"Balanced" news from the AP and WaPo

To the surprise of many(me), the Washington Post and the AP got around to publishing a decent article on Bolivia's attempts to take on gender inequality, specifically Evo Morales' appointment of a new cabinet, half of whom are women. The AP Carlos Valdez's piece even talks about weird foreign concepts like "'Chacha Warmi,' a Quechua-language reference to the indigenous principle of two complementing sexes as the basis of equilibrium in the cosmos."

But being the AP and Washington Post they couldn't help themselves from throwing in one dickish comment about Morales, you know, for "balance". 

And none of Bolivia's female ministers yet belongs to the president's inner circle of most trusted and influential advisers. 

...yeah, trust Carlos Valdez, he knows who Morales really trusts and gets advice from, as if it would be his cabinet ministers... how naive.

And an otherwise decent article is tainted by nonsense. The End. 

Stormtroopers and Jedis

US Westpoint cadets left, Bolivian indigenous cadets right

Obama in December at Westpoint anouncing 30,000 troop "surge" in Afghanistan:

America -- we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.

Evo Morales in February at the Bolivian military academy announcing  the decolonization of military instruction and practices: 

Nations in the path of development are in danger because "the empire raises its arms of war against the peoples [of the world] to irrationally exploit natural resources", warned president Evo Morales Wednesday.

"The installation of military bases by the United States in Latin America is capitalist aggression", he said referring to the presence of thousands of soldiers in Colombia with the argument of "cooperation" in the war on drugs and terrorism.

Does Morales’s “socialist” agenda pose a threat to American values?

Andean Information Network

This should quell some fears about how closed to capitalist and American initiatives the new Bolivian pluri-national government could be:

During his campaign, Evo Morales promised that he would reach out to the lowland upper and middle classes and lobby to have the 2010 Miss Universe Pageant held in Santa Cruz.  The lowland city has the stereotype of being preoccupied with beauty queens and contests.
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Evo Morales, Culture Minister Zulma Yugar and local pageant organizer, Gloria Limpias, met with representatives from the Miss Universe Pageant on February 1. Representatives will be in the country for a month, visiting landmarks and evaluating whether or not Santa Cruz is an appropriate venue. They plan to submit a full report to pageant owner, Donald Trump.

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Debunking Myths Part II: Bolivia’s Autonomy Initiatives

Doug Hertzler, Andean Information Network

In September 2008 lowland elites led sustained protests against the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, demanding autonomy for their departments.  Yet, Morales’ MAS government never opposed grassroots autonomy initiatives. In fact, the administration held a 2006 referendum allowing lowland departments to opt for autonomy to be defined in the new Constitution. Ironically, opposition efforts to block the approval of the new constitution postponed efforts to legally implement autonomy. In retrospect, it became clear that this elite manipulation of the autonomy issue was more a tool for lowland elites to oppose Morales than a broad-based popular demand. The new Bolivian constitution, approved in January 2009 has since established different levels of autonomy.

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Bolivia cinema takes Sundance

Zona Sur, cast (white) and director (black)

Last week at Sundance, the 2009 Bolivian film "Zona Sur" (Southern District) won the festival's World Cinema awards in both writing and directing. The film is also Bolivia's submission to the Academy Awards. I have yet to see the film but understand that it is about the psychosis of sureños (residents of the wealthy southern suburb of La Paz). It at least convinced this one US reporter to even use the taboo word "bourgeois society" (commie!), so it is probably good. I did hear that like the director Juan Carlos Valdivia's other film "American Visa" there is quite a bit of explicit sex (get your attention?). So, in case you weren't aware, Bolivia has good cinema.

La Mala Palabra put together the English subtitled trailer below.

Debunking Myths: The eastern lowlands of Santa Cruz

Doug Hertzler, Andean Information Network

On December 6, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous President, easily won reelection with 64% of the vote to 26% for the right-wing candidate Manfred Reyes Villa. During his first term in office the international press and opinion makers hyped a “deep” divide between Bolivia’s eastern lowland regions and the western Andean highlands. For example, an editorial in the Washington Post in 2008 claimed that “Morales is pursuing a narrow and divisive agenda that, if continued, will split Bolivia along geographic as well as ethnic lines, and possibly trigger a civil war.”

While the Bolivian upper class continues to control the politics of several lowland departments, the divisions among the regions are not as deep as the mainstream media has portrayed them. Evo Morales outpolled Manfred Reyes in the lowland department of Tarija, and took nearly half the vote in Pando. He also strongly improved his showing in both Beni and the largest lowland department of Santa Cruz, where Morales took 41% of the vote, up from 30% four years ago.

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Venezuela "expert" Nikolas Kozloff can't tell fact from fiction

Nikolas Kozloff has created a name for himself publishing books on Venezuelan politics and essays on the Latin American left. Like all human beings do from time to time, he fucked up this week in republishing the fraudulent claim that Hugo Chavez accused the US military of causing the Haitian earthquake with a secret weapon. Ok, mistake made. However, instead of trying to make up for this mistake, Kozloff has responded to calls to correct his piece with contempt and arrogance, demonstrating that he is just an ignorant prick. Let's investigate.

Mama Coca - Comunidad

h/t Mirando la Patria

Howard Zinn, we already miss you

Howard Zinn passed away earlier today in Santa Monica, California. He was certainly the greatest US historian of the 20th century. Noam Chomsky had this to say:

He's made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture. He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can't think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect. [His writings] simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation. He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant. Both by his actions, and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the Civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.

 Fortunately he left us thousands of pages to keep informing and inspiring us.