Paraguay Ex Bishop Leading the Pack

[Joanne98]

Paraguay Ex Bishop Leading the Pack

Asuncion, Feb 20 (Prensa Latina) Former Bishop Fernando Lugo is far and away the candidate with the best position for the 2008 presidential elections in Paraguay, a poll Tuesday confirmed.

According to results published in Ultima Hora daily, the "voice of the poor" is supported by 37.3 percent of the voters, double that of his nearest competitor, ex Gen. Lino Oviedo.

Oveido has been in prison since 1999 for an attempted coup, yet gleaned 16.4 percent support, while sitting President Nicanor, who seeks to amend the Constitution in order to run again, is third in voter preference.

The poll made headlines in the local press and TV news, considering Lugo a "political earthquake," whose charisma is such a ten-minute talk in the plaza has turned him into "Paraguay s hope."

One of those interviewed on television said that Lugo s eruption into the political arena has changed the opposition panorama and that of the governing Colorado Party, warning the government will do its best to prevent his coming to power.

Other participants responded by saying any manipulation by the government of Lugo s candidacy will provoke a massive uprising on the streets of Paraguay.

hr ccs abo tpa

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B57394EA7-A7D1-4337-BCD2-15B98766CC55%7D)&language=EN

[Ignacio Upton]

1. Maybe he can block the Bushes from moving there in 2009

Assuming the rumors are true.

[Joanne98]

2. Yep. He can seize their property and give it to the poor!

:)

[Judi Lynn]

3. Fernando Lugo undoubtedly is a very, very brave man, knowing how

School of Americas-trained men slaughtered Bishop Romero as he conducted mass, a man committed to the welfare of the poor.

Hope he has the ability to avoid assassination by the right-wing, and realize his dream of bringing hope to wildly oppressed, brutalized people.

[BayCityProgressive]

4. Wow

Socialist Venezuela? Check
Socialist Nicaragua? Check
Socialist Ecuador? Check
Socialist Bolivia? CHeck

Make room for Paraguay. The corporatists must be rolling on the ground screaming about our soldiers being in Iraq and not slaughtering socialists right now.

Not to mention left of center governments in Brazil, Argentina, Uraguay, and Chile.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Yup, I was thinking back around the 2006 elections, now WHY would the

war profiteering corporate news monopolies unleash an old Republican pedophile scandal on the Bushites a few weeks before the elections?

The answer I came up with: Bush has "lost" South America. No more easy pickins there for U.S. global corporate predators. He's become "bad for business." He has NOT secured more Mideast oil. Now they have people like Chavez and Morales saying they will have to PAY TAXES on the oil they extract from South America.

And you will notice he now intends to go to Colombia and Guatemala (two countries that have not yet been "lost" to democracy) with BIG CHECKS in hand for military/paramilitary/fascist thug funding--this spring. Trying to bribe/bully some more "free trade" out of these outposts of fascism in what is now an overwhelmingly "blue" continent.

His other targets? Mexico--to schmooze with Calderon about Mexico's oil, compare notes on stealing elections (and have a laugh or two), and provide another BIG CHECK for CS gas and other weapons with which to destroy Mexico's huge democracy movement (in southern Mexico/Mexico City). Uruguay: leftist government, but mostly European population (to stir up racism?). Brazil. Interesting case. I don't think he will get anywhere in Brazil. President is a former steelworker who made a point of visiting Chavez for the opening of the Orinoco Bridge two weeks before Chavez won the Venezuelan election with 63% of the vote. Lulu is no fool. And Brazil is already benefiting from Venezuela's help to Argentina (--Venezuela bailed them out of World Bank debt).

The thing is these countries are banding together--and have started talks on a South American "Common Market" and common currency (to get off the US dollar). I think our global corporate predators may have concluded that they actually did much better under Clinton ("democratic" corporatism) than under Bush (corporate nazism). Bush has created so much hostility in the world that Russia, China and India recently met to discuss how to curtail the U.S. bully. He has failed to use brute U.S. power (bombs, troops) to lucrative purpose, and has created so much hostility at home that they can't even loot Social Security (except by backdoor means). I think there is a split between those on the military funding tit and those on the corporate tax break tit. The military baby has been too much favored. And now the corporate baby finds that it can't even loot South America any more! Everybody hates them!

Thus, they are paving the way for....Hillary Clinton! THAT's why they ASSISTED the change in Congress. It isn't just that the angry voters outvoted the machines. They had a positive assist from the Corporate media just before the elections.

And THIS time, their Corporate President will have juicy powers of domestic spying, indefinite detention of "terrorists," torture, presidential 'signing statements' that exempt the Corporate President from laws passed by Congress, and an excuse to cut all social programs (the $10 trillion deficit that the Bush Junta ran up). Oh, goody!

----------------------

Anyway (I'm really in a mood this morning), don't be fooled by the Corporate media's focus on personalities--in Paraguay or anywhere else. What is happening in South America is a truly amazing GRASS ROOTS democracy movement, driven from the bottom, as democracy should be. Bishop Lugo is not the "savior" of Paraguay. He is an expression of THE PEOPLE, and of the three precepts that are transforming the continent--and that we ought to implement here as well:

1. TRANSPARENT elections.
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Ex-bishop runs for president: canonical rebel

Ex-bishop runs for president: canonical rebel

Former Bishop Fernando Lugo, a candidate for the Paraguayan presidency, is in a state of rebellion, say canon law experts. Politics is a "form of charity", but has its own laws and ends, say experts.
Monday, February 26, 2007By CNA

Experts in Canon Law consulted by CNA – including some from Paraguay who preferred to remain anonymous - have confirmed that from the standpoint of the Code of Canon Law former Bishop Fernando Lugo is in a state of rebellion against the Catholic Church. Lugo, who is running for his country’s presidency, is also constitutionally impeded from participating in politics according to the experts.

The background

In 2005, Bishop Fernando Lugo resigned as ordinary of the Diocese of San Pedro, and assumed the title of Bishop Emeritus. On March 29th the former bishop launched himself into the political realm by leading a protest in Asuncion and was soon after asked by Pedro Fadul Niella, leader of the “Patria Querida” (Beloved Homeland) political party, to lead a national unity coalition with the goal of promoting Lugo as the single presidential candidate during the 2008 elections.

As he began to take a greater role in Patria Querida’s politics the bishop began preparing a letter requesting his release from the clerical state. That letter, asking the Vatican to officially announce that he would no longer be considered a bishop or priest was eventually sent on December 18, 2006. At the same time that the was writing the letter, however, the bishop was still participating liturgical events, such as the diocesan celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Caacupe on December 8.

On December 21st , Bishop Lugo received a private letter from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, asking him not to accept the a nomination to run for the Presidency of Paraguay and warning him that if he went ahead he would be subject, “as a first step, to the canonical penalty of suspension, which prohibits sacred ministers from exercising all or some of the acts of the power of order and of the power of governance, as outlined in canon 1333, § 1.”
(snip/...)

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=8152