You like apples? How about them apples?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071227/wl_afp/colombiabrazilhostages
If Americans think about Latin America at all, they think about how much they hate Mexicans. As we've seen, the debate over "immigration reform for speakers of Spanish and Los Idiomas Centro Americanos" in the United States Of Embarrassment ranges from the "liberal" Bush/McCain position of fines, penalties, indentured servitude and then maybe, possibly, kinda, sorta a chance for citizenship to the "conservative" Giuliani/Huckabee/Hunter/Romney/Tancredo (and, ok, Biden, too) position of death...but first...a little ru-ru. A compassionate alternative simply does not exist in the American discourse. This is too bad for everybody. Too bad for Mexican immigrants. Too bad for 'Merkins, as well. As the USD and replacement-level birth-rate fall, there will reach a point at which it behooves Mexicans to STAY in Mexico and for Central Americans to immigrate to Mexico. Did anyone see the movie The Children Of Men?
But, as usual, I digress. The POW exchange between Colombia and Venezuela means something very good and very bad at the same time. We have been maintaining for almost a year here on the Nuts that the ticking time-bomb was a certain Alvaro Uribe, Bush's last friend from Laredo to Tierra Del Fuego. The day, friends, is upon us. Latin America is a solid bloc of democratic republics headed-up by leaders who self-identify across the spectrum from Center-Right to Socialist. If Alvaro Uribe can negotiate with Hugo Chavez, that sort of puts the lie to everything the Shoe-Lady has been saying about "stabilization" and "destabilization." The Shoe-Lady's putative subordinates, John Negroponte and Elliot Abrams, have seen during "The War On Terror," their life's work go for naught. Negroponte and Abrams LOST LATIN AMERICA.
The under-developed nations of Central America look to Mexico and Costa Rica as models. The rest of Latin America sort of sees Argentina and Chile as local models and the whole region has European fantasies for down the road. The MSM will lie and lie and lie about Hugo Chavez, but make no mistake about it. Hugo Chavez is not Hitler. He's not even Saddam Hussein. His style of leadership is way more aggressive than I'd personally like and his economic policies involve way more central planning than I'd ideally like, but it's not my business. I think Panama's got it right. I think Fernandez-Kirchner's Argentina and Bachillet's Chile have it right as well, although Chile could stand to lighten up a bit in the freedom to choose what to do with one's body department.
Chavez's recent referendum lost in a close vote and he has honored the results. That's a version of democracy. Venezuela has crude oil, baseball, gambling, and a thriving banking sector. With regard to the latter, everything you've been told about Chavez seizing the Venezuelan banks is bullshit. Right now, I'd love to hold Venezuelan bank stock because the goverment, should it go through with the nationalization plan, will pay the equity holders 2x the odds in petro-dollars.
Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru? It's anyone's guess, but it doesn't look bad and you'd certainly want to be lending their currencies and borrowing USDs.
Alvaro Uribe is nobody's fool. He lost once to Gaviria, despite Gaviria's having to stitch together a Howard Dean-like coalition of campesinos, students and urban progressives, after the two main parties, notionally center-left and center-right merged. Uribe won the rematch, but he's too smart to gear down with the CIA and paramilitares and buck the political tide in Latin America. He's in no hurry to continue to fight the Shoe-Lady's proxy war for her. Hence, he's been a willing negotiator with Chavez. Mind you, Alvaro Uribe has been to date the last remaining true believer in the "War On Drugs" (read: "War On Poor"). If he can pull off an exchange that involves the release of the intra-Colombian FARC kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt and a successful set of peace talks between the Paras and the FARC, he's got the Nobel Peace Prize and it's bye-bye to Uncle Sam, Uncle "Company" and Uncle "War On Drugs."
And, of course, another country joins the long list of those agnostic on the "War On Terror."
Don't anybody get too excited. I'm not. I'm scared. I think that the American people have seen Bush & Company for who they are, but the MSM has not. If the Administration's press folks can sell the "surge" as a success, they can sell anything. If they sell Equatorial Latin America as a new member of the "Axis Of Evil," your old friend Kelso's in a world of hurt and it's on to colder climes in one piece with any luck. If you don't think this is possible in the year or so remaining, remember Negroponte and Abrams. THEIR LIFE'S MISSION HAS BEEN A FAILURE. Think of that for a second and remember how badly America needs enemies so the USA-USA-USA chant can go on.
In my fantasies, all of this diplomacy and politicking would be a little more sub-rosa and Chavez wouldn't be so eager to needle Bush at every opportunity. With crude near $100/bbl, Chavez has lots of wiggle room and some of that wiggle room includes just mellowing the fuck out and doing shit his way but on the DL.
All in all, I like what I see down here, but I know what my former Aryan countrymen 5000 miles to the North are capable of. Fingers crossed.
Kelso's Nuts love you
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2 comments:
OK, OK. This was self-indulgent. I admit that George Packer himself couldn't tell Gaviria from Joe Namath's sister Sue, but please think about this for a second. Uncle Sam's backyard has effectively become WESTERN EUROPE. How long before names like Bachillet, Calderon, Fernandez Kirchner, Lula, Morales, Torrijos and Uribe are as familiar as Maliki, et al?-
May it fucking never happen because I happen to enjoy living in peace.
You wrote:
"If Americans think about Latin America at all, they think about how much they hate Mexicans."
Get out of the sun. The Mexicans I see, and I see them every day, are either at work or looking for work. I haven't heard any complaints about their economic role in the NY City economy. There have been some killings in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, where many Mexicans live. But New Yorkers aren't complaining, especially when so many NYers are hiring Mexicans for so many tasks.
There have been a few overcrowding issues in some areas. Too many piling into housing of questionable safety.
But there's no escape from costs of illegal immigration. The kids are crowding the schools and the families are using the hospital emergency rooms for routine medical matters.
No nation with Government healthcare grants citizenship to the children of people who sneak over the border and give birth. France is kicking out all the scammers who are bleeding the system.
If a government healthcare program is ever to succeed here, the country must change its citizenship laws. Second, the US should institute a guest-worker program and third, the US should abolish the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, I think your view of Chavez is far too rosy. He's already fallen into the trap of seeing himself as a Latin American Strongman Dictator. The closer he gets to his goal, the faster the Venezuelan economy will drop. He's a statist, and, as such, he'll wreck the place. The only question is the timing.
Unfortunately, he'll take down the oil industry. Reinvestment, and repair and maintenance will begin to slide along with production, and in a few years, the industry will reach the state of disrepair seen in virtually every country led by a strongman or statist government.
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