Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for the formation of a “Fifth International” of left parties and social movements to confront the challenge posed by the global crisis of capitalism.

The president made the announcement during an international conference of more than fifty left organisations from thirty-one countries held in Caracas over November 19-21.

“I assume responsibility before the world. I think it is time to convene the Fifth International, and I dare to make the call, which I think is a necessity. I dare to request that we create my proposal,” Chavez said.

The head of state insisted that the conference of left parties should not be “just one more meeting,” and he invited participating organizations to create a truly new project. “This socialist encounter should be of the genuine left, willing to fight against imperialism and capitalism,” he said.

During his speech, Chavez briefly outlined the experiences of previous “internationals,” including the First International founded in 1864 by Karl Marx; the Second International founded in 1889, which collapsed in 1916 as various left parties and trade unions sided with their respective capitalist classes in the inter-imperialist conflict of the First World War; the Third International founded by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, which Chavez said “degenerated” under Stalinism and “betrayed” struggles for socialism around the world; and the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, which suffered numerous splits and no longer exists, although some small groups claim to represent its political continuity.

Chavez said that a new international would have to function “without impositions” and would have to respect diversity.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in San Carlos.

Representatives from a number of major parties in Latin America voiced their support for the proposal, including the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) of El Salvador, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, and Alianza Pais of Ecuador.

Smaller parties from Latin America and around the world also indicated their support for the idea, including the Proposal for an Alternative Society (PAS) of Chile, New Nation Alternative (ANN) of Guatemala, and Australia’s Socialist Alliance, among others.

Sandinista leader Miguel D´Escoto said, “Capitalism has brought the human species to the precipice of extinction… we have to take control of our own destiny.”

“There is no time to lose,” D’Escoto added as he conveyed his support for the proposal of forming a fifth international. “We have to overcome the tendency of defeatism. Many times I have noted a tendency of defeatism amongst comrades of the left in relation to the tasks we face,” he continued.

Salvador Sánchez, from the FMLN, said “We are going to be important actors in the Fifth International. We cannot continue waiting – all the forces of the left. The aspiration of the peoples is to walk down a different path. We must not hesitate in forming the Fifth International. The people have pronounced themselves in favour of change and the parties of the left must be there with them.”

Other organisations, including Portugal’s Left Block, Germany’s Die Linke, and France’s Partido Gauche expressed interest in the proposal but said they would consult with their various parties. A representative of the Cuban Communist Party described the proposal as “excellent,” but as yet the party has made no formal statement.

Many communist parties, including those from Greece and Brazil, expressed strong opposition to the proposal. The Venezuelan Communist Party said it was willing to discuss the proposal but expressed strong reservations.

The Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA) from Colombia expressed its willingness to work with other left parties, but said it would “reserve” its decision to participate in an international organisation of left parties.

Valter Pomar, a representative from the Workers Party of Brazil (PT), said its priority is the Sao Paolo Forum – a forum of various Latin American left, socialist, communist, centre-left, labour, social democratic and nationalist parties launched by the PT in 1990.

A resolution was passed at the conference to form a preparatory committee to convoke a global conference of left parties in Caracas in April 2010, to discuss the formation of a new international. The resolution also allowed for other parties that remain undecided to discuss the proposal and incorporate themselves at a later date.

Chavez emphasised the importance of being inclusive and said the April conference had to go far beyond the parties and organisations that participated in last week’s conference. In particular, he said it was an error that there were no revolutionary organisations from the United States present.

The conference of left parties also passed a resolution titled the Caracas Commitment, “to reaffirm our conviction to definitively build and win Socialism of the 21st Century,” in the face of “the generalized crisis of the global capitalist system.”

“One of the epicentres of the global capitalist crisis is the economic sphere. This highlights the limitations of unbridled free markets dominated by monopolies of private property,” the resolution stated.

Also incorporated was a proposed amendment by the Australian delegation which read, “In synthesis, the crisis of capitalism cannot be reduced to a simple financial crisis, it is a structural crisis of capital that combines the economic crisis, with an ecological crisis, a food crisis and an energy crisis, which together represent a mortal threat to humanity and nature. In the face of this crisis, the movements and parties of the left see the defence of nature and the construction of an ecologically sustainable society as a fundamental axis of our struggle for a better world.”

The Caracas Commitment expressed “solidarity with the peoples of the world who have suffered and are suffering from imperialist aggression, especially the more than 50 years of the genocidal blockade against Cuba… the massacre of the Palestinian people, the illegal occupation of part of the territory of the Western Sahara, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which today is expanding into Pakistan.”

The conference of left parties also denounced the decision of the Mexican government to shut down the state-owned electricity company and fire 45,000 workers, as an attempt to “intimidate” the workers and as an “offensive of imperialism,” to advance neoliberal privatisation in Central America.

In the framework of the Caracas Commitment, the left parties present agreed, among other things, to:

• Organise a global week of mobilisation from December 12-17 in repudiation of the installation of U.S. military bases in Colombia, Panama and around the world.

• Campaign for an international trial against George Bush for crimes against humanity, as the person principally responsible for the genocide against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Commemorate 100 years since the proposal by Clara Zetkin to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, through forums, mobilizations and other activities in their respective countries.

• Organise global solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution in the face of permanent imperialist attacks.

• Organise global solidarity with the people of Honduras who are resisting a U.S.-backed military coup, to campaign for the restoration of the democratically elected president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya and to organise a global vigil on the day of the elections in Honduras, “with which they aim to legitimise the coup d´etat.”

• Demand an “immediate and unconditional end to the criminal Yankee blockade” of Cuba and for the “immediate liberation” of the Cuban Five, referring to the five anti-terrorist activists imprisoned in the United States.

• Accompany the Haitian people in their struggle for the return of President Jean Bertrand Aristide “who was kidnapped and removed from his post as president of Haiti by North American imperialism.”

It was because of David Gassman.  David, whose parents were bona fide Communist Party members ( he was known as a ‘red diaper’ baby—but in actual fact—as he has informed me—there is  speculation about whether both his folks were ‘card carriers’), knew a couple of people who I knew.  At the time, I was really not ‘active’ in any radical political organizations. David knew my roommate, Gloria Smith, through SANE/FREEZE, the nuclear  weapons free area campaign.  David also knew Judy Freeman, who got me to be a board member for Uptown Recycling Station, on of the first community based recycling stations in the country.  This was started by Ken Dunn of Resource Center (RPCV Brazil).

It was 1987, but we had known each other several years, via both Gloria & Judy.  I don’t remember how it came up in conversation, but David told us he had requested his FBI file, to make the FBI do something for all the money they  got.  He suggested that both Gloria and I send for our files.

I didn’t think I had a file.  If there was anything, it would have been  because my  former husband, D.Craig Ledford, was General Secretary-Treasurer for the Industrial Workers of the World, and I owe my  membership  in the IWW to journalist Abe Peck, whom I met at The SEED underground newspaper.  He also taught me how to use an IBM SELECTRIC, one of the first ‘computer/word processors. Anyways, that is just background. I was in arrears after I bought my first dog grooming business, and stayed in arrears after we got divorced.  I couldn’t imagine what the FBI would want with me.  David admitted that there might not be anything,but he helped me file the Freedom of Information Act request, and we had to file several requests.

I didn’t really think much would come of it, but after several months, I did get a packet from the FBI.  It turns out I DID have an FBI file!  It had nothing to do with my ex-husband, and it appeared they had been spying on me quite recently!

Apparently, they were  actually interested in Gloria, who lived with me at the time. Gloria had been to Nicaragua with the Nicaragua Solidarity Committee, providing technical assistance to the Sandinistas.  Back in the 1980s, during the  Reagan Administration, we weren’t  at ‘war’ in Nicaragua, but Reagan used  his ‘descretionary funding’ to provide support for the CONTRAS, who were fighting  socialism.  He called them ‘freedom fighters’.  Never mind that there probably over a dozen political parties in Nicaragua at the time, & Daniel Ortega had won a ‘free & fair’ election.  Our ‘American’ attitude was tha the Nicaraguans had voted int he wrong guy and the wrong party!

The spying on American radical activists was a carryover from Nixon (apparently, there were so few criminals for the FBI to spy on, they had to spy on people doing nothing illegal). It was quite controversial.

So, anyways, Gloria had gone to Nicaragua, and was now living with me, and  according to the nonblacked out parts of the file, a couple of guys were watching the house.  How would we not know this?  We lived in west Lakeview at the time, before it became Yuppieville, and wouldn’t have noticed a strange car on the street due to all the activity What is  particularly funny about this is that they didn’t have photos of us, and they  followed my tenant. We’ll call her ‘Susan’.

Susan was a figure model (that’s how I knew her), art student, and delivered singing telegrams for extra income.  According to the FBI notes, they followed her from the house, dressed as a clown,  carrying helium filled balloons, down a circuitous route to  where she was going–thinking SHE was ME.

WE had a good laugh over it, & I believe I wrote to the FBI & told them they followed the wrong person, but I never heard back from them.  I still have the papers in my file cabinet.  Gloria never did file  the FOIA request for her file.

Even though I had to be fingerprinted to get into Peace Corps, and told them straight out that I had an FBI file, it didn’t matter at all.  One branch of the government rarely speaks to another branch.

Last year's masterpiece

Click here to Sponsor my Moustache: Funds will be dispersed by the Movember Foundation of Australia to assist with men’s health campaigns by Beyond Blue and the Prostate Cancer Society of Australia.

Why give a stuff:
Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy for men is five years less than females (78 compared to 83).

Men access health services 30-40% less than women, thereby denying themselves the chance for prevention and early detection of common diseases.

From the bizarre multiverse of Goats:

Moustache Fighting was invented by the Sandinistas in 1967. Guerilla cells would often be isolated in the jungle for months at a time with no way to communicate with Liberation Front leaders. Moustache Fighting was the natural way to resolve disputes amongst soldiers and establish leadership hierarchies.

Il Revoluçion needs funding.

In 1972 an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 struck Nicaragua and destroyed its capital city, Managua.  The events following this devastating natural disaster contributed greatly to the Sandinista Revolution a few years later.

I visited Nicaragua at the beginning of the civil war.  My first inkling of trouble occurred at the border, where Customs officials treated travelers with rudeness and physical abuse.  My companion and I managed to enter the country without incident after paying a hefty “visa fee” but we were shocked at the behavior displayed by the border guards.  Normally in Central America visitors were greeted at international frontiers with a measure of tolerance, occasional friendliness, and at the worst, indifference.  But here, violence was already in the air.

Times were changing in Nicaragua.  We constantly met Sandinista supporters who informed us bluntly that they were about to overthrow the government.  We soon discovered their motives.

Downtown Managua, smashed by the earthquake six years previously, had never been rebuilt. Never cleared, fresh housing never constructed for the victims, nothing, nada.  We walked around the ruins of the central district like survivors of a post-apocalyptic future and marveled at the devastation.  Trees grew from swimming pools in residential districts, office buildings lay in crumpled heaps, and what few areas had been bulldozed free of wreckage were vast empty fields of weeds and grass.  It was as if the city had been bombed like Koln or Coventry during Word War II.

Squalid shantytowns encompassed the central district,  where refugees lived in conditions of grinding poverty.  We stayed in a bad hotel outside the city center, one of the worst I ever encountered in Central America.

The reason the city had never been restored was explained to us by many Nicaraguans and was not difficult to appreciate nor to understand.  After the earthquake the Somoza government immediately appealed for and received substantial international aid to help its citizens rebuild; the politicians and their henchmen quickly stole almost all of the donated money.

As a reasonable person can imagine, the citizens of Nicaragua became increasingly angry.  During our stay in Managua we met a pharmacist who lived above the city in a nice neighborhood, not far from the Intercontinental Hotel made famous by the journalists who covered the civil war. While we ate dinner and looked down at the city, still mostly without electric light, the pharmacist and her husband – upper middle class folks who one would not normally associate with a radical revolutionary movement, explained that they and their peers planned to take down the government by force.  They had weapons and were getting ready to use them.  And so they probably did.

We met many other citizens who later became Sandinista fighters.  We would talk on street corners, in bars, and in public parks. I threw my support to them, encouraging these simple individuals to take up arms and defeat the rabid dictatorship that had ruined their country.

I have a personal connection to the theft of the aid money.  In my hometown of Lennoxville, a local elementary school that many of my friends attended, Ecole St. Francois, took up donations to send to Nicaragua to help the earthquake victims. The kids raised a few thousand dollars, a lot of money in rural Quebec for grade-schoolers in the 1970s.  Some months after forwarding the money directly to the Nicaraguan government, the school asked how the cash had been used to aid the earthquake victims.  The hubris of the response was astounding.  Not even bothering to make up a plausible alibi, the Nicaraguan embassy in Ottawa told the children that the money, alas, had never reached Managua but had been “lost.”

A German woman I met a few months after the revolution, with whom I became a close friend,  was with the revolutionaries who stormed the presidential palace.  A picture of her drinking champagne in Somoza’s bathtub was widely disseminated at the time in the international media.

I stayed with her a few years later at her apartment in Berlin. Unfortunately she became increasingly radical herself, to the point where she was reluctant to explore her own city with me, for fear of being perceived as supporting the bourgoise society that she believed Germany had become.  I haven’t seen her since 1980.

A lot of time has passed since 1978.  The Sandinistas, like so many idealistic movements who have won power in their homelands, were corrupted by their own success and fame.  Ronald Reagan decided they were terrorists and funded a long dirty war against them, adding to the endless misery constantly endured by average Nicaraguans.  Eventually Managua was partially rebuilt, and I understand that now luxury shopping malls and apartment buildings grace the city outskirts.  Even the central district has finally undergone restoration.

But I still wonder if the original refugees have benefited from these changes, or whether they inherited the same abysmal economic conditions as their parents and grandparents suffered under the Somoza regime.

In 1978 I took many photos of the ruins of Managua.  Most have been lost, but a lucky three images have survived the years:

The Bank of America building in Managua. Locals told me that all the floors pancaked during the earthquake.  Luckily the quake happened at night when few workers would have been inside.  The other structures in the photo were uninhabited and dangerous wrecks.

Managua’s cathedral.  Six years after the temblor authorities had yet to authorize workers to sweep the floor clean of debris.

Inside the ruins of an upper class home, complete with swimming pool

Remember this poster?

I don’t know (or frankly care) what you thought about the “Obama as Joker” motif, but the label at the bottom is shockingly real.

We voted a Marxist into the White House.  Our greatest Democrat president of the last fifty years, John F. Kennedy, along with our greatest Republican president of the last fifty years, Ronald Reagan, are both rolling in their graves right now.  They dedicated themselves to fighting Marxism.  John F. Kennedy was actually murdered by a Marxist assassin.  And yet, tragically, the country these two great men left behind actually invited a Marxist into the White House.

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama said, “Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself.”

Obama has surrounded himself with all sorts of incredibly radical and extremist figures (see here for a small sample), but none was more of a sustained influence on him than the man whom Obama chose to be his pastor and spiritual mentor for 23 years – the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

This is from Jeremiah Wright’s September 17, 2009 speech honoring the socialist Monthly Review. As Jeremiah Wright puts it, Monthly Review offers what it calls “no-nonsense Marxism.”

Jeremiah Wright knew where he was and why he was there.  He delivered his speech from prepared written remarks.  He praised the self-acknowledged-socialist Monthly Review as “a forum for commentary and analysis from a specifically socialist perspective.”  He lauded the publication for its “no-nonsense Marxism.”

He said, “You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism.”

Wright salutes and praises “six decades of dedicated [Marxist] service.”

The man who Barack Hussein Obama chose to follow for 23 years, to be his teacher, his mentor, his spiritual guide -the man he chose to marry him to his wife and baptize his children – expressed his view of the United States of America as follows:

“the land of the greed and the home of the slave.”

Which of course reminds us of the fact that Barack Obama sat in a church whose pastor said things like:

“No, no, no.  Not God bless America; God damn America.”

Take a tour of how Barack Obama’s pastor for 23 years routinely preached evil of America and Americans.

Are you aware that that’s how your new president thinks of you?

Barack Hussein Obama’s spiritual leader and mentor for 23 years says of Marxist ideology went on to say to an audience of socialists:

“Thank you for fulfilling the invaluable purpose … [of] offering insights that force your readers to wrestle with reality in some new and exciting ways, moving us inch by inch from a herd mentality to a place where we have to come to grips with the uncomfortable truths with our world.”

This “moving us inch-by-inch” thing is frightening.  What kind of place are we being led to?  Well, let’s find out.  The man who introduced Jeremiah Wright was Robert W. McChesney, who wrote an article entitled, “Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle,” in which he declared, “Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.”

And of course Obama has surrounded himself with radical Marxists who in his administration who are working to do that very thing.  There’s Obama’s Communications Director Anita Dunn, who in addition to being a demagogue warring against a free press is also an admitted follower of Maoist communist ideology.  There’s Obama’s FCC Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd who praised Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez, and praised Chavez’ seizure and control of the media.  There’s Obama’s manufacturing czar Ron Bloom, who called the free market “nonsense” and said, “We kind of agree with Mao.”  We can add Obama’s former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, who was not only an admitted communist, but a man who held all kinds of frightening extremist positions.

And there’s Obama himself who wrote in his Dreams of My Father book:

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully.  The more politically active black students.  The foreign students.  The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.”

And before Obama surrounded himself with all those Marxist professors, he was mentored in Hawaii by communist Frank Marshall Davis.  And after those Marxist professors, Obama chose to go to Jeremiah Wright’s black liberation theology (i.e. Marxist) church.

At some point if you are not a complete fool you seriously need to ask yourself WHY Barack Hussein Obama chose to  spend 23 years in a Marxist “black liberation” church that preached anti-white racist hatred and anti-Americanism.  As I pointed out back in March of last year:

Liberation theology was developed in the early 1970s to pave the way for the communist Sandinistas to infiltrate – and subsequently dominate – Nicaraguan society. The Sandinistas understood full well that they had no hope of installing a Marxist regime in a country that was well over 90% Roman Catholic unless they could successfully subsume Catholicism into their cause of Marxism. And the wedding of Marxism with Christianity was brought about in a clear effort of the former to crush the latter.

Where are these people leading us?  Toward their ideology, toward Marxism.  Inch-by-inch whenever necessary; yard-by-yard whenever possible.  But there is one direction this “change” is heading.

McChesney co-authored an article in Monthly Review entitled, “A New New Deal Under Obama?”  And he said about Obama’s New Deal, “In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

The goal of these Marxists radicals is to overthrow the capitalist free market system that has made America the greatest, most powerful, and most free nation on earth and impose a socialist system in its place.  Think Cloward-Piven strategy, the strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis:

This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Let’s take a moment to learn about what two men who have regularly visited the Obama White House have said.

George Soros is a terrible and evil man.  He has been such ever since he was a Nazi collaborator during his youth.  Given the fact that “NAZI” was merely an abbreviated form of “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei” (National Socialist German Workers Party), it was never far for him to go to embrace the liberal socialism of his fellow fascists.

George Soros – the money behind many liberal organizations such as MoveOn.org – has visited the Obama White House four times.  And what is the message he is communicating to Obama?  Something very much like this:

But the system we have now has actually broken down, only we haven’t quite recognized it and so you need to create a new one and this is the time to do it.

It’s like Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.  What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

And the fact that your ideological brethren have deliberately created the crisis is really besides the point.  What matters is “change.”

Andrew Stern, the president of the historically thuggish (and see here) SEIU (Service Employees International Union) that gave $60 million to buy the Obama presidency, has been at the White House 22 times.  When he visits Obama, he has  stuff like this to say:

ANDY STERN: And we are beginning. We have offices now in Australia and Switzerland and London and South America and Africa. We’ve been working with unions around the world. And what we’re working towards is building a global organization because “Workers of the world, unite!” — it’s not just a slogan anymore. It’s a way we’re going to have to do our work.

That little slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” comes directly from The Communist Manifesto. Stern is quite the  fan of Marxism.

STERN: We’re trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to use the persuasion of power because there are governments and there are opportunities to change laws that affect these companies. And I’m not naive. We’re ready to strike.

This White House visitor sounds like a union thug.

From Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ, February 20, 2007:

NARRATOR: It started last summer with the so-called Big Box Ordinance. Labor wanted it. Business didn’t.

STERN: We took names. We watched how they voted. We know where they live.

NARRATOR: In October, Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union:

STERN: There are opportunities in America to share better in the wealth, to rebalance the power. And unions and government are part of the solution.

We know that Obama is on the same page as Stern regarding spreading the wealth around.  I mean, after all, our first Marxist president is already on the record wanting to spread the wealth around.

Obama is still with SEIU.  He vowed to “paint the nation purple,” the colors of SEIU.  Stern’s quoting Karl Marx, promising to use thuggish “persuasion of power tactics,” and using the power of government to impose the hardcore union agenda on the country, doesn’t frighten Obama away.  Quite the opposite.  And Obama is still supporting the ACORN agenda (just a little more quietly since it became public that this leftwing organization is so vile it was actually willing to help a prostitute cheat the tax system to buy a house in order to import underage illegal immigrant girls to start a brothel).

We are at a crisis point in which we could literally implode under the massive weight of our own debt.  But instead of slowing down our deficit spending, Obama is actually stomping on the accelerator and increasing our speed as we hurtle off the cliff.  Because his people have a plan to take rapid political advantage of the ensuing chaos and fear.

Under Obama, even the former communists in Russia who used to write the propaganda for the Soviets are shaking their heads in amazement over how quickly we are speeding toward our societal demise.

“There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: the American Revolution, World War II and the Star Wars Trilogy.” – Bart Simpson

There have been times in our history when a declaration of war could not come fast enough.

Most students have knowledge of a list of conflicts considered the major wars of US history: the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the Iraq War (I don’t think we count Afghanistan yet.  If I’m wrong, let me know.)

Yet these have not been our only use of military force.  According to a report published by the Congressional Research Service, the United States has been involved in hundreds of military actions since independence.  Most have been actions recommended by the President and authorized by Congress.  In some cases, a country declares war on us, and we don’t bother–we simply blow them up.

Whatever the case, here are some of our “small wars”, our smaller military engagements overseas.

Undeclared War with France 1798-1800

What happens when you have to pay a  bill from a restaurant that’s “under new management”?  You get a naval war with France.  The French Revolution put a stopper on the alliance the United States signed with the old Kingdom of France in 1778.  Along the way, the US decided to no longer repay its debts to France, arguing that they made a treaty with the previous government, not the current one.  Furthermore, the 1795 Jay Treaty helped smooth things over with Great Britain.  France responds by going ape-shit on our shipping, capturing hundreds of tons of US cargo.  This brief scuffle existed mostly at sea, and a sit-down with Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 settled the matter–far too late to get John Adams re-elected President.   Maybe Johnny should’ve turned this one into the real thing.

First and Second Barbary Wars 1801-1805, 1815

The Middle East was always a pain in our ass, dating back to Thomas Jefferson.  The Barbary States of Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli were supposedly part of the Ottoman Empire, but they decided to ignore Constantinople since the 17th century for big money.   These states supported pirate fleets across the Mediterranean, and demanded tribute from European powers wishing to sail in its turf.  The British and French could afford the payouts, but not the US.  They tried paying out in the 1780s, but the Barbary demands proved too much.  Cue the nascent US Navy, whose four frigates and numerous small craft dealt a four-year pounding to the Barbary fleets–and helped create the Navy’s first heroes.  It also helped that Britain and France were too busy fighting each other to mind.  Treaties were signed by 1805, but apparently didn’t stick.  By 1815, another whupping was needed.  This time, they got the message.

Chinese Intevention 1843, 1854, 1866, 1894-1895, 1898-1899, 1900, 1911-1912, etc.

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be the nice guy.  The United States had a mission in China since the early 1800s, when the European powers were carving up the country into “spheres of influence.”  The US decided to take the high road and enforce all countries to trade equally with China through the “Treaty ports” as in Canton, pictured above.   Our forces found out, really quickly, that (a) keeping the foreigners in line was no easy task, and (b) keeping the locals in check was even harder.  Throughout the 19th Century, the US would be engaged in skirmishes with locals, pirates, smugglers, other navies, etc.  The climax was the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, which pitted rebellious Chinese–and their do-nothing government–against an eight-nation supersquad armed to the teeth.  By now, the Americans were sick of being the nice guy and just wanted to get what’s coming.  Our forces would be in China, off and on, until the Communist takeover of 1949.  Something told me Chairman Mao was not thrilled about having us there. 

Philippines Rebellion 1899-1913

America got into the imperialism business late: by the time we entered whole-hog in 1898, all the good stuff was taken–damn you, Belgium!  Anyway, the only way to get our own foreigners to boss around was to steal them from someone else.  Who better to steal from than the wounded gazelle that is the Spanish Empire.  The Spanish-American War in 1898 gained us a colonial empire virtually overnight.  The Philippines, however, did not understand this, and had the nerve to revolt against their US “liberators”.  So began a brutal war of attrition that officially ended with the surrender of the rebels in 1902,  but would continue sporadically in the hinterlands until 1913.  The intervention was extremely controversial in the States, with Mark Twain doing his best Sean Penn impression as a celebrity meddling in politics.  Thus began another great American tradition–celebrities sticking their noses in places where they don’t belong.

Mexican “Pancho Villa” Expedition 1914-1917

Another one of America’s great sticking points is Mexico–or as Zachary Taylor may have called it, “the part we didn’t steal.”  I think they’re better off without California, to be honest.  Anyway, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1929 was putting Mexico into political and social turmoil.  The American military was monitoring the situation closely, especially that of an erratic guerrilla leader named Francisco “Pancho” Villa.  In 1915, in retaliation for US support of a rival presidential candidate, Villa’s forces crosse the border and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico.  A 10,000 man force led by General John Pershing was sent to find and punish Villa.  The men found tequila and the brothels, instead, as Pershing was bogged down by orders and directives from Washington.  The men withdrew in January 1917, just in time for the big dust-up across the Atlantic.

Nicaraguan Intervention 1912-1933

Remember the Monroe Doctrine?  That 1825 protocol that stated that European nations cannot meddle in affairs in the Western Hemisphere?  Well, for at least a century, the United States felt this was carte blanche to do whatever we wanted.  Teddy Roosevelt even said so in his Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, when he extended US “police powers” to any Central or South American country that reneged on its debt payments.   In this case, the US felt that the Panama Canal wasn’t enough: a bigger canal was needed across Nicaragua.  Federal troops entered the country in order to (a) make sure no other country tries to build a canal, and (b) prop up the conservative governments in Nicaragua that have been so friendly to US interests.  Yet time and the Great Depression would take their toll.  The long-standing–and expensive–occupation ended in 1933 when Augusto Sandino led a group of revolutionaries against the occupation forces.  US forces would withdraw, only to fight a proxy war with the same group fifty years later.  Who do you think the Contras were fighting against?  Does the word Sandinista ring a bell?

Dominican Republic 1916-1924

In 1916, after a period of political instability, the United States issued a warning to the Dominican Republic: pick a president or we’ll pick one for you.  The guy the Dominicans picked turned out to be a dud, so the United States invaded the island nation and established a military dictatorship that lasted until 1924.  The Dominicans, naturally, resisted this foreign rule, and rebellions were met with brutal suppression by US forces.  However, the dictatorship managed to do what previous Dominican governments couldn’t–balance the budget, preserve order and stability, lowered the debt, built new roads and created a professional military for the country.  By 1924, agreements between the DR and the US provided for free elections  to be held, and the occupation was over.  Today, Santo Domingo’s greatest ballplayers have come to return the favor. 

Haiti 1915-1934

Hispaniola is a small island, after all, and Haiti wanted its share of US aggression, as well.  By 1915 Haiti had 6 presidents in 4 years, all of whom were killed or forced into exile.   The US was worried that a German contingent in Haiti would wield too much power, so forces were sent in 1915 to “protect American and foreign interests.” They stayed as the de facto government until 1934.  All decisions by the Haitian government had to be okayed by the military occupation.  Infrastructure was built using forced labor gangs.   Education was reorganized so that both rich and poor were equally pissed off.  A rebellion in 1918 was crushed by Marines to the tune of 2000 Haitians dead.  Even withdrawal between 1932 and 1934 didn’t help: Haiti would see a series of US-backed military dictatorships for the next half century.

Los sandinistas arremetieron hoy de nuevo contra el embajador de Estados Unidos en Nicaragua, Robert Callahan, por lo que califican como “injerencias” suyas, y lo han convertido en blanco de la controversia por el fallo judicial que allana el camino de la reelección de Daniel Ortega.

El embajador Callahan consideró el pasado día 19 que la sala constitucional de la Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ) de Nicaragua actuó de forma “precipitada” e “indebida” al declarar inaplicable un artículo de la Constitución que impide al presidente Ortega su reelección presidencial en los comicios generales de 2011.

El fallo, dictado de manera expedita por seis jueces sandinistas de la sala constitucional, tras sustituir a tres magistrados opositores con suplentes afines, declara inaplicable el artículo 147 de la Carta Magna que impide la reelección continua de un jefe de Estado y limita a dos el número máximo de mandatos.

Decenas de militantes de la Juventud Sandinista increparon hoy al embajador Callahan, al que acusan de “injerencias” en los asuntos internos de Nicaragua, durante una visita de éste a la Universidad Centroamericana (UCA).

“Estamos protestando en las calles porque sabemos que él está en esta universidad y queremos que entienda el embajador yanki que no toleraremos sus injerencias, que no lo queremos en Nicaragua”, expresó el dirigente estudiantil Bosco Castillo a periodistas.

Los jóvenes, afines al partido de Gobierno, bloquearon también una calle con piedras y neumáticos en llamas, por donde transitaba el diplomático norteamericano, que estaba protegido por una decena de policías antidisturbios.

El ex presidente de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, Miguel D’Escoto, por su lado calificó hoy de “diplomático irrespetuoso” al embajador estadounidense por manifestar su rechazo al fallo judicial.

“Es un nuevo diplomático irrespetuoso que ojalá se fuera cuanto antes de Nicaragua, ¿por qué se pone a dar cátedras de derecho?, es el Poder Judicial el que tiene que interpretar y que no nos vengan los americanos a decir cómo o no tenían que actuar los magistrados”, expresó el también ex canciller nicaragüense.

A las reacciones del sandinismo se ha sumado hoy el embajador de Rusia en Nicaragua, Igor Kondrashev, quien expresó a la prensa que los países que cooperan con Nicaragua deben evitar injerencias.

“Hay que evitar las injerencias en los asuntos internos de Nicaragua, nuestra postura es que los países que prestan ayuda deben hacerlo sin ninguna condición y ser muy cautelosos al dar opiniones”, expresó el embajador Kondrashev al ser consultado sobre las declaraciones brindadas por el embajador norteamericano.

El Gobierno de Nicaragua acusó ayer, jueves, a Washington de promover una “política injerencista y desestabilizadora”, por las criticas del embajador Callahan.

También se han producido voces airadas como la del secretario general del sandinista Frente Nacional de los Trabajadores (FNT), diputado Gustavo Porras, que incluso pidió este jueves la expulsión de Callahan.

Fuente: Univisión.com

This morning in Managua, Nicaragua there are reports that the U.S. Embassy was vandalized by supporters of the leftist Sandinistas party.  Borrowing a page from the Castro-Chavez playbook for re-making Latin America in the Bolivarian image – just take a look at what they are doing over in Honduras – the Sandinista government is accusing the United States of meddling in Nicaraguan domestic affairs.  The mobs reacted.

So what is all the fuss about?  Fellow Washingtonian and Latin America watcher, Eddy Acevedo, published a piece on the matter in The Americano.  Acevedo discusses the October 19, 2009 Nicaraguan Supreme Court ruling that may allow Daniel Ortega to make his presidential bid possible for 2011.  The rub is that the Nicaraguan constitution states that a President cannot run for a consecutive re-election campaign and cannot be President more than twice.

In Honduras, the Supreme Court and the Congress was clearly in the right in removing from power Zelaya and his associates.  In Nicaragua, it seems that Daniel Ortega and his folks are clearly in the wrong.  This presents an interesting conundrum for Obama’s Latin America team.  As they try and dig out of their Honduran mistakes, another problem has been brewing just over the border in Managua that could result in outright violence.  How will the November 29, 2009 Honduran elections impact Managua?  My guess is that U.S. bumbling in Tegucigalpa already has.

The complete article is re-published below, with the author’s permission:

—————————————–

Constitutional Danger in Nicaragua: Ortega Up to His Old Tricks

By: Eddy Acevedo

Published: October 28, 2009, The Americano

As the current Obama administration continues to rub shoulders and remain friendly with leaders in Latin America, constitutions in the region are being threatened by overzealous leaders who aspire to have more power for a longer period of time in complete rejection of the rights of the people and the rule of law. Latin America is second to Africa in regions of the world who use bribes in the judiciary system. According to the 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, Nicaragua is towards the bottom of the list with the highest reports of corruption behind Venezuela, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Nevertheless, the Organization of American States (OAS) continues to support leaders in the hemisphere who actively engage in breaking the law.

As much as the international community wanted to believe that the new Ortega was different from the old, many have now learned that a leopard never loses its spots. Due to the November municipal elections in Nicaragua in 2008, violence and widespread chaos troubled Nicaraguan citizens and jeopardized stability in the region. The Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) faced allegations of voting fraud and using intimidation tactics, but that did not stop the OAS from ignoring the pleads of the Nicaraguan people. During his first years in office, the first thing on Ortega’s agenda was to seek re-election but he quickly learned that he did not have enough votes in the National Assembly to accomplish this goal legally so he turned to alternative ways in which he can make his campaign in 2011 a reality.

On October 19, 2009, the Supreme Court of Justice in Nicaragua ruled in favor of Ortega to make his presidential bid possible for 2011. In Nicaragua, article 147 of the constitution clearly states that a President cannot run for a consecutive re-election campaign and cannot be President more than twice. Ortega is seeking to run for re-election for a consecutive term and wants to be president for the third time, both issues are clearly prohibited by the Nicaraguan Constitution. Ortega is not the only president in the region dealing with this re-election challenge. As soon as Ortega returned from the ALBA conference with the backing of his allies Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, Jose Ramon Machado, and Evo Morales, the first thing on his platform was sidestepping the National Assembly to regain power for another 5 years.

So why did the Supreme Court rule in his favor? The judicial branch is made up of judges from the Sandinista party that vote in favor of interest and not the rule of law. Ortega had everything planned out and coordinated very well when the Supreme Court issued their decision. His supporters headed to the ‘rotondas’ in Managua with signs and propaganda to show their support of the court’s ruling. These supporters could not have orchestrated such a response so quickly unless they were given advance notice. These rallies become dangerous as most individuals carry weapons and block commerce and products moving within the capital that can impact the country’s economy.

Due to the threat to democracy, the civil society organizations and the political parties in Nicaragua have begun to unite. The Bancada Democrática Nicaragüense, Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, Movimiento Renovador Sandinista, and the Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense are looking for legislative tactics in order to revoke this ruling. The unification of all the political parties guarantees 48 votes which is a majority in the Nicaraguan National Assembly. Hopefully, the unification can last long enough in order to seek change in the country. The past has proven that it is extremely difficult for all these leaders to stay united through the crisis at hand. The private sector organizations such as the Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (Cosep) and the Cámara de Comercio Americana Nicaragüense (Amcham) have also spoken publicly against the ruling by the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice, Manuel Martinez, has commented over his uncertainty of the legality of the ruling and the failure to follow proper procedures to fulfill quorum at the high court such as allowing sufficient time to be present for the court’s deliberations. Some might ask why not let the elections go through and let the people decide? As Nicaraguan citizens learned in 2006, the Supreme Electoral Court cannot be trusted in conducting a fair, free, and transparent election. Ortega stole the presidential elections in 2006 and the municipal elections in 2008, so there is no reason to believe that he will not do it again. In order to prevent more instability and chaos in Nicaragua and throughout Central America, the United States must begin to engage and realize the actual importance of the events that are occurring right in its backyard or its quickly going to feel like the Cold War all over again in the hemisphere.

Eddy Acevedo currently serves as the Federal Affairs Coordinator of Miami-Dade County’s DC Office. Miami-Dade County is the 9^th largest county in the United States and is considered the Gateway to the Americas. Mr. Acevedo advocates for the County’s priorities with Congress and the White House. In 2005, he worked as Senior Legislative Assistant to Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

There are millions of painters nowadays. Some names are well-known while others are less familiar. We listed below some name of painter who are new in the business but made it on the top because of this we think are among the most exciting contemporary painters working today that are worth introducing for.

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski

Born in Poland in 1980, Ziolkowski’s painting has quickly become highly desirable. Quite apart from it’s “must have” standing in most galleries and collectors, deserve to be in the top.

Comes in different styles and ways he created it, his best art works are masterly, considering that his one of the youngest painters in the list, Ziolkowski is just starting on his artistic career.

Adrian Ghenie

Born in Romania in 1977, is another Eastern European young artist whose works burst onto the art scene in year 2005. Since then his reputation grow quickly.

His art works attempts to investigate memory and the unconscious against a backdrop of 20^th century European history.

Often achieving a cinematic, film noir-esque quality and his highly structured dramatically lit tableau makes him one of the major novices in art of the moment.

Jonathan Wateridge

Born 1979 in UK, this artist is expert in technical brio and old-mastery style. However, his subject matter is not standard fare. His art works includes scenes of disaster such as plane crashes; shipwrecks counterpoised against sublime landscapes, massive group portraits focus on unlikely ensembles, historical re-enactment societies, space program personnel, school plays or even Sandinistas.

This artist’s eye for detail is certainly breathtaking, his grand compositions a nod, among several influences towards the romanticized High Victorian mise en scene.

Aside from these new artists, there are also some abstract art artists who are making their way onto the top of success. Since abstract painting is gaining its popularity nowadays, that why it is very much understandable that thousands of artist choose abstract art paintings as their way of expressing their selves.

 A chegada dos sandinistas ao poder, em julho de 1979, com a entrada na capital Manágua pela via insurrecional, marcou o fim da dinastia Somoza e o início da definição dos rumos concretos do novo regime.

Três aspectos eram então fundamentais, a saber:

• a constituição de uma economia mista que mesclasse setores público, privado e cooperativado;
• formação de um sistema político pluripartidário;
• uma política externa não-alinhada.

Por estes itens, era um programa moderado e progressista em relação ao que era a Nicarágua dos Somoza, e que inspirado na experiência cubana da revolução socialista, manteve, porém, características de pluralidade política e econômica semelhantes à experiência chilena.

Mas toda a evolução posterior do regime sandinista foi condicionada pela reviravolta da política norte-americana com a eleição de Reagan, em 1980.

Retomando o discurso belicoso e anticomunista do início da Guerra Fria, a aproximação político-ideológica de Manágua com Havana foi vista como perigosa e ameaçadora para a estabilidade centro-americana, submissa aos EUA.  Isso gerou uma crescente pressão política-militar e econômica de Washington contra os sandinistas, e do isolamento evoluiu-se (sic) para a luta armada, com os norte-americanos sustentando uma oposição contra-revolucionária interna na Nicarágua.

Uma longa guerra civil entre os sandinistas e os chamados Contras bloqueou as transformações sociais e econômicas, desviou recursos materiais e humanos para a guerra, desorganizou a produção em geral – com reflexos na inflação, no desemprego e na carestia dos alimentos -, forçou o regime a aproximar-se do bloco socialista (reforçando ainda mais o discurso de Washington e a justificativa do apoio aos opositores dos sandinistas) e produziu, na soma destes impasses, um desgaste do governo revolucionário e sua derrota eleitoral em 1990.

As análises sobre o regime sandinistas e sua visão de socialismo ficam portanto prejudicadas em sua dinâmica, mas é inegável que sua proposta de socialismo era uma mescla das experiências cubana/chilena objetivando  promover uma terceira via original: via insurrecional e sistema pluripartidário.

Fonte: SADER, Emir.  Cuba, Chile, Nicarágua – Socialismo na América Latina. Atual Editora, 1992.

NOTE:  This article originally appeared on the HONDURAS OYE! blog, but the editor function on the blog is not working (perhaps, gov’t. gremlins are?) preventing me from doing hotlinks and other really important editing tasks.  Here, the article with hotlinks.

In the 1990 film, “La Femme Nikita,” a young heroin addict kills a cop, is jailed for his murder, and subsequently is placed by French government intelligence services in the underground to conduct assassinations for them. When one of her assassinations goes awry, “Victor, the Cleaner,” is sent in to dispose of both the bodies and the evidence.

Unfortunately, this is the image that came to my mind when I first heard last week that a man by the name of John Biehl said that he was hopeful about an agreement between Honduran President Zelaya and the golpistas.  A few days later, I learned that Biehl, actually his name is John Biehl del Rio, is an advisor to OAS Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza.  Then, just a few days ago, Arias declared support for the November 29 election.  And today, Biehl del Rio announces that a meeting between the golpistas and Zelaya will take place next week. Is this guy a fortune teller, a magician?  No wonder, out of the ill-fated attempt by OAS officials to enter Honduras a week ago, Biehl was the only one allowed in. I don’t know about you, but when the history is written, I would prefer to be one of the guys turned away by the golpistas at the airport.  I decided it was time to find out more.

His Wikipedia biography shows a varied diplomatic career.  Biehl del Rio is a Chilean of Danish heritage. In the 1980’s,  Biehl was an employee of the United Nations Development Program where he served as a development advisor in Honduras, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia. He also worked for Oscar Arias in Costa Rica as a policy maker and speech writer and was known as Arias’ “closest confidant” and “alter ego.” In addition, it was Biehl del Rio who led the successful campaign for Arias’ Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 1990’s , he served as Chilean ambassador to the US.  Next stop for Biehl was the International Crisis Group, as the Director of Colombia and the Andean Region, beginning in 2001.

When Biehl del Rio came to his most recent job in the political affairs department at the OAS, his first assignment was to oversee the OAS mission to monitor the Nicaraguan elections.  Back during the Reagan administration, Oscar Arias started bucking the US’ use of Contras in Nicaragua and ordered Contras arrested if found in Costs Rica.  Biehl del Rio was with the UN at the time and lobbied folks in Washington against Reagan’s use of the Contras in the war in Nicaragua.  In retaliation, the Reagan administration condemned Arias and tried to have Biehl del Rio fired from the UN.  Over time, as Arias began conducting peace negotiations concerning the war in Nicaragua, it was obvious that the Reagan administration had gotten to him because his actions became increasingly duplicitous.  With his suggestion of a unity government between the Sandinistas and the US bought and paid for Contras, it was obvious that Arias was working for the US government.  When he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his Nicaraguan peace plan, it was a deep affront to the Sandinistas.  Ever since that time, Arias has been in the US’ pocket and one cannot doubt that his alter ego, Biehl del Rio, has been as well.

In the Nicaragua negotiations, Arias dealt with the Sandinistas and the Contras as nearly equal entities, thus legitimizing the Contra war.  And while the Clinton State Department would deny it,  the US and its envoy, Arias, have been doing the same thing concerning Honduras.  From the very beginning, Arias’ mediations put the Michelettis at the same table as the Zelayas.  This is not mediating, this is fixing the deal.

Now that a November election looks to be a firm part of the plan and the will of the Honduras people has been grossly disrespected by Hillary Clinton, Oscar Arias and, I’ll have to throw in Insulza also because only he could have made the OAS walk the fine line between  Zelaya and the golpistas, it’s time to clean up the mess for international consumption. Issues of law will be erased, Zelaya will make compromises he never intended, and Hondurans determined to boycott the elections will be recast as unpatriotic elements in the country who don’t want peace.

Haitians boycotted their latest election this last April because it excluded all candidates from running who were associated with Lavalas, the largest and most popular party in Haiti. Yet, incredibly, the election went on and the 5% voter turnout result was certified. The US Ambassador to Haiti, Janet Sanderson, followed up with a public statement a day after the election suggesting that the Haitian government arrest all 42 leaders of the boycott.

Honduras, as it has in other instances since the June 28 coup, continues in a path similar to Haiti which also suffered a  US-sponsored coup in 2004.   But, how do you take the rags of a travesty and make it look like a whole piece of cloth? I guess,”John Biehl del Rio, the Cleaner,” will show us how it’s done.

]]> http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/honduras-arias-and-insulza-send-in-the-cleaner/ Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:00:34 +0000 magbana http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/honduras-arias-and-insulza-send-in-the-cleaner/

In the 1990 film, “La Femme Nikita,” a young heroin addict kills a cop, is jailed for his murder, and subsequently is placed by French government intelligence services in the underground to conduct assassinations for them. When one of her assassinations goes awry, “Victor, the Cleaner,” is sent in to dispose of both the bodies and the evidence.

Unfortunately, this is the image that came to my mind when I first heard last week that a man by the name of John Biehl said that he was hopeful about an agreement between Honduran President Zelaya and the golpistas.  A few days later, I learned that Biehl, actually his name is John Biehl del Rio, is an advisor to OAS Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza.  Then, just a few days ago, Arias declared support for the November 29 election.  And today, Biehl del Rio announces that a meeting between the golpistas and Zelaya will take place next week. Is this guy a fortune teller, a magician?  No wonder, out of the ill-fated attempt by OAS officials to enter Honduras a week ago, Biehl was the only one allowed in. I don’t know about you, but when the history is written, I would prefer to be one of the guys turned away by the golpistas at the airport.  I decided it was time to find out more.

His Wikipedia biography shows a varied diplomatic career.  Biehl del Rio is a Chilean of Danish heritage. In the 1980’s,  Biehl was an employee of the United Nations Development Program where he served as a development advisor in Honduras, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia. He also worked for Oscar Arias in Costa Rica as a policy maker and speech writer and was known as Arias’ “closest confidant” and “alter ego.” In addition, it was Biehl del Rio who led the successful campaign for Arias’ Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 1990’s , he served as Chilean ambassador to the US.  Next stop for Biehl was the International Crisis Group, as the Director of Colombia and the Andean Region, beginning in 2001.

When Biehl del Rio came to his most recent job in the political affairs department at the OAS, his first assignment was to oversee the OAS mission to monitor the Nicaraguan elections.  Back during the Reagan administration, Oscar Arias started bucking the US’ use of Contras in Nicaragua and ordered Contras arrested if found in Costs Rica.  Biehl del Rio was with the UN at the time and lobbied folks in Washington against Reagan’s use of the Contras in the war in Nicaragua.  In retaliation, the Reagan administration condemned Arias and tried to have Biehl del Rio fired from the UN.  Over time, as Arias began conducting peace negotiations concerning the war in Nicaragua, it was obvious that the Reagan administration had gotten to him because his actions became increasingly duplicitous.  With his suggestion of a unity government between the Sandinistas and the US bought and paid for Contras, it was obvious that Arias was working for the US government.  When he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his Nicaraguan peace plan, it was a deep affront to the Sandinistas.  Ever since that time, Arias has been in the US’ pocket and one cannot doubt that his alter ego, Biehl del Rio, has been as well.

In the Nicaragua negotiations, Arias dealt with the Sandinistas and the Contras as nearly equal entities, thus legitimizing the Contra war.  And while the Clinton State Department would deny it,  the US and its envoy, Arias, have been doing the same thing concerning Honduras.  From the very beginning, Arias’ mediations put the Michelettis at the same table as the Zelayas.  This is not mediating, this is fixing the deal.

Now that a November election looks to be a firm part of the plan and the will of the Honduras people has been grossly disrespected by Hillary Clinton, Oscar Arias and, I’ll have to throw in Insulza also because only he could have made the OAS walk the fine line between  Zelaya and the golpistas, it’s time to clean up the mess for international consumption. Issues of law will be erased, Zelaya will make compromises he never intended, and Hondurans determined to boycott the elections will be recast as unpatriotic elements in the country who don’t want peace.

Haitians boycotted their latest election this last April because it excluded all candidates from running who were associated with Lavalas, the largest and most popular party in Haiti. Yet, incredibly, the election went on and the 5% voter turnout result was certified. The US Ambassador to Haiti, Janet Sanderson, followed up with a public statement a day after the election suggesting that the Haitian government arrest all 42 leaders of the boycott.

Honduras, as it has in other instances since the June 28 coup, continues in a path similar to Haiti which also suffered a  US-sponsored coup in 2004.   But, how do you take the rags of a travesty and make it look like a whole piece of cloth? I guess,”John Biehl del Rio, the Cleaner,” will show us how it’s done.

Consortium News founder Robert Parry discusses Latin America as the political training ground for Neo-Con torture regimes, bashing moral relativism to ‘manufacture consent’ for moral relativism, statist journalism, blowback in the Middle East, the lie of Charlie Wilson’s War, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ role in the Former President Reagan’s C.I.A., and media scare tactics used to lie the U.S. into war with Iran with AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton (63:13):

Scott Horton Interviews Robert Parry

12 Sept 09 | AntiWar Radio

Robert Parry, founder of ConsortiumNews.com, discusses Ronald Reagan’s lip service to torture prohibition and support for atrocities in Central America, the hypocritical critiques of “moral relativism” by amoral neocons, the inheritance of an entire generation of government-worshiping journalists, Islamic fundamentalist blowback from Reagan administration attempts to weaken the USSR and the quid-pro-quo deal that enabled Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons.

[download the mp3 at AntiWar.com]

Robert Parry is an investigative journalist who won the George Polk Award in 1984 for reporting on the Iran-Contra affair and uncovering Oliver North’s involvement in it. He is the founder and editor of ConsortiumNews.com and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery and Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

http://www.discogs.com/Sandinistas-Madd-Luv-Higher/release/1421034

Label: Cartel Imperial Recordings
Catalog#: CMC-71596
Format: Vinyl, 12″, Promo
Country: US
Released: 1997
Genre: Hip Hop
Rating: 5.00/5 (7 votes) Rate It

Madd Luv (Original)
Madd Luv (C-12 Laboratories Remix)
Higher (Original Version)

http://www.mediafire.com/?3znwgznlurg

Van Jones is an acknowledged radical black nationalist.  He is an admitted communist.  He is on the record as an anti-white racist.  He is an ANTI-bipartisan radical figure.  And so is Barack Obama and the Democrat Party as long as he is allowed by them to remain in his position as “green jobs czar”

He was arrested for rioting following the Rodney King verdict.

He is a communist:

[Van] Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’” Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. “I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.” In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.”

He tried to purge the evidence as his radicalism and communism began to become public knowledge, but the record survives.

Van Jones wrote in his manifesto:

“We agreed with Lenin’s analysis of the state and the party,” reads the manifesto. “And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral.” [...]

“We also saw our brand of Marxism as, in some ways, a reclamation.”

The night after the horrible 9/11 attack against the United States – during which time the United States suffered more casualties from a foreign enemy than at any time since the War of 1812 – Van Jones took the side of the terrorists against America.  Are we the good guy?  Not according to Van Jones and those who share his ideology:

Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. That group, together with Jones’ Elle Baker Center for Human Rights, led a vigil Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif.

STORM’s official manifesto, titled, “Reclaiming Revolution,” surfaced on the Internet.

A WND review of the 97-page treatise found a description of a vigil that Jones’ group held Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif. The event drew hundreds and articulated an “anti-imperialist” line, according to STORM’s own description.

The radical group’s manual boasted the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks “as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world.”

Van Jones took part in the convicted cop murderer Mumia Abu Jamal.  Go here for more on that vile relationship and it’s vile fruit.

Van Jones signed the 9/11 “Truther” document that demanded the Bush Administration prove it did not engage in a high-level conspiracy to attack the World Trade Center on 9/11 and blame Muslims for it. In the petition that Van Jones signed, he demanded an “immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”  Now he doesn’t deny signing the statement; he just says he doesn’t agree with it.  As Hot Air puts it:

That’s the second apology he’s made in two days; at this rate, it’d be faster and easier to issue a statement retracting everything he ever said in his life prior to being hired by Obama.

The other apology refers to publication of statements denoting his militant brand of political partisanship that guarantees that Republicans and Democrats will continue to be at the most bitter warfare until the Obama Administration is an unpleasant memory.  In a question regarding Republicans, Van Jones offered this:

Berkely, Calif., Feb. 26, 2009: Jones took audience questions in Berkeley, Calif., during a lecture on energy issues.

Van Jones: “Well, the answer to that is: they’re assholes.”

Female questioner: I was afraid that that was the answer.

Van Jones: That’s a technical, political science term. And — Barack O — Barack Obama’s not an asshole. So — now, I will say this: I can be an asshole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity [to get things done]. How’s that capitalism working for ya?

In addition to calling Republicans to be “a@@holes,” he essentially called for Democrats to be even more militant and radical than they already are.

That in addition to his Marxist hatred for the capitalism that made this country great.

If all that isn’t bad enough, Van Jones is a also a radical racist who will use his position to punish whites for deliberately poisoning people of color.

January 2008

Van Jones: “The environmental justice community that said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, you know, you’re regulating, but you’re not regulating equally.’ And the white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people-of-color communities, because they don’t have a racial justice frame.”

See the video here.

How does he plan to do that?  By fundamentally transforming the system.

Uprising Radio, April 2008

Van Jones; “Right after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat if the civil rights leaders had jumped out and said, ‘OK now we want reparations for slavery, we want redistribution of all the wealth, and we want to legalize mixed marriages.’ If we’d come out with a maximum program the very next day, they’d been laughed at. Instead they came out with a very minimum. ‘We just want to integrate these buses.’

“But, inside that minimum demand was a very radical kernel that eventually meant that from 1964 to 1968 complete revolution was on the table for this country. And, I think that this green movement has to pursue those same steps and stages. Right now we say we want to move from suicidal gray capitalism to something eco-capitalism where at least we’re not fast-tracking the destruction of the whole planet. Will that be enough? No, it won’t be enough. We want to go beyond the systems of exploitation and oppression altogether. But, that’s a process and I think that’s what’s great about the movement that is beginning to emerge is that the crisis is so severe in terms of joblessness, violence and now ecological threats that people are willing to be both pragmatic and visionary. So the green economy will start off as a small subset and we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.”

See the video here.

We are talking about a radical communist who has been empowered for the purpose of “transforming the whole society” by Barack Obama.

Van Jones said at the Powershift Conference in MARCH 2009:

“This movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don’t stop there! Don’t stop there! We’re gonna change the whole system! We’re gonna change the whole thing! [...] And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn’t want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt.

See the video here.

If you are white, you are blight.

Let me tell you something; if you are a white Democrat, I hope you lose your job.  I hope it is “redistributed” to a person of color, and your children (who, being part of the oppressive white race deserve to starve) go hungry.

Obama talked about “hope” and “change.”  You want to know what I hope?  I hope that white Democrats finally get to bear the brunt of the policies that their party has been pushing.  I hope the change is that they will get to experience what “redistribution” is really all about.

That’s what they call “poetic justice.”  It’s time to eat the crap you shoveled for everyone else, white Democrats.  And you’d better smile while you swallow it, or you’ll be labeled a “racist” along with everyone else who has opposed the radical and racist Marxist liberal agenda.

Is all that behind Van Jones like he said in his “apology” that amounts to one of those “If anything I said offended anybody, I’m sorry that you are an oppressive white devil”?  I mean, some of the things he said occurred all the way back to March of 2009.

As you listen to Van Jones’ denials and the White House’s whitewashing, consider Van Jones said this:

“I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”

He said that statement in the same breath in which he claimed that we have “eco-apartheid.” His intent being to use his position to redistribute wealth and punish white people and help people of color.

But his main point is this: I’ll tone down my radical rhetoric so I can better attain my radical objectives.  So whatever he says to distance himself from his previous history is just a ruse to masquerade his past so he can continue pursuing his radical, anti-white, anti-capitalist, pro-Marxist, pro-Islamicist ends.

Just like one Barack Hussein Obama, who spent 23 years in a Marxist “black liberation” church that preached anti-white racist hatred and anti-Americanism.  As I pointed out back in March of last year:

Liberation theology was developed in the early 1970s to pave the way for the communist Sandinistas to infiltrate – and subsequently dominate – Nicaraguan society. The Sandinistas understood full well that they had no hope of installing a Marxist regime in a country that was well over 90% Roman Catholic unless they could successfully subsume Catholicism into their cause of Marxism. And the wedding of Marxism with Christianity was brought about in a clear effort of the former to crush the latter.

And all “black liberation theology” does is repackage that same brand of Marxism for blacks.

Barack Obama’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, screamed:

“No, no, no! Not God bless America!  God damn America!”

while Obama’s fellow congregants leaped to their feat and cheered.

Obama was forced to leave the church after it became politically untenable for him to remain.  But the history of Obama’s long membership and association with Trinity Church and with Jeremiah Wright cannot just be swept under the rug with a politically motivated speech.  He left that racist anti-American cesspool 23 years too late to matter.

Barack Obama pirated a speech from his friend Deval Patrick titled, “Just Words.”  I had a few things to say about a few other things that were “just words”:

When Barack Obama’s pastor for some 23 years said:

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere … That’s the world! On which hope sits.”

Just words.

When Jeremiah Wright said:

“The government gives them [African Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Just words.

When Wright said of the United States:

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Just words.

“We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college,” he said. “Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.”

Just words.

When the Rev. Wright said:

“America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. … We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers. … We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi. … We put (Nelson) Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”

Yep. Just words.

When Wright shouted out to his cheering congregation:

“We started the AIDS virus. … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.”

“The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

Just words.

And, of course, when Wright said:

“We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. … We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. …”

Those were just words.

This past weekend, when Father Michael Pfleger – a longtime friend and spiritual mentor of Barack Obama, said from the pulpit of Obama’s church:

When Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don’t believe it was put on. I really believe that she just always thought, ‘this is mine. I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white, and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate.’

Then out of nowhere, ‘I’m Barack Obama!’

Imitating Hillary’s response, screaming at the top of his lungs again, he continues, ‘Ah, damn! Where did you come from? I’m white! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show!’

(mocks crying)

She wasn’t the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying!

Just words.

When Father Pfleger said in the pulpit of Obama’s church:

“Honestly now, to address the one who says, ‘Don’t hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.’ But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did … and unless you are ready to give up the benefits, throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the monies you put away into the company you walked into because your daddy and grand daddy. …”

Shouting, Pfleger continued, “Unless you are willing to give up the benefits then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation, because you are the beneficiaries of this insurance policy.”

Just words (well, unless you mind having everything you own taken away from you and given to someone else to make up for “historic injustices”).

And when Obama’s good friend Father Pfleger said:

“Racism is still America’s greatest addiction. I also believe that America is also the greatest sin against God.”

Just words.

Now, when Barack Obama opined to a wine-sipping, cheese nibbling crowd in San Franscisco:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Just words.

Van Jones’ views aren’t an anomaly.  They accurately reflect Barack Obama’s own views, and what Van Jones intends to do is what Barack Obama intends to do.

Van Jones is the face of the Democratic Party.  Pure and simple.  Otherwise, you explain to me why Barack Obama picked him.  You explain to me why Barack Obama has kept him at his side as all of these facts about him came out.

John F. Kennedy is dead, and has been for more than 45 years.  The Democrat Party of John F. Kennedy used to be a party that believed in a powerful military that Democrats today mock and attack; it used to be a party that staunchly and steadfastly opposed the very Marxist/communist agenda that Democrats today are now openly embracing; it used to be a party that believed in low taxes as the foundation for economic growth (and see him on video).

John F. Kennedy is rolling in his grave as his former party becomes the very sort of abomination that he fought to oppose under the leadership of Barack Hussein Obama and the vile characters that he has chosen to surround himself with to implement his incredibly radical agenda.  John F. Kennedy and Barack H. Obama are anathema to one another.

Please read Thomas Sowell’s article, “Stop and Think.”

It is long past time that “Kennedy Democrats” (and I mean JOHN, NOT TED) to wake up and turn on the Obama administration before it is too late.

León, Nicaragua

6:30 A.M: Breakfast is served and we are sitting in the garden of our Posada accompanied by humming birds. With surroundings like this it is hard to understand that for less than thirty years ago, León was the scene for a bloody and violent civil war between the Sandinistas and the Dictator Somoza who ruled the country after the U.S evacuation in 1933.

7:00 A.M: The sound of air-raid sirens goes off all over town every morning, reminding us of different times in León. Old bullet holes in buildings we pass on our way to our Spanish school gives a clear reminder not to forget the history of a difficult time for the people in Nicaragua, and the families left behind for those who gave their life in the battle for freedom.

7:30 A.M: A short coffee stop at Café El Sesteo with a view over the central park and the Cathedral; watching the city wake up. Close to the central park you find the museum of Heroes and Martyrs where you can learn more about the revolution and the movement of the Sandinistas during the civil war.

8:00 A.M: School starts with 4 hours of intensive lecturing and Spanish grammar. Not always easy with teachers that do not speak English, hence even more effective and highly recommended.

12:00 P.M: The siren goes off again, it’s lunchtime and school is over. After a nice local baleadas for lunch, Helene wants to visit “La Veinte Uno” (meaning twenty-one). Just three blocks from the central park you will find the ruins of this garrison where you can learn about the cruel story of the life prisoners lived inside these walls, after being caught by the Somoza dictator. It is told that the screams from the “La Veinte Uno” could be heard all night outside the prison. And all of this happened just thirty years ago. An important reminder as well as it was a strong experience.

Wallpainting outside La Veinte Uno

Wallpainting on the La Veinte Uno Prison

14:00 P.M.: It is time to visit the old city of León(León Viejo). The history of León is long and fascinating; the first city named León in Nicaragua was placed 20 miles east from the current location, and was established in 1524. After a volcano eruption in 1610 the inhabitants decided to move the city to a safer place. Lacking bricks to rebuild Léon, they took most of the bricks from Léon Viejo with them, and only left small parts of the old city behind. The ruins of the old city were declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in year 2000.

16:30 P.M.: Hurrying through the streets on our way to experience the five o’clock mess in the Cathedral. In the front of the central park you will find the beautiful Cathedral of León. Four lions guard the Cathedral, one in each corner of the building. The Cathedral is the biggest in Central America, but despite it’s big size the only things to see inside is the statues of the twelve Apostles and the tomb of Ruben Dario – a famous poet that is buried here, guarded by a crying Lion that is watching his tomb.

Cathedral of León

Traveling in Latin America during the rain period can be a little unpredictable, and in the middle of the mess rain starts to pure down in a tempo that is fascinating. The relationship to the Catholic churches here is a lot different than in Norway. Suddenly absolutely everyone from the outside is inside the church with dogs, bicycles, screaming children and cats seeking shelter from the rain.

Boy playing in the rain

18:00 P.M Time to walk back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. Walking through the streets you will se pictures of heroes and famous writers from León. The Nicaraguan often refers to León as the intellectual capital because of a large amount of schools and a big university. Nicaragua has many famous writers, most known is probably Félix Rubén García Sarmient that used the pseudonym Ruben Dario (1867-1916) and is often refereed to as the Father of Modernism. In the town you will see several statues and paintings of him. You can read his poem to President Roosevelt by clicking here.

Heroes from the revolution

Despite the long history of violence and fighting, León is a beautiful place to stay and the people here are warm and welcoming. The City is tranquil and safe and if not a direct opposite; a totally different place than the capital and big brother Managua that suffers under high unemployment and increasing crime. If you plan to go to Nicaragua, León is definitively a place you don’t want to miss.

Hasta Pronto Tore

A keepsake from the Motorship Falknes, July 1984.

“The invasion of Nicaragua by the United States, either by sending in the Marines or by use of forces financed and directed by the United States, would be a disgraceful action that would remain a blot on our record forever. The American people must insist that our government stop dominating and exploiting our Latin American neighbors, and instead adopt a policy of assistance and collaboration.”

-Linus Pauling, November 11, 1983.

Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Linus Pauling’s participation in the Peace Ship project. Supported by the Norwegian government and organized by Nobel laureates Adolfo Perez Esquival and George Wald, the project enlisted the support of two additional Nobel Prize-winners – Betty Williams and Pauling – in fulfilling its mission to deliver some 13,000 tons of newsprint, fertilizer, food and medicine to the Nicaraguan people.

El Barco de la Paz, which was technically the Norwegian cargo ship M.S. Falknes, arrived in Corinto harbor during an exceedingly difficult time in Nicaraguan history. Five years removed from the overthrow of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the nation was enveloped in a brutal civil war in which the left-leaning Sandinista ruling group struggled to hold power over the U.S.-backed guerrilla corps collectively known as the Contras. By some estimates, more than 30,000 people died in this conflict, which lasted for all of the 1980s.

For Pauling, the trip was a whirlwind of sights and sounds, most of which served to confirm, and even radicalize, his existing feelings about the dire situation in this small Central American country.

As detailed in his own fascinating account of the trip, Pauling and Wald were driven around the country by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega himself, “with machine guns on the floor of the car because they expect action from the Contras who often carry out assassinations.”

Linus Pauling in Corinto, Nicaragua, participating in the Peace Ship assistance mission. July 26, 1984.

The Nobel laureates received glimpses of a nascent socialist heath care system, wherein “most doctors do private practice and also work for the national health system,” a situation which Pauling, in a later interview, judged to be an improvement over past arrangements. In Pauling’s view, “before the Sandinista fighters won…the poor people just didn’t get much in the way of health care or physician services. Now they do.”

Pauling also learned something of the Sandinistas’ mixed approach to creating markets for agricultural goods. His notes include mention of a visit “to one of the privately owned big farms,” where he “talked to the owner about his relationships with the government and how, when crops were poor a couple of years ago, the government had helped him. The government sets prices but the owners make a profit.”

Always on his travels, there existed the specter of on-going civil war: “We met another large land owner, Gladys Volt, whose husband had been kidnapped and killed by the Contras just eight days before.”

The trip likewise included a certain amount of lighter fare – Pauling seemed, in particular, to enjoy a trip to a volcano – as well as the usual formal receptions, lectures (mostly on vitamin C) and honorary awards that one would expect to be extended to a figure of Pauling’s stature. And throughout it all, Pauling’s evince a theme of cautious optimism for the future.

Linus Pauling speaking at a vigil outside the U.S. Embassy, Managua, Nicaragua, July 1984.

Current conditions, however, were desperate. Following a visit to a medical school, he reflects that “my high school chemistry class in 1913 was better equipped than this college,” and defining his entire tour is an overwhelming sense of “a miserably poor country. I felt about as bad concerning conditions there as I had about India…[in 1973].”

Video Link: Pauling discusses the situation in Nicaragua from the deck of The Peace Ship.

Pauling’s transit home was marked by a stark reminder that there is sometimes a price to be paid for acting in opposition to official government policy. In transit from Nicaragua to California, via Mexico City, Pauling’s passport was confiscated for six hours. After a period of confusion, the passport was returned to Pauling- though not until he arrived at his final destination. Pauling believed, perhaps from hard experience, that he was being sent a message.

I think that an order was issued to take my passport away from me. George [Wald] and I had sent President Reagan a telegram from the ship and said we were on this ship taking material from Norway to Nicaragua. So I started thinking, this is what’s happening. They are taking my passport and I won’t get it back and I wondered what to do. Should I call Meet the Press, or Face the Nation?

When we got to San Francisco and after I stepped off the plane, the stewardess came with an envelope and gave it to me. It contained my passport and I went through customs without any trouble. I think that some higher official in the U.S. government had decided that it was better not to take my passport (which had, of course, been denied me from 1952 until 1954, when I was given the Nobel prize in chemistry.)

For more on Linus Pauling’s legacy of peace activism, see Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement: A Documentary History.

Rafael Román Martel

…mientras pedían más sacrificios al pueblo cubano. Estos son los “hombres nuevos” de Fidel y del Che Guevara. Estos son los abnegados revolucionarios cuya virtud es llevar un Rolex colgado de la muñeca y viven todos los lujos y los excesos que le ha otorgado la “revolución proletaria”. Estos son los segudiores de Marx y de Lenin. Proclaman “períodos especiales” y mientras el pueblo pasa todo tipo de represión y hambre ellos se dan la dulce vida en fincas ganadas por chivatería, corrupción, asesinato, maldad y degeneración. Ahora Lague y Roque están en desgracia. Cayeron ante los brazos de la revolución que sigue avanzando hasta dejar a Cuba en la época de los Taínos.

A los de allá y a los de acá les aplica la frase de René Ariza: “Los cubanos tenemos que cuidarnos de los Castro que llevamos dentro”.

Neste mês de julho, o povo da Nicarágua comemora trinta anos da derrubada do regime do ditador Somoza em 1979.

No dia 19 de julho, tropas guerrilheiras comandadas pela Frente Sandinista de Libertação Nacional entraram na capital do país, Manágua, sob aplauso da população, extirpando de vez a ditadura familiar dos Somoza.

Anastásio Somoza, que havia herdado o poder de seu pai, fugiu buscando asilo nos Estados Unidos, levando ainda as cinzas do seu progenitor e de seu irmão.

Depois de Cuba, a revolução nicaraguense foi a que teve maior simpatia e apoio de amplas camadas da população da América Latina, onde muitos países eram dominados por ditaduras militares.

Significou um tremendo golpe à política externa dos Estado Unidos na América Central.

Para eles, o triunfo do sandinismo significava que a revolução havia saltado da ilha cubana para a América Central, o primeiro movimento guerrilheiro de esquerda no poder no continente.

Os sandinistas realizaram grandes mudanças na economia e na sociedade.

Conseguiram reduzir em dois anos de 50% para apenas 13% o índice de analfabetismo. Campanhas de vacinação intensivas conseguiram erradicar uma série de doenças endêmicas que assolavam o país. Contaram com apoio internacional de organizações de países europeus e voluntários do mundo inteiro que ajudaram na construção de moradias e reformas.

Ao mesmo tempo, enfrentaram uma reação das forças conservadoras de direita orquestradas pelos Estados Unidos.

O então presidente norte-americano, Ronald Reagan, criou bases em Honduras e na Costa Rica, formando um exército com 18 mil homens para apoio aos então chamados “contras” (contra-revolucionários), espalhando a guerra por toda a região.

Prejuízos e mortes

Entre os anos de 1984 e 1987, a Nicarágua sofreu ataques destruindo a infraestrutura de centros produtivos, portos, aeroportos, etc.

Neste período, o serviço secreto norte-americano, CIA, foi acusado de ajudar na colocação de minas nos terminais petroleiros, portos e outros centros vitais da economia nicaraguense.

Calcula-se que os Estados Unidos gastaram cerca de dez bilhões de dólares estimulando a guerra que causou a ruína total da Nicarágua. Em 1989, o país fez um balanço da situação chegando a contar 50 mil mortos, mais de 100 mil feridos e 250 mil deslocados ou refugiados.

Oposição

Em 1990, os sandinistas chamaram a eleições antecipadas para tentar contornar o conflito e perderam.

O pleito foi vencido pela candidata da oposição, Violeta Barrios Chamorro, e a Nicarágua iniciava assim um período de 16 anos de governo com políticas neoliberais.

Uma das primeiras medidas que tomou quando assumiu a presidência, em 90, desobrigava os EUA de pagar à Nicarágua uma dívida de 17 bilhões de dólares.

Esta quantia tinha sido estabelecida na Corte Internacional de Justiça de Haia, na Holanda, quando os Estados Unidos foram condenados por promover uma guerra de agressão ao país durante a Revolução Sandinista.

Em 2006, o partido Sandinista ganhou as eleições e o ex-presidente Daniel Ortega voltou a reger o país. Atualmente, muitos dos antigos sandinistas fazem parte da oposição.

Fonte: Rádio Nederland Weraldomroep

1976: caída de dirigentes del PRT-ERP

1979: triunfo de la Revolución Sandinista

19 de julio: homenaje y rescate de dos revoluciones inconclusas

La ironía de la historia hizo coincidir que en una misma fecha, el 19 de julio, con apenas tres años de diferencia, ocurrieran dos acontecimientos memorables: en 1976, en Argentina, ya implantada la dictadura terrorista y contrarrevolucionaria, caían  tres miembros de la dirección del Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores y del Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo: Mario Roberto Santucho y Benito Jorge Urteaga muertos en combate, y Domingo Menna, capturado vivo y llevado al campo de concentración de Campo de Mayo donde honró su vida y la de sus miles de compañeros emulando a héroes de la revolución mundial como el checoslovaco Julius Fucik en las mazmorras nazis; en meses de tortura, los criminales no le arrancaron más que su repudio reiterado. También fueron capturados vivos Liliana Delfino (compañera de Santucho), Anny Lanzillotto (compañera de Menna y embarazada) y Fernando Gertel. Todos tuvieron la misma conducta. El PRT funado en 1965 fue una creación marxista y leninista que abrazó el ideario del pensamiento del Che, llevando a su máxima expresión histórica el desafío de luchar en Argentina por su lema acuñado en su periódico El Combatiente: por la Revolución Obrera Latinomaericana y Socialista. Organización internacionalista, promovió también la mayor expresión en ese terreno, fundando en la década del 70 la Junta de Coordinación Revolucionaria junto al Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria de Chile, al Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros de Uruguay y al Ejército de Liberación Nacional-Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores de Bolivia.

Si en el Cono Sur 1976 se agotaba el ciclo del auge de masas iniciado desde el cordobazo y el rosariazo de 1969, en América Central germinaban las semillas revolucionarias, a pesar que el 8 de noviembre de ese año, caía en combate en las montañas de Nicaragua, el Comandante Carlos Fonseca, fundador del Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, convertido así en el tayacán vencedor de la muerte. El FSLN se puso al frente de las luchas de su pueblo que cobraron auge a partir de octubre de 1977, incrementó su actividad insurgente en todos los terrenos. Y en abril de 1979, alcanza una nueva y superadora unidad tras un período de divisiones internas, lanzando la Ofensiva Final, que tuvo sus momentos culminantes en la insurrección de Managua, el repliegue a Masaya y, por fin, la derrota militar completa de la dictadura somocista sostenida hasta último minuto por el imperialismo yanqui y la propia dictadura de Argentina. El 19 de julio de 1979 se concretaba la conquista del poder y el inicio de la Revolución Sandinista. Los hijos de Sandino, que ya había derrotado a los invasores yanquis en la guerra entre 1927 y 1933 y que fuera asesinado por la traición libreral-nacionalista-conservadora en 1934, empezaban la desafiante tarea de emancipar a Nicaragua Libre de la opresión imperialista y revolucionar el sistema de explotación capitalista.

Desde el inicio, la Revolución Sandinista fue agredida política, económica, diplomática y militarmente, en una larga guerra de agresión que aunque concluyó con la victoria armada sobre la contrarrevolución, desangró, desgastó y hundió al país hasta que el FSLN agotó, tras 11 años, sus energías revolucionarias. El triunfo sandinista en 1979 abrió una nueva situación revolucionaria en Centroamérica, dando renovadas energías a las luchas revolucionarias en El Salvador y Guatemala. La intervención armada imperialista logró detener aquel auge y tras la derrota política electoral del FSLN en Nicaragua en 1990 se revirtieron las conquistas sociales. Pero la huella histórica que dejó la revolución interrumpida sigue siendo un ejemplo y una enseñanza que hoy rescatamos. Entre tantas nuevas experiencias, la Revolución Sandinista incorporó la participación de combatientes internacionalistas en su lucha guerrillera e insurreccional y en las tareas de transformación social. Destacamos entre ellos, a dos caídos en combate: al compañero argentino José Ramón Morales  militante de las FAL que había logrado huir de un campo de concentración de la dictadura en 1976 y en 1979 antes del triunfo, cayó combatiendo en el Frente Sur del FSLN, y al Capitán Santiago, Hugo Alfredo Irurzún, militante del PRT-ERP caído durante el ajusticiamiento del dictador Somoza prófugo en Paraguay en 1980.  A todos ellos, héroes de dos revoluciones, hoy les rendimos homenaje, retomando las banderas de sus luchas antimperialistas y socialistas.

Organizan:

Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR)

Juventud Guevarista

Un Solo Grito-TER

Gallo Rojo

Revista Sudestada

Corriente Universitaria Plan B

in 25 days i will be 30.  dear God have mercy on me.  in the face of the inevitable, i’ve decided to try and look on the bright side…while i still have my sight.  and hearing.  the next 3 music mondays will feature videos from the 3 decades of my life, one video from my favorite album of each year.  and thus begins our musical venture.

on july 31st of 1979 i was cut free from my mother’s stomach ten months after being conceived.  apparently all 11 lbs. of me almost killed her.  a few weeks prior, disco was killed in comiskey park, the sandinistas coup’d in nicaragua, and saddam hussein took over power in iraq.  weird.  actually, 10 days after i entered the world, michael jackson released off the wall, so there you go (clearly my birth was his muse).  and, 4.5 months later, the 2nd greatest band of all-times released their seminal album london calling.  you know ‘em, you love ‘em (or you’re stupid), ladies & gentlemen, the clash with “clampdown”.  

1980.  my boy jimmy carter was defeated by everyone’s favorite fascist ronnie reagan (i still think the CIA backed the iranian revolution in order to get a militant stooge in office).  of course, reagan’s tag team partner margaret thatcher was in power ‘cross the pond, and she made him look like trotsky.  but, as reagan inspired legions of young punks here in the states, thatcher did in the uk (lots of irish lads with bombs, too). ian curtis apparently was just flat out depressed by it all, as one could expect.  but, from his anguish came joy divison’s closer.  here’s “heart & soul”.

1981.  reagan takes office, and as mentioned, american punks galvanized and got all hardcore.  the band to lead the pack in LA was black flag, and in ‘81 they put out their landmark album damaged, which would help daniel desaro become a punk for 2 days, and featured some kid from d.c. named henry rollins who’d go on to play a cop in the greatest movie ever, the chase.  what?  here’s “rise above”.

1982.  the founding fathers of american hardcore friggin’ BRING IT.  the bad brains.  ’nuff said.  (a mid-50’s lady working the check-out at borders yesterday inquired about my BB shirt, “they’re a band right?”  i replied yes with a smile.  she then said “loud, right?”, i nodded, “yes, my son loves them”).  here’s “big takeover”.

1983.  ok, so thriller actually came out on 11/30/82.  whatever.  i call the shots!  it’s hard to believe that it was ‘82.  that album pwned the next 3 years.  i don’t think any one album has ever been so huge for so long. others may have been #1 longer, but still, the impact it had on everyone – unlike anything before or since. now comes the hard part of having to pick ONE video!  i gotta go with the best ever, (for the full length version click here), “thriller”, but due to copyrights just the dance sequence.  1996 nokomis cheerleading ruled!

1984.  that bastard reagan got re-elected!  though, it’s not as though walter mondale was a very tough opponent.  ol’ 666 got every single state, aside from minnesota (mondale’s home).  makes one feel…”bad”. from their 4th album the unforgettable fire, and live from live aid ‘85 here’s u2 with that song.  bono rocks the crowning mullet of all-times.

1985.  the smiths release their sophmore album meat is murder and moz emerges as the post-ian curtis king of sad ponces in england.  i kid, of course i’d never refer to my beloved morrissey as a ponce.  he’s a genius, damnit! and the band was, as you know if you’ve been paying attention, indescribably amazing.  see & hear for yourself. here’s “barbarism begins at home”.

1986.  the smiths release their 3rd album in 3 years, and the 2nd in a row on here.  the queen is dead is one of my top 5 albums ever, and is without question their most crucial offering.  it features many well known and loved songs, but one that i don’t think gets enough attention (clearly by the lack of youtube vids) is “cemetary gates”.  in order to feature it on this music monday i had to settle for a fanvid made by two ninnymuggins.  oh well, “keats & yeats are on your side”.

1987.  the 2nd offering from u2 is from their classic the joshua tree.  i would argue that this is the 2nd most iconic album of the 80’s to thriller.  it wasn’t quite as huge, and others sold more (mj’s bad among them), but it was still monsterous in popularity and impact, because this was the height of hair metal tomfoolery. there couldn’t have a been a better album by a better band at a better time.  though, i think side b gets overlooked.  from the rattle & hum documentary, here’s “in God’s country”.

1988.  no better way to end then with public enemy.  the best hip hop album of all-times was released by chuck d & co. as conscious hip hop took off.  ’88 was a great year for hip hop and its evolution as an artform, with albums coming from boogie down productions, epmd, eric b & rakim, ultramagnetic mc’s, slick rick, big daddy kane, and for better or worse, n.w.a.’s straight outta compton.  PE topped ‘em all, though, and from it takes a nation of millions to hold us back, here’s “rebel without a pause” live. boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!