Another South American Nations falls to Socialism

5.56X45mm

5.56X45mm

Milforum Mac Daddy
Bolivian President Nationalizes Gas Industry, Sends Army to Occupy Fields
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Monday, May 01, 2006
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LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales issued a decree nationalizing Bolivia's vast natural gas industry Monday, sending soldiers to occupy gas fields and threatening to evict foreign companies unless they give the Andean nation control over the entire chain of production.

The move fulfills an election promise by the leftist president, who has forged close ties with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela' Hugo Chavez, to increase state control over Bolivia's natural resources, which he says have been "looted" by foreign companies.


Morales sent soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company to installations and fields tapped by foreign companies — including Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, France's Total SA and Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. The companies have six months to agree to new contracts or leave Bolivia, he said.


• CountryWatch: Bolivia


"The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, said in a speech from the San Alberto field operated by Petrobras in association with Repsol and Total SA.
State television aired footage of soldiers and police standing guard outside some gas installations and petroleum company offices in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where much of the industry is based.

(For the rest of the news story click here)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193848,00.html
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Once again, the threat of communism and socialism is not dead.
 
Why this sudden resurgence in South America? Didn't these people see the news of the last twenty years??
 
I keep telling people that just because the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact ended twenty years ago doesn't mean that the idea of communism hasn't.
 
5.56X45mm is right on that. We have a very very strong communist left in here too. Our current House of Representatives speaker is the head of the Italian Communist Party, we have the head of another Communist Party who used to be Justice Secretary who said "Bush and Berlusconi shake their hands dirty with blood", and other important leaders of the left who repeatedly said they stand by Fidel Castro and his proud efforts to fight back American imperialism. Unchanged is their prejudices towards the free market, unchanged is their belief that religion is a way for the Vatican to dominate the ignorant masses, unchanged are their anti-Americanism and their anti-semitism.
This is part of the reason why I agree with Luis.
 
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As long as Poverty is a problem in South America, Communism will have a foothold there, History has shown this. This will spread threwout South America very fast, Mexico is next on the list.
 
Communist has nothing to do with poverty. Seldom have the poor been communist. The poor have always been the main victims of communism and have never seen their standard of life go up.
Overhere 90 % of our intellectuals, actors, directors, comedians and wealthy showbiz people give their votes to Communist Refoundation Party.
Most of the rich people I know (friends with three houses and three cars, friends who go ski in the Alps on luxury week-ends) sympathize for the reds.
The workers and the poor go for Berlusconi. I'm talking mainstream trends.
 
Does nobody ever asks himself how all these multinationals gained ownership of Bolivian resources. Maybe the Bolivians get a crappy deal to start of with and they are fed up with losing all this revenu. So instead of calling it communism you could also call it nationalism. It seems that nobody looks before 1900 in the history of things.

Just to give an answer on my first question is: in many ways but a fair one. They lost their resources through all kinds of ways... always giving them the short end of the stick!
 
Nationalizing the foreign oil companies got Mexico into the fix they're in now. The poor are still dying in the deserts of Southwest US trying to escape rampant poverty. The South American countries are paid for oil and gas taken from the fields. The people are employed and there is no problem with mis-management and corruption so prevalent in those countries. You will see smoothly running companies shut down and much worse poverty than ever. Venezuela is a prime example of "things could be worse."
 
Dude

Communisim always take foothold in poor enviornment. Look at how it started in Russia and China. So, if you want it to die, start building strong economies gloablly. There will be communism in wealthy countries as well, but peopel are so happy with democratic system and wealth that will never allow communism flourish. No worry about that.

Aggresive Political Revolution => breeds hate + failures! Economic Reform = Communism Gone! It has been proven. Poverty = angers that breed illogical ideas.
 
Boobies said:
Communisim always take foothold in poor enviornment.
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Don't agree. That is what you think when you have experienced communism on books only. Communism/socialism is a matter of culture, ideas, ideology, persuasions, perspectives, distortions, lies, prejudices, envy, violence. If communism derived from poverty, the whole of Africa, India and a lot more countries would be sort of Ceausescu's Romania.
East Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltik countries were never poor. Remember, communists have never won a democratic election. Anywhere. They used coups to seize power because the people, for as poor as they might be, would not trust them.
 
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Communism took over Eastern Europe because of WWII and the retreat of German forces.

The nations before WWII weren't poor and nor were they communist. But both the Soviet Union and Germany invaded these nations, destoryed their economies, and their nations burned to the ground due to warfare. Also the Soviet Union hunted down those that were anti-comunist and destroyed any political opposition.

Poverty is a major factor is socialism and communism because of the simple fact that it tells the poor what they want to hear.

Communsim promises that the wealth and power of the rich will be divided among the poor. That all will be fair and equal. It's not just poverty that causes communism to flurish in places, it's also the politcal leaders behind the communist movement in that certain place. For thr Coup to occur, you need a army. And mostly communist leaders get into power by using the poor masses to fuel and feed that army.

The Soviet Union was created because the peasants were tired of their position is the social class of Russia. Samething in Red China and many other nations.

As long as there is poverty, there will be a breeding ground for communist ideals to take shape and grow.
 
Italy's Red Brigades, the communist group that has been killing hundreds for decades and until recently, are not poor or starving people. their members are part of middle or high-class, very educated.
Nowaday's Italian Communist Party is supported by a large part of extremely rich movie directors, actors, intellectuals, comedians etc. I am perfectly aware that using the word "communism" may sound ridiculous or exaggerated, but those hammer and sickle just don't leave much room for doubt.
 
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That is the communist movement in a well rounded economic nation like Italy. The United States of America is the same.

Our communist and socialist are all upper class society types. Hollywood actors and directors, intellectuals, and rich liberals.

The poor is the USA is either conservative or liberals. Most that are rural and conservative because they understand the meaning of hard work. Those from the urban city are liberal because they expect government handouts for their every want and need.
 
Noam Chomsky anyone? IG, I did not know the RB came from such high socio-economic positions. It makes their bloody acts all the more disturbing. It was in fact stories about the RB that took the lustre off anything communist when I was young and impressionable.
 
I don't think it's communism that latin american is heading for. The rich stomp on the poor there and that makes a lot of people fed up. I don't approve of the aggressive actions taking place in Bolivia, but they gave their president the vote because he might just do something about it. If the USA didn't neglect Latin America so much, there would be non of this non sense and more trust between us.

Remember, Castro sprung up because Americans ignored the problems in Cuba, we don't need another Castro.
 
The problem here is that the other Latin American countries, especially, Brazil have a big stake in the Bolivian oil fields, much more than the US or UK.
So, the neighbors will be pissed of, or are already...
 
I agree with IG prior statement that it isn't poverty that causes communism. I mean the Indian tribes in the amazone are poor, but not exactly communist. (However they do share most things, so maybe...) It is the clear and present divide between the have's and have -not's. It weren't the peasant that started the Octobre revolution, it were the city poor that saw all that wealth going to a certain elite!
Marx claims that any communist revolution should start in a industrialized society, and in his time these societies had very destinct social classes.

With regards to Bolivia and Venezuela, it is easy to say that the nationalization of the major industry is a communist move. I personally think it is a nationalistic move. They need to make money, so they claim back what is rightfully theirs.
 
It could have been done in a less brazen way though. Would you march soldiers into refiniries and declare that no one owns the country's gas anymore? The president of Bolivia should have done this diplomaticly and not have started a crisis with neighbors.
 
True warMachine, I agree that it will not win a beauty contest, but I recjkon he did it for a reason. He'll gain face with some now they see he is willing to flex his muscles. It gives him more leeway internally, but his position internationally has worsened. But that is of minor importance at this moment. He has more to fear from the people of his own country at this stage of his power struggle.
 
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