Blogging the democratic revolution
Two democracies collapsed in South America today – Venezuela’s, where Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has now crowned himself ruler by decree, and Ecuador, where rabid red-shirted mobs aligned with President Rafael Correa, drove the democratically elected opposition congress out of power and into the streets, leaving only Correa with any power and who, as of this writing, is also a dictator in the Chavez-Hitler mould. Is it any coincidence, then, that Hugo Chavez has seized absolute power on almost exactly the anniversary of Hitler‘s assumption of power? What a coincidence. Amid this democratic horror show in South America, at the…
OK, it was a ratbag of a bill. It lumped in everything that possibly could be lumped in, good with bad. Excellent, friendly deserving nations, like Vietnam, Colombia and Peru, (in short, our equals), got much of what they needed. Nations ruled by disgusting, undeserving, ungrateful governments, like Ecuador and Bolivia got plenty too. Messes like Haiti got the golden goose handed to them. Offshore drilling passed. Everyone got something, in what was kind of the last congressional pinata before the Roundheads (Democrats) take over. But boy it was sloppy. All told, I am happier with things this way than…
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…
The U.S. has a new congress and boy is it hostile to the concept of free trade. Sadly, the Republicans in power were just barely there on this issue and the Democrats to a lesser extent, but not exactly absent. Now, with a Democrat-dominated House and Senate, it’s going to be very tough to get trade treaties already signed ratified. At stake are the ratification of trade pacts with the remaining CAFTA states that haven’t got all their papers and regulations in order, with Colombia, and with Peru. Peru’s a really important one. This nation elected Alan Garcia on an…
Whoo hoo! Our favorite writer, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, has done the impossible in a new essay – taken on sex in Colombia as a struggle for democracy. A perfect topic for Publius Pundit to link, so go see what he’s written here. In Colombia, young women have told their young men to drop the gangster and gun and drug crap or else they’ll get no sex from them. Apparently, it’s very primal and effective, for a society at its wit’s end. Yep, no sex, those who can’t drop their barbarian activity can be laughed at by their peers as maricones…
As the dust settles from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s spectacular reelection victory two weeks ago, there’s an ongoing and very interesting debate going on about whether he will amass too much power. It’s an important question, with implications for every revolutionary struggle on earth. How popular is too popular, and does absolute power necessarily corrupt absolutely?> Andres Oppenheimer at The Miami Herald wrote a column about it a few days ago, propounding the view that there are indeed dangers ahead for Uribe, based on his own stellar success. Will it entice him to undermine democratic institutions for the sake of…
Celebrating democracy, with a great leader they voted for and won! You know what this means … I don’t have to explain a thing… Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! Colombia is headed for the polls today, and wonderful President Alvaro Uribe is likely to win in a landslide. He only needs to get past the 50-percentage point mark to avoide a runoff, and that’s likely to be a piece of cake for him. He’s got a 30-point lead in the polls over his nearest rivals. It’s not hard to see why. Uribe’s brought confidence, security and prosperity to Colombia, something it’s not seen in decades, something that looks so fresh, so beautiful, so different, so amazing … how could Colombians not pass up on such…
Daniel Duquenal has a fascinating post on Colombia’s new free trade pact with the U.S., and explains why it is causing so much distress among the Chavistas next door in Caracas. Their rage has a basis. It turns out Colombia is eating Venezuela’s lunch already in the economic arena and the free trade pact with the gringos will only raise their appetite. Here’s what’s going on: Chavez has driven most of Venezuela’s industries out of business, declaring them a class enemy. That in turn has provided a massive market opening for Colombian manufacturers who have taken over what had been…
Take that, Hugo Chavez! Colombia has chosen freedom and prosperity over dependency, isolation and handouts! A free trade pact was signed this morning with the U.S.! It was one long hard tough slog in negotiations, but President Alvaro Uribe and the U.S. Trade Representative finally came to common ground after lots of give and take, as is right between two good friends. Today, Colombia now has access to the world’s biggest market, will get all the computers and technology and whatever it want from our markets, and we in the U.S. in turn will benefit from Colombia’s ever more competitively…
Two big developments on the truly revolutionary idea of free trade extending from the North Slope all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Colombia is on the edge of signing a free trade pact with the U.S., according to Rob Portman of the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. The pact, if they can reach the finish line, is Colombia’s ticket to the first world and a stinging blow to the hideous anti-free-trade regime of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who has destroyed much of his country’s private sector, branding it an enemy instead of a job- and value-creator, and driving it out…
Right under the news radar, the U.S. and Colombia are hashing out their last differences for the free trade pact that will create confidence and prosperity on an untold scale for already star-performing Colombia and will enrich and enliven the U.S. with the bright and brilliant side of Colombia from its private sector, not its ugly drug and crime side, which will be destroyed. It’s a great occasion for joy and it might even happen by the end of this week. There’s one nation watching this, one that already has a defacto free trade pact with the US due to…
By calling them exactly what they are. It’s a thing of beauty. Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe had this to say about the charmers who have been waging a murderous narcoterrorist war against Colombia’s resistant people for the past 44 years: “In addition to being thieves, they are buffoons. In addition to being kidnappers, they are loudmouths,” Uribe said of the FARC leaders. The best part of this news story is the FARC’s reaction back to Uribe after he spoke the plain truth. May it be their epitaph. The whole story is here.
It’s final. A court in Colombia has ruled that President Alvaro Uribe can run for office again. A constitutional change is now in effect to allow a president to run for a second term. We’ve been waiting for this news for a long time and it’s reason to celebrate. Uribe is the most popular leader, probably in the world, with a phenomenal 80% approval rating. He’s got it because he’s a revolutionary leader in every sense of the word. No region on earth lacks leadership so sorely as Latin America. President Uribe is a major exception, and his achievements, bringing…
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…
Colombia’s constituional Supreme Court has ruled that Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe can run for re-election as president again! Earlier on, Colombia’s Congress had voted to change the constitution to allow Uribe to run for a second term, and now the Court has given the green light. There’s one more ruling awaited in November, but, like that first CAFTA victory we won in the Senate, this is a great first step and fantastic news! President Uribe currently has an 80% popularity rating among Colombia’s voters and is likely to win reelection, ensuring a continuation of his policies. There is no finer…
One of the rarest things on the blogosphere is a non-Sandalista, non-foreigner-financed, non-foreigner opinioned, non-angry-Latin-intelligentsia Colombia blog that’s by a Colombian about marvelous Colombia. I have had yet to find one – until now. Unfortunately, you bring up Colombia – even to a Latino audience in the states – and the first thought they have about Colombia is about drugs. It happened to me during a Spanish presentation I was giving. I discussed the strong Colombian banking system and was horrified when the first question from the audience was ‘is it full of drug money?’ And these people weren’t only…
Today the Marxist FARC guerrillas of Colombia attempted to murder a close senatorial ally of President Alvaro Uribe with a car bomb. They have tried for years to kill Uribe, probably hundreds of times, but the popular president’s security is too tight. So this time, the detested Marxists went after his allies. It was the first car-bomb attack in Colombia in a couple of years, and only for one reason: President Uribe has rounded up vast numbers of the terrrorists and put them in jail where they belong. But he’s not done yet and there are still a few lurking…
Harry Hutton lived through it here. The revolutionary courage of Colombians still blazes like an emerald.
Via our friend Harry Hutton, we learn that Colombia has a young policewoman who singlehandedly has destroyed vast money-counterfeiting networks in Colombia, knocking Colombia down from the rank of number one in U.S.-dollar counterfeiting to number three. Just one person’s individual work and initiative in a country long believed to have insurmountable problems. Not any more. I read the story in Semana and my jaw dropped. Who says one person can’t make a difference? This revolutionary has truly made a difference, not only in the preservation of the value of the U.S. currency, which is marvellous, but in enabling poor…
Alexandra Beech, who is Venezuelan, has written a compelling personal story of her observed differences between Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe – and she notices that the differences between the two men are strong. The essay, which amusingly enough has the same title as mine here, couldn’t be more different in content and therefore is worth a good read to see just how many dimensions there are between the tyannical Chavez and the magnificent Uribe. Don’t miss it. Read it here.
NewsHounds is a leftwing site but I am going to agree with them – strongly – that Fox News gave a boorish interview with President Alvaro Uribe and this marvelous – truly marvelous – president of Colombia responded with stunning class, dignity and intelligence. Newshounds called it very right this time. You have to read it to believe your eyes. Read the whole incredible transcript here.
A source in Colombia has emailed me to say rumors are flying that Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, the Marxist FARC guerrilla chief of chiefs, has been shot dead – UPDATE from my source: died in bed. If it’s true he’s been shot or captured, it has the significance of the U.S. taking out Zarkawi or Bin Laden. This aging thug has terrorized Colombia for more than 40 years. Even if he died in bed instead of splattered against some wall as he deserves, it will decapitate the FARC leadership. The FARC denies the rumor. But if Colombia has really got him,…
Harry Hutton has a whole gallery of these Colombian FARC-slaying babes of politics. These women are anti-narcotics cops in the belly of the world’s worst narcotics beast, women who are winning Colombia’s war on terror without any need for U.S. troops. And, yes, they do have looks. For FARC’s ugly phony-revolution guerrillas, these real revolutionary women who are transforming Colombia into a great nation, against all odds, are fearsome indeed. See Harry’s whole gallery of babes here.