Linda O’Keefe – Good article about socialism in Latin America.
In an effort to keep his union buddies happy, Obama has ditched the trade agreement with Colombia – a democracy that is in our best interest to help.
And, don’t forget how Obama & Clinton were on the wrong side in Honduras. The administration even tried to block Senator Demint from going to Honduras while the Progressive Caucus take junkets to visit their Marxists buddies in Cuba.
Obama’s foreign policy or lack thereof in the western hemisphere could have catastrophic consequences while Chavez continues to strengthen ties between anti-American Latin countries and Iran & N Korea.
Twenty-first-century socialism in Latin America actually consists of five socialisms, as many as the countries that constitute that caudillo-led, anti-republican, chaotic and authoritarian little world.
They unite in anti-Americanism, in the conviction that individuals must be at the service of the State, not the opposite, in their contempt for the market and in the superstition that the caudillo knows exactly what benefits or hurts all citizens, but they’re very different.
The governments that compose it are Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.
The first one is Cuba, of course. Without the Cuban dictatorship, the other socialisms wouldn’t exist. Cuba delivers to the other four countries what it knows how to do with great skill: strategic leadership, intelligence chores, methods of political and social control, institutional carpentry, propaganda and international aid networks. It also contributes health personnel and sports training. But that’s only a cover, the least important contribution. Cuba teaches everything it learned from the Soviet Union in its 30 years of complicity with the communist world.
The great paradox is that Raúl Castro stopped being a Marxist-Leninist and regrets the days when he and his brother irresponsibly pushed the island in the direction of communism, but the only merchandise he has to sell is the manufacture of totalitarian cages like the one that destroyed Cuba. For that, Hugo Chávez pays him regally: 108,000 barrels of crude oil a day, plus other covert forms of subsidy and corruption that raise the final figure to more than $5 billion per year. Raúl does not share the plans of world conquest that Chávez caresses, but the customer is always right and Chávez is not just “the client,” he’s the only client Cuba has.
Chávez sees himself as Fidel’s hand-picked heir. His delirious fantasy is to triumph where Moscow failed. He wants to build and direct an anti-Western camp big enough for the Iranian theocracy, the North Korean madhouse, Zimbabwe, the Belarussian tyranny and anyone who hates the liberal democracies. He considers himself a Marxist-Leninist — no need to question his own self-definition — but does not seek ideological uniformity. He seeks the creation of a bloc united by the rejection of the political model wrought by the West during the Enlightenment.
Like Raúl Castro, Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega stopped believing in communism but did not transform himself into a democrat. Today, he is a neo-Somozan. He wants to stay in power at any cost so he can rule and enrich himself. That’s his 21st-century socialism. For that, he has control of the courts of justice and a key element that the Somoza family also utilized with great skill: corruption. Ortega bribes parliamentarians, judges, journalists and voters.
The amount at his disposal for the purchase and sale of consciences and wills is $1 billion per year, supplied by his mentor, Hugo Chávez. That’s a lot of cash in a very poor country, but if that money ever ceases to arrive, his regime would founder swiftly.