Peru considers joining most of the rest of S. America in taking a left turn

the good news is that at least peru isn't having to contend with a fujimori comeback...

[P]oor Peruvians are helping make a front-runner out of Ollanta Humala, an authoritarian, nationalistic ex-military commander who promises to redistribute wealth like a 21st-century Robin Hood.

[...]

Foreign critics often compare Humala to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The two are friends who share a penchant for tough talk, revolutionary rhetoric and a deep distrust of the free-market policies that many economists say have helped Peru achieve record economic growth . That growth, Humala contends, hasn't translated into new jobs, relieved the poverty and illiteracy plaguing the countryside or increased social services.

"We are living a dictatorship of the rich," Humala, 43, said last week while campaigning in the southern city of Tacna. "I am happy that the rich and powerful call me anti-system if it is their system that keeps Peru in poverty and misery."

the world, particularly the u.s., would do well to seriously ponder why argentina, bolivia, brazil, chile, ecuador, uruguay and venezuela have tilted decidedely left, why peru may head that way this week, and why mexico could very well do so in july...

the vaunted benefits of globalization, privatization, and free trade have done little to alleviate the chronic poverty of the latin american people... the giant global corporations are killing domestic businesses in latin america in much the same way that wal-mart is killing off mom and pop stores throughout the u.s... (there are now 12 wal-mart supercenters in argentina... other latin american countries with a wal-mart presence are brazil, costa rica, el salvador, guatemala, honduras, mexico, and nicaragua...) pick up any product off the shelves of an argentine supermarket and find the manufacturer's name at the bottom of the label on the back side... what you will see is proctor and gamble, unilever, nestle, etc...



what needs to be kept in mind by us navel-gazing folks in the u.s. is that, in an 18-month period between mid-last year and early 2007, 520 million people in 19 latin american countries will have gone to the polls... that's 80% of the population of latin america... if the trend to center-left and left continues, we may soon have a deep blue southern hemisphere...

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