Revolutionary armed forces in Colombia have made Peace with the Colombian government many times, and each time they abandoned armed struggle they were subsequently slaughtered. Now, once again, the biggest of the Left armed groups, the FARC, is trying to negotiate Peace with the Colombian government allied with (and controlled by) the North American gringo government in D.C., having been urged to do so even by people like Hugo Chavez. The FARC had begun a unilateral cease fire which the government has replied to with only continued bloodshed, even as they go through the motions of showing up for negotiations for a permanent Peace Accord. Is a Peace Accord really even possible with 2 governments, the US and Colombian, that are merely interested in maintaining the total domination of the rich over the poor, FARC? History shows that FARC negotiating peacefully for a permanent Peace with a criminal government of death squads allied with US imperialism really is not truly possible, sadly to say, for the Colombian people. See Colombia forces 'bomb Farc rebels, 20 killed to see how the Colombian government and D.C. have responded to this FARC effort to find a peaceful end to being in permanent armed combat mode.
Tag: Colombia
US gov supported ‘disappearing’ people in Colombia and now runs Mexican ‘drug war’ killings out of Peterson AFB
The US currently intervenes inside Mexico by running Mexico's 'drug war' out of Peterson AFB, located right here in Colorado Springs where NORTHCOM is located. What track record do the US government and military have in their bloody Made-in-the-USA 'drug wars' in the Americas? See Killing in The Name of... Death Squads, Murder and U.S. Corruption in Colombia.
Colombia – La Marcha Patriotica
Just one week ago a huge crowd of people from all around Colombia marched on government buildings in Bogota demanding A New Colombia... one that would be free of the Colombian financial and military oligarchy connected to the US imperialists of Washington D.C.- Cancion marcha patriotica colombia.
Colombia- The only risk is wanting to stay?
An interesting assessment of today's Colombia after many years of Made by America counter insurgency warfare. How foreigners view Colombia. And if you want to sample Colombian music, try the link to Discos Fuentes.
Colorado College closes doors on public lecture about Northcom, NORAD & the War on Drugs against Mexican people
COLORADO COLLEGE- Today's presentation by Brigadier General Daniel Hokanson, on the role of NORAD and NORTHCOM in the War on Drugs on the US-Mexico border was abruptly closed to the public, for reasons not made clear to community members who might have appeared to offer a critical reception. Was it something we said, or didn't get to say, except through our signs held outside Worner Center? What's wrong with NORTHCOM & PENTAGON OUT OF COLOMBIA & MEXICO? Who can argue with this arithmetic: CRIMINALIZED + MILITARIZED DRUG WAR = DEATH & TYRANNY? Although I suppose neolibs would deny DRUG WAR IS U.S. EXCUSE TO SUPPRESS REBELLION. Popular with students was: WAR ON DRUG IS AS BOGUS AS WAR ON POVERTY. We'd compare it to the so-called Global War on Terror, but at a neoliberal institution like CC, who knows how that would be interpreted. If I'd been able to ask any question at all, it would have been to the Political Science Department. Why hadn't they invited a second speaker to offer a corresponding critique of US Latin American policy? Turnout for the talk was sparse, and the sponsoring faculty member expressed his bemusement at our diligence to protest what he thought had been scheduled under the radar. So we beat NORAD at its own game.
They hanged Pinocchio and let Gepetto walk… 12/30/2006
As is so often true in death penalty cases. From 1979 til 1991 he was propped up by mostly the Reagan Regime as a counter to the Iranian revolution. Who are also the chief "witnesses" against him in the matter of killing a few thousand Iraqi citizens. With their active involvement. Their active PAID involvement, because they a) don't work cheap and b) don't actually work. "They" being a cast of villains like Reagan, Bush the Elder, Ollie North, the Miami Cuban Cartel, Richard Secord, Donald Rumsfeld, Admiral Poindexter, traitors and murderers all. Selling stolen arms for stolen money and getting Americans killed in the process, like the Marines in Beirut. (Lt Col North, three words, Ollie... Semper... Fi... Bitch) They got several times as many people killed by their Other Puppets, like the Salvadoran death squads, the Contras, the Medellin Cartel, to bring more people into Capitalist Slavery in the name of "Freedom". And they're still sending their brainless minions to kill for their own profit. Any of y'all soldiers assigned to read our blog, dudes, get smart and desert. Split, boogie, depart, sortez... Get Out Of The Slaughter Machine. Your Military is owned by the same Rich Bitches who owned Saddam's Army and financed al Qa'eda. They don't give a rat's ass about your lives any more than they did the 2800 they had killed on 9/11 or the 300 Marines they had murdered in Beirut or the uncounted thousands of Nicaraguan priests, nuns, nurses, doctors, teachers, orphan children and other civilians they "liberated" with American-bought bullets to the heads. They won't give any more of a damn about your lives than the lives of the Iraqi and Afghan civilians they had you murder. If it comes down to a choice of them facing the hangman themselves or scapegoating you the way they did their Other Puppets, you'll be stretching the rope. It's just the way the coward bitches do business. Ollie North has been rewarded for his selling out "his fellow" Marines by being paid several million dollars a year to LIE for his whoremasters, on a Fox News show. Gunny Bob Newman has a similar Whore deal for much less money on Hate Talk Radio. If either of them were to actually, for the first time in their sorry worthless misspent lives, MAN THE HELL UP AND TELL THE GOD-DAMN TRUTH, they would be sold out the way their Masters sold out Manny Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Osama, the top level financiers of the Medellin Cartel... Betraying your countrymen and your oaths is Okey Dokey with them, but betraying the Whoremasters isn't permitted.
My Lai every day
From Wikipedia: The My Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: th?m sát M? Lai [t????m ????t m?? l??j]; English pronunciation: /?mi??la?/ ( listen), also /?mi??le?, ?ma??la?/,[1] Vietnamese: [m??l??j]) was the mass murder of 347–504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, conducted by "Charlie" company, 1st battalion, 20th infantry, 11th infantry brigade, of the Americal Division, United States Army. All of the victims were civilians and most were women, children (including babies), and elderly people. Many of the victims were raped, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.[2] The massacre took place in the hamlets of M? Lai and My Khe of S?n M? village during the Vietnam War.[3][4] While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at M? Lai, only 2nd Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader in charlie company, was convicted of killing 22 villagers. Originally given a life sentence, he served three and a half years under house arrest. When the incident became public knowledge in 1969, it prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Three US servicemen who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were later denounced by US Congressmen. They received hate mail, death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps.[5] It would take 30 years before they were honored for their efforts.[6] The massacre is also known as the 'S?n M? Massacre' (Vietnamese: th?m sát S?n M?) or sometimes as the 'Song M? Massacre.'[7] The US military codeword for the hamlet was Pinkville.[8]" If you only type in My Lai into google search, you'll also get a bunch of right-wing horse-shit like "Lt Calley was framed" and the chorus that any VietNamese killed in the war were Unlawful Combatants. I used to hear that crap all the time because I lived very near Ft Bliss. I don't speak much Annamese, the official language of both VietNams, More people spoke French than Annamese anyway. The one word I recognized in that whole descriptor was "sát" which means "kill". VietNam is one of the Disunited Nations hacked together to please the European and American and Australian colonialists who claim hegemony over Asia. The non-Annamese tribal people are described by the French term "montagnard" which literally means hillbilly. Much like the terms "pagan" and "heathen" are a Greek and a Gaelic word meaning "somebody who lives so far out in the tall weeds that he's beyond the bounds of civilization" The old French word for that is "peasant" and most of the latin languages use the word "paisano", literally somebody who is property of the aristocracy and bought or inherited or conquered along with the land and animals, domesticated or wild. The Scots have an ongoing war between the gamekeepers and the poachers, poachers meaning anybody who isn't the landlord who kills a wild animal bird or fish. All the fish in the streams, etc... belong to the English appointed nobility. Every tree in the National Forest here belongs
Banana Republic Redux
Like the infamous Case Law which decided over a century ago that Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador to be, while still "sovereign" nations, the property of American Banana Companies And Cocaine, which was legal at the time, and Coffee, and other "strategic resources". Only this time, the people in the Banana Republic, in this case Colombia, are contesting the Imperial Corporations and their so-called "right" to use private armies to murder private citizens in what is essentially a Puppet Dictatorship. This could possibly lead somewhere, since the U.S. has shot off all the ammunition the people for generations to come are going to be buying because it was all bought on Credit.There's a line of creditors waiting outside our Collective Door including Russia, China, Brazil, the European Union and various member states of each entity with everything short of an eviction notice. "Paw, the Sheriff's at the door and he's got a handful of Papers" I don't for a moment believe that any replacement Empire will be better than what is already established, "mejor el diablo que ya tiene, que el Santo desconocido" which is a Spanish saying "Better the devil you know than the Saint you don't" which sounds more than a little satanic. On the other hand, there don't seem to be many Saints in that growing line of Sheriff'-at-the-door. Now would be as good a time as any to add the U.S. Military to the list of defendants because, really, they've been backing the Banana Companies the same way. The U.S. Military was used as a private army in a rigged "revolution" in Panama to ensure U.S. Corporations got to build the Panama Canal. "panama" which at the time was part of Colombia. When Puppet Dictator and Iran/Contra accomplice Manuel Noriega started making waves about the U.S. Corporate Dictators, his Masters, reneging on the Canal Zone treaty which would have given their Corporate Subsidiary Panama control over the Canal, The U.S. Corporate Military created a provocation, CLAIMING that a U.S. Serviceman was murdered in the Canal Zone, and, as always, "Sent in the Marines". to "protect freedom". Lying sacks of shit they are. Their sole reason was to rein in a Rogue Puppet who had tried to break his strings. Just like their Puppet Saddam Hussein and the former mercenaries the Taliban, once the Soviet Union was declared dead. Everything else is just a made-up excuse.
Rule of law & American Exceptionalism
The extrem(ist)e lack of the first puts any claim of the latter as the very essence of arrogant falsehood. We're told that America, and ONLY America, actually deserves to run the entire world because we're better than them. What's that sound? Damn, I just heard every Right Wing Jingoist my-country-right-or-wrong, Love-it-or-leave-it, we're-fighting-for-your-freedom-of-speech-so-you-better-shut-your-cake-hole-or-we'll-shut-it-for-you "patriotic" TeaTard Racist closing his mind. They just snapped their minds shut simultaneously. with a deafening roar. Consider the case of one Luis Posada Carriles For those of our readers unfamiliar with the Castellano (Spanish) naming scheme, Carriles was his mother's maiden name. His surname is Posada. A terrorist paid by the U.S. Regime over decades to murder, to overthrow Democracy wherever it reared its lovely head. His CIA "handler" was one Donald Gregg, an American Coward who paid public money, without public oversight and, like fellow Terrorist George Bush Gregg was recently honored in Colorado Springs. Seems the local "conservatives" can't get enough of Babykilling Freaks. (They're hosting Sarah Palin later this month) So, Colorado Springs and El Paso County show a lot of solidarity with Terrorists like Gregg, and his "asset" Posada. El Paso County Texas too, where the Republican prosecutor, in a show trial, charged this mass murdering TERRORIST with "lying to immigration officials" a charge compared to charging Hitler with Disorderly Conduct and then dropping the charges. I spent more time in the El Paso County Jail for talking back to the PIGS. Guess if I actually were a murderer or something they would have simply welcomed me to their club. Pigs are like that. Fellow CIA "assets" handled by Gregg and his friends Rumsfeld, George HW Bush, (before and AFTER he became President in charge of Vice and subsequently Commander in Thief) Ollie North, Richard Secord, a rogues gallery indeed... But the "assets" list included, until they became too much of an embarrassment, Saddam Hussein, The Medellin Cartel, and Panama Puppet Manuel Noriega. Their current assets include Nouri al Maliki, Satrap of Baghdad, Mauricio Funes, of the Satrapy El Salvador, Felipe Calderon, Puppet Dictator of Mexico, Eden Pastora, Babykilling Contra leader, Ricardo Martinelli Panamian Sock-puppet, and the list grows longer. Human rights slaughtered right along with the humans who claimed them. Posada was just one of many, and was charged, and acquitted, in the same El Paso County Texas Kangaroo Court system which acquits cops of murder routinely, and enables the same PIGS to beat, imprison on false charges (automatic conviction in their courts on those charges) and KILL people for the crimes of talking back or wearing a brown skin. It's true what they say, Thieves of a Feather, Cowards Run in Packs, and the Counties of El Paso Texas and El Paso Colorado glorify, fund, and enable Terrorist BITCHES like Posada and Gregg and Bush and Palin. Have a nice babykilling.
How come Pottery Barn rules don’t apply to Haiti?
When Tony posted nearly three years ago (!) about how shocking conditions in Haiti had become, it was a magnet for people saying the starving kids pictures (from Medicins sans frontiers, internationally respected medical aid agency, just not so much here in America) were recycled pictures from Ethiopia 3, 2 and one decade ago. Then when that was refuted, and before they raised that Stupid Response again, the people of Haiti were blamed for their own misfortunes. As though their LEADERS had actually been empowered by popular vote instead of installed, against the expressed will of the People, by and for the profit of American Corporate Hegemony. Alternating with French Hegemony until the AmeriCorp bought out the French. We broke it, we supposedly bought it, right? That's the one of the irRationale for staying in Iraq and Afghanistan. (rationale is both plural and single, I checked, you didn't, kiss off) Of course, it's not the American Corporations who are Paying the bills "we" ran up by breaking all the pottery, although they seem to be getting quite a lot of public funding to manipulate the Public Army and the Public intelligence community and the public "rebuilding" campaign, which mostly consists of taking very expensive videos and photographs of Other People moving the shards around. Much the same way they're paid to watch and take pictures while other people bury the Dead "shards" in Haiti. Through public funding for their private "efforts". Some have seen fit to criticize my frequent use of Capitalization and italics and bold type and ComBinatiOns Of tHem but some people need a little help finding juicy nuggets amidst the kibble. Both are Nourishing Mind Food but the juicy bits are more fun. Sometimes. Some of the people have difficulty seeing, which is a condition with which I can easily relate. Others are just kind of inured to reading and hearing Bullshit from the likes of Glenn Beck and need a little help finding emphasis in NORMAL thoughts. It's not that Glenn Beck is mentally defective, it's what he's paid to say, in the Corporate anticipation of the Audience being mentally defective. In a way, though, the situation in Ethiopia and Haiti is the same case, revisited. "Conservative" (their own code word for Racist Right Wing Extremists) Pundits insist that black people are incapable of governing themselves so it's up to the Great White Father in Washington to guide and assist and let's face it, outright Rule Over the poor little darkie savages. But Ethiopia has for several occasions been the richest nation on earth and in cumulative time they managed to do it for longer than the Americas have actually experienced European Rule. Intermittently because the times Ethiopia has been devastatingly poor have been periods of colonial rule. Like the Romans exacting tribute from them, and in the past couple of centuries European and European-American Corporate Rule turning Their nation into Our plantation. Same with Haiti. When the U.S. went to war with Hawaii and deposed their "tyrannical"
To GOL! or not to GOL! that was the question.
How would it have been played out in the press had the Team America gone on to at least a higher level of victory? We've already suffered through an anti-Immigrant slam against major league baseball, with all the appropriate "OUTRAGE! (copyright 1993-2010 Fox News Networks)" about Major League players getting visas and work permits when immigrating from Cuba and (gasp!) Mexico. Not any rage against any favoritism but the fact that people PEOPLE from Cuba and Mexico were given work permits in the first place. How dare they let more of THEM infiltrate America! Not much crying about the "patriotic" symbolism of some of our best baseball players being from places like Costa Rica. So how would it play out that a team built on the skills of Immigrants took the U.S. to a World Cup win? More to the non-point, how will it play out with the loss? Will immigration be blamed or praised? I should remind here, and probably should have much earlier, that somewhere near half, plus or minus a few points, of my own ancestors were immigrants. And that many of the "immigrants" who are taking so much heat from the Racists are actually Native Americans, kicked back and forth even in pre-Columbian times by that old devil Imperialism. Now defined more by arbitrary political boundaries than by any REAL considerations. My sister was born in England, off base and at home, rather than on "U.S. Soil" at the Mendenhall RAFB hospital. U.S. Soil could be and has been defined as ships flying the United States Flag. The El Paso County (Texas) Hospital District is about a mile and a half north of the Rio Grande, people born there are Citizens of the U.S. regardless of the citizenship of their parents, if an "All American" mother gives birth in a different hospital on the Mexican side of the bridge, the kid is automatically a U.S. citizen because his parents were. The first case scenario scares living Hell out of the Racists, and they complain about it bitterly. The second case scenario is accepted by them as being a matter of Divine Rights possessed by a narrowly defined group of descendants of Immigrants who happen to have English surnames and somewhat lighter skin tones. An "American" citizen couple with the surname Smith would experience less Racist bullcrap getting their kids citizenship determined than an American family whose ancestors were in Texas for thousands of years longer than the Smiths were, but have the surname Gonzalez. But of course, it's not racist. The Racist Anti-Immigrant Lunatic Fringe insist on that point. In the recent election cycle, Barack Obama was and still is questioned about his citizenship. Someway, somehow, an American who would have been an American citizen no matter what simply because his mother was a citizen, was involved in an elaborate plot to make it appear as though he had been born in Hawaii. A point of citizenship that would only make a rat's ass worth of difference if
Boycott Coca-Cola for India’s water, Colombia’s unions and Israel Apartheid
OK, it's a famously discredited fake-ad to slander Coke. They have no plans to rebrand the Dome of the Rock. But Israel may -- and Coca-Cola is a sponsor. That's why Coloradans For Peace are calling to boycott Coke, to stop supporting Israeli Apartheid. There are plenty of reasons to boycott the real thing spreading diabetes. At COP15 the Yes Men targeted Coke for their preposterous "Bottle of Hope" campaign which could only refer to Coke's hope to green-wash their culpability for depleting water tables and poisoning India and contracting to kill labor organizers in Colombia. Coke is a bad habit. Since overrunning East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel is trying to settle it in defiance of international sanctions. Israel promises as administrator not to alter the Muslim shrine, but radical Zionists have been making open preparations to restore it as a Jewish temple. Coke is a corporate underwriter of Israeli expansion into the Palestinian Territories. Their Kiryat Gat bottling plant is built on contested land, and Coke has now invested in the Tavor Winery on Palestinian land. Boycotting Coke would send a message that the beverage multinational must redress the injustices it perpetuates. Wouldn't it be an easy thing, really, to pass on all Coca-Cola products? What will you miss? The Yes Men Coke action at COP15 did produce a tongue-in-cheek press conference dubbed Rage Against the Coke Machine, where attendees recited this pledge: “I, [name], with respect for crimes against people and the planet, from this day forward, for the rest of my living days will never, ever, drink Coca-Cola again until the Coca-Cola company ceases and entirely stops stealing the water from communities in India and stops union-busting in Colombia and ceases and desists entirely from relentless and absurd greenwashing like a ‘bottle of hope.’” Absent sadly was mention of Coca-Cola's support of Israeli Apartheid. Let's put it back!
Social justice, peace and reparations
Stop U.S. Occupation and War inside U.S. and Abroad! We demand the end of U.S. support for the colonial government of Israel and recognition of all rights of the Palestinian people. We demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Middle East. We demand the removal of U.S. troops and contractors from Colombia and an end to counterinsurgent intervention in Venezuela and South America.
Attack Drones: Freedom is so fucked
Armchair freedom fighters like me count on there remaining some parity between the forces of oppression and man's inexorable drive to be free. Masses can repel the few, nonviolence can shame the hesitant, terrorism can haunt the genteel, IEDs can pick off the occupiers, training can dispatch the sentries, but how to overcome automatons? We've confronted impregnable drones in scifi movies, and now such drones have become reality. They're bits of nothing in the air really, but a literal boatload of firepower has got their back. The Economist reports that drones can monitor the activity of shoeboxes from an altitude of near-space, beyond the range of an RPG fired from a hot air balloon. A drone's vulnerability remains its communications channels, but even intercepting those is outside the realm of non-military technology. While drones reduce the exposure of real soldiers to harm's way, they increase a military force's effectiveness. Drones are lauded as cheaper to operate as conventional jet fighters, but in reality their functionality draws on greater resources. The Economist writes of a drone the size of a corporate jet called a Global Hawk, which requires a staff of 20 to 30 to operate. Many more than would be necessary inside a C130 gunship, but of course, almost all of them manning new killing devices. So long as the empire has an unlimited budget to spend, Freedom Fighters are fucked, and terrorists will be the only recourse. The only target available to the adversary of a drone, is the command center which controls it. Be it in America, or a distant military base, that's where the enemy will have to strike. Or the American public will have to renounce the budget which affords this technology. You may not be bothered by the notion that remote-operated drones can monitor human activities and rain destruction upon them when appropriate. The old, "what have I to fear if I'm doing nothing wrong?" Wait until you are the wrong side of the oppressors. Coca Cola kills union organizers in Colombia. Walmart would probably like to kill you in their parking lot if you are leaving with a shopping cart filled insufficiently relative to you debit card balance. They already know it, but a drone in their hands will give them the ability to find you.
Rock Creek Free Press available in COS
The Rock Creek Free Press is available online, but if you want it in print, the DC monthly is available in Colorado Springs at the Bookman, 3163 W. Colorado. The September issue features a speech given by legendary Australian journalist John Pilger on July 4th in San Francisco. Here's the RCFP transcript: Two years ago I spoke at “Socialism in Chicago” about an invisible government which is a term used by Edward Bernays, one the founders of modern propaganda. It was Bernays, who in the 1920s invented public relations as a euphemism for propaganda. And it was Bernays, deploying the ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud, who campaigned on behalf of the tobacco industry for women to take up smoking as an act of feminist liberation calling cigarettes “tortures of freedom”. At the same time he was involved in the disinformation which was critical in overthrowing the Arbenz government in Guatemala. So you have the association of cigarettes and regime change. The invisible government that Bernays had in mind brought together all media: PR, the press, broadcasting, advertising and their power of branding and image making. In other words, disinformation. And I suppose I would like to talk today about this invisible government’s most recent achievement, the rise of Barrack Obama and the silencing of much of the left. But all of this has a history, of course and I’d like to go back, take you back some forty years to a sultry and, for me, very memorable day in Viet Nam. I was a young war correspondent who had just arrived in a village in the Central Highlands called Tuylon. My assignment was to write about a unit of US Marines who had been sent to the village to win hearts and minds. “My orders,” said the Marine Sergeant, “are to sell the American way of liberty, as stated in the Pacification Handbook, this is designed to win the hearts and minds of folks as stated on page 86.” Now, page 86 was headed in capital letters: WHAM (winning hearts and minds). The Marine Unit was a combined action company which explained the Sergeant, meant, “We attack these folks on Mondays and we win their hearts and minds on Tuesdays.” He was joking, of course, but not quite. The Sergeant, who didn’t speak Vietnamese, had arrived in the village, stood up on a Jeep and said through a bullhorn: “Come on out everybody we’ve got rice and candies and toothbrushes to give you.” This was greeted by silence. “Now listen, either you gooks come on out or we’re going to come right in there and get you!” Now the people of Tuylon finally came out and they stood in line to receive packets of Uncle Ben’s Miracle Rice, Hershey Bars, party balloons, and several thousand toothbrushes. Three portable, battery operated, yellow, flush lavatories were held back for the arrival of the colonel. And when the colonel arrived that evening, the district chief was summoned and the yellow, flush lavatories unveiled. The colonel
Roberto Arango and Jose, here in Colorado Springs we miss you two guys immensely!
It has been almost one month since Layla and I returned to Colorado Springs after our vacation in Colombia, and 2 months since we visited the small town located close by the high mountains called El Cocuy. The El Cocuy region is notable because these mountains are much more beautiful and spectacular than those found here in Colorado, and can be reached quite easily from Miami, Florida after a cheapie flight to Bogota and a mere 12 hour bus trip that well may be the most scenic bus ride you will ever go on. Take all the hiking and mountain climbing equipment you will need because you probably cannot find it there in El Cocuy to purchase or rent. Maybe in the other small town nearby called Guican, though I rather doubt it? We did not actually go into the highest area where the snow topped mountains are, because we had neither the time, equipment, nor patience to get in. Traveling with my 12 year old daughter, I had to take her needs into account, and climbing the highest mountains just was not what she had in mind at the time. Instead, she wanted to keep traveling with a 19 year British kid named Max, who was on a controlled and packed schedule that involved bussing off as quick as possible to meet up with another acquaintance. What made the trip to El Cocuy most memorable to me was the hospitality of Roberto Arango and his friend, fellow musician Jose. After we got off the bus to El Cocuy, we managed to stumble across the plaza to an almost abandoned looking building that is in fact Roberto's home, though he rents off beds to visiting travelers in need of a room for a week or a night. But he did not just rent us a room, but most enthusiastically offered to play us an on-the-spot concert, too! He and Jose were drinking some wine and were playing their songs and they continued playing for us their beautiful music for over an hour plus. You can see Roberto and Jose starting about 3 minutes into this youtube tape Around "El Cocuy" Mountains Notice the paintings and beautiful garden in the background? Roberto Arango is also a very good painter and these are his works. In addition, he graduated with a degree in horticulture and in the inside plaza of his house was a full grown and beautiful garden! The paintings were way too large for us to cart back to the US, PLUS I was traveling while broke otherwise I might have tried doing just that. They were that good! If you are interested in going to those high peaks around the area and want to get more info about what they are like, then just search Guican and El Cocuy on youtube to pull up some videos
Colombia
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA- We went to a fair last night and heard music much like this! Definitely it was the most interesting fair that I have been to in my life! We also took pictures of the Colombian version of the Buckingham Palace guard and us, getting the trooper to smile in full uniform and regalia! There are friendly death squad people here! Que bueno! La Región Andina Colombiana and Colombia: Los Llanos and Llanos Orientales 1 and Ay mi llanura - Colombia
High Country Earth First Denver Meeting
High Country Earth First is hosting the EF! ROADSHOW, in DENVER, May 25-26: Monday 2pm in Cheesman Park, and Tuesday 6pm at the Gypsy House. Four ongoing EF! projects in Colorado: DENVER: Stop I-70 Expansion through North Denver; SAN LUIS VALLEY: Halt gas drilling in Baca National Wildlife Refuge: and WESTERN SLOPE: Red Cliff mine campaign and Feral Futures (May 24 - June 7). From "Rockslide," High Country Earth First! The need for resistance in solidarity with the wild has never been louder or clearer than it is today; the EF! roadshow is a great tool for growing that resistance. There are countless examples to draw from in the story of radical movements before us: militant labor organizing tours, anti-fascist resistance recruitment and international speaking tours to build cross-border solidarity. The origin of Earth First! itself is credited to a few roadshows that kicked it all off in the early 1980s. We are building on this tradition; akin to a fellowship crossing Middle Earth to amass insurgents to face Mordor head-on. List-serves and websites aren’t enough This Roadshow’s primary intention is to strengthen our radical grassroots ecological network. For almost 30 years, we have been an organized voice bridging conservation biology with grassroots community organizing, road blockading and eco-sabotage. In the past 5 years we have seen numbers and experience-level in the EF! movement decline drastically. Yet, our place has never been more urgent. New groups are popping up across the country, but they are detached from many of the groups, history, and skills that came before them. We can’t afford to stumble and make the same mistakes over again. We are at the tail end of a decade where corporate globalization rooted itself in the US and spread across the planet like a plague. And now that the reality of climate change is finally sinking into the mainstream consciousness, the same superpowers that pushed so-called ‘free trade’ policies to exploit wild nature more efficiently are promoting carbon trading in attempt to make a profitable industry out of the disasters they’ve created. The spineless Big Green environmental NGOs are scrambling for crumbs and cutting deals with the industry for shallow public relations victories. Earth First! must rise and recognize that it’s presence is a strong component of making the broader environmental movement truly effective. We are its spine, or as an EF! co-founder, Howie Wolke, has put it, we are the lions of a movement ‘ecosystem’. Our niche is critical, and its presence (or absence) is felt deeply by our surroundings. We need to reconnect the multi-generational aspect of Earth First! that has fallen by the wayside in recent years. We need to broaden our network’s base—from radical rural grandparents to revolutionary urban youth. We need re-establish lost relationships with scholars and scientists who resonate with us. We need to re-inspire musicians and artists to contribute their passion to our battles. When it comes down to it, solid movements are based on strong personal relationships; and real relationships don’t go very far over the internet. We need face-to-face
America, Love it or Leave it? Let’s Go!
In about 3 weeks we will be in South America! Anybody I tell that I will be taking my 12 year old with me to Colombia looks at me a little weird like??? That being the case I will let Bart Simpson explain just why we are doing what we are doing? Keep in mind, too, that my daughter goes to District 11 Schools Colorado Springs, which is quite a bit like Bart's school, Springfield Elementary, Jack. Now check out Bart Dances the Cumbia for some real music and dancing! Scary what those African rhythms can do to you, eh? I'm looking forward to hearing some good music on this home schooling education-vacation! It'll be good to get away some from all these Right Wing American twits we have to put up with in our daily lives!
UCSB Prof William Robinson pro-Semite
Wouldn't you think it bad form for Israeli militants to behave like Nazis, while immunizing themselves with the self-righteous indignation that any criticism of their actions can simply be dismissed as "anti-Semitic?" Photographs and confessions emerging from the IDF's atrocities in Gaza just beg comparison the German Einsatzgruppen in Poland. Earlier this year UC Santa Barbara professor William Robinson forwarded an email photo essay to a UCSB listserv, the already much-circulated side by side comparison to the WWII atrocities. Two students complained, plagiarizing stock IDF lingo. Now the Anti-Defamation League wants Robinson to recant. With IDF propagandists pouring on the bullshit, let's revisit the documents. As has already been noted, Professor Robinson is a harsh critic of US foreign policy, and already a likely target for the goon squad enforcers of Western Capitalism. Not many of America's actions are defensible, so Robinson has to be attacked by desperate means. Lucky for the lackey-jackals, Robinson chose to criticize Israel's atrocities against the Palestinians of Gaza. Bingo! The Israeli propaganda machine has armed aspiring Israel-defenders with a blanket rebuttal: just yell "ANTI-SEMITISM!" And what a load of crap that is. Much turns on the definition of "anti-Semitism." It packs the punch of meaning someone who hates Jews, but the advocates of Zionism have expanded the definition into 3-D! Zionist apologist Nathan Sharansky has coined the 3D definition of ant-Semitism: demonization of Israel, double standards, and delegitimization. You don't have to look closely to note that those points outline all the rebuttals of criticisms of Israel and any question of the legitimacy of the Zionist usurpation of Palestine. The criticisms posed by those concerned for the fate of Gaza are the same expressed by a large portion of the Israeli Jewish population as well. But the US Israeli lobby, militantly Zionist, has the complicity of the US war-mongering corporate media, thus the IDF Megaphone protestations get traction. These are the same cheap shots leveled against Ward Churchill. By flooding the internet to create the sensation that the indignation was shared, the IDF spammers have been successful in slandering these dissenting academics. Since we're seeing this technique being slopped unto our comment forums, let's examine the statement for which Robinson is being attacked. First we'll present Robinson's email. The next post will feature the ensuing letters of complaint, two from UCSB students, and third from the ADL. Original Email Here is Professor Robinson's original email, including his attachment of the Judith Stone article. This accompanied the aforementioned photo essay he forwarded. Subject: [socforum] parallel images of Nazis and Israelis From: "William I. Robinson" ... Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:00:05 ... If Martin Luther King were alive on this day of January 19, 2009, there is no doubt that he would be condemning the Israeli aggression against Gaza along with U.S. military and political support for Israeli war crimes, or that he would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinians. I am forwarding some horrific, parallel images of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and Israeli atrocities
A flu by any other name would smell as
Hearing policy makers scramble to buffer the US pork industry, such as Smithfield Foods et al, from being unfairly tainted by the name "Swine Flu" (because of course you don't catch Swine Flu from eating their hogs) reminded me of the Killer Coke appellation. Just because it doesn't kill YOU, is that a reason to let a homicidal operation off the hook? Coca-cola was assassinating labor leaders in Colombia, by the multiple dozen. Boycotts were organized to bring international pressure on the company. Since then, Coca-Cola has been accused of sundry other crimes, for one, depleting water tables in India and driving farmers to ruin. Coke is a murderous enterprise. And then of course, to add the final dimension: their syrup water does kill you, plain and simple. So is it right that the corporate pork industry which creates such environmental damage, which looks to have brewed the recent Swine Flu epidemic, should not be implicated by the un-happenstance of the name Swine Flu?
How long can the US and Mexico militarily occupy Ciudad Juarez?
Ciudad Juarez is a city of 1,500,000 plus people directly opposite El Paso, Texas, and Presidente Fecal Calderon and his Gringo manager, US President Barack Obama, have occupied the city with 10,000 Mexican troops. In short, this is where and what the so-called 'War on Drugs' has 'retreated' to. Sure military pacification works short term but not long term, as the examples of Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Gaza so poignantly illustrate. So what happens when the troops are withdrawn, and they eventually must be? What happens then? See An Army Takeover Quells Violence in Mexico/ Drug Killings in Juarez Plummet, but Rights Complaints Surge My guess is that they move on and occupy with troops yet other major cities in the years ahead. And eventually... voila! we have a situation much like that of Colombia. In other words, 'the solution' becomes the bigger problem.
Gore says 2009 is Turning Point in Environment Battle- Isn’t that a bunch of complete nonsense?
The DP liberals over at the Common Dreams website are out there pushing Al Gore dope off on us once again. To the liberal 'Peace'crat voter, somehow they have remade in their own minds Al Gore out to be the MAX 'Green', who is then made to stand alongside that MAX 'Peacenic', Jimmy 'Peanut Butter' Carter, always the two out under the spotlight as neo Democratic Party Saints! Here it is then... Gore: 2009 Turning Point in Environment Battle ...WTF? Not hardly, Al. Not even by a long shot! What a dope! And what a Democratic Party hack! If you're not on CD's no fly shun list feel free to write them about pee GREEN Al. I did, and my comment is listed at #5 on the list of comments. I wonder if it will be removed? (I'm hoping that CD has gotten away from that sort of thing though???) Just in case, here below are my remarks about Al Gore there. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gore, wasn't he the 'environmentalist' who administered 8 years of economic war against the children of Iraq? YES! Now I remember him! He also began the fencing off and militarization of The Border between the US and Mexico, too. He is some sort of Green for sure! He and his Administration friends, Silvestre Reyes and Madelyn Albright. Wait, something about oil in Colombia, too? And here's Al in March this year... 'I'm not a reflexive opponent of nuclear. I used to be enthusiastic about it, but I'm now sceptical about it.' Well, YES, Al! My you've changed! Or have you really? 'Yes, there is [more appetite for nuclear power now]. And because of the carbon crisis there will be more nuclear plants built and some of those being retired will be replaced by others. I think it will play a somewhat larger role, but it will not be the main option chosen.' YES, such scepticism! '. People have said for years that there are now completely different [nuclear] technologies. OK, but if you have a team of scientists that can build a reactor, and you're a dictator, you can make them work at night to build a nuclear weapon. That's what's happened in North Korea and Iran. And in Libya before they gave it up. So the idea of, say, Chad, Burma, and Sudan having lots of nuclear reactors is insane and it's not going to happen.' Let's go to war, Gore! It's the 'green' thing to do and now I see what a great environmentalist you are! You're against nuclear power in Iran and Chad and Burma! Of course, but here it will be an option, but just maybe not 'the major option'? (Remarks taken from a Leo Hickman interview with Gore for the UK Guardian) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And a final comment about Al Gore not put on CD just yet from The Tennessee Center for policy Research a comment titled Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth” Gore’s
The Battle Line ahead
Summer Peace Camp versus a Colombian Caribbean Vacation?
As usual, with summer coming up, my little girl wanted to know just how mad at her about her ...uh... behaviors over the Winter I really was? She knows that if I had got really upset at her, I would be planning on sending her off to Vacation Bible School, otherwise known in our weird circles as the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Summer Peace Camp. There she could learn about the cleansing effects of 'non-violence' as taught to her by some PPJPC version of 'Mother Angelica'. Too, she was really getting worried about being bored this summer and was not looking to going off to the family farm located right next to the Zetas' paintball playground at Presa Marte Gomez, Tamaulipas and staring at the adobe (plaster) walls. So one night, as she watched Johnny Depp pirate around, I suggested maybe we too could go to Pirate Land- Cartagena, Colombia this summer, and fight crocodiles or something? So I said to her, 'How about a vacation in Colombia this summer? There's lots of family things to do down there!' Her response to me was, 'Sure, why not?' That's what I love about kids these days, they simply are open to anything. I told her then that if we do go to Colombia and live with the Caribbean Pirates that she would have to live off fried ants and guinea pig (cuy), since that's all those poor people have to eat. That and aguardiente. It just so happens that she has a boyfriend from Colombia who is a Pastuzo (Texas Aggie of Colombia) and that he has eaten cuy and says it is muy rico! The fried ants she kind of balks at though, but still, she was sufficiently excited at the thought of leaving the USA, that she had me rush off and buy us both one way tickets to Bogota! America, love it or leave it! And that's how it is that at long last, I will get to go on my Caribbean Vacation, that's if we don't spend too much time in the beautiful city of Eternal Spring, Medellin? I'm definitely looking forward to staying on for the Flower Festival there in early August!... Plus, you can simply just get lost in sightseeing in this under-appreciated city! That's Medellin in the picture above. It's a Colombia emerald, a Colombia orchid, and a Colombian museo de oro... all rolled up into one! Honestly, it really does look like a nice place to spend some time on a family vacation. I'll let you know how it works out! And then, there is always Mompox! “As they sailed down to the coast the river had grown more vast and solemn, like a swamp with no beginning or end, and the heat was so dense you could touch