Bernie Sanders' Stance on Bolivia Matters

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

In a Democratic field that seems to grow more crowded by the month if not the week, the Vermont senator’s answer was nothing short of revelatory. “I don’t agree with that assertion,” he said. “I think Morales did a very good job in alleviating poverty and giving the indigenous people of Bolivia a voice that they never had before. Now we can argue about his going for a fourth term, whether that was a wise thing to do. … But at the end of the day, it was the military who intervened in that process and asked him to leave. When the military intervenes, Jorge, in my view, that’s called a ‘coup.’ ”

(snip)

In the week since, the crisis in Bolivia has grown increasingly deadly. The Bolivian military has slaughtered dozens of demonstrators, and over the past two days, hand-picked president, Jeanine Áñez, has issued a pair of disturbing edicts. The first is that the Bolivian military will not be prosecuted for crimes committed in the suppression of protests, providing it with what members of the socialist MAS party are calling a “license to kill”; the second is the creation of a “special government apparatus” to detain MAS lawmakers, who constitute a two-thirds majority in the Bolivian legislature. Meanwhile, Argentinian journalists have been chased from the country under the threat of violence.

Ánez, whose deceptively named Democratic Social Movement Party won just 4.2% of the vote in the October elections, has called a New Year’s celebration of the Aymara people “satanic” and has referred to Morales as a “pobre indio” (a poor Indian). Upon assuming office, she declared that “La Biblia vuelve al palacio” (“the Bible has returned to the presidential palace”), bearing an oversize scripture to re-enforce the point. The New York Times notes that she has made her speeches “shadowed by an aide carrying a cross.”

(snip)

So why can’t Democrats do the same? Whether the Trump administration is directly responsible for Morales’ overthrow or the U.S. is merely the passive beneficiary of a new market-friendly and increasingly Christofascist regime is, ultimately, beside the point. (A passing familiarity with Bolivian history or Operation Condor more broadly point to the former, to say nothing of the attempts in Venezuela earlier this year, although I am loath to speculate.) Any presidential candidate who claims to represent workers and marginalized communities, who even nominally opposes U.S. imperialism, should be able to identify a coup as such. If they can’t, why should we trust them to implement a just and holistic foreign policy?

(snip)

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bernie-sanders-stance-on-bolivia-matters/

[George II]

1. Evo Morales was a dictator. At the time he was elected in 2005, Bolivia limited Presidents...

....to two terms. In 2008 he vowed that he wouldn't run for election again in 2014. And yet he did so, in violation of Bolivia's constitutional term limits he did run.

In February 2016 a referendum was held on whether he should be allowed to run for a fourth term. He lost ~53-47%. His nominees to the "Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Bolivia" ruled that contrary to the Bolivia Constitution, he could run for a fourth term.

He "won" the 2019 election with only 47% of the vote. The OAS published a report that there were "clear manipulations" including physical records with alterations and forged signatures, and evidence of wide-scale data manipulation.

This is NOT someone that the United States or any democracy should support.

[comradebillyboy]

2. Bernie has a soft spot for left wing/socialist dictators like Castro

and Maduro.

[Blue_true]

3. And Daniel Ortega. nt

[TomCADem]

4. Politico - Bernie's mystery Soviet tapes revealed

Of course, despite the impeachment proceedings, which involve Trump selling out U.S. allies to help himself and Russia, Bernie has been surprisingly quiet on his own soft on Russia positions, as well as his own odd interest in all things Russia. If he had just gone on a honeymoon to Russia, that is one thing, but his actual votes have been about as pro-Russia as Dana Rohrabacher (R).

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/17/bernie-sanders-mystery-soviet-video-revealed-1330347

BURLINGTON, Vt. — It’s 1988 and newlywed Bernie Sanders is in the Soviet Union with his wife, Jane, handing out gifts to the mayor of a midsized city they’ve befriended. The mood is festive as the two bestow the items: A Beatles album, a red “Bernie for Burlington” button, “delicious Vermont candy” and a tape of tunes Sanders recorded himself with fellow artists from Vermont, among other goodies.

“I have met many fine mayors in the United States,” Sanders says, “but I want to say that one of the nicest mayors I've ever met is the mayor of Yaroslavl.” At another point, a member of Sanders’ delegation hands a Russian woman a small American flag.

“If you’re wondering what’s wrong with capitalism, it’s made in Hong Kong," he jokes. "Sorry about that.”

The scene is part of 3½ hours of raw, never publicly seen footage of the trip Sanders took to the Soviet Union that year — his “honeymoon.” POLITICO viewed the tapes this week, along with a forgotten hourlong episode of a TV show created by Sanders that featured the same trip, at the offices of a Vermont government access channel.

[ehrnst]

6. There is that. (nt)

[The Valley Below]

5. It does matter.

Supporting a democratic-socialist dictator who ran rough-shod over his nation's democratic institutions as he tried to steal an election through vote fraud in an election that was illegitimate and unconstitutional in the first place looks really (really) bad.

Really bad.

[LanternWaste]

7. ...for there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

"But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, and the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake, so upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, for there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat."



Let's face it... the media has it in for the Mudville Cats. Always has, always will.
That's our story and we're stickin' to it!