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in favor of their people because they have LEFTIST (majorityist) governments that are, a) tough with multinationals, and b) strong defenders of national sovereignty.
They are having no trouble finding development money, and getting it on their terms, because the Corpos are desperate for oil and other resources.
The Chavez government in Venezuela, for instance, re-negotiated contracts in which previous rightwing governments had given 90% of the revenues away to multinationals (like Exxon Mobil), and only 10% to Venezuela; now Venezuela gets 60%, the multinationals get 40%, and the Chavez government uses the increased revenue for education, medical care, spurring small business and local manufacturing, land reform, and other benefits to the poor and to the society as a whole (and also to the region, with new institutions such as the Bank of the South, and cooperative development projects).
When Exxon Mobil balked at Venezuela's terms, the Chavez government said "bye-bye," and worked out contracts with the other corps, who respect Venezuela's sovereignty. (Exxon Mobil went into a London court and tried to freeze $12 billion in Venezuela's assets--and lost. Venezuela is not denying them the privilege of operating in Venezuela, but they have to agree to Venezuela's terms.)
The oil was nationalized before Chavez; the Chavez government took the existing situation and made it much better for Venezuelans. The Chavez government has also been excellent in putting together multi-country resource development projects of every kind, using the cooperation of like-minded, social justice governments, to boost their collective power in dealing with U.S. and other multinationals. Numerous resource development projects, and projects for supportive infrastructure and manufacturing, are under way, favoring local investors and workers, and promoting goals of Latin American sovereignty and self-determination--including the biggest project of all, the creation of the South American "Common Market" (UNASUR) (--which does not include the U.S.)
Evo Morales, in Bolivia, nationalized Bolivia's major resource, gas, and negotiated gas contracts that doubled Bolivia's revenues from $1 billion to $2 billion/year*. (Nationalization means that the resource belongs to the people; foreign corporations can bid to exploit the resource, but must agree to government terms.)
Mexico's oil is a constitutionally protected resource that belongs to all Mexicans. It was long ago nationalized. Whatever investment problems the rightwing/Corpo Calderon government may be having are caused by their rightwing/Corpo ideology, which makes them weak negotiators with Bush Cartel and other global corporate predator resource extractors. They are putting the squeeze on him, and he probably owes them for his stolen election in 2005 (which he 'won' against a leftist, Lopez Obrador, by a hairsbreadth--0.05%). He is their tool. They are no doubt withholding investment money in order to get what they want--control of yet another national oil resource and its government (as they hijacked the U.S. government and military to obtain in Iraq).
So, contrary to Wall Street Journal fascist/Corpo propaganda, the answer to Mexico's need for foreign corporate investment in oil development is electing a LEFTIST. It is not turning the resource over to multinationals!
They need to join the Bolivarian Revolution!
And that is not at all a far-fetched possibility. Honduras recently gave the finger to the Bushites and joined the Bolivarian trade group, ALBA. HONDURAS! (--previously the toilet that John Negroponte's death squads crapped in, on their way to killing leftists in Nicaragua and El Salvador, in the 1980s; now a crapped on, 'free trade,' basketcase economy.) Paraguay just elected its first leftist president (and first democratically elected president), Fernando Lugo, who is aligned with the Bolivarians. The prior rightwing government (which had ruled for 61 years) saw the 'handwriting on the wall' even before Lugo was elected, and joined the Bank of the South (one of Chavez's best ideas), as well as rescinding their non-extradition laws and immunity for the U.S. military. (Paraguay is no longer a haven for fascist war criminals such as our Bushites.)
Leftists are leading in the polls in El Salvador and Panama, which will likely elect leftist presidents this year/early next year. Guatemala just elected its first progressive government, ever--Alvaro Colom, who, in a country where Reagan's goon squads slaughtered 200,000 Mayan villagers in the 1980s--is an ordained Mayan priest! His platform is to solve poverty, and includes rejecting a "police state" solution (read U.S./Bush corrupt, failed, murderous "war on drugs") to solve Guatemala's high crime rate. He is not an avowed Bolivarian, but is strongly tending that way.
Who does that leave, who is not turning to LEFTIST solutions of social justice and Latin American self-determination? Almost no one.
LEFTIST (or center-left allies of the leftists): Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil (strong ally), Chile (weak ally).
LIKELY TO ELECT LEFTISTS SOON: El Salvador, Panama, Peru.
TENDING LEFT (current government): Guatemala, Honduras.
LEFTIST ALMOST WON (0.05%): Mexico.
That leaves basically Colombia--a Bush Cartel client state run by narco-thugs, funded with $6 BILLION in U.S. taxpayer dollars in military aid, and where over 40 union leaders were slaughtered by rightwing deaths squads, closely associated with the Colombian military (and government leaders) this year alone. A violent, fascist government that has sold its soul to Occidental Petroleum, Chiquita, Monsanto and other Corpo dragons.
And I should mention Costa Rica, a once progressive country, whose leaders sold out to the Bush junta, with CAFTA, a 'free trade' deal that shafts heretofore well-paid Costa Rican workers, and abandons the poor. CAFTA is why Honduras just joined the Bolivarian trade group, ALBA--because CAFTA has brought so little benefit to Honduras' basketcase economy.
The trend is OVERWHELMINGLY leftist along Bolivarian lines: social justice, Latin American sovereignty and self-determination. The Bushites, of course--and their Corpo puppetmasters and Corpo media--are fighting this leftist revolution tooth and nail, and slandering it relentlessly. But they are losing their war against the sovereignty and democracy of Latin America--losing it, big time. And Calderon will also lose, next time round, particularly if he forces privatization of Mexico's oil--the worst possible policy.
It is comparable to the privatization of energy in California--and then Enron struck, and stole California's $10 billion budget surplus. Give Corpos any such leeway, and they will destroy the 'golden goose.' They are like children eating candy--they must be restrained, and it is for their own good, as well as everyone else's. Unregulated Corpo plunder machines tend to implode--like the Freddie/Fannie mortgage looters, Enron, the S&Ls, and so many others, and like the U.S. economy as a whole, right now, under the Bush junta.
Brazil and Argentina just announced they are going off the U.S. dollar. South America is insulating itself from the "shock and awe" bombing of the U.S. economy, by unregulated Corpos. They are doing it in many different ways. Mexico needs to join them, and will only do so by electing a LEFTIST who will defend the common good. Calderon may be backing off for the moment--looking at the political realities--but he presents a continuing threat against Mexico's sovereignty, and is very unlikely to do the best and wisest thing--disentangling Mexico from U.S. Corpos (and the "war on drugs") and joining the South American "Common Market."
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*(The irony of the Bush-backed white separatist opposition in Bolivia, who are wrangling with the Morales government over $50 million in gas revenues which he took from the white separatists' provinces and used for a national elderly pension ($35/mo.!), is that Morales has DOUBLED their gas revenues--from $1 billion to $2 billion--by re-negotiating the contracts. These provinces will be flush with cash because of Morales, and don't need to take food off the tables of the elderly poor. It appears to be the "principle of the thing" to them--old poor/indigenous people ought to be starved to death and thrown on the garbage heap as useless slave labor. The fascists in Bolivia are a lot like our Bushites--stupid and brutal.)
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