gcblues,
Latin America is reponsible for its own mess. A century ago Argentina had what would then be considered a First-world economy. They threw it away with Peronismo and never have recovered. Mostly they don’t even try, returning to Peronismo repeatedly. No American interventions, no American influence, Argentina was already anti-American out of puffed-up pride and vanity, their own choices wrecked their economy.
Latin America lacks property rights and the rule of law, which are the main supports of actual economic development. The one state that seemed to understand what they need was Chile after Allende was overthrown, and it did excellently for a while, but even Chile seems to be going reactionary now. Socialism is so popular because its sounds so good to uni students and peons, but all they get in the end is further impoverishment and tyranny. Nothing the US does has anything to do with inflicting this mental block on them, it’s all home-grown stupidity. It’s that that keeps them down, nothing the US does.
Maybe the Venezuelans should think harder next time about the advisability of electing as President a twit who has already tried to overthrow their Constitution and spent time in jail for it, and who spouts the reactionary rubbish Hugo did. Here again the Venezuelans brought their troubles on themselves, now possibly including Chavez starting a Galtieri-style war.
