Bush, Kerry (and Ralph Klein) on Latin America: The bi-partisan offensive against Cuba, Venezuela

Derrick O'Keefe

From Edmonton, to Miami, and to Washington, D.C., North American politicians have been taking dead aim at Latin America in the last couple of weeks. Ralph Klein, Alberta’s irreverent rightist premier, took the bizarre occasion of a debate on auto insurance in the province’s legislature to apologize for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

"Pinochet came in, Mr. Speaker, and I'm not saying that Pinochet was any better, but because of the only elected Communist in Chile, Allende, and the socialist reforms he put in, Pinochet was forced, I would say, to mount a coup," Mr. Klein asserted, perhaps as a subconscious threat to "communist" advocates of public car insurance (Globe and Mail, May 14, 2004).

It turns out Klein recently submitted a paper on Chilean history, as part of a communications course he’s taking at Athasbasca University. It also turns out that large portions of the essay are copied from articles on the internet, without proper citation. The plagiarism may or may not hurt Klein’s popularity, given the Teflon Conservative’s long record of debauchery, including a drunken night of poor-bashing at an Edmonton homeless shelter.

While Ralph Klein makes apologies for coup d’états of the past, in the United States the rivals for the presidency compete for hawkish positions against present-day threats to international capital in Latin America, notably Venezuela and Cuba. Both countries promise to be election issues, especially in the all important state of Florida, where Miami’s rapidly expanding Little Caracas is eager to overthrow Hugo Chavez, just as the aging millionaires of Little Havana still dream of removing Castro and regaining their long-lost property and power.

Understandably eager to change the subject from Iraq, –new polls in the wake of the prisoner torture scandal show Bush’s job approval rating at an all-time low –George Bush has been aiming his rhetoric at foes in Uncle Sam’s backyard.

Full: http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/13_latin_america.html