Friday, May 16, 2003

CLOWNING IN CARACAS

This morning Raven and I sent a letter to Colin Powell of the U. S. State Department, asking for the removal of Charles Shapiro as Ambassador to Venezuela, as well as a quick trip to the woodshed for a blast of traditional discipline for the same individual.

Venezuela is calling for an official apology on the part of the US government for Shapiro’s actions—which consisted essentially of hosting an event in his residence on Tuesday—ostensibly to call for free speech—in which he promoted a comedian’s ridiculing of President Hugo Chávez Frías (aka The Leo of My Dreams) by means of a puppet.

“There’s probably more free speech in Venezuela than in any other country in the world”, opines Raven, as he crunches a potato chip. “An excess of free speech, maybe. Anybody can say whatever he wants there and nobody does anything.”

Theoretically, Rave, democracies are like that. Unlike fascist countries like the US, where the FBI rummages through e-mails and taps phones and searches the houses of citizens without a warrant.

“Great country you’ve got there.” I can barely hear the bird for the crunching.

Rave, didn’t your mother ever teach you table manners?

“Ha! Our mother didn’t forage for potato chips for us when we were wee ones. We barged out of the eggshell and started downing earthworms.”

Let’s get back to the puppet incident, okay. Try to keep the crunching down to a dull roar?

“Whatever”, Rave clacks his beak. “Puppets are the key to this entire incident of boorishness, racism, arrogance, misbehavior and (in the words of the embassy’s official statement) bad taste. They trotted out a puppet of Chávez and made fun of it because Chávez refuses to be a puppet for the Bush Gang.”

More to the point, Rave, he has pretty much drawn a line in the sand in regard to them. A resounding NO to the free trade—aka imposition of US goods—agreement from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego. YES to Opec countries receiving decent prices for their non-renewable hydrocarbons. NO to being a colony, in short.

“Ah, colonies. Consumers of these greasy chips. Swillers of Coca-Cola.” Raven looks guilty.

Yeah. Inhabitants of the Heart of Darkness. Shrunken heads. Poachers. Ivory. Kurtz. The horror.

“More than that, in Latin America they are all characters out of Nostromo. Conrad had this all novelistically charted a hundred years ago. I guess nobody paid attention because they thought it was fiction?”

Sadly, Rave, we Sagittarians are always ahead of our time….

Thursday, May 15, 2003

RAVEN REDUX
***************************************************
He arado en el mar.
(I have ploughed the sea.)
S. Bolívar
***************************************************

Raven feels restless.
He’s combing the beach hoping
for inspiration
during the lunar eclipse,
for some flight information

to appear and lift
him out of this tropical
imagination.
He is ready to wing it,
now, just like in the old days—

freer than the bird
he has been here, hunkered down
in stale images
of waves, sand bars and palm trees.
He wants to sail on the big

wind currents again—
his beak aimed like an arrow
at the Andes, or
on to Patagonia—
his eyes ploughing the ocean,

planting reflections
of stars that burst into bloom
every moonrise;
in his retinae the failed
dreams of Simón Bolívar.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

TRADING MIGRANTS’ LIVES FOR PEMEX AND A PLAYER TO BE NAMED LATER

Raven is cheery this morning.

“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.

Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.

“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”

Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.

“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.

Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.

“Is that a petroleum product?”

I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?

“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”

I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.

“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.

God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.

“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”




TRADING MIGRANTS’ LIVES FOR PEMEX AND A PLAYER TO BE NAMED LATER

Raven is cheery this morning.

“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.

Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.

“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”

Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.

“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.

Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.

“Is that a petroleum product?”

I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?

“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”

I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.

“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.

God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.

“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”




Tuesday, May 13, 2003

DON’T BLAME ME; I’M FROM MASSACHUSSETS

Raven was singing in the garden while I was splattering bacon grease on myself in the kitchen. Some folks always choose the better part—as in the biblical story of Mary and Martha, the latter who was always “busy about many things”.

“This coffee is not delcious. Too much cinnamon.” Raven pushes his cup aside. “Who is this guy, George McGovern anyway? It says here he was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972.”

That he was, Rave. An ill-fated campaign. Nixon was running for re-election, pulling dirty tricks like mad in his best style. McGovern was against the Vietnam war, so he looked like a real alternative to more of the same with Tricky Dick. Unfortunately, his first running mate bit the dust almost immediately because it came out that he had been treated for depression.

“How could any sane person not have been depressed, that’s what I´d like to know.” Raven bites into his peach jam-slathered toast.

We’re talking about the 70s, guy. When taking a pill for depression was hypocritically regarded as the same as dropping acid. Anyway, that candidate was jerked from the ticket and replaced by Sargent Shriver—one of the Kennedy clan who’d been running the Peace Corps, and my dissertation adviser, Harvey Swados, was recruited to write his speeches. A thankless task, but Harvey had to make the sacrifice to try to knock out Nixon—not to mention that a racist Alabama governor named George Wallace was making another run at the White House. We were living in Springfield, Massachusetts and drove up to Amherst to vote for McGovern.

“Springfield. The home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, right?”

It’s only claim to fame, probably. I didn’t know you were a basketball fan, Rave.

“I’m not. Too short. But I like sports trivia.”

All sports are trivial. Anyway, we voted because although we knew McGovern was not going to win, our polling place was an auction house in North Amherst and I wanted to preview the weekend’s selection of stuff.

“A bit cynical, aren’t we?”

Rave, I was trying to run an antiques business. Give me a break. McGovern lost, and because Massachusetts was the only state he carried, we printed up bumper stickers that said: Don’t blame me; I’m from Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Harvey Swados died a month after the presidential election. Writing political speeches literally killed the novelist.

“Ah. Politics killed the wrong person. But the bumper stickers were a good way to weasel out of the blame for Nixon. Didn’t he have to resign?”

Of course he did. But Rave, why did you bring up McGovern in the first place?

“Because he has a piece on the Common Dreams site. Republished from the Washington Post. It’s called A More Constructive Internationalism.”

What does he say?

“Basically, he takes offense at his being called anti-internationalist. Something like that.”

Because he opposed the Vietnam war?

“Maybe. It’s not too clear. Anyway, he gives a list of activities he’s done which he feels indicate his internationalism—especially his work to reduce global hunger. Not exactly a resounding success there, but…And goes on to say:

‘I am opposed to the Bush doctrine of "preemptive war" -- what heretofore has been known as aggression or invasion. I am also opposed to congressional resolutions that give the president a blank check to go to war when he pleases.

I have always thought America to be the greatest country on earth. One of the reasons I think so is because of our great founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, who spoke of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Is there any doubt that the opinion of mankind was overwhelmingly against our wars in Vietnam and Iraq?’”

No doubt in my mind, at all, Rave. That’s why I am so angry and concerned about the US government’s completely blowing off world opinion.

“He also makes a little jab at Bush’s neo-Hitlerism:

'We don't measure a nation's internationalism by the number of troops it sends to other countries. By that test, Adolf Hitler would be the greatest internationalist of the 20th century. I might add thatI would not have won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 -- winning 11 primaries, including the two largest states, New York and California -- if I had been perceived as an isolationist. I also believe that if the disgraceful conduct of President Richard Nixon during that campaign had been known before the election, I would have been elected. If so, I would have led as an internationalist unafraid to use force in the national interest.'

Seems like he’s saying not to blame him. Is he from Massachusetts?”

No, Rave. From South Dakota. But South Dakota doesn’t look as good on a bumper sticker.

"Sounds like it's in the middle of Nowhere. Sort of like here." Raven looks very sly.

I think I see where you're going, Rave. Forget about Don't blame me; I'm from Puerto Angel....


Monday, May 12, 2003

HASTA AQUÍ LLEGUÉ

“So,” Raven takes a bite from his ersatz croissant (from Panadería 5 Regiones) “Castro has finally responded to José Saramago´s ‘Hasta aquí llegué’ commentary.”

I think standing up those 3 kidnappers against the wall and calling in the firing squad may have been an extreme reaction on the part of Castro. But I also remember when I was a child in the 50s there was a lot of controversy about the death penalty because of the Caryl Chessman case.”

“Before my time, I’m afraid. Don’t we have some jam for this bread?”

Check the refri, Rave. I am looking for something in Internet about Chessman for you. He was given 2 death sentences for a 1948 crime that charged him with being a kidnapper and rapist, and was finally executed in the gas chamber in San Quentin in 1960. He always claimed that he was not guilty. But the climate of the 50s was not apt for rebellious guys like Chessman, who was a pretty good writer, too. They basically slapped the kidnapping charge on him because since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, it was a capital offense. Ah, here we have a quote from him:

“I learned too late and only after coming to Death Row that each of us ever must be aware of the brotherhood of man . . . . Circumstances may compel us to become our brother’s keeper; I think we destroy something in ourselves when we become his executioner.”

“He’s right about that.” Rave spreads some peach jam on his bread. “So he wasn’t really a kidnapper?”

It was a very intolerant time, Rave. Joe McCarthy was ranting and raving every day about Reds under the bed, in Hollywood, in the military, in Congress—you name it, Reds were in it. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted in Sing Sing in 1953 for supposedly passing atomic weapons secrets to the Russians. People were building backyard bomb shelters. It was a climate of mass hysteria. Caryl Chessman was too rational, too much of an individual. Somebody—I don’t remember who—said he was executed for being a smart ass.

“Sounds very much like this moment. And we also know that Bush presided over the execution of 153 people in Texas before he actualized his plan to preside over The World. So why has he been beating the pan about Castro’s government shooting 3 guys who were trying to get to the US in a little boat?” Raven scrapes the scraps of his eggs, delicately, into the garbage.

Because they were going to the US, I’m sure. If they had been heading for Venezuela, I am sure Bush would have applauded Castro’s sentence. As he applauded his own decision to lethally inject black and hispanic prisoners in Texas.

“Good point. And the stiff prison terms they gave the dissidents?”

Obviously, the US has a lot of guilt around that, as they gave the green light to those folks.

“And money, and tvs and other stuff, too.”

Apparently. So Saramago thought or felt that Castro had over-reacted, had gone too far. That dissent should have been allowed. And he said “Hasta aquí llegué” in the sense that this was as far as he was going, that he could not go along with Castro´s recent decisions—even as a long-time communist and supporter of the Cuban Revolution. Then he said a few days later that he was not withdrawing his solidarity from the Revolution. Frankly, I am confused. I can understand his being against the death penalty and against having political prisoners, and why he emotionally singled out Cuba for his disappointment. But maybe he should have thought it over before making a public statement. What did Castro say?

“Castro says :

‘Saramago is a good writer. It really hurts us that he hasn’t understood a word about the realities that the world and Cuba are living. He should have expressed his disagreement, but he shouldn’t have said anything to feed the agression of the US government against Cuba, nor offer arguments that would be received with delight by the brutal imperialist system that’s trying to justify an agression against Cuba.’

What he goes on to say is perhaps more important:

‘Something more worrisome—Saramago, and some others who have acted in good faith seem completely unaware that the planet is marching rapidly towards a global nazifascist tyranny. I am sure that he let himself be carried away by a moment of anger and disagreement which clouded his capacity to reason. Also, maybe a passing element of self-importance and vanity—nothing extraordinary in a good communist accustomed during many years to calumny and diatribes who has suddenly been elevated to the Olympus of a Nobel Prize.’”

Other people have said that Castro made a bad decision because he is senile, Rave. It doesn’t sound to me that he is. He is younger than Saramago by a few years, if I remember correctly. Maybe the point is that all of us oldsters should be talking less than we are?

“Okay…I’ll bite. Why?” Raven looks unsure.

Maybe if we had taken the world situation more seriously, had read the handwriting on the wall—so to speak—things would not have gotten to the point where it’s the Law of the Jungle.

Raven shakes his head. “I think I have mentioned before that the jungle is a peaceful place because it doesn’t have people in it.”

Bad word choice, sorry. I am trying to say that we all share the guilt of allowing what Castro very rightly has called a global fascist tyranny to take place. That it’s not just the moron Bush and his gang of petrocriminals who are to blame—but all of us who allowed them to come to power thinking that arrogance, stupidity, greed and violence could not possibly be institutionalized.

“I have also mentioned before than your species has not adapted very well to the realities of this planet. And is therefore bound for extinction. As I am bound, at this moment, for the beach.” Raven wings it from the windowsill.

Thanks for making my day, Rave….