Blogging the democratic revolution
Among the Chavistas and their shills, there are always strange dynamics. Alek Boyd notes that apparently one of the worst pro-dictator shills for the Venezuelan regime in the U.K. is openly fighting with his Chavista masters in Caracas. The issue of course is money, and comically enough, the shill’s paymaster paid him in worthless, unconvertible bolivares instead of cold hard dollars, as agreed upon, and not only that, took the dollars and went on vacation. The angry shill broadcasted his getting stiffed to all the world. So much for revolutionary purity. Anyway, if you like telenovela stuff of communist-on-communist fallout…
Miguel Centellas at Ciao! reports an alarming development about the military as it dispatches troops around El Alto, La Paz and Santa Cruz – it’s using constitutional language about mandates and law but its actions show that it’s clearly acting on its own. This is the era of autonomous stateless social movements, why not autonomous stateless armies? Gives a creepy whiff of where this is going in Bolivia. Read it here.
Miguel has translated a bitter but very funny essay that appeared in the Caracas press about all the hardships Venezuelen dictator Hugo Chavez must go through to be the revolutionary leader he is. Be sure to get to the part about his nostalgia for ketchup on pasta. Gross! Read the whole thing here.
The two-day work stay away that didn’t turn out so well yesterday fizzled again. A two-day strike called to protest a crackdown by President Robert Mugabe’s government on informal traders headed for a total collapse on Friday when most businesses opened as usual for the second consecutive day. A coalition of civic groups, supported by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had urged Zimbabweans to stay away from work on Thursday and Friday to protest the destruction by police of illegal homes and street businesses. Police said a week ago they had arrested nearly 23,000 people and a…
Alek Boyd has Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s superb WSJ essay on Venezuela’s courageous freedom fighter Maria Corina Machado, who she is, and what she is up against in dictator Hugo Chavez’s nightmare regime. Read it here.
Joe Katzman from Winds of Change pens how Mugabe changed his mind about guns. As many of you know, I’m from Canada. We have a pretty different attitude to guns up here, and I must say that American gun culture has always kind of puzzled me. To me, one no more had a right to a gun than one did to a car. Well, my mind has changed. Changed to the point where I see gun ownership as being a slightly qualified but universal global human right. A month ago in Yalta, Freedom & The Future, I wrote: “Frankly, if…
In deepest Venezuela, blogger Daniel Duquenal reports that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is about to make a conqueror’s triumphant return to Caracas. Although the Cuban dictator’s faithful houseboy, Hugo Chavez, has flown to Cuba to worship at the Beast’s feet every weekend or so, Castro’s last trip to Venezuela was three years ago. Now, Daniel reports that Castro’s return to Caracas will have a very different feel. Castro had stayed out of Caracas for years because he was so detested in Venezuela he was a liability for Chavez. It was that bad. Now, Chavez doesn’t care what Venezuelans think. In…
Eduardo Rodriguez, president of the Supreme Court will take the job vacated by President Carlos Mesa, a journo source tells me. Forecast: this won’t satisfy the angry mobs of Evo Morales and worse. UPDATE: Confirmed, hot off the press. UPDATE: And Rodriguez is calling for early elections. In the fervor of the moment, this could mean Bolivia will have a President Evo Morales. And that should be the end of Bolivia getting a new president every year. Alvaro at BLOG DE BOLIVIA informs us that Evo Morales is not impressed and intends to continue civil disobedience. He also warns that…
Mark Steyn’s latest is out, and it’s absolutely stunning. I won’t even bother to excerpt anything here, just go and read the whole thing.
Background: Zimbabwe officially Mugabe’s fiefdom, Opposition to protest Zimbabwe crackdown. It seems that this country, long tortured by tyranny, is at a crossroads in which there is no turning back. Mugabe is crushing the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people, imposing a forced famine, and preparing to scatter his urban opposition to the country side. On this very day, the new parliament will open for the first time and Mugabe will officially unveil his constitutional changes: a rubberstamp senate, the nationalization of land, and domination of the electoral commission. The dictatorship is real. If the people don’t do something,…
Like Rwanda 1994, Bolivia grows worse, and worse. It’s collapsing as a nation. No one is at the helm of leadership, and no consensus on any leadership is on the horizon. The angry indigenous groups seem to be energized by growing strife and are rising in numbers. There seems to be an equally determined group on the other side in Santa Cruz who can find no common ground with their countrymen. President Mesa has warned that the country is sliding into civil war and has appealed to his Santa Cruz vice president to submit to elections. The vice president has…
Many of you may remember Le Sabot Post-Moderne, where the Discoshaman pretty much live-blogged the Orange Revolution in Ukraine during those amazing months. He’s back. Check him out.
A chilling, disturbing account of a society splitting apart as terror muzzles the media. Miguel has the proof, it’s only available on blogs now, read it here.
THIS IS HUGE! Iran scored a 1-0 victory against Bahrain, securing a place in the World Cup. And the crowd goes wild, taking advantage of the joyous event to shout against the regime. Iran erupted in a frenzy of raucous celebrations after the Islamic state booked its place at the 2006 World Cup soccer finals in Germany with a 1-0 home win over Gulf rivals Bahrain on Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets of the capital Tehran after the match, filling the night air with volleys of firecrackers, whistles and horns. State media reported similar scenes…
London 08.06.05 ö I come from a country where people spend time discussing the relevance and implications of a photo op. Since enough water has passed under the bridge I’ll take the liberty to give my humble opinion vis-a-vis Maria Corina Machado’s encounter with George W. Bush. There is a saying back home that goes “cachicamo trabaja p’a lapa” and in this particular instance, without wanting to substract merits to Maria Corina or Sumate, I feel that such is the case. The country was in awe, outraged by the rampant corruption going on at PDVSA. For the first time the…
Still breaking and unconfirmed of yet, but (via: Registan) Reuters is being told that 600 people are protesting in Samarkand. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has picked it up too. TASHKENT, June 8 (Reuters) – Hundreds of opposition supporters in eastern Uzbekistan held a rally on Wednesday in a rare protest since a bloody crackdown last month in a different part of the country, the opposition party said. The banned Free Farmers Party told Reuters 600 people were protesting on a farm in the Samarkand region which is home to a local activist who had been arrested by security forces. There…
Joshua Landis, living in Damascus, has a media roundup from around the world and talks about all of the proposals. The press, for the most part, has seen this as a “great step forward” — Ba’ath words actually — in reform toward democracy in Syria. But if that sounds too good to be true, then it probably is! Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it “the great sidestep.” Can you tell that I’m skeptical? President Assad has to worry about international pressure and internal political pressure, both of which will relate to how he proceeds with domestic reform.…
Gateway Pundit has been doing a fantastic job rounding up what’s been going on for the past two days. Students all over the country were peacefully protesting the rigged elections, when the army and police broke it up with brutal force. At the Addis Ababa Tegbare’ed (Technical School), police tried to disperse about 200 peaceful student protester today by brutally beating them. Construction workers threw stones at the police in support of the students. Several of them were arrested, as well as other non-students who joined the protest in the morning. Sapa-AP The police beat up the protesters using butts…
Victor Mallet of the Financial Times seizes on Rumsfeld’s recent comments on June 4, in which he said that China needs to open up its political system. Victor argues that economic growth and western influence — one in the same in China’s case — will bring with it inevitable internal democratic reform, even as the government resists it. He applauded the global spread of democracy, expressed satisfaction that dictatorships were losing power, and suggested that China needed ???????a growth in political freedom??????? and ???????a more open and representative government???????. The Chinese response was revealing. Cui Tiankai, the senior foreign ministry…
President Mesa offered his resignation to Congress as huge protests engulfed the capital for the past two weeks. These protests were led by angry leftist and Indian groups, demanding nationalization of Bolivia’s energy industry. But they are not the only angry group in the country – there are equally angry people in Santa Cruz, where the energy is located. Crucenos, many of whom are industrious immigrants, very much want the oil and natural gas industries developed through private means, as they would be in a normal country, with critical foreign investment so that jobs and a dynamic economy will be…
Two disasters happened this morning in South America. A slew of bombs went off against U.S. retailers in Buenos Aires, Argentina from a previously unknown ‘revolutionary’ group that’s suddenly got a lot of money for bombs. The bombers made no secret of their anti-American intentions as they hit a Citibank, a Blockbuster and attempted to hit a McDonald’s. Worse yet, the heritage of Peru was assaulted, with a historic church built in 1604 going up in flames, a fire that doesn’t seem to have any organic origin. Who set it? It looks like somebody did – someone with no respect…
Where is dictator Hugo Chavez taking Venezuela? Straight to hell. Two powerful essays by Gustavo Coronel and Carlos Alberto Montaner, about the deteriorating situation, one that will cost Venezuelans three generations of progress, are out with the same conclusions about the Chavez vortex of destruction. This is the reality. Don’t miss either of them, this is the work of both writers at their finest. Read them here and here. Hat tip: Real Clear Politics, Venezuela Today.
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.…
Miguel in Caracas, Venezuela has a fantastic picture show, comparing and contrasting the people George Bush associates with, and the people dictator Hugo Chavez associates with. Take a good look and draw your own conclusions about who’s the democrat, who’s the authentic revolutionary. Go see the amazing photos here.
Welcome to this week’s Carnival Of Revolutions! I’ll take a cue from Nathan and not pull out the humor. I don’t know where I’d pull it from. So let’s cut to the chase, down to this past week’s developments in democracy, elections, tyrannous acts, human rights, and pie. Apple pie. General: The World has a three part series examining pro-democracy movements, and the photos used were by none other than Veronica Khokhlova. A lot of people were pissed (and that’s just a few) that Amnesty International compared Gitmo to gulags and called the United States the greatest abuser of human…