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sweeping South America, where they have learned the hard lessons of both fascist rule and fascist abandonment. The rich in collusion with the World Bank/IMF and global corporate predators looted Argentina, then left it to rot. And the workers and the people picked themselves up out of the dust and put their country back together. They also had assistance from Venezuela--a highly progressive country rich in oil profits--which helped Argentina to get out from under onerous World Bank debt, by extending it easy term loans, thus greatly accelerating Argentina's recovery, and creating a healthy trading partner for Brazil, Venezuela and other countries, and a strong political ally in the South American road to self-determination.
The lessons I see in all this, for us, are:
1. Transparent elections.
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.
We have been fatally inattentive on the first, derelict on the second, and brainwashed by the corporate news monopolies on the third. They have convinced us--we, the great progressive majority in this country--that we are the minority and that we have no power. So we think too small. We think of merely regulating global corporate predators (oh, for the good 'ol days, when corporations were supposed to operate in the public interest!), instead of dismantling these monstrous, bastard entities, pulling their corporate charters and seizing their assets for the common good. We think of merely stopping the war, rather than cutting the military budget, say, by 90%, down to a true defensive posture. (No more wars of choice!). We think of regulating an industry like logging, to try to preserve some environmental values, when we clearly need to remove vital resources--life and death resources such as forests (re climate stability and biological diversity) and fresh drinking water--entirely out of private corporate hands. We need to think much bigger.
On organization, we have too often given away our power to political brokers, who immediately sell us out to corporate predators--and, until recently, we had nearly lost the know-how, and even the memory, of grass roots democracy. The 2004 election was a big blow. The grass roots came forth, and got mowed down by non-transparent vote counting--voting counting done with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations. Ye gods! We have so much ground to recover! But worker coops are a good place to start thinking big again. Yes, they are a remarkably good idea! We have absolutely no need for top management. They are just ripoff artists and corporate toadies. Workers do very well managing themselves, and have great incentive to put in that extra effort. It's also a lot more fun than being under bosses and seeing all the profit sucked up to the top. But it helps to have a sympathetic government, elected by the people, and operating in the peoples' interest. The Corporate Rulers have great advantage--in capital, in infrastructure, in tax breaks, in protection of monopolies, in government giveaways, and in legal/bureaucratic expertise. Workers and others need to help create a friendlier political climate for worker coops.
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