Tied to ALBA

It is remarkable to see the new paradigm taking shape in South America. There are times when it takes on a through the looking glass quality when you see someone like Zelaya a blue-blooded capitalista if there ever was one reinventing himself as a populist. But that is the reality when you have a Hugo Chavez sitting on a countryful of oil surrounded by a glob of dysfunctional states hobbled for centuries by Yankee domination.

Venezuela: No Zelaya, No Oil

Caracas, Jul 8.- Venezuela halted daily 20,000 oil barrel shipments to Honduras until cabinet President Manuel Zelaya return to power, said Economy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez.

It is impossible at times not to wonder if the inner soul of the neo-cons is not secretly on the side of the people. How better to insure that the second and third world's cardboard dictators and corrupted presidents are exposed as buffoons than to set forth a policy only a buffoon could envision as something stable much less successful.

But the strict "neo-liberal" line has accomplished just that. Those countries, like Argentina, that swallowed whole the flat earth philosophy ended up in a shambles with unrepayable debt. With the U.S. economy itself on its knees Obama, our "naive little negrito" as the Latin American golpistas now call him, had no choice but to make common cause with the dark but no longer exiled forces of Alba.

ALBA — the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a solidarity-based alternative to US-backed bilateral “free trade” agreements and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Chavez made the call during the closing of the first meeting of ALBA’s Council of Ministers in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.

ALBA was initiated by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004. After President Evo Morales of Bolivia and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua assumed office in January 2006 and 2007 respectively, their nations signed up to ALBA.

Chavez also spoke on the possibility of expanding ALBA to create a new regional defence pact to replace the Inter-American Defense Board, which is based in Washington DC. Granma reported that Chavez called for “joint military aid as well as intelligence and counterintelligence cooperation ‘to prepare our people for defense so that nobody makes any mistake with us’”. He explained that it was necessary because of “the terrorism and permanent aggression of the United States”.

Viva la revolution!