Posted on 05/02/2006 8:21:21 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
On Monday, Bolivian President Evo Morales ordered troops to occupy Bolivia's natural gas fields. He threatened to kick foreign firms out unless they sign new contracts within six months that would make Bolivia's government the largest shareholder.
Elected last year, Morales is following the lead of Venezuela, where the government of leftist Hugo Chavez has also strong-armed foreign — mostly U.S. — oil companies, forcing them to cede control of property they have invested millions to develop.
The threat to free markets and democracy is growing. On Saturday, Morales, Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro stood side by side after a meeting in which they created a new socialist trade bloc to challenge the U.S.-led push for a Free Trade Area of the Americas.
"These new leaders have emerged, and they make me the happiest man in the world," cooed the 79-year-old Castro, whose communist regime has murdered 100,000 of its citizens and let thousands more die on the open seas fleeing his tyranny. "Now, for the first time, there are three of us."
Yes, the "three of us." And possibly more. According to the BBC, Venezuela's Chavez has spent as much as $25 billion trying to influence politics outside his country. In Peru, leftist presidential candidate Ollanta Humala is widely seen as a Chavez stooge. And in Mexico, where the next vote is June 1, leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads in the polls, proposes a series of "reforms" similar to Chavez's that would aggressively push Mexico away from the free market. ...
For Castro, Chavez, Morales & Co., it's pretty clear oil is only the start. By working together to disrupt struggling democracies in the region, they will bring back socialism in a big way — creating, potentially, a new national security nightmare for the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Okay. I am convinced there will soon be a world war on the scale of World War II. The whackos are rising to the surface.
If these banana farmers want to go back to bannana farming thats fine. As long as we disable, destroy or dismantle anything we developed in their little 3rd world cess pools before leaving. We are fools if we leave the technology and investment there.
It is also imperitive that we secure our borders, move to energy dependence and issue a stern warning to those others waiting in the fold to pounce on this potential (i.e. Russia, China) gold mine in what is considered our "backyard".
I'm not so worried about these leftist idiots as i am the fact that many other folks would love to establish a foothold on this natural resource rich section of the Western Hemisphere.
This was directed at Morales, not at you, Joe.
I heard the Venezuela oil system is already falling into disrepair. Many rigs are just sitting their collecting rust.
Just call them the Three Stooges II.
These idiots have never read history or they're just disregarding it. No where, in no country, has a country nationalized a business and been able to maintain the productivity of that operation. This move by these idiots will reduce the output of these resources and end up hurting these countries and the people.
BUT, the despot will get lots of applause from the "have-nots" because he's ripping off the 'murican. Hurting the middle and upper class in those countries, but so what? After all, what matters is the term that Chavez, Castro and Morales are in charge, right? After that, if the people all starve, well that's just the way the ball bounces in the Totalitarian welt. Now, have a nice Communist day.
I hope Exxon and other oil companies, under scrutiny in the current scurrying by the political weenies, brings up the fact that they frequently lose their investments due to Left Wing interventions and nationalization (Hello, Hitlery and health care).
If those oil companies don't pull out ASAP, they will find every country they operate in watching and thinking 'Hm... we could do that too...'
Unlike the regions settled by the heirs of old British values (with the rule of law, private property, liberty, and democracy), what Latin America inherited was a centralized system comprised of a small number of landowners and churchmen at the top, with a tiny middle class to serve them, and masses of dirt-poor, uneducated peasants comprising the bulk of the population.
Without a majority of the population living comfortably in the middle class, Latin America is a perfect medium for the proliferation of Marxist demagoguery.
The refrain of "workers of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your chains" can be powerful mojo to a pig-ignorant, unemployed family living in despair in a filthy slum.
The way I see it, the only way for Latin America to avoid being crushed under the communist boot would be for massive reform of property rights, sanitation, and tax policy, combined with a zero-tolerance policy against institutional corruption.
But that's never going to happen. Not until the people there have spend a few decades "building the radiant future of socialism", at least.
I don't like it one bit, but that's just how I see it.
Well said.
Sadly, it seems latin america is going to continue down this course. Brazil will end up being the last free economy down there. Hopefully, it can act as a buffer in some ways.
That being said, when Castro kicks the bucket, it will be interesting to see what happens to Cuba.
Groups take to the jungles, death squads murder each other in droves, the UN sits back and does nothing. Lots of folks end up in graves, the whole of South and Central America becomes a wasteland of abject poverty as angry populations move between countries, spreading chaos, violence, and political instability like a cold.
The masses get what they vote for.
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I'm absolutely shocked that such a thing would happen in a communist country! Did no investors ever think this could/would happen? Really now, who are the stooges?
Just as it looked like Chile was showing the other latin American countries how to climb out of the economic abyss, like Castro before them, Chavez, Morales, and maybe many others will plunge their countries back down into the black pit. Bad times for south and central Americans.
What happened to the Wonders of NAFTA and GATT???
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