October 18, 2003
Upheaval
The president of Bolivia has resigned.(See New York Times and canoe.com.) Something is happening in the world right now that is staggering.He's the fourth Latin American leader to be forced to resign since 2000. And then there is the Arnold phenomenon, which is more an indication of anti-establishment fury than an affirmation of his Republican values.
Bush and the corporate masters must be quaking in their boots. Even if half the U.S. is in a TV-induced coma, you can bet Cheney and the boys are watching very closely and a lot of what is happening doesn't look that good for them. The devil fools with the best laid plans.
Even the article in Friday's New York Times rings of something almost alien to mainstream reporting. Check out this sample of the text: "The many Indian protesters who choked the streets and higoys of this Andean nation again on Thursday may be poor and speak broken or accented Spanish, but they have a powerful message. It is this: no to the export of gas and other natural resources; no to free trade with the United States; no to globalization in any form other than solidarity among the downtrodden peoples of the developing world. The force of that message may yet topple President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who tried to quell the unrest by offering a package of concessions late Wednesday night that the protesters rejected. Instead they vowed to continue with demonstrations meant to force his government to abandon a plan to export natural gas to the United States through a port in Chile. The protests have already left more than 80 people dead over the past month. Sensing that public support for the president, weak to begin with, has all but vanished, opponents of the gas export plan have now moved to press their advantage. 'The blood that has been spilled is something sacred,' Felipe Quispe, leader of the indigenous group that initiated the protests, said in response to Mr. Sánchez de Lozada's offer, made in a televised speech. 'So we can't negotiate and we're not even going to talk.'"
What we are seeing is a new wave of what could be called globalization, as inexorable as the first. But the first wave of global reach was corporate globalization. In a sense the business interests are the vanguard. The ones who have the money and the power are the first who can gain access to the media required to extend their reach globally. Up to now, globalization has meant the global extension of corporate empire. It has been the globalization of a tyrannical corporate state. The Bush presidency -- initiated with a blatant thwarting of democratic principles -- represents the ultimate ascendancy of global corporate power.
Once the Bush mob seized the president through a process that was an insult to the democratic history of the U.S., the corporatocracy proceeded to exercise its power in a corporate style, totally tyrannical, greedy, with whatever violence is required to achieve a given objective. But very quickly, in retrospect, the oligarchy has squandered its power and its position.
Increasingly they are finding themselves floundering, just trying to keep their heads above water. Their untempered greed has led them into situations they can no longer control.
What just happened in Bolivia, with the dictatorial president being overthrown, should be a message to corrupt tyrants everywhere, and I'm talking about the Bush administration more than anyone -- not because they are necessarily the most malevolent of all the corrupt tyrants, but because of all the corrupt tyrants in the world, they wield the most power.
What happened at the WTO meetings in Cancun in September -- with a coalition of the developing countries standing together to say no to the tyrannical G7 countries -- was an earthquake through the New World Order.
Meanwhile the corporate world is collapsing. The only way it can survive is through constant plunder, access to cheap resources, which it only gains through extortion at the point of a gun. Looking through yesterday's Wall Street Journal I might have seen some cause for alarm if my concern were for the maintenance of the corporate order.
Some of the stories in the paper: Sun Microsystems stock price has plummeted to $3.50 from $64.31 in September 2000; Universal plans to slash hundreds of jobs because the recording industry is in the pits, drowning in its own inability to comprehend the world it now finds itself in; Monsanto's loss widened; retail sales slipped in September...
And in Brazil, an angry population pushed its leader from power. According to yesterdays' Wall Street Journal, before the resignation: "It isn't just young men with Che Guevara T-shirts o;r Indians with muc-caked feet that are taking to the streets. In Honduras on Tuesday, thousands of doctors, nurses and high school teachers went on strike for the day demanding that the government not renew a debt-payment agreement with the IMF, the multiliateral lender largely seen in the region as a symp\bol of Washington. Thousands of other protesters across the Central American nation blocked streets and burned tires."
The Journal refers to the besieged president as "pro-U.S." and acknowledges that the "protests began against government plans -- since put on hold -- to export natural gas to the U.S. But they have evolved into a locus for widespread dissatisfaction with the government's pro-U.S. policies..."
The Journal goes on to say that "A weak economy, thanks in part to the recent U.S. slowdown, accounts for some of the simmering anger." Here we see the Journal acknowledge that the U.S. economic slowdown is causing problems internationally, the kinds of problems that affect business negatively. Business is the Journal's business. When business is negatively impacted, the business community withdraws its support after a while. When that happens, it's bye bye to Bush, Cheney and the whole comedic troup.
I can't say for sure, but it sure looks to me like the Bush administration's days are numbered. Everything seems to be falling apart.