Blogging the democratic revolution
Francisco Toro has a fascinating essay about the findings of pollster Alfredo Keller. As Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez prepares to seek reelection in December, the composition of those likely to vote for the supremodomo becomes important. Francisco reports that 52% of the electorate plans to vote for Chavez. Of this 52%: -33% do so only because they want Chavez’s handouts. -14% do so because they depend on government jobs. -6% do so because they are hardcore ideological leftists, the exact same number of people who voted for hardcore leftists before Chavez was elected. There is probably some overlap, e.g., some people…
The burning-tire news photos from Haiti’s presidential election look horrific. After seven delays, elections finally went through in UN-occupied Haiti, and the result is a disaster. The election was held on Feb 7, and the vote counting went through the weekend. The organizers said there would be a delay in the expected results, but people celebrated who they thought had won anyway. The expected winner had been an agronomist named Rene Preval, who was a close associate of exiled President Aristide. Preval’s Hope party had been leading in the exit polls, but now the organizers say he got less than…
…everywhere a bil bil, old McChavez had a well… On hearing that oil prices took another serious beating today (think they are below $60 a barrel, so happy times are coming to a pump near you) I clicked onto El Universal to see if there was any reaction from Venezuela’s oil-drenched supremodomo Hugo Chavez, who’s openly sought oil at $100 a barrel to finance his “revolution.” Nothing. The vases are being thrown in the palace in private, I suppose. But I was struck by the pattern I was seeing. Another $1.2 billion was missing from the state coffers. Late last…
Rock singer Carlos Santana is famous for wearing a great big Che Guevara t-shirt at the Oscars a couple years ago. Cuban-American Pundits blogger Conductor met the guy on the street by chance in Sausalito, wearing his ‘Che is dead’ t-shirt and provoked the rock star into a conversation with him. I had expected Santana to be a guy who could be talked sense into, but unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. The amazing encounter of the conversation between Santana and the rational Cuban American is here. BREAKING UPDATE: Conductor described Santana as a pot-addled space case and it turns out…
Miguel Buitrago at MABB has radical information – Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales may not after all be the best of fraternal socialist buddies – the problem starts because Chavez is up to no good trying to take over Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, something I could see coming from a mile away – Chavez ruined his “own” reserves, why wouldn’t he want to steal someone else’s? The guy has no sense of ownership or stewardship, he is pure, 100% brigand, and Morales is naive. But maybe not THAT naive. Miguel’s two must-read items on this most-welcome news here and here.…
Bolivia, at the center of the South American continent, seems to have everyone’s attention. Miguel at MABB describes the now-strong interest of major nations on poor small Bolivia, including everything from the U.S.’s drug eradication efforts to Brazil’s and the Andean Community’s energy interests. My short conclusion? Things have changed, this is no business as usual. A revolution of sorts has happened. Hence, the new world out there in Bolivia. Miguel’s interesting item is here. UPDATE: More on this topic from Boli-Nica, who’s been doing some fine blogging lately. His item is here.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has jerked Sumate around, with a high court throwing out the entire trial as it has been flimsily assembled, and a whole new one, on different grounds, in what’s known here as double-jeopardy, being started. This, in short, is political persecution, the acts of Chavistas desperately seeking a means of jailing these people … who have done nothing wrong … any way they can. The whole insane story’s updates, plus another update on the freedom-of-the-press attack using more double-jeopardy, is here. They’re just going to keep trying till they get them, it seems. I cannot imagine…
Val at Babalu blog has an important item on a hunger strike being done by an independent Cuban journalist inside Cuba who’s been denied any Internet access at all from which to file his stories to the outside world. The rest of us take this for granted but in Cuba, it’s something Castro considers his privilege. This poor fellow is willing to starve himself to get the gag off and barely anyone is noticing. It’s sad. Val’s writeup, and a photo of the Havana journalist, is here. UPDATE: And Ziva, at Blog for Cuba, has more thoughts here.
With possibly a 1,000-vote discrepancy between Oscar Arias and Otton Solis in their ultra-close and now contentious presidential election from Sunday, Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey has has found that plans are already under way to recycle the ballots into toilet paper. Somehow, for some at least, it will seem fitting. Her funny item is here. Oh, and be sure to see some of her other stuff on the more serious political state of affairs here and here. Via Global Voices, a site called Costa Rica en el presente, has what it says are unofficial presidential election results, in Spanish, and…
Boz has some really good polling numbers this week, all kinds of unusual numbers, including a delicious Peruvian one showing that Ollanta Humala, Chavez ally and leftist torturer of peasants, is dropping like a stone in Peru’s presidential polls for April. Peruvians just don’t like him. Not only that, Tony Saca is doing fine in El Salvador. You gotta see this whole thing here.
Daniel in Venezuela has a fascinating political analysis of what the real meaning of Chavez’s thuggish outburst directed as United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling him “a pawn of the empire” was really all about. Daniel thinks that Blair’s pointed remarks to the Veneuzelan dictator were completely intentional and signal that the European Union is getting fed up with him. Daniel names a whole slew of reasons, which, if he’s right, should mean that the tropical dictator is growing ever more isolated, except among the world’s pariah states, something that will have implications for its eventual democratic revolution. It’s…
It’s a growing spectacle. Troops are taking control of every productive aspect of Venezuelan society as the private sector seeks to close shop. They’re in food production, in hotel security, in road maintenance – you name it. They are everywhere to be seen, something that Indonesia under Suharto and China before Deng Xiaoping’s reforms were. It’s fascist nationalism, particularly because of the pocket-lining aspects, something that the Suharto regime was especially noteworthy for. We often look to Eastern Europe as the model for Chavez, but the proto-fascist regimes of East Asia before the economic crisis of 1998 are also pretty…
The setup seems so marvelous, the U.S. bipartisan congressional National Endowment for Democracy gives funds to many nongovernment organizations around the world to spread democratic revolution. But what happens when the grants blows up in the recipients’ faces? Such as Venezuela, where Maria Corina Machado is facing charges for taking the money? Does anyone look out for her? Places, like Venezuela, that SAY they are democracies aren’t necessarily that. Here is one editorial that calls for taking more responsibility for the democracy-spreading recipients of these grants here.
In yet another mockery of democracy, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has kicked off his presidential campaign … using misappropriated government funds, for it is not with bankrupt ideas that he leads his masses – but with buyoffs and handouts. Veneuzela’s election is in early December. Chavez cheats at elections, so it would seem he’s got it made no matter what kind of campaign he runs. But for reasons I don’t entirely understand I know this is a big deal for them. I have a source in Miraflores Palace who’s told me that in all sincerity. A really really big deal for…
Another day, another neighbor abused. This time Venezuelan dictator has decided to abuse Trinidad over natural gas concessions. This adds to his long list of regional neighbors he’s tried to bully and destroy. The story is here.
A one-man Venezuelan court demanded 16 years in prison for Venezuelan democracy campaigner Maria Corina Machado. The one-stop-judge/jury/jailer also violated her rights by refusing to allow her to speak in the courtroom as is her right. The jail sentence he’s demanding is much higher than anyone expected. The politicized judge also demanded to detain her — in an abysmal Venezuelan prison — when she returns to court on Feb. 14. This doesn’t look good. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is desperately looking for enemies and his actions have begun to sharply escalate as the U.S. becomes preoccupied with Iran, Castro totters…
Oil prices spiked down earlier this week after Hugo Chavez tried to drive them up by threatening $100 a barrel oil. But I bet they will go up on this news – an oil production pipeline shutdown in Ecuador, based on a real counterrevolution run by ignorant leftists intent on chasing out all foreign investment and jobs. These populists imagine that oil will just come out of the ground by itself once the foreign investors are out and the tax base (none of these bastarads pays taxes) dries up. They are likely to cause a lot of trouble for us…
Kill terrorists ‘like rats’ Just so you know.
Jacqueline Mackey Paisley Passey in Costa Rica now has a tremendous gallery of photos on Costa Rica’s cliffhanger presidential election that are beautifully taken and beautifully laid out. That election has about 3100 votes’ difference now between Oscar Arias and Otton Solis, 40.5% to 40.3%, and 12% of the votes still to be counted – that’s getting really close! See Jacqueline’s pictures here.
Ollanta Humala’s presidential campaign in Peru is bedevilled by charges from peasants from remote mountain areas that he tortured them in 1980s under the nom de guerre of ‘Captain Carlos.’ What a charmer. It’s not enough that he is leftwing and pro-Hugo Chavez, a failed military coupster, and an anti-Semitic racist. He’s also tortured peasants as El Capitan Carlos. Today his own brother confirmed it. El Universal has the story here. I can’t think of any bigger kiss of death to any presidential campaign than being accused of torturing peasants. Not even a Hugo Chavez endorsement. No spin-control is going…
Jacqueline Mackey Paisley Passey has first-rate overview of the election along with lots of photos in this entry here, and a terrific news roundup full of lots of blogs I didn’t know about. Be sure to see all her new stuff here. One of the links she has, on Babalu blog (which I admit I wrote the entry for), has some marvelous discussion in the comments section from the commentors, there are some really knowledgable people who have a lot of colorful detail there. The item is here. Taylor Kirk at The Latin Americanist has some interesting thoughts about the…
Costa Rica’s election, like Honduras’ election earlier, is turning into a cliffhanger. Frontrunner Oscar Arias is ahead, but only by about 0.4 percentage point. It could turn. This referendum on free trade – for his opponent, Otton Solis, is opposed to it – is suddenly a matter for speculation. Will Arias win? Keep fingers crossed. The news story is here and there are blog links two posts below. UPDATE: Nacion, as of 12:26 p.m. Pacific time, is reporting that the difference between the top two candidates is 3,647 votes. The item (if you can get it up, there’s heavy traffic)…
No one has a penchant for coming down on the wrong side of the issue like Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Whenever there is a critical juncture, a challenge from brute force, he has a way of placing himself on the illiberal side of the issue. So now he’s made a new string of appeasing statements about the Islamofascists, right in the middle of the Denmark cartoon crisis – taking the side of the rioters. In part his actions may be due to fear, considering that Spain gets more immigrants from Islamic countries than elsewhere. But such people…
Oscar Arias, a powerful, luminous, fearless advocate for free trade is winning in Costa Rica’s exit polls in what looks like a decisive victory. Reportedly taking in 45% of the vote in a three-way field, it means his victory so strong he will avoid a runoff, if these numbers hold, putting this election on a comparable level with Evo Morales’ in Bolivia. The cutoff for avoiding a runoff is 40% of the vote. What does it mean? It means that despite the naysayers, the people insisting the region is turning left, Costa Ricans in their thousands cast their votes for…
Thousands of Venezuelans rallied against Venezuela’s dictator today, protesting the anniversary of the awful day in 1992 when then-Colonel Hugo Chavez tried to seize power through military means. But Hugo Chavez had a surprise of them – a demonstration of his own to insist that this attempted military coup, I kid you not, was a good thing. Yes, the thuggish dictator who continuously forces every visitor and shill, from Jimmy Carter to Jesse Jackson to the LA Times editorial board to Cindy Sheehan to declare Chavez ‘democratically elected’ no matter what he does at the ballot box nevertheless wants all…