Blogging the democratic revolution
We all know from reading Barcepundit that there is a lot of nonsense going on in Spain. But to a Venezuelan observer, it doesn’t quite look that way. In an indication of how low dictator Hugo Chavez has taken Venezuela, blogger Miguel Octavio notes interesting comparisons between the two states. In terms of progress, they seem to have switched positions, with Spain decisively moving upward and Venezuela moving downward. It wasn’t always that way. In fact, it wasn’t even that way within most of our lifetimes. There are reasons why. Read the whole thing here.
With elections next year, the U.S. faces the possibility that its next door neighbor, Mexico, may elect a Saguaro Chavez – bringing a far-left regime like Hugo Chavez’s of Venezuela right to our border. In which case, we will empathize more than ever with Colombia, but might not have much time for it. Because given the scope of already existing problems with Mexico (the border, the aliens, the drugs, the weak Mexican economy, the peso), their multiplication with a far-left regime whose leading candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a free-spending mayor of Mexico City, is almost too much to think…
Ever wondered what makes the sinews of one the world’s foremost enemies of freedom move? It’s money of course, $500,000 of it in oil-rich Venezuela’s case, but how it happens is what’s most in need of some daylight. Alek Boyd at VCrisis has gotten hold of new Freedom of Information Act documents on the Venezuela Information Office, the propaganda arm of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. He has a 31-page file filled out by the VIO in Washington itself, detailing the people it met, the ways it preoccupied itself, and the reporters it courted and harassed. It’s pretty creepy reading –…
Editor Thomas Lifson at American Thinker points out that Herbert Meyer, a former Reagan administration intelligence official, has made some impressive forecasts about where to spot the next revolution, in an interview on Larry Kudlow’s show. He discussed his essay on the nature of revolutions, and told Kudlow, days ago, that Kyrgyzstan was next. He also had interesting observations about coming revolutions to watch for.
Remember those pictures of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez hugging Mullah Mohamad Khatami of Iran, and the two of them waving their fists from the banks of the Orinoco? To much fanfare, the pair of them jointly opened a tractor factory in Ciudad Bolivar to cement their alliance. Then they announced the dawn of a new era of friendship and cooperation between the two anti-American tyrannies. Ten days later, the new factory has gone on strike. Miguel has the scoop here.
More good investigative work on the Hugo Chavez financial and propaganda networks from Alek Boyd here. It’s interesting reading.
I knew the nicey-nice between President Uribe of Colombia and dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was fake. The spat they had over Colombian bounty hunters snatching FARC terrorists from Venezuelan streets was just a prelude. Today, a new incident happened. Venezuelan troops, seeking ‘gas smugglers,’ actually crossed the border into Colombia and occupied a little Colombian village for several hours, abusing the villagers. This is no bounty hunter incident, this is a bona fide military invasion. And probably a practice run for a real invasion, because Colombia is a country that Hugo Chavez, along with Fidel Castro, has long had…
Blogger Alek Boyd has done an amazing job unravelling the the tangled web of dictator Hugo Chavez’s financial network in the U.S. Linking shell corporation to shell corporation, he’s well on the way to putting together a comprehensive picture of these enemies of the U.S. nesting and operating in our own country. The Chavista network is being exposed. Read the whole thing here and see a telling photo here. P.S.: Eva Golinger looks just like one of those World War II enemy women – Eva Braun? Tokyo Rose? if you ask me.
If you need a summary of what has happened to Venezuela since the dictatorship of Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Coronel, an elegant essayist, has a long but well-written description of the path to ruin, “In Venezuela: The Time of the Barbarians” here.
Miguel Octavio outlines an alarming scenario to Hugo Chavez’s mysterious pattern of actions regarding his assets abroad and at home. The blogger believe Venezuela may be shoved into default, like Argentina, and Chavez is taking steps to shield himself from creditors after the deed is done. To ruin a country’s good name like that should be treason. But it’s likely what Chavez has in mind, and something that will further consolidate his power. Miguel has the alarming pattern of actions explained in easily understood terms here.
Last Friday, the Venezuelan government declared a new law, one that makes it an actual crime to ‘offend Chavez.’ Chavez of course will say when he is offended. The king decides. And this means bloggers. A new Venezuelan blogger, called Jolly, gives his take here.
And over in the next communist regime, it’s wild caribou marinated in blueberries and other confections. It’s been quite a sybarite feast this weekend for the hemisphere’s communist regimes. Here Val at Babalu fills us in on the dinner menu in Havana from a Canadian trade mission. The excesses are Bourbonite. But alongside that, doesn’t it give you a funny feeling that this might be the decadent end? One day, these excesses will be as memorable as Marie Antoinette’s champagne and cake eating feasts. Read the whole thing here.
Alek Boyd has one hell of a good news report and short analysis of the Boston “friendship” meeting with Chavista officials, who are conducting a propaganda offensive in the U.S. The details about grilled shrimp and duck quesadillas among the jeweled chavistas is priceless. But it goes well well beyond that to give us the scope of Venezuelan ‘active measures’ to manipulate perceptions in the U.S. It’s not normal stuff. There is one particularly wrenching encounter between a Russian woman who has known communism firsthand and has a perfect grasp of its underlying dynamic, and a Chavista official who keeps…
Last year, Castro threw 75 brilliant, thinking people – economists, journalists, leaders – into his dungeons. This wasn’t the usual garbage from him, it was a desperate effort to destroy a new generation of potential opposition leaders as he declines into his fading years. The U.S. embassy put up its Christmas display to let them know they are not forgotten, triggering a rabid reaction from Castro’s goons. But most of the imprisoned are still there. Val at Babalu blog doesn’t forget. He has a tribute to them here.
I was a little surprised by how much attention I got from an essay I wrote for Babalu Blog the other night on Castro’s wealth, but in retrospect his position on the Forbes billionaire’s list is an important news story as the the Cuban dictator begins to eye the vultures circling. He’s been on the Forbes list before but now the value of his fortune is suddenly sensititive as his grip on power slides, his party hacks begin to jockey for power, and Cubans begin to learn the true scope of how his vast wealth derives from their poverty. And…
An informative and disturbing essay from Bolivia here.
Remember the Venezuelan reporter whose house was raided and trashed by dictator Hugo Chavez’s security agents? We wrote about her here, here and here. She’s now being prosecuted. The interior minister is believed to be targetting Patricia Poleo because some think he wants to erase his role in a 1992 coup attempt from history, and she’s written about it. Alek Boyd has a summary here. In the middle of all this, there’s a grotesque picture of someone, accused by Poleo of being the interior minister himself, of posing over a dead body from the 1992 coup attempt here she wrote…
As we wrote here, Venezuela’s mayor of Caracas and some other offiicials paid a visit to Boston where they were met by starry-eyed officials, were dished heaps of praise, and were taken around town in the proverbial dog and pony show. The Venezuelan blogosphere, however, did more than just write words to reply this time, they also organized a counter demonstration, getting their word out to event-goers with a demonstration there and printing up a flyer. Details of the successful counterdemonstration are here and in the comments section here.
Herbert Meyer, a brilliant thinker and a leading architect of the demise of the Soviet Union during the Reagan years, has written a dazzling essay that will forever change how you view this Age of Revolution we are chronicling at PubliusPundit. Meyer’s analysis about how revolutions start and why they will continue is not only strikingly original but logically compelling. It’s grounded in experience and a deep understanding of human nature – a powerful wisdom. This is the kind of essay you are going to refer back to as long as you live. I’m tempted to put in an excerpt…
Jennifer McCoy, who led the disastrous Carter-Center-sanctioned destruction of democracy in Venezuela, is now trying to defend herself to Venezuela’s bloggers. A little spin control, I suppose, in light of just how deeply the Carter-endorsed fraud in Venezuela’s recall referendum has sunk into American consciousness. This shows the power of Venezuela’s tenacious bloggers in getting the truth out when the media first wouldn’t. The media has largely changed its line of course, so now the Carterites are on the defensive, but still defending the indefensible.
Castro apologists – in the media, in Hollywood, in education, in every corrupted institution of America are always bleating about the ‘virtues’ of ‘free’ Cuban health care. Sure, Cuba may be an odious tyranny whose citizens would walk across a bed of landmines to flee or climb aboard a leaky tire raft headed for the high seas to escape … but it’s still got all that free health care. They parrot this line all the time. Val Prieto at Babalu blog shows firsthand evidence with photos the condition of Cuba’s best hospital. He’s got powerful commentary giving context, too, and…
In Caracas, Venezuela, a controversial mayor there is a guy who once chased a potbanging protestor around with a broken booze bottle at Caracas airport. Well, he’s now in Boston to instruct the Ivy-Leaguers at the august institutions of Harvard and MIT. He’s a real charmer. Read the whole thing here, and here.
Congressman Bill Delahunt of the U.S. wrote a rosy piece for the Boston Globe this week, touting the glories of Chavista Venezuela. Everything he said looked like it was lifted from the playbook of the Venezuelan Information Office, the propaganda arm of the Marxist Venezuelan regime. Venezuela’s Gustavo Coronel corrects the record in an eloquent essay here.