the man who killed the monroe doctrine

for 200 years, the united states has tried to rule latin america, under the monroe doctrine, successfully turning virtually every country in latin america into a satellite state of the united states. things started to crack under john f. kennedy when fidel castro became the leader of cuba and was able to preserve communism as its system of government, in open defiance of us, right near our border. but we kept our cool. it was the cold war, and you were either with us or the soviet union. under leaders like ronald reagan, we killed anyone else who opposed us, like the sandinistas in nicaragua, or salvador allende in chile, and brought to power people like augusto pinochet, in an axis of evil right-wing dictatorships, all across latin america. but in the late reagan era, through the bush and clinton years, the dictatorships crumbled, one by one, as the cold war came to a close. the spectre of communism was no longer the guiding hand of foreign policy. so, one by one, they all became peaceful, pro-united states democracies, allied with us (except for cuba, of course). the monroe doctrine was still going strong.

then george w. bush, the most incompetent man ever to be president of the united states, came to power. through his mismanagement and utter stupidity, he managed to alienate the rest of the world, even canada! that takes genius! meanwhile, in venezuela, another man named hugo chavez had been elected president, a decade after trying to overthrow another venezuelan government in a military coup. in 2002, a coup d'etat by right-wing elements closely allied with the u.s. state department was dispatched within 2 days by president chavez, and they were all found guilty of high treason. since that time, hugo chavez has, by all accounts, consolidated his power, put in place a “permanent bolivarian revolution”, and spread this revolution all across latin america. for starters, he has made cuba and venezuela closer allies than any 2 countries could possibly be, and fidel castro is his best friend. he is the most charismatic and enigmatic figure in latin american politics, and people are left wondering, is he a hero or a villain, a liberator or a tyrant?

we do not yet know the answer to that fully, but what we do know is, hugo chavez is very powerful, and getting more powerful all the time. he has exported his socialist revolution all across latin america, and his friends are now in charge of brazil, ecuador, chile, bolivia, argentina, uruguay, and, of course, cuba. latin american leaders are talking about integration, the same way that the european union has been done in europe. venezuela recently joined mercosur, a free-trade bloc in south america, which is looking to expand into other types of integration besides free trade. and, in any such grouping, hugo chavez, of course, would be the one in charge, and the others would all follow the way. his rhetoric is staunchly anti-bush and anti-capitalist, and he regularly accuses the u.s. government of plotting to overthrow him, while continuing to flaunt his high-profile friendship with fidel castro, just to rub it in our face that we can’t overthrow him anymore. that’s right... his security services are so good, and his power is so consolidated, the cia can’t even orchestrate another coup attempt on him. hugo chavez is practically unstoppable. his country has vast petroleum reserves, and he owns citgo, one of the largest gas-station chains in the united states. every time you buy gas at the capitalist company citgo you are funding his socialist revolution.

in the next 15 months, new elections are scheduled in almost all of the countries in latin america, and chavez-allied socialists are expected to win in almost all of those elections. things are about to reach the point where there are more countries in latin america in chavez’s sphere of influence than in bush’s sphere of influence. once we have control of less than half of the hemisphere, we can officially declare the monroe doctrine dead. and the man who killed it, for good or for bad, is hugo chavez.

so, you may be interested to know, hugo chavez is also allying his country with all the rogue nations that the united states has singled out, especially with iran. despite all the controversial statements of iran’s new president, and iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons, hugo chavez is pursuing a closer alliance with iran. he has said he wants to replace the “axis of evil” with an “axis of virtue”, whatever that means. in any event, he is free to do whatever he wants, because the united states cannot get europe to go along with us in trying to take him out, because the europeans are all socialist too. most notably spain, the former colonial ruler of most of latin america.

so, who is going to end up as the only country in the western hemisphere that isn’t socialist? the united states, of course. and maybe we will be able to find a way to persuade at least a few of those smaller countries to go along with us. but the big ones? brazil and mexico? forget it. they are definitely headed towards socialism. and all we can do is sit back and wonder how bush managed to screw up something that previous presidents worked 200 years to set up. oh, and canada, our neighbor to the north? they recently elected a center-right party to power, but even the people in the center-right party in canada are still diehard socialists. we won’t have any friends to share the glories of capitalism with anymore. oh, those were the days...

and as for the united states, whether we will someday join in too and become socialist like everyone else, i think so. it will happen eventually. the true conservatives have already woken up and realised that the democrats and republicans have both already become corrupted by socialist ideology. they can tell that president bush is not really a capitalist. his medicare prescription drug benefit proved it. but bush is not a socialist either. he is just an idiot. an idiot digging capitalism’s grave. so, when the historians write their history books, and write about the great battle of ideas, the battle for hearts and minds, what will the epitaph for capitalism be? how will they phrase the obituary of the “social science” called economics, once it is finally rejected from academic institutions for being pseudoscientific political rubbish, a combination of bad math and bad politics that people merely use as a diversionary tool to argue for whatever political viewpoints they espouse? especially considering the field of economics was pretty much started by franklin delano roosevelt for political reasons, and has never risen above that level? what will be the epitaph for ayn rand’s philosophy of objectivism, or for the libertarian movement?

i propose “capitalism and communism: two polar opposites, many striking similarities, neither one right.” because capitalism is meaningless without communism existing as something to contrast it against, just as communism is meaningless unless you can contrast it against capitalism. if capitalism were the only possibility, it would not exist as an idea, because people would just take it for granted, and not even think on those terms. the fact that much of the 20th century was a great conflict between the two great economic ideologies should give us pause. if such a conflict existed in the first place, and there was no clear winner for such a long time, doesn’t that logically imply that neither one of the 2 opposing ideologies could possibly be correct? they are both such stark, irrational, absurd, extremist positions to take. there are much more moderate and reasoned approaches, where you try to take the best of both and discard the worst of both, and they are all collectively referred to as forms of “socialism”. socialism is an economic system, not a political one, so it can exist alongside a democracy or a dictatorship equally well. socialism is the economic system in every single wealthy country in the world, except one. the united states. but i see it coming in the future, and whether you vote for democrats or republicans, it will still come, dressed as a sheep or a wolf, it does not matter, because once it takes hold, it will be impossible to ever get rid of. france and germany are 2 examples of countries that are having a lot of problems with socialism but are stuck with it since it is impossible to get rid of without running severely afoul of public opinion. we already have social security and some other programs like that, but that is just the beginning. the main right-wing parties in wealthy socialist countries are all center-right parties that run on a platform of less rapid expansion of social programs. they would never dare even consider making social programs smaller than before, which is considered a far-right position. someday the democrats and republicans will both be socialist, and there will be no going back because of public opinion. that is why hugo chavez’s revolution is so important. because it is an irreversible change that is only the beginning of a huge tide in the future. you are even seeing reports, all through the mainstream media in the united states, about a gigantic gap between the rich and the poor in our own country, and about earnings for the average worker actually going down from one year to the next, while ceo’s make more money than ever. if the media were really so capitalist, they would be able to keep all that on the down-low. so the media, which people claim are all about profit and corporations, really cannot be trusted to be about anything; they are now paving the way for socialism to come to fruition. in any for-profit news organization, there are still bound to be plenty of reporters with other viewpoints, and management can’t shut them up all the time. all i am saying is, people should be aware of this so that they can make plans accordingly. make billions of dollars now, while you still can. because someday, the government will take it all away from you and give it to the poor. but at least you will have a chance to spend it first. just read confessions of an economic hit man to have some idea of the intricate system that hugo chavez is tearing to pieces.