Where will Chavecito’s final resting place be?

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Sabina Becker

chavez-pantheon

“Chávez deserves to rest in the National Pantheon! Share if you agree.” (Graphic making the rounds of Facebook lately.)

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Does that man ever rest? Nope. Even dead, he’s still stirring the old soup in characteristic Chavecito fashion. Case in point: Where his body will go when the seven-day national mourning period is up and the millions-strong crowds disperse and go home. Some are saying his earthly remains should be brought to his old home in Barinas and buried there, as befits the humble origins of down-to-Earth Chavecito. Others have grander ideas, more suited to the stature of the undeniably great president he became:

The acting president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced on Sunday that the body of the Leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez, will be brought from the Military Academy to the Museum of the Bolivarian Revolution on Friday, so that the people of Venezuela will have an opportunity to attend the Comandante’s wake on Thursday.

“On Friday, we’ll bring Comandante Chávez to the Historical Museum of the Bolivarian Revolution”, the former Military Museum, Maduro announced during an official speech.

“We invite everyone to come with their love, their hope, and their strength, so that we can share this love with the Comandante,” Maduro added.

With respect to the proposal made by the people of Venezuela themselves, that Hugo Chávez be laid to rest in the National Pantheon alongside Simón Bolívar, Maduro said that this would be discussed in order to approve a constitutional amendment that would permit fulfillment of the people’s will.

“For this, we need an amendment, proposed by the Democratic Progressive Forces, the majority of the national Chavista bloc, in order to bring Comandante Chávez to the National Pantheon,” Maduro announced.

Maduro also informed the press that the office of Hugo Chávez Frías, in Miraflores Palace, the government seat in Caracas, would be preserved as a museum, along with all the work spaces Chávez maintained in that location.

“Even if we have to move to the Plaza Bolívar [the main square of downtown Caracas], we will go gladly, because that space in Miraflores was founded by Cipriano Castro, and dignified by Comandante Chávez,” said the acting president.

Meanwhile, people are still arriving at the Military Academy to pay their respects to the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, who has been lying in state there for five consecutive days, accompanied by “a sea of people” who have come to commit themselves to continuing his legacy.

The funereal chapel was set up last Wednesday after a great multitude accompanied the revolutionary leader’s casket along an eight-kilometre journey through Caracas, from the Military Hospital where he died on March 5 after a two-year battle against cancer.

The number of people who have come to the Military Academy has exceeded all expectations and this brought about the Executive’s decision to extend the ceremony to the coming Thursday, whereafter the body of Hugo Chávez will be brought tot he Museum of the Revolution (formerly the Military Historical Museum) so that the people can pay their final respects.

The government has also announced that the body of Chávez will be embalmed “so that the people will have him forever”, according to the acting president, Nicolás Maduro.

Translation mine.

And here, again, we land in another posthumous bit of Chavecito controversy. Some are arguing against the proposal that his body be placed on permanent display in a glass casket, like that of Lenin or Chairman Mao. It’s been said that he didn’t believe in the embalming and preservation of human bodies, calling it a “degeneration of human dignity”. And the following clip from his TV show, Aló Presidente, has been offered up as “proof” of that:

And here, again, we have evidence of the media twisting what he said into something he most certainly did not mean. If you watch the clip, and you understand Spanish, you will soon realize that he’s not talking about embalming in general. He’s heartily in agreement with the preservation of cadavers donated to medical schools for the teaching of anatomy, for instance. What Chavecito is taking issue with, in the clip, is one very specific, and very controversial, use of preserved human bodies: namely, as “art”. He’s talking about the Body Worlds exhibit, which has toured the globe and, while in Caracas four years ago, was set up in a fancy shopping mall, the Sambil, which is frequented by the well-to-do suburbanites of the opposition. Chavecito is objecting very specifically, and ONLY, to this particular display, considering it undignified in the extreme. And he has a good point: Who would want their dissected, plastic-injected corpse to be cranked into odd poses, dressed in bizarre costumes, and put on display in a fucking upscale shopping centre, like some kind of grotesque department-store mannequin? And what kind of people would go to see such a lurid display?

Obviously, this is a far cry from what is being proposed for Chavecito himself. He won’t be dissected for the ghoulish oppos’ delectation, and no indignities will be done to his body; like Lenin, he will be preserved with the utmost respect, as befits a second Bolívar. There is no chance that he will be simply shovelled under the dirt of Barinas and left to rot forgotten, as the opposition would no doubt prefer. In death as in life, he will be ever present, and guarded by the watchful and loving eyes of his own people. And I would not be a bit surprised if he ends up in the Pantheon, according to the people’s own wishes. He followed their will right up to the last days of his life; why should he not go on doing so even in death…or rather, as I and many others assert, in immortality?

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How crazy are the Venezuelan oppos?

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

So crazy, they mistake Chavecito’s successor for this man:

not-maduro

That tall man with the thick dark hair? That’s NOT Nicolás Maduro. That’s Richard Peñalver. He’s not a politician; he’s an ordinary citizen, one of the Chavista defenders of Llaguno Bridge during the coup of ’02. What’s he shooting at? The riot trucks of the Metropolitan Caracas Police, who were sent to cause riots and kill Chavistas by the putschist mayor, Alfredo Peña, a well-known CIA asset. You can learn more about the events shown in these pictures by watching this documentary of the coup from a street-level perspective.

And if you’re at all perceptive, you’ll appreciate how funny (peculiar and ha-ha) it is that the same oppos who repeatedly called for Chavecito’s death, and who sent out the police to fire on Peñalver et al, now are trying to pass him off as the next president they want to kill.

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Evo, the president of the Bolivianas

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

bolivian-women

Why are these Bolivian women smiling? Because this Women’s Day, their president showed that he takes gender-based violence seriously:

On Saturday, in the southwestern department of Potosí, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, promulgated the Integral Law to guarantee women a life free of violence. The legal measure was supported by organizations defending gender equality.

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Betty Tejara, said that the measure establishes a prison term of 30 years without parole for those who commit femicide, defined as the murder of a woman for reasons of hatred or disrespect of her female condition.

The law also sets out eight years’ prison for those who commit homicide out of violent emotion, meaning persons who take the life of an elder, a descendent, spouse or cohabitant, without the implication of femicide.

Tejara emphasized that all the offences established under the Law are considered “public actions”.

She explained that the law’s objective is to establish mechanisms, measures and integral policies of prevention, attention, protection and reparation for women in violent situations, as well as prosecution for aggressors.

To enforce the law, the Government of Bolivia established the creation of Public Courts against violence against women and Material Magistratures and a Division for Crimes of Violence Against Women in the National Police.

According to the latest figures published by the National Institute of Statistics and the Vice-Ministry for Equal Opportunities, nine out of every 10 Bolivian women are victims of some sort of violence.

The Centre for Information and Development of Women (CIDEM) stated that as of 2009, 403 femicides have been recorded, 21 of them in the first months of 2013, and 218 murders of women as a result of citizen insecurity and other causes.

The promulgation of the law was originally slated for the evening of International Women’s Day, but had to be delayed so that President Evo Morales could travel to Venezuela to participate in memorial services for the late president, Hugo Chávez.

Translation mine.

Nine out of ten women will be victims of violence in Bolivia at some point in their lives. That is a shocking statistic, and it speaks to the need for development…not only in terms of material goods (although an overwhelming majority of Bolivians ARE impoverished, and most of the violence does indeed break down along class lines), but also a crying need for legal measures against sexism itself. This law was long overdue, as laws against racism and human exploitation in general have been in Bolivia.

I have no doubt that violence against women has long been taken for granted and normalized there for the same reasons as racialized abuses against the indigenous have been. So far, the only protection appears to have been the privilege that comes of having white skin and plenty of money and property. Most Bolivians don’t have all that, so gendered and racialized violence are commonplace, and heartbreakingly so.

It doesn’t surprise me, either, that it’s taken this long to address the matter; for five centuries, this problem has been waved off as unimportant. Or that it’s taken an indigenous president, who governs with heavy input from social movements, to make the changes necessary. One too often has to have been a victim of discrimination to see the need to end it, and one needs the input of those who have experience and understanding of the laws (or lack of laws) to make the legislative changes that will reshape what society deems acceptable. Evo was once beaten within an inch of his life and left for dead when he was the leader of a coca-growers’ union in the Chaparé, and he has lifelong experience of racism and discrimination behind him. His connection to the many social justice movements of Bolivia (including the female coca-growers’ unions of the Chaparé) is another factor in his political development, and has undoubtedly helped him to see the need for laws such as this one.

Evo Morales is very much the president of the poor and downtrodden. Thanks to this law, he is now the champion of the Bolivian women, as well. May it pay off in great social change for all of Bolivia.

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Compare and Contrast: Chavecito vs. King Shut-up

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

chavez-vs-juan-carlos

“I’m head of state because a majority elected me, and they call my country a dictatorship.”

“I’m head of state because a dictator installed me, and they call my country a democracy.”

All of this is true. Chavecito has been freely and fairly elected by a majority every time. King Juan Carlos, on the other hand, was never elected; his royal family was restored by Franco. And yet the latter, with the arrogance only an unelected hereditary monarch could have, once had the nerve to tell the former — only elected, and non-white, and therefore a peon — to shut up. Talk about two people who should be trading places, eh?

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Music for a Sunday: All for Chavecito, Chavecito for all!

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

First up, a little gloom-and-doom music from Globomojón:

Ha, ha, psych. Actually, that’s Ska-P, the Spanish anarchist ska-punk band. They used to think that Chavecito was just another “authoritarian socialist” — a complete contradiction in terms, of course, since real socialism makes authoritarians obsolete, and Chavecito’s policies, even those enacted by decree, were actually aimed at empowering those who have traditionally been powerless. Sound authoritarian to you? Well, when the guys came to Venezuela and saw what was really going on, they changed their tune, and this song was the result. The achievements shown in the pictures are just a few of the many, MANY good things that happened on Chavecito’s watch. Ska-P became huge fans of the Venezuelan leader, and spread the good word throughout Spain. And considering how the Eurocrisis-ridden Spaniards recently turned out in droves to mourn him, it’s safe to say a lot of them wish they had a leader like him.

Next up, some working-class heroes from Hamilton, Ontario…yes, un montón de canadienses:

This one’s about Chavecito’s time in Yare Prison, after his failed attempt to overthow the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. While he was in prison, the social movements finally succeeded in getting CAP impeached for misuse of public monies, and Chavecito, always in communication with the outside world through his visitors, became a folk hero. When he emerged from the jailhouse, he crowd-surfed his way to a cross-country tour, where he met with countless people and social movements, who all came together to help elect him to the presidency in late 1998. The following year, he convened the Constituent Assembly that rewrote the Venezuelan constitution, and the streets erupted in celebration of the new, improved magna carta.

And then there’s this, from a US folkie whom you can’t truly call a gringo, because he doesn’t think or act like one:

Notice the banner behind him? This was shot in Copenhagen four years ago. ALBA is everywhere, you guys! That’s Chavecito’s baby. It’s bigger than Latin America by now. Talk about legacies! Chavecito brought change; now he IS the change. See what I meant when I said he’s now an immortal?

And speaking of immortal, here’s a song about souls. Chavecito was a llanero (native of the Great Plains of Venezuela), and this was one of his favorite folk songs:

And here’s an especially appropriate one from Alí Primera, the great Venezuelan folk singer, whom Chavecito often quoted (even breaking into his songs from time to time):

“Those who die for life’s sake cannot be called dead. From this moment on, mourning them is forbidden.” True indeed. And the dates of Chavecito’s life are given as “1954-forever”! Again with the theme of immortality.

And hot off the Internets, there’s this little rap number, which samples the above in its intro:

Didn’t take long, did it?

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Wankers of the Week: Poopcakes

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Sabina Becker

poopcakes.jpg

Crappy weekend, everyone! This week, we get painfully literal with the crappy bit; Ikea’s been having more trouble with food gone wrong. This week, it was cakes contaminated with fecal coliform bacteria. Diarrhea, anyone? Some nausea and vomiting, perhaps? Urgh. Anyhow, Ikea’s poopcakes aren’t the only thing that’s full of shit. Lots of people turned out to be full of it as well, and here they are in no particular order:

1. Lech Fucking Walesa. Does anyone still worship this CIA sellout of an anticommunist walrus and (ha, ha) Romney endorser? Because I stopped even respecting him a long time ago, right about when he insulted the late (and very much lamented) president of Venezuela…a better democrat than he’ll ever be. And if you need evidence that he’s no true democrat, just get a load of what he says about gays. He seems to think gay rights is some kind of homosupremacy movement. That’s almost as ridiculous as the contention that his right-wing party was ever about democracy.

2. Steven Fucking Anderson. Teh Crazee is strong with this one. He’s wrong about everything except maybe the fact that the US is not founded by Christians. (No shit; it was founded by Teh Injunz.) But everything else is loopy, loopy, LOOPY. He’s most wrong that Christians shouldn’t be on medication for mental illness. He, of course, is the clearest case in point.

3. Antonin Fucking Scalia. Oh what the hell, let’s put Fat Tony Vaffanculo in here this week. It’s pretty obvious that he is a racist in deeds, and if he turned out to be one in words as well, it wouldn’t surprise me. There isn’t a progressive thing on Earth that he couldn’t take a steaming dump on.

4. Pamela Fucking Geller. How the hell do you get yourself disinvited to the CPAC conference? By criticizing St. Grover of Norquist for not being bigoted and hateful enough. Now you know!

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5. Tom Fucking Flanagan. Still beating his meat…er, flogging that old dead horse about how “child porn voyeurs” are somehow a better class of people than child molesters and/or pornographers? Yup. And also whining that he was “trapped”. By some random native guy asking “a rambling series of questions”. When in fact his own “questions” about why kiddie-porn possession will get you jail time are, well, pretty rambly and apropos of nothing, too. I’ve done my share of time in a university classroom, and the “language” he blathers about is not par for the course, it’s actually highly unusual for there. But then again, I went to one of Canada’s top universities, where babbling about how it’s not so bad to look at shitty pictures of abused children would never fly, and a certain degree of baseline morality exists. This dude taught at the U of Calgary, which is fast acquiring a reputation as an unholy cross between a cowtown diploma mill and a crapaganda factory for right-wing corporatism. I guess sensationalism is their “draw”? And for a supposed academic, he sure is frightfully ignorant about the source of those mere pictures, not to mention what kind of a “different taste” creates the demand for them. I guess his next lecture will be about how supply-side economics is still a valid theory. But I won’t be sitting in to hear it; I’ve heard quite enough of his nonsense, and so have we all. We don’t need to hear his sleazy “explanations” in the National Pest, thankyouveryfuckingmuch. PS: Or Maclean’s, either.

6. Mark Fucking Sanford. I reiterate what I said a few weeks back: Go hike the Appalachian Trail and stay there. Nobody owes your ambitions another moment’s thought. Least of all the (ex-)wife you betrayed with the most ridiculous fucking excuse in the annals of cheatypants.

7. Stephen Fucking Harper. Why?

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That’s why. It’s absolutely mindboggling that he could be talking about “reckless and overheated rhetoric” while the country is going up in smoke from the tar sands of Mordor. Or when you consider just how many of the facts about Israel are lined up squarely against him. PS: Oh, dear. It’s just not your week to keep your foot the fuck out of your mouth, is it, Stevie?

8. And Jason Fucking Kenney is a wanker too, for the same reasons, needless to say. PS: No, Jason, Iraq doesn’t want you either. Go the fuck home.

9. Roger Fucking Mahony. Pee-YEW! What’s that smell? Oh…just a big pile of freshly laid sanctimony, going up in smoke. Ha, ha.

10. Jennifer Fucking Roback Fucking Morse. Why the double Fucking? Because it’s doubleplusbad to attack a suicide who can’t defend himself, and to do it in the name of “protecting marriage”. Not to mention the way she did it, which is just absolutely fucking repulsive. Telling vulnerable people (Tyler Clementi’s grieving parents) that their son shouldn’t have had support because it came from the “wrong” sort of people (TEH GHEYZ, OH NOES!!!) is just sick and disgusting. Especially since lack of social support is what led directly to his suicide.

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11. Ted Fucking Gassman. Stop concern-trolling, Grandpa. Your granddaughter will probably turn out all right regardless of her parents’ divorce. If divorced parents were all it took to turn girls into sleaze queens, there’d be an awful lot more of them…fully half the female population, at least. That’s not true; most teenage girls, even the lost and hurting ones, are still nice. And if you’re really concerned about stopping “promiscuity”, tackle it from the DEMAND end. That is to say, dirty old men who concern-troll by day, and go lurking for under-age girls by night. Guys who look an awful lot like you, in other words.

12. Stephen Fucking Brumme. I won’t ask what causes a real-estate agent to go rummaging through a female client’s dresser drawers, stealing unnamed articles of apparel. I have a fair idea of what it might be already, and it skeeves me the fuck out.

13. Seth Fucking Groody. Congratufuckinglations, you won the “right” to wear an anti-gay shirt to school. I think it only fair that others be allowed an equal right to throw eggs at it. Or better still, wear anti-fundie shirts of their own.

14. Lou Fucking Dobbs. Full-blown antigovernment paranoia: He haz it. Really not sure why he still has a TV show, but then again, I’m really not sure why FUX Snooze is still a thing, either.

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15. George H.W. Fucking Bush. Sniff…awww. Dubya’s dad is “hurting” for his son! Let’s not ask how many Iraqis, Afghans, New Orleanians, etc. are DEAD because of that no-good punk-ass spawn of Satan.

16. John Fucking Kerry. Jesus H. Christ, lay off Dennis Rodman. Yeah, the dude’s way weird, but you know what? He’s done more towards a détente with North Korea than you have. And considering that you fought and survived a war in Southeast Asia, and protested for peace when you came home, one would think you’d be all for that kind of peace ambassadorship. So why aren’t you? PS: Ha, ha.

17. Joe Fucking Oliver. Yeah, sure, the tar sands are green, if by “green” you mean greenhouse gases galore.

18. Pamela Fucking Sampson. No, Venezuela does NOT need Dubai-style skyscrapers; it’s in a quake-prone region. Ever hear of the Andes? And, given that it has a long-standing historical poverty problem (which Chavecito has done MUCH to alleviate), it doesn’t need a local Louvre or other monument to rich people’s money, either. What it needs is what Chavecito has given it: medical care, affordable food, education, literacy, housing, and above all, SOVEREIGNTY. Keep your fucked-up crapitalist priorities off it, thankyouveryfuckingmuch.

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19. Keith Fucking Ablow. How much longer till Ablow-hard finally loses his medical licence? Once more, I’m left to speculate that he must have gotten his MD from a diploma mill. Or maybe one of those claw-type vending machines in shopping malls, the kind full of plastic eggs with toys in them. How else to explain how a “doctor” could be stupid enough to think that Barack Obama, who is most certainly no friend of Chavecito (witness his chilly behavior when gifted with Noam Chomsky’s book, or his blandly idiotic words about “new relations” this week), is full of “profound sadness” at the loss of his “comrade”?

20. And while we’re on the subject of FUX Snooze wankers, Brian Fucking Kilmeade is one too (same link), for claiming that Venezuela is “a shambles” because of Chavecito. Don’t anyone tell him what the actual statistics are, because it’ll only make his lip quiver and big glutinous booze-scented tears roll down his cheeks.

21. Ileana Fucking Ros-Lehtinen. Crazy bitch, lay the fuck off José Serrano; he knows the truth about Venezuela and Cuba, and he’s a true democrat. As is the late Chavecito. And in any case, you’re a fine one to be talking about “authoritarian” anything, since you’re a well-known fascist lunatic who wants to foment coups in at least two countries, where most of the people know your kind all too well and are glad to be rid of you.

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22 and 23. David Fucking Delmonico and Deblin Fucking Costal. That’s right, two imperialist military attachés, one very opportunistic wank. In Venezuela. As Chavecito lay dying, they were kicked out for attempting to foment a coup. Look for more to follow them, and not a moment too soon.

24. Baronelle Fucking Stuzman. So, she’s quite happy to hire gay people, and sell flowers to them…but not for one of their gay, gay, gaiety-gay weddings? Because of her “relationship with Jesus”? Funny, but I don’t recall him saying anywhere to anyone that homophobes are entitled to a “relationship” with him!

25. Fucking Prince. Yeah, the Artist Formerly Known As That Annoying Little Hieroglyph is pretty much a wanker all the time, even if he IS a freakishly talented one. But really: trashing a beautiful old guitar that wasn’t even his, just for a bit of stage flash? He’s established enough by now not to need stunts like this to get attention…and rich enough to pay for the repairs, although I suspect he may be too much of a wanker for that.

26. Dennis Fucking Hof. Wow, a pimp with a heart of gold! That’s a new one on me. Good thing for the gangster that the photo of that “bunny” girl is shot in such a way that it completely obscures the barbed wire and prison walls of the pussy penitentiary behind her.

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27. Mitt Fucking Romney. No, Mittens, your problem wasn’t failing to connect with minority voters; it was failing to connect with voters, period. But I guess one really can’t expect better of a filthy-rich robot with magic underwear and a car elevator, can one?

28. Terry Fucking Glavin. The higher a monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass. And the more hyperbole a crappy columnist farts in the face of a dead president, the better the target of his fumes looks by the light of all that burning monkey-flatus.

29. Rob Fucking Ford. Happy Women’s Day, ladies! Robbo’s thinking of you. Why else would he make dirty, sexist remarks and grope whoever’s to hand — in this case, a former rival from the last municipal elections? Oh wait, he was stinkingly drunk. Well, that changes everything!

30. James O’Fucking Keefe. Well, well. Looks like our douchey little fake pimp is gonna have to find himself a sugar daddy. He owes $100,000 in damages to an innocent victim of his ACORN “exposé” (note the quotes). Maybe he could pawn his grandma’s tacky rabbit fur coat, although I doubt he’d get much for it. Or maybe, just maybe, he could start by getting a REAL job for the first time in his life.

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31. Joe Fucking Biden. Thanks so much, Mr. Vice-President, for basically saying that hope and change are NOT on the US agenda when it comes to the Middle East. Remind me again why you and His Barackness were elected in the first place, and re-elected? Oh yeah…you’re supposed to be so different from those other guys. Well, not anymore, you ain’t. In terms of foreign policy, you’re just as bad if not worse.

32. Barack Fucking Obama. Yes, that’s right, His Barackness is a wanker too. Also for foreign policy reasons. It doesn’t sound like he really wants a new relationship with Venezuela; that would mean giving up coupmongering, and the State Dept. would never stand for that. They want to keep things as is, which is to say, profoundly imperialistic. Which is why Nicolás Maduro (viva el nuevo presidente, carajo!) will be giving him the severe side-eye. As will I, I’m sorry to say.

33. Marco Fucking Rubio. Safe to say he won’t be running on a platform called Compassionate Conservatism. Even oxymorons like that are too high-concept for him. No, his attitude is pure malice, and that means letting anyone die who’s not a privileged dude like him. Let him drink bottled water, and may he choke on it.

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34. Jon Fucking Kelly. In case you wonder if the BBC has any journalistic integrity left, this should answer your question firmly in the negative. They’ve been FUX Snoozed, and their coverage of Venezuela is a case in point. Only a complete idiot would put Hugo Chávez in the same category as a bunch of dictators and terrorists. And that’s exactly what this one has done. I don’t suppose it would be worth calling for his resignation; they’ll just replace him with another schlocky hack anyway. Because hey, they don’t have to be accountable to anyone, or informative, anymore. They answer to David Fucking Cameron, bitches!

35. Henrique Fucking Capriles Fucking Radonsky. Oh look, the sore loser of the last Venezuelan election finally decided to show up…not to pay his respects to the late leader, much less to govern his shambolic state of Miranda (oh no, never THAT), but to criticize the perfectly legitimate succession of Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela. I guess the opposition logic here is something along the lines of “We lost the election, therefore we came in second, therefore the presidency now belongs to US!” Newsflash, kiddo…the people didn’t vote for YOU. And they won’t next time around, either. If you fail as governor of Miranda, you have no business running for president of Venezuela. Y punto.

36. Rory Fucking Carroll. Same link as above. After all, this dumb farce wouldn’t be “legitimate” news if it didn’t have at least one credulous foreign presstitute kneeling in front of Capriles’ open zipper. Always gotta be polishing those turdnuggets for the Grauniad, eh Rory? PS: Ha, ha. You got served, boy.

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37. John Fucking Brennan. Oopsies! The new CIA director got sworn in on a copy of the US constitution that was missing the Bill of Rights. Now, some would say that’s an accident, but I say to them that if you believe that, you don’t know shit about those guys. They are not about constitutional human rights, never were, and never will be.

38. Celeste Fucking Greig. Oh fuck, it’s Legitimate Rape all over again. Actually, pregnancy from rape is NOT rare. If you’re ovulating around the same time as the assault, you can get pregnant. It’s that simple. Trauma has no influence on it whatsoever. You’d have to be fucked in the head to think otherwise. (Or a dumb fucking out of touch Repug. Same difference!)

39. Cliff Fucking Kincaid. Is anyone besides me struck by the incredible irony of a repressed, ostensibly straight white teabagger-type dude with an eliminationist agenda demanding a panel to investigate why gays are “prone to violence, terror and treason”? Yes? Oh good. I hate to feel that I’m somehow alone in smelling bullshit all over the fucking place.

40. Chris Fucking Brown. Right now, about the best thing you could do for womankind is just to fuck off and die, already. I’m not fucking kidding. Don’t talk to us, don’t touch us, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Just fuck straight off to hell where you belong, you talentless piece of misogynous shit.

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And finally, to all the brainwashed Chávez-haters of the media, the governments of Canada, the US, and wherever, and to the three sad little trolls who took the first opportunity to poop here, only to be denied. Welcome to the wrong side of history, you fucking buffoons; unlike Fidel, you won’t be absolved. Don’t worry, Nazi-skank “Joan” of 76.118.149.156, hyena “Joe” at 65.34.222.134 (dein Deutsch stinkt, du saublöder Scheißhammel!), and necrophile “Forenzo” at 82.41.214.175. You may not get any love from me, but you’ll get plenty of attention, and if my loyal readers have anything to say, you’re going to find your e-mail boxes full of billets-doux before you know it. So you won’t feel totally alone, even if you are slowly circling the drain of irrelevance. Yeah, bitches, guess who’s got the last laugh now? Me, eating your lunches and washing ’em down with your sweet, sweet tears. That’s who.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Chavecito’s finest hour

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Well, all right…his finest 48 hours:

Honestly, I never get tired of watching this. It really is endlessly inspiring AND informative. Anyone who seriously thinks that the Bolivarian Revolution was all about Chávez, and ONLY Chávez, is delusional. The revolution is the PEOPLE of Venezuela; they elected him, they shaped his thought, they MADE him. And when he was in danger of being killed, they saved him.

There are so many things I could say about Chavecito in this, but really, his conduct throughout is remarkable. He is calm, cool, charming, peaceful…anything but a mentally unstable dictator, as he has so often been painted. His relationship with the young soldiers of the palace guard is unmistakably fatherly, his personal gestures instilling great love and trust. When abducted and held prisoner, he goes quietly, reassuring everyone who reaches out to him while his supporters sing the national anthem in defiance of the act of treason taking place even as the cameras roll. Many honestly fear it will be the end; one minister even says, “It’s the victory of Death”. There is a threat from the military wing of the putschists to bomb Miraflores Palace, just as the fascists who killed Salvador Allende did to La Moneda in Chile nearly 30 years earlier. This is what they would have done had Chavecito not gone. Rather than sacrifice Miraflores and all the people in it, Chavecito goes.

And then, when he does go, he is clever enough not to sign the pre-written “resignation” letter they handed him. (“Buffoon”, eh. Yeah, RIGHT. Crazy like a fox!) So the media lie when they claim that he stepped down voluntarily. The ministers present at the arrest make sure to tell the cameras of the Irish film crew that this was a coup d’état. Soon after that, the public channel VTV’s signal is cut, and the lies begin to spread.

Now it is up to the citizens to spread the truth of the matter through the street. Which they do. The major media, collaborators in the coup, are defeated by simple word of mouth, which travels by motorcycle through the barrio streets, and by shouted slogans around flaming barricades. It is very much a citizens’ rescue effort; the palace guard bide their time, then make their move when they see that the coupmongers are getting antsy hearing all the chanting from the crowd outside the palace gates. Some of the lesser players are arrested and held in the basement, but the big fish all get away. No matter; the ministers are able to regroup, vice-president Diosdado Cabello (who today is president of the National Assembly) is sworn in as temporary president, and he gives the order to the soldiers to bring Chávez back from the island of La Orchila. The rest is history.

And if you’re still wondering what the secret of Chavecito’s success was, here you go. It’s all in the sauce…that is, the people:

A woman in La Vega, a poor neighborhood in Caracas, told me six years ago: “This here is irreversible.” I asked her what would happen if Chávez were to die. Despite some media and multinational companies, I believe that she was not wrong. For the majority of Venezuelan society, life will never again be fated to suffer from exploitation and misery. The “process” has been going on long enough to strike roots in the ground. Back then, this woman told me that she had just learned that black people, like herself, once came as slaves from Africa. At 50 years of age, she had believed until then that there was a different kind of poverty, one darker than the others. But this woman had learned that injustice has origins, and ignorance has consequences.

In the same barrio, I met a hip-hop group, Familia Negra (Black Family). Although their fate might have been to die in a shooting, the changes in their environment had also changed them, so that they became social workers. A short time later, in Madrid, I got to know another “social worker”, one opposed to Hugo Chávez, who not long ago had studied at the University of Central Venezuela, favored by the privileged. He told me that he had been promised a job in La Vega, but out of fear, he had never set foot in the neighborhood. He was frightened of it. Those who had always ruled, suddenly found themselves ruled over. The poor can be scary, so it was better to live off the interest of his bank account in Madrid.

In Venezuela, something had changed since the elections of 1998, when Hugo Chávez won out over a candidate who was Miss Universe 1981 — Irene Sáez, the mayor of the exclusive Chacao district of Caracas, who had forbidden couples from kissing in public. Botox politics: what’s important is how things look, not what’s behind it all. In their final campaign stops before the election, the parties that had for years divided the power and corruption money amongst themselves tried to put on new makeup. But it was too late, they weren’t coming back again. In 1998, 63 percent of qualified voters went to the polls, whereas in the last election it had only been 30 percent. In the last elections, this past October, 80 percent went to the polls. And Chávez won again, as with all elections since 1998, and those were many.

The motto “Now the oil belongs to everyone” has been heard throughout Venezuela for the past 15 years, over and over again. For some, oil money was just a campaign tool for Chavismo. Strange perception: I live in a society, this society generates collective wealth. This wealth creates social welfare. But the distribution of this welfare is oppression. For the “international community”, the majority of the world press, and, when necessary, the Socialist International, something else would have been normal: I live in a society, this society generates collective wealth. The wealth goes to foreign interests and three or four people from here, who divide the pie among themselves.

So the virus took hold. And the sickness spread. It infected other countries in the region, crossing rivers and seas. It raised questions and started debates. But most of all, it struck fear in the hearts of those who had never been afraid from the day they were born. But suddenly, they could no longer trust the hands that rocked their cradles. In one amateur video that circulated before the coup of 2002, a group of anti-Chavistas from the upper class were seen warning one another about the dangers of their household servants: “Chavismo is spreading among them.” That must be a perverse and antidemocratic system, pure communism, populistic dictatorship, pure hate.

Translation mine.

That was the Telesur correspondent in Madrid, Jacobo Rivero. Telesur is another of Chavecito’s great achievements: a public TV channel of international scope, the first of its kind in Latin America. Its purpose: to counteract the lies and propaganda of private media, including the US channels who helped to foment the coup and shape public opinion in its favor throughout North America. The local private media, after all, were co-authors of the Venezuelan putsch. Hence the documentary’s title!

And even now, even on the day of Chavecito’s funeral, the lamestream media up here are still blatting about what an evil “populist” he was, what a “dictator”, what a “strongman”. When the truth is that he was popular (not “populist”), the people dictated the constitutional order to him (and he obeyed!), and he was a strong man, two words, not a “strongman”. What IS a strongman? That putschist figure so beloved of US imperialism that they never hesitate to install their own wherever there are resources to be plundered by their corporations…and then get upset when he invariably goes off script. See Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet, the Argentine Junta, etc., etc. THOSE were dictators. But as one young man points out shortly after the coup as the putschist police of Caracas are terrorizing the streets and gunning down Chavistas, in the three years that Chávez had then been in power, there had never been any repression. What the hell kind of dictatorial strongman doesn’t repress?

By the way, today is International Working Women’s Day. (Yes, this day has socialist origins. Surprise!) Do the women of Venezuela rejoice because a nasty, oppressive, wife-beating tyrant is dead? No…they mourn because they lost their greatest presidential ally of all time. Chavecito was a proud, self-proclaimed feminist. It was no empty vote-getting statement; he really did give them the political tools they needed to carve out rooms of their own. And the women adored him for that. He consulted with them, along with other social movements, in the writing of the Bolivarian Constitution itself. Previous presidents either pointedly ignored them, or only made the rounds to shake hands and kiss babies when it was time to divvy up the votes again between AD and COPEI. Voter apathy, as noted in the translation above, was huge before Chávez, and greatly diminished after.

Because of Chávez, being Venezuelan is now a matter of pride. Participatory democracy grew thanks to his efforts, social inequality shrank, poverty dwindled and the GDP rose. An impoverished country that used to import 80% of its food is now becoming self-sufficient again, as it was before the oil boom. And dreams were not only made, they came true. It’s not surprising, then, that the people have turned out in droves today, not only in Venezuela but all over the world, to pay homage once more to the man who turned the accepted order of things on its ear…and succeeded.

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Little wonder, too, that everybody, from bloggers like me to the President of Bolivia himself, are saying the same thing: Chávez is immortal. The vilification campaign against him may go on, but it can’t go on forever. Sooner or later, it will drown in its own toxic waste. And when it dies, you’ll see me there, along with millions of others, dancing and stomping with glee on its grave.

¡Chávez vive, la revolución sigue!

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Posted in All About Evo, Crapagandarati, Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Filthy Stinking Rich, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, The United States of Amnesia, Under the Name of Spain | Comments Off on Festive Left Friday Blogging: Chavecito’s finest hour

Quotable: Henry Ramos Allup on the death of Hugo Chávez

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Sabina Becker

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“I’m more afraid of Chávez physically dead than alive, because the opposition will be defeated in elections all over again.”

And of course, as head of the “liberal” Venezuelan opposition party Acción Democrática, the same to which the reviled, corrupt, and deposed ex-president Carlos Andrés Pérez belonged, Henry’s quite right to be afraid of Chavecito’s ghost. That party’s been discredited literally for decades and hasn’t a hope of ever returning to Miraflores (unless, maybe, it does a Dubya and steals an election). After all, the Caracazo massacre was ordered by one of their own. And the people have not forgotten that. Which means that Henry and his party are going to be haunted by a great many other ghosts.

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Greg Palast remembers Chavecito

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Thom Hartmann interviews Greg Palast, who knew Chavecito as well as any journalist ever could. Incorruptibility counts hugely with Greg Palast; as a fiercely independent journalist himself, he hates being beholden to anyone. So it’s significant that he doesn’t hesitate to admire Chavecito for refusing to be bribed! That, and the redistribution of wealth, and oh yeah: Chavecito’s enormous intelligence. Anyone who thinks Chavecito was a “buffoon”, go talk to Greg and let him set you straight. He says with no hesitation that Chavecito is “the smartest guy I ever met”. Not a saint, mind you, but a damn good and intelligent leader. One who made a lot of difference to Venezuela, a difference you can actually see, even in the poorest parts of Caracas.

So, what are his criticisms of the late leader? Well, he disagrees with Chavecito’s letting the coupmongers of 2002 go to, as he puts it, “play with their money in Miami”! I agree with Greg there myself. If it were up to me, I’d have buried those bastards all with my bare hands. And I am as democratic a socialist as you will ever find anywhere; I don’t even believe in the death penalty, but for them, I’d cheerfully make an exception! They committed high treason, they murdered innocent people, they nearly murdered a popular elected leader, and they should, by rights, be rotting for it, along with every US military attaché, diplomat and businessbastard who supported the coup. Think of the message THAT would have sent!

But Chavecito being the kind of awesome guy he was, he magnanimously refused to throw the book at them. And as crazy as that may sound to Greg, me and probably you too, it turns out to be of the “crazy like a fox” persuasion. Because anyone who wants to single him out as a draconian dictator will have to confront the fact that he let all his enemies run around unfettered, like the silly chickens they are, squawking loudly about their so-called lack of freedom and free speech (!!!) while he got on with the business of changing Venezuela for the better.

And he did. Oh boy, did he ever. And he turns out not to have needed any help from the traditional ruling classes at all. So much for their “natural superiority”! Those oligarchs may have nearly all the money in Venezuela, but their brainpower is inversely proportional to it; even the best plans of their doofy (and crooked) leaders, like Manuel Rosales (remember him? He’s Peru’s problem now!) have never been more than bad copies of Chavecito’s oil-powered public welfare programs. Which have worked so well that extreme poverty is now virtually extinct in Venezuela, while overall poverty is less than half of what it was, unemployment is also cut by half, illiteracy is zero, and healthcare and education free and open to all. And it’s all been paid for by the revenues of that Venezuelan oil, the same that the coup was launched over in the first place. Here’s some more of Greg, this time talking to Paul Jay on The Real News:

And who’s mad that the oil money isn’t flowing to their pockets? Those same stupid, inbred oligarchs who have the unmitigated chutzpah to question the constitutional order they had no problem violating in April 2002. And some truly nasty, shadowy buzzards in the US, too: the Koch Brothers. Whose money, not coincidentally, is propping up a lot of media campaigns against the ‘Cito. Still. Even on the edge of his grave, they can’t stop hounding him. Or defaming him.

The comforting thing is, no one will mourn any of these vultures when THEY are gone. Compare and contrast that with Chavecito…

Good luck finding a more popular leader anywhere.

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Posted in Barreling Right Along, Crapagandarati, Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on Greg Palast remembers Chavecito

Stompin’ Tom stomps on

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Dang, we’re losing legends all over the place this week. Yesterday it was Chavecito; today, it’s this guy:

I remember Stompin’ Tom Connors from his TV show when I was just a wee thing. He used to beat time with his cowboy-booted foot on a wooden board that he carried in for the occasion so he wouldn’t stomp a hole through the floor (or so he said.) He wasn’t the most melodious singer I’ve ever heard, but he was definitely one of the most memorable: funny, humble, at times downright poetic, and a Canadian from coast to coast to coast. For a time, he was right up there with the great Johnny Cash (also sadly missed here.)

Now he’s gone to the Great Stompin’ Ground of the Great Beyond. Bet Chavecito’s already in the bar, waiting to buy him a cafecito and introduce him to his own idol, the great Alí Primera, who passed over in 1982. And Víctor Jara will also be there, guitar in hand, ready to join the quartet. Drinks all around, bartender!

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Canadian Counterpunch, Huguito Chavecito, Obits and 'bobs | Comments Off on Stompin’ Tom stomps on