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Bulletins and News Discussion from February 10th to February 16th, 2025 - There Is Noboa Alternative - COTW: Ecuador

Image is of the Galapagos Islands, sourced from here.

Moving the megathread topic slightly away from the chaos of the United States and going back around the world, we will begin with paying attention to Ecuador.

Ecuador has been ruled by Daniel Noboa since 2023, after he won the snap election. He's about as ghoulish as one gets; a neoliberal right-winger and as much as a marionette to the United States as Milei. Two months ago, he gave effective control of the Galapagos Islands to the United States and is allowing them to build a military base there - beginning the potential conversion from a natural paradise to unsinkable aircraft carrier.

We are now seeing the rematch between Noboa and Gonzalez; the latter of which is a leftist politician with a similar ideology to Correa, the socialist who ruled Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The divide in Ecuador today is largely between the Correaists and those who oppose them, though Leonidas Iza represents the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and commands a notable share of the vote.

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431 comments

  • Last week I joked on how Musk took inspiration from milei now that he's carrying out his crusade against whatever remains of the "New Deal"-ish State. And I can see similarities...

    I think "DOGE" is kinda inspired in Argentina's "Ministry of Deregulation and Transformation of the State", an all-powerfull shady institution led by someone who was not directly elected, who is a massive piece of shit, who can intervene anywhere and who has political experience working with previous (failed) administrations, always on the heavy neoliberal side of things. Naturally there are differences, the extent of the "reforms" are going to be different depending on each country given that the US is institutionally and demographically seventy two trillion times bigger than Argentina, so the process of dismantling the State of certain elements is going to be different and will have different effects.

    But the principle remains the same: A specific institution was created to spearhead all the efforts to scrap the State and for that task is given ridiculous powers to do so. Both are led by somewhat unelected officials with free reign over anything they desire, neither Elon Musk or Federico Sturzenegger (the guy in charge of the dismantling of the Argentinian State) have clear specific roles within their Governments, they are appointed at the will of their respective Presidents and their actions represent their own will.

    The goals are also the same but will have different impacts. In Argentina the goal is to end, once and for all, the massive privatization campaign that began in the 1970s, continued heavily in the 90s, suffered setbacks in the mid 2000s up to 2014 and resumed with various degrees of intensity after. The complete privatization of all "public" aspects of the State is to be carried out by this shady Ministry and they cannot be hold accountable. The same goes for "DOGE": Eviscerate the Federal and "Public" institutions to pave the way for relentless privatization, whether that is education, transportation, infraestructure or energy, you name it.

    Whether this actually represents the end of both Argentina and the US as entities remains to be seen, in principle Capitalism at it's core cannot reproduce itself for too long without the State intervening in certain areas, after all, a Ministry of Education is essential, and since both countries are intimatelly tied to Capitalism's very existence, their own existence is therefore in jeopardy. However, perhaps, Capitalism is mutating into something truly hideous and new, it's last mutation, perhaps being the "An"Cap one, before it finally succums once and for all.

    death to "israel" btw.

431 comments