The end of the Chile mine rescue

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As I write, the last miner, #33, the foreman, Luis Urzua, is being loaded into the capsule. What an amazing, amazing rescue this has been. (I wrote about it extensively last night.) There are any number of reasons to be cynical -- the careful stage-management, the political side of it all, the upcoming commercialization of the miners' ordeal -- but at the heart of this is an inspirational story of the triumph of the human spirit, of the courage of the miners and the heroism of everyone who worked so hard to get them out, an international effort that has justly become an international sensation.

And, yes, perhaps we only pay attention to such stories when they are so sensational, and perhaps we tend to overlook the suffering of those who aren't on television, of those who aren't granted special media attention, those suffering in foreign lands as well as those suffering close to home. And so we pay such close attention to the plight of these miners and celebrate their rescue even as we ignore, say, the suffering of the homeless in our otherwise wealthy cities.

Even so, we should take nothing away from what has happened in Chile. It is simply incredible.

And there's nothing wrong with feeling good about this wonderful accomplishment. There is so much badness and ugliness in the world. Sometimes we need goodness to prevail. It has done so today.

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After over 22 and a half hours, the rescue is about to end. The siren just went off. The capsule is near the surface. There are still a few rescue workers to be brought up, but this is the last of the miners.

And here he is. The rescue is over.

Chileans deserve to wave their flag, to sing their anthem, and to rejoice. And, in a way, we are all Chileans, if just for a day.

Thoughts on the mine rescue in Chile

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I was going to do some writing tonight -- and, yes, there's a whole lot to write about, with ever more Republican craziness polluting the public sphere -- but, honestly, nothing I want to blog about quite compares to the ongoing rescue of the 33 miners in Chile, trapped for 69 days a half-mile (a little more than the height of Toronto's CN Tower) underground.

It's simply amazing. And deeply, deeply moving.

I watched much of the Rays-Rangers game earlier this evening, but the coverage of the rescue on CNN and CBC has been absolutely riveting.

As I watch, the third miner is getting into the capsule, preparing to ascend. (What amazing live footage from inside the cavern.)

A few thoughts:

-- I cannot overstate just how incredible this is, both the courage of the miners through their long ordeal and everything that has gone into the rescue, an international effort that has become, understandably, a matter of national primacy for Chile.

-- I started off watching CNN, where Anderson Cooper, who thrives in such situations, did a great job, but then, at midnight, he turned it over to Larry King, and that's when I turned to CBC. King has had a long and distinguished career, but he's an idiot -- or, I should say, his questions and contributions are utterly idiotic. It may be a matter of age and general ignorance at this point, but it's embarrassing. When the second miner was on his way up, Larry noted that his name, (Mario) Sepúlveda, is also the name of some major thoroughfare in L.A. Who the fuck cares?

-- Larry aside, CNN's coverage has been quite good, with Anderson talking to a number of experts, as well as to the guy who led the drilling effort that ultimately got through. There were three such efforts, and this, B, is the one that made it to the miners first. Fascinating stuff, from a technical/technological perspective. And its coverage of the human side of the story, the key side, has been admirably respectful.

-- Check out CNN's full coverage, including an updated account of events.

-- I don't know enough about Chilean politics, and I haven't been paying close enough attention to this story the past two-plus months, to have an opinion as to whether Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, has been playing politics, using the story to try to score political points. What does seem apparent, though, is that the Chilean government is carefully stage-managing the rescue, with the president and first lady on hand, with the drama amped up, the tension and excitement building with each rise of the capsule to the surface. As someone on CNN suggested, this may be for the sake of transparency, understandable after what happened in Sago, West Virginia in January 2006. And, don't get me wrong, this is a story that transcends politics -- or should. And, again, I find it all deeply, deeply moving, not least when the miner (and the third one is just about to reach the surface) emerges from the capsule and greets a loved one. I just note that there's another side to this, what with the president standing there and with everything appearing so media-ready.

-- The Times (linked above) notes that "[t]he decision by Mr. Piñera, Chile's first right-wing leader in 20 years, to stake his young presidency on an unbridled push to rescue the miners was an extraordinary political calculation. But it has paid big dividends, bolstering his popularity at home and propelling him onto an international stage often dominated by other large personalities in the region." I certainly do not blame him for what he has done, and I do not criticize him for being there tonight, but it would be naive to think that politics had nothing to do with his decision. But hopefully he won't abuse this event (and his role in it) the way, say, Rudy Giuliani has abused 9/11 for personal political and financial gain.

-- For the most part, the coverage I've seen online has been excellent. Allow me to note one key exception: Michelle Malkin, who jingoistically titled her post "Celebrating American Greatness... in Chile." Seriously. I get that Americans have contributed a great deal to the rescue, but so did many others. I'm not sure if other conservatives are doing the same, but many conservatives these days -- and Malkin is just one of the most blatant examples -- are utterly incapable of viewing the world, including this heroic and spirit-lifting rescue in Chile, other than through the lens of (delusional) triumphalist American exceptionalism. (Canadians did a lot, too. Should I celebrate Canadian greatness tonight? Should I make it all about us? Please. I'm not that fucking arrogant.)

-- But that's not all. In Malkin's case, and this is also extremely common on the right, there's also partisan attacking to be done. She writes that the driller mentioned above, Jeff Hart, would, "[i]n a different day and age," be "the most famous American in our country right now." And why is he note? Because of Obama, of course, who is anti-drilling (and hence anti-Hart). This is stupid, if predictable. If Jeff Hart isn't as famous as he deserves to be, it's not because of Obama (or anything Democrats or liberals/progressives have done) but because of a dominant culture, one that the me-first, anti-government, anti-community, profit-is-everything right has manufactured according to its plutocratic greed, that prizes consumerism and superficial celebrity above all else.

-- CBC is saying now that some of the miners' families are planning to sue the mining company. With all the goodwill being expressed right now, it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

-- The miners apparently agreed to a pact of silence regarding the early days of their time underground. There are reports of infighting. CBC is also reporting that the miners want to get their story straight before speaking publicly, in detail, about their experience. Infighting is understandable, and so is the desire to keep what must have been an extraordinarily difficult time, full of conflict, private. Again, though, it will be interesting so see how this plays out, with books and movies to come. Will there be a standard account? If so, just how sanitized will it be, how packaged for wide public consumption? When will different perspectives emerge? Will the miners be able to maintain a unified front. It's unpleasant to think about such things at a moment like this -- I'm updating the post just as the fifth miner, the youngest of the 33 (and who had a daughter while he was trapped), gets into the capsule -- but the commercialization of this story is inevitable.

Anyway, three miners are out. There's still a long, long way to go, and of course any number of things could go wrong. But hope has prevailed throughout this ordeal and we are witnessing the culmination of a massive effort to rescue these brave men.

This is from the Times article linked above:

The race to save the miners has thrust Chile into a spotlight it has often sought but rarely experienced. While lauded for its economic management and austerity, the nation has often found the world's attention trained more on its human rights violations and natural disasters than on uplifting moments.

But the perseverance of the miners, trapped so far underground in a lightless, dank space, has transfixed the globe with a universal story of human struggle and the enormously complex operation to rescue them.

It has involved untold millions of dollars, specialists from NASA and drilling experts from a dozen or so countries. Some here at the mine have compared the rescue effort to the Apollo 13 space mission, for the emotional tension it has caused and the expectation of a collective sigh of relief at the end.

It is indeed an incredible story of human perseverance and determination. And hopefully it will all work out, with each miner, at long last, pulled safely to the surface.

Thanks for the syphilis

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another sordid episode from the long, violent, and thoroughly despicable history of U.S. interference in Latin America:

From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans -- prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers -- with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.

American tax dollars, through the National Institutes of Health, even paid for syphilis-infected prostitutes to sleep with prisoners, since Guatemalan prisons allowed such visits. When the prostitutes did not succeed in infecting the men, some prisoners had the bacteria poured onto scrapes made on their penises, faces or arms, and in some cases it was injected by spinal puncture...

The revelations were made public on Friday, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to the government of Guatemala and the survivors and descendants of those infected. They called the experiments "clearly unethical."

Clearly. Although I'd say that's an understatement.

"Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," the secretaries said in a statement. "We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."

Along with what was done at Tuskegee, where the U.S. Public Health Service conducted syphilis "research" on poor blacks for 40 years, this is all pretty appalling.

But what's also appalling is that it took so long for the truth to come out. Which makes you wonder, as Melissa McEwan wonders:

[W]hat secret horrors going on now President Malia Obama and Vice President William Jefferson Mezvinsky will be apologizing for in fifty years. 

The imagination reels.

Argentina legalizes same-sex marriage

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Argentina's had a pretty crazy, if not uninteresting, political history -- from a military regime in the '40s, to Juan Perón and "peronism" (and Eva "Evita" Duarte, his famous second wife) in the '40s and '50s, to various coups and a succession of short-lived governments in the '50s and '60s, to an authoritarian military dictatorship in the '60s and '70s following the so-called Revolución Argentina, to Perón again, now more of a right-wing tyrant (with Isabel Martínez, his third wife, as vice president), to Martinez, succeeding her husband as president upon his death, to a military coup that toppled her, to the "dirty war" that accompanied subsequent military rule, to the emergence of legitimate democratic rule in the '80s, all the way to the rule of the Kirchners, husband (Nestor) and then wife (Cristina Fernández de), since 2003.

And, of course, it has a pretty crazy national soccer coach, Diego Maradona.

But there's no denying that it's a pretty progressive place, not least with respect to gay rights:

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina's Senate narrowly approved a law early on Thursday authorizing same-sex marriages, making Argentina the first country in Latin America to allow gay couples to wed.

After nearly 15 hours of debate, the Senate voted 33 to 27 in favor of the measure, which was sponsored by the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. For weeks, she waged a bitter war of words with the Roman Catholic Church over the issue, saying that it would be a "terrible distortion of democracy" to deny gay couples the right to wed and that it was time for religious leaders to recognize how much more liberal and less discriminatory the nation’s social mores had become.

In its race to derail the change, the church organized large protests involving tens of thousands of opponents of the measure, with Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, calling the bill a "destructive attack on God's plan."

Kirchner deserves enormous credit for standing up to the Church, which dominates Argentina, and its bigotry. If only there were such moral and political courage to be found in Washington among supporters of gay rights, instead of the cowardice of those who at most back "civil unions," which are separate and unequal.

Portugal and Iceland also legalized gay marriage this year, adding to the small but steadily expanding list of nations, most of them in Europe, to do so.

But in a region where the separation of church and state is not always so clear, the law demonstrated a rare but increasing willingness by some Latin American nations to confront the church on fundamental issues, like Chile's legalization of divorce and Brazil's public distribution of contraceptives in recent years.

"There is no question that the law is unusual for a country that is not as secular as Western European democracies," said Javier Corrales, a political science professor at Amherst College. "There's a clear conflict with the church. Very seldom do we see presidents willing to fight the church so strongly on this particular issue in Latin America," even in countries led by left-leaning governments.

Argentina's new law will give gay people the same marital rights as heterosexuals, including adoption and inheritance rights, and reflects the broadening legal recognition of same-sex relationships across Latin America. 

I'll probably never cheer for Argentina in soccer, not after Maradona's "hand of God" against England, not to mention various other transgressions, but I heartily cheer this huge step forward for equal rights, not least in a country with such a suspect past.

And as Argentina and much of the rest of the civilized world moves on into a more just and decent future, the U.S. finds itself being left further and further behind in a dark age of its own exceptional intolerance.

Orgasms for everyone!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Today's constitutional curiosity, from the BBC:

A woman from the governing party in Ecuador has proposed that a women's right to enjoy sexual happiness should be enshrined in the country's law.

Her suggestion has provoked a lively debate in conservative Ecuador.

Maria Soledad Vela, who is helping to rewrite the constitution, says women have traditionally been seen as mere sexual objects or child bearers.

Now, she says, women should have the right to make free, responsible and informed decisions about sex lives.

I'm all for that, but it's not clear to me what exactly such a right would entail.

Needless to say, "her comments have provoked a lively response -- mostly, unsurprisingly, from men," with one of her male colleagues snarkily "[accusing] her of trying to decree orgasm by law."

"Vela [has] responded to the criticism, saying she had never requested the right to an orgasm -- merely the right to enjoy sex in a free, fair and more open society. She explained that sex was a difficult subject to discuss in Ecuador and that what she wanted were clearer laws covering life, health and sexual education."

I'm all for that, too -- and that's a bit clearer. I'm not sure sex and sexuality should ever be a constitutional matter, but, in general, laws liberating women from sexual oppression -- in this case, historical oppression that continues to the present day -- ought to be welcomed.

At least he knows when to quit

By Edward Copeland

The millions he took for running Hillary's campaign into the ground wasn't enough reason for Mark Penn to quit. Telling the Los Angeles Times that he wasn't behind the campaign's strategy when it was flailing at the same time he insisted on being called chief strategist wasn't enough either. Even his consulting firm's ties to Blackwater couldn't do it. Finally though, being caught representing his firm for the Colombian government on a trade pact Hillary opposed and where the Colombian president admitted he wasn't sure if Penn was acting on behalf of the firm or the campaign was the final straw, though Hillary saw no conflict. Bye-bye, Weasel.

ALBUQUERQUE, April 6 -- Mark J. Penn quit Sunday as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief strategist, the second shake-up in her campaign's top ranks since the onetime front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination began trailing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Penn had been a polarizing figure within the Clinton campaign for months because of his personality as well as his strategic vision, but his departure came as a result of another continuing controversy -- the conflicts of interest that resulted from his representing major clients as president of Burson-Marsteller, the giant public relations firm, while working for Clinton.

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Penn had met with Colombia's ambassador to the United States to discuss promotion of a free-trade agreement, one that Clinton opposes. Penn apologized Friday for an "error in judgment," and the Colombian government responded a day later by firing Burson-Marsteller.

Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, were furious with Penn for going to the meeting, campaign officials said. Trade has been a divisive issue in the Democratic race and a particularly significant one in Pennsylvania, the next state on the primary calendar. The New York senator has pledged to take a "timeout" from free-trade agreements until their impact on the United States becomes clearer.

The first casualty of tyranny is intelligence

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Regular readers of this blog, and perhaps others as well, will know that I am no fan of Hugo Chavez -- and that's putting it mildly. I have called him "The Tyrant of Caracas," writing post after post detailing his ongoing pursuit of absolutism, his brutalization of Venezuela, his dreams of anti-American supremacy. He calls himself a socialist, a Bolivarean revolutionary, a man of the oppressed masses, but, in truth, he is an abusive, egotistical thug. That's it in a nutshell. For more, see here (written before the recent referendum, which I was almost sure he would win -- he didn't, but he'll try again to acquire the powers denied to him by a majority of voters).

Still -- allow me to take a deep breath -- he's not all bad. Or, rather, not everything he does is bad. Consider, for example, his efforts to free the hostages held by FARC, Colombia's "Revolutionary Armed Forces," one of the world's more atrocious terrorist organizations. Here's The Guardian with the latest developments:

A mission spearheaded by Hugo Chávez and Oliver Stone to free three hostages held by Marxist guerrillas in the Colombian jungle was on a knife-edge last night after the rebels failed to deliver on the promised handover.

Venezuelan military helicopters bearing the Red Cross insignia sat for a third day in Villavicencio, a small town on the edge of Colombia's vast eastern jungles where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as Farc, holds sway. They waited in vain for the guerrillas to tell them where to fly to inside the rebel-controlled zone to pick up the hostages.

The mission is being watched by Latin American leaders, the US, France and other countries with citizens among the 3,000 hostages being held by Farc. They hope that the championing by Chávez -- the Venezuelan president -- of a political solution involving the exchange of hostages for jailed guerrillas could open the door to further releases.

A group of 10 international observers from Latin America, France and Switzerland included the unlikely late addition of Stone, a Hollywood director, who was invited to join the rescue mission only a week ago when he met Chávez in Caracas. Chávez quipped that Stone was George Bush's emissary to the operation; Stone in return called Mr Chávez a "great man". The two flew together to Colombia at the weekend on the presidential jet.

In an interview from Villavicencio with Associated Press, Stone said he had no illusions about Farc, "but it looks like they are a peasant army fighting for a decent living. And here, if you fight, you fight to win."

As bad as Chavez is, FARC is worse, and if it takes an abusive, egotistical thug like Chavez to work out a diplomatic solution, so be it. (For more on FARC, see here. See also Robert Kaplan's discussion of FARC and its atrocities -- and of U.S. special forces operations in Colombia, which is another issue entirely -- in his brilliant Imperial Grunts. This is a group that commits mass murder, engages in horrifying acts of brutality, profits off the drug trade, and essentially enslaves children.) Let's hope something good comes of this -- namely, the release of the hostages.

But what about Oliver Stone's involvement in this? I have long been a defender of Stone the filmmaker. I don't like all of his movies, but two of his more controversial efforts, JFK and Nixon, are genuine masterpieces -- not of veracity, perhaps, but certainly of filmmaking. And, of course, he has long had an interest in radical left-wing politics -- in Latin America, in particular. (See Salvador, for example.) Much of this interest, and much of the attention he has brought to his championed causes, has been worthy both of admiration and of emulation.

But it is one thing to address the plight of the downtrodden and to cast light on the operations of, say, right-wing death squads in El Salvador, quite another to go so far as to call Chavez a "great man" and to make apologies for FARC. Chavez is no "great man" in liberal and democratic terms, nor even in historical terms, whatever his aspirations, and FARC isn't some "peasant army fighting for a decent living" in the violent jungles of Colombia. On the latter point, one needn't side with the government in Bogota or approve of U.S. operations in Colombia in order to see FARC for what it is. It isn't an either/or situation. Unfortunately, Oliver Stone, in what may be a case of anti-American zeal, seems to think that it is. Either that, or he doesn't know what he's talking about -- a distinct possibility, to be sure.

Regardless, such stupidity notwithstanding, what matters here is the success of the effort -- the release of the hostages. But what then? What if the effort succeeds and the hostages are traded for guerrillas? Well, Chavez will still be Chavez and FARC will still be FARC. The former will continue his pursuit of absolutism; the latter will continue with its various atrocities.

Oliver Stone film(s) to follow, illusions and all.

Shamed by Peru

By Capt. Fogg

It's been a couple of days, but it's not that there's nothing to write about; it's just that what used to be a buffet of outrages has become a suffocating cesspool of corruption, just too foul to approach. Things that used to shake a nation like ours seem only part of the background stench and hardly stand out as individual points of corruption any more. One remembers Richard Milhous Nixon, the man whose treachery caused him to flee Washington, as just another cheap crook and not much at all compared with the swashbucklers and scofflaws who now inhabit the White House and the Justice Department and the Courts -- and nearly every other position of authority.

Yesterday, Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru was sentenced to 6 years in jail for abusing his presidential powers by ordering a warrantless search of the apartment of the wife of a corrupt official. He faces further charges that could add another 30 years to his tab, stemming from the deaths of suspected "terrorists" and the kidnapping of a journalist.

It wouldn't happen here. Kidnapping journalists and others, holding people incommunicado for years without charges, sometimes torturing them, perhaps allowing them to die in confinement -- these things are standard procedures in Bushamerica, as are warrantless wiretappings, searches and other illegal intrusions into everyone's affairs. And of Course, Fujimori never started a war under false pretenses in which hundreds of thousands died, millions were rendered homeless and a country was reduced to ruins. Peru takes action, the United States or America puts on their iPods and mumbles about Jesus and homosexuals and looks to people like Mike Huckabee and his imaginary friend for leadership.

Ex-President Jimmy Carter gave a speech back in May of 1974 after having read transcripts of Nixon's tapes:

"The Constitution charges us with a direct responsibility for determining what our government is and ought to be," he said. "I have read parts of the embarrassing transcripts, and I've seen the proud statement of a former Attorney General who protected his boss and now brags of the fact that he tiptoed through a minefield and came out... quote, clean, unquote. You know, I can't imagine somebody like Thomas Jefferson tiptoeing through a minefield on the technicalities of the law and then bragging about being clean afterwards...

I don't have to use my imagination to picture the Bush administration safely cruising that same minefield with total disregard for any consequences in their armored tank called the Patriot Act. The law is what they want it to be; justice is what they say it is and the people do nothing but argue about Christmas and heretics and what the Wal-Mart greeters are saying this year. How sad it is that the country that once had some legitimate claim to holding up the torch of liberty for the world to see has to look to Peru as a lesson in the limits of government power.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Tear gas and tyranny

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Not a big fan of Hugo Chavez? Not so enthusiastic about his tyrannical rule? Well, take that:

Venezuelan troops have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse thousands of students in the capital, Caracas.

The students are demonstrating against constitutional reforms proposed by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

One of the reforms would abolish term limits for the presidency, thus allowing President Chavez to stand for re-election indefinitely.

The students want a December referendum on the reforms to be postponed, to give voters more time to study the plans.

That's right, all the protesters want is a postponement, hardly a radical proposal. But any opposition to Chavez is anathema to his national socialist revolution, which does not allow for opposition, and, it seems, any opposition will be put down. Brutally, if necessary -- and even if not. Brutality comes with the revolution, a revolution to install Chavez himself as permanent dictator of a brutalized Venezuela, just as it comes with Chavez's rule generally.

And the use of tear gas is probably on the soft end of the brutality. The troops were no doubt going easy on the protesters -- easy this time, but what else is going on in Venezuela? What else is Chavez inflicting on the people of his country? Enough to turn even Giuliani's stomach, one imagines.

It must be very, very bad in today's Venezuela. And it is only going to get worse.

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I have already, in many other posts, addressed Chavez's tyranny, as well as these reforms. For my recent post on what I called Chavez's "salami tactics," tyranny slice-by-slice, see here. For more on this "coup," see here. For previous posts on Chavez's "abolition of democracy," see here.

Oh what a circus! Oh what a show!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Instead of government we had a stage

Instead of ideas, a prima donna's rage

Instead of help we were given a crowd

She didn't say much, but she said it loud

-- from Evita

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Imagine if Laura were taking over for George. Or if Cherie had stepped in and nudged Gordon out of the way. Or... well, you get the point, I'm sure.

I just wonder if the Argentinians do.

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Yes, in Argentina, Kirchner will be taking over for Kirchner, Cristina for Nestor, the first lady for the sitting president:

Argentina's current first lady, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has secured victory in the country's presidential election.

With ballots counted at almost all polling stations, Mrs Kirchner had an unassailable 44.9% lead.

Her nearest rival, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio, has admitted defeat, trailing on 23% of the vote.

Mrs Kirchner will succeed her husband Nestor Kirchner and become Argentina's first elected female president.

All she needed to avoid a second round was at least 45 percent of the vote or 40 percent with a 10-point lead, and she met at least one of those thresholds. She will be sworn in next month.

For more on the election, see here. (For a Q&A, see here.)

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Now, to be fair, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is, it would seem, more than just a pretty face. She was involved in the Peronist Youth movement in the 1970s, has practised law, was a deputy in the Santa Cruz provincial legislature from 1989 to 1995, and has been elected to both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies at the national level. And, comparing herself to the current Democratic Party frontrunner, she said this in her defence: "Hillary was able to position herself nationally because her husband was president. She didn't have a political career beforehand and that isn't my case."

In another way, however, she seems to be a combination of Eva Peron and Imelda Marcos. But -- so what? If she's fashionable and sexy, well, who cares? She certainly seems to be saying all the right things -- which is to say, she does not seem to be yet another Argentinian authoritarian. (Well, maybe not.)

A profile is here.

And yet, though she has said the right things, it is not at all clear what she stands for, nor what sort of a president she intends to be. Consider these telling lines from the Q&A linked above: "She does not give news conferences or talk to the Argentine press. What we do know is that she has promised, not surprisingly, to continue with his policies."

Doesn't talk to the press? Doesn't have... policies?

Is it just possible she was elected only because she's a Kirchner, because she'll be just like her husband, because voters want more of the same and the sitting president was barred from running for another term?

Is she the right person to deal with Argentina's economy, with employment and poverty and inflation, with energy and public health and education, with human rights, with the plight of indigenous peoples, with Argentina's deep divisions, with foreign policy, with Argentina's relations with the U.S., with its Latin American neighbours, with the world beyond?

It may not matter, not if Mr. Kirchner is pulling the strings behind her. They may differ in terms of personality, but they do not seem to differ in terms of policy -- what are his... are hers, too. Which means that the next Kirchner presidency will be much like the current one: lefist and anti-neoliberal, more or less, like it or not. And so with the good (environmentalism, corporate accountability) will come the bad (statist economics and industry, autocratic control, friendly relations with Hugo Chavez).

Welcome back, Evita. Even if the whole thing stinks.

**********

Please add your comments here if you live in Argentina, are Argentinian, know something about Argentina and its politics, have an interest in things Argentinian, or otherwise have something useful to say.

The salami tactics of Hugo Chavez

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In the first episode of the great Yes, Prime Minister, "The Grand Design," new PM Jim Hacker meets with the government's chief scientific advisor to discuss defence policy. The advisor, a hawkish Austrian, argues that the Soviet Union would use "salami tactics" to take over Europe, that is, a "slice-by-slice" plan with no one slice so grave as to compel the West (or the U.K., in this case) to respond militarily. (The 16 YPM episodes originally aired on the BBC from 1986-88.) At each slice/stage of the scenario, he presses Hacker -- What would it take for him to act? An incursion into West Berlin? Or would the Soviets have to go so far as to take over the Reform Club, one of London's old political establishments? Would he ever respond with nuclear weapons? Probably not.

My point here is not to make a case for military action against Venezuela, but it is clear that Hugo Chavez is using salami tactics in his drive to establish so-called "Bolivarean" socialism -- that is, his own national-socialist autocratic rule -- in that country. I wrote about this last week: "Sometimes revolution can be achieved without sudden, dramatic bloodletting." There are a number of different prongs to Chavez's continuing revolution, a number of slices. They may be examined individually, but they are best understood as variations of the same, as components of a single overarching plan. The nationalization of industry, the seizure of private property, repression of dissent and opposition, control of the media, one-party rule, rule by decree, and, soon, the removal of constitutional impediments to the permanent and perpetual rule of the leader himself.

The pattern is clear. One slice, then another, and another, and another, with no one slice so grave as to compel anyone to act (although there are courageous opponents of Chavez's tyranny in Venezuela, and there was a coup, if not one worthy of much admiration, in 2002). And there has been another, as the AP is reporting:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to close or take over any private school that refuses to submit to the oversight of his socialist government as it develops a new curriculum and textbooks.

"Society cannot allow the private sector to do whatever it wants," said Chavez, speaking on the first day of classes.

All schools, public and private, must admit state inspectors and submit to the government's new educational system, or be closed and nationalized, with the state taking responsibility for the education of their children, Chavez said.

A new curriculum will be ready by the end of this school year, and new textbooks are being developed to help educate "the new citizen," said Chavez's brother and education minister Adan Chavez...

This is a serious slice, and there is a lot here: the submission of the private to the public, a leader speaking for "society," a new (re-)educational system, propaganda, threats of nationalization and state control, the concept of a "new citizen," nepotism. This could be 1984. There may not yet be any killing fields -- none that we know of -- but the rest is beginning to look a lot like the tyrannies, the totalitarian tyrannies, of the last century. Pol Pot, meet Hugo Chavez.

Some will accuse me of exaggeration, of misrepresentation. But therein lies the problem: Chavez is a smart guy, and he knows what he's doing, and he's doing it in such a way as to minimize suspicion and criticism, to come across as a man of the people, not the people's oppressor. He's not rolling into Caracas with tanks and death squads, but he doesn't need them. Not yet. Not with his salami tactics, grabbing slice after slice.

From populist to demagogue to tyrant, all with a bright red shirt, a huge smile, and some rousing anti-American rhetoric -- and with many in his own country and around the world giving him the benefit of the doubt. But all you have to do is put the slices back together to see what he's really up to.

And it isn't all fun and games.

Coup de Caracas

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A few weeks ago, I posted on the latest development in the growing tyranny of Hugo Chavez. You can find that post here -- it includes links to six previous posts on this topic.

There isn't much democracy in Venezuela -- what democracy there is is largely a Chavez-friendly sham introduced by Chavez to sustain his authoritarian rule. At the national level -- if not below it as well -- Chavez's explicit goal is the abolition of democracy altogether, all for the sake of his vainglorious revolution, a national-socialist revolution that looks for inspiration to Bolivar and Castro.

The specific topic of my last post was Chavez's plan to amend the constitution to remove term limits on the presidency, that is, on him and his authoritarian rule, first in the National Assembly and then by way of a national referendum.

As the BBC is reporting, the National Assembly is currently discussing Chavez's plan. And there won't be much debate, let alone genuine opposition. The National Assembly has been wholly pro-Chavez since the 2005 elections, boycotted by the major opposition parties amid credible allegations of corruption. Chavez's legislative minions granted him rule by decree in January and they'll no doubt grant him what he wants now. And then so will the people, in the sham of a referendum that is to follow -- can there be any doubt as to the outcome? Chavez will not allow himself to lose, no matter what. (Update -- 9/12/07: see here. The National Assembly has approved Chavez's plan for the second time -- one more time to go, then the referendum.)

Sometimes revolution can be achieved without sudden, dramatic bloodletting. This one of those times, a calculated plot to use the levers of government to establish tyranny.

Is Mother Nature on the rampage?

By Carol Gee

(NASA Images: Peru earthquake map;
AIRS Weather Snapshot: Hurricane Dean August 16, 2007)

Natural disasters that have already occurred or are in the making are making headlines around the globe today. Peru was hit by a devastating earthquake, hurricanes named Flossie and Dean popped up in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and there is major flooding in South Asia, China and North Korea. In every case we see the contrast between advanced space age technology vs. people's powerlessness in the face of their own environmental shortsightedness or poverty, combined with nature's ability to change the course of human events.

Peru quake leaves victims in areas without water - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration map shows the remote areas in Peru hit by the quake, but it cannot show the seismic event's devastation to a country with large impoverished areas void of modern infrastructure. Yahoo! News has full coverage of the Peru quake. The New York Times headlined, "Toll Climbs in Peru; Areas Lack Water and Power."

Today is the end of World Water Week, ironically. With our Texas city to the south, Houston, still soggy from recent tropical storm generated floods, there is definitely too much water to handle. Weather events around the world this week seem perfectly timed to make the points of concerned scientists meeting this week in Sweden. In this case it is not nature alone that impacts the weather. Global climate change has been caused in part by human action. The Raw Story headlined, "World Water Wee to focus on climate change, biofuels." To quote from the story about the big meeting,

. . . with 2,500 international experts expected to attend.

The theme of the annual event's 17th edition will be "Progress and Prospects on Water: Striving for Sustainability in a Changing World."

Organiser Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) noted that water was playing a key role in global warming.

Waters in the Gulf of Mexico may soon be disturbed by Hurricane Dean. Already the potentially dangerous hurricane has disturbed the course of NASA's current mission in space, about to come to a close. Today's NASA astronaut space walk is being shortened as a result of the threat posed by Hurricane Dean, according to Tariq Malik at Space.com. To quote,

Two astronauts will step outside the International Space Station (ISS) Saturday on what will likely be a shortened spacewalk as NASA casts a wary eye toward Hurricane Dean.

. . . Endeavour's STS-118 crew is scheduled to return to Earth Wednesday, but the looming threat of Hurricane Dean to NASA's shuttle and ISS Mission Control centers at JSC prompted the agency to work towards a possible Tuesday landing. The space agency is hoping to preserve the option of landing Endeavour early in case the hurricane forces the evacuation of Mission Control, which would then require NASA to transfer shuttle operations to a backup site at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A different series of seismic events have caused casualties and left miners trapped. This time in the northern hemisphere, the tremors probably came as a result of humans mining for coal under a now-shaky Utah mountain. According to the New York Times, "Utah Mine Rescuers Halt Search After 3 Deaths."

Mother Nature ironically joined the two stories into a potential coal mine tragedy at a flooded mine in China. Dubai's Aljazeera.net carried the headline,"Floods trap coal miners in China" (8/18/07). Quoting from the story,

More than 170 coal miners have been trapped underground in eastern China after heavy rains brought floods to the area.

The official Xinhua news agency said 584 miners were rescued after Friday's accident at Xintai in Shandong province, but attempts to reach the remaining 172 were being hampered by heavy rain.

. . . Poor safety standards make Chinese coal mines among the most dangerous in the world. About 1,800 coal miners died in accidents during the first half of 2007.

Very vulnerable people lost their lives in Peru and also in North Korea. The latter story is also about too much water. North Koreans are vulnerable to actual famine and starvation. Floods there have devastated the country's already limited food supplies. The flood waters may also derail what could have been a rare and very valuable summit meeting between North and South Korean leaders. Aljazeera.net has the story headline, "Floods postpone August Korea summit," from which I quote,

North Korea has asked that a planned summit with South Korea be delayed, citing recent floods that have devastated the country.

. . . South Korea has offered an emergency aid package of more than $7m to the North after days of flooding wrought havoc across large parts of the country, sparking fears that existing food shortages might worsen. The North says the floods have left at least 80 people dead, many more missing, and about 300,000 others homeless.

. . . An estimated 23 million people or 10 per cent of North Korea's population were killed in a famine in the second half of the 1990s, partly blamed on flood damage to farmland.

Natural disasters can produce breathtaking losses of human life and heart breaking instances of widespread human misery. A related story about the Korean floods from Russia's RIA Novosti today published other statistics,

In a sign of the magnitude of the disaster, the normally secretive North Korean regime has been uncharacteristically forthcoming in describing the extent of the damage.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that rains in some areas along the Taedong River were the heaviest in the country's history, and said that about 11 percent of its rice and corn fields had been destroyed at the height of the growing season.

KCNA said that about 200,000-300,000 people were now homeless, although international aid officials believe the number is probably far higher.

Statistics are often very hard to come by in natural disasters. In one such example the story is about widespread floods now occurring in India and neighboring nations. From a BBC story comes this South Asia flood statistic: "The number [estimate] of those killed varies widely from 500 to 3,000."

Disaster death toll statistics never put a human face with the numbers. In order to relate to just a few of the actual thousands of people caught up in the current disasters on the ground, I conclude with a link to this great article from the BBC News titled, "Aid worker diary: Indian floods" (August 10-16, 2007). To quote just a bit,

Devastating monsoon rains have submerged thousands of villages in northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
In India, as flood waters recede, aid agencies, non-governmental organisations and governments are stepping up their efforts to help the thousands who have lost homes, livestock and livelihoods.

Ian Bray, from Oxfam, has kept a diary of his experiences:

. . . Villagers surround us desperate to tell us their story. It's pandemonium as everybody wants to speak. A chair is brought from somewhere for me to sit down. The vast majority of this village are Dalit - so-called Untouchables. All are landless and all are without a job now. The floods have taken away their chance of working on the land - not their land, someone else's land - and the flood has come at the worse possible time for them.

Link: OneWorld.net

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

New horizons for a new era: Hugo Chavez and the abolition of democracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What more can be said about Hugo Chavez and his tyranny? It's something, then something else, then something else again, and it just keeps coming and coming, more and more, this and that, so on and so forth. (I've blogged a lot on this already -- see here.) Why isn't there more outrage? It's clear what he's doing. He may not be leading mobs of brownshirts through the streets, but the incrementalist nature of his seizure of power, and ever more power, amounts to much the same thing. It just isn't quite as dramatic. Let's review:

• Rule by decree.
• One-party rule.
• Nationalization of key companies.
• Threats to the banks and others.
• Seizure of private property.
• Seizure of private oil fields.

Get the point?

Well, now it seems that Chavez intends to tyrannize for as long as possible, that is, for as long as he wants, and he will change the constitution to allow him to do just that:

President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to change to Venezuela's constitution, allowing him to remain in power indefinitely.

Under the current rules, Mr Chavez would have to step down at the end of his term in 2012.

His plans would also increase presidential control over Venezuela's municipalities and states.

Mr Chavez has rejected criticism of the proposals, saying they would bring "new horizons for the new era".

Other changes include:

• Removing term limits for the presidency, and extending the term of office from six years to seven
• Bringing in a maximum six-hour working day
• Strengthening state economic powers, allowing the government to control assets of private companies
  before a court grants an expropriation order.

Venezuelan democracy has been a sham under Chavez, but now there won't really be any democracy at all. The six-hour work day sounds nice, but everything else would only serve to enhance Chavez's tyranny -- in fact, to entrench it, to make it largely permanent.

For it isn't just a one-year extension of his term that we desires. He has said that "[i]t will be the people who make the final decision about how long [he] stay[s]" in office. But what does that mean? Will there ever be an open and fair vote (as there was, more or less, in Chile, when voters booted Pinochet from office)? Just as Chevez will ensure victory for himself in the planned referendum on his constitutonal changes -- and he claims, fervently and almost humorously trying to downplay his acquisition of power and suppression of liberty and democracy, that the changes would only affect 10 percent of the constitution, as if that should somehow make them all quite acceptable, nothing to worry about -- so would he ensure his preservation in some future plebiscite on his rule.

No term limits? Then it's Chavez for life.

New horizons for a new era? Sure. But have we learned nothing from the tyrannies of the past? This -- the tyranny of Hugo Chavez, the acquisition of absolute power and the rhetoric of historical destiny -- is yet more of the same.

Lula and the Amazon

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't think too much should be read into this, for such reading would be premature, and excessively optimistic, but there seems to be some encouraging news coming out of Brazil with respect to the state of the Amazonian rainforest:

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has welcomed new figures showing that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has decreased by 25%.

President Lula said this had prevented the release of millions of tonnes of CO2 gas into the atmosphere.

The government says environmental policies, including measures against illegal logging, have had an effect.

Environmentalists welcomed the figures, but said falling commodity prices and economic conditions were also a factor.

Is Lula -- who seems, and may well be, sincere -- right that "it's possible to have growth while preserving the environment," that "the challenge we have overcome is knowing how to use the jungle and how to preserve the environment while allowing people's lives to be improved"? Well, it's certainly possible to balance economic growth and environmental preservation -- anything is possible, Sir Humphrey would agree -- but it hardly seems likely, and indeed is almost certainly impossible, that that immense challenge has been overcome once and for all.

Besides, although the decrease seems, and may well be, impressive, it must be mentioned that the rainforest is still being destroyed, just not quite as rapidly as in recent years -- it's all relative, no? There has been a 25% decrease, but from what? What does such a statistic even mean? Less CO2 emission, which is good, but still a lot of CO2 emission, which is bad. The goal should not be to slow down the destruction but to put an end to the destruction and to replenish the rainforest, to build it back up again.

Is that too much to ask? Yes, perhaps so, even with Lula running the show.

Braaaaawwwwwllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Chile has a great deal to offer the world -- great wine, great literature, great natural beauty (from what I understand), not-so-great experiences with U.S.-sponsored dictatorship, etc. -- but I would not put under-20 soccer players on that list.

As some of you may know -- perhaps those of you who pay rigorous attention to what the rest of the world calls football -- Canada is currently playing host to FIFA's Under-20 World Cup. I'm not really paying that much attention to it, but I do know that the host nation stunk and that Sunday's final will feature the Czech Republic, which beat Austria 2-0 in one semifinal, and Argentina, which beat Chile 3-0 in the other (held here in Toronto).

But, oh, that second semifinal. Argentina was by far the better team, but the match was an ugly affair. Chile ended up with only nine players on the field -- two had been sent off with red cards (on top of seven yellows). And it didn't end there on the field. Here's the report from the Toronto Star:

At least nine members of Chile's under-20 national team were detained last night – some of them reportedly tasered and pepper sprayed – in an altercation with police after a heated game against Argentina at the National Soccer Stadium last night.

According to one officer at the scene, frustrated Chilean players had boarded the team bus after their 3-0 loss to Argentina in the Under-20 World Cup semifinal when they broke metal arm rests off the seats and used them to break bus windows.

That's when witnesses said police stepped in.

Did the police overdo it? Yes, perhaps. It's not clear that such force -- including tasers and pepper spray -- was necessary. (Still, Chile's coach said that his players "were upset with the ref and the red cards" -- an understatement, no doubt.)

But that's not to excuse the Chileans, who obviously behaved badly both on the field and off. Indeed, the police are saying, according to another report in the Star, that the Chileans players "confronted the referees after the game" and that the police themselves "intervened to protect the referees".

FIFA, Toronto police, and the Chilean delegation are investigating the incident. One suspects that they will all come to different conclusions.

I think I'll open a bottle of a nice Chilean red this evening. As for their under-20 soccer players -- well, I can do without them, thank you very much.

Not nearly enough people "free at last"

By Carol Gee

(Longer version cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

The "I have a dream" speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963, closes with these unforgettable words:

When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Today's post is about people whose freedom has again been stolen some 44 years later. The day after Independence Day in the U.S., too many do not enjoy the independence we celebrated. Victims of lawless kidnapping or quasi slavery, their stories make the headlines over and over.

Hooray, hooray! Johnston's free. The Palestinian group Hamas brokered the deal. They stand to gain much in the eyes of the international world, if they can be seen to be something other than merely a terrorist group. A great deal of the national and international television coverage yesterday was about the freeing of a kidnapped BBC reporter, Alan Johnston. The most interesting reading in the news came, in my opinion from Aljazeera.net. Dated (7/4/07), the headline read, "Bbc Gaza reporter Johnston freed." Quoting from the colorfully written story"

Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March has been released, saying it was "an amazing thing to be free".

..."It is just the most fantastic thing to be free," Johnston told BBC from Gaza, adding that it was "at times quite terrifying" not knowing when it was going to end.

..."I dreamt many times of being free and always woke up back in that room... It's an amazing thing to be free," Johnston said at the home of Ismail Haniya, the ousted Palestinian prime minister and local Hamas leader who had brokered his release.

Johnston called his 16 weeks in captivity the worst of his life and likened his experience to being "buried alive."

In contrast the Johnston freedom story style was much more subdued in the UK press, true to form. There was little mention of the fact that Johnston was taken straight to the home of Hamas leader Ismael Haniya in the middle of the night. Opinions about whether this was the middle east cultural norm of hospitality for strangers, or merely for publicity effect, depends on one's political persuasion. "Just the facts" was the style of Andrew England in Jerusalem, writing for London's Financial Times (on 7/4/07). The headline read, "Kidnapped BBC reporter freed."

Freedom's long elusive in Columbia kidnapping - But, at least there is renewed hope that the long-held South American hostages may be alive. Again I turned to Aljazeera.net, who actually turned out to be part of the story as the recipient of the videotape itself. On (7/4/07) their headline read, "Hostage says Betancourt still alive." Quoting from the piece,

A soldier held hostage by Colombian rebels has confirmed that Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate, kidnapped over five years ago, is sill alive. William Dominguez said he had seen Betancourt during a video message recorded in October and delivered to Al Jazeera's correspondent in the country on Tuesday. Dominguez was among seven soldiers and police officers shown on the new video, most of whom have been held hostage for about nine years, Holman Morris, Al Jazeera's correspondent, said.

The tape comes five days after Farc claimed that 11 politicians it had held hostage for five years died in the crossfire during a military raid on a rebel camp last month. The government denies the military attacked the camp and accuses the guerrillas of executing the 11 provincial lawmakers. The politicians were among 56 hostages, including Betancourt and three Americans, who the rebels want to swap for Farc members held in Colombian prisons.

The Columbian kidnap videotape story from the BBC News (7/4/07) carried the headline, "Columbia Hostages in video appeal." The act of kidnapping also captures the perpetrators, in a way. What negotiating power do they retain after their captives are freed? It is always a devil's bargain. To quote,

Colombian rebels have released a video showing seven hostages, some held for nearly a decade, pleading for the government to talk to their captors. It was not immediately clear when the video of the captured police officers and soldiers was filmed. It surfaced a week after rebels said 11 kidnapped politicians were killed as armed forces attacked a guerrilla camp. President Alvaro Uribe, who accused the rebels of murdering the men, is to lead anti-kidnap protests on Thursday.

...The father of soldier Pablo Emilio Mocayo, seized nine years ago, said the video was extremely distressing. "This tears my soul apart, [to see him] in these conditions, so thin, poor boy and I unable to anything," he said. Mr Moncayo has been walking across Colombia in chains in an effort to pressure the guerrillas and the authorities to reach an agreement to free the hostages.

Across the Atlantic from Columbia in Africa, there is a brand new kidnapping headline: "Oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria." It is from the BBC News of (7/4/07). The story is the latest regarding a large number of kidnappings in the region, which seem to be, in a bizarre way, part of the Nigerian economy. To quote:

Unknown gunmen have attacked and snatched five foreign workers from an oil rig in Nigeria's volatile Niger Delta, security sources say. The attack comes a day after the main militant group in the area said it had called off a month-long truce. But the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) says it has nothing to do with this new attack.

More than 100 foreigners have been taken hostage so far this year alone in the region. The hostages are usually released unharmed after ransom payments that the Nigerian government and oil companies involved always deny.

Part of the Chinese economy? During time when Southerners kept slaves in the United States some considered the slaves a necessary part of their economy. That must again be the case with these Chinese law-breakers. The headline, "Chinese slave labour trial begins" is from the BBC News (of 7/4/07). Quoting from the story:

A trial has begun of 12 people who are accused of involvement in a slave labour scandal in illegal mines and brick factories in northern China.

...The charges include illegal detention, forced labour and murder, Xinhua said. Almost 570 people trafficked as slaves, 50 of them children, have been freed in Shanxi and Henan in the last few weeks. The scandal came to light after some 400 distraught parents of children who had been sold into slavery set up an online campaign to raise awareness of the issue... The factories were allegedly run like prisons with guard dogs and beatings to prevent escapes.

Dr. King's prophetic words still call out to us. People of peace around the world must work and hope to take Independence Day forward to the day...

...when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing...

Two of a kind

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Hugo and Fidel.

This is supposed to be some sort of "working visit," according to Cuban TV. Maybe Fidel and his brother Raul can show Hugo La Cabaña prison, where their pal Che presided over the mass execution of Hugo's opponents, or maybe they can talk about Che's Soviet-style labour camps and other good ways to brutalize the people in the name of totalitarian revolution.

The Tyrant of Caracas can surely learn a lot from the Tyrant of Havana.

Reflections on the revolution in Venezuela

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Manny Lopez of The Detroit News recently returned from a trip to his native Venezuela, his first in nine years, and has given an interview to Lance of A Second Hand Conjecture and Lee of Postpolitical.

Lance and Lee are on the right, but I share with them a deep concern over the direction Venezuela is taking under Hugo Chavez. I have written frequently about Chavez's ever-encroaching tyranny -- see here for those posts -- and I consider him to be one of the world's most repugnant leaders.

So click on one of the links above and check out the transcript of the interview. Lopez's observations are fascinating. Here are a few of them:

-- "I think one of the most noticeable differences is the tension that exists. You drive through neighborhoods and there's a distinct us-versus-them atmosphere. Chávistas are boldly marking their territory and taking over the weak fringes, too... Chávez has spent millions plastering the country with propaganda. 'Socialism, patriotism or death' banners hang throughout Caracas as well as a litany of 'death to American imperialism' murals.

-- "It is going to get increasingly difficult for the opposition to have a voice because Chávez is shutting down anyone (Radio Caracas Television, for example) who questions or opposes him. And he pulls the puppet strings of his media without fail. Watch some of his 'interviews' with them and he rarely allows them to speak. No one challenges his answers or his asinine statements."

-- "The one thing about Chávez that I give him credit for is his ability to captivate people and audiences. He's an amazing marketer because he can distort any message or fact to suit his needs and when fired up, most people don't stop to think: 'hey wait a minute, that doesn't make sense.' He masterfully incites his followers by reminding them of revolutionary leaders of the past. He's absolutely corrupted the name, image and principles of Símon Bolivar."

-- "Chávez will continue to talk about his 'democratic' socialism but move faster toward communism. He'll continue telling the poor that he's helping them and plaster up the appropriate propaganda to make them think this is so. He'll also move faster to nationalize and rid the country of private industry and progress. He's already said he'll take control of the Central Bank and he recently said hospitals and grocery stores will be nationalized if they don't come in line with government demands on prices and supplies."

Again, make sure to read it in full.