PUERTO JIMINEZ, CR- Touring Costa Rica has been interesting. Considering the turmoil of Central America, it may be a shining example of a functional Capitalist Democracy. It´s got a healthy middle class and a relatively contented populace. Can it offer a lesson to its strife torn neighbors? Sure. Get rid of the Indios.
Citizens of the “Rich Coast” pride themselves on being light skinned, owing to a Spanish heritage of course. They´re the descendants of settlers, mixed some with labor imports from the Caribbean. But the indigenous people are gone. Which makes for scarce land redistribution demands.
When Columbus first came to Costa Rica, there were 400,000 inhabitants. When they saw that the Spaniards were enslaving whoever they conquered, the tribes hid in the mountains. As a result, Costa wasn´t properly subjugated like elsewhere. The Spanish didn´t want land that didn´t come with ready slave labor. But hiding didn´t save the indians. As the Spanish settled the land, the original population dwindled, to 10%, then 2% within 200 years. They are, as Randy Newman sang it: “Gone, real gone.”
There is an inspiring history to Costa Rica´s present relatively egalitarian government, and I´m going to write more about some of their laudable leaders. But I have to argue that CR smacks of US artifice. And lo, even as I cringe at the camo themed souvenir caps that remind me of the Contras, it turns out Oliver North operated his Contra army and drug smuggling operation out of an airfield in northern Costa Rica. There´s a surfing destination near there called Ollie´s Point, named after the would be filibuster himself. Those apolitical surfer fucks.
(It is hard to surpress disdain for the hard-recreating American asses despoiling CR toilet paper. I cannot bear their vibes of inutile indifference.)
So the Costa Ricans are less Central Americans than good old Americans. And that never meant Native American.
1 Million Nicaraguans Have Emigrated to Costa Rica at
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=23558&ArticleId=326262
About 1 out of every 8 ‘Costa Ricans’ there are actually Nicaraguans. Care to imagine how content they might actually be with their lives as forced migrants working to find work in hostile terrain?
And how many native Costa Ricans are actually all that happy with all those rich visitors from Gringolandia raining down on them? These outsiders drive prices up sky high for them just like Mexicans living in Baja California and other hot spots in Mexico have to deal with.
It is nice and green there in CR but so too is it in Rwanda. It’s not all an emerald fairy tale land though, since there appears to be a lot of anger seething just right below the cool hard, cold Green.
So how’s the trip going?
Tony, very smart of you to drop Israel for the time being and shift over to Costa Rica. LOL. Just messin’ witcha.
That’s quite OK.
God bless Costa Rica, they understand that individual liberty and capitalism are how societies prosper, but of course your stupid ass looks at the greatest nation in the hitory of the world (for the good of the world) with vicious distain. Whatever wealth and quality of life you’ve created for yourself is thanks to the liberty and free market economy of America, if you hate America so much, get the fuck out because we don’t want you let alone need you. May Costa Rica be USA central.
Typical Right Wing Retard. If it’s such a Capitalist Paradise for the actual People of Costa Rica, why is their government propped up by the U.S. Military and the constant Terrorist Threat of the Marines coming in and burning down their huts and murdering their kids?
Even put in the Retarded “love it or leave it” slogan. Leave our country to be ruled by Fascist Assholes like you? Not bloody likely, mate.