Comments on: A note from COHA regarding yesterday’s release (“Ecuador’s Flirtations with Democracy: Correa Does it Somewhat Differently,” 12/9/09)

By: Joe Emersberger

Joe Emersberger — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:31:03 +0000

Here is a short story I wrote that sumarizes a great deal of Ecuadorian history http://liblit.org/2009/04/02/segundos-revenge-by-...

By: Josie Michel-Brüning

Josie Michel-Brüning — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:35:30 +0000

Excuse me, I meant: That concept seems to dominate the US foreign policy …

By: Josie Michel-Brüning

Josie Michel-Brüning — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:32:49 +0000

I want to join Fred Morris and his first comment above. – I am very grateful to Guillaume Long for his letter and grateful to COHA , as well, for posting it and withdrawing the misleading article.
I would like to quote again Herman and Chomsky, 1979, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism: The Political Economy of Human Rights: Volume I, and Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media: In 1948, State Department planner George Kennan wrote Policy Planning Study 23, stating that if the U.S. wanted to maintain (and expand) its position of world dominance, it could not truly respect human rights and democracy abroad. …
Kennan elaborated on this concept in a 1950 briefing of U.S. ambassadors to Latin American countries. Of prime importance was to prevent the spreading of the idea “that governments are responsible for the well being of their people.” To combat the proliferation of this idea, Kennan argued that “we should not hesitate before police repression by the local government…It is better to have a strong regime in power than a liberal one if it is indulgent and relaxed and penetrated by Communist.”
That concept seems to dominate the US foreign and the coverage by mass medias until now. I appreciate that COHA tries not to be infiltrated by that.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:44:33 +0000

Although in general Mr Long`s facts are accurate, it is an exaggeration to say that Teleamazonas is a "very radical right-wing organization". It is not fascist, not even conservative. It would be more accurate to call it centre-right, because it defends liberal democracy and more or less free markets. But of course, for Flacso , that means "very radical right-wing". If the station is owned by a banker or a magnate, it is irrelevant, unless it can be proved that the magnate is a nazi (which he is not). It is a poor ad-hominen argument.

By: B. McEhone

B. McEhone — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:43:15 +0000

It is a measure of COHA's moral cowardice and leftist bias that it grants Long's huffilly indignant letter its special distribution status. His enthusiasm for Latin America's self-impoverishing left wing revolution makes him a shill for vastly increasing centralized governmental power. How many experiments of that sort must be observed before the failure of the model is finally acknowledged? It has been pointed out countlesss times, but here it is, again: the movement of millions of immigrants across the globe is from more heavily regulated economies to less heavily regulated ones. When the people vote with their feet, they vote for a smaller central government.

Long's incidental defense of FARC seals the case against his standing as an honest critic. He hides behind an incomplete factoid, to wit, that a number of Latin American countries have not classified FARC as a terrorist organization. But one need not await the leadership of the Venezuelan government or its bought and paid-for lapdogs, the Argentine ruling family, to note that FARC has kidnapped and currently holds over seven hundred civilian hostages, that it is a drug dealer of considerable scale, and that the government against which it wars is the most honestly elected, broadly supported in South America. FARC is a terrorist organization; everyone knows it even if not everyone has the courage to say it.

My criticism is not aimed at Long; everyone knows what he is. I write to chastise COHA, which so slavishly kowtows to its ideological masters.