Headin' South - Going Left

BenjaminHackett.com ^ | 04/10/2006 | Benjamin Hackett

[BenjaminHackett]

Latin America is taking a hard turn to the left. For those that thought the end of the Cold War meant a spreading of capitalist values and peace throughout the western hemisphere, it is now time to wake up. Crime is on the rise in Marxist Venezuela. President Chávez’s numerous speeches have encouraged the criminal element to carry out attacks on the Venezuelan upper-middle and upper classes. Chávez dreams of revolution, even sweet-talking leaders in Moscow and Beijing. The New York Times reported that “The Center of Economic Investigations, an economic consulting firm in Caracas, issued a study recently that said Mr. Chávez had spent more than $25 billion abroad since taking office in 1999, about $3.6 billion a year.”

The New York Times also reported, “There is little doubt, however, that the spending has won Mr. Chávez stature and support abroad. For Argentina, the debt purchases helped President Néstor Kirchner, Venezuela's left-leaning ally, to pay off that country's $9.8 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, ending Argentina's stormy relationship with the group. In Cuba, Venezuela has supplied nearly 100,000 barrels of cut-rate oil per day — a deal Cuba repays with doctors and other services — making Mr. Chávez a benefactor on par with the Soviet Union, which once bankrolled Castro's economy.” If partnering up with Castro is not a direct declaration of misguided principles, what is?

Worse still, Chávez is nationalizing every business within his reach, most recently oil. In an attack on capitalism and free markets, Chávez seized oil fields from two international companies. Oil fields belonging to France's Total SA and Italy's Eni SpA were seized when the companies refused to meet demands that the operations of their fields be turned over to Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the Venezuelan state oil company. BusinessWeek reported that “President Hugo Chavez has tightened his grip on Venezuela's energy resources, following through on threats to punish international companies that resist government control of the nation's oil fields."

The march to the left does not stop in Venezuela. In Peru, Chávez-clone Ollanta Humala is the leading candidate. Humala, an army officer, is an openly anti-free market candidate that publicly led a military rebellion. “After his 2000 arrest and subsequent release, Humala joined his father Isaac and his brother Antauro in an anti-corruption, anti-free market, anti-imperialist and 'copper-skin color' supremacy crusade,” reports the Miami Herald.

In a stunning show of short-term ignorance, Humala is against globalization and applauds efforts to nationalize most industry. Of course, globalization has lifted millions of the worlds poor out of poverty in Latin America and other areas of the world. Since ignorance is bliss, is it any wonder why Chávez openly endorses Humala?

Turning to Bolivia, one can see the regime of populist Marxist Evo Morales. Generally, Morales is viewed more favorably than Chávez, but Morales still has heavily leftward leanings. He, too, wishes to nationalize much of business within the country and is for higher taxes and protectionism.

Continuing on our fun Marxist tour of Latin America, we stop in our beloved neighbor to the south, Mexico. Here, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, is leading the polls in the current presidential race. There are allegations — all but 100 percent proven — tying Lopez Obrador’s party to Chávez. Supporters of Chávez are among the largest backers of Lopez Obrador. Rumors continue to persist that Chávez himself has helped fund Lopez Obrador’s campaign.

Simply think about the implications of an anti-free market president in Mexico. The current Mexican policies are harmful enough to the American economy, flooding the United States with unskilled workers that end up on the taxpayers’ backs. Now imagine a Mexico where leftist and Marxist themes dominate the political debate. The entire population of Mexico could view itself as the downtrodden masses and set policies designed to feed off of the American taxpayers’ contributions. Sharing a border with an up-and-coming Mexico has proven difficult enough; imagine a scenario with Mexico becoming overtly anti-capitalist. Mexico is just free of the 71-year rule of the totalitarian Institutional Revolutionary Party, a party connected to drug trafficking. Let us hope Mexicans are astute enough not to switch from one totalitarian regime to another.

The issue is not that Latin America is shifting leftward, but rather the implications of this to the United States. From a security standpoint alone, the U.S. gets over 4 million barrels of oil a day from Venezuela and Mexico, a huge percentage of our daily consumption. The porous border with Mexico would not benefit from an ultra-leftist leader, a leader who openly denounces the U.S.' "keeping Mexicans out."

Latin America is an area with promising growth potential, yet investors are scared away due to the region’s political makeup. As history has always shown, populist regimes worsen living conditions, and Marxism traditionally fails. Hopefully, fewer Latin Americans will be killed in this, the beginning of Marxism’s next public failing.

[TASMANIANRED]

Send our Mexican poor to Venezuela, Open the gates here to the Venezuela's rich and educated.

[NZerFromHK]

One thing arises: I don't think a Mexican Chavez will welcome ccontinued illegal immigration to the US. For one thing, he would have regarded these "undocumented migrants" as "bringing in American consumerist values when they make trips back to Mexico visiting families and corrupting the outlooks of Mexicans". He would rather want the Mexico to "live poorly, but with dignity" whatever dignity means.

Heck, I think he will probably want to harrass each and every single American visitors to Mexico so that no American will visit Mexico in the future.

[ecomcon]

No, a Chavez type would ally himself with the Aztlan reconquista theme. He would consider the illegals already here as advance placement assets. He would continue illegal immigration at full tilt. They already have 5-10 million military age men in our country. A little agitation (especially if serious border control begins to happen) helped along by the leftist MSM, gets a million or two of them motivated. Then come the demonstrations, car bombs, and violence that come with Marxist struggle. The more people they have here the easier it will be for them.

The cultural purges of "consumerist values" and "corrupting the Mexican Revolution" come later.