TCS on Latin America

Writing at Tech Central Station Carlos Ball wonders if we are looking at the makings of a socialist hemisphere and finds that the US is a big part of the problem:

Such behavior is truly revolting, but also troubling is the fact that the U.S., with little or no consideration, has been making enemies of its traditional friends in Latin America. Since 9/11, U.S. consulates throughout the hemisphere have been denying visas or making it extremely difficult to get them to Latin Americans that do business in this country, who own vacation homes here or studied or have their children attending American schools and colleges, despite the fact that they have been coming here as tourists or to visit family members for decades. Even though no Latin American took part in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there seems to be a clear presumption of guilt once they enter the grounds of an American embassy or are inspected by a Homeland Security officer.

Regarding U.S. policies towards Latin America, there is a double standard everywhere you look. It is crystal clear where Lula, Chávez, Kirchner, Vásquez, etc. want to go. Many ideas and policies of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara are being rediscovered and openly applied by them, while U.S. foreign economic policy continues to sail down a third way between capitalism and socialism. No wonder such little respect is shown towards Washington. Free trade, yes, but not regarding sugar or shrimp or steel or lumber or whatever deep pocket lobbyists want to keep out today. Private enterprise and the right to work, sure, as long as the interests of American unions are safeguarded by "fair trade", which includes a "level playing field" (unaffordable wages and working conditions) and "no child labor", even if the real alternative for many of those youngsters is begging or prostitution, rather than going to school.

Also at TCS Melana Zyla Vickers figures that Venezuela's biggest export is trouble (or revolution) not oil:

Leftist guerrillas from eight Latin American countries have received training at Venezuelan military bases this year, according to an Ecuadorian intelligence report revealed in a Quito newspaper earlier this month. El Presidente Chavez of course denies the charges. But his recent vows to create a regional, anti-American leftist front, his alliance with Fidel Castro's Cuba, his rising military expenditures and persistent reports that weapons disappear from the Venezuelan military into the hands of regional leftist rebels, make the charges all the more believable.

The Ecuadorian newspaper, El Comercio, wrote that since 2001, a 200-man leftist "liberation army" has been operating in Ecuador and that some of the men received training in Venezuela. In a follow-up story this month, the Miami Herald wrote that the intelligence report says the Venezuelans provided a month-long training course for guerrillas from Peru, Bolivia, Chile Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Venezuela.

On The Newstand: Commentary on the Bush Doctrine, Kaplan and Hanson

Commentary magazine, the birthplace of neoconservatism, marks its 60th year with a symposium on the Bush Doctrine. I've honestly not had the opportunity to read all of the contributions - there are 36 in all. There is literally not a dull bulb in this batch - you don't even need first names for half of the contributors - Buckley, Kristol, Podhoretz, Pipes, Pipes, Perle, Kagan, Fukuyama, etc. Try not to be surprised but the review of Imperial Grunts is not favorable. Here's another surprise they did like Victor Davis Hanson's new book on the Peloponnesian War (God I hate spelling that word).

Peter Drucker RIP

Peter Drucker passed away yesterday. Not only was the man a genius he was also mentioned in the movie Barcelona. Tom Peters, Peter Senge and all those management flavors of the month can't hold a candle to the breadth and depth of Drucker and his work. Since I'm supposed to focus on politics here is what Drucker said about our most effective presidents:

The most effective president, he told Forbes magazine 11 months ago, was Harry Truman, because "everybody who worked for him worshiped him because he was absolutely trustworthy." Ronald Reagan took second place: "His great strength was not charisma, as is commonly thought, but his awareness and acceptance of exactly what he could do and what he could not do."

Salman Rushdie at The U

Sorry for the short notice but I just found out. Salman Rushdie will be speaking about modern terrorism at the Storer Auditorium (College of Business) 6PM Monday, November 14. Now I'm really confused about his not being at the Book Fair. I would see him a dozen times before any other of the "Evening With..." authors (not including Carlos Alberto Montaner since his in Spanish). Mike Wallace may have a book out, but he IS NOT a writer. The others Jon Kozol, Margaret Atwood, Dr. Weil, Marilynne Robinson, Joan Didion and Terry McMillan include a noteworthy literary talent or maybe even two but do not outshine Rushdie's influence.

Your Government at Work

In effort to help those affected by the hurricane it was recently announced that anyone in the federal disaster area (that's us) could collect food stamps. A friend from work decided that he was going to apply just to see what he would get. Mind you his household income is well over $70,000 a year. He's not rich but he's not hurting either. The storm left him without power but he had a generator so about the only inconvenience he endured was cold showers - he could not figure out how to power up his water heater. Oh yeah his cable is still out but that's what he gets for have Comcast.

So my buddy goes down to get food stamps and the social worker gives him $720 worth of food stamps - no questions asked! The only condition being that he has to use the food stamps within 90 days. The man has gone on a red meat buying binge. He can fire up the bbq every Sunday between now and the Super Bowl (we can do this down here) and still have a cow or two to spare. I'm sure that people really need this aid and they should recieve it but openning up the doors to anyone with a picture id and a social security card makes no sense.

The Summit of the Americas

I missed this too. Fortunately for me the reliably astute Alvaro Vargas Llosa fills me in a bit. He notes that when W went south he confronted three different faces of Latin America:

One is characterized by the return of populism, a movement that bears little resemblance to Jeffersonian populism. A second is defined by managerial inertia, and the third is best described as involving some progress at the cost of isolation.

The populist road is a familiar one for LA:

This type of Latin America made its presence felt in the streets of Mar del Plata, with violent demonstrations against globalization. Chavez is now expropriating factories and agricultural estates in Venezuela that he deems "unproductive." Kirchner is inflating Argentina's currency: In the last 22 months, the inflation rate has been higher than in the previous eight years. As shown by last week's legislative elections, he has built a grassroots following in the all-important province of Buenos Aires with massive distribution of food and household appliances and monthly cash handouts to millions of people. For his part, Morales, who is tied in first place in Bolivia, is campaigning on the promise to nationalize the second largest oil reserves on the continent.

We know where all this leads: These same policies consolidated Latin America's backwardness in the second half of the 20th century. In the three decades after World War II, agriculture grew at half the rate of industry because of the assault on private property in the countryside for the benefit of bureaucracy. The economic result can be captured with one example: Between the 1970s and the 1990s, Argentina's per-capita income was reduced by one quarter.

The inert leaders include the scandal plagued Lula, the perennially unpopular Toledo and the astoundingly ineffectual Fox. Fox and Toledo may want to move on FTAA but both are lame ducks who lack political wherewithal to get anything done on this front. Lula was always ambivalent and has enough problems with his left wing to stake anything on FTAA.

Finally we get the reformers who have problems of their own:

Chile and Colombia are two examples. Chile has just announced the imminent signature of its umpteenth free-trade agreement (with China), while Colombia is the only country in which there has been a significant increase in the number of new businesses, thanks to the elimination of some red tape and legal barriers. But these two countries have limitations. Colombians are engaged in a war against narco-guerrillas, and Chile has, for historic reasons, difficult relations with its neighbors, which limits its capacity to influence the area.

CSM also weighs in on all this and declares that Chavez is not the answer to LA's woes:

Two potential negatives loom for Chavez. One is his dependence on oil, and his current reckless spending of oil revenues based on the resource's current high prices. If the bubble should burst, he would be hard put to continue expanding social services at home and financing revolution throughout Latin America.

The other problem is the inevitable departure from the scene of his comrade-in-arms, Fidel Castro. Castro is 78 years old, and one or two recent lapses suggest that he is in failing health. The likelihood of Cuba's continuing along the path of communism after Castro seems slim. Communism in Cuba is already discredited with the masses and is held nominally in place by Castro's reign of oppression. Cuba's people are the prisoners of a regime that offers them neither political freedom nor a free market economy.

Neither communism, nor Chavez's woolly "not-communism-at-the-moment" kind of socialism seems likely to be a panacea for the challenges of today's Latin America.

Egyptian Elections

CSM had two pieces on the Egyptian elections this week. The first one noted that these elections as opposed to those in the past were pretty fair. Since they were fair CSM also notes that the Muslim Brotherhood is on the rise. This makes the Copts feel crappy and the women neglected. In case you have no clue what these elections are about check out CFR. They'll explain the significance of the elections and detail the major players. In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs F. Gregory Gause III (I should hate him just for having such a snotty name) said that democracy promotion in the MidEast may not be the way to go for the US:

Even if democracy were achieved in the Middle East, what kind of governments would it produce? Would they cooperate with the United States on important policy objectives besides curbing terrorism, such as advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process, maintaining security in the Persian Gulf, and ensuring steady supplies of oil? No one can predict the course a new democracy will take, but based on public opinion surveys and recent elections in the Arab world, the advent of democracy there seems likely to produce new Islamist governments that would be much less willing to cooperate with the United States than are the current authoritarian rulers.

The answers to these questions should give Washington pause. The Bush administration's democracy initiative can be defended as an effort to spread American democratic values at any cost, or as a long-term gamble that even if Islamists do come to power, the realities of governance will moderate them or the public will grow disillusioned with them. The emphasis on electoral democracy will not, however, serve immediate U.S. interests either in the war on terrorism or in other important Middle East policies.

It is thus time to rethink the U.S. emphasis on democracy promotion in the Arab world. Rather than push for quick elections, the United States should instead focus its energy on encouraging the development of secular, nationalist, and liberal political organizations that could compete on an equal footing with Islamist parties. Only by doing so can Washington help ensure that when elections finally do occur, the results are more in line with U.S. interests.

I'm Back!

Sorry about the prolonged absence. We did have to forgo the comforts normally associated with modern living but we got along just fine. The house was more or less intact although getting to it required some off road driving. After 12 days with no electricity FPL finally showed up and shortly thereafter I enjoyed the longest hottest shower I have ever had in my entire life. Thanks to all who were concerned, I was truly touched by the e-mails and Curzon's post. I'll be back tomorrow morning.