The veteran Los Angeles-based activist Bill Gallegos has been howling at the moon ever since he emerged as a Chicano liberation leader and revolutionary socialist a half-century ago. Bill still has plenty these days to howl about. He’ll be contributing a regular column for the México Solidarity Bulletin.
The never-ending Irony OIympics took a new turn last week. The United States hosted a virtual “Summit for Democracy” that promised to promote democracy, advance human rights, and do battle against authoritarianism and corruption. But this Summit for Democracy brought together a strange collection of “democrats.”
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Rather than invite the elected leadership of Venezuela, the Yanquis invited Juan Guaido, the buffoon who claims to be the “real president” of Venezuela. And the forum also welcomed that paragon of democracy and anti-authoritarianism Jair Bolsanaro, the gun-slinging president of Brazil who’s unleashed state and vigilante violence against the pobres who live in in that nation’s favelas.
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Recent polls in Brazil indicate that voters there have had it with Bolsonaro’s violence and corruption. They’re ready to re-elect leftist Lula da Silva as their next president. They stand poised, in other words, to hold their own democracy summit and boot out the Trompista invited to represent their nation at the “Democracy Summit.”
Over 100 governments from around the world attended the US State Department’s summit. The guest list included allies from around the world that the United States considers democracies, from European countries such as Spain and France to Israel, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea. Last time I looked, Israel continues its decades-long violation of international law with its brutal, authoritarian occupation of Palestinian territories, including the horrendous blockade of Gaza, now the world’s largest open concentration camp. In Gaza, zero democracy.
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The Summit for Democracy’s guests included just about every nation from Latin America except, no surprise, the governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba. The USA, the self-anointed arbiter of who rates as democratic, instead gave its stamp of approval to Venezuela’s Guaido!
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This lowlife Don Quijote — or, more accurately, Don Sinvotos — couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in his native Venezuela. He expressed his great love for democracy with an incredibly comical failed coup against Venezuela’s elected government. Oh, and did I mention that in the most recent Venezuelan elections the ruling People’s Socialist Party and its allies won 20 out of 23 governorships and the great majority of municipal-level seats?
The US State Department couldn’t see the clear choice of the Venezuelans. AMLO has better eyesight. He recognizes the payaso camouflaged by Guaido’s designer suit.
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What motivated this Summit for Democracy? My sense: At least part of the motivation comes from US fears about the growing “Pink Tide” that seems to be sweeping through Latinoamerica, a tide that now encompasses not just Cuba and Venezuela, but Bolivia, México, Peru, Honduras, and soon likely Brazil and possibly even Colombia. This tide clearly represents a real danger to Yanqui regional hegemony, a true Democracy Summit.
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