Monday, September 25, 2006

THE REAL ENEMY OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Raven and I have been negligent about blogging for some time now.

The crackpots, racists and right-wing fanatics who have come out of the woodwork since Chavez' wonderfully entertaining Smells of Sulphur Speech last week in the UN have enticed us out of our hammocks and at least briefly, back into the fray.

We are still not up to speed. At this point I am doing the spouting off, and Rave is playing typist. I guess he is disdainful of having a real dialog with our species, and I can't say I blame him:

Anyway, a few highlights from our posts on the right-wing blog site, blogcritics.org:

Sept. 22:


I would be willing to bet just about any amount of money that I am the only person posting here who has actually gone to Venezuela several times and sat down with Hugo Chavez to talk about what's needed in Latin America (I live in Mexico) and the world today.

Getting information from the horse's mouth sure beats getting it from the horse's other end--the propaganda machine of the Bush administration....

Before one shoots his/her keyboard off with opinions, it would be useful and also ethical to find out what's really going on in Venezuela. Where, by the way, NO elections have been suspended--for any reason. Where the Supreme Court is considerable less partial than the US Supreme Court (although I was glad to see the US version finally show some spine in regard to the inhumane treatment of prisoners in Guatanamo). Where people's opinions are freely voiced and peaceful protesters are NOT dragged away in paddy wagons like they are in NYC.

As for leftists dying right next to folks on the right at the hands of US enemies--some of us leftists are not going to be dying anywhere near the US. Some of us left the belly of the beast many years ago.

I see nationalization of resources as a positive step here in Latin America--in Mexico Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the petroleum resources in 1938.

In Venezuela Chavez did not create the national petroleum company PDVSA--but he has forced other countries' petroleum companies to cooperate in joint ventures with it. And to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes and royalties that they owed. Since they are still operating in Venezuela, they must view the operation as being in their interest.

Unused agricultural land may be expropriated (not nationalized) by the state. That's not a novelty--in the US the state may expropriate any land under what is called "emminent domain".

All opposition newspapers are alive and operating in Venezuela. None have been closed. If you have info to the contrary, post it here.The Supreme Court has not been subverted--unlike in the US.

"Overriding the rule of law with government fiat" is a phrase which makes absolutely no sense, linguistically or otherwise. Are you perhaps not a native English speaker, and would like to repost that phrase in your first language?

There is nothing in the Venezuelan Constitution that was created in 1999 that indicates an increase in presidential powers (perhaps you are thinking about passed laws, not the Constitution?), jailing political opponents or inciting revolution in neighboring countries. Do you have a copy of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela? I do.

These well-documented facts--show us the doumentation. Don't just tell us that we should believe that The Usual Suspects have been rounded up and are guility.

As for Human Rights Watch--do a little research about where they are coming from. It's always disappointing to find out that funding for such groups at HRW and Reporters without Borders is not free of influence.

A good example of what I am talking about: Last week's scandal about the reporters from the Miami Herald that were fired because they were being paid by the US government to write anti-Cuban propaganda. Fidel is no dummy--when he asked one of those very reporters in public in response to a rude question "¿Quien te paga?"--he knew who was paying him.

Another good plan if you're wanting to try to write about Latin America would be for you to learn Spanish. That way you would be able to read websites in that language as well as the Venezuelan opposition newspapers. The Washington Post and Fox News are not what we call primary sources in journalism.

Sept. 25:

I am glad to hear that you have been reading up on Chavez and Venezuela. They have a very interesting--and hopeful--social project going there--which is why I have made several visits there and spent time talking to all kinds of Venezuelans--from street vendors to the president--about what seems to be one of the very few positive projects at this moment in time on the planet.

The Bush adminstration bashes Chavez daily--not because they believe he is a dictator, or a bad guy--or any of that stuff. They want him OUT so that they can grab Venezuela's petroleum. And the tone has risen since they found out that apparently Venezuela's petroleum reserves are much larger than those of Saudi Arabia.

Folks who bash Chavez on this forum or in other venues are not even after Venezuela's oil--since most of them are in no position to get their hands on anything except a shrinking salary and a credit card to keep them in debt for life. What they are after is acceptance--a sense of belonging to the group in power. That's toadying--and they don't need educations or good jobs or even average IQs to do that.

They turn mean as hell when confronted--and out comes the racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and all their other phobias packaged in right wing ideology. All that behavior means is that they are scared.

Why scared? Because every time there is a scandal on the horizon the Bushies trot out a planned terrorist attack, abuse the airline travelers and have their lapdog (another expert at toadying) Blair round up the Usual 22 Pakistanu Suspects. The media toadies hop on the bandwagon and shriek that everyone must be scared.

Remember the Dylan song, "Everybody Must Get Stoned"? This is the version for the first decade of the Twentyfirst Century: "Everybody Must Get Scared".

Why? Because scared people don't challenge their leaders. Remember, Bush said he was The War President. In times of war everybody must get scared and get together to march like lemmings into the sea of imperialistic slaughter.

What these poor folks do not realize is the following: THE REAL TARGET OF THE US GOVERNMENT IS THE US CITIZEN. The really big lies are told to him/her. Substandard education is given to him/her. Outrageously inflated and incompetent medical care (far inferior to what we have here in Mexico, even) is provided to him/her--and if one has to go into hock to pay for it, all the better.

The US government, the Bush Gang--they don't care about you folks. You are only an inconvenience to them in their paranoid power plans--because, theoretically, even with the Patriot Act locked around your wrists, you COULD HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

Why not stop toadying, stop salivating for SUVs and other garbage you don't need, stop squandering the fragile future of this planet?

Why not learn how to think for yourselves?

Why not get off your duffs and get a life beyond the remote control?

Even if your government tells you that your only function is to shut up, shop at the mall and pay taxes to support their global massacres.

Just do it.

******

Raven is giving me the eye.

What's the matter, guy?

"Nothing. I just wonder if any of this ever does any good for anybody...."