May Day Counter-Blast

In a scathing editorial for the Foreign Policy journal, Alvaro Vargas Llosa declares that "the idiots are back." He is, of course, referring to those Latin American populist leaders who are madly waving their Marxist banners, railing against foreign imperialists, and promising to deliver their people from poverty--despite the fact that history, economics, and the dumb certainties of experience declare with solemn unanimity that such posturing can only defer the hope of freedom and prosperity throughout that beleaguered continent yet again. This is brilliant stuff--as always--from the son of novelist Mario Vargas Llosa and the leading Peruvian intellectual working today. He has offered up a very suitable May Day counter-blast.