May Day: The Wind from the South

May Day: The Wind from the South: From the LA Daily News:

Bolivia military told to occupy gas fields

By ALVARO ZUAZO Associated Press Writer

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- President Evo Morales ordered soldiers to occupy Bolivia's natural gas fields Monday and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they give Bolivia control over the entire chain of production.

Morales said soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company would be sent "immediately" to installations and gas fields tapped by foreign petroleum companies - including Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA and U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp.

Morales, a leftist allied with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in seeking to blunt U.S. and outside influence in the region, had pledged to exert greater state control over the industry since he won the presidency in December, becoming Bolivia's first Indian president.

The companies have six months to agree to new contracts, or must leave Bolivia, he said. "The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Morales said ...

"The looting by the foreign companies has ended," Morales declared.

The announcement came less than a month after Chavez ordered the seizure of oil fields from Total and Italy's Eni SpA when the companies failed to comply with a government demand that operations be turned over to Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

I don't really care what the government of Bolivia does: it's their own country, and voters of Bolivia have the right to get the government they deserve, and get it good and hard (as H.L. Mencken used to say).

But the May Day rallies in the U.S. for more illegal immigration raise a basic political question: If the Democrats thinks more illegal immigration would be good for the Democrats and George W. Bush thinks more illegal immigration would be good for the Republicans, doesn't one of them -- logically -- have to be wrong? And why is Bush so convinced that it is the entire Democratic political class that is wrong, not him?

Here's my new American Conservative article on why the Democrats are right about whom illegal immigration and amnesty benefits.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer