Latin America General : Corona Carnaval

[Nakena]

(I'm assuming you actually meant to respond to me and not Novus. I can't speak for him.)

Since you seem to want to play the "but muh Western imperialism" oppression Olympics card, I got some new material right here:

My shithole passport country was subjugated by the British Empire for over two centuries with Malays, Chinese and Indians pitted against one another in a racial and religious conflict that continues till this very day with ethnic Malaysian Chinese like me being systematically threatened and routinely humiliated by Malay and Muslim supremacists, and the state I live in is currently having its oil and natural resources plundered by the peninsular states across the South China Sea who blame us for our very own state of economic backwardness while the orangutans and indigenous Penan and other Dayaks are having their verdant communities destroyed by loggers just like the very ones that are destroying the Amazon rainforest. I condemn what the British did to my shithole country and what successive governments post-formation have done over the centuries. Oh, and let's not forget the horrific crimes the Japanese committed against my grandparents' generation in WWII, both in Malaysia and in Hong Kong, for which Japan has yet to sincerely atone for its sins.

The city-state I grew up in and have adopted as my own has been protesting for freedom and democracy for five months straight while the police and Triad thugs continue to crack down with ever-increasing levels of violence and brutality while pro-CCP apologists accuse us of destroying our own city and openly call for the People's Liberation Army to murder all of us. Even more people are dying, being tortured, re-educated and having their organs harvested by a fascist superpower next door to the city I grew up in that threatens freedom, democracy, and the economic and political sovereignty of countries around the world, including Bolivia.

Post-communist, fascist, ultra-neoliberal China today is the enduring legacy of what actual communism in all its failure left in its wake. Not to mention communists operating in my passport country waged an insurgency and murdered my countrymen simply for disagreeing with them, and they weren't and have never been in government. Communism completely fucked up my part of the world with millions dead in Cambodia alone, many of them simply for the "crime" of wearing glasses, and tens of millions dead from starvation in China. In their zeal to abolish empire, the communists conjured up their very own, genocidal, imperial monstrosities, and one such imperial power lies right on my country's very doorstep and is erasing my hometown's very existence with blue-dyed water cannons and thousands upon thousands of rounds of dioxin-laced tear gas and rubber bullets every single day.

Were it not for the international focus on Hong Kong, thousands of us would have been gunned down by the PLA, and "One Country, Two Systems" would have been abolished, by now. Fascism is the legacy that communism left behind in China and Russia. While the Americans and Europeans only made my part of the world even worse off for many years to come, the Soviets and Chinese fucked it up even more, and China is by far the bigger threat over here.

*END NEW MATERIAL*

But go on about how "my state and my people endorse far-right fascist coups" when my friends in Hong Kong have been risking life and limb to do just the exact opposite for months now. What has transpired in Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador so far pales in comparison to the shit people in China are going through today. Protesters being sporadically shot by police doesn't automatically make a regime "far-right", "fascist" or any kind of dictatorship, and it doesn't make the initial revolution illegitimate and the anti-Morales protesters CIA agents paid to foment chaos and instability. It simply means the police suck at their jobs. This is as true of U.S. police departments as it is of Bolivian security forces. In fact, I would argue that the Bolivian police, despite their piss-poor Third World training and use of live ammo, are still far more restrained than the Hong Kong police despite the near-total absence of international scrutiny, and I still condemn the police shootings and brutality.

Your disingenuous characterization of anyone who even remotely tolerates the 2019 Bolivian Revolution and any revolution against a left-wing government as "tolerating a far-right fascist coup" is what's getting old. Screaming "CIA" at the top of your lungs is what's getting old. I hear this ridiculous claim being parroted all the time by China, and what's terrifying is that many people in China and the developing world actually believe this Western CIA conspiracy bullshit and want us dead for demanding freedom and democracy. You and your leftist comrades are no less guilty of enabling fascism, imperialism and totalitarianism of the "Communist", nationalist and Islamist varieties than I am, except the superpower I'm defending is an entrenched democracy that is well past its prime rather than a totalitarian fascist regime that grows increasingly more powerful by the day, so you can drop your holier-than-thou attitude and learn the concept of nuance.

Morales is known for his pro-Russia and pro-China sympathies and for opening his country up to China's Belt-and-Road debt traps, which would have destroyed the Bolivian economy and enslaved the country to China's every whim in time. This is what you're "begrudgingly" enabling when you defend him and anti-Western dictators like Maduro, Castro and others like him: one form of imperialism replaced with an even worse one, against the wishes of the protesters who toppled Morales, whom you dismiss, rather undemocratically so. Your desire to prop up pro-Russian, pro-Chinese leftist client regimes because "AmeriKKKa bad" is part of the reason Hong Kong is dying, because through your blind, ideologically-driven support of these regimes, people like you are contributing to increasing Chinese and Russian influence around the globe while American and Western influence declines, at the expense of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong and around the globe, and yet you see fit to lecture to me and Novus about morals, pawns and 4D chess.

"Anti-imperialists" like you are the reason the PRC and not the ROC is recognized as the sole legitimate government of China by the UN and most countries around the world, many of which are exceedingly corrupt, anti-Western, pro-Chinese, pro-Russian dictatorships today who find the narrative of Western imperialism and "da ebul Zionists" to be extremely useful in keeping their populations in line. "Anti-imperialism" is the reason Syria is now completely and totally fucked and hundreds of thousands of people are dead. Keep enabling these oppressive regimes instead, because "AmeriKKKa bad".

I'd rather America cautiously do business with a transitional South American government that is neither democratic nor authoritarian and it's still too early to say how things will pan out over time, over certain and complete political and economic subjugation by China. I have an urgent, personal stake in all of this, and seeing China crash and burn for all of the crimes she's committed is my absolute top priority. To achieve this objective, Chinese influence around the world must be curtailed for starters, including in South America, thereby depriving China of resources and diplomatic support at the UN. Isolating Russia is another bonus. As I said before, if the Bolivian transitional government suspends elections indefinitely, declares martial law and Bolivia morphs into a full-blown dictatorship, I will change my mind, condemn the regime and support any popular uprising against it, whether it's a left-wing or right-wing regime, without screaming "SEE EYE EY", unlike far-left communist tankie Max Blumenthal and The Grayzone. Until then, I will reserve judgment. And if an election is held and a pro-Morales candidate wins, kudos to him.

BTW, I'm not American and have never been to the Americas, in case you didn't know. Nonetheless, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the United States. For all their flaws and imperfections, the American flag still stands for freedom and democracy around the world, especially in Hong Kong, where protesters wave the flag, sing The Star-Spangled Banner and love America more than Americans themselves. The same cannot be said of China. One country is half-good, half-bad. The other is totally bad. Guess which side I'm on.

Imagine unironically spending this much time and this great many words to so simply and hypocritically say, "lolol freedom, democracy, and sovereignty for my people, but your people can go fuck themselves and get couped eggs dee xD" while trying to also simultaneously (and very hilariously incorrectly) paint us as the real hypocrites because... you think we support the Chinese government or some weird shit.

Imagine unironically being "El Anarkittismo"

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Imagine unironically spending this much time and this great many words to so simply and hypocritically say, "lolol freedom, democracy, and sovereignty for my people, but your people can go fuck themselves and get couped eggs dee xD" while trying to also simultaneously (and very hilariously incorrectly) paint us as the real hypocrites because... you think we support the Chinese government or some weird shit.

Imagine unironically being "El Anarkittismo"

Imagine unironically not knowing it was a title someone else bestowed upon her.

[Liriena]

The United States: 200 years "begrudgingly" being a malignant cancerous growth on the entire continent because, hey now, there might be even worse people across the ocean.

Get new material. Your people's "begrudging" support for coups got old and cringe in the 70s and 80s. Making that "begrudging" support more mealy mouthed and softly worded just makes it pathetic.

People are dying. All manner of human rights are being violated. Neoliberal economic policy, which your state encouraged, is starving millions of us. We don't need your "begrudging" support for racist religious fanatics taking power through illegitimate means and we're not lifeless pawns in your eternal 4D chess game with the rest of the world. If the only words you can muster are words of "begrudging" support or tolerance for undermining our democracies again, then maybe don't speak at all. It's bad enough to be pillaged for two centuries without the pillagers desperately trying to talk their way to a moral absolution.

It is amusing that you see Argentina and Latin America as a whole as being perpetual victims. Argentina kept pace with the States till it chose to shit the bed and ruin it's potential post WW1. We are not the source of all your problems. Not to mention, most of those states were colonial states founded by settlers. They were doing plenty of killing until they lost it all and then gave into blood sport politics. You accuse Uncle Sam of being a monster, which is fair, while crying woe is me and appropriating the victimhood of the "indigenous". It's a rather impressive display of weak kneed nonsense.

You are making a lot of assumptions about my views based on a very uncharitable reading of what I said (and you're filling in a lot of blanks with arguments I did not make). I can walk and chew gum, dude. Don't assume otherwise just for the sake of smugposting.

[Bear Stearns]

Precisely. One can begrudgingly

The United States: 200 years "begrudgingly" being a malignant cancerous growth on the entire continent because, hey now, there might be even worse people across the ocean.

Our expansion to the Pacific was divinely ordained by the Yankee Calvinist God. Everything after 1898 was pretty trash though.

[The East Marches II]

It is amusing that you see Argentina and Latin America as a whole as being perpetual victims. Argentina kept pace with the States till it chose to shit the bed and ruin it's potential post WW1. We are not the source of all your problems. Not to mention, most of those states were colonial states founded by settlers. They were doing plenty of killing until they lost it all and then gave into blood sport politics. You accuse Uncle Sam of being a monster, which is fair, while crying woe is me and appropriating the victimhood of the "indigenous". It's a rather impressive display of weak kneed nonsense.

You are making a lot of assumptions about my views based on a very uncharitable reading of what I said (and you're filling in a lot of blanks with arguments I did not make). I can walk and chew gum, dude. Don't assume otherwise just for the sake of smugposting.

It's bad enough to be pillaged for two centuries without the pillagers desperately trying to talk their way to a moral absolution.

Apparently you can't.

It wasn't a smug post, I was being entirely serious. Where do you get off on appropriating the struggle of an entirely continent? Of people, whom your own massacred and oppressed. Then you've the gall to go crying victim as if you are one of them. Its the most astounding display of hubris I've seen in some time. I've noticed this becoming a trend among certain types as if cloaking one's self in the victimhood of natives gives in an inbuilt right to claim their history as your own. You and your people are as much colonizers as Americans. Argentina was absolutely almost as wealthy as the states. Your elite went insane and crashed your nation. This isn't all on the States by any means. Argentina squandered its own potential and spiraled into perpetual mediocrity.

[Liriena]

You are making a lot of assumptions about my views based on a very uncharitable reading of what I said (and you're filling in a lot of blanks with arguments I did not make). I can walk and chew gum, dude. Don't assume otherwise just for the sake of smugposting.

It's bad enough to be pillaged for two centuries without the pillagers desperately trying to talk their way to a moral absolution.

Apparently you can't.

Argentina and the United States had very similar GDPs per capita around 1900. Theoretically, if they chose the same path as that of the United States, we could have seen fairly similar economies between the two countries.

That's a huge "if" that would have needed a lot of systemic and structural aspects of Argentina to be radically different in order to be even plausible.

The path of the United States was ultimately one of industrialization, protectionism, self-sufficiency and exploitation of Latin America's bountiful primary sectors.

The path for Argentina to turn out like the United States would have necessitated, among many things:

1. Argentina having a dominant class that was primarily invested in the industrial sector and had an interest in fomenting a strong domestic market. However, Argentina's traditional dominant class has traditionally been more closely tied to the rent-seeking agricultural sector, which derives its wealth from foreign agricultural exports. Thus, that dominant class has usually shown no interest in investing in technical advancements outside of agriculture or encouraging the growth of a national industry that could provide both for Argentine consumers and consumers abroad.

[...]

Obviously the military junta through a wrench in the issue, but the presidents prior could have enacted similar policies.

They could have if the economic interests of the national and international dominant classes had not deemed such policies a threat to said interests.

You're trying to lecture me about self-victimization by way of pretending that my silence on the awfulness of the Argentine dominant classes in that particular post you responded to meant that I'm willfully ignorant about it.

I never claimed that Latin America's historical exploitation by foreign interests meant that no Latin American regime or social class had its own crimes to atone for. I never implied that Argentina in particular had a perfectly innocent history on its own. We had our genocides, our tyrants and our unfathomably stupid moments... but it'd be playing dumb to act like our history can somehow be analyzed without taking into account how inextricably linked the domestic and the foreign are.

Argentina being a country with its own horrid historical crimes doesn't automatically mean that itself could not have been exploited as well, nor does it separate Argentina from the rest of Latin America in the region's shared historical struggles. Specially not when those crimes were not isolated from the exploitation suffered by all of Latin America. This is all interlinked, it's all part of a greater systemic whole. This is not me appropriating anybody's struggle. If I seem emotionally invested, it's because I'm empathetic, because I'm capable of solidarity, not because I think me being Latin American makes the exploitation of indigenous Latin Americans mine own. Their struggle is theirs, but it's also a struggle that does not exist in isolation from those that do involve me and people like me. And my country's dominant class doing stupid and horrible things doesn't negate the fact that those stupid and horrible things were made possible (and ultimately inevitable) by a certain international context outside of our direct control. A country's government and ruling class having the power to do terrible things to other people doesn't mean that the people of that country cannot be the victims of foreign exploitation. Historically, in fact, the opposite has been true.

As I said: yours was a very uncharitable reading.

In summation: no me corras por izquierda, que vivo entre troskos y peronistas desde hace seis años

[Proctopeo]

I didn't say it was "a-ok", I said it had legal precedent.
And Morales cheated.

Oh good. So we both agree what this military junta is doing is anti-democratic and totalitarian.

It's absolutely not a junta, though this is definitely not an action that I approve of.
Journalists may frequently be trash at their jobs, but unless they're actively doing really, really awful things, there's no reason for the government to get involved.

[Nakena]

I didn't say it was "a-ok", I said it had legal precedent.
And Morales cheated.

Oh good. So we both agree what this military junta is doing is anti-democratic and totalitarian.

It's not a junta even. It's just Anez and her christian milf-clique tearing apart the country with their chads. The General who was disloyal to Morales got rather soon kicked out btw.

[Nakena]

You're trying to lecture me about self-victimization by way of pretending that my silence on the awfulness of the Argentine dominant classes in that particular post you responded to meant that I'm willfully ignorant about it.

I never claimed that Latin America's historical exploitation by foreign interests meant that no Latin American regime or social class had its own crimes to atone for. I never implied that Argentina in particular had a perfectly innocent history on its own. We had our genocides, our tyrants and our unfathomably stupid moments... but it'd be playing dumb to act like our history can somehow be analyzed without taking into account how inextricably linked the domestic and the foreign are.

Argentina being a country with its own horrid historical crimes doesn't automatically mean that itself could not have been exploited as well, nor does it separate Argentina from the rest of Latin America in the region's shared historical struggles. Specially not when those crimes were not isolated from the exploitation suffered by all of Latin America. This is all interlinked, it's all part of a greater systemic whole. This is not me appropriating anybody's struggle. If I seem emotionally invested, it's because I'm empathetic, because I'm capable of solidarity, not because I think me being Latin American makes the exploitation of indigenous Latin Americans mine own. Their struggle is theirs, but it's also a struggle that does not exist in isolation from those that do involve me and people like me. And my country's dominant class doing stupid and horrible things doesn't negate the fact that those stupid and horrible things were made possible (and ultimately inevitable) by a certain international context outside of our direct control. A country's government and ruling class having the power to do terrible things to other people doesn't mean that the people of that country cannot be the victims of foreign exploitation. Historically, in fact, the opposite has been true.

As I said: yours was a very uncharitable reading.

In summation: no me corras por izquierda, que vivo entre troskos y peronistas desde hace seis años

You did not yet respond to my other post, where I spoke about some of those things.

[Totally Not OEP]

Excellent news in Bolivia, if my quick reading of the situation is anything to go by; always excellent to see Communists removed from power.

[Liriena]

Excellent news in Bolivia, if my quick reading of the situation is anything to go by; always excellent to see Communists removed from power.

Imagine if leftists tried the "leftists unfairly labelled me a bigot so often that I turned into one" tactic with people constantly calling socdems and demsocs "communists".

"You kept calling us socdems and demsocs 'communists', so we got fed up and embraced Stalinism. Enjoy the gulag."

[Liriena]

You're trying to lecture me about self-victimization by way of pretending that my silence on the awfulness of the Argentine dominant classes in that particular post you responded to meant that I'm willfully ignorant about it.

I never claimed that Latin America's historical exploitation by foreign interests meant that no Latin American regime or social class had its own crimes to atone for. I never implied that Argentina in particular had a perfectly innocent history on its own. We had our genocides, our tyrants and our unfathomably stupid moments... but it'd be playing dumb to act like our history can somehow be analyzed without taking into account how inextricably linked the domestic and the foreign are.

Argentina being a country with its own horrid historical crimes doesn't automatically mean that itself could not have been exploited as well, nor does it separate Argentina from the rest of Latin America in the region's shared historical struggles. Specially not when those crimes were not isolated from the exploitation suffered by all of Latin America. This is all interlinked, it's all part of a greater systemic whole. This is not me appropriating anybody's struggle. If I seem emotionally invested, it's because I'm empathetic, because I'm capable of solidarity, not because I think me being Latin American makes the exploitation of indigenous Latin Americans mine own. Their struggle is theirs, but it's also a struggle that does not exist in isolation from those that do involve me and people like me. And my country's dominant class doing stupid and horrible things doesn't negate the fact that those stupid and horrible things were made possible (and ultimately inevitable) by a certain international context outside of our direct control. A country's government and ruling class having the power to do terrible things to other people doesn't mean that the people of that country cannot be the victims of foreign exploitation. Historically, in fact, the opposite has been true.

As I said: yours was a very uncharitable reading.

In summation: no me corras por izquierda, que vivo entre troskos y peronistas desde hace seis años

You did not yet respond to my other post, where I spoke about some of those things.

Oh yeah, sorry about that. :3

[Liriena]

The United States: 200 years "begrudgingly" being a malignant cancerous growth on the entire continent because, hey now, there might be even worse people across the ocean.

Get new material. Your people's "begrudging" support for coups got old and cringe in the 70s and 80s. Making that "begrudging" support more mealy mouthed and softly worded just makes it pathetic.

People are dying. All manner of human rights are being violated. Neoliberal economic policy, which your state encouraged, is starving millions of us. We don't need your "begrudging" support for racist religious fanatics taking power through illegitimate means and we're not lifeless pawns in your eternal 4D chess game with the rest of the world. If the only words you can muster are words of "begrudging" support or tolerance for undermining our democracies again, then maybe don't speak at all. It's bad enough to be pillaged for two centuries without the pillagers desperately trying to talk their way to a moral absolution.

No.

It's living pawns in an eternal 4D chess game of darkness.

Only through understanding the dynamics and processes of the game you'd be able to understand and see through it's outer forms and mechanizations, grasps its essence and become a master in your own right.

Of course. You need to understand the dominant system to critique and, hopefully, work against it.

It's not very hard to play the United States of America. Pakistan's ISI is doing it for almost three decades now. Trump played (and won) them in even lesser time.

Russia and the PRC are much harder game.

To return to South America. You may hate me for saying this but most (but not all) places there are relatively easy game and were even moreso in the past.

I'm not going to hate you for that assertion. It's not a necessarily incorrect one. Historical and material circumstances created the vulnerabilities and necessities which led to South America being not just "easy" to exploit but also "necessary" to exploit.

[Totally Not OEP]

Excellent news in Bolivia, if my quick reading of the situation is anything to go by; always excellent to see Communists removed from power.

Imagine if leftists tried the "leftists unfairly labelled me a bigot so often that I turned into one" tactic with people constantly calling socdems and demsocs "communists".

"You kept calling us socdems and demsocs 'communists', so we got fed up and embraced Stalinism. Enjoy the gulag."

When it's all Communists in the streets supporting Morales, I call it as a I see it. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz had the right idea about the whole lot.

[Liriena]

Imagine if leftists tried the "leftists unfairly labelled me a bigot so often that I turned into one" tactic with people constantly calling socdems and demsocs "communists".

"You kept calling us socdems and demsocs 'communists', so we got fed up and embraced Stalinism. Enjoy the gulag."

When it's all Communists in the streets supporting Morales, I call it as a I see it. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz had the right idea about the whole lot.

Though proclaiming a new government and state administration, Kapp along with Lüttwitz failed to calculate the lack of support for such a coup. The majority of the old establishment, civil service, labour unions and general population did not side with the putschists and as a result the newly proclaimed state lasted for a mere two days before a General Strike was called by the SPD. The Reichswehr, under the command of Hans von Seeckt, failed to uphold their constitutional commitment by defending the Republican government against the rebellious Freikorps units. The Weimar regime was saved by the public by means of the strike, but the Putsch did not succeed for other reasons. These include the lack of outward and active support from the military elite, judiciary and civil service who were reluctant to commit to the Putsch from its beginning.

When the coup d'état failed Kapp fled to Sweden. After two years in exile, he returned to Germany in April 1922 to justify himself in a trial at the Reichsgericht. He died in custody in Leipzig shortly afterwards of cancer.[3]

lmao

[Totally Not OEP]

When it's all Communists in the streets supporting Morales, I call it as a I see it. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz had the right idea about the whole lot.

Though proclaiming a new government and state administration, Kapp along with Lüttwitz failed to calculate the lack of support for such a coup. The majority of the old establishment, civil service, labour unions and general population did not side with the putschists and as a result the newly proclaimed state lasted for a mere two days before a General Strike was called by the SPD. The Reichswehr, under the command of Hans von Seeckt, failed to uphold their constitutional commitment by defending the Republican government against the rebellious Freikorps units. The Weimar regime was saved by the public by means of the strike, but the Putsch did not succeed for other reasons. These include the lack of outward and active support from the military elite, judiciary and civil service who were reluctant to commit to the Putsch from its beginning.

When the coup d'état failed Kapp fled to Sweden. After two years in exile, he returned to Germany in April 1922 to justify himself in a trial at the Reichsgericht. He died in custody in Leipzig shortly afterwards of cancer.[3]

lmao

Attempting to argue on the basis of the failure of the coup, instead of the merits, places you in an awkward position given Morales is in Mexico right now.

[Nakena]

Of course. You need to understand the dominant system to critique and, hopefully, work against it.

I prefer to use and manipulate pre-existing systems to my own ends. I am not above discarding them however when they have run their course.

I'm not going to hate you for that assertion. It's not a necessarily incorrect one. Historical and material circumstances created the vulnerabilities and necessities which led to South America being not just "easy" to exploit but also "necessary" to exploit.

I believe its a certain institutional and structural issues of South American nations, whose origins and causes have been analyized here in this thread before and are also present in other spanish colonies, which are both the reason for them being "easy game" and, despite similar starting conditions, not having become as sucessfull as lets say USA, Canada or Australia.

[Torrocca]

Though proclaiming a new government and state administration, Kapp along with Lüttwitz failed to calculate the lack of support for such a coup. The majority of the old establishment, civil service, labour unions and general population did not side with the putschists and as a result the newly proclaimed state lasted for a mere two days before a General Strike was called by the SPD. The Reichswehr, under the command of Hans von Seeckt, failed to uphold their constitutional commitment by defending the Republican government against the rebellious Freikorps units. The Weimar regime was saved by the public by means of the strike, but the Putsch did not succeed for other reasons. These include the lack of outward and active support from the military elite, judiciary and civil service who were reluctant to commit to the Putsch from its beginning.

When the coup d'état failed Kapp fled to Sweden. After two years in exile, he returned to Germany in April 1922 to justify himself in a trial at the Reichsgericht. He died in custody in Leipzig shortly afterwards of cancer.[3]

lmao

Attempting to argue on the basis of the failure of the coup, instead of the merits, places you in an awkward position given Morales is in Mexico right now.

Lmao, the only actual "merit" of your beloved Kapp Putsch is the laughter that the rest of us can enjoy due to those authoritarian fuckwits failing hilariously miserably at destroying democracy. :^3

[Totally Not OEP]

Attempting to argue on the basis of the failure of the coup, instead of the merits, places you in an awkward position given Morales is in Mexico right now.

Lmao, the only actual "merit" of your beloved Kapp Putsch is the laughter that the rest of us can enjoy due to those authoritarian fuckwits failing hilariously miserably at destroying democracy. :^3

#WheresMorales

[Nakena]

Meanwhile in Colombia:

Colombia protests: Bogotá placed under curfew amid fresh protests

The mayor of the Colombian capital, Bogotá, has imposed a curfew to cover the entire city in response to renewed anti-government protests.

Police fired tear gas in the city on Friday to disperse crowds and there were reports of sporadic looting.

Meanwhile, President Iván Duque said he would launch a "national conversation" next week to try to ease tensions.

More than 250,000 people attended marches across the country on Thursday to voice anger at the government.

Colombians have taken to the streets over possible changes to the minimum wage, pension and tax reforms, and the privatisation of state companies. The government insists there are no planned pension or labour reforms and that any changes would take place in consultation with labour groups.

Protesters are also angry about alleged corruption and what some see as the government's failure to honour a 2016 peace deal with left-wing Farc rebels amid a rise in violence.

In another development, three police officers were killed in a bomb explosion at a police station in the town of Santander de Quilichao in south-western Cauca province, officials said. It is not clear if the incident is connected to the protests. The area is notorious for drug trafficking and gang violence.

Duque: Puppet or rock star?
Why protesters are on the streets worldwide

In Bogota, Mayor Enrique Peñalosa first announced a curfew for three districts but extended it to the whole city later in the day.

"From 8pm (01:00 GMT Saturday) the curfew will go into effect in the neighbourhoods of Bosa, Ciudad Bolivar and Kennedy," he said.

"From 9pm the curfew extends to the rest of the city. The curfews end at 6am Saturday."

Later, witnesses reported some protesters defying the curfew and picketing President Duque's home.

In a televised speech, President Duque said a "national conversation" would take place regionally and include all social and political groups.

"Starting next week, I will launch a national conversation to strengthen the current social policy agenda, working in a united way with medium- and long-term vision, which will allow us to close the social gaps," he said.

Thousands of people had gathered in Bogotá's Bolivar Plaza earlier on Friday following a call from opposition leaders for renewed protests.

"We are here to keep protesting against the Duque government," said student Katheryn Martinez, 25, who was with her father Arturo, 55.

However, the crowd scattered when police fired tear gas. Witnesses said some protesters regrouped on nearby streets and continued chanting.

Defence Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said an investigation had been launched into the three deaths in Valle del Cauca region on Thursday.

He told reporters that authorities had confirmed the deaths of two people in Buenaventura and one more in Candelaria. He added that a group of people had tried to loot a shopping centre.

He said 11 preliminary investigations were also being conducted into alleged misconduct by members of the security forces.

Unrest in Colombia has coincided with a surge of anti-government demonstrations elsewhere in Latin America.

In Chile, interior minister Gonzalo Blumel has again appealed for the restoration of public order after a fresh round of protests and riots there.

Protesters are demanding social reforms and a change to the constitution which dates back to the pre-democracy era of the military leader, Augusto Pinochet.

Meanwhile in Bolivia, violent protests have crippled parts of the country since the resignation former President Evo Morales.

Mr Morales fled to Mexico after the army urged him to quit. He and his supporters have described the move as a coup.

Le sauce: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50525968?

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Imagine if leftists tried the "leftists unfairly labelled me a bigot so often that I turned into one" tactic with people constantly calling socdems and demsocs "communists".

"You kept calling us socdems and demsocs 'communists', so we got fed up and embraced Stalinism. Enjoy the gulag."

When it's all Communists in the streets supporting Morales, I call it as a I see it. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz had the right idea about the whole lot.

"Muh communism" is not a real argument, unfortunately. Unless Bolivia is a classless, moneyless, or stateless society, then by definition, they are not communists, and neither is Evo Morales. At best, he is a populist socdem. But given that "communism" in American vernacular means anyone to the left of Augusto Pinochet, I am not even surprised you engaged in redbaiting. We do not call all conservatives Nazis, so why should we refer to all leftists as "communists"?

[Greater Miami Shores and La Habana Cuba]

When it's all Communists in the streets supporting Morales, I call it as a I see it. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz had the right idea about the whole lot.

"Muh communism" is not a real argument, unfortunately. Unless Bolivia is a classless, moneyless, or stateless society, then by definition, they are not communists, and neither is Evo Morales. At best, he is a populist socdem. But given that "communism" in American vernacular means anyone to the left of Augusto Pinochet, I am not even surprised you engaged in redbaiting. We do not call all conservatives Nazis, so why should we refer to all leftists as "communists"?

For the thread record, I have chosen this nation of Greater Miami Shores and La Habana Cuba as my official and only nation on this thread as my sig says. They are communists in socialist related policies, even if they use money, my native Cuba is a perfect example. The problem is if Evo had succeeded he would have become another eternal undemocratic dictator like Fidel, Raúl and Diaz-Canel of Cuba. As it has been practiced all over the world in the so called communist socialist nations. You know which nations I am taking about so I don't need to post them all.

[Northern Davincia]

When it's all Communists in the streets supporting Morales, I call it as a I see it. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz had the right idea about the whole lot.

"Muh communism" is not a real argument, unfortunately. Unless Bolivia is a classless, moneyless, or stateless society, then by definition, they are not communists, and neither is Evo Morales. At best, he is a populist socdem. But given that "communism" in American vernacular means anyone to the left of Augusto Pinochet, I am not even surprised you engaged in redbaiting. We do not call all conservatives Nazis, so why should we refer to all leftists as "communists"?

Socialism is always advancing toward communism, is it not? The right doesn't really have an equivalent to historical materialism.

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

"Muh communism" is not a real argument, unfortunately. Unless Bolivia is a classless, moneyless, or stateless society, then by definition, they are not communists, and neither is Evo Morales. At best, he is a populist socdem. But given that "communism" in American vernacular means anyone to the left of Augusto Pinochet, I am not even surprised you engaged in redbaiting. We do not call all conservatives Nazis, so why should we refer to all leftists as "communists"?

Socialism is always advancing toward communism, is it not? The right doesn't really have an equivalent to historical materialism.

Evo Morales didn't abolish capitalism in Bolivia though. And no, only Marxist versions of socialism adhere to historical materialism and the doctrine of "advance to full communism over time". Democratic socialists don't really advocate Soviet-style communism as a final stage for society's advance.

[New Bremerton]

(I'm assuming you actually meant to respond to me and not Novus. I can't speak for him.)

Since you seem to want to play the "but muh Western imperialism" oppression Olympics card, I got some new material right here:

My shithole passport country was subjugated by the British Empire for over two centuries with Malays, Chinese and Indians pitted against one another in a racial and religious conflict that continues till this very day with ethnic Malaysian Chinese like me being systematically threatened and routinely humiliated by Malay and Muslim supremacists, and the state I live in is currently having its oil and natural resources plundered by the peninsular states across the South China Sea who blame us for our very own state of economic backwardness while the orangutans and indigenous Penan and other Dayaks are having their verdant communities destroyed by loggers just like the very ones that are destroying the Amazon rainforest. I condemn what the British did to my shithole country and what successive governments post-formation have done over the centuries. Oh, and let's not forget the horrific crimes the Japanese committed against my grandparents' generation in WWII, both in Malaysia and in Hong Kong, for which Japan has yet to sincerely atone for its sins.

The city-state I grew up in and have adopted as my own has been protesting for freedom and democracy for five months straight while the police and Triad thugs continue to crack down with ever-increasing levels of violence and brutality while pro-CCP apologists accuse us of destroying our own city and openly call for the People's Liberation Army to murder all of us. Even more people are dying, being tortured, re-educated and having their organs harvested by a fascist superpower next door to the city I grew up in that threatens freedom, democracy, and the economic and political sovereignty of countries around the world, including Bolivia.

Post-communist, fascist, ultra-neoliberal China today is the enduring legacy of what actual communism in all its failure left in its wake. Not to mention communists operating in my passport country waged an insurgency and murdered my countrymen simply for disagreeing with them, and they weren't and have never been in government. Communism completely fucked up my part of the world with millions dead in Cambodia alone, many of them simply for the "crime" of wearing glasses, and tens of millions dead from starvation in China. In their zeal to abolish empire, the communists conjured up their very own, genocidal, imperial monstrosities, and one such imperial power lies right on my country's very doorstep and is erasing my hometown's very existence with blue-dyed water cannons and thousands upon thousands of rounds of dioxin-laced tear gas and rubber bullets every single day.

Were it not for the international focus on Hong Kong, thousands of us would have been gunned down by the PLA, and "One Country, Two Systems" would have been abolished, by now. Fascism is the legacy that communism left behind in China and Russia. While the Americans and Europeans only made my part of the world even worse off for many years to come, the Soviets and Chinese fucked it up even more, and China is by far the bigger threat over here.

*END NEW MATERIAL*

But go on about how "my state and my people endorse far-right fascist coups" when my friends in Hong Kong have been risking life and limb to do just the exact opposite for months now. What has transpired in Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador so far pales in comparison to the shit people in China are going through today. Protesters being sporadically shot by police doesn't automatically make a regime "far-right", "fascist" or any kind of dictatorship, and it doesn't make the initial revolution illegitimate and the anti-Morales protesters CIA agents paid to foment chaos and instability. It simply means the police suck at their jobs. This is as true of U.S. police departments as it is of Bolivian security forces. In fact, I would argue that the Bolivian police, despite their piss-poor Third World training and use of live ammo, are still far more restrained than the Hong Kong police despite the near-total absence of international scrutiny, and I still condemn the police shootings and brutality.

Your disingenuous characterization of anyone who even remotely tolerates the 2019 Bolivian Revolution and any revolution against a left-wing government as "tolerating a far-right fascist coup" is what's getting old. Screaming "CIA" at the top of your lungs is what's getting old. I hear this ridiculous claim being parroted all the time by China, and what's terrifying is that many people in China and the developing world actually believe this Western CIA conspiracy bullshit and want us dead for demanding freedom and democracy. You and your leftist comrades are no less guilty of enabling fascism, imperialism and totalitarianism of the "Communist", nationalist and Islamist varieties than I am, except the superpower I'm defending is an entrenched democracy that is well past its prime rather than a totalitarian fascist regime that grows increasingly more powerful by the day, so you can drop your holier-than-thou attitude and learn the concept of nuance.

Morales is known for his pro-Russia and pro-China sympathies and for opening his country up to China's Belt-and-Road debt traps, which would have destroyed the Bolivian economy and enslaved the country to China's every whim in time. This is what you're "begrudgingly" enabling when you defend him and anti-Western dictators like Maduro, Castro and others like him: one form of imperialism replaced with an even worse one, against the wishes of the protesters who toppled Morales, whom you dismiss, rather undemocratically so. Your desire to prop up pro-Russian, pro-Chinese leftist client regimes because "AmeriKKKa bad" is part of the reason Hong Kong is dying, because through your blind, ideologically-driven support of these regimes, people like you are contributing to increasing Chinese and Russian influence around the globe while American and Western influence declines, at the expense of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong and around the globe, and yet you see fit to lecture to me and Novus about morals, pawns and 4D chess.

"Anti-imperialists" like you are the reason the PRC and not the ROC is recognized as the sole legitimate government of China by the UN and most countries around the world, many of which are exceedingly corrupt, anti-Western, pro-Chinese, pro-Russian dictatorships today who find the narrative of Western imperialism and "da ebul Zionists" to be extremely useful in keeping their populations in line. "Anti-imperialism" is the reason Syria is now completely and totally fucked and hundreds of thousands of people are dead. Keep enabling these oppressive regimes instead, because "AmeriKKKa bad".

I'd rather America cautiously do business with a transitional South American government that is neither democratic nor authoritarian and it's still too early to say how things will pan out over time, over certain and complete political and economic subjugation by China. I have an urgent, personal stake in all of this, and seeing China crash and burn for all of the crimes she's committed is my absolute top priority. To achieve this objective, Chinese influence around the world must be curtailed for starters, including in South America, thereby depriving China of resources and diplomatic support at the UN. Isolating Russia is another bonus. As I said before, if the Bolivian transitional government suspends elections indefinitely, declares martial law and Bolivia morphs into a full-blown dictatorship, I will change my mind, condemn the regime and support any popular uprising against it, whether it's a left-wing or right-wing regime, without screaming "SEE EYE EY", unlike far-left communist tankie Max Blumenthal and The Grayzone. Until then, I will reserve judgment. And if an election is held and a pro-Morales candidate wins, kudos to him.

BTW, I'm not American and have never been to the Americas, in case you didn't know. Nonetheless, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the United States. For all their flaws and imperfections, the American flag still stands for freedom and democracy around the world, especially in Hong Kong, where protesters wave the flag, sing The Star-Spangled Banner and love America more than Americans themselves. The same cannot be said of China. One country is half-good, half-bad. The other is totally bad. Guess which side I'm on.

To be perfectly honest with you, from what I've seen on a leftist Discord community, democratic socialists and anarchists do indeed support the HK protesters and despise the Chinese government with a passion, me included. So your appeal to hypocrisy as your trump card has no effect on me, or Liriena for that matter. And given the fact the pro-democratic camp is generally left-leaning, your diatribes against leftism are that more surprising.

I never said all leftists like Liri are communists or pro-China tankies, although many self-described "anti-imperialists" are just that. What I don't like about so-called "anti-imperialist" leftists is how they seem to be stuck in the 20th century and believe that any uprising against a left-wing or anti-Western regime is the result of a CIA-sponsored coup attempt.

When the Arab Spring happened in 2011 and Mubarak and Ben Ali were toppled, everyone stood in solidarity with the peaceful pro-democracy protesters fighting for freedom in Egypt and Tunisia. Everyone was fine with it. When protests against the Assad regime broke out in Syria, that's when the vile and diagusting conspiracy theories about U.S., Saudi and Zionist interference started to proliferate and the initially peaceful protesters were characterized as terrorists bankrolled by the CIA. When three successive Security Council resolutions were vetoed by Russia and China, and the Assad regime responded by stepping up its massacres of civilians due to a growing sense of impunity, "anti-war" leftists literally celebrated and cheered on the Russian and Chinese response, and British activists led by then-StWC chairman Jeremy Corbyn celebrated when the UK Parliament voted against airstrikes in response to a chemical gas attack that killed over a thousand people. I can never get the horrific images and videos of the victims' final moments out of my head, especially the children. This kind of smug, holier-than-thou, downright condescending attitude from out-of-touch middle-class champagne socialists is morally repugnant and unforgivable, and I am absolutely and totally disgusted by their vile antics. I pray Corbyn never wins the upcoming election.

This is the original reason I broke ranks with the "anti-war" Left seven years ago, and it's why I will never trust or support the likes of Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders who are totally obsessed with the idea of Western-backed "coups", almost as if their very existence would lack meaning if they had no enemy to rail against. These "anti-imperialist" leftists have no right to lecture to me or anyone else about Syria, imperialism or the costs of war. I have watched extremely graphic and disturbing YT videos of Syrian children screaming in agony from horrific injuries and literally dying on camera from chemical gas attacks. The details are too graphic for me to describe here. This is what the anti-war Left has implicitly condoned all these years through their persistent obstructionism, and yet I'm the one tolerating "fascist coups" because they don't like that one of their own corrupt governments in Latin America has been rightly toppled. They don't get to claim the moral high ground. They have none.

History is repeating itself in South America. The Bolivian Revolution is being referred to as a U.S.-backed "coup" even though Morales was deposed in exactly the same manner as Mubarak and Ben Ali in 2011. The army hijacking a revolution a couple of months later doesn't invalidate the original revolution or the demands of anti-Morales or anti-Mubarak protesters in any way.