Blogging the democratic revolution
There’ve been numerous ‘acts of repudiation’ against peaceful freedom fighters across Cuba in the last few days. On last Saturday, Tania Nicol????s Bernardo , member of the Femenine Movement “Martha Abreu” was savagely beaten by a terrorist mob made up with plainclothes agents of the Castroite militias. It occurred in a public street in Santa Clara, following a peaceful march of Tania alongside other activists, who were distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, brochures with the word “Change” and other dissident material, to the people. Yesterday, other activists of such movement marched peacefully in Villa Clara in…
Mexico’s governor of Sonora state makes an impassioned declaration about how free trade works awesomely in his state and in neighboring Arizona. He explains how free trade lifts businesses across the board. How great it is to look on Mexico as an equal neighbor instead of a problem issue. That’s the beauty of free trade and I commend this governor for standing up for his experience with the matter and trying to get it through the heads of the ignorant on both sides of the border that free trade works! Hat tip: Real Clear Politics
The liveblogging will be somewhat quiet, but please continue to post results, updates and opinions in the comments section. ÄThe blogging does in fact pick up below.Å ÄWith Canada’s absolutely ridiculous laws, there really won’t be much to discuss until a few hours later, so I think I probably won’t post much, but later on there will no doubt be insightful comments at Captain’s Quarters and around the Canadian blogosphere. Enjoy the Maple Revolution!Å Will conservatives be upset if/when the CPC only brings home a powerless minority? So far the Atlantic provinces are voting pretty much according to expectations, perhaps…
Yesterday, the ex-Polish Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa addressed Cuban dissidents via video conference at the residence of the U.S. Interest Section chief Michael Parmly in Havana. Walesa said that Cuba will be free very soon: “The system will fall because nobody believes in communism.You are close to your goal”. Meanwhile, Castroite fascist mobs continue to attack peaceful dissidents. Paramilitary mobs led by plainclothes agents of the state security and officials of the Interior Ministry attacked 3 peaceful freedom fighters members of the Cuban Democratic Alliance, the Foundation for Human Rights, the Democratic Oriental Alliance and independent agency ‘Youth Without Censorship’.…
It looks like Code Pink forgot to tell Common Dreams News Center that their logo is bunk and a forgery. In a recent article written by our all-time favorite mental patient Cindy Sheheen, Common Dreams proudly displays the logo that exploits a brave Iranian woman. You know, the one that Code Pink tried to swiftly remove without any notice. Looks like someone forgot to cover their tracks.
Miguel has the story here, the background here, and the new freedom-babe photos here. UPDATE: I grossly underestimated the size of the crowd in my original headline, it was 120,000, not 10,000. I have since updated it. El Universal has story here.
A prominent Iranian feminist activist and freedom fighter passed away yesterday in Tehran. The maverick and combatant woman never abdicated from her principles and humanistic believes, despite all pressures exerted by the Islamic republic regime, and she was always supportive of Iranian students and freedom fighters. Despite her age and physical conditions, she actively participated in the “July 9, 1999 Students’ Uprising”, beside her courageous daughter “Maloos Radnia known also as Mariam Shansy”. “Vajiheh Cheguini” raised the anger of the brutal “Ali Falhahian” (an Islamist Cleric known for his involvement in the killing of dissidents and a former Ministry of…
Earlier A.M. Mora y Leon had a post detailing a badly-done and horribly misguided photoshop of brave Iranian women into mindless shells of the Code Pink cult. It appears that they quietly took down that image after Mora drew attention to it. Now, most people aren’t dumb enough (or wicked enough) to pull off a stunt like that. But, having done so and having been publicly shamed, one would think the very last thing such a person would do — even an extremely dumb and wicked person — is to replace that fraud with another similar fraud. Here’s the new…
About 100,000 leftwing activists will arrive in Caracas for the World Social Forum next week. With numbers that great, there will be sane, thinking people among them, even if they are on the far left. And maybe, some will be in moderate and democratic left, it’s pretty sure. That’s why Venezuelan bloggers are doing their utmost to communicate with the attendees about the militarism they will see on the streets, some of which has given some of the WSF attendees cause for concern. As Iria explained to me on Global Voices the other day: I really don????????t know whether or…
Miguel Buitrago at the excellent MABB blog has a list of all the attendees and a map of how the procession will go. It’s everything you need to know about the Morales inaugural, which I am watching closely. Read it here. One of our posters, Jonathan, provided an excellent link to show that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro will not be coming. I find that interesting as heck because Morales, practically the day after he was elected, got on a PDVSA jet and jetted off to see the bearded bastard. Does this mean Castro’s in bad health? Or could it be…
Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has discovered something a bit different for Global Voices this week, with unusual blogs showing growing readership in Bolivia – yes, soccer blogs. Don’t laugh – of course this is revolutionary – this is a hemisphere that has had ‘soccer wars!’ Check it out here.
Excellent stuff from Boz, the Mexican and Peruvian presidential campaign polls in particular are important as far-leftists are among the contenders, the horse races are close, and elections are coming up soon. Also, check out the latest polls on existing presidents in Latin America, at the end of his post. It is all worth reading here.
At least in principle. He will enrage the left by this statement. Strike up the band and play, “the world turned upside down.” Good sense has come to the mind of Evo Morales! As long as he continues on this path, he’s gonna make it to the finish line. Keep going, Evo! And boy is this going to make Hugo Chavez mad!!! The story is here.
Sorry everyone, but the large traffic influx due to the post about Code Pink has led my web host to temporarily block access to the site for several hours because it literally crashed the entire server. Sorry for the inconvenience everyone! I think they may be communist sympathizers. The downtime is unacceptable when it comes to issues of the blogosphere, where news moves quickly, so I’m in the process of moving the site to a new host. Hopefully this can happen over the weekend and we won’t ever have any downtime again.
Hillary Clinton, on her latest rumble and tumble of speeches aimed at the Bush administration, has accused it of downplaying Iran as a threat to national security and has subsequently called for sanctions against the regime. But in the wake of so many lobbying and corruption scandals in Washington, is Hillary playing a game of double standards? According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Clinton has received $5000 in campaign contributions from a PAC called the American Iranian Council, which is known to be against sanctions and in favor of restoring diplomatic and trade relations between America and Iran —…
If you’re already going to rest for the weekend, think again: there’re some op/eds you might want to read and I thought I had to post them here. Michael Ledeen wrote an interesting piece in the National Review urging the Bush administration to do the right thing with respect to Iran. Below are some excerpts : You want to bomb the nuclear facilities? Do you really believe that our intelligence community is capable of identifying them? The same crowd that did all that yeoman work on Saddam’s Iraq? The CIA that once received accurate information on Iranian schemes in Afghanistan,…
After the jailing of opposition leader Ayman Nour, the United States has decided to halt free trade talks with Egypt for the meantime. It is a sign of growing American willingness to make the distinctive link between the economic benefits it can bestow and the nature of the governments we do business with. The decision highlighted a growing rift with an important Middle Eastern ally after it held an election for president last September that the United States described as highly flawed. Egypt had been eager to work out an agreement that would reduce or eliminate tariffs and increase trade…
Unbelievable. Code Pink, an anti-American, anti-Iraqi-freedom, anti-Iranian-democracy full-Sandalista nuisance group, has taken to photoshopping photographs of Iranian freedom babes brave enough to protest against the monstrous mullahs of Iran, and used their beautiful images as recruiting tools for their own odious, anaphrodisiac cause. This cause just happens to be cut-and-run from Iraq, so that mullahs will be free to oppress women in ‘peace.’ That’s Code Pink’s cause! It is so disgusting! They can’t even tell the difference between Iranians and Iraqis, among other things, and just don’t care. But that’s not nearly as bad as changing the message the women…
Iraq the Model has a new banner; also a number of good posts, including a discussion of the recent investigation into allegations of electoral fraud in Iraq, a new security arrangement, and a whole lot more Iraqi democratic politics — check it out! While I’m writing, Academic Elephant has a pretty good blonde joke.
From the cycle: ???????This can happen only in Romania???????? (and I????????m sure in the third world countries, but in theory Romania is not a part of that lot). I have wanted to share with you the story of Ion Dumitru, father of 7 children who has been kept in jail for 866 days, by mistake. He told the police men that he is not guilty, and after being jailed he wrote dozens of letters to the authorities claiming his innocence. His bad luck was the high resemblance with his (evil) brother Gheorghe. Apparently Gheorghe has been convicted in few dossiers,…
…that doesn’t read like satire. Miguel got human nature and the Chavista mentality down on the effect of tax cuts, business incentives and housing shortages so precisely that he fooled me into thinking he had posted a perfectly straight news story! It wasn’t! Ohmygosh! You have to see this thing here!
In a move to confuse news agencies, the Syrian government has released five activists who took part in the Damascus Spring, all the while meeting with Iran’s messianic president. Syrian authorities have released five pro-democracy activists, including two prominent former legislators, after they had served nearly four years of their five-year prison sentences. Those released Wednesday – former legislators Mamoun Homsi and Riad Saif; Fawwaz Sello, Walid al-Bunni and Habib Issa – were part of a group of nine men arrested in 2001. They had been imprisoned for 45 months. Three of the group were released earlier. Issa told The…
It has been nearly a year since the King suspended democracy in the country and began his crackdown on the political opposition; which, at this point, is every political party in the country. Earlier this month, the King of Nepal reinstituted a ban on political rallies that had been lifted late last year. In response, pro-democracy forces in the country have prepared a massive rally to protest the renewed political repression. As if to prove them right, the King responded by cutting all communications in the country in an attempt to foil the organizers of the rally. Phone lines, cellulars,…
Here’s one more reason to hope for Condi-in-’08, as well as a reflection of the Bush administration’s emphasis on the democratic changes currently taking place around the world. The US is moving a hundred diplomatic posts from staid Western locations to Africa and the booming East. Clearly the administration recognizes the importance of the sorts of stories Publius covers. The Financial Times says: Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, yesterday called Äthe moveÅ a “sweeping and difficult” transformation of US diplomacy. “In the 21st century, emerging nations like India and China, and Brazil and Egypt, and Indonesia and South Africa…
Index recently ran a condensed political analysis from financial analysts at Erste Bank, entitled The Market doesn’t care for Grand Coalitions. The upshot of the article is that across Central Europe, the political scene is characterized by weak parliamentary majorities. The writers give a general overview of East-Central Europe, which is unfortunately so severely condensed as to be nearly unusable to a foreigner, as the writer has conveniently renamed the Czech, Slovak, and Polish political party names into Hungarian equivalents that do not always translate well… but it backs up the general unease felt by the markets at the thought…