"The demonization of the forces of change, agents of alien ideologies, traffickers in cocaine, Marxism, and other drugs, requires the previous flushing out of historical memory. In reality, the alien presence in America is capitalism (emphasis in original), which was not invented by Manco Cápac or Moctezuma, but imposed from outside and above by sixteenth-century invaders from Europe. The Conquest commercialized American life, imposed the so-much-in-exchange-for-so-much, while the Church proffered by divine order the law of profit and the law of fear: if you obey your reward will be in heaven; if you disobey hell will punish you. On the other hand there is no older tradition in America than the communitarian mode of production and way of life (emphasis in original). In addition to being the oldest tradition, the community is also the most persistent and the most obstinately vital, despite having suffered unceasing persecution for the last five centuries. It may well be said, then, that socialism comes from within and from below, from the most authentic and profound depths of the memory of our lands.
"In the same sense, it's worth mentioning that democracy was not a novelty that the barbarous Indians received from the European monarchies or from its civilized Inquisition (emphasis in original). Outside of Cuzco and Tenochtitlán, which were centers of hereditary despotism, the chronicles of the epoch describe revealing anecdotes that took place in a number of places: the Indians asked who elected the king of Spain or the king of England, because they elected their leaders in assemblies - in which women, it should be said, also expressed their opinions and voted."
-----Eduardo Galeano, "We Say No - Chronicles 1963-1991," pps. 216-17
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