Watch this 47-minute video. Don't mind the cheesy animation; pay attention to the very simple lessons contained therein. If you do, you might just end up understanding the whole US (and world) credit crisis that ended up costing the US taxpayers such a mint (literally) this Black Friday.
You may also end up understanding why I keep returning to such economic oddballs as Chavecito's ALBA, fair trade, and other non-monetarist harebrained schemes that just might work like gangbusters--literally.
A puzzling crime, some intriguing leads, and some usual suspicions
It's sad that the head of the parliament has to utter such warnings in advance. But it's also a sign of the polarization that's going on down in Venezuela.
However, this execution-style murder is a sign of other things, too...and there are other intriguing signs associated with it, such as this:
Last July, a notoriously violent opposition student group known as the March 13th Movement shot guns and threw Molotov cocktails at police officers and ransacked sections of the Andean city of Mérida, where the University of the Andes (ULA) is located, to protest insecurity. A student was killed and dozens of police officers were injured.
The violence was reminiscent of past destabilization campaigns by opposition students in the run-up to both university and national elections.
Thursday morning, students blocked a major avenue outside the ULA campus by burning tires and painted the message "No More Death" across the street.
I blogged on that event, too, shortly after it happened, noting that the dead student had not been shot from many metres in front, where the Mérida police were, but from behind and at point-blank range. The only people behind him were his fellow M-13ers. And guess who was quick off the mark to capitalize on that, too?
Another detail from the snippet above, which should not be lost on anyone who's following these events: the burning tires used as a roadblock. Why would anyone protest a violent death using such a confrontational, disruptive method? Where I come from, we consider candlelight vigils and marches to be sufficient. Is this some standard Venezuelan thing?
No, it's not. At least, not for anybody outside the opposition. The Chavistas aren't in the habit of burning tires everytime someone gets killed, just as they aren't in the habit of howling for the president's head to roll. This is what Cilia Flores was warning about: the tendency of the opposition to quickly capitalize on it everytime there's a murder, especially one of their own. Unfortunately, it's a well-known pattern, and it shouldn't just be socialists like me making note of it.
By the way, there's another interesting thing concerning burning-tire roadblocks, and here it is, as reported by VTV's Dando y Dando:
A truck loaded with tires was seen heading for the Central University of Venezuela, UCV, in Caracas, on Wednesday afternoon, and photographed by a passerby. That's the day Soto was murdered.
It seems strange that a truckload of tires just happened to be dropped off there, then, for no apparent reason. How many cars on campus needed new tires? Did the university buses just all happen to be in need of a mass tire change? According to the Aporrea report on this strange event, this is not standard practice at UCV. There are suspicions that the tires were/are meant for use in a guarimba.
Frankly, knowing what I do about the opposition and its patterns, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this suspicion proved true. Remember, there are regional elections coming up, and they are widely expected to be a Chavista sweep. There is no reason the PSUV or anyone connected to it would use violence to intimidate the opposition when the opposition is so small, pitiful and discredited. But I wouldn't put it past the oppos to use this death to gain sympathy points via a martyr. It's not as if they hadn't done it before.
I also wouldn't put it past them to use violence in an effort to unseat Chavecito; remember, there have been numerous bits of evidence of yet another coup plot against him. I've bloggedaboutseveral of them here. The Big Guy himself isn't shy about reminding people that nothing must be taken for granted as the election campaign gathers momentum. But that warning should not be interpreted as a threat of violence against the opposition. One thing that's been consistently remarkable in all this is how much restraint he's shown regarding those guys; his quickness to order a federal investigation into this death speaks well for him. It's also, well, so like him--nothing to hide, therefore nothing to fear. Would a president who orders political "hits", or at least condones them if they come from "his" side, do that? I doubt it very much; refer to the actions of the Chilean military junta after the coup of September, 1973 for examples of how a really repressive regime behaves.
BTW, there's now a line of inquiry by the CICPC (the Venezuelan equivalent of the FBI) into the possibility that Soto had links to a mafia dealing in tickets on student transportation (he is known to have managed and administered the sale of them), and there are allegations by his associates that he had been receiving death threats for about a week.
This may not be a strictly political murder after all; but still, it doesn't explain the sudden, mysterious appearance of that truck full of tires at UCV, right on the day Julio Soto was killed. This smells suspiciously to me, and not just of burning rubber.
Festive Left Friday Blogging: A four-way dimplefest
It was all smiles for Chavecito, Evo, Lula and El Ecuadorable at a recent summit in Manaus, Brazil. The great news from this one? The Bank of the South, Bancosur, will open in December, and will probably provide a huge boost to the region--and a buffer against the crisis of Wall St. to boot.
"Let the U.S. empire end and let a great nation and great republic rise from the ruin ... It's time to shout 'Liberty!' again in the United States," Chavez said, calling for a new government to be free of the "dictatorship of the elite" such as big banks and corporations.
Critics accuse Chavez of running an authoritarian, Cuban-style regime in oil-rich Venezuela.
Of course, said critics aren't named, nor is any proof offered to bolster their accusations; we're meant to assume that it's all self-evident, and that they're too numerous (being, like, everybody but Chavecito himself, if certain lazy wire service reporters are to be believed). But the problem is, those unnamed critics follow right on the heels of a statement by the Big Guy His Own Self which kind of makes them, and the reporters of Reuters, all look like, well, schmucks.
Unfortunately, the man's own words, taken straight up, undercut every bullshit thing that's ever been said about him (usually by people mistranslating him or taking him out of context, or just plain old making shit up). So here he is in his own words. You be the judge as to whether the president of Venezuela hates the US:
"I don't talk to the candidates, the candidates are out looking for votes," emphasized President Chávez upon being questioned about his position with regard to the latest declarations of Barack Obama and the use of his image in the campaign ads of Republican John McCain, and in response to the comments made about his government by the US presidential candidates.
"I want to repeat something, this time from Beijing--we have nothing, nothing, nothing against the United States as a people. I'm not anti-US, no, I'm anti-imperialist," said Chávez. "Whoever tries to manipulate anything to get votes is another matter. But I don't respond to candidates. If McCain wins, if Obama wins, fine, I'll be ready [to talk with him], and not just me but all of us in South America, all of us in Latin America and the Caribbean. The only thing we ask of the new president of the United States is that he respect our peoples, nothing else."
Translation mine. Linkage added.
BTW, I learned Spanish expressly so I could get him right. The nice side effect of this is that it helps me also get Evo right, and El Ecuadorable, and the presidents of Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, and...well, you get the picture. Right?
PS: Check out the AP's lame-ass version of this same quote. See what I mean? If you don't know Spanish, the corporate media will shut you totally out of any true understanding. And leave a bunch of skanky-ho right-wing blogs to fill in the gaps with bullshit spackle. Ugh.
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!
More non-evidence of nonexistent coup plots in Venezuela
Just a little innocent military hardware that could bring down a presidential plane. Nothing to see here, move along folks...
Don't you love all these dastardly, nefarious things that are not happening down there? From Aporrea, the latest:
On Tuesday, Venezuelan security agencies confiscated four grenades and a portable Carl Gustav launcher, of 700 metres' range, during a raid in the state of Zulia.
[...]
The information was supplied on Wednesday by the Popular Power Minister for Internal Relations and Justice, Tarek El Assaimi, who emphasized that the finding was the product of intelligence projects of security organisms since last week, when a recording of a conversation concerning details of an assassination plan against President Chávez between certain active and retired military personnel came to light.
The domiciliary visit also resulted in the detention of two persons, civilians, whose identity El Assaimi has not revealed for reasons of strategic order.
[...]
"Remember that in that recording, the militaries talk of blowing up the president's airplane, and this launcher we found is for bringing down aircraft. It has a great destructive power, and can practically destroy a military tank. I don't believe that anyone would be so foolish as to think that this cannon, with its 700-metre range, was going to be used for shooting deer, or that they just found it lying around under a tree," El Assaimi said.
Translation mine. Linkage added.
Ha ha ha, that Tarek, what a kidder. What a card! Of course that "cannon" was just a deer rifle that some bozo carelessly left under a tree. What else could it be? Certainly not more evidence of a dastardly plan to kill Chavecito before the regional elections, in which the PSUV is expected to win and win big!
And no, of course the gringos are not behind this either. Just as they weren't behind any of the other coup plots throughout Latin American history, ever. Perish forbid.
From Aporrea, one of those things that make you want to crow...or just watch somebody else eat it:
Attorneys belonging to the American Association of Jurists rejected the content of the report on human rights in Venezuela presented by José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch, on Monday.
On the VTV program Dando y Dando, the jurists advised that the sources mentioned in the report were all based in stories from opposition media and NGOs, as well as references to private institutions.
Carlos Chacón, president of the association, said that the report is politically motivated and that the executive secretary of Human Rights Watch is a member of the CIA directorate and that the government of Venezuela is in their crosshairs.
[...]
For his part, the vice-president of the organization, Ernesto Amezquita, emphasized that this precedent would serve to unmask many "self-styled human rights institutions" who have made a business of this topic and who "sell themselves to the highest bidder".
Translation mine.
BTW, if you haven't yet read Michael Barker's excellent exposé of HRW, who's in it and who's behind it, now would be a good time. I frankly wasn't surprised to find out that the infamous Ford Foundation is a major contributor. The Ford Foundation has long used "human rights" in Latin America as a mask for their corporate founders' distinctly antidemocratic, anti-rights activities, and of course, their ties to the CIA as well.
Schloppenheimer: pigeonholing Lugo, or trying to (and failing)
Gotta love that Andres Oppenheimer (she said, dripping heavy sarcasm). The Miami Herald's resident narcissist-wankerist was down in Paraguay this week to ask stupid questions of the new president, Fernando Lugo, and to get some sensible, if frustratingly (for the Schloppenheimer, anyway) nuanced answers:
There they go, with their tails between their legs...
...singin' doo wah ditty ditty dum ditty doo...
José Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson, on their way out of Maiquetía Airport in Venezuela, en route to São Paulo, Brazil, looking like two walking peptic ulcers.
So, some people are wringing their hands about how Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolás Maduro just flat-out told the guys from Human Rights Watch that the door's over there, and not to let it hit 'em where their mamas done split 'em? And oh, how bad this looks on Venezuela? Like it confirms every bad thing HRW has said?
So, there was no coup plot against Hugo Chavez? Riiiiiight.
And all these military traitors are just a malign coincidence, I'm sure:
Alberto Nolia of VTV, the Venezuelan state channel, plays back some recorded conversations between what sure sounds to me like a bunch of conspirators. Here's my translation of what they were saying:
The Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Roy Chaderton, denounced before the organization the racist and coup-mongering editorial published on Tuesday in the Washington Post and criticized the biased coverage which CNN had given the situation of violence and subversion which Bolivia has been experiencing in the last few days.
Translation mine.
A couple of days ago, I ripped that editorial, and so did BoRev (also taking issue with CNN's coverage, which I've been boycotting onnaccounta it's horseshit). Looks like now, it's official: Bad editorialists no longer get a free pass from ambassadors to the OAS.
Mind you, the WaHoPo and the Chicken Noodle Network, if they give this denunciation any coverage at all, will probably claim it's due to Venezuelan and Bolivian "noncompliance" in the drug wars. Or some other totally pulled-out-of-an-ass reason.
Walter Martínez analyzes the recent flight of Russian TU-160 strategic bombers from Venezuela. The planes circled the Caribbean, then flew down the coast of Brazil before turning back to Venezuela. Total flight time was 6 hours. The planes invaded no one's airspace, flying over neutral waters only, but the message was clear: They can cover the entire area which, just by coincidence, happens to be where Dubya's newly resurrected 4th Fleet is to be patrolling. They can do this quite easily.
And the reason isn't hard to see: the TU-160, which has no equal in American technology, was designed during the Cold War era to patrol the entire Arctic. It can easily penetrate Canadian airspace without being detected on NORAD's pipsqueaky radars, and from there, it's just a short hop south to targets in--guess where.
What a lucky thing the Russians seem disinclined towards nuclear war nowadays, eh?
Revolter at BoRev calls it Valijagate. But we of the jet set just call it bullshit!
Why would Chavecito shake hands with this fat slimebag?
Story from YVKE Mundial:
On August 4, 2007, [Guido] Antonini was taken into custody in Buenos Aires with a briefcase stuffed with $800,000 US. Antonini, according to a campaign directed by opposition media against Cristina Fernández and Hugo Chávez, was trying to finance Fernández's electoral campaign with funds from the Venezuelan state oil firm, PDVSA.
President Chávez said that the case has been a script badly performed from the start. "You recall that he (Antonini Wilson) said he had lunched that day with me. I said to check it out...and it turns out that Mr. Antonini did try to enter Miraflores Palace that day. He couldn't, so the plan failed, but it was in the script. The script failed!" said the president during a press conference at Miraflores.
Translation mine.
Readers of this blog may also recall that I translated, in full, an article by Jaime Bayly some months ago, in which the Peruvian writer revealed that Guido Antonini Wilson, the "pudgy goodfella", is in fact a Miami mafioso, not an agent of the Venezuelan government. He may well be an agent of some other government, though--and I'm not talking about Argentina.
Well, Jaime Bayly is in the videos too. Have a look--he once again reveals that Antonini hates Chavecito's guts. Strange, then, that such a man would claim to be an agent of his, eh?
Chavecito's right--this whole business is nothing but a garbage operation. And that's a polite way of putting it!
Actually, this one's called "The Yare Moon". It was recently auctioned off to raise funds for the PSUV's latest electoral campaign. Chavecito painted it while in Yare Prison after his failed coup attempt of '92.
The caption under the barred window reads "The Mill of the Gods grinds slowly!"
I'm guessing this was the actual view from his cell. And look! There's a guard tower, and some scraggly weeds in the yard, and those hooky concentration-camp-things that they hang barbed-wire fencing off of, too.
And the support for Bolivia and Venezuela was unmistakable:
Video in Spanish. Note the Chilean demonstrators (who are mostly white and middle class!) chanting "Uh, ah, Evo no se va" and "Chávez, amigo, el pueblo está contigo!"
Proof, in case anybody needed it, that the Bolivarian movement cuts across color and class lines, while the oligarchies are busy trying to draw them in the ever-sinking sand.
A U.S. official said Friday that the United States is considering expelling Venezuelan ambassador in retaliation for the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador to Caracas.
The move came after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Thursday his decision to expel U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy and ordered him to leave the country in 72 hours.
Chavez announced the decision to oust the U.S. ambassador hours after saying his government had uncovered a plot to overthrow him and detained a number of conspirators.
Chavez recalled his ambassador to the U.S. and said he won't send another envoy to Washington until after the U.S. presidential elections in November. Both Chavez and Morales have accused the U.S. of backing opposition movements in their countries.
"The U.S. is behind the plan against Bolivia, behind the terrorism," Chavez said at a political rally for candidates of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela. "We're committed to being free. Enough crap from you Yankees."
Bloomberg, at least, is nice enough to quote Chavecito correctly, albeit using the milder form of the word he said. The NY Whore Times extends no such courtesies, preferring obfuscation and defamation instead:
"When there is a new government in the United States, we'll send an ambassador," Mr. Chávez said, using an expletive to refer to Americans.
Stay classy, Old Grey Harlot.
For those interested in what was actually said, in Spanish, here 'tis:
He says "Enough shit from you Yankees." About time somebody did! He should have said that on April 14, 2002, right after they damn near killed him.
So...Evo has ordered Philip Goldberg to pack his bags, and in solidarity, Chavecito has done the same with Patrick Duddy:
President Chavez announced today that he has decided to send home the US ambassador, and has given him 72 hours to leave Venezuelan soil. This measure corresponds to that of the Government of Bolivia in response to interventionist actions by the US ambassador to that country, in conjunction with a coup plot.
Translation mine.
Of course, it bears remembering that this is not about drugs or drug-war co-operation (or lack of same, to hear the lamestream media's kvetchy take.) It is all about coup plots currently in motion, and yes, both Venezuela and Bolivia have 'em. The last time fascists felt this emboldened in Venezuela, they turned out to have some major support coming from Washington. I don't imagine it's any different now, nor that it's any different for Bolivia.
Now, I just wonder what El Ecuadorable is thinking, watching all this unfold. Will he make it a three-fer? Auntie Bina's spidey-sense says he just might.
Um, yeah. So Chavecito's always banging on about coup plans and other magnicidal nefarious plots being hatched against him? Well, now we know he's not exaggerating or just making shit up. A little birdie sent Mario Silva, the host of VTV's La Hojilla (The Razorblade), a secret recording of active and retired military commanders getting up to some serious insubordination:
According to Aporrea, these recordings include the voices of a vice-admiral (Millán Millán), a retired national-guard general (Wilfredo Barroso Herrera), and a brigadier-general of the air force (Eduardo Báez Torrealba), who is heard saying: "The most important thing is, now we have a pilot with a thousand hours of flight in an F-16, and the others are instructors who will launch the planes." They also talk of plans to take the presidential palace, Miraflores. Incriminating stuff, if you understand Spanish!
This is Mario Silva's last appearance on La Hojilla before the regional elections, to be held on November 23; he's running for governor of the state of Carabobo, and he's hugely popular, so he's practically a shoo-in. The opposition? Clearly not, or else they wouldn't have to resort to schemes like this, using the military to launch a fascist coup.
Oh, and according to Silva, the infamous ex-general Raul Baduel--now an opposition candidate--is also in the coup plot up to the eyeballs. Hey, gotta give the gringos their $1.2 million dollars' worth, right? Especially since neither he nor Chavecito's ex stand a hope in hell of winning, even in the petty factional popularity contests the oppos are holding to pick "unity candidates" amongst themselves in lieu of actual, democratic primaries.
Ha, ha...the poor Wall Street Journal. When it comes to Venezuela, it doesn't know which part of its britches to soil first. Should it slam unions, the usual conservative suspect for every economic thing that goes wrong anywhere? Or should it slam Hugo Chavez? Or--oh, this is good--should it slam him for making unions so dangerously uppity in Venezuela?
The president's own policy spurred the growth of powerful unions. Now the policy appears to have spiraled out of control. State-owned companies, including some recently nationalized by Mr. Chavez, are groaning under the pressure of union demands. Higher wages are feeding inflation and discouraging business investment.
"There's no equilibrium between management and the unions. I'm afraid they now have all the power," said Eduardo Gómez, head of Conindustria, a business group that usually opposes the president.
See the dilemma? Suddenly, Conindustria (which is a cousin of Fedecamaras) finds itself supposedly in the same boat as Chavecito. And yet, it's not:
Guilt by association, or, Let's all soil ourselves over that evil Hugo Chavez yet again!
Some days, the media are just too transparent. Get a load of what pooped in my e-mail box today thanks to Google Alerts:
The Russians Are Coming! Cuban Missile Crisis Part Deux! No shit, Reuters actually spells it out! And Turkey's most popular news site, Hürriyet, is most explicit about the supposed details. The Los Angeles Times headline is more coy about it, and the AP's headline coyer still, but you can tell they're all soiling themselves over the prospect of a new Cuban Missile Crisis. And they're all hoping you do, too. (That's their job, boobie. Do you suppose they'll ever mention that mysterious resurrection of the Fourth Fleet and what it has to do with all this?)
Meanwhile, the Financial Times and the Times of London both cleverly manage to tie Chavecito to the dictator of Libya, completely ignoring the fact that Shoe Queen Condi has also extended the old boy an olive branch, calling him (once deemed a terrorist by her very own State Dept.) an "ally in the War on Terror". Surely that's not all about oil? Oh yeah, wait...it is!
And back at the ranch, Reuters UK has decided to extend the Magic Laptop smear from Chavecito to former justice minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín. The evidence? Well, of course, the bogus data on The Laptop No Missile Could Fry. And the fact that Rodríguez hugged some FARCers and called them "compañero" during a humanitarian handover in the jungles of Colombia, which he had helped to broker along with Chavecito and Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba. Yeah, that's right, he didn't show enough hostility by way of gratitude for the safe handover of the prisoners. And he always wears that red shirt! That means he must be a commie-pinko terra-ist, too.
Amy Goodman's arrest yesterday at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, may be just a sideline in the US, but in other countries, it's big news. Aporrea, the popular Venezuelan news portal, made her story top of their headlines today.
Why the hoopla? Because Amy, along with Democracy Now co-host Juan Gonzalez, was the first US journalist to interview Hugo Chavez on US soil. (She and Juan followed it up two years ago with a similar, hour-long interview of Chavecito's good friend and ally, Evo Morales of Bolivia--another first.)
Suffice to say that while the US mainstream media largely ignores the work of Amy and her colleagues, it does not go unnoticed in Latin America--where she has a large fan following simply because her handling of the news is so evenhanded--and because, unlike most US-based reporters, she does not report what Washington wants people to see, but what is actually going on. That kind of thing is hugely appreciated in any maligned, misunderstood part of the world.
Barely in office for two weeks, and already the new "moderate leftist" president of Paraguay is smelling something rotten in his country. You know you're a real leftist when...
President Fernando Lugo denounced a meeting which he characterized as "conspiratorial", which he blamed on retired general Lino Cesar Oviedo, and asked the citizenry to be alert "towards coupmongering intentions in the antidemocratic sectors".
[...]
"My government will not permit mockery of the people's sovereignty. And those who plan on implementing conspiracies will face all the measures the Constitution puts in my hands," the ex-bishop added.
Lugo revealed that Gen. Maximo Diaz, liaison between the Armed Forces and the Congress, was driven by the chauffeur of Enrique Gonzalez, the president of the senate, to Oviedo's house, where he met with the Electoral Justice minister, Juan Manuel Morales, the Inspector General, Ruben Candia Amarilla, and Lelis Olmedo, a lawyer and friend of Oviedo.
"General Diaz was consulted by General Oviedo to find out what is the opinion of the armed forces regarding the Senate crisis. Diaz answered that the military is institutionalized and may not have an opinion about political issues, and left immediately," Lugo said. "As president of the republic, I will not allow the armed forces to be used for sectarian interests."
Wooooo, them's fightin' words. From a man of peace (and until not so long ago, the cloth), such tough talk means he knows there will be no grace period for him, as there was for Chavecito in Venezuela, back in the early days of his presidency. Back then, the opposition thought they could ingratiate themselves and buy Chavez, but when the big guy proved incorruptible, they went for his jugulars.
With Lugo, they already know the gig is up, because this guy dedicated his entire career as a bishop to helping the poor. Now that he's in a position of real political power, he'll be pulling out the stops to do what he was more limited in doing as a churchman. And this speech is more evidence of just that.
What it also shows, rather interestingly, is that at least one top-ranking general in the Paraguayan military takes his job and his charges seriously, and, unlike his Venezuelan counterparts of 2002, refuses to be sucked into the plot. If they were sending out feelers to see if they could corrupt him, they got their answer right there. As with President Lugo himself, it is a firm NO SALE!
For Paraguay, this bodes very well. For BushCo, the Moonies and the toy ranch that Jenna was there to buy, well...not so much.
The leftists that pray together, stay together. Lugo (in white) and Chavecito attend Mass together in San Pedro, Paraguay, on August 16.
And even worse, he still doesn't connect all this to Alvaro Uribe, let alone Washington. The most he'll say is that the paras were "often working closely with army units". Under whose command, Juan? Spit it out. Oh come on, spit it...
Oh, fuck it. He says it's the Colombian government exhuming the bodies. I guess that somehow makes them heroes now. As if all the language about the Uribe administration being "feted from Washington to Paris for its recent success against Marxist guerrillas" weren't enough to give Forero's true sympathies away.
Possums, don't hold your breath waiting for Juan to connect any dots here. You might end up dead for real.
Meanwhile, Hugh Bronstein of Reuters gets a little closer to it, but he too shrinks away from naming Uribe's real, much deeper connections to the drug/parapolitics scandal. At most, all he'll mention is Uribe's creepy-ass cousin. He has yet to peruse Virginia Vallejo's book, I see.
Oh, and Bronstein sticks in a "Bogota-based analyst" taking dig at Venezuela there, too, claiming it has "problems with drug-trafficking and kidnapping". Damn right it does--it sits right next to Colombia. And since the border's not sealed and Chavecito would only take flak from Washington if he tried to control it, well...I think you can connect the dots, yes?
Two "prestigious" Chavez-haters get owned by a Russky
Yes, folks, I'm talking about those two once-notable authors, Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes, who have both decided to keep their names in the news by turning their pens to machetes in the name of right-wing hackery.
Since it's currently fashionable in certain circles to bash Chavecito for everything from his impoverished background to his military career to his friendship with Fidel to, yes, his nonwhiteness--well, when talent deserts you, you just gotta turn your hand to something, and why not something fashionable? It's either that or the bottle of Victory Gin (and I wouldn't put that past either one of these sour old boys, either. Hey, it worked out fine for Christopher Hitchens--he gets to crapagandize and drink himself insensible with the proceeds.)
Now, Russia doesn't have a notable journalistic tradition that I'm aware of. (Mind you, Pravda may not be the best thing to go by on this one.) No more than it has a lengthy and illustrious history of parliamentary democracy. But I can see I shall have to visit Tiwy.com more often, because this is one Russia-based news site that strives to get things right.
Case in point: Nil Nikandrov's excellent piece on the two writers-turned-crapagandists. Nikandrov definitely seems to have Vargas Llosa's number--and on speed-dial, at that:
The Ecuadorian state firm, PetroEcuador, will commence operations in Venezuela, where it will exploit crude alongside its Chilean counterpart, ENAP, according to Ecuadorian minister of Mines and Petroleum, Galo Chiriboga.
Chiriboga announced that PetroEcuador and ENAP will join Venezuela's PDVSA in joint operations in the oilfield of Ayacucho de la Faja del Orinoco, a vast region in eastern Venezuela where the government of Hugo Chavez assumed control of the petroleum operations about a year ago.
The minister said that the joint accord will be signed this Friday in Caracas, on the occasion of an official visit by president Rafael Correa to Venezuela.
The three state firms will create a joint venture to certify the reserves of the Ayacucho oilfield, which, according to information from Caracas, has 39 wells and reserves totalling 14 billion barrels.
Chiriboga pointed out that the operation in Venezuela will permit Ecuador to increase its national reserves "at times when the majority of wells in Ecuador are in decline."
Translation mine.
You know what that means--stability in oil prices and supplies for Ecuador, great at a time when the new constitution is going to a vote and it's very likely the Ecuadorian oligarchy will try the same shit their Venezuelan counterparts did in the winter of 2002-3. This should head 'em off at the pass.
Gasp! More petro-solidarity in Latin America! The horror. The HORROR!!!
I guess I know what I'll be doing for Festive Left Friday. Yup, you guessed it--blogging pics of two of my favorite smart goodlookings signing oil accords!
And this time, it's all about Teh Stoopid in Venezuela. Or at least, AP would slyly insinuate that Venezuela is the one with the stupidity problem.
Mysterious deaths among the Warao "Indians" along the Orinoco river, which just so happens to be Venezuela's richest oilfield region. AP seems to have fingered bat rabies as the culprit, though the (US-based) medical researchers they cite only say the natives "described symptoms consistent with" the disease. Meanwhile, you really have to wonder what stupid questions the AP reporter asked of the Venezuelan health minister to get her to respond like this:
Perez said it was irresponsible to suggest there has been a lack of government help. She said officials have repeatedly visited the area this year to investigate.
Of course, the AP prefers to put the accusation of no-government-help in the mouths of "some indigenous leaders", without naming or quoting a single one. Translation: Venezuelan government too stupid to look after those Injuns they claim to care so much about.
Javier Hernandez manages the small zoo at Caracas' General Francisco de Miranda Park. He said Monday that 29-year-old Erick Arrieta violated park rules by letting the Asian python out early Saturday.
The biology major was found strangled to death, with a snake bite on his left wrist.
Translation: Venezuelan students too stupid to look after Asian pythons.
And then there're these twoitems about how Venezuela is supposedly "not co-operating" in the War on Drugs. Translation: Venezuelan people too stupid to stop gringos shoving Colombian coke up their noses.
Here's a novel thought for the AP: Why isn't the US government addressing the demand side, without which the (COLOMBIAN) supply side of this problem wouldn't exist? Translation: AP too stupid to get onto the real story.
Oh, color me shocked, SHOCKED...at the latest from Aporrea:
On his Sunday program, ex-vice president Jose Vicente Rangel asserted that the general-in-chief, Raul Isaias Baduel, visited Bogota around the end of July, where he "met with Pedro Carmona and the Colombian defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos."
Baduel's agenda, according to Rangel, included "a meeting with an association of retired military leaders, in which former generals Juan Salcedo Yora and Manuel Monnet were present." According to Rangel, these men "have international arrest warrants out against them for crimes against humanity."
Also, Rangel said, Gen. Baduel addressed a conference against the Venezuelan government at Sergio Arboleda University in Bogota, where he met with members of an NGO "which is continually taking shots at Venezuela and its national government."
Here's Rangel on his TV show, discussing that and more:
Baduel's disgraceful conduct is the second item in this clip.
So, the once honorable, oh-so-constitutionalist general has been meeting with wanted criminals--in addition to receiving money from where he shouldn't? His formerly sterling reputation doesn't need any tarnishing from without; he's doing a terrific job of pissing all over it himself.
At this rate, he can stop wondering why he can't siphon off the "Bolivarian, but..." vote. Nobody votes for a traitor--least of all one who consorts with the very business dictator whom he once stood up to!
Hmmmm...his cap says "Venezuela", so clearly he's from there. And he's wearing a red t-shirt with famous communist faces all in a row. He must be a Chavista, right?
Um, sorry. No.
According to Aporrea, this is Henrique Capriles Radonsky, the treasonous right-wing mayor of the municipality of Baruta, spotted on a recent trip to Beijing. Apparently he thought he was going incognito. But in fact, he's violating the conditions of his release from prison four years ago. And the fact that Capriles Radonsky was jailed for attacking the Cuban embassy in Caracas during the coup of '02 surely makes his t-shirt that much more ironic, no?
And in the grand (tired) old tradition of unsigned editorials, the authors are not named (to protect the guilty, of course.) It would be nice to know, for a change, to whom one must hand back their lying ass. Accountability is such a buzzword these days, so why not there?
Well, at least one truly outstanding Brit twit has the courage to put his name and his tired, defeated old mug at the top of his even more tired, defeated old stupidities at the UK Telegraph. He maunders on about how marriage has "crumbled" since 1979 (really? then why all the married couples, including my parents, who are still together for over 40 years now?) He also rambles about the misleadingness of the Gini coefficient, which is actually rather reliable. He blathers on about how poverty is "elective" and based on "dependency" (name one person outside a monastery who has freely chosen poverty, sir). Oh yeah, and he calls Venezuela "Marxist", as though Simon Bolivar were just some equestrian statue covered with pigeon droppings. Could it possibly get more tired and derivative?
This old dobbin is just ripe for the glue factory; his carcass is hanging by a thread, but it's still a lot more coherent and less crumbly than his brittle arguments about how the rich lift up the rest of us, just by virtue of their "wealth creation". Gee, haven't thirty-odd years of fascist-imposed neoliberalism proved as much?
But hey, let's give him the No Bull Please Prize for this pronouncement:
Backed by national guard troops and cheering crowds, government representatives moved in on three Cemex plants at the stroke of midnight Monday, the end of a 60-day deadline set by President Hugo Chavez for imposing state control over Venezuela's largest cement maker.
Chavez has long criticized Venezuela's private-sector cement makers for high prices and tight supplies that he says have hampered government efforts to build housing for the poor. Pro-nationalization supporters who had gathered outside a Cemex facility in eastern Venezuela sang the national anthem while fireworks exploded overhead, according to news reports.
Of course, this being reported in the Denver Post, someone still felt duty-bound to note for the sake of "fairness and balance":
But Mexico's ambassador to Venezuela, Mario Chacon, made his displeasure clear. Chavez's hard line with Cemex, one of Mexico's most admired companies, has irritated the conservative administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
"As a government, we respect Venezuela's decision, but we are obligated to look out for the interests of our companies," Chacon said. "We believe there has been discriminatory treatment against Cemex, and we don't understand why."
Good job, D-Post. Now go back to sleep. You've got a Dem convention coming up to report on. And you need your beauty rest, especially since you got scooped on the secret prisons in your city, built specially for the occasion.
Found something interesting and curious at Aporrea and just had to translate:
"For 60 years, we of GMV have been working with Venezuela and its people; it's our fundamental job to think of this organization as a great human team, which has the right to exercise its functions to contribute to the well-being of the country, of business, of its families, and ourselves." (El Nacional, Page 1-21, Sunday, August 17, 2008)
Some older workers will recall that during the first administration of Rafael Caldera, General Motors had an assembly plant in La Yaguara, Caracas--surrounded by high electric fences and watchtowers with reflectors, in order to defend itself against guerrilla attacks.
A rebellious worker, detained by company security and the National Guard, was incarcerated and tortured for several days in a dungeon on the premises, before being handed over to the DIGEPOL, the infamous political police of those days. When he was finally freed, the worker took his case to the Ministry of Labor whose head, Tarre Murzi, ordered an inspection of the GM plant.
The Ministry inspectors weren't allowed to enter, on the grounds that GM was a US business, so the Ministry had no jurisdiction over it. The minister, indignant, called a press conference to which, strangely, no one came. When a second such conference was similarly boycotted by the official and private media, Tarre Murzi took up the embarrassing matter with President Caldera--who, true to his "principles", fired the minister.
...I think you dropped something. Namely, all mention of a tyrannical Latin American president--in PERU!
In view of the protests of 60 ethnic groups from the Amazonian jungle against official decrees, the Peruvian government declared three provinces and one municipality in state of emergency on Monday.
According to a resolution published in the official journal El Peruano, the state of emergency was declared to keep the peace after at least nine people were injured during some encounters between the police and the natives.
The measure provides the suspension of constitutional rights which prevents the exercise of certain rights like the freedom of assembly and movement, and gives the police authority to arrest and carry out raids without a warrant.
The state of emergency comprises the provinces of Bagua and Utcubamba, the north of the Amazon and Datem del Marañon, Loreto in the west, and the municipality of Echarate in the southern region of Cuzco.
Well, looky there. Alan Garcia ruling by decree--and not within limitations of constitutionality and basic human decency like Chavecito, either. He's tyrannizing over the indigenous, in particular.
Now: For the entire last 18 months, when Chavecito had power to legislate by decree, there was not a single state of emergency in Venezuela, despite lashings of violence from the opposition which could, legitimately, have resulted in a crackdown. Contrast that with the situation in Peru, where people routinely get their heads busted open for simply protesting!
But will the major media mention it, let alone in the context of tyranny in Peru, the way they often do Chavecito, who has not a scrap of actual tyranny to his name? Noooooo. At most, they only cite this approvingly as an example of his "law and order" program at work. (And get this: they make out like it's the "Indians" who are at fault.) No mention of the suppression of constitutionality. Not a peep from Andres Oppenheimer, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Simon Romero or any other crapaganda-cranker about tyranny. Couldn't be because Peru's tyrant, like Colombia's, passes muster with Big Crapital, while Venezuela's democrat doesn't...could it?
Or the success of Evo in Bolivia, which just seems to keep on growin'?
Or the fact that El Ecuadorable has now come out as a socialist?
Or the big celebration as Fernando Lugo of Paraguay becomes the latest leftist teddybear to join the South American picnic?
Yep, it can only be the doing of the usual big red-shirted suspect. After all, Hurricane Hugo has sucked in pretty much any part of Latin America that isn't nailed down by Washington. Or at least, so you'd think to read what all the crapaganda whores are saying. They seem to be having tremendous difficulties with the concept of popular will, no?
Some young hooligans protested the final legal decision to disqualify some deserving candidates by dumping cow manure all over the sidewalk outside the Comptroller General's offices in Caracas on Wednesday.
Yes, you read that right: They threw bullshit all over the place.
Somehow, that just so describes them to a tee, no matter how they protest, no?
Alan Garcia finally takes his doctor's advice and starts his new aerobics program. Maybe he'll finally lose some of that weight.
Crikey, what is up with the president of Peru? Dancing around like a marionette while Pisco is still in such rough shape? And the LatAm president who's actually done something helpful there is not himself but evil, wicked Chavecito--who, if Reuters says true (and you can never be too sure with English-language wires these days), is only doing it to prop up the chances of his Peruvian pal, Ollanta Humala?
At this rate, the Peruvians probably wish they had voted for Ollanta in the first place. At least he wouldn't look so ridiculous trying to dance.
Jayzuz. What is it with all these right-wing shit disturbers? They get people all riled up, and then they don't even show up to their own demonstrations? Case in point: Two rather prominent Venezuelan business leaders who keep trying to topple an elected president. From Aporrea, a parliamentary moment of truth:
Dario Vivas, PSUV deputy of the National Assembly, denounced Miguel Henrique Otero, owner of the newspaper El Nacional and spokesman of the "2D Movement" for having left the country for Puerto Rico after having called for demonstrations against the Enabling Laws and in support of disqualified candidates.
Vivas showed a video of Otero abandoning the country from Maiquetia airport, and said that the departure took place the day before the demonstration which Otero had called for in a furious manner, causing indignation in those who had seen him leaving the country after having called on citizens to "take the streets" and "not recognize the Enabling Laws" in the name of the "2D Movement, a supposed group of opposition intellectuals.
Vivas denounced Miguel Henrique Otero for publishing a call to mobilize "for the Fatherland, for the disqualified, and against the 26 Enabling Laws" in his his own newspaper. But then "he caught a plane, boarded on Saturday, and headed for San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the company of a young woman named Antonieta." Apparently, Otero returned a few days later.
Deputy Vivas compared the behavior of Otero to that of Carlos Fernandez, who was president of Fedecamaras in 2002 during the oil lockout headed by the opposition. Fernandez called for a demonstration on the last day of the year against the government--at the same time as he was celebrating New Year's Eve in Aruba.
Translation mine. Video at the site.
Fat chance that we'll ever see an Otero or a Fernandez on the frontlines along with the "students", taking a bullet from their own side in the name of "the fatherland". These guys are more than content to call the shots from a safe distance--like oh, say, as far away as Aruba or San Juan, Puerto Rico. What sort of person does that make them?
Strange things dead paramilitaries write...and stranger things they reveal. From Aporrea, a little note that will make you believe that there IS life after death, especially for crime and scandal in Colombia:
The ex-colonel of Colombian police, Danilo Gonzalez, who was assassinated in 2004, ordered the murder of former presidential candidaate Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, and the kidnapping of Venezuelan businessman Richard Boulton.
This, according to a letter from the late paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño, which was revealed today.
The letter from Castaño, also killed four years ago, and published by the weekly magazine Semana, also accuses Colonel Gonzalez of planning the kidnap of architect Juan Carlos Gaviria, brother of the former Colombian president and ex-secretary of the Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria.
Poor Yon Goicoechea. Such a cute young guy, such high hopes attached...and what are they coming to? A few months ago, the Cato Institute paid him half a million dollars to spread neoliberal/neocon/neofascist crapaganda and astroturf all over Venezuela. Playboy's Venezuelan edition also obligingly gave him huge fanfare (between pictures of silicone-stuffed bunnies, natch.) Do you think they're getting their money's worth? Aporrea doesn't:
Yon Goicoechea, opposition youth leader and student at Andres Bello Catholic University, said on Wednesday during an opposition demonstration that the movement he heads is disposed toward "setting this city on fire" if the State doesn't backtrack on the decision of the Comptroller General to uphold the disqualifications of some 270 would-be political candidates on the grounds of irregularities in the exercise of their duties.
Draped with a Venezuelan flag like a superhero's cape, Goicoechea declared on Globovision that "this Chavismo, which is filling our city with trash, deaths and blood, is impossible to sustain. People need to solve their problems by way of votes. They want to solve their problems the peaceful way. They want to solve their problems by way of justice.
"What are they looking for? That the people set this city on fire?" he continued. "What are they looking for? They're looking for violence! If they don't catch on and let Venezuelans express themselves freely at the polls...if they don't let us demonstrate our enormous non-conformity with the government by way of regular channels, then they must be looking for us to burn up this city. What's the matter with the government? Don't they care that the disqualified candidates are suffering human rights violations?"
Video (in Spanish) about the prevalence of racism in Venezuela. It's a fact much denied by the upper classes (who are overwhelmingly white), but when seen through "black" eyes, it becomes impossible to miss. Example: A group of young blacks makes the journey into the rich Eastern Caracas district of Chacao, which prides itself on its "security", to go nightclubbing. The doorman won't let them in--on account of age (he says). Yet right in front of them, a much younger group of whites has no trouble getting in, without so much as a request for ID. Yet the doorman denies that race had anything to do with it; he even trots out the "some of my best friends are" line which is a well known cover for all kinds of discrimination (you'll probably recognize it from up here, too).
This is just one of many instances of blatant racism and denial that you'll encounter throughout this 40-minute documentary. In another, a very notorious incident which took place several months ago, a white Televen talk show host and her guest, an Italian woman, make blatantly racist remarks about the "laziness" and "criminality" of the typical Venezuelan (who is not white!), while another guest, a black comedian, just sits there and takes it. You can see the hurt on his face, as clear as the palmprint from a slap. There are also snippets from opposition websites and forums in which President Chavez's face is photoshopped to look like that of an ape, along with more blatant racism. (It's very common among the oppos to refer to non-whites, especially their own president, as "monkeys". It's also common for them to deny, almost in the same breath, that their remarks have anything to do with racism!)
But the part that got to me the most was when the young narrator calls out her grandmother--who is clearly black--and the latter shows off her wedding photo. Talk about photoshopping! It's as if all possible traces of Africa were expunged from the picture; bride and groom have lightened complexions, and their features and hair are carefully "neutralized" to look as little afrodescendent as possible. This, along with all the advertising images of white, blond models selling everything from makeup to candy, all the whiter-than-white beauty queens, makes clear just how prevalent and ingrained the racism is. When you can't "look nice" on your own wedding day without trying to look as white (in other words, as much like the "pretty" models) as possible, you know you live in a racist society.
And only when the denial stops can the real work of change begin.
Hebert Veloza, formerly known as "HH", in the hands of the Colombian authorities.
From Aporrea, a shocking revelation by a Colombian paramilitary leader, one that will surely put "El Doptor Varito" in an awkward position (as if he could get any more pretzel-like):
Ex-paramilitary chief Hebert Veloza, alias "HH", admitted that he and his men committed more than 3000 killings between 1994 and 2003. Veloza confirmed in an interview given to the daily El Espectador that there were ties between certain politicians, members of the Colombian military, and police with the AUC paramilitaries. He also said that with his extradition to the US, "the victims will go on not knowing the truth."
The man formerly known as "HH" recognized that in the massacres his organization committed, "more innocent than guilty people died, but that's war."
Just minutes ago we were informed that Gonzalo Gomez, co-founder of Aporrea and currently a member of the Regional Political Committee of the Capital District of the PSUV, was attacked by followers of Leopoldo Lopez and the opposition party, Un Nuevo Tiempo. The incident occurred in Colombia Street in the populous neighborhood of Catia, Caracas.
Gonzalo Gomez was on his way back from an event in support of the victims of April 11-14, 2002, when he encountered a group of UNT supporters. The member of the Aporrea editorial team said to his companions that they reminded him of those who had been the authors of the coup d'etat and the killers of innocents in April, 2002.
Upon hearing this, an intolerant member of the opposition group recognized him and began to assail him physically, hitting him in the mouth. While trying to defend himself, Gomez was jumped by various others, who also attacked him and threatened him with death.
Fortunately, the PSUV member emerged in good condition from this situation, despite the blows he received. At the moment he is denouncing the perpetrators before the local police.
Translation mine.
The article ends with a call for calm from a source which the media up here would call unlikely:
This is an appeal to those who defend peace and non-violence before the media, and call those who support the revolution "aggressors" and "savages". Stop these fascist actions and this violence. Today, we have seen that the "aggressors" and the "savages" were not the revolutionary people but those who, from day to day, keep trying to impede the advance of the social justice which the less fortunate have been clamoring after for so many years.
No reasonable person could disagree that social justice has been a long time coming to Venezuela, or that anyone who stands in its way is the real savage.
But of course, I fully expect to see the media here, taking their cues from El Nazional and El Luniversal, report this incident only as a case of Chavista provocation and attack, if they report it at all.
Festive Left Friday Blogging: Coffee break anyone?
BoRev reports that CITGO has just branched out into serving something rich, dark and Venezuelan in its coffee shops. And no, it's not fuel--at least, not of a petrochemical nature. Here's some fresh-brewed video for ya:
BTW, I hear Venezuelan chocolate is also pretty damn fantastic. Will CITGO consider carrying cocoa, I wonder?
When it comes to reporting on Venezuela--not a dime's worth. Reuters is just as bad at hitting Latin America with the Stoopid Stick, as this Saul Hudson piece makes all too clear:
A popular mayor hoping to run for a top elected office in Venezuela protested a ban on his candidacy on Tuesday in a case that highlights opposition concerns over weakened democracy under President Hugo Ch
