Blogging the democratic revolution
Half a million people marched against Hugo Chavez in a campaign rally for rapidly rising challenger Manuel Rosales in Caracas on Saturday Alek Boyd of VCrisis, who was obviously at the gigantic 15-mile rally, has taken some spectacular photos of the gargantuan march against Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who vows to Cubanize the country and force anyone with brain in Venezuela to flee to Miami. His 28 or so photos are bigger and more vivid than the TV screen-grabs I posted yesterday. Go see them all here. Daniel Duquenal at Venezuela News & Views has a fascinating discussion of which…
Marxist Nicaraguan ex-dictator, Daniel Ortega, now running for president Source: Voltairenet Nicaraguans go to the polls tomorrow to choose their next president. It’s a three-way race, with a center-right guy, Eduardo Montealegre, a hard-right guy, Jose Rizo, and the very leftwing Daniel Ortega, who once aligned with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and made war on Ronald Reagan’s America. Ortega, you may recall, taunted America as he went shopping for mirrored designer sunglasses on Park Avenue. Ronald Reagan called him “the skunk at the garden party” and “the little dictator.” That was one long ten-year war. In the end, in 1990,…
One heck of a campaign rally! 500,000 marched for Manuel Rosales, who’s challenging Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez for the presidency in Caracas Saturday Source, all photos: Globovision, which has more here UPDATE: OK, it’s not millions. It’s half a million. (My original headline said ‘millions’) But it’s more than expected and it’s still huge, at least as big as the Los Angeles illegal immigrant rally last March. Caracas only has 6 million people, so this crowd represents about one out of every twelve caraquenos. This story might speak for itself through its photos – what looks like millions of people…
American military personnel fighting in Iraq Source: Free Republic We don’t see too many American babes, but these girls, busy crushing terrorists and tyrants and bringing democracy to Iraq, will definitely do. Who said liberation had to be ugly? This photo montage came about when people at Free Republic started examining the faces of U.S. female soldiers who were among a Minnesota troop contingent that came up with a hilarious smackdown gag photo, directed at a certain French-looking swell of a politician named John Kerry who thought all U.S. soldiers were dumb. The photo they took (below), with their grinning…
Thandar Shwe marries Zaw Phyo Win in “Myanmar” Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News Now here’s a story that was given the proper treatment by Reuters! Burmese tinpot general and military junta leader Than Shwe put on a big lavish wedding for his daughter Thandar Shwe, with tiaras of diamonds, cascades of champagne, and a five-tier wedding cake. A video of it accidentally got out and it was more money on parade than anyone had seen in a long time in Burma. Classy Burmese, however impoverished, noted to Reuters that it was pretty darn vulgar, what with the yellow diamonds and…
Violence in Oaxaca, on Tuesday Source: Agencia EFE Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez’s fingerprints are all over the leftist violence and insurrection going on in Oaxaca, Mexico right now. That’s not my conjecture but what’s running in the mainstream Mexican press. Like here. The past weekend, President Vicente Fox sent in the troops to the troubled region, where Zapatista ‘Otra Campagna’ far-leftists are battling PRI dinosaur leftists. It began as a teachers’ strike for higher wages but now has turned into a full blown insurrection, with neither group willing to give an inch. President Vicente Fox (of the center-right PAN party)…
The Taliban’s barbaric destruction of the centuries’ old Bamiyan Buddhas Source: Vers un Sens de la Vie Remember the 2001 brazen destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas? Right in front of the world’s face, the filthy, foul Taliban, led by the mascara-loving Mullah Omar, smashed this irretrievable masterpiece of human hands, an ancient artwork that inspired human minds throughout centuries, and then he vilely claimed it was all ‘sinful.’ So 1,000 years of culture, of art, of devotion, of miraculous expertise, a great window on the mysterious minds of our ancestors, was destroyed by this maggot, using western explosives to achieve…
Isn’t there a leftwing site somewhere that devotes itself to watching Fox News “so you don’t have to”? I think there is, and it’s an entertaining thing. Venezuela has its own TV-watcher, doing yeoman’s work, watching the Chavistas in action on the television – our own dear Daniel Duquenal of Venezuela News & Views. Daniel takes us through the latest Chavista television appearance on privately owned Globovision and entertains us with the Chavista performance of one Chavista operative named Calixto Ortega, trying to make sense of the world on that independent medium. Daniel advises us that Chavistas only go on…
Alek Boyd has been doing some fantastic reporting on the state of poor society in Venezuela, actually talking to people and seeing what it’s like in their often ignored world. Are you aware that Venezuela’s poor are poorer than any other western hemispheric nation’s poor? I mean places like Haiti, Nicaragua, Brazil and Bolivia? I sure wasn’t. But apparently, it’s true. And it’s not surprising. Take a huge oil economy that drives out all other trade. Couple it with unchecked illegal immigration, rendering millions of people without legal papers. Add onto it layers of socialism which preceded Chavez, which taxes…
The U.S. government launched a federal probe of Smartmatic, the Venezuelan voting machine company affiliated with the Venezuelan government, whose machines were instrumental in all the electoral fraud committed in Venezuela since 2004. The company claims the probe, first broke by the Miami Herald on Saturday, was all their idea but ahead of U.S. elections, under unfavorable media spotlight, I do not believe them at all. Following its role in the recall referendum that entrenched Hugo Chavez in power, the company has since taken its kooka-profits (in the neighborhood of $120 million) from the crime against democracy, and bought up…
Recently, there was a Zogby poll that came out, claiming Hugo Chavez had a commanding lead over his opposition. Who paid for it is unknown, but Alek Boyd has a new item up indicating that the signs point to Hugo himself. After all, hasn’t Hugo set up phony polling firms of his own, for the express purpose of ginning up his poll numbers? Alek has exposed that he has on that, too. KA has an item showing it here, and so does Alek. Image-conscious Chavez has a long history of phony polls. Enter John Zogby. Turns out Zogby has a…
Doctor Zin at Regime Change Iran has found a megatrend piece that’s so arresting it can’t help but make you stop and think. World oil prices right now are dropping like a stone. If they go below $50 a barrel and stay there, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are in for hard times. They won’t be able to maintain their political popularity because in all case, that popularity is derived from pork-barrel spending and government handouts. If they lose popularity, will that make them more, or less, aggressive against their own internal opposition and the…
Lula By A Light Year – Brazil’s Lula landslides to reelection Source: AFP, via Yahoo! News Brazil’s incumbent President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva has cruised on to an easy victory in Brazil’s runoff election. He’s got more votes than he did last time and the total ballots aren’t even fully counted. With 94% of the tally counted, the final score was 61-39, a very strong showing. See for yourself at Brazil’s official election site here. Randy Paul at Beautiful Horizons has some excellent analysis, along with some translations from the Brazilian local press about why this has happened. It…
Our own dear Stefania Lapenna has published her first column for Townhall on the details of Cuba’s rising democracy movement. Cuba’s democrats realize deeply that there can be no ‘reform’ of Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba, there can only be change – more specifically – peaceful revolutionary change. That informs their tactics and as Castro withers, hurtling toward the ash heap, Cuba is seeing the rise of Cuba’s new democrats. It’s beautifully written and an absolute must-read here. (Click on and see how cute and Italian Stefania looks in her picture!)
ANSWER Coalition anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan Source: Susan Forrest, Indymedia Los Angeles Today I went to the antiwar protests, over in Hollywood, to check out the scene. Compared to other antiwar rallies, this was small. It might have been put together hastily – I did not learn about it until yesterday. Still, ANSWER tends to attract many more people than this and they did have Cindy Sheehan as their headliner. Without prejudice, I estimated there were only about 650 people at this one – I’ve been to the last three and this was the smallest of all. The ANSWER procession…
Sean Gleeson suggests ten ways to do it and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. Check out his hilarious post in this link here.
Boz at Bloggings by Boz has a good new set of the latest poll numbers, all of which give a good reading on the political temperature through the hemisphere. It’s a mixed bag this time. Or let’s just say there’s something for everyone. In good news, rightwing banana king Alvaro Noboa is continuing to kick Openly Chavista Rafael Correa in the keister. In more neutral news, Lula is likely to win in Brazil, and a Zogby poll shows that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez still holds a strong lead over his challenger, Manuel Rosales, something I have a hard time believing, but…
When I say ‘Bolivian Infighting,’ which is what is going on over there, I don’t mean it figuratively – it turns out Evo Morales’ MAS party acolytes, or ‘Masistas,’ are literally fighting each other in the streets over who gets the government bureaucrat jobs. In other words, who gets to wear the Hush Puppies and become a Lifer. Can you imagine? This goes to show where the perceived value is in Bolivian society – with the government sector, not the private sector. And it tells us a lot about just how oppressive it must be to be in Bolivia, because…
First, some words from France’s resident tough guy, Nicolas Sarkozy: I would like to say one thing, in what is my conception of the Republic, security is the responsibility of the State, I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I????????m trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he????????ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you????????re risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not…
Not long ago, I worked with a group fighting for East Timor’s independence. It was a rare time I actually had something to do with the political process instead of just watched. I organized demonstrations and painted signs and argued in meetings with UN officials. I fervently wanted East Timor’s independence from Indonesia. It was in 1998 and 1999. Once upon a time, East Timor was part of a global Marxist National Liberation Movement that threatened to communize third-world countries into hammer-and-sickle republics based on an outdated German philosophy that failed every time it was ever tried. The real game…
Last Wednesday, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro may have slipped into a coma. On Saturday, his sycophant, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, flew into Havana (scroll down), possibly to bid a final farewell to his Cuban master. And Brazil’s President Lula da Silva made a slip of the tongue last weekend, saying ‘when Castro was alive…’ forgetting no one had announced that The Beast was dead. Meanwhile, Otto Reich reports that news agencies are getting visits from Castroite government functionaries regarding coming funeral arrangements, including seating, best camera angles, visas, how-tos ahead the coming spectacle…where guerrillas, tyrants, and Sandalista suckups will gather…
The Culebra Cut stretch of the 50-mile Panama Canal Source: AFP Getty, via Houston Chronicle Panama’s great referendum on expanding the mighty Panama Canal, to accomodate two times’ as much ship traffic, is taking place today. 1.7 million Panamanians are registered to vote on the $5.3 billion upgrade, essentially a bond project to be financed with crossing fees. Local muni-bond initiative as is, it will affect billions of people around the world. Some 70% of Panamanians are polled to favor it ahead of the vote. Panamanian babes pass a sign urging passage of the Canal referendum Source: AFP Getty, via…
What would a ‘colligation’ of all the free-market blogs in Latin America look like? As one big blog coming in from a feed? Luis Afonso Assumpcao of Swimming Against The Red Tide wanted to find out, so he set up an interesting new blog, compiling all the thoughts coming in from Miami Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and the rest of the region where longing for free markets is growing. As Hugo Chavez’s crazed empire shows high signs of meltdown, and rightwinger after rightwinger gets elected president throughout Latin America, libertarianism is an idea that is growing in importance through Latin…
StJacques over at Free Republic has translated a fabulous Chilean editorial from El Mercurio blasting the Venezuelan dictator as dangerous for Chile’s interests, right on the heels of Mexico’s blast at Chavez for his ego. Read it here.
They’re on something like Round 28 at the United Nations for the Security Council seat and pretty much getting nowhere. The deadlock continues to show the same wretched numbers, with Hugo Chavez at about 78 votes and Guatemala at about 108 votes, more or less. Same old score, round after round. Mexico, however, as it often does, said just the right thing, telling Chavez to throw in the towel, it was sick of his shenanigans, trying to hold the UN hostage over its little proxy games it claims to play with the U.S., when in reality, Venezuela’s contest is with…