Hey, how many of you have been following the Organization of American States summit?
<crickets/>
Yeah, that's what I thought. (Feel free to stand up for yourselves in the comments.)
There have been a few boots to the head, including the following:
Those are the big things. The summit as a whole is breaking up; Argentina's withdrawal started the deterioration, ironically by taking away the one issue the rest of the countries agree on.
What I would like to see between now and 2015 are: the U.S. backing off the War on Some Drugs, the U.S. (and Canada) allowing Cuba in (as we now have more reason to ban Venezuela than Cuba, but that wouldn't help anything either), and Argentina giving up on the whole Falklands thing. These are the three cases where each country just doesn't see how their position looks outside their own borders.
<crickets/>
Yeah, that's what I thought. (Feel free to stand up for yourselves in the comments.)
There have been a few boots to the head, including the following:
- Argentina walked out, upset that nobody wanted to talk about the
MalvinasFalklands. The president of Argentina was so frustrated, she was overheard to say "Then why did we even bother coming here?" - The "Central American" nations were unified in calling for the legalization of drugs, to quell their collective highest murder rates in the world. (While "Southern Africa" is technically higher, check the list of the world's countries by homicide rate. 19 of the top 20 are from Brazil to Mexico, and Honduras, St. Kitts & Nevis, Venezuela and El Salvador blow away the next 16.)
The Obama administration was a bit nonplussed by this demand. - Then, everyone but the U.S. and Canada demanded that Cuba be included. It was not just whacko leftists like Venezuela and Bolivia, but also anti-leftists like Colombia and Chile making this call. In this case, Obama seemed sympathetic, not referring to Cuba directly, but complaining that "some positions were set during a different world, based on concerns that are older than I am." So don't be too surprised if we accede to the rest of the OAS on this one. Probably after the November elections (Obama cannot afford to lose Florida).
- With China's success in the manufacturing sector, it has gradually been pricing itself out of its own market. As a result, the world's go-to for cheap labor is now Brazil. The various free-trade agreements among the OAS have been very important for this (relatively) sudden influx of hard capital to Brazil. This has naturally upset many leftist governments, but they're losing, and Brazil is winning.
Those are the big things. The summit as a whole is breaking up; Argentina's withdrawal started the deterioration, ironically by taking away the one issue the rest of the countries agree on.
What I would like to see between now and 2015 are: the U.S. backing off the War on Some Drugs, the U.S. (and Canada) allowing Cuba in (as we now have more reason to ban Venezuela than Cuba, but that wouldn't help anything either), and Argentina giving up on the whole Falklands thing. These are the three cases where each country just doesn't see how their position looks outside their own borders.