Blogging the democratic revolution
Congress has just wrapped up a huge free trade package! They actually are allowing it to go to the floor for a vote around 4 p.m. Eastern! They darn well better pass it! Not only will Peru, Colombia and Vietnam get some kind of trade relief for the next year (it’s temporary for the first two, but this is better than nothing), pretty much everyone else who wants free trade – The Caribbean, the African states, Ecuador & Bolivia, and Haiti – will get it too! This is fine! Better everyone in than nobody in. If that is what it…
Andres Oppenheimer of The Miami Herald, in a public service, has done us all a favor by identifying the Dirty Dozen of the new congress, the creeps who would keep free trade from enriching and helping the nations of the Americas. These are the poverty-enforcers, the anti-Latin Americans, the rust-belt oppressors, hobbled by their own wilfull ignorance of economics (I can’t even excuse that ignorance, there is no excuse for that kind of unwillingness to know about the benefits of trade in this day and age). These are the dogs who would keep Latin America down, keep it out of…
Honduras has a GDP per capita of $2800; yet, it is a country of riches. The land is endowed with a natural beauty unsurpassed anywhere else in the western hemisphere. Flying in a 14-seater to Roatan, less than an hour out from San Pedro Sula, I saw dozens of small islands wrapped in thriving forests. Crystal clear water became colored as the coral crept up toward the shore, and even from so many feet in the air, the sand on the beach looked whiter than snow. The sight isn????????t unique to the islands though. The mainland is lush with tropical…
SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS — The shuttle arrived at 5 o????????clock in the morning. Waiting for half an hour outside in Boston????????s extended winter only made me ready to get on the plane faster. Destination: Honduras. The heavy jacket would have to be lost somewhere between Atlanta and the rain forest. There were nine of us in the group, almost all of us from different regions of the world. I was one of three Americans. A Chilean, a Thai, an Englishman, a Lebanese, a Bolivian, and a guy from Dubai were the others. A veritable bonanza of cosmopolitanism. Only a…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has grand designs on the Caribbean. He considers it his swimming pool, and its tiny community of nations his pool-rafts; places where he can swirl his oily mixed drinks and get himself a back rub, made in the shade. Well, the Caribbean states don’t care for this, and today they gave a collective thump to Chavez by seeking a free trade pact as a group with the United States. With a hat tip to Boz, The Miami Herald has the item here. That’s got to be a blow for Chavez who has lavished millions of dollars…
Why? Find out more here . And remember, the Bahamian authorities behave as badly as Castro. How long will it take before the civilized world realizes that Cuban refugees deserve the status of political refugees and must be granted political asylum? I am endorsing the boycott.
Another day, another neighbor abused. This time Venezuelan dictator has decided to abuse Trinidad over natural gas concessions. This adds to his long list of regional neighbors he’s tried to bully and destroy. The story is here.
Via Daniel’s Venezuela News & Views I learned that all is not well in Guyana and its western neighbor, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Like Jim Jones before him, Chavez has designs on the country and much grander than that Marxist Jesus Socialist before him, he intends to one day take over half the country. He is even talking put putting an extra star on Venezuela’s flag, just to represent that coming intention. It turns out the Guyanese are not happy about this and one of Daniel’s posters has provided a fascinating link to a recent Guyana newspaper editorial addressing the growing…
An unusual piece of news – Barbados wants nothing – NOTHING – to do with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s pork-barrel spending on cheap oil for his small Caribbean neighors. Tiny but responsible Barbados knows that nothing comes ‘free’ and has no intention of giving away its sovereignty for a barrel of Chavez’s oil. This represents a significant David standing up to the region’s Goliath. There will likely be retribution but Barbados is uncowed. Read it here, here, and here.
The Dominican Republic has just ratified entry into CAFTA. Wheeeee!!!!!!! This is great news! Dominican Republic was considered the weakest link in the CAFTA state lineup. I thought it wouldn’t happen. I read so much negative news in the local press about this factory layoff and that protest and that opinion poll that I didn’t think it could possibly be true. I was wrong. My embassy source, who insisted otherwise, was right – Dominican Republic is onboard bigtime. The legislature passed the treaty by a 118-4 margin, mopping the floor with the local anti-CAFTA crowd. Yep, 118-4. And that’s great…
Booker Rising, a neat blog for Black-American conservatives and moderates reports approvingly that two tiny Caribbean states, Trinidad & Tobago, and Barbados, showed the presence mind to tell Hugo Chavez and his smothering oil deal ‘no.’ Both self-respecting nations cited their national interest in different ways – Hugo Chavez’s artificial oil prices would undercut Trinidad’s authentic energy business of its own. Barbados, with its refining businesses aligned with Trinidad, wanted no part of Hugo Chavez’s kill-our-economy offer. These two tiny states stood up to two monsters in our hemisphere, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, and should be encouraged and applauded.…