Gustavo Petro declared new president of Colombia (the first Leftist President) - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15234068
Hi folks, the first Leftist president of the nation of Colombia wins the presidency.

If you are unfamiliar with Gustavo Petro read about him here:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_P ... lternativo

He is interesting.

Black woman from Colombia is vice president.





;)
#15234073
Tainari88 wrote:Hi folks, the first Leftist president of the nation of Colombia wins the presidency.

If you are unfamiliar with Gustavo Petro read about him here:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_P ... lternativo

He is interesting.

Black woman from Colombia is vice president.





;)


@Tainari88 :

Hey, maybe now he can help Columbia export food, instead of the US backed Oligarchy forcing farmers to grow Coca, and have Columbia cease importing food like they do now. Maybe he'll help trade union leaders and journalists and others not get murdered by death squads. Maybe he can run Columbia for Columbians-a novel concept!
#15234088
Tainari88 wrote:Hi folks, the first Leftist president of the nation of Colombia wins the presidency.

If you are unfamiliar with Gustavo Petro read about him here:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_P ... lternativo

He is interesting.

Black woman from Colombia is vice president.





;)

It looks like things are finally changing for the better in Colombia. :up:
#15234091
Potemkin wrote:It looks like things are finally changing for the better in Colombia. :up:


While the USA is busy in the Middle East and Europe, and they can't afford to spend more on weapons and wars out of their pockets and they loosen their grip on South America? Things change.

In the end, you either get great results for your people or you don't. From the fruit they produce as a government you shall know who they are. Good fruit? Good government. Rotten fruit? Rotten government. That goes for both the Right and the Left.

Always get humble, responsible, high consciousness human rights people and you WIN.

Petro is reknown for human rights, and ultra educated and thorough policies. He was mayor of Bogotá in Colombia. AMLO was mayor of Mexico City.
#15234094
Tainari88 wrote:While the USA is busy in the Middle East and Europe, and they can't afford to spend more on weapons and wars out of their pockets and they loosen their grip on South America? Things change.

In the end, you either get great results for your people or you don't. From the fruit they produce as a government you shall know who they are. Good fruit? Good government. Rotten fruit? Rotten government. That goes for both the Right and the Left.

Always get humble, responsible, high consciousness human rights people and you WIN.

Petro is reknown for human rights, and ultra educated and thorough policies. He was mayor of Bogotá in Colombia. AMLO was mayor of Mexico City.

And Boris Johnson was mayor of London, and Erdogan was mayor of Istanbul. Lol. ;)

But yeah, I take your point - the fact that he served a successful term as mayor of the nation’s capital gave him invaluable political experience, and also allayed the fears of the establishment that he might start purging them all at any moment. And that’s not a joke - evil people believe that everyone else is also evil. A thief thinks that everyone else is also a thief, and a murderer thinks that everyone else is also a murderer. Petro, during his term as mayor, was able to prove them wrong, just as AMLO had done in Mexico.
#15234100
Rugoz wrote::roll:

You don't have to be evil to suspect left-wingers of being vain power-hungry assholes. There are plenty of them.

Not that I know anything about this guy. I heard his opponent was a lunatic though, so I suppose it's the better choice.

Well, Colombians are certainly aware by now that there are plenty of right-wingers who are vain power-hungry assholes. They wanted a change for once.
#15235914
Unthinking Majority wrote:Just don't nationalize US-interested industries and I assume the US gov will mostly leave them alone. Sucks but it's true, not much that can be done unfortunately.


Colombia has had a lot of Far Right pro USA presidents. It has not solved poverty, drugs, violence or corruption. The Left has a good track record of dealing with poverty, and sane drug policies and going after corruption in Colombia.

García Márquez was a journalist in Colombia and he wrote about what happened under the pro USA right wing presidents. None of it was good.

The left does a good job but always has pressure from the well funded US backed groups in the Right. They are always Right @Unthinking Majority there are no backed by the US leftists in any Latin American nations. Why? The left usually represents the poor people and the working class. The corporations that are wealthy established in the USA are into exploiting and paying shit to those people in those nations. So the LEFT there will never get the support from the US government. The government of the US never supports workers in Latin America.

That is reality.
#15235917
Rancid wrote:Good for Colombia for having a free and fair election.

Odds are, this guys will fuck up though.The assumption that he will be successful solely on that fact that he's a leftist, is basically stupid.


I mean its not bad a leftist needs to be given a shot in Colombia since the right has always been in charge since forever. I mean there are history of leftists destroying democracy in south America but you can't be sceptical like that about everyone.
#15235921
JohnRawls wrote:I mean its not bad a leftist needs to be given a shot in Colombia since the right has always been in charge since forever. I mean there are history of leftists destroying democracy in south America but you can't be sceptical like that about everyone.


I'm skeptical of the viability of democracy in general at this point, including the US. :hmm:
#15235933
Tainari88 wrote:Colombia has had a lot of Far Right pro USA presidents. It has not solved poverty, drugs, violence or corruption. The Left has a good track record of dealing with poverty, and sane drug policies and going after corruption in Colombia.

García Márquez was a journalist in Colombia and he wrote about what happened under the pro USA right wing presidents. None of it was good.

The left does a good job but always has pressure from the well funded US backed groups in the Right. They are always Right @Unthinking Majority there are no backed by the US leftists in any Latin American nations. Why? The left usually represents the poor people and the working class. The corporations that are wealthy established in the USA are into exploiting and paying shit to those people in those nations. So the LEFT there will never get the support from the US government. The government of the US never supports workers in Latin America.

That is reality.

I agree. They will throw a bone here or there, like disaster relief or taking in some refugees, but if they have to choose between corporate profits vs Latin American people they will choose the money.
#15235967
Unthinking Majority wrote:I agree. They will throw a bone here or there, like disaster relief or taking in some refugees, but if they have to choose between corporate profits vs Latin American people they will choose the money.


That is why Unthinking that if they take their eyes off the ball in most of the Latin American nations and let China get a foothold in infrastructure there? They will not be able to reverse it. Too spent trying to control the Middle East, the Far East, and the European Union.


The Right has failed so badly in the many governments they have ruled in for generations doing the US corporate bidding? They have no political currency left.

The USA has backed right-wing torture dictators in practically every nation in Latin America. The population does not trust anything about the Right in Latin America. Why should they? A bunch of sellouts to corporations and foreign plutocrats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_tide
#15235971
Tainari88 wrote:That is why Unthinking that if they take their eyes off the ball in most of the Latin American nations and let China get a foothold in infrastructure there? They will not be able to reverse it. Too spent trying to control the Middle East, the Far East, and the European Union.


The Right has failed so badly in the many governments they have ruled in for generations doing the US corporate bidding? They have no political currency left.

The USA has backed right-wing torture dictators in practically every nation in Latin America. The population does not trust anything about the Right in Latin America. Why should they? A bunch of sellouts to corporations and foreign plutocrats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_tide


In all honesty the left also has a really bad track record in south America. Venezuela is a prime modern example of that.

The long story short for me is that Colombia has functioning democracy and switching from soft left to right is what is really good and helps any country. MEans corruption decreases, means changes will happen and so on. Colombia was lacking in this regard due to the civil war but more or less, it seems to be over which is a good thing.
#15235972
JohnRawls wrote:In all honesty the left also has a really bad track record in south America. Venezuela is a prime modern example of that.

The long story short for me is that Colombia has functioning democracy and switching from soft left to right is what is really good and helps any country. MEans corruption decreases, means changes will happen and so on. Colombia was lacking in this regard due to the civil war but more or less, it seems to be over which is a good thing.


No, John Rawls. You tend to think that the Left is like the Soviet Union from Europe. I know a lot of ex communist countries like Estonia people who hate the left because the Left was authoritarian, incompetent and repressive with the citizens of those nations of whom you are a part of...think that way. Latin American leftism is not at all like Soviet or Russian or European Leftism. It never has been. But you don't know it because you naturally side with the US's stances in this side of the world. Even when it is blatantly immoral, anti-democratic and wrong.

Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves. It has had Right-wing pro-USA people in there for a very long time. They never dealt with helping the poor and the working class and did not do shit for any of the lower classes all with the blessing of the USA John Rawls. So the problem becomes leaders who do a botched job of trying to stem the bleeding from all the instability because the educated and the powerful leave the nation rather than stay and deal with Left governments. They take their money with them and they plead with the ones controlling the petro dollar to starve them out until the Right-wingers are in charge again. But they got a huge popular poverty wave of people who HATE those Right-wing people because they lived their shitty policies for a long time.

That is the reality John.
#15235976
Tainari88 wrote:No, John Rawls. You tend to think that the Left is like the Soviet Union from Europe. I know a lot of ex communist countries like Estonia people who hate the left because the Left was authoritarian, incompetent and repressive with the citizens of those nations of whom you are a part of...think that way. Latin American leftism is not at all like Soviet or Russian or European Leftism. It never has been. But you don't know it because you naturally side with the US's stances in this side of the world. Even when it is blatantly immoral, anti-democratic and wrong.

Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves. It has had Right-wing pro-USA people in there for a very long time. They never dealt with helping the poor and the working class and did not do shit for any of the lower classes all with the blessing of the USA John Rawls. So the problem becomes leaders who do a botched job of trying to stem the bleeding from all the instability because the educated and the powerful leave the nation rather than stay and deal with Left governments. They take their money with them and they plead with the ones controlling the petro dollar to starve them out until the Right-wingers are in charge again. But they got a huge popular poverty wave of people who HATE those Right-wing people because they lived their shitty policies for a long time.

That is the reality John.


Venezuela lost 20% of its population and its GDP decreased by 400% because of Maduro and Chavez. Come on.
#15235978
Biden was one of the chief architects of Plan Colombia.

This was supposed to be a Marshall Plan for Colombia, but ended up being a military aid package ostensibly for counter-narcotics work.

The actual impact it had on lowering cocaine coming into the USA was negligible, and perhaps even made drug lords more money.

It did help the Colombian military and its partners, the paramilitary squads.

These same paramilitary squads are responsible for things like the 2008 False Positives scandal. The right wing paramilitary squads killed thousands of poor and mentally ill people, dressed them in FARC uniforms, and claimed the dead bodies were rebels.

This is what the current POTUS and his right wing Colombian buddies did.
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