The Latin America thread (VE, BR, AR, CU, MX...)

Oh sure, I don't think term limits as a concept are devoid of any merit. I doubt I'd want term limits abolished in the US, rather my point is that trying to treat my views on term limits as a gotcha is heavily misguided.

It's simply that I don't consider a politician's position on them to be remotely the most important thing.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 15th 2022 at 2:13:37 AM

"It's not whataboutism to recognize that Morales was not remotely as bad as the opposition, nor is it unreasonable to recognize that there has been a concerted effort here and elsewhere to exaggerate how harmful his behavior actually was. "

It is very bad faith arguing that if supreme court decide all the sudden that there is not term limits and evo can run again right again is just "pushing a little things to far", If a US supreme court did that for trump in the case he serve his two term nobody will said "just a little push to far" or that he did not threat democracy, this is indeed a case of "Somebody tell me no so I will do anyway".

Also just to remenber here, Evo have 14 damn years in power by arguing that since there was a new constitution and state(they change the name) therefore is mandate was invalid and the supreme court let them past that.....

And going to be honest here because it seen and issue we are kept taking about over and over: Añez was a douchebag, a racist clasist and her going to jail isnt something I care much about no any other latino poster here because we well damn know how awfull it is(I mean look Peru, nobody like the president that much but it was ether that a god awfull damn fujimuri) but downplay what Evo did was a threat to democracy for us.

And the comparation between germany and bolivia is comparing orange to apple and also missing the point enterely. Because they werent abolish because they productivity, they were so Evo could keep runing again, if Merkel or any other german bend the rule the moment they were out to keep in power we dont have to talk about how good those rules are, we talk about this is a bad faith power move.

Edited by unknowing on Jun 15th 2022 at 5:16:06 AM

Considering Morales has openly denied that China is an imperialist power and has played cheerleader for the Chinese government (same as the Bolivarians in Venezuela), I doubt he cares much about "democratic institutions" in the first place (or whatever passes for "democratic institutions" in Latin America).

Just because Bolivian conservatives are fucking psychopaths doesn't mean Morales or MAS are above criticism.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 15th 2022 at 10:38:31 PM

This isn't the first time somebody went "but what about Merkel" in this thread in defense of Morales and it's still as silly now as it was the last time.

Germany has a completely different system - first of all, Merkel wasn't the president, she was the chancellor. The chancellor is the head of government and the government derives its power completely from parliament. Nevermind that her time in office isn't out of the ordinary - chancellors serving multiple terms in office is pretty much the norm here.

Compare to presidential systems which tend to centralise a lot of power in one person (and which Germany didn't do after the war for obvious reasons).

Saying Germany's and Bolivia's political system are apples and oranges puts it mildly - the comparison is completely asinine and betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how Germany's system even works.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jun 16th 2022 at 5:44:26 PM

I mean this wasnt just us, Claudia Sheinbaum a mexican politician said the same thing. Ufffff

Also I will said some of the defense of Evo or the latin left often feel done in a kinda weird takes that are based on the idea evo, ALMO or other arent malicious until proven otherwise.

Like the issue with term limits is that in itself that is irrelevant because Bolivian supreme court didnt disregard it for some idea it is useless, it did to bring Evo back because MAS need it him. Going "it is really a big deal? I mean term limits is not a problem" is kinda not wanting to see why someone who have already 14 years in power, wanting to be in more time and just having the rule move around so he can be isnt a problem kinda count as weird softballing that is getting more and more annoying every time.

I don't particularly enjoy when people try to say these "left-leaning" politicians in Latin America are "less bad" than the conservative ones.

Like yes, the right-wing in Latin America are fucking monstrous, but when the "left" are doing roughly the same anti-Indigenous shit, killing political dissidents, forming their own little fascist dictatorships, and, for all their railing against the U.S. and neoliberalism, look for other countries like fascist Russia and China to sell out to (and in the cases of people like AMLO or the chucklefuck Peronists in Argentina, their anti-American rhetoric is just posturing, they still sell out to the U.S. anyways), then frankly my mood is I don't fucking care about them, and they are, in fact, plenty capable of being monstrous. It's just a new set of people who want to make bank, in an area of the world where politics are largely decided by organized crime, corruption, bribery, and backdoor deals.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 16th 2022 at 11:48:19 PM

I'd rather you not include a general attack against left-wing politicians in Latin America when attacking Evo Morales specifically if the attack doesn't apply. Whatever else he may have done, Evo Morales was not engaging in anti-Indigenous politics. He wasn't able to give them everything he promised, but he gave them a lot and he did try to provide for them. (Better issues to attack him on are the attempts to subvert democracy, and the part where his coca cultivation was totally legal and not being diverted to cocaine production, pinky swear.

Except we're talking about Bolivia, Morales has not done any of this. Even if left-wing politicians in Latin America universally do this, which they do not, that wouldn't make it any less irrelevant to judging Morales in comparison to his fascist replacement.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 17th 2022 at 4:59:44 AM

When it comes specifically to Morales, my ire is towards this and his apologia towards Chavismo and the Chinese government. I have seen some criticisms by Indigenous activists but he's far better with those particular policies than his counterparts in Venezuela, Mexico, or Ecuador.

Not sold out to Russia or China? He's praised the Chinese government and denied they were imperialist.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 17th 2022 at 11:12:28 PM

What has Morales said about the Chinese government?

I would need to find it but he gave a whole speech after returning to Bolivia where he exalted the Chinese government and denied they were exploiting other countries.

Oh, that's certainly not commendable. I can understand the necessity of getting a more powerful ally to act as a counterbalance to the US' clear hostility but that doesn't mean it's beneficial or justified to whitewash China.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 17th 2022 at 6:18:09 AM

That's what much of the "left" governments do in Latin America, with few exceptions. As I said, they just want another power to sell out to. It's business. Ecuador's been selling Indigenous land out to Chinese imperialism and it's led to some fighting between Indigenous people and the Ecuadorian military.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 17th 2022 at 11:20:53 PM

It's also pretty much in line with the kind of "anti-imperialism" you often see from some western leftists, i.e. "America bad, anyone not aligned with America good regardless of context".

It goes back to the OG's, too.

I mean, Che Guevara openly talked about wanting to nuke America, among many other questionable things.

Don't even bother calling the apologists of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian fascism "leftists".

It's more nuanced than that. Guevara wound up breaking from the USSR anyways because Khrushchev and Brezhnev were more supportive of a peaceful transition to socialism and he was obsessed with waging armed struggle by any means. Castro went along with the USSR and supported similar attempts at peaceful transitions to socialism, plus military dictatorships dressed up as "leftist" like Velasco in Peru or Torrijos in Panama.

It has little to do with socialism of any variety. It's all to do with business. You had nationalist leaders all through the 1930's who balanced between being lackies of the U.S. and lackies of the Nazis. They would dress themselves up in pro-worker rhetoric, some phony anti-imperialism, and then play both sides to their advantage. Vargas in Brazil is a big example (and there are entirely too many people who call him and Argentina's Juan Peron "socialist").

That's the thing, though - many of those people are very much on the left side of the political spectrum and going No True Scotsman doesn't really help.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jun 17th 2022 at 7:27:55 PM

Yeah, I mean if there is one thing we shouldn't do, it's trying to equate "Leftims" with "Always good."

And we also shouldn't equate "Totalitarianism" with "Fascism".

Supporting fascist regimes falls squarely on the side of reaction. I am not going to include people who simp for those regimes as left-anything or progressive-anything. If they support Putin, who is demonstrably fascistic and openly influenced by fascists, then they're morons who tail fascism. Plain and simple.

I don't even believe "leftism" is a thing so I'm hardly equating it. Me railing about the Latin American "left" being a bunch of racist and corrupt populists who simp for Russia and China is hardly me saying "leftists are always good".

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 18th 2022 at 3:43:25 AM

Putin isn't a fascist though. That's what I meant with equating Fascism and Totalitarianism.

Also, Leftists making nice with people on the other side of the spectrum in terms of foreign policy is, unfortunately, also nothing new, and vice versa.

See Nixon and Mao.

Fascism is amorphous enough that it can be argued either way, but I think out of all those leaders calling Putin a fascist is the most reasonable.

But I'm not aware of any useful definition of fascist that covers Iran, it's a quasi-democratic theocratic Shia Islamist state. While undeniably repressive and intolerant that's rather different from historical fascist states. Some varieties of Islamism could argued to be fascistic, such as Daesh, but the term isn't particularly applicable for Iran.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 17th 2022 at 1:08:26 AM

Current Iran is a regressive and reactionary state in the sense that its political model was created in backlash to both the Western and Soviet political models. The difference it has over fascism is that it doesn't try to embrace the cult of war and cruelty that fascists groups have and instead tries to dominate modern elements through the lenses of religion as stated in its constitution.

The closest comparison I can think of is how the Vatican tried to reject the modern world after the unification of Italy, even then though that stopped being its policy after the Council Vatican II and the efforts of the next popes to keep the pace to the current reality as Pope Francis demonstrates, to varying degrees of success admittedly.

I'm going to avoid delving into what is or isn't fascism here because, frankly, I don't think any of us even share the same definition of fascism beyond "it's bad", and we can probably move that discussion elsewhere.

My main point remains that the parties of the Latin American "left", in defending Putin and cohorts, are engaging in defending reactionary politics that are fundamentally counter to what most people agree "leftism" to be. I despise them, I despise Chavismo, I despise Castroism, I despise the flunkies in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and I've made it more than clear what my stance on AMLO is.

That's different. There was no alliance between the U.S. and the PRC under Mao, and at best it was a temporary normalization of relations. There *was* an alliance with the PRC under Deng Xiaoping, but that was long after Mao was dead and the Gang of Four were imprisoned.

By contrast, Maduro and Ortega openly support Russia invading Ukraine and are deep in Russian pockets.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 17th 2022 at 8:18:44 PM

I mean Añez cant be called a facist really and we just used that term a few pages ago, we use facist often to said "overly bad goverment" is just the way it is.

But I will said Diana that the latin left ARE left, no matter their sympathy with Putin and China, in the same way how republican christian often pursue wealth and get behind Trump(a man who taste every cardinal sin at least once) they- are still christian.

I said this because there is a tendecy of cut bad shit on the left as just individual actors or saying this dont reflect on them in any way that matter in a way that is starting to get annoying for some here, specially me who I have to live in venezuela and seen the worst of it.

And having saying this:

" I can understand the necessity of getting a more powerful ally to act as a counterbalance to the US' clear hostility "

This was never as counter US and as Diana said many of them still did buisness with US, we need to stop see this as some kind of cold war politics were they didnt have any other choices but to stick with each other, what Evo did was continuismo, the attempt to still himself further and probably inspire by chavismo who did the same damn thing.

There's plenty of people who would argue against that comparison or rail against Trump and company as not being "real Christians", but frankly I'm tired of arguing whether or not people count as "left", what even is "left", if "left" even exists, etc. I've given my position on this and I don't see myself budging.

At the end of the day, I hate the lot of these little toads no matter how they position themselves.

What it all amounts to is business. I said before, there were a LOT of leaders in Latin America during the 1930's who were doing business with Nazi Germany, despite the animosity between the American and German governments during this time. This mostly stopped because the U.S. had to strongarm them during WWII, but it still happened. Unsurprisingly, these were largely military dictators doing this.

It's no different now. So some government leaders have issues with continued American business investments? Russia and China are becoming more valuable options. And this isn't limited to the left, even if those groups associated with the left are the most vocal about defending Russia and China. Bolsonaro has done plenty of business with them.