Starry

Got another one. It's not that I support people like Ortega, but what I support is countries having popular elections, self-determination, being able to conduct their affairs without political interference from the US. I support countries taking care of their own people, and oppose dictatorships, juntas, fascist regimes. And I strenuously oppose the US policy of supporting political strongmen abroad. If we're paragons of democracy (and these days, it's a debatable assumption, no?) -- we should not be afraid of democracy, which means the right for people to self-determination, and NOT corrupt and brutal governments kowtowing to us...

Banana Republicans and Death Squad Democracies

In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, misery plus surging violent crime has turned hope into one word: emigration, preferably to El Norte.

Ironic that three North American-style "success stories" (e.g., popular leftist movements brutally crushed through American intervention/interference and rightist regimes put in place) have led to countries in miserable condition, where the only recourse for the populace is flight!

From Washington's perspective, any Central or Latin American country that tries to take care of its own populace (versus, say, foreign creditors) is immediately on our blacklist. Our stance toward them goes from wary, to icy, to cold, to hostile.

Whereas the regimes that rely on paramilitaries and death squads to terrorize their countries into submission (or civil war), give corporations a free hand in exporting resources and wealth and let them wield undue political influence (aka, "embrace free market economics"), smash trade unions, kill journalists and teachers, have horrible human rights records, and have glaring social inequality -- well, our government likes those countries, so long as they embrace capitalism.

Good luck to Chávez, to Ortega, to the various countries down there who are trying to improve the lives of their citizenry, instead of marching to the tune of Washington, which is invariably bad for the country that does it, good for the corrupt government we're supporting (in terms of our aid to them), and terrible for the people forced to endure it.

Washington likes juntas and coups in the region, and that's not hyperbole, that's history -- it's policy (wrapped up in obfuscating language about democracy, of course)! Shows where our hearts really are in the matter of freedom and democracy, if it's measured in actual practice, and not simply in rhetoric and buzzwords. Never has our rhetoric strayed further from actual practice than in Central and Latin America.

-- Slackie Onassis