Remnants of President Reynaldo Bignone's...

[Nbadan]

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/fotos/20061004/notas/NA04FO10.JPG
Coup de' Madonna

...South American leftist purge...

Source: International Herald Tribune
Argentina court says former junta ruler to face prosecution in human rights case
The Associated Press
Published: March 21, 2007


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: A federal judge on Wednesday ordered former de facto president Reynaldo Bignone to face prosecution in connection with human rights abuses during Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship.

Federal Judge Alberto Suarez Araujo said through a spokesman that Bignone, whose arrest he ordered this month, would be prosecuted in connection with a probe of clandestine detention centers reportedly run by the army in the junta era.

A former army chief, Santiago Omar Riveros, also was ordered to face prosecution in the investigation, according to Araujo's spokesman, who said court rules did not allow him to be identified by name.

The spokesman said the probe focuses on accusations of the illegal arrest, torture and killing of dissidents at the detention camps in northern Buenos Aires province, but he did not provide details.

IHT (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/21/america/LA-GEN-Argentina-Dirty-War.php)

In a related article:

Argentine military warned Brazil, Chile of 76 coup
Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:22PM EDT
By Guido Nejamkis


BRASILIA (Reuters) - Argentina's armed forces notified the military dictatorships of Brazil and Chile before staging the 1976 coup that toppled the government of Isabel Peron, according to recently declassified documents.

The communication was an early sign of the cooperation that would eventually become Operation Condor, in which the region's right-wing military governments worked together to hunt down and execute dissidents in hiding.

Peron was sworn in as president in 1974 after her husband, then-President Juan Domingo Peron, died in office. Peron's third wife, she had been serving as his vice president.
(snip)

The coup took place on March 24, 1976, ushering in a seven-year military dictatorship that kidnapped and killed as many as 30,000 dissidents.

Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2121969920070321)

[CENTER]

Isabel Peron was played by Madonna in the movie Evita (http://imdb.com/gallery/ss/0116250/1-20.jpg.html?path=pgallery&path_key=Madonna%20(I)&seq=2)

[smeagol]

Isabel Peron was played by Madonna in the movie

:bang :bang :bang :bang :bang :bang :bang :bang

Madonna played Evita Peron, you ill-informed mofo.

This is one of your many problems. You are don't know shit about many of the topics you post about. A couple of days ago I was trying to have an intelligent conversation about economics with you but it was impossible. Why? Because you know shit about economics.

Which begs the question. Do you know anything about the rest of the topics you post about?

Credibility, my friend, si something you lack.

[Nbadan]

Whatever. Economics is boring, but I'll put up my cred over yours anyday. Monetary policy, micro, macro economics, or any other subject, just bring it. You failed to convince me of your argument, so your skills must not be in tune with your ego.

[smeagol]

Whatever. Economics is boring, but I'll put up my cred over yours anyday. Monetary policy, micro, macro economics, or any other subject, just bring it. You failed to convince me of your argument, so your skills must not be in tune with your ego.

You wanted to downplay the US' economic strenght because its economy grew less than Venezuela's or Argentina's. This is a stupid argument and can only be made by an idiot who thinks Madonna played Isabel Peron in the movie EVITA.

(hint: the movie is called Evita :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao )

Fuck, I'm still laughing at the level of stupidity of your two comments. :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao

[101A]

pwned

[Ocotillo]

Don't cry for the U.S. economy, Argentina......

[smeagol]

Don't cry for the U.S. economy, Argentina......
:lol

[MannyIsGod]

Please do not argue with the resident Miss Cleo/Mathematician. He is all knowing.

[smeagol]

Please do not argue with the resident Miss Cleo/Mathematician. He is all knowing.
I'm sure he knows more about weather than you do :spin

[Nbadan]

....Still waiting for a valid economic argument...

:sleep

[smeagol]

....Still waiting for a valid economic argument...

:sleep
For starters, try to explain how Venezuela and Argentina's economies have better prospects than the US' because they are growing at 8% instead of the US economy growing at 3%.

Please enlighten us :blah

[Nbadan]

For starters, try to explain how Venezuela and Argentina's economies have better prospects than the US' because they are growing at 8% instead of the US economy growing at 3%.

Please enlighten us

Can't vouch for Argentinas economy, but Venezuela's economy is oil-based and Hugo has tons of a rare commodity. Have you noticed the economic expansions going on in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, or anyplace that has oil? These are different times, they are the times of the oil economies. Economies like the U.S., China, and India are headed quickly for second-rate economies thanks in large part to globalization.

[smeagol]

Can't vouch for Argentinas economy, but Venezuela's economy is oil-based and Hugo has tons of a rare commodity. Have you noticed the economic expansions going on in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, or anyplace that has oil? These are different times, they are the times of the oil economies. Economies like the U.S., China, and India are headed quickly for second-rate economies thanks in large part to globalization.
So SA and Iran's economies have better prospects than the US and China's?

I rest my case, you know shit.

[PixelPusher]

Economies like the U.S., China, and India are headed quickly for second-rate economies thanks in large part to globalization.
China has manufacturing and India has brains; they'll be fine.

The United States...well...we buy tons of shit on credit.

[Nbadan]

Progressivism is moving Latin America forward, while free-market globalization is leading the U.S. into the sewer..

The Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America


...Then in 1999 came Hugo Chavez, the U.S.’s latest worst nightmare in the region, admittedly following the Cuban example in Venezuela, with its enormous income from petroleum, to establish what he calls a Socialism for the 21st Century with a foreign policy of regional integration under his innovative Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, ALBA, excluding the United States altogether. The program is already underway through institutions such as Mercosur in trade, Petrocaribe, Petroandino and Petrosur in the energy sector, the Banco del Sur in finance, and Telesur in electronic media.

Another program under ALBA is Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle) for offering free eye surgery to people unable to afford it for cataracts, glaucoma, diabetes and other vision problems. It began in 2004 as a joint Cuban-Venezuelan effort to bring Venezuelans by air to Cuba cost free for operations. Within two years 28 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean were participating, and operations restoring sight numbered 485,000 of whom 290,000 were Venezuelans. Jet liners loaded with patients come and go from Havana everyday, but by early 2007 thirteen modern eye clinics were being built in Venezuela, and several had already performed thousands of operations there. Other clinics were being established in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti, all with Cuban planning and staffing. The ten-year goal of Operación Milagro is to restore sight to 6 million people of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the program is expanding to Africa.

The Cuban example of so many years, and now Venezuela, have also recently inspired the peoples of Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Nicaragua to elect progressive leaders. Most have rejected the 1990´s “Washington Consensus” and the neo-liberal model along with determined U.S. efforts to establish a hemispheric free trade zone. All are developing grassroots social and economic programs, each in its own way, aimed at improving the quality of life for all, especially the long-excluded majorities of their populations where this injustice prevailed. Although achievements in Cuba continue to shine, the torch of revolution in the region has effectively passed from the towering figure of Fidel, ailing at eighty, to Chavez, a military man and teacher inspired by Simón Bolívar and José Martí.

Reflecting on these new hopes for hundreds of millions in such a vast region, one cannot avoid recalling the old professor, Próspero, addressing his class for the last time in Ariel, the classic essay by José Enrique Rodó, still read by students in Latin America. In borrowing from The Tempest, and urging his students to follow the soaring spirit of virtue and good, represented by Ariel, and to reject the crass materialism of the U.S. personified by Calibán, Próspero drew a contrast between Latin American idealism and the United States that is as valid today as in 1900 when the essay first appeared.

While Latin America is fast moving in progressive directions, almost unimaginable less than ten years ago, in contrast the United States, at least since the Reagan era, has been moving step by step toward a Fascism for the 21st Century. And the pace has quickened in the last six years of Republican government under George W. Bush with passage of the Patriot Act under emergency circumstances just after the attacks on the Twin Towers in September 2001, and then adoption in 2006 of the Military Commissions Act, both with substantial support from Congressional Democrats. Other legislation supports this trend.

The U.S. Federal Government now has legal powers to secretly monitor one’s communications, whether by telephone, ordinary mail, e-mail, or fax, plus your bank accounts, credit cards, the web sites you visit, and the books you buy or read in libraries. Torture, secret prisons, kidnapping, and jailing indefinitely without trial or recourse to courts through habeas corpus---all are now legal. So is “extraordinary rendition” whereby U.S. captives are delivered to other governments where they will likely be tortured and possibly assassinated. Investigations by the European Parliament have identified around 1200 secret CIA flights carrying these people through European airports to secret prisons. To qualify for this treatment, anyone in the world, U.S. citizens and any others, only need be designated by the government as an “illegal enemy combatant” whose only definition is someone who has “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Hostilities or a hostile act can be interpreted as almost anything that opposes U.S. policies, from a speech expressing solidarity with Cuba to a picket line protesting the war in Iraq. If an “enemy combatant” ever gets a trial, it will not be by a jury of peers but by a U.S. military court that can use hearsay and evidence obtained under torture.

These powers reminiscent of the Nazi regime are not just a global U.S Sword of Damocles waiting to fall on perceived enemies. The full range of repression has been going on since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 with plenty of evidence coming from the prisons and concentration camps of Bagram, Abu Graib and Guantánamo as well as from testimony of various released innocents swept up in the process. It is an on-going worldwide application of fascist power in a non-defined, nebulous “war on terrorism” that has no end or geographical limits. Since September 2001 the Bush government has given one specious reason after another for what it believes are the motives of Islamic terrorism, never admitting that it is a reaction and resistance to U.S. imperial policies, starting with U.S. support for Israel’s continued occupation and colonization of Arab lands and Israel’s refusal to return to its borders before the Six-Day War in 1967.

By 2006 the U.S. had designated some 17,000 people around the world as “enemy combatants,” according to press reports. Combine this repression with gargantuan contracts to private U.S. firms, as in Iraqi security and “reconstruction,” along with forcing the Iraqi government, always with eyes on the prize, to contract highly prejudicial 30-year “production sharing agreements” to American and British oil majors, excluded from Iraq before the invasion, plus historic lows in trade union power, and you have the marriage of government and corporate power that Mussolini, who invented the word in 1919, described as the essence of fascism. The one bright spot are the recent indictments of 13 CIA people in Germany and 26 others in Italy for kidnapping and other violations of their laws. They will never be brought to trial, of course, but the indictments are refreshing developments.

Protection of terrorists who serve U.S. interests is still another feature of American Fascism of the 21st Century. There are many examples, especially among Cuban exiles, but two stand out from the others: Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Both have long, well-documented pedigrees as international terrorists, but one of their joint crimes was historic: the first bombing in flight of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere. It was Cubana flight 455 that on October 6th, 1976 exploded just after takeoff from Barbados killing all 73 people on board.

Bosch and Carriles, both of whose CIA careers began around 1960, planned the bombing in Caracas and provided the explosives to two Venezuelans recruited by Posada. These two were discovered, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms. Not so with Bosch and Posada who were protected by then-Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez who has his own history of working with the CIA. Although they were both arrested and tried separately in Venezuelan courts as the intellectual authors of the crime, neither was convicted.

Bosch was found not guilty and released in 1988, returned to Miami but was arrested for an old parole violation. The Justice Department then ordered his deportation as an “undesirable” and as “the most dangerous terrorist” of the Western Hemisphere. But Jeb Bush, son of then-President Bush, persuaded his father in 1990 to quash Bosch´s deportation order. Since then Bosch has lived freely in Miami where he gives television interviews in which he makes every effort to justify terrorism against Cuba.

For his part Posada’s trial in Venezuela never ended because in 1985 he escaped from prison, fled the country, and soon turned up in El Salvador working in the CIA’s Contra terrorist operation against Nicaragua. When this ended he stayed underground in Central America and from the early 1990´s organized more terrorist operations against Cuba. In 2005 he was arrested in Miami for illegal entry to the U.S., and although he admitted to the New York Times to terrorist bombings of hotels and other tourist facilities in Cuba, in one of which an Italian tourist died, he has only been indicted for lying to the FBI and in his request for naturalization. The Bush administration refuses to certify him as a terrorist so that he can be tried as such, at the same time ignoring Venezuela’s extradition request as a fugitive from justice, alleging absurdly that he might be tortured there. His treatment suggests that he will eventually be pardoned by Bush, perhaps on Christmas Eve of 2008 just before leaving the White House, just as his father on Christmas Eve of 1992 pardoned former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and various CIA officers for crimes in the 1980´s Iran-Contra scandal, thus precluding their trials scheduled to begin the following month.

VA (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1999)

[Nbadan]

Mérida, March 23, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— On his radio program Aló Presidente Thursday night, President Hugo Chávez announced the launch of $5 billion in PDVSA bonds. The state-owned oil company, PDVSA, will sell these to the domestic market starting on Monday. Such bond issues have been met with strong demand and are meant to soak up excess cash in the economy and lower inflation.

"The bond is extremely solid because it is backed by of one of the most solid companies in the world, PDVSA," said Chávez last night, encouraging Venezuelans to invest. PDVSA will offer the bonds for 10, 20 and 30-year periods to all Venezuelan investors, but they will only be open for sale from Monday, March 26th to Thursday, March 29th.

"That's just four days for you to make your offer," said Chávez, alluding to the high demand that previous bonds have been met with. The recently issued Bonds of the South were quickly bought up by investors and didn’t meet the high demand.

The oil company bonds, which are denominated in U.S.-dollars, are in high demand among Venezuelan businesses and individuals anxious to acquire the U.S. currency amid strict currency controls. Although the bonds must be bought in Bolivars, investors can resell the bonds in dollars and the interest is also paid in dollars.

VA (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2248)

Damn Socialists!

:hat

[whottt]

Yeah Smeagol...

Spam the board with rightwing propaganda so you can contribute like Nbadan and boutons do for the left.

[smeagol]

seriously though smeagol, for all the shit you talk about nbadan and boutons -- you really don't bring shit to this forum
That's cute coming from you, given that the above quote might be your longest post in two years of posting in the political forum.

[smeagol]

Dan, you are hilarious.

Do you really think posting shit from a Venezuelan governemnt sponsored website helps your cause?

So, does Cuba's economy also have better prospects than America's?

You are fucking clueless. Keep digging the hole you are in, dude.

[xrayzebra]

....Still waiting for a valid economic argument...

:sleep
\
Here dan, this will brighten you day, I am quite sure, it
will show what a wonderful country Chavez is creating.


International Herald Tribune
Venezuela's Chavez announces plans for 'collective property' under shift toward socialism

The Associated Press
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Click here to find out more!

CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez announced Sunday that his government's sweeping reforms toward socialism will include the creation of "collective property."

Vowing to undermine capitalism's continued influence in Venezuela during his television and radio program "Hello President," Chavez said state-financed cooperatives would operate under a new concept in which workers would share profits.

"It's property that belongs to everyone and it's going to benefit everyone," said Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro whom opponents accuse of leading Venezuela toward Cuba-style communism.

Chavez — a leftist former paratrooper popularly known as "El Comandante" — said his government fully respects private property, but pledged to replace capitalist ideals with socialist principles on cooperatives such as cattle ranches and farms.

"It cannot be production to generate profits for one person or a small group of people that become rich exploiting peons who end up becoming slaves, living in poverty and misery their entire lives," he said.

The legal framework for collective property will be established under a forthcoming constitutional reform proposed by Chavez. The Venezuelan leader has appointed a committee to prepare a blueprint for the pending reforms, which will be put to a vote in a referendum.

Chavez, who hosted Sunday's program from a ranch in Venezuela's sun-baked plains, said his government would move to expropriate large ranches and farms spanning more than 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) and redistribute lands deemed "idle" to the poor under a nationwide agrarian reform.

Since the reform began five years ago, officials have redistributed over 1.9 million hectares (4.6 million acres) of land that had been classified as unproductive or lacked property documents dating back to 1847, according to a recent government census.

Critics say reform has failed to revive Venezuela's agriculture industry, which does not produce enough food to satisfy domestic demand. The government has been forced to import food amid shortages of staples such as meats, milk and sugar.

"If Mr. Chavez really wants to help Venezuela's poor farmers, he must offer them technical assistance and sufficient financing because land doesn't become productive without investment," said opposition leader Alfonzo Marquina. "We're only seeing increasing shortages and more expensive products."

Communism at work, the great paradise, plenty for all
(the leaders) workers, except you know the luxuries of
life, like meat, milk and sugar.

[xrayzebra]

And then you have this little article. Funny thing about both of
these countries who hate the U.S. it is more than likely our dollars
that is financing the whole thing. But pay particular attention to
the last sentence of the article. Sounds a little familiar for
communist (socialist) countries, doesn't it. But no matter, I am
sure our dimm-o-craps in congress will rush in to help old
Chavez out if he gets into deep do-do.



CHINA / Top News

China and Venezuela to sign big oil deals
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-03-25 09:37

CARACAS - Venezuela said on Saturday it was working on a raft of oil deals with China, giving impetus to President Hugo Chavez's attempts to break his country's dependence on oil exports to the United States.

The China National Petroleum Corp. will look to develop heavy crude oil production in the Orinoco Belt and cooperate with Venezuela in building three refineries in China and a "super-fleet" of crude tankers, the Information Ministry said.

"The United States as a power is on the way down, China is on the way up. China is the market of the future," Chavez was quoted as saying by an Information Ministry statement after meeting CNPC President Jiang Jiemin in Caracas.

China's economic expansion has turned it into the world's second-biggest oil consumer. OPEC member Venezuela was the fifth-biggest oil exporter to the United States in January. Analysts reckon it pumps about 2.7 million barrels per day.

Chavez has ambitious plans to lift oil exports to China to lessen its dependence on its arch-foe the United States, saying it hopes to send 1 million barrels per day to China by 2012.

This optimistic target follows an earlier goal of more than tripling oil exports to China of 160,000 bpd by 2009.

The Information Ministry said CNPC would sign on Monday a preliminary deal to take a 40 percent stake in various Venezuelan heavy crude projects.

CNPC is already working in the Junin 4 block but Chavez said the Chinese oil giant wanted to expand its Orinoco operations with "billions of dollars" of investment.

Chavez is pushing ahead with a nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, stripping major US companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. of their majority stakes in heavy crude projects.

While sidelining such majors, Chavez is seeking to do more business with China, Russia and Iran, part of forming what he describes as a multipolar alliance against the United States.

He said the three proposed refineries in China would process 800,000 bpd of Venezuelan crude. The proposed new tanker fleet would not just run China-Venezuela routes but also operate in the Caribbean and take shipments to Africa, Chavez said.

Although Venezuela has signed many memorandums of understanding on commercial cooperation with countries in the developing world, many of the proposals have been very slow to turn into anything concrete.







Copyright By chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved

[ChumpDumper]

But no matter, I am
sure our dimm-o-craps in congress will rush in to help old
Chavez out if he gets into deep do-do.Sounds like China will instead....

[gtownspur]

That's cute coming from you, given that the above quote might be your longest post in two years of posting in the political forum.


I hate smeagol--sometimes. he's a bitch.

But he pwned Elpimpo the fuck out!

[RighteousBoy]

Chavez, who hosted Sunday's program from a ranch in Venezuela's sun-baked plains, said his government would move to expropriate large ranches and farms spanning more than 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) and redistribute lands deemed "idle" to the poor under a nationwide agrarian reform.

Since the reform began five years ago, officials have redistributed over 1.9 million hectares (4.6 million acres) of land that had been classified as unproductive or lacked property documents dating back to 1847, according to a recent government census.

Critics say reform has failed to revive Venezuela's agriculture industry, which does not produce enough food to satisfy domestic demand. The government has been forced to import food amid shortages of staples such as meats, milk and sugar.



I was thinking I had read this somewhere before, in American history: Quotes taken from William Bradford.

From the San Diego Times - Tribune

In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on “equality” and “need” as determined by Plantation officials. People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system “was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.” The problem was that “young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.” Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.

Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.

This change, Bradford wrote, “had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once the new system of property rights was in place, “the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability.”

Once the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal economic system and adopted one with greater individual property rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the corner.

We are direct beneficiaries of the economics lesson the pilgrims learned in 1623. Today we have a much better developed and well-defined set of property rights. Our economic system offers incentives for us—in the form of prices and profits—to coordinate our individual behavior for the mutual benefit of all; even those we may not personally know.



I'm glad we learned the lesson in 1623.

[smeagol]

I hate smeagol--sometimes. he's a bitch.

Uhhh I need some lovin' :dramaquee

[smeagol]

Even China is trying to implement private property and this bozo (the one P&G loves) is going in the wrong direction.

[xrayzebra]

Uhhh I need some lovin' :dramaquee


Hey, thought you have three or four kids and talking about
more. You don't need loving, you need restraint...... :lol

[Purple & Gold]

Even China is trying to implement private property and this bozo (the one P&G loves) is going in the wrong direction.
HaHa look at smeagol trying to talk shit. Do you want me to call you out for what you are once again?

[gtownspur]

Purple and Glitter, Ponky Brewster have been made queenie brides by Smegmol.

[smeagol]

Do you want me to call you out for what you are once again?
Now I'm really scared now :rollin :rollin :rollin

Bring it on, Socal boy :ihit :ihit

[Nbadan]

Oh, BushCo has a plan to reclaim Latin America, and a eye-popping accusation about a former SA-based U.S. attorney....


Yes, it sure feels like deja vu all over again. Gonzogate doesn't touch the war profiteers directly. It's a "safe" way to take Bush/Cheney down (or, in any case, to curtail them), without seriously threatening our monstrous "military-industrial complex," or the phony "war on drugs" and its prison-industrial complex and its filthy operations in Latin America*. The real scandal in the DoJ may be the "war on drugs," with the political scandal (the firings) being only a side scandal (or a connecting scandal). But the "war on drugs" has--at least in the past--been a bipartisan sacred cow (milk cow, boondoggle). That Rove and Gonzales would be firing US attorneys for political reasons, pressuring US attorneys to prosecute on a political basis, and planting Bushite political operatives in US attorney positions to (among other things) cover up vast Bushite wrongdoing, is not all that surprising--and, although it involves crimes like obstruction of justice and lying to Congress, and although it rapes and ruins any ethical tradition in the DoJ, these offenses pale into significance next to Bushite war crimes, Bushite theft, and the Bush Junta as a criminal syndicate and terrorist organization itself--involved in illicit weapons profiteering, drug trafficking, torture for profit, death squads and assassinations. And this is the problem for politicians who support the "military-industrial complex" and the US "war on drugs": The Bush Junta doesn't play by the rules. It is giving war and the police state a bad name. And all the filthy global corporate predators who are connected to these US federal boondoggles--and to whom many of our politicians are in thrall--don't want THEIR activities exposed or their power threatened. How to curtail Bush/Cheney--who are making them all look so bad--and RETAIN global corporate predator control of our government?

Nixon slaughtered about a million people in Southeast Asia. That crime pales into insignificance next to the Watergate and Ellsberg burglaries. The burglaries are related to that slaughter, of course. (They were apparently intending to plant bugs in the DNC headquarters during the antiwar presidential campaign of Democratic candidate George McGovern; and they were trying to find dirt on Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Vietnam War whistleblower.) Nixon was impeached and forced to resign because he was involved in providing hush money to the burglars (caught on tape in the Oval Office), not because he was napalming and bombing and shooting a million people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. That was a highly lucrative activity for the war profiteers, and was not permitted to come under serious scrutiny. Too bad. We might have stopped all this--the manufacture of unnecessary war--back then.

In that sense, you could regard Watergate as a whitewash. It preserved and protected the war machine--so that it could make a comeback under Bush/Cheney. And, considering the range and horror of the Bush Junta's crimes, you could regard this US Attorneys scandal in a similar way. As a distraction.

But history doesn't repeat itself, not really. It is a more like a gyre (W.B. Yeats' metaphor) with repeating themes, giving us repeated opportunities to solve certain problems in the human spirit. What would Yeats--an Irish rebel--think of the startling peace accord we saw the other day, between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland? The end of a 500 year war. The human race, on the whole, is on an upward progressive trend. And, if we don't destroy our planet--which I think may depend on restoration of democracy in the US--we are headed toward a better world, as to human progressive values (equality, social justice, higher consciousness). Our biggest problem is our very success as a species--too many people for earth's limited resources, given the global corporate predator organization of the exploitation of resources for the profit of the few. This problem--the biggest crisis that the human race has ever encountered--may override and completely smother both the many scandals of the Bushites AND the efforts of the corporate rulers to limit the damage. The biggest scandal of all may be what the Bush Junta and its corporate ruler puppetmasters have NOT DONE to prevent the loss of our planet.

THIS scandal--the scandal of profiteering in a time of maximum peril to all life on earth--only barely grazed our consciousness, back during the Watergate era. Some were concerned about the environment. Virtually no one knew just how bad things already were. So, where do we stand on history's great gyre? How to place this US attorney firings scandal--and all the other even worse, and, indeed, mind-boggling, scandals of the Bush Junta--in context NOW? Watergate is an interesting precedent. We can learn a lot from it. But this is a different time. We have a much bigger problem to address than the Bush Junta tyranny, although it may be that destroying the Bush Junta with exposes and punishments is a necessary part of restoring democracy here. One lesson of Watergate is that--gratifying as it was to see that Vietnam war criminal Nixon go down in flames--the impacts of that impeachment were only a temporary setback to the war profiteers. The war machine survived it. As Yurbud so rightfully points out, the powers-that-be (war profiteers and associated global corporate predators) are trying the same tactic now--letting a little steam out of the system, letting a few scandals emerge, throwing some meat to the dogs. But will they succeed with lesser-scandal-as-distraction this time? Are we not at a very different place on gyre than we were 40 years ago? Are we not now looking at one of those repeating opportunities to solve problems of the human spirit? Is it not time for the American people--with its magnificent history of rebellion and social justice--to finally throw the war machine off our backs, and begin to address this overarching problem of our impacts on the natural world, with all the creativity and passion of which we are capable?

Maybe what we need is a Peoples' Congress, which exposes and indicts the Bushites (and any Democratic colluders), and sentences them all to lifetimes of cleaning bedpans in veterans' hospitals, and then organizes the democratic revolution that will be needed to enforce those indictments--to take over the actual Congress, and the White House--but with the goal of disposing of the past, and moving on with the positive goal of saving the planet. War is insane. Killing people to control the last of a resource is the old way and it is unacceptable. We need firmly to reject it--forevermore. Violent revolution is also insane. Killing people to create justice is the old way, and it, too, is unacceptable. But one thing we can retrieve from the past, for our use now, is the notion of our sovereignty as a people, and our right to say what's what and who shall rule, and that includes our right to dismantle all these bad actor corporations, and start over.


*(I think we've got another huge Bush/Cheney scandal boiling beneath the surface in Colombia. Their pal President Uribe and his chief of intelligence and also the head of Colombia's military--which the Bush Junta has larded with billions of our tax dollars--are involved in a major scandal in Colombia involving rightwing paramilitary drug trafficking, mass murder of leftists, union organizers and peasants, and a plot ot assassinate Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Disclosures so far--amazing though they are (amazing because they are BEING disclosed)--may be only the tip of the iceberg of a fascist/Bushite plan to destabilize South America and reconquer it for the Global Corporate Predators who are running the Bush Junta. Stay tuned on this one. Considering the huge democratic revolution that is occurring in Latin America, this scandal may be the means both of gaining allies in our struggle against US militarism and corporate rule, and ridding ourselves of the present evildoers in a more comprehensive way, than with the US attorney scandal. And the two scandals may in fact be related. One of the US attorneys involved in purging other US attorneys--Johnny Sutton, in San Antonio--has been involved a coverup of DEA-sanctioned murders in Juarez, another US "war on drugs" scandal/horror.

For the Sutton connection, see:Narco News (http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2007/3/26/205547)

[Nbadan]

Hey look, even Pope Ratzinger is a socialist!


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Rich countries bent on power and profit have mercilessly "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions and exported to them the "cynicism of a world without God," Pope Benedict writes in his first book. The Pope also condemns drug trafficking and sexual tourism, saying they are signs of a world brimming with "people who are empty" yet living among abundant material goods.

One section of the book was printed in Wednesday's Corriere Della Sera daily before publication later this month by Italian publisher Rizzoli, which owns the newspaper. A Rizzoli spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the excerpts.

In the 400-page book, called "Jesus of Nazareth," the Pope offers a modern application of Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man who had been robbed by thieves when others, including a priest, had not. "The current relevance of the parable is obvious," the Pope writes. "If we apply it to the dimensions of globalised society today, we see how the populations of Africa have been plundered and sacked and this concerns us intimately," the Pope says in his book, which comes out on April 16, his 80th birthday.

reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-04-04T102557Z_01_L04223253_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-BOOK.xml&src=rss&rpc=22)

Hey Benedict, check the basement!

:hat

[Nbadan]

The killing continues...

US frees 55 million dollars in military aid to Colombia
Published: Tuesday April 10, 2007


US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has concluded that Colombia is fulfilling US requirements on human rights and can receive 55 million dollars in military aid, her spokesman said Tuesday.

Rice certified to Congress on April 4 that Colombia's government and armed forces "are meeting statutory criteria related to human rights and severing ties to paramilitary groups," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
(snip)

Colombian military and government officials have faced allegations of ties with right-wing paramilitary groups accused of committing atrocities in their fight against left-wing guerrillas.

Colombia is Washington's top ally in South America, receiving four billion dollars in US aid since 2000 through Plan Colombia to combat drug trafficking and left-wing rebels that have battled the government for four decades.

Linky (http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_frees_55_million_dollars_in_mili_04102007.html)

As I've posted before, the Bush administration is arming Columbian right-wing groups to destabilize the governments of Hugo Chavez and other leftist leaders.

Charming.