Happy (belated) Columbus Day
An indigenous Panamanian burns the Spanish flag.
Yeah, that colonial imperialism thing is still mega-popular after 500+ years...
October 13, 2009
April 2, 2009
The Panama Deception
An oldie but a goodie. Especially relevant in light of the ongoing deception by the media over Iraq and Afghanistan. For more on how the media screwed the public during the Panama assault 20 years ago, see the FAIR blog's entry on the media's shoddy, shameful coverage of that gorefest--and see how it really is déjà vu all over again.
November 21, 2008
Yo Panama, BOLO...
...major Venezuelan corrupto, INCOMING...
The PSUV mayoral candidate for San Francisco, Omar Prieto, alerted yesterday that next Sunday, November 23, the day of the regional electinos, the UNT mayoral candidate for Maracaibo, Manuel Rosales, will be leaving for either Panama or Colombia, right after exercising his right to vote.Prieto added that "Rosales intends to operate from the exterior with the hope of returning to Venezuela, but only if his candidate, Pablo Pérez, wins the governor's seat, which won't happen.
"Our intelligence services have found that Rosales intends to vote around 9:00 in the morning, and will take a flight to Panama or Colombia. There are certain media outlets that mean to transmit some recordings to give the impression that he is still in Zulia, but that will be totally false," Prieto said.
Translation mine.
You'll notice, of course, that I only mentioned Panama in the header. Why not Colombia? Simple. That country has never handed over a single fugitive from Venezuela to face justice at home. Why would they? They have a right-wing chokehold on power, and those guys LOVE crooks. They've made Colombia a well known haven for all the scum de la scum of Venezuelan oppositiondom. Pedro Carmona, the two-day dictator of 2002, fled thither before washing up, equally predictably, in Miami, along with the big military traitors who collaborated in his failed coup.
Panama may not sound a whole lot better than Colombia, but at least they imprisoned Luis Posada Carriles, the terrorist I call the CubanaBomber, for a time--before one of their pitiyanqui toadies, Mireya Moscoso, let the old fucker go. However, Panama's management has changed since then, and the son of Omar Torrijos is now in power. He's on good terms with Chavecito. The odds are somewhat better that if Chavecito says "You've got Rosales, hand him over", Martín Torrijos will comply.
At the very least, he should be on high alert now for an incoming stinkbomb. With 11 large estates purchased with stolen Zulia state lottery money (and that's just for starters), I'm sure Mr. Rosebush gives off an unmistakable odor of...some sort. Shouldn't be a bit of trouble to nab him as soon as his plane lands in Panama, eh?
October 25, 2008
Mmmmmmm, I LOVE the smell of fascism in the morning...
...preferably when it's caught fire and no one is lifting a pisser to put it out. Burn, baby, burn...
And really, what the hell else would you call this strange little Kaffeeklatsch that recently convened in Panama? Sure smells like fascism to me. Hold your noses while I translate, kiddies, you'll never guess who was there--and who was paying them to attend:
Members of the National Front for the Defence of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO) protested on Wednesday against a meeting held by representatives of the far-right in the region, who are looking to attack legitimately elected Latin American governments, which they call "totalitarian populism".This meeting was financed by the German far-right, by way of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the auspices of the self-styled "Freedom Foundation". Among the participants were Carlos Alberto Montaner (of Miami), Hugo Faría and Rafael Alonzo (Venezuela), Eduardo Mayora (Guatemala), Otto Guevara (Costa Rica), Dora de Ampuero (Ecuador), Walter Justiniano (Bolivia) and Luis Callejas (Nicaragua).
Also at the meeting, held during the night, was the opposition student activist from Venezuela, Yon Goicoechea, who recently received the Milton Freedman Prize, worth half a million dollars US.
The dinner cost 100 dollars a plate.
Marco Andrade, Secretary of Education for the Industrial and Similar Construction Workers' Union (SUNTRACS, of Panama) and of the United National Confederation of Independent Unions, and Ronaldo Ortiz, of the November 29 Revolutionary Student Front, denounced this event as being part of the so-called "Plan Panama", which is based in that country in order to destabilize progressive, popularly elected governments, particularly the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
It is also linked to the dirty media campaigns being hatched in Miami, linked to the Cuban mafia, as in the case of the channel MegaTV, home to the journalist María Elvira Salazar, on whose program there are frequent calls for the assassination of Hugo Chávez and "intervention" in Venezuela and Cuba. The channel recently divulged accusations by the a military putschist from Venezuela, Bernardo Jurado, against SUNTRACS, claiming the group received money from Venezuela, supposedly to destabilize Panama.
Phee-EW, what a bunch of vile-smelling polecats. I may just have to wash my computer down with tomato juice (which is supposed to neutralize the stinkum, according to an uncle of mine who got skunked one night while hunting and wound up taking a bath in it).
I wonder if that supposedly "liberal" German foundation (rather appropriately, named after a socialist-fearing imperialist) has any idea what terrorists it's suckling in its bosom? It must. Else they wouldn't have been invited. I guess they don't care that they're nurturing notorious racists and putschists. (Well, why would they--just look at the terminology that's being bandied about. "Totalitarian populism"? That's an oxymoron if ever I saw one. The two terms cancel each other out, capisce?)
I also love how they claim Venezuela is trying to destabilize Panama by financing leftists there. Huh? Considering that the presidents of those two countries are on friendly terms (the current president of Panama is the son of a very popular, progressive military leader, Omar Torríjos, assassinated by the CIA in 1981), it seems highly unlikely. If Panama goes left in earnest, it won't be due to any money from Venezuela--it will be because Panamanians, like the Venezuelans before them, got sick of the unkept promises of so-called neo-liberalism (which is really just corporate imperialism with a kinder, gentler face.)
Of course, neo-liberalism likes to pump vast sums of money into poor countries that just somehow never seem to reach those who really need it, at the bottom. It stays concentrated at the top, making a few very happy and the rest utterly miserable. (Hey Yon-Yon, done anything serious with your half-million imperiobucks yet, or have you already blown it all on whisky for you and Freddy and your pals?)
If they're really serious about freedom (and I don't for a New York instant believe they are), they might eventually twig to why their economic theories are so unpopular in the very places where they're pushing them hardest. Starting with scenes like this:
The "freedom-loving", "democratic", "liberal" government of Carlos Andrés Pérez sent the Venezuelan army out to fire on its own people during the Caracazo, February 1989. This rioting occurred in direct response to CAP's doing a complete 180 after he was elected to kick the IMF/World Bank imperialists out of Venezuela. Instead of telling them to eat shit, he ate it himself and imposed brutal economic policies, followed by even more brutal repression when the people wouldn't take the brutal economics lying down. Entire apartment blocks in the poorest parts of Caracas were machine-gunned indiscriminately, the better to teach those uppity po' folks a lesson in imperial economics.
If that's not fascism, tell me what is. It doesn't need to wear a swastika to be fascism, although a reasonable facsimile always helps (just ask the UJC).
PS: If you want to see (and smell) more fascism combusting, on this very blog, click here and here. Seems I got a whiff of the brimstone yesterday morning from not one but two of the fine young cannibals who can't bear to see their heroes stripped. If you feel like schooling them yourselves, be my guest and have fun. I can't be bothered--this is News of the Restless, not Democratic Socialism for Dummies.
September 25, 2008
I've been IncaKola'd!
Shucks, folks, I'm speechless again.
Otto has also added me to his blogroll (muchas gracias!), which is the first time I've been blogrolled by a finance wonk, to my knowledge anyway.
And he really made my day with this hot 'n' juicy shot of El Ecuadorable, too.
PS: I've now been linked at BoRev, Bananama Republic, and VenCentral as well. Somehow, this just makes me feel so...vindicated for all the months my Bayly/Antonini translation has languished sans commentary. Thanks, folks...and you're all now blogrolled!
April 11, 2008
The $1.2 million traitor
I've long wondered what could have induced no less a figure than the former Venezuelan minister of defence, Gen. Raul Baduel (retired), to suddenly abandon both his post and his good friend. Now, it seems, we have an answer. From Aporrea:
The Vice-President of the Interior Politics Commission of the National Assembly, Iris Varela, denounced Gen. Raul Baduel on Thursday for having presumably received $1.277 million dollars from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).[...]
The assemblywoman made the denunciation in the legislative chamber and asked that Assembly President Cilia Flores order an investigation on behalf of the Public Ministry against the ex-minister of defence. She assured that she had the transfer numbers of the accounts in which Baduel received the money.
"From a bank in the United Kingdom, $2.144 million dollars were transferred to Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco, who has been arrested for drug trafficking and is linked to Interpol. The bank transaction number is 0895801004865, dated September 2007. The other transfer, dated November 2007, is for $1.277 million dollars, to Raul Isaias Baduel, and the transaction number is 0895209039485."
January 26, 2008
John Perkins: Rafael Correa is in danger
From the man who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which among other things treats of his own experiences in Ecuador, a warning to the current president of that country: Watch your back! The jackals are circling!
Video in Spanish. Story from Aporrea:
Continue reading "John Perkins: Rafael Correa is in danger" »
September 27, 2007
They just never stop.
They're not just out for Chavecito's blood, but for that of anyone who forges alliances with him. Aporrea reports that a coup was plotted for Ecuador, but one very high-level intended perpetrator wouldn't go through with it:
The former president of Ecuador, Abdala Bucaram, who received asylum in Panama, said that a millionaire offered him a large sum of money to topple the current president, Rafael Correa, according to declarations broadcast yesterday on TV channel Uno."Some politicians called Correa a traitor, and made me some big offers. There was a millionaire who offered me ten million dollars, not to eliminate him, but to oust him," declared the former head of state.
September 21, 2007
Scary Thought #8: Manuel Noriega is WHAT?
According to the Beeb, he's too hot to handle, politically speaking.
And, God/dess help me for saying this, but Ol' Pineapple Face looks almost appealing here. That's even scarier.
May 3, 2007
Stop me before I laugh again!
I can't help it. I really, REALLY can't.
President George W Bush has urged the US Congress to ratify a free trade deal with Colombia, as part of a wider plan to back democracies in Latin America.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha, oh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha....
Shit, that's funny. Bush backing democracies in Latin America? Um, what? Anyone remember what he got behind on a certain day in April five years ago? I'll give you a hint: its perpetrators called it democracy, but Venezuelan voters had a very different impression.
Yup, that War on Drugs is working GREAT in Colombia!
You know you're on a roll when...you have to "revise" your figures by half after a much-touted cocaine bust.
The authorities in Colombia have revised the total of drugs seized in a haul on Monday from around 25 tonnes of cocaine to just over 13 tonnes.It was found in 1,000 separate packages near the town of Pizarro, west of the capital, Bogota, buried in an estuary accessible only by sea.
Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos had said on Monday the haul was the "biggest in the history of Colombia".
The confusion was blamed on errors made in the initial sight count of the drug.
Continue reading "Yup, that War on Drugs is working GREAT in Colombia!" »
April 29, 2007
WTF? OMG! LOL...
Saul Landau comes up with one truly worthy of The Onion, from Progreso Weekly:
Posada to address UM graduates
DRAFT OF SPEECH FOUND IN EL PASO TEXAS JAIL CELL OF LUIS POSADA CARRILES AFTER HE WAS BAILED OUT TO GRADUATING STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERISTY OF MIAMI
WTF?
April 6, 2007
CubanaBomber Death Watch: Should I stay or should I go now?
Cue the Clash, because if Luis Posada Carriles goes there will be trouble, and if he stays it will be double.
Or is it the other way 'round?
Oh, whatever. Cue the Clash, dammit.
The United States government has appealed against a ruling to release a prominent anti-communist Cuban exile, Luis Posada Carriles.A judge in Texas ruled that Mr Posada, now a Venezuelan national, should be freed pending an immigration hearing.
Mr Posada, 79, has been detained in the US since May 2005 after illegally entering the country.
A former CIA employee, he is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba over the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1976.
Continue reading "CubanaBomber Death Watch: Should I stay or should I go now?" »
Festive Left Friday Blogging: Men of many hats
When it comes to heads, nobody has better ones on their shoulders than Evo and Chavecito.
Or better dressed ones, come to that:
Is this Evo's Easter bonnet? Or just another of his many creative uses for coca leaves?
Continue reading "Festive Left Friday Blogging: Men of many hats" »
March 10, 2007
Praise the Goddess, and pass the hot chocolate!
A nutrient in cocoa called epicatechin appears to lower the risk of four common killer diseases, work suggests.Among the Kuna people of Panama, who can drink up to 40 cups of cocoa per week, rates of stroke, heart disease, cancer and diabetes are less than 10%.
The Kuna also appear to live longer than other Panama inhabitants and do not get dementia, a US scientist reports in Chemistry and Industry.
Continue reading "Praise the Goddess, and pass the hot chocolate!" »
October 7, 2006
CubanaBomber Death Watch, Chapter 1
Well, I'll be god-damned. Looks like the CIA has a massive embarrassment on its hands.
Actually, how about a steaming pile of its own ca-ca? Because that's what Luis Posada Carriles is...and you know what they say about steaming piles of ca-ca. Good luck trying to wash off that smell, Lady Macbeth:
October 5, 2006
A man, a plan, a canal--NICARAGUA?
Hey wait...that's not a palindrome. Damn. Uh, I believe this would fall under the general heading of WTF???
Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, plans to construct a $20bn rival to the Panama canal to enable the largest tankers and container ships in the world to pass between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
May 15, 2005
The OTHER terrorist Bush won't arrest
Remember this name: Luis Posada Carriles.
Remember this date: October 6, 1976.