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The Latin America thread


Stu Monty
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8 hours ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

I think the situations are completely different, I haven't been following Venezuela closely recently, but isn't Guaido an interim president selected by the national assembly until new elections can be held?

 

If the elections don't happen, then maybe you can start to say he's not there legitimately.

Just so I'm clear...

 

Morales winning an election after successive governments fell to protests sparked by their privatisation plans and Morales being ousted and exiled following strong claims of electoral fraud are pretty much identical situations. 

 

Morales claiming the Presidency despite dodgy elections and Guaido claiming the Presidency despite never even standing for election, those situations are completely different, because the former is worse than a military coup and the latter is just dandy.

 

Is that about the size of it?

 

 

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6 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

Mate - I love you but you are not really a factual contributor on these threads -- we know where you stand ideologically.

It’s a bit rich that you would seem to suggest your own ideological indoctrination doesn’t inform your argument here. Not a factual contributor? Would love for you to point out the lies 

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6 hours ago, Nelly-Torres said:

I haven't really paid much attention to this story. 

 

The whole involvement of the military and pictures of them pinning a sash on the interim president do make it look a bit coupy. 

 

But, if the OAS claims of electoral irregularities are true, then a fresh election should follow. With Morales as a candidate. But, another organisation, the CEPR, are claiming that there is no categorical evidence of any electoral irregularities. 

 

Can anybody expand on why the claims of the OAS should be given precedence over those of the CEPR? I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm just curious as to why one claim should be believed over another.

What would the OAS know about rigging elections? Oh, I don’t know, maybe we should ask Haiti 

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5 hours ago, Red Shift said:

not to forget Wall Street.

One of the more entertaining conspiracy websites around. There's always serious money splashed back and forth on a coup. The truth? Who knows.

 

Wall Street is at least in the ball park. Yeah, Lyndon Larouche ecosystem is always good entertainment.

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54 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Anyway this piece has declared herself interim president. Not sure what side of the political spectrum she is like

 

ipanews_e2bc3b46-8057-49ff-9d7c-c91b5dce

 

Im torn between wondering if she is a bit of a milf and wondering if I'd have the nerve to kick my ball into her garden. 

 

Well she can interim my presidency etc etc.

 

That changes everything. Bye bye Morales.

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1 hour ago, SasaS said:

 

Well she can interim my presidency etc etc.

 

That changes everything. Bye bye Morales.

 

Too late to edit, one other thing, is the Constutional Court that approved the new interim president the same Constitutional Court that ruled Morales can go on beyond the two mandates despite the referendum, thus giving his presidency legitimacy?

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Seems like Tesla stock has risen dramatically. Wonder why that could be

 

 

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/12/article-or-bolivias-lithium-and-the-urgency-of-a-coup/

 

edit: forget that stuff about the stock, seems it’s fallen again *whistles* nothing to see here lads - move along, move along. 
 

edit edit: remember that stuff about the stock? Yeah turns out I was looking at the past 5 hours and it has in fact risen dramatically since the coup, but has fallen slightly today 

 

point upheld 

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7 minutes ago, moof said:

Seems like Tesla stock has risen dramatically. Wonder why that could be

 

 

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/12/article-or-bolivias-lithium-and-the-urgency-of-a-coup/

 

That's interesting.

The price of Tesla did go up suddenly and significantly, however before the actual coup, about 30% 23-25 October and this rise mostly recouped losses from the March April.

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Just now, SasaS said:

 

That's interesting.

The price of Tesla did go up suddenly and significantly, however before the actual coup, about 30% 23-25 October and this rise mostly recouped losses from the March April.

Fair enough. Point re-retracted. It is fairly interesting nonetheless, although not a subject I would consider solid ground, personally 

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6 minutes ago, moof said:

Fair enough. Point re-retracted. It is fairly interesting nonetheless, although not a subject I would consider solid ground, personally 

 

It is interesting, lithium was already mentioned and I think it would definitely be naive to think that big global players are not either meddling or aggressively monitoring what is going on wherever there are reserves of this or that "unobtainium" like that thing for mobiles they have in the Congo, oil or other stuff.

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Guest Pistonbroke
10 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Tesla's announcement today -- probably more to do with that

 

I was thinking that myself. Opening up your first factory in Europe to tap into the EU economy will normally have a positive affect. 

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A non biased take on the coup.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/14/what-the-coup-against-evo-morales-means-to-indigenous-people-like-me

 

Quote

Evo Morales is more than Bolivia’s first indigenous president — he is our president, too. The rise of a humble Aymara coca farmer to the nation’s highest office in 2006 marked the arrival of indigenous people as vanguards of history. Within the social movements that brought him to power emerged indigenous visions of socialism and the values of Pachamama (the Andean Earth Mother). Evo represents five centuries of indigenous deprivation and struggle in the hemisphere.

A coup against Evo, therefore, is a coup against indigenous people.

Evo’s critics, from the anti-state left and right, are quick to point out his failures. But it was his victories that fomented this most recent violent backlash.

Evo and his party, the indigenous-led Movement for Socialism (MAS in Spanish), nationalized key industries and used bold social spending to shrink extreme poverty by more than half, lowering the country’s Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, by a remarkable 19%. During Evo’s and MAS’s tenure, much of Bolivia’s indigenous-majority population has, for the first time in their lives, lived above poverty.

The achievements were more than economic. Bolivia made a great leap forward in indigenous rights.

Once at the margins of society, Indigenous languages and culture have been thoroughly incorporated into Bolivia’s plurinational model. The indigenous Andean concept of Bien Vivir, which promotes living in harmony with one another and the natural world, was written into the country’s constitution becoming a measure for institutional reform and social progress. The Wiphala, an indigenous multicolor flag, became a national flag next to the tricolor, and 36 indigenous languages became official national languages alongside Spanish.

Evo’s indigenous socialism has become the standard bearer for the international indigenous community. The esteemed Maori jurist, Moana Jackson, once referred to Bolivia’s 2009 constitution as the “nearest thing in the world to a constitution that has come from an Indigenous kaupapa (a communal vision).”

The indigenous-socialist project accomplished what neoliberalism has repeatedly failed to do: redistribute wealth to society’s poorest sectors and uplift those most marginalized. Under Evo and MAS leadership, Bolivia liberated itself as a resource colony. Before the coup, Evo attempted to nationalize its large lithium reserves, an element necessary for electric cars. Since the coup, Tesla’s stocks have skyrocketed. Bolivia rebuked imperialist states like the United States and Canada by taking the path of resource nationalism to redistribute profits across society.

This was Evo’s crime.

“My sin was being indigenous, leftist, and anti-imperialist,” Evo said after being coerced into resigning this week.

His replacement, Jeanine Añez Chávez, agreed. “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rites,” the opposition senator tweeted in 2013, “the city is not for the Indians who should stay in the highlands or the Chaco!!!” After Evo’s departure, Chavez declared herself interim president while holding up a large bible, though she failed to get the required quorum in the senate to do so.

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Next to her stood Luis Fernando Camacho, a member of the Christian far-right. After Evo’s resignation, Camacho stormed the presidential palace, a flag in one hand and a bible in the other. “The bible is returning to the government palace,” Camacho announced in front a camera while bowing before a bible and flag that he placed atop the presidential seal. “Pachamama will never return. Today Christ is returning to the Government Palace. Bolivia is for Christ.”

In places where the opposition is strongest, Wiphala flags, symbols of indigenous pride, were lowered and burned. Police officers cut the flags from their uniforms. What were symbolic acts quickly escalated into street-level violence.

MAS members’ houses were burned. Evo’s home was ransacked. Masked armed men began rounding up suspected MAS supporters and indigenous people in the streets, loading them into the back of trucks. A handful of protesters have been killed. The same social movements that ushered Evo and MAS into power have taken to the streets to defend the gains of their indigenous revolution.

Amidst the chaos, anti-indigenous race-hatred has gripped the country since Evo’s October 20 re-election. While left critics continue to rail against Evo, paradoxically blaming him for the coup that overthrew him, no evidence has emerged of election fraud. The Organization of American States cited “irregularities” without yet providing documentation. A report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, however, found no irregularities and no fraud.

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To appease critics, Evo even agreed to re-elections but was forced to resign under orders from the military and escalating rightwing violence. No one resigns with a gun pointed to their head. Clearly, it was a coup.

Fearing assassination, Evo fled to Mexico where he was granted asylum and greeted by a cheering crowd.

The future of Bolivia is currently marching in the streets, the millions of people who voted for Evo in the last elections, the 47% whose voices and votes were stolen by the violent return of the old, colonial oligarchy.

Other critics still contend that Evo’s 13-year tenure was too long. They mention Evo losing a referendum to amend constitution but failing to note the Supreme Court ruling that allowed him legally to run for another term. For our indigenous president, after five centuries of colonization, 13 years was not long enough.

“We will come back,” Evo recently assured supporters, quoting the 18th-century indigenous resistance leader, “and we will be millions as Tupac Amaru II said.”

 

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