The dangers for Latin America are increasing
By Ángel Guerra Cabrera
From Latin America in Motion
The analysis of the midterm elections in the United States leads to a very serious diagnosis about the health of the empire. It cannot be simply summarized as what was once described as a great victory for the Republican Party or a “shellacking” of the Democratic Party, as Obama himself described it. Beyond the numerical results, it is necessary to consider what the numbers reveal.
Although the purpose of this paper is to discuss the elections’ implications for Latin America, I believe it’s necessary to begin with what they say about American society. I shall try, therefore, to synthesize the views of Noam Chomsky, since they’re the sharpest I have read.
The 82-year-old philosopher points out that the elections “reflect a level of anger, fear and disillusionment in the country like nothing I can remember in my lifetime.” He points out that the Democratic Party gets the “impact” for being in government but recalls that the socioeconomic and political situation has its roots in the 1970s, the start of the “financialization” of the economy and the “hollowing out” of production, which led to the extreme concentration of economic and political power and an “unprecedented” inequality.
Although Reagan and his Republican successors had more responsibility, he said, so do the Democrats, because these policies began with Carter and accelerated under Clinton. Obama’s main “voters” were financial institutions.
Chomsky explains the anger of the people over the high unemployment rate, along with the huge profits and bonuses for bankers responsible for the crisis and bailed up by the taxpayers, and warns that no one should dismiss the Tea Party, irrational though its proposals might be. What needs to be asked, he stresses, is why people justifiably angry are being mobilized by the far right instead of the “constructive activism” that emerged during the Great Depression.
Although the logic of his analysis leads him to evoke a quote from the German historian Stern that associates America’s future to Hitler’s Germany, Chomsky believes that history does not repeat itself and that there will be no shortage of tasks for those who seek an alternative “to the anger and misdirected equivocations […] and to lead the move towards a better future.”
A forecast of how these elections will impact the world, and particularly Latin America, should take into account that the chairmanships of all House committees have passed into Republican hands, in some cases the hands of ultrareactionary lawmakers. For example, the Foreign Affairs Committee will be led by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of the ringleaders of the Cuban counterrevolution and a Zionist militant like many others of those elected.
This means that the pressures to tolerate everything Israel does and launch a war against Iran will increase, as well as the grudge against any attempt at independence from the United States. Forget about anything favorable to counter global warming, if it depends on the approval of this Congress.
Considering that Ros-Lehtinen is joined by a counter-revolutionary bloc of five representatives and two senators of Cuban origin, and factoring in the ideological and financial synergies (contributions to their campaigns with money from Miami groups) created with other colleagues from both parties, we can calculate that it will be very difficult for any bill loosening the blockade against Cuba to pass both chambers. Rather, the opposite should be expected.
We should remember that the Helms-Burton Act was not sponsored by Clinton but approved by him. Both chambers have seen a rise in the strength and number of the rabid enemies of the progressive governments of Latin America, fervent supporters of the coup in Honduras and regime changes in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
At the same time, we should bear in mind the emboldening of the native right-wing groups, which creates a political shift in the U.S. In short, the danger grows (it was already very serious) of destabilizing plans driven by the extreme Yanqui right against any government in Latin America with a minimum of commitment to its people, to independence and sovereignty and to unity and integration in Latin America. The policies to divide the progressive governments and agencies of Our-American integration will also increase.
Obama could still exert a positive influence for peaceful coexistence with his neighbors, but if he didn’t do it earlier…
