NYT article on Peruvian elections

[surfscum]

Read it and weep (for Peru).

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/opinion/03wed3.html?ex=1149134400&en=1230668cbf58a000&ei=5070

[doombug]

From your link:

"Last month Ollanta Humala, a military man whose family advocates the shooting of gays, Jews and Chilean investors, came in first in presidential elections. Since Mr. Humala did not get 50 percent, there will be a runoff on May 28.

More bad news: the other candidate will be Alan García, a spectacularly irresponsible and corrupt president in the late 1980's who wrecked Peru's economy and presided over the commission of widespread war crimes. This sorry duo topped a field that included several excellent candidates."

Is this a form of national masochism?  Either that or Humala spiked the country's pisco supply.

The closest comparison I could find:

"Peoples and ethnic groups are like boughs and petals; they grow and decay, but seldom resurrect. France and England may evoke their glorious past, but this past will invariably have to be adjusted to their new ethnically fractured reality. Lithuania was, several centuries ago, a gigantic continental empire; today it is a speck on the map. The obscure Moscow in the 15th century became the center of the future Russian steamroller because other principalities, such as Suzdal or Novgorod, fantasized more about aesthetics than power politics. Great calamities, such as wars and famines, may be harbingers of a nation's collapse, but license and demographic suicide can also determine the outcome of human drama. Post-ideological Europe will soon discover that it cannot forever depend on the whims of technocratic elites who are in search of the chimera of the "common European market." As always, the meaning of carnal soil and precious blood will spring forth from those who best know how to impose their destiny on those who have already decided to relinquish theirs. Or to paraphrase Carl Schmitt, when a people abandons politics, this does not mean the end of politics; it simply means the end of a weaker people ."
http://www.rosenoire.org/articles/decline.php

On second thought, "abandoning politics [through] demographic suicide" is a more apt description of what's going on in LA.

  



 

[SocialDreg]

Why should I weep?  There is an old axiom that people deserve the government that they have.  If  people don't like something about their lot in life, then fight to change it.

[JimmySTLOUIS]

I just came back from a week in Lima. I dont want to start a flame war on this but I am concerned for Peru.


This is my opinion from what I can gather. El Comerico shows Garcia  the favorite but Humala has all the rural (poor) vote. I was hoping the expats and the Lima vote would carry Flores but no luck. Flores would have given Peru the chance to keep moving forward not backwards.

THE MAIN PROBLEM AS I SEE IT

Peru requires people to vote and since most people are very un-educated you now have a huge voting base of a bunch of un-educated people. So all you need to really do to get elected is come up with the mst left wing ideas like take money from the "rich" and give to the poor. Sounds nice right? I used to feel this was OK until I started working my ass off to try and get ahead.

We all know the income redistribution doesnt work or at least most republicans do see this.
But the very poor people just think that the new leftist government is going to give them something for free or at least take things from the "rich" until everyone is poor.

There is now a growing middle class in Peru. What the poor people cant see (and who can expect the to see it  - I guess) is that the "rich" will just hang on to their money and not spend it and the middle class will have no chance at moving up and the poor will have even less of a chance at moving up. The up and comers (middle class) will be the ones who get crushed in all this. The middle and upper income people are what makes the world go around. With out those groups you are sunk.

So as long as Peru requires people to vote (and most people are un-educated) you are always going to have crazy leftist government.

TE AMO PERU!!!!

jim

[conocerme]

So as long as Peru requires people to vote (and most people are un-educated) you are always going to have crazy leftist government.

Or another case is Venezuela, which is energy rich with a valuable commodity = OIL.  Chavez has been in power and stays in power because the great majority of the country is poor (I have heard 80%) and and vote for and support him.  He uses the oil revenues to placate them.

conocerme