I became more partisan by living in Bolivia.I was a labour voting liberal when I went there, but nothing further left than that.
I accept there is a militant left affiliated to the MAS which rarely surfaces in the lowland East, where I was and I understand it has a stronger presence on the altiplano, most famously in El Alto.
This extremist faction which is a militant reaction to the abuses they and their people have suffered for centuries etc, etc,(abuses the Bolivian opposition appear to exist primarily to continue) are not in government at cabinet level.Unless, of course, you pick Alvaro Garcia Linera, probably the most militant member of Morales' cabinet but someone who happens to be a highly educated white middle class intellectual.
The leftwing extremists are scattered through the pressure groups.Whilst the MAS government was elected on the shoulders of these pressure groups as it's core vote, events have shown they do not control it and Morales, due to his elected authority, has on many occasions used his position to tell them to calm down and, literally, to hold fire.
I've had experiences where indigenous people have given me or my partner crap (she's a lightish-skinned girl from the valleys), but I just tell them to stop being stupid because I'm not a rightwinger.I used to tell them 'stop acting like the camba'.That always made them blush with shame.
I don't doubt in La Paz there is more of an attitude against gringos and I don't blame you.I would tell them to fuck off as well.
What I saw in Bolivia is crystal clear in my mind.Systematic and expert attempts to undermine a 'hostile' democracy.If you've read some 20thc latin american history - which I only actually began to do after I'd formed my opinions on the matter purely from first hand experience - then it becomes truly sinister.
Your post seems naive.
Isn't it convenient that after the Morales govt has been given a clean sheet by all reputable electoral and human rights orgs, these guys appear.

As an Aymara woman in Bolivia, 1st, I concur with stibbsy that the MAS led government is about "60% a very good thing", and I note I was part of that 67% who approved our Brother President's administration to continue and deepen the changes. 2nd, I also attest to the fact that although I am educated or mis-educated in various universities throughout Europe and the USA, I often get little or no attentiveness from city people in any of the 9 Departments in Bolivia when I am on my own or with my own, however- when accompanied by "gringos" or yellowed-hair siblings, whether they be friends, acquiantances or even newly arrived tourists, it seems my city-bretheren topple over themselves to be nice to me and mostly "my group". I realize this internalized racism will take years to change but I am willing to walk the path beside my government, unfettered by what those "opinionologists" of the Miami Herald or the questionable foundations might advance. After all, la Pachamama allows everyone to walk on her, not asking merits but rather providing her generosity.

I have been following events in Bolivia from early September, using Google alerts from around the world. The hrf site indicates, in its own way, a "central conceit" that seems to be as unrealistic and, dare I say, simplistic as the one in the movie reviewed above.

Sorry, I forgot to mention: the attempted military coup; the assassination plots (which according to long serving and senior Bolvian military officers loyal to Morales originated in Langley, VA); the petrol bombs thrown at Cuban medics treating hitherto too-poor-to-treat Bolivians in the barrios; the staggeringly well coordinated barrage of lies and misinformation poured into the ears of the Cruceño populace, almost as if it was a propaganda exercise carried out by people with prior experience.....hmm...; the massacre of 18 peasants on their way to one of those pesky aforementioned MAS rallies.I went to a few.I wasn't threatened or singled out as a gringo spy.I found the people there to be very civilised, in fact.Quite the opposite of the image of an idelogically whipped up ignorant peasant class á la Cambodia that you, the White House, and indeed the local whites seem to be trying to portray.
Is it possible the right could have set up a Human Rights Foundation to try to redress the balance against those bastard liberals who keep banging on about, err, human rights and other such unprofitable bollocks?
Or are they impartial?
Feel free to reply.Becasue I still may feel, as you pointed out, that I don't really know what's going on in Bolivia.

Thanks, Emma from Brisbane, Australia for your informative
article about the latest James Bond movie. I have enjoyed
most of these movies throughout the years in spite of the
obvious ideological difficulties.

Knowing that this movie addressed geo-political themes as it
did provided additional motivation to see it.

It seems to me that the local Murdoch-owned newspaper the
Courier Mail did not treat "Quantum of Solace" fairly and I
wrote about it at http://candobetter.org/node/945