street-mob toppling of their second president in two years, the work of activists linked to Castro ally Evo Morales. Both elections are showing signs of crisis ahead of the vote. Here is a brief roundup: In Venezuela: Francisco Toro at Caracas Chronicles writes that the opposition, which has now united, must deal…
Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas has started a terrific new blog on Bolivia, with his first post loaded with intelligent insights. I look forward to seeing his thoughts as they come, going into the Bolivian election in December. Go see the excellent new blog here.
Not through guerrillas this time but through pork-barrel-spending. Along with Hugo Chavez’s oil billions, Evo Morales has taken the lead in the Bolivian polls. Castro knows exactly why he’s doing this. Do we? Read the whole thing here or here. It’s on Real Clear Politics here.
Marvelous Miguel Centellas of Ciao! blog had just what I was looking for, commentary on the news here showing that Marxist Evo Morales has taken the lead in the presidential polls. Miguel cautions us not to despair, Bolivian voters tend to break away from the frontrunner at the last minute so in this regard, maybe the news is not as bad as it looks. He also has other insightful commentary here. Miguel Buitrago at the excellent MABB blog has additional background on the state of this coming election Dec. 4 right here.
Here is a superb Bolivia update by someone who knows the real score going on in Bolivia. The short story is this: Evo Morales is winning as December’s election approaches but he can’t win except through Congress. If he does, he’s going to nationalize the energy and make Bolivia the third member of the Axis of Marxism, destabilizing every country in the region and giving the FARC a new home. If he doesn’t, he’s going to destabilize the country through street protests, same as he’s been doing, toppling presidente after presidente. This is clearly scary stuff. This guy needs to…
Miguel Buitrago at MABB in Bolivia has a truly marvellous election update complete with biographies of all the players in the upcoming election in December. That is going to be a BIG one – so it’s best to get up on these characters. Miguel has done a fantastic job well worth reading here.
I ran across this piece as I was scrawling through the Washington Times. It’s very interesting, detailing how money given by USAID for development projects in Bolivia is being used by a local leftist as leverage over the population. Read it all here. YAPACANI, Bolivia — A peasant leader associated with a left-wing politics and coca farmers has been using U.S. aid money to intimidate residents and consolidate his authority in this part of eastern Bolivia, local officials and residents say. Many complain that peasant leader Cimar Victoria, who had been entrusted with directing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)…
Bolivia’s cocalero chief, Evo Morales, an open supporter and covert supplicant of Hugo Chavez, is losing allies in the upcoming December election. This is probably a significant piece of news. Throwing his lot with Venezuela’s hated dictator is obviously lucrative, but no way to win votes. With Venezuela’s entire diplomatic thrust moved south since the CAFTA victory for Central America and El Norte, it may well be that Hugo Chavez is crumbling on his southern front as well. Economists say that if anything can’t go on, it won’t. Read it here. UPDATE: Miguel Buitrago at the estimable MABB blog has…
The very hott Boli-Nica has been trawling around in the Sandalista weeds choking the Bolivian political ecosystem and has discovered that they are a destructive alien species, which, like water-hyacinth, threatens to trash the political ecosystem. He’s reeled in a big one from something he sees as deceptively called the Democracy Center, and has at it as only a true Bolivian tired of all the carpetbaggers from Berkeley can be. He writes: This is no more than pimping some of the stupidest leftist ideology out there to a receptive audience. I have often said that Bolivians of all classes do…
Bolivia has been a favorite host-target of Sandalista parasites for years and years. Because no news organization ever cared about this country, it was they who framed the news and the debate about what was really going on in Bolivia. They tell us Bolivia’s just a simple story of the rich oppressing the poor, all elites and businesses being bad, (especially if they are from Santa Cruz), U.S.-style racism holding people back, all Indians monolithically seeking populism, all Indians dirt poor because whites took their money away, all syndicates – syndicates! – in places like El Alto these noble representatives…
Boli-Nica has a couple of amazing posts on the growing evidence against Hugo Chavez in the bankrolling of the blockades against Bolivia’s cities this month, the purpose of which was to starve the citizens into submission until they agreed to nationalize Bolivia’s energy resources. Seriously good blogging. Read it here and here.