El Jefe Chavez lost yesterday’s election, but don’t think he’s given up on becoming Venezuela’s dictator-for-life. He blamed his own supporters for defeat, even after he tried to buy their votes. But the majority of Venezuelans saw through his cynical pandering, and instead rejected Chavez’s more megalomaniacal proposals. In the final analysis, Chavez’s election grandstanding (his big mouth) — threatening to “cut off exports of oil to the U.S., Venezuela’s biggest trading partner” — seemed to convince a majority of voters that he was a danger, not an asset, to the country.
Russians spent 70 years under the thumb of communist apparatchiks, enjoyed a brief period of relative freedom, only to end up with another commissar/czar, Vladimir Putin. Today’s news out of the Motherland reminds me of the Soviet “elections” where communist party candidates always received 99% or greater of the “vote.” From the AP:
Russian workers told where, how to vote
With the Kremlin determined to see a high turnout in Sunday’s election, many Russians say they are being pressured to vote at work under the watchful eyes of their bosses or risk losing their jobs.
They say they also are being told to provide lists of relatives and friends who will vote for United Russia, the party of President Vladimir Putin.
United Russia is expected to win handily. But Putin has turned the parliamentary elections into a plebiscite on his rule, and the Kremlin appears to be pushing for nothing short of a landslide. …
Russian police have broken up an opposition rally, arresting activists for the second day running.
Police detained about 150 people in St Petersburg, including opposition leader Boris Nemtsov - who was later freed.
The protest was organised by the Other Russia, a coalition of anti-Kremlin groups. They accuse the government of crushing dissent ahead of elections.
On Saturday Other Russia leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested during a rally in Moscow.
Mr Kasparov was jailed for five days for leading an unauthorised march. …
Unauthorized?!? Actually, words like “apparatchik” (аппаратчик) or “politburo” come to mind. Now that Putin’s exhausted his term as Russian president, he’s eyeing the position of prime minister so he can keep ruling for life.
Break-time for a good laugh. The filmmaker uses a recent, petty row over technology as a back-drop to show Hitler for what he was — a pathetic, puny, lunatic bully (surrounded by equally petty acolytes):
An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a “dictator” and scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.
Ahmadinejad, who was giving a speech to a select group at the university to mark the beginning of the academic year, ignored the chants of “death to the dictator” and continued with his speech on the merits of science and the pitfalls of Western-style democracy, witnesses said. …
Of course Ahmadinejad wants to avoid democracy, as it would put him out of a job and hold him accountable for his many crimes against humanity.
…[South Korean President] Roh later witnessed one of the North’s typical mass games extravaganzas, complete with goose-stepping soldiers, dancing schoolgirls and a large flip card animation section that promotes unification under the North’s communist banner.
The spectacle however was tailored for Roh, and cut back on items seen in other shows — such as depictions of the North’s soldiers bayoneting those from the South.
Now isn’t that special. That Fearless Leader Kim Jong Il can muster such spectacles while his people are starving to death is not unusual, for a Stalinist megalomaniac. That the democratically-elected president of South Korea can lend credibility to such insanity for the sake of personal aggrandizement verges on criminal.
…[South Korean President] Roh has not given any specifics about what he will propose or seek [during his visit to North Korea], prompting criticism from conservatives at home that the summit is an ego trip for the South Korean leader to establish a legacy for his unpopular administration, which ends in February. …
I too see Roh’s visit as a cynical PR stunt. (Of course, this “summit” was set up on North Korea’s terms). In an ominous twist, “Both Roh and [North Korean dictator] Kim also hope to keep the surging conservatives from winning South Korea’s December presidential election.” If Roh can find such common cause with Kim, a Stalinist megalomaniac, then there’s something terribly wrong with the South Korean president. Fearless Leader Kim has already poured cold water all over the North/South summit, giving Roh a “chilly” welcome. After today’s opening ceremony for Roh, Kim has “showed scant enthusiasm and seldom smiled.” As a further slap in the face to the South, Kim won’t even meet with Roh today, instead letting his deputy “deal with the South Koreans for the rest of the day.”
Good thing that cooler heads are prevailing in South Korea:
Ottawa, Canada - On Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier condemned Burma’s military junta for the regime’s escalating assaults on freedom, democracy and individual liberty. The junta has long detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, abused other pro-democracy leaders and protesters, and denied free expression and free association to its citizens.
“Canadians applaud Minister Bernier’s firm support for democracy in Burma,” said Alastair Gordon, President, Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). “The Minister must now demonstrate Canada’s commitment with decisive action aimed at ending the dictatorship, and restoring freedom to the Burmese people.”
Columbia University’s President Bollinger accomplished three things by allowing Iran’s President Amadinejad a platform. Bollinger modeled the normalization of “dialogue” with our era’s Hitler; he gained for himself a world platform in which he indulged his ego (and tried to appease his donor base) by saying many of the “right” things; and he exposed the West’s weakest spot, namely our willingness to engage in fruitless and endless debate with evil instead of defeating it on the battlefield.
Of course, Ahmadinejad hoped that his appearance at Columbia University would show how reasonable he is, but the implication of his denial of the existence of gays in Iran is complicated — and quite Freudian. Ahmadinejad is in fact implying that Iran is morally superior to the U.S., because it is free of the “perversion” (”lavat”) of homosexuality. Reasonable? Not according to Scott Long of Human Rights Watch:
“This is a sick joke,'’ …[and he added that]… Iran tortures gays under a penal code that punishes homosexuality between men with the death penalty.
President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to take over any private schools refusing to submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move some Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom. …
There is nothing “socialist” going on in Venezuela, just the exploits of another cheap thug following in the Castro/Mugabe/Milosevic tradition: absolute power forever. Will Venezuelan students be able to differentiate between Chavez’s megalomania and Marx and Engels’ teachings?
El Jefe, Hugo Chavez wants to change Venezuela’s laws to allow him to own and control everything — all of his country’s wealth, human rights, ideas, news, etc. In other words, Chavez is about to become the next dictator in the Castro/Mugabe/Milosevic tradition: absolute power forever. Still want that Che Guevara t-shirt? From the AFP:
Fearless Leader Robert Mugabe sure has devastated his country. But what’s Mugabe got to worry about? He’s rich, safe, and comfortable, and to heck with his own people, whom he calls “filth.” While Zimbabwean “inflation has risen to more than 4500 per cent,” and “250 grams of butter [is] $Z497,000,” Mugabe’s cupboards are full. From The Sydney Morning Herald, entitled “Mugabe’s elite shops in style as a nation starves:”
ROBERT MUGABE’s local supermarket is unlike any other shop in Zimbabwe. Elsewhere there are empty shelves where bread, butter, sugar, meat and the staple maize meal should be.
But at the Spar in Borrowdale Brooke - a suburb of the capital, Harare, near the President’s palatial home - almost anything is available, including focaccia, sun-dried tomatoes and cigars.
The difference typifies a nation where a ruling elite enjoys wealth and privilege, while the vast majority exists in grinding poverty and struggle to survive. …
Syria sure is ruled by a weird tribe: a Baathist/Socialist/Alawite minority led by an ophthalmologist, Bashar al-Assad. Weird or not, they sure mean business when it comes to staying in power and squelching democracy. And please don’t tell me there are no Muslims who want democracy. From the BBC:
Articles/Entries