Here is another statement in Noam Chomsky's blog which, as usual, counters the doctrine that is doled out in many colleges and universities in the U.S., in this case pertaining to Latin America. I have a professor this semester, for example, who actually believes that Latin Americans "don't value democracy the way we do because it has never really worked for them". As a counter-discourse to the latter statement, I present to you this excerpt of Chomsky's March 24th entry, which is titled "Structural Adjustment":

People in the more civilized sectors of the world (what we call "the third world," or the "developing countries") often burst out laughing when they witness an election in which the choices are two men from very wealthy families with plenty of clout in the very narrow political system, who went to the same elite university and even joined the same secret society to be socialized into the manners and attitudes of the rulers, and who are able to participate in the election because they have massive funding from highly concentrated sectors of unaccountable power that cast over society the shadow called "politics," as John Dewey put it.

But it's up to us whether we want to tolerate this, and if we could begin to approach the level of democracy of, say, Brazil, we could do quite a lot about IMF conditionalities. And it doesn't happen by just showing up once every four years to participate in an "election".