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rewarded with $4 billion MORE U.S. taxpayer dollars for the phony, failed, murderous "war on drugs." Oh, and Chiquita and their brethren global corporate predators (Drummond coal, Coca Cola, et al--ALSO involved in payments to rightwing death squads) get rewarded with billions of dollars in profit from cheap, unprotected labor and environmental destruction ("free trade").
So, every time you eat a banana, drink a Coke or turn on a lightbulb, think of the union organizers who were tortured, chainsawed and their body parts thrown into mass graves, and all the other innocents who have suffered such horrors, and when you lament the prevalence of illicit drugs in your community, and the ravages of these substances and the criminal gangs they attract, know that the multi-millions of dollars paid by these U.S.-based global corporate predators ALSO went to setting up rightwing paramilitary drug operations, while the U.S. "war on drugs" saw that they were well-armed (illicit weapons trafficking) and U.S.-based chemical companies also profiteered off you and me, by selling the government toxic pesticides to spray on the small farmers' lands (food crop lands, with a few coca plants for local use), killing their animals and damaging human DNA, in order to drive the peasant farmers off their lands into urban squalor, so that the big drug lords and Monsanto (ruinous corporate 'monoculture' for biofuels) can take them over.
Eventually, the huge democracy and social justice movement in South America (with leftist governments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Nicaragua--and soon Paraguay) will result in peace, democracy and social justice in the dinosaur of the continent, Colombia. The leftist tide is overwhelming and the influence of the Bolivarians (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina) is growing. The Bolivarians oppose the U.S. "war on drugs" and U.S. corporate domination, and promote regional cooperation and independence, along with social justice. Even Colombia's rightwing leader, Uribe--who is trying to weather the paramilitary scandals (very close ties to his government)--has felt obliged to distance himself from the Colombian rightwing paramilitary plots against Hugo Chavez and the Andes democracies, and to warm up to Chavez (whom he asked to negotiate a hostage release with FARC; Uribe and Chavez have apparently developed a friendship).
Further, the people of Colombia can plainly see that there is a viable--indeed, highly successful-alternative to the many horrors of rightwing government and U.S./corporate interference, profiteering, brutal repression and domination. I've seen accounts of Colombian migrant workers in Venezuela, seeing the Bolivarian Revolution for themselves--workers' rights, clean elections, high citizen participation in politics and government, free medical care, free university educations, land reform, help to small businesses and worker coops, etc.--and carrying the word back home that another world is possible.
Maybe some day the same thing will happen here. Word will leak into the U.S., from the south, that another world is possible. (It's already happening, actually.) But meanwhile, the fascists and global corporate predators are hanging onto their dwindling number of client states (among them, Colombia, Peru, Mexico) with tooth and claw. And although there is something of a rebellion on the Colombia and Peruvian "free trade" deals, and on the "war on drugs," among the real Democrats in Congress, bear it mind that it was the phony Democrats (Bill Clinton and the DLC) who created "free trade" (global corporate predation) in the first place. And it looks like Emperor Hillary will be the corporate predators' rescuer. She shows every sign of being their "made" candidate. So, until we throw out the corporate-controlled ("trade secret") voting machines, and have a grass roots revolution, here, we're not likely to see much change in U.S. Latin American policy, although we WILL see vast change in Latin American U.S. policy. The South Americans have had it with us. And the Central Americans will be next.
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