Bolivia’s Evo Morales Wins Hearts and Minds in US
While Iranian President Ahmedinejad stole the headlines during the United Nations meeting last week in New York, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales - a humble coca farmer, former llama herder and union organizer - stole the hearts of the American people. At public events and media appearances, Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president reached out to the American people to dialogue directly on issues of democracy, environmental sustainability, and social and economic justice.
Morales appeared at a public event packed with representatives of New York’s Latino, labor, and other communities, speaking for 90 minutes - without notes - about how he came to power, and about his government’s efforts to de-colonize the nation, the poorest in South America. At first, he said, community organizations did not want to enter the cesspool of politics. But they realized that if they wanted the government to act in the interest of the poor Indigenous majority, they were going to have to make alliances with other social movements, win political representation democratically, and then transform the government.
Now having been elected to office, they have a clear mandate based on the urgent needs of the majority: to organize a Constitutional Assembly to rewrite the Constitution (controversial with the traditional elites, but well on its way), engage in a comprehensive program of land reform and decriminalize the production of coca for domestic use (in progress), and reclaim control over the oil and gas industries (mission accomplished.)
While other heads of state were meeting with bankers and billionaires, Morales asked his staff to set up a meeting with U.S. grassroots leaders so he could learn about our struggles and how we could work together. The meeting included high-ranking labor leaders, immigrant organizers, Indigenous leaders, peace activists and environmentalists. “I’ve lived in New York during a lot of UN meetings, and I’ve never seen a president reach out to the labor community like Evo did today,” remarked Ed Ott, Executive Director of the New York City Central Labor Council.
The President listened patiently while U.S. organizers talked about efforts to stop the war in Iraq, injustices in the prison system, organizing efforts of low-wage immigrant workers, struggles for Indigenous rights and the difficulties of getting the Bush administration to seriously address the crisis of climate change. “For a farmer to become President, that is a dream come true!” commented Niel Ritchie, president of the League of Rural Voters. “Listening to President Morales, it’s so easy to see how our current trade model has wreaked havoc on farmers in the U.S. as well as in Bolivia.”
His most widespread outreach, however, was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who also seemed captivated by this Indigenous farmer-turned-president. Speaking through an interpreter, Morales told millions of Americans how his government’s policies have brought hundreds of millions of dollars for the nation’s poor - that would have gone to foreign corporate coffers - through the nationalization of oil and gas. Revenues from hydrocarbons, mostly natural gas, have increased from $440 million in 2004 to over $1.5 billion in 2006 - a significant amount in Bolivia’s economy, as it is an increase from 5 percent of GDP to over 13 percent of GDP. This year revenues will likely top $2 billion, he said. With a twinkle in his eye as he made a measured critique of the Bush administration’s policies, he said that in this new century, armies should save lives through humanitarian aid, not take lives.
Throughout Morales’ media appearances (including a lengthy segment on Democracy Now!), official speeches at the United Nations, and public meetings, he focused on three main points. The most salient was on the urgency of the need for comprehensive solutions to climate change while simultaneously improving the lives of the poor. “We have to be honest about the causes of this global warming. Overconsumption in the developed countries. Overpollution in the developed countries.” At the same time, he argued that the poor still need more access to energy: “Just like we fought to make water a human right, we need an international campaign to make access to energy a human right.”
These sentiments resonated with Brent Blackwelder, President of Friends of the Earth US, who participated in the meeting with Morales. “We need to find solutions that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the countries of the global north, while fighting for clean energy and poverty reduction in the global south.” Van Jones, Founder of Green for All agreed. “We’re fighting for social justice and climate solutions within the U.S., and we can join forces with and learn from our allies, like President Morales, with the same vision globally.”
Morales also emphasized the importance of the struggle for the right to life, which in Bolivia refers to the fight against corporate globalization and for access to water, food, education, and health care. Specifically, before Morales was elected, Bolivia suffered tremendously under two decades of programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, including the privatizations of water services and the hydrocarbon industry. Bolivia has now had much of its debt cancelled and is no longer bound by an IMF agreement, thanks to the anti-debt movement and a lot of help from Venezuela.
Although Bolivia is rich in natural resources, the Indigenous majority has rarely benefited from their exploitation, and the country remains vastly unequal and majority poor. The Bolivian government’s efforts to ensure a more fair distribution of the natural resource wealth has resulted in their being sued by foreign multinational corporations for “future expected profits” from their investments.
Under international trade and investment agreements, these cases are adjudicated - not in Bolivian national courts, as would be the case for national companies - but through the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, ICSID. (This is similar to the “rights” given to foreign investors to sue sovereign governments in bilateral and regional trade agreements, called “Chapter 11″ investor-to-state provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement.) ICSID does not have the transparency, checks and balances, or openness of a real judicial system, yet its findings are binding.
This past May, the Bolivian government announced it would withdraw from ICSID. Although most Americans are unaware of ICSID, it is regularly used by U.S. and European corporations to counter efforts by developing countries to re-nationalize natural resources and the provision of public services like water, according to a major report by the Institute for Policy Studies and Food and Water Watch. During his talks, Morales called on the international community to support their efforts for “an ongoing global campaign against this type of investor rule.”
The third point highlighted by Morales relates to bilateral relations with the United States. The U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) currently operates an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Bolivia. (OTI offices are usually designed to help enable Washington-favored regime change; the only other one in Latin America is in Venezuela.) The Bolivian government has accused the United States of using USAID money to build opposition to the new government and its political party, the MAS, something the U.S. had done in the past. According to the Associated Press, “A declassified 2002 cable from the U.S. Embassy in La Paz described a USAID-sponsored ‘political party reform project’ to ‘help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors.’”
But Evo’s main argument was regarding the former president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, commonly known as Goni. During the “gas wars” of 2003, troops fired on protesters, killing 67 and wounding over 300 people. Days later, Goni abdicated the presidency and flew to Washington, DC, where he now resides. The Bolivian Supreme Court is seeking extradition of Goni, and two of his former ministers, not for revenge, according to Evo, but “so that they can be held accountable for their crimes by standing trial in Bolivia.”
While it seems unlikely that the United States would consent to the extradition, considering their lack of cooperation with the Venezuelan government’s request for the extradition of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the recent agreement of the Chilean government to extradite former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori to face trial in Peru does set a precedent that will be hard for the United States to ignore. The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns has worked to educate the public about this issue, and the Center for Constitutional Rights just announced a new major lawsuit against Goni and former Minister of Defense Jose Carlos Sánchez Berzaín for compensatory and punitive damages under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) on behalf of families of the victims.
After decades of politicians who robbed the country’s coffers and left the people in poverty and despair, Bolivia now has a leader who is known to be honest, sincere and trustworthy. Bolivia also has a leader who inspires hope in the Indigenous population. This hope is now embodied, worldwide, in the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a brand-new declaration approved in the United Nations this September, after a 25-year struggle. At the grassroots meeting with Morales, Tonya Gonella Frichner, President and Founder of the American Indian Law Alliance, highlighted Bolivia’s helpful role in the passage of the declaration, and both she and Morales agreed that “the next step is ensuring that the declaration is implemented.”
Morales, anxious to apply Indigenous wisdom to solve the global climate crisis, is calling for the United Nations to convene a world indigenous forum to “foster a new approach to economic relations based on an appreciation of natural resources and not their exploitation.”
The world has much to learn from the sustainable lifestyles of Indigenous people and from the grassroots movement that has come to power in Bolivia. At a time when our planet is crying out for leadership with vision and integrity, Evo Morales and the Bolivian example should give hope to us all.
Deborah James is the Director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Medea Benjamin is a Co-Founder of Global Exchange and CodePink: Women for Peace.
Evo Morales and other leaders who truly want to serve/help the people are going to spread all over the globe. Social democracy is coming to earth. The old way of the rich getting richer, while they pee on the poor is ending.
Evo Morale’s UN presentation given on Wed. 26 September
can be seen here:
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/62/2007/ga070926pm2.rm?start=01:13:15&end=01:36:44
Be sure not to miss the talks from the reps of Nicaragua, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela too!
http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/62/
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It’s time for the empire to be dismantled.
These are the last days of it’s reign of horror!
Viva La Revolucion!
The Indigenous President of Bolivia speaks the truth; we ought to leave familiar fearful place, and move into hope. The White people of Europe and the West should not be fearful of following the indigeous way, afterall, that is every human’s root origin. When we follow it, the sick people who are attracted to greed and war will be the strange ones.
It’s nice to know that Hearts and Minds can be won without first ripping them out of innocent bodies for sacrifice to the Corporate God of War.
Morales, like Chavez is a leader by ond from the People. South and Central America are moving toward civilization even as we sink into barabarism. They are the hope of humanity. I was lucky to catch Mrales on the Daily Show and it was a gratifying experience to hears his sanity and moral strength.
whatfools wrote on October 1st, 2007 1:17 pm
“It’s nice to know that Hearts and Minds can be won without first ripping them out of innocent bodies for sacrifice to the Corporate God of War.”
Coyotita: “Yes, now it’s not just hearts being ripped out, but arms and legs and heads blown off in sacrifice, as the senator said: ‘it’s a small price to pay.’ Not to mention the 1 million Iraqi civilians who did not offer themselves up as sacrifice.
Time to start listening to the Indigenous voices and leave the scare tactics behind.
Ivo Morales made sense in a world that is insane and killing itself.
I hope that Morales is inspiring our First Nations people to get even more involved in big-P Politics in Canada than they already are. The idea of water and energy as human rights is totally alien to the 21st-century North American White Man. Canadian politicians look forward to more global warming so that Americans will get desperately thirsty and pay top dollar for Canadian water — just as Americans are already paying top dollar for the goo in our tarsands.
You go, Morales!
I dreamed cousin Evo came down
i dreamed cousin Evo
came down from the mountains
carrying a single red rose
clasped firmly in his fist
and beside him walked the ghost of Che
and the ghost of El Libertador
and the ghosts of the children
of the mothers of the disappeared
and behind those
came the spirits
of the vanquished gods
Inti and Mama-Quilla
Pia and Makunaima
Kulimina and Kururumany
Ixchel and Votan
Yurakon and Jaluka
Selu, the corn mother
and Kanati, the hunter
Child Born of Water
and Monster Slayer
and after this phalange
there came the immense
river of the people
the lost millions
bearing the deep crimson
flowers of our tears
held high into the air
flowing north
like a great river of blood
washing away
a half-millenium of history
written in the language of guns
and whips and disease
by the cowboys and the conquistadors
sweeping before it
all of the borders and all of the walls
which seperate us from them
from all our relations
and they came dancing
into our waiting arms
and the soldiers of the empire
stood mouths agape
dropping their guns
for they knew
there was no holding back
the flood
now
©2006, Duane Poncy
I couldn’t resist.
Beleza!
After seeing Morales, I can only hope there are more like him out there in the world of politics.
The ultra-wealthy have had too long a ride on the backs of the poor, not just in the third-world, but right here in the good old U.S.A.
These days you have to be rich or have extremely rich backers to acheive any success in politics and that leaves the poor and middle-class losing ground at the hands of those who are BUYING the political power.
Sooner or later the voters have to wake up and see how badly they are being sodomized by the ultra-wealthy… and that is going to be difficult when the ultra-wealthy own the media, the employers and the politicians.
Come on people, Rush, Hannity, Coulter, O’Reilly and Robertson are USING you to screw YOURSELVES, YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR GRANDCHILDREN!
The difference between Morales and Chavez isn’t what they say but how they say it. Chavez’s style is confrontational. Many Americans who dislike Bush are turned off by his style. I caught Morales on Jon Stewart’s show. He doesn’t come off as threatening. Yes, I know about US interventions in Latin America, but most Americans don’t.
Many US citizens are celebrating the accomplishments of Latin American socialism and see it as a model for the entire hemisphere. If a humble farmer can become president of Bolivia, why not president of the US too?
If Bolivia can legalize coca, why not the US legalize hemp?
The men who are going to lead the world out of the pit we are in today are not from North America. Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez are (to me) the start of an irresistable force heading our way. I have no pity for the Rich, who deserve just about what they got from the French Revolution long ago. Hopefully, that much blood will not be spilt this time.
Beautiful, diponcy. But this is not a dream, it is happening.
And to those who wish the indigenous would take part in party politics: Politics is what, but self-interest. The indigenous way is about caring for all. Wish the politicos would do just that.
The new leaders of Latin America are multi-dimensional. They have different styles and personalities but are united in their vision for the impoverished, oppressed people of their nation. We should support them in any way we can in their struggles for self-determination.
Duane Poncy thanks for your beautiful poem.
I saw this man on The Daily Show and keep thinking still—I wish he was OUR president….
“The difference between Morales and Chavez isn’t what they say but how they say it. Chavez’s style is confrontational. Many Americans who dislike Bush are turned off by his style”
Chavez’s words are only directed at the regime & its long history of oppression. He has said nothing confrontational to the american citizenry. Why have americans became so afraid of passionate expression?
I believe leaders like Chavez and Morales can lead the world to a better, more just future. Would that we had a president who would aid in that process, as Roosevelt the “Good Neighbor” did, instead of sending our spies and military to do their best to stop them. Even aid money is often conditioned on the acceptance of military bases in countries that do not want them.
Chavez has been the victim of a Bush administration disinformation campaign that has gone on since 2001, when the administration helped forment and finance (with OUR money) an attempted coup. In 2004, they tried again with a failed recall election. They consistently propagandize our population about Mr. Chavez, who may not be perfect but who has brought Venezuela’s poor its first free education and health care, has created jobs by seizing idle factories and opening them, and has increased his country’s share of oil wealth by decreasing the percentage of profit going to the oil companies. He also serves as the inspiration for others, like Morales, who have followed him to become political leaders in their own countries.
“With a twinkle in his eye as he made a measured critique of the Bush administration’s policies, he said that in this new century, armies should save lives through humanitarian aid, not take lives.”
For the Bush administration and its followers, it is a new century of the old Roman Empire. And we’re getting ready to collapse just like they did!
I liked diponcy’s poem–I wrote one with similar imagery, but it contrasts with the reality that while brilliant light not seen in seven centuries shines over the southern continent, the skies over North America are swirling with necrotic colors portending the mother of all storms.
Also gotta sound one sour note on Morales–it’s fine to say the North, which bears most of the responsibility for global warming, must cut back first and hardest, but to say that the South has “a right to energy” without stipulating that we have to transition rapidly to non-carbon emitting sources, and that the South must stop its population growth, is simply to say that we should switch to getting dangerous amounts of greenhouse gases from the South instead of the North. China has already surpassed the US as a source of C02.
I also saw the Daily Show segmentand reacted like everyone else–I especially liked when Morales claimed that anyone in Bolivia could be President–a farmer or indigenous person as well as a banker or lawyer–and Jon muttered, “here it’s rigged”–Morales’ reaction was an innocent, “If your elections are rigged, then you must fix that.” We’ve all got so cynical and defeatist, fixing fraudulent elections hardly seems possible. One of the most successful tactics of the Bush Administration has been to throw so many outrages at us at once that we can’t focus on any one long enough to actually fix it.
Viva la Evo.. you are an inspiration showing that the corporatocracy is in the decline and will fall with time…truth will prevail in the end…
“One of the most successful tactics of the Bush Administration has been to throw so many outrages at us at once that we can’t focus on any one long enough to actually fix it.”
Good point. It seems that this tactic make us feel helpless to change the course of our nation.
It seems to me that “so many outrages at us” can be parried and then one can provoke the government with our own goals and objectives.
For example, economic equality for women and men, blacks, whites, immigrants and Native Americans. Universal Healthcare that’s free for everyone.
Poverty is the worst form of violence
A true opposition party is one that works for the interests of the people of the nation.
Another example is organize workers to demand that their wages be middle class wages and that production be local.
Individuals can organized five neighbors to work for peace, economic equality, universal healthcare that is free for everyone in their neighborhood.
When the efforts of a few are just the help of the many follows. For the arc of history is with them.
I was so surprised to see Mr. Morales on the Daily Show, and emailed a thank you to Jon Stewart. Stewart managed to invite a controversial leader, treated him with courtesy and respect, and provided us all an opportunity to judge the man for ourselves.
I wish the “real news” interviewers would try this. The “see bad man, sic him” routine is stale, and insulting.
I am very impressed with President Morales. Even through an interpreter, he communicated humor and humanity. I am also impressed with his agenda for his country.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a US president who is familiar with the needs of this population and spent some of our money on us, providing the services we pay for, rather than for opening markets, and stealing resources from other nations at gun point, to benefit multinational corporations?
Perhaps the reason leaders like Chavez, Morales, even Castro are vilified is because they place the interests of their societies above the interests of the corporate elite, thereby threatening the status quo?
Listened to Evo on Democracy Now and Daily Show a few days ago. A very smart guy. He makes plain sense. A fine good cop balance to the fire of Chavez.
dponcy, thank you for the wonderful poem.
marrymomgret, well said.
When something new begins, and Evo Morales is part of this something new, it is possible to do things that weren’t possible before. As we grasp what’s new and arising in society, we can anticipate its development, reckon with the political consequences, and assess what it means for the rest of us.
Many people have lost a sense of direction. Some are looking for answers. Breaks in the continuity of any economic or political process mean it is possible for new ways of thinking to take root. An entirely new intellectual framework for responding to those changes becomes possible.
Without consciousness - vision, hope, strategy, ideology, etc. – as a class, we will not be able to move forward..
Americans take your dollars out of the banks. They’re going down in value every day. Soon they’ll be worth nothing! Get some gold, silver, and/or non-us currency - euros, canadian, british (they’re going up in value).
Taking any dollars out of the banks helps speed the inevitable collapse of the world’s most corrupt economic
system!
Vive La Revolucion!!
Bastille Day July 14
“We announce to the world the true principles of our actions. We wish an order of things where all low and cruel passions are enchained by the laws; all beneficent and generous feelings awakened; where distinctions arise only from equality itself; where the citizen is subject to the magistrate; the magistrate to the people, the people to justice. Where industry is an adornment to the liberty that ennobles it and commerce the source of public wealth, not simply of monstrous riches for a few families. We wish to substitute in our country morality for egoism, probity for a mere sense of honor, principle for habit, duty for etiquette, the empire of reason for the tyranny of custom, contempt for vice for contempt for misfortune; the grandeur of man for the triviality of grand society. We wish, in a word, to fulfill the course of nature, to absolve providence from the long reign of tyranny and crime.”
Maximilien Robespierre
i think that the beautiful people’s of the first nations in all three americas need to be recognized for their undeniable contribution to and claim that they have to the land here in the americas.
in the united states many tribes of people were completely exterminated. in the united states the number of first nation peoples have declined around 90% since first contact.
they often live in isolation and in communities in crisis , as bruce cockburn wrote; from tiero del fuego to ungava bay.
the same is true of indigenous peoples all over the world. in crisis, and often under attack.
they share the bitter and common fate of being killed by white men who work for corporations.
its called eugenics.
racial purity.
today, around 75% of africa eats food donated by the international community.
a war with iran, gwynne dyer estimates, will put - get this - 950 million africans at risk for starvation. much of africa is excellent for growing and would make nice quarters for the white folks after the land is cleared of settlers and they move in.
we cannot allow this travesty to continue.
we have much to learn from our brown brothers.
The indigenous people’s of Briton were driven out by Romans and Germanic tribes. Yes, Europe had tribes, capitalism has not existed forever there.
“they share the bitter and common fate of being killed by white men who work for corporations.”
Uh! And what color is the murderer Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell, the butcher of the Iraqi’s. The Japanese butchered the Chinese in Nanking. Are they white?
And the people of color in the U.S military who are killing Iraqis, if it is race or color that is the issue, how is this explained?
But it is not race or color, not primarily. Malcolm X himself wrote about his break with Elijah Mohammed that he believed there will be a war between the oppressed and the oppressor but it would not be based on the color of the skin as Elijah had taught.
Capitalism developed first where it did, on the land mass we call the European continent. It is a system of production that is competitive, needs ever expanding markets and is ruthless. Capitalism is a permanent state of war. And, as Malcolm X said, “You can’t have capitalism without racism.”
In its struggle for wider markets and raw materials capitalism conquered and slaughtered the people, it plundered and destroyed the land and the ancient systems just as it did in England or Europe.
Read the history of Ireland folks. Having white skin never helped them. Read the Genesis of Capital as capitalism emerged from the belly of feudalism and during its transformation had more labor than could be absorbed by the nascent productive forces.
White, yes white, children as young as seven worked in coal mines hundreds of feet underground. Whole families crawled around down there.
No one can deny that the invasions of those societies by European capitalism were done by white men with white faces. Was the white, poverty stricken worker who was “pressed” in to service the same as the shipping owners, as those who financed the slave trade? Of course not.
To ignore the class question and phrase these struggles purely along racial or color lines makes it more difficult to reach the white worker and helps strengthen the white bosses influence over them
The English invasion of Ireland was white people invading a land of white people. So what was the issue there? How did the ruling class divide people there? Religion of course. The Protestants are the bad guys.
The ruling class is overwhelmingly white and male, it is also Protestant but these are secondary factors; the class issue is paramount.
As far as Chavez and Morales. Simply being indigenous doesn’t make them saints. The movements in South America are indigenous and Proletarian and the developments there are positive and they are in the forefront of the struggle against the global capitalist offensive. But this is not a hollywood movie. Chavez, to my knowledge, is completely uncritical of the Iranian regime. Just because a rotten regime in a “third world” country and former colony of Britain challenges the dominant imperialist nation doesn’t makes them progressive.
The Iranian regime is an anti-worker and anti-women regime dominated by 7th century religious fanatics. It has not the murderous history of US imperialism and in the modern era has invaded no one, but all capitalist nations have imperialist aspirations.(I have limited knowledge of the persian invasions of India)
The jury is not out on Chavez, this revolution cannot succeed unless it spreads, overthrows the bourgeois state and appropriates the land and industry, not from the top down but from the bottom up through workers(urban and rural) councils.
When there was a major struggle of indigenous workers in Ecuador last year that eventually contributed to the ejection of Occidental Petroleum from the country, Chavez offered to lend the state money to help them through it. He never sent the indigenous strikers money to my knowledge.
Anyway, I get a bit frustrated when, as is so common in the U.S. the crisis of humanity is brought down simply to race or the color of one’s skin. This is particularly so as white, middle class liberals, who are driven by guilt to a large extent, have no connection to the white working class whatsoever and, in fact, look at us with contempt. They certainly do not see us as being the force that can change society, that can eliminate capitalism.
Consequently, they have a romantic and utopian view of the colonial peasantry and a hatred of the industrial working class. And even this is skewed as I would bet that the vast majority of Morales’s base in Bolivia is proletarian, even if they are rural workers they work in huge agricultural industries as opposed to the peasants of yore.
Bravo Evo, Hugo and all the brave, sane leaders who are finally beginning the decolonization process in Latin America. If only Africa would wake up and follow suit!
Bush has had opportunities offered to few and look what it has made him. Evo had not one opportunity and yet he made it to where he is today. Go figure. It is the stuff that people are made of that is the difference in leaders. One leader, with a hollow core, draped in luxury and opportunity, is still a man with a hollow core. One leader, with a solid core to sustain him up each rung of the ladder, reached his position by maintaining that solid core. No wonder Evo is popular, he can reason, he uses common sense, and is able to see a much larger picture, not only for his country, but for the world. He has vision and the attributes that make a good leader, the ability to listen and learn and empathy.
Good article and good posts. Thanks all
“Bolivia’s Evo Morales Wins Hearts and Minds in US”? Is that right? was a research done to reach at that conclusion?
The title caught my attention. There seemed to be something out of sync. The most important question is,’ why’? Which part of the US population is inspired by Evo Morales? Why then do have other leaders of poor countries who stood up for the welfare of their nations but they were portrayed to resemble Hitler. Why has Cuba not won the hearts and minds of the US population? What about Hugo Chavez? The fact of the matter is that a foreign ruler who protects his people’s resources from the imperialist and Zionist vultures would be targeted for removal. An attempt was already moved to remove Hugo Chavez. This article is so bizarre that it is perplexing to me. Because it never addressed the question,‘why’. America cannot afford the luxury of life its people enjoy without the theft and plunder of resources of countries like Bolivia. Please do not insult our intelligence and write silly articles if you are not able to first explain WHY Evo Morales won the hearts and minds of a people whose standard of living would be diminished if Evo Morales improved the lives of those in his own country.