Re: [Marxism] Morales and Obama

["S. Artesian" <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well,  no, nobody called Clinton a Muslim, or questioned his place of birth, 
but they did muscle up enough to get him impeached...

And you might recall Jesse Helms threatening Clinton's life, saying he 
better not come to North Carolina..

But really, this whole thread is cracked-- you cannot possibly compare the 
struggle in Bolivia with the current state of the struggle in the US, and it 
is that level of struggle, not the simple embedded racism of the whites in 
Bolivia, that drives their hatred of Morales.

Little bit of history might be in order-- like Gonzalo Sanchez do Lozado 
running, and being elected, as as a fusion candidate in alliance with Tupac 
Katari Revolutionary Liberation Movement, with his vice-pres running mate a 
member of the the Tupac Katari; like Goni getting enacted  the laws on 
popular participation, decentralizationa, land reform [which I believe is 
still the source and basis for the current land reform under Morales], the 
law on educational reform providing for primary school instruction in the 
languages of the indigenous people, and of course... the law on 
capitalization which lead to the privatization of the state-owned 
corporations.   The Goni govt. amended the 1967 constitution to define 
Bolivia as multiethnic and pluricultural, and even passed laws recognizing 
the communal land tenure practices of the indigenous peoples.

I'm sure the media-lunaists/tics weren't real happy, but they weren't 
calling for secession, because... because there was no social movement 
behind Goni that threatened to escape his control and become revolutionary.

That was then.  And that's the difference between then and now.   The 
media-lunites know that there is a social movement that can mobilize 
massively and rapidly, that that movement can and has conducted strikes and 
taken over El Alto; that Morales may be hated, but what is feared is that 
movement.

If Obama weren't so pitch perfect in his evocation of the great white hopes, 
if there were a class movement in the streets threatening to overwhelm the 
Obama tweedle-dee to the previous administration's tweedle-dum, you might 
have something to talk about over beer pint or two.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Lause" <markalause@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 12:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Morales and Obama



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