1803- At the same time that the US Marines were "fighting for Right and Freedom...to the shores of Tripoli", against Barbary Coast slavers on the North Africa coastline, the American merchant fleet and US Navy would be EXPANDING the SLAVE TRADE of enslaved Africans from West African ports for three more decades, until the transatlantic slave trade was finally outlawed.
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For all the bloody-flag waving of Bush administration supporters shouting that they support "FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY!", the ugly truth is that America does NOT support freedom or democracy, at least not in 'under-developed' third-world nations where, Manifest Destiny or conquistador style, American corporate barons think there are good profits to be made extorting the wealth - in natural resources or cheap production labor - out of the natives.
This is actually an ancient strand of the American national identity. At the very same time that US Marines were bragging about "Fighting for Right And Freedom" against the Barbary Pirates (Muslim warlords on North African coast, who were capturing and enslaving European and American sailors in the white-slave trade), the American Navy was riding shotgun for - the transatlantic SLAVE TRADE from West African ports! This "good vs. evil," "slavery vs. freedom" dichotomy (or dual nature) is of course ingrained in all humans across the world, but especially in the young American Republic, founded on ideals of "freedom and democracy," but from the Three-Fifths compromise on, SLAVERY was embedded in the US Constitution, and 13 of the first 15 US presidents were or had been SLAVE OWNERS, including of course Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and other 'statesmen' of whom we Americans today are so proud.
WELL, America is up to it again! For all of the Bush administration's "Freedom!" and "Democracy" rhetoric, they DESPISE the popular vote, whether in the United States (Al Gore's 500,000+ vote popular majority in the 2000 presidential election was negated by the vote-swiping efforts of the Republican presidential candidate's brother, Governor Jeb Bush in Florida) much less overseas in lands populated by despised "brown-skin" locals.
Case in point: BOLIVIA. The people of countries like Bolivia of course are disgusted at the ECONOMIC HIT MAN model of capitalism, indeed, the very term "Free Market Capitalism" is a PROPAGANDA INVERSION, a term which means not FREE markets, but CONTROLLED markets, markets where huge international corporations can buy up a nation's resources for pennies on the dollar, in rigged bids, by BRIBING the elite families of the targeted cities and countries, giving local citizens NO say in the outcome of RIGGED financial manipulations. (i.e., "freedom" = economic slavery)
(Author John Perkins own website) http://www.johnperkins.org/
IN a _text-book_ example right out of the Economic Hit Man model of international financial EXTORTIONS, the Bush administration is urging the wealthy community of Santa Cruz, Bolivia's wealthiest province, to stage a mini-palace coup against the more populist administration of Bolivia president Evo Morales.
Before you read the GlobalAlternatives.org summary of the Bush-Cheney administration's democracy-gutting attempts at financial EXTORTION in Santa Cruz and Bolivia, read as many excerpts as you can stand from the free on-line GoogleBooks preview of Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
United States Maneuvers to Carve Up Bolivia with Autonomy Vote
By Roger Burbach
May 5, 2008
http://globalalternatives.org/node/86
The illegal referendum held on Sunday to declare autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s richest province, is backed by the Bush administration in an attempt to halt the leftward drift of South America. While the US embassy in La Paz blandly declares its support for “unity and democracy” in Bolivia, the government’s Interior Minister Alfredo Raba states what is widely known, that the United States “has an agenda more political than diplomatic in Bolivia, and this agenda is linked to opponents of the current government.” Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of the country, bluntly declares: “The imperialist project is to try to carve up Bolivia, and with that to carve up South America because it is the epicenter of great changes that are advancing on a world scale.”
Morales has aligned Bolivia with the nemesis of the United States, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Along with President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who is closing down the largest US military base on the continent, the three presidents constitute what can be called a radical axis in South America.
All three countries have convened constituent assemblies to draft new constitutions and to “refound” their nations. It is Bolivia’s new constitution that is to be voted on in a national referendum that has sparked the separatist opposition of the wealthy oligarchs in Santa Cruz. It grants autonomous rights to Bolivia’s majority indigenous population, places the country’s abundant mineral, gas and petroleum resources under greater national control, and sets limits on the size of the large landed estates that are heavily concentrated in Santa Cruz.
The Podemos (We Are Able) Party, which is strongest in Santa Cruz, first tried to use its control of just over one third of the votes in the constituent assembly to block its actions by insisting that a majority vote was not sufficient to approve statutes to the new constitution. When that failed, it resorted to helping stir up violence against assembly members, targeting its indigenous members and its woman president, Silvia Lazarte Flores. At the turn of the year, Evo Morales, backed by popular mobilizations in the streets of La Paz, compelled the existent Congress to approve the call for a national referendum to vote on the new constitution. It was then that the Santa Cruz elite launched its referendum for autonomy, which the country’s National Electoral Court has declared unconstitutional. The referendum voted for on Sunday grants the provincial government the power to tax and collect revenues, to set up its own police force and to block any efforts by the national government to carry out agrarian reform.
The US ambassador, Philip Goldberg, who was appointed by the Bush administration in September 2006, has maneuvered behind the scenes to support the political forces opposed to Morales and his governing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). It is notable that Goldberg came to Bolivia from Pristina, Kosovo, where as the US Chief of Mission, he played a central role in orchestrating Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, which it had been a province of for centuries.
Last year Goldberg was photographed in Santa Cruz with a leading right-wing business magnate and a well-known Colombian narco-trafficker who had been detained by the local police. Then in late January of this year, the Embassy was caught giving aid to a special intelligence unit of the Bolivian police force. The embassy rationalized its aid by saying “the US government has a long history of helping the National Police of Bolivia in diverse programs.” US-Bolivian relations were next roiled in February when it was revealed that Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar had been pressured by an Embassy official to keep tabs on “Venezuelans and Cubans” in the country. Since Morales took office over two years ago, more than $4 million has been provided by the US Agency for International Development to the political opposition.
Bolivia’s neighbors are strongly opposed to the separatist movement and its destabilizing impact on the region. Brazil and Argentina are both dependent on natural gas from Bolivia and fear that an internal conflict would interrupt their supplies. Argentinean David Caputo came to Bolivia as head of a mission of the Organization of American States to try set up a dialogue between the government and the opposition. He found the government willing to engage in discussions, but the opposition vehemently opposed. The United States has provided no support to these regional diplomatic efforts to avoid civil strife in Bolivia.
© 2007 CENSA: Center for the Study of the Americas
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