The Cuban Perestroika, cultural impact

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

The Berlin Wall fell down, the Soviet Union disappeared, the United States won the Cold War, China opened up to capitalism, the standard of living in South Korea is better than in North Korea and, generally, socialism proved to be a failure in all regions where it was tested. But in Latin America, many of these events were seen as distant stories that had nothing to do with local realities.

Like a teenager in love, many continued to believe in the myths of the fantasy, so for politicians, intellectuals, businessmen and ordinary Spanish speakers, the dictatorship of Fidel remained the same paradise of freedom and social welfare that existed only in the heads of the hippies. "In Cuba, health care is free, people are really happy and roses are redder", phrases like these could be heard in Latin American universities and centers of power even at the beginning of the XXI century.

Unfortunately for the regional communist thought, denial is a psychological defense mechanism that is not very reliable for keeping secrets. The truth has begun to explode in the Mecca of the Latino communism, so the re-structuring of the Cuban model will be something so close that would teach Latin American what they should have learned long ago about socialism. And as one day Castro's Cuba influenced many to insist on Communist system's error, it should now provoke the discredit of that ideology in the area.

Unlike the twentieth century, this socialist collapse is not happening in Europe or Asia, but in one of the most important symbols of the Latin American culture, so its impact should be greatest in the island and its sphere of influence.

Cuba is a small country geographically and economically, but ideologically, this nation affects the region like no other, even more than States such as Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. A lot of Latin American politicians wait for Fidel before expressing any opinion, only that this time, the philosophy of the Cuban government points to anti-Communist reforms (privatization and economic liberalization), which could mean an ideological earthquake for the left in Brazil and Spanish America.

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Evo, what has Marxism done for the environment?

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In the present age, one would expect the global warming debate to be focused on the development of renewable energy, the more efficient management of natural resources, the geo-engineering, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, and the legal reforms that can cushion the impact of human activity on the planet. Unfortunately, a Latin American government trying to divert the discussion to issues specific to a time before the Internet could not miss at the Summit of Climate Change in Cancun, revisiting the idea of dismantling capitalism as the great panacea for saving the world from all the problems that afflict it.

"Either capitalism dies or Mother Earth dies", was the approach that brought Evo Morales to Mexico, returning us to a time when foreign policy was based on the acceptance or rejection of Marxism. But of course, for those who live in Latin America it is nothing new to see a politician explaining each event with the Leninist ideology, or that leaders like Chavez and Morales never knew the failure of communism in all regions where it was tested.

What can socialist regimes teach us about environmental policy? The worst nuclear disaster happened on Earth occurred in Chernobyl, then one of the republics of the USSR. The title of global largest emitter of carbon dioxide is held by China. Much of the water consumed in Vietnam has so much pollution that the issue has repeatedly been qualified by UNICEF as a "pressing environmental problem". North Korea has serious air pollution records because that nation produces enough of its energy from coal. And Laos is one of countries with highest deforestation rate, while Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia lost respectively 1.97%, 0.55% and 0.45% (per year) of its trees between 1990 and 2010.

Clearly, the socialist models have no moral authority to criticize capitalism for the environmental degradation, so it's obvious that the solution to climate change is not in the Communists schemes of economic organization.

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The intellectual Anglo-Saxonism of Chavez

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Every time Chavez has needed an ideologist to formalize the theoretical underpinnings of his political project (supposedly indigenous, African-American, anti-imperialist and friend of the marginalized), it is noteworthy that, contrary to what the bolivarian revolution preaches, he has always appealed to North American, German or British intellectuals.

When Chavez wanted someone to explain that he had been the victim of a coup in April 2002 and that his socialist revolution lived under constant threat from the United States, he did not seek an Amazonian Indian, he instructed Eva Golinger, American journalist and lawyer, to capture everything in a book - "The Chavez Code" - and in other publications.

Later, he needed someone to tell the world what the Venezuelan XXI Century Socialism is, and Chavez do not seek any national academic to entrust the task, but ordered to call the German sociologist Heinz Dieterich.

Sometime after, in 2009, Chavez decided that a film would revive faith in his leadership, but he doesn't seek the help of Venezuelan or Latin American filmmakers. He tried again with an Anglo-Saxon, Oliver Stone, who made for him a piece of political propaganda called "South of the Border."

Then comes 2010, chavismo gets fewer votes than the opposition in the September parliamentary elections, and this time, Chavez thinks he needs a thinker to develop a document for: 1) questioning the opposition victory, 2) re-selling the neocastrista project to Venezuelans, and 3) giving to the party the lines of action for the immediate future. But again, "el comandante" does not consider prudent to assign the task to any mulatto, so he sent for the Welsh Alan Woods.

There is clearly a racist pattern in Chavez when choosing his ideologist, especially considering that, in none of the cases cited, the Venezuelan president has hired black intellectuals from those lands, all of them are Anglo-Saxons with well-defined Caucasians features. Why he never resorts to Negroid people or Venezuelans as Professor Carlos Escarra, for example, for these assignments? Could it be that, in the logic of Chavez, the northern white is better creating ideas?

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Venezuela: Devaluation in 2011?

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

A major international bank is predicting a devaluation of the Venezuelan exchange rate in the first quarter of 2011. According to experts at Barclays Capital, the measure represents the best option for a government that will eventually be forced to balance its accounts. But leaving aside the speculations that may generate the report of the financial institution, the factors that Chavez should evaluate if he is planning a devaluation in the coming year are complicated.

A modification of the official exchange rate in 2011 would find justification in the long socialist recession that persists in Venezuela, the government deficit, the growing debts to government employees, the debt on the secondary market, the low tax collection due to the economic downturn , the oil price that has not returned to exceed $100 per barrel, and the 2012 elections which are relatively far away to absorb an impact of this nature and allow time for Chavez to regain some stability.

Unfortunately for the Venezuelan president, the 100% maxi-devaluation the government decreed in January 2010 is very recent, so launching a new macroeconomic shock could mean a trauma that is too close to the previous one, for the economy that has registered South America's worst performance in the past 3 years.

Furthermore, although PDVSA's lucrative exports have declined and the Chavez government has failed to manage it properly, the global oil market continues to live the most spectacular boom in its history, which produces a good income for an OPEC country like Venezuela. The current barrel is not worth the $140 he reached in 2008, but remains above $70, fairly high compared to the average of $36 per barrel from 1970 to 2008.

Also, from 2008 to 2010, Venezuela's economic conditions have deteriorated more than in any other year of the Chavez government, which, among other things, has adversely affected his popularity, lowering it to alarming levels for a populist leader. How do a new large devaluation would impact on this weak leadership? It's hard to believe it would be good, although missing 24 months for the 2012 elections.

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Chavez's attitude to the Costa Rica-Nicaragua case

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In 2009, when Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by a polemical military coup, no one was so desperate for the OAS intervention as the Venezuelan government. Obviously, at that time was a Chavez ally who needed help and the Venezuelan President knew the more time Zelaya spent out of power, the harder he would return to office. So, Chavez called on all his allies to take a position as soon as possible, and pushed to such extremes on other governments that even Insulza fly in an aircraft as part of a dangerous counter-coup operation.

The same urgency showed Chavez for the intervention of the OAS when Rafael Correa was almost removed from power this year, in the police rebellion of September, but things change when indifference favors a revolutionary comrade. Now is Costa Rica who urges the OAS to mediate, and is Daniel Ortega -a Chavez friend- who benefits from the attitude of the current Venezuelan government. On November 12, 2010, the OAS voted unanimously to ask Costa Rica and Nicaragua to evacuate the disputed area for the moment and resolve the problem through dialogue; however, Nicaragua and Venezuela were the only two countries that voted against this resolution, and then Ortega announced that he would not abide it.

If he wanted, Chavez might influence his ally to take another position, but meanwhile the facts are imposed: The controversial dredging of the border river continues, which in practice would extend the rule of Nicaragua, as this country has by right the control of the San Juan river.

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The Costa Rica-Nicaragua tension

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Beyond the cartographic considerations that gave rise to the boundary problem between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, it calls our attention the aggressiveness of the current Nicaraguan president to discuss the matter.

Daniel Ortega has made the difference in the current dispute, because although this conflict comes from long ago, previous Nicaraguan governments had addressed it in a more diplomatic way, obtaining very good results with this attitude. In fact, in 2009, the International Court of Justice recognized that the sovereignty of that territory rightfully belongs to Nicaragua.

There was no need to threaten war against a country that does not even have an army. In addition, the mobilization of troops by a government drowned in a terrible budget deficit, and with a very low risk of aggression, is an act extremely difficult to justify.

Everything seems to be more of what we are used to seeing on the extremists in the region: Correa responded with military threats to his problems with Uribe, Chavez has also warned to start a war against the Neogranadine country several times, Ortega himself wanted to restore Manuel Zelaya to power by way of force, and now shows his fists to Costa Rica. It is as if those who direct the diplomacy of the ALBA countries need to maintain external tensions to distract their countrymen from the serious problems that, internally, the revolutionary governments have not solved.

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U.S. legislative elections, Chomsky and Stiglitz

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In the November 2 elections, Americans voted to choose members of Congress, among other authorities. Contrary to what has been happening since 2006, this time the Republicans were favored by the electorate, taking control of the legislature from Democrats and simultaneously marking the relaunching of the neo-conservative politics in this country.

But, why is important the strengthening of the U.S. rightist faction in the last election? Well, among the many interpretations that this vote could have, we would not want to miss that, because of the 2008-2010 financial crisis, social scientists of the likes of Noam Chomsky and Joseph Stiglitz warned the end of the influence of the traditional political-economic ideologies to begin an era where the more progressive doctrines would dominate the electoral environment, including in the United States.

And that's where the Nov. 2 election appears on the scene, refuting the hypothesis of such thinkers, in the sense that when American voters decide to give the majority of the legislature to the Republicans, the last thing that is happening is that the American political system is becoming an archetype of the international left because of the global recession. Ie, after the financial crisis of 2008-2010, the American people chose to transfer the Congress from the moderate right of the Democratic Party to the purist right of the Republican Party. Indeed there was an ideological shift, but toward neoconservatism, very different from that anticipated by Chomsky and Stiglitz.

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