Perhaps you should set aside ideology for a moment and look at how diasterous legalization of coca and stopping foreign investment in South Americas poorest country will be. This was clearly a vote out of racial disenfranchisement, and unfortunatly will probably destroy any hope of economic development in Bolivia.
Once more lodui you seem to be singing a rather anti-democratic note, are you saying that what you view as “economic development” is more important than the will of the people? Why would “legalization of coca” be disastrous? Why should foreign investment stop?
Don't we just love Western ignorance? "For thousands of years, people in the Andes have chewed coca to stave off hunger, made it into tea or used it as medicine." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/bolivia_election;_ylt=AkCp.j5vJgjTG6VxeCllbT63IxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA-- Come again?
Just another fighter in the war against free trade and neo liberalism pushed by the first bush regime, clinton, and the second bush regime. Althought Evo Morlaes has settled for a field goal when he could have made a touchdown. The legalization of coca has large popular support, and will actually lead to economic development.
What exactly was I ignorant about again? You just posted a story that vaugley talks about ancient coca use. You could goggle 'Andean coca culture' and get a much better article. If you want to cut and paste other peoples opinions, you could at least be more proficient at it. http://www.erowid.org/plants/coca/coca_info1.shtml Because Morales wants to end foreign investment in Bolivia, which will be economically harmful for the country. I hardly think finding faults in the fiscal policy of an elected official in South America is undemocratic. And Bolivian politics are pretty fickle anyway. The country has gone through two presidents in two years. Actually not a bad setup. Bolivia actually had a lot of economic growth during the 90's, but recent economic moves by the country have led to a depression in one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Well it's aginst international law primarily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs So it would lead to international sanctions, and Bolivia would have nobody to sell it's product to, so the market would be internal. This would be another reason the politics of Morales will further lead to the downfall of Bolivias fragile economy. Even if you're a libertarian you've got to realize that this is bad for legilization efforts. The process of legilization would be a disaster. It would likely to Bolivia more entrenched in cartel actions in Bolivias politics. I don't see what you're basing the economic growth argument on other then the clearly large global cocaine market.
Because Morales wants to end foreign investment in Bolivia, which will be economically harmful for the country. Well as far as I know Morales has said nothing about ending foreign investment in fact the stated aim of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) is to increase it. What they are asking for is what they see as a far share of the money being made on Bolivian resources going to Bolivians. Which sounds ok to me. ** I hardly think finding faults in the fiscal policy of an elected official in South America is undemocratic. The thing is that this was one of the things you seem to be using for not finding much of a problem with the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossagegh. In fact the wording you use is very similar. ** Bolivia actually had a lot of economic growth during the 90's, but recent economic moves by the country have led to a depression in one of the poorest countries in Latin America. The thing is that while some people and many international companies made money because of ‘free market’ experiments in Latin American, the economic benefits did not trickle down to the poor and in fact some argue that many in Latin America became poorer. Remember the water riots in Bolivia? “following the advice of the World Bank, the Bolivian government declared that all water was to become corporate property, so that even drawing water from community wells or gathering rainwater on their own properties, peasants and urban dwellers had to first purchase and obtain permits from International Water Limited (a multinational largely owned by the Bechtel Corporation). The government, however, retracted and abolished the new water privatization rules following wide-scales uprisings and riots in protest of the legislation” **
Once again, I never supported Mossagegh's overthrow, you're just using that to make your debate more convinent. Listen, public control of some utilities isn't nessecarily a bad idea, particularly in the case of bolivia which has had price gouging over the past few years. But a rapid change of all utilities to government control is going to discourage investment and be bad economically. Bolivia has already seen this happening in the past 6 years. 4% GDP loss. If they elect someone who's talking about a trade war with Washington (although he's cooled off his rhetoric now) the country will sink. And don't trumpet the water riot like it was a triumph for the people. Their are places in Bolivia which have a hard time getting any acess to water at all now.
lodui "Once again, I never supported Mossagegh's overthrow, you're just using that to make your debate more convinent.." The thing is that you seem to prefer the economic record of the brutal and repressive Shah over those that were proposed by the democratic and popular Mossagegh. So I was wondering if you would have a similar view toward the overthrow of the democratic and popular Morales by someone who followed an economic course you agreed with? The US intelligence community and other institutions have long used such smearing to quieten American outrage. Leaders or governments that had left wing reforming tendencies became communist in the US media, the kind of people that would ‘ruin’ an economy of their country or region. Later if such governments collapsed (often with US assistance) Americans would shrug, it may have been a popular government or even democratically elected they would think but they’d heard it was going to ‘ruin’ the economy so good riddance. (Lodui I know you like me to recommend books so you could try ‘The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye has a good bit on the media campaign against the reforming government of Guatemala by the United Fruit Company)
