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one sign objecting to injustice is a sacred event that sends positive vibes throughout the world. It could be one, it could be ten, it could be ten thousand. Doesn't matter. Only the war profiteering corporate news monopolies get obsessed with numbers, and of course lie through their teeth about them. They see people as digits in investment portfolios. (And don't think they don't notice the real numbers. They do. And they tailor their propaganda accordingly.)
People are not digits. People are souls with vast networks of connection to other souls. And when they stand up against injustice--perhaps especially when they stand alone--it buzzes the network, and magnifies their personal network many-fold. It is like no other act. It resonates throughout history and throughout the world, and into the future. It is what being a human being is all about.
So anyway, of course I love it when 500,000 or a million get together to witness and protest. The numbers tell you something of how far the idea has already gotten. But I love it no less when there is only one or two.
This Brazilian protest looks to be quite massive, and it stretches to infinity out of the picture. If one letter to a Congress critter represents 100 other people who feel as strongly but didn't write, then one protester--so much more highly motivated than a letter writer--represents 1,000 others, I would say. This photo is impressive as a statement of the Brazilian people against our Asterisk. And it means more in a democratic country like Brazil (unlike our own) as to what politicians are compelled to pay attention to. Lulu was defying one hell of a lot of people by hosting Bush on his democracy-wrecking mission to South America.
It occurs to me that Lulu might be vulnerable to Bush Junta blackmail, of the venal kind. There has been some corruption in his administration. And if they're spying on all of us, and are blackmailing some of our public officials (of which I have no doubt), why wouldn't they be doing the same in Brazil? That may be the simple explanation for why Lulu would subject himself to such degradation as "honoring" the mass murderer of one hundred thousand innocent Iraqis, the torturer of thousands, and the lawless thief and renegade of the world, with such sentiment against it in democratic Brazil.
The more complicated explanation has to do with this dicey business of South American self-determination, Mercosur (the S/A trade group), and discussions of a South American "Common Market," such that US-based global corporate predators would have to compete on fair terms. US-based global corporate predators prefer to murder and torture their way to profits. They hate democracy, and, above all, fair competition, and any requirements to operate in the public interest. But, for all the success of democracy in South America, of late, these malefactors still have their fangs in many South American economies, so that politicians like Lulu, and Vasquez in Uruguay, apparently feel they have to kowtow. They are like city councilfolk who think Wal-Mart will bring jobs to a poor community. The hidden costs--for instance, attracting workers to an area for low-wage jobs that provide no health benefits, with health care costs for all these poor workers then falling on local government--are not disclosed, and the even bigger loss--the loss of local sovereignty--is not considered. What do you do to your community when local small businesses are driven out? It is devastating.
This is the huge mistake made by the Clinton/Corporate Democrats--and it has become such a plain and obvious mistake--that the Corporate Rulers kill communities, and kill truly free trade, and kill democracy wherever it rears its blessed head--that deep corruption is the only reasonable explanation. For Lulu and Vasquez to invite US-based global corporate predator murder of their economies points to similar corruption. I have called these leftist (majorityist) governments (Brazil, Uruguay). I'm not sure any more--particularly with regard to Vasquez. Lulu has some pretty fine creds. He is a former steelworker, with obvious personal identification with the poor. And Brazil led the 20-country third world revolt at the WTO meeting in Cancun a few years ago. Also, Lulu went out of his way to endorse Hugo Chavez with a state visit, just prior to the last Venezuelan election, and just after Chavez's remark at the UN that Bush is "the devil." Why would Lulu want to in any way participate in Bush's bloody plans for other South American democracies, or in global corporate predator exploitation and domination of his own country? He may be giving himself Tony Blair "talking points," when he looks into the bathroom mirror in the morning--that, by hosting Bush, and saying in his welcoming speech that Bush must respect the sovereignty of South American countries (read = Venezuela; also Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina), he can influence Bush for the good, as Tony Blair blathered about to Parliament. (What a crock.) I don't think Lulu is as bad as Blair. But he may have similar delusions.
On the other hand, the South Americans have played it pretty smart, so far. Democracy is, in truth, succeeding there on a grand scale. And the people, with their own networks of communication, are far better informed about these matters (global corporate predation) than we north Americans tend to be. They are demanding social justice and fairness, and rejection of South America's past as the brutalized, exploitable, slave labor ghetto to the North American empire. And the fascist junta here, with its heinous wars and filthy greed--tragedy though it is for us north Americans--makes it very clear to the people of South America that they must forge their own independent path. The Bush Junta will do to them what it has done to Iraq, and what its Reaganite holdovers did to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina and other countries, in the '80s. It is no accident that Bush appointed John "death squad" Negroponte as Undersecretary for Latin America. Lulu may think he is preventing a bloodbath. We'll see if accommodating Bushites has that effect.
One other factor in this situation is that Bush is a desperate man. He must produce something for his corporate masters, or he may well find himself abandoned by them and impeached. The plundering of the Middle East isn't going so well. He has to at least open some doors to the plundering of South America, or appear that he is doing so. Lulu and Vasquez have the advantage. I hope they use it well, for the benefit of their people and the region.
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