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alfredo.bremont on "Honduras: behind the crisis"

alfredo.bremont — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:54:46 +0100

what this event reveals is rather a continuity of the chaos that is affecting western civilisation. however it is not only in Honduras that the virus has attacked but is worldwide. in the past 2 years things have gone from bad to worse. in contrast there is one men to blame HUGO CHAVEZ. unfortunately he is not to blame the decaying Occident has being on its decline for the past decades or even longer than that. technology provided a new tool for manipulation and brainwashing, reason why we got only five multinationals that rule the media. as well we have now all attempts to control the new devices. however it is to late for any deceiving tricks that the ruling class is hoping to impose. the party is over there will be no recovery, no resurface to what once was, neither a revamp controlled wall street. the limit has being reach and now the links are broken. out of this confusion what is really needed is wisdom, not to find a new way, because the new form has not mature jet, but how to guide the population of the world through this coming disasters until the new wold is born. "in all fronts" Obama and PUTIN has the opportunity to dismantle nuclear weapons worldwide, in my opinions this is what they can do, and prevent the worse for human kind. a free world of nuclear devices is all we can hope for. a global civil war is on the making and no matter what anyone hopes to do will not succeed. the middle east is-the first region were this weapons must be put to sleep, beginning with Israel and ending in china, via Pakistan India and north Korea. them the European nations and finally the ones that engendered this mess the soviet union and Washington. after this is done we can begun the reconstruction of the west on a new base, on a new way of thinking on a new logic adapted to our current century. until them the Honduras sitcom is just part of the disintegration of the world as we know it, which unfortunately is doom. the new coming brave new world should lesson to Huxley and Orwell and avoid those scenarios which is what is being put in place rigth now to continue the logic of dominant and dominated.

eventually the lamb will destroy the moloch sooner than expected.

Bolivian Constitution on "Bolivia: new constitution, new definition "

Bolivian Constitution — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:06:15 +0100

Please visit http://www.BolivianConstitution.com to discuss the new Bolivian Constitution translated to English.

Toadphillips on "Barack Obama's drug policy: time for change"

Toadphillips — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:41:05 +0100

Something should be done.

quidoculosavertis on "Hugo Chávez and Venezuela: a leader’s destiny"

quidoculosavertis — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:25:52 +0100

More information on the rare leadership qualities of Hugo Chávez, who feels obliged to unnecessarily interfere and take sides in the world's major conflicts today. This recent article makes revelations about a less than kosher relationship and very, very dangerous entente with Iran and its proxy Hizbullah --hard details are difficult to come by, since the "technical" and "trade" agreements are not always open to inspection by Venezuelans who are not closely identified with the government-- can be found in http://tinyurl.com/pcp9wt.

edson ongara on "Hugo Chávez and Venezuela: a leader’s destiny"

edson ongara — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:34:38 +0100

now days in this world there are few leaders and hugo chavez,kim jong il and ahamedjan of iran are real leaders.

mathewaccord on "Mexico: living with insecurity"

mathewaccord — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:23:36 +0100

the mexicans have it hard at the moment. Poor buggers

JFox on "Mexico: living with insecurity"

JFox — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:34:37 +0100

There is a lot of evidence suggesting that NAFTA has not been particularly beneficial to any of the three countries involved. For reasons that would take an essay to set out, the major beneficiaries have been large multinational corporations. Public Citizen has useful material on the subject.

Some of the pernicious effects of NAFTA on Mexico are: a) devastation of small farms unable to compete with subsidized imports from the US; b) disappearance of many small and medium-sized suppliers of inputs to multinational manufacturers (cars, white goods etc.) who now import from China and elsewhere; c) a savage increase in income inequality; d) a roughly 50% reduction in economic growth compared with the equivalent pre-NAFTA period. Destabilizing? Mexico is certainly a less secure and more dangerous place than it was 20 years ago. But the reasons for this are complex and NAFTA is only one part of the story.

quidoculosavertis on "Hugo Chávez and Venezuela: a leader’s destiny"

quidoculosavertis — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:27:17 +0100

This is about a wonderful Hugo Chávez quote of the past week, that helps illustrate the qualities of this person:

El rico no es humano. Lo digo y respondo yo por eso, el rico no es humano, es un animal con forma humana.

For those who don't read Spanish, it says:

A rich person is not human. I say this and answer for it, a rich person is not human, but an animal with human form.

See him swagger and utter this immortal pearl for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/r4kw2r.

To define "rich" in Chavista terminology is not too much of an effort, merely aggregate anybody with a higher education, perhaps a university degree or better, or with a profession, or with some kind of business, irrespective of size. What we talking about here is Venezuela's middle class, which more than likely amounts to well over 40 percent of it's population, a good percentage of which, not to say almost all, do not support this self proclaimed and anointed "Yo El Supremo" and his downward sliding, faux revolution cum neo apartheid based military dictatorship.

Is the traditional Venezuelan middle class a new kind of untermensch? What about the new fabulously super-rich Chavista bolibourgeoisie? How about Chávez himself? Would they be not human too?

7eagles on "Hugo Chávez and Venezuela: a leader’s destiny"

7eagles — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:52:51 +0100

To compare Hugo Chavez to Simon Bolivar would be like comparing porn stars to saints. It's wreckless. Chavez is nothing like Bolivar. Bolivar was a great liberator, while Chavez is a little tin horn dictator who squashes dissent with an iron fist. Anyone who opposes Chavez is silenced or forced into exile.

El cráneo minúsculo de richard is the term I would use to describe Chavez the best. Bolivar was a benevolent dictator who tried to unite South America, while Chavez is an intollerable little tyrant who has become nothing more than a useful idiot of bigger players on the world stage.

Dan E on "Open veins, closed minds "

Dan E — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:41:52 +0100

The chutzpah of this article is quite extraordinary – it really only tells us something about the self-serving myopia of Washington-based intellectuals who are plugged into the well-funded foreign-policy establishment.

It’s telling that the word “imperialism” is placed in scare quotes. The two authors know very well that Latin America was under the direct imperial rule of Spain and Portugal for over three centuries. They also know very well that their own state took up the imperial baton in the twentieth century, proclaiming its right to interfere in the domestic affairs of every Latin American nation from Mexico to Argentina – 20th century Latin American history is dominated by coups and invasions that ousted progressive nationalist governments whose policies were generally quite moderate, but interfered with the interests of US corporations.

De Shazo and Mendelson Forman claim that the economic problems of Chile under Salvador Allende had nothing to do with US “machinations”and were entirely caused by allegedly “disastrous policy-making” on that government’s part. They also know very well, but choose to forget, that the US government had openly declared its intention to inflict massive damage to the Chilean economy, and set about that task with all the weapons at their command, exploiting their dominant role in bodies like the World Bank.

They doubtless also know, but choose not to say, that Allende’s Popular Unity coalition increased its share of the vote in the last elections held before the coup early in 1973. Not what you’d expect if the government was clearly making a mess of the economy – the Chilean people could obviously recognise that while Allende’s government had made some mistakes, it was generally doing a good job under difficult conditions. The coup was necessary because there was no prospect of defeating Allende’s project by democratic means.

What arrogance to lecture about the importance of democracy, without once mentioning the role of the US state in undermining democracy across the region over the space of many decades. There is a vague allusion to “vastly improved civil-military relations” – the reader is left to remind his- or herself about the character of the old “civil-military relationship” – death squads roaming the streets of El Salvador, kidnapping trade unionists, peasant organisers, human rights activists, priests and nuns, or just random civilians with no political involvement, torturing and killing them and leaving their bodies by the side of the road, while the Reagan administration pumped millions of dollars of military aid into the Salvadorean army every month to keep its dictatorship in power. The two authors may find it professionally rewarding to forget this bloody history – but don’t expect others to allow them to whitewash the record of the US government as a sponsor of massive human rights violations in the very recent past.

Not just in the recent past, either. The only exception De Shazo and Mendelson Forman allow for their picture of democracy triumphant throughout the continent is Cuba. By logical deduction, this means they consider Colombia to be one of those states where democracy reigns, with nothing more troubling than the weakness of legislative and judicial branches of power to spoil the picture. I am sure they know perfectly well that Colombia is a state where the members of social organisations that campaign for fundamental human rights are routinely murdered by death squads that work hand-in-glove with the Colombian army, which has received billions of dollars of military aid from the US government in the past decade.

When I visited Colombia, I heard the testimony of a woman who had been forced to watch while the paramilitaries made her aunt swallow a live grenade with the pin removed – these are the close allies of Alvaro Uribe (they campaigned actively for his election and re-election, and murdered people campaigning for his opponent), who is himself Washington’s staunchest ally in the region.

After they have displayed such extraordinary moral and intellectual blindness in their own article, it really takes one’s breath away to see the two authors refer to the “backward thinking” and “closed minds” of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales – both of whom have been elected and re-elected by their own peoples with majorities that would make Barack Obama envious. Since they refuse to acknowledge the well-documented historical role of the US state as the sworn enemy of Latin American governments trying to implement policies of social reform and wealth redistribution, naturally they cannot understand why leaders such as Chavez and Morales – and the people who support them – have a healthy, well-founded distrust of the US.

One of the few accurate statements in this article acknowledges that Chavez has a knack for symbolic gestures. The meaning of his gift to Obama seemed very clear – “We’d like to have a better relationship with you than with Bush, we’d prefer to get along with the US, but if that’s going to happen, you need to learn a little about the role your country has played in the past and the damage it has done.” The authors of this piece could use a similar lesson.

quidoculosavertis on "Hugo Chávez and Venezuela: a leader’s destiny"

quidoculosavertis — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:40:18 +0100

El Diario de Caracas is owned by Julio Augusto López, a Venezuelan of Peruvian parentage who also bought the English language The Daily Journal. He is a well known associate of the Chavez govt, reportedly having made a huge fortune as a partner to a couple of very powerful, high profile Chavistas: General en Jefe García Carneiro, today governor of Vargas state and General de Brigada Alcalá Cordones, commander of the 41st Army Tank Brigade and the Valencia city garrison.

As a newcomer to the business scene in Venezuela, it would probably not surprise anyone if Mr López was a front man or testaferro in the most time-honoured Venezuelan tradition or came into his money the way Carlos Kauffman --of the 800 thousand dollar for Cristina Kirchner valise case fame-- did, mining the massive vein of graft and corruption that holds the Chávez govt precariously together.

A few days ago Mr López surfaced as the person responsible for illegally funneling funds to Mr Ollanta Humala, a populist Chavista look-alike former presidential candidate in Peru who, despite generous funding from Chávez, lost the last presidential elections to Mr Alan García, through the Daily Journal where Mr Humala's wife, Nadine Heredia, is on the payroll as a (non-contributing) foreign correspondent.

So, although it appears accurate to claim that these newspapers are not owned by the govt, the reality of the matter may be quite different.

The point I'm trying to make, which fortunately seems to shine through for most is that Venezuela today is run by some very nasty characters, who have absolutely no limits and will stop at nothing when it comes to obtaining what they want.

If a link to a jpeg of the printed article cannot be considered a primary source, or a compendium of slur attempts compiled by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League are "innuendo" or "mud slinging" and not valid sources proving Chávez/Chavista anti semitism, then someone is hiding his struthious head in the sand. Although there is a distant satisfaction to have Chavismo recognise this message as a mistake, one mustn't set ones hopes too highly on the sincerity of that belated "apology" on aporrea.org. Venezuela is home to a numerous contingent of young Arab radicals for whom hatred directed at Israel and the Jewish people comes quite naturally and whose notable adherence to Chavismo will probably mean that anti semitism will surface again.

Forays into this harshest of territories are hardly amusing and are meant to present, in black and white, yet another nasty trait exhibited by this clique, with a view to preemptively skirting fatuous refutations and for the sake of furthering forthright discussion.

Conscientious discussion of issues pertaining to Chávez seem to have the unfortunate side effect of drawing unfeigned antagonism into the debate, for my part in this, I apologise, but sincerely refuse to participate in the hypocrisy of his personality cult, propagating an image built up as Fidel Castro --after 50 years in power, we all know what kind of ruler he is-- and, after 17 years of almost incessant chatter and unfulfilled promises, prefer to characterise him as he really is, a duplicitous, trecherous conspirer, an ersatz Fidel Castro who would wield power for its own sake, an emperor with no clothes.

tomfrom66 on "Mexico: living with insecurity"

tomfrom66 — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:24:46 +0100

tomfrom66

Has joining NAFTA helped to destabilize life in Mexico?

Hosting Dlya Seo on "China's Olympics: a view from Brazil"

Hosting Dlya Seo — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:50:29 +0100

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JFox on "Hugo Chávez and Venezuela: a leader’s destiny"

JFox — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:58:57 +0100

As far as I know, Tarek Muci Nasir is not a pseudonym of Hugo Chavez, and El Diario de Caracas is not owned by the Venezuelan government but by Julio Augusto López who, according to reports, is Peruvian. Neither this nor any of your references are primary sources and they are of dubious provenance and credibility. In short, I find nothing in your riposte beyond innuendo and mud-slinging.

On the other hand, the article you quote is unquestionably nasty and since it has nothing overtly to do with Chavez, it begs the question of why you republished it in OD. If this is an attempt at humour, I find it misguided, insensitive and, since I belong to the people to whom its bile is addressed, of questionable purpose. I stop short for the moment of registering a complaint to OD on the assumption that your intentions are honorable - though you should be aware that repeating anti-semitic slurs cannot be defended simply by attributing them to others. For a definitive refutation of the accusation against aporrea.org, see here and here.

I rarely, if ever, enter into antagonistic dialogues of this kind because they seem to me to be largely exercises in vanity and bombast. I make an exception here for reasons that the preceding paragraph should leave clear. There will be no other contribution from me on this subject.

quidoculosavertis on "Open veins, closed minds "

quidoculosavertis — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:48:21 +0100

Venezuela is in a situation where it would do much better to look ahead instead of to the past, be it the 70s, when this book was written, or today when Chávez is in the middle of tearing up Venezuela as if it was his personal property, in the throes of bankrupting every corporation he has rushed to put under his poorly advised military boot. I wonder if in 20 years time, the next Venezuelan generation will have the time to whine à la Galeano with all the work to sort Chávez' mess out.

Indeed, today Venezuela would do well to refresh its ideas on independence and throw off the confining, oppressive yoke configured by Chávez' enslaving Cuban style autocracy, especially since it now seems quite clear that democratic avenues are being closed off one by one and that he's not going anywhere, anytime soon.

Is this unimaginative, somewhat malicious gift all Chávez could think of after his drawn out 10 year wait to be taken into account by the leader of the most powerful nation of the world? A grudge book, if ever there was one. Why the Spanish version when Obama doesn't read Spanish. There is an English edition. Was Chávez not aware of this?

Since Bush royally ignored him and never answered any of his multiple insults, it had to be Obama, even after dispensing him a few insults and racial slurs on a couple of his long-winded Aló Presidentes before and since. Chávez' drooling, enraptured expression says it all: I finally arrived!