Blogging the democratic revolution
Miguel Octavio has a couple of new pictures up showing the extent of Chavista vulgarity. Chavez’s so-called Bolivarian “revolution” has come to this here.
Bubba and Junior, some of the oilmen down in Lou’siana, are getting a little disgusted about a certain Senor Chavez of Venezuela, and it might just be about to affect bidness. Seems one of Citgo’s top suppliers, Evans Oil, is preparing to dump Venezuela as a supplier and move on to other sources of petroleum. Venezuela’s cheap and Venezuela’s convenient, but that’s getting to be secondary, given one little problem: The oilmen are right peaceable people and don’t care much for Hugo Chavez’s raving anti-U.S. lunatic rhetoric these days. They know how their customers feel about these things and are…
Tens of thousands of demonstrators are gathering in Royal Square in Bangkok at this very moment, calling from Prime Minister Thaksin to resign over a deal that sold off Thailand’s largest telecommunications company to a Singapore firm that netted his family $1.7 billion in profits due to the use of tax loopholes. The protest could gain to hundreds of thousands, even higher than other protests that have been ongoing in the past several weeks. Even the Dharma Army, a foundation of monks tens of thousands strong that helped topple the 1990’s military dictatorship, has joined in and is vowing not…
With a presidential “election” just over two weeks away, things are worse in Belarus than they usually are. The opposition is gearing up for the fight of its life, uniting behind a single candidate for the first time. President Lukashenko, on the other hand, is ready to kill them if he has to. Or at least beat them and fire in their general direction. The formidable br23 blog reports in more detail than Reuters ever could about the arrest and beating of one of the opposition candidates, Alexander Kazulin. The details are simply hard to imagine. Afterward, the main opposition…
The SMCCDI Movement reports that U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) has had a direct conversation with the Iranians in Iran through a popular Los Angeles-based Iranian satellite TV: In part of the Sunday Q&A program and responding to an Iranian woman who asked “why the US is staying idyll in reference to the plight of Iranians?”, Curt Weldon stated: “You’re no more left alone; the American People, the US President and the US legislative power are behind you and are hearing you… Republicans and Democrats are coming together in order to call for an end to tyranny in Iran… Our…
As I’ve been saying all along, the only ones who really stood to benefit, and those who really took advantage of the al-Askariya shrine bombing, is Moqtada al-Sadr and his counterparts in Iran. Now, a preliminary investigation by the deputy governor of Saladin, where the Shia holy city of Samarra and the shrine is located, has yielded that the perpetrators of the bombing was most like… dun dun dun… Iran! The deputy governor of the Iraqi province of Saladin, where the holy city of Samarra is situated, said preliminary investigation was pointing to Iran????????s role in the bombing of the…
The rising star of Moqtada al-Sadr has been the subject of much recent speculation: how his bloc became the biggest in the Shia UIA alliance, how he controls one of the most extremist militias in the country, and how he has become one of the most important politicians in Iraq’s development toward democracy. And also one of its biggest threats. Avowedly ready to stage an uprising should Iran give the order, some military commanders must be wondering why the hell they didn’t get rid of him a long time ago when they had the chance. Now his prominence is being…
She’s a model. Miss Czech Republic 1999 to be exact. She also has a charity for impoverished children that operates in nine different countries. Talk about a heart of gold and the hair to go with it, eh? This woman visited Cuba, the real Cuba, to get a sense of whether or not her charity could help people there. What she found made her squeamish. Not only did she find tens of thousands of people living in shantytowns, children starving in the streets, and HIV-positive workers forced into psychiatric wards, but that the Cuban secret police didn’t want anyone to…
Michelle Bachelet of Chile has just kicked Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez where it hurts again, and this isn’t the first time. Awhile back, the Venezuelan dictator said he wanted to ‘hug’ her and was met with stony silence. She’s been even more assertive on other fronts with him as well. Today, she’s somehow gotten the message to the clown that he’s not to try to upstage her during her historic presidential inauguration on March 11. Chavez is to take no ‘awards,’ make no ‘speeches’ and pander to no local leftists who might want to ‘honor’ him. If he wants that,…
It’s started. Leftist barbarians in El Salvador are burning tires and hurling explosive devices into the faces of police as their way of resolving their disagreements over the implementation of CAFTA. They are always free to not trade with us if that is their wish but they just can’t leave others alone who choose differently. That’s why they’re creating an atmosphere of terror through their incendiary devices and seeking to ruin the business climate for everyone. That way, they can all sit in the mud together with no free trade and wonder why the hell they are poor. Agencia EFE…
(Disclaimer: I’m in a heavy-OT zone today, and do not have the time to write this up with the care that it deserves, but the issue needs to be raised, because the “common wisdom” is beginning to accrete in a dangerous direction.) Bosnia has brought up Serbia on war crimes. Yes, the entire nation. This has never been done before, and there’s a good reason for that: the Allies didn’t hang the entire population of Germany for war crimes after World War II, the entire Serbian nation didn’t somehow wake up one morning and think “let’s go murder all the…
The declaration of a state of emergency, the possibility of a military coup, and the rising chance of mass street protests are all challenges to democracy in the Philippines. After twenty years following the original People Power Revolution, it’s high time that all of the country’s stakeholders begin to respect the rule of law. Especially the military. While President Arroyo’s declaration of emergency may be both shady as well as bad politics, especially in light of her lost legitimacy following a corruption scandal last year, the military has done more to undermine democracy in the Philippines than any other single…
After so many complaints that the United Nations Human Rights Commission is host to some of the most abusive human rights violators on the planet, one would think that the United States is being hypocritical by opposing planned reform at the UN for scrapping it and creating a new Human Rights Council that’s more effective in dealing with these issues. That’s what you’d think if you only read the headline and first paragraph of this Guardian Unlimited article, anyway. U.S. Against Proposed U.N. Rights Panel UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The United States announced its opposition to the proposed new U.N.…
Source: The Nation It’s getting bad again in Thailand. The Bangkok Post says the crisis is deepening. The opposition to billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, led by rival media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul, is giving Thaksin till Saturday to resign or they will chase him out. About 50,000 demonstrators filled the streets Sunday, and another 25,000 filled the streets Monday. All credible analysts point to 1992-style violence, the memory of which is pretty grim. An old monk-general who led that 1992 People Power revolt against what was then Thailand’s tinpot generals, has recently resurfaced at rallies and people are starting to…
This would be a completely irrelevant toss-off post except for its potential significance. The MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum) is raising some eyebrows with a couple pieces of news lately. It needs to, because as discussed before, the MDF is in a fight for its life when it comes to parliamentary representation. If it cannot make 5%, and that’s looking increasingly doubtful, then it’s out there with the also-rans. Which makes it significant that the MDF: 1. Has said they will neither enter into coalition with FIDESZ, nor support them with second-round votes. FIDESZ, whose proposals are increasingly self-contradictory, is no…
Take that, Hugo Chavez! Colombia has chosen freedom and prosperity over dependency, isolation and handouts! A free trade pact was signed this morning with the U.S.! It was one long hard tough slog in negotiations, but President Alvaro Uribe and the U.S. Trade Representative finally came to common ground after lots of give and take, as is right between two good friends. Today, Colombia now has access to the world’s biggest market, will get all the computers and technology and whatever it want from our markets, and we in the U.S. in turn will benefit from Colombia’s ever more competitively…
A Chavista women’s collective in a small city called Los Teques in Venezuela recently sent this letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and some of his key minions. If this is Chavista, then we are ALL Chavistas. Their fascinating statement highlights the growing popular opposition to the corruption, the thievery, the bureaucratization and the barbarism of the Chavez “revolution.” The women are not closing their eyes. Although these women say they still have faith in Chavez, they certainly have lost any such faith in Chavez’s underlings who are supposedly distributing the spoils but in fact pocketing them. Poor people do…
President Bush has once again renewed his moral support of the Iranian people and their aspirations to total freedom. This time, it seems, he’ll do more than merely talking about freedom; he pledged economic aid to the Iranian freedom fighters and those who risk their life by taking to the streets against the regime. It remains to be seen if these funds will be directed to genuine opposition groups rather than to ‘reformers’, who want to save a part of the regime. Indeed, to be effective, the funds should be directed to those student,workers and women’s movements that don’t have…
Our dear friends, Darsi Ferrer, his wife Yusnaimy and other freedom fighters are keeping to help poor Cubans by directly visiting them in their favelas.Dari’s wife, Yusnaimy, even risked to be thrown in jail along with two Czech women for talking to ordinary Cubans about their daily problems. Czech model Helena Houdova also contributed to this noble humanitarian effort. To see all the photos check out here (scroll down) and here To help Darsi’s humanitarian work, please contact him or his wife: Darsi Ferrer Ramirez: darsiferrerÉyahoo.com Yusnaimy Jorge Soca : yusnaimyjorgeÉyahoo.com Address: Calle San Bernardino 265 entre Serrano y Durege,…
The sweeping victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary election has the Bush administration and foreign policy experts on their toes. Isn????????t democracy supposed to be what frees the entire region from tyranny? That????????s how the meme goes. Yet fairer elections in Egypt gave one quarter of the seats to the Muslim Brotherhood, and now Hamas rules the territories. If we define democracy on these terms alone, then what we have on our hands is a political census that shows the possibility of many countries electing Islamic extremists to power. I seriously doubt the world wants to handle more than…
President Gloria Arroyo has announced a state of emergency in the Philippines following the thwarting of a coup plot. Somewhat ironically, today is the 20th anniversary of the original People Power revolution that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos. MANILA (Reuters) – President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared emergency rule in the Philippines on Friday after the military said it foiled a coup attempt, but analysts criticized the move as unwarranted and potentially damaging to the economy. Talk of plots against Arroyo, who survived a crisis last year over allegations of vote-rigging and corruption, has been running high around this week’s anniversary of…
The blogosphere has been abuzz about the bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Iraq, one of holiest shrines in Shia Islam. Of course, news reports always labels shrines as one of the holiest shrines, but it’s definitely true this time. This one is at the top. The attack was so profoundly felt by Shia Muslims that it has led to attacks on Sunni Muslim mosques and believers all over the country in retribution. Some think this may be a precursor to civil war. Others think not. I think not. But many haven’t looked at is the politics behind the attack;…
Alek Boyd at VCrisis and Daniel at Venezuela News & Views alert us to a new Chavista propaganda offensive against some of the best reporting on Venezuela coming out these days. It looks like Venezuela’s attacks on the free press do not stop at its water’s edge, but extend to any media anywhere in the world that dares report the truth on Venezuela. In a spectacular article, The Christian Science Monitor sent a freelance reporter up to Venezuela’s mountain shantytowns and interviewed people about just how they felt about Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Not surprisingly, Venezuela’s poor have the same…
If it weren’t sketchy enough that this is the second opposition leader assassinated in Kazakhstan within the past three months, the head of the government intelligence agency has resigned. He did so because several of his officers were implicated in the murder and have confessed, or so the story goes! ALMATY, Kazakhstan ???????? Kazakhstan’s intelligence chief resigned Wednesday after several of his subordinates were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the slaying of an opposition leader. The opposition has said the Feb. 11 killing of Altynbek Sarsenbayev was politically motivated and was carried out by the special services. Nartai Dutbayev…
My eyes are practically filled with tears of joy on this news. Something our Salvadoran and Honduran and Nicaraguan friends have been PRAYING for for years has really happened … A-G-A-I-N-S-T … A-L-L … O-D-D-S!!!!! If there is a such thing as miracles, this is it. Thousands of undocumented workers from war-torn El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America have had their temporary protected status in the U.S. extended. President Bush hinted at it in his state of the union message but I was not sure what he would do. News reports continuously said that Bush would let this bill…