People seem to be getting really excited about President Bush’s forthcoming trip to Latam. I don’t know why — as far as I can tell it’s not going to be any different than previous safaris to the continent’s urban jungles. If history is of any use, there are going to be lots of statements made about how “good” democracies are and how the efforts of the United States are playing a big role is helping the region out.

Oh man, someone hit the snooze button. Where have we heard that before? Every time it looks like the Bush administration is going to take Latam seriously, a few months later he goes the way of a child with ADHD cycling through the phases of bipolar disorder.

It’s not that I don’t believe in democracy, competitive markets, and free trade. I do perhaps more than anyone! I just don’t believe that President Bush has the cojones to go all the way. Somehow the focus always shifts away, the momentum never maintained, and the nth opportunity goes astray.

Michael Novak as The Corner is loving it though. Giving a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, President Bush outlined how the United States plans to get involved more with Latam. He also focused on a lot of little anecdotes about poor entrepreneurs getting help from U.S. programs, something that eventually will lead to greater amiability. Like I said, Novak ate it up, and here’s how he described it.

In an extremely important speech the other day, President Bush threw down the gauntlet to M. Chavez. You want to talk about “social justice”? We’ll show you the way to social justice. You want to talk about the poor? We’ll show you the only really successful way to liberate the poor from poverty ever discovered during the long history of the human race.

The President called it “capitalism for the campesino” ???????? capitalism that begins at the bottom up. What Guy Sorman, the French writer, called “barefoot capitalism” just a few years back. How? By such methods as Hernando de Soto talks about, first, in changing laws to make possible ???????? and far more frequent ???????? the formation of new small businesses by the poor (almost all of whom are entrepreneurs, as de Soto found); and, second, in recognizing, protecting, and monetizing property rights in homes, so that the capital represented in them can be unleashed through mortgages.

Against the swampy tide of yet another socialism rising from the deep in South America, the President offered the light and sun of the rule of law, transparency, and universal inclusion of the campesinos in the dynamism of the market system.

Why not? The same forces, unleashed in China and India since 1980, have raised more than a half-billion persons out of poverty ???????? the fastest exodus from poverty of any poverty program in the past.

Capitalism for the campesinos works. No form of socialism ever put into exercise even comes close.

Come on, Mr. Chavez. Put up, or shut up.

At stake is the liberation of the poor.

Don’t miss the President’s speech. It’s important.

You can read it at the White House website. I agree with him; it is not to be missed. In fact, if you look close enough the white space between the words make an excellent stereogram. I think at one point I saw Hugo Chavez’s cold, communist hands reaching out for me!

Someone stop me before I start sounding like one of the leftist trolls that inevitably finds themselves here after wandering away from the coca campos. Unfortunately, the time I’ve spent of my life living in Latam, relating to its people, and following U.S. policy toward them has transformed me from a starry-eyed schoolboy who creams his pants at the melodic sound of “Do-ha” into an overgrown skeptic of the United State’s ability to confront the dangerous communist caudillos like Hugo Chavez.

I’m going to lay it right out there. Instead of of calling a speech important, which it most obviously is not, I’m going to tell you exactly what’s wrong with the United States’ and President Bush’s policy toward Latin America.

FIRST AND FOREMOST! The United States has focused its efforts for way too long on fighting the drug war with weapons rather than real socio-economic alternatives. If a farmer can grow or produce goods and sell them for more than he would get with coca, then he will. Oh wait… he can’t… because agricultural subsidies and trade barriers in the United States are still so high that such goods could never make it north at competitive prices. President Bush talked about that in the speech, to be fair; but after six years, the effort has been half-assed. The entire effort creates too much ill-will and diverts too many resources that could be put to better use.

The United States needs to slash farm subsidies and drop its tariffs. Aid programs need to be expanded drastically. They need to focus on widespread development, like some of the programs he talked about, but more. Highways need to be built from the country’s major cities and shipping centers out into the major agricultural areas. Access to capital through micro-credit lending and training programs aimed at organizing individual farmers into highly efficient agribusinesses are more needed than ever. Self-sustaining education and health care systems are a must. We also need to stop attacking the many poor farmers who raise coca and marijuana on the side to feed their families. They have no alternative. At least, not yet!

SECOND, AND LISTEN CAREFULLY! Right now I am writing to an audience mainly in the United States, so you may have noticed that I’m using many of the same ideas and maybe even language that President Bush uses in his Latam speeches. Well, the reasons are two-fold: the ideas are, I believe, correct in their assumptions, and because its the kind of get-to-it language that Statesmen like and relate to.

But that’s not how you talk to everyday Latinos, and I guarantee there is a lot of snickering going on. Honestly, what is this talk about being a neighborhood, being “brothers and sisters”? Latam has gotten the blunt end of the big stick for over a hundred years. Now we want to step in and help, when our involvement has had a detrimental effect in the many countries where –surprise, surprise! — anti-U.S. sentiment is at an all-time high? Think about how stupid that sounds, and why so few Latinos take this seriously.

Throwing words like “brother” and “social justice” around doesn’t work if the feeling isn’t mutual. They, like myself, aren’t convinced by the occasional speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Deeds are worth so much more than words. President Bush needs to stop wasting time with half-assed half-measures. When he does that, then he should start the stump speeches. When people see the results of tens of billions of dollars being put into development that benefits everyone, they’ll start to take notice and listen with a serious ear. The anecdote of the one family’s first college graduate just isn’t enough. Not nearly enough people can relate to that yet.

THE FINAL FRONTIER, TAKING ON CHAVEZ: The rise of communist, populist, militarist leaders in Latin America is one of the greatest challenges that the United States faces today both strategically and in terms of promoting human rights, democracy, and development. Hugo Chavez is rapidly beginning to destroy his society, and the cancer is spreading. That’s because Chavez knows how to talk to Latinos. He gives the appearance of actual propriety. Tens of billions of dollars in debt write-offs and subsidized oil prices are having an immediate effect on people’s lives. They see the difference on a day-to-day basis. Chavez is also in the news all the time, promoting what he’s doing, and people see that too. Is it any wonder that the Bolivarian Revolution seems like a tidal wave from our Ivory Tower up north? How can we expect these people, who live on less than $2 a day, to not appreciate such a thing — fleeting as we know it may be — and expect that they’d know it won’t last forever? In the moment, do they even care?…

The United States needs to immediately beat Chavez at his own game. But rather than an arms race, it’s a development race. A Monroe plan for America. By going not just big, but huge, on development, President Bush or his successor can get Chavez at the jugular. He can go on TV all the time, telling Latinos what the United States is doing for them. And when he calls them our brothers, they’ll believe it. At the same time, with this new authority, he can voraciously attack Chavez and his ideological pimps by calling them out on what they’re really doing in Latin America. He can tells Latam about how Chavez’s policies have left people more poor and enslaved than they were; how basic food products are no longer on the shelves; how everyday people like themselves are being threatened and intimidated; how Cuban teachers aren’t teaching children so much how to read but how to report their parents to the government for opposition activities; how investment and jobs that could bring them better lives are fleeing like mad. Talking to Latinos about vague subjects like democracy doesn’t mean much. Big actions, and then talking big about it, does.

Operating under this supercharged leadership worthy of the world’s leading superpower, not to mention the reality that one day Chavez’s scheme will collapse by pure economics, the United States can go from hated to not just dealt with, but loved. And Latam itself, when the crap Bolviarian system does go the way of the dodo like all totalitarian systems before it, will emerge stronger than ever before. If cleaning up our neighborhood really is as important as President Bush says, we cannot leave it to chance or miracles that the continent will stop spinning in cycles of populist leftism and oligarchic militarism, as it has since forever, once Chavez stops haunting it.

Until now Chavez has been able to call President Bush a pendejo while spreading his fame like wildfire. Meanwhile, President Bush has acted like a neutered dog by refusing to speak of the Venezuelan dictator by name. The work needs to start now, and it needs to finally go big. Then the United States can speak to Latam with an authority and razor edge that will cut Chavez to seize. And only then will Latinos call us brothers in return.