Stunning Victory for Social DEMOCRACY in Bolivia!

[Tom Paine 1949]

The Bolivian right has been dealt a tremendous defeat with the outright victory of Evo Morales’ MAS party in the just completed elections. The main Conservative candidates have already conceded, but the possibility of another military coup or even secession in Bolivia’s Eastern province remains. The election results show that Democracy — even under the guns of the the military, despite arrests and exile of MAS leaders, and in the middle of a pandemic — is still alive and deeply rooted in that very poor country.

The reasons are clear. Wikipedia documents how “Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled and the extreme poverty rate declined from 38% to 18%.... Moreover, the Gini coefficient declined from 0.60 to 0.446.”

It is well known that Morales and many of his supporters argued that he was ousted in part as a response to his attempts to nationalize the country’s lithium — a mineral used in batteries that power various clean energy technologies, including electric cars. “My crime, my sin ... is to have nationalized our natural resources, removed the transnational corporations from the hydrocarbon sector and mining.” Morales told American journalist Glenn Greenwald in an interview. He said he had hoped to do much the same with lithium and even to ‘refine it into lithium hydroxide and other compounds’ used in battery manufacturing.

The coup was popular among the Catholic middle class and carried a strong whiff of anti-Indian prejudice. Even if it was not directly rooted in lithium politics, the polling in Bolivia this week gave a new and enthusiastic mandate to developing lithium reserves in the public interest, not narrowly for corporate gain. Attempts to recreate the old oil industry dynamics with clean energy resources won’t go unchallenged, at least in Bolivia.

The news that the left-wing MAS candidate Luis Arce has declared victory and that the chief conservative candidate conceded led to a fall in the stock price of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why?

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

“Elon Musk caused a stir [back in July] on Twitter when he suggested that he supports coups which benefit his companies. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had first tweeted that a second government stimulus package would not be ‘in the best interests of the people.‘ A Twitter user replied, ‘You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.’ In a since deleted tweet, Musk fired back, ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.’ The comment is a clear illustration of the capitalist motivations behind imperialist aggression. “

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: Elon Musk Loves Imperialism

The MAS victory, if it holds, may re-inspire social democratic movements in Brazil and Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. Everywhere Covid-19 recessions and lack of capital credit is bringing terrible hardship to Latin America. Of course the situation in Bolivia, with its Indian majority and terrible reliance on extractive industry, is unique. In actuality, only threats of nationalization has been the norm. These have generally gone along with hard-headed effective negotiations with U.S., European and hopefully soon also Chinese firms to get better deals.

Here are two recent reports concerning this important election:

Bolivia election: Evo Morales's leftwing party celebrates stunning comeback

âA Blow Against Neoliberalismâ: Socialist Wins Bolivian Election a Year After Coup Ousted Evo Morales

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s political party MAS has claimed victory in the country’s presidential election, with Morales’s handpicked successor Luis Arce securing over 50% of the vote, according to exit polls. If confirmed, the result will put the socialist party back in power...

www.democracynow.org

 

[the other mike]

 

[Thunk]

Now watch Bolivia descend into chaos, war, and starvation just like zimbabwe and venezuela.

 

[BasicHumanUnit]

Now watch Bolivia descend into chaos, war, and starvation just like zimbabwe and venezuela.

But but.....that's what the left calls 'Utopia"

 

[the other mike]

Now watch Bolivia descend into chaos, war, and starvation just like zimbabwe and venezuela.

Bolivia has been an IMF target for decades.
This isn't about socialism....it's about corporate control.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The Bolivian right has been dealt a tremendous defeat with the outright victory of Evo Morales’ MAS party in the just completed elections. The main Conservative candidates have already conceded, but the possibility of another military coup or even secession in Bolivia’s Eastern province remains. The election results show that Democracy — even under the guns of the the military, despite arrests and exile of MAS leaders, and in the middle of a pandemic — is still alive and deeply rooted in that very poor country.

The reasons are clear. Wikipedia documents how “Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled and the extreme poverty rate declined from 38% to 18%.... Moreover, the Gini coefficient declined from 0.60 to 0.446.”

It is well known that Morales and many of his supporters argued that he was ousted in part as a response to his attempts to nationalize the country’s lithium — a mineral used in batteries that power various clean energy technologies, including electric cars. “My crime, my sin ... is to have nationalized our natural resources, removed the transnational corporations from the hydrocarbon sector and mining.” Morales told American journalist Glenn Greenwald in an interview. He said he had hoped to do much the same with lithium and even to ‘refine it into lithium hydroxide and other compounds’ used in battery manufacturing.

The coup was popular among the Catholic middle class and carried a strong whiff of anti-Indian prejudice. Even if it was not directly rooted in lithium politics, the polling in Bolivia this week gave a new and enthusiastic mandate to developing lithium reserves in the public interest, not narrowly for corporate gain. Attempts to recreate the old oil industry dynamics with clean energy resources won’t go unchallenged, at least in Bolivia.

The news that the left-wing MAS candidate Luis Arce has declared victory and that the chief conservative candidate conceded led to a fall in the stock price of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why?

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

“Elon Musk caused a stir [back in July] on Twitter when he suggested that he supports coups which benefit his companies. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had first tweeted that a second government stimulus package would not be ‘in the best interests of the people.‘ A Twitter user replied, ‘You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.’ In a since deleted tweet, Musk fired back, ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.’ The comment is a clear illustration of the capitalist motivations behind imperialist aggression. “

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: Elon Musk Loves Imperialism

The MAS victory, if it holds, may re-inspire social democratic movements in Bolivia and Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. Everywhere Covid-19 recessions and lack of capital credit is bringing terrible hardship to Latin America. Of course the situation in Bolivia, with its Indian majority and terrible reliance on extractive industry, is unique. In actuality, only threats of nationalization has been the norm. These have generally gone along with hard-headed effective negotiations with U.S., European and hopefully soon also Chinese firms to get better deals.

Here are two recent reports concerning this important election:

Bolivia election: Evo Morales's leftwing party celebrates stunning comeback

âA Blow Against Neoliberalismâ: Socialist Wins Bolivian Election a Year After Coup Ousted Evo Morales

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s political party MAS has claimed victory in the country’s presidential election, with Morales’s handpicked successor Luis Arce securing over 50% of the vote, according to exit polls. If confirmed, the result will put the socialist party back in power...

www.democracynow.org

“Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled

I'd like to see the math behind this questionable claim.

 

[the other mike]

They forgot Iraq.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

This is now all about respecting a democratic vote. The coup leaders used the excuse that Evo Morales’ narrow victory in 2019 was fraudulent, but later objective research showed this was not so, and THIS election shows that the Bolivian people are not buying those lies. They decisively rejected the coup leaders.

Hopefully the whole experience will prove healthy — as MAS has had to develop new leaders, and may have been shaken out of a certain growing bureaucratic complacency. Evo may return but he will hopefully just serve as a respected elder statesmen, a representative of the Indian majority who proved that there was a better way than capitulating 100% to foreign imperialism.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The Bolivian right has been dealt a tremendous defeat with the outright victory of Evo Morales’ MAS party in the just completed elections. The main Conservative candidates have already conceded, but the possibility of another military coup or even secession in Bolivia’s Eastern province remains. The election results show that Democracy — even under the guns of the the military, despite arrests and exile of MAS leaders, and in the middle of a pandemic — is still alive and deeply rooted in that very poor country.

The reasons are clear. Wikipedia documents how “Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled and the extreme poverty rate declined from 38% to 18%.... Moreover, the Gini coefficient declined from 0.60 to 0.446.”

It is well known that Morales and many of his supporters argued that he was ousted in part as a response to his attempts to nationalize the country’s lithium — a mineral used in batteries that power various clean energy technologies, including electric cars. “My crime, my sin ... is to have nationalized our natural resources, removed the transnational corporations from the hydrocarbon sector and mining.” Morales told American journalist Glenn Greenwald in an interview. He said he had hoped to do much the same with lithium and even to ‘refine it into lithium hydroxide and other compounds’ used in battery manufacturing.

The coup was popular among the Catholic middle class and carried a strong whiff of anti-Indian prejudice. Even if it was not directly rooted in lithium politics, the polling in Bolivia this week gave a new and enthusiastic mandate to developing lithium reserves in the public interest, not narrowly for corporate gain. Attempts to recreate the old oil industry dynamics with clean energy resources won’t go unchallenged, at least in Bolivia.

The news that the left-wing MAS candidate Luis Arce has declared victory and that the chief conservative candidate conceded led to a fall in the stock price of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why?

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

“Elon Musk caused a stir [back in July] on Twitter when he suggested that he supports coups which benefit his companies. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had first tweeted that a second government stimulus package would not be ‘in the best interests of the people.‘ A Twitter user replied, ‘You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.’ In a since deleted tweet, Musk fired back, ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.’ The comment is a clear illustration of the capitalist motivations behind imperialist aggression. “

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: Elon Musk Loves Imperialism

The MAS victory, if it holds, may re-inspire social democratic movements in Bolivia and Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. Everywhere Covid-19 recessions and lack of capital credit is bringing terrible hardship to Latin America. Of course the situation in Bolivia, with its Indian majority and terrible reliance on extractive industry, is unique. In actuality, only threats of nationalization has been the norm. These have generally gone along with hard-headed effective negotiations with U.S., European and hopefully soon also Chinese firms to get better deals.

Here are two recent reports concerning this important election:

Bolivia election: Evo Morales's leftwing party celebrates stunning comeback

âA Blow Against Neoliberalismâ: Socialist Wins Bolivian Election a Year After Coup Ousted Evo Morales

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s political party MAS has claimed victory in the country’s presidential election, with Morales’s handpicked successor Luis Arce securing over 50% of the vote, according to exit polls. If confirmed, the result will put the socialist party back in power...

www.democracynow.org

“Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled

I'd like to see the math behind this questionable claim.

See: https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The Bolivian right has been dealt a tremendous defeat with the outright victory of Evo Morales’ MAS party in the just completed elections. The main Conservative candidates have already conceded, but the possibility of another military coup or even secession in Bolivia’s Eastern province remains. The election results show that Democracy — even under the guns of the the military, despite arrests and exile of MAS leaders, and in the middle of a pandemic — is still alive and deeply rooted in that very poor country.

The reasons are clear. Wikipedia documents how “Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled and the extreme poverty rate declined from 38% to 18%.... Moreover, the Gini coefficient declined from 0.60 to 0.446.”

It is well known that Morales and many of his supporters argued that he was ousted in part as a response to his attempts to nationalize the country’s lithium — a mineral used in batteries that power various clean energy technologies, including electric cars. “My crime, my sin ... is to have nationalized our natural resources, removed the transnational corporations from the hydrocarbon sector and mining.” Morales told American journalist Glenn Greenwald in an interview. He said he had hoped to do much the same with lithium and even to ‘refine it into lithium hydroxide and other compounds’ used in battery manufacturing.

The coup was popular among the Catholic middle class and carried a strong whiff of anti-Indian prejudice. Even if it was not directly rooted in lithium politics, the polling in Bolivia this week gave a new and enthusiastic mandate to developing lithium reserves in the public interest, not narrowly for corporate gain. Attempts to recreate the old oil industry dynamics with clean energy resources won’t go unchallenged, at least in Bolivia.

The news that the left-wing MAS candidate Luis Arce has declared victory and that the chief conservative candidate conceded led to a fall in the stock price of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why?

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

“Elon Musk caused a stir [back in July] on Twitter when he suggested that he supports coups which benefit his companies. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had first tweeted that a second government stimulus package would not be ‘in the best interests of the people.‘ A Twitter user replied, ‘You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.’ In a since deleted tweet, Musk fired back, ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.’ The comment is a clear illustration of the capitalist motivations behind imperialist aggression. “

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: Elon Musk Loves Imperialism

The MAS victory, if it holds, may re-inspire social democratic movements in Bolivia and Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. Everywhere Covid-19 recessions and lack of capital credit is bringing terrible hardship to Latin America. Of course the situation in Bolivia, with its Indian majority and terrible reliance on extractive industry, is unique. In actuality, only threats of nationalization has been the norm. These have generally gone along with hard-headed effective negotiations with U.S., European and hopefully soon also Chinese firms to get better deals.

Here are two recent reports concerning this important election:

Bolivia election: Evo Morales's leftwing party celebrates stunning comeback

âA Blow Against Neoliberalismâ: Socialist Wins Bolivian Election a Year After Coup Ousted Evo Morales

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s political party MAS has claimed victory in the country’s presidential election, with Morales’s handpicked successor Luis Arce securing over 50% of the vote, according to exit polls. If confirmed, the result will put the socialist party back in power...

www.democracynow.org

“Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled

I'd like to see the math behind this questionable claim.

See: https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf

Thanks for the link.

50% real increase..........darn Wikipedia.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Bolivian right has been dealt a tremendous defeat with the outright victory of Evo Morales’ MAS party in the just completed elections. The main Conservative candidates have already conceded, but the possibility of another military coup or even secession in Bolivia’s Eastern province remains. The election results show that Democracy — even under the guns of the the military, despite arrests and exile of MAS leaders, and in the middle of a pandemic — is still alive and deeply rooted in that very poor country.

The reasons are clear. Wikipedia documents how “Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled and the extreme poverty rate declined from 38% to 18%.... Moreover, the Gini coefficient declined from 0.60 to 0.446.”

It is well known that Morales and many of his supporters argued that he was ousted in part as a response to his attempts to nationalize the country’s lithium — a mineral used in batteries that power various clean energy technologies, including electric cars. “My crime, my sin ... is to have nationalized our natural resources, removed the transnational corporations from the hydrocarbon sector and mining.” Morales told American journalist Glenn Greenwald in an interview. He said he had hoped to do much the same with lithium and even to ‘refine it into lithium hydroxide and other compounds’ used in battery manufacturing.

The coup was popular among the Catholic middle class and carried a strong whiff of anti-Indian prejudice. Even if it was not directly rooted in lithium politics, the polling in Bolivia this week gave a new and enthusiastic mandate to developing lithium reserves in the public interest, not narrowly for corporate gain. Attempts to recreate the old oil industry dynamics with clean energy resources won’t go unchallenged, at least in Bolivia.

The news that the left-wing MAS candidate Luis Arce has declared victory and that the chief conservative candidate conceded led to a fall in the stock price of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why?

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

“Elon Musk caused a stir [back in July] on Twitter when he suggested that he supports coups which benefit his companies. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had first tweeted that a second government stimulus package would not be ‘in the best interests of the people.‘ A Twitter user replied, ‘You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.’ In a since deleted tweet, Musk fired back, ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.’ The comment is a clear illustration of the capitalist motivations behind imperialist aggression. “

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: Elon Musk Loves Imperialism

The MAS victory, if it holds, may re-inspire social democratic movements in Brazil and Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. Everywhere Covid-19 recessions and lack of capital credit is bringing terrible hardship to Latin America. Of course the situation in Bolivia, with its Indian majority and terrible reliance on extractive industry, is unique. In actuality, only threats of nationalization has been the norm. These have generally gone along with hard-headed effective negotiations with U.S., European and hopefully soon also Chinese firms to get better deals.

Here are two recent reports concerning this important election:

Bolivia election: Evo Morales's leftwing party celebrates stunning comeback

âA Blow Against Neoliberalismâ: Socialist Wins Bolivian Election a Year After Coup Ousted Evo Morales

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s political party MAS has claimed victory in the country’s presidential election, with Morales’s handpicked successor Luis Arce securing over 50% of the vote, according to exit polls. If confirmed, the result will put the socialist party back in power...

www.democracynow.org

Sell Bolivia Short! They're the next Venezuela

 

[TNHarley]

I just dont understand humans and their salivation for statism.

 

[Thunk]

Now watch Bolivia descend into chaos, war, and starvation just like zimbabwe and venezuela.

But but.....that's what the left calls 'Utopia"

EXACTLY!

How's that "free health care" working out for the obamites?

Their "utopia" is a bunch of empty democrat promises and then they find they're told they are not allowed to leave their house or they'll be shot on site. (michigan)

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

OAS Fabricated Last Year’s Election Fraud Claims,
Encouraging Coup

As of Wednesday morning, just over 88 percent of votes had been tallied in the official results system — and Arce’s lead is even greater. The MAS candidate’s vote share is, at the time of writing, 54.5 compared to 29.3 for Mesa. As the final votes are counted, Arce’s vote share will likely increase further...

There can be no questioning Arce’s victory. The election came nearly exactly a year after the October 2019 elections which were followed by violent protests and the ouster of then president Evo Morales, who resigned under pressure from the military... What do the 2020 results tell us about the OAS allegations of fraud in last year’s vote?

We can’t go back to 2019, or erase the racist violence unleashed on the population following the coup. On Sunday, Bolivians showed their courage ... in righting the wrong of 2019. But that victory shouldn’t allow us to forget about ... the role that international actors played in overthrowing a democratically elected government.

https://www.cepr.net/data-from-boli...-that-oas-fabricated-last-years-fraud-claims/

 

[Leo123]

The Bolivian right has been dealt a tremendous defeat with the outright victory of Evo Morales’ MAS party in the just completed elections. The main Conservative candidates have already conceded, but the possibility of another military coup or even secession in Bolivia’s Eastern province remains. The election results show that Democracy — even under the guns of the the military, despite arrests and exile of MAS leaders, and in the middle of a pandemic — is still alive and deeply rooted in that very poor country.

The reasons are clear. Wikipedia documents how “Between 2006 and 2019 (term of the presidency of the democratic socialist Evo Morales), GDP per capita quadrupled and the extreme poverty rate declined from 38% to 18%.... Moreover, the Gini coefficient declined from 0.60 to 0.446.”

It is well known that Morales and many of his supporters argued that he was ousted in part as a response to his attempts to nationalize the country’s lithium — a mineral used in batteries that power various clean energy technologies, including electric cars. “My crime, my sin ... is to have nationalized our natural resources, removed the transnational corporations from the hydrocarbon sector and mining.” Morales told American journalist Glenn Greenwald in an interview. He said he had hoped to do much the same with lithium and even to ‘refine it into lithium hydroxide and other compounds’ used in battery manufacturing.

The coup was popular among the Catholic middle class and carried a strong whiff of anti-Indian prejudice. Even if it was not directly rooted in lithium politics, the polling in Bolivia this week gave a new and enthusiastic mandate to developing lithium reserves in the public interest, not narrowly for corporate gain. Attempts to recreate the old oil industry dynamics with clean energy resources won’t go unchallenged, at least in Bolivia.

The news that the left-wing MAS candidate Luis Arce has declared victory and that the chief conservative candidate conceded led to a fall in the stock price of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why?

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

“Elon Musk caused a stir [back in July] on Twitter when he suggested that he supports coups which benefit his companies. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had first tweeted that a second government stimulus package would not be ‘in the best interests of the people.‘ A Twitter user replied, ‘You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.’ In a since deleted tweet, Musk fired back, ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.’ The comment is a clear illustration of the capitalist motivations behind imperialist aggression. “

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: Elon Musk Loves Imperialism

The MAS victory, if it holds, may re-inspire social democratic movements in Brazil and Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. Everywhere Covid-19 recessions and lack of capital credit is bringing terrible hardship to Latin America. Of course the situation in Bolivia, with its Indian majority and terrible reliance on extractive industry, is unique. In actuality, only threats of nationalization has been the norm. These have generally gone along with hard-headed effective negotiations with U.S., European and hopefully soon also Chinese firms to get better deals.

Here are two recent reports concerning this important election:

Bolivia election: Evo Morales's leftwing party celebrates stunning comeback

âA Blow Against Neoliberalismâ: Socialist Wins Bolivian Election a Year After Coup Ousted Evo Morales

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s political party MAS has claimed victory in the country’s presidential election, with Morales’s handpicked successor Luis Arce securing over 50% of the vote, according to exit polls. If confirmed, the result will put the socialist party back in power...

www.democracynow.org

I

 

[Flash]

A country can vote in Socialism but it will take guns and blood to undo the stupidity.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

A country can vote in Socialism but it will take guns and blood to undo the stupidity.

It was precisely the “guns and blood” policy of Bolivian rightwingers and the lying propaganda of the U.S. media that was defeated by the solidarity and democratic vote of Bolivian people.

It would be nice if you had something to say about the difficult political, social or economic situation in this very unique landlocked country of 11 million people — which though poor just happens to possess the world’s richest lithium deposits!