Bolivia Set to Pass Historic 'Law of Mother Earth'

[Marcel]

Interesting and inspiring stuff.

[amanito]

awesome. Too bad that most of these countries are too hard to survive (speaking from experience) if you don't bring enough dollars to invest.

[kadakuda]

from what i have read this man seems to be a great politician. I am not sure of all the little details but e speaks a logical piece, thats for sure. Im honestly surprised he has not had a fatal "accident" yet.

this may also be of interest to those how car.

http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2009/090422_Earth_Day.doc.htm

[amanito]

Well, . he sounds great yes. But he's also friends of Chavez, not that this means he's also an asshole. But my experiences in Latin-America have learned me that in the west many of these guys are seen as heroes etc and once you're there it's dictatorship.

That's why I'm cautious, but he looks like a good guy, yes.

[nothinghead]

Well, . he sounds great yes. But he's also friends of Chavez, not that this means he's also an asshole. But my experiences in Latin-America have learned me that in the west many of these guys are seen as heroes etc and once you're there it's dictatorship.

That's why I'm cautious, but he looks like a good guy, yes.

 

In comparison with the majority of world 'leaders' Chavez is a good bloke. He's made gradual changes that are critical to global capitalism, introduced a social welfare program, invited indigenous groups to join parliament, has been vocal and critical of the US, and made efforts for conservation. He's by no means perfect, but obviously a greater leader than others who get credit for their work like Barak Obama.

[amanito]

I lived in Venezuela and I can tell you things are not like they seem, it's a dictatorship, full of corruption and heavily censored, enormous crime rate and all those so called projects only exist in numbers printed on papers. There is no electricity or water most of the time and basic foods are most of the time not to be found. If you want to stay alive you better don't talk about the great leader in public, unless it's positive.

I've learned that it's way too easy to have an opinion based on some articles and things you see on tv, you can only know (partly) if you have actually lived there. Media are corrupted and no matter if it's left or right winged, everyone has an agenda and will do everything to look like the good guys.

In articles you get to see a bunch of numbers, there you get to see the reality. The cause of most of the reasons we fled from Venezuela are caused by Chavez. This is coming from a left-winged guy having lived amongst all social classes over there. Once I've got more time, I'll make a nice and long post about it.

It's not because somebody stands up against the US that makes him a good guy. (ps, he's a hypocrit, almost all the Venezuelan oil goes to US)

Look at Syria, North-Korea, Zimbabwe ... all happen to be good pals from Chavez, btw

Remind me to make a post about Chavez, the biggest capitalist of Venezuela

Edited December 7, 2011 by amanito

[amanito]

Btw,

In case anyone wants to turn things this way ... I am NOT defending capitalism. People need to realize that all these governments are corrupted. And the ones that start with idealistic freedom fighters are even more sensitive to it sometimes. They quickly see that they have to shut up the opposition so they can do their thing, BAM, there you have your dictatorship.

I'm not saying that capitalism is good, because of our consumption behaviour Nigeria is fucking polluted with oil, wars are being fought about minerals we need for our cell phones and people are migrating because of drought cause by global warming caused by our overconsumption.

Life has learned me that most of these pro communist talks come from people out of middle class who are pretty comfortable and who I don't easily imagine living in a communist regime without freedom of choice and all that. But good, that's another topic, communism doesn't need to turn out that way, but with Chavez things went horribly wrong.

We shouldn't be only critical towards kapitalism in all it's form, but to all kinds of regimes, to all kinds of media and to people in general. Don't take anything for granted. All those people in power they fuck you in the ass one way or another. Don't believe the hype

Btw, people in Venezuela don't have a clue who Ché or Marx is

Edited December 7, 2011 by amanito

[Mycot]

Thanks for your posts regarding Venezuela Amanito especially in relation to media. I've found them most interesting as I'm quite used to the media demonizing things at comvienience and defending the indefensible. I think that a major reason why many look favorably upon Venezuela is because of reports of major public support from Vebezuela's population. What do you say of these reports?

[amanito]

Well, when Chavez loses an election he just organizes a new election. Last election he lost, but he manipulated things to have the majority. He is smart, he knows not to fraud monster scores because the majority hates him so he always wins with 5o percent. He also changed to constitution that he can be reelected unlimited times, although he promised never to do that. My wife met a peruvian on a plane who was going to live in Venezuela, in order to get his pasport he needed to vote for Chavez. Everyone tells me that your vote is registered. i dont know if thats true. but I heard that those computers are partly compromised. For everything you want to do nowadays you need to be member of the party. Students and workers are forced to go in prochavez demonstrations or you lose your job and all that. I have seem antichavezdemonstrations that never reach the media here with the army ready with bazookas waiting for the students. The majority of people hate Chavez, I have met few persons who are in favor and mostly that is becos of poor education, but even a lot of ignorant and poor people realize the damage hes doing to the country. In the state where i lived people really really fucking hate him, like in every good dictatorship you see his fucking picture everywhere, or Che or Fidel or Arafat or even Bin Laden. even paintings of Jezus holding a machine gun lol.

[Mycot]

Most enlightening. Thanks.

[Sallubrious]

I can't speak from first hand experience, but from what I've seen Bolivia is a bit different to Venezuela.

Evo Morales has taken some positive steps towards claiming his countries resources for the good of Bolivia. He has seized control of the countries assets and for the most part kicked out the corporations and world bankers that had claimed the assets for themselves.

I could be way of the mark as I've only seen 1 documentary on the subject (Docos about politics normally have a political agenda so I can't be certain) In the doco Evo Morales was championed as a hero by the poor and the working class in the south where most of the mining was going on. The richer more well off northerners were against him and the doco said US money was being funneled in to undermine his government. The US has even sanctioned murders against some of Morales supporters and have done all sorts of dirty tricks to regain control of Bolivia's assets.

One of the first things Morales did was to kick out the U.S. ambassador for conspiring to undermine the new democracy.

Morales is the first fully indigenous person to become president of Bolivia, and he was elected to the office in 2006. Since assuming office, he has nationalized the countries gas reserves. He is trying to redistribute the proceeds from this gas to help the poor and working classes of his country. He is the first Bolivian president to really try to help the country's underprivileged (most of whom are indigenous people).

Naturally the rich don't like this. They don't want to have to share the wealth. They are fomenting demonstrations and violence, and at least one pipeline has been bombed. They want to seize control of the gas-producing parts of the country and break off from the rest of Bolivia, or at least secure enough autonomy so they won't have to share gas revenues with the rest of Bolivia.

As usual, the Bush administration has sided with the rich and against the poor. To an oilman like Bush, the poor having a decent standard of living is not nearly as important as the rich being able to become even richer.

Obviously you can't get a true impression of a countries politics from watching one doco and I'm not trying to imply that I do, but I got the impression from the doco that Morales sided with Chavez as the was the lesser of two evils and he realised a tiny country like Bolivia would not stand a chance against the U.S. if they stood alone.

Bolivia still has many social problems and to enforce order in that part of the world needs a different sort of leadership than it does here. Maybe Morales is running the show like a dictator and calling it a democracy, I guess it comes down to who you ask.

Back to the topic posted in the original thread, if this move doesn't have any ulterior motives that are based on greed I see this as this "Law of Mother Earth" as the most visionary, awesome thing any politician has ever done.

[Marcel]

I've been reading about Evo all morning, and I'm in love.

I want to go to La Paz and shake that guy's hand.

[amanito]

Good post SallyD

[sharxx101]

I think that this is a great idea but it needs to be enforced. When I see the proof that this law is being exercised, then I will believe the polly.

[Mycot]

Listened to a truly impressive podcast the other day given at the University of Sydney that really fleshes out this topic.

The podcast titled "Earth Rights: Reframing society for the 21st Century" can be found on the linked page and is of such an important nature that it ought to go viral.

http://sydney.edu.au..._cullinan.shtml

Edited December 23, 2011 by Mycot