Terrorist fest set for Wednesday in Washington

Advisory: Terrorists and coup-plotters from all over Latin America to meet at U.S. Capitol building in Washington - español

By Jean-Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

Almost all those scheduled to attend a meeting that will take place this Wednesday, November 17^th, in a hearing room at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C., have been linked with terrorism and in many cases coups d’etat and assassination attempts in Latin America.

The inconvenient truth about Guillermo Fariñas

The Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize - español, français

Salim Lamrani

English translation: David Brookbank

On October 21, 2010, the European Parliament announced the recipient of the 2010 Sakharov Prize “for freedom of thought”, and awarded it to the Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas Hernández. According to the European organization, Fariñas joins “a long line of dissidents and defenders of human rights and freedom of thought”.  The president of the Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, pointed out that the opponent of the government in Havana “was prepared to risk his health and life to change things in Cuba”. This is the third time in nine years that a Cuban opposition figure has received this distinction, following the Ladies in White in 2005 and Oswaldo Payá en 2002.¹

It is worth reviewing the personal journey of Guillermo Fariñas and his entrance into the world of dissidence in Cuba, before evoking the politicization of the Sakharov Prize.

The USA: Scarecrows on the March

The USA: Scarecrows on the March - español

Atilio Boron

Translated from the Spanish by Machetera

Those rulers whom the gods wish to destroy are first overwhelmed by a crisis, then coaxed into promising the suffering a radical and effective cure for the maladies of the age and finally damned because their policies are lukewarm and ambivalent.  Obama was a victim of these vicious and vengeful gods who decided to give him an exemplary thrashing in this Tuesday’s elections, taking away control of the House of Representatives, a number of governorships, and reducing the Democratic majority that remains in the Senate to its absolute minimum.  More seriously, the doors to the loft that holds the worst scarecrows in U.S. society, the angriest and most agitated of them all, were thrown open wide, catapulting a number of them to the Senate or the House thanks to a vote from a public that has grown increasingly imbecilic thanks to the patient work of the great media of mass confusion.  For some time now they’ve been working to turn a large part of the U.S. population into those “trained thugs” of which the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci spoke.  Thanks to all this, the U.S. public has accepted as valid and reasonable, affirmations that would have provoked incredulity or hilarity among the most backward and superstitious people in medieval Europe.

South of the Border: Oliver Stone y su monstruo del pantano

Traducción del inglés: Atenea Acevedo

Machetera

Vivo en un desierto cinematográfico. Antes había por aquí un cinito tenebroso, pero lo echaron abajo y nos abandonaron a la suerte de Netflix. El piso del viejo cine era pegajoso como el engrudo gracias a los litros de refresco de cola derramados que nadie limpiaba. Según mi papá, no era un mal sitio para ver una peli si llevabas un huacal para subir los pies y una pinza para taparte la nariz.

En todo caso, el perfil demográfico de mi ciudad no es lo máximo. Tampoco sé nada del negocio de la distribución de películas, pero no me sorprende que la gente a cargo de distribuir South of the Border de Oliver Stone se haya saltado mi rincón en el mundo cuando definía la programación del documental el verano pasado. La única opción era organizar una proyección por mi cuenta, pero paso, gracias.

South of the Border: Oliver Stone and his swamp thing

Machetera

I live in a cinema wasteland.  We used to have one tiny scary movie theatre here before it was torn down and we were ultimately abandoned to the fate of Netflix.  The floor was positively glue-like, from all the spilled cola that was never cleaned away.  My dad used to say “Not a bad place to watch a movie if you bring a soapbox to put your feet on and a clothespin to hold your nose.”

So the local demographics aren’t great.  And I don’t know anything about the movie distribution business but I’m not totally surprised that the people responsible for distributing Oliver Stone’s South of the Border took a pass on this place back when they were scheduling openings for the documentary last summer.  Unless I was going to organize a screening myself.  Which, thanks, but no.