Socialist tide in Latin America

THERE are many stirrings in Latin America that should make the Philippine intelligentsia buzzing too but it is not, which shows how shallow the supposed thinking class in this country has become.

The latest excitement in the rest of the world’s cerebrally progressive sectors is the first round electoral victory of Gustavo Petro, a former leftist guerilla fighter of the M-19 movement in Colombia – land of the Medellin drug cartel and the last US sponsored coup d’etat government that replaced the elected government of President Manuel Zelaya in 2009.

Many global analysts and pundits have been pouring over this exciting event in Colombia, and they are calling it part of the “pink tide” sweeping Latin America from Mexico, to Chile, Honduras, Peru, Argentina, and earlier the return of socialist Evo Morales’ forces in Bolivia and Maduro’s triumph in Venezuela.

Fortunately for Latin American what is “pink” there has no similarity to what is known as “pink” here in the Philippines which is the combination of the “Yellow” collaborators with US and the “red” collaborators with the same US, fighting together in an unholy alliance trying to help restore neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism upon Asia and the world.

In Latin America “pink” is still real progressive ideals of genuine national sovereignty and independence from Yankee imperialism and the oppression of global capitalism.

This is, of course, not the first time that “pink” waves have swept across, the prior wave was marked by the victory of the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and its waning with the defeat of Lula da Silva in Brazil.

However, da Silva, leader of Brazil’s proletariats, is set to win back for his Workers Party the Brazilian presidency from Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing former army captain and “Trump of Brazil” this October, despite the use of violence to suppress public support for da Silva.

If the socialist tide wins back Brazil, then all the major countries of Latin America would be sovereign and the U.S. of A. would find itself isolated.

The ideological debate in Latin America is alive and well, their hundreds of millions of people voting with enlightened consciousness, unlike in the Philippines where the highest level of political discourse is about two movies based on personalities, families and emotions but bereft of concepts. This is why I wrote this article – to restore discussions of socio-political ideological visions of man and society.

Socialism’s time has come, capitalism as a socio-economic and, hence, political model has run its course unable to adapt to the changing times, technologies, values and threats. Capitalism’s boom-bust cycle, its crisis of over-production leading to pursuit of war to destroy competitive production capacities and its mindless exploitation, are now threats to the very existence of mankind.

Socialism which has as its kernel or seed the ideal of society sharing the fruits of the earth, and today the outer space and minerals from the moons, asteroids and other celestial bodies, avoiding global self-destruction through the refined thought of a modern-day experiment with Socialism – China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” advocating “Win-Win” relations and the “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” to void the West’s “forever wars.”

China’s socialism propelled one of the poorest large nations with a teeming mass of hungry population in a mere 70-years to one of the most modern technological societies and the worlds’ largest economy, lifting a billion people out of poverty.

Without socialism, the spirit and ideology of sharing, and it has only capitalism that served the oligarchs, China would never have achieved what it did in such a short time.

We often hear, especially from skeptics and capitalists themselves, that China is already a capitalist society. There is nothing more nonsensical than that, and that’s the reason why the West is saying China is a “systemic challenge” – because it is challenging the concept of capitalism itself.

China’s socialist government still holds the commanding height of the economy and it harshly disciplines the over exuberant among the capitalist under it socialist-market system.

We saw recently how China castigated and punished its real estate mega-developers for speculation overleverage, demanding that Evergrande owners pay from their own pockets what they owe the banks– unlike the US which bailed out the banks with public funds in the 2008 Financial Crash and the “quantitative easing” money printing that has led to $ 4.5-trillion addition to the total U.S. debt of over $ 30-trillion.

A U.S. Axios/Momentive poll last year found that “the percentage of U.S. adults with favorable views of socialism increased from 39 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2021” and among young adults, 51 percent have positive perceptions of socialism.

Maybe soon the pink tide will sweep into the U.S. too.