Blogging the democratic revolution
Europe. Treasure box of civilization that every other civilization on earth, grand and small, old and new, owns a few pearls and diamonds from. Reason, individualism, liberty, fairness and linear progress from the Judeo-Christian European heritage have affected human aspirations all over the earth – everything from Pakistani kids longing for Nikes and Iranian women demanding their human rights, to India demanding its place at the UN Security Council. All of these are derived from the heritage of reason which began in Europe. But the LAST people who seem to be aware of this are Europeans themselves. They don’t even…
Defying the laws of economics, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez started state-run groceries for poor people to buy food at cut-rate prices. He never imagined that the little darlings he claims to champion over Big Bad Corporations might take the cheap food, buy a ton of it, and then turn around and sell it at higher prices on the street, making a tidy profit. Never occurred to him that capitalism could be practiced by poor people, too. So over in Venezuela, market economics have taken rein from Chavez’s much-touted cheap food, whether Chavez likes it or not, as poor Chiclet-sellers, known…
Alek Boyd has more continuing coverage of the Manuel Rosales presidential campaign that is challenging the presidency of Hugo Chavez. Alek reports that Rosales is attracting huge, growing crowds out in the Venezuelan burgs and boondocks. He has some choice quotes from locals and some descriptive writing on what it all looks and feels like. See his latest here.
The world is loaded with well-wishers who have visited communist Cuba as tourists, and marvelled at beauty of the island, the sultry enticing laid-back culture of the people, the music, the ease of life, the apparent lack of materialism, the supposed universal health care, and other illusions. Over at Killcastro, a fine blog by Cuban exiles who have actual experience of Cuban life beyond the tourist spots at Varadero and central Havana, and who currently have some of the deepest contacts and connections inside the real Cuba, they printed a smuggled-out letter from a Cuban inside Cuba, that tells the…
What is the impact of the world democracy revolution? In Arab states, there’s been a significant change toward democratic revolution in the past two years, according to this absolutely fascinating report from a writer who visited Dubai and talked to James Zogby, a respected pollster of the Arab world. He found that young Arabs, both men and women, in their 30s and 40s, are beginning to lose interest in a Pan-Arab identity, a dead end that has brought nothing but anguish and poverty since the post-colonial tinpot-dictator era of the 1960s. Instead, they are starting to see themselves as citizens…
The Moscow Times newspaper maintains an impressive stable of pundits analyzing Russian political developments, and their weekly columns are often required reading for those who wish to understand and properly respond the rise of the Neo-Soviet Union. Two recent examples deal with the disturbing and self-destructive rise of official anti-Americanism in Russia: Georgy Bovt documents its rise in the Russian Duma, while Alexander Golts explains its new significance in the Russian military. Bovt writes: Last week, a remarkable document titled “On a Likely Scenario of Action of the United States toward Russia in 2006-2008” was circulated in the State Duma.…
Hot on the heels of the surprise power-packed U.S. consumer boycott of Venezuelan oil, a huge refinery explosion of Venezuelan oil occurred this morning in Havana, Cuba, where considerable Venezuelan oil is being refined. Gigantic. Val has a photo of the inferno, the latest oil blow to Hugo Chavez. The Real Cuba has more photos and details. Along with this, this, this, and this, just this past week, Venezuelan oil production under a communist regime is profoundly strained – beset with accidents, safety violations, waste and destruction. Even if oil prices rise as a result of all this, if Hugo…
Jonathan Scheele, head of the European Commission’s Delegation to Romania said about the upcoming accession of Romania to EU that, “There will be no more reports by the European Commission and it will therefore be very important for the Romanian political class, civil society and Romanians in general to take responsibilities.” Easier said than done. Jos???? Manuel Durao Barosso emphasized: “Yesterday we decided, today we are celebrating and tomorrow we must go back to work.” The Romanian Premier, Calin Popescu Tariceanu promised the reform process would continue, especially in Justice, agriculture and the sanitary-veterinary field. He said that, ???????Romania is…
On the left above, you see the face of pro-U.S. Ukrainian Viktor Yushchenko before he sought the presidency of his country. On the right, you see his face shortly after he made that decision. What happened? Well, he ingested a large amount of highly toxic chemicals, and it wasn????????t a suicide attempt. Many people believe it was an effort by the Russian secret police to keep Yushchenko from ousting pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Yanukovich from power in the upcoming election. Yushchenko had promised to move Ukraine away from Russia and towards the European Union, NATO and the United States. The…
Cripes, what’s got into these guys? I used to live in Singapore and I used to write for the Far Eastern Economic Review, mostly slapping around China’s oppression in those palmy expat days. Today, the once-ominiscent FEER, now a news-turned-essay magazine, and down on its heels due to the Internet and global forces, is nevertheless back on the Singapore sheet list. In fact, this time the Singaporean government has downright banned it. And for SUCH a Singapore reason! They said the FEER failed to provide the name of someone they could serve papers to, in the (inevitable) event they sued…
There is something majestic about the power of the markets. No dictator, anywhere can control them. They do what they do, based on thousands of decisions by thousands of individuals, acting on a collective wisdom. No central planning can match this people’s verdict in reflecting the here and now, or the future. That’s a people-power Hugo Chavez repeatedly disparages and discounts even as he claims to represent the aspirations of the people. Today, it wasn’t George Bush who spoke but the People of the United States who issued a majestic market verdict on him. That was evident in action taken…
Venezuela tonight held its first presidential debate. But it wasn’t quite like any other debate I’ve ever heard of. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez refused to participate of course, due to a congenital inability to share the television screen with any other human being. The Caracas megalomaniac just can’t make himself do it. But that was no problem for Venezuela’s enterprising private sector. Globovision took his long windy speech off state TV, ran half the screen with the dictator’s bloviating, and then had Venezuelan opposition candidate Manuel Rosales reply to each and every Chavez lie and idiocy. Can you imagine? They…
Bolivian government coca-leaf graffiti targeted at dissidents in Santa Cruz Source: AP, via Yahoo! News Argentina’s Cronista Comercial newspaper last week released an Argentine foreign ministry study, whose authors used various corporate-risk business models to forecast a 56% chance of civil war breaking out in Bolivia in the next few months. It’s faster than anyone thinks. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News At issue is the growing tyranny of Bolivia’s leftwing populist president, Evo Morales. His popularity numbers have dropped, and in Bolivia’s industrious, entrepreneurial, job-creating and mixed-race east, discontent with his Marxist remedies is growing. Morales…
The European Commission has announced that Romania and Bulgaria are set to join the European Union at the beginning of 2007. It truly is an historic achievement; something that bodes well for the future of the two countries and the continent as a whole. The European Commission has announced that Romania and Bulgaria will be admitted to the EU in January 2007, but under strict conditions. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said both countries had made enough progress to join the union. But they will be checked for progress in curbing organised crime and corruption, and ensuring food safety and…
Gates of Vienna posts and interesting article, along with his own commentary, regarding a recent referendum in Switzerland in which around 2/3 of the population voted to tighten the country’s asylum laws. This is what happened: According to early poll projections, Switzerland has voted heavily in favour of making it harder for asylum-seekers to gain entry to the rich Alpine state. Despite warnings of damage to Switzerland’s humanitarian reputation, some two-thirds of voters appeared to have said ‘yes’ in referendums on laws limiting access for non-European job-seekers and making the country’s asylum rules amongst the West’s toughest. They seemed also…
Whoo hoo! Our favorite writer, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, has done the impossible in a new essay – taken on sex in Colombia as a struggle for democracy. A perfect topic for Publius Pundit to link, so go see what he’s written here. In Colombia, young women have told their young men to drop the gangster and gun and drug crap or else they’ll get no sex from them. Apparently, it’s very primal and effective, for a society at its wit’s end. Yep, no sex, those who can’t drop their barbarian activity can be laughed at by their peers as maricones…
The mystery country in the United Nations voter lineup for Security Council seats, Chile, led by a socialist with roots in the Allende era, is apparently fed up to the quick with the government of Hugo Chavez. Chavez’s anti-American diatribes disgusted most nations that had planned to support Venezuela over Guatemala for the Security Council seat, but didn’t bother Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet all that much. More recent Chavista attacks over the weekend, charging her with being rightwing – on the weekend she laid a wreath at the spot where Allende’s foreign minister, Orlando Letelier, was assassinated, was an entirely…
Boz at Bloggings by Boz has a must-read collection of poll numbers, many the last pollings that will be available before elections next week in Brazil and Nicaragua. He has a special item on Brazil here, as well. I love his item on what Guatemalans have on their minds, it’s something that will provoke a knowing nod from people who know what common sense is. And Peru’s opinion poll revelations confirm just what we have been thinking about Alan Garcia. Read Boz’s latest poll numbers here.
I was going to put together a Venezuela blog roundup but Daniel got there before me, putting together a fine collection of Venezuelan blog posts in these fermenty times, and saying all the stuff I wanted to say. It reminds me of Daniel’s and my own simultaneously-made observation that Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit did exactly for Miguel Octavio what Hugo Chavez did for Noam Chomsky – rocketed him up to Number One. For Miguel, Glenn’s link yesterday got Miguel’s blog over 13,000 hits and put him at the very top of the salon.com blog rankings for two days in a…
By popular demand, I post Alvaro Varga Llosa’s awesome essay on Chavez’s appearance at the United Nations and what it really means for Venezuela. For educational purposes, only Ch????vez’s Inferno By ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA September 25, 2006; The Wall Street Journal Page A14 It would have been more appropriate for Hugo Ch????vez to brandish Dante’s “Divine Comedy” than Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival” during his sulfuric broadside at the U.N. last week. In the first part of the Italian masterpiece, the author undertakes a journey through the nine concentric circles of the Inferno, each representing a type of evil. Dante’s description…
Alek Boyd has an excellent new photo show of scenes from the Chavista political “base” around Caracas. He shows dilapidated housing and garbage flung all over the place, in pictures that make Tijuana look like Beverly Hills. Check it out, here.
Following the famous United Nations devil speech, this is the singularly best Hugo Chavez cartoon I’ve ever seen, snidely illustrating the realities of the U.S.-Venezuela relationship. I’ve never seen anything so mean. Hugo comes out absolutely pathetic, you’ll never look at him the same way again. See it here.
We have previously discussed the question of Russia????????s membership on the G-8 panel; given Russia????????s feeble economic performance and, more importantly, its widespread corruption and anti-democratic politics, it is virtually impossible to offer any cogent argument in favor of membership. Russia simply is not qualified. However, there is a second major question which is harder to resolve. Should Russia be admitted to the World Trade Organization? The WTO is not analogous to the G-8; it is a populist body, not an elitist one, and Russia????????s issues of democracy and corruption are less relevant here since there are some countries with…
President Evo Morales of Bolivia was the first Bolivian president ever to skip the famous Expocruz, the Santa Cruz cow show. He did so because he considers its denizens capitalists. Out in Bolivia’s Butch-and-Sundance territory, nothing’s more important than this show. Miguel Centellas, in this post here, noted that Morales’ absence from the show worried his Cruceno parents every bit as much as renewed violence in the streets. He writes: But threats by Evo’s supporters to shut down the Feria Expocruz, a small scale regional, industrial “world’s fair” in Santa Cruz has my parents worried (not least, of course, because…
Manfred Nowak, the UN’s chief man on anti-torture, said today that torture in Iraq is worse now than it was under Saddam. “What most people tell you is that the situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally out of hand,” Mr Nowak said in Geneva. “The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.” The State Department is outraged about this, taking the comment as hypbole and moral relativism. A State Department official in Washington, asked about Professor Nowak’s comments, told The Times:…