Uh Oh. Colombia is asking to have the U.S. save their democracy

First Colombia elected a leftist president, former rebel Gustavo Petro, which everyone knows they weren't allowed to do that. Then President Petro actually thought that he could get away with ruling as an elected leftist.
The nerve of that guy!

The very first thing he does is bring peace to Colombia, which no one wanted!
Then he ends the military draft. Please tell me how you are going to continue to commit human right violations without an army? Petro didn't think this one through.

So then Secretary of State Blinken goes down to Bogota and try and talk some sense into President Petro.
But it appears that even Blinken couldn't get through to President Petro, because he turns around and demands to tax the rich! WTF! The rich don't pay taxes. That's crazy talk.

U.S. Government Must Take Urgent Action on Colombia’s Tax Reform Bill
The U.S. Chamber signed onto a multi-association letter calling on the U.S. government to engage on a Colombia tax reform bill that would undermine Colombia's competitiveness for trade and investment.

And get this - almost everyone in a democratically elected government wants this. The horror! [note: all of this is in the Chamber of Commerce bulletin]

Time to act: President Gustavo Petro’s Pacto Historico party has built a coalition in Congress that has helped it hold a majority in the House and Senate. The bill is expected to be approved in Congress and has already been approved in preliminary debates with little opposition and only minor modifications. Once the bill is approved, it will be sent to the Minister of Finance, who has the authority to make final changes to the text.

Can you believe this? The votes of the people making a difference. What's next!?! This democracy thing is fine as long as only the ruling class gets to win, like in the U.S. But when someone gets in that represents the people, well, then it's gone too far.

And speaking of going too far, President Petro now wants to end the bloody and futile drug war just because it is pointless and can't be won.
It looks like Colombia needs to be liberated, Iraq-style.

The White House is keen not to cede any more geopolitical terrain in the hemisphere to China, or Russia, at a moment when leftist governments are on the rise again in the region.

“The Biden administration won’t allow Petro’s breathless rhetoric to get in the way of long-standing counter-drug cooperation,” said John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama and executive director of the Center for Media Integrity of the Americas, a project of the Organization of American States.

I am so proud of being an American. We stand boldly against any actual real democracy in this hemisphere and for the corporations that exploit the working poor and destroy the environment. Someone has to do it.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Military coup has always been Option One for the US State Department.

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"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati

And Petro quickly recognized Madero.
To survive, and to accomplish even a little of what he hopes to do, I think he needs help
From some other countries in Latin America.
Such additional help would really put kinks in our plans for our involvement.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Will Rogers Guthrie

Although, there has been no formal declaration of this, yet.

I track American expat sentiments. I noticed that in the past few years, many expats were gravitating to Columbia or making plans to relocate there from other expat colonies. It took awhile for me to figure out that these were the right wing US expats: The ones who let the tax-avoidance tail wag the peaceful fellowship dog. (US expats come in both flavors.) After the recent Columbia elections I noticed heads exploding in certain expat cliques, and took a closer look.

Certainly, expats need to invest carefully to protect their earnings, especially those who work or invest, earning money outside the US. Expat income can come from online work or internet marketing, private foreign investment returns, rental income from owned foreign property, foreign small business ownership, or wages earned working for foreign businesses. In the developing world, NED-installed Right-wing governments are encouraged to open tax loopholes for the US elite, which allows US investor/expats to slip through and avoid local taxes on their income. Columbia become such a place.** Columbia, in turn, benefitted greatly but unevenly from private US investments — the cities and suburban areas look very nice. But this type of predatory capitalism (aka: tax theft) always opens deep wealth gaps in the economy, creating pockets of dystopian misery for the poor and indigenous. The US economy offers a concrete example of a wealth gap caused by tax theft.

Contrast the corrupt US economic model imposed on Columbia with China's "spcialist" economic model. China also has nice looking cities and suburbs for the wealthy and middle classes. But China's managed and regulated economic policies, which are designed to benefit People's lives and protect future resources — also made it possible for poverty to be eradicated throughout China. There can be little wonder that China's more inclusive and positive example will lead to a US military confrontation/provocation, in the near future.

Actually, the US is the world's worst offender when it comes to imposing egregious lifelong taxes on ordinary US expats — but more on that another time.

Meanwhile, the US still overflows with drugs, but Colombia's cocaine has been replaced by far more addictive and destructive meth, which can be produced locally in the US.

This describes some of the trending views held in the Global South.

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** Ukraine offers another example of a country that became a tax-theft / money-laundering center following a NED designed overthrow of Ukraine's elected government in 2014, which was replaced with a US-approved right wing regime government. The Burisma/Biden corruption is a part of that. The US Senate is sitting on this evidence. Read the Executive Summary in the Senate Report: "Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns."

[edit = add links]

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
usefewersyllables's picture

fucked.

I'm sure that we'll happily oblige them by freedumbing the hell out of a bunch of them. "Wholesale death" is our last remaining export, after all.

Sure, we can fight a war on 8 or 10 fronts. It isn't a world war without lots and lots of fronts, after all.

Somewhere, Sun Tzu is grinning his ass off, and just waiting for the denoument.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

enhydra lutris's picture

pretty much my thoughts exackly over the past few days.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@enhydra lutris Is that just rhetorical, or is there some status-quo-loving rival literally petitioning the US to intercede, like the guy in Haiti?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Pluto's Republic's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Pluto's Republic You say that as if it's a positive resource.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!