Well, maybe not new, but a new manifestation of it.
Pretty shocking to see what happened in Ecuador, where indigenous and leftist groups voted null for the presidential election, handing a victory to Lasso, an far right neoliberal ghoul who will continue the hand over of the country to the IMF.
The Correa government (leftist president whose term ended in 2017) had its faults, and wasn’t great on social issues, indigenous issues, or environmental ones, but this anti-extractivist left is such a clear fucking op. While the mainstream media in Ecuador was firmly right wing, the grassroots indigenous and social movements that led the vote-null campaign after their candidate Yaku Perez was defeated in the first round have handed the country over to a guy who is a member of Opus Dei ffs. So when the vote-null crowd wrote “abortion rights” and “women’s rights” on their ballots, they are in effect choosing the far worse of two evils?
You will see this same playbook in Peru, where Castillo, who is leftist economically but socially conservative, will be tarred and feathered as a bigot (which to be frank, he probably is) but the alternative is Keiko Fujimori.... the other leftist candidate, Veronika Mendoza, who is leftist socially as well, came in third in the 2016 election, but fared worse this time.
Castillo deserves very critical support, and led a massive teachers strike in 2017. His victory in the first round was a repudiation of the urban elites by the working class people of the provinces, as well as the indigenous. It will be interesting to see if a similar playbook is followed here. I don’t think Mendoza will be a US asset in the way Perez clearly was, but will the “let’s vote against the leftist because they are bad on some social issues” narrative that serves only to put the far right in power will be weaponized to help Fujimori.
This shit just sucks. The Arauz loss in Ecuador Is a major blow, given how much that country has suffered under the IMf austerity politics of Lenin Moreno...
Edit: looks like Peru’s second place finisher may be a guy named Hernando de Soto, who was dictator Alberto Fujimori’s economic advisor. Though Keiko Fujimori and Rafael Lopez Aliaga are right on his heels.
Aliaga is the Opus Dei volcel guy who has been compared to bolsonaro, but rejects that because bolsonaro hates gay people and Aliaga follows Pope Francis’ word on the matter, but is anti-abortion. Plus:
In a recent radio interview, López Aliaga said he represses his sexual desire by thinking of the Virgin Mary and flails himself with a cilice, a sackcloth garment with points that stick into the body, a practice from early Christianity.
This is also why United fronts work, shows everyone up close and personal what a farce the liberal layers in the United front are and how useless their ideas are, and also proves on the spot the superiority of revolutionary politics
So when the vote-null crowd wrote “abortion rights” and “women’s rights” on their ballots, they are in effect choosing the far worse of two evils?
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
I get there’s a sense of irony about the harm reduction candidate, but there’s a marked difference between the great satan and Ecuador
Arguably the biggest difference is that in the U.S. the less-awful candidate can lessen the chances of much more damaging outcomes. For instance, Ecuador isn't going to war with Iran under any circumstances. But in the U.S., where an invasion of Iran is a real possibility, the Democratic and Republican approaches to the country have been markedly different over the past decade.
Gotta disagree with you on the foreign policy. Bidens foreign policy this far is exactly the same as trumps. Except instead of a Muslim ban, we are denying them visas.
Biden has largely continued Trump's foreign policy, but he has not done anything near as aggressive towards Iran. Trump manufactured at least two tense situations with Iran that could have easily slipped into war with a little bit of bad luck (or with a little push from someone who really wanted war). Biden hasn't done anything like that, and if we think he's basically running on the fumes of the Obama administration he won't try to do anything like that.
Seriously, let us know when the Biden administration assassinates an Iranian general. Never mind the drone.
Yeah but what Bush did to Iraq was worse still
This is relevant to the original point somehow
Playing the long game. The establishment fucked their candidate Bernie Sanders-style, so they let it be known loud and clear they're not going to cooperate. They'll think twice next time.
The Correa government (leftist president whose term ended in 2017) had its faults, and wasn’t great on social issues, indigenous issues, or environmental ones, but this anti-extractivist left is such a clear fucking op. While the mainstream media in Ecuador was firmly right wing, the grassroots indigenous and social movements that led the vote-null campaign after their candidate Yaku Perez was defeated in the first round have handed the country over to a guy who is a member of Opus Dei ffs. So when the vote-null crowd wrote “abortion rights” and “women’s rights” on their ballots, they are in effect choosing the far worse of two evils?
I'm really uncomfortable with the assertion that the indigenous left's decision not to vote for the leftist candidate was a CIA Op, unless you can provide evidence that this was indeed the case. It just seems really condescending to think that an exploited people in the Global South were tricked by the CIA just because they didn't want to vote the way you thought they should vote. You said it yourself that Correa was bad on a lot of issues, I admit I don't know very much about the situation but it sounds to me like people simply thought he was a dogshit president who wasn't worth voting for.
I think people , especially people in the Global North, should withhold judgement of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian left's decisions unless they actually live there and are intimately involved with the politics and daily life of those countries, or any country in the Global South.
Cia cut outs. Not cia op. NED and the like. Hanging out with the us ambassador, calling for a coup. Being a leftist who wants to work with the imf and US, supporting Anez and Guaido governments. Not normal or cool
The only good thing I can think is Ecuador population is 17M vs Perú population is 32M. Still sucks tho.
He should've moved left socially then. Can't do nothing for a constituency and expect them to support you.
Agreed. That will be key to him not getting trounced in the runoff
I thought you might be talking about Arauz, who did campaign as more progressive all around
So youre saying intersectionality would throw a wrench in the game plan of 'convince the leftists to protest vote against the bigot(which tbh wouldnt be that hard to do to even me(or like what happend to corbyn, doensnt even need to be true.))
Not sure what you mean. Maybe I’m Misunderstanding your question
Tarring leftist leaders as socially right wing is the "new" op. If the leftist leader is very obviously(corbyn wasnt being obvious enough) socially progressive, then the playbook doesn't work so well, right?
I don’t think you can compare with the west. More of a global south phenomenon, where there are growing feminist and lgbt movements as well as a strong indigenous movement, and that is what the CIA (through its cut out orgs obviously) are seeking to exploit.
There is also the fact that poorer communities within these countries tend to be more social conservative, or at least take the position of - have civil unions and limited abortion, I just don’t want to see the protest people that I don’t like.
And so it seems that as leftist/feminist/lgbt movements educate and agitate in these socially conservative areas ,around them(intersectionality) shift the social lens around them the leftist leaders that pop up will shift with them.(seeing as how the leaders in these areas come from the people anyways.)
Hope so, but they are being, at least in Ecuador, heavily co-opted, where the Eco-Socialist, lgbt friendly anti-extractivist candidate supported the coup governments in Venezuela and Bolivia, called for a coup in his own country after he lost, likes the ImF and wants a closer relationship to the US, and told his supporters to not vote in the runoff. And many of these movements followed him.
Furthermore, check out this crazy letter from academics. Fucking wild: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/01/academic-letter-censor-grayzone-ecuador-yaku-perez/
How it started: Pride parades being sponsored by Goldman Sachs
How it's going: this shit you're describing
Also, @gammison is better versed in this topic. Hopefully they’ll chime in
If you click the context link you can see what was being asked
Read it, unclear on what the concrete question is. Like what's the nature of intra-left conflicts in South America, specifically Ecuador? Is it a CIA playbook?
I don't think it's a CIA playbook. I mean it's good for the US state department Lasso won, but the CIA did not have to do anything to drive the wedge between Correismo and CONAIE (and CONAIE already did not like Perez, the guy they wanted came in second in the pseudo-primary process Pachakutik runs, but Perez had real bona fides in indigenous environmental water rights organizing that won people over). Like as far as CONAIE is concerned, the environmental and industrial development policies of Correa were a colonial project (one that under a different government used to be explicitly called colonial in the 1990s), and one that would be done no matter what government was in power. Under Correa more wealth would stay in the country, but frankly they do not care much about that when it's their land destroyed and their autonomy that is violated either way.
Some CIA intern just got a huge raise for proposing manufacturing a leftist candidate instead of rehashing :guaido-despair:
a cilice
Otherwise known as a hair shirt. Has these prickly hairs that face inwards and is super uncomfortable to wear.
No, I’m not talking about the global north, this is a new phenomenon weaponized in Latin America
Bernie sanders: moved mountains to help Joe Biden get elected Yaku Perez: deliberately sabatoges Andres Arauz Downbear
Well, it didn't exactly help that the Moreno regime has been persecuting the Correaist left over the past several years (many face trumped-up charges like Correa and Jorge Glas Espinel with proceedings that were about as dirty as Lula faced) and the mainstream media in Ecuador intensified its right-wing propaganda against the leftist Arauz by insisting that Ecuador would become the "next Venezuela" if Arauz won. I've also encountered some voters who still believed that Moreno was a leftist (he was elected as a Correaist leftist and then quickly did a complete 180 and became a right-wing neoliberal in office) and blamed the economic collapse in Ecuador on socialism despite Moreno crippling the economy by going mask-off neoliberal with extreme austerity and selling out the country to the IMF. There's zero chance that Ecuador will rejoin ALBA under Lasso. Expect the political persecution against the left to continue in Ecuador. The left has always had an amazing propensity for disunity and we should never underestimate how the bourgeoisie will find ways to exploit anything they can to infiltrate, co-opt progressive rhetoric, gaslight, divide, and conquer the working class.
Eva Golinger revealed years ago that Carlos/Yaku Perez's Pachakutik (a political arm of CONAIE) received training and financial support from the American government's National Democratic Institute (NDI), which is funded by the National Endowment of Democracy (NED) and the US state department. It appears that the US got one hell of a return on their investment with corrupting enough of the party leadership to appoint and support Perez who led the vote-null campaign to inevitably help the far-right banker Lasso win the runoff (he even endorsed Lasso back in 2017). Criticism of Perez from within his own party by figures from its more left-wing faction like Leonidas Iza, who pointed out major red flags concerning Perez like how he had right-wing Lasso-affiliated elements in his inner circle directing policy, was ignored. Indigenous leader Sacha Rosero Lema described an undemocratic nomination process of Perez by the Pachakutik leadership. Yaku Perez opposed Andrés Arauz’s plan to give $1,000 to 1 million mothers who are the heads of their households because Perez claimed that these women would “probably spend it all on beer that same day”. Perez celebrated the far-right coup against Evo Morales, called for the "fall" of Maduro, advocated for a closer relationship with the US, and even called for a military takeover of the country.
This is a great Jacobin article that addresses some of the misconceptions about leftist politics in Ecuador and the Correa era.
He’s a fucking vile creep and so is his partner, who likes and shares Bolivian fascist tweets calling indigenous cockroaches and shit. Good reply. Bad outcome for Ecuador. Shit sucks
