Bulletins and News Discussion from July 1st to July 7th, 2024 - Morales vs Arce - COTW: Bolivia

Image is of Bolivian President Luis Arce (center, with glasses) face-to-face with General Zuñiga (in camouflage) during the coup attempt.

On the 26th of June, while Hexbear was in an 8-hour hibernation, General Juan José Zuñiga marched 200 troops and some armored vehicles on the government palace in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Luis Arce. This is somewhat reminiscent of Jeanine Anez's coup in November 2019 where she overthrew the socialist president Evo Morales, but while that coup was due to a colour revolution likely orchestrated by the United States and had at least a tiny amount of political/public legitimacy and "followed the rules" in a certain sense (as Morales was trying to abolish presidential term limits, which is only evil if a socialist is doing it), this was a much more naked attempted seizure of power by a military general.

This coup was quickly terminated without even a momentary transfer of power. Democracy was saved.

Despite being in the same party, Morales and Arce have increasingly been in opposition. Morales champions anti-imperialism, rights for indigneous people, and poverty reduction. This last one especially has been threatened by Arce, though it's not entirely his fault, as the Bolivian economy is threatened by the same crisis affecting so many developing economies around the world right now - say it with me now - a lack of dollars and mounting debt. The US Federal Reserve is carrying out a bloody offensive against the world's poor, and this has combined nastily with a rather uninspiring "post"-coronavirus economic recovery in Bolivia, as well as diminishing natural gas production (and thus less exports with which to earn dollars).

While the coup was ongoing, Morales banded behind the government. Afterwards, however, Morales expressed his skepticism about whether the coup was, in fact, genuine, calling for an independent investigation into it, and saying that Arce “disrespected the truth, deceived us, lied, not only to the Bolivian people but to the whole world." This is because General Zuñiga made a series of very interesting statements to his family and colleagues, saying that Arce had "betrayed" him, and saying that Arce had told him “‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity.'" This does check out on the surface level, at least: Arce has suffered increasing unpopularity as the economy has suffered.

Interestingly, Morales' narrative has been supported by the anarchocapitalist leader of Argentina, Javier Milei, who is currently busy completely destroying his own country and stripping the copper out of the walls to give to American capitalists. Milei said that the coup attempt was "fraudulent". Meanwhile, those inside MAS opposed to Morales' accusations of a false coup have accused him of allying with the fascist right and becoming an instrument of imperialism.

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The Country of the Week is Bolivia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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1.2K comments

A third candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., although a man of ideas and fresh thinking — or, because of that, is deemed unworthy of inclusion in the national debate on the specious plea that he is an ‘independent candidate’!
https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-has-some-lessons-in-democracy/
'man of ideas and fresh thinking' come on, man literally has brainworms and is just a liberal but antivax. do i think he should've been at the debate? yea because 2-4% polling isn't nothing considering how close the other two are.
- Do people know that the debates are run directly by the dnc and rnc? It seems like most people think they're some kind of part of the election process put on by a neutral party or something.
  
  I didn't know that. Why did they let Ross Perot debate?
  
  I think 1.), he was a billionaire in his own right, and 2.), that was a completely different universe with different rules, different leaderships, different norms and beliefs. Things have changed and accelerated at an enormous rate over the last two decades. The Soviet Union had just been destroyed, the End of History was fresh and new, Clinton had not yet begun Democrat triangulation.
  The propagandistic "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates" Commission on Presidential Debates was only a few years old. There are a great many potential factors that may have lead to Perot being allowed on stage.
  
  Idk, this article says CNN decides
  In at least one respect, Mr. Kennedy has reason for optimism. Recent polling has positioned Mr. Kennedy closer to qualifying for the debate stage than any third-party candidate in more than three decades. Mr. Kennedy must earn at least 15 percent support in four approved national polls by June 20 to qualify for the debate.
  But there’s probably a bigger hurdle. For an independent or third-party candidate to appear onstage with Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, that candidate “must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency,” according to the rules published by CNN. In other words, Mr. Kennedy must be officially be on the ballot in enough states that — if he won them all — the vote total would amount to a majority in the Electoral College.
  To qualify for participation, candidates must fulfill the requirements outlined in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States; file a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission; a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline; agree to accept the rules and format of the debate; and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.
  https://archive.is/yC1U5
  
  Doubt. The Democrats and Republicans created a private corporation to take care of debates since the League of Women Voters wouldn't cater to the increasingly complicated rules the two factions wanted to mutually agree on and exclude third parties from in circa 1970s-80s. Their agreements got more and more complicated after that (i.e. including more and more topics they won't discuss), and with the exception of including Ross Perot—an accident they immediately learned from—has excluded third-party and independent participants by contract.
  As far as I'm aware, this is still the case. They might have had a few publicly specified rules that CNN published, but I'm sure they still have a private list of things they won't do or talk about, and an absolute exclusion of other candidates, that they—and CNN—operate by.
  
  Afaik that was all agreed to by the Biden and Trump campaigns, at least based on what the wiki is saying. So apparently they did an end run around their alleged own parties, set up their own deal according to their own rules, and still looked like a pair of senile fools.

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