Peru, a “worrisome democracy” says UN report

Saturday, 25 March 2006
Mercosur
Saturday, 25 March
Peru, a “worrisome democracy” says UN report

A United Nations report shows most Peruvians so disappointed with democracy that they would prefer the return of an authoritarian regime.

The report was released just days before a presidential election which has a populist, ultra nationalist former Army colonel leading in the public opinion polls.
“Democracy in Peru” published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) shows that 73.2% of Peruvians argue in favour of authoritarianism and 90% are convinced that politicians are to blame for the demise of democracy.
(snip)

"It does not mean that 70% of Peruvians want an authoritarian government; people call for a democracy that delivers order and authority; democracy is not at odds with authority in the framework of the rule of the law" said Vargas.

An overwhelming 67.2% are convinced that "the rich are almost always exploiters" and only 9.7% believe that "thanks to them we have jobs".
(snip/...)

http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=7513

An overwhelming 67.2% are convinced that "the rich are almost always exploiters" and only 9.7% believe that "thanks to them we have jobs".

Trickle down my ass.

like Evo Morales, the first indigenous Indian president of neighboring Bolivia, just elected, and like part Indian, part black, part Spanish Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, are part of an amazing, peaceful, democratic revolution that has swept South America, with leftist governments getting elected, often by big majorities, in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, and next in Peru, a revolution that is moving north (yes! yes!) and will likely see the leftist mayor of Mexico City elected president this year.

"Worrisome" it is not. What it means is that democracy has SUCCEEDED in Latin America--and that its vast populations of highly exploited poor, mostly brown and black people, are at long last gaining representation in their governments, and are peacefully electing governments that serve all of the people, not just the tiny, rich, US-asskissing minority; governments that reject US/IMF/World bank domination, US imperialism, the murderous US "war on drugs," and what is called in the global south "neo-liberalism" (global corporate predation--global free piracy).

This is a profound and unstoppable revolution, which has seen a former steelworker elected president of Brazil (who led the successful third world revolt at the World Trade Center meeting in Cancun), and a former torture victim of the US-backed dictator Pinochet elected president of Chile, its first woman president, Michele Batchelet.

In Peru, the leader of this PEACEFUL, DEMOCRATIC leftist revolution, is Ollanta Humala (the "former Army colonel"), who will shortly be elected president of Peru, by people who are good and sick of global corporate predators.

"The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales

Viva the revolution!

is that the global elites, thinking that they had that whole socialist thing taken care of, and off concentrating on their permanent warn-terra to distract the masses from their insatiable ransacking of the planet, are worried a whole bunch of some by the unexpected developments in that forgotten continent south of North America.

part of a huge worldwide "peasant" (campesino) movement. While the Bush junta has been off slaughtering Arabs for their oil, the rest of the world has taken a long look at the predatory capitalist model, and is rejecting it in favor of something new: it is not anti-business and trade, but rather a combination of support for SMALL enterprises (family farms, small businesses and coops) with social responsibility (education, medical care, bottom line support of food/shelter for all) and, perhaps above all, self-determination--not being bullied, exploited and robbed blind of resources and labor by huge corporate/banking interests. Jamaica is a good example of the latter--first of all, raked over by colonialists, then beset with onerous World Bank loans, then US ag comes in and dumps, say, cheap powdered milk on the market, destroying local fresh milk dairy farms, so that Jamaica cannot feed its own, then US "WalMart" comes in and creates "free trade zones," basically slave labor factories outside of Jamaican law. The result is the some the ugliest poverty on the planet.

Because the Bush junta is so murderous and thieving, and so empty of ideas, the only power they have over others is bully power--naked, raw bribery and threats. There is NOTHING attractive about the U.S. any more. They have killed the "golden goose" of the great American middle class, and have destroyed our reputation as a generous, self-correcting democracy, and progressive world leader.

This fascist binge that the Bush junta is on--including crippling this country with what will be decades of onerous debt--has NOT been good, except for temporary riches, for the global corporate predators whom the Bush junta serves. It is "capitalism" gone mad--if one can even call the monopolistic US giants who are sucking the US dry with unaccountable military contracts and unconscionable tax breaks and de-regulation, "capitalists." Markets and trade and business are one thing, but these fat pigs are something else--blubbery, blood-sucking monsters, with their oily tentacles holding America's children and grandchildren in a death grip. Having destroyed the lives and futures of millions of children worldwide, they are now in their last feeding frenzy, destroying the people who made them rich, us.

The Bush junta is ripping the scales from our eyes, here in the US, where many are for the first time realizing what the rest of the world has known for a long time: that out of control corporations and de-regulated capital is horrendously bad for the planet and for most of the people living on it. Our war profiteering corporate news monopolies have prevented us from seeing things as they are, and have created this bubble of illusions and falsity--one could almost call it "The Matrix"--in which we think we live. Outside of this bubble, however, the world no longer looks at us with envy--they look at us with pity. We can't even make GESTURES any more, at environmental responsibility (such as signing the Kyoto Treaty), nor even at social responsibility here at home. We let our poor rot and die in squalor and can't even rescue them from drowning in a hurricane.

The South Americans, who have taken some of the worst hits of US-supported brutality in the past--one of the last of our crimes to undergo self-correction (and possibly the last of the democratic self-corrections we are going to see in this country in our lifetimes*)--have carefully evaluated the world scene, and are going their own way, on a self-determined course. The democracies that the Reaganites and the Nixonites sought so brutally to destroy in Latin America have triumphed in the end, and also seemed to have learned the hard lesson that armed rebellion, tempting as it is in circumstances of brutal fascism, is not the way to peace and justice. The way to peace and justice is quite simple: it is democracy itself.

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A good source on developments in South America: www.venezuelanalysis.com

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

I enjoy your posts immensely.

elections--the result of long hard work by grass roots activists, local civic groups, the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center.

U.S. voters, take note!

Transparent elections = good government, of, by and for the people.

Non-transparent elections = the Bush junta.

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

If you want your country back.

As usual, there's always more to the story, when it's reported by our 'objective' media.

I'm so impressed with Evo Morales. He reminds me of Hugo Chavez; and because of that he will be inviting lots of negative commentary by the US press.

I printed a recent photo of a smiling Mr. Morales. He's a real inspiration.

Ain't just Peruvians that place that high on a list of 'things to do' by the strong leadership of a democracy...this is the factor that motiviates 'conservatives' in all democracy.

In most cases, democracies must work hard to keep this element at bay.

Doe Run pledges to reduce toxic emissions in Peru plant by 2009


LIMA, Peru (AP) - A U.S.-owned metallurgical plant said Tuesday it will comply with a requirement to complete environmental upgrades at its facility within three years to satisfy conditions set by Peru's government for a time extension.
(snip)

The company earlier this year asked Peru's government to grant a four-year extension to complete the emissions reduction work in the smoke-choked central Andean town of La Oroya, 90 miles east of Lima, where St. Louis-based Doe Run Co. operates its facility.

The original deadline had been set for the end of 2006 to reduce sulfur dioxide.

But in February the government responded, calling on the company to clarify or modify 90 different items in its extension request.

La Oroya is a town of about 30,000 people, wedged into a narrow gorge 12,300 feet high in the thin air of the Andes.

Repeated studies by the company, Peru's government and most recently, the Saint Louis University School of Public Health, have detected elevated levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium and other toxic heavy metals in the residents of La Oroya, particularly its children.
(snip/...)

Mar 24, 2006 - 11:25:45 CST
http://www.mydjconnection.com/articles/2006/03/24/community/news7.txt