American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
Greg, however, always looks good:
(h/t FSM)
In case you missed Whoopi’s words,
his is what happens with communism. It’s a great concept. On paper it makes perfect sense. But once you put a human being in power, it shifts. We saw it in Russia, we’ve seen it all around the world. It’s nuts. But, I keep my fingers crossed.
Uncross your finger, Whoopi, and read this.
Last week we watched this disgraceful spectacle:
As it turns out, Penn and Teller had addressed the 9/11 conspiracy theories in their program, Bullsh*t (language not suitable for work):
Why was I thinking about this today?
Because this was the first thing I saw when I turned on the TV this morning:
Traffic mess coming to Lower Manhattan
Starting next week traffic in and around Lower Manhattan is about to get a whole lot worse.
The northbound side of West Street between Liberty and Vesey Streets will be shut down for more than a month so that crews can search for the remains of more 9/11 victims.
Think about that, folks. FIVE AND A HALF years later, there are remains out there that still need to be found and laid to rest.
Update, Tuesday 10 April: Gagdad Bob fisks Rosie.
Via Mara, LGF has the video
Rosie: “For the first time in history steel was melted by fire.” Wrong Rosie: steel is melted by fire each and every day around the world. What’s melting are the few neurons left in what you call a brain inside your head.
Gerard has an excellent post,
Be sure to tell yourself that whatever has happened to you, it is not your fault. Be a post-post-modern American. Be an eternal victim. You’ve got it coming.
When the going gets tough, blame your genes and demand that all share your pain, send you a check, and pay extra for medical research to cure what ails you. For free. It’s you’re right written right there in the invisible ink between the lines of the Constitution.
When the going gets really tough, blame George Bush, the center of all the evil that is America. Besides, the people that really want to kill you are far too numerous and far too dedicated to your death to contemplate. It is much lighter on the breaking brain to believe that George Bush wants to kill your right to dissent even if it is much harder to see. Your real enemies are far too frightening to contemplate. Your secret hope is that they’ll burn you in an instant in some thermonuclear fire so you don’t have to be around to put everything back together.
Don’t think for a minute that you are unraveling what is left of your social fabric. Who needs clothes in the dark? You are only taking advantage of your First Amendment rights. What was the Second one? Oh, that’s the bad one. Then there’s 5. And the others? Who remembers? Who can count that high these days?
The excerpt from Gerard’s post doesn’t do it justice, so make sure to read it all (thank you Larwyn).
And don’t even look at the UN:
I mean, watch this:
(h/t Atlas)
The United States remains the UN’s largest contributor.
We pay 22% of its regular budget, and about 27% of its peacekeeping costs. On top of that, we give generously to support the work of UN agencies providing humanitarian relief, electoral assistance, food aid, and more.
When are we going to wake up?
Feel the loooove. Watch those videos and tell me if you can’t almost hear Barry White music in the background. Barbara, shrouded in a soft-focus, wrinkle-covering haze, interviews fawns over Hugo:
Now excuse me for a moment, because I’m going to make an exception to my rule of keeping the discourse at an elevated level, but the word that describes Barbara’s puff-piece is fellational.
“Are you married to the revolution?” Like a discalced Carmelite, married to her vocation, Barbara?
Is that why he’s squandering money
Chavez has already spent about $20 billion of his people’s money in trying to buy political loyalties in the Western Hemisphere, about $6 billion in arms and weapon systems and has promised another $20 billion to countries in the region to build refineries, gas lines, houses and roads, as long as they join his team. All of this is taking place while Venezuelans are increasingly undernourished and food shortages are becoming chronic occurrences in the country. One of Chavez’s latest efforts seems to involve the creation of a domestic nuclear capability. A prominent Venezuelan scientist from the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Investigations, Claudio Mendoza, recently denounced these pretensions and was immediately dismissed and is being persecuted as a traitor.
Is that Barbara’s idea of a marriage?
Barbara’s affection for the presidente is hardly surprising, considering La Barbara’s adoration of Hugo’s mentor, which goes back to the 1960s. It never occured to her to ask, as Andres Oppenheimer does, some tough questions,
So with all due respect, I would like to pose the following questions: If you are so democratic, why do you glorify military coups? If you are so progressive, why do you close down independent television stations? If your hero Fidel Castro is so popular in Cuba, why doesn’t he allow a free election? If you respect human rights, why don’t you allow OAS human rights inspectors into your country?
And, finally, if you are so convinced of what you say, why do you only grant interviews to nonchallenging reporters? Last time we met and I respectfully asked you for an interview, you told me to go to hell.
Make no mistake: Barbara’s puff-piece, while ignored here (I didn’t even know it was on until yesterday when a friend told me about it and Larwyn sent me this), is being used as major propaganda in Venezuela and is being flogged on all state media – radio and TV – prompting one blogger to ask, Does Barbara Walters work for Chavez?
Why the need to use Chavez to make a home point against Bush? Can you not find something more palatable at home?
But I do get a double bonus with this post: see, there is the proof on how the Venezuelan media is now controlled by Chavez. All sorts of PSF, of which Barbara Walters is now a full fledged member, keep stating that the Venezuelan media is all against Chavez and that he is always on the defensive. Well, let’s look at the picture above.
Once you pass the invitation to watch the show at 9 PM tonight, you will read the list of all the media transmitting SIMULTANEOUSLY the Walters farce. Details:
- National TV broadcast (open signal most of the country): VTV, VIVE
- National on Cable and on the main TV markets: TeleSur, ANTV
- Local TV: CatiaTve (Caracas), and many local TV stations
- The only radio station allowed to broadcast all over the country: RNV
- A network of pseudo individual radio Stations in fact owned by chavista agents: Radio Rumbos, Mundial
- Many community radios (almost all Venezuelan community radios are authorized by the government, if I wanted to open one I would be quickly shut down)
And to ice the cake, 1 hour later the Venevision network will rebroadcast the interview. Venevision is supposedly private but for the last two years has found itself collaborating closer and closer to the government. I suppose that now that any journalist that criticized the government has been fired, it is a kosher network again and allowed to broadcast to the glory of EL Surpremo.
List of media that WILL NOT broadcast Chavez interview?
- RCTV (soon to be closed)
- Globovision and Televen (both do not have open signal all over the country, and Televen is semi pro Chavez anyway)
- ValeTv (cultural TV that does not have news or talk show whatsoever and only in Caracas or on Cable)
- Some local radio and TV stations, very few of them.
As you see, the ratio is now approximatively 3 to 1 in favor of Chavez for all broadcast access existing. In some areas Globovision is not allowed to have open air signal and once RCTV is gone, there will be NO media critical of the government on the air. Only on cable if you can afford it ( a huge if for most Venezuelans). Nice, no?
Barbara, ever the narcissist, played strategically into Hugo’s, the narcissist-Leninist, greedy hands, as A.M.Mora y Leon explains in her article (emphasis added),
For starters, Walters did it on extremely peculiar timing. Walters’ ‘catch’ came through on short notice, but right when Hugo Chavez needed political help. He rarely does interviews, but this week he was trying to repair his image. Walters didn’t say so, but the backstory to her interview is that Chavez has lost tremendous political capital in the hemisphere in the wake of President Bush’s Latin American tour and is actively trying to regain lost ground.
Investor’s Business Daily chronicled Chavez’s troubles from the Bush tour, first describing Chavez’s early effort to hit Bush with nasty street protests in a bid to direct cameras away from the visiting U.S. president, and ‘seize the message. That didn’t work, so his next move was to launch of a ‘shadow tour’ to his allies, in a further effort to draw attention from Bush. The ‘shadow tour’ didn’t go according to plan and worse yet, made him look ridiculous. Instead of getting spontaneous adoring masses and media coverage, Chavez was repeatedly described – from Argentina to Mexico – as a spurned boyfriend stalking Bush, unable to handle his quiet rejection. After that, Chavez watched as his own allies distanced themselves from him, just as it was getting obvious that success was building in President Bush’s own tour.
As Bush warmed the hearts of Latin Americans and accomplished real diplomacy, Chavez became a laughingstock and apparently knew it. He reversed course and started a new soft approach (a first for him), mimicking Bush as now a nice guy, not a firebrand. He said he didn’t really mean anything personal in his Bush insults, despite calling Bush a ‘donkey,’ a ‘drunk’ and a ‘political corpse’ throughout the week. In fact, not only was it nothing personal, he added he’d like to play dominoes with Bush and laugh over old times when the two of them eventually retired. Meanwhile, back in Caracas, his ministers repeatedly denied that Chavez’s shadow tour of Bush was really that. They emphasized it was “only a coincidence,” not a stalking. Obviously, the Venezuelan dictator was in trouble.
In waltzed Walters, possibly ignorant of all this going on (to be charitable), and just thrilled to crow to U.S. viewers about her new interview ‘catch.’ But not only did Walters give Chavez a platform to improve his image – something Chavez had been trying hard to do in the last few days, she piled on the usual claptrap from the Chavez propaganda machine about Chavez’s wonderful generosity to the poor in both Venezuela and the U.S.
The Economist, never a big Bush supporter, commented,
But most of Mr Chávez’s neighbours are not enthusiastic about his leadership nor willing to turn their backs on the United States. Lula’s coming trip to Camp David is a sign that Brazil will not be bullied into an anti-American axis. Mr Bush wisely ignored Mr Chávez’s taunts.
Last night I was conversing with Louisiana Conservative, who will post on our conversation. We discussed Venezuela, and what should the USA do.
One of the most effective things I believe the USA should do is to foment wealth creation in Latin America. I firmly believe that the USA should create a circle of prosperous nations through abolishing all agricultural subsidies and trade tarriffs with all Latin American countries that foster true democracy, support the rule of law, and provide property rights for their citizens. A circle of prosperous nations surrounding a Communist nation is not a new approach: it has happened in East Asia.
A cricle of prosperity will defeat Communism, because for Communism to thrive, there has to be poverty and uprising. A circle of prosperity will also solve many other problems, among them the huge numbers of illegal immigrants trying to make a living here rather then in their home countries.
It can happen in Latin America. It’s up to our politicians.
Do it, and do it now.
Update: Louisiana Conservative has his first post on our conversation from last night.
Update 2:
Dear friends of ABC:
The interview done by Ms. Barbara Walters to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has damaged considerably the cause of democracy in our country, Venezuela. Today, Chavez is using all Tv’s and radio stations in the country to reproduce this interview , which amounts to an endorsement by a well-known U.S. journalist in a highly important U.S. television network. It is very sad that the 200,000 abandoned children in the streets of Venezuelan cities, the 13,000 plus Venezuelans assasinated in the country during 2006, the billions of dollars stolen or pilfered by Chavez’s revolutionary gang and the Venezuelan public school students who are being indoctrinated today with socialist slogans similar to those of the grotesque Chinese cultural revolution of the 1960’s cannot receive equal time with Ms. Walters. As a Venezuelan, witnessing first hand the tragedy of our country under this ignorant and vulgar dictator, I resent Ms. Walter’s shameless enthusiasm for this rogue leader and her disdain for objectivity. It is the 1960’s, Herbert Mathews and Fidel Castro all over again. Can’t the lesson ever be learned?
Sincerely,
Gustavo Coronel
If you can’t say something good about someone, go read Riding The View with Rosie
and
Howard Dean: Unplugged and Under Medicated
“Our ancestors were far more violent than we are.” We’re probably living in the most peaceful time of our species’ existence, a statement that seems almost obscene in light of Darfur and Iraq.
The decline of violence, he tells us, is a fractal phenomenon – we see it over the centuries, the decades and the years. That said, we see a tipping point in the 16th century – the age of reason – particularly in England and Holland.
I wonder what that professor would make of this
Coke has some 70 clean-water projects in 40 countries, a service it hopes will eventually boost local economies and broaden its consumer base. But the efforts are also part of a broader strategy under Chairman and Chief Executive E. Neville Isdell to build Coke’s image as a local benefactor and global diplomat. “You have to be an integral and functioning part both in perception and reality in every community in which you operate,” he said in an interview.
Because women need an international museum.
Maria tells me that The Sopranos are filming in Morris Plains. I wonder if the bear has a cameo? A local corporation has sent a memo with instructions on what to do if the bear finds you, among them,
Black bear attacks are extremely rare. If a black bear does attack, fight back — do not play dead.
If Bear Grylls attacks, however, expect an entirely different reaction.
After I mentioned yesterday that Hillary’s masterpiece on statist “parenting”, It Takes A Village, is being ressurected for the 2008 campaign, two people emailed me saying that Hillary was in The View flogging ITAV – and you know she’s running because she’s wearing pink again.
Wonder of wonders, they have it on You Tube:
(Update: A friend sent a link to YouTube’s second part of The View)
One thing about The View and Oprah, their camera lenses are filtered so heavily to disguise wrinkles that everyone’s in a haze. I bet that if I was a guest in those two programs I’d look at least ten years younger, or a great deal more blurry.
But notice the huge family photo of the disfunctional former-and-future First Family in the background.
Can we possibly believe that Hillary Clinton has any credibility in family matters? This is a woman who’s been married to a man who dragooned the country into the most public illicit affair in modern history while all the while insisting that it was all a fabrication of a “vast right-wing” conspiracy” (her words). This is a woman who in page 11 of her own book says,
Everywhere we look, children are under assault: from violence and neglect, from the break-up of families…
As Kay S. Hymowitz asked, Remember New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s apocalyptic prophecy that millions of children “would be put to the sword” if welfare reform became law? Well, Moynihan was right. The culture of dependence on government, which Hillary so proudly believes in, tore those lives apart, for generations to come.
Hillary’s book continues,
…from the temptations of alcohol, tobacco, sex
Thus speaks the wife who publicly countenanced her husband’s perverse insistence that oral sex is not sex – and allow me to remind you that back in the 1990s those of us with children gave up cable TV because we didn’t want to have to explain to the kid(s) what oral sex meant.
…from greed, materialism, and spiritual emptiness.
… and from Whitewater, commodities trading payola, and Marc Rich and his ex-wife, too.
Of course, The View would never ever raise such unpleasantness to the “next mom POTUS”. And heavens forbid that we mention the excellent Bush economy, or the existential menace from terrorism.
Mary Grabar today has an article on The girls on The View
But it’s a sign of our crumbling civilization that a bunch of girls of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds, sitting around all dressed up for a coffee klatch, some of them with cleavage spilling out of Victoria’s Secret Infinity Edge Push-Up bras, spout off opinions borrowed from disturbed teenagers and Michael Moore, and call it a talk show.
This was the danger of giving women the vote. The danger to conservatives (and the survival of this country) is the voting bloc of single women, i.e., those who lack the guidance of a man in the form of a husband or intellectual mentor.
These are women who pride themselves on being independent and empowered when they dress like prostitutes (look at the view of cleavage on the View!). These are the women who watch the View. These are the women who support Hillary Rodham Clinton. These are the women on the show who ask Senator Clinton questions like “Do you think being a mom will help you in the White House?” as they did on December 20. These are the women who think it matters that a potential presidential candidate waxes on about the same themes in her re-released book, It Takes a Village: that preschool programs need to be expanded, that working parents should have time off to take care of their kids. This is the potential presidential candidate who was applauded on the show for allowing one of her staff members to bring in her baby’s playpen.
This is a woman who started off with a discussion about how much she likes to do crafts at Christmas time.
(Let me go on the record: I don’t do crafts, and except for pies, I don’t bake. Also on the record: I don’t believe for a moment that Hillary does crafts at any time – Christmas or other – but she might have her assistants do it, just as she had Barbara Feinman write ITAV)
Yes, I can imagine: we’ll have playpens and parenting classes and crafts classes in the new Clinton White House, maybe even a special prayer room for the Muslims and breaks five times a day for them. This will bring peace to the world by setting an example, for all the terrorists will supposedly drop their weapons in awe of this “village.” Hillary’s answer to the Iraq question was that she wanted the country to have a “conversation” again. What – like the one they have on The View?
News flash: there are fanatics who want to annihilate us and Hillary Rodham Clinton is talking about crafts and “conversations.”
I agree with Mary that women need men for intellectual challenge. Men are great thinkers and doers and women have a lot to learn from men. Not all men are, and not all great thinkers and doers are men, but women need intellectual challenge from men, because men think differently from women.
And that’s one of the thousand reasons why children need a mother and a father.
No, Hillary, it doesn’t take a village to raise a child: It takes a mother and a father. And if that’s all you’re running on, it’s time to put away the pink outfits and make room for a better candidate who’s willing to face the issues of our time.