Explaining Bolivia, in Just Six Words

As long-time Blog readers know, we have offered the comments section of the Blog, from the beginning, as a completely uncensored forum where people are free to post whatever they want, and to do so with anonymity. This forum has often offered genuine insight into Bolivia and other topics we write about, much of it coming from people who disagree vehemently with The Democracy Center's posts.

At other times, including recently, the comments section has degenerated into a space of juvenile name calling, among people of varied perspectives who seem to confuse insult and opinion. That is unfortunate, because the comments section could actually be a place of genuine and valuable debate. Again, it is often the people who disagree with our posts that have the most valuable things to say. In fact, earlier this year we invited one of our harshest critics to read and review a chapter from our forthcoming book, and we benefited a good deal from his suggestions.

So, with this post we challenge our commenters to enter into a little experiment, to put their cleverness to work analyzing Bolivia in a slightly different form: Explain Bolivia, in Just Six Words.

The idea is not mine, but one borrowed directly from a terrific book I heard reviewed recently on NPR: "Not Quite What I Was Planning – Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure." The book features 1,000 six-word-memoirs, in which writers offer up minimalist summaries of their lives, such as:

Not quite what I was planning

20's women, 30's career, 40's sleep

Happily married, until the paternity test

And so, I would like to challenge our ever-so-clever comment posters to try their hand at using this same minimalist technique to – Explain Bolivia, in just six words. Some examples might include:

A people rose – then screwed up.

Oligarchs abounded, Evo ascended, dialogue ended

Autonomy they sought, SUVs they bought

The Embassy provides, Ammo, AID, spies

And so fourth.

A few ground rules for this post. First, only six-word comments will be permitted this time around, none longer and none shorter. Second, for this post only, we will moderate comments and will delete without even reading them, any that are not precisely six words. You are free to insert commas and other punctuation as you wish. Third, if you wish to submit more than one six-word observation about Bolivia, you can do so in a single comment, but please write them on separate lines.

Other than that, have at it. And hopefully with this brief pause in our normal flow of comments, all might consider adding a little measure of civility in what they otherwise post as well.

And maybe people will even put their real names on this one.