Blogging the democratic revolution
Six days ago, I reported that American and British diplomats were meeting to discuss how to promote democratic regime change in Iran. Needless to say, most of the commenters were skeptical, generally pointing to the mere ten million dollars set aside for pro-democracy activities. That’s chump change. As Marko in the comments said, “$10 million to spend? Let????????s buy them all pro-democracy keychains!” Thankfully I know better than others that internal regime change is a serious policy direction for the administration because it is the only way a nuclear Iran will be acceptable to the Western powers. News of diplomats…
Terror-enabling Italian Muslim Association threatens to sueall those Italian media that printed- or intend to – the Mohammed cartoons. The UCOII (Union of the Islamic Communities in Italy) is a pro-Hamas organization that controls most of the mosques in Italy. As the brave investigative journalist, Il Corriere della Sera’s Magdi Allam often states,these mosques – with UCOII blessing – preach jihad and hatred against the ‘infidels’. UCOII is a sort of Islamic Mafia. Their target are several newspapers and TV programmes that dared to show the cartoons. The newspapers being targeted are: Libero , La Padania,La Stampa and Il Corriere…
This just in from Goldman Sachs – I have not seen this in the media but this is a credible source. I suspect the U.S. company is Heinz: Land Expropriations Continue The National Land Institute continues to survey large rural estates with a view to repossessing land holdings that are considered idle or underutilized or whose private property titles cannot be certified. Since last year, a number of high-profile rural estates have been taken over by the State and given to small local cooperatives. In the latest development, the Land Institute claims that a large property owned by a US-based…
Francisco Toro has a fascinating essay about the findings of pollster Alfredo Keller. As Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez prepares to seek reelection in December, the composition of those likely to vote for the supremodomo becomes important. Francisco reports that 52% of the electorate plans to vote for Chavez. Of this 52%: -33% do so only because they want Chavez’s handouts. -14% do so because they depend on government jobs. -6% do so because they are hardcore ideological leftists, the exact same number of people who voted for hardcore leftists before Chavez was elected. There is probably some overlap, e.g., some people…
Dissidents dismissed reports claiming that Cuban independent journalist Guillermo Farinas ended his 13-day long hunger and thirst strike. His health, as well as those of other dissidents who bravely are supporting him and are on hunger strike too, is deteriorating. Meanwhile,Dr. Darsi Ferrer from Havana sent me an email with photos of his humanitarian work among poor Cuban families. He,his wife and other freedom fighters visited some people suffering from AIDS. As fyou can see, their living condition is quite bad. Castro tried to arrest two of these activists along a Czech model for taking pics of these people and…
The burning-tire news photos from Haiti’s presidential election look horrific. After seven delays, elections finally went through in UN-occupied Haiti, and the result is a disaster. The election was held on Feb 7, and the vote counting went through the weekend. The organizers said there would be a delay in the expected results, but people celebrated who they thought had won anyway. The expected winner had been an agronomist named Rene Preval, who was a close associate of exiled President Aristide. Preval’s Hope party had been leading in the exit polls, but now the organizers say he got less than…
…everywhere a bil bil, old McChavez had a well… On hearing that oil prices took another serious beating today (think they are below $60 a barrel, so happy times are coming to a pump near you) I clicked onto El Universal to see if there was any reaction from Venezuela’s oil-drenched supremodomo Hugo Chavez, who’s openly sought oil at $100 a barrel to finance his “revolution.” Nothing. The vases are being thrown in the palace in private, I suppose. But I was struck by the pattern I was seeing. Another $1.2 billion was missing from the state coffers. Late last…
Rock singer Carlos Santana is famous for wearing a great big Che Guevara t-shirt at the Oscars a couple years ago. Cuban-American Pundits blogger Conductor met the guy on the street by chance in Sausalito, wearing his ‘Che is dead’ t-shirt and provoked the rock star into a conversation with him. I had expected Santana to be a guy who could be talked sense into, but unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. The amazing encounter of the conversation between Santana and the rational Cuban American is here. BREAKING UPDATE: Conductor described Santana as a pot-addled space case and it turns out…
Today marks the one year anniversary of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the start of Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution. At least 500,000 people took to the streets of Beirut to commemorate that fateful day. Images here. All the links you can handle here. Let’s hope that not only will today be used to commemorate the death of Rafik Hariri, but to help build momentum toward bringing the regime who killed him and occupied Lebanon to justice.
Following the super-flawed municipal elections held last week, the Supreme Court in Nepal has decided that the Royal Commission for Corruption Control, setup by royal decree soon after King Gyanendra took power one year ago, is completely unconstitutional and all decisions made by it are annulled. This is a major blow to the King and a major step back onto the path of democracy and the rule of law. He justified the commission by stating that it would be used to weed out corruption in the government, but instead it was used as his personal eight-man search and destroy party…
The Shia-based United Iraq Alliance finally made its nomination for prime minister evident, voting by an inter-party margin of one vote to choose current Prime Minister Jaafari to lead the country’s first democratically elected government. I think the choice could end up in a stalemate, with a new candidate eventually having to be proposed. Iraq the Model has thoughts on the matter, ultimately concluding that it’s too early to speculate too much — but that won’t stop me! Iraq’s ruling Shia coalition announced yesterday it had chosen incumbent Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister, clearing the way for…
The tiny island nation of Tonga, population 100,000, got it’s first commoner prime minister after the king’s son was removed from the position following months of public protest against his rather senile rule. Here’s the backstory. Tonga has moved closer to democracy with the king’s unpopular youngest son stepping down as prime minister in favour of an elected commoner – an historic first in the Pacific island monarchy. Without giving a reason, the Tongan government announced on Monday that after six years as prime minister, Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata resigned all his ministerial portfolios on Saturday. A statement said Crown…
Millions of Iranians have boycotted the official gatherings marking the 27th anniversary of the murderous and terroristic Islamic revolution. Don’t expect the media to report it. From SMCCDI Millions of Iranians inflicted another heavy slap to the face of the shaky and unpopular Islamic regime by boycotting its “27th anniversary revolution celebration” by staying home, or far from the official gatherings. The regime’s desperate leadership was hoping to bring millions in the streets by playing their nationalistic or religious feelings. But in Tehran, which was supposed to become a show room, the regime was unable to muster more than 70…
Why? Find out more here . And remember, the Bahamian authorities behave as badly as Castro. How long will it take before the civilized world realizes that Cuban refugees deserve the status of political refugees and must be granted political asylum? I am endorsing the boycott.
Miguel Buitrago at MABB has radical information – Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales may not after all be the best of fraternal socialist buddies – the problem starts because Chavez is up to no good trying to take over Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, something I could see coming from a mile away – Chavez ruined his “own” reserves, why wouldn’t he want to steal someone else’s? The guy has no sense of ownership or stewardship, he is pure, 100% brigand, and Morales is naive. But maybe not THAT naive. Miguel’s two must-read items on this most-welcome news here and here.…
Bolivia, at the center of the South American continent, seems to have everyone’s attention. Miguel at MABB describes the now-strong interest of major nations on poor small Bolivia, including everything from the U.S.’s drug eradication efforts to Brazil’s and the Andean Community’s energy interests. My short conclusion? Things have changed, this is no business as usual. A revolution of sorts has happened. Hence, the new world out there in Bolivia. Miguel’s interesting item is here. UPDATE: More on this topic from Boli-Nica, who’s been doing some fine blogging lately. His item is here.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has jerked Sumate around, with a high court throwing out the entire trial as it has been flimsily assembled, and a whole new one, on different grounds, in what’s known here as double-jeopardy, being started. This, in short, is political persecution, the acts of Chavistas desperately seeking a means of jailing these people … who have done nothing wrong … any way they can. The whole insane story’s updates, plus another update on the freedom-of-the-press attack using more double-jeopardy, is here. They’re just going to keep trying till they get them, it seems. I cannot imagine…
Val at Babalu blog has an important item on a hunger strike being done by an independent Cuban journalist inside Cuba who’s been denied any Internet access at all from which to file his stories to the outside world. The rest of us take this for granted but in Cuba, it’s something Castro considers his privilege. This poor fellow is willing to starve himself to get the gag off and barely anyone is noticing. It’s sad. Val’s writeup, and a photo of the Havana journalist, is here. UPDATE: And Ziva, at Blog for Cuba, has more thoughts here.
With possibly a 1,000-vote discrepancy between Oscar Arias and Otton Solis in their ultra-close and now contentious presidential election from Sunday, Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey has has found that plans are already under way to recycle the ballots into toilet paper. Somehow, for some at least, it will seem fitting. Her funny item is here. Oh, and be sure to see some of her other stuff on the more serious political state of affairs here and here. Via Global Voices, a site called Costa Rica en el presente, has what it says are unofficial presidential election results, in Spanish, and…
Boz has some really good polling numbers this week, all kinds of unusual numbers, including a delicious Peruvian one showing that Ollanta Humala, Chavez ally and leftist torturer of peasants, is dropping like a stone in Peru’s presidential polls for April. Peruvians just don’t like him. Not only that, Tony Saca is doing fine in El Salvador. You gotta see this whole thing here.
Daniel in Venezuela has a fascinating political analysis of what the real meaning of Chavez’s thuggish outburst directed as United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling him “a pawn of the empire” was really all about. Daniel thinks that Blair’s pointed remarks to the Veneuzelan dictator were completely intentional and signal that the European Union is getting fed up with him. Daniel names a whole slew of reasons, which, if he’s right, should mean that the tropical dictator is growing ever more isolated, except among the world’s pariah states, something that will have implications for its eventual democratic revolution. It’s…
It’s a growing spectacle. Troops are taking control of every productive aspect of Venezuelan society as the private sector seeks to close shop. They’re in food production, in hotel security, in road maintenance – you name it. They are everywhere to be seen, something that Indonesia under Suharto and China before Deng Xiaoping’s reforms were. It’s fascist nationalism, particularly because of the pocket-lining aspects, something that the Suharto regime was especially noteworthy for. We often look to Eastern Europe as the model for Chavez, but the proto-fascist regimes of East Asia before the economic crisis of 1998 are also pretty…
The setup seems so marvelous, the U.S. bipartisan congressional National Endowment for Democracy gives funds to many nongovernment organizations around the world to spread democratic revolution. But what happens when the grants blows up in the recipients’ faces? Such as Venezuela, where Maria Corina Machado is facing charges for taking the money? Does anyone look out for her? Places, like Venezuela, that SAY they are democracies aren’t necessarily that. Here is one editorial that calls for taking more responsibility for the democracy-spreading recipients of these grants here.
The BBC Radio ran an interview with Natan Sharansky on its “Taking A Stand” program. There’s no transcript of the interview, so you’ll just have to listen to the report. He talks about his time in the Soviet gulag, his release, his career in Israeli politics, and most interestingly his take on Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian elections. His position is that though the election obviously represented the true choice of the Palestinian people, it is not good for democracy. His book, The Case For Democracy, focuses extensively on the issue of promoting democracy in the Palestinian territories. He says…
I’m totally swamped with reading for my so-called “formal education,” but since it’s mostly on democracy and terrorism perhaps you all will be interested in checking out the books that I myself am reading at this time. – Democratization: A Critical Introduction: Very basic. If you’ve been reading this site, then you will easily understand all of the major concepts and theories introduced in this book. – The Dynamics of Democratization : Elites, Civil Society and the Transition Process: I like this one a bit more than the above, because it focuses a lot on the role of elites and…