News of the Restless

...for saying exactly what needs to be said, and in this case, proposing exactly what needs to be proposed:

A worldwide assembly of governments, in which frank conversations between diverse points of view on the current global crisis can be held, is what the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, proposed in his most recent conversation with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy.

[...]

"I conversed a little while ago with Sarkozy and suggested to him that there be a meeting, not just between the largest countries in the world, but a worldwide assembly of governments, where we can hear each other out with patience and respect. But no, it seems that they are still all caught up in their own world," Chávez said.

Translation mine.

It would behoove the G-8 (and all the smaller countries touched by the US banking crisis) to take a closer look at Venezuela's economy and how it's gone nowhere but up since Chavecito's been at the helm. It's doing so well, in fact, that the "global" crisis might just do an "inexplicable" swerve, or hit less hard than widely expected. The Venezuelan Shield Effect (you saw that term here first, people, 'cuz I'm a-coining it!) will also help buffer countries with whom Venezuela has strong economic ties, most especially in the ALBA. Already, many leading economists are sitting up and taking notice, and urging some remarkably Chavecito-like measures.

Even now, as Venezuela prepares to confront the crisis on an "austerity" budget, social spending remains high, at close to half of all government expenditures. This is the opposite of what Bretton Woods recommends ("privatize everything and devil take the hindermost" is their mantra), but it's exactly what any responsible economist would tell a government facing an economic crisis to do: make sure the people still get the healthcare, education and other basic, publicly-served necessities of life.

With all that said, only a fool would dismiss out of hand a sensible, modest, 100% workable proposal like the one Chavecito made above. The man knows what he's doing, people. It's time to take him seriously, not as a demagogue, but as what he is--a popular statesman with sound economic ideas that keep on working where all the standard Bretton Woods remedies just keep on failing.

Just watch, however, as the oh, SO predictable black-helicopter nutters of the US 'winger brigade spin this as "OMG, Chávez wants a one-world government with himself in charge of it all!!! He really IS a tyrant and a dictator!!! War on Venezuela NOW!!!!Eleven!!!!"

In 5...4...3...2...

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Media Lens, the British media watchdog group, finally draws a conclusion that I figured out for myself a long time ago: that while the British media may be slightly more liberal than their Yank counterparts, they're still piss-poor at doing their actual job--that is, if you consider said actual job to be informing the public of what is really going on in the world, so that the public in turn can do its part and change the world.

And also, that they're a bunch of snot-nosed toddlers with gargantuan egos:

Since starting Media Lens in 2001, we have learned that corporate journalists are very often ill-equipped, or disinclined, to debate vital issues with members of the public.

In 2004, the esteemed Lancet medical journal published a study showing that 98,000 Iraqis had most likely died following the US-led invasion. John Rentoul, chief political correspondent of the Independent on Sunday, responded with sarcasm when we challenged him about his dismissal of the peer-reviewed science:

"Oh no. You have found me out. I am in fact a neocon agent in the pay of the third morpork of the teleogens of Tharg." (Email, September 15, 2005)

Undoubtedly the redoubtable Mr. Rentoul thought he was being witty by saying that. Well, he's half right--but only half. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt about the morpork thing, but by uncritically repeating, for paid publication, what the neo-cons say, he is in fact making himself into their paid agent. It is only a question of whether they pay him directly or indirectly.

By the bye, Mr. Rentoul, blowing snot all over your readers is no more mature than trashing a really serious peer-reviewed medical publication, like the Lancet, for having the temerity to contradict you. I expect that of freepers, not real journalists doing real work in the field.

But maybe I'm being unkind. Perhaps Mr. Rentoul just didn't understand the question? If so, he's not the only one:

In 2003, Roger Alton, then editor of the Observer, also did not take kindly to a reader accusing him of peddling Downing Street propaganda on the eve of the invasion:

"What a lot of balls ... do you read the paper old friend? ... 'Pre-digested pablum from Downing Street...' my arse. Do you read the paper or are you just recycling garbage from Medialens?" (Email, February 14, 2003)

I do hope the reader in question replied to the oh-so-civilized Mr. Alton, something along these lines: "I, sir, do not recycle garbage...but you, sir, DO. It's nice to know that you are so environmentally friendly. From now on, sir, I will follow your example, and recycle your not-so-hard work forthwith as fish-wrap. It's more useful that way than if I actually read it, as I know full well you have not done with anything you got from Downing Street."

But even when the British media decide to get all Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0 by now?) and offer their readers an "interactive" space to opine in, a double standard still prevails:

Last week, Matt Seaton, editor of the Guardian's Comment is Free website, was asked why he dismissed readers of Media Lens as a mere "lobby", but not readers who post comments on his website. Seaton replied:

"because, unlike MediaLens readers, users of Comment is free are not given directives to spam journalists and others - and would not mindlessly follow such directives if they were" (Email, October 15, 2008)

Strange. I receive Media Lens e-mails from time to time, and I do not receive "directives" via them, let alone ones I follow "mindlessly". At the bottom of every one are suggested actions the readers can take, but these are only suggestions. Not all readers take them; certainly not I, because I've actually got a degree in journalism, have met a number of pros from various media, and have seen for myself what a load of monstrous egos and midget minds inhabit the field (yes, even here in nice, liberal, socialistic Canada). A few are as nice as they come (Ron MacLean of CBC Sports is one of those good eggs); others, many more others, are rude and downright nasty even if you ask them for nothing more than the time of day. I really don't feel like writing to those people, because I know in advance that it won't make a difference. I wouldn't get a satisfactory explanation, let alone a "gee, I never thought of that"; I'd count myself lucky to get snotty responses like those catalogued above.

No, I'd rather write of them than to them, and expose them with mockery here, because here, they can't cow or intimidate or (here comes a big bad word, kiddies) CENSOR me. This is my space, and if they ego-google themselves and happen to come across what I say about them, they get what they deserve. So far, not one of them has done so--or at least, not that I would know, because not one of them has expended the very minimal effort (a gentle fluttering of fingers over a keyboard) to say something back.

Hey media types, here's a little free advice for y'all: If you want to be taken seriously, start by taking your work seriously. Don't get all caught up in what Media Lens rightly criticizes as "professional navel-gazing, ego-burnishing and insider gossip." When you sink to that level, you are taking yourself seriously and your work lightly. The public does not benefit from this, unless perhaps you're thinking to cure our collective insomnia that way. (Melatonin works better. Try it sometime.)

If you're going to have a media section, put it to good use and do some real self-criticism once in a while. It may seem painful at first, it may even seem a little Marxist, but it won't hurt you to learn to take your work more seriously and yourselves more lightly. I do it all the time in my own writing, because I feel that I owe it to my readers, as many or as few as they may be. I do it in my poetry, my fiction, my essays, and yes, this blog. Even the silliest stuff, like my satire and my limericks, gets worked over until I feel it will pass muster and make somebody else's day.

The very least you "serious" journo-types can do, if you want the public to respond to you in kind, is to give some evidence that you are capable of independent thought. You can't do that if you recycle blatant nonsense, or praise it (like so many of you did with the Euston Manifesto, a self-congratulatory non-manifesto if ever there was one)--or if you're all wrapped up in cotton balls, insulated by self and station against what you perceive as the rabble. Hello, you're only human, you're a member of it too--get over it, and more importantly, GET OVER YOURSELVES!

And if you want to convince us that you are Serious Cats, don't lose the serious thread. Report the issues honestly--don't just play back what he said, what she said, what they said. Unless you have the nerve to examine what made them say it, you have no business being in the business. You may as well just hunch on your perches, fluff up your feathers, and say "Polly want a cracker", for all the serious difference you make.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Did you know a massacre took place there on October 9?

Here's the lowdown on what it's all about, courtesy Angry White Kid:

For almost two months, the teachers union in the Mexican state of Morelos rose up against the "Alliance for Quality Education", a neo-liberal plan akin to "No Child Left Behind" that would pave the way to the privatization of education, among other things.

They were supported by the people of Morelos in their marches, encampments in public plazas, and blockades of interstate highways. On Oct. 7, 8, and 9, the army and state and federal paramilitary police were sent in to brutally smash the movement. This model is a mirror of the crackdown that occurred in Oaxaca in 2006 and has enraged teachers and the public across Mexico.

The struggle in Morelos echoes exactly what is going on in Oaxaca, where a teachers' strike turned into a full-fledged rebellion against a bad local governor in 2006 and the resistance is still going strong--and also, largely unreported by mainstream media.

But what's really taboo here, in terms of mainstream reporting, is exactly what both these rebellions--which are not isolated events--really mean. The fact that the last Mexican federal election was blatantly stolen from the progressive Andres Manuel López Obrador (or AMLO, for short) has never been forgotten, and never been forgiven, either. George Dubya Bush's handpicked candidate "won"--with a little help from his gringo friends. Greg Palast has evidence that the fraud wasn't even subtle. And that fraud is what's really being protested here; the privatization of education is part of Felipe Calderon's neoliberal/neo-con agenda. An agenda that was imposed very much against the will of a majority of Mexicans from all states, not only Oaxaca and Morelos (which is, incidentally, the birthplace of the great revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata.)

Gee, I can't imagine why the lamestream media want to hush all this rebellion up and fixate on the phony drug war instead, can you?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Sure, it's easy for us lefties to say that corporate globalism sucks the big banana. We've been saying that for over two decades now. But if you want to see, not just hear, why it's a bad idea, I suggest you give this nice fella from Iceland a blog-call. Here's an excerpt from his post, "Surreal Reykjavik", about what life's been like in the smallest, cutest capital in the world since stockmarkets in much bigger cities took a header last week.

It's like we know the system is broken, we know it's gone, but we can't see it. We can't tell what's real, what's still there, and what are just the ghosts of yesterday, when Iceland was one of the richest countries in the world. A pale reflection of the golden age in Icelandic economy which is now going up in flames. Where's the smoke?

The world is treating us like we're dead. Bank accounts frozen. No buziness without cash payments in advance. No currency can be bought. The stock market is closed (not that I have anything left there). Imports have stopped because of closed currency markets and diapers, flour, sugar and other neccesities are selling out in the shops.

I would like to remind the world that the banks went down because of a chain reaction - that started in the US. I'm not going to tell you the chain of events, the intervention of politicians, the misunderstandings, the dispute with Britain where they used their anti-terrorist laws to confiscate Icelandic assets. I'm not trying to find someone to blame. But I would like to tell you that we still have a lot of innovative and prominent companies in Iceland, and you might actually get a pretty good deal there at the moment, as the Icelandic Krona is so low.

[...]

People are well aware of the pshycological effect of the bank crises. For me, it's the biggest shock since my mother-in-law's sudden death. I fear that the society will be going through a similar cycle. We're in stage one - the disbelieve and numness. When routine hits us and we realize that we don't have our money and can't pay the bills, start losing our cars and homes, then the real sorrow and sadness sinks in. And it happens at the worst time of the year, when the nights are getting longer and longer. In December we have 20 hours of complete darkness. That will be a very tough month. Suicides are already being reported.

The minister of education, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, has sent an email out to all schools in the country with some guidelines on how to react. In the television ads are running reminding people that the most precious things in life - are free! Helplines have been opened. And people are being reminded that if you're not one of those going broke, keep on spending like normally. The economy really needs it.

The last time I read anything out of Iceland was during my second-last year at Queen's University, when I took an Old Norse course (and Introduction to Beowulf, with the same great prof) in lieu of something much drier, to cover the linguistics requirements of my English Lit degree. It was great fun to translate a portion of the Svarfdaela Saga, which had never been translated into English. It was also bolshy fun to read about the Norse Gods, whom I worshipped quite a bit in those early days of my pagandom, in the language they themselves were supposed to have spoken. And it was lovely to see, in National Geographic, a large but polite contingent of Icelanders turn out to protest against warmongering and nukes when Ronald Reagan attended a summit in Reykjavik and paid a courtesy call to Vigdís Finbogadóttir, Iceland's first female president. A pagan priest called on Freyr and Njörður to protect Iceland from the nuclear menace, and cast a curse (called a nið) on war. Apparently it worked, for Iceland remained peaceful, uncontaminated, and nuke-free even after the old gasbag had gone his sulphur-scented way. (Never underestimate a good Icelandic curse!)

This would probably be a good time for me to dust off my old robes (and Old Norse dictionary!), and cast a nið of my own to help our little neighbor Iceland shake off the crapitalist curse and get its collective groove back. After all, Iceland's a groovy little place. The language is as close to pure Old Norse as you'll find anywhere in Scandinavia. The people are as cool there as you'll find anywhere. They deserve better than to lose it all on someone else's fiscal follies.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This piece on the Beeb gives me the heebie-jeebies. Not because it tells me anything new, but because finally, a mainstream media outlet is publishing what regular enviro-lefties like me have known for a long, long time:

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

[...]

Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.

"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.

"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."

[...]

Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.

So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.

So, in other words: The economy is more dependent on the ecology than most crapitalists believe. And if they go on wantonly destroying our ecology, everyone will have to pay a price...EVERYONE. Including the disaster capitalists who, in Naomi Klein's book, thought that they could own the world and simply jet away from all natural disasters to some well-appointed, "plutonomy"-friendly desert island.

Get scared, rich people, you're no more immune than the rest of us.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The National Debt Clock in Manhattan is now too small for the number it's meant to tally.

You may want to avoid Wall St., I hear they're about due for a shower of suiciding stockbrokers.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, class, here's your weekend assignment:

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.

(Thanks to Corey for the video link!)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does Alan Garcia give a shit? Aporrea thinks not:

Human rights groups have denounced the disappearance of 11 persons during military operations to search for a column of Shining Path guerrillas in southeastern Peru.

The denunciation was made by a peasant woman who "escaped a military incursion in the hamlet of Pichis, where soldiers arrived on September 14 by air and ground, shooting and launching rockets", according to Yúber Alarcón, representative of the Pro-Human Rights Association of Ayacucho, quoted by AFP.

The woman, Lucy Pichardo Fernández, fears that her husband, and five other family members--two children among them--and five lumberjacks have been killed by the military, Alarcón added.

Paula Capcha, the campesina's attorney, said that she had presented the denunciations to the People's Defender and the magistrate's office of Ayacucho, as well as a habeas corpus so that the authorities offer information as soon as possible.

"We don't know right now if they have been killed or kidnapped, and that's why the family members want to know the whereabouts of their loved ones," Capcha told AFP.

Translation mine.

And of course, the government of Peru isn't exactly quick off the mark on this; their defence minister will say nothing except to deny that any of the missing people have been "detained" by the militaries.

So, then, the operative question becomes, Who disappeared these missing people? After all, they didn't just wander off and disappear themselves. Will the government of Peru be laying all this at the feet of commies yet again?

Just one more example of what Otto calls "investment grade" Peru, no doubt.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"In that domination, being a full citizen means being white or an assimilated mestizo. To become a citizen, an Indian must stop being Indian and see themselves and be seen as being white; break from their concrete historical community, that of the Aymaras, the Quechuas, the Guaraníes or another one of the many indigenous Bolivian communities; and enter as a newly-arrived subordinate into the abstract community of the citizens of the Republic. The Indian does not expect that the Republic will change and be like his people. Instead, it is required that these people change their men and women, renounce their identity and their history and be like the Republic of the whites, the rich, the educated, the Spanish-speakers — where, for everyone else, the inerasable color of their skin will forever condemn them (those men and women) to second-class citizenship. That is the nature of this domination."

--Adolfo Gilly, at Ukhampacha Bolivia

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Aporrea, some shocking facts about soap operas in Mexico:

Each episode of the soap opera "Fire in the Blood", one of the most-watched in Mexico, contains an average of 50 scenes of violence against women, according to a study presented by an association of Mexican non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The tracking, which ran for ten episodes between July 14 and 25, detected a total of 498 scenes "in which various forms of violence against women occurred or were justified", according to the study, conducted by the Citizens' Council for Gender Equality in the Media.

Of the 498 scenes, 313 enacted acts of psycho-emotional violence, 66 physical violence, 17 femicidal violence, and 5 sexual violence, according to the EFE news agency.

Continue reading "Something is very wrong with this picture" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More tired old "21st century socialism looks just like 20th", courtesy the Financial Times.

More tired old "Chavez is a dictator", courtesy the Richmond Times Dispatch.

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:

Continue reading "Who writes these dumbass editorials?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What century is this again?

Rev. Sergio G. Roman sounded the alarm against miniskirts in an online publication to prepare Catholics for a church family-values forum next year in Mexico City.

"When we show our body without prudence, without modesty, we are prostituting ourselves," wrote Roman, a Mexico City priest.

Continue reading "Yep, that Catholic church is sure progressing..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you ever wanted to know about US mercenaries and just how low they can go, this is the guy who wrote the book. It's called Blackwater, and it's not pretty, but it's one compelling read. It will wake you right up to the dangers of privatizing everything--including the worst of the worst, namely war. So far, Blackwater and all its false fronts have been immune from prosecution, but that could all change if the government of Iraq manages to cut enough of its puppet strings.

Let's hope so!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watch this, and in half an hour, I guarantee you'll be in love too:

Al Gore makes the case for a no-carbon energy economy. And in so doing, he kills a lot of crapitalist birds with one stone. It's a brilliantly simple, totally viable solution. All that's lacking is the collective will to make it happen. And if his speech doesn't motivate you to do your part, you must be dead from the neck up.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Oh God, I won a rhinestone tiara for one whole year! All the torture has been worth it!"

Well, here's a foregone conclusion that I wish the world could forego: Once again, a totally un-Venezuelan-looking Miss Venezuela has been crowned a very un-universal Miss Universe. And some brave "independent" Australian kookaburra has seen fit to lay an egg on the Internets about it. (Insert obligatory reference to communism and tyranny anywhere you like, mate. And don't forget to totally ignore the distinctions between communism and socialism.)

Meanwhile, for the real lowdown on this ultra-hyped pseudo-event, we turn to Aporrea, which has the scoop on where the real tyranny lies--and no, it ain't communism or even socialism. Here goes my rough translation of selections from the article, with commentaries in between:

Continue reading "Hideous tanorexia strikes again!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...it's all of Mercosur rejecting that draconian, disgusting European "Return Statute"--you know, the one that deprives undocumented immigrants of all legal rights, including recourse to an attorney before the country they're in decides to boot them out--after a prison stay of up to a year and a half?

On Friday, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and its associated countries expressed their "firm repudiation" of the discrimination supported by the European Union's directive of return for irregular immigrants, approved this past week by the Europarliament. The law decrees incarceration of 18 months for the undocumented.

"The governments of the participant and associate states of Mercosur deplore the approval on the part of the European Parlilament of the "return directive", announced a communication from the Argentine Chancery, which heads the South American union at this time.

Argentine diplomatic sources say that the EU's measure will be debated at the Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur, which will take place on July 1 in the Argentine city of Tucumán.

Continue reading "It's not just Evo or Chavecito..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So here I am, listening to a test-cast by my mega-talented friend Tony "T-Bone" Jones. It's called "Song of Bobby Kennedy", and it's about 20 minutes of trance-dance electronica interspersed with a rousing and cautionary speech by Bobby Kennedy. "A time of change and a time of sorrow." It's about racism and violence and senseless bloodshed--it is on the assassination of Dr. King.

But another friend, R. A. "Deck" Deckert, sent me this link, and guess what's the first story at the top?

The columnist Steve Lopez, writing in The Los Angeles Times about Juan Romero, the busboy who knelt down to help Robert F. Kennedy after he was shot at the Ambassador Hotel. The paper's Daily Mirror blog reprinted the column, first published five years ago, last week on the 40th anniversary of the assassination:

Continue reading "Synchronicity works in mysterious ways" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Found a little item on Aporrea and thought I'd translate it and follow up with a few thoughts of mine own:

Could it be that my black friends in the Venezuelan opposition don't feel that they are being alluded to when other oppositionists use words like "niches" (common, vulgar people), "monos" (monkeys), "macacos" (ditto), etc.? Could it be that they just don't say such things in front of my friends? It saddens me to say that in front of me, yes, they say those things.

The Venezuelan right-wing has trouble with its racism for two reasons, one bigger than the other. The smaller is that, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said, the main difference between Colombia and Venezuela is that in Colombia, the conservatives win all the wars, and in Venezuela, the liberals win. The conservatives lose the wars but win the peace and go on ruling, because the only visible gain left to the liberals is that racism had become shameful and official ideology camouflaged it. There was racism, stupid like all a priori segregation between people, but up until 1998 it was shifty and artful. The racists would surely blush to show themselves as much as they do in Bolivia. Because in Venezuela--this is the bigger reason--even the most "aryan" has an African grandmother, as Romulo Betancourt once said.

Continue reading "The myth of happy racism" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm always amazed that the same people who bawl over baby seals in some other part of the world have so little regard left over for abused humanity coming to their own shores. Take (please!) the example of Brigitte Bardot, recently convicted of racist hatemongering:

A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.

In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts."

Bardot, 73, was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir, celebrated by slaughtering sheep.

Continue reading "Brigitte Bardot, phoquez-vous!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"In today's America, speech is only 'free' when you are talking down to someone less powerful that you. Speak 'up' — and look out.

--Barry Nolan, who was fired for telling the awful truth about Bill O'Reilly at an awards banquet where the latter was undeservedly honored for being a professional liar

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But of course, the US has the adults in charge of the government, so none of this would EVER happen. Right? RIGHT???

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Then you probably know just what I'm feeling about LASIK after reading this...

Patients unhappy with their laser eye surgery urged U.S. health regulators to do more to limit poor results, saying complications from the LASIK procedure have taken a toll on their sight and emotions.

Blurred vision, dry eyes, glare and double-vision have led to depression and in some cases suicide, several patients told a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel.

"Since LASIK, I am visually handicapped," said patient David Shell, adding that he has near constant eye pain and depression. "My eyes never feel comfortable... 10 years have passed and I still suffer from this problem."

And just think--you pay by the eye for this. Or should that be through the nose? Either way, I'm glad I still wear my glasses and contacts, even if they ARE inconvenient at times. It beats committing suicide because some butcher with a laser fucked up your eyes.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, I know...I'm shameless. But if you want to see cute pix of Evo AND express your social conscience, Todos Con Bolivia is the place to go.

And don't forget to sign their petition.

(Thanks to Corey and Madalena for directing me to the site!)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The only effective way to reduce the threat of terrorism is to work to end the conditions that give rise to it. In the case of Islamist terrorism, this means a comprehensive and enlightened political, economic and diplomatic strategy for dealing with the Arab/Muslim world. Only a tiny minority of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims support radical jihadis, but catastrophic errors like invading Iraq make violent fundamentalism more attractive. Follow the physician's credo: First, do no harm."

--Gary Kamiya, "Iraq: The Ten Commandments", at Salon.com

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cuban permaculturist Roberto Perez tells how his country adapted to economic and ecologic necessity thanks to the big US embargo aimed at starving the revolution out:

To outsiders, the Cuban system is frequently presented in the media as a failure; its successes (not to mention its fifty-plus years of sheer survival, which is its biggest success!) don't rate a mention. Just look at all the recent hoopla over cellphones and DVD players; only capitalistic "successes" make the news, and the fact that they don't remedy more pressing human needs is conveniently swept under the rug. Too bad that capitalism itself is still busy denying the obvious: that its own "grow or die" model has been an unmitigated disaster, responsible for everything from a rise in poverty and diseases, to global warming itself. In light of that, the Cuban model doesn't look so dumb.

Continue reading "Cuba: Canary in the global coalmine" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Veterans For Peace staged a brilliant bit of civil disobedience in Washington on the 5th anniversary of IraqAttaq. The vets marched, delivered a citizens' arrest warrant for Dubya, the Big Dick and Auntie Condi and unfurled a large replica of the Constitution to raucous cheers on the steps of the National Archives. Watch for cameo appearances from Buddy Georgia ("drummerboy" on UNN) and Buffy Ste. Marie.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pat Buchanan is always good for shits 'n' giggles, if your idea of shits 'n' giggles is blatant racism, ethocentrism, xenophobia and general kookoobananarama. It's a mystery to me why this guy gets any media play at all, but I've come to the conclusion that the US mainstream media is just basically a Barnum & Bailey bigtop without the sawdust, greasepaint, and tutu-clad girls doing handstands on prancing Percherons. How else to explain the fact that a sucker there is born every minute, and a clown who says things like this gets no laughs?

In a March 21 syndicated column headlined "A Brief for Whitey," conservative commentator and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan asserted, "America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known." Buchanan was discussing Sen. Barack Obama's March 18 speech addressing race and controversial comments by his former pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright. He continued, "Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." Buchanan then asserted that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans." Later in the column, Buchanan added: "We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"

No gratitude? Well, how do you like that--Pat thinks those uppity niggruhs are ingrates. Hey Pat, since none of them will thank you, maybe a white Soviet Canuckistani can do it in their stead. So, I got your gratitude right here:

Continue reading "I got your gratitude right here, Pat..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yes, Foreign Policy is a smelly rag with some pretty horrible biases and outright distortions. (Their blog also sucks because it can't keep the most basic facts straight, such as the identities of non-white supermodels.) But Jack Cloonan's words to them on the subject of torture are well worth hearing:

BTW, he totally shoots down the "24" scenario of the "ticking bomb" that can only be defused by a torture-obtained confession. He also points out that torture victims tend to become martyrs to their supporters, even if they are "the bad guys" to those on the other side. Not to mention that it really, REALLY makes the torturers look like shits.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A big-ass bucket of cold water on Barack Obama? Yes, it is.

But then again, it's also a pretty accurate picture of what conservatism really stands for.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A veteran for peace, in his 80s, shows what he found on a recent trip to Iraq.

Warning: Very disturbing images.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hard home(boy) truth about FUX Snooze:

...and a shout-out to Barack Obama at the end. Let's hope that if nominated and elected, he'll be able to make REAL change to all this.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A. Because Stormfront hates everything and everyone except their fellow neo-Nazi whackjobs, duh.

What's really funny is that they're now holding up two people they would otherwise look upon as sworn enemies as champions of their, uh, "right to free speech".

A Liberal MP is being hailed as a poster boy for free speech on a white supremacist website.

Victoria MP Keith Martin was praised Friday on stormfront.org, a website that proudly displays the logo "White pride world wide" and links to radio addresses by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Martin earned the dubious distinction after giving notice that he plans to introduce a private member's motion calling on the government to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

[...]

The extreme right adherents at Stormfront were clearly thrilled to find a member of the Liberal party, which introduced the act and prides itself as the party of the Charter of Rights, joining their crusade.

"The sordid Soviet-style reign of terror by the Canadian Human Rights Commission is now out in the open," declares Paul Fromm in a posting on the website.

"The CHRC reign of thought control looks like a drying pool of vomit on the dirty floor of some dingy dive. Yes, it stinks and good men are beginning to speak up."

Fromm, a controversial anti-immigration and free speech activist who has been linked to neo-Nazi groups in the past, predicts it "may be easier" for Conservative MPs to back the motion because it's being introduced by a Liberal of "white and Indian (India) parentage."

The website urges readers to join a campaign to pressure their MPs to support Martin's motion.

For Martin, receiving praise from a white-supremacist group was both unwelcome and ironic.

"I'm a brown guy," he quipped in an interview.

Wait a second, you say--that's just one of them. Who's the other?

Continue reading "Q. Why does Stormfront hate human rights?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Warning: Extreme victim-blaming by someone who probably does EVERYTHING he accuses Those People (i.e. the poor and blacks of New Orleans, whom he calls "GARBAGE") of doing...

Malmö Blue writes:

YOU, the consumer can do something to protest this smut and get this guy off the air!

Do like Nancy, a regular caller to KPHX, who has already announced that she will cancel her cable service provided by COX Communications Inc., owner of WSB 750 AM! Good for you, Nancy!

Be sure to let them know in writing that you disapprove of such hate mongering and will not have any business dealings with any company who supports it...

Address:

Cox Communications Inc.

1400 Lake Hearn Drive

Atlanta, Georgia 30319 U.S.A.

Telephone:

(404) 843-5000

Cox subscribers, please exercise your wallet power. Get this racist scumbag off the air. He is a useless, worthless parasite of the public airwaves, and it is time to kick this pile of trash to the curb.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The women of Oaxaca, Mexico, were a key force in the organization of the popular dissent that began in 2006 and continues to this day. They took over a TV station for an hour when they realized that the local media was full of shit and would not tell the truth about the popular rebellion. Even women who had never been politically active in their lives said no to the old roles of oppressor and oppressed that are so deeply engrained in gender relations all over the world (and especially in machista societies in Latin America.) They left the kitchen, ignored the soap operas (those reinforcers of the old victim role of their gender) and joined a march of more than 20,000 women.

Being a female activist is fraught with danger; men can be killed, but women can be raped first. And even if rape doesn't happen, genderized humiliation and assault are common. One of the women, an indigenous Mixteca, tells of how the police hacked off her hair in an attempt to debase her not only on the grounds of gender, but ethnicity as well.

Ironically, though, after some initial shock, the men rallied around the women. Men saw the women's takeover of Channel 9, and were inspired to take up other grassroots media activities because of it. Husbands showed up at the jails to cheer their incarcerated wives; while mothers were imprisoned, the fathers looked after the children and told them to take pride in what their mothers were doing. The ongoing rebellion in Oaxaca is not only against a corrupt government and political system, but also a way of looking at gender and power relations at the root of society itself.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Compromiso Cumplido" (True to My Pledge)--the first part of a two-part documentary about the ongoing revolt in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Part of this film concerns the death of Brad Will, the Indymedia reporter who got directly involved--and paid with his life for the footage he shot. At the time this documentary was made, 25 activists had died. All their murders were state-sanctioned and committed either by police or plain-clothes paramilitary infiltrators, which is why the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. The corrupt political system in Mexico is as much a villain in these deaths as the gunmen who pulled the trigger.

What began as a teachers' strike for better wages has since grown into a full-blown social justice movement--there is now a push on to get rid of the crooked governor, Ulises Ruiz, who played a part in the election fraud that put the current right-wing Mexican president into power. Oaxaca, it turns out, was a scene of massive electoral fraud. And the people are angry; they know that they were cheated of a free, fair election. This is why they want more than just more money for teachers or the removal of a bought-and-sold governor. They want a system-wide change--a full-fledged democracy that Mexico has yet to achieve. Elections alone are not enough, especially in light of how the last one was fouled. And the major media, who are complicit in the whole crime, must also be held accountable.

The struggle continues. You can read all about it at NarcoNews.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I decided to get busy with the e-mail tonight. Let's see if this gets read on the air.

To: mike@mikemalloy.com

Maybe it's not my place to say this, as a white Canadian woman who was just a baby in diapers when Dr. King was killed. Obviously I have no grand and glorious MLK "experiences" to share. So I'll try to spit my bit without resorting to the usual media encomiums and pablum about him. God knows we've all heard enough of those today.

Continue reading "A letter to Mike Malloy" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...on greed.

You can fight this war too. Click here to learn how.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A set of interviews with Gore Vidal, the shocking, provocative and painfully honest elder statesman of American literature.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"What I dislike most about the trickle-down democracy argument is the dishonor it pays to all the people who fought, and fight still, for genuine democratic change in their countries, whether for the right to vote, or to have access to land, or to form unions. Democracy isn't the work of the market's invisible hand; it is the work of real hands....Real democracy--true decision-making power in the people's hands--is always demanded, never granted."

--Naomi Klein, Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, actually, no film. Why? Because this isn't sexy enough for TV, compared to Britney's latest camera-friendly freak-out:

The United States ranks last among 19 industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented.

The report by The Commonwealth Fund, published in the journal Health Affairs, said 101,000 deaths per year could have been prevented by access to timely and effective healthcare. The top performers were France, Japan and Australia.

Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at deaths "amenable to healthcare before age 75 between 1997-98 and 2002-03."

The researchers found that while other countries saw these types of deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States experienced only a 4 percent decline. "It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the U.S.," said Nolte, lead author of the study.

Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said the finding that other countries are reducing preventable deaths more rapidly with less money "indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference."

Translation from Wonkish to plain English: Knock off with all the free-market shit, America, you are starting to eat your young! Get single-payer public healthcare already, and take some lessons from your neighbors to the north!

Of course, to say something like that would make one a socialist, and everyone knows socialism is evil. Milton Friedman said so. (So do some "Christian" wackos with obviously zero knowledge of the subject.)

Soon as I find out where they buried Friedman, I swear I will make a pilgrimage to piss on his grave. I think it's quite right to hold him responsible for the current mess, and I hate what he's done to my American friends.

What a pity we Canadians don't have another John Kenneth Galbraith on hand to lend our buddies to help them get themselves sorted out properly.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sorry to inflict this on y'all, but...

Continue reading "The face of fucking craziness" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...and neither does he, nor any of his lackeys, have the slightest concept of a little thing known as reading comprehension.

Think Progress has ferreted out the real source of Dubya's antipathy to embryonic stem cell research--a total misinterpretation of an improbable scenario from Aldous Huxley (read aloud to him, of course, by one of his loyal flunkies, since Dubya can't be bothered to bestir himself):

Continue reading "More proof that Dubya doesn't read" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John McCutcheon tells the story of his ballad and the dedicated band of German followers it won him.

Continue reading "Christmas in the Trenches" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Poor St. Nick--Yuletide isn't over yet, and already it's getting awfully rough on him. In Bethlehem, he got busted:

Israeli soldiers arrested various Palestinians--among them, one dressed as St. Nicholas--who were protesting the apartheid wall which the Israeli Zionist occupiers had built in that location.

Residents of Bethlehem, a city famed as the birthplace of Christ, had been protesting peacefully against the occupying forces and the "wall of shame" which separates the Palestinian lands and families.

Translation mine. Photos at the link; warning--may scar your little children for life.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, some dopey elves got a little too far into the holiday cheer:

Kate Gorman, 35, was waiting to see "Enchanted" with her two young children.

"At least 50 drunk idiots dressed up like Santa came in through the main door," she said. "They were kicking things over, ripping down posters and smashing everything in sight."

"They were all dressed as Santa and shouting 'ho f*****g ho'," she told the paper.

Her children, Gabriella, 6, and Jackson, 7, had been confused by the incident, she said.

"They asked me, 'are they Santa's helpers gone crazy?' and I said 'no, they are just idiots'."

It's things like this that make you go Bah humbug.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May your days be merry and bright, and may you keep stickin' it to the right!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Though I don't know who you are, sir, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. I loved this letter you wrote to the editors of TheMorningCall.com:

According to a Dec. 4 editorial, Hugo Chavez is taking advantage of the ''disparity between Venezuela's 'Haves' and 'Have-nots' that really threatens democracy there.'' If Venezuela was at our southern borders rather than Mexico, Americans would be celebrating his efforts to educate, provide health care and create jobs for the 'Have-nots.' But that's not happening in Mexico, so there is illegal immigration.

The recent referendum was criticized as Chavez's attempt to be ''president for life.'' But there is no guarantee that Chavez would be re-elected if presidential term limits were lifted. When will the U.S. Constitution be amended to limit the number of terms that senators and representatives may serve? Or is there some virtue in having elected officials continue in office?

After Franklin Roosevelt was elected for four terms to serve from 1933 to 1949 (he died in office in 1945), the U.S. constitution was amended. The 22nd Amendment limits the president to two terms in office.

Saying that Chavez intends to replace democracy with socialism is misleading. Socialism is part of our democratic system. Fire and police departments, educational facilities, roads, water and sewage works, recreational areas, parks and rivers are just some of our socialist institutions.

Good, solid points all. I would add that socialism is to economics what democracy is to politics--a process of more equitable distribution of powers. In fact, you can't have real socialism without democracy in some form, because a process of more equitable distribution can't work if it's run from the top down. It needs grassroots participation, and it needs to give the people a say; it's a no-brainer. What political system provides that better than democracy? (BTW, Canada's socialist system also provides healthcare, old-age pensions, and unemployment benefits.)

Bless you, sir, and keep setting them straight.