Posted on 08/16/2008 5:07:39 AM PDT by decimon
ASUNCION (AFP) - An ex-bishop who ended 61 years of one-party conservative rule in Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, was sworn in Friday as his nation's president, further swelling the ranks of leftwing leaders in South America.
Ideologically aligned leaders, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentina's Cristina Kirchner, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa attended the ceremony in Asuncion
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
More proof that sadly, democracy isn’t for everyone.
Putin’s minions in America. Europe for Russia, MEast for Iran, Asia for China. The axis carving out the world.
Or, sadly, that democracy is for too many. Lugo was elected.
I think I know what you mean but It has become a personal bug to see people substitute 'democracy' for 'freedom.' Dubya has made me cringe with that but I think his rhetoric has improved over his presidency. Some of his later speeches have mentioned freedom separate from democracy.
Paraguay never had it to lose.
From what I have seen, the United States is heading in that direction also.
Each day more and more individuals who call themselves Americans become willing to sell their souls to the Government in the false hope that the “government” will take care of them, thus relieving them of this responsibility.
Two of the code words they use are “health care” and “affordable housing”.
Sadly, the CIA isn’t doing their job while the KGB is doing theirs quite well.
Exactly. They are not synonyms, nor does one guarantee the other. It is theoretically possible (though highly improbable) to have significant personal freedom under an unelected dictator or a monarch, but in too many situations in so many countries, people will often exercise their right and vote in leaders who will strip them of their freedom.
True. The region would be better off if we brought back the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. It seems that Latin America was doing much better for itself when we had a greater role in picking its leaders. Once we stopped doing that, more of the region just went back down the wrong way of socialism and communism.
Reagan must be spinning in his grave now that Daniel Ortega is running things again in Nicaragua.
I think post #5 has it right. The Paraguayans, like most Latin Americans, have been screwed no matter who has ruled them because all have, in fact, ruled them.
South American politics, just like Europe’s, swings back and forth. Several years from now some of these countries will swing back to the right after their leftisist economic policies fail.
Usually to some strongman to bring order from chaos.
Another Latin American success for the Bush/Rice team.
My Hero, Ronald Reagan, would never have allowed this nonsense, nor set the stage for it, throughout Latin America the likes we have seen in the last eight years. It gets worse and worse and worse.
Wonder if there are still any old Nazis hanging out in Paraguay ?
BDS. There is no cure. Donate to the BDS Foundation today.
And nearly every past president.
1) A former Bishop sounds like Liberation Theology aka Marxianity, but it turns out that the Pope gave him dispensation to take what amounts to a leave of absence--welcome to return to the Church when his term is over.
2) He had support from a whole range of political parties including the "right" party that has ruled since the '40s because of the widespread and firmly entrenched corruption everywhere. He's not taking a salary, is probably going back into the Church later, and so just might be clean enough to do the clean-up job.
OTOH his other big job is combating poverty which unfortunately usually means socialism which usually means greater poverty which then obviously requires even more socialism... He is admittedly left wing.
The really bad news: The swearing-in ceremony was also attended by Cuban Vice President Jose Ramon Machado, Iranian Vice President Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. Paraguay is one of just 23 countries which recognize Taiwan rather than China, and there are reports that Lugo could switch diplomatic allegiance. Hashemi, meanwhile, stressed his country's ties with several of the Latin American states represented. Iran "is a good friend of Venezuela and today we have another friend: Paraguay," he said, adding that relations with Ecuador were also "developing strongly."
I think the best we can hope for here is that he actually manages to break the infrastructure of politically entrenched thieves (wish somebody could do that in DC) without too much socialist destruction and gets the hell out. He has 97% approval. Let's see what happens.
Meanwhile in the Bolivian recall which had the potential to blow away most of the non-communist resistance in South America, we got mixed results.
About that Bolivian recall: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/15/opinion/edbolivia.php Everybody Loses in Bolivia’s Recall Vote.
What this really amounts to is that the communist Evo Morales is somewhat strengthened, but his freedom and capitalistic opponents in the wealthier provinces (funny how that usually goes) were re-elected too and are refusing to go along with him and still want autonomy.
You never know. What they say and what they do can be quite different.
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