Translation mine.See, Democrats to the south of me…THIS is how you do things if you want to win elections and keep winning. You stand up to rich right-wingers and their silly notions of how countries have to be run like businesses, and you keep standing up. Like Chavecito. You don’t go caving in, running to the right, and falling on your collective ass. You do what the people who voted for you elected you to do. You JUST. STAND. UP.The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, warned his Chilean counterpart, Sebastián Piñera, not to try to turn his country into another platform of attack against Venezuela, because “we don’t meddle with the Chileans.”In a speech during the inauguration of the MetroCable cablecar system of Caracas, the president responded to the declarations of the new president-elect, who expressed his disapproval of the political projects underway in Venezuela.“It’s impossible for me to agree with him, he’s a millionaire…we haven’t meddled with the Chileans, but this new government should not meddle with us, either,” said the Venezuelan president. […]Chávez emphasized that “it is not very recommendable that a man so rich be president of a country, but the people of Chile know what they’ve done, and we respect that.”Piñera said yesterday that the differences between Chávez and himself “are profound and have to do with the way in which they conceive and practise democracy, the model of economic development, and many other things.”
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Fear doesn't travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory's truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next. --Arthur Miller, "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'", The New Yorker, October 21, 1996
All opinions here are the brain-wrackings of Sabina C. Becker, unless otherwise credited. If you cite them, please give credit where due.
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Bina, I made the mistake of excusing Obama when he intimated that Venezuela as supporting terrorism, and other smarmy memes. However, seeing how Obama hasn´t even pushed hard for a progressive, humane adgenda, I simply believe that he doesn´t really have any deep convictions on social justice.
He wouldn´t have backed keeping Lavalas disenfranchised in Haiti, or supported the Honduran coup.
It´s called leadership, and great leaders freak´n lead, they set a moral and ethical tone, they put the forces of reaction on defense.
Sure, the US is a corporate run society–all the more reason, if Obama really had a semblence of an adgenda and progressive, healthy convictions, to come out swinging.
I expected him to make a clear and concise moral and patriotic argument for affordable healthcare for all–by developing a strong public option that would be understood as a no-brainer.
Chavez, Morales, and Correa have shown that you can´t dick around in countries where the majority has been immiserated by the rich for decades. Obama had the beginning of a movement in place, but he made the decision to shut it down right after the election victory.
People like the ´authentic journalism´ carnival barker are all about simply kissing Obama´s ass and belittling the left-progressive critique of how lame his presidency has become. For Mr. Authenticity, it is all about assuaging the concience of the affluent liberals that keep his coffers flush.
Anyway, I notice among affluent Liberals in the US a definate propensity to slam and lie about Chavez–and the same people want us to swallow health insurance mandates on the working class that will make Big Parasitic Insurance mafias all the more powerful.
Of course these DC liberals have a lot of wealth, and their idealized liberal superhero–who will not even act in any way like a commie leftist–is in the White House now.
This reality really points to how screwed up US politics are. They have hated on me since I was, for a fleeting semester, in the Young Democrat club at university (they hated me for opposing Clinton´s welfare reform).
Anyway, end of rant.
Great job, as usual.
(Points at last three lines, then points at news story below:)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul
“Obama, Dems consider pared-back health care bill”
PARED-BACK HEALTH CARE BILL. Again, I need a freaking…no, a fucking drink. As much as I hate to see the possibility of Sarah Palin riding her snowmobile into the White House in 2013 and start pointing U.S. nukes at Toronto, Obama is setting himself up for a one-term presidency, by kissing up to the very people that question his citizenship and arrange their racist Teabagger rallies. And of course, the Freeper fucksticks on talk radio are still going to claim that Obama is somehow an “ultra-liberal President”, even as he’s setting up military bases across Colombia and offers a BS “health bill”. Sorry, Barack, but this is where I walk out on you. Like it or not.
On this day one year ago, I was seriously hoping that things were going to get better after eight years of Cheney and Bush. But it turns out the Dems are still too keen on working with the same people that blame liberalism for all that’s gone wrong for the past 20 years. Maybe the mentality of U.S. Americans was permanently changed when the doctor operating on Reagan after the ’81 assassination attempt said that “Today, we are all Republicans.” Thank you, John Hinckley Jr. You’ve turned the United States to a permanent right-wing nation. Canada, I’ll stand on guard for thee in a few years from now, I hope.
PS – No offense to my liberal friends in the U.S., I can imagine you being just as frustrated about this as I am. Even worse, I’m just sitting in the spectator seats watching this mess unfold.
Oh, Clinton’s welfare “reform”–man, what a sellout. They claim he had no character for letting Monica fondle his balls? Shit, that’s nothing–he let the Repugs squoosh ’em. THAT’s a lack of character, right there.
Fortunately, I save my affection these days for leaders who do have character. Chávez is #1 in that, with Evo a close second and Correa a not so distant third. Lugo, too, is showing signs of backbone in purging the military of its SOA trainees and fascist flunkies, so I’ll put him in at #4.
BTW, I still love Dennis Kucinich. He should have been president for the last ten years. He’s the only one of the Dem leadership candidates who is a true progressive. And from what I hear from my buddies to the south, a lot of them feel the same.
And Anthony, I hear ya, man. Whenever you dock ship in my home and native land, let me know and we’ll go grab a beer. After being disappointed by a man I thought would be smarter than Dubya, I need a full pitcher.