[Marxism] Ecuador "on the cusp" - updates

[Duroyan Fertl <dfertl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  Latest updates from Ecuador Rising Blog:
 
 
    http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/ecuador-on-cusp.html
  Ecuador on the Cusp 
  by James Petras / September 6th, 2007
  From Atlantic Free Press
 
 Ecuador today faces great opportunities for a basic social transformation and 
also grave threats from imperial networks.
 
 In the recent period, popular social mobilization of urban and rural popular 
classes (workers, peasants, Indians, public employees, urban barrio militants, 
teachers and street venders) have succeeded in overthrowing neo-liberal 
presidents, discrediting a corrupt and reactionary congress, and rejecting the 
traditional oligarchical electoral parties. A vast independent mass movement 
has become the axis of a new power configuration demanding the complete and 
total nationalization of the petroleum industry, a profound comprehensive 
agrarian reform, the re allocation of government revenues from foreign and 
domestic debt payments to the financing of extensive health, education and 
employment programs. Fundamentally the movement is calling for a 
re-distribution of income, property and credit from the ruling oligarchy to the 
eighty percent of the population that is excluded and exploited.
 
 The election of President Rafael Correa was based on his repudiation of the 
agreement giving the US a military base in Manta, and his populist demands for 
national control of the petroleum industry, his promise of sweeping 
re-distributive income and property reforms and questioning of the foreign debt.
 
 The Correa regime's promise of structural transformation has not been followed 
by concrete action ? in part because of the opposition of Congress and his 
'ambiguities' in following up his policy pronouncements. What the Correa regime 
has accomplished is the continued mobilization of the majority of Ecuadorians 
in favor of holding elections for a new constituent assembly, which will draw 
up a new constitution and presumable lay the political foundation for a social 
transformation.
    Rest at: http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/ecuador-on-cusp.html
    
 
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/alfarista-program-for-constituent.html
  ALFARISTA MANIFESTO TO THE NATION
 
 After long years of effort, Alfarism has constituted itself as a popular 
movement. The dream was forged in Montubio, in the fight against ?Garcianism?. 
It began with the formation of a small army to strike the Garcian army in 
Manabí. Later it became a body of intellectuals and ideologists (Juan Montalvo, 
Juan Borja, Roberto Andrade, etc.), and finally of the people (excepting 
sectors fanaticised by the church). After 33 years of fighting to take power 
and 17 years of fighting to hold power, Alfarism became a political and social 
reality.
 
 Today as we mark 102 years of the triumph of the Alfarista Revolution, within 
the framework of this anniversary the Movement Bolivariano Alfarista has made a 
long march that left Guayaquil on May 14 and that arrived yesterday at the 
Station of Chimbacalle, the place where the railroad first arrived, the symbol 
of the national unity promoted by Alfarismo.
 
 The fools who assassinated Alfaro and tried to delay the advance of the 
revolutionary process, soon had to understand that the Ecuadorian people 
identified with his dreams of justice, freedom and democracy and continued 
fighting for the attainment of those historical objectives. The baptism in 
blood of the working class in Guayaquil on the 15th of November, 1922, the 
Julian Revolution, the Glorious Revolution of May 28th, 1944, the sprouting of 
URJE, the anti-dictatorial fight of the youth, the conquest of free entry to 
University, the ascension to the Presidency of Jaime Roldós (assassinated by 
the CIA), the rescue of the revolutionary figure of Alfaro and guerrilla 
actions to defeat the oligarchy, the heroic fight of the indigenous peoples and 
nationalities that stopped the application of the neoliberal model; this 
process today - reflected in the triumph of the democratic and revolutionary 
sectors led by Rafael Correa - is nothing less than the continuation of the
 historical conquest of a free and sovereign Ecuador.
    Rest at: 
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/alfarista-program-for-constituent.html
   
  http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/alfaristas-to-montecristi.html
  The Alfaristas to Montecristi 
 Translated from Movimiento Bolivariano Alfarista website.
 
 We go to the Constituent Assembly to put a final end to the darkness of 
neoliberalism. That wild Capitalism that has destroyed our sovereignty, our 
productive capacity and filled democracy with intrigue, squalor and absurdity. 
No more absolutism of the market, no more "fifiriches" who in the name of 
professionalism stripped the people of their most precious things? their 
initiatives, their creative impetus, their confidence to feel like actor in 
their own history.
 
 We are going to the Constituent Assembly not only to debate a new concept of 
State, not only to forge the bases of a new democracy, not only to demarcate 
the new political footpaths by which we will travel hand in hand with our 
children, we are going to exert the plenary powers to take control?
    Rest at: 
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/alfaristas-to-montecristi.html
   
  
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/bolivarian-coordinate-ecuador-and.html
  A Bolivarian Coordinate?: Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity 
  By Clifton Ross
  from Counterpunch, September 5, 2007
  Back in 1989 or 1990, as I watched, along with the rest of the world, the 
collapse of the "Evil Empire," I remember thinking to myself, "one down, one to 
go." I knew, and all the imperial hubris of Fukyama's "end of history" just 
made me that much more certain, that the time would soon come for Evil Empire 
II. "Soon" is a relative term. Here we are, a mere seventeen or eighteen years 
later and Evil Empire II is on its way down, as historical events go, at super 
action speed.
  What I didn't expect was that new empires would emerge, or attempt to do so, 
in the wake of the collapse of the two empires that jostled for position 
throughout the Cold War years. Brazilian revolutionary theorist Ruy Mauro 
Marini would dub these rising empires, "sub-empires," and he claimed that the 
seeds of sub-empires are already visible in Latin America. Of course that's 
what we USAmericans were back in the early 19th century, an ex-colony aspiring 
to sub-imperial status, mingling with the full-fledged, grown up empires of 
Britain, France and Spain and hoping one day to play in the Major League 
ourselves.
  I muse on all of this as I wait in my hotel room in Quito, Ecuador, for 
Napoleon Saltos Galazara to arrive. I had just finished reading his article, 
"UNASUR: la coordenada bolivariana" published in the extraordinary Ecuadoran 
review, "La Tendencia," in which he considers sub-empires, dying empires and 
what he calls "the Bolivarian Coordinate" (1) with the skill of a scientist. He 
is, after all, a scientist, among many other things.
    Rest at: 
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/bolivarian-coordinate-ecuador-and.html
   
    http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/revolutionary-left-grows.html
  The revolutionary left grows 
  Translation of the editorial of En Marcha, edition 1375, weekly magazine of 
the PCMLE.
 
 The Right is worried, it knows that the electoral results will not be 
favorable to it, and it's representation in the Constituent Assembly will be 
small. The people will hand it a bill for everything that it has done in past 
years.
 
 The crisis that faces their partiesis well-known, obvious from the result of 
the elections of a year ago and from the results of the plebiscite that 
resolved to call for the Constituent Assembly. In these months it has lurched 
from crisis to crisis, incapable of articulating the opposition it wanted, to 
prevent the advance of the democratic political project that is in march in the 
country, whose head is president Rafael Correa. It has tried openly 
anti-communist speech, has put on the clothes of defender of democracy and 
democratic liberties, has played with speculating with the prices of basic 
necessities, among other maneuvers, to create an atmosphere of popular 
dissatisfaction. It was forced to participate in these elections, as it was 
always against the Assembly, and it is guaranteed that it will suffer a new 
political and electoral defeat.
    Rest at: 
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/revolutionary-left-grows.html
   
    http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/correas-ups-and-downs.html
  Correa?s ups and downs 
  Luis Angel Saavedra. Sep 7, 2007
  Latin America Press
  President fails to convince country?s organized popular movement.
  Ever since Rafael Correa and a group of intellectuals prominent in the 
country?s nongovernmental organizations created the Movimiento País party to 
participate in last year?s election, Ecuador?s political scene experienced its 
greatest change since the nation returned to democracy almost 30 years ago.
 
 Correa took office Jan. 15 blasting Ecuador?s traditional political parties. 
He also implemented a series of social policy measures such as doubling funds 
for human development and housing, which helped solidify his support that 
allowed his initiative to write a new constitution cruise to approval (LP, 
March 7, 2007).
 
 In an April 15 referendum, 82 percent of voters approved the need for a 
constituent assembly to write a new charter, Correa?s first major victory.
 It was also a blow to traditional political parties, especially right-wing 
parties and powerful business owners who, then, began to use other forums to 
voice their opinions: the mainstream media and production chambers.
    Rest at: 
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/09/correas-ups-and-downs.html
    

"Dejerme decirle, a reisgo de parecer ridiculo, que el revolucionario verdadero 
esta guiado por grandes sentimientos de amor!!!"
       
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