« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
"We are the people who run this country.
We are the deciders. And every single day,
every single one of us needs to step outside
and take some action to help stop this war."
--Molly Ivins, sorely and sadly missed
Tell me, dear friend: have you heard about the March for Life? You know--the one that took place this year, as it does every year, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade? It is awfully hard to miss an annual display of in-your-face anti-choice propaganda when even the president of the United States has proclaimed this date to be National Sanctity of Life Day.
But I guess you probably haven't heard of it after all. Because to hear Donald Wildmon and his trusty sidekick tell it, the event wasn't even covered by the liberal-biased mainstream media!
Well, of course not...except for Fox News, which just happens to be the largest mainstream media company in the United States, if not the entire planet. But they're a lonely bastion of fairness and balance in a sea of secular liberalism...and even their most recent story on this worthy cause is more than a year old!
Oh wait, maybe I spoke too soon. The Washington Times also has an announcement out. But maybe Mr. Moon's money-losing propaganda sheet also doesn't count as a real media outlet, any more than all those other "Christian" news sites out there.
I guess the lack of mainstream media attention is to blame for the fact that the March for Life only drew a mere 20,000 expected attendees, as opposed to the 500,000 who attended a recent peace march. But you'd never know that to hear the way Wildmon hypes it. To him, the numbers were reversed, and it was hundreds of thousands marching for fetus fetishism while only a paltry ten thousand or so were marching for the right to life of soldiers wrongfully deployed overseas. And the mainstream media, dad-gummit, is covering all that up!
I think Wildmon's a damned ingrate, and that he should be thankful for whatever distortions he can get. The media's alleged liberal bias was certainly not in evidence in their reporting of the United for Peace march. Not only are the folks at Associated Press playing the numbers down, the Washington Posties are fixating on the fact that Jane Fonda Was There. Not to mention how an outlet no less august than the New York Times ran with the story of the Iraq War vet who allegedly got spat at. There are serious questions, which the Times failed to ask, about the hard-faced youngster's veracity. He's a freeper with ties to none other than Dick Cheney, and they never reported that. Nor did they report how a pro-peace veteran was arrested in Washington. This is liberal bias? They could scarcely be taking more cues from the Wingnuttia if they'd been simply reprinting Matt Drudge's blog entries. Somehow, though, that's just not good enough for Mr. Wildmon.
Let's face it, folks, the Culture of Life is hurting, bad. It has zero credibility and its biggest proponents are practically admitting as much. They can sing, they can shout, they can tapdance up and down the Capitol steps with tambourines a-jinglin', but they can't get the media's attention anymore unless they start using disabled vets instead of mangled fetal remains.
Which I guess makes it even more pathetic when you consider how some poor souls are making a point of it, not once a year but once a month, to call with menstrual regularity for "life"--which, by their definition, is the right to be brought to birth of every fertilized ovum, whether wanted or not, healthy and viable or not. That's zealotry for you, courtesy of the Amurrican Taliban. Everytime a woman gets her period, an angel weeps tears of blood. Meanwhile, no mention whatsoever of what all that depleted uranium is doing to the unborn children of Iraq.
But what's truly nauseous is that these "pro-lifers" are really quite happy to exploit death to their own ends. Whether it's that of a half-formed fetus or a full-grown soldier, it seems death is just fine by them as long as it serves their ideological purposes. For people who claim to abhor abortion, they sure own a lot of pictures of its bloody results. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they masturbated over them; this is their kiddie porn, which they hoard under a pretense of morality. They can't justify an abortion under any circumstances, but by God, the war was justified because those godless commies--er, sorry, I meant to say Christ-less sandmonkeys--still owe somebody for 9-11.
And anyone who says otherwise is a hellbound secular humanist, and is probably spitting on legless vets, too.
...I just couldn't resist this headline: "Scott Baio Blames Pam's Breasts for End of Their Relationship".
Former teen heartthrob Scott Baio says his relationship with Canadian beauty Pamela Anderson ended when she decided to get her breasts enlarged."One day Pamela came home and said, 'I'm thinking of getting my boobs done.' Admittedly, I was surprised. My initial response, 'Reduced?' She already had large, beautiful, natural breasts," he recalls. "At that moment I knew our relationship would soon begin to crumble. Pamela had finally gone Hollywood — or whatever it is that happens when a woman becomes a hot celebrity."
Wow...that must have been really early in her career, because I can't recall a time when Pamela Anderson was anything less than 100% artificial. She's so wholesomely chock-full of additives, preservatives, and...well, whatever chemical category silicone falls under. (I suspect it's carcinogens.) She's got nothing natural left now, from her not-born-blond hair to her Lee press-on toenails. But hey, it's kinda nice to know somebody knew her before she was famous just for being Hollywood's #1 extreme-makeover casualty.
But that's not the only eye-opening bit of waa-waa-waa he has to serve up for our collective delectation:
In BaioWatch: How I Dated and Loved Hollywood's Most Beautiful Women and Ended Up Alone, Baio blows the lid off his relationships and sexual exploits with stars like Brooke Shields, Nicolette Sheridan, Heather Locklear, Erika Eleniak and Nicole Eggert.Baio recalls losing his virginity to Erin Moran, who played his girlfriend Joanie on Happy Days.
"I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say after we got naked. So for the first five minutes, maybe less — hell, it might have been the first twenty seconds — I'm doing it and thinking, man, this is really uncomfortable," he says, adding that his penis was actually between the sofa cushions. "Instead of being inside Erin, I was humping a corduroy sofa!"
So...Joanie really did love Chachi, in more ways than one. But how cringe-inducing! And I thought my first time was, well, kind of banal? Suddenly, I feel like I lucked out--at least my then boyfriend knew where to go, though, alas, not what to do when he got there. Unlike Mr. Teen Sex Symbol, who was apparently sub-par even when it came to teen sex. Chachi, Chachi, Chachi--what would the Fonz say?
Probably "Whoa!":
Baio also tells of meeting actress Beverly D'Angelo at a party and commenting on the sexiness of her overbite. He claims D'Angelo replied: "I don't have an overbite, dear. I have a c**ksucker's mouth."
Oh, my. I have a cute little overbite too, but somehow, I just never thought of it in quite those terms. I'm sure that's a sad commentary on the general state of affairs in Hollywood.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go take some Angostura for my upset stomach. I don't call this celebrity blah-blah The Nausea for nothing, folks.
Uh, this must be part of that "culture of life" I always hear right-wingers babbling on about.
The city of Miami is planning an official celebration at the Orange Bowl for whenever Cuban President Fidel Castro dies.Discussions by a committee appointed earlier this month by the city commission to plan the event have even covered issues such as a theme to be printed on T-shirts, what musicians would perform, the cost and how long the celebration would last.
Such a gathering has long been part of the city's plan for Castro's death, but firming up the specifics has been more urgent since Castro became ill last summer and turned over power to his brother, Raul.City commissioner Tomas Regalado, a Cuban-American, came up with the idea of using the Orange Bowl, noting that the stadium was the site of a speech by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 promising a free Cuba, and that in the 1980s it served as a camp for refugees from the Mariel boat lift from Cuba.
"Basically, the only thing we're trying to do is have a venue, a giant venue ready for people, if they wish, to speak to the media, to show their emotions. It's not that we're doing an official death party," Regalado said Monday.
Oh, of course not. That would be vulgar and obscene, not to mention morbid. No, better to couch it as an exercise in free speech; that always gets better airplay. Funny, though, how this sort of laudable venue for free speech would require such an, uh, unusual occasion to facilitate.
I have an idea: why doesn't the local planning commission put up a permanent "Speaker's Corner", such as CityTV has in Toronto, so people can spill their guts to the camera and so get their say in the media whenever the show goes to air? Or, more humbly and publicly, how about the original Speakers' Corner, in Hyde Park, London? Surely it wouldn't take much cash outlay, or nearly as much organization, as this "good riddance, Fidel, you fucking bastard" bash is taking now.
Oh, I know, I know...Miami is too busy organizing other worthy things, like single-payer healthcare or decent public schools, affordable housing, a better standard of living, tackling poverty and homelessness, and building the middle class. Isn't it?
What? It isn't?
Well, holy crap! That just blows my mind. I thought people came from Cuba to America for FREEDOM. I must have a different concept of freedom than they do, though, because to me, the word means the following:
As you can see, my concept of freedom is one of freedom from tyranny, want, abuse and fear. Not one of "freedom isn't free", which demands that those who have the least must consistently give the most (particularly their lives in war.) Not one of "freedom for me, but not for thee". And certainly not the "freedom" of the flibbertigibbertarians, either, who think private ownership of everything, with no commons whatsoever, is the way to go. At that rate, everyone will live in his own prison, but hey, at least he owns the cell and has the convenient illusion of control over it--until, invariably, the Invisible Hand of the Market sticks in its thumb and pulls out a plum! And above all else, my concept of freedom is not "I get to do whatever I want, damn the consequences and fuck you."
No, my concept of freedom is clearly not dependent on the vagaries of the market or the foibles of human nature. Nor is it dependent on the charity of the religious (laudable though that may be.) It does not elevate the rights of the individual above the greater good of all, because I frankly do not believe that any individual's rights mean a damn if the greater good of all is not in place first. Self-realization cannot happen in a vacuum, no matter what any flibbertigibbertarian may say. A system that facilitates self-realization is needed; no one can pull himself up by the bootstraps unless he first has boots. And for that, there has to be a system in place--a boot factory, as it were. Consider a democratic society with a social safety net to be that factory. And please spare me the argument in favor of a "free market" boot factory, which generates a great deal of faddish, expensive landfill but not boots that you can walk very far in. I don't buy that crap, no matter who's selling.
But if I'm not buying, hey howdy, Miami is. They buy a lot of fashionable crap there, which no doubt explains the great social inequities that are visible even on a map. (The fashionable crap sells less well in the poorer neighborhoods, oddly enough--must be that lower purchasing power those huddled masses have, that I'm hearing so much about.)
I read Los Blogueros regularly, and here's what the female half of the pair has to say about it all:
I know many people who left Miami because of the poor quality of the schools, the crime rates, the pollution and other quality-of-life problems...well, with such leaders of reason nothing gets regulated.Oh, and they also complain about the lack of freedom in the zone where no one speaks ill of Fidel Castro, or where they defend, however indirectly, whatever has happened in Cuba since 1959.
Translation mine.
La Bloguera includes a picture of a black man begging on a glitzily-lit street of Miami, pithily commenting that "this is something you won't see in Havana". I suspect she doesn't mean that it's for lack of freedom there, either.
Speaking of things you won't see, here are a couple of things you won't see in the mainstream US media, that bastion of freedom:
"Chavez follows Cuban energy saving model". Um, this would fall under ecological sustainability, would it not? That's one of my tenets of freedom right there. Imagine being free from blackouts, and reasonably free from pollution, too. Can the self-regulating "free market" boast of that? Shockingly, no!
"Cuban biotechnology working for healthcare". Heavens, how is this possible with no corporations or profit motive whatsoever? Not only does Cuba have a working public health system which is both preventive and efficient in treating illness (and envied throughout Latin America), it also has a biotech industry that's logged several impressive successes. (I've blogged on these, by the way; see here and follow the easy, convenient linkies.)
Granted, Cuba is not perfect either, but on more than one front, they do have Miami licked. And like it or not, they couldn't have done it without Fidel. I hope those planning to celebrate his death bear in mind what would have happened if Batista had remained in power.
Or, at the very least, to be fair, they should celebrate the freedom and independence of the unacknowledged 51st US state--Puerto Rico!
...I just got here from the US of A!
And as you can see, punk-ass Humvee Macho Man is one helluva driver. When he gets sick of running them off the road from his own lane, he just veers into the oncoming one and starts all over.
With an attitude like that, it's easy to see how BushCo is winning the hearts and minds of the Middle East!
Score one more award for Chavecito: the Tiradentes Medal.
When he wasn't busy receiving awards for humanitarian service to the cause of democracy, or in a tete-a-tete with his good friend Lula...
...or bestowing a little tenderness on local youngsters...
...Chavecito had this to say about a local right-wing paper that bad-mouthed him:
"O Globo, O, O, O..."
O, what a hoot!
Oh, my gawd. What is it with Time magazine's attitude toward Hugo Chavez? They couldn't make him their Person of the Year; that privilege is reserved for actual dictators and nonentities like "you", not admirable democratic socialists out to change the world for the better. But at last, they searched their groins and found the gonads to print something somewhat true about him, although you'd never know it to look at the title: "Is Chavez Becoming Castro?"
To read the opening paragraph, you'd swear the answer was a resounding yes:
Hugo Chavez has gone through more chiefs of staff than Venezuela has had Miss Universes — which is quite a few. So when the Venezuelan President tapped his older brother Adan for the job last year, few outside Miraflores Palace took notice. They should have. Adan, since then appointed education minister, is Hugo's chief Marxist consultant — and a driving force behind Chavez's harder-than-usual left turn since his re-election last month. Chavez has announced plans to shut down an opposition-run TV network and nationalize Venezuela's largest telephone and electricity firms, while pushing his rubber-stamp Congress to allow him to run for re-election indefinitely and rule by decree well into 2008. It's no wonder Chavez watchers compare Adan to Latin America's other conspicuous First Brother, Raul Castro, who would succeed Fidel.
To many in Washington, the emergence of Adan is one more reminder of Chavez's autocratic urges — and of the possibility that Chavez himself is Fidel Castro's real successor in Latin America. His nationalization scheme evokes the seizure of private businesses in Cuba after Castro's 1959 communist revolution: it ousts U.S.-based companies like Verizon, part-owner of the Venezuelan telecom giant CANTV, and the AES Corporation, which controls Venezuela's main power utility. Chavez asserted this week that while he'll compensate both U.S. firms, he won't pay them a market rate. And when the Bush Administration raised concerns about his burgeoning presidential powers, Chavez replied, in his usual charming fashion, "Go to hell, gringos!"
An impression hardly contradicted by the sidebar links, either:
RELATEDStifling Dissent in Venezuela
The outgoing Central Bank director disputes Chavez's nationalization policies. But he's one of the last willing to speak out
Chavez Extends His Grip
The Venezuelan strongman lurches even closer to one-party — and one-man — rule, roiling democratic waters and spooking the stock market
Venezuela's Opposition Concedes: Chavez Is Here to Stay
How big was the leftist leader's reelection victory? So big his opponents didn't even cry foul
Got a slight case of the schizo, have we? I mean, how else to explain a "strongman" who still manages to get himself so cleanly elected that his opponents "don't even cry foul", even though he's "roiling democratic waters and spooking the stock market"? (As if the stockmarket were an arbiter of democracy. Boo fucking hoo!)
And it's a mystery to me how a bank director can "dispute Chavez's nationalization policies" and still be an example of "stifled dissent". I mean, Time managed to talk to him and find out that he disputed a policy. How stifled is that?
Where was I? Oh yeah, Time searched its ass and finally found its brain--sorta. You'll have to look three paragraphs down and ignore that stupid sidebar before you get to it:
Yet, by objective standards, Chavez is still not Castro. Says one Chavez official, "We're a hell of a long way from a [Castro-style] regime." Chavez gushingly admires and subsidizes Castro. But many officials in Caracas, especially younger ones, wince when you equate the two. They insist their democratically elected commandante is hardly poised to snuff out free speech and free enterprise or stoke armed revolution abroad. Chavez may control the hemisphere's largest oil reserves, but they believe he can't afford to squander a more valuable commodity — his democratic legitimacy, something Castro never had and which gives Chavez the ability to blunt U.S. efforts to cast him as the Caribbean's new communist caudillo.Even if Chavez were to turn Caracas into Havana, there is little Washington could do. The U.S. depends on Venezuela as its fourth largest foreign-crude supplier, which all but precludes swinging the trade embargo stick Washington has used against Castro for 45 years. Political isolation is a weak bet, too. In a region with the world's widest gap between rich and poor, Chavez's gospel of Latin American self-determination has spawned a resurgent left and unusually coordinated anti-Yanqui sentiment, evidenced by the region's rejection of President Bush's hemispheric free-trade proposal. Warns Luis Vicente Leon, head of the independent Caracas polling firm Datanalisis, "Every time the U.S. tries to demonize Chavez, it makes him larger than he really is."
I did say they were reluctant to give the man his due, did I not? Well, here's an example of just how reluctant. They admit that he's no Castro--but then turn around and assume that like Castro, Chavez's success at home must be due to his demonization by the Yanks. Or his demonization OF the Yanks. Neither of these is the case. The real reason probably has a lot more to do with the fact that the economy is booming (even in the non-oil sectors) and that people have it better now than they did in the 40 years of faux democracy that preceded Chavecito. Oh, and of course, there's the little matter of a growing independence from gringo rule, too; you can rest assured that even if the economic imperialism in the region came from the Brits and the Dutch, as has been the case to a lesser extent, the people would be against that, too. No Yanks necessary.
Of course, the fact that the Yanks are omnipresent, especially when it comes to backing actual dictators, is one which somehow escapes the closer scrutiny of the Newsmagazine of Record. No, better to keep the focus tight on Chavez and his alleged democratic deficits. The fact that they're all imaginary and that the proof of his "autocratic" tendencies is strangely thin, is of no consequence. Even now, as the truth slips out, Time must still adhere to its official line that Chavecito is "anti-American" or face the wrath of the government censor. Time, like so many other US media outlets, has been a blatant cheerleader for the anti-Chavez forces--even when it's evident that they haven't a democratic bone in their carcasses.
And when it hasn't been cheerleading for the US's wealthy Venezuelan toadies, Time has been actively blowing smoke, trying to confuse the reading public into an irrational fear of Chavez. (I refer you once more to the schizophrenic sidebar above. Confused? I would be too, if I didn't know better than to take such things seriously.)
The real question is not how much longer the Venezuelan people will tolerate Chavez in power; they've already demonstrated repeatedly that they like him enough to keep him in for as long as he's willing to stay. Rather, it is how much longer Time magazine will keep backflipping and waving the pompoms for a cause (foreign investment as the cure for all domestic evils) that was actually lost long before Chavecito came to power.
"Perhaps if we don't treat Chavez like Castro, the new theory suggests, the Venezuelan leader may be less compelled to become Castro", goes the last line in the piece--but it misses the fact that if Chavez really wanted to be Castro, he could have done it long ago. The fact that he hasn't, shows that he's learned from the Maximo Leader's self-admitted mistakes. He's prepared to give the people what they really want, not to mention the means to achieve it for themselves. The region, let's face it, is out of Washington's hands, and looks likely to remain so for good, because they're fast developing a taste for real democracy (especially since it works).
Now, when will Time learn from its own mistakes, acknowledge the real facts up front, and stop publishing gobbledygook?
Rick Mercer, watch out. Here's a comedian claiming to be Prime Minister John Howard--and NO ONE catches on. But they sure do say the darndest things.
Earlier this week I translated and commented on part of an Aporrea article on Venezuelan political scientist Haiman el Troudi and his recommendations for what the elusive creature of Hugo Chavez's visions should look like. Here's more:
Capitalism is broken. El Troudi is convinced that capitalism is not a viable model, "because it claims we can all be rich, but for that, we need five Earth-like planets so that we all can achieve it!"He listed a series of "anti-values" which capitalism promotes, and which 21st Century Socialism must displace with its own distinctive traits: exploitation of human beings, consumerism, the cult of materialist fetishism and corruption, etc.
According to El Troudi, the goal of 21st Century Socialism is to drive society upwards, "so that we can all be middle class." But he emphasized that this class must be removed from the anti-values of capitalism.He pointed out that the model sought for Venezuela, seeks to build a new humanity and a new society.
He called for a system of infinite democracy, based on popular power; social inclusion, protection and security; harmonious decentralized development of all territories (so that all those living in them will have equal opportunities); internationalism (so that other countries can also apply the model); and an economy with new productive relationships.
IT SHOULD NOT BE:
- State capitalist (it should move toward socialized production companies);
- Paternalistic populist (it must eliminate the "Father knows best" state culture);
- Excessively centralized democratically;
- Castrator of popular participation;
- Totalitarian;
- Messianic;
- A military-industrial complex (there must be no confusion with necessary defence budgeting);
- A one-party state;
- Based on extrapolation of models;
- Marked by a division between the ruled and ruling classes.
As you can see, El Troudi's vision is a practical one. It owes not so much to "Marxist" theory as it does to the simple realization that the old static political models are all clunky--including the old capitalist one!
Moreover, it is rooted in a realization of what went wrong with the old political system in Venezuela. This system was centralized, such that Caracas held sway over all regions of the country, dictating to them rather than responding to their wishes and needs. The face in power changed often, as did the party colors behind it, but the nature and behavior of that power did not. Always, the new face was presented as a "messiah", a Dear Leader come to save the day, characterized by a mini-cult of personality designed to pacify the masses by assuring them that this time, "change" would come. Meanwhile, again, the people's needs were ignored as oil money was squandered and disappeared, and local industry and farm production sank while imports rose. 20th-century capitalism is clearly to blame for all this misrule, as a brief slice of history will show.
After oil was discovered in the area around Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela went from an agrarian economy and net exporter of food (primarily cacao) to an industrialized one, with some 80% of its food imported by large multinational firms. This benefited the owners of the corporations and their local partners, but not the consumers; food costs shot up even as the purchasing power of the bolivar went down. Junk food consumption rose; nutrition lagged. Fresh local produce became virtually unavailable as farmlands fell idle. The campesinos who used to work the land were displaced as absentee landlords took it away from them; most landed up in the slums that creep up the hillsides around Caracas. This only contributed to the centralization problem, not to mention the poverty problem. Can anyone be surprised that this is a populace with a "messiah complex" in their politics? Or that, by 1989, it was all beginning to fall apart? Or that when Lt.-Col. Hugo Chavez launched his failed coup attempt in '92, there was no condemnation, but rather great popular support for the jailed paratroop commander? (This last, while it has been ascribed to messianism, is actually nothing of the sort. It is a popular response to two things: Chavez's willingness to try something radical, even if it failed; and his taking responsibility for it when it did fail. No "democratic" Punto Fijo president would ever have declared himself publicly responsible like that. He was, in short, a radical departure from messiahs-as-usual.)
Incidentally, Venezuela knows from totalitarianism, too; just ask the gentleman who blogs as Gringo in Venezuela. He has an excellent little history lesson in Venezuelan dictatorships, faux-democracy, and their connections to Big Oil at his site. (He calls them "democracy prevention", as accurate a term as any I've ever seen.) So it's not surprising that 21st Century Socialism wants to get away from that pitfall. The history of authoritarianism and its US backers shouldn't be lost one anyone. And neither should the fact that far from being enemies, capitalism and fascism are actually close allies. (The corollary, of course, is that socialism and democracy--which are the economic and political sides of the same coin--are the antidote.)
Paternalistic populism too gets a short shrift, mainly because whatever its benefits, it has a sad way of failing to outlive the benevolent father figure. Worse, it's been done--by right-wing capitalists looking to buy support. Why adopt the behavior of one's worst enemy?
By now, it should be obvious why Haiman el Troudi refers to capitalist tenets as "anti-values". There is only one thing they are not against, and that is money. This monomania makes them all extremely cynical at their cold, shrivelled heart. And if anything should give us all hope, it's that there IS an alternative to all that, and that in Venezuela, people are talking about how to put it in place right now.
It's called "Baghdad Brutality". 9:11 minutes of evidence that things have degenerated to utter madness. And that far from stopping sectarian violence, the US presence in Iraq has actually encouraged it.
Video courtesy Raw Story.
I suspect there is more truth in this than anyone realizes.
I also suspect that Cuba's real democratic future will come by way of Venezuela, Bolivia and other Latin American allies, not Miami or Washington.
Oh, the irony. When a luxury meal is served at a summit dedicated to fighting social inequalities, look what happens:
Dozens of street children have invaded a five-star hotel food tent and feasted on meals meant for sale at the World Social Forum in Kenya's capital.The hungry urchins were joined by other participants who complained that the food was too expensive at the annual anti-capitalist get together.
The police, caught unawares, were unable to stop the free-for-all that saw the food containers swept clean.The gathering in Nairobi is discussing social problems, including poverty.
A plate of food at the tent being operated by the prestigious Windsor Hotel was selling for $7 in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.
The children, who had been begging for food, launched the raid after being told they would have to pay for the food.
Of course, no one at the luxury meal tent asked them if they had means to pay. That would have been so horribly embarrassing. Rich people don't talk about money, you know--that would be vulgar!
Even more embarrassing, though, is how this object lesson in problems the market failed to solve, somehow missed its mark. And if that's not vulgar, what is?
But if the catering hotel comes off looking like shit, at least the organizers of the forum were able to drag themselves a little ways out of their own latrine:
Two days ago, World Social Forum organisers were forced to waive entry fees for participants after Nairobi slum dwellers staged a demonstration against the charges.Participants were originally being asked to pay a 500 Kenyan shillings ($7) accreditation fee.
"We are now not charging anybody, the event is free so that many people can participate," Boniface Beti, the event's media officer, told the BBC.
Mr Beti also said hawkers had recently been allowed in to sell cheap food to participants as up until a few days ago five-star catering firms had dominated business.
My question is, why were fancy catering firms even being hired at all? Isn't the point of the gathering to make sure those who can't pay a penny, still get heard?
Or is it something else altogether, something I'm obviously missing here?
Courtesy of Aporrea.org, we finally have a working definition of the goal of the Bolivarian Revolution:
21st Century Socialism must drive the betterment of society, in such a way that all citizens satisfy their needs and form one middle class, theoretician Haiman el Troudi said yesterday at the opening of the First Forum on 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela."The order must be: Let's push upwards, let's all be middle-class", said El Troudi, speaking from the auditorium of the Medical College of Caracas, in response to the myth that socialism intends to do away with wealth and equalize society downwards.
In the search for a defintion which would drive president Hugo Chavez's model, El Troudi said that 21st Century Socialism "is a society governed by the power of the people, in a democracy profoundly participative and protagonistic, with material and cultural equality in which everyone can receive from society in accordance with his or her needs and contribute according to his or her capacities in the quest for integral human development."El Troudi, who was chief of dispatch for the Presidency of the Republic in 2005 and 2006, said that 21st Century Socialism must not devolve into state capitalism, the total control of society and the usurpation of popular power by the elites, as occurred in the former Soviet Union.
So much, then, for the notion that what Hugo Chavez is aiming for is just another form of old-style Soviet "communism", which was nothing of the sort at all but rather a form of state capitalism (I choose, here, to use the oldest, and in my opinion truest, definition of the term--namely, that used by the 1918 Left-Communists). Actually, 21st Century Socialism, as set forth by Haiman el Troudi, means to do for Venezuela in the 21st century what mixed-economy socialism in the 20th did for Canada: create a culture in which the middle class is the strongest in terms of numbers, and thus holds the balance of power in electoral terms.
Actually, I think Venezuela might even go further, since we Canadians only have a representative democracy, not a participative one. Which is to say, we hire Members of Parliament through our elections, and these MPs in turn vote--theoretically on our behalf, but in practice, not always so--on pieces of legislation in Parliament. We do not directly write or ratify our own laws; our representatives do. Our input is limited--typically to our acceptance or rejection of a given party platform on election day, and to writing to our MPs thereafter. However, it is still a matter of their own discretion whether or not they will ultimately heed the will of their constituents! Parliament is not so much the power of the people as it is the intermediary between power and the people. It often lags behind popular sentiment, and it is at the mercy of special interests (and, I daresay, it lags behind popular sentiment precisely BECAUSE it is at the mercy of special interests.) We have not written or ratified our own constitution; the greatest event in its history is Pierre Trudeau's patriation of it in 1982. Thus, Venezuela has already gone us one better on constitutional grounds, by having an elected Constituent Assembly to write the Bolivarian Constitution--and once again, by submitting the final draft to direct public vote during its ratification in 1999.
Since then, Venezuela has been through about a dozen popular votes. If Bolivarianism and Hugo Chavez have received overwhelming support in them, it is certainly not because they were the only game in town. Venezuela has literally dozens of political parties at the moment. And even if Chavez's call for a unified party of the left--the PSUV--were to be fulfilled, it still wouldn't be a one-party state. It would simply mean that all the diverse parties that support the Bolivarian agenda are now operating as one, rather than the old conglomeration of dozens of splinter groups, each with its own system and agenda. This would, in turn, speed the process and facilitate the move toward participatory democracy, according to Chavez and others in the movement. The parties of the right would still be as numerous as they are now, and if none of them get into power, it's because they have not earned the trust of the majority of the people, or because they have not expressed the majority's wishes. But no one is stopping anyone from voting for them, any more than they are stamping them out of existence. Their legal rights are guaranteed, and are the same as those of the rest. The Venezuelan right is just as free to try to consolidate its base as the Bolivarian left is talking of doing. They have done so already, in a sense; they fielded a unity candidate in the last presidential election. (Manuel Rosales lost fair and square.)
As you can see, Venezuela's Bolivarian society looks nothing like the oppressive bureaucracy of the Soviet state--nor, for that matter, "Castro-communism", the booger-bear of the Venezuelan oligarchy. In fact, the popular, participative and protagonistic approach El Troudi speaks of would probably resonate with the popular progressivism of, say, Thom Hartmann. The key difference being that in the eyes of liberals in the US, capitalism and corporations should still enjoy more privilege than they would under Bolivarianism, where co-operatives and public ownership of the service sector would be the predominant model. The reasons behind the Bolivarian preference are self-evident: capitalism and corporations tend to create oligarchies, not democracies. They concentrate money and power both in too few hands.
To create a true participatory democracy, then, you have to break down that old power structure and, as Chavecito says, "give the power to the poor", which in turn empowers them to raise their status and become the middle class. No capitalist or "communist" (state capitalist) system has ever done that--both are oligarchic and run from the top down.
But a socialist system can do that, because socialism is to economics what democracy is to politics--in both cases, real power lies with the people, not the elites claiming to represent them. It worked to some extent here in Canada, thanks to the influence of Tommy Douglas, our first elected socialist leader. Thanks to his pioneering work on universal healthcare, education, welfare and unemployment benefits, the working class and the poor rose up and became the middle class which still predominates today. But without the will of the people-- participating in democracy!--that power would rapidly dissolve into corporate ownership of not only the government, but ourselves.
This is why I find the Bolivarian project in Venezuela so interesting. It's an effort to do with an entire country something which has never been taken to its full potential yet, even here. We Canadians have much to be proud of but we can't afford to take it for granted--because our mixed economy, for all its strengths, has the built-in weakness that it still gives too much weight and power to the forces of oligarchy.
But other than that, who's counting?
Memo to CNN: You can call it Vietraq or Iraqnam if you like. I certainly do.
This is the kind of sentiment Luis Posada Carriles--a.k.a. the CubanaBomber--inspires in the Miameros who support him. They claim to be peaceful, but it sure doesn't take much to light their fuse, as a group of young Bolivarians found out all too clearly. One of the pro-terrorist crowd even threw a bullhorn at the free-speech activists.
(Raw footage, showing the unprovoked attack in full, here.)
It's axiomatic in the US mainstream media that the bigger a pro-democracy demo in the "free world", the more you play down its numbers in an effort to make it look like no one came.
But get a load of what happens when one of the "liberal" sites covers a faux-democracy demo in Venezuela:
Blowing whistles and waving flags, hundreds of Venezuelans protested Tuesday against a congressional measure that would grant President Hugo Chavez the power to pass laws by decree in areas from the economy to defense.Some 400 to 500 protesters stood in a Caracas plaza and shouted in unison: "Faced with authoritarianism, more democracy!"
Not a "throng", but "throngs"! Wow, behold the power of a couple hundred! Pray tell me, how many "throngs" go into a hundred, anyway?
The protest came as lawmakers in the entirely pro-Chavez National Assembly announced they would postpone until next Tuesday a session to grant final approval of a so-called "enabling law" allowing Chavez to enact laws by decree during an 18-month period. Chavez is seeking special powers to quickly push through changes from nationalizing electrical companies to imposing new taxes on the rich.Many protesters said the measure would give Chavez carte blanche to legislate in a list of vaguely specified areas without checks or balances.
"It gives him total power," said Greys Pulido, 40. "We don't want a dictatorship."
Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin last month, says he is committed to democracy and is overseeing changes that will give a greater voice in decision-making to poor Venezuelans.
That, of course, is what this "throng" is protesting against: Chavez decreeing that the poor should enjoy more power. (What--you think he's just doing this for his own enrichment? Read. And then read some more.)
I wonder, too, if this "we" happen to be the same 400 or so people who showed up at Miraflores for this little shindig?
That's what a "throng" of 400 looks like, folks. They could fit them all into one room.
You'll also note that they achieved their "democratic" vision by abolishing all the major democratic institutions in Venezuela. No small feat for a 400-strong "throng" of usurpers!
Fortunately, millions of true democrats sent them scurrying like rats:
Chutzpah they may have, but brave people they are not. (Who could be, seeing themselves so hugely outnumbered?)
Note the actions, too, of the soldiers in the video. They are the presidential guard, and they are all loyal to Chavez. Yet they don't fire a shot. They let the coup-mongers escape. Does that look like the actions of a dictator's shock troops to you?
I think it speaks volumes that even the far-right Townhall.com, normally dedicated to publishing the ravings of Ann Coulter and other brownshirts, saw fit to pick up this "liberal" media story. What we are seeing here is yet another desperate lunge for legitimacy by the fraud-ridden Venezuelan right, and the toadyish US media is playing right along.
Shame on them all!
Chavecito's in Brazil right now for the Mercosur summit, reaping the praises of his friends there as he urges a break away from the Washington consensus. Looks like he, Evo and Lula had some fun with the samba, too.
Chavecito and Evo were also on hand in Ecuador this past week for the swearing-in of their amigo, the newly elected Rafael Correa (centre, also with thumb up--although if you wanna know what gets my thumbs-up, it's Correa's cool shirt!)
It's doubtful whether Washington will give such rave reviews to what's been going on at either event lately, though, as a sharp turn toward solidarity is on the agenda. But if you have any doubts about what the people are saying and how much Washington is out of tune with it, listen to the crowds in Zumbahua, Ecuador at the symbolic swearing-in ceremony of the new president:
It's in Spanish, and just under an hour long; Evo addresses the crowd first, talking of indigenous struggles across the continent. Cuba and Castro get loud cheers when Evo speaks of them in the same context. There's also a lot of applause for his remarks against "neo-liberalism" and in favor of resource nationalization.
Then it's Chavecito's turn, and of course, he's very poetic and eloquent (as usual.) He pays tribute to a very particular Ecuadorian lady: Manuela Saenz, the companion of Simon Bolivar on his military campaigns to liberate South America from the Spanish empire. This goes over well with the crowd. You can hear the people chanting "Chavez, amigo, el pueblo esta contigo" (Chavez, friend, we're with you to the end). Chavecito tries to get them to do the same for Correa! He also says the voice of the people is the voice of God--something the "God-fearing" folks in Washington would do well to hear. Especially when the "voice of God" starts chanting "Alerta, alerta, alerta que camina/La espada de Bolivar por America Latina" (Watch out, the sword of Bolivar is on the move in Latin America!)
And that sword certainly seems to be on the move--the unity of the peoples is growing daily. Much to the dismay of Washington, naturally. Because this is one sword that can't be stopped once it starts swinging.
Don't let the numbers fool you. This is big--because the troops aren't supposed to speak out against Preznit Chucklenuts.
President Bush's plan to send additional troops to Iraq is facing public opposition from a slice of the American population that rarely speaks out: the military rank and file.A group of service members came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday armed with signatures from more than 1,000 military personnel who oppose the war.
"We will not be silent while thousands die," said Sgt. Liam Madden, 22, an active-duty Marine and Iraq war veteran who is helping lead the effort to organize resistance to the war from inside the military.
Madden and other service members leading the campaign, which they are calling Appeal for Redress, urged Congress to stop the troop escalation and find a way to begin bringing forces home from Iraq.The 1,000 signatories represent a tiny fraction of the military personnel who have served in and around Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
But according to the group, those who have signed the appeal include around 100 officers. About 70 percent of the signatories are active-duty military, while the rest are reservists or members of the National Guard, said Madden, who added that the group will not reveal the names of the signatories to protect them.
Support the troops, folks--especially when they say enough is enough.
You tell me. All's I know is, this is supposed to be a major no-no.
Fighter jet parts and other sensitive U.S. military gear seized from front companies for Iran and brokers for China have been traced in criminal cases to a surprising source: the Pentagon.In one case, federal investigators said, contraband purchased in Defense Department surplus auctions was delivered to Iran, a country President Bush has branded part of an "axis of evil."
[...]Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.
In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.
"That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes," said Greg Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's head of special investigations. "It shouldn't happen the first time, let alone the second time."
[...]
The Pentagon recently retired its Tomcats and is shipping tens of thousands of spare parts to its surplus office — the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service — where they could be sold in public auctions. Iran is the only other country flying F-14s.
"It stands to reason Iran will be even more aggressive in seeking F-14 parts," said Stephen Bogni, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's arms export investigations. Iran can produce only about 15 percent of the parts itself, he said.
If this stinks of hypocrisy to you, pat yourself on the back. It IS hypocrisy of the rankest sort. Remember, this is the same bunch that reneged on a decades-old contract with Venezuela to service and supply spare parts for its aging fleet of F-16 jets. According to Slate, that contract arose during the Reagan era, when then-president Luis Herrera Campins got behind Reagan's SOB in El Salvador. As you can see, loyalty has its rewards.
Unfortunately, the current president of Venezuela is a rather independent-minded guy. He won't get behind Washington or any of its sons of bitches anywhere. So, in an effort to render him impotent, Washington has decreed that he can buy no more plane parts, or any other military hardware, made in the USA. Anyone who sells US war junk to him is up to the eyeballs in ca-ca. So he went and bought Russian planes instead.
Item: said independent minded president of Venezuela is on rather friendly terms with fellow OPEC nation Iran. Hmm, maybe they can negotiate a deal with these middlemen for Chavecito. Could it possibly hurt to try? After all, the Pentagon seems to think it's fine for middlemen to sell to Iran!
Hmmm...for the killings at Dujail, no?
Good thing for certain Westerners, then, that he didn't get a chance to be tried for THIS, too:
(Hat tip to my friend Corey for the link.)
According to JeffAmerican, who posted this at YouTube, this is a clip from a documentary called "Saddam Hussein: The Trial the World Will Never See". It was made for French TV by a former "60 Minutes" producer, Barry Lando. You can read more about it, and also see video footage of the Halabja Massacre and the western companies linked to it, at AlterNet.
This is no news to me; I've repeatedly posted the link to this story at the National Security Archive of George Washington University. Rumsfeld sold Saddam his WMD. Not all of it, just all that came courtesy of the good ol' freedom-and-justice-loving US of A.
Not only that, but the US also winked at the gas massacres Saddam committed. And why not? After all, he was using their own proudly manufactured product.
We all know who won't hang, because that would only have been an outcome of the trial that the US, via one of its own judges, managed to avert by handing Saddam over for his insta-hanging. But guess what, folks: The US knew about Dujail, too. And yet, they saw perfectly fit to send Rummy there a year and five months later, to restore full relations with Iraq and sell Saddam the weaponry with which to commit even MORE murders.
Why is THAT not making the news?
Happy belated Festive Left Friday (or jump on the next, if you prefer.)
Courtesy of Carlchucho, the YouTube of Chavecito swearing in for a second consecutive full term:
If this were anyone else, the ceremony would be tedious and perfunctory, just another changing of the guard while more of the same old same old goes on. Yawn.
But Chavez being Chavez, it's charming, touching, and loaded with significance. Not only because he turns his oath of office into a very eloquent and highly personal little speech. It's also because he switches the sash over from the right shoulder to the left, in keeping with the big left turn going on all over Latin America (you can hear the velcro ripping as he takes off the old and puts on the new!) And then there's a beautiful choral/orchestral rendition of the national anthem (whose lyrics, significantly, refer to a "brave people who cast off the yoke"--not only of empire, but slavery.) The youth orchestra are all wearing the same kind of flag jackets that Chavecito has often worn to his political rallies. The whole thing is very colorful, and I found it incredibly moving. Most of all because he's the first president who represents a real change, not just a changing of the same old guard. Carlchucho notes that he's the first re-elected president in Venezuelan history, and that in itself should tell you something about Chavecito.
And so nicely, too!
Brava to this gentle lady for saying what the rest of us are just dying to say to him. (And what over 3,000 US troops never got the chance to say, themselves.)
What a good thing he wasn't Delphic this time either, or he'd have seen this coming and managed to duck.
I hope this military wife doesn't become a widow. She deserves to get her man back safe and sound (and SOON!), if ever anyone did.
Yes, I know...sob...it sounds so real to you. That's because it confirms your prejudices. But it's fake news. You know, like what Jon Stewart does?
Now quit snivelling and change into a dry pair of pants. Please.
One of them basically because it's too grotesque for words.
Iraqi officials have shown journalists video footage of the hanging of two of Saddam Hussein's aides, during which one of the men was decapitated.The film shows Barzan Ibrahim - Saddam Hussein's half-brother - and Awad Hamed al-Bandar hanged side-by-side.
Barzan, former intelligence chief, and al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were convicted over the killing of 148 Shias in 1982.
The government said Barzan's beheading was accidental.
The latest hangings drew expressions of concern from among the international community.Speaking on a visit to Egypt, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said while the executions were an Iraqi process, "we were disappointed there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances".
The UK prime minister's spokesman said it was "clearly wrong" if the executions had not been carried out in a dignified way.
The other grotesque things? Auntie Condi's response, and that of the unnamed aide to Dubya's poodle. To call THIS undignified is surely the understatement of the year:
The BBC's Andrew North in Baghdad says the video first shows both men being prepared for execution standing next to each other.They were both dressed in orange boiler suits.
Executioners in balaclavas placed hoods round both men's heads, then the noose.
A short while later the footage, which is silent, shows both men fall.
Almost immediately the rope that was round Barzan's neck flicks upwards, the body dropping below.
The cameraman then shows the pit below and a headless body, bloodied at the neck and what officials say was Barzan's head still covered by a hood.
Al-Bandar's body was still hanging above, said one official who was present at the execution.
Our correspondent says officials say they are not planning to release the footage publicly.
That said, I predict it'll be YouTubed in 48 hours or less.
And I'm sure all the warhawks out there will be salivating over THIS:
Witnesses said Barzan and al-Bandar were shaking with fear as they approached the gallows.One of those present, public prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi, told the BBC that when the trap door opened, he could only see Barzan's rope dangling.
"I thought the convict Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti had escaped the noose. I shouted that he's escaped the noose, go down and look for him. I went down a few steps ahead of the others to see: I found out that his head had separated from his body."
Dignity? Schmignity. We don't need no stinkin' DIGNITY!
By the way, here's who got decapitated:
Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother, was the former head of Iraq's notorious secret police.Known as the Mukhabarat, the intelligence organisation was believed to have tortured and murdered thousands of opponents of the regime.
The Baath party official was taken into custody by US forces in April 2003. At the time, he was described as a presidential adviser with in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Barzan was a leading figure in the Mukhabarat from the 1970s, later taking over as director. A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity at the time of his capture, said that during his time in the secret police, Barzan had played a key role in the Iraqi regime's execution of opponents at home and assassinations abroad.
The US official said that Barzan was also known for his ruthlessness and brutality in purging the Iraqi military of anyone seen as disloyal.
It's worth noting that these abuses occurred while the US and Iraq were allies.
So, when will this abuser's enablers get THEIR day on the gallows?
More must-see viewing: a 1983 documentary by British journalist John Pilger on Nicaragua under the Sandinistas. (You'll need RealPlayer installed to view it.)
If the situation in it looks strangely familiar, it should: One of Hugo Chavez's many inspirations for his Bolivarian Revolution happens to be Sandinista Nicaragua--a broad-based, largely peaceful revolution with universal healthcare and education, a mixed economy, multiparty pluralism, democratic elections, and a firm opposition to imperialism and dictatorship.
This is what the United States armed, trained and paid the Contras--illegally--to overthrow. The reasons given were vague and various, but all to the effect that the Sandinistas represented a communist threat, connected with either Moscow, Cuba or both. You'll hear one Nestor Sanchez (of the Pentagon) in the documentary, claiming in all seriousness that Nicaragua--which had neither a navy nor an air force--somehow posed a threat to the Gulf of Mexico, from where aid would flow to western Europe (and NATO) in the event that war should break out between it and the then-communist nations of the Warsaw Pact. (It's to Pilger's credit that he managed to keep a straight face while listening to all that. I'm having trouble doing the same for the ravings of present-day extremists.)
The real threat of the Sandinistas, though, was a different one altogether. It was not the threat of creeping communism, but, as Pilger found, that of a good example. Heaven forfend that what the Sandinistas accomplished in Nicaragua should spill over to, say, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc.--and that all these banana republics, with dictators installed and approved by various US administrations, should overthrow unjust and corrupt leaders in favor of freely elected candidates who actually care about the people! No, better to just stick in "our son of a bitch" and call it democracy. Better a lipstick-smeared pig than the threat of a good example.
Sure smells that way. And if I were them, I'd be a little more concerned about the credibility of the site, and not let anything like this go up without a big, fat disclaimer--or better still, a hazardous-waste warning label:
Whilst the typical armchair-American relaxes in front of the 'Telly' and devours another quality segment of prime-time reality, there are nations across the world - diverse in language, religion, and culture - that share one common bond, one multi-threaded scheme; the dismantling and utter destruction of the United States of America.What used to be an assortment of unhinged 'evil-doers', widely spread rogue-nation-states, jungle-loving revolutionary rebels, militant extremist political parties, radical Islamofascist fundamentalists and a whole ensemble of freelance terrorist and anarchist summer camps are now uniting under the auspices of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the self-declared savior from the ravages of American imperialism.
El Presidente Chávez obviously must have a script, a master 'evil doer' plan else how on earth can he keep up with all the associations, promises, obligations, check-writing and planned speeches he has to deliver to each of his ministries of hate? His reach is quite impressive:
- For the 'Axis of Evil': He has reached out to and supplied each of the 'Axis of Evil' member states (Iran, Syria, North Korea) with offers of political support, economic aid, oil-pacts, military investments or a whole piñata full of anti-American speeches and provocations.
- For China: massive oil-pact, military purchase programs and intelligence-sharing enterprises against American interests around the world.
- For central and South American nations: the establishment of a trade pact called ALBA - 'Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas' - to counter the US-pushed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
- For revolutionary rebels in Central and South America: Financial and military aid to communist militant groups in settled democratic countries throughout the region.
- For the São Paulo Forum: An informal association of socialist and extreme left-wing political organizations from all across the Americas with one shared ideology and ambition; to influence regional elections to encourage the establishment of socialist governments throughout the region.
- For the Islamofascist terrorists: the offer of aid and comfort in a warm climate - with sandy beaches, wide-open space for exercise facilities and spiritual retreats.
- For the worlds arms industry: the opportunity to sell state-of-the-art weaponry at petrol-dollar inflated prices. This includes arms-dealers from Russia, China and even Israel!
- For low-income families in New York and New Jersey: heavily discounted heating oil delivered by Venezuela's CITGO as witnessed by progressive politicians and timely reporters and TV crews.
- For Cindy Sheehan - mother, ignorant and immoral peace-activist: hugs and an ATM check card.
As Cuba's Fidel Castro lays sick and potentially dying - Hugo Chávez has assumed the mantle of leadership from the Godfather of communism and, with the aid of Venezuela's massive oil income, is building influence and uniting every anti-American entity for one sole ambition, the destruction of the United States of America and the irradiation of its global influence.
These poorly written, bombastic rantings are not the product of extensive research or deep thought, obviously. They are no more than regurgitations of the usual racist rat droppings you'll find if you have the stomach to go dumpster diving anywhere in Freeperlandia. I wasn't a bit surprised, on checking the profile of the author, that he's only been on TPMC for a week and a day. That's the hallmark of the 101st Flying Keyboard Division: shit and run.
What's truly rich, though, is that this freepish lout isn't the usual flag-waving Yank. He's a Brit, recently naturalized. How to tell? Well, even if he didn't come out with it lower down in the comments section, the penchant for briticisms like "whilst", "petrol" and "telly" is a pretty good giveaway, as is the persistent usage of single quotation marks, rather than the standard American double quotes. A redcoat playing Paul Revere! Monty Python would surely have a field day with that.
But why should he care if Chavez is "anti-American" (which, by the way, he has gone to considerable lengths proving he is NOT)? If he's so scared of the menacing Mr. Chavez, why not pack it in and go back to the relative safety of Merry Old England, instead of soiling himself all over what's supposed to be a PROGRESSIVE blogsite? Perhaps we're supposed to find this Chickenhawk Little more convincing if he cheeps with a plummy British accent. But I wouldn't lay good odds on the veracity of "opinionist", as he styles himself, until I see evidence that this self-righteous accuser of "armchair-Americans", no doubt comfortably opinionizing from his own armchair, has had his arse shot off fighting terror someplace other than his own muddled head.
Oh, you think I'm being too harsh on the poor widdle bloke? Look. He's trying so hard to convince us that "Islamofascism" (a strictly imaginary bird) is in league with "Castro-communism", which is supposedly still a menace even though ol' Fidel is unwell and Cuba is coping with heavy economic restrictions. That, my friends, is muddleheadedness right there.
Moreover, Islam and fascism are not allies any more than fascism and communism ever were. If there is any fascism to be found in today's world, it is squarely aligned against Islam, not with it. Likewise, any communism still extant today would be aligned against fascism, and vice versa--not with it! Think it through, people: two diametrically opposed political ideologies, plus one religion that has nothing in common with either. What common ground could they possibly share? America? Oh, puh-leeze--America itself is under the dominion of the most fascistic White House squatter ever. To believe, therefore, that fascism, communism and Islam are now banding together in some kind of grand alliance of evil is to be a nutter of the nuttiest degree.
What is really going on is not the world "uniting against America", but country after country rebelling of its own accord against the de facto dictatorship of Washington and multinational corporations. The non-aligned countries are still just that. But now they are aware that their lack of alignment is their worst vulnerability, and they are looking to close the gap through trading and diplomatic alliances with one another, so they will be less dependent on the would-be monopole of the "free" world.
Add to that the fact that Latin American nations are reforming themselves, not through violence and communist indoctrination as our doomsayer fears, but through peaceful, democratic revolutions in which the people are electing not only radical presidents, but also assemblies who will rewrite their constitutions on more egalitarian lines. Happened in Venezuela, is happening in Bolivia, and is now about to happen in Ecuador as well. Dangerous? Only in the delusional brains of those with deeply antidemocratic tendencies.
The fact that these countries are also conducting trade with Cuba, rather than acquiescing to a US-mandated embargo against it, is nothing to be alarmed about. If, as I suspect is the case, Cuba is on the verge of transitioning to full democracy (rather than the current limited degree), it will be with the help of Latin American friends, not through the barrels of Yankee guns. And it will be conducted peacefully, with diplomacy and fair trade, and probably a great deal of consultation with political advisors from those lands. Who could object to that but--w