Tree Hugging
Two steps forward, one step back – is that improvement in a nutshell? Half a revolution in Ecuador?
The people of Ecuador, a diverse crowd of indigenous nationalities, communities, tribes, mestizos, colonos, and old fashioned gentlemen and lady’s with Panamas, yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of a constituent assembly – popularly called the asamblea constituyente:
“SOMOS PODER CONSTITUYENTE”
Asamblea Nacional Constituyente Plurinacional y Popular
DECLARACION POLITICA:
TODO EL PODER A LA CONSTITUYENTE
Quito, 15 de marzo del 2007
Nuestra declaración es una voz colectiva que recoge el sentir de las organizaciones sociales, de los movimientos políticos, de las mujeres y hombres comprometidos con la transformación social y la liberación de nuestra Patria. Expresa la convicción de que es la hora de construir una sociedad justa, libre y soberana.”
Early Sunday evening the result was beyond dispute:
“An exit poll by CEDATOS-Gallup showed that 78.1 percent of voters approved the election of a constitutional assembly while 11.5 percent rejected the proposal and 10.4 spoiled their ballots or cast blank ones.” (AP)
So far so good; and well done Correa & Co. Good choice!
With such wind in the sails, Correa announced that the IMF can stuff it! Two days ago Venezuela rejected an IMF report, and Correa joined in on the chorus:
Check out what he said….
Correa and Lula plot to cut down the forest and scoop out the rivers
In yesterday’s el Comercio, as in the other major Ecuadorian papers, the headlines were Correa’s visit with Lula in Brasil, which culminated in the signing of fifteen economic convenios (agreements) ordered in three categories: (i) to widen the energy cooperation; (ii) widen the financial integration (in Latin American, one of Correa’s main points); and (iii) a commission that shall analyse the situation of a corridor from Manta to Manaus.
!these are not tree-huggers, but loggers!
The corridors – and the devastating effect it is likely to have on the environment and the culture and livelihoods of the people who live along the roads and rivers to be turned into commodity highways – has been a topic in previous entries and this entry shall serve only to reiterate where Mr. Correa is taking his neo-socialist movement: to the destruction of the forest while ignoring the land and culture of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.. Read the rest of this entry »
Cultural Corridor Letter to the world!
Hi World,
This letter was sent in an email to a conference organiser, but it looks like it could be read by anyone interested in these matters:
One of the projects that I am fiddling with here (on the side of my PhD) concerns a network of community-based botanical gardens in the Napo-Ucayali corridor.
As you might be aware, Correa, Lula and Chavez (for instance an oil pipeline to Argentina), as well as of course the Peruvian state, have great plans for “corredores inter-oceanicos” which will essentially, finally, cut the Amazon apart in order to bring cheap consumer goods, in the short term, to the Brasilian cities, and in the long term to all of the continent, of course, –and the last trees and oil and other natural resources back to China, so that they can produce the plastics to come here….
Correa and Econofascism: a mere rant with grains of truth.
The Econofascist writes, as compiled by Ecuador Rising:
“With his enormous popularity rating of more than 70%, Mr Correa can be expected to vigorously pursue his radical reform plans. The referendum is likely to take place as planned, probably with the support of at least one opposition party, the Partido Social Patriótico (PSP, of former President Lucio Gutiérrez), the second-largest party in congress. Moreover, the public is apt to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the constituent assembly and reform of the constitution, in a clear victory for the president.
Yet Mr Correa now is likely to find it difficult to achieve consensus on the specific responsibilities of the constituent assembly and the finer details of the reforms. Moreover, even if the PSP backs the process, this support will be fragile, as its leader, Mr Gutiérrez, seeks concessions that will increase his own political influence. Absent these, he could withdraw his support.
Finally, the main features of Ecuadorean politics—social and regional tensions, weak and divided institutions, and frequent popular protest—will keep the risk of instability, and the threats to Mr Correa’s ability to govern, very high.”
Calling on all Globalisation Pirates and Cultural Rebels: the boat is leaving any minute!
Calling on all Globalisation Pirates and Cultural Rebels: the boat is leaving any minute!
Having realised that political organising (in Amazonia, everywhere?) all too often falls prey to the lures of power corrupting even the best of intentions once the gap between representer and the represented grows to an irreconcilable division of minds, bodies and communities, or, even worse, realising that political organising simply bores people (refer in particular to the previous point for justification of that sentiment), and simply does not cut deep enough (how could technocratic thinking actually reach communities embedded in a poetic cosmovision?), we call for a story-telling, myth-carrying, ideas inter-changing and multifariously cultural boat to float down the river!
Ayahuasca: shifting the assemblage point
Drank ayahuasca tonight, for the fourth time. One thought worth reporting might be explained by way of the great fiction of Carlos Castaneda and his concept of “assemblage point”. Anyone is free to think what they like about his work, but like flies to shit the figures speak for themselves: it is popular. For me the books were instrumental, formative, eye-opening in my early 20s – great metaphors and possibilities for thought patterns, well wrapped in humourous prose in words attributed to Don Juan.
So what did he say? Well…. get off your flippin’ tits, init? Almost.
A Road of Destruction: the Manta-Belém corredor
The projected trade route from the Pacific port town Manta in Ecuador to the Atlantic port Belém in Brasil is a serious threat to the rain forest and its humble inhabitants. The main purpose of the corredor is to bring commodities from Asia to Brasil, the “justification” that this poor under-developed area needs improvement (= capitalist, economic development).
The world is already criss-crossed by roads, covered in a thick crust of asphalt, which is “sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits.
But this road is not made of asphalt alone.
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