News of the Restless

The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 21

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Sabina Becker

marquina-helmet

Right-wing Venezuelan deputy Alfonso Marquina, wearing a motorcycle helmet in parliament. Was he planning maybe to pop a wheelie in the Hemiciclo?

Ah yes. The peaceful Venezuelan right just keeps getting more and more peaceful all the time…

The right-wing opposition presented itself with pre-planned violence in the National Assembly.

It was so thoroughly planned that Alfonso Marquina arrived wearing a helmet, while the putschist media owner Alberto Federico Ravell tweeted:

“@AlbertoRavell: We hope that ANTV [the legislature’s dedicated TV channel] doesn’t censor the broadcast from today’s session.”

He knew of it.

Thus, in the midst of opposition-generated violence, several female deputies of the PSUV were assaulted, and immediately the revolutionary deputies fought back.

The right-wing deputies learned of the decision of National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello to not let them speak in parliament if they refused to recognize the constitutional President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. That was when they began their attack.

The session was later suspended.

Note: The opposition deputies ran out of the chamber. Where to? To a health clinic? Noooo. To Globovisión, which was waiting for them. It was a long way, but they didn’t clean themselves up, because the idea was to put o a show. There, they began to proclaim themselves as martyrs.

The Telesur correspondent in Caracas, Rolando Segura, tweeted from @rolandoteleSUR: “Several PSUV deputies were attacked during the plenary session where five additional credits were discussed.”

[…]

The PSUV deputy and faction chief, Pedro Carreño, denounced opposition deputies for assaulting various Chavistas in the Federal Legislative Palace.

Carreño said that “it is inconceivable that the parliamentary right-wing would want to ignore the popular will”, in relation to the presidential election results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE), wihch the opposition refuses to recognize.

“The problem is not the difference, but that they were hatching a putschist plan,” asserted Carreño at the end of the ordinary session of the National Assembly.

[…]

According to some media reports, the confrontations began when some right-wing deputies began to blow vuvuzelas, as a form of protest after the parliamentary president, Diosdado Cabello, ratified the decision to forbid the right-wing deputies the right to speak during the session, since they refused to accept Nicolás Maduro as legitimate president of Venezuela.

Translation mine.

So, to recap: Oppos refuse to recognize legitimate president, based on the results of the cleanest, fairest, freest election possible. Government, realizing this as part of a putschist plan, suspends their right to speak until they do the democratic thing and concede defeat. And since they knew this was coming (it was announced ahead of time, and no one can pretend they didn’t hear), they come prepared for violence — some with vuvuzelas, others (see Marquina) with a crash helmet. Even before it starts, putschist media owner Ravell, of Globovisión, tweets that he hopes there won’t be any censorship. And of course, there isn’t, since the ANTV recording clearly shows the opposition attacking the Chavistas:

Here you can see it all exactly as it goes down. Before the trouble starts, the ruling PSUV wing of the parliament is completely calm, not expecting any trouble; the PSUV deputies keep to their seats and go about their business very normally. The other side, however, is a beehive of very strange activity. Lots of oppos are standing and moving around. You can see María Corina Machado, that lamb so lionized by the Washington Post, obviously urging some very un-kosher activity as she moves from row to row. You can also see right-wing deputy Julio Borges reaching under his desk for a small black knapsack, which he hands to a woman oppo seated in front of him. She takes something out, then passes the bag back to Borges, who also removes something from it. The something turns out to be an airhorn (these are the “vuvuzelas” from the piece I translated), which several other oppos also produce from their bags in order to generate noise and chaos. The oppos then swarm the dais where Assembly President Cabello and the two vice-presidents sit, assaulting and attacking PSUV deputies along the way. In typical cowardly fashion, they beat up the women first.

And of course, the PSUV members fight back, because that is what one often does, quite naturally, when assaulted. And the oppos get what’s coming to them:

julio-borges-makeup

Here, we see that Julio Borges got a little help from Globomojón’s makeup crew before appearing on camera to whine and kvetch about how there’s no democracy in Venezuela, and how he got beaten up for not accepting the fact that there IS democracy, and his side simply lost. This after he and MariCori (more about HER later) went out of their way to pick a fight.

Classiest sore losers ever, those guys.

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Posted in Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal? | Comments Off

Quotable: Margaret Atwood on women writers

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Sabina Becker

margaret-atwood-on-women-writers

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Canadian Counterpunch, Quotable Notables, Uppity Wimmin, Writer Lady Sings the Blues | Comments Off

More Evo? Yes, please!

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Sabina Becker

evo-da-king

From Bolivia, a little good news today:

The Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal of Bolivia has declared it constitutional that president Evo Morales and vice-president Alvaro García Linera may stand for re-election in the general elections of 2014. The case was decided in light of the fact that the first term of the government of the Plurinational State took place after the enactment of the new Bolivian constitution, approved in February 2009.

The president of the tribunal, Ruddy Flores, informed during a press conference that the tribunal ruled in favor of the candidacy of Morales in response to a consultation submitted by the parliament on the insistence of Morales’s party.

“The seven magistrates have unanimously determined the constitutionality of the project, in respect to Article 4,” Flores said.

The Bolivian constitution limits presidents to two consecutive terms in office, but Morales has always maintained that his first term (2006-2010) cannot be counted, since it took place before the re-founding of the country and did not complete the legal period of five years.

[…]

Once re-elected, Morales will govern Bolivia until the year 2020, and will thus become the longest-reigning Bolivian president.

Translation mine.

Of course, the opposition are crying foul, but that’s to be expected. They have a bad case of the butthurt. Even if Evo were to stand down and let Alvaro run in his stead, the MAS would still win. And Evo could always run again when Alvaro’s term was up, and win handily. But since he didn’t complete his first term anyway when the new constitution was enacted (triggering new federal elections, which he won), that point is moot. Evo has a case, and he won fair and square in the courts. As he will at the ballot box again, when the time comes, next year.

So we’ll be seeing a lot more of his chipmunk cheeks and groovy aguayo-trimmed jackets in the foreseeable future. The only potential downside to all this is that we’ll also see more putschist efforts to topple him, like those of 2008. Let’s hope his federal police are keeping their eyes open, and their pistols well oiled.

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Rafael Correa connects the dots

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Sabina Becker

correa-cnn

The crapaganda mafia of the North American media aren’t known for their honesty in reporting on Latin America. It takes nothing less than an interview with a Bolivarian head of state to set the record straight, and even then, who knows how much of this they may have censored, because it cuts awfully close to the bone:

The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, gave an interview on CNN’s Spanish-language channel, in which he alerted the public to constant destabilization efforts taking place against progressive governments throughout Latin America.

Correa made the remark after journalist Ana Pastor asked him about the political situation in Venezuela, where ex-candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski refuses to accept defeat following the the presidential elections of April 14, in which Nicolás Maduro won with 50.78% of the vote.

“Every day, we confront destabilization processes [in the region]. There is permanent putschism, don’t be fooled,” said the Ecuadorian president, whom Pastor interviewed on April 20, while Correa was on a tour of Europe.

Correa listed the coups d’état, failed and successful, which have occurred during the 21st century. They began in April 2002, against the government of Hugo Chávez, and continued in Bolivia, against Evo Morales, in 2008. Both coups failed.

In 2009, the putschists succeeded in toppling Zelaya in Honduras. In 2010 they tried to topple Correa without success, and most recently, there was a successful coup in Paraguay, in 2012, against Fernando Lugo.

“Four of those cases were governments of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA), and all five were progressive. Do you believe that’s a coincidence? When will we see such an attempt on the governments of the right?” Correa asked.

Correa concluded that the defeated ex-candidate [Capriles] “is a putschist, and so are all the Venezuelan right. Look at the role Capriles played in 2002 in the coup against Chávez.”

At that time, Capriles led the assault on the Cuban embassy in Caracas, and supported the dismantling of the Venezuelan institutions [as per the Carmona Decree].

Correa reiterated that there have always been plans to destabilize Venezuela’s democracy, in spite of the transparency of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and all the other institutions in the land.

“We have no reason to doubt the results released by the CNE. Venezuela has one of the most modern electoral systems in the world, all electronic, and for that reason, it’s a bit absurd to do a recount of the votes. It was a free, transparent, democratic process, and there is a winner, and now it’s time for everyone to unite behind him,” Correa said.

Correa said that his Venezuelan counterpart is “an extremely capable, patriotic, hardworking and honest man.”

“The Maduro government is based on Bolivarian principles, the same line as Hugo Chávez. So in that, there is much in common, and with Ecuador too, because we are inspired by similar principles,” Correa added.

Translation mine.

So there you go. This is why Latin American governments (even that of Mexican right-winger Enrique Peña Nieto) have stepped up to recognize the Maduro presidency, while the US (and, even more shamefully, Canada) are still pretending it was too close to call, or some such — and therefore, not deigning to recognize a freely and fairly elected leader. They’d rather “recognize” a putschist who did this:

…because that putschist attacked the embassy of a country the US has had no luck in destabilizing and reeling back into its sphere of influence, ever since the failed attack on the Bay of Pigs.

Frankly, Capriles should have been in jail, and declared permanently ineligible to run for office. But Chavecito’s irrepressible confidence in his democratic government and social programs was such that they could afford to let him run loose and trip over himself, I guess. And Maduro is just as confident, with just as much cause. The election result has borne that out. Some fucking dictatorship, eh?

Meanwhile, Rafael Correa has also connected some dots that the major media (who overwhelmingly toot the horn for right-wing candidates) will never touch: Why has there never been a coup against a right-wing government, much less a successful one? That’s simple: the US doesn’t back that kind. The last actual one that happened was Chavecito’s failed military uprising of 1992. And it landed Chavecito in jail for a couple of years. When he emerged again, in 1994, he was such a popular folk hero that he didn’t have to try for another rebellion. He had only to run for office, and he won.

Which is something that you will never see a Capriles Radonski do, even though he has powerful media connections in his own family, plus the entire crapaganda apparatus of the corporate media at home and in North America, working day and night to try to push the bullshit narrative that he is the popular one. Sorry, Majunche, you ain’t got the juice. The people know it; the other presidents know it; the world knows it.

How much longer before the crapagandarati get that message…and actually report it?

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Posted in All About Evo, Canadian Counterpunch, Crapagandarati, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Ecuadorable As Can Be, Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Mexican Standoffs, Not Hiding in Honduras, Paraguay, Uruguay, Spooks, The United States of Amnesia | 1 Comment

Quotable: Noam Chomsky on student debt

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Sabina Becker

chomsky-on-student-debt

And, being a professor, he would know; he has seen all that with his own eyes.

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Posted in Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Quotable Notables, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: The café on the Moon

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Nik Kershaw does justice to Salvador Dalí AND Cervantes, as well as the absurdities of the 1980s. And there’s not a bad line in the whole thing.

“We are all Men of La Mancha.”

(Even if he does mispronounce the Spanish region.)

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Wankers of the Week: The Boston Marabomb, Part D’oh

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! And welcome to the end of yet another week from hell. This time, with even more stoopid. And here are its leading purveyors, in no particular order:

1. Greg Fucking Ball. Dude. What is all this torture shit? Face facts. Osama bin Laden is dead, and it wasn’t a Repug like you who bagged him. So knock off the pseudo-tough talk about what you and a baseball bat would do. You wouldn’t do fuck-all. At the end of the day, you’re just another full-of-shit right-wing politician — a crappy little jacked-up state senator with a hundred-dollar haircut, manicured fingernails (that you’re probably afraid to chip), and a bully-boy pose that would melt into a pool of luke-warm piss if you ever came face to face with an actual terrorist. You are a colossal wimp, and everybody knows it. Now shut the fuck up!

2. Peter Fucking King. Political correctness be damned, we need to do better surveillance of right-wing politicians. When you can’t tell their rhetoric apart from that of some religious freak with a neck-beard and a turban, it’s time to call them out for what they are: a threat to national security.

3. Ted Fucking Nugent. He’s still not dead or in jail for all his terrorist threats against his own president? Or his stupid utterances about justice and law? I say we lynch him. Hey, it’s only what HE would want!

4. A.J. Fucking Clemente. Fucking shit. That is all.

5. Brian Fucking Kilmeade. Oh dude, I feel so sorry for you. The ironies around you are just so thick on the ground. You want to racially profile Caucasians? And you want to plant listening devices in the same mosque that kicked out Tamerlan Tsarnaev for his hate-filled rant against Martin Luther King? I understand that he got into it with the imam, of all people. And yet you want that mosque bugged…why? All you’ll hear is the imam calling you a fucking jackass. Which you ARE.

6. Laura Fucking Ingraham. She wants an end to Muslim immigration? I have a better idea. I want an end to whoever is selling her hair bleach. That shit is eating her motherfucking brain.

7. Sam Fucking Brownback. JESUS + Mary, you’re a misogynous fucking shitbag. How are you any better than the Christofascist terrorists who drove all those women to seek out the back-alley butcher shop run by Kermit Gosnell? Ha, ha, trick question: You’re not. You’re one of them.

8. James Fucking Taranto. Yeah, go right ahead and call Gabby Giffords too brain-damaged to formulate a coherent argument on the very issue that has come to define her entire life. You think that just because her speech and motor functions are impaired, her cognition must also be. Go right ahead and say it: You think she’s retarded, don’t you? Because I’ve got something I’m dying to say too, and I won’t bother to wait for your go-ahead: You, sir, are a fucking asshole. Unlike Gabby, however, you don’t get to put a disability sticker on your windshield. And you don’t deserve anyone else’s patience, compassion or forbearance for your mental deficiency, either.

9. Rand Fucking Paul. Is anyone else slain by the irony of Mr. Liberty wanting the US to become a police state (or more of one than it already is, rather) in response to the Boston bombing? Yes? Oh good. Glad I’m not the only one. PS: Oh, for shame.

10. Amanda Fucking Palmer. Please stop writing poetry. In fact, please stop writing, period.

11. Bernard Fucking Valcourt. Patronizing, snotty, tone-deaf, arrogant, sexist and racist. In short, just the sort of person I’d expect Harpo to put in charge of Aboriginal Affairs. At this rate, it’s no wonder that Idle No More is still going strong. They’ve got something to go against in this one.

12. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. The louder you blat, the faster that brain aneurysm ticks, Rusty. And the more bullshit you spew, the closer it gets to blowing.

13. Adam Fucking Savader. I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am to know that this former Paul Ryan aide has stalked 15 women and used nude photos to blackmail them. And I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am to know that this is just the sort of thing you’d expect an ultra-conservative poli-sci student to do. Which is to say, you’re not shocked at all…are you? PS: A “proud Reagan Republican”? Oh dear, how embarrassing.

14. Ann Fucking Coulter. Finally, we get to hear the Coultergeist’s grand scheme for liberating all the poor, oppressed, genitally mutilated Muslim women of the world: Jail them just for wearing hijabs! Yeah, that’ll really fix ’em up between the legs, that will. BTW, female genital mutilation is an African thing, not an Islamic thing. But trust the Coultergeist not to know that, or care. She’s just so obsessed with everyone’s reproductive plumbing that it makes me wonder what is up with the hollow pipes between her ears. PS: If it’s mosque surveillance she wants, I wanna know what church she attends. Because all that terrorist talk of hers has got to come from SOMEwhere…

15. Justin Fucking Bieber. So, the pet monkey didn’t last very long. Well, that was a foregone conclusion. Now, if only we could say the same about the other primate…

16. Mark Fucking Sanford. Exactly where are you campaigning for governor? South Carolina, or Argentina? Wherever it is, you’re bound to lose. To Stephen Colbert’s sister, ha ha.

17. Paul Fucking Cameron. Telling a gay guy to marry a woman won’t change a thing. It will, however, make two people very miserable, and drive one of them to promiscuity and drugs. Which is, by the way, the REAL reason so many gay guys died of AIDS not so long ago. It wasn’t being gay that did it; it was being an outcast and seeking solace in futility. And it was the criminal negligence of fascist quacks like Paul Fucking Cameron that was largely to blame for that outcast status in the first place.

18. Ray Fucking Canterbury. Make kids work as janitors for their school lunches? I have a better idea: How about making all the elected Repugs who propose “workfare” solutions like this work as janitors in hospitals for all the “free” healthcare they’re getting at public expense? After all, they haven’t earned it…and it would teach them a valuable life lesson, too. Like, for example, how immoral it is to force hungry children to work for the food they need to help them concentrate in class.

19. Ludmila Fucking Vinogradoff. Earlier on, I had a sample of her handiwork up on my blog. Well, now, it turns out that not only is she a shitty “journalist” (note the quotes; as always, there for a reason!), she is also a paid-off presstitute for none other than Majunche Capriles Radonski. And she’s even been photographed, smiling, with her very media-connected pimp. Gee, what are the odds???

20. Kory Fucking Teneycke. Speaking of presstitutes, FUX Snooze North’s point-boy (or should we say rent-boy?) was before the CRTC this week, making the lame excuse that Canadians already pay for channels they don’t watch and don’t want all the time, and so what’s one more? Ask the people whose pockets you’re trying to pick, Kory, they would know. You, on the other hand, are utterly clueless. And deeply irony-impaired, too, since Sun “News” (note the quotes) takes a “free market” position…but then, when the actual free market speaks and they don’t like what it’s saying, they try to censor it AND commit highway robbery at the same time. PS: Sign, sign, sign.

21. James Fucking McCormick. Fake bomb detectors that cost an arm and a leg? That’s a wank for now. But if anyone had died, or lost an actual arm or leg using them, it would have been MURDER.

22. Scott Fucking Gessler. Isn’t it illegal for a secretary of state to interfere with the voting process of his state? And isn’t it racist for a fraudulent “vote fraud prevention” group to cut a brown face out of its mailer and stick a white one in its place?

23. Steve Fucking Kush. Yeah, a raise in the minimum wage is “radical”, and a young woman who has the temerity to campaign for it is a “bitch”. Because we all know that her real place is in the home, barefoot and pregnant, and dependent on a shittily paid man who beats the fuck out of her as a futile way of getting back at what’s REALLY eating him. Either that, or it’s in prostitution, because that’s the only way a dirty old man like you would ever get access to her cute young tush. Right?

24. Bryan Fucking Fischer. Gays are just like shoplifters. Yup, yup, yup. Only one question: What the hell do they steal?

25. Rob Fucking Ford. Yup, he still plans on defunding Pride Toronto, only closer to when it actually all goes down. Which I suspect he is doing just to be even more of a fucking shitbag over QuAIA. BTW, let’s not forget that this is the same clown who raised money for his charity using the city’s mayoral letterhead.

26. Chris Fucking Karpan. No, of course being fingered up the ass, and being penis-whipped, does not constitute sexual assault unless someone tells the victim it is. Because that’s totally how those things work, right?

27. Peter Fucking McKay. A fine defence minister he’s shaping up to be. He’s visibly rattled by questions (and there are many) about his so-called patriotism, as well as his competence to do the job? At some point, he’s gonna have to take off the propeller beanie, put his willy away, and grow the fuck up. But frankly, Canadians would all prefer that he do that OUT of office. Because IN office, he’s been nothing but a dweeb.

28. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. And speaking of rattled, Rush just heard a giant flushhhhhhh. That’s the sound of his sponsors going down the drain, in response to progressives putting (and keeping) the pressure on. Excrement in Broadcasting could soon be no more! Yay, free market! PS: Ha, ha.

29. Dave Fucking Leach. Yeah, sure, you don’t mean any harm. You aren’t really a stochastic terrorist. You just said that killing abortion providers is a “blessing to babies”. Kinda like washing them in the blood of a lamb, eh? Actually, a REAL blessing to babies would be providing more options — contraception, abortion, social welfare — to their MOTHERS. But that’s not what it’s really about with you sadistic old jezebel-floggers, is it?

30. Donald Fucking Trump. Jon Stewart is JEWISH? Oh. Em. Gee. I never knew! Actually, that’s never been a secret. And nobody seriously cares, because Jon is brilliant and funny as hell. Just as no one is truly surprised to learn that Da Donald is an antisemite as well as an all-around fucking prick who thinks he’s smarter than Jon.

31. Paul Fucking Kokoski. Finally, the truth emerges: Satan is a born-again Christian, and his little helper is a hateful wingnut who thinks he gets to set the gay agenda. (Pay no attention to that loud whooping noise, that’s just my gaydar going off big-time. AGAIN.)

32. Marco Fucking Rubio. “Nobody has a right to immigrate to the United States”, says the right-wing ex-Cuban who enjoys that right precisely because he’s a right-wing ex-Cuban. I say kick him back to where he came from and let Fidel and Raúl take care of him.

33. Stacey Fucking Campfield. Yuh huh huh, you’re so fucking funny. “Guns don’t kill people, pressure cookers kill people!” Priceless. And no, you haven’t “exposed” anything…except the fact that you have a really, really small dick. To match your brain, natch.

34. Joe Fucking Oliver. Science is so haaaaard! Yeah, especially when it hits your ass like a canoe paddle, eh Joey? Unfortunately, just like Teh Ghey, climate science and global warming refuse to be prayed away. Or SCOLDED away, in your uncouth case.

35. Dean Fucking Saxton. Women “deserve rape” for “dressing like a whore”? Well, “Brother” Dean, by that same token, you deserve a kick in the dick. In your teeny, tiny, inadequate little dick. Because by preaching shit like that, you’re asking for it!

36. George W. Fucking Bush. I guess we had to commemorate the opening of his “presidential” library somehow, so here it is: a library of fifty of the many, many more ways in which Dubya fucking SUCKED.

37. Eric Fucking Bolling. You don’t remember any terrorist attacks during #36’s reign of terror and error? Um, how about 9-11? And all the subsequent warmongering that he and his PNAC buddies did. That terrorism enough for ya?

38. Christie Fucking Blatchford. When the father of a rape victim takes you to task (however gently) for your crappy reporting and your dirty insinuations about his daughter (who, incidentally, is no longer alive to defend herself), it’s time to hang up your old manual typewriter, already. Actually, your time was long ago, you nasty, stinking harpy.

39. Andrés Fucking Kroboth. Why?

That’s why. He calls for the death of an elected leader. A freely, fairly, CLEANLY elected leader. At the hands of the CIA. And then he has the gall to say shit about sovereignty? Check your pitiyankism there, dude. Your boy lost, so GET THE FUCK OVER IT.

40. Tony Fucking Clement. Oh great. Pork Barrel Tony is hell-bent on bringing Mordor to Ontario. Time to rig up a gallows in the gazebo!

41. Pat Fucking Robertson. Planned Parenthood, “worse than Hitler”? As usual, Patwa’s convoluted “logic” (note the quotes) and his extremely loose marshalling of the facts is an awesome sight to behold. Or an awesome earful of glurge; take your pick.

42. Louie Fucking Gohmert. Gomer! Are you back again this week? Yes Ah am, surprise, surprise, surprise! And what is it this week, Gomer? Obama! Muslim Brotherhood! Bungle bungle! Booga booga booga! Well, gee, Gomer, thanks for that. You’re as uninformative as ever.

43. John Fucking Sullivan. Physical exercise prevents Teh Ghey? Well, that would explain all the lesbians teaching Phys Ed, and all the awesomely brawny gay guys parading their pecs at Pride. To be frank, I’ve never seen a better-exercised bunch of people than the queers, and my unathletic hat is off to them. I’m sorry, you were saying…?

44. Michelle Fucking Rhee. And while we’re on the subject of Teh Ghey, I bet you’re wondering who’s responsible for that awful Tennessee education bill, the one that says that you can’t even SAY gay, much less tell students what it means and why it’s normal. Well, you can stop wondering: SHE is. Her far-right education-fuckery group provided funding to help elect one of the shitheads who put that abomination out there. And now she’s awarded him a “reformer” prize, too! I propose a new rule: Not even contemplating anything that this education deformer proposes.

45. Glenn Fucking Beck. He left FUX Snooze to save his soul? Joke’s on you, Biff, you haven’t got one.

46. Lisa Fucking Williams. Who knew that gay pride would one day be a source of shame for San Francisco, not to mention an expression of crass commericalism and craven cowardice combined? Bradley Manning is the greatest living hero the LGBT community has, but to hear her tell it, he’s a virtual leper. While the truths he revealed are fueling various Arab Spring liberation movements, they’re sending the organizers of what’s arguably the biggest North American LGBT community party into a tailspin. If things keep going HER way, they’ll all end up right back in the closet. And who do you suppose would want such a thing? That’s right, the same people who discriminate against LGBTs in the military. And who oppose same-sex marriage and adoption, and even the right to say gay in school. Not to mention those who uphold the age-old corporate privilege of discriminating against anyone they don’t like, especially if that person is queer. Shame, shame, SHAME.

47. Mark Fucking Zuckerberg. Figures that Fuckerberg is in favor of Keystone XL and the Mordorization of the world. I guess he really does believe that you can eat, sleep and breathe money, because I’ve never seen him lift a finger for anything but. (Except, of course, his middle finger. At us.)

48. Alex Fucking Jones. Finally, all the whackjobs infesting the Internets have their own dating site, thanks to him. Now, if they would only all pack up their tinfoil and go to their own desert island, and duke it out over the coconuts…

49. Judith Fucking Miller. Yeah, surprise…Dubya’s favorite stenographer is ba-ack! And predictably, she’s pushing the kind of “anti-terror” measures he would have wu-uvved. Too bad that her theories aren’t borne out by fact; the NYPD may be stopping and frisking everyone they see who’s even a little bit brown, but the fact that no NYC mosque has ever been responsible for a terrorist attack dates back to long before that, anyhow.

50. Condi Fucking Rice. Another unwelcome figure from the Dark Days of Dubya resurfaces. And, just like #49, she’s defending bad procedures that haven’t made anyone safe from anything. Condi, you shoulda stuck to piano-playing.

And finally, to all the hateful trolls who pooped here this week. Special dishonorable mentions go to “The Cat”, of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, at 67.235.36.159; “Justice First”, disgracefully squatting in Toronto, at 216.58.54.138; and of course, my old pal “Kepler”, better to be known as Krapler, at 91.178.59.206. That’s in Hainaut, Belgium. Funny how not a single one of you so-called friends of Venezuela is actually IN Venezuela. You poor sad sacks, I would feel a lot sorrier for you if people weren’t dying in Venezuela as a direct result of the bullshit you’re backing. You’re not funny; you’re all fucking despicable. I hope you get lots of spam. And if any of you happen to be linked to putschist plots, I hope you also get busted.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Here, have my earworm.

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Sabina Becker

This has been in my head all day, for reasons understandable if you’ve been reading me lately. Now, let it infiltrate YOUR head:

Oh, you want lyrics too? All righty then:

Working Latin America

The Yankee is afraid that you’ll rise up,
Working Latin America,
I don’t know, why don’t you do it?
The Yankee is afraid of the Revolution,
The Yankee fears the call:
Yankee go home!
Yankee go home…

And rising up over the Amazon,
Comes the rebel cry of the Carioca*,
And comes to unite with his brother,
The Venezuelan worker…

Working Latin America,
Working Latin America,
Latin America…

Lift up in your hands the flag of the Revolution
Working Latin America,
and shout, forcefully:
Yankee go home!
Yankee go home!
Yankee go home!

“Gringo, go home.
The workers of Latin America are telling you:
Gringo, go home!
Yankee go home!”

Lift up in your hands the flag of the Revolution
Working Latin America,
and shout, forcefully:
Yankee go home!
Yankee go home!
Yankee go home!

Translation mine.

*A Carioca is a native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since the Brazilian Amazon region borders on Venezuela’s own Amazonas state, there is a geographic connection between the two lands. Alí Primera is making the case for unity between the workers of these two and all other Latin American countries, as well. And I like to think he’d smile if he saw how Chavecito’s election paved the way for Brazil’s Lula and Dilma, who are from the Workers’ Party, and both strong allies of Venezuela…and its workers.

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Posted in Brazil is the Bomb!, BushCo Death Watch, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Dear AP: You suck, too.

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Ahem…a little mood music, maestro:

Further to last night’s (now amended) piece on how badly Reuters gets Venezuela wrong, it looks like the Associated Press (or Dissociated Press, as I prefer to call them) is no better. Aporrea columnist Ivana Cardinale takes them to task:

Miguel Rodríguez Torres, the new minister of Interior Relations and Justice, informed the country on Thursday morning of the capture of a US citizen named Timothy Hallett Tracy.

According to the minister, Tracy is linked to a right-wing conspiracy against Venezuela, and its objective was to lead us into a civil war and so provoke immediate intervention on the part of a foreign power. He added that he has documents and videos as proof.

The US daily, The Washington Post, immediately published an article from the Associated Press agency, which should really be called the Associated Pentagon, since many of us know that it is the propaganda arm of the Pentagon. In it, the family of the detainee says that he is an “innocent filmmaker”, who is in Venezuela to make a documentary.

According to the detainee’s father, his son is a graduate of Georgetown University, who majored in English, and has been “filming” for the past year in Venezuela.

The AP article indicates that the gringo detainee made a documentary in 2009 called “American Harmony”, and another documentary, recently filmed, called “Under Siege”, for the Discovery Channel. Both documentaries were directed and produced by one Aengus James, not Timothy Tracy. Once more, AP lies. The name of Timothy Hallett Tracy appears nowhere on the Internet in connection to the filming of one or both of the documentaries.

I searched the Internet for information on him, and the only thing that appeared was his detention in Venezuela. As for the rest, no information on Tracy anywhere. Nothing on documentaries or films by this US citizen. If he is a filmmaker, as they say, there would be information on the Web over his work, and as I said, it does not exist.

The strange thing is that “Under Siege” was broadcast in the US one month ago, in March, by the Discovery Channel. If we take AP at its word that Timothy Hallett Tracy filmed that documentary, how could Tracy, who according to his father, has been filming in Venezuela for the past year, be making films in two different countries at the same time?

These little details betray an intent to conceal. It is evident that this is a CIA operation in Venezuela which uses the AP news agency to publish false information over Tracy, claiming him to be producer and director of two documentaries which in reality were made by Aengus James.

500 videos were seized in the raid. The AP agency says that Tracy was detained twice in Venezuela before April 14 and let go. What AP doesn’t say is that Timothy Hallett Tracy belongs to an intelligence agency, has been trained in these matters, received foreign financing, which was later passed on to young Venezuelans hungry for dollars, who came from the extreme right wing, with the objective to generate violent incidents and provoke a civil war.

Translation mine.

BTW, I looked up Aengus James. He is a real person, and he is a real filmmaker. He’s on Twitter. Here’s an interview he gave about his film, American Harmony, which is a documentary on barbershop quartets. He doesn’t look much like Tim Tracy. If I had to guess at his politics, from his tweets (which reference Paul Krugman), I would say he’s a liberal Democrat — hardly the sort of guy who’d want to hang out with a bunch of overt fascists like JAVU. His work doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that would inspire the CIA to tap him as a front man for one of their operations, either. And I don’t think he’d be at all impressed to hear that his films have been attributed by an agency as big and prominent as the AP to this Tim Tracy guy.

So, AP, what the hell is your explanation for all this? And please, make it a good one. I can hardly wait to hear how you got these two guys so badly mixed up.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Newspeak is Nospeak, Spooks, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Dear Reuters: Is this enough proof for you?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Sabina Becker

timothy-hallet

Dear Reuters: You fail so hard at journalism…

Venezuela has detained an American citizen it says was financing opposition student demonstrations after this month’s disputed presidential election, the latest in a flurry of accusations over last week’s post-vote violence.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said Timothy Hallet Tracy had been seeking to destabilize the country on behalf of an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency after President Nicolas Maduro’s narrow presidential victory.

“We detected the presence of an American who began developing close relations with these (students),” said Rodriguez in a press conference. “His actions clearly show training as an intelligence agent, there can be no doubt about it. He knows how to work in clandestine operations.”

Rodriguez said Tracy, 35, from Michigan, had received financing from a foreign non-profit organization and had redirected those funds toward student organizations. The ultimate aim was to provoke “civil war,” he said.

A U.S. embassy official had no immediate comment.

The government has given scant evidence for a flurry of headline-grabbing accusations ranging from an assassination plot against Maduro to alleged sabotage of the electricity grid.

…because this is the real story, and your version is laughable even on the surface of it:

The minister for Interior Relations, Justice and Peace, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, informed on Thursday of the capture of a US citizen, Timothy Hallett Tracy, linked to a conspiracy of the far-right against Venezuelan democracy.

The actions of Timothy Hallett Tracy are related to groups of the far right who are attempting to destabilize the country with attacks in the street following the presidential elections of April 14.

The minister stated that the objective of the plan is to generate chaos throughout the country with the creation of a violent post-election scenario in order to make it ungovernable.

“it is important to inform the people over situations which are occurring; we will show the motivations and connections they have in order to develop a series of events which we have been living through ever since the night after the elections of April 14,” said Rodríguez Torres, in a press conference.

The minister stated that as of October, November and December of 2012, the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) had been conducting investigations into an operation called “April Connection”.

“All the indicators we have been gathering indicated that we would arrive at election day with complete normality, but following the release of the results by the National Electoral Council (CNE), there was to be a non-recognition on the part of the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski,” Rodríguez Torres explained.

He added that during the investigations they managed to detect a person of US origin, who had formed close relations with right-wing youth who were members of the so-called “Operation Sovereignty”.

“When we detected this relationship, we began to conduct surveillance and stakeouts, and we saw how this man was able to infiltrate revolutionary groups to gain their protection, but had intimate relations with the extreme right wing,” Rodríguez Torres said. He commented that it is presumed that this US citizen belonged to an intelligence organization, and had received financing from various foreign NGOs.

Rodríguez Torres explained that the objective of Operation April Connection was to generate mobilizations following the release of the results of the presidential vote, and to conduct a civil war.

“Their objective was that, to lead us into a civil war, and we have the documents proving that they exchanged [information] amongst themselves by way of some [computer] chips, which a messenger brought from the Plaza La Castellana to the home of the ‘gringo’,” Rodríguez Torres said.

He informed that, according to this right-wing sector, the idea was to launch a civil war in Venezuela and thus immediately provoke intervention from a foreign power.

“These were their desired ends, and they continue to be. We have more than 500 videos which we seized during a raid. We asked ourselves: Do the ordinary householders who voted for the opposition want a civil war, or do the Venezuelan taxi drivers want that? We are sure that nobody in this land, independent of their position, wants that, except these extremist groups, directed by extremists of the parties of the right who do want civil war,” he added.

During his press conference, the minister showed a video in which it is evident that retired general Antonio Rivero is passing instructions to guarimberos [insurrectionary right-wing demonstrators, presumably “students”] in the upper class district of Altamira, telling them how to create disturbances.

All the proofs seized during the raid, which took place on Wednesday night, were brought to the appropriate authorities.

Rodríguez Torres said that, thanks to the work of intelligence agents, the national government was able to act in time to continue to guarantee peace for the people of Venezuela.

“The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, has emphasized that in this country, we will always go the way of peace and coexistence. That has to be an effort made by all Venezuelans, independent of their ideological and political posture. We must reject and isolate these fascist factors who live among us, and who are trying to get us Venezuelans to hate and kill one another. We cannot allow that,” he insisted.

Translation mine.

BTW, O Reuters gurus, I have your “scant evidence” right here. And, spoiler alert, it ain’t so “scant”:

You’ll have to wait till the 6:50 mark or thereabouts, but yeah, the proof is there, and yeah, it’s substantial. Video evidence that Tim Tracy has been meeting with the druggy, drinky, dollar-hungry JAVU punks (whose terrorist manifesto I’ve already translated and discussed here.) That’s one of 500 videos shot by the perps themselves, all taken into custody by the SEBIN agents as evidence of their plot. JAVU and Tracy are, in short, thoroughly fucked. As is a certain ex-general who also appears in the video, advising the punks on how to organize:

Ah yes, the peaceful, democratic Venezuelan opposition. So credible. And their gringo spook candy-man. So innocent. Meanwhile, there’s about 500 videos, all shot by themselves, to attest the opposite.

Yeah, that’s “scant” evidence, all right.

Hey, Reuters? Maybe you should learn some Spanish. And maybe learn journalism too, while you’re at it. At the very least, try learning how not to sleep through a fucking press conference. Okay?

Note: This entry has been amended following release of a longer, better version of last night’s Aporrea story.

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