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Not only on the INSANE, corrupt, failed, murderous "war on drugs," at home and abroad, but also...
TRANSPARENT vote counting--they have voting systems far, far cleaner than our own--thus they get better leaders. In a fair and democratic system, the best--the smartest, the most talented, the finest representatives of the people--rise to positions of leadership. (And if you have a brain-damaged Corpo/Fascist mass murderer, torturer and shredder of the Constitution as president, you know something's wrong. And you don't have far to look to find out what it is: NON-transparent vote counting, by Bushwhack corporations, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. I mean, really.)
Maximum citizenship in politics and government--the empowerment of the poor as a political force, at long last--much like the New Deal era here.
Social justice. The use of a country's resources to help its people, not to stuff the pockets of the rich. We need to turn this around. You can't have a good society with a vast discrepancy between rich and poor. You need to foster and mobilize creativity, talent, knowledge and industriousness at all levels of society--or your society DIES, as ours is in danger of doing.
The common good. Public ownership of important resources and systems. Examples: 1. Bolivians fought privatization of the their water system--when the rich elite had sold it off to Bechtel Inc., and Bechtel immediately raised the cost of drinking water to the poorest of the poor--even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater. The people won. That was the fight that catapulted Morales into the presidency. 2. Morales nationalized Bolivia's main resource, gas, and renegotiated the contracts, doubling Bolivia's gas revenues from $1 billion/yr to $2 billion/yr. In Venezuela, previous governments had nationalized the oil, but they were giving away 90% of the profits to multinationals, and serving only a rich urban elite with Venezuela's portion. The Chavez government renegotiated the contracts, ultimately to a 60/40 split, favoring Venezuela, and has not only been using the profits to bootstrap the poor, diversify the economy and help the region, but also has saved nearly $40 billion in cash reserves--an important cushion against the Bushwhack Financial 9/11.
Peace, friendliness and cooperation. South America is experiencing an amazing, peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution. The new leaders, all over the continent--in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile--have been working closely together on infrastructure development, regionally controlled banking and finance, and political/economic integration. This May, they formed UNASUR, the South American "Common Market." Because the U.S. is not a member, UNASUR was the entity that could give unanimous and strong backing to the Morales government in Bolivia, when it was attacked from within by white separatists, funded and organized out of the U.S.embassy. The U.S. would not likely be welcome in UNASUR, but the Obama administration would be wise to create an entirely new U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America, of respect and cooperation. Together, the good people of this earth can achieve social justice, defeat the global corporate predators who have been running things, and save the planet. Interesting idea, huh? Cooperation and respect.
The indigenous view of Mother Nature. Ecuador just passed a new Constitution (with nearly 70% of the vote) which contains a first-in-the-world provision granting formal legal status to Mother Nature ("Pachamama" in the indigenous language). This provision states that Mother Nature and her critters and ecosystems have a right to exist and to function properly apart from human interests. The indigenous have a philosophy of respect and wisdom with regard to Nature, expressed, for instance, in the organic farming of the campesinos, based on thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and skills. They reject the use of toxic pesticides and GMOs (pushed by our global corporate predators), and have persistently, and courageously, fought against these and other assaults on Pachamama. It's time that our culture abandoned its hatred of Nature--derived from our Calvinist forebears--and the gross and careless exploitation of its resources, and learn some respect for the natural world in which we evolved. If we don't, we will go extinct like the dinosaurs. Simple as that. The indigenous tribes of South America are showing the way.
Common sense. The common sense view of things rarely gets heard, or heeded, in our corrupt Corpo/Fascist-run government. Common sense says legalize all recreational drugs; take the profit out of it, and the drug lords and the gangs and the crime go away. Then you have a manageable social and medical problem, not a "war." We spend $35,000/yr to hold someone in prison for drug possession, for ten, fifteen years. THIS. IS. NUTS. And it occurs because of the filthy, corrupt lobbying of war/police-state profiteers and the 'prison-industrial complex." The South Americans are showing the way. END the "war on drugs." Focus on real crime. Save yourselves lots and lots and lots of money, and the social cost of lives destroyed in prison. We're spending $6 BILLION in military aid in Colombia alone, with not a dent in the cocaine reaching our streets. End the "war on drugs," and, believe me, the campesinos will take care of the drug lords.
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