Evo to Thump Privatization (Bolivia)

Evo to Thump Privatization

La Paz, Dec 26 (Prensa Latina) Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales plans to deal a harsh blow to privatizations in his country when the legislation that created them twenty years ago is abolished, MAS spokespeople said Monday.

The Movement toward Socialism (MAS) spokespeople announced the measure seeks to change the prevailing economic model in defense of indigenous and farmer interests during a meeting with leaders of the Trade Union Federation of Mining Workers.

Carlos Villegas, MAS advisor, recalled that ex President Victor Paz changed the economic paradigm which was State-led at that time.

Under his political influence the successive governments of Jaime Paz (1989-1993) and Gonzalez Sanchez de Lozada (1993-1997) privatized 95 percent of the public enterprises, among them oil and communication, said Villegas.

The future administration will reject this because it "increased unemployment and labor instability," asserted the indigenous representative.

PRENSA LATINA

When Evo gets rid of all the leeches.

:-)

It used to mean something.
:hi:

Bechtel several years ago. Bechtel owned the water utility. They were so heavy handed the citizens revolted against them. It became a crime to collect rain water. The price of water got so high, villagers resorted to saving rain water, so Bechtel had the local government pass a law against the practice.

This is why globalization is so much hated in other countries and why people are organizing resistance to their resources being stolen by the transnationals.

She came here to lend support to our water fight.

I haven't read her book, "Blue Gold."

I did read "Water Wars" Vandana Shiva. Excellent.

I haven't read either book, and that's my loss.

You know with Wolfowitz over the World Bank, there will be a lot more privatization of natural resources and more corporate governance of the third world.

they saw collecting rain water as theft.

after a day or two that they had more in common with the poor people they were being asked to repress than they had in common with the Americans who owned Bechtel and whose interests they were protecting, and they decided to stay in their barracks.

.
.
.

I found the whole idea so outrageous I found it hard to believe

When in doubt

I Google

and alfredo was right on . . .

" In Bolivia, before the passage of an infamous 1999 water law called Law 2029, traditional autonomous water distribution networks provided water to campesinos outside the city of Cochabamba. Within the city, only half the population was connected to the central water system; the rest got water from barrio-wide cooperatives, wells or rainwater cisterns.

Law 2029 handed all of these autonomous water systems over to private corporations without any compensation to the people who had built them, and prohibited people from drawing water from their wells without paying a utility fee. It even prevented people from collecting rainwater in cisterns."




Article is worth a good read - (above image is link to article)

It explains in chronological detail Bechtel's involvement, and the people's protests that got them ousted . . .

But sadly, how the Korporates just took their greed to other countries . . .

(sigh)

a sort of social contract--between the robber barons and financial sharks, on the one hand, and the workers (the vast majority) and community/democratic interests, on the other. The Soviet Union and Red China--and the international workers movement--provided powerful incentive to the first group (the robber barons and financial sharks) to agree to decent wages/benefits, collective bargaining, social safety nets for the poor, and fair taxation of business and the rich for the development of common infrastructure (electrification, communications, water works, schools, roads, hospitals, parks, etc.). They agreed to this bargain--this social contract--in order to PREVENT worker revolts here, such as had occurred elsewhere (a real threat in the US in the 1920s/30s). This was the bargain of the big unions and big business in the '50s. Let the few continue to own the factories and resources, if they behaved themselves, and the many would curb their more inflammatory leftists. All would prosper.

But with the demise of the Soviet Union and changes in China (away from collectivization), US capitalists--now grown into global corporate predators (from all the natural resources, infrastructure and hard, loyal work, and creativity and invention we provided them) have tossed the social contract overboard, and have left American workers and democratic American values in the dust. They are back to egregious exploitation and out-of-control looting and pillaging.

Whatever one thinks of the Soviet Union and Red China--in their difficulties and failures in implementing the communist philosophy (and they were serious, and can largely be ascribed to the complete lack of a democratic tradition in either society), they were THE global "check and balance" against western capitalists' desire to enslave and abuse workers, to grab all resources and to corrupt democratic government and twist it to their own ends.

The infrastructure of our democracy--electrical facilities, water works, schools, hospitals and so on, and including commonly held ground such as parks, watersheds and wildlife refuges--is all now on a fast track to "privatization" in which NOTHING will be operated for the common good, but all will be operated for maximum profit of the rich few. Even our ELECTIONS have been privatized--with partisan (Bushite) corporations having gained control of our election system, with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code in the new electronic voting machines and virtually no audit/recount controls. They now can directly "select" politicians who won't tax or regulate them in the common interest--and put them in office. Previously, they bought them with big campaign contributions and lavish lobbying. Electronic voting (at our expense) is a lot cheaper. (--a nice loop of corruption: WE pay for the electronic voting machines that oppress us.)

One symptom of the "privatization" of our government is the outsourcing of jobs, and the proliferation of sweatshops worldwide. Decisions are being made on a pure profit basis, with absolutely no consideration of the "common good" --and no requirement of it, from our government. The labor situation has not been so out of balance since the days of the slave trade. The rights of the majority--the workers--have almost no protection left, and any remnants of that balance (good unions that have been able to maintain good wages/benefits) are under constant assault.

And, while good wages/benefits and workers rights are being reduced or eliminated, our electricity, water, telephone, transportation, and medical costs have all skyrocketed, due to privatization or de-regulation. The impacts on education are a little less direct, but still devastating. For instance, the rich have been given so many tax cuts (due quite directly to the privatization of our elections) that they are no longer paying anything close to their fair share of the cost of an educated citizenry. It's not that there is no money for our schools. It's that the money that should go to our schools is going instead into the pockets of the richest few (and to war profiteers). Our schools are failing BECAUSE OF tax cuts to the rich and to corporations. Also, the costs of a university education--which used to be basically free in California, for instance--is now comparable to what a PRIVATE education cost in the '60s, and these costs are SUBSIDIZING corporate use of our universities for corporate research, as well as, once again, lining the pockets of the rich (by reverse taxation).

We are subsidizing the rich in many ways. For instance, this whole new (Reagan era) idea of "user fees" in our public parks was intended not only to inure us to the loss of "common good" values--everything must have a price, nothing can be free as our common property--but it also REMOVES THE BURDEN of the cost of our common infrastructure and common property from the rich. If you have to pay $30 to sleep overnight in a public camping facility, the rich SHOULD BE paying, say, $29 of that cost, that their election theft politicians have cut from their fair share of taxes. YOU pay the difference--even though YOUR fair share of the tax may be only $1.

And this crap leads straight to a company like Bechtel charging peasants in Bolivia for collecting rainwater. That's what unchecked, unbalanced capitalism does. It exploits and oppresses. It is predatory. It sucks up all resources and power. And the corporate capitalism that has been launched from our shores--that is, highly ORGANIZED piracy and looting, with everlasting "charters" (corporations never die; they just keep accumulating more and more property, assets and power*)--is the worst the world has ever seen. It is not just oppressing us and everyone else, it is killing the planet.

They have transparent elections now in South America--due to the hard work of OAS, EU and Carter Center election monitors, and the long hard struggle of the leftist majorities in South American countries to achieve political power in proportion to their numbers. That is why nearly the entire map of the South American subcontinent has gone "blue"--with leftist governments in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and now Bolivia. Transparent elections. The right to vote.

These are peaceful revolutions (remarkably--shows what you can do with the right to vote), which are banding together for political/economic strength, to assert "common good" government, which had been violently destroyed or prevented from developing by US/corporate interference in previous decades. "Common good" government is a broad category of potential government organization that can include socialism and mixes of capitalism and socialism. We had a "common good" government in the US up to the time of Reagan, with a strong capitalist element and mild socialism. That mild socialism is now under serious assault, as the fascist Bushites try to turn a once "common good' government into a really bad government, in which the "common good" does not exist.

If we can achieve transparent elections here--seize back our power over our own elections from private corporations, and restore our right to vote--we, too, will be able to create "common good" (leftist) government that balances the interests of the many against the interests of the few. The U.S. is the vortex of global corporate predation. This is where it started. This is where it emanates from. And this is WHY they took away our right to vote. WITH the right to vote, we, as the sovereign owners of the U.S.A., can regulate, curtail and even dismantle these corporations that are causing so much trouble. We have that right, in theory. WE are the sovereigns. THEY are not.

So, when Bechtel, which is headquartered in San Francisco (I'm not sure where it's chartered) pulls a predatory stunt like this--forbidding peasants to catch rainwater--we could, theoretically, de-charter Bechtel and seize its assets for the common good, in solidarity with the peasants whom they are oppressing, or at least use our sovereign power to threaten them and make them behave. But the situation now is VERY unbalanced. And, given the propaganda power of the US news monopolies, Americans don't even know that corporations can be dismantled, that we have this sovereign power, and that the mechanism of that power--our vote--has been gravely compromised.

------------------

*(Corporations, which are chartered by the states, did not always have perpetual "lives," as they do now. Thomas Jefferson warned against their aggregate and monopolistic power, but the Founders probably could not have imagined how bad it would get, and left it to the states to determine the worthiness and purposes and powers of corporations. Then, a marginal note in a Supreme Court decision in the 1800s granted corporations the "civil rights" of individual human beings. Thus, we now have everlasting, monopolistic gargantua sucking up all resources, property and power, dictating our laws, and destroying OUR civil rights, while maintaining that a $100,000 political campaign contribution is their "civil right" of "free speech." We could whack these entities good and hard, and restore order in our country and the world, if we acted collectively with the power of our votes.)

-----------------

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

a sort of social contract--between the robber barons and financial sharks, on the one hand, and the workers (the vast majority) and community/democratic interests, on the other. The Soviet Union and Red China--and the international workers movement--provided powerful incentive to the first group (the robber barons and financial sharks) to agree to decent wages/benefits, collective bargaining, social safety nets for the poor, and fair taxation of business and the rich for the development of common infrastructure (electrification, communications, water works, schools, roads, hospitals, parks, etc.). They agreed to this bargain--this social contract--in order to PREVENT worker revolts here, such as had occurred elsewhere (a real threat in the US in the 1920s/30s). This was the bargain of the big unions and big business in the '50s. Let the few continue to own the factories and resources, if they behaved themselves, and the many would curb their more inflammatory leftists. All would prosper.

But with the demise of the Soviet Union and changes in China (away from collectivization), US capitalists--now grown into global corporate predators (from all the natural resources, infrastructure and hard, loyal work, and creativity and invention we provided them) have tossed the social contract overboard, and have left American workers and democratic American values in the dust. They are back to egregious exploitation and out-of-control looting and pillaging.

Whatever one thinks of the Soviet Union and Red China--in their difficulties and failures in implementing the communist philosophy (and they were serious, and can largely be ascribed to the complete lack of a democratic tradition in either society), they were THE global "check and balance" against western capitalists' desire to enslave and abuse workers, to grab all resources and to corrupt democratic government and twist it to their own ends.

The infrastructure of our democracy--electrical facilities, water works, schools, hospitals and so on, and including commonly held ground such as parks, watersheds and wildlife refuges--is all now on a fast track to "privatization" in which NOTHING will be operated for the common good, but all will be operated for maximum profit of the rich few. Even our ELECTIONS have been privatized--with partisan (Bushite) corporations having gained control of our election system, with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code in the new electronic voting machines and virtually no audit/recount controls. They now can directly "select" politicians who won't tax or regulate them in the common interest--and put them in office. Previously, they bought them with big campaign contributions and lavish lobbying. Electronic voting (at our expense) is a lot cheaper. (--a nice loop of corruption: WE pay for the electronic voting machines that oppress us.)

One symptom of the "privatization" of our government is the outsourcing of jobs, and the proliferation of sweatshops worldwide. Decisions are being made on a pure profit basis, with absolutely no consideration of the "common good" --and no requirement of it, from our government. The labor situation has not been so out of balance since the days of the slave trade. The rights of the majority--the workers--have almost no protection left, and any remnants of that balance (good unions that have been able to maintain good wages/benefits) are under constant assault.

And, while good wages/benefits and workers rights are being reduced or eliminated, our electricity, water, telephone, transportation, and medical costs have all skyrocketed, due to privatization or de-regulation. The impacts on education are a little less direct, but still devastating. For instance, the rich have been given so many tax cuts (due quite directly to the privatization of our elections) that they are no longer paying anything close to their fair share of the cost of an educated citizenry. It's not that there is no money for our schools. It's that the money that should go to our schools is going instead into the pockets of the richest few (and to war profiteers). Our schools are failing BECAUSE OF tax cuts to the rich and to corporations. Also, the costs of a university education--which used to be basically free in California, for instance--is now comparable to what a PRIVATE education cost in the '60s, and these costs are SUBSIDIZING corporate use of our universities for corporate research, as well as, once again, lining the pockets of the rich (by reverse taxation).

We are subsidizing the rich in many ways. For instance, this whole new (Reagan era) idea of "user fees" in our public parks was intended not only to inure us to the loss of "common good" values--everything must have a price, nothing can be free as our common property--but it also REMOVES THE BURDEN of the cost of our common infrastructure and common property from the rich. If you have to pay $30 to sleep overnight in a public camping facility, the rich SHOULD BE paying, say, $29 of that cost, that their election theft politicians have cut from their fair share of taxes. YOU pay the difference--even though YOUR fair share of the tax may be only $1.

And this crap leads straight to a company like Bechtel charging peasants in Bolivia for collecting rainwater. That's what unchecked, unbalanced capitalism does. It exploits and oppresses. It is predatory. It sucks up all resources and power. And the corporate capitalism that has been launched from our shores--that is, highly ORGANIZED piracy and looting, with everlasting "charters" (corporations never die; they just keep accumulating more and more property, assets and power*)--is the worst the world has ever seen. It is not just oppressing us and everyone else, it is killing the planet.

They have transparent elections now in South America--due to the hard work of OAS, EU and Carter Center election monitors, and the long hard struggle of the leftist majorities in South American countries to achieve political power in proportion to their numbers. That is why nearly the entire map of the South American subcontinent has gone "blue"--with leftist governments in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and now Bolivia. Transparent elections. The right to vote.

These are peaceful revolutions (remarkably--shows what you can do with the right to vote), which are banding together for political/economic strength, to assert "common good" government, which had been violently destroyed or prevented from developing by US/corporate interference in previous decades. "Common good" government is a broad category of potential government organization that can include socialism and mixes of capitalism and socialism. We had a "common good" government in the US up to the time of Reagan, with a strong capitalist element and mild socialism. That mild socialism is now under serious assault, as the fascist Bushites try to turn a once "common good' government into a really bad government, in which the "common good" does not exist.

If we can achieve transparent elections here--seize back our power over our own elections from private corporations, and restore our right to vote--we, too, will be able to create "common good" (leftist) government that balances the interests of the many against the interests of the few. The U.S. is the vortex of global corporate predation. This is where it started. This is where it emanates from. And this is WHY they took away our right to vote. WITH the right to vote, we, as the sovereign owners of the U.S.A., can regulate, curtail and even dismantle these corporations that are causing so much trouble. We have that right, in theory. WE are the sovereigns. THEY are not.

So, when Bechtel, which is headquartered in San Francisco (I'm not sure where it's chartered) pulls a predatory stunt like this--forbidding peasants to catch rainwater--we could, theoretically, de-charter Bechtel and seize its assets for the common good, in solidarity with the peasants whom they are oppressing, or at least use our sovereign power to threaten them and make them behave. But the situation now is VERY unbalanced. And, given the propaganda power of the US news monopolies, Americans don't even know that corporations can be dismantled, that we have this sovereign power, and that the mechanism of that power--our vote--has been gravely compromised.

------------------

*(Corporations, which are chartered by the states, did not always have perpetual "lives," as they do now. Thomas Jefferson warned against their aggregate and monopolistic power, but the Founders probably could not have imagined how bad it would get, and left it to the states to determine the worthiness and purposes and powers of corporations. Then, a marginal note in a Supreme Court decision in the 1800s granted corporations the "civil rights" of individual human beings. Thus, we now have everlasting, monopolistic gargantua sucking up all resources, property and power, dictating our laws, and destroying OUR civil rights, while maintaining that a $100,000 political campaign contribution is their "civil right" of "free speech." We could whack these entities good and hard, and restore order in our country and the world, if we acted collectively with the power of our votes.)

-----------------

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!