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Forum Post: Uruguay Takes On London Bankers, Marlboro Mad Men And TPP

Posted 9 years ago on Dec. 13, 2014, 2:40 a.m. EST by Nevada1 (5843)
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19 Comments


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[-] 4 points by ShadzSixtySix (1936) 9 years ago

iViva Uruguay! y El Presidente Jose Mujica "a colorful former Tupamaros rebel who was imprisoned and brutally tortured by the military during the era of the disappeared in the 1970s under US-supported Operation Condor in Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and other nations of the Southern Cone, is a favorite media subject and has been at the center of these actions.

"Yet an even larger story with deeper historical roots and global implications is unfolding simultaneously in Uruguay with minimal media attention. Uruguay has spent the last decade quietly defying the new transnational order of global banks, multinational corporations and supranational trade tribunals and is now in a fight for its survival as an independent nation. It is a rich and important story that needs to be told.

''The leftist economic experiment taking place at the opposite end of the globe in tiny Uruguay is more than the bankers in London can tolerate, never mind that Uruguay, with minimal military expenses, has annual deficits nearly 600 percent lower than the UK as a percent of GDP. From the bankers' perspective, Uruguay is setting a bad example by taking care of their people instead of catering to global financial speculators.'' ... From your really very informative 'Truth-Out' link.

Thanx for the great link in your forum-post Nev1. It is going to be VERY useful to me & in a moment of festive reciprocity tho' not exactly 'in compliment', I nevertheless append fyi :

Wishing you and yours good wishes, peace & contentment for Xmas, Yule, Solstice & The New Year.

pax, amor et lux ...

[-] 3 points by johannus (386) from Newburgh, NY 9 years ago

Imagine that, Uruquay not wanting to get sucked into the New World Order.

I guess that we have bigger fish to fry before we send our special forces there.

Good link, Thanks.

[-] 4 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

thought this might interest you - "If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is José Mujica, Uruguay's president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle. But the former guerrilla fighter is clearly disgruntled by those who tag him "the world's poorest president" and – much as he would like others to adopt a more sober lifestyle – the 78-year-old has been in politics long enough to recognise the folly of claiming to be a model for anyone.

But the man who is best known as Pepe says those who consider him poor fail to understand the meaning of wealth. "I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live," he said. "My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress." Advertisement He shares the home with his wife,Lucía Topolansky, a leading member of Congress who has also served as acting president. As I near the home of Uruguay's first couple, the only security detail is two guards parked on the approach road, and Mujica's three-legged dog, Manuela. Mujica cuts an impressively unpolished figure. Wearing lived-in clothes and well-used footwear, the bushy-browed farmer who strolls out from the porch resembles an elderly Bilbo Baggins emerging from his Hobbit hole to scold an intrusive neighbour.

The president is a former member of the Tupamaros guerrilla group, which wasnotorious in the early 1970s for bank robberies, kidnappings and distributing stolen food and money among the poor. He was shot by police six times and spent 14 years in a military prison, much of it in dungeon-like conditions. Since becoming leader of Uruguay in 2010, however, he has won plaudits worldwide for living within his means, decrying excessive consumption and pushing ahead with policies on same-sex marriage, abortion and cannabis legalisation that have reaffirmed Uruguay as the most socially liberal country in Latin America.

But the man who is best known as Pepe says those who consider him poor fail to understand the meaning of wealth. "I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live," he said. "My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress." Advertisement He shares the home with his wife,Lucía Topolansky, a leading member of Congress who has also served as acting president. As I near the home of Uruguay's first couple, the only security detail is two guards parked on the approach road, and Mujica's three-legged dog, Manuela. Mujica cuts an impressively unpolished figure. Wearing lived-in clothes and well-used footwear, the bushy-browed farmer who strolls out from the porch resembles an elderly Bilbo Baggins emerging from his Hobbit hole to scold an intrusive neighbour.

Uruguay's options to improve society are limited, he believes, by the power of global capital. "I'm just sick of the way things are. We're in an age in which we can't live without accepting the logic of the market," he said. "Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy … What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us." The president lives within his means and promotes the use of renewable energy and recycling in his government's policies. At the United Nations' Rio+20 conference on sustainable development last year, he railed against the "blind obsession" to achieve growth through greater consumption. But, with Uruguay's economy ticking along at a growth rate of more than 3%, Mujica – somewhat grudgingly, it seems – accepts he must deliver material expansion. "I'm president. I'm fighting for more work and more investment because people ask for more and more," he said. "I am trying to expand consumption but to diminish unnecessary consumption … I'm opposed to waste – of energy, or resources, or time. We need to build things that last. That's an ideal, but it may not be realistic because we live in an age of accumulation." Asked for a solution to this contradiction, the president admits he doesn't have the answers, but the former Marxist said the search for a solution must be political. "We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction," he said. "But we think as people and countries, not as a species."

. "The world will always need revolution. That doesn't mean shooting and violence. A revolution is when you change your thinking. Confucianism and Christianity were both revolutionary," he said. But he is cynical about demonstrations organised by social networks that quickly dissolve before they have a capacity to build anything lasting. "The protesters will probably finish up working for multinationals and dying of modern diseases. I hope that I am wrong about that."

[-] 3 points by johannus (386) from Newburgh, NY 9 years ago

What an admirable man, Uruguay's President Jose' Mujica is.

But when he says, "The protesters will probably finish up working for multinationals and dying of modern diseases. I hope that I am wrong about that."

I say, 'I believe that you are wrong about that, Pepe'.

[-] 4 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

we saw that happen to too many of our generation. pepe hopes you are right!

[-] -2 points by StillModestCapitalist (343) 9 years ago

Why do you suppose that is?

I'll give you a jumble to help you figure it out.

TI KSEAM HMET IRHCRE.

http://occupywallst.org/forum/ows-readers-beware-our-site-has-been-taken-over-by/

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

ebola! ebola! ebola!

[-] 3 points by elf3 (4203) 9 years ago

How can he not be correct about that? When multinational conglomerates buy up the world and take over as the only businesses....where will we work. Aside from this I don't know if you've all noticed but small businesses are modeling themselves after them...they strive to be like the big chains....hell most of them want to get big enough to sell to them. The landlords control this as well...if they can't keep up they won't be able to pay their raising rents. It is this unstoppable machine driven by "whatever the market will bare" ...even if you end up in a small company with good ideals...your manager who was schooled by the system will fight it...they will rule and subdue you. Most ceo's have no idea about the interemployee relations going on underneath them. Our food source continues to be poisoned by Monsanto as we seem powerless to even get labeling on our food letting us know if it has been irradiated or genetically altered and our water sources continue to be loaded down with chemicals like flouride that have been banned in other nations. We must limit our fish intake once our healthiest food source because it is so bogged down with mercury. As I step back and look at the employment opportunities available to me ...and the ever rising cost of our polluted food and water options I stand frozen on a conveyor belt yelling to some great god head of justice to please push the off button. Is anyone listening? Can we jam the gears? Are we powerless against our own government and these large corporate institutions that now oversee it? Are we too hopeful? Will we give up when the reality hurts to much and reform our shapes to become the cogs that stop squeaking and no longer even slow the works. Will we have children and refocus our lives into a present focus as our global views blur into the background and we find ourselves at the mall looking around for the latest christmas fad and overpriced decorations. A societal shift will only happen when this movement and our daily life practices conjoin. When we stop bending to the pressure to fit in ...to appear content...to continue the practices and culture of the consumer machine. When we talk about our ideals and the inevitable eyeroll and the downward looks of your immature idealism are thrown in your face....will you back off? Will you be shamed and silenced? Will you finally bend to the pressure for fear of becoming the caricature that has been drawn over you by the propaganda machine to cover what is rational...with the irrational and appearance of your own neurosis and hysteria of a self created doom? How will you handle this? When you become the villains of society not the messengers of positive change? Will you back down and lead a double life blogging under the cover of anonimity while daily blending in to live in the machine...is this movement doomed to become our bedtime story and a dream we tuck away as we drive off to work with our Foxconn suicide labor phones in our pockets heading for our multinational regime jobs. We walk in, greet our coworkers, talk about the weather, compliment a shirt or two made in China...take a seat in a chair from Staples...waste enough paper daily to kill a forest. Pull the lever that drives the machine and log in on our HP or Dell computers. Grab a non fair trade coffee on our break brimming with pesticides and farmed with child labor ...don't bother to recycle it when the bin is overflowing. We are stuck in a loop. When and how will we break it? Can we? What are the sacrifices we must make to even begin a dent? Will enough people be willing? We can't have it both ways. We can't partake while sipping our lattes and living comfortably and fight the system at the same time. We will be the villains, we must make sacrifices involving our own comfort, we must not bend to the positivity police and eyerolls. We have to integrate our ideals into our daily lives. This is hard to do...it is a lonely road...and especially an uncertain road...if you end up on your soapbox alone as others look on from their seemingly comfortable happy lives where you are just the crazy one holding your doomsday sign.

[-] -2 points by StillModestCapitalist (343) 9 years ago

That depends on the financial gain. If selling out makes them rich, then sell out they will.

We must make the very concept of extreme personal wealth socially unacceptable.

No exceptions for celebrities.

http://occupywallst.org/forum/ows-readers-beware-our-site-has-been-taken-over-by/

[-] 3 points by elf3 (4203) 9 years ago

I think the most dangerous idea in society is that we must sacrifice our present day existence for retirement. That by the time your life has passed you by and your desire and spark have winked out that you should finally begin to live has people running a treadmill that serves the machine. By the time people realize retirement is a sham and their health starts to degrade and that it is just pointless to set off on new adventures or explore lifes options in height of their decay. Sorry but why? Why is everyone buying into this? Fools ...stuffing the stock market...fools working 3 jobs to stash away every penny...fools running a treadmill to their inevitable doom. Life is too work centered. Life needs more. We need time...when we are young and full of excitement and ideas and still have a spark that drives us to new things and ideas to compassion...and openess. It is work not wealth that is a danger to society. The idea of society is to ease our burdens...not to drive us deeper and deeper into this system of burdens and labor. When human being are Forced into robot ethic...work until you drop...work until you die...put off living until you are decrepit and sickly...work your life away. Wealth is the escape...the only escape ...or so society and our system has dictated...that the only freedom from working your life away...watching it wilt detached from the feelings and pleasure of really living...is to be rich. And so wealth is the escape...from this wretched system we chose to create and perpetuate because noone has thought that perhaps we ought to change the way we live and the ideals that drive us into this. Perhaps we need less work...perhaps we need less consumerism...perhaps we need to appreciate small things like nature and creativity...perhaps we need to change our whole way of life. The weight of wealth rests on our way of life...how bad we need to escape it. And if we need to escape from our system...then what kind of system do we have? A system where the lucky ones may live? A system where less than one percent get to enjoy the short trip we take on the merry go round that circles around but the rest of us are underneath it cleaning the gears so it rides smooth for those on top...never taking in the view ....never taking a seat until the very end of it and too weary and broken to fully enjoy it as you round that last bend? This goes deeper than wealth ...it strikes into the iron fist beliefs that hold up our ideals. They can change...but first we have to realize what it is we are doing. There is no spoon. It is just our belief in the spoon that refuses to bend. Collectively...we can crawl out of the shadows of forced labor...collectively we can reshift what we value and how we want to spend our days on the planet. Do you want to spend your life in the dark cleaning the gears...or get out in the air and feel life? Work is not life...life is not work. The system has us brainwashed to believe that there is no other way than to become rich when really we just need to change our system.

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Benjamin Franklin said that a penny saved is a penny earned. Nowadays, it is more like a penny saved is at least two pennies earned, due to the management/administrative overhead and taxes. It helps to expend one's wanderlust early in life. I was adventuresome but everytime on my return, I welcomed home, sweet home, with a sigh of relief. I discovered that the grass IS often greener on the other side because the grass blades stand mostly vertically, definitely greener looking from the side than from the top. Zero is the magical number of all possibilities and resistant to all manipulations by the machine. The Nazis had, "Work shall set you free!" If we believe that, we have found a place where we belong.

[-] 6 points by elf3 (4203) 9 years ago

We exist only to labor ...and life is lived as a side dish. We get snippets of who we could be ...we come to roost because we aren't free from the system it has us right from our early education onward. We belong to it...and we perpetuate it with the notion we are somehow in charge of the decision to accept it. When we emerge bloody and scarred from a brave and ferocious battle to derail the system that convinces us we are in charge of our destiny when in fact we will always be a servant of it...can we say we took charge of our own destinys...until then we are all lying to ourselves We will never be free until we free ourselves ...freedom is not the same as pretending we are free....even if you sometimes enjoy your imprisonment

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Capitalism's magic rests on the success of this Nazi indoctrination("Arbeit macht frei.") that licking their jackboots is a glorious job that shall set us free. Imprisonment is a relative term so our minds can set us free. It is also possible to minimize our linkage to the diseased economic system through quarantine procedures.

[-] -2 points by StillModestCapitalist (343) 9 years ago

So Uruguay is doing good things? Is that the position here? Well then, I have one hell of a stumper for you!

Turns out the people of Uruguay, unlike the morons who promote Russell Brand, actually showed up to vote. They showed up and voted for liberals.

And that liberal President doing great things, that's right. VOTED IN.

Go figure!

This year, seven Latin American countries held presidential elections and, in all but two cases, turnout exceeded that of the 2012 U.S. presidential elections. In every country except Colombia, over half of eligible voters cast their ballots, and in three countries, turnout exceeded 80 percent. For first-round votes, Bolivia’s turnout came in highest. During both first rounds and runoffs, Colombia had the lowest turnout. And among the five countries that held second rounds, Uruguay topped the list.

All of these countries have some form of mandatory voting, with the exception of Colombia. In Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama, voting is compulsory but there are no sanctions for those who abstain. Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay impose sanctions on those who fail to show up at the polls. (These countries have low numbers of blank votes—less than 4 percent). In Brazil, voters must pay a small fine, but if they fail to pay it, they can be barred from certain government services, like getting a passport or taking a civil service exam. In Bolivia, the fine is more substantial, and those who fail to pay can even get banned from making bank transactions as well as government services. In Uruguay, non-voters must pay a fine and if they don’t, they risk getting shut out of services like taking public university entrance exams.

Out of the seven countries, Bolivia had the highest turnout: over 90 percent. Former Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom, who served as head of the Organization of American States’ electoral observer mission in Bolivia, lauded the Andean country’s voter turnout as “an example for Latin America.”

Meanwhile, Colombia—where voting is optional—saw the lowest turnout among all seven countries. In fact, it experienced the lowest turnout rate in two decades during the first round of voting in May. Some analysts say voters grew weary of mudslinging on the campaign trail. Political scientist Marcela Prieto told El Tiempo that “people are tired of the bickering and it’s evident that a connection was lacking between the candidates and the topics Colombians want to hear about: education, jobs, health.” 

During Brazil’s first-round vote in October, the combined number of abstentions, blank, and null votes amounted to the highest level since 1998. However, abstention overall remained stable at around 19 percent; it tends to fluctuate at around 20 percent for presidential elections. Plus, Estado de São Paulo pointed out that abstention partially stems from a lack of updates to voter lists, which sometimes include people who have passed away.

The elections ended in some form of continuity in most countries. Voters in Bolivia, Brazil, and Colombia reelected their presidents; in El Salvador and Panama, the sitting vice president won the vote for the country’s highest office. In Uruguay, meanwhile, voters chose a former president. Costa Rica was the outlier, given that an opposition candidate who polled fourth came out the victor.

http://www.as-coa.org/blogs/2014-election-blog-voter-turnout-latin-americas-presidential-votes

Mark mark mark!

http://occupywallst.org/forum/ows-readers-beware-our-site-has-been-taken-over-by/

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

you apparently do not know the difference between a liberal and a radical. figures. when one of your democratic party, war mongering, sycophants to the rich behaves like the new president of uruguay - you won't have to beg people to vote. until then keep banging your tiny little drum and to get people to vote for the candidates of the rich.

[-] -3 points by StillModestCapitalist (343) 9 years ago

Conservative is lower taxes on the rich and their corporations, low regs, less financial aid for the poor, no gay marriage and more war.

Liberal is higher taxes on the rich and their corporations, more regs, more financial aid for the poor, gay marriage and less war.

Radical is extreme, untested or of fundamental change. Otherwise, it's not radical.

Uruguay's President and those who support him are liberal. Not radical.

They were VOTED into office. Take that Russell Brand!

By the way, I'm more fiscally radical than any member of Uruguay's government. I want the very concept of extreme personal wealth outlawed. I want absolute caps on income and personal wealth. Let the 'ambitious' volunteer their time once they reach their limits. Otherwise, let them rot in jail.

Mark mark mark!

http://occupywallst.org/forum/ows-readers-beware-our-site-has-been-taken-over-by/

[-] 4 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

you are an idiot - markie markie makie