Blogging the democratic revolution
UPDATED: While President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia was ringing the opening bell of the New York stock exchange today, his ministers back home were announcing that interest rates would be slashed 50 basis points and nearly a billion more dollars in debt was being repaid. Meanwhile, Colombia’s trade surplus was expanding, tourism was up 19.5%, foreign investment was soaring, banks were lending and remittances were up. Goldman Sachs noted admiringly that Colombia retained a tight fiscal policy despite an election year ahead. The only worry Colombia seemed to have on that day – probably unique in Latin America – was…
And now, Harry Hutton has come up with something totally different – teaching Colombia’s repulsive guerrillas – yeah, real ones – how to blog. No, I’m not making it up. He’s actually described how he’s taught these (update: ex-)contact killers and kidnappers how to go to www.blogger.com, set up a blogspot blog, and blog away. It’s quite a change from what they are used to doing, which, as Harry explains: At an age when I would ring on people????????s doorbells and run away sniggering, he was in the jungle picking off FARC guerrillas with a pistol. There’s one small problem,…
It’s one or two days since my FARC news roundup and today I’ve noticed all the non-FARC Colombia news. Google Colombia, skip the FARC pieces, and notice what news is left. Notice how marvellous Colombia’s government is, what fine things it’s done to make Colombia the great wealthy country it’s meant to be, and take a look at the string the visionary measures Colombia’s taken to secure its long-term future. This is the quietest, most peaceful revolution in the world. And it is a real revolution – a great sudden change from 40 years of narcoterrorist warfare and institutional weakness.…
Three attacks on the Church from the hemisphere’s Marxist Axis in two days makes me think there may be a coordinated effort by Chavez-Castro & Friends to confront the Church. Given the weak state of the Church in most of the world, it’s hard to grasp why dictators should see it as such a threat but perhaps this is an region where the Church remains a robust force. It certainly was in Poland back in the 1980s. There may be a brewing showdown between the Church and communism, something not seen since Pope John Paul II verbally mauled Daniel Ortega…
The FARC’s massacre victims this past week. Source: Yahoo! The FARC makes my blood boil. There is no eviler organization in this hemisphere than these murderous Marxist narcoterrorists. Nothing good has anything to do with them. These monsters put necklace bombs around housewives in the mountains just to see what a blown-off head looks like. Today they pulled so much garbage in Colombia I thought it was worth a news and blog roundup. I would be so much happier if I could write ‘FARC Roundup’ instead. This is what the bastards did today: They called for the murder of all…
In an extreme sign of victory, Colombia’s vile communist narcoterrorists are suddenly apologizing for their latest murders, the killings of two priests and two others. Over 40 years, they’ve killed countless priests, journalists, businessmen, housewives, children and others. But this is the first time they are “sorry.” A strong hand against terror is withering the brazeness of these cold-blooded murderers. Suddenly, killing away isn’t so popular. That strong hand is in the leadership of the great President Alvaro Uribe, a man of death-defying courage who has met terror threats and terror bombs by hitting back harder. And he’s winning. Now,…
Colombia and El Salvador, two nations that have known war and terror, have joined forces to beat the hell out of terrorism. So if Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez or Al Qaida or the Maras or the FARC have designs on the region, the entire Western flank is about to strike first. This dual axis is a straight pointed knife down the center of Latin America, poised to bring democracy and kill off terror forever. This is very big news. These two nations know the sorrow of war like no others. They are unyielding allies of the U.S. in the…
El Universal’s Roberto Giusti has an insightful interview with a top pollster in Venezuela who’s found that President Hugo Chavez is rapidly sliding in the popular approval polls. Among many reasons, he’s found that poor people can only be bought off with ‘social programs’ for so long. Chavez also has dropped in a relatively short period of time, to 45% support, partly because most of his programs have not panned out to expectations (e.g., 400,000 Chavez ‘scholarships’ were dangled before the poor, but only 78 were forked out). And about a third of that popular support is purely for practical…
The consensus, left and right, is that Colombia is an good place. And it’s getting better. And better. Colombia is in fact a bright rising star. And for all the criticism I read, left and right (but mostly left), on Plan Colombia, it doesn’t really get at what is going on in Colombia. It’s called revolution. Life is growing tolerable and free and even pleasant and desirable in Colombia. Just check out the word from the Lonely Planet bulletin boards. Poverty is falling. GDP is up. Wages are up. Trade is up. Jobs are up. Safety is up. The currency…
Meanwhile, down at the Crawford Ranch… Source: Associated Press …too bad I don’t have a good horsy picture with ten-gallon hats, but a pickup-truck picture will do. Venezuela’s dictator can only wonder what his next door neighbor is laughing about with President Bush right here – because it’s almost certain Chavez’s name got brought up at some point. Probably with a lot of ridicule too. Hey Hugo – they’re laughing at you!
Here’s a small item that looks like real news – Nick Burns, the number three guy at State, insists that the Andean Free Trade Agreement (this is CAFTA, but for Andean states like Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) is advancing nicely. News sources have repeatedly said that the bloody and terrible Congressional battle to pass CAFTA probably made the Bush administration too demoralized to try to pass more free trade agreements for the foreseeable future. But I am not so sure about that. Maybe, as Burns’ statements suggest, the Bush administration is instead emboldened by CAFTA’s success. And it will grow…
Breaking news – Colombia has jammed Telesur, the pan-American Chavez TV Station, because of its glorification of Colombia’s murderous FARC narcoterrorists. Colombia is at war with these animals. They just murdered at least a dozen policemen, see here, note that President Uribe was ‘visibly shaken.’ Now, at war, they’re acting it. It’s another sharp blow for Hugo Chavez and his Masterplan For The Takeover Of The Americas. Colombia is having none of it. Go, Colombia!
Alek Boyd’s piece on Colombia published here yesterday has drawn a rabid reaction from a tiny shrivelled pro-Chavez news organ, which devoted scads of bandwidth to name-hurling invective. They seem to have a personal problem with Mr. Boyd. This is starting to sound like an embarassing sort of envy. By their headline, they seem to actually believe Mr. Boyd has President Bush in his pocket. They really do see him as a giant threat. Amazing! Read it here, or if you don’t want their chavista cookies and spyware, here.
Colombia’s president Alvaro Uribe faces mounting opposition from what it seems to be a united front of the liberal party and other more preoccupying factors. A coalition of former presidents -Cesar Gaviria, Ernesto Samper and Andres Pastrana- seems to have found common ground, leaving behing past rivalries, to attack the policies and performance of former party member Alvaro Uribe. Recent appointments aside, that of Cesar Gaviria as party leader, it remains to be seen whether or not they will be able to agglutinate enough votes against the current president, whose prospects of getting re-elected look promising -should the Constitutional Court…
The awesome President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and all of his presidential challengers are setting up blogs for the upcoming presidential race. It’s going to be hotly contested, but I defy anyone to outdo President Uribe in sheer eloquence. He’s a quiet little academic-looking man, but his power is in his thinking, and not only intellectual brilliance but emerald-grade moral clarity. That’s a lot better than how much hairspray. I think this will make politics less a TV show and more a contest of ideas – which is what blogging excels at. Grim’s Hall has a note about it here.…
Tomas Sancio has a superb piece noting the strong and growing presence of Latin American popular culture into mainstream American culture. He takes a screenshot from a Web site to show his point. I am always fond of telling my Latin American friends that when they come to big cities here in the states, they can happily get away with not a word of English and listen to all the same music here that they might listen to there. It’s new. It’s the reality. It’s beautiful. It’s perfectly dynamic. And it’s a revolution. Which is why Hugo Chavez’s weird, insular…
London 02.05.05 ö With the purpose of continuing with the previous article I shall comment today upon the main reason for Hugo Chavez’s sustained popularity in Venezuela; his ability to win political allies throughout the region and the foundations upon which his alliances are built. To begin with the unravelling of the Chavez phenomenon one must look out for the X factor, that ‘thing’ that makes him irresistible in the eyes of people. Ideological affinities and charisma aside I am of the opinion that Chavez’s ‘charm’ is the US Dollar. Having dismantled the meritocratic system that had governed Petroleos de…
The press is reporting that Paraguay’s ambassador to Venezuela was physically attacked in Caracas Friday. This comes on the heels of the kidnap/murder of Paraguay’s former first daughter by FARC guerrillas directing the operation by email from downtown Caracas. Paraguay has done literally nothing to Venezuela to attract this kind of thuggery. It does however have a weak state, a leftist guerrilla insurgency, and a rightwing government. Clearly, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez thinks he’s got a state he thinks he can kick around with impunity. It’s not going to go down well in the streets of Asuncion. Read it here.…
It doesn’t get worse than this.
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…
Venezuela Today has found an extremely significant strategic development in the Colombian press: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is thinking of withdrawing Venezuela’s membership from the Organization of American States. He would do that to circumvent the regional organization’s group efforts to strengthen the OAS’ Democracy Charter, which of course does not serve his interests as a dictator. This wily move comes as a blow to the Bush administration, which has stated that its strategy is to force Chavez to adhere to democratic norms or face OAS sanctions – and, at this meeting, the U.S. is proposing to add the additional…
Nobody’s blogging this, so I will. Today, Colombia’s army reported a powerful victory against the vicious, drug-trafficking Marxist FARC rebels. Eighty of their thugs were destroyed with minimal casualties taken by the Colombian army. Not only that, a huge drug-trafficking operation was shut down. It’s a significant gain in this war on terror, and less than a week after the New York Times reported that all was lost. While we are at it, let’s mention today’s other news that Colombia, in the middle of a war, is paying off its sovereign debt early, making its international word as good as…
This week’s murder of a kidnapped president’s daughter in Paraguay was disturbing enough in itself. What’s more disturbing is who’s behind it – none other than the FARC terrorists of Colombia, carrying out the operation by email from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Read more here.
If you’re watching that Venezuela/Colombia impasse, they say they’ve got it all solved. Laughable. But I think they need things from each other so this will do for as long as it lasts. Unfortunately, it’s going to be hard. Colombia absolutely must win its narcotrafficante war – its population is radicalized to do it – meaning, nothing matters to them more than this. These are people who braved terrorist bullets like Iraqis to put their president in power. And how they love him! He’s got a 77% and climbing popularity rating. Yes they’re radicalized and they full well will not…