The left is winning in Latin America - Bolivia

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051219/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/bolivia_election

Evo Morales is the winner. An admirer and friend of Hugo and Fidel. Take THAT Shrubboob!

[Cassandra]

1. I'm less than thrilled about his being a friend of Fidel but...

considering the mess the right wing has made of Latin America over the years, I can understand why the other direction might look good. People don't support free-market capitalism, let alone crony capitalism, if it doesn't look like they'll ever benefit from it.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. It's no more of a sin to be a friend of Fidel's than for Clinton to have

been a friend of Salinas de Gatori in Mexico, the Last PRI candidate in the 70 year "perfect dictatorship."

In fact, I'd choose Fidel over several of Clinton's friends, and over most of bush's friends. bush walks hand in hand with some of the most dispicable despots on the planet.

While I'm philosophically opposed to dictatorship in general, I'm at least pleasantly surprised that Casto remained true to the promises of the revolution. He invested heavily into the health, education, and general welfare of his people and remains immensely popular with a wide segment of the population. Of course not everybody love him or visa versa.

So I could agree to disagree about dictatorship and still be amazed at what Castro has accomplished in terms of literacy rates, college graduation rates, longevity rates, hunger, potable water, healthcare, and other nessesities of life throughout Cuba. I think I could be his friend, maybe. It would probably be much more dependant on how we connected personally than on the fact that he isn't a small d democrat.

I believe we (The US) would stand to gain so much more through a liberal trade policy with Cuba. We need to stop demanding and start engaging. We prop up Castro by attacking him. We could trade them into submission way easier than the totally BS policy we have been stuck on for so long.

It's a new world. Latin America is tired of being easy pickings for US, European, and Asian economic interests and are moving towards a political and economic unity to allow them to compete with the other trading blocks.

[Matariki]

2. G-d save them all from *'s cia