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
IHTBUENOS 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.
In a related article:
Argentine military warned Brazil, Chile of 76 coup
Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:22PM EDT
By Guido Nejamkis
ReutersBRASILIA (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 do ents.
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.
[CENTER]
Isabel Peron was played by Madonna in the movie Evita
Last edited by Nbadan; 03-21-2007 at 05:01 PM.
Madonna played Evita Peron, you ill-informed mofo.
This is one of your many problems. You are don't know 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 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.
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
, I'm still laughing at the level of stupidity of your two comments.
pwned
Don't cry for the U.S. economy, Argentina......
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
....Still waiting for a valid economic argument...
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%.....Still waiting for a valid economic argument...
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.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
So SA and Iran's economies have better prospects than the US and China's?
I rest my case, you know .
China has manufacturing and India has brains; they'll be fine.
The United States...well...we buy tons of on credit.
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
VA...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 ins utions 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 cir stances 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-do ented 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.
VAMérida, 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.
Damn Socialists!
Yeah Smeagol...
Spam the board with rightwing propaganda so you can contribute like Nbadan and boutons do for the left.
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.
Last edited by smeagol; 03-26-2007 at 09:16 AM.
Dan, you are hilarious.
Do you really think posting from a Venezuelan governemnt sponsored website helps your cause?
So, does Cuba's economy also have better prospects than America's?
You are ing clueless. Keep digging the hole you are in, dude.
\....Still waiting for a valid economic argument...
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 " o 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 cons utional 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 do ents 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.
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
Sounds like China will instead....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.
I hate smeagol--sometimes. he's a .
But he pwned Elpimpo the out!
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 do ents 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 re 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.
Uhhh I need some lovin'
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