Blogging the democratic revolution
George Bush has a way of surprising dictators. He gets in their faces when they least expect it. He’s bold. He says what he means and means what he says. Nice to see a real man. Today he symbolically snapped a great wet towel in the face of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Bush openly met with Venezuelan dissidents, like Babe Of Politics, Maria Corina Machado, giving the NGO leaders from Sumate the full White House tour and VIP treatment, making sure there were lots of cameras around to see the intention. Bush doesn’t do nuance. He likes people who like…
Exactly two months ago, this “outpost of tyranny” was holding parliamentary elections that were inexplicably fraudulent. Many foreign journalists were inside the country, so Mugabe made sure that food was given out and gasoline made available — at least in his supporters’ strongholds. Even once he stole the election and secured enough seats to change the constitution at whim, he made conciliatory grunts to the opposition. No more. The cloak of illusion soon came off as these basic commodities have become memories of the distant past. Inflation and unemployment has skyrocketed, making it impossible to save or even to live.…
So the French have rejected the proposed new constitution for the European Union. This is a vote of potentially massive importance for the future of Europe and the Western world as a whole. The European project for an “ever closer union” has long been an elite one, and especially over the past decade the gap between the elites and European populations grew large. All maintream French parties supported this constitution, yet the French people strongly rejected it. The Communists, Greens, hardline socialists and the National Front voted overwhelmingly against the treaty; the moderate socialists and the center-right Gaullists of President…
This one looks a lot more unstable – stay tuned. Read it here.
Has Hugo Chavez had a heart attack? Been done in by an ex-wife? Gotten an offer he can’t refuse from a fed-up military? He’s disappeared, the descamisados are gathering below his balcony, the streets are shut down, and his spokesmen say all is normal. His minions say he will come to the balcony to address the adoring masses soon. Something’s going on. Could this be the end? Here is my Babalu summary here.
Kick back, relax, and take a moment to say a few prayers for the troops who are fighting abroad for freedom. Winds of Change has a Memorial Day roundup and Glenn Reynolds links to lots of photoblogging. As for me, I’m taking the day off, basking in the glow of Lebanon’s first round of elections. Nothing better to bask in than that. Anyhow, catch you all tomorrow and take it easy!
Nathan Hamm of Registan is hosting this week’s carnival of revolutions! Check it out to read the blogosphere’s best on democracy movements unfolding around the world.
GatewayPundit has a terrific item on a little-noted but huge Hong Kong freedom and democracy march. They’re determined people, those Hong Kongers, and on marches they go all out. GatewayPundit has a couple great pictures of Asia’s most beautiful city, too, making me feel like I’m there. See it here.
When I lived in Oxford, I remember how tough the U.K. courts were in granting asylum to Romanians fleeing Ceaucescu’s communist hellhole, perhaps fearing a flood of people. They gave almost no one a break. This being England, things don’t change that much, and I doubt U.K. courts are any less tough. So it tells you something when a British court acknowleged the intolerable reality of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and granted a young Venezuelan couple asylum. Alek Boyd’s gotten hold of some court documents that show the ordeal of the dissidents, and with the court’s note that Venezuela has assumed…
It has been widely reported that the referendum on Egypt’s new electoral system was marred by violence. The referendum was passed with 82% of the vote with 54% participation amid a widespread boycott by both Islamist and secularist opposition parties. Meanwhile, multiple accounts were given of opposition protesters being physically attacked by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak and his National Democratic Party. (See my pre-referendum post, Egypt Clamps Down on the Muslim Brotherhood, which provides some background and discusses some of the issues regarding reform in Egypt.) But how bad was the violence? The Egyptian government, unsurprisingly, is arguing that…
The first round of Lebanon’s first election free of Syrian interference since, well, before I was born has started. The next rounds will take place over the next three consecutive Sunday’s, ending on June 19. Candidates will be competing for 19 seats within three districts within the Beirut region. There are 240 polling stations open and 100 observers from the EU and the UN. But it is unlikely to be much of a competition, with Saad Hariri — the successor and son of Rafik Hariri — looking to sweep every seats with nine seats automatically won unopposed. For more information…
Don’t miss Regime Change Iran, with the most important roundup of events pertaining to Iran that you will ever read.
Dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela breaks everything he touches. He’s destroyed Venezuela’s democratic institutions, wrecked its judiciary, laid waste to its oilfields, subverted its elections, desecrated its ecology, devalued its money, trashed its free press, busted its banks, stomped its property rights, tore apart its relations with the U.S., gutted its civil service, split its military, wrecked its treasury, bankrupted its companies, shot its demonstrators dead, neglected its tallest skyscraper to burn, turned its hillsides into mudslides and made a smoking ruin of Venezuela’s good name in the world. That’s not all. The story of how he’s desecrated art is…
Today’s 20-year verdict against Schapelle Corby, supposedly for drug possession and drug running on the island of Bali, has radicalized a major part of Australia. The 27-year-old surfer insists she didn’t do it, but was the victim of an airport smuggling ring that forgot to retrieve its pot from her boogie board bag. Conveniently for them, the film of the baggage sequence has disappeared from airport custody. And no fingerprints were taken from the pot, something Schapelle says would exonerate her. Meanwhile, Indonesia tried her with a real charmer of a judge who said he didn’t believe in acquitting anyone…
It had to happen sooner or later. The high expectations and aspirations of the Lebanese people are slowly degrading into a state of national melancholy. Undoubtedly, Lebanon will never be the same after March’s Cedar Revolution, but that won’t stop the country’s professional politicians from pulling as many strings as possible to stay in power. Actually, it is no wonder that a sense of disillusionment has set in as May 29 nears. Now that Syria has pulled out, the precedent for a unified anti-Syria opposition has been removed as each party forms alliances and election lists with formerly hostile rivals.…
Of course, that’s rather predictable given that Lukashenko owns the parliament. Due to the spread of “velvet revolutions” in his near vicinity, and the upfront declarations of his neighbors, the EU, and the United States to promote democracy in Belarus, Lukashenko has passed a state security law which will allow the secret police practically absolute access to people and their property without any approval. New law “On Organs of State Security” has taken effect. This is the information provided by Radio Liberty. The human rights activists and the opposition have already referred to this law as “another stepping stone” to…
Glenn posted a link earlier to a report that an EU confidential document says that the elections in Ethiopia were rigged. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s electoral board appears to have lost control of the vote counting for the May 15 legislative polls, European Union election observers said in a report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. The confidential report went on to say the EU might have to make a public denunciation of developments to distance itself from “the lack of transparency, and assumed rigging” of the vote “Ten days after the polling day, the situation is…
Stefania Lapenna writes a dazzling essay today on The American Thinker, outlining the meaning of Cuba’s democracy conference held in Havana, including many aspects of it that might not be so obvious. Stefania is a brilliant young thinker whose original work will be read for years to come for its insight. Think I’m exaggerating? You won’t after you read it here.
If you want to read something that’s a real treat and explains out well the nature of Hugo Chavez in light of his bizarre claims about becoming a nuclear power, you can’t do better than read Alek Boyd’s excellent – and highly entertaining – essay today debunking the dictator’s nuclear pretentions, which also giving a good skewering to those who take them too seriously. A good Chavez antidote, read it here!
The words of Mexican communist novelist Carlos Fuentes. Coming from him, it’s pretty damning. Obviously, he can’t stand the guy, and among other leftists, he’s influential. Hugo Chavez, beware. Not even the communists are sticking up for you now. Read it here.
Counting oil sands, Venezuela has more petroleum reserves than any country on earth. Even Russia. Even Canada. Even Iran. Even … Saudi Arabia. It’s unbelievable what the Texas-and-Oklahoma-sized country only 1350 miles away from us really has. Venezuela could probably supply the entire world with oil if it wanted. That road you are driving on, if it’s nice, is probably made of Venezuelan-oil-derived asphalt, the world’s finest. Which is why Venezuela’s declining oil production is such a scandal. Only Iran and Indonesia have comparable production declines in their state-dominated oil industries, but not nearly as intense. Globally, it forces the…
You all may have noticed that it has been a slow couple of weeks for my posting in particular. Look forward to that coming to an end. I’m graduating tonight and I’ll be moving to Boston at the end of August. I’ll post by tomorrow afternoon, when I’ve, er, recovered.
While the French are doing their level best to scuttle the EU constitution, Egyptian voters go to the polls today to vote on a referendum to clear the way to multi party presidential elections: CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – President Hosni Mubarak urged Egyptians to vote in Wednesday’s referendum on constitutional changes that would clear the way for the nation’s first multi-candidate presidential elections. Opponents of the referendum were hard to find in the early hours of polling, but it wasn’t clear whether their absence was due to opposition calls to boycott the referendum because of the proposed strict rules on…
Of all the disgusting prosecutions, this one, against the great Oriana Fallaci, probably the finest journalist alive, is the most despicable. No one can compare to Oriana, no one has written with more powerful, penetrating insight and determination than she has. You don’t even need to agree with her to appreciate her. I tend to defend Islam, but she is far harsher. Doesn’t matter. No one writes more compellingly than Oriana, a true journalist’s journalist. Which is why the Italian prosecution’s charges against her are so shameful. My own feeling about how nations want to tailor free speech is that…
The Luis Posada Carriles terrorism case has drawn a consensus in the mainstream media about the guy’s guilt and the need to throw him in jail even if it is, or especially if it is, in Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’s Venezuela. Cuban Americans have a different view, though, and a prominent Cuban-American, Humberto Fontova, writes an essay that Val at Babalu has linked, exploring some of the complicating factors. It all looks very different to Cuban Americans who are united in their struggle against the monstrous Fidel Castro. The fact that the mainstream media is in glee about having a…