BoRev.Net

@El_Cid: actually my question was something else, I don't think I made myself terribly clear. It wasn't what factors made Spain become a high-income country, but rather what is it in Spain's economy that adds so much value that it's GDP is "high". This is probably just because I don't understand economics and how GDP is calculated. It's manufacturing doesn't seem to be particularly innovative (I may be mistaken in this: I know that they do have some renewable energy stuff, etc. etc.) So where does the "high value added" thingie in Spain's economy come from? Is it the banks? The tourism?

Suppose Spain was located in some part of the world, surrounded by, say, middle income countries, exported the same things that it currently does, and the internal economy is roughly the same, and say, some other country helps build up infrastructure to the level it in fact has. Will it have the same income level roughly?

Suppose all of Latin America and the Caribbean hadn't been so badly screwed over this past century. I'm sure things would look vastly different there too.

I suggest looking into the late geographer J. M. Blau's work The Colonizer's Model of the World, which takes on the notion that there was something inherently magical about Western Europe which (a) caused it to develop more rapidly than other areas (economically), and (b) allowed it to do without having to, um, mention all the riches taken from the rest of the world.

I should have said "high income" countries probably. Here's a simple way of rephrasing my question. Suppose Spain was located in some part of the world, surrounded by, say, middle income countries, exported the same things that it currently does, and the internal economy is roughly the same, and say, some other country helps build up infrastructure to the level it in fact has. Will it have the same income level roughly?

I don't think the term "first world" means "maximally developed".

The term just grew during the 1950s as more and more people noticed the wrongness of trying to group most of the world in the two common groups of either the U.S. allied industrial nations or the Soviet bloc, hence, the notion of a "third" group or "third" world prompted the term to be extended to the first two groups. First, Second, Third. A lot of the later formed as the Non-Aligned Movement.

And the Spanish are very frequently astonishingly patronizing towards and dismissive of Latin America and Latin Americans, but there has been a greater amount of recent investment by large Spanish companies and occasionally by large Latin firms in Spain.

And Spain's education system is not that great. And, they have a massive inferiority complex wrt the rest of Europe. Which they compensate for by a disgusting paternalism/racism towards Latin Americans. (One reason I cant watch Spanish TV).

True dat. The point of my question was somewhat different, though. What is the economic basis for Spain's relative prosperity? Spain's modern infrastructure was built partly with help from the Brits, I think, as part of it joining the EU. But it doesn't produce much, it's industries are not very productive and competitive, it's exports mostly agro and some relatively low value-added chain stuff, etc. etc. I know there are tons of banks and all and that most of the economy based on services (I think).

Spain's public health is not bad (I certainly prefer it to the US one, and have been satisfied with it so far), but it covers much less than Northern European ones; Spain's social spending as a percentage of the GDP is significantly lower than the EU-15 average once you correct for GDP; Spain is also one of the more unequal countries by western European standards. The other thing is that for years Spain has been growing on bubbles. So my question was more about that ...

Does anyone here know why Spain is a first world country?

Jamon Iberico.

But Spain has a modern transport and communications infrastructure, livable cities, social programs which keep their population healthy and comparatively well educated.

Does anyone know why the U.S. is a first world country?

Does anyone here know why Spain is a first world country?

I would think that the CIA-funded cult would be much more likely carriers of swine flu than Vzlan soldiers, but I digress.

Clearly Hugo Chavez poisoned them with swine flu.

Simon fucking Romero is at it again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/world/americas/06briefs-004.html?_r=1

This is a new low. Blaming "increasing militarization of the Amazon" and the expulsion of a CIA-connected CULT for the swine flu deaths of natives? Asshole.

Yeah, I had heard rumors of the DeMint-Valenzuela business. Valenzuela may not be a bad choice; at least Jose Vicente Rangel seems to think that while not ideal, at least he wants better US-Venezuela relations, for example.

Oops, sorry, link.

After years of blaming their neighbors for their ongoing civil war, Colombia's defense establishment finally proves that Ecuador refuses to go after the FARC which is hiding out in their territory, and the Ecuadoran government knows where:

Colombia gave Ecuador a map detailing the possible location of FARC camps on Ecuadorean territory.

The map contains no concrete information on FARC presence, according to the Ecuadorean Defense Minister.

Minister Javier Ponce said the map contained "outlining the zones where they [the FARC] may possibly be", information already known of by Ecuadorean authorities, El Universo reported Friday.

Maybe they used the same people who designed the Republican budget proposal which didn't have any numbers in it but had a nice flowchart.

Apparently the trade was making Jim DeMint Acting Secretary of State (Informal) for Honduras if he'd stop blocking the nomination of the scholar Arturo Valenzuela to represent Latin American affairs at State.

Hey, at least this means Valenzuela won't lack for things to do! The whole Honduran thing will stay interesting for a good while now!

After reading Sister Dianna Ortiz's memoir, this all makes sense. Back when the Clintons ran the show, it was Guatemala. Now it's Honduras, and they're still keeping the bad Reagan-Bush policy line going.

Aaargh. (head, desk)

Meanwhile, Colombia's Supreme Court once again publicly begs please don't let us be killed.

The President of the Court a couple of months ago complained that he had already been informed by close associates and sources in the government that he and other justices were targets for assassination by the paramilitaries.

I'm sure that Acting Secretary of State Jim DeMint, though, will make sure and issue a statement how these liberal pro-guerrilla judges shouldn't be making themselves such targets.

The Clintons have creepy friends in Latin America, it's old. She seems to be running her own foreign policy. She also says stupid and completely uninformed things everywhere she goes. After all, the biggest pusher of neolib policies in Lat Am was Clinton, ya know.

By the way, if I might be so rude as to ask, where is all this god-damned amazing Hillary Clinton discipline that she was going to magically bring to the State Department?

This whole affair has been a clown show of various U.S. officials (State Dept or otherwise) claiming to speak in the name of the U.S. and -- forget their innate and gut level hatred for the region's populist left like Zelaya -- constantly undermining the negotiating position of the U.S.

At one moment the U.S. will publicly state it stands with the OAS to restore elected government to Honduras, and then some U.S. official will go talk on the record to the press insulting Zelaya.

Now here they are at the very point of restoring a few weeks of a recognizable legal government in Honduras, an agreement that the State Department and the U.S. crowed publicly about, and you have a Senator and a State Department rep telling the press (and therefore the coup government) that, no, we really don't give a shit who you stick up there in the Presidency of this Government of National Reconciliation.

Yeah. Cute. Awesome, magic powers of discipline. A sternly coherent U.S. policy and message. Well done!

The administration appears to have allowed all those who individually suggested that they'd recognize the Honduran elections whether or not Zelaya was restored (Jim DeMint, Thomas Shannon) to set the tone to the apparent pleasure of the coup regime, even though there was never any official declaration of this interpretation by the U.S.:

Critics say the de facto government appears to be stalling, expecting that once the elections go ahead, the international community will recognize them.

What is more, they say, Mr. Shannon’s remarks on recognizing the elections leave the Obama administration with little leverage to enforce the accord. Christopher Sabatini, senior director for policy at the Council of the Americas, in New York, said that the Obama administration appeared willing to accept the elections’ outcome rather than admit that there was no guarantee when and how Honduran legislators would vote.

It's your choice -- you can view this as collusion by the Obama administration with the pro-golpists; an admission by the Obama administration that they just didn't feel they could make a difference; or incompetence or laziness in being unwilling to take command of representing the official foreign policy of the U.S. government in intense negotiations with a very delicate scenario in a government overthrown by military coup.

Okay. Just get ready.

If this goes through, there are a shit load of right wingers and potentially left wing politicians and aspiring military officers throughout the hemisphere who will now know that as long as they have a Constitutional sounding game plan, you can overthrow your elected government and have the replacement recognized, as long as you eventually do the elections thing.

You've got them champing at the bit in Paraguay, such that Paraguay's President is holding national rallies to try and avert a coup.

You've already had similar initiatives in Bolivia, and you can suspect that Nicaragua may be even sooner in the lineup.

And a lot of people are happy about this. They want coups erupting throughout the hemisphere throwing out the liberal-left. Yay!

But you wait. They won't always be on 'your' side. You might be empowering the hemisphere's next young Hugo Chavez, because anyone, in any nation, can always allege that their leadership is acting illegally and un-Constitutionally, and it's time for a change, and apparently all you need is a friendly court opinion and a post-coup legislative vote in your favor.

Or maybe I'm just feeling pessimistic this morning.

I haven't seen any such communication from Micheletti. So far he has formally received the resignation of his "Cabinet", but nothing has yet been said about who would head the restitution government.

Meanwhile, the resistance doesn't feel like being played:

Por medio de un comunicado de prensa, los simpatizantes de Zelaya Rosales anunciaron que de no restituir al derrocado mandatario, no reconocerán el próximo proceso electoral de finales de este mes.

“Los militares van a estar en las calles defendiendo el fraude electoral el 29 de noviembre, pero también el pueblo hondureño va estar en las calles boicoteando las elecciones”, afirmó el dirigente magisterial Eulogio Chávez, quien reafirmó que varios candidatos a cargos de elección popular se retirarán de los comicios electorales.

Asimismo, los seguidores de Zelaya anunciaron movilizaciones masivas a partir de mañana, por lo que alertaron a todas las organizaciones de la resistencia a nivel nacional “para que estén prestos a ejecutar acciones de desconocimiento de la farsa electoral”.

And someone put a small home-made bomb in a bathroom near the Plaza Central.

In other words, and not so many of 'em:

WHAT FUCKING UNITY GOVERNMENT?

It seems the coup govt has issued a communique saying that Micheletti will head the "unity govt.", and that Zelaya is not part of it.

Jim DeMint, unauthorized jackass in charge of misrepresenting the U.S. position to Honduras.

So Uribe sez "we don't want to erect Berlin walls" or something to that effect.

Btw, here's a piece on Colombians in Venezuela from Últimas Noticias:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4913

Crazy hippie Robert White (former United States ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador (1980-1981)) has some weirdo hippie shit to say about the Honduran coup on the Americas Program update:

As I looked back at the rationale for the present coup, I was struck by the many similarities between the coup of 1963 and the overthrow of the constitutional government in 2009.

In 1963, toward the end of his term of office, President Villeda Morales could look back with some satisfaction on his record. His reform program had included social security, welfare payments to the poor, and a labor code.

Fearful that Villeda's likely successor, Modesto Rodas, would continue his program of moderate change, those who held the reins of economic power convinced the nation's military leaders that it was their patriotic duty to protect democracy by overthrowing President Villeda Morales and sending him into exile.

In 2009, toward the end of his term of office, President Mel Zelaya could look back with some satisfaction on his accomplishments. He had pushed through legislation to preserve the country's plundered forests, blocked efforts to privatize the national telecommunications company, revoked concessions to mining companies that harmed the environment, and raised the minimum wage. Encouraged by the broad appeal of his populist agenda, Zelaya scheduled a straw poll to determine public support for a constitutional convention to reform the constitution.

Fearful that the Honduran people might approve the reform referendum, and with it, the possibility of a second term in office—not for Zelaya, but for future presidents—those who hold the reins of economic power convinced congressional and military leaders that is was their patriotic duty to protect democracy by overthrowing President Zelaya.

In 1963, those who provoked the coup used their dominance of the press and radio to falsely accuse Villeda Morales of acting as a tool of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

In 2009, those who provoked the coup used their dominance of the press and TV to falsely accuse President Zelaya of acting as a tool of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In 1963, the successful coup ushered in a series of military dominated-governments that set limits on the exercise of civil liberties, including restrictions on free speech and assembly. Then, during the 1980s the Honduran military, with U.S. help and encouragement, established the infamous Battalion 316 that tortured and killed citizens whose only crime was to oppose the use of Honduran territory as a launching pad to attack Nicaragua and destabilize the Sandinista government.

In 2009, the coup not only failed, it damaged, perhaps fatally, the cohesion of the Liberal party, and succeeded in creating a new sense of empowerment among the leadership of the poor.

For decades, most poor Hondurans have viewed politicians with indifference and contempt. Bishop Luis Santos Villeda spoke for them when he said "There has never been a real democracy in Honduras. All we have is an electoral system where the people get to choose candidates imposed from above." He accused the wealthy elites of overthrowing Mel Zelaya because "he defended the poor."

It was true that the genuine concern Mel Zelaya had displayed for the poor had to some extent shaken people out of their political lethargy and suddenly large numbers of poor Hondurans had a cause. Guided by leaders of labor union and campesino organizations, protest marches broke out across the country. One young woman, a teacher, told an onlooker: "I am not marching for Mel Zelaya, I am marching to demand the return of constitutional government."

During the past four months of sporadic repression and declarations of martial law, that young teacher and many thousands like her have experienced a political awakening. They have discovered that in a democracy, peaceful change is possible and that corrupt leaders may eventually fall to concerted action.

Fuckin' hippie. Clearly he needs to spend a few years in the Washington Post dungeons.

The fact that Time had an article portraying Venezuela in more complex terms than an authoritarian Stalinist hell and Colombia as something other than a vibrant happy perfectly growing democracy except for those Venezuelan backed rebels (no evidence needed) will cause a rightist eruption of outrage.

In other news, Colombia walks out of an OAS human rights meeting when those human rights activists ask, like, what the hell is up with the Colombian spy agency wiretapping us and then sharing that information with death squad narco-paramilitaries.

And Colombia was all, like, 'shit, you shoulda complained about this years ago (before our documents were leaked), too bad for you, outta here', and then maybe Jim DeMint and Fred Hiatt sung a duet praising how Alvaro Uribe saves democracy.

El Gobierno de Colombia abandonó una audiencia en la CIDH en la que varias organizaciones denunciaron la existencia de una "gigantesca e ilegal" operación de inteligencia contra ONG y activistas de los derechos humanos.

El Colectivo de Abogados "José Alvear Restrepo" y el Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional (CEJIL) aseguraro que en el espionaje de las organizaciones y defensores de los derechos humanos no sólo ha participado el Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), el servicio de inteligencia de Colombia, y denunciaron además que se traspasó todas las fronteras...

...En la audiencia, el presidente del Colectivo de Abogados, Reinaldo Villalba, denunció que el espionaje del DAS y del llamado Grupo Especial de Inteligencia Estratégica (G3) no se limitó a recabar información personal y familiar de los "blancos" , sino que también llevó a cabo operaciones de "neutralización" y de "guerra psicológica" , con actos de "intimidación".

Entre otras actividades, el servicio de inteligencia recabó los datos más íntimos de las personas investigadas, de sus familias, esposas, hijos y su círculo social sobre sus intereses, debilidades, vicios, amigos, ideología y rutinas diarias.

Like, just compare with Newsweek.

Bina: I think PaulEsc and ElCid were talking in relative terms.

QueenBina,

Nevermind.
It wasn't a pig flying...it was Camilla.

That TIME article wasn't even-handed, it was another hit-piece masquerading as Objective Journalism. TIME is a CIA organ--they have to "debunk" reality from time to time. Poor dears!

Wow. That Time article is going to cause a hellstorm of butthurt by the ultra right and the South Florida nutxile community. Wonder if Time will retract or apologize?

For Spanish speakers, an interesting piece on "The University of the Indigenous" in Bolivar state, Vzla:

http://aporrea.org/poderpopular/n144998.html

The TIME Magazine people talk to Bart Jones from time to time.

Did TIME Magazine just publish an even-handed article about Venezuela & Colombia?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1934326,00.html

WOW! HOLY FRAK!!!
A pig just flew across Toronto...and I don't mean the Duchess of Cornwall.

Otra cosa buenísima:

http://colombiareports.com/opinion/129-fabro/6698-cartoon-a-military-wedding.html

Isn't it romantic?

Nice cartoon for Spanish speakers:

http://aporrea.org/internacionales/n144997.html