Bush Slashes Economic Aid For Latin America, Belying ‘We Care’ Message

[babylonsister]

Yep, he's making an impression, all right.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/12/bush-latin-america-cuts/

Bush Slashes Economic Aid For Latin America, Belying ‘We Care’ Message

During his trip to Latin America, one of President Bush’s goals is to “challenge a widespread perception in Latin America of U.S. neglect,” and he has been telling the region’s chronic poor, “We care about your plight.” (In his speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Bush used the phrase “social justice” five times.) “It’s an attempt to try to show a softer, gentler Bush,” Armand Peschard-Sverdrup of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

While in Brazil, Bush brought this message to a Sao Paulo, Brazil community center that houses poor children:

President Bush has brought an unaccustomed message for Latin Americans on his weeklong swing through the region: I feel your pain. And he is taking it to some unaccustomed places — hotbeds of poverty and disaffection that he generally has missed on earlier trips.

“There are a lot of hurting people in the world, a lot of hurting people in Brazil,” Mr. Bush said as he toured a ramshackle community center in São Paulo Friday, a facility that cares for 3,000 children a week from the city’s vast slums. “And the people in the United States care.”

But as the Latin America Working Group (LAWG) points out, the Bush administration’s latest budget outline slashes economic aid to Brazil:



The budget also cuts total aid for Latin America from $1.6 billion this year to $1.45 billion for 2008. “The smaller, poorer countries that could use some aid are unlikely to get much relief,” Business Week recently reported, “since U.S. assistance to the region, currently around $1.6 billion annually, is set to drop next year. And the biggest chunk of that aid is aimed not at poverty relief but at helping Colombia battle drug trafficking and a 40-year-old leftist insurgency.”

“In the short term, Chavez has more to offer because our aid is peanuts,” said Johns Hopkins’ Riordan Roett. “We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he’s tossing around a billion here and a billion there.” As the New York Times writes, “A lot more will be needed if promoting social justice is to be more than a sound bite.”

[Robbien]

1. So we are slashing what we give and Columbia will get the lion's share

The most corrupt leader in Latin America walks away with bulging pockets while the poorest nations get their budgets cut. Standard for Bush's America.

[IChing]

2. Translating US Press Coverage of Colombia

When they say, “President Uribe is strongly pro-U.S.A.”
They mean: “Colombia is the only country in South America that endorsed the invasion of Iraq. As always, ‘pro-U.S.’ and ‘pro-dumbass Bush Administration policy’ are interchangeable terms.”

When they say, “Colombia is a strong proponent of free markets”
They mean: “Uribe is such a believer in laissez faire market politics that all impediments to development, including labor movements, environmentalists and indigenous rights activists, are put down, permanently.”

When they say “Much US foreign aid goes to Colombia,”
They mean: “Well over half of your tax dollars earmarked for Latin America are diverted to a military campaign to kill peasant farmers, “fumigate” food crops, and exterminate those who hold leftist opinions. Lots of this money is funneled through U.S. corporations, enriching the paid mercenaries who have spiraled this country into untold violence, while doing nothing to control the levels of cocaine entering the United States/your daughter’s nose.”

When they say, “Uribe has taken a hard line against violence”
They mean: “Middle and upper class urban-living Colombians are less affected by crime than in years past. If you are poor or live in rural areas, you can’t vocally oppose the government or business interests without facing storm troopers who will kidnap, torture and kill you and your family in the name of crime prevention.”

When they say, “President Uribe’s administration has been linked to scandal recently”
They mean: “And we ain't talking blowjobs. Eight of Uribe’s Congressional allies are in jail for colluding with death squads to assassinate his enemies; his top cabinet official was forced to resign because her family participated in election rigging as well as the kidnapping and torture of an opposition leader; and the head of his secret police is imprisoned for ordering the massacre of hundreds of union organizers and college professors who challenged the status quo.”

When they say, “Colombia is considered a model democracy in the region.”
They mean: “We don’t even take ourselves seriously as journalists. Call our subscriptions department to cancel today. If we had any self-respect, we would quit our jobs and open up a smoothie bar or something.”

[Robbien]

3. Perfect

Great translations. Sometimes it does still amaze me that journalists the world over keep repeating the crap.

[pnorman]

5. Columbia is a real Right to Work country.

http://henningcenter.berkeley.edu/gateway/columbia.html

pnorman

[IChing]

6. Great Link:.......LOL......right to work.....they used that in the south

to break unions only they didn't really kill people..........except their right to organize and get medical care.




"Negotiation by Death Squad : US-Based Corporations and Paramilitaries in Colombia"
in your article.......

I did work against the coca-cola company here in the states, because of their murders.


Thanks for maybe giving this thread a little acknowledgment.

[pnorman]

8. "Right To Work" is a Hot button issue to me,

and I use it freely as an epithet. Since I've been following Columbia's murderous anti-union tactics very closely, that term was a 'natural'. "Negotiation by Death Squad" --- I LIKE it!! And I'll "borrow" it.

pnorman

[truedelphi]

9. Sound of two hands clapping over cyberspace n/t

[northofdenali]

4. And anyone expected differently?

Everything that comes out of this asshole's mouth is a lie. The SA leaders are probably fully aware of that. And OF COURSE Columbia will get it's $$$, where else would Georgie get his blow?

[w4rma]

7. Good. It won't be laundered to right-wing paramilitaries if it isn't sent down there.

And the nations South of the border that have progressive governments don't need the economic aid, because they are able to take care of themselves now that they aren't being exploited nearly as much.