Tag Archives: Bolivia

Che, The Internationalist

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Che Guevara lives on in the victory of his ideals over those of his adversaries. Che was an internationalist appalled by the poverty that the US Empire and its capitalism had delivered to the common people across the Americas and on other continents like Africa.

Today, he remains the living antithesis to our government’s constant desire to conquer other peoples and to rule over them in the consequent misery that comes to the fallen.

Che, like Martin Luther King, had a dream. Forty years later it is still honored by others in their respect for this true American hero. And in the country where he was murdered by the CIA’s henchmen, the people honor him more than ever. Bolivia The press makes it out as if it is a party, but Che’s dream lives on as US power in the Americas begins to erode.

Masked crusader of illiterary legend

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America humiliates Mexico for the Zimmerman Telegram
All Pikes Peak Reads has chosen this year’s library recommendation: ZORRO! Did you know that was a work of literature? Dumas, you think? R.L.S.? This choice follows To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein, Treasure Island, and Alice in Wonderland. All accessible to younger readers to be sure, and literary to boot. I have no argument with Isabel Allende’s Zorro [prequel], to entice the participation of Pikes Peak area adults, but what for the children? Charles Lamb? Harold Lamb? Did Zorro capture their prolific imagination? No, the kids get to read not the Legend of Zorro, but ABOUT the legend of Zorro. Great, so it’s not literature, at least it’s history. Is it?

Not even.

It turns out Zorro sprung from a post-WWI pulp serial The Curse of Capistrano written by screenwriter Johnston McCulley. The black mask and cape were added by Douglas Fairbanks in his 1920 portrayal, and the rest is [film] history. So Zorro is Tinseltown legend, and the historical setting inverts itself from there. The Hispanic colonial rule of California against which Zorro rebelled never existed in that too-rural territory. But it sure creates a convenient boogey man from which the United States can feel better liberating the early Californians. Zorro, in Spanish “The Fox” being the surrogate advance scout, extending justice over the objections of the despicable Spaniards until the cavalry can arrive. The adventure published on the heels of US belligerent fight-picking with Mexico. So much for history.

A Zorro legend lacks even for historical precursors. Robin Hood might be the closest example, except according to legend, Robin Hood was a man of the people, not a rich man robbing for the poor. Zorro’s Don Diego follows more the Alexander Dumas model of The Count of Monte Cristo, avenging having been usurped of his noble birthright. Since the Enlightenment and the suspicions it cast on the divinity of monarchist rule, official chroniclers have been tasked to remind the masses that a “fox” could never be more cunning than his betters unless he was of uncommon blood. Noble deeds can only be expected of noblemen, hence the term. This stereotype has always trumped the Puss in Boots or Horatio Alger stories coming from steerage. The Count begat Zorro begat Batman begat the Green Hornet begat the George Soros secret funding mystique. Now we even speculate that Robin Hood, had he existed, must have been a disenfranchised noble. Likewise Jack the Ripper. Common man can’t even get credit for crime.

To be clear, the oligarchs know their people won’t buy rule by divine right, but we do respect Darwin’s survival of the fittest. And certainly fitness and advantage are hereditary. Only those fit shall rule.

I extend this deference of heritage to my real life heros, but is it warranted? Che Guevara was from the privileged class and is lauded by the counter-culture as the most heroic revolutionary figure of our time. But ultimately, and conveniently, a tragic failure. On the other hand, the truly effective populist reformers of modern times have all been of ordinary birth. Counting backward, Morales, Chavez, Mandela, King, Lumumba, Castro, Gandhi, Mao, Lenin, Marx.

Would Zorro stand up as an Easop’s fable or does he subvert man’s self-wisdom? Gotham cannot fend off its criminal elements without super-just Richie-Rich Bruce Wayne, thankfully completely benign in his vigilante despotism and not the least bit a corrupted-absolutely Nero or perverted Gilles de Rais, donning a Blue[-blood] Beard to mask his nightly reconfiguration of injustice.

Pikes Peak Reads is part of Laura Bush’s unholy surge, the library extension of the Every Child Left Behind travesty devastating our education system. Even if the choice of reading about a fictional legend was made locally, it doesn’t surprise me. The third grade of our well-regarded elementary last year followed The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with a lesser known Washington Irving legend: Batman! The former coincided with a Discovery Channel premiere of Sleepy Hallow and the latter turned up at the megaplex, it was: Holy tie-in with the H.E.W. Batman! A new beginning!

I’ll eat Zorro’s hat if Isabel Allende’s precursor, Zorro, a new beginning, isn’t coming to the screen this year, or isn’t precursing a sequel, which would make it what, a cursor[y] Hollywood incarnation? Next year the Pikes Peak pick, left for the children to decide, will be the legend of another masked, caped crusader, a legendary Italian everyman, and ever too mortal, Mario of the Brothers franchise.

Evo Morales on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show

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My wife loves this guy and his name because his name, Evo Morales, translates as… ‘Eve Morals’. A boy named Evo in Bolivia might have a life just a little like a boy named Sue in Oklahoma would! Who knows? Here he is on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show

Maybe Ahmadinejad should have done that program instead of visiting Columbia University? He could have done some jokes along the lines of….

There was an Imam, Pastor, and Rabbi who all went out to lunch together with God and here’s what they all ordered….

Jon Stewart certainly would have treated him with respect and dignity instead of trying to incite a war.

From Y to V- The CIA’s Otpor strategy to overthrow governments

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Since so many pacifists seem prone to accept at face value and fall for any rhetoric that appears to be supporting ‘peaceful’ means of protest, even when it is being pushed from the Pentagon and Washington DC, the following information is quite important. This is from Setting the Stage for Turmoil in Caracas…
—Repeating the East European experience in Venezuela—

The new imperial strategy includes something called “American Corners.” These “corners” are small offices set up by Washington throughout the target country that basically serve as mini-embassies. It is not completely clear what exactly these “corners” do, but inside you will find an array of information about the United States, including study abroad opportunities, English classes, and pro-U.S. propaganda. On top of this, the mini-embassies also organize events, trainings, and lectures for young students.

Interestingly, they seem to be very abundant in countries that Washington seeks to destabilize. The former Yugoslavian countries have a total of 22 American Corners, including 7 in Serbia. The Ukraine has 24, Belarus 11, Russia 30, even Iraq, with 11. By far the highest concentration of the “corners” is in Eastern Europe, where Washington has focused its destabilization efforts in recent years. [17]

There are at least 4 “American Corners” in Venezuela, the most for any Latin American country, and the U.S. also finances literally hundreds of organizations throughout the country to the tune of more than $5 million a year. [18] Together, these U.S.-funded organizations are working to implant the Eastern European experience in Venezuela. As reported by Reuters, the Venezuelan opposition is already learning the Serbian tactics to overthrow a regime from a retired U.S. army colonel named Robert Helvey.

“Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university,” said the article. “Neither Helvey nor the organizers of the Caracas seminar would give details of exactly what opposition tactics were being taught. But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime,” reported Reuters. [19]

And more recently, in the university city of Mérida, history professor from Texas, Neil Foley, hosted an event sponsored by the U.S. embassy and the Venezuelan-American Center (Cevam), not an official “American Corner” but serving the same purpose. Foley, who has also spoken in various “American Corners” in Serbia, gave speeches in both Bolivia and Venezuela on “American values.” [20]

I attended one of Foley’s speeches and, as expected, it was a complete pro-U.S. propaganda campaign imposed upon the university students. The professor gave exactly the message that the U.S. Embassy had paid him to give, speaking wonders about American society and “American democracy.” According to Foley, the United States solves all of its problems by tolerance for others and an all-inclusive “dialogue,” between opposing parties. And sending a clear hint to the Venezuelan students, Foley implied that any government that does not live up to these standards “must be overthrown.” [21

Also, besides the full article (which is well worth reading) from where this excerpt came from, the additional following article is also of interest. Behind Venezuela’s “Student Rebellion”. Who’s pulling the strings?

Evo Morales leads Bolivia out of US orbit

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The Miami Herald has just published an interesting interview with Evo Morales, Bolivia’s new president, and it looks like Che Guevarra might have succeeded after all.

If I had a dollar for all the times I have heard people say that socialism or communism doesn’t work I would be rich. These people never complain about capitalism not working though when they spout off their Western World shopping mall common horse sense. opinions. But can anybody really say that capitalism has worked well for the indigenous people’s of the Americas, or the indigenous people of anywhere for that matter? We could go on here, too. Did capitalism work for Europe’s Jewish population? Awe blame it on the Muslims’ though, that’s the new vogue!

These new South American leaders like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are about the brightest rays of hope we have in the world today. Thank God that Bolivia has a leader now that wants to take Bolivia out of the US orbit. There’s nothing to be gained by continuing down that dead end alley followed for so long in the past. Viva Sud America Libre!

Now if we could only begin to liberate the brain dead zombies of the USA, too. We have to do it before they eat the rest of the planet alive.

Viva Chavez!

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Chavez won with over 60% of the vote in last Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela. The US government is getting thumped hard in the northern regions of South America.

Washington’s man in Ecuador went down in defeat, too, just a week previous to Chavez winning his new 6 year term in office. And Colombia’s US puppet, Uribe, is facing a major scandal, as it seems that his party’s politicos are being exposed as being more death squad connected every other day now in the country’s press. Colombians are getting fed up with this murderer. Peru is unstable, and Bolivia also has gone with Evo Morales and the ‘Indians’ in the hills. What’s Washington to do?

It seems that for the moment, that Bush has decided not to go with another coup attempt in Venezuela. They would be flaming that kettle of gusanos from a position of weakness. Even Cuba looks as stable as ever. Castro is still in power, though it might be a Raul, and not a Fidel. The only area where it looks like D.C. is hanging on, is Mexico, as unstable as the current ‘dedazo’, Felipe Calderon, might be. President Fecal with his buddy Chente The Fox seems to have brutally suppressed the current rebellion in Oaxaca. And the north of Mexico appears too frozen in its shopping spree at Walmart, to raise much of a voice forward in favor of change.

Still, with Dubya in charge, Latin America will continue to disintegrate outward from US orbit. As the gringos go bankrupt, there’s not much for ‘Merica to offer in the days ahead. Viva Chavez! And the Zapatistas and APPO still are presente just south of us, too. All eyes seem focused on the Middle East, but meanwhile…. others are looking for liberation from the US, too.

Hugo Chavez Evil Knievel

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While everyone was looking for Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to seize the headlines, our Chimp-in-Chief receives a dressing down from Venezuelan upstart Hugo Chavez like no one has ever dared address the Emperor before. Not just calling Bush the Devil, but fleshing it out, “it still smells of sulphur in here.”

These words come of course from one of the axis of evils. Evil here being confused for the global justice movement, which seeks equitable rights for all human beings. To an industrialist landlord such a prospect probably does sound evil.

The most successful purveyors of this evil ideology in the last century were Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel Castro, and Nelson Mandela, among others, and most recently Subcommandante Marcos, Hugo Chavez and Eva Morales. There have been more who have been unfortunately crushed like flies.

Hugo Chavez fashions himself after the great populist liberator of the Americas, Simon Bolivar.
That’s about as boastful as, say, George W. Bush telling us the W stands for Washington. But Venezuela’s got the oil, and Hugo Chavez has the love of his people. A liberator for the Americas he may be. Let’s hope he means to save our America as well.

Here comes Hurricane Che

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The Red Peril at our shoresGoogle it. “Ernesto.” See what you get: Ernesto the hurricane and Ernesto Che Guevara. This season’s brightest prospect for an action weather spectacular has been given a decidedly un-American name.
 
To me it’s reminiscent of the 2004 season when the National Weather Service would not conceal its election year partisanship. The 2004 hurricane names alluded to three countries which led the opposition to our planned Iraq invasion. Frances, Ivan, Karl. Not to say anything about last year’s villain, invoking a perennial nemesis, “Katrina.”
 
It’s coincidence no doubt, but as Hurricane Ernesto was downgraded to a Tropical Depression, Jeb Bush still kept Florida in a state of emergency because as he said, “a hurricane is a hurricane.” Doesn’t it sound like he’s talking about a commie?

The boogeyman looming in this hemisphere is the growing Latin American sovereignty movement led by Castro, Chavez and Morales. It’s the Red Menace at our shores.

What next from our Minutemen at the National Weather Service? Hurricane Fidel? Tropical Depression [Subcomandante] Marcos?

Taking it to the streets

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Protests in Nepal
This picture was taken in Nepal shortly before soldiers began swinging their sticks and firing into the crowd. Recent events have wrought inumerable protests such as this. Except for the Ukraine, Haiti and Bolivia, few have ended favorably. Protestors in western nations have thus far faced only tear gas, rubber bullets and trunchons, nothing like the massacres in Uzbekistan and China.

Look hard at this picture. Do you think the American People could ever see themselves brave enough to face this moment?

Americans have seen their elections stolen, their treasury looted, their sons and daughters killed to enrich war profiteers. They’ve seen a president lie to take them into war, try to steal their Social Security, stack the Judicial Branch to a marked imbalance, hold himself above the law against invasion of privacy, exempt himself from new laws with “signing statements,” imprison people without due process, insist on being able to torture, limit free speech to “free speech zones,” declare a war on terror but refuse to acknowledge prisoners of war, weaken pollution standards and call it a “Clear Skies Initiative, ” sell protected public lands, promote the outsourcing of jobs overseas, seek to legalize the payment of poverty waves to illegal immigrants, inhibit states and foreign nations from taking action to avert global warming, double the U.S. deficit in order to give a tax break to the super rich, launch the thoroughly illegal war against Iraq and supervise the killing of now upwards of 250, 000 Iraqi lives, more than half of them children.

Feel free to add to this list if I’ve missed something.

Most recently we’ve learned that the president considers it his right to intimidate political opponents like Ambassador Joe Wilson by “declassifying” the CIA status of Wilson’s wife, thereby endangering the life her colleagues, her contacts, her friends, and all of their contacts and friends, everyone who foreign governments now suspect might have been CIA informers.

More Americans are coming to see that our president might have conspired, abetted or at the very least permitted the mass murder of 2,986 Americans on September 11th, 2001, to create the rallying cry of “9/11” not dissimilar to Remember the Main, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin before it. Each as dubious as the Reichstag fire.

Is it time as well to consider that the fate of the world rests in the hands of a man who believes in the end times as foretold in the Book of Revelations? Is it possible that our president does not care if Armageddon is hastened in the Middle East because anyhoo it has been prophesied?

If President Bush attacks Iran, this time using nuclear weapons, will it finally occur to the American people to do something to stop him? Are they up to the task?

The Axis of Evil

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The alliance of Chavez, Morales and Castro is not surprising. It is the South American revolution which Castro and Guevarra hoped to ignite 45 years ago. Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba are united by purpose and philosophy, reclaiming power for the common people, emerging from colonial oppression under which they have suffered since the arrival of the Spanish 500 years ago.

Though they fight their Spanish-blooded overlords, their greatest foe has become the United States. American businesses, banks and investors want to preserve their spheres of influence. In addition, the super-rich families which lost their lands in Cuba, or who struggle to retain their power in Venezuela, have taken refuge in the U.S. and have engaged our government to help them regain their fiefdoms.

While Cuba never posed so much of a threat on its own, Venezuela’s oil power threatens to unite the rest of the Americas. Castro has even been emboldened to ask Britain to return the Falkland Islands to Argentina, their rightful owners.

Fidel Castro’s recent overtures to Iran’s outspoken president have alarmed many and ignited renewed talk of the “Axis of Evil.” But the secular socialist state of Cuba has little in common with the theistic nation of Iran. Their governments are diametrically opposed in this regard. However they have a common enemy. Us.

With this possible alliance, it should become clear who is the axis around which these contrarian states are attempting to unite. It is us.

Can we be the axis of evil? The notion that America’s enemies were “evildoers” was pure silliness from the lips of our president. But evil may indeed be an apt description for the axis we provide. I leave you with the American Heritage definition of evil:

evil: n.
1. The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness.
2. That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction.
3. An evil force, power, or personification.
4. Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction.