Over the past year, the massive upheaval in the United States from workers going on industrial strike and walking off jobs signifies an increasing awareness of class politics. In the following interview, Harriet Fraad says that American workers are overcoming decades of suppression from anti-communist propaganda as well as a betrayal by the two main political parties.

Workers are becoming aware of their rights and their conditions of exploitation under the corporate capitalist system. They are angry and restless for an alternative economic system. For the first time in a long time the words “capitalism” and “socialism” are now entering conscious public discussions. Workers, says Fraad, are well aware of their betrayal by the Democratic Party which has sold out their class cause for the benefit of the party’s leadership from corporate sponsorship.

More than ever, she contends, the working majority of the United States needs the representation and leadership of a new political party that galvanizes their needs and rights under a socialist program.

Historically, Fraad points out, the United States always had a strong movement of working-class politics and socialist parties, for example at the end of the 19th century and during the early 20th century. Unfortunately, much of that tradition was destroyed by the pro-capitalist establishment using Red Scare tactics during the Cold War, including the Democratic Party, the corporate media and official trade union bureaucracy.

Nevertheless, the recent acute exploitation of workers during the pandemic period and the grotesque growth in wealth inequality are forcing American workers to question the entire system and to realize their collective political power as a working-class constituency that comprises the vast majority of the 330 million U.S. population.

However, as Harriet Fraad warns, the potential for progressive change in the United States could still be hijacked and destroyed by the rise of right-wing populism under demagogues like Donald Trump. The Republican rightwing and the ineffectual Democratic Party under President Joe Biden are creating the base for fascism which may vanquish the potential for progressive socialism. Thus, America is coming to face an ominous crossroads, in her view, which boils down to this: will the United States embrace socialism or will it descend into fascism?

Dr Harriet Fraad lives in New York City. She has been a practicing psychotherapist and hypnotherapist for nearly four decades. She is also a political activist, a founding member of the women’s liberation movement in the United States during the late 1960s and co-founder of the journal Rethinking Marxism. Fraad is co-author of several books, including Class Struggle on the Home Front and Imagine Living in a Socialist USA. She broadcasts a weekly commentary Capitalism Hits Home covering current labor and economic issues as part of the Democracy at Work channel. Fraad is particularly critical of how the Democratic Party in the United States has elevated so-called “identity politics” over the more central issue of class politics, the fight for workers’ rights and the advancement of socialism. That subject of how the CIA and the Democratic Party played the U.S. population into the trivial pursuit of identity politics will be returned to in a future interview for Strategic Culture Foundation.

Interview

Question: Despite a lack of mainstream media coverage, nevertheless there is an unmistakable impression that the United States is undergoing widespread labor strikes and resignations over the past year. Can you give us some figures on this development in worker protests? How significant are these demonstrations in the historical perspective of the American economy, industrial relations and society?

Harriet Fraad: There are over 100,000 people currently on strike in the U.S. At least four million have dropped out of the labor force. There have been over 1,000 separate industrial actions during the past year. These are low estimates. With the exception of Mike Elk’s Payday Report, strikes and labor actions are routinely under-reported by our corporate media. As reported elsewhere, billions of dollars in profits were made by U.S. corporations during the pandemic and the recession that accompanied it. Billionaire wealth surged by 70 percent, or $2.1 trillion, during the same period that saw massive impoverishment of workers and their families; U.S. billionaires are now worth a combined $5 trillion. Meanwhile, wages were not raised.

Question: Do the mass labor strikes across the United States signal an increase in workers becoming more aware of issues of class politics and an increase in militancy to demand their rights as workers?

Harriet Fraad: The class awareness of U.S. workers is, at least up to now, not a conscious class awareness. It is not informed by a socialist media presence, any socialist daily newspapers, television stations, or socialist internet. Historically, class awareness was effectively crushed by a national anti-communist crusade with the public trials of hundreds of people suspected of belonging to the Communist Party or what they considered its fellow travelers in the Socialist Party and the left. The confederation of trade unions, the AFL-CIO, expelled the activist left and its communist and socialist organizers. They were the militants that kept the unions vital. Without them, the union movement lost its wider purpose of worker power. In the 1950s, 35 percent of U.S. workers were organized in unions. Now there is barely 10 percent in unions.

However, class consciousness was re-introduced with the Occupy Movement of 2011. There, the idea of the 1 percent super-wealthy and the 99 percent of the rest of society took root in popular perception. It is significant that former President Barack Obama, a supposed “progressive” Democrat, crushed Occupy sites across the nation in 2012. Having said that, class consciousness across the U.S. is just beginning to be revived.

Question: Can it be discerned that America’s workers and their families – who represent a majority of the 330 million population – are becoming: a) more critical of capitalism as an economic system; and b) more receptive to and supportive of an alternative socialist politics?

Harriet Fraad: For the first time since the 1950s, capitalism can be named as a system rather than the implicitly assumed only system for organizing an economy. U.S. grotesque inequality is exposed and becoming increasingly conscious among workers, especially for the young whose future is dire. Young Americans are mired in student debt, deprived of jobs with a future, and may even lose their planet due to capitalism.

Question: Traditionally, in the two-party U.S. political system the Democrats are viewed as being pro-labor and pro-union, but it seems that over recent decades the Democrats have become indistinguishable from the Republican Party as being loyal and pliable servants of Big Business. Can you explain this trend with historical reference?

Harriet Fraad: The big sell-out of the Democratic Party to corporate interests was launched by Bill Clinton in 1993. He had been elected with union energy and union financial support. Yet, he was most instrumental in making the Democratic Party a party serving corporate capitalist interests and taking corporate money.

When Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he allowed jobs in the United States to be outsourced to Mexico and he gave his blessing to the exodus of millions of U.S. jobs to nations with low wages, terrible working conditions and weak or no ecological protections.

Clinton initiated the Democratic Party’s new corporate strategy of verbally celebrating racial, gender and sexual equality and justice while advancing corporate interests and abandoning the poor and the white working-class. In just one instance, he killed cash assistance for needy families and ripped a huge hole in the American social welfare safety net. He threw millions of poor black and white women and children into bad jobs and terrible poverty while claiming “progressive” treatment for all.

Question: Does this historical background partly explain the phenomenal rise of Donald Trump as a “populist hero”?

Harriet Fraad: Yes. The neglected white working-class gave up on the Democrats that sold them out and they were ripe for Trump’s empty promise to “Make America Great Again”. They were outraged by their perception that the gains made by people of color and women were what took their jobs away. That was a misperception distorted and presented to them by Trump. People of color and women still earn less than white men. It was not people of color and women but rather corporate profiteering that took their better-paid manufacturing jobs to nations like Mexico, China and India with terrible job conditions. It was corporate capitalists like Trump and their servants like Clinton who took their jobs. Trump exploits white working-class rage. In the absence of a powerful present socialist analysis, Trump alone speaks to their outrage. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, had a chance to win as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. Sanders was defeated. He was outvoted by traditional African-Americans who chose Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Sanders’s defeat was aided and abetted by the Democratic Party leadership.

Question: If the modern Democratic Party is a hindrance to the cause of workers, shouldn’t workers then seek to establish a new third party that actually fights for their class interests?

U.S. workers are now beginning to reclaim class consciousness.

America direly needs a unified socialist voice that connects the various movements like Black Lives Matter, Climate Extinction, the Feminist Movement, MeToo# and Timesup#, Labor rights, transsexual rights, socialist and communist parties and the movement to transform capitalist business and all other forms of organizations into cooperatives. They need a movement and a party that is against all arbitrary divisions between people. The movement and party should be an umbrella organization. The handle and stem represent class justice. The spokes and their multicolored fabric are all of the movements that are needed to create class, race, gender, and sexual justice for all.

Question: The corporate news media and academia suggest that somehow socialism is antithetical to ordinary Americans. Is a mass movement for socialism possible in the United States? What would that take for it to mobilize and achieve governance?

Harriet Fraad: A mass socialist movement is certainly possible in the United States. In fact, there has been a long history of socialism in America from cooperative communal movements to official socialist and communist parties.

The Socialist Party was a powerful force in the U.S. from the turn of the century until the First World War. Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate won a million votes even though he ran from prison in 1920. Socialism and communism are not antithetical to Americans. However, when they actually threatened capitalism as mass movements they were severely repressed by the federal government in the service of corporate capitalism.

Question: The social discontent and political disorientation in the United States seems to have reached unstable levels. If a viable democratic socialist direction is not harnessed by the people, do you fear that a reactionary alternative is a real danger? That is, for fascist politics to fully emerge from the incipient forms we see already in an increasingly rightwing Republican Party?

Harriet Fraad: The U.S. empire, like the USSR, is imploding out of its own corruption. America is polarized. There is far greater acceptance of a socialist alternative to capitalism as well as the danger of a well-financed turn towards fascism. On the socialist side, labor, a mass base, is awakening to the outrage of super-exploitation by the 1 percent. People are politically active on the left as they have not been since the 1960 and 1970s. A majority of young people prefer socialism to capitalism. However, the U.S. left does not have a centrally organized national organization around which to unite. If it did, it could mobilize the majority of Americans.

The Trumpian right in the Republican Party has no positive program except for gun rights and police and military support. Instead, they rage at Democrats, progressives, people of color, immigrants and abortion rights. They have a strong presence in our capitalist media. They are well-funded and have a populist and visible leader.

Germany became fascist because when its capitalism failed and wild inflation wiped out the livelihoods of the mass of workers, although Germany had a powerful Communist Party at the time, the German corporate wealth supported fascism as an alternative to socialism.

The spontaneous labor uprisings in the U.S. are promising. But we do not know how it will turn out in the United States.

This weekend, a bipartisan group of senators crafted a $1 trillion measure to repair and expand the nation’s roads, bridges, ports, airports and broadband. Last week, this trillion-dollar infrastructure plan got a green light from 17 Republican senators, including Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Just seven weeks into his presidency, Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Among the largest spending bills in history, it was passed without the vote of a single Republican.

The plan sent direct payments of up to $1,400 to most Americans, extended a $300 per week unemployment insurance boost until Sept. 6 and expanded the child tax credit for a year. It also put $350 billion into state, local and tribal relief.

This weekend, a bipartisan group of senators crafted a $1 trillion measure to repair and expand the nation’s roads, bridges, ports, airports and broadband. Last week, this trillion-dollar infrastructure plan got a green light from 17 Republican senators, including Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Boasted Biden: “The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is the largest infrastructure bill in a century. It will grow the economy, create good-paying jobs, and set America on a path to win the future.”

Up next is a $3.5 trillion measure to remake America, which is also to be enacted without GOP support via a process called “reconciliation,” which enables the Senate to pass measures with a simple majority.

This $3.5 trillion measure would expand social and environmental programs, extend the reach of education and health care, tax the rich and take on the challenge of the century — climate change.

Among programs funded are universal prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-olds, two years of free community college, clean energy mandates for utilities and lower prescription drug prices. Medicare benefits would be expanded and amnesty extended to millions of illegal migrants.

All that is needed for its enactment into law is a Democrat majority in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House, the votes of the 50 Democratic senators and the signature of Biden.

After effecting passage of his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, if Biden gets the $1 trillion infrastructure proposal and the $3.5 trillion package, he will have enlarged federal spending by $6 trillion.

This would constitute the greatest leap forward toward socialism of any American president, with Biden’s only rivals being previous record-holders Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s’ New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s.

If Biden succeeds in getting it all, this would not only be a quantum leap toward European-style socialism. It would cross a divide for America, from which history teaches us there is no return.

“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money,” said Sen. Everett Dirksen in the 1960s, when he was leading a badly outmanned Republican minority in the Senate after the Barry Goldwater defeat.

Today, we talk not about billions but about trillions, and that $6 trillion in spending Biden is reaching for translates into more than six thousand billion dollars.

As of today, however, neither the infrastructure bill nor the $3.5 trillion omnibus bill is a done deal, with the former looking more probable than the latter. But if both are passed, they would create new records and new realities for the U.S. government.

The federal debt would exceed the U.S. economy for the first time since World War II. The deficits for this year and last, roughly $3 trillion in each year, already exceed any past deficits since World War II

Passage of the $3.5 trillion omnibus bill would constitute a quantum leap in the number of Americans dependent on the federal government for the necessities of life.

It would increase America’s ratio of tax consumers to taxpayers.

It would be tantamount to an admission of belief that the real engine of economic growth in America, the truly indispensable provider upon whom an ever-expanding share of the population of the nation depend for food, rent, health care, education and cash income, is the government of the United States, not the American free market system.

As for the Republican Party, the conservative party of lower taxes, balanced budgets and free market solutions to social problems, the fiscal debate will be over in a way it has never been before.

Passage of that $3.5 trillion omnibus bill would represent the triumph of Great Society liberalism over Reaganite conservatism.

In his first inaugural address, President Ronald Reagan declared that government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.

In his State of the Union address in 1996, President Bill Clinton seemed to concede the triumph of Reaganism over liberalism and socialism:

“We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there’s not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means.

“The era of big government is over.”

In 2021, Biden and his party are saying: Clinton was wrong to concede Reaganism its victory. When there is a big crisis in the country, FDR was right: Big government is the solution.

If the terrain looks unfamiliar, that is because we are crossing a new continental divide. We are entering Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez country.

buchanan.org

On the tenth day of counting 18,856,616 ballots, teacher-unionist-socialist Pedro Castillo, 51, Free Peru party candidate, won the presidential election by 44,058 votes. He had 8,835,579 to his opponent, Keiko Fujimori, 46, 8,791,521 votes. There were 1,108,039 blank and null ballots.

President Pedro Castillo dio un mitin en el distrito de Socota, en Cajamarca antes de viajar a Cutervo. Foto: Aldair Mejia/La República

His virulent rival, the right-wing Popular Force party that she founded, refuses to accept her close defeat, the third time trying for the presidency. Due to her wild charges of hundreds of thousands of “fraudulent” votes for her opponent in 800 “acts” (polling places). She has a slew of prominent lawyers filing legal-like papers daily, hoping to find a court that will overturn the majority decision.

The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) announced on June 16, at 15:19 that 100% of the votes showed the winner to be Castillo.

This is an historical election results for Peru, and an outstanding inspiration to workers like Castillo throughout Latin America, at least. Non-politician Pedro Castillo is to take office on July 28.

(See background piece for this election run-off, and the candidates’ roots. Peru General Election Campaign: Tight Race Between Left and Right — Strategic Culture (strategic-culture.org))

Peruvian voters were faced with two extremes unlived before, and many were unhappy that a moderate candidate did not make the run-off. Peruvians had the choice of taking a chance with a major change in the economy towards benefiting the poor and the working class, or bringing in the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence for ordering the murder of 25 persons by a secret death squads whose killers were military men, in addition to massive corruption, receiving bribes and other crimes committed while his daughter was his First Lady and advisor.

On October 10, 2018, Keiko Fujimori was arrested on charges of money laundering, illegally receiving money for her 2011 presidential campaign, for receiving bribes, and for leading a criminal organization. She was sentenced to three years pretrial detention as a “high escape risk”. The prosecution seeks 30 years imprisonment. Keiko Fujimori was released on bail under house arrest, on May 5, 2020.

In the April 11 general election, Castillo led the race of 18 candidates with 19% of the voters. He had never engaged in parliamentary politics. Keiko Fujimori, a congress-woman from 2011-16, took second place with 13.36%. She had come in second in two presidential elections. In 2011, she barely lost to Ollanta Humala with 51.5%. In 2016, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski squeaked by with 50.12% of the voters.

From the start of counting the votes following 12 hours of casting ballots on June 6, who led had been nip and tuck. One or the other candidate had led by from 0.1 to 0.5% of votes. Following a short-held lead by Pedro Castillo, Keiko Fujimori led in urban areas. She held the lead throughout Sunday evening and early Monday. Later in the day with more rural votes counted, the tide turned in Castillo’s favor. Fujimori then claimed that his party had “distort[ed] or delay[ed] results that reflect the will of the people.” How this was to have happened was not forthcoming, but she called upon her supporters to protest. Keiko Fujimori acusa al partido de Castillo de “estrategia” para “distorsionar los resultados” (cnn.com)

Peru’s currency (sol) “headed to its biggest drop in more than a decade and the S&P/BVL Peru General Index fell as much as 5.8%, the most since November, with mining companies and financial firms among the hardest hit. Overseas bonds were steady in light trading while the cost to insure against a default edged higher…after investor favorite Keiko Fujimori saw her early lead over leftist opponent Pedro Castillo fade overnight and in the early morning. With almost 93% of votes counted [Sunday morning], Fujimori had 50.1% support to 49.9% for Castillo, a former farmer and then school teacher and union organizer from the Peruvian highlands. Castillo traded places once 94% were counted: 50.07 to Fujimori’s 49.92%.” Peru Stocks, Sol Plunge With Presidential Vote Too Close to Call (yahoo.com) Peru’s presidential runoff election too close to call (beaumontenterprise.com)

Vote counting slowed. Over a three-day period, only 200,000 votes were counted. One day, only 451 votes were counted. In one example of alleged “fraud”, a village where 197 people voted, only one favored Fujimori. Vote counters, election observers and ONPE found no fraud. The U.S.-pro Organization of American States also stated that there had been no fraud, interestingly.

While Fujimori won every district in Lima’s capital region, the unionist teacher, who had led an important teacher strike, in 2017, whose parents are analphabet peasants, is overwhelmingly supported in the countryside. Castillo stands for reforming the economy with greater state control over markets and natural resources; curtailing mining; a 30% cut for public works and social welfare from corporation profits gained from the use of fossil fuels; and increasing pensions and wages. Fujimori wants more of the same “free market economy”, and spreads fear of “communism” taking over the country internally.

The corporations and White House favorite is also supported by Peruvian middle and upper class urban women simply because she is a woman. Fujimori is supported by celebrities, wealthy players on the national soccer team, and the nation’s most famous author, Mario Vargas Llosa. The former communist sympathizer turned extreme conservative won the Nobel literature prize. He even campaigns for her without regrets. For him, she is the best of the “lesser of evils”. He added
that her conduct is “very decent”, and that the National Electoral Jury (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones/JNE), to which Fujimori has appealed, should grant her the presidency given that “fraud has been committed”. Elecciones 2021: Mario Vargas Llosa: “Creo que Keiko Fujimori ha actuado de una manera muy decente” | La República (larepublica.pe)

Keiko Fujimori in prison, and awaiting the conclusion of judicial investigations into crimes of corruption, accepting bribes, leading a criminal band. She is out on house arrest. Pérou: la cheffe de l’opposition Keiko Fujimori retourne en prison | Pureactu.com

Fear of Violence Influences Election Campaign

Pro-Fujimori elitist backers dirtied the last days of the campaign attempting to connect a massacre of between 16 and 18 people, including two children and eight women, to Pedro Castillo.

A revived Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), using the name Militarized Communist Party of Peru, was accused by Defense Minister Nuria Esparch to have murdered them in Vraem. Peru: Congress Convenes Session To Investigate VRAEM Massacre | News | teleSUR English

The details of what actually happened have not been provided. Military authorities say some 500 guerrillas control much of the area in central Peru where they lord over cocaine production. Authorities claim that these “communist terrorists” demanded that there be no voting, and spread death threats. Leaflets passed around read:

“Peruvian People: Boycott bourgeois elections, because it is not your way. Don’t go to vote. Whoever votes for Keiko Fujimori is a traitor, a murderer of Vraem, of Peru.”

Nevertheless, neither the police nor the military have shown any evidence that Shining Path committed the murders, or how such brutality could “help” a socialist unionist worker gain the presidency. Vraem: Ministerio Público abre investigación por asesinato de 18 personas en presunto ataque terrorista | ACTUALIDAD | TROME

Local people in San Miguel del Ene village told independent reporters that moments before the attack, electric and telephone services were cut-off. They said this occurs when the military prepares to raid narco-traffickers.

The town’s Justice of the Peace Leonidas Casas Marmolejo was one of the first authorities to arrive on the scene of the murders in a bar know to facilitate prostitution. He said:

“How is it possible that the Joint Command affirms [who has] responsibility for the murder of 16 people when they have never visited us, they have not bothered to talk to the population. San Miguel del Ene is practically forgotten by the authorities and the State,” Judge Casas told La República.

Judge of the massacred town: “First investigate before speaking out” – Archytele

Corporations and the mass media used this calamity to further smear the campaign of Free Peru’s party candidate Pedro Castillo, while Keiko Fujimori said that as president she would assure that “communism does not occur in Peru”. Castillo expressed solidarity with the families, and said the massacre was an act of terrorism.

The most read social medium in Peru, wayka.pe, with 1.5 million daily hits, wrote of how this election-of-the-century is saturated with fear messages, especially those by businesses spreading the witch-hunt cry: “socialism leading to communism” and “communism is poverty” on outdoor illuminated panels, on billboards and store windows, on vehicles and in advertizements.

Elecciones 2021: Fake news y psicosociales – Wayka

Claiming that “communism is poverty” is a non-sequitur given that it is neo-liberal capitalism, for which Fujimorism stands for, that has caused a fifth of the nation to live in poverty. A socialist economy has never been tried, but facts, truth, reality is irrelevant when it comes to Keiko Fujimori, who is desperate to avoid going to prison for up to 30 years. Some political science experts expect that if former President Alberto Fujimori’s daughter did win, she would endeavored to quash the indictments against her. She has declared that if elected president she would pardon her father, who has served half his sentence.

One Fujimori supporting corporation, El Grupo Comericio, owns between 70% and 80% of television stations, magazines and newspapers. For these media, Keiko Fujimori is their president. The socialist, whom these media consider a “communist”, “terrorist”, “Shining Path” member or sympathizer, gets no objective news coverage. Prensa – Grupo El Comercio

El Grupo Comercio recently fired or forced to resign a dozen reporters for not following its electoral editorial line. Its attacks upon Castillo are so flagrant that Peru’s Ethical Tribunal complained that it is violating media rules of objectivity. Pronunciamiento-003-2021-TDE.pdf (tribunaldeetica.org) principales de la capital apelan al miedo.

“Communism Generates Misery and Poverty”. Los carteles que se pueden ver en avenidas

Fujimorism mobs are attacking prominent figures on the streets who stand by Pedro Castillo. Some of their houses are surrounded and threats are shouted. A totalitarian atmosphere is shaping, according to one of the few dailies not in Fujimori’s pocket.

Keiko Fujimori and her rich backers are endeavoring to destabilize the country, to prevent Pedro Castillo from assuming the presidency, or lay the basis for his overthrow once in office—a strategy she may have learned from the CIA and her years in the United States. National Endowment for Destabilization? CIA Funds for Latin America in 2018 | Analysis | teleSUR English

Fujimori got a college education in business administration. She married a U.S. American, Mark Villanella, an IBM consultant. She was involved with the Mossack Fonseca firm tax evasion shelters known from the Panama Papers. When she first ran for the presidency, she hired the former New York City mayor and Donald Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as an advisor. Keiko Fujimori Hires Giuliani as Advisor on Citizen Security in Peru | Fox News

The moderate daily, The Republic, June 14 editorial calls indirectly upon the Popular Force party to stop creating “instability”: “The chaos caused by a sector that intends to review what has been revised, to open up what is already legally closed and, finally, to deduct votes from the rival, in order to win, cannot be answered with indifference.” Hasta el último voto | La República (larepublica.pe)

Waya wrote that this election will be remembered for “citizen polarization, the psycho-socials, the false news and the fear campaigns that have been deployed at the national level to direct the vote towards the presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori.”

For the business elite, its media, the police and military leaderships, the only real danger to “democracy”, as they say, is Pedro Castillo. All the endemic pro-capitalist political corruption, bribes, swindles, murders compare not when confronting socialism, which aims to equalize rights and benefits, end military “solutions” to struggles resisting poverty, injustices, and wars for profit.

Sixty-three retired generals and other high-ranking officers issued a communique demanding the resignation of the head of the election board, warning of the danger of a Castillo victory and calling for the “strengthening of confidence in the armed forces and the police.” The Defense Ministry felt compelled to issue a statement in response deploring the use of official military symbols in the communique.

One day before the final count, June 14, Peru’s Armed Forces stated their respect for the constitutional order and disassociated themselves from this version of a coup d’état.

“We regret the political use of the Armed Forces because this not only undermines their institution but also generates alarm, anxiety, and division at a time when the country requires unity and calm,” the Defense Ministry said. Peru’s Armed Forces Disassociate Themselves From Coup Attempts | News | teleSUR English

In the last days of this campaign, both candidates concentrated on promising total battle against the corona virus, which has taken 189,316 (June 14) Peruvian lives. Peru leads the world in percentage of deaths per capita: 572.3 per 100,000. Of its 33.3 million population, nearly two million have been infected. The country closest to deaths per 100,000 population is Hungary with 305.

Peru’s ethnic makeup (self-identified) is 60% mestizo; 27% indigenous (85% are Quechuas, the remainder are Aymaras and Amazonians); 5% white, ca. 2% black/mulatto, 6.7% others.

Voting is mandatory in Peru for all persons 18 to 70. There are 25,193,971 registered voters. Turnout at 74%, lower than 82%, in 2016. Those caught not voting pay either 22, 44 or 88 sols ($5.50, $11, $22) for the poorest to those not poor. In 2019, the average monthly income per capita was 1,035 per capita. The poorest had only 278 sols. A fine for the poorest is eight percent of that.

The poor throughout Latin America will be watching with hope to see what this feisty farmer-teacher-unionist will attempt to accomplish as a socialist president. Peru’s rich, its military and police leaderships, and Wall Street/Pentagon/CIA will be watching too.

Early in the “coronavirus-19” — subsequently called “Covid-19” — pandemic, Denmark and Sweden were often being compared with one-another because both are Scandinavian countries, but on 13 March 2020, Denmark had started a lockdown and imposed strict recommendations for businesses and personal behavior, whereas Sweden did nothing of the sort, and so the two countries were considered to be especially suitable to serve as being an almost controlled experiment in what the results would be of socialism versus libertarianism in social policy (regulations) regarding a communicable disease.

On 26 March 2020, EuroNews headlined “Neighbours Denmark and Sweden miles apart on coronavirus confinement”. Whereas both countries had socialized healthcare, and were also otherwise generally considered to be similar, Sweden was pursuing Europe’s most libertarian policies on coronavirus or Covid-19, and yet Denmark had a 15% higher percentage of its population who had come down with that disease. On 29 June 2020, I headlined “‘Herd Immunity’ Is a Failed Response to Coronavirus: Comparing Denmark versus Sweden on Coronavirus,” and reported that in early April Sweden’s population-percentage who had the disease had switched (increased so fast as) to become 14% higher there than Denmark’s population-percentage who had Covid-19, and that Sweden’s percentage was also increasing much more quickly than Denmark’s. And, so, at that time, as of 28 June 2020, Sweden had 2.5 times as high a percentage of its population who had contracted the disease, as compared with Denmark’s percentage. There were 131 reader-comments to that news-report, at Reddit, and they were overwhelmingly in denial, and pro-libertarian, anti-socialist, though each comment had a different excuse for their reality-denial.

CNN headlined on 28 May 2020 “Sweden says its coronavirus approach has worked. The numbers suggest a different story” and made clear that, at least up till that moment in time, Sweden’s approach was a failure, not only in competition as compared to Denmark’s, but globally.

Then, on 12 May 2020, Foreign Affairs, the prestigious journal of America’s Council on Foreign Relations, bannered “Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s: Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely”, and presented the standard libertarian argument: “There are good reasons for countries to begin easing their restrictions. It will take several years to tally the total number of deaths, bankruptcies, layoffs, suicides, mental health problems, losses to GDP and investments, and other costs attributable not just to the virus but to the measures used to fight it. It should already be obvious, however, that the economic and social costs of lockdowns are enormous.” In other words: the best “regulation” is to let nature rule, not to impose any human-imposed regulations, but just “the free market” should reign.

On 7 January 2021, the Scandinavian Journal of Public health headlined “A comparison of COVID-19 epidemiological indicators in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland” and reported that:

Compared with its Nordic peers, Sweden had a higher incidence rate across all ages, a higher COVID-19-related death rate only partially explained by population demographics, a higher death rate in seniors’ care, and higher all-cause mortality. Sweden had approximately half as much mobility change as its Nordic neighbours until April and followed similar rates as its neighbours from April to July. Denmark led its Nordic peers in testing rates, while Sweden had the highest cumulative test-positivity rate continuously from mid-March. …

Looser government restrictions at the beginning of the outbreak are likely to have played a role in the impact of COVID-19 in Sweden. In an effort to improve epidemic control, Sweden has increased testing rates, implemented more restrictive prevention measures, and increased their intensive care unit bed capacity.

Here are the figures as-of 30 April 2021:

Denmark cases per million = 43,282

Sweden cases per million = 95,909

Denmark deaths per million = 428

Sweden deaths per million = 1,384

Denmark March unemployment rate = 4.5%

Sweden unemployment rate = 10.0%

But Denmark versus Sweden aren’t, by any means, the only indicators that libertarianism was failing on Covid-19.

On 1 August 2020, I headlined “India and Brazil Are Now the Global Worst Coronavirus Nations”, and that statement was forward-looking, predictive, and not referring only to the numbers at that time but to where the various nations were heading, and it was referring only to medium-sized and large nations (for example, not to the worst performer of all, Andorra, which currently has 171,029 cases per million and a population of only 77,367 people). (Andorra has had a total of 13,232 cases, which is 17.1% of its entire population. The only country that has a population of over 10 million and which is among the 9 worst — and America scores as being absolutely the world’s 10th-worst — is Czechia, the Czech Republic, which has 152,046 cases per million. At the end of this article, Czechia will be discussed.)

As-of 30 April 2021, the following are the world’s only nations that have had more than 6,000,000,000 Covid-19 cases:

USA = 33,044,872

India = 18,881,587

Brazil = 14,592,886.

Those are now the Covid-19 giants (the worst-performing major countries), which, back on August 1st, is what I was expecting them to be, by the present time. Ultimately, I expect Brazil and India to be scoring even worse than the United States. All three countries have been exceedingly lax in their anti-Covid-19 policies, extraordinarily libertarian regarding this.

On 20 September 2020, I headlined “All 8 of America’s Worst-Hit Coronavirus States Are Now in the South.” That reported “the worst 11 states … are: Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Iowa, Arkansas, and Texas” — and all 11 of them had voted for Donald Trump, the more-libertarian (and losing) candidate, in 2020. The United States therefore provides overwhelming evidence of the failure of libertarianism regarding coronavirus-policies.

On 14 March 2021, I headlined “Republican States Have Higher Covid Rates than Democratic States” and — ranking all from the best (#1) to the worst (#51) — reported that the average state which had voted for Trump scored 33.3 or two-thirds of the way down the list of the 51 states + DC, and that the average state which had voted for Biden scored 19.5 out of the 51.

The more corrupt a country is, the more libertarian it is, and on 5 May 2020, I headlined “America’s Design Causes It to Fail the COVID-19 Challenge” and reported that because America is an extraordinarily corrupt country (very libertarian, as compared to other nations), “America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties and their respective media, so the public don’t know (and certainly cannot understand) the types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here.”

India and Brazil are nipping at America’s heels on this, but, still, the record up till the present moment shows America as still retaining its title as being the worst of all major nations on coronavirus-performance.

Finally, here, will be considered what might be the strongest exception to the general principle that libertarian policies are inferior to socialistic policies in order to control and limit a pandemic: Czechia. Wikipedia’s article “COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic” says:

The Czech Republic was the first^[11] European country to make the wearing of face masks mandatory from 19 March onwards.^[12] COVID-19 testing was made widely available with drive-through locations from 14 March,^[13] and from 27 March anyone with a fever, dry cough or shortness of breath was eligible for a free test.^[14] From 13 April onwards, COVID-19 testing capacity significantly surpassed demand.^[15] Contact tracing in the country also included voluntary disclosure of mobile phone position and debit card payments data for previous days and the quarantining of identified contacts.^[16] By 1 May 2020, altogether 257 COVID-19-related deaths were identified in the Czech Republic compared to 2,719 in similarly populous Sweden, which did not impose a full lockdown. However, Belgium, also with a similar population, had suffered 7,866 deaths at that time, despite having implemented an early and strict lockdown. …

By April 2021, the Czech Republic has recorded the highest confirmed death rate in the world after Hungary. There are some root causes speculated.

None of those proposed explanations of this is any sort of scientific explanation for it. A great deal remains that is important to know but that is currently unknown about Covid-19. Obviously, Czechia is the most challenging case, not because it is the worst, but because it has been a leader in adherence to international guidelines but has nonetheless disastrously failed on this virus. If that’s not a warning for the world to do lots more research on the Covid-19 problem, then nothing is.

Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia: Whenever the peoples of Latin America have had real freedom to vote, over the past 20 years they far more often than not vote Social Democratic by landslides.

Argentina, one of the two demographic and economic giants of South America, has elected left-of-center, Peronist governments four out of five times in the past 16 years. Current President Alfredo Fernandez has been a model of responsible social policies at home while incurring the outrage of the Trump administration in Washington for defending the Social Democratic leaders of Bolivia, Ecuador and most of all President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

In Mexico, popular President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, routinely “accused” of being leftist” and “populist” has courageously defied Wall Street and outspokenly described neo-liberalism as “a disaster” and “a calamity” for his country.

Giant Brazil with more than 200 million people the demographic heavyweight of Latin America, returned two successive twice-elected Social Democratic popular presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in four elections in a row from 2003 to 2014.

Rousseff was toppled by an impeachment process in 2016 and replaced by the allegedly corrupt and certainly utterly incompetent and widely despised Michel Termer until 2019, when repressive and even more inept current hard-right wing ruler Jair Bolsonaro took over. He has proved a monument to disastrous ineptitude ever since.

The same pattern continues in small nations as well as huge ones. Ecuador with 18 million people twice elected popular President Rafael Correa in 2007 and 2013. He emphasized a dramatic increase in spending on education and health. Now after years of right wing reaction under the ironically named Lenin Moreni, Correa’s chosen successor , former economics minister Andres Arauz looks set to decisively defeat hard-line right wing banker Guillermo Lasso who only won a derisory 19.74 percent in the first round of voting. However, that assumes Ecuador will not be subjected to the kind of dirty tricks and US-backed military coups that plagued Brazil and Bolivia.

Last year, Bolivia threw off the sinister shackles of military repression that reemerged under the interim presidency of attractive figurehead interim President Jeanine Anez in 2019 after popular twice-elected President Evo Morales, leader of the Movement for Sociaism (MAS) was toppled. Now Morales has been belatedly succeeded by his former economics minister Luis Arce who took office in November 2020.

Also, democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro continues to survive in Venezuela despite an enormous bipartisan-backed US effort to topple him. It started under Barack Obama, expanded under Donald Trump and continues unabated under current President Joe Biden.

Several points never, ever made in the laughable US Main stream media (MSM) need to be pointed out here.

First, none of these current and recent Social Democratic governments in any of these countries either tried to invade or otherwise destabilize or topple any of their neighbors.

Second, none of the Social Democratic, repeatedly reelected leaders who were destabilized and eventually toppled by US-backed military coups in Brazil or Bolivia ever supported any terrorist groups operating anywhere in the hemisphere. President Fernandez has been exemplary at prosecuting and exposing both former extreme right-wing human rights violators and death squad supporters in his own country in the dark 1970s and early 1980s and extreme leftist groups operating in later decades too.

The real crime of these far from extreme reformist leaders of course was that they continued to defy the United States government, Wall Street financial interests and the International Monetary Fund and put the needs of their own peoples first.

Third, it is quite simply impossible to find anywhere in the English language mainstream media in the United States any acknowledgement whatsoever of this enormous, continent -wide political tide that over the past 15 years at least has swept from the Rio Grande land border between the United States and Mexico all the way down to remote Patagonia in the extreme south of Argentina.

At best, financial outlets like “The Economist” and the “Financial Times” in London or “Forbes” and the “Wall Street Journal” in New York will brush off these continuing political dynamics as temporary inconveniences reflecting the alleged illiteracy and stupidity of the majority populations, especially indigenous Native Americans. The British Broadcasting Corporation in London and Public Broadcasting System in Washington of course know better than to question their masters.

Exactly the same arguments of course are used in the United States to sneer at, marginalize and humiliate the so-called “Deplorables” – the mainstream working class white, black and Hispanic populations of the American heartland who have been devastated by the policies of open borders, unregulated global free trade and withdrawal of government aid and support for them.

The pattern of politics and the tide of history across all the vast lands of Latin America in the 21st century are unmistakable: The peoples of the hemisphere seek and treasure democratic freedoms, open and fair elections and peaceful domestic economic and social policies.

And what nation and forces are interfering in the domestic affairs, electoral processes and democratic freedoms of all these nations? It is not Russia or China.

But how long can these tides of history demanding democracy and socially responsible policies be held back? And what happens when they finally break through?

We all can learn from the Icelandic people, from their sense of assuming responsibility, for their political consciousness, their tenacity, from their culture that fosters more authors per capita than any country in the world, where there is no army, and folk live in tight-knit fellowship.

I am concerned, however, that if the current trend with the fast life continues, especially in the ever-growing Capital Region where 60% of the 365,000 population live in just 1% of the land, this peaceful and intelligent people could deteriorate into consumerism like most others in the world when they have the chance.

Iceland Saga. Astronauts prepare for moon trips train in this rugged nature. Creative Commons photo.

Drug smuggling, rampant pornography, money gouging by businessmen and some politicians, rampant growth in tourism in which numbers exceed seven times the size of the population, too many cars, the return of the U.S. Naval Base are all signs of decaying humanistic values.

While crime rates are still low in this breathe-taking island-nation, and shootings most unusual, an Albanian immigrant was shot in his home, on February 13, and died of multiple wounds. This is the first shooting death since 2007. The dead man, 32, owned a physical security company. Eight persons have been arrested. Seven were in custody as of February 18. From Iceland — More Arrests In Reykjavík Shooting (grapevine.is)

Very few crimes involve firearms. Iceland has traditionally had a homicide rate of less than one per year for the last several decades. Four homicides in 2017 and four again last year were exceptional. There have been 37 homicides in the last two decades.

There are very few rapes. Nevertheless, reported rapes in 2015 numbered 178 (54 per 100,000), triple that of 2004 when the rate was 17.4 per 100,000 population. Greater porn media, tourism and immigration are partially responsible for this increase. Iceland Rape, 2003-2020 – knoema.com

Five percent of women in all of Europe reported having been raped, in 2014. In Iceland, even with the recent increase, just one tenth of one percent have experienced such violence. In the U.S., one in five women are raped, 19.3%.

Domestic violence, although infrequent, doubled last year to 60 cases over 30 in 2019.

Icelanders are generally not a violent people. In fact, they are deemed the most peaceful country in the world for 13 years running. • Chart: The State Of Global Peace In 2020 | Statista*

No even Iceland’s police are violent.

On December 2, 2013, “Police in Iceland said they shot dead a gunman — the first time armed police have killed someone in the nation.” USA TODAY

Nothing similar has happened since. Police do not usually carry lethal weapons. The prime minister does not normally have body guards.

Police said that they were called to a Reykjavik suburb apartment when a 59-year old man fired a shotgun from his flat. Two unarmed police tried to enter the gunman apartment after neighbors complained he was making threats. They were shot at but not injured. Other policemen came armed. Witnesses said the police tried to subdue the man by throwing a smoke bomb into the apartment through a broken window. Two policemen were hit by shotgun fire, but not seriously. They fired at the man, who died when taken to a hospital. No one else was injured.

Some of the reasons why there is so little crime, even today, has to do with:

1. Small country where people know one another, including their politicians and capitalists.
2. Tight gun control. Everyone desiring to buy a firearm must be approved and registered by a state agency. Semi-automatic rifles are banned as are pistols, generally. There must be a special reason to own a pistol and it can take three-four years before permission is granted. A national database registers and tracks all firearms. Nevertheless, one in three persons own one or more firearms, which are used for hunting wild animals and for sports.
3. Independence was declared in 1944, after 600 years of Danish rule. Iceland does not send soldiers to war.

Financial Crisis 2008

More people in Iceland than in most countries are politically conscious and motivated to take on corruption in politics and business in Iceland than in most countries.

Many thousands rallied at Reykjavik’s main square on freezing days between October 2008 and January 2009. They banged saucepans, linked arms in a circle around the parliament building, pelted it with food (too wasteful for my taste), and demanded the “left” government resign.

They succeeded in breaking the SDA-Independent Party coalition. An interim SDA-LGM (Social Democrats plus Left Green Movement) government won the April election. Yet again another “left” government also capitulated, this time to the EU and elite pressure. The government proposed a repayment deal “Icesave” to UK and Dutch creditors. The SDA-LGM government even announced drastic cuts in public spending. Hospital and school employees were laid off and wages cut. Some “leftist” politicians even suggested seeking membership in EU.

One of the few solid powers Icelandic presidents have is to sign proposed laws before they can be effected. President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson, a political science professor who replaced Vigdis, in 1996, took the unusual step of vetoing the appeasing bill to bailout customers of the private banks. In the ensuing referendum, March 2010, 93% of the people backed their president.

Despite this set-back, and a drastic slump in support, the “leftist” government tried once again to pay foreign creditors, this time in instalments. On 20 February 2011, President Grimmson again vetoed the bill. In the second referendum, April 9, 2011, Icelanders again rejected to pay $5 billion loans made by Britain and the Netherlands.

Sigmundur Daviõ Gunnlaugsson, head of the centrist Progress Party ran against the “leftist” coalition on a platform of “cleaning up” bank corruption and tax fraud. His party won parliament elections. He became PM, in May 2013. Sigmundur Daviõ worked with the president in refusing to pay the British and Netherland governments, a struggle finally sanctioned legally by the European EFTA Surveillance Authority. The centrist PM appeared more loyal to the people than the “leftists”.

(See: Smashwords – Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy – a book by Ron Ridenour and Welcome to Iceland, Where Bad Bankers Go to Prison – Bloomberg)

After the financial crisis, Iceland implemented capital control measures, which substantially reduced financial crimes and the illicit movement of money through Iceland. Most of these controls, however, were removed by new political leaders. This could lead to more economic corruption by the rich and those who seek to become rich.

Strong feelings of distrust for politicians, who often turn their backs on promises made, and opportunist businessmen and women, are now deep-seated in much of the population. In 2016, polls showed that two-thirds of the people had lost faith in The Establishment.

In April 2016, Iceland experienced its largest demonstrations in history. Up to 25,000 people protested outside the Prime Minister’s office in Reykjavik for several days. This non-violent yet determined protest was prompted by Panama Papers revelations showing that several senior Iceland officials (including PM Sigmundur Daviõ Gunnlaugsson and his finance minister) had large investments in foreign corporations and in tax shelters, in order to circumvent Iceland’s austere capital controls.

The public outcry over these revelations forced Gunnlaugsson to resign on April 7, 2016.

For an entire year of 2016-7, the activist citizenry persisted in challenging leading politicians. Social Democrats also became discredited for their right turns, as well as the traditional liberal/neo-liberal Progressive Party. The nation had four prime ministers within a year’s time. The current prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has been PM since November 2017 parliamentary election, in which 81% of potential voters went to the polls.

Educated in Icelandic literature, the 45 year-old Jakobsdóttir is a popular leader of the Left-Green party. It won second place with 17% of the vote giving it 11 seats of the 64-member Althing (meaning Assembly in Fields) parliament. The conservative Independence party is the largest with 16 seats.

The Left-Green party leads a coalition government. It stands for democratic socialism, withdrawal from NATO and EU, opposes U.S. aggressive wars, and emphasizes feminism (full equality of genders, ethnicity, nationalities, and religion), integration of immigrants, and environmentalism.

The Althing convened first in 930 with citizenry meeting outdoors to determine how they should conduct their economy and politics. In 1262, Iceland came under first Norway and then Denmark monarchies. The Althing is now the world’s oldest parliament.

Isolated from Denmark once the Danish government accepted Nazi rule, on April 9, 1940, Iceland allowed the United States to build a military base at Keflavik, near Reykjavik airport. On June 17, 1944, the Althing decreed Iceland’s independence from Denmark, and became a republic.

Presidents are elected every four years and have no term limits. Although presidential powers are limited, she/he has more powers than other European presidents and monarchs where prime ministers have nearly total power. After general elections, Icelandic presidents designate a party leader—the one that the president considers most likely to be able to form a majority coalition government—to form a government. The president also appoint cabinet ministers proposed by the PM, and determines their number and division of assignments. Ministers are not able to resign. Only the president can discharge them.

There are currently 11 ministers. There is no minister of defense or war! It is the task of Iceland’s coast guard to fulfill the nation’s limited responsibilities to NATO.

Keflavik Military Base

Another topic of public discord concerning PM Gunnlaugsson was his acquiescence to the U.S. Navy, allowing it to retake the Keflavik base just two months before he was ousted from governing on April 7, 2016 for corruption and tax evasion.

The U.S. Army built to base “to maintain the defense of Iceland and secure northern Atlantic air routes. It served to ferry personnel, equipment, and supplies to Europe. Intended as a temporary wartime base under an agreement with Iceland and the British, U.S. forces withdrew by 1947 but returned in 1951 as the Iceland Defense Force resident on a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) base.”

Boeing P-8 Poseidon – Wikipedia. Also see: NATO BASE KEFLAVIK AIRPORT BASE HISTORY – NAT; U.S. military returns to Iceland | The Independent Barents Observer (thebarentsobserver.com)

On 8 September 2006, the U.S. turned over the base to the Icelandic Defense Agency as their primary base until 1 January 2011, when the Agency was abolished and the base handed over to the Icelandic Coast Guard, which operated the base. The coast guard serves Iceland’s functions as a member of NATO, which the republic joined in 1949. Under Iceland, the base had served primarily as a radar and communications site.

Protestor against joining EU. No to Banana Republic. Photo from Hannah’s blog. Iceland | It All Started In Iceland… (wordpress.com)

In 2017, the United States announced its intention to modify the largest hangar on the Icelandic base. Its contention is that it needs the base to “deter Russian aggression”.

“At Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, slightly more than $14 million is being invested to build new hangars to house sub-hunting Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft, according to Foreign Policy.” U.S. plans $200 million buildup of European air bases flanking Russia (airforcetimes.com)

Retaking Keflavik is part of Russiaphobia, which Donald Trump partially fell for. He designated $214 million to repair and build ten U.S. military bases in Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia as well as Iceland. At some bases, high tech stealth fighters will be employed.

Public outrage and demonstrations against U.S. military presence on this peaceful island nation has taken place periodically since Iceland joined NATO seven decades ago. Bjarni Benediktsson, Foreign Minister of Iceland, was a strong advocate for NATO. He was a leading figure in the conservative capitalist Independence Party, and became prime minister, 1963-70. While the Independence Party opposed Denmark’s colonialism, it desired “protection” from the United States.

On March 30, 1949 parliament voted (37-13) to join NATO. Besides Benedikstsson’s party, the Social Democrats and Progressive parties voted for; opposed were Nationalists and Socialists.

Socialists led an anti-NATO march on parliament where pro-NATO demonstrators awaited them. Fisticuffs ensured amongst egg and rock throwing. Many parliament windows crashed. The uproar lasted for hours. Police finally broke it up using batons and tear gas, which did not occur again until the financial crises of 2008.

On 4 April, Iceland joined 11 other countries, including Denmark, to found NATO. NATO – Declassified: Iceland and NATO – 1949

Since then, many people continue to oppose NATO and Iceland’s membership. They may be the majority, but parliament refused to conduct a peoples referendum on the matter. The ”Campaign Against Militarism” demonstrates with banners “Iceland Out of NATO” and “The Army Out”.

Vigdis Finnbogadöttir 1985. Wikipedia

On June 29, 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadöttir became the world’s first female elected president, and the first single mother president. Vigdis has long been one of those anti-NATO activists devoted to world peace.

She granted me an interview just four months after taking office. I flew from Denmark to meet with her.

“Whenever I speak as head of state, I speak about peace. I will say it as often and as long as necessary,” the straight-talking President Vigdis Finnbogadöttir told me. Smashwords – Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy – a book by Ron Ridenour

“Think what we could do with the money that goes into militarism! I am a premeditated pacifist. Wars and armies are absurd things. We have no army, no militarism. We are a peaceful, independent people,” asserted the charismatic president.

She told me that she demonstrated scores of times against the Keflavik military base, often marching the 50 kilometers to and from the capital and the base.

Vigdis was never a member of any political party. She was a cultural worker educated in French literature at the Sorbonne. When elected president she was head of Iceland’s theatre, and noted for being a single mother to a daughter she had adopted years after her divorce from a doctor.

“I think my election was the result of the woman’s day strike we had on October 4, 1975. No lady did a thing the whole day. I was striking like everybody else, as were all my actresses.”

The United Nations had proclaimed 1975 as Women’s Year. A committee made of five of women organizations in Iceland organized a day to protest for equal wages, equal treatment. Ninety percent of women did no housework; most did not go to their jobs; and 25,000 demonstrated (out of a 220,000 population). Many pointed to Vigdis as their choice for president.

“We have accomplished a lot for such as a small population. We have no real poverty, hardly any unemployment, everyone has food and shelter. And Imagine! We succeeded in harnessing the strong elements of nature: ice, rapid waters, fire, and even lava. We are the only nation to detour a lava stream to save a village and then used the lava to heat all the homes not destroyed,” President Finnbodattir concluded.

Vigdis served four terms (August 1980-April 1996), the longest serving president in Iceland ever. At 91 years, she is still serving peace as UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador, so chosen in 1998.

Culture

Iceland is known for its moon-like, volcanic nature. Icelanders are known for their pony-sized horses, and for their sagas (Íslendingasögur). These family prose narratives are generally based on historical events, which mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. This so-called Saga Age is the best specimen of the island’s literature. They were written in Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse.

In modern times, Icelandic authors write marvelous novels, detective stories, and poetry. Many ordinary citizens write their own poetry. In fact, 10% of the people publish one or more books. More books are published and sold per person in Iceland than in the world, and there are more book stores per capita. Most people actually read books.

Iceland Has the Most Books Published per Person per Year in the World (funfactz.com)

Icelandic culture is one of the richest in the world, in part, because nearly everyone feels connected. Icelanders appreciate theater, symphonies, even opera. There are many art galleries, professional theaters, museums, and cinemas. Filmmakers are world class.

Cuisine is based on the many varieties of fish from their waters, and lamb. Haddock is their favorite. Fish, especially cod and redfish, is their largest export product.

Gender equality is widely successful and respected. Many women hold leadership positions in government and business. Gay rights are legislated and largely accepted. Same gender couples have been able to register in union since 1996, adopt children since 2006, and marry since 2010. Women retain their sur names after marriage.

The 2003 Children’s Act outlawed spanking, even verbal and emotional abuse. Physical or mental violence is punishable by imprisonment and/or fine.

When I moved to Denmark, I began reading books written by Scandinavians. My first Icelandic author was Halldór Laxness. He wrote novels, short stories and poetry. Laxness drew from Bertold Brecht, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway, among others. He even translated Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms.

Laxness is best known for Salka Valka, a sociological novel depicting a girl of nature who fights for justice, for union rights and livable working conditions. This book began a series of social critical novels in which socialism is the preferred economic order. Laxness won the Lenin Peace Prize, in 1953, which did not prevent the Swedish-based institution from granting him the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1955.

Halldór Laxness by Iceland artist Einar Hákonarson, 1984. Wikipedia

I bring my reading into this writing to illustrate how cultured the average Icelander is, which leads me to an anecdote about one of Icelanders greatest cultural skills: chess. This intelligent game is not only for professional players, most Icelanders play chess. In fact, Iceland has more rated grandmasters per population than any other nationalities. The World’s Most Chessly Nation Is… ÍSLAND! – Chess.com

Chess players throughout the world remember the famous 1972 world championship played at Reykjavik between Soviet Boris Spassky and U.S. American Bobby Fischer.

Having travelled to this wonderful island nation to meet its peace activist president, I returned in 1981 to work on a fishing boat at the small island of Heimaey, Vestmaanaeyjar. I had become familiar with the island, because of the 1973 eruption of Eldfell Volcano, which destroyed a fifth of the buildings. The tenacious islanders did not falter in putting out the fires with oceanic water, and then converted the lava into heat energy for all their homes.

The island of 4000-4500 residents, with as many cars, is a major fishing village. I was offered a summer job with a crew of ten Icelanders. Grethe came for a time, and worked in a factory cleaning the fish that we and other small fishing boats netted. These jobs were grueling work. When there was a break, waiting for our nets to catch fish, several men and teenage fishers would take out their chess boards. I play a bit. I watched amazed. Most of these boys and men had the minimum of education, 10 grades, yet all were excellent players. When I asked if I might try my hand, there was a hush. No one wanted to reply. I learned from my native “guide”, who had found me work and a place to live, that they were shy, embarrassed. They didn’t want me to feel left out or ignored. On the other hand, they didn’t want me to play because, without knowing how good I might be, they surmised that I wouldn’t last a couple minutes. I understood their reasoning completely.

Small Societies Can Be Peaceful; Large Ones Are Violent

Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat.

THE 10 BEST Reykjavik Monuments & Statues (with Photos) – Tripadvisor

When Jean-Jacques Rousseau used the word democracy, he referred to a direct democracy rather than a representative democracy. Rousseau argued that, like his native Geneva, only small city-states are the form of nation in which freedom and peaceful relations can possibly flourish.

“In his most influential work of political philosophy, The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau asserts that democracy is incompatible with representative institutions…[T]he moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists.’” Democracy – Rousseau | Britannica

Rousseau, however, was pessimistic about the long run viability of any form of government where the society has too many human beings. He did not set any number that might be “too many”. He hints, though, “that democratic governments may be viable if joined together in confederations.”

Anthropologists have concluded that when homo sapiens lived in small groups (20-to a couple hundred) it was possible to live with one another in relative peace, and with relative democratic-decision making. Each person had his/her tasks, and no person could occupy a leading position without authentic skill and without consent of the group.

In my opinion, we homo sapiens are doomed to murder one another either individually or in massive scales because: 1) we insist upon endlessly constructing huge societies, which are dominated by a few persons bent on obtaining endless wealth by any means; 2) we insist upon bearing too many children.

The planet is already over-populated and cannot sustain the human race as it is. Is the Earth over-populated? (phys.org) and The Ecological Footprint: 1.7 Earths are needed to support our demands! | Sustainability Academy (sustainability-academy.org)

Parents worldwide should bear no more than one child for some time to come. This is the only sane approach. Another “only sane approach” is to end all forms of economic greed in the whole world.

In the words of Evo Morales’ Ten Commandants: Live Well, not Live Better.

“Sisters and brothers, [in] the tenth point, we propose to Live Well, not live better at the expense of another—a Live Well based on the lifestyle of our peoples, the riches of our communities, fertile lands, water and clean air. Socialism is talked about a lot, but we need to improve this socialism, improve the proposals for socialism in the XXI century, building a communitarian socialism, or simply Live Well, in harmony with Mother Earth, respecting the shared life ways of the community.Evo Morales: 10 Commandments To Save the Planet | Climate & Capitalism (climateandcapitalism.com)

U.S.-backed Lenin Moreno government is trying to stop the new socialistic UNES political party candidate, Andres Arauz, from winning the national elections underway.

Andres Arauz, won first place, 32.7%, on the first round of national elections, February 7. Arauz is the first presidential candidate of UNES, Union of Hope.

Former president Rafael Correa led the formation of this party, Union of Hope (UNES) after he had backed Moreno for president in 2017. Moreno, however, turned against his own party’s program, and went the way of wind blowing from the north.

At first, a U.S.-supported indigenous candidate, Yaku Pérez, took second place with 20.1%, while banker Guerillmo Lasso, also U.S. friendly, came in third with 19.51.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) initial conclusion changed when all the votes were finally counted after four days, and Lasso ended in 2^nd place with 19.74 to Pérez 19.38. Lasso and Pérez met privately with the CNE. Pérez claimed fraud and demanded a total recount. Eighty-one percent of 13 million registered voters had cast votes. Ecuador has 17.3 million population; 1.1 million are indigenous people. Second Round in Ecuador Under Threat: Arauz Denounces Moreno Government Interference in Presidential Elections – Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela

Who actually took 2^nd place, and will run in the final round, scheduled for April 11, is still undecided due to Pérez fraud accusations, President Lenin Moreno’s government intervention, and outside interference.

Continuous resistance en October 2019, as here in Guayaquil at the beginning forced President Lenin Moreno government to restore fuel subsidies he’d stopped. El Universo newspaper photo.

In August 2020, UNES selected the 35-year old economist Arauz for the presidency. He had been Correa’s Minister of Knowledge and Human Talent (2015-17). He planned for Correa to be his vice-president, but a court denied Correa the right to run for political office.

Arauz had hoped Correa could be his vice-president after he had served as president, 2007-17. However, an Ecuador court disallowed his candidacy given that Correa had been found guilty of corruption and sentenced him to eight years prison, in absentia. Correa was living in Belgium following Moreno turn to the right. From there, he denied any wrongdoing. Ecuador ex-president Correa jailed in absentia for corruption – BBC News

The court found Correa, and 19 other defendants, guilty of accepting $7.5 million from private firms in exchange for state contracts. They were also banned from partaking in politics for 25 years.

UNES chose communicator and political analyst Carlo Rabascall Salazar as its vice-president candidate. In his campaign launch event, he condemned Moreno’s decision to make an advance $2 billion payment on the foreign debt during the peak of the corona pandemic. The funds were taken from public health and education systems. Thousands of health workers were fired during this pandemic. This caused the second highest death rate per capita in the world, after Peru.

The Moreno government had not expected that Arauz could acquire such support. He had sacked the CNE of Correa supporters. Many CNE members are now followers of either Lasso or Pérez. Its president, Diana Atamaint, is a member of Pérez’ party, MUPP (Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement).

Founded in 1996, MUPP declared its program to support the interests of Indigenous peoples. Yaku Sacha Pérez Guartambel is the son of campesino parents from the Andean region. He changed his name, Carlos, to Yaku Sacha, “mountain water” in his native language of Kichwa.

Pachakutik is the political arm of the Indigenous confederation CONAIE, which protested against Rafael Correa’s government, and formed an unspoken alliance with the country’s right-wing oligarchs in a bid to destabilize and overthrow the socialist president.

“Pachakutik is closely linked to NGOs funded by Washington and EU member states. The party’s leaders have been trained by the U.S. government-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI), a CIA cutout that operates under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“The NED publicly lists more than $5 million in grants for NGOs in Ecuador just in the years from 2016 to 2019. Much of this money has bankrolled anti-Correa opposition groups like Pachakutik and its allies.” How Ecuador’s US-backed, coup-supporting ‘ecosocialist’ candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing | The Grayzone

Following the Lasso-Pérez-CNE private meeting, the CNE decided on a compromise to recount 50% of the votes in 17 of the 24 provinces, singling out provinces where Pérez had done poorly, which raises suspicion of a potential swindle.

Guillermo Lasso presidential candidate. Creative Commons photo.

Guillermo Lasso’s party is the capitalist Creating Creating Opportunities (CREO-PSC). Lasso was the key founder of center-rightest CREO, and stood for its presidency in 2013. CREO combined, in this election, with the Social Christian party (PSC). Founded in 1951, PSC has associate centrist-right parties throughout Latin America and Europe.

Lasso wanted to unite with Pérez to defeat Arauz in the 2^nd round. It seemed that Pérez would agree, but then he changed his mind. On February 17, Pérez tweeted a confusing message. After four years of supporting Lasso’s party’s  political agenda, close to his own, Pèrez blasted the banker, saying that his indigenous supporters will “never support his corruption”. He claimed that Lasso and  even the CNE committed fraud. Ecuador’s Comptroller to Audit Electoral Computer System | News | teleSUR English

U.S., OAS, Colombia, Moreno Intervention

This lay the basis for government intervention. Apparently backing Pérez after he spoke with the U.S. ambassador in Ecuador, Moreno sent in his Comptroller General Pablo Celi. Both Arauz and Lasso rejected the Comptroller’s decision to inspect the National Electoral Council (CNE) computer system. The Network of Electoral Observers also criticized the attempt to affect the electoral calendar with technological excuses.

“Taking copies of the count and recount files is something normal, but taking the computer equipment and impeding the ballot is an attack on democracy,” said Arauz. UNES will send its citizen overseers to scrutinize the process, and the party warned that democracy is under real threat.

“The country needs us united on the same front to make Ecuador a land of opportunities,” Lasso added, rejecting the interference of the Moreno administration in electoral matters.

Ecuador: Indigenous Caravan for Vote Recount Approaches Quito | News | teleSUR English

The CNE stopped its activities after receiving the audit demand from Comptroller Celi. He stated the process should be completed in less than three weeks and should not affect the April 11 ballot.

Ben Norton reports, “The leftist’s overwhelming victory prompted the U.S. State Department, the right-wing government of neighboring Colombia, and the Organization of American States (OAS) to mobilize to prevent him from entering office.” US, OAS, Colombia try to steal Ecuador’s election from popular socialist candidate, while spreading fake news | The Grayzone

The recount will be “overseen by the OAS, which inspired a military coup, November 2019, targeting Bolivia’s elected government.”

“The head of the OAS electoral mission in Ecuador, Isabel de Saint Malo [“Saint Bad” in English] the staunchly conservative former vice-president of Panama, was intimately involved in the US-led coup attempt against Venezuela, working closely with Juan Guaidó and the pro-Washington Lima Group. Guaidó had declared himself president at a news conference without being elected.

“The OAS disseminated lies about Bolivia’s October 2019 election, falsely accusing the government of fraud. Now, the Colombian government is spreading a remarkably similar series of lies about Ecuador’s election and its first-place candidate, Arauz,” Norton wrote.

The Biden administration acting assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Julie Chung, tweeted, “U.S. government applauds the February 12 announcement by [CNE] to verify votes in 17 provinces in Ecuador’s February 7 presidential election. This allows the electoral process to advance with enhanced guarantees to the candidates and citizens alike.”

At the same time, Colombia’s right-wing Iván Duque government intervened. It sent its justice department head, Francisco Barbosa, to Ecuador claiming that Arauz had been funded by “Uriel”, a guerrilla leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN). The lie was revealed by linguistic and forensic experts evaluation of a falsified viral video.

Even Colombia’s ex-president, Ernesto Samper (1994-8) warned that his country’s government was in a plot with the OAS to steal Arauz’ electoral victory. On February 13, the liberal wrote:

“I can confirm that these claims are slander and form part of a dirty game that radical right-wing sectors from both countries are organizing, from inside Colombia, to interfere in the second round of the Ecuadorian presidential elections.”

Nevertheless, Ecuadorian right-wing activists have persisted in spreading the fake news.

“While [Moreno’s] government was busy clamping down on the left in Ecuador, Lenin Moreno himself was in the United States. Just two weeks before the election, he visited DC for several days.

Moreno had a series of meetings with powerful figures, including:

• the director for the Western Hemisphere of the US National Security Council, Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, a special assistant to President Joe Biden;
• the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who helped oversee a coup against Bolivia’s democratically elected socialist government in 2019;
• the director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva;
• hawkish US Senators Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin;
• and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Mauricio Claver-Carone.”
• Ecuador’s historic election explained: Inside the Citizens’ Revolution | The Grayzone

During this election, there were 16 candidates for president/vice-president, and the 137-seat legislature. At first round figures, Arauz’ party would have 49 seats.

Taking fourth place in this election was an alleged social democratic party, Left Democrats. Its candidate, Xavier Hervas, won 15.69% of the vote. When young he was a baker, He studied agricultural engineering and turned capitalist. He publicly proposed forming an alliance with Lasso and Pérez. Lasso agreed, but now with Pérez anti-Lasso twist bets are off.

Alianza PAIS candidate Ximena Peña, the only woman running, garnered only 1.5% of the votes compared with 39%, in the first round of 2017 elections. At that time, the PAIS candidate was Lenin Morena, then supported by Correa. After Morena turned sharply rightest, the party split up. Peña went with Moreno, and Correa forces later formed UNES.

UNES Four-year Objectives

1. Justice for life and the reproduction of life
2. Participatory and deliberative democratic justice 3.
3. Productive and economic justice 4.
4. Intergenerational Justice
5. Global Justice, sovereignty and integration
6. De-colonial, pluri-national and inter-cultural justice
7. Ecological Justice and energy transition
8. Equal Justice for women and excluded groups
9. Digital justice and the new economy
10. Cognitive Justice
11. Fair and Impartial Justice

Shortly after UNES candidates Arauz-Rabascall won the first round, Moreno sent a bill to the National Assembly aimed to place the Central Bank under the control of private interest groups. Arauz rejects the “defense of dollarization” bill, which would place corporate-sponsored people on the board of directors of the Central Bank of Ecuador.

“If this pro-bankers bill is approved, the next government will not have effective instruments to make positive changes on issues such as credit management,” Arauz said.

Andrés Arauz in Jan. 5, 2020 Insurgente interview. ECUADOR. Entrevista a Andrés Arauz: “Nuestra prioridad en el cortísimo plazo es recuperarnos de la situación económica devastadora” – insurgente.org . Tu diario de izquierdas

Rafael Correa Presidency

Governments preceding Rafael Correa instituted neoliberal austerity and privatization programs, prompting inequality, poverty and unemployment to soar. Ecuador became one of the poorest and least developed nations in the region. Poverty reached 56% of the population. Two million people fled their country between 1998 and 2003.

Ecuador’s Citizens Revolution arose from popular repudiations of neoliberalism and neocolonialism, similar to Chavista Venezuela and Evo Morales’ Bolivia. It did not reject capitalism entirely but redirected government budgets away from the wealthy for social programs and infrastructure investments to benefit the majority.

Rafael Correa’s rule (2007-17) was characterized by a new constitution, which advanced rights of the indigenous peoples; nationalization of oil/gas companies, which would not share profits with the state; large-scale social welfare spending and infrastructure projects, as well as defaulting on foreign loans and tensions with the U.S. government-military-and capitalist companies. Ecuador’s Accomplishments under the 10 Years of Rafael Correa’s Citizen’s Revolution – COHA

Chile President Michelle Bachelet, President Rafael Correa and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ricard Patiño. Creative Commons photo.

William Blum wrote in Killing Hope that the CIA in Ecuador had “infiltrated, often at the highest levels, almost all political organizations of significance, from the far left to the far right.”  “In virtually every department of the Ecuadorian government could be found men occupying positions high and low who collaborated with the CIA for money.”

Ecuador was saddled with the U.S.’s largest air base in the region at Manta, which was instrumental in the devastatingly murderous Plan Colombia, and in enforcing international banking and corporate rule over Ecuador. The new constitution of 2009, based upon a referendum, banned all foreign military bases on Ecuadorian soil.

“We can negotiate with the U.S. about a base in Manta, if they let us put a military base in Miami,” Correa quipped. These bases are used to assure U.S. control of other nations’ natural resources, and kicking a base out of the country is often met Washington retaliation. (In 2014, U.S. “defense”  department staff was expelled. Ecuador expels US military staff | Ecuador | The Guardian )

A year later, groups of police held violent demonstrations against a law that they claimed cut their benefits. Correa tried to speak to officers at a police barracks, but was physically attacked. After being overcome by tear gas, he was taken to a police hospital where he was basically held captive by police. The Correa government had actually doubled police wages over the past four years. The law would not cut benefits but rather restructure them. This “misunderstanding” was used to rationalize the police protest. Coup in Ecuador thwarted | SocialistWorker.org

“The most extreme attempt at destabilizing Correa’s government came with a violent US-backed coup attempt on September 30, 2010. Defectors from the Ecuadorian police and military occupied the parliament, blocked major streets, took over state institutions, and effectively kidnapped Correa.

How Ecuador’s US-backed, coup-supporting ‘ecosocialist’ candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing | The Grayzone

“Five people were killed in the attempted putsch, and hundreds were wounded. Ecuador’s opposition nearly succeeded in removing the elected president from power.

“One of the main organizations involved in this coup attempt was the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE). CONAIE is an indigenous organization that advances an ultra-leftist, anarchist-inspired politics that is deeply suspicious of the state and industrial development, even if the government is led by a democratically elected socialist.”

Pachakutik published an open call for Correa to be removed from power, expressing public support for the police and soldiers who had defected. Nevertheless, thousands of ordinary Ecuadorians mobilized to defend him, surrounding the hospital. In front of every police station tires were burned causing smoke to could the sky. Citizens and soldiers freed their president.

Many Indigenous people and alliances were outraged at MUPP and Pérez, and then again when he supported the U.S.-backed military coup in Bolivia in November 2019. When Luis Arce won the October 2020 election numerous Ecuadorian Indigenous leaders were invited to the inauguration but Pérez was not.  Pérez had supported the coup. How Ecuador’s US-backed, coup-supporting ‘ecosocialist’ candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing | The Grayzone

Quite similar circumstances to the Ecuadorian coup attempt occurred in Venezuela, on April 11, 2002.  Right-wing groups kidnapped President Hugo Chavez, declared a new government, which the U.S. immediately backed. Within 48 hours, thousands of citizens and loyal soldiers freed Chavez.

Yet again, this time in the original “Banana Republic”, Honduras, November 2009. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama recognized the military coup as yet another “change of government” when Pentagon’s trained generals overthrew capitalist rancher President Manuel Zelaya. He had become convinced the poor needed better conditions, and ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), which he joined, in 2008. History of US intervention in Honduras | Honduras | The Guardian

Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro had founded ALBA , in 2004, hoping to consolidate regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid. Correa brought Ecuador into ALBA, in 2009. The alliance has stood firm against U.S. subversion in Latin America, and cultivated relations with Russia, China and Iran.

“Correa rejected IMF and World Bank policies, which had made Ecuador numerous loans to entrap the country in debt, a game plan for Western countries to dominate the global economy. Ecuador’s debt was $14 billion in 1980, the country paid back $7 billion, and it still owed $14 billion. The IMF demanded cuts in wages and state budgets, that 80% of the oil revenues go to debt payment, or it would use international courts to seize their fleet and their contents,” wrote Stansfield Smith, a COHA scholar. Ecuador’s Accomplishments under the 10 Years of Rafael Correa’s Citizen’s Revolution – COHA

Correa renounced one-third of the then existing debt as illegitimate interest. He imposed significant taxes on the rich, including on capital flight. These measures generated $1 billion in revenues in three years. He compelled the Central Bank to repatriate billions in assets held abroad, renegotiated more favorable oil contracts with multi-nationals, which he used to triple investments in infrastructure and public services. Correa diversified the economy so that non-oil exports accounted for two-thirds of export income. These measures enabled Ecuador to earn a 4.2% annual growth from 2007-2015, even during the international financial crisis brought on by Wall Street corruption.

Correa’s government invested $20 billion invested in education, making all education free for everyone. Low-income students are given free school supplies, books, uniforms, and meals. More than 300,000 children who used to have to work have gone back to school.

To preserve Original Peoples’ identity, the government provided new schools in native languages, and fostered public TV and radio stations promoting programs in Quechua and other languages. The 2013 Media Law gave the indigenous communities greater access to community media. By December 2014, 14 radio frequencies, combined with funding and training, have been assigned to each of the country’s indigenous groups.

Ecuador’s minimum wage doubled, from $170 a month to $375, one of the highest in Latin America. Companies cannot pay dividends until all employees earn a living wage. The labor of homemakers, contributing to 15% of the GDP, is now legally recognized. Consequently, 1.5 million homemakers receive social security benefits, including disability compensation and a pension.

Correa invested $16 billion in quality free health care. In the 40 years prior to the Citizens Revolution, not one new public hospital was built in any of the main cities. During Correa’s time,  13 new hospitals were constructed and 18 more were underway. This health system added 34,000 medical professionals. Thanks to free health care (still a dream in the U.S.) and greater access and services, visits to the doctor have almost tripled in ten years.

The United Nations recognizes only eight countries as meeting the two minimum criteria for sustainable development. In the Americas, there are only two, Ecuador and Cuba. Ecuador made major advances in converting to renewable energy, one of the highest percentages of renewable energy (85-95%). By 2015, Ecuador had cut the rate of deforestation in half.

It is now illegal for employers to discriminate due to sexual orientation. Same-sex unions are legal and a gender identity law allows citizens to state on their ID their gender identity instead of the sex given at birth.

Affirmative action laws require companies to reserve 4% of jobs for people with disabilities, and other quotas for minority ethnic groups, indigenous and Afro-descendants.

Four of the five TV channels were owned by the four largest banks. Correa’s government backed a referendum that prohibited banks from owning the media. Airwaves were divided into three groupings: a third private, a third state-owned, and one third for community grassroots outlets. A company cannot own more than one AM station, one FM station and one television station.

During 2016, the nation suffered a recessions due to lower oil prices, and a severe earthquake that cost 668 people’s lives and $3.3 billion in damages. Still, when Correa ended his term the growth rate was 3.3. Poverty had been reduced from 37.6% to 22%.

When Correa won power, the richest 10% accounted for 42 times as much wealth as the poorest 10%. At the end of his terms, the gap was cut in half, one of the most dramatic reductions in inequality in Latin America.

Lenin Moreno

Lenin Moreno came from a left-wing middle class mestizo family. His father, who became a senator, admired Vladimir Lenin and named his son after him. Lenin studied public administration and psychology. In 1998, he was shot in a robbery attempt and lost the ability to walk. He has since used a wheel chair.

Moreno was Correa’s vice-president in his first term (2007-13). On October 1, 2016, Correa introduced his candidacy for the party’s 2017 presidency. Lenín Moreno – Wikipedia

Moreno took first place on the February 19, 2017 election with 39.3% of the vote. He was short by less than one percentage point of outright victory, as Ecuador requires in its two-round electoral system. In the April 2017 runoff, he defeated banker Guillermo Lasso with 51.16% of the vote.

Within months of winning the election, Moreno started moving away from his election platform, thus igniting a feud with ex-president Rafael Correa. Moreno reversed several key pieces of legislation passed by the Correa administration that targeted wealthy individuals and banks. He allowed national and international corporations greater profits with less taxes, and let them mine in areas protected by indigenous people’s ecological base culture.

In February 2019, Moreno announced that he had obtained a loan of more than $10 billion from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Lenín Moreno – Wikipedia

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigated a meeting between former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and President Moreno in Quito shortly after he became president. Moreno talked with Manafort about removing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and his extradition to the United States. Correa had granted Assange citizenship and political asylum in 2012.

June 2018, Moreno met with Vice President Mike Pence to consolidate “security” measures: buying weapons, radar sets, six helicopters, as well as sharing military training and intelligence. They also spoke about Julian Assange, and in August, Moreno withdrew Ecuador from ALBA.

In January 2019, Moreno supported Venezuelan opposition leader, the self-declared president Juan Gauidó. Soon thereafter, IMF approved a $4.2bn loan for Ecuador.  Then the World Bank approved the Social Safety Net Project for Ecuador.

April 11, 2019, Moreno revoked Assange’s citizenship and asylum, allowing British police to drag him in the embassy. Cops threw him in a maximum lock-down prison where he remains. They left his possessions, Wikileaks and legal his documents, which were turned over to U.S. intelligence.

Moreno moved Ecuador’s diplomatic position even closer to U.S. dominance by allowing it to use a military airstrip on the Galápagos Islands. Charles Darwin had studied Galápagos ecosystem, which became an essential part of his Theory of Evolution. Moreno’s government then faced protests from environmentalists after he permitted the U.S. military to use an airbase on Galápagos Islands.

October 2, 2019, Moreno abolished fuel subsidies, sparking the greatest and longest protests in his term. It lost control of the capitol and moved from Quito to Guayaquil. Seven people were killed, and 2,100 arrested. Resistance forced Moreno to restore the subsidies.

Moreno enjoyed a popularity rating as high as 77% shortly after his election in 2017. After the October 2019 Ecuadorian protests, Moreno reached an all-time low approval rate of 7%. He decided not to run again.

Lenin Moreno with Trump, VP Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo as 2021 election campaign unfolds in Ecuador. Creative Commons photo.

Yaku Pérez

Pérez activism is based on limiting mining and fossil fuels. He decided to become a lawyer to fight in court international mining companies from drilling, especially in Indigenous territories. To do so, he has also helped mobilize many people in protests. At the same time, he befriends and supports businessmen, and takes handouts from the U.S. government.

Pérez “supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Pachakutik and supposedly ‘left-wing’ environmental campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists,” wrote Norton. How Ecuador’s US-backed, coup-supporting ‘ecosocialist’ candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing | The Grayzone

“Corruption ended the governments of Dilma [Rousseff] and Cristina,” Pérez tweeted approvingly. “Now all that’s missing is for Rafael Correa and Maduro to fall. It is just a matter of time.” In another tweet, he wrote that “Arauz is the Maduro of Ecuador.”

“While the Correista candidate Arauz has proposed giving $1000 checks to one million working-class Ecuadorian families, Pérez has attacked the plan on the grounds that poor citizens would ‘spend all the money on beer in one day,’” Norton wrote.

Some Western ecological organizations, however, which do not take on imperialism or support socialism, such as Extinction Rebellion, oppose the socialist and anti-imperialist UNES and support Pérez. Beth Pitts is such a voice. She wrote that the current election pits “the indigenous defender against the former president who jailed him, [providing] a battleground for two opposing ideologies. On one side, an expansion of extractivism and authoritarianism. On the other, a ground breaking move towards a more democratic and ecological future for Ecuador.” Yaku Pérez: The Indigenous Water Defender Who Might be Ecuador’s Next President – Writers Rebel

No doubt the most pertinent conclusion to come to about such contradictions, and within Ecuadorian “Identity Politics” today is how Ben Norton concluded his piece: “The United States is desperate to prevent the socialist wave that washed across Latin America during the first decade of the 21st century from coming back. And in Washington’s bid to stop the tide, ‘eco-socialist’ figures like Yaku Pérez are perfect tools.”

Yaku Pérez with U.S. Amabassador Michael Fitzpatrick. Photos taken from Respaldado por EEUU, el candidato ‘ecosocialista’ de Ecuador, Yaku Pérez, apoya golpes de estado y ayuda a la derecha | The Grayzone

Conclusion

If Arauz wins the presidency, he may appoint an important economist and ideologist of the “Citizens Revolution” to a government post. Ricardo Patiño was Correa’s first minister of economy, then minister of foreign affairs (2010-16), and defense minister at the end. In the early 1980s, he aided a socialist economic direction desired by Nicaragua’s revolutionary Sandinista government.

Washington DC-based Council of Hemispheric Affairs conducted an interview with him on the day of the current Ecuadorian election. He spoke about the “Citizens Revolution” during the time of Correa’s presidency—what went well and what was lacking. COHA Webinar: Ecuadorian Presidential Elections and the comeback of the Citizens’ Revolution – COHA

“We ran a good government from the top but not enough with the people, and that was a serious mistake, which we must correct”, he explained. “Our political process did not sustain the peoples’ movements. We did not prepare our people to carry out the historic movement.” (Quotations may not be the exact words, as I was taking notes during rapid deliveries, but the essence is correct.)

“When Moreno took power and immediately turned his back on our advances, our population did not have enough consciousness and did not mobilize to undo that betrayal,” not for some time. “Many got confused by Moreno’s lies, which the mass media propagated.”

“We [leaders] must [focus on] a systematic structural basis to aid in strengthening social movements to consolidate, to advance, to become historic agents for [fundamental] change.”

Patiño thinks Arauz understands that damage and will seek to repair it. Patiño believe work to broaden the media base, in order to represent peoples’ needs and movements, is one of the first essential tasks of a new government. More cooperative self-production must become incorporated in the infrastructure. Better education of teachers and students should be a priority, as should be much less dependence on foreign companies and their technology.  (1)

Notes:

1. Given my eight-year long experience as a media worker for Cuba (1988-96), a year in Nicaragua working with the Sandinistas, months in Chavez’ Venezuela and with Morales’ Bolivia, I view Patiño’s judgment to be exactly was has been missing to various degrees with all revolutionary governments. Delivering power from the top to the bottom, with the working class and citizen allies as the key protagonists to provide real leadership, has never occurred. That is a key reason for the dissolution of the Russian Revolution/Soviet Union. Following its dissolution, Most people who were revolutionary minded, also in the major capitalist countries, either gave up trying or reduced visions to “liberalizing” The Establishment.)

Few would dispute that Ecuador’s misnamed outgoing president’s mandate has been an unmitigated disaster. Curiously, it has turned out literally that both his names are in diametrical opposition to the political role he took it upon himself to play. The parents who idealistically named him after Lenin must be rolling over in their graves. While once opportunistically pretending to belong to the political Left, once entrenched in power their son turned into a fanatical avenger for the most odious version of neo-liberal capitalist dogma, which under his immediate predecessor Rafael Correa had been in full retreat. Moreno apparently has no ideological scruples or even political strategy whatsoever. He was far from just making tactical accommodations with opponents, the sort of manoeuvre for which his parents’ role model was famous. On the contrary, this “Lenin” was happy to serve as errand boy for his imperial masters, to whom he submitted unabashedly and with evident alacrity.

His surname is equally misleading and also was fully vitiated by his ghastly policies. Dr. Gabriel Garcia Moreno was one of Ecuador’s most distinguished statesmen and presidents in mid-nineteenth century. Far from being a subservient instrument of the powers that be of his day, Garcia Moreno was a dedicated servant of his nation and relentless adversary of its oppressors. For his audacity, he paid with his life in a cowardly assassination.

In the presidential elections just concluded on February 7, the Ecuadorian people at last had the opportunity to pass judgment on their current President (who with a popularity rating of 8% wisely decided not to run) and his government’s policies. The electoral landscape was quite interesting. Calling the Moreno regime to task for the country’s disastrous condition (rising poverty and inequality, extremely unfavorable monetary arrangements with the MMF, and repression of political dissidents, to name a few) is Citizens’ Revolution candidate Andres Arauz, a young economist whose philosophy is aligned with that of popular former President Rafael Correa. Moreno, incidentally, served as Correa’s Vice-President and was tapped to succeed him precisely as a close associate committed to continue his mentor’s legacy. The neo-liberal camp, appropriately, ran banker Guillermo Lasso whose program was more of Moreno’s economic and political poison. The third candidate, also third in the polls, is lawyer and indigenous activist Yaku Perez, and he is of particular interest. He is running on an “anti-mining platform,” promising to protect watersheds from pollution, an issue of great importance to the native Quechua population. Suspiciously, however, Perez also champions incompatible foreign policies (including indebtedness with international bankers and hostility to Venezuela) which broadly align him with Moreno and his North American puppet masters. (His features notwithstanding, Perez is as much an Ecuadorian “native” as Dmitry Trenin in Moscow is a genuine Russian.) That should give pause because it reinforces doubts that Perez was purposely commissioned to be a spoiler candidate, demagogically appealing to fellow members of the indigenous community to drain away votes that naturally would flow to the Correista Citizens’ Revolution movement, thus improving the electoral prospects of banker Lasso.

It appears at the time of this writing that the vote-splitting ruse may have been successful. While Andres Arauz, running on a platform of “21^st century Socialism” and fidelity to ex-President Correa’s legacy, has won a resounding victory, it was nevertheless short of the 50% necessary to avoid a run-off. There may therefore be a run-off on April 11.

The clear rejection by the Ecuadoran electorate of Moreno and everything he stands for, in the wake of a similar development recently in Bolivia, though entirely predictable, is bound to perturb those who imagine that thеse countries and their ancient peoples are squatters in their “back yard.” Moreno’s hasty trip up north just two weeks before the election and his meetings there with high level operatives indicates the significance attributed to the polls both by the local minion and his imperial masters. After a partially successful rollback of populist governments in Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela being conspicuously left over as “unfinished business”) now a reverse process is taking place. The rollback is itself being rolled back, with two important and mineral rich countries, Bolivia and Ecuador, in the forefront. This is a development that will not be viewed kindly, or passively, by the relevant agencies and departments.

As political treachery goes, Lenin Moreno must receive due honors as its poster boy. He betrayed the trust of his mentor Rafael Correa, feigning loyalty while plotting to undo his achievements. He betrayed also the simple and trusting people of Ecuador, who in 2017 naively voted for him only to get the exact opposite of what they had been promised. He also flagrantly betrayed the cause of humanity (as well as his own country’s laws) by obsequiously lifting the diplomatic immunity of the Ecuadorean embassy in London just long enough to enable the British police to kidnap journalist Julian Assange who, unbeknownst to many, is not just an Australian citizen, but Ecuadorean as well. Ecuadorean citizenship was conferred on him by the then President Correa at the time he took up refuge at the London embassy, as an extra measure of protection.

Lenin Moreno’s physical deformities are but a feint prefiguration of his moral turpitude.

Communtarian-indigenous based Movement toward Socialism (MAS) regained governmental control of the country, October 18, 2021, defeating the U.S.-backed rightest coup government. (1)

Luis Arce, President Evo Morales’ (2006-2019) minister of economy and public finance, and David Choquehuanca, Morales’ foreign minister, won the presidency and vice-presidency with 55% of the vote (3.4 million). The closest opposition candidate was former conservative president Carlos Mesa (2003-5), with 28%, followed by rightest coup-maker Luis Fernando Camacho, with 14%. Coup dictator, Jeannie Áñez, dropped out of the campaign when polls showed her with a possible 8%.

MAS also regained control of both houses of parliament: 75 of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and 21 of 36 seats in the Senate. The Senate now has a female majority. MAS did not, however, accomplish a two-third majority as occurred during Morales tenure.

In November 2019, Áñez, a right-wing senator, assumed leadership of the coup when military leaders threatened to remove Evo Morales by force. He went into exile (first in Mexico, then Argentina), in order to avoid massive bloodshed, as he foresaw would occur had he stayed.

Within days of this U.S.-backed coup, pro-Morales protestors were shot to death by military soldiers and helicopter gunners. At least three dozen anti-coup activists, mostly indigenous people, were murdered during the year-long dictatorship.

Evo returned to his country the day after the new government was inaugurated, November 8. He told his people in the state of Cochabamba, “The transnationals do not forgive us for having nationalized our natural resources…Lithium is why the U.S. backed the coup.”

Morales resumed chairmanship of MAS but is not part of the new government.

Early Reforms Underway

Jeannie Áñez’s rule was marked by authoritarian assaults and a pattern of insults to Bolivia’s indigenous peoples. She called Ayamara’s celebrations “satanic”, which gave a helping hand to racists who burned indigenous peoples Wiphala flag.

Bolivia’s coup government left the people with a foreign and domestic debt of 4.9 billion dollars. The coronavirus pandemic, and dictatorial rule—marked by regressive economic policy, cuts in taxes for the rich—is predicted to cause a 6% economic contraction World Bank forecasts for 2021.

Luis Arce was born in a middle class family of teachers. He got his university degrees in economy. During the first decade as Morales’ head of economy Arce’s plans, including nationalization of natural gas & oil, reduced extreme poverty form 38% to 17% of population. Quién es Luis Arce, el presidente electo de Bolivia – Noticias económicas, financieras y de negocios – El Cronista

Arce is not considered to be indigenous, and is seen as a moderate Marxist.

“I have had my ideas since I was 14 years old and I started reading Karl Marx. Since then I have not stopped having the same ideological position and I am not going to change for anything,” Arce told Reuters in an interview in October. In Evo’s shadow, Bolivia’s new president Luis Arce promises moderate socialism (msn.com)

President Luis Arce inauguration. TeleSUR You Tube photo.

As economy minister, Arce pushed for nationalization of many sectors, which steered Bolivia to an average annual growth rate of 4.6%, one of the best in Latin America. Bonuses were paid to pregnant women, school children, the elderly, and huge investments industrializing natural gas and lithium for batteries and nuclear physics.

Arce has reinstituted a new “Bonus against Hunger”, which will help over four million people. The beneficiaries will be people over 18, who do not receive income from public or private institutions, people with disabilities, mothers, and people who collect the Universal Bonus. Bolivia: President Arce Approves Bonus Against Hunger | News | teleSUR English.

Arce has promised not to cut public spending, though he acknowledges that some austerity measures will be needed. He also declared the “process of change [will be resumed] without hate, and learning and overcoming our errors as MAS.”

Half of all revenues still come from natural gas and oil. Agricultural production is second. Arce wishes to diversify the economy. He has stopped the exportation of food, in order to assure that all Bolivians are well fed. He has fixed the currency rate of exchange to curb inflation.

“With a new [U.S.] government we predict better relations that will translate into the well-being of our peoples,” Arce wrote on his Twitter account. The Obama government cut off ambassadorial relations upon assuming the presidency in 2008.

Vice-President David Choquehuanca, leader of the Confederación Sindical Única de Campesinos de Bolivia and the Movimiento Campesino Indígena, was born in 1961, in an Aymara community of La Paz. The former foreign minister learned to speak Spanish at the age of seven. During his years in Morales cabinet, he assumed the general secretariat of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). Bolivia has returned to ALBA after Áñez had withdrawn from the cooperative-oriented alliance of eight Latin American countries. The state has also resumed diplomatic and fraternal relations with Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua leftist governments. Áñez had also expelled Cuba’s 700 doctors and medical workers.

Half the population is indigenous (some sources place the percentage even higher). In the beginning of the Morales presidency, a new constitution was created with grass roots participation. It recognizes 36 peoples as indigenous, and made three of their languages, along with Spanish, official languages of the nation. Quechua people make up half the indigenous population; Ayamara’s 41%.

Yet of the 17 ministers, only one is indigenous and four are women. Sabina Orellana, a Quechua union activist, was appointed Minister of Cultures, Decolonization and Depatriarchalization.

Ten days following assumption of the presidency, Arce fired military right-wingers loyal to the coup-makers and to the U.S. He replaced them with officers purportedly loyal to the people and the constitution.

Corona prevents full recovery

Western mainstream media (MSM) have ignored most developments in Bolivia since the election other than some coverage about corona and floods. MSM puts Bolivia in bed with Russia, because it is supplying Sputnik V vaccine to Bolivia—one of 50 countries to buy this inexpensive vaccine. Russia to supply Algeria, Bolivia with Sputnik V vaccine | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

The government has also ordered Western made vaccines such as Astra Zeneca, which charges three times more than the Russian vaccine.

At the beginning of February, 218,000 people had tested positive. The population is 11.5 million. Around 50 persons are dying daily. Evo Morales’ sister, Ester, died from the virus at age 70.

Fearing an economic collapse, Arce has not shut down as much business as many people desire. Health workers are upset. Hospitals are filled to near overflowing. Health workers in the most conservative Santa Cruz region conducted a partial 24-hour strike (February 2), demanding a greater lockdown of society, in order to prevent more spreading of the virus and its mutations. Médicos bolivianos hacen paro en región golpeada por COVID – Infobae.

Many people also wish to postpone the planned regional and municipal elections scheduled for March 7. The government intends to maintain the date despite fears of more corona infections.

Coup-makers to be tried

Ten days following the election victory, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate approved a final report on the “massacres of Senkata [and] Sacaba.” The report recommended that Añez be prosecuted for genocide and proposed criminal indictments of 11 of her ministers. Senate president Eva Copa specified that the report would be submitted to prosecutors for possible proceedings.

Several coup-makers, including dictator Áñez, key cabinet ministers and top military officers have been detained temporarily and prevented from leaving the country as the new anti-corruption prosecutor, Luis Atanacio, prepares charges. Proceedings are barely beginning, and have been largely postponed due to the corona epidemic. President Luis Arce Appoints New Military Leadership in Bolivia | News | teleSUR English.

Notes:

1. MAS was founded by Evo Morales, in 1998, an outgrowth of coca farmers struggles to maintain the indigenous tradition of chewing its leaves (not cocaine) as a stimulant, especially used by chauffeurs. MAS’ struggles included the right to have free access to water, and to change the extreme greedy competitiveness of capitalism.Communitarianism aspires to collective decision-making and a cooperative economy, connecting the individual with the community and rejecting laissez-faire policies. Some see this form of a visionary society as “utopian socialism”, or “socialism of the 21^st century”. The thought is to avoid 18^th, 19^th, 20^th century violent revolutions. Working class rule would be replaced with all citizens rule without capital/corporate rule. Direct voting at assemblies is the preferred manner to select leaders, who should not become permanent leaders.

   Communitarianism is an outgrowth of the pan-Hispanic liberation movement led by the Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar (1783-1830). Insurrections threw out Spanish colonial rule in Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia (Panama). The Gran Colombia was formed in 1821 under Bolívar’s leadership. This federation included much of what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. In 1824, he was named dictator of Peru, followed by the creation of Bolivia in 1825.

Creative Commons photo: Bolivians and internationalists at World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

The return of Evo Morales to Bolivia on Monday, November 9, one day after President Luis Arce’s inauguration, marked the formal end of last year’s U.S.-backed coup. What does his return mean for Bolivia, and for the world? Is he just a former president who the media will turn to periodically for comment? Is he yesterday’s news to his party? The answers to those questions remain unclear, but what is clear is that his three-day return tour was a statement that he intends to provide strong leadership for social movements in Bolivia and abroad.

Corporate media, both national and international, have been promoting a narrative that Morales is somehow in conflict with the incoming government of Luis Arce. A recent piece in the New York Times stated, “Mr. Morales return now risks undermining Mr. Arce’s efforts to bring the nation together to overcome the crisis,”’ and Reuters classified Arce as being “in Evo’s Shadow.”

Of course, Bolivia’s coup government knew that Evo Morales would strengthen, not weaken, any future MAS government. They understood that he was, and is, the leader of Bolivia’s powerful social movements. They knew they had to keep him out of the country, so they piled on more than 20 criminal charges and a warrant for his immediate arrest if he ever set foot on Bolivian soil. The charges included terrorism, sedition, genocide, and more.

Morales was forced to escape to Mexico after the coup, he then moved to Argentina where he was also given asylum. The absurdity of the charges was proven when the coup regime, through its own hubris, took them to Interpol in an effort to force Morales’ adopted country to hand him over. Of course, Interpol rejected the two attempts to place a ‘red alert’ on Morales, as they considered the charges against him to be political and without any legal basis.

Thrown out by international bodies, the legal persecution against Morales also collapsed at home. Just after the October 18 election results handed a victory to MAS, the power of the regime to pressure Bolivia’s courts immediately evaporated, and his arrest warrant was lifted just days after the election.

The stage was now set for his return to Bolivia. The 9th of November was a carnival fit for a king. He crossed the border on foot, from the Argentinian town of La Quiaca to the Bolivian town of Villazon with tens of thousands of supporters ready to receive him. As one of the many reporters there, I was naive enough to believe that the crowds would be kept at bay by the union activists from the Chapare region who were the designated security, but I quickly lost my good position as the masses of assembled supporters immediately overwhelmed the burly men who were supposed to form a protective ring around Evo.

Looking to the future

Our cameras jolted about as we were dangerously squashed by the sheer weight of those trying to touch him or at least take a photo. His victory parade went from the border to the town’s central plaza, about five blocks from the bridge through which he entered.

When asking those at the rally what Morales meant to them, the answers were not describing a loved, but has-been figure, most spoke in the future tense. Juan, a miner from Potosi, said, “We have to receive him and make sure he gets here ok, because he’s our leader, at both the national and international level. I want to salute [President] Arce and [VP] Choquehuanca, but our true indisputable leader is Evo Morales Ayma and he always will be.”

BREAKING: Evo Morales has crossed over the Quiaca-Villazón international border, marking his return and the social movements’ victory over the 12 month coup. pic.twitter.com/leIi8pPHrW

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) November 9, 2020

A union activist from Argentina crossed the border for the Villazon rally and told me that “Evo is a Latin American leader and he’ll be the key for building a unified continent that’s strong, sovereign and for the people, for workers. That’s why we’re here, this concerns us too.

Morales’ first speech in Bolivia, delivered at the plaza in Villazon, struck a similar tone, discussing the future rather than reminiscing about past glory. “We have to keep working, our task now is to protect President Arce and our process of change, because the right doesn’t sleep and the empire is always looking at our natural resources, but we use our experience to go forward even stronger.”

So how does he plan to go about doing that? Morales is not just another private citizen. He has now assumed his role as the President of the 6 Federations of the Tropico, the powerful Chapare region rural workers union that he led throughout the 1990s and from which he founded the MAS. He’s also still the president of the MAS, the Movement Towards Socialism. He’s not the leader of the state, but he is the political leader of the ruling party.

A hero’s welcome

Following the Villazon rally, Morales and his comrades, and those of us covering the tour, jumped into our vehicles and sped away for what was the beginning of a long and physically taxing three-day road trip. Gone were the days of Evo being shipped around in a helicopter. After more than eight hours of driving through the freezing Potosi highlands, we got to the rally in the mining town of Atocha, making only a brief stop before getting back in the car for another hour to the town of Uyuni, arriving at 11:30 pm. Considering the rally was supposed to take place at 6 pm, and that temperatures had now dropped to 7 degrees celsius, I assumed that the event had been called off or that everyone would have gone home. I was wrong. Thousands were densely packed, filling the entire square.

Huge crowd for Evo Morales in the town of Uyuni at 11.30pm, 7 degrees celsius. This is where Bolivia’s lithium reserves are, the people here have been fighting off the coup regimes attempts to privatize their natural resources. pic.twitter.com/cuzivibu9y

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) November 10, 2020

We got to know the grueling schedule that has long been the norm for Evo. Throughout his time as president and before, he’s been famous for working from 4 am to midnight, without taking weekends off. That night, we all got to bed at 3 am and had to be up and ready before 7 am for his morning press conference, during which he addressed the issue of the country’s lithium reserves, referencing Elon Musk’s Twitter outburst regarding his participation in the coup. Morales stated clearly:

The coup was for lithium, imperialism doesn’t want us to develop value-added products within Bolivia, they want the transnational corporations to take it all.”

Нe then explained that just last week he had meetings with Argentina’s Science Minister to draw up a binational plan to process the natural resource. Of course, he isn’t a government official so he cannot sign off on any agreement, but his participation in such meetings is evidence of his relationship to the new MAS government, assisting where possible, but with the newly elected executive firmly in control. That approach is in accordance with what Luis Arce laid out in an interview with the BBC when he stated that “Evo Morales is very welcome to help us, but it doesn’t mean he’ll be in government.”

Those in the media desperately searching for an example of Morales overshadowing the new government, or of Morales being left out in the cold, are still seeking evidence of it. Meanwhile, Evo continues his work on what was always his stated goal, to help Luis Arce, and to strengthen the MAS from his position as a social movement leader and president of the party.

The rest of the caravan was equally taxing, driving the whole day through Potosi to Evo’s home village of Orinoca in Oruro, where he visited his childhood home constructed of dried mud and a straw roof. Orinoca, though, is not his only home.

Evo Morales went to his hometown in Oruro yesterday and danced with his people. Due to poverty, his family then migrated to the Trópico of Cochabamba where he became a union leader. He’s now back in the Trópico for a huge rally later today in his political home. pic.twitter.com/tgo4e4jVOP

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) November 11, 2020

As a child, his family left the village, driven out by the extreme poverty that most rural Bolivians faced during the twentieth century. They finally settled in the Chapare region, where Morales became the leader of the coca-growers union during the struggle against the presence of USAID and the DEA in the region.

After a very short rally in the nearby city of Oruro, we drove overnight without stopping to his Evo’s political home, the Chapare, also known as the Tropico of Cochabamba. Arriving at 5 am the next day, Morales rested for just two hours before heading out at 7 am for meetings with local senators and mayors.

Giant rally in the Trópico of Cochabamba to welcome home Evo Morales. One year in exile, but now back as leader of Bolivia’s social movements. pic.twitter.com/1uKqOm2rR6

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) November 11, 2020

What came after was the giant closing rally in Chimore Airport, the airbase in the Chapare region where Morales left for Mexico last year. More than half a million people filled the landing strip where he delivered a blistering speech laying out his politics:

We are anti-imperialist, that’s not up for debate. But sisters and brothers, listen to me closely, it’s not about being ‘populist’ or ‘progressive’ or ‘in solidarity.’ If you’re not anti-imperialist then you’re not revolutionary. Get that in your head brothers and sisters.’’

What does Evo’s future hold?

The dust has now settled, with no more huge rallies nor travel by car. Evo has set up base in the town of Lauca Ñ in the offices of the 6 Federations of the Tropico and home to their union’s media outlet, Radio Kawsachun Coca.

The large crowds are no longer gathering, but the real political work has begun. Every hour has been filled with private meetings with every local leader of the MAS from each region of the country. Though, just as important, has been the international work.

Morales has been receiving delegations from the indigenous movement in Ecuador, as well as the principal worker’s unions of Argentina, where they put the call out for a Latin America wide congress of social movements, with the purpose of creating a new international indigenous organization and launching projects for regional integration on the basis of ‘plurinationalism’ and anti-capitalism. After launching the call for the international congress, Leonidas Iza, a leader of Ecuador’s indigenous CONAIE organization, said of Evo ‘’We feel represented by him, he’s not just recognized in Bolivia, but in all the continent.”

It’s clear that Morales has a future as a political leader in Latin America. Freed from the bureaucratic trappings of power, he can guide social movements at a national and international level, using the experiences he’s accumulated successfully leading social struggles to power, and helping defeat a coup after just one year. Those achievements alone make him an obvious figurehead for a project of unification of the Latin American left in particular. Those around the world looking to replicate such success could do worse than to turn to him as a figure that can orientate and provide leadership to those who need it.

mintpressnews.com