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.

Cuba quietly leading by example in Haiti

While the U.S. is figuring out where and how to insert more “compassionate warriors” per capita in Haiti than it has in Afghanistan, the better to go after Venezuelan oil when the opportunity presents itself, Cuban doctors are going about actually helping sick and injured Haitians.  This remarkable video report by CNN Radio’s Steve Kastenbaum shows how they’re doing it, while possibly endangering Kastenbaum’s career (see the Herb Matthews example).

Chávez weighs in on Morales assassination attempt

Would this elegant assassin be Junior Vaca or the other one?

Bolivian Information Agency

Chávez Condemns the Liberation of Those Implicated in the Assassination Attempt Against Evo Morales

Translation: Machetera

Caracas, June 20 – On Friday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez condemned the release by the Santa Cruz Public Prosecutor of two men believed to be implicated in an assassination attempt against his Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales, and agreed that what’s going on is a process meant to divide Bolivia.

“The Santa Cruz prosecutor behaved as though (this region) was already its own republic (…); what’s happening in Bolivia is something very serious” and makes up part of “a strategy by the United States empire in several places, not just in Bolivia and Venezuela,” the President said, according to the EFE news agency.

Petras takes off the gloves

Today Machetera presents a translation of a Uruguayan radio interview with the U.S. sociologist James Petras, which aired on June 9. Petras bitterly disagrees with Chávez’s recent statements about the FARC, and blames Cuba, which should come as no surprise to anyone who read his moving tribute to Manuel Marulanda, where he made some gratuitous swipes at Fidel Castro and indirectly, el Che, for having the bad taste to turn up on t-shirts worn by “middle-class college students.”

But Chávez’s recent remarks are no surprise either, for anyone who was paying attention to his April remarks at the meeting with the “In Defense of Humanity” network. Whether Chávez has always believed this, or has come to adopt the Cuban point of view seems to Machetera to be utterly irrelevant, and Petras’s remarks on the subject sound almost like red-baiting. Or Cuban-baiting maybe.

The Pentagon moves its pawns

There might be a reason it’s impossible to find a picture of a U.S. President playing chess. Not to underestimate the Pentagon, which probably does have a few decent chess players notwithstanding their mentally challenged commanders in chief, but Machetera’s bets are still with the Latin Americans.

It’s not hard at all to find a picture of el Che or Fidel playing chess. Publicly.

You can even re-live Fidel’s game with Filiberto Terrazas here.

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With Evo and the FARC Weakened, Washington Begins its Checkmate Against Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa

Heinz Dieterich – Rebelión

Translation: Machetera

1. The Checkmate Scenario

Washington has reached the following conclusions:

1. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have lost their operational capacity.
2. It has managed to neutralize the Evo Morales government through the creation of a parallel state in the four provinces associated with “Camba Nation.”
3. Its successes in Colombia and Bolivia set the stage to begin the checkmate against the governments of Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa. This is the reason for the growing military provocations by Uribe’s troops, the U.S. military forces in the Caribbean, and the reactivation of the Fourth Imperial Fleet.

You have to have power in order to change it

What would it be like to have a President who’s capable of sitting down and talking for five hours with anyone? Inquiring U.S. citizens would like to know.

Chávez recalled that, when he exited prison following the 1992 insurrection, he was shunned by the media which had been given instructions not to interview him. “We formed small groups, street by street, town by town. The network of networks should be like the fire that spreads or the sun that rises and intensifies the light,” he said. “We need people armed with ideas, with creativity, and also with rifles,” he added, “because when the changes come for real, through a Constitution, they must be defended. Even though the changes are made in a peaceful manner, the oligarchy will take up arms.”

Five Hours with Chávez

The Venezuelan president’s meeting with members of the “In Defense of Humanity” network

Pascual Serrano – Rebelión & www.pascualserrano.net – April 14, 2008

Translation: Machetera

This past April 12th, some hundred intellectuals and artists met with Venezuela’s president during the international conference convened by the network of networks, “In Defense of Humanity” under the theme “Armed With Ideas.”

Over five hours, during which intellectuals posed a variety of questions, Hugo Chávez, in military dress following his participation in a military parade, spoke of the coup d’etat six years prior, the situation in Colombia, in Venezuela of course, their political principles and many other subjects.

He began in an intimate tone, recalling certain unknown details from the hours between April 11 and 12, 2002, when Chávez and his government were held by putschists.

Don’t let your children grow up to be journalists

The international media mafia came out in force against Venezuela for prohibiting the airing of The Simpsons during hours when children are likely to watch it. It’s worth mentioning that a digital video recorder, which allows one to pick and choose one’s programs and watch them at will is out of reach for the vast majority of the planet’s television viewers, so free over-the-air programming still matters. Machetera guesses that the press, like the Venezuelan channel Televen, is completely aware of this, but chose to be completely cynical about it because the headline was too good to pass up.

The Simpsons is not a Cartoon Series for Children

(Behind the controversy surrounding its withdrawal from the children’s television hour in Venezuela.)

Luigino Bracci – Yvke Mundial - Translation: Machetera

Conatel initiated proceedings against Televen for broadcasting the series at 11 in the morning. International media launched a terrorist media campaign against Venezuela, stating that Hugo Chávez had censored The Simpsons. However, other countries have taken similar action against the series, that despite being an animated cartoon, is for adults. See why:

Let’s do some simple math

Sorry for the delay – Machetera took a little translation holiday to rest her eyes.

Quick now, today’s quiz:

Where are the FARC?

Eleazar Díaz Rangel – Ultimas Noticias

For some years, denunciations have come from Colombia, supported by some Venezuelans, that guerrilla groups are operating in our [Venezuelan] country; that they are crossing the border with the greatest of ease and that they’ve turned Venezuela into a base from which to operate as well as rest. Occasionally there’ve been concrete assurances that various FARC leaders were on this side of the border. Now it’s become known that similar denunciations have been made against the government of Ecuador, which supposedly tolerates and supports [the guerrillas].

The devil’s workshop, Part 2

Machetera has been struggling for a little while about how to categorize the articles which began with Colombia’s March 1 attack on Ecuador. Should they go under Ecuador? Colombia? Venezuela?

At this point it seems obvious. They will be filed under “The Coming Latin American War,” as Raúl Zibechi explains in his excellent article posted at Global Politician, where he outlines the growth in Colombia’s armed forces over the years, the reasoning behind Plan Colombia, and what comes next.

“…in reality, the Colombian-American military operative that violated the sovereignty of Ecuador is directed specifically at Hugo Chavez. What we are witnessing could be the first phase of a vast offensive to destabilize the “Bolivarian Revolution” and to alter the relationship between the powers in South America. This strategy has been implemented in stages. First there was Plan Colombia, intended to strengthen the military capacity of the Colombian state and place it among the most powerful on the continent. Next came the “spilling over” of the internal war into neighboring countries. The third stage seems to be “pre-emptive war,” which has become the Pentagon’s most widely used military strategy since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “

Machetera does not share Zibechi’s optimism about Brazil’s economic strength, keeping in mind Jorge Altamira’s analysis, (no-one will escape the global economic meltdown, not even or especially not Brazil) but that’s a minor quibble:

“With extravagant interest rates and a continually appreciating currency, Brazil has attracted massive amounts of speculative capital which will undergo withdrawal as the international crisis deepens. A Brazilian bond which expires in 2045 offers interest of 7.5% above inflation, but a debt to Japan pays only 1%. Borrowing in Tokyo to invest in Sao Paulo has become a real business for Brazilian banks. The extraordinary crashes in reaction to international collapses that have every so often played a starring role in Sao Paulo’s market in recent months, are a manifestation of its financial vulnerability.”

How does internet censorship work? Part 1

Many Swedish internet users have been unable to access certain Spanish language sites over the past couple of weeks. The following article from Rebelión, one of the blocked sites, claims that Cogent (misidentified in the original article as “CogNet”), the North American company that provides internet bandwidth to Telia, the Swedish telecom company through which many Swedes connect, has been deliberately censoring end-users’ access to the sites. It’s possible, but a quick Google search also indicates that there is some sort of peering conflict going on between Telia and Cogent, as evidenced by the many gamers whining “I cant play Flyff!”

When the U.S. engages in internet censorship it usually goes a more direct route – yanking domains directly, through the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which as the Cuban journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde pointed out, has more than two dozen people assigned to harass North Americans traveling to Cuba, and four to track the finances of Osama bin Laden, and prior to his snuffing, Saddam Hussein.