Chile just elected a socialist president Whistler. Brazil has a leftist President as well. The only hold out in the South American swing to the left is Columbia. THey just had an election a couple months ago and US backed drug dealer Uribe won, after paramilitary groups stuck guns in people’s faces to make them vote.

Peru, Mexico and Costa Rica all are expected to vote in leftists. Uruguay voted in a leftist for the first time ever last year. Argentina has a leftist leader and they, along with Brazil got rid of all their debt to the IMF.

You guys had your chance, your "Washington Consensus" neoliberal economic plan for South America fell flat on it’s face.  

 There are plenty of problems with Chavez. I think his cult of personality is one, but he has the backing of the majority of people in Venezuala.  And he is using their oil money for social programs, instead of the usual keeping the rich rich, that has been going on for decades. After the coup, people hit the streets in huge numbers to get him back into office. I just saw a BBC report on Chavez’s main opponent, who blamed his own party for losing elections. He said they haven’t connected with the poor, and didn’t say a word about stealing elections. In fact, Ven. is dealing with the same company that provides the US with voting machines.  

  I love the way this works. The US doesn’t like a leader in a country so they set up a group, usually called "democracy for _____" then they do everything in their power to subvert the government. If the leader is clearly popular, like Chavez, they have the opposition group sit out elections in protest so they can say "see, he is against democracy!" they did the same thing in Haiti. Now we will see if the pressure keeps up. Assassination threats, already one failed coup attempt. The threat of a good example is one we won’t tolerate. Maybe Chavez will be able to withstand the onslought, maybe he will turn into a paranoid dictator like Castro. I hope not. The people of South America need to be in control of their natural resources. the free market has been South America’s holocaust.

graeme said, the free market has been South America’s holocaust.

Can you explain that statement?

 here is one link-

 That”>http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia231.htm

 That

is probably too left. Here is another one-

 all”>http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32465

 all

canidates paramilitaries were supporting also support Uribe.

 The policies of stacking Latin America with military dictators that opposed communism, causing dirty wars and mass killings, mixed with a "free trade" that has opened their countries workers for exploitation by mulit-national corps from more developed economies, has created hundreds of thousands of deaths. I compared that to A holocaust, not THE holocaust. though holocaust is probably not the best word to use,

What a ridiculous, narrow-minded, and unnecessary name for a blog. Jimmy Carter rocked.

…uncultured barbarians…

Spoken like an effete intellectual snob.

I like to give people the opprotunity to back up their claims.  Maybe he will learn something new in his pursuits to Google some evidence.

But the sweater dude does have an interesting pop-culture/cult-firgure effect.

If Graeme’s right, it sounds like a holocaust to me.

Don’t call people morons who know more about a subject (in this case South America) than you!

And by the way, didn’t Argentina’s economy collapse after American pressure to privatise and open up to foreign (e.g. erm, American, investors)?

http://www.zmag.org/kutnerargen.htm

the free market has been South America’s holocaust.

Obviously, Likwid, he means that American businesses have been torching Brazilians in ovens.

But let’s take a look at South America for a moment.  What is the most successful country on that continent?  Brazil.  Why is that?  Because Brazil has embraced capitalism. Not completely yet, of course, but more so than its neighbors.

But don’t expect that to get Graeme past his fawning over communist dictators like Hugo Chavez. 

I wouldn’t hold my breath, Free.  Graeme started out by comparing capitalism to the holocaust.  Are you actually expecting an answer that has any basis in reality at this point?

But if you want to hear Graeme get all sappy just ask him about Evo Morales’ sweaters.  Dude has a man-crush or something.