Dang, John.

Just Dang!

Good job...Have the Obamistas stopped trying to foment Civil War in Bilivia, the way the Busheviks were doing, encouraging the plutocrats to secede?

I'd almost settle for that...

Good question. I doubt there's been much change in policy, but we'll have to wait and see if Bolivia expels any more U.S. officials or organizations.

Philosopher: Russell? Or someone else?

To catherine: Louise Sawyer, "You get what you settle for." From the 1991 film "Thelma & Louise," screenplay by Callie Khouri [courtesy Google/IMDB]. Perhaps after Thorstein Veblen?

Noam Chomsky has been saying recently that, in his opinion, Bolivia is the most democratic country in the world at the present time, based mostly on what you briefly refer to above: that the populace offers up and elects representatives that reflect their serious positions on serious issues, and they will settle for no less.

Thanks, John. This is wonderfully concise and incisive:

Morales uses his power to further the goals of the popular movement that made him president, while Obama co-opts the power of the popular movement that made him president to undercut its goals.

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If one looks at the true power structure of American power you wouldn't bother to compare Obama with Morales. You might as well discuss the political morality of their gardeners.

Obama, like Bush or Clinton, is no more than a frontman. He doesn't really have power to stop wars or steer foreign policy or prosecute torturers or stop the spying on citizens or any of the things liberals would like. In a sense, he has less power than Morales.

If you want to compare Obama to someone, try Ed Sullivan.

B.O. is displaying the "values" of the organizations that have promoted him to his present position. That would be loyalty to the organization first and foremost, "my country right or wrong" and that sort of thinking. He is not about to betray the real impetus behind his ascension to the throne, the special interests, Democratic party, big money, etc., not the people who actually elected him. Don't get me wrong, at least he's got a brain something that will take a lot of getting used to for people who have enjoyed the last eight years.

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, (ie: democrats, pwogwessives, Obamabots) are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.

Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others."

~Frederick Douglass, 1857

Bob: The issue here is character, not power. As a human being, Obama is just as capable as Morales of doing something like going on a hunger strike on a matter of principle, and the fact that the notion is so absurd is a measure of his true character.

AlanSmithee: Exactly. Thanks for that.

WE "settled" for George Bush and Dick Cheney. (et.al.)

I lived off of Budwiser Beer for 2 months, once. (some Bud Lite, some Busch Lite). Ecxept for one back yard bbq with the cops, their bbq, my beer, my backyard, in the middle of it all, that was pretty much ALL I ate or drank. 18 days on coke, I know of WHOLE NEIGHBORHOODS that can do that standing on one foot.

Mike Meyer: "18 days on coke...". Ha ha-perfect.

For the most part, you're right. However: There is a lot of concern among the South American moderate leftists I talk to who call it shameful that the president of a country would go on hunger strike to assure the passage of a law allowing his reelection, while not doing the same to assure passage of legislation to directly benefit the poor and weak. In other words, Evo is probably better than Obama, but he's no saint. You need to keep the critical glasses on.

The law covers a range of electoral reforms, actually, like giving the (majority) indigenous more seats in parliament and allowing Bolivians living abroad to vote in the elections; it's not just about reelecting Morales, though it's predictably being spun that way by opponents.

Nobody's a saint, but Morales and Obama aren't even in the same moral universe.

That's a pretty accurate assessment of obama, our celebrity head pr man for the establishment. Just waiting for the dumbasses in this country to figure him out ...

Z

Patience Z, patience please.

heddy hog, I have read similar statements from equally fecally stuffed people elsewhere around the internet. please do not be convinced that your comment finding itself in a plurality means you have something valuable to offer. you're essentially saying that Obama is okay because Morales could do better. that's bullshit, and you should know it. keep stuffing yourself with those coprolites, though.

++++++++++++++++

caruso -- great piece

Alan Smithee, your suggestion that it is " democrats, pwogwessives, Obamabots" that hypocritically promote freedom while lacking the integrity to uphold "agitation" is so one-sided, it would be hilarious, if it wasn't functionally retarded and scary.

Was it Democrats who saw fit to label as "un-American" all the antiwar protestors? It occurs to any intelligent observer of American history that the kind of person likely to have been active in "agitation" of their government is just as likely to have been Democrat as Republican. In fact I would be inclined to suggest slightly more so.

In my world, hunger strikes are meaningful because they are one of the last weapons of the powerless against the powerful, taking as a battleground moral suasion and popular support. A president who wants to reform the constitution to give himself more power looks like a pathetic clown when he resorts to such antics. The fight in Bolivia is about whether more of the natural gas revenues should be redistributed from richer to poorer departments. It's about centralization versus autonomy, and I can support Morales's side and still think he looks silly hunger-striking for it.

How can it be a HUNGER strike if EATING coca leaves makes U NOT HUNGRY? Pizza makes me not hungry. How big a leaf are WE talking about? How many? Is the water cold or hot? Tea? Soup? Stew? I think WE can ALL agree that cocaine comes from coca leaves.

JonathanZ: "Was it Democrats who saw fit to label as 'un-American' all the antiwar protestors?"

Yes. Maybe you've forgotten that the War in Vietnam, for example, was a Democratic War between 1960 and 1968, and faithful Democrats did not take kindly to extremists like Martin Luther King, Jr., who denounced it. And wasn't US involvement in World War I the doing of a Democratic President, who put in jail critics of that involvement? I recall Democrats jeering at critics of Clinton's war in the Balkans, and to this day good Democrats get pissed off at those who criticize that war from the left.