Does Bachelet Represent The Left?

Does Bachelet represent "the left"? This question has become a bit more relevant today as countries throughout Latin America have elected and reelected a string of left-wing candidates. Evo Morales in Bolivia, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Nestor Kirschner in Argentina, Lula Da Silva in Brazil,etc. The international press has included Bachelet in this "turn to the left" panorama. When the international press focuses on Bachelet’s personal history, it’s easy to assume that Bachelet belongs to "the left". Because of her militancy and her personal tale of torture and exile, it makes sense to identify her with the historical leftist movements. But like most of the socialists who make up the ruling coalition party in Chile, Bachelet exhibits almost no apprehension when it comes to welcoming "free market" policies and processes, which are clearly not associated with "the left". James Petras*, this week on Democracy Now, had the following apprehensions about this "left-leaning" Chile:

I don't think they're left-leaning, because -- for many reasons. Lula, for example, has opened the country up to more foreign investment. He’s paid more on foreign debt than any previous, supposedly, conservative president. Certainly Bachelet is not anything leaning to the left. She’s led the arms race, free trade agreements, promoted enormous increases in arms spending. Chile leads per capita arms spending.
I think you have to look at what the business press says, what they're saying in Washington, and when you get pronouncements from Condoleezza Rice and others, saying that Chile is the U.S.'s best ally and we're talking about the U.S. that has been aggressively pursuing bellicose policies, we have to moderate that that perception that is left-leaning. Washington has shown an enormous capacity to tolerate rhetoric, as long as it’s not consequential.

*James Petras is a professor of sociology at Binghamton University in New York and is an anti-imperialist writer and researcher. He's worked intensely with the Landless Peasant Movement in Brazil and has written several books on globalization and the market.

The Free Market and The Left

Neoliberal economic policies are inherently not "leftist" policies no matter how much rhetoric you slap on to them. Free Trade agreements with northern economies, and China, do very little to promote worker’s rights and social justice in general. In fact, quite the opposite is true. As soon as you leave local businesses, workers and farmers exposed to "free" market competition from much more competitive corporations, who besides being able to set up a factory anywhere in the world, are also in a position to harness all the newest destruction technology in the tasks of production, coordination, distribution, public relations,etc, then these local economies, these local and national businesses, along with the livelihoods associated with them, are destroyed.

The big economic groups behind all this foreign investment (all this capital which moves mountains and mobilizes people at will) are just not interested in anything else other than making a profit. Most of the real social issues "the left" represents run counter to the interests these big groups push to institutionalize in their host countries. Policies that promote unregulated export production require ecological nearsightedness, which is a level of blindness that leads to ecological destruction on a mass scale. We're seeing this in Chile right now.

The Left has also been associated, historically, with worker's rights. In Today's Chile, the situation of workers is laughable. We live in a country down here where to say that you have a job is enough to be considered lucky. Nevermind that the job is precarious, that you don't even work for the boss you're working for (Chile has a pathetic sub-contracting system which violates worker's rights and which the governing elites have done nothing about, except as part of a shameful act of campaign coercion in the last week before the presidential election), that your salary doesn't even take you out of poverty, that the type of work you do is so devoid of humanity that you end up becoming a pharmacy junkie who mistreats your wife and kids, that the pension you pay exorbitant amounts of money for each month won’t cover a decent retirement.

Free Trade Agreements Never Discussed

I am embarrassed when the president of Chile, who considers himself a socialist, goes on TV and sings praises about a recently signed free trade agreement (which no one has read and which was never a campaign issue in the recent presidential election) and the main reason he gives is that people will have access to cheaper goods. More than embarrassment, I think it is almost criminal for a president to go on TV and talk down to the Chilean people in that way. Does he think that people don't understand that to open a country up to this sort of economic dumping (based on human rights violations in China, or on artificial subsidies in the United States) spells disaster for local industry, or of what's left of it? Moreover, to have your only argument for virtually imposing, by decree, such an economic situation on people be that now everyone can have access to cheaper shoes and plastic cups! If that is not a media crime, then what is?

Box Stores

It seems that the great vision for Chile, according to the governing economic and political elites, as well as the media establishment (who paint it nice for people to hear and see) is that every Chilean be both a responsible, law-abiding consumer of plastic crap at their local box store AND a hard-working receiver of lousy wages as an employee at the next box store further down the privatized highway.
What is considered "The Left" in Chile is really just a group of ex-idealist, born-again capitalists and self-righteous elites whose vanguard banner reads: "Everything in Chile is for sale!" Just because they're educated in the discourse of economics (at Princeton, at Stanford, at Harvard) and can call this type of pillaging "economic development" or "economic growth",doesn't change the fact that, in the end, they’re nothing more than arrogant sell-outs.

Will Michelle Change Things?

Only time will tell if Bachelet represents a drastic change in the policies of the ruling coalition. I have a feeling, however, that at most she’ll try to extend the breadth of social programs in order to bridge the embarrassing gap between the rich and the poor. This will be a political necessity for her, to say the least, because any international economic crisis could mean the dwindling of popular support which the coalition has enjoyed until now. If this happens, then that's great, and on a practical level we can feel better about this country. But at the level of real and revolutionary change, her four years in office are doomed to become yet another chapter in the "important business" of administering the neoliberal model and spewing discourse after discourse on how we’re slowly getting there. Consequently, the fate of all Chileans will remain in the hands of these economic monsters who are hell-bent on destroying as much of this earth as they can, as quickly as possible.

Ciudad Satelite

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I know this Chilean rock group who call themselves Ciudad Satelite (siuthath sateliteh). Not much is expected when I meet them for a drink on Irarrazaval street in Santiago, the great capital city of Chile, except maybe, and if we're in the right mood, squeezing an interesting conversation out of the lead singer, Tonino (Antonio Baeza), and hearing the acute rebuttals from the drummer "Lion", "Lalo", or Eduardo Leiva. About politics. About Michelle Bachelet, who’s just been elected president of Chile, about Evo Morales, who’s just been elected there, about homeless kids in Mexico and whether or not they choose to be homeless, about music and music videos,etc. This time I’m in for a long night.

I arrive at around nine at this place called Budapest, located next to a Dominos Pizza on Irarrazaval Avenue. Budapest is a micro-brewery which makes an interesting fruity ale. I'm greeted by "Lion" (from now on, just Lalo), who immediately begins to practice his English on me. It's not very good, but he's apparently the only one in the group who tries to speak. It might mean something down the road whether or not these dreaming rockeros speak English intelligibly. Oh, there's also George, who plays the keyboards, and he must be able to speak something since his work as a roadie for an important national rock group (Lucybell) has taken him to Los Angeles, California months at a time. I’ve never heard English out of him, but it must be there; in any case, he's not here tonight, but he'll probably show up down the road, and he might be wearing eyeliner. I ask Lalo if he's really Benicio Del Toro, and it turns out that he is, but a Chilean version, and he continues to explain something that I've already given up trying to understand. He's wearing a camouflaged army cap, very cool.

The bass player is also here, they call him "Pelao", which literally means "bald", and he's been shaving his head for as long as I've known him. Pelao is obsessed with becoming a rock and roll star. He practices his "moves" constantly. He is a blind worshiper of the "cool", whatever that might turn out to be each day. Tonino is wearing a black giligan hat and glasses, he is very small and thin, and he emanates "onda" in a very subtle way, in a very nerdy way. He reminds me of a young version of my uncle who lives in England. He's probably the most relaxed person I've ever met, almost too relaxed, and he has this unchallengeable positivism, which can get very annoying when you need accurate information from him. Whatever you might suggest or propose his response is always positive. There's just one thing that he will never waver on, and that's his belief in rock and roll as a lifestyle. I find out that he is one hundred percent inflexible on this point; people are free to cultivate their soul through music, and there's no blaming society or the market for any fraction of their misery and suffering. He calls me "Mark" even though my name is Anthony.

You don't mean to, but you end up understanding a slice of what young, Chilean dreamers like these really think about their great country and about Latin America in general. My beer arrives and I throw out the first topic. Bachelet. Michelle. What to think of her?

Tonino believes Bachelet represents the left in Chile. He rejoices on what he perceives to be the defeat of the right-wingers. I have to disagree a little. If any group has benefited from the last fifteen years in Chile, it’s the right. I imagine the wealthy, business class relaxing on the beach, motivated little by an election in which both of the candidates are extremely pro-business. Represents. The concertacion, the center-left coalition to which she belongs, has managed to turn its back on a lot of the promises they made to the people of Chile (who voted in 1989 to end the military government of Pinochet). The political establishment, incarnated by the coalition and their "opposition", has successfully managed the economic model imposed by the military government, and has made very few or almost no fundamental changes in the constitution, which was written by Pinochet and his cronies in the eighties. They have accepted the neoliberal model as the model to follow in the economic development of the country, and they have tried to assure the people of Chile that the model is compatible with the social justice they have been promising for years.

At best, the verdict is still out with regards to the Chilean model. We see a lot of progress in terms of human rights, democratic rights, citizens rights, health, the justice system,etc. But we still see a Chile that is dominated by an arrogant economic and cultural elite who enjoy wealth and privileges and who look down on the rest of Chile, on real Chileans who live in the countless poblaciones and communities throughout the country. And they see very little of this material wealth, which is supposed to be so great. The country advances (to where is not clear), but its people don't seem to be going anywhere. They remain hopeful and they still believe that the socialists in power are real socialists and not just a comfortable group of professional politicians enjoying the wealth and privilege associated with governing. But they are beginning to have their doubts, that’s for sure, and the real Left in the country is making a slow and painful recovery.

This is the big question, which I think Bachelet, as president of Chile, has to answer. I think it's wonderful that Chile has a female president now, women are much more sensitive to real human needs and just the sight of so many women mobilized on the streets can only be a positive thing for the country. After all, Women constitute the backbone of Chilean society. But are we finally going to see some of these promises for a more Just Chile materialize? Can the model be "corrected" so that everybody has a more equal chance to benefit from the fruits of a modern society? Can it be done? Or do we need more profound change?

Tonino assumes a moral victory with Bachelet. The right has lost big and we can begin to feel good about things. I'm not that convinced.

The conversation drifts to Bolivia, our neighbors up north. Tomorrow, Evo Morales is sworn in as that country's first indigenous president. History in the making on CNN LIVE! Tomorrow afternoon! What does he promise? We'll have to wait and see.

After paying the bill, we head down Irarrazaval to Plaza Nuñoa where a Cuban festival is winding down. The plaza is packed, the sidewalks full of tables, people drinking, talking, smoking, walking, kissing, playing, selling. We enter a schoperia and we order beer and completos. Completos are hotdogs crowned with a mountain of mayonnaise. A couple of girls (minas) walk in, they're "gringas". Immediately, the reverberations of this simple change of atmosphere are felt at the table. Not much action, but a lot of talk. These must be the horniest guys I've ever met. Every other conversation is about "minas". On television we see the Festival Del Huaso, live from Olmue. I ask Ciudad Satelite about their musical roots. Tonino shakes the question off. He claims that Ciudad is as folkloric as the "huasos" (cowboys) playing cueca (traditional Chilean folk) on television. He's not going to deny influence from Europe or America, but his band is Chilean, and that's that.

The conversation drifts to the video clip for their second single, Dame Tu Love. I'm supposed to be shooting it by now. There's still no money. The record label, apparently, has abandoned Ciudad. Very little has been accomplished since they signed with them in September of last Year, which is also when they were nominated for an MTV Latin America Award for best new band. I learn also that they are currently lacking a manager. It's better not to talk about the subject as it's clearly a sensitive topic. It appears that there's very little support for new music in Chile.

On our way out, Tonino stops to talk to a boy who's been going around asking for money, he's curious about the boy's necklace. He gives him a few coins. And then we're off to their apartment near Salvador Street.

Once at the apartment, the guitar is picked up and Tonino plays a riff he figured out earlier today using my capo. Lalo reminds me that there is a song on the album called Logros they can never play at rehearsal because Tonino has yet to invest in a capo. Apparently, leaving a capo behind at Ciudad Satelite headquarters can change musical history. As expected, George, our Lucybell roadie, arrives on the scene. He's the complete opposite of Tonino in that he tells you the stripped down version of reality. There's no money for the video because if there were, we'd have it by now, and we don't, so we won't. It looks like I'll be spending my own money again.

It is obvious that music plays a central role in their lives. Guitars, drums, amps, keyboards everywhere. After relaxing for a few hours, watching live videos of Nirvana and Bloc Party, listening to Tonino's new songs on the computer, drinking excessive amounts of beer, singing Radiohead in the living room, we head next door to a club called "minga".

A "minga" is a community tradition, famous in Chiloe (south of Chile), where a group of people agree to work together to carry out a specific community project beneficial to all. It is an act of solidarity that is very rare in the city, where sometimes it's difficult to get three people to agree to do anything. Not sure if there's much tradition here or whether some perceived project is being realized, but this club is definitely a sort of underground heat trap which has a cave-feel to it. At the minimum end, it's a good place to meet up with friends, listen to a variety of music, and get very drunk. But if you're lucky, you can meet someone nice who wants to talk and share stories. There's a sweating basement below where, if you're in the right mood, you can swallow whatever music the on-duty DJ is spinning and pretend to dance with dignity. The main floor is complete with beach chairs and rocky walls. This is where Ciudad Satelite hangs out. A night out with them and you'll probably end up here.


The next hour or so consists of hanging around the bar area and acting extremely silly. And then, it's off to eat as (pronounced ASS)! An excursion through the streets of Santiago in search of a place to eat as can be an experience full of unexpected surprises. All of a sudden, you're flanked by three stray dogs who figured out before you did that you were hungry and have volunteered to be your escorts to the nearest as place. If on your way, you decide to ask a not so innocent question to a couple of white-haired middle-aged men on the street, expect to be caught up in a fiery debate on the future of the country. Tonino and I are still discussing politics. Now it's Bachelet/Allende. What would Allende think of the concertacion's Chile? Tonino assures me that Allende would be proud to hear Bachelet quoting almost directly from his last address to the world in her acceptance speech this last week. I decide to open the debate to include these two worldly night owls standing on the corner of Irarrasaval and Vikuňa Mackenna. Tonino finds himself in a face to face battle of words with a slightly slurry allendista. Tonino is scolded by our "eterno luchador social", he calls him a fascist, the worst scum of the earth, incapable of anything good. Tonino, to say the least, is touched by the man's conviction. What did he say that was so bad? Needless to say, Tonino's chaos theory of society isn't going over too well with our weary and defeated leftist, but Tonino understands and accepts the criticism before it turns bloody. I remind our new friends that this kind of communication between generations can only be positive. People have to learn to talk to each other again, imagine! To come up to someone on the street and to ask them what they think Allende would say if he were alive today, it's not such a crazy idea, it's a good question and you know it's going to spark debate, right there on the street. Talk to each other!

Once you get to the as place, the most difficult part has begun. An as is a hotdog, but with steak instead of sausage. It also comes with about six pounds of mushed avocado ("palta") splashed on top with an arrogant stroke of gravitational defiance. This extremely top heavy food mountain, as well as the full responsibility associated with eating it, is then placed in your hands. It is important to note that negotiating the as is an artform that only a few have mastered, only the very best can eat an as with dignity. It is culturally accepted that more than fifty perecent of the as will end up on the street or on your upper arm. On this occassion, my negotiating skills were trumped by Tonino's irresponsible attempt at eating half my as, undermining in this way the very structure of my bun and making it impossible to continue. Our escorts were very well compensated for their work. Huge globs of "palta", mayonese, and soggy bunfood stretched out like a banquet on the sidewalks of Vikuňa Mackenna.

Christmas Day in Studio city

The streets of the San Fernando Valley, In Los Angeles, are eerily empty on the morning of Christmas day- don’t get me wrong, they’re usually quite empty- Los Angeles a city not known for its foot-traffic. I had a unique perspective waiting for the greyhound bus sitting on a curb in Studio City. I don’t think your average car-obsessed Angelino feels the void that one experiences when simply sitting for even just a half an hour taking in the atmosphere.

It’s a world of cars, that’s for sure, but it’s also a world where space is undervalued, where what really matters is the joining of two destinations and not what actually happens in between. Each block is so exaggerated in its breadth and its absence of people is overwhelming. There’s so little dialogue possible in such a landscape, it’s as if the city were purposely designed for minimal communication between human beings, not even the basic pre-requisites for dialogue are satisfied, everything is streamlined for efficient indifference.

When two drivers cross each other at 50 miles per hour on some empty four-laned street, what exactly is the nature of their relationship? Do they even have a relationship? Are they fellow citizens? In most parts of greater Los Angeles, it’s considered bad luck if you’re forced to engage with a fellow human being outside of a properly understood and rehearsed institutional interaction (i.e. consumer/sales representative , driver/parking attendant, customer/waiter, account holder/bank teller, resident/telemarketer, employer/employee, etc) . The absence of humanity is striking.

In most traditional cultures, everyday interactions between people are buffered by cultural formalities (gestures, facial expressions, eye contact avoidance, role playing, etc), there are many such cultural habits that have developed in order to avoid real or potentially uncomfortable interactions with people. In "modern" cultures there's more of a need for this sort of avoidance but in places like Los Angeles, the landscape, the architecture, the physical space and the style of life renders these sorts of adaptations almost unnecessary, it's just easier for people to avoid extra-oficial interactions with other people. To say the least, this is a serious problem.

After a few minutes, a disaster of a woman arrives on the scene. The scene, at this point, consists of the sidewalk, a closed greyhound ticket office serving as the backdrop, and me (sitting on the curb reading “war talk” written by Ahrundati Roy). The woman is flanked by a silent mustached companion. She is a curly-haired woman in her early forties, punished by years of smoking cigarettes, wearing an old sweatshirt intended for tourists and sweatpants just begging for early-retirement. Several gaps in her teeth, bad skin, and a voice that respects few cultural norms as to pitch or volume. She stomps over to me and without introducing herself, or making a single recognizably human salutary gesture for that matter, yells, “You goin’ to Vegas?!” I realized quickly that she was hoping I would be, but nothing short of lying would have made her happier. Her bus had left her. The Vegas bus had come, had left a few minutes early, and she hadn’t been on it. She was furious and she had a right to be, Greyhound had screwed her. She kept on asking, “that’s not right, is it?” I didn’t think it mattered one way or another; who the hell was she going to complain to? America is famous for its unaccountability, and that extends to consumers as well. Buying something is as easy as apple pie if you can afford it, but trying to regain that same attention after you’ve used up your customer status is very nearly impossible. At that point you become a nuisance and nobody wants to deal with you.

At that point I noticed for the first time the presence of another Greyhound ticket holder, a fat Asian pacific man. This guy was huge. This guy was the kind of guy you’d have trouble describing to a stranger without being politically incorrect. He walks over to me and I can tell he’s listening to the kind of music that sounds better if you can't hear it at all. I ask him the time and realize that he's mentally challenged. His question to me is slightly more complicated and I couldn't understand him. My hunch was that he was on medication and that it was slurring his speech. We left it at that. Huge guy, drooling, and he's carrying what seems to be an empty leather bag. I ask myself why a person like this, barely functional, is waiting for a greyhound bus, alone on Christmas day. Meanwhile, the sweatshirt lady is bargaining with the unsuspecting driver of another bus that has just pulled in; he wants to hear less than none of it and she storms off with her companion who hasn't said a word since I first saw him.

A few minutes later, the fat Asian man's bus arrives and from its belly emerges a black bus driver. He's running on "let's get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible". The fat Asian man, however, has a different idea. He's running on "I want this black man to carry my leather bag onto the bus for me." In between them stand a few barriers of communication. Although the fat man insists that the bag is too heavy for him, the bus driver is adamant about leaving it on the sidewalk (because there's just no fucking way he's going to do anything for this slightly retarded Asian pacific man). The latter switches discourses somewhere in the middle and starts talking about his medication being in the bag. This complicates the bus driver as he starts to imagine who knows what further calamity happening onboard somewhere down the road. So he walks over to the bag and lifts it up. Obviously the bag doesn't weigh anything and this ticks him off. Why is this man causing such a scene? The bus driver decides to pull rank; after all, he's the bus driver and he's in charge. "I want you to listen very carefully sir... if you don't pick up your bag, it's staying here, do you understand?" The fat man switches discourse again, now it's capitalism. "I'll give you twenty bucks", he says.

The bus driver responds with what might have been a counter offer. "You're gonna give me forty bucks if I carry the bag onto the bus?" Meanwhile, the people on the bus have become spectators in a curbside clash of wills and I'm trying to mediate a little by clarifying the fat man's intentions to the bus driver. The bus driver decides that he can't accept money in front of all these people so he decides to leave the bag on the sidewalk for good. The fat man is already halfway up the stairs when the bus driver announces departure.

Mediation is one thing, but, "should I intervene directly?", I asked myself. Why not, nobody ever said that the anthropologist can't help out a little, as long as I don't supply machetes or epidemics. The operation took less than fifteen seconds and involved little planning. I grabbed the leather bag and brought it onboard for the fat man. Everyone was happy, the bus driver especially.

OK, so what did we learn? The disappointed Vegas-bound sweatshirt lady, the unsympathetic, forced to work on Christmas day bus driver and the semi-coherent rejected mountain of a man- this is America, these are Americans, for better or for worse, they're not the exceptions, they're the fabric, the voting public, the product of a dysfunctional society whose economic model is exported all over the world. These are the stories that are seldom heard, everyday interactions and struggles like the one above, where people bicker with each other for crumbs. Where the most trivial things become the most important and where life gets "nasty".

Tico Storm in Quepos

On my way up to “estados confundidos” I stopped in Costa Rica to see my friend Fiorela (she’s a Peruvian Yoko Ono). This was on December 15th of this year. My port of origin is Santiago, Chile, where I’ve been living for over a year now, teaching English and filming a documentary about a Mapuche radio program. My three-part trajectory to LAX (Santiago-Lima, Lima-San Jose, San Jose-Los Angeles) afforded me this unique opportunity to revisit the country I had left only a year ago on the tail-end of our majestic drive down the Pan-American Highway (stay-tuned for future posts on this ground-breaking voyage and the documentary we filmed on the way). It was in San Jose in 2004 where I met Fiorela. She had just started to work at the hostal we were staying at near the center of the city, right across from a magnificent Argentinean restaurant with the best empanadas I’ve ever had (and also across from the San Jose tribunales de justicia, just as important). San Jose turned out to be our last destination on the journey for the three of us (Monique, Spencer and I). I continued on to Panama on a bus, and from there I took a plane to Lima where I stayed for a day before continuing south into Chile. In San Jose, I had needed at least a week to sell my Nissan Maxima (“Maximus”). I ended up selling my car to a used car dealer whose cousin we had met earlier in Liberia (North of Costa Rica). On that night, back on the 18th of September, I remember we almost crashed on the highway, which is why we decided to stay in Liberia for the night. I remember feeling extremely exhausted from the whole trip and was looking forward to checking into a decent hotel with a decent bed. On my first visit to San Jose I also sold my tent to another guy, Fabian, who was also working at the hostal and who eventually became our good friend as well.

Fiorela is a very special person and I care about her very much, although our relationship hasn’t always been that clear and I’ve been less than patient with her on many occasions (her patience with me, on the other hand, shows almost no limits). In any case, seeing that I’d be forced to switch planes in San Jose, I decided to conjure up a few days at the beach in Costa Rica with Fiorela.

I arrived in San Jose in the early afternoon and had to wait for Fiorela outside the terminal for about two hours. In those two hours I observed the familiar interactions between cultures, for example, between the Tico Taxi drivers, or the Tico tourist agency “representatives” and the gringos just arrived from Don’t Mess With Texas. It never seizes to amaze me just how arrogant North Americans are, especially when they travel. I don’t know if it’s because their stress level rises and so they are inclined to counteract by showing very little patience and a lot of intolerance. Not all Americans are like this in any case, but it saddens me to think how low Latin Americans are forced to go in order to “suck up” to these obnoxious people whose behavior is excused because they bring the money into the country. It’s also a pity that, for the most part, the people who really need the money never get it; gringos will prefer to get ripped off by a local who speaks educated English rather than deal with “people on the street” who “always wanna rob me”. The relationship between the North American and the Latin American will always be a one way relationship of subservience. I spoke with a young Taxi Driver myself, interesting guy, young, full of pride. When I talk to people on my travels, I try to invert the hegemony that has governed north and south interactions since Theodore Roosevelt, I’m always there to learn from people, even the woman who cooks “maduros” on the street knows more than I do. I try never to forget that. Of course I get annoyed when people treat me strictly as a potential customer and refuse to see me as something more than a gringo tourist (often people will continue to speak to me in broken English even after I’ve made it clear that I’m fluent in Spanish and that for all intents and purposes (as far as they know), I’m a Chilean and not a gringo. My cousins back in Chile would laugh at that statement. In any case, he talked about wanting to return to his studies at the university (the taxi-driver, we’re talking about the taxi driver!).

Fiorela arrived after a while and we went straight to her house to drop off my stuff. She had been burnt on her shoulder by a flat iron, which is why she was late. After packing a few things, we were off to the “coca-cola” bus terminal to catch a micro for the beach. Walking through down-town San Jose reminded me of mexico city but on a much smaller scale. Ticos are alive, you can sense the overwhelming energy and it makes you believe that people are alive. In Los Angeles, for the most part, the people you encounter are all dead, they’re lifeless, they’re walking droids, consumers of roles and identities. You don’t see that in San Jose, but I do sense an overall feeling of desperation. Everyone sells crap. Everywhere you look, people are selling and selling crap, some call out the name of the piece of crap they’re selling, others have little signs that communicate its price, others sing about crap, and the veterans of crap selling just sit on a stool and get old waiting for some lucky customer to buy that yellow plastic comb with the rubber handle you always wanted. The eternal hunt for someone to buy that pathetic thing you’re selling. It’s so decadent. No less decadent in the states, the only difference is that in the states the selling has a much more professional ambiance to it, so much more “respected” and you don’t really see the person who sells that same pathetic thing. There’s so much more glamour to it. In the end, it’s the same mediocre relationship between human beings.

“Quepos is much cheaper” we were told, so we decided to take the bus directly to this sleeper fishing town hoping to catch some sleep in a decent hostal and then head to the Manuel Antonio nature reserve the following morning. I tried to sleep, but it was too uncomfortable. We arrived exhausted at midnight and thought only of rest. The plan was to step-off the bus right in front of a comfortably cheap (or cheaply comfortable) hostal and rest, that was it, we didn’t want anymore excitement. Unfortunately, Quepos had decided to welcome us with a tropical storm of mammoth proportions (ok, maybe not a storm officially, but it was raining hard). Since Quepos is lower in altitude than the ocean, all the rainwater passing by Quepos doesn’t actually pass by Quepos. It just stays there. So, the streets and sidewalks were completely flooded. We waded through the water, which was up to our knees, for about an hour looking for a hostel, as cars drove by, huge waves would crash on us making visibility very difficult. I felt like I was in Cancun mexico. By the time we found one we were drenched, fatigued, and….. thirsty. The owner of the hostal was exploding with personality. The last thing he wanted to do was get up from his desk to help us, he just gave us a few towels and mumbled a few words in Tico. Basically, he told us to fuck off and leave him alone. “Fuck off!”, he said, in so many words. Since we weren’t sleepy we decided to go to a bar and get drunk (like you do). We found a floating restaurant full of Quepos residents who didn’t seem too impressed by the absolute flooding of their town. I remember noticing the level of calm inherent in the people at the restaurant; it’s a different world, a different pace. We talked for a few hours, drank a few Imperial’s and then swam back to the hotel.

We woke up the next morning and the sun had dried everything. The only visible hint of the storm’s wrath were the people sweeping water out of their homes and places of business. We left in search of breakfast. The best thing to eat in Costa Rica is the garden variety Gallo Pinto plate. This consists of fried rice and beans accompanied by your choice of meat, chicken, cheese, egg, etc, and a serving of maduros (fried bananas) on the side. This is heaven. There’s nothing like it anywhere. After a very satisfying breakfast, we were off to Manuel Antonio to spend the day at the beach. A very interesting marimba band playing on a makeshift platform in the “bus terminal” bid us farewell as we drove up the mountain, into the jungle and away from Quepos.

Presidential Elections in Chile

On December 11th, the Chilean people voted in an election composed of four candidates. They were: Two members of a conservative alliance representing business and a small portion of both the marginalized sectors and the middle class; a member of the Chilean socialist party, a woman, representing the ruling concertacion coalition, which has, to this point, also represented the business community, as well as a larger portion of the poor and working class sectors, and a left-wing candidate representing intellectuals, students, environmentalists, social justice groups, as well as other marginalized groups in the country who are fed up with the ruling coalition and motivated by a perceived abandonment on behalf of successive concertacion governments of the democratic transition promises of social progress.

Michelle Bachelet, the socialist candidate and member of the ruling coalition, failed to receive a majority of the votes as expected by many political experts, forcing an election run-off in January where she will have to confront Sebastian Pinera again, this time in a one-on-one scenario.

Michelle Bachelet began this presidential race as a sure win, as a cruise control victory, thanks in part to a series of public polls which mysteriously placed her at the top of the short coalition list of possible candidates. It’s not clear just how she was established as being so “popular”, but it is accepted that, at one point, the media chose her as the favorite. In fact, Jose Miguel Insulza, current head of the OAS and former interior minister, was passed over as a result of this media phenomenon. A considerable portion of the population might have gotten on the Michelle bandwagon without knowing why, but as far as the election process is concerned, this is ancient history.

Bachelet’s story surely resonates in the popular sectors of Chile as it is well known that her father, a general who was critical of the military government in the seventies, was tortured and then assassinated. Bachelet herself was tortured and then forced into exile along with her mother. The idea that a torture victim could come back from exile and become the first female president is as attractive as it is strikingly pure. Just what she plans on doing if she becomes president is not so clear. Many critics have argued that Bachelet has tended to substitute heartfelt ideals with complicated studies and nebulous work proposals on issues she claims are too complex to pronounce on directly.

The Renovacion Nacional candidate Pinera, who received around 25% of the vote, was considered a long-shot when he announced his candidacy late in the election race, but slowly gained points in the dozens of polls that were unfolded by the media throughout the campaign. His media-friendly personality and his personal history were some of the factors behind his unexpected victory over Joaquin Lavin, the second conservative candidate, who was forced to admit defeat early in the recount process, thus ending his second chance at the Moneda. In 1999, he came very close to defeating the current President Ricardo Lagos who, after 6 years in office, has one of the highest approval ratings in the history of Chilean politics.

Another surprise was Thomas Hirsch, member of the Humanist Party and part of a left-wing coalition called “Juntos Podemos Mas” (together we can do more) which includes the congressionally marginalized Communist party. Although he only received five percent of the popular vote (much less than was expected), his positive public persona, as well as his charming and witty treatment of often unaddressed issues gave the left a public voice, and a face it hadn’t seen since Gladys Marin, the well-known communist leader and intensely loved fighter who died this year of cancer.

His outspoken criticism of Chile’s economic model and its symptoms (poverty, inequality, environmental destruction) became commonplace in living rooms throughout the country as the mass media spared considerable air time for his rallies and his various campaign performances, including the first presidential debate which also aired on spanish CNN. His harsh criticism of US president George W Bush and the “war on terror” will not be forgotten so quickly. Hirsch was unapologetic, smart, sharp, and delivered his blows with a substantial measure of good humor. He received criticism from various sectors when on the night of the election he announced he was going to vote blank in the run-off. After the excitement of December 11 died down, it became clear that the communist party, as part of of the Juntos Podemos Mas Coalition, would negotiate with the concertacion coalition exchanging their votes for a series of promises, which include changing the binomial election system which many have blamed for the shortage of alternative voices in congress. Michelle Bachelet, quite simply, needs those votes if she expects to win on January 15th. A package law has already been sent to congress by Ricardo Lagos dealing with the binomial system, but many have already criticized it as too general and too long-term.

Unlike in Bolivia, it is clear that the left in Chile is just waking up. Aside from the few voices emanating from the socialist party which still reflect socialist values, the left will have no voice in the upcoming government. There is no real disagreement in regards to the economic model which has been in effect in Chile since Pinochet came into power in the seventies. There is only leg room for the discourse of “corrections” and “trickle down initiatives”. Although social inequality was an issue that was present in the presidential debates, only Hirsch avoided using the discourse of “corrections”. Michelle Bachelet and the entire concertacion coalition, which seemed to be pulling her strings the entire election cycle, attempted to interpret the history of their 15-year rule as a series of important steps in the consolidation of democracy and social justice, inequality being the next big step to take. The most threatening idea for the concertacion is, or should be, that their ardent adherence to neoliberalism, especially their unwillingness to regulate or challenge the economic elite, might be the underlying cause for such concentrated wealth in a society that for the most part isn’t progressing. Why is Hirsch the only one saying the obvious? What is good for the giant economic groups isn’t good for the rest of the population. This magical “trickle-down”, even if it weren’t a myth, is hardly something to get excited about. Maybe that explains why so many people didn’t register and vote for the ruling coalition.

Bolivia, it seems, has elected an indigenous man to govern the country. In Chile, a fifth candidate was denied his right to run for office. He literally rode into every major city in Chile on horseback collecting the signatures required by a constitution written by Pinochet's military government. His name was Aucan Wilkaman, a Mapuche (people of the earth) and an internationally recognized defender of indigenous rights. The official reason for his rejection was that the signatures he had collected weren't notarized as is required by law (a process which costs about 10 dollars for each signature), but I think the real reason Aucan was denied his right to represent the indigenous of Chile (which constitute about 10 percent of the population) is that the producers and writers of this election spectacle simply wouldn't have stomached setting up another podium for a dark-skinned contendor.

Television Girl

Didn't know that she’d be coming round my place
I should've seen it coming, she had that look on her face

“Would you like some coffee, tea, or a cigarette maybe?"
“Or have you come to tell me you just wanna be a friend to me?”

Well, that's not fair, I still love you!


OH, she’d do it so selfishly, television girl


She used to rob me of my weekends, where we'd do nothing
I'd watch her sleep all bloody night, until sunday morning

Well why don't you just wake the hell up, cause I'm sick of waiting
"Don't be so rude" she'd say, "it's my only day where I can sleep in"

“Don't you want some coffee, tea, or some cigarettes from the corner store?”
"Well, I can just head on down the road, you can stay here."

Well, that's not fair, I still love you.

She'd do it so selfishly, television girl

She does it, she does it, she reminds me of me, television girl.

Outside. She's outside!

The Beast

War, soil erosion, cultural extinction, pollution, global warming, deforestation, famine, economic oppression, malnutrition, biological extinction, cultural homogeneity, over-consumption, poverty, misery, indifference, hunger, climate change, political repression, totalitarianism, social inequality, over-production, eradic weather patterns, illiteracy, ignorance and military occupation. These are just some of the symptoms which, when considered together, paint a very frightening picture of the health of our world. Although our cynical nature tends to trivialize what deep down we know to be true, we are in fact heading down a dangerous path. All the great thinkers of our time think so. Even the economic lords of our time are aware of the catastrophe that awaits us. The development model our political authorities in Latin America prescribe to (with an increasing number of exceptions), and whose mantra gets repeated over and over again in all the media to a point where it gets nauseous, is blinding us to the big picture; and even the small picture escapes our grasp. The compartmentalization of our world, where reality is cut-up into "realms of intervention" ("the economy", "poverty", "the environment", "crime",etc) prevents us from seeing, as clearly as we should, the malfunctioning of our societies; we have an obligation to start thinking about the underlying causes of our current predicament and becoming active participants in change.

Since the first summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 where the world’s leaders agreed that this dire situation owed its existence to the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, especially in the first world, things have actually gotten worse. As a direct result of the acceleration of “free-market” policies (key word:"globalization"), social inequality has reached levels never before seen since the Egyptian pharaohs. Chile, by the way, ranks obscenely high on the list in this category. The world’s 3 richest people are worth more money than the combined population of its 48 poorest countries. The environment (ie. where we live) is one of the first victims of this stubborn adherence to the frenzy of corporate capitalism. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 9% (18% in the US). A billion people on this earth do not have access to safe drinking water (3 billion have inferior quality) which is responsible for 30,000 deaths each day. Billions people live in "absolute poverty", a term with little meaning but we get an idea, lacking the means to nourish their bodies with even the most minimal of nutrients. 17 million hectares of forests disappear each year, aggravating global warming. 25% of mammals have become extinct due to human economic activity. Quality of life has become a bad joke of sorts. Most people on this planet are overworked, stressed, mistreated, victims of violence and drug abuse,etc. I won't go on. These are just a few of the very loud indicators we cannot afford to ignore any longer. The indisputable fact that there is something very wrong, and it's not going to simply go fix itself, least of all if we insist on giving those ultimately responsible for such devastation the freedom to regulate themselves, it's just not gonna happen.

All of the afflictions mentioned at the outset can be attributed without a doubt and with little hesitation to our capitalist industrial system of production and the culture of consumption it creates to reproduce and expand. Most of the decisions that affect the system of production (and capital accumulation, investment,etc) and consumption are made by people you only read about in industry magazines and that have so much power and money they live separate from the world they control. Our democracy, in case there was a doubt, is just an illusion; the things that really matter will never, unless there is serious change, be influenced by you and me. The capitalist industrial system of production and consumption touches every corner of the earth, its sole purpose is profit and it is simply unburdened by empathy. It is exempt from social obligations and it changes, it shifts, and it can become something else right before your eyes. It is unconstrained by space or time, and it employs science and creates harmful technology. It listens to no one, and it is never responsible. It co-opts and destroys, it creates profitable inequality and helps to foster new generations of racism and classism, sends you your bills and keeps track of your spending habits. It is a very considerable force and somehow we are all part of it, but we never know just how we are a part or why, and we never hear people on TV refer to it as something more than the normal "market"… as if it were, for all intents and purposes, as natural as the mountain spring water sitting in your fridge.

But by far, the most important thing to know about this industrial system of production and consumption is that it is controlled by very few corporations who operate undemocratically in search of profits and who disregard, outside of public relations circles, all the other interests represented by the whole of humanity. This lack of democratic control over the human system of production and consumption is both a cause and a consequence of it success. This is why it is absolutely crucial that we regain control over our own lives and over our own economy.

The second most important thing is that these agents of the production system, the corporations, are enterprises that for all intents and purposes, are institutionally insane. They are set up on the assumption that there are an infinite amount of biological, mineral and human resources that if not immediately available, can be with well-intentioned and well-organized strategies. They also assume that there is an infinite consumer market potential that, if not immediately available, can be with the help of a well-intentioned and well-organized marketing strategy. More importantly, and equally disturbing, is that they have an implicit understanding that they have a God-given right to fight for their existence using any means necessary and disregarding any and all human or environmental rights in the process- this last character trait is often defended by a strange appeal to “freedom” which presumably refers to the freedom enjoyed by corporations to do as they please with little interference from democratic institutions which, if they worked, could protect the people who get squashed by these agents of industry on their road to financial success. These agents who control the nature of the system of production and consumption (referred to as the economy on television programs) are coming from a point of view which does not, cannot, represent the reality of our world, and hence, are delusional. Their relationship with the outside world and its people can only be described as paranoia.

Because of the system’s expansion into every facet of life, we are no longer in control over what we consume, and how we attain our most basic necessities. Our impotence in the face of such power and control is one of the first things we have to address before we can embark on a truly sustainable development. We need true democracy as a means to regain control of the system of production and consumption. If there is true global democracy, one that is fueled by a truly democratic education, accessible by all, then people will be able to make decisions that will positively affect their lives and the well being of their communities. But we are so far from that.

If people lack anything, it’s first of all power, and those who do control the system that is responsible for their exploitation will never willingly hand over their power to them. So what do we do? Are we too dependent on this system, have we passed the point of no return? Let us explore these questions.

An Indigenous is Called Upon to Rule Bolivia

Two important elections in December. The year winds down and Latin America, which has always been a region of stark contradictions, drifts to the left in places where people are fed up with neoliberal/free market policies. At the same time, the liberal right gains strength in places where the free market model has succeeded in transforming primary commodities into enormous returns for an economic elite who are in a unique position to speak for the rest of the country and who also enjoy near perfect consent from the population thanks to a strangely efficient, and very complex political atmosphere where ideologies are blurred and are almost unrecognizable.

A few days ago, on December 18th, Bolivians voted in what seems to be a first-round presidential victory for an indigenous coca farmer named Evo Morales, member of the MAS party (Movimiento Al Socialismo). No doubt, Evo Morales has won the support of the indigenous communities (which together constitute a majority in the country), of farmers, of the politically dispossessed and of the marginalized in general, in other words, of the majority. The runner up, Quiroga, a white, pro-business, pro-US candidate, received around 30 percent of the vote. The difference in votes is so striking that even if Morales turns out not to have received the majority of votes, congress will have no choice but to ratify the leftist’s presidential victory. What are the important aspects, what are the lessons to be learned?

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America (one hears the word “Bolivia” almost as synonymous with “poverty”) and in the last year it has witnessed a series of street mobilizations that have paralyzed the country and even caused the resignation earlier in the year of the conservative president Carlos Mesa. Economists would refer to the situation in Bolivia as “highly unstable”. It seems obvious that Bolivians, rather than being genetically inclined to instability, are just not happy with their situation, and they have voiced this dissatisfaction by taking it to the streets and protesting (more or less peacefully). I should mention that this sort of participation is an efficient, a very legitimate, and a very democratic recourse. Evo Morales, for better or for worse, seems to represent this majority who is fed up with what’s going on in the country. So, the obvious first conclusion is that the policies espoused by the recent governments are not well received by Bolivians, and these same Latin Americans have recognized the ballot box as an acceptable path towards addressing some of these issues. That’s democracy.

The second conclusion is that we are witnessing another example of the failure of neoliberal policies in Latin America. The privatization of water, the privatization of natural gas, the opening of the country to foreign investment without restrictions, the abandonment on behalf of the state, the criminalization of coca farming (for crying out loud!). All of which merely contributes to the exacerbation of displacement, to the loss of cultural identity, to the loss of jobs, of livelihoods, etc. It’s clear that the people who are affected negatively by these policies, which favor the market over human beings, have spoken, and it should be seen by everyone as something positive. Obviously in the eyes of the economic world, this is a disaster, and all these “Indians” on the street represent a clear and present danger to the stability of the region. In fact, most of the world sees it that way. Even in Chile, the Bolivian protests were portrayed by the media as Absolute Chaos, a clear sign of Bolivian backwardness, Chileans are famous for their “ninguneos”. It might be more plausible that for the first time since its invention, the electoral system in Bolivia has actually worked. Evo Morales clearly represents the majority.