Blogging the democratic revolution
That????s what happened in Venezuela today. I????m blogging live from Caracas, and today I saw utterly empty polling stations, one after another, guarded only by tinpot military men with big guns and the occasional red-t-shirted chavista troll on the street corner, standing around looking mean and intimidating for voters. On and off it rained, as…
As Bolivia’s Dec. 18 presidential campaign, one that will influence the entire direction of a continent kicks, into high gear, Eduardo Avila has compiled a comprehensive roundup of what’s being said in the Bolivian blogosphere. There are the usual good analytical blogs, but he’s found some photo blogs and new names we’ve not seen in…
Val Prieto at Babalu has found the most incredible Italian film quietly describing the always constant move toward democratic revolution. Just to see it is light and edifying – its charm and creativity and emotion capture the spirit perfectly. See the whole marvelous thing here.
The Primero Justice party has pulled out of the coming Venezuelan election Sunday, leaving just Hugo Chavez’s MVR party all by its lonesome to run for Congress. This news comes from Marta Colomina, a well-known journalist in Venezuela. This pullout represents the full unification of the Venezuelan opposition, something never seen in Venezuelan history. They…
Alvaro Vargas Llosa has a brilliant – and I mean a most brilliant – essay, both in original thought and in exquisite writing – on Bolivia and the dangerous role of Evo Morales. He points out that Morales’ problem is not globalization, as Morales so drearily claims, but something most people don’t realize: U.S. subsidies…
Agencia EFE has the first reports on a clash over bus fares. Alek Boyd has more preliminary reports of riots in three cities over the stacked, rigged, fraudulent election here. GATEWAYPUNDIT has a major roundup, with photos of the week’s multiple events here. UPDATE: Miguel has riot photos here. UPDATE: Scott has a terrific roundup…
Speaking from Mexico, Mario Vargas Llosa really gave it to Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. The short news account is here. It follows recent condemnations of the Venezuelan dictator by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, here.
…except Hugo Chavez’s MVR party, exiting because the electoral setup is utterly tainted. It lacks transparency, it lacks secrecy and it lacks integrity. By doing this, the opposition is saying: No more participating in fraud. It’s amazing that whole political machines can operate in unity like this. It is the first time I’ve ever seen…
Carlos Alberto Montaner always gets it right, but he’s done it this week with special brilliance. He warns that Bolivia is on a suicide path with the likely election of Evo Morales, but also notes that the failure of the current ruling class over so many decades is to blame, something I believe too. It’s…
On Dec. 4, Venezuela will hold Congressional elections. They are expected to be the final nail in the coffin of the Venezuelan opposition as dictator Hugo Chavez consolidates power and installs a Marxist regime. There are pretenses of them being legitimate as a vote however and therein lies the farce. A test of the Smartmatic…
In keeping with Argentina’s dangerous direction leftward, President Nestor Kirchner fired several members of his somewhat moderate cabinet, including his economy minister, Roberto Lavagna, and replaced them with far-left extremists who are deep in the Hugo Chavez camp of Argentine politics. They are also economic morons, set to take power in what is South America’s…
Reuters has the first report here. The lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key candidate won over the bring-back-the-death-penalty candidate from the incumbent party. This is considered a suprise upset for the challenger who is said to be slightly more left-leaning, though I am curious about the name of his party ‘Liberal’ – which, internationally, means Libertarian. More to follow… UPDATE:…
This Sunday, Nov. 27, Honduras holds its presidential election. This is an important election because it’s seen by some analysts as the bellwether of how the all-important next 13 months of elections go in Latin America. Will Latam swing further left or move right with these elections? Honduras is expected to give some sort of…
Costa Rica is the one nation that has yet to ratify the CAFTA free trade pact with its Central American neighbors and the U.S. Six other nations have, including Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and – after a bruising domestic battle – the U.S. But Costa Rica has not. The fact that Costa…
Hugo Chavez is meddling in more than just Bolivia. He’s got a northern front and that’s the U.S. Using the good offices of willing dupes like Congressman Bill Delahunt and Congressman Jose Serrano, he’s delivering cheap oil through their offices in return for their support in U.S. Congress. Next time Hugo Chavez invades a small…
Christian Science Monitor has some hagiography on Hugo Chavez’s own house organ, Telesur, insisting that it’s — no, really — full of professional journalists. It cites as proof the Telesur chief, the creepy, rat-like former Chavez shill and spokesman, Andres Izarra, a man who was suddenly forced to leave CNN a few years ago, and…
Eduardo Avila of Barrio Flores has this week’s Bolivian blog roundup, in what I suppose I could call ‘The Special Sandalista Edition’ as it is chiefly focused on the writings of foreigners writing about Bolivia, and some of them, who shall be nameless, are knee-deep in Sandalista do-goodery that is utterly unsalable in their home…
Miguel Buitrago has uncovered new polling numbers in Bolivia as the elections close in there in less than a month. He’s got terrific insights and observations about the narrowing lead of Evo Morales in the election, along with some anomalies we might not have expected, like the fact that Morales is doing well in Santa…
During the old days of the Soviet regime, one of the most salient features seen of the public under communism was the telltale sadness in the faces of the people. I remember asking a Soviet diplomat about this during the days of the Cold War and recall his defensive lying – ‘The people are contented,’…
Markets exist to distribute resources most efficiently. Rejection of them inevitably leads to huge, Soviet-style inefficiencies, all the way up to the violation of human nature itself. But in the end, markets, which chase out the inefficient in favor of the efficient, always triumph. Francisco Toro has a fascinating little essay about the economic principle…
Miguel Octavio presents new evidence that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez continues to persecute his political opponents through the use of a blacklist called the ‘Tascon List.’ This blacklist was derived from the public signatures of all the Venezuelans who signed the recall referendum petition against Hugo Chavez, something they legally had a right to do….
Olavo de Carvalho is a brilliant Brazilian intellectual who keeps closely focused on the origins of the far left movements that exist in Latin America and why they are so insidious. Aleksander Boyd at VCrisis spent some time with him, and a terrific, deeply thoughtful exchange of ideas between the two revolutionaries followed. Carvalho attributes…
There is something very eerie about black markets flourishing imperviously in a place like Fidel Castro’s Cuba. It’s one of the world’s most repressed places, with only North Korea more hostile to the perfectly human activity of trade, there demonized as ‘capitalism.’ But such trade markets do flourish in Cuba, on, of all things, the…
”We are not a shill for anyone in this,” claimed Steve Schwadron, chief of staff to U.S. Congressman Delahunt who’s just concluded an oil-for-loyalty deal with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, in the first-ever brazen effort to buy political influence through cheap oil to the underclass through the offices of willing U.S. Congressman. The real story…
Instapundit has found a terrific blog called Yannick Laclau from Spain showing that Nicolas Sarkozy of France is getting ‘down in the trenches’ of the blogosphere, which is to say, actually publishing comments on other peoples’ blogs. Yannick, the blogger who discovered this notes that while Dominique de Villepin writes love poetry and Napoleonic history,…