And this one comes from Brazil.
The president of Brazil, Luiz Lula da Silva, affirmed that South America has put the era of neoliberalism behind it, and said he agrees with the nationalization of natural gas by his colleague in Bolivia, Evo Morales.
According to the ANSA news agency, Lula, in a meeting with other South American leaders, said that in recent years the region has experienced a “political phenomenon” in which governments were elected that were “advanced in socio-political matters.”
The Brazilian president opined that his Bolivian counterpart “did the right thing in nationalizing gas. The gas is an instrument, a raw material, it is the only thing Bolivia has”, according to the Folha de Sao Paolo newspaper.
After the nationalization of Bolivian hydrocarbons on May 1, 2006, Brazil suspended its investments in the country, in what it considered a defense of the interests of its oil company, Petrobras.
However, Lula da Silva reiterated his decision that the company would re-invest in Bolivia, which he will visit on the 17th of December.
Translation mine.
There goes a major pin from under the Bolivian fascist opposition, which has undoubtedly been after Evo’s blood. For what? What else–preventing them from profiting by Brazilian investment. They claimed he was ruining the country. How it’s possible to ruin a country by raising its share of the profits of its natural resources, such that Bolivia no longer has to borrow money to pay its civil servants’ Christmas bonuses, is beyond me.
But such is the logic of the fiscal fascist. If they’re not making all the money, no one else deserves a cut either.
Good on Evo, though, and good on Lula. Let’s hope Lula does the same with Brazil’s burgeoning oil reserves as Evo is doing with Bolivia’s gas.
And this points up problems with Brazil’s oligarch dominated media and political culture. Petrobras is dominated by capitalist interests.
Lula will get all kinds of shit for saying what he says here.
These lowland, white Bolivians are fucking nazi pigs. Incredible cynicism on the part of these pigfuckers. Sad, the many mestizos some indigenous people of Santa Cruz engage in reactionary destablization for their white masters. Bainwashed little wage slaves.
Go Evo!
Slave, I just finished reading Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, and it’s a hum-dinger. If you haven’t read it yet, do. You’d cheer–the last chapter is about how people are learning to overcome and make end runs around Washington and its bankers and their megacorporations. The Washington Consensus is running out of gas in Latin America, and it’s largely the doing of Chavez. He’s got enough oil money that they’ve just set up the Bank of the South, meaning that countries in need of developmental or humanitarian aid no longer have to accept the conditions set by the IMF, World Bank and other evil entities. I’m going to post video, too–it’s on Aporrea right now, and Evo gets the first word in (Lula the second). He mentions being put under horrific pressure, and of course, the prejudice he’s faced, being an Indio in a white man’s world. He’s not aggressive, but he’s definitely brave and defiant. (And Lula’s sounding pretty bullish, too. I bet Petrobras is about to undergo a major metamorphosis…)
Mark my words, BancoSur is going to change EVERYTHING down there. And best of all, the agreement was signed in Buenos Aires–which, if you’ll recall, was the scene of a real massacre in the name of capitalism. More than half of Argentina was pushed into poverty in 2001, thanks to Carlos Menem and his caving-in to the IMF so that everything got snapped up by foreign “investors” in what was actually the biggest fire sale on the continent. And Argentina is also where a big resistance movement is taking place–workers from a couple hundred factories that were abandoned by their “investors” are taking them back, getting them up and running again, and democratically, yet–no more bosses! No more “investors” or “owners”–everyone who works there is an owner now. They’re fighting the capitalists and winning. It’s a small step, but when BancoSur is up and operating in Argentina, that all could change too! There are a LOT of still-shuttered and abandoned factories and farms, and I see a lot of potential for redistribution.
Oh, and Evo just pointed the finger at a very familiar suspect behind all the attempts at destabilization in Bolivia:
http://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n106090.html
Those white racist pigfuckers, of course, have some much bigger ones behind them. Guess where.
BTW, the Bolivian Constitutional Assembly just completed and approved the new constitution. I assume that now it’s going to go to a popular vote. Things are gettin’ mighty interesting. I can barely keep up with it all, let alone translate. (Not that I’m complaining!)