The “mysterious” death of João Goulart

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Sabina Becker

joao-goulart

It is well known that João Goulart, the popular left-liberal president of Brazil, was overthrown in a military coup that ushered in twenty-one years of fascist military dictatorship, replete with political prisoners (among them, the current president of Brazil, who was a Marxist guerrilla at the time), exiles, murders, tortures and mysterious disappearances. And it’s also well known that he died in exile a dozen years later. But HOW he died has been under dispute ever since. The official version is that he died of cardiac arrest, no doubt despondent over his misfortune, and that was that. But now, we finally see hints that his death, which occurred in the same year that another military coup put generals in charge of Argentina, was no coincidence after all:

For the first time, a Brazilian government has admitted the possibility that the former president, João Goulart, who was deposed by a military coup in 1964, might have been assassinated during his exile in Argentina as part of Operation Condor, the co-ordinated repression by South American dictatorships.

So says the minister of Human Rights for Brazil, Maria do Rosario Nunes, during a public audience of the Truth Commission, which was created by president Dilma Rousseff to investigate the crimes of the military dictatorship (1964-1985).

“There are indications which must not go unrecognized of the responsibility of Operation Condor in something to which we must not close our eyes, which is the very clear possibility that President João Goulart was assassinated,” said the minister of human rights.

Officially, Goulart was declared dead of a heart failure on December 6, 1976, during his exile in the Argentine province of Corrientes, but his family has always maintained that the death had to do with a military conspiracy.

“The case must be investigated in depth,” said Nunes.

The Truth Commission has heightened interest in the mystery surrounding the death of the leftist president Goulart, who was ousted on March 31, 1964, by a military coup.

In 2007 and 2012, a Uruguayan former intelligence agent, Mario Barreiro, said that he had been ordered to spy for four years on Goulart in his exile, and that the Brazilian dictator, Ernesto Geisel, considered Goulart a threat to his reign.

Attorney Rosa Cardoso, a member of the truth commission, affirmed that there is “a conjunction of conclusive indicators” which favor the likelihood of a crime.

Senator Pedro Simon, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), informed that there had never been an autopsy on the body of Goulart.

Translation mine.

Goulart, a “threat to the reign” of a dictator? Certainly. After all, he was only living a little way across the Argentine border; Corrientes is a northern province, largely devoted to agriculture, but also home to a great deal of leftist campesino agitation. Goulart owned land not only there, but in Uruguay as well, where he was agitating as early as 1966 for Brazil’s return to democratic rule. And after the military seized power in Argentina, copying the “success” of the fascists in its big neighbor to the north, that campesino agitation would have increased exponentially…as would “anticommunist” efforts to snuff it out. The presence of a leftist like Goulart, who was popular with Brazilian workers and peasants particularly, would have been intolerable to the junta.

But it wouldn’t do to ship Goulart back to whence he came; the Brazilian generals wouldn’t have that. The reasons could hardly have been clearer: Goulart, the people’s choice, back on home soil, would have spelled mass revolt against a régime the people’s enemies had worked more than a decade to prop up with violence and bloodshed. So Goulart had to be disposed of in some other manner, one that could be passed off as natural causes. (And of course, without any pesky autopsy.)

And since there was plenty of Operation Condor activity afoot in Uruguay too, and Uruguay lay conveniently wedged between Argentina and Brazil, it’s not so far-fetched to assume that the same Uruguayan intelligence agent sent to spy on Goulart for the last four years of his life would have been privy to a thing or two about his death.

In short, a lot of old Condor guano is about to be severely disturbed.

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The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 5

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Sabina Becker

mickey-majunche

“I’ve been to Táchira, Mérida, Zulia and Falcón*. I demand that Maduro halt his campaign!”

Oh, Majunche. Your campaign may as well be managed by Walt Disney, because there’s a distinct odor of mouse about it. Only this mouse is old and dead, and has been stinking for several years now. Eleven, to be exact. You’d think they could at least come up with a fresh campaign strategy after all this time, but no. They’re still up to the same old dirty gringo tricks:

A leaked document indicates that the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, met for seven hours with the top brass of the Venezuelan ultra-right and discussed, intensively, how to proceed in the face of the “flood of people who follow Maduro.” Included in the group were members of the clergy, US advisors, and Spaniards.

According to a dossier presented before the National Assembly by deputy Julio Chávez, the meeting dealt with two fundamental points: Not attending the April 14 elections, or designing an “honorable” exit for their candidate but leaving tensions and political chaos in his wake.

In the first case, according to the document, the US agents, who held sway over the meeting, reasoned that “at the moment, you should plan on attending the elections, because millions of opposition voters require a compelling partisan orientation in the face of the ‘overwhelming power’ of the government.”

They had to “plan a strategic exit because it will be very difficult to overcome the other candidate, Nicolás Maduro. Very well, so this exit should be based solidly on facts, with juridical elements, with international mobilization, with the help of the powerful media allied with the IAPA (Inter-American Press Association): US and Spanish media above all.”

Further, the document states: “A group of experts in political tensions, chaos and destabilization must work to design an objective that will lead to an honorable exit for the candidate, but which will leave an unmanageable constitutional and juridical disturbance in its wake, something like leaving the nation without constitutional language.”

The dossier continues: “In the hands of the experts in these traumas, Capriles will have a ‘graceful’ exit from the campaign.”

One must take into account that for these crimes, in which many innocents will fall, the North American empire is implacable. Once more it will set in motion this category of terrible events which will be aimed at derailing the democratic direction of the republic. Commotions which we have already lived through in the past, or maybe much more refined ones, said the deputy.

Among the destabilizing actions, marked with an underlined “Could be”:

1. Electrical sabotages
2. Food speculation and artificial shortages
3. Airport accidents, and great tragedies like those of the Amuay refinery last year
4. Introductions of viruses or terrible disease outbreaks
5. Assassinations of opposition parliamentarians, as well as those of the Revolution
6. Sabotage of the Caracas Metro subway
7. But PRINCIPALLY, organizing some great massacre of followers of Capriles during some public act, provoked by themselves, which will “oblige” the candidate [Maduro] to not continue his campaign, which is “evidently opportunistic, bloody, and directed by an opprobrious régime, dominated by the criminal powers of Fidel Castro and international terrorism”.

We alert all the people not to fall victim to provocations, and to remain vigilant, firm and serene in the face of the most terrible circumstances and adversities.

Translation mine.

So, since Maduro is already a front-runner by a margin of no fewer than 14 percentage points, it’s clear that they need to cover their loser butts with something. And that something, just as in April 2002, is VIOLENCE. And destabilization and artificial food shortages, as in the following year, when they tried to knock Chavecito’s pins out from under him with an economic putsch.

But mainly they’re going to go for violence, which they will then try to pin on Maduro, claiming he’s really a puppet of Fidel Castro. What a joke, since Castro is retired from political office and in no position to pull strings on anyone. And Nicolás Maduro is nobody’s puppet…unlike Majunche, who is very much the puppet of US interests, and those of Spain too, to a lesser extent.

But such is the nature of VenOpIronía: projection, projection, projection. Everything they’re going to say of Maduro, is actually true of only one party, and that’s their own.

It would be quite funny, if it didn’t involve so much bloodshed and horror.

*Táchira, Mérida, Zulia and Falcón are the only states remaining that have opposition governors. All the rest have PSUV governments, elected shortly after Chavecito’s big victory of October 7. So Majunche’s “tour” has consisted mainly of preaching to the choir. He isn’t even trying to win.

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Iraq, ten years later: Rumsfeld edition

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Sabina Becker

I don’t know if Rummy tweeted this himself, or if he had a flunkie do it for him. But I rather hope he did it himself, just to see the outpouring of, er, AFFECTION that followed:

rummy-10-yrs-later

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The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 4

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Isn’t it funny, dear readers, that there were once an awful lot of North Americans named after Simón Bolívar, the great South American freedom fighter, admirer of the (North) American Revolution, and trenchant critic of, among other things, the then-nascent US-American imperialism? Sure, they dropped the acute accents that showed where the syllabic emphasis should fall on his name, effectively moving it up to the first syllable instead of the second. And the Spanish pronunciation was anglicized. But that’s not the least of it. It seems that they co-opted his name because it belonged to a great hero of independence — and what gringo doesn’t value theirs? But then it ended up on a southern gringo who, while certainly a distinguished hero to his forces in the Pacific theatre of World War II, was also distinguished by some far less honorable characteristics, as a certain PSUV minister, campaign chief, and close friend of the late president of Venezuela has found:

“That ‘Simon Bolivar Commando’ of the right doesn’t refer to our Liberator, Simón Bolívar, fortunately,” said Jorge Rodríguez, chief of the Hugo Chávez Commando of the PSUV electoral campaign, on Monday, while revealing the history of the real personage the right-wing is paying tribute to under that name.

“This is Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., who is the commander of the right…consult Wikipedia,” invited Jorge Rodríguez. “He led the defence of Alaska during World War II and distinguished himself as a great racist…He said that they must try not to have any soldiers of color in his troops because ‘if they crossbreed with the Eskimos, it will produce the ugliest race the world has ever seen!’

“That’s your Commando, Majunche — the Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. Command,” said Rodríguez to a crowd in Anzoátegui, and showing a portrait of the personage who was born in 1886 and died in 1945, during the second world war.

“This Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., he didn’t accept soldiers of color in his forces. And also, it’s curious — whenever racists speak of someone who is black or afrodescendant, like our Aristobulo [Istúriz, a long-standing minister in the Chávez government], they don’t say ‘black’ or ‘afrodescendant’ or ‘brown’, because we afrodescendants are brown — they say ‘colored’. But this general was ‘colored’, although much more pinkish*,” said Rodríguez.

The director of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), showing the photo of the historic embarrassment of the self-coronation of the dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga, recalled that on April 12, 2002, the portrait of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, was removed and “disappeared” from Miraflores Palace, while the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, thinks to trick Venezuelans with the supposed name of his command in reference to the Liberator.

“Hugo Chávez was the greatest Bolivarian. He rescued the memory and historic legacy of the Liberator, and in the barely 48 hours of the dictator, Carmona, who removed the portrait of Bolívar from the Ayacucho Room of Miraflores Palace…the same people who were there applauding this barbarity are the very sectors of the economic oligarchy who now have Capriles Radonski as their candidate.

“So you can stop worrying, Venezuelans who feel offended at the opposition trying to taint the memory of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, giving that name to the command of their campaign.

“The right-wing command is called ‘Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., a North American military general, of pinkish color, who fought in the Second World War and was also a contemptuous racist.

“So we can breathe easy, brothers and sisters. Our commando is called ‘Comando de la Patria Hugo Chávez’. When we say this, it is the same as saying ‘Comando de la Patria Simón Bolívar’, which is the same as saying ‘Comando de la Patria Hugo Chávez’,” Rodríguez pointed out.

Translation mine.

Sure, we could dismiss this as a bit of cute patriotic hyperbole on the part of Jorge Rodríguez. Except that there really was a Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. And the latter was not only one of the few generals to fall during World War II, he was also, as Rodríguez says, an avowed Southern racist who hailed from the initially neutral (and later Confederate) state of Kentucky, and who really did bristle at being put in command of a black regiment. And he really did say what Rodríguez says he did. (I looked for his exact words while translating the above.) His own father, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr., was a Confederate general who suffered the ignominy of surrendering to none other than Ulysses S. Grant himself. And when Grant defeated the senior Buckner, it was a slap in the face to those who had fought and died for nothing short of the right to be blatantly, slave-owningly racist.

And therein lies another irony, not only of the gringos, but of those sad Venezuelan oligarchs who take their inspiration (and marching orders) from them instead of native sons. Simón Bolívar, the original Venezuelan general, was white himself, but certainly no racist. His entire story indicates the opposite. His parents both died before he was ten years old. He was raised chiefly by his black nursemaid, Hipólita, and often said that she was the only parent he had ever known. Perhaps it was the subjugation and misery of her people that prompted him to contemplate rebellion. His troops included not only white criollos and European immigrants, but mestizos and mulattos and blacks, and he was not shy of handing promotions to anyone who loyally distinguished himself in battle, regardless of color.

And on top of that, his own tutor, Simón Rodríguez, was an adamant proponent of equal education for all people, envisaging classrooms where black, indigenous and white children sat side by side. In fact, that was how Rodríguez ended up becoming young Bolívar’s tutor; he was chased out of the school he taught by white parents alarmed at the idea that their children would be learning alongside “Indians”! It is no coincidence, either, that Chavecito’s long-time education minister was and is the above-mentioned Aristóbulo Istúriz, who is very capable, very determined…and very black. All in all, Chavecito is the Venezuelan president who came closest to accomplishing what the Liberator and his tutor strove for.

So you can see how funny it is that a blatant racist like Buckner would be named after an independence leader who could not have been less racist if he tried. And you can see how strangely appropriate it would be if the very racist Venezuelan opposition, who routinely referred to the tri-racial mestizo Chávez as “that monkey”, took Buckner, and not Bolívar, for the icon of their electoral campaign.

*I couldn’t find an adequate genealogy to confirm Jorge Rodríguez’s seeming contention that Buckner was not quite white, although it would hardly surprise me if that proved to be the case…just as it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to learn that it might have been fudged in light of what side Buckner’s father ultimately took in the Civil War. Alternatively, Rodríguez may have been making the simple, and accurate, observation that everyone’s skin has a color, that Buckner’s color is “pinkish”, and therefore the term “colored”, so favored by racists of the US South, is absurd.

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Who’s yer president, baby?

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Sabina Becker

maduro-ahead

Gee, that bus-driver sure looks like a front-runner to me. And mind you, this is a survey by a firm that’s HOSTILE to him. They also have 65% of respondents saying Maduro will win, with only 15% believing it will go to Majunche.

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Fruto Vivas talks about building Chavecito’s monument

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Venezuelan architect Fruto Vivas talks with ALBA Ciudad radio journalist Enza García about what must surely be both the proudest and saddest moment of his career: getting the call to build a mausoleum for his beloved president, Hugo Chávez. He gets very emotional about it, choking up at times. The monument was designed and built in record time, and it’s absolutely beautiful. It has mystical significance, too; it’s called the Flower of the Four Elements — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — and the fifth, Spirit, is provided by Chavecito himself. I’ve blogged on it before (photo here). Here’s the story, in a little more depth:

A large team of architects worked day and night on the construction of the Flower of the Four Elements, which guards the sarcophagus of the late president, Hugo Chávez, in the Cuartel de la Montaña.

So says architect Fruto Vivas, interviewed on the VTV program, All Venezuela, where he told of how he built the Chapel of Hope in the Military Hospital in record time during the stay of Comandante Chávez at the medical centre.

Vivas commented that after the death of the revolutionary leader, his services were solicited and, at first, the monument was to be built in three days, but following the extension of the lying-in-state to seven days, it could be constructed with a team which he called extraordinary.

“I proposed that Chávez should be laid to rest atop a flower and a reflecting pool, which they approved. The most beautiful thing about the design was the number of people who worked without resting,” Vivas said.

Vivas revealed that it was the tropical climate of Venezuela that inspired him to propose a flower as the memorial monument. “The construction of the Flower of the Four Elements was the loveliest experience,” he added.

The professional joined in the mourning for the loss of Chávez and emphasized the latter’s political will to improve the lives of all Venezuelans.

“Nobody here would have dreamed that the people could organize communes, functioning popular structures, and that they would have direct responsibility in our formation. That’s the greatest thing about Hugo Chávez — giving power to the people, that’s what we admire,” said Vivas, recalling that there had never before been a president who had held an anti-imperialist position.

“Never before has a president of Venezuela tried to do what Simón Bolívar and José Martí dreamed,” Vivas said.

Translation mine.

And for that, an ever-blooming mystical flower is the best monument I can imagine.

Chavecito vive, la lucha sigue.

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Steubenville: It really IS Rapeville.

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Traci Lords makes a connection that the media have by and large (and, in my opinion, quite willfully) missed. Actually, several connections. One, the connection between rape and prostitution (and porn, which is also tied to prostitution). She says the fact that she was raped in her hometown — Steubenville, Ohio, near the West Virginia border — is “absolutely the reason” she ended up on the streets, prostituted, and later, “starring” in porn while still under 18. The report doesn’t elaborate, but the reason isn’t hard to guess: Rape degrades, it inflicts a sense of being less of a person than those who raped you. When you’re already beaten down in mind, and constantly reminded of what happened by the fact that you have to see these same smug, hypocritical people every day, the only escape is often to run away to the big city streets. And those streets can be motherfucking MEAN. You do whatever you must to survive. And for many runaway girls, that’s spelled prostitution. Which, by its very nature, often repeats and reinforces the initial trauma of the rape.

Another connection: the fact that small towns where jocks enjoy a special, elevated status (especially in such heavily commercialized team sports as football) are NOT “great places to raise a kid”. They are actually places where bullying, beatings, sexual assaults, pedophilia, and even gang rapes happen all the time, but are rarely ever brought to the light of day. This is because the guys who commit the crime are lionized not merely in spite of, but sometimes BECAUSE of what they do to girls. It’s a sexist culture, where jocks are elevated and girls are relegated to second-place status. You get to bask in the reflected glory of the jocks if you’re a cheerleader and/or girlfriend of a jock, but that’s about it. It’s all about the guys, in the end. And the whole town, its authorities, its police, its lawyers and judges, will move heaven and earth to shield the perpetrators from anything that might damage their “bright futures” playing commercial football…and perpetuating the jock brand of rape culture.

And this is the Steubenville culture that has Traci Lords so angry and outraged still, so many years after what happened to her. In fact, this is the culture of small-town USA, period. All the old prejudices and hypocrisies are still firmly in place. The only thing that’s different here is that the “clean-cut” mask slipped, and someone got caught. That’s what bugged me about the sobby courtroom performance of those two guys. One of them expressed sorrow, not for what he had done, but for the fact that pictures got taken of it and circulated. He had no apparent remorse for the rape part, because rape is a jock’s entitlement; his regret was only for being indiscreet about it. His life won’t be ruined because he committed rape; it will be put on hold for a few short years because he was caught in the act by a camera.

The media, too, must bear a share of the blame for the perpetuation of this small-town jock rape culture. Aren’t they the ones constantly selling the wholesome image of the small town, the great place to raise kids, the golden jocks, the big fucking lie? Of course they are. And even now, those faithful crapaganda mills are churning out the rape apologia. On CNN, they’re all boo-hoo for the poor maligned boys, and not one word for the abused girl. FUX Snooze? Well, they did devote a few words to her; they divulged her identity, so she could be harassed and bullied still further. Maybe they’re hoping she’ll kill herself, to save the honor of the jocks. Blood expunges shit-stains, does it not?

Traci Lords has every right to be angry, because nothing’s really changed. Sure, two guys are going to jail and are going to be labelled sex offenders. Sure, their careers are going to be curtailed, at least where sports are concerned. Sure, they’re probably not going to get football scholarships; colleges will be passing them by for cleaner candidates, and they’re just going to have to work harder for an education, if they want one. They can’t rely on their jock passes anymore. In short, they’re just gonna have to live like all the rest of us unathletic commoners. But…cry me a fucking river! They are not going to end up on the streets, prostituted and acting in pornos, being degraded and subjugated for the delectation of other dudes. That’s for girls.

After all, that’s what happened to Traci Lords. She got singled out, assaulted, branded with a scarlet letter in her teens. She is still living with her trauma after all these years. The girl in this case will have to live with the same. She will deal, day to day, with everything that happened to her against her will being called a “cognitive choice” on her part. Never mind that she couldn’t say no because she was too bombed to say anything. And that the reason she was bombed is that she was set up for it in advance, called a slut and a whore ahead of time and then drugged without her knowledge, by those same guys who are now trying to make like it was all just a moment of weakness and poor judgment and blah blah blah. It was not. It was planned and premeditated on THEIR part, and yet she is the one bearing the burden for it.

Meanwhile, these guys are still getting the tragic hero’s treatment in the media. They weren’t even tried in adult court. They’ll probably brag about their juvenile delinquency raps 20 years from now.

Poor misunderstood babies, how dare we slap them on the wrist?

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Music for a Sunday: Comandante Amigo

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Sabina Becker

These two songs were both originally dedicated to Che Guevara, the original “Comandante Amigo” of Latin American revolutionaries everywhere. But without much adaptation, I think they could also serve to commemorate another Comandante Amigo, one who just passed over recently, and also far too young.

First, Carlos Puebla’s classic:

And then there’s this one from the great Venezuelan folk singer, Alí Primera…often quoted and even sung by Chavecito himself (once, famously, to Che’s own daughter, Aleida):

“When there is no more water in the great Paraná, then, Comandante Amigo, maybe then, you will leave us.”

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The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 3

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Mario Silva, host of VTV’s popular media-criticism show La Hojilla (The Razorblade), dissects yet another Venezuelan opposition irony. This time, it’s the use of a deceased poet and journalist to ridicule a recently deceased president. Only, as is so often the case with hysterical VenOpIronía, the poet-journalist with the sharp tongue turns out to be not one of their guys, but…

The family of Venezuelan poet and journalist Aquiles Nazoa indignantly repudiated the opinion piece published last Friday by the newspaper Tal Cual, signed by Laureano Márquez, in which the memory of the author was manipulated with the intent to “ignore and even judge our much-battered reality of today” after the passing of Comandante Hugo Chávez.

In an open letter, signed by nine members of the Nazoa family, headed by Aída and Haydée Nazoa González (sisters of the poet who wrote “Humor and Love”), rejected the use of Aquiles Nazoa’s work to justify the disrespect and ridicule felt on the right toward the Venezuelan people, now mourning the physical departure of Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías.

“We are outraged at the use of Aquiles Nazoa and his work to justify the ill-feelings of those who stubbornly and, to their own misfortune, insist on not being part of this colossal moment of our history in which the infinite love of a man and his infinite struggle has given us our homeland,” reads the letter.

The Nazoa family pointed out that the decontextualized remembrance of Aquiles Nazoa’s humoristic works is not even the intention of the “poor devil who wrote the article, nor the ventriloquist manipulating him from his hiding-place in the shadows, nor even him who directs this periodical from the catacombs of the Fourth Republic.”

For the family of the Venezuelan author, it is evident that this manipulation “is conceived and conducted from way over there, from the same place from whence came the blows and beatings that killed Leoncio Martínez, whom they also used on their front page to cover themselves.”

The family of the writer, who was cited by a right-wing newspaper, recalled that Nazoa was a “card-carrying revolutionary, a communist without fissures, a poet of the people’s struggle for justice and sovereignty, a staunch defender of the heroic Cuban Revolution, an irreducible militant of popular causes, and a profound connoisseur of the works of José Martí and his cause.”

For that reason, they expressed their indignation at the disrespect to his memory and that of the late Comandante Chávez: “An old strategy of cowards is to use a dead man to point the finger at another dead man, both of the people, both adored, both revolutionaries.”

In the letter, they also emphasize that Nazoa was a “portentous representative of our culture and our identity, most profound and a man of transparent, luminous and freedom-loving ideas, who taught them to those of us who were closest to him, and we could see his heart, how his life and his struggle were one and the same, and that in the Revolution, they conjoin with immortality.”

Translation mine.

Some background is on order here to help understand the depth and absurdity of this bit of irony. Teodoro Petkoff, the publisher/editor-in-chief of the opposition-aligned right-wing newspaper Tal Cual, is a former Marxist guerrilla. He seems to be one of that sad generation of turncoat opportunists (the late Christopher Hitchens is another) who saw more profit in repudiating their early political allegiances (one can’t really call them convictions, since these guys tend not to have any, beyond “what’s in it for me”) than in sticking with them, going deeper, and making history.

Petkoff started out in the 1960s, shortly after the last Venezuelan dictator was deposed and US-style duopoly “democracy” installed, by taking to the hills with a rifle and a copy of the Communist Manifesto. When the guerrillas disbanded, around the turn of the next decade, he was forced to take up other means of sustenance, and his revolutionary pretensions began to slide. By the late 1990s, he was so far gone in the opposite direction that he was planning minister for the conservative government of Rafael Caldera, and responsible in no small part for their adoption of financially disastrous neoliberal policies, as prescribed by the IMF et al. He who had once been gung-ho for Cuban-style communism, was now equally gung-ho, if not more so, for predatory capitalism.

After Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, Petkoff began to criticize him from the blatantly absurd angle that Chávez’s revolution was “bourgeois”, even though both the soldiers and the civilians who had spearheaded it all came from the poor and working classes! And he shamelessly used his very own personal newspaper (founded in 2000, and generously financed with help from Washington and Bretton Woods) as a mouthpiece for that. He has repeatedly tried to position himself as an independent thinker, but his actions say otherwise. He who had worked for an old bourgeois himself (at the behest of still other bourgeois behind the scenes) could not, even then, see the irony of his entire body of trenchant social criticism. Washington said “jump”, and Petkoff didn’t even have to ask how high. He just did; never mind that it was in ridiculous directions, and that he was constantly falling on his face like a sad old buffoon while the socialist revolution he had once fought for and then abandoned went on to victory without him.

The old and respected Venezuelan Communist Party, the PCV, is still separate and distinct from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) that Chávez formed out of various other small leftist parties, including his own Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) and a sizeable slice of Petkoff’s own former party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), which had grown disgruntled with Petkoff and disillusioned at the notion of “moving toward socialism” by embracing foreign imperialism. But the PCV does not vote against the PSUV; it supports most of the same positions, and it threw its substantial support squarely behind Chávez all the way. So it is quite reasonable to assume that Aquiles Nazoa, a Communist himself, would have approved of this manner of getting things done. And had he lived long enough, he might well have been an ardent Chavista himself.

That’s why it’s so hilarious to see Petkoff misappropriate the words and image of a real, unretouched Communist like Aquiles Nazoa for the op-ed pages of his rag. True, the article was bylined to one Laureano Márquez, but as editor in chief, Petkoff would have to have signed off on it for publication. Nothing appears in Tal Cual without his express approval. And Petkoff and Nazoa are both of a generation. So he could not have been unaware, unless he’d developed a sudden and very selective case of amnesia, as to who Aquiles Nazoa was.

Is it any wonder, then, that he incurred the wrath of the long-deceased poet’s family? And is it any wonder that they turned out in force, not only to defend Nazoa and his personal legacy, but also to support the late president who embodied in so many ways the ideals that Aquiles Nazoa espoused?

No, it isn’t any wonder at all. The only wonder, for me, is that Teodoro Petkoff hasn’t even got the residual grace left to blush.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 3

Wankers of the Week: Holy Fucking Smoke

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Sabina Becker

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Crappy weekend, everyone! So, this is the week the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church got together, gathered around a campfire, and roasted marshmallows. Since the pope-ification process is a big hoary secret, nobody knows what’s really going on in that conclave until the result is announced. White smoke means they elected one; black, that someone lost a wiener. At least, that’s how I think it goes. We don’t know, and perhaps we never will. But hey! At least we know who lives right next door to the largest gay bathhouse in Europe. Ha, ha. And here are all the other wienies that got raked over the coals this week, in no particular order…

1. Jeb Fucking Bush. So, Jebby thinks he and his crime family still stand a chance of getting back into power, and that they don’t have any baggage? Two unnecessary wars, terrorism, coups, the hatred of pretty much all the world, and that isn’t baggage to him? Well, at least now we know he’s not mentally competent to run for office. Because that’s a mighty bad case of amnesia right there!

2. Conrad Fucking Black. $3 million in unpaid taxes. How much does one have to make to have that much outstanding? Well, one thing’s for sure: He didn’t make it by hard work or merit, because he’s notoriously lacking in both. I say he should work it off in jail, along with all the luckless peons who’ve known nothing BUT hard work all their lives, and who will never see $3 mil, much less pay it in taxes.

3. George Fucking Will. “No one can have it all”, says Georgie-porgie about working women. And yet MEN do, all the time, because they have UNPAID WOMEN doing all the heavy lifting, dusting, cooking and cleaning for them. I would suggest a sex-strike to drive that home to him, but the old boy already looks like he hasn’t had any in decades. Maybe that’s why he’s doing his damnedest to keep women down all the time…no one wants him!

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4. Maria Conchita Fucking Alonso. Surprise, surprise…fascist putschist Roberto Alonso‘s equally nasty (and far less relevant) sister is glad Chavecito died. I guess it’s the only consolation she’ll have in her entire miserable wasted life, because when it’s HER turn to go, the most polite thing that anyone is going to say will be “Who the fuck was she?” PS: Oh gawd, she’s even crazier than I thought. She thinks Fidel gave Chavecito cancer! She forgets that to do such a thing, Fidel would have to have a motive of gain. And of course, he has none. If anything, he stands to lose without his dear friend Chavecito at the helm in Venezuela. PPS: And now she prefers him “alive, with cancer and in prison.” Well, sorry, Cochina. You can’t have it both ways. PPPS: Remember this? Never forget!

5. Marco Tulio Gutierrez. Sexism: Always a winning strategy for opening a debate. One that’s not going to happen, and one that he’d only lose, in any event.

6. Justin Fucking Timberlake. Yeah, make fun of a good man’s death. That’s not a skit, that’s a SHIT. You’re not bringing sexy back, you’re just a sleazy, opportunistic douche catering to the collective stupidity, ignorance, disrespect and prejudice of Gringolandia. Glad I never liked you or your crappy music. PS: Ha, ha. Weenie. PPS: Ha, ha, ha. Mediocre!

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7. Mario Fucking Vargas Llosa. Speaking of ignorant, opportunistic sleazebags and douches, this one thinks “Chavismo” is going to “disappear, destroyed by the reality of Venezuela.” How depressed he must be that Bolivarianism IS the reality of Venezuela, and it’s not going to die just because its leading proponent is no longer physically there to wave the flag. If anything, it’s going to grow even bigger now that he’s immortal. Which is more than anyone is ever going to say about Mario Fucking Vargas Llosa, who has already outlived his own fame.

8. Stephen Fucking Harper. Dude’s a public figure. So what’s with this bullshit about his office being “private property” and protesters exercising a little freedom of speech being “trespassers”? Stevie Scuzzbucket, if you don’t want to be Prime Minister, why didn’t you just say so sooner? (And just wait till Calgarians find out that Stevie’s actually from Toronto, too!)

9. Jon Lee Fucking Anderson, AGAIN. Yep, still a dipshit when it comes to Venezuela. And now he’s one on Teh Tweeter, too. I won’t be following.

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10. Rory Fucking Carroll. Oh pretty boy, you fail so hard. You’ve been served. Go on home. You’re worse than useless as a reporter, and your attempts to backpedal so as not to look a baddie are even sadder than your efforts to spread anti-Chávez crapaganda. Your analysis will never NOT suck. Stop your stuttering. Resign and give your job to someone who knows how to report accurately.

11. Lance Fucking Kinzer. What, is he afraid that abortion clinic nurses are going to slip RU-486 pills into the cupcakes they bring into classrooms, thus terminating whole classrooms full of schoolkids retroactively? Because that’s just fucked up, dude. Schools are happy to have parent volunteers, and they often rely on them. Who cares if some of them work in abortion clinics? Restricting them is not only anti-choice, it is nothing short of anti-child.

12. Ted Fucking Nugent. Who the hell goes hog-killing with a helicopter and a machine gun…and all to spite some clown on TV? Some clown who sat in his own shit for a month to avoid the Vietnam draft because he didn’t have the stones to get up on his hind hoofs and oppose the motherfucking WAR. That’s who!

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13. John Fucking Thompson. Oil spills are good for the economy! Gosh, who knew? A lobbyist for the tar sands industry, who else? Never mind the environmental disaster and the deleterious effect THAT could have on the economy AND the ecology; no, post-disaster cleanup and damage control are where it’s at!

14. Joe Fucking Walsh. So, the people of the United States are “stupid and lazy”, eh? Well, no argument from me there; after all, he’s the nation’s leading deadbeat dad, so he’s intimately familiar with both concepts.

15. Linda Fucking Harvey. How is homosexuality like slavery? Um…actually, not at all. That would be compulsory heterosexuality. Ask any gay person who’s tried it before! And how is Linda Fucking Harvey like a wanker? Um…actually, VERY FUCKING MUCH.

16. Mark Fucking Regnerus. Again with the Great Homo-Sex-You-All Question. And the answer? Sanctimonious Chinwhiskers Dude was lying through his little yellow teeth the whole time. His so-called study shows nothing at all to the effect that gays can’t be good parents and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. Surpriiiiiiise!

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17. Laura Fucking Bush. Nice to see that Pickles is still faithfully defending the right of elephants to shit under that big ol’ circus tent. She’s actually pro-choice herself, but she thinks there’s still room in the GOP for objectively pro-rape anti-choicers. Isn’t that sweet of her? Well, Pickles, you can HAVE them. Nobody else wants them. No wonder they feel the need to defend men who go on the attack; they probably are that kind of guy themselves.

18. Hunter Fucking Moore. Ha, ha, fucking HA. A quarter million in damages for defamation and a cellphone pic of what is undoubtedly a very unimpressive penis. Looks good on ya, puswad.

19. Mike Fucking Frey. Wow, who knew my vagina could “repel AIDS”? And here I thought heterosexual women were the fastest growing segment of the population to be infected with HIV. That’ll teach me to be so sciency and facty and publicly educated and all! I guess we’re gonna have to give you what you want…bigotry and unequal marriage rights till the end of time. Bravo, Einfuckingstein!

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20. Thor Fucking Halvorssen. Memo to the Fucking CBC: This man isn’t a real Venezuelan, and isn’t a real human rights activist, either. And he’s not a “descendant” of Simón Bolívar, as he fraudulently claims; the Liberator had no children. And above all, he’s not a real source for a story on Venezuela. He is Norwegian, a diplomat’s son, a charlatan and a failed crapaganda filmmaker who doesn’t give a rat’s ass for Venezuela. He couldn’t care less if it rots, and they couldn’t care less for him, either. His grandest achievement, if you could call it that, was to write a petulant open letter to Urban Outfitters, whining at them for using an image of Che Guevara, who was a real human rights activist. Yes, gullible people actually send him donations for this sort of thing! And you really soiled yourselves by giving him airtime as if he mattered. He does NOT. Please let the silly little motherfucker fade back into the obscurity from which he came, and to which he rightfully belongs. Unless, of course, you plan to do a hard-hitting exposé on how many human rights he has actually trampled on in the course of his hobby-cum-career. PS: Remember this? Ha, ha. I sure do. BoRev, honey, come back…we miss you! PPS: And his old man is persona non grata. Reason: DRUGS. PPPS: And it looks like Norway doesn’t like Thor the Younger, either. Probably because of his ill-disguised crypto-fascism. Or maybe because they just know bullshit when they smell it.

21. Peter Fucking MacKay. So, his DND isn’t responsible for the delay when it comes to the new search-and-rescue planes? Well, no matter. I guess it’s not important, unless you need rescuing at sea and Petey happens to have a fishing trip to go on.

22. Louis Fucking Kinderman. Here’s a broad hint for all you l33t hax0rs out there who think you can disguise your online location when sending death threats to the White House via its website: YOU CAN’T. Thank you, and have a nice day.

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23. Victoria Fucking Nuland, again. Spiteful butthurt much? And you would have gotten away with your nice, neat plan to take over Venezuela, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!

24. Henrique Fucking Capriles Fucking Radonsky. Yes, another double Fucking this week for Majunche, because he’s just been wanking that hard. First he goes and insults Chavecito and his family, claiming that the death was “planned” for propaganda value. (Sounds like a projection to camouflage what his CIA handlers were actually doing.) Then he turns around whining that he himself was insulted when Chavecito’s daughter called him on his shit! Poor baby. Wouldums like a hankie?

25. Robert Fucking Jeffress. What are we, fucking robots? You might think so, if you listened to this megachurch megacharlatan. Apparently he thinks gay sex is a plug-in-socket thing, and if you insert Tab A in Slot C rather than Slot B, you go kaboom. Someone please inform him that’s not how it works, and that straight people have all the same kinds of sex gay people do. HIV is a virus, and it does not care where you insert what. It is not a product of “intelligent design”, because a loving God would never design something as destructive and devastating as that.

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26. Sean Fucking Hannity. The Baby Jesus doesn’t want us seeing crime scene photos from Sandy Hook. Partly because it WOULD lead to the end of the NRA (and about fucking time, too!), and partly because it would “politicize” something which is already political whether you like it or not — but mainly, because it would prove that the massacre actually happened, and isn’t some conspiracy that was cleverly covered up by you-know-who. Solution? GO AFTER MICHAEL MOORE! Because shooting messengers is always the best way to deal with truths you just can’t handle.

27. Louie Fucking Gohmert. Vietnam was “winnable”? The Vietnamese people beg to differ. Actually, they don’t beg; they just kick ass. And they kicked the ass of the biggest and baddest army in the world. How about that? Washington lost without “deciding” anything! Learn some history, dillweed. Maybe then you’ll learn just how little power Washington actually has over the hearts and minds of a planet.

28. Grover Fucking Norquist. Oh look, Mr. Drown-the-Government-in-a-Bathtub has piped up again. Just long enough to call any Republican who favors sensible taxation policies a “rat head in a Coke bottle”. Someone please inform the Coca-Cola Co., I’m sure they’ll be very interested to hear that Grover thinks their product is rat-infested!

29. Marco Fucking Rubio. Sorry, Mr. Drinkwater, but opposing equality for anyone DOES make you a bigot. And opposing women’s reproductive rights DOES make you a motherfucking chavinist. And all of the above makes you a jackass on the wrong side of history and human rights. If you had anything vaguely resembling a brain, I’d tell you to just think how foolish you’re going to look, not just 40 years from now, but RIGHT NOW.

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30. John Fucking Eastman. Speaking of bigoted people who look foolish right now, imagine how silly you’re going to look when John Roberts takes offence to your personal attacks and rules against you on same-sex marriage and adoptions.

31. Ted Fucking Cruz. Tailgunner Joe’s Reincarnation got a Fein(stein) smackdown when he tried to lecture a certain veteran California senator on the constitution. Oh, the Schadenfreude!

32. Jack Fucking Schaap. Nowhere in any of the Gospels does Jesus endorse statutory rape, much less condone as “Righteousness” a married man telling underage girls that God wants them to climb into bed with him. But I’ll give him full marks for unmitigated fucking chutzpah, anyhow.

33. Peter Fucking Penashue. Why?

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That’s why. PS: Ha, ha. Prepare to lose that by-election, you turd.

34. Ed Fucking Royce. No, Venezuela does NOT need a “Radio Martí”, that travesty bearing the name of a great Cuban patriot for nefarious, imperialistic ends. Venezuela is already inundated with opposition media, all extremely pro-US in tone. And if those crapagandroids can’t do the job for you imperialists, TOO FUCKING BAD. Keep your nose out of that country and all the rest of the world too, thankyouveryfuckingmuch.

35. John Fucking Aglialoro. No, dude, there isn’t any “academic-media complex” out there conspiring against you and your Atlas Shrieked movies. The reason they did so poorly was because they simply sucked. And that’s because they were based on a book that sucked, by an author who sucked, who had a “philosophy” that sucked. And because the people have seen the effects in real life of that philosophy, and politicians themselves “going Galt”, and they find that THAT sucks, too. Good luck with #3, BTW. And good luck with that “conversation” aspect, since, if I recall correctly, nothing Ayn Rand said was a conversation. It was all one big sermon, and a detestable one at that. And isn’t the last part of the book the one where John Galt delivers HIS interminable harangue, too? Bwahahahahahah.

36. Maggie Fucking Lange. Yeah, lady, UPI (owned by the Moonies) is a really credible source for news from Venezuela. Or anywhere! Next time, learn Spanish and exercise some basic reading comprehension; you might find that in fact Nicolás Maduro said nothing at all to the effect of what that Moonie “report” claims he did. Frankly, you’d do just as well to use the National Enquirer, the Globe, or News of the World. Hell, why not just throw BatBoy into the mix, too?

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37. Wayne LaFucking Pierre. Dude, you don’t need no liberal media to make you look crazy, or to make people despise you and the Fucking NRA. You do a good enough job of that all by your widdle wonesome.

38. Scott Fucking Terry. “Why can’t we just have segregation”, you ask? Because it would cost too fucking much to separate all you stupid fucking racists and sexists out from the sane remainder of the general population and plop you on an uninhabited island to fend for your worthless fucking selves. THAT’s why.

39. Reno Fucking Saccoccia. If anyone ever wonders why I give all team sports the big skeptical side-eye, let this guy be your clue. Turning jackass jocks into such untouchable heroes that anything they do — even rape — gets special protection? That’s not coaching, that’s aiding and abetting. And that, too, is a crime.

40. Steve Fucking Katz. It’s commonplace for professional homophobes to turn out to be raging closet cases. I guess the same could also be said for professional marijuanophobes, because guess what this one is? Yup, a pothead.

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41. Tab Denny Fucking Johnson. Here’s a handy-dandy tip for all you disgruntled married folks out there looking for a hitman to dispose of your estranged spouses for you: Try and make sure you haven’t accidentally hired the sheriff to do your dirty work, eh?

42. Donald Fucking Trump. You don’t get to build a ballroom in the White House, and you don’t get to pay yourself in Iraqi oil. You don’t get anything, but I do wish you’d get wrapped up in a straitjacket and taken to a rubber room. You deserve it!

43. Bob Fucking Rae. Oh sure, the Keystone XL pipeline is in our national interest…if by “national interest” you mean lost money, jobs, and oh yeah…POLLUTION.

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44. Stephen Fucking Woodworth. A big fucking dick got shouted down by a giant pink vulva. Somehow, that’s just so fucking fitting. And it should happen more often, in my utterly unhumble opinion.

45. Joe Fucking Oliver. Actually, you CAN be for Canada and against the Keystone XL. In fact, that’s the ONLY pro-Canada position to take, since the pipeline does not benefit us one whit, and only serves the interests of the already way-too-fucking-rich Koch Bros. And again, as with #43, POLLUTION. How is that pro-Canada?

46. Federico Fucking Lombardi. No credible accusations against Cardinal Bergoglio, the new pope? Au contraire, mon frère. There are plenty, and they come from the families of the disappeared, who could only watch in dismay as the Argentine church hierarchy stood by and twiddled its thumbs while the country burned. The fact that he was all too cozy with Videla, Massera and others in the junta should be a major clue that there is blood under his fingernails. But I’m not surprised at this ridiculous denial; after all, this is a hyper-conservative Vatican that has swept all manner of other atrocities against humanity under the rug in the name of tradition, piety and free-market capitalism. Why should this pope be any different?

47. Mark Fucking Warawa. A de facto supporter of violence against women, since he is actively trying to restrict their right to abortion. ’nuff said.

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48. Wilfrid Fucking Fox Fucking Napier. Why the double Fucking? Because the idea that priestly pedophilia is “not a criminal condition” is just doubly fucked up. Tell it to the survivors of priestly abuse, Father…those that haven’t yet killed themselves out of depression and shame, that is. Being VICTIMIZED by a pedophile is not a criminal condition, but you’d never know it to see how victims are actually treated. Honestly, lepers have it better. Meanwhile, priests who abuse them have been coddled, aided and abetted by their own bishops, who seem to think that geography is all that it takes to cure them. Removing them from one “temptation” is not the answer…turning the abusers over to the authorities is! How much longer are good Catholics going to have to beat their heads against that wall before the fucking church gets the message?

49. Ben Fucking Shapiro. Because when you got no charm, you got no brains, you got a bad hairdo and you got no game, why take cultural studies courses? To pick up chicks…and get shot down, poor widdle fing. And then babble about how pointing out racism is racist against poor oppwessed white people, waaaaaaaaaaa.

50. Ann Fucking Coulter. Oh look, the whiny, hysterical, mentally defective Barbie doll is projecting again. Same shit every day. Hey, Coultergeist: Why don’t all you conservabitches just do what you’re always telling liberal and leftist women to do…stop voting, stop having ambitions, go home, and above all, SHUT THE FUCK UP?

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And finally, to the Fucking Vatican. Yay, they elected someone, and this time he’s not even from Europe! We’ve gone straight from the Hitlerjugend to the Argentine Junta. Uh…progress? Meet the new pope…same as the old pope…and the old pope…and the old pope. What am I saying…THEY’RE ALL OLD!!! Popes are old. Popes are poops. And so are their ideas (with the honorable exceptions of John XXIII and John Paul I, who were truly decent and progressive chaps, and therefore ROCKED). I’ve often heard it said of Ratzi that he was the most brilliant mind the 13th century had to offer, and I’m not sure that’s much of a joke. When he got through with the Vatican, it was like Vatican II had never happened. And the latest pope is actually the cardinal who came in second during the last conclave, the one that elected Ratzi (the former chief inquisitor). Which tells me loud and clear that they’ve run out of good ideas over there in Rome.

And that’s scary, this whole backwardness and orthodoxy. Not because I’m afraid of Latin (I learned it at university level, I aced it, it’s standing me in good stead as I learn Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, I actually enjoy it), but because I don’t want to go back to the fucking Middle Ages. And neither does most of the world, developed or otherwise. We like separations of church and state. We like having reproductive rights! We like having the Pill, and safe abortion on demand. We like not getting AIDS. We like not having to be treated with prayers, leeches and superstition for the bubonic plague. We like not being burnt at the stake for heresy. And I particularly like not having my evolution contaminated with nebulous, woman-blaming shit like the doctrine of Original Sin.

And best of all, I like not having to listen to an endless line of sexist, homophobic, ostensibly celibate but probably closeted old geezers with fucked-up ideas trying to fuck up the rest of the world with said ideas. Because I’ve examined those ideas, and found them to be too full of crap for practical, everyday usage. Especially the one that insists that old, sexist, homophobic, ostensibly celibate but probably closeted geezers are Infallible. There is no such thing as papal infallibility, and the very fact that it was formally adopted in the 19th century to the canon of Catholic thought should tell you all you need to know about THAT particular, and very earthly, power-grab. And let’s not kid ourselves; that power-grab reaches way beyond just one Christian sect! Even here, in seemingly liberal, secular, humanistic Canada, the Catholic church still holds inordinate sway over the corridors of power in Ottawa, and in all the provincial and territorial capitals, too. Just the fact that they have publicly funded religious separate schools should tell you that something is fishy here. Nobody else does. (We Wiccans certainly don’t!)

The papacy is obsolete; it is a dictatorship founded on obsolete and unenforceable ideas, and it sustains itself by keeping people in a state of mental and spiritual backwardness. And the fact that it is all too fallible is all too obvious nowadays. No one knows it better than my Catholic friends. They, too, are getting tired and frustrated with all the bullshit. Most of them have been living in more or less open revolt against the hierachy for decades, supporting Liberation Theology, birth control, gay rights, you name it. Anything but a return to the medieval sheepfold!

If St. Malachy’s apocryphal prophecy indeed holds true, and this latest pope is Petrus Romanus, the last one before the end of the papacy, then maybe the best way to greet the end of it all is not with fear and trembling, but with growing spiritual autonomy, intellectual curiosity and hope. Because whatever is coming is surely better than more of the same old same old. And the best way to face it is to turn one’s head forward, not back.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | Comments Off on Wankers of the Week: Holy Fucking Smoke