Last weekend bore some very inspiring news, which even the Establishment press had to report. Among the most inspiring items was this. For a glorious 24 hours last weekend, from Friday to Saturday, the people of Ecuador seized control of their country from an unpopular leader in thrall to International Capital and ran their own affairs. The overthrow of the government was effected in a bloodless coup, when a group of military officers, Native American leaders, and student activists marched into Congress and declared that they were assuming power. No blood was spilled- Barry should take note of this. Among the Native Americans' goals were explicitly to end racial discrimination and to insititute a full socialist economy. The Native American's leader was one of three men in the ruling junta, as it should be, for Native Americans are a third of the population.
Unfortunately, the coup was reversed the next day, thanks possibly to meddling from the United States. The Clinton administration, displaying incredible hypocrisy, sanctimoniously declared that they would not stand for a coup. Clinton and his business-elite dominated government wouldn't know real democracy (= socialist people's democracy) if it bit them in the ass. As such, they have no right to tell the Ecuadorean people what sort of government to have. Of course, this fits into a long American pattern of trying to meddle in other countries' political self expression. Reagan of course refused to recognize the Nicaraguan elections of '84; his successor Bush helped 'influence' the Nicaraguan elections of 1990. Clinton, the hypocrite, his 'experts' even boasted about how successfully they rigged the Russian elections in 1996 against Zyuganov, by spreading libelous propaganda and funneling money into Yeltsin's coffers. The principle of meddling in another country's political self expression is despicable and goes against the very idea of democracy.
But anyway, that's not really the point. The point is that even though the overthrow was quickly reversed, Ecuador had a short-lived revolution thsi weelkend; and that's better than nothing. Actually, capitalism is getting weaker in northern South America. Venezuela just passed a new, progressive constitution that guarantees free housing and education and rules out further privatization of teh state oil industry. Peru's president is now widely seen for the fascist he is. Guyana is still run by Marxists. Colombia may fall to revolution any day now.
