Blogging the democratic revolution
Final Thoughts Before the Elections By Alex Beech Political marches induce hope in the best cases, and hysteria in the worst. During the referendum, I noticed how a march can beintoxicating – to see all those people in one place, to feel the energy. But at the end of the day, millions stay home, and…
The Manuel Rosales presidential election rally in Caracas Saturday Source: Aleksander Boyd at VCrisis The size and depth of the crowd at the Rosales rally in Caracas Saturday Source: Daniel Duquenal at Venezuela News & Views Venezuelan flags at the Rosales presidential rally in Caracas Saturday Source: Anonymous, via Venezuela Today The babe count was…
This time, avalancha in Barquisimeto, Venezuela Source: Aleksander Boyd, VCrisis How does one explain this? The huge ‘avalancha’ crowds of Venezuelans from end to end of the vast South American nation the size of three Texases, all seeking an end to Chavismo is the rainbow swirling edge of pure democratic revolution. The photos – and…
Inflation, as Milton Friedman said, is a monetary phenomenon. The only way you get inflation is to print out money like there’s no tomorrow. Because when you do that, there IS no tomorrow, money-printing destroys savings and with it, future investment. Which would have great implications for a nation’s stability and passage to or from…
The mind of Hugo Chavez is like a compost heap. It’s full of layer upon layer of muck, and when he gets to spreading it out through what comes out of his mouth, you never know what will come up to the top. Greg Wilpert, a Chavista agent who edits a prominent Chavista Web site,…
Monday the trade Neanderthals in Congress rejected endorsement of Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organization. It was slopped through a lame-duck committee and Congressional Republicans and Democrats voted against bringing Vietnam into the world trading system. They wanted to shut Vietnam out. And keep all the trade to themselves. Problem is, it takes two…
Alek Boyd has taken some photos of Puerto Cabello’s refineries, showing all how Hugo Chavez is painting the entire industrial complex a bright communist red. Rather than the ethereal white of the Long Beach refineries, it’s this rage-inducing comrade red, Chavez’s own color. The only othe place I’ve seen this done is Tijuana, Mexico, where…
What’s gotten into Brazil’s supposedly decent president, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva? He flew up to Venezuela and openly endorsed Hugo Chavez for president, hugging and kissing him, and openly meddling in an election for a country that’s not his own. Oddly enough, Chavez did not do the same for him, which is to say…
Alan Garcia, out to break Hugo Chavez Source: Libardo Buitrago Meet Hugo Chavez’s worst nightmare: President Alan Garcia of Peru, who blasted Hugo Chavez as a thug, meddler, briber and intimidator yet again, in an interview with a big Venezuelan newspaper, El Universal. The nightmare Hugo Chavez didn’t foresee: Alan Garcia of Peru Source: AP,…
As Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez prepares to “win” a new election with Jimmy Carter’s renewed collaboration, suspect “polls” executed with Chavista funding, are preemptively declaring Chavez the runaway winner. That’s funny because Chavez sure isn’t acting like a winner. He’s acting like a dictator who’s running scared. Like Robespierre staring down Danton, fearful of losing…
I have had long running arguments with naivos even close to the oil industry that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela intended to turn not just Venezuela’s state oil company into a worker-ant collective but Western oil majors’ Venezuelan operations into them as well. Today, I stand vindicated. Today, workers from Chevron, Repsol, Shell, Exxon, Total and…
Christmas season in Venezuela and nothing upsets Santa Chavez more than a little competition. That’s why the Venezuelan strongman, who’s famous for doling out pork-barrel goodies has made it abundantly clear that there won’t be any Santa Claus, any lighted Christmas trees, and certainly not Frosty the Snowman in his Castroite fiefdom. After all, HE’S…
Urrrrghhhhh! Wonder why. UPDATE: Chavez is just beaming at Rumsfeld’s resignation. Rumsfeld, you may recall, compared Chavez to Hitler. Alex Beech sent me some additional thoughts here: What Hugo Chavez Could Learn from Bush 08.11.06 ö There is no one celebrating the Republicans’ defeat today more than President Chavez, who said on Wednesday that the…
I just got this note in from Alex Beech: Censorship in Venezuela official Begins; Live Broadcasts are Forbidden On Tuesday afternoon, a National Guard major notified the country’s private television networks in Venezuela that requests for live broadcasts would have to be submitted to the National Guard twenty four hours prior to transmission. According to…
America is the strongest single country in the world, and in this position it has made many enemies of those who oppose such things as democracy and the free market. Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez, just to name a few. But these three especially are bent on the destruction or obsolescence America itself…
As Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez continues to crash in the polls, we are seeing a growing campaign of what can be summed up in short as lies and intimidation, explicitly centered around the Venezuelan oil company, Chavez’s own cash-cow. Over the weekend, Chavez’s energy minister, Rafael Ramirez, explicitly threatened oil workers at the state oil…
Half a million people marched against Hugo Chavez in a campaign rally for rapidly rising challenger Manuel Rosales in Caracas on Saturday Alek Boyd of VCrisis, who was obviously at the gigantic 15-mile rally, has taken some spectacular photos of the gargantuan march against Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who vows to Cubanize the country and…
One heck of a campaign rally! 500,000 marched for Manuel Rosales, who’s challenging Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez for the presidency in Caracas Saturday Source, all photos: Globovision, which has more here UPDATE: OK, it’s not millions. It’s half a million. (My original headline said ‘millions’) But it’s more than expected and it’s still huge, at…
Violence in Oaxaca, on Tuesday Source: Agencia EFE Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez’s fingerprints are all over the leftist violence and insurrection going on in Oaxaca, Mexico right now. That’s not my conjecture but what’s running in the mainstream Mexican press. Like here. The past weekend, President Vicente Fox sent in the troops to the troubled…
Isn’t there a leftwing site somewhere that devotes itself to watching Fox News “so you don’t have to”? I think there is, and it’s an entertaining thing. Venezuela has its own TV-watcher, doing yeoman’s work, watching the Chavistas in action on the television – our own dear Daniel Duquenal of Venezuela News & Views. Daniel…
Alek Boyd has been doing some fantastic reporting on the state of poor society in Venezuela, actually talking to people and seeing what it’s like in their often ignored world. Are you aware that Venezuela’s poor are poorer than any other western hemispheric nation’s poor? I mean places like Haiti, Nicaragua, Brazil and Bolivia? I…
The U.S. government launched a federal probe of Smartmatic, the Venezuelan voting machine company affiliated with the Venezuelan government, whose machines were instrumental in all the electoral fraud committed in Venezuela since 2004. The company claims the probe, first broke by the Miami Herald on Saturday, was all their idea but ahead of U.S. elections,…
Recently, there was a Zogby poll that came out, claiming Hugo Chavez had a commanding lead over his opposition. Who paid for it is unknown, but Alek Boyd has a new item up indicating that the signs point to Hugo himself. After all, hasn’t Hugo set up phony polling firms of his own, for the…
Doctor Zin at Regime Change Iran has found a megatrend piece that’s so arresting it can’t help but make you stop and think. World oil prices right now are dropping like a stone. If they go below $50 a barrel and stay there, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are in…
ANSWER Coalition anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan Source: Susan Forrest, Indymedia Los Angeles Today I went to the antiwar protests, over in Hollywood, to check out the scene. Compared to other antiwar rallies, this was small. It might have been put together hastily – I did not learn about it until yesterday. Still, ANSWER tends to…