By moonraven, June 24 at 2:27 pm

”Ole nemesis needs a drink, huh? A mean drunk he is, too. he would know that gringo is a generic term for a white foreigner”

I’m not a drunk and I’m not mean. I have taken great pains not to stoop to your level.

Gringo as you have used it has been anything but “a generic term” for a white foreigner. Perhaps it is you that should have someone teach you about how the recipients of your “generic term” understand it.

gringo (grîng´go) noun
plural gringos
Offensive Slang.
Used as a disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially an American or English person.
[Spanish, foreign, foreign language, gibberish, probably alteration of griego, Greek, from Latin Graecus. See GREEK.]

redneck (rèd´nèk´) noun
Offensive Slang.
1. Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.
2. One who is regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted sociopolitical attitude.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

If you read with any degree of proficiency my comments to Anarcissie you would have seen that I do not believe in the illusion of left vs. right politics, and none of the qualifications in the definition of redneck apply to me.

The data about Venezuela that I posted are from respected news sources, like Newsweek, and it is data which you are unable to dispute. As for your link it’s a story from someone like you about some unknown other. What do I care? What has that story to do with facts about what is going on in Venezuela? I fail to see the connection.

You’re right I obviously did miss your supposed “not-so-subtle reference to Bill Clinton’s receptacles for cigars.” As a matter of fact I still do not see it. But again, what has that got to do with facts about Venezuela?

Unemployment in other nations hasn’t anything to do with the so-called socialist paradise’s unemployment stats.

What I find interesting is your position on your own government’s statistics on inflation:

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

”LAUGHABLE government stats on inflation”

Then your coming here 2 days later presenting official unemployment stats from the Chávez government as valid. All governments are notorious for manipulating inflation and unemployment figures moonbeam. All governments! Should I mention a term that most here are not familiar with and can explain the numbers? You know what I’m talking about; “informal employment.”

I’d explain it but since you don’t believe anything that I say why don’t we let a Venezuelan (female) lawyer, living in Venezuela and who, like you, is an author, and she blogs for Amnesty International: hardly a right-wing, neo-con, red-neck, gringo loving organization, wouldn’t you agree moonbeam?

”Finally, I don’t think that never ever the government and the opposition are going to agree in that unemployment figure, always ranging between 6 and 10%. But there is another issue: informal work is always over 40%, sometimes almost 48%. Which means that more than half of our productive population doesn’t have a stable job.”

[B]Venezuela: Work, unemployment and discrimination
http://development.thinkaboutit.eu/think3/post/venezuela_work_unemployment_and_discrimination/

Historical evidence confirms that collectivism is guaranteed failure. That’s not me throwing words against the wall like spaghetti. That’s history speaking the truth which is nemesis to deceit and delusion.

Ole nemesis needs a drink, huh?

Seems like all he does with his time is post hatespeech here and drink himself into a stupor.

A mean drunk he is, too. 

Not to mention a metiche gringo whose experience with Venezuela is ALL gained by reading the Lonely Planet and googling topics in internet.  If he had ever actually visited Venezuela he would know that gringo is a generic term for a white foreigner, usually from the US.  I guess they did not tell him that in Lonely Planet.

Anyway, I don’t have anymore time to correct his Spanglish or provide FACTS and INFORMATION as rebuttals for his quotes from other folks’ OPINIONS.

But it does make me curious why a joker like nemesis is so hot under the collar about things like UNEMPLOYMENT in Venezuela when Venezuela’s unemployment is currently at 8.2%
—compared with 9.9% in Gringolandia
and 20.5% in Spain!

And I am also curious about who he thinks he is kidding when all he does here is throw words—
like spaghetti—
at the wall, believing that some of us are stupid enough to think that they stick!

And he missed my not-so-subtle reference to Bill Clinton’s receptacles for cigars….

Curiouser and curiouser.

But for somebody else—this poster is now yawning with boredom and moving on to a site where dialog is possible, instead of redneck bullying.

However, for those of you who recognize redneckism at its most vile, this piece, Rednecks in Chavezland, could interest you—and you might even recognize ole nemesisbutal in it—well, the archetype he fits into, since he has never visited Venezuela:

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5430

I.

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

”Nice try, but no cigar from me, Hillary.”

Hillary? What is that supposed to be some kind of a dig? Can’t you do better than that? Haven’t you written 5 books, teach at university and walk on water while dreaming of being deflowered by Che? Hillary? Damn… that’s lame! Were those children’s books?

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

”Your “tour” of Venezuela says it all, from the gringo remittance bum lifestyle of hanging in the main plaza knocking back beer to salivating over the women at the beach.”

Bum lifestyle? Enjoying an afternoon playing chess, conversing, drinking beer and admiring beautiful women is a bum lifestyle? It’s known as recreation. All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.

Only Chacao was an upper class restaurant. The rest are regular eateries of the type that one finds in Venezuela, full of atmosphere, laughter, joy, and fellowship. Things you wouldn’t know about nor understand comrade moonbeam

Sure I wrote a rebuttal to your statistics about poverty but you’re so filled with bitterness, strife, hatred and bigotry that you missed it.

The “improvement” on disparity between rich and poor is misleading because there has been a huge amount of capital flight and emigration. This is always a problem when a country goes communist. It stands to reason that those of the upper and middle classes will emigrate since they’ve the finances and the education and skills that other nations desire. That alone can give you better stats because what you’re basically left with are the lower middle class—who are about to join the poor because of failed economic policy—and the poor. For example: If there is a restaurant with 3 clients whose net worth is 100, 400, and 1,000 pesos the clients’ average worth is $500. A fourth client walks in and it’s Bill Gates… what just happened to that restaurant’s clients’ average worth? The restaurant can now advertise that its average client is a multimillionaire. The inverse applies equally.

As for the “distribution of wealth” that’s a nice stunt but it isn’t going to wash at Truthdig, there are simply too many savvy economics minded individuals here. What you mean is “redistribution of wealth.” I’m surprised a few of the libertarians haven’t pounced on that yet.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_12/b4171046607608.htm

When I say Chávez it is in the sense of his government, like when you say Calderón, and others say Bush or Obama. It means the administration and/or government. You know that, yet still feel the need for that straw man. That alone indicates a problem, a deception.

I know all about the drought. I also know about that which you are not mentioning, the state of disrepair of the infrastructure. Now, to be fair, it isn’t all Chávez’s fault because Venezuela’s infrastructure has been in decline for a long time and previous administrations share in that blame.

What could having purchased less Russian armament have bought for the people in the way of improved infrastructure? He’s been at the helm as long as or longer than any previous administration and the infrastructure is in worse shape than ever.

II.

Trivial? Nattered? You do realize that there is a 4,000 character limit and that it requires a lot more time and energy to dispel propaganda than it does to propagandize it, don’t you comrade moonbeam?

Cornmeal isn’t the only problem comrade:

A Food Fight for Hugo Chavez
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/04/07/a-21st-century-food-shortage/

I never had a chance to mention two major and noticeable improvements of the Chávez government; compulsory, state-provided education which has improved literacy (a common trait in all communist regime.) and the medical clinics in the poorest barrios, many of them with Cuban doctors and staff. The problem is shortage of medicines. All the medical attention in the world does little good if there aren’t the necessary drugs to treat the illnesses. But as those “gringos” are finding out, that education doesn’t help much if there aren’t any jobs, right comrade? What’s unemployment? Between 25 and 27 percent, is it not?

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

”Significantly, Aguirre did not mention the issue of corn flour—although here it is a serious issue as production is a monopoly of the owner of MASECA which cuts the flour with non-nutritional elements to increase his profits and raise his position on the Forbes list. 
Just coincidentally, I am talking about the SAME company that is currently under process of nationalization in Venezuela for doing the same capers there, as well as others.
So, it turns out, nemesis my boy, that you BLEW it again—you blamed the corn flour problem on Chavez, when you should have been blaming it on the owner of the Mexican multinational monster, GRUMA,  Roberto González Barrera.”

You’ve once again left out key components in your little tale of woe. But that’s okay, we’ll inject truth (<-nemesis) into your spin and get it to come out right.

You have not mentioned the internal support structure lost to repatriation. No large corporation survives without a support structure of smaller companies. Maseca is not a sole source for meal. Fail!

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

”I love Mexico—so does he—but that doesn’t make our IQs drop to single digits because there are lots of underage hookers to sample in Cancun.”

Comrade you wouldn’t recognize love it if up and slapped you crossed-eyed. Your socialist activism is not about helping humanity, it’s about making you feel superior and all snug as a bug in a rug about you!

All those people you hate… those of the so-called “ilk”… they’re your mirror image! When you look at them you are seeing yourself!

III.

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

” Significantly, Aguirre did not mention the issue of corn flour—although here it is a serious issue as production is a monopoly of the owner of MASECA which cuts the flour with non-nutritional elements to increase his profits and raise his position on the Forbes list.  Just coincidentally, I am talking about the SAME company that is currently under process of nationalization in Venezuela for doing the same capers there, as well as others.
So, it turns out, nemesis my boy, that you BLEW it again—you blamed the corn flour problem on Chavez, when you should have been blaming it on the owner of the Mexican multinational monster, GRUMA,  Roberto González Barrera.”

The Venezuelan government has imposed price controls and arrested some shopkeepers for violating them. But the controls have led to shortages of beef, sugar, corn meal and butter, forcing the government to allow some prices to rise by 20 percent this year.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100606/ap_on_he_me/going_hungry

Socialist workers paradise… NOT!

” The government’s tough stance against Polar comes as the country is struggling with sporadic shortages of some food, including sugar, corn meal, beef and butter. Analysts blame government price controls for the shortages.”

“Union leader Richard Prieto says employees of Empresas Polar held meetings Monday and agreed to ‘defend our jobs throughout the country.’” |

http://blog.taragana.com/business/2010/05/26/workers-in-venezuelas-largest-food-producer-vow-to-defend-jobs-after-chavezs-takeover-threat-64915/

”Critics say the Chavez government’s price controls and expropriations of private companies are responsible for Venezuelans facing shortages of some foods and struggling with 30 percent inflation — a rate among the highest in the world.”

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/economy/as-venezuelas-recession-deepens-chavez-says-its-natural-part-of-transition-to-socialism-94975849.html#ixzz0rdn7VUH4

These things do not surprise any of us that remember history comrade moonbeam. In the U.S. communism was first tried and failed with the pilgrims. Later Robert Owens and his New Harmony experiment failed.

We remember film of Russians and Poles waiting in line for hours just to get a loaf of bread in the U.S.S.R. I know, personally, individuals from the former Soviet Union. I’ve heard—first hand—the horror stories. The U.S.S.R., Cuba, Red China, North Korea, etc. are notorious for their shortages and human suffering. Get used to it because it will worsen!

Collectivism fails for the same reason that all the other “isms” fail… Homo sapiens! Homo sapiens are like electricity, they always seek the path of least resistance. For many, that’s the appeal of socialism and communism, they can share in what they have not earned.

”So, Venezuela is relearning the lesson that they could have learned from history…

…The same thing is happening in Mexico, with many Mexicans unable to buy tortillas. The government tried to regulate prices, but that just means that no one will sell any because they won’t make any profits. Interesting about the tortillas, is that our attempt to use green-er fuels has caused poor Mexicans to go hungry. The push for corn to ethanol drove up the prices of corn.”

http://uniquelyjoe.blogspot.com/2007/02/food-shortage-in-venezuela.html

By moonraven, June 22 at 1:58 pm

”See how easy it is when you shoot off your mouth to shoot yourself in the foot?”

Yes, I do. Would you like me to get some bandages for you?

By Anarcissie, June 22 at 2:22 pm

”Before one can answer a question about alternatives one must ask what the purpose is, what “America”, as you call it—I would say the U.S. ruling class—is trying to do”

What I’m really saying is the West or Western society of which the U.S. is part. It was a bad choice of word.

I have a problem with that “U.S. ruling class” label. How American is the ruling class? If we are transitioning to a Type 1 civilization there is no empire there is only planetary rule. To use a euphemism that scares the bejesus out of religious folk –one world government.

We know very little about the real motives of—and exactly who are—the power players behind the scenes. IMO, our best source of information is historical evidence. Since the beginning of recorded history we see an effort on the part of man to achieve one government. Earlier in our history when Bronze and Iron Age knuckle draggers ruled they didn’t have a clue as to how large the earth really was and they lacked the technology to conquer and control the population. That’s not the case today.

All of the ruling elite, whether government, business, or theocratic, have the same major priority… and Carlin said it best: “more for them and less for us.” Given human nature, do you think that they even know what they’re doing? Do you think most of it is planned or is the dog wagging the tail?

I haven’t thought right vs. left for almost 2 decades. There is no such thing in my opinion. It’s an illusion. Everything in politics is bottom/up: many different levels of “haves” and “have nots.” 

One can decide that he doesn’t want to rule the world but unfortunately, one can’t accomplish much. One of the major problems is that a large part of society is content with things the way they are. They don’t want to rock the boat because they fear they may lose. Everyone is for change that helps them slide up scale but I know of no one that enjoys that ride in the opposite direction.

If you were the one, or one of the elites, that could rule the world you might have a different outlook. I can’t imagine wanting to rule a village much less the world. Who the hell needs the bother? But once you get a taste of all that special privilege… impunity and wealth on a scale that none of us can even begin to imagine… there are no guarantees.

In a world of 6.8 billion how are we going to reach an agreement on what the planetary government, legal system, moral guides, etc. should be? Do you believe it even possible to attempt that without incurring violence on a scale that we’ve yet to see on this planet? Think about this. There are 5 principle groups with nuclear power on this planet. 4 can be classified as uniquely incompatible religious factions and the 5th as a political ideological faction that resembles the religious factions due to having the state as divine. Those are the Christians, the Jews, the Islamic nations, and the Hindu nation, India, China and North Korea. (Russia can fall into either the Christian faction or ideological). In addition, the religious factions have a notorious history of internecine violence. And don’t forget the eschatology of 3 of those groups!

I’m at the very end of my life and won’t have to witness the horror that I believe is awaiting mankind in the very near future. I’ve seen too much of it over my lifetime. I often sit and ponder how wonderful it’ll be to breathe that last breath into nothingness. It can’t come soon enough.

I need a drink…

By moonraven, June 22 at 2:45 pm

Incidentally, nemesis—you need to have someone check your posting in Spanish.It’s Sigue VIVIENDO.Gringos always want to use the infinitive form instead of the correct verb forms—and therefore in Mexican books and movies the gringo characters cannot conjugate verbs.”

Well thanks for the lesson. I’ve just checked with 5 Spanish speakers who work here, 4 Venezuelans and one Mexican and they disagree. It’s not what you’re saying is wrong, it’s that sigue vivir is correct as well as está viviendo and sigue viviendo.

Had I bothered to proof it I would have written… “vive en…” Thanks again, I really do appreciate it.

I’ve always told my students: “you’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to feel like you want to crawl into a hole from embarrassment, but don’t let that stop you because it’s from our mistakes that we learn best.” (present company excepted)

I’d take issue with use of the gerund but I just don’t care what you think. Does that make me intolerant, insensitive and/or racist? Fascist?

Given the amount of vitriol over a questionable grammatical error I would have to guess that you were knocked back to realize that not only can I locate Venezuela on an “unmarked map” but many other places as well, and the real blow below the belt… I dared speak to you in your native tongue. None of that fits into your bigoted world view of “gringos” in “Gringolandia”, right sweetheart?

Tell me, in your world of double standards and victim playing, does your using the disparaging term “gringo” and “Gringolandia” mean you’re intolerant or just a hypocrite? I don’t mind, okay? I’m just asking on behalf of all the other gringos that might take umbrage to your use of the term. Personally I could give a f—k what you call me because I guarantee you I’ve been called much worse than anything you can come up with. 

My foot? I didn’t shoot myself in the foot if that’s what you’re insinuating. It’s hurt from that swift kick to your derrière.

PS:  Incidentally, nemesis—you need to have someone check your posting in Spanish.

It’s Sigue VIVIENDO.

Gringos always want to use the infinitive form instead of the correct verb forms—and therefore in Mexican books and movies the gringo characters cannot conjugate verbs.

I have always told my students:  If no one can tell whether what you are talking about happened yesterday, is happening right now or is going to happen next week, you have NOT COMMUNICATED.

Better luck in Italian, German, Portugese, French, Latin or Arabic.  Spanish was not a good choice for you since I have written 5 books in Spanish and regularly teach courses in writing in Spanish at a couple of universities.

Another bullet in that battered foot of yours….

nemesis2010, June 19 at 3:46 pm:
’... No one can say that America could go about it business utilizing better methods but what alternative do you offer? Not some pipe dream that doesn’t stand a chance of ever becoming a functioning system of government but something real. ...’

Before one can answer a question about alternatives one must ask what the purpose is, what “America”, as you call it—I would say the U.S. ruling class—is trying to do.  I would say rule the world—a large omelet which requires that many, many eggs be broken.  I believe you are quite right if you say that there is no better likely alternative to ruling the world than “America’s” present methods, the methods of empire, that is, war, terror, propaganda, surveillance, economic blackmail and oppression, and so forth.  However, one can decide that one does not wish to rule the world, in which case there may be some alternatives, not on the state level, of course, but for individuals and groups who have developed a distaste for murder and the rest of the imperial toolkit.

nemesis:

Nice try, but no cigar from me, Hillary.

Your “tour” of Venezuela says it all, from the gringo remittance bum lifestyle of hanging in the main plaza knocking back beer to salivating over the women at the beach.  Not to mention that your favorite eating spots are all in the “escuálido” HQ, Chacao.  And then there are all those gringo places you recommend in Mexico that I would not be caught dead shopping in or eating at.  Never ate garbage when I lived in Gringolandia, don’t plan to do so here, or in Venezuela, either.

Of course you had no rebuttal whatsoever to my statistics regarding poverty and distribution of wealth.  Nor anything else.  But you chose to blame the power shortages on Chavez instead of on the combination of DROUGHT and over-consumption due to the increased standard of living in Venezuela resulting from the Chavez governmental programs.  As if Chavez were God. 

As for your comments re:  white versus yellow corn flour—reminds me of the comment of a young woman back in the 1940s whose mother made fabulous cakes:  “Eeeuuu, white icing again!”  I was 4 at the time of that comment, and still remember it as one of the most boorish comments ever made.

I am not part of Calderon’s campaign to Speak Well of Mexico.  Mexico has REAL problems—and they are not the trivial crap you nattered on about regarding Venezuela.  Just a handful of them at the moment are:  MASSIVE human rights abuses, genocide against women and children, narcogovernment, complete collapse of the agricultural sector (accounting for those hundreds of folks your ilk are shooting at on the border with the US), LAUGHABLE government stats on inflation (How, with 5% increases in gasoline monthly—all imposed by the government as PEMEX is government-owned and yet gasoline is more expensive in Mexico than in the US—not 13 CENTS a gallon like it is in Venezuela, along with increases in food prices of 110% since January, can inflation be at 4% ????!!!), no jobs except in the so-called informal sector, zero transparency and corruption at stratospheric levels, an educational system at the bottom of the list of OCED countries, massive diversion of funds from social programs for electioneering, vote purchases, ETC ETC ETC.

To put it in terms that maybe even YOU can understand:  Javier Aguirre, one of the highest paid national selection futbol coaches on the planet at just over 3 million euros per year (whose ratones verdes lost again today 0-1 to Uruguay) got into real hot water when he was interviewed in Spain about conditions in Mexico and said that Mexico was jodido—then proceeded to list some of the same problems I just listed. 

I love Mexico—so does he—but that doesn’t make our IQs drop to single digits because there are lots of underage hookers to sample in Cancun.

Significantly, Aguirre did not mention the issue of corn flour—although here it is a serious issue as production is a monopoly of the owner of MASECA which cuts the flour with non-nutritional elements to increase his profits and raise his position on the Forbes list. 

Just coincidentally, I am talking about the SAME company that is currently under process of nationalization in Venezuela for doing the same capers there, as well as others.

So, it turns out, nemesis my boy, that you BLEW it again—you blamed the corn flour problem on Chavez, when you should have been blaming it on the owner of the Mexican multinational monster, GRUMA,  Roberto González Barrera.

See how easy it is when you shoot off your mouth to shoot yourself in the foot?

I.

moonraven, June 21 at 2:49 pm

”Nemesis, who probably couldn’t find Venezuela on an unmarked world map, has gone off the rails with personal attacks and insults to this poster as well as his yapping repetitions of Fox News propaganda and his prevaricating pablum about venezolanos that he knows personally.  Hah!  At best, he has watched a few venezolanos playing baseball on his t.v. screen.”

Not only could I find it, I could draw most of the major cities and quite a few smaller ones for you. I could even draw you a smaller map showing you the restaurant/café in Plaza Venezuela where I used to pass lazy afternoons drinking beer and playing chess. I would gladly draw you the route to the only arepería en Plaza La Sabana Grande and only a half block from the Hotel Savoy where one can get arepas, sandwiches, a malta Polar, or other beverages at 2:00 a.m. How about a map from the no longer Caracas Hilton to my favorite restaurant in Chacao for churrasco?

If that isn’t enough I would also draw a little detail not only for the locations of Barcelona and Puerto La Cruz but also the Hotel Intercontinental, located on the beach in Puerto La Cruz where I have enjoyed many a weekend playing tennis and trying to avoid my girlfriend seeing my roving eyes trying to take in all the great scenery of other beautiful Venezuelan females in tong bikinis. If you’re tight financially, I can show you the way to the Christina Suites.

Would you like me to draw the route from Puerto La Cruz to the airport in Barcelona? How about the very large gasoline station and restaurants at the encrucijada where we stop to get a café, asking for a negro guayoyo (watered down espresso) for the foreigners not used to the strong espresso coffee of Venezuela. If memory serves besides arepas, pabellon criollo, and other foods, one can also purchase those delicious cachapas with queso de mano de Altagracia de Orituco. Ahhhhhh…. doesn’t it make your mouth water?

All this talk of food has me thinking about La Mulata in San Juan de los Morros. Do you know of a better place to eat choice cuts of carne asada, hallacas, casabe, salsa and guasacaca while listening to live musica criolla?

Would you like suggestions of places to visit in Ciudad Bolivar, Maturin, Mérida, or the best beaches in Cata or Ocumare de la Costa? Have you been to Salto Angel yet? Have you ever been to Puerto Cabello during Semana Santa? Jeebus on a grilled cheese sandwich, you have to literally walk over people, it’s worse than Cancun and Cozumel during spring break! Ohhh… and we don’t want to forget about the German settlement la Colonia Tovar! What a place to spend a romantic weekend with a beautiful girl or a New Years eve party! And its altitude makes it a refreshing change from the hot humid climes down below? Wouldn’t you agree?

Would you like me to draw the shape of La Guaira, the location of the Sheraton and little stick representations of all the hot babes on the beach? I could even draw little airplanes landing at Maiquetia. How about the location of the amusement park and the go-kart track? They probably aren’t there any longer with all that repatriation going on. That’s what happened to my friend that had the boat company in Maracaibo for about 30 years and who upon arriving at his place of business one morning was surprised to see it surrounded by Guardia National who refused him entry and handed him a piece of very official paper informing him that his business had just been repatriated! This took place not that long ago and I was in Maracaibo when it happened! So go blow smoke up someone else’s butt lady!

II.

I personally have walked into the supermarkets that years ago never lacked for anything and today you are either very fortunate or not looking for much if you can find all that you need in a single store. I’ve done this recently and it wasn’t Chacao! It was in major supermarkets and shopping centers in Valencia, Maracay, and other cities. And instead of La Candelaria try living a few days in Los Magallanes de Catia where, when the sun sets, the gunfire starts and where few taxis will take you once it’s dark.

Why don’t you tell the people of the power outrages? And don’t come here saying that it’s a lie because I personally have sat through them in the condo that I have in Venezuela. Tell about the lines and several hours waiting to perform a simple banking transaction, unless of course it’s one of Chávez’s banks where no one wants to put there money for fear it’ll be stolen.

I can also draw you the locations of friends’ homes, hotels, favorite restaurants and clubs in Valencia, Barquisimeto Puerto Ordáz,  Maracay, Caracas, Valencia, Mariara, Cagua, Guarenas, Maracaibo, Isla Margarita, and the list goes on…

If you’re an agrarian reform specialist then perhaps you can explain the shortage—several months back—of the white harina Pan which, I’m sure you know, is the favorite for Venezuelans to make their staple food, the arepa. Why were they only able to get the yellow? Should we mention to the good people reading about how milk and cheese was in very short supply also, and about the same time was it not? Oh… and if memory serves there was a shortage of quality toilet paper also. Wasn’t the only paper available from one of those many companies that the government repatriated and made a “collective” and whose quality is… well… shit!?

The gap between the rich and the poor is because the failed communist economic policy has impoverished the whole goddamn country except for Chávez, his family, and cronies! Who the hell do you think you’re kidding lady?

Why aren’t you presenting PDVSA numbers? Would you like me to? I have Venezuelan friends living in Mexico who worked for PDVSA, and/or one of its three predecessors, who not only have been screwed out of their retirement but also know how much production has declined and the general state of disrepair of much of PDVSA equipment. They too confirmed the shortage of harina Pan because they buy it—when available—in el Mercado Medellin in D.F.

Now… would you like to talk about Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Cairo, Athens, Libya, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, DRC, Rhodesia (when it existed), France, Holland, England, Scotland, Canada, Viet Nam, Thailand, Okinawa, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, and I’m fairly sure that I’ve left some out. It’s my age, but I do have a shoe box filled with old passports and can check to see which ones I’ve forgotten. Maybe I always wore black before I retired.

Si quieres, podemos hablar en español o en otros dos idiomas además del inglés. ¿Por qué quieres dar tan mala impresión de Mexico? Si tú no encuentras lo que tú buscas es porque estás en un pueblecito donde envíos no llegan muy a menudo. Yo conozco a Mexico también y está llena de Wal Mart, Carre Four, Sam’s, Chedraui, Mega, etc. Aún en ciudades muy chicas tal como la Ciudad del Carmen en Campeche hay un Sam’s, Popeye’s Fried Chicken, MacDonald’s, etc. Hace 20 años tenía yo un hijo con una Mexicana, quien nacio en Mexico y sigue vivir en Mexico. Piénsalo bien antes de venir aquí con tus declaraciones engañosas. ¡La decepción es mentira! <blockquote>

Nemesis, who probably couldn’t find Venezuela on an unmarked world map, has gone off the rails with personal attacks and insults to this poster as well as his yapping repetitions of Fox News propaganda and his prevaricating pablum about venezolanos that he knows personally.  Hah!  At best, he has watched a few venezolanos playing baseball on his t.v. screen.

This poster is a specialist in Latin America who has lived and taught in the region for nearly 20 years and who has regularly spent good chunks of time in Venezuela since 2002, paying specific attention to one of her specialty areas, the process of agrarian reform.

Nemesis has decided to be misinformed—and to be MILITANT about his disiniformation. 

1.  There is no 50/50 split in Venezuela—nor has there been at any time in the 11 years to date of Chavez in Miraflores.  The most the gringo-maintained opposition has been able to muster is 40%. At the moment they are at 38%, with Chavez support at 62%.

2.  Poverty has been reduced in Venezuela to 27%—which is to say that the numbers of the poor have been cut in half under the Chavez government.  Where I live, Mexico, poverty is more than double that and climbing fast.

3.  Venezuela has one of the best gini coefficients in the hemisphere, at 0.41—indicating that the gap between the rich and the poor is considerably lower than that of the US and Mexico, who have the same gini of 0.49 and climbing.

4.  In all of the time I have been in Venezuela I have never, I´ll repeat that: NEVER gone into a grocery store and found the shelves of products empty. nor have I had any trouble finding what I went in to buy—and for lower prices than in Mexico.  In Mexico I frequently cannot buy the basics I want and here nobody even MENTIONS the term, shortages, nor blames the lack of a product on its president.  Maybe some of the escualidos in Chacao can’t always get the brand of caviar or scotch that they want—I would not know, as when I am in Caracas, for example, I live in the Candelaria, which is a working class area.

5.  Saudi Arabia is another country you have not visited, clearly, or you would be aware that Saudi has had elections since 2005—admittedly at the municipal level, but that is a start.  A couple of folks who were my graduate students in Bahrain were candidates in those elections.  In the US, the government cannot be changed by the people because they have no voice—the president in turn is imposed by Big Bucks, Big Oil and Big Guns.  It’s not even a representative democracy, much less a dynamic particpatory democracy like that of Venezuela.

Before you start spewing hatespeech about how I am full of shit and so forth, it would be wise for you to get out of your barcalounger and start travelling around the planet.  Deliberate and militant ignorance and disinformation is what YOU are so full of that it’s coming out of your ears.

We have failed to properly investigate 9/11 or identify the enemy, which is the seminal required step for the restoration of the country (and a wise and responsible foreign policy).

Several report the use of mini hydrogen bombs in NYC WTC 1 and 2 which connect a lot of dots on 9/11.  The best reports are found under “Finnish military expert—-hydrogen bomb” or an American M.D., Dr. Ed Ward and another report at http://911u.org/Physics/WTCenergySurplus.html.

No uranium or plutonium—-not detectable, ten million degrees for fraction of a second, turns concrete to dust (evaporates all water), vaporizes steel and humans, and can be directed (like straight up to fit an area). It explains the concrete and everything to dust, the unusually small debris fields for WTC 1 and 2, the videos of residual vertical steel beams vaporizing or turning to dust, and the pools of molten steel in their basement for months –despite constant water on it. When one looks at the photos of our atomic explosions from the past, there are two- different from most others—- that match the appearance of WTC 1 and 2, “Sedan” (shallow underground) and “Swordfish” (at sea, presumably under somewhat), both from the summer of 1962.

This is supplementary to prior discoveries of controlled demolition explosives, thermite and nanothermite, in the dust (not to mention photos of squibs and molten metal, plus building 7 which collapsed like perfect demolition). Of course, many had already known that a Boeing did not crash at Pentagon or Pa, that our new “beam” weapon had been employed to melt hundreds of cars in unusual ways (including away from the NY crash site on FDR Highway—-see Star Wars weapon 7 at http://www.drjudywood.com); that the deadly anthrax came from our military/intelligence labs at Fort Dietrich, Md.; that the attackers did not have the capability to have penetrated all of the computers of our intelligence agencies, including NSA and military intelligence, and had secret codes to Air Force One and were using them as announced by White House and others on 9/11, (but dropped thereafter to match “dumb” arab story), and for hundreds of other reasons, including witnesses and photos.

Many feel this points to Israel, neocons in our government and our media.  They certainly create issues that make it insane for us to be
initiating more wars in advance of the full truth and disclosure of these very incriminating facts to the American people.

By tazdelaney, June 19 at 5:17 pm

”no intention of creating anything remotely ‘utopian’ – more like hell. and you must first have freedom and democracy to export them. as for ‘the people’ being able to change their governments… r u kidding? only by overthrowing this government mightit ever be run by ‘the people.’ in 1960, after hersh’s photos of my lai, american public opinion drastically swung to wanting out of vietnam but it was 6 years and millions of deaths later when the government did get out of there. all the protests and vox populi did nothing at all. no different today. some utopia.”

The one thing that both you and moonraven have failed to do is present us with a country or society where they present us with a better opportunity to effect political change through democratic processes.

Popular demand was not only a major cause in ending the Viet Nam conflict it also helped to keep it from escalating into a full blown, all out war with the entire communist world. The reason it took several more years than it should was Nixon’s reelection, Kissinger’s betrayal, and a very powerful opposing force from war profiteers, corporate entities, and real fears by elected officials and citizens about the spread of communism throughout Southeastern Asia.

That’s democracy, people and entities have differing opinions and problems and differences have to be worked out. That takes time.

Our system isn’t perfect but it is a helluva lot better than anything else anyone is offering.

By moonraven, June 19 at 4:05 pm

The people of Venezuela are very active voters and could change the foreign policy of their country if they wanted to.They like it the way it is, according to Latinobarometro.You chose a bad example and your intolerance for other points of view smacks of fascism.

Let’s see if I understand you correctly. When I have a differing point of view I’m intolerant but your having a differing point of view makes you tolerant. Is that about right? Man, I thought conservatives had to be the dumbest SOBees on the planet but the so-called liberals, leftists, and progressives here at Trughtdig definitely compete for that prize. 

Venezuela’s population is, at present, just about a 50/50 split and this is after the massive flight of capital and people when Chávez came into power. Given the amount of state propaganda the populace is subjected to day in and day out it’s a wonder that any election wouldn’t give Chávez and his Chavistas an overwhelming majority. You also overlook all the reports about “republican like” voter registration scrubbing. I know, personally, Venezuelans who have had their names scrubbed off the voter lists. Surprisingly they are all anti-Chavistas.

Venezuela was a poverty nightmare before Chávez because of the corrupt oligarchic predator capitalist system that ruled it. It is even worse now due to the elitist Chavista predator class whose failed communist economic policies have destroyed what little economy remained. Never, in recent history, have the Venezuelan people suffered such shortages of basis food stuffs and electrical outages; not even under the worse of the capitalist governments.

They couldn’t change their foreign policy anymore than Saudi Arabian citizens could. You’re so full of it that it’s flowing out your ears!

no intention of creating anything remotely ‘utopian’ – more like hell. and you must first have freedom and democracy to export them. as for ‘the people’ being able to change their governments… r u kidding? only by overthrowing this government mightit ever be run by ‘the people.’ in 1960, after hersh’s photos of my lai, american public opinion drastically swung to wanting out of vietnam but it was 6 years and millions of deaths later when the government did get out of there. all the protests and vox populi did nothing at all. no different today. some utopia.

nemesis:  The people of Venezuela are very active voters and could change the foreign policy of their country if they wanted to.

They like it the way it is, according to Latinobarometro.

You chose a bad example and your intolerance for other points of view smacks of fascism.

I remember well, right after Viet Nam, that America was doomed and to be immediately flushed down the toilet of history only to rise within a few decades to be the only super-power left standing. If America and American presence is such a terrible thing why is it that countries like Japan, S. Korea, Germany, etc. do all in their power to prevent our leaving? American presence means employment and an enhanced economy, not to mention the deferred defense costs of those nations to the American taxpayers.

No one can say that America could go about it business utilizing better methods but what alternative do you offer? Not some pipe dream that doesn’t stand a chance of ever becoming a functioning system of government but something real.

What alternative do the Islamic shitholes offer mankind; death for watching soccer, caning and stoning, autocracy, religious and political oppression not seen in the West since the Inquisition?

What does that rogue Judaic state, Israel, offer humanity?

Would you prefer China or Russia as the world’s super-power? How about Mexico or Venezuela or Argentina? What viable alternative does the America hating world have to offer?

Can you name a time in world history where there wasn’t empire? Can you name a time where wealth wasn’t disproportionately distributed between the rich and the poor? Good is not as good as better but until you have something better you’d best be really careful what you wish for.

And that jackass Pfaff conveniently forgets that we never lost a single major battle in all the years of that conflict. That we can say that we lost that war is actually a commendation for enlightenment and representative republicanism because that conflict was not lost on the battlefield but rather in democratic debate with the will of the people winning out over the will of the war profiteers like Lady Byrd Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, et al.

What chance do you think the people of China or Saudi Arabia or Iran or Egypt or Venezuela have to change the course of their nation’s foreign policies?

Pfaff’s seems to be warning that history repeats while forgetting key lessons from history. The Roman Empire appeared to be ready to collapse from corruption and empathy and societal moral decay only to rebound each time and remain the most long-lived empire in human history. As a matter of fact it never did collapse it just faded away to be replaced by the Roman Catholic Church. Christianity’s reign isn’t known as the Dark Ages for nothing.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

By jean gerard, June 16 at 8:56 pm

”Mr. Ellis ... please!”

When it comes to the nuts and dolts of any issue John Ellis is the reigning nut and dolt. Although, I have to admit that Shingo is running so close a second that he can smell the thoughts escaping John’s derriere without exerting any effort.

Anarcissie:

I don’t hear THEM ALL saying it.

Glibness in regard to genocide is just another gringo grimace in the long line of genocidal gestures.

Mr. Pfaff:  Historical references “warn against” a lot of things besides imperial foreign policies. Since humans have been around for some tens of thousands of years, only a few of which could possibly be classified as “literate” or even halfway “civilized,” our history is cluttered with misunderstandings, confusions and downright lies. In such a history one can find and justify any outrage.
This is one important lesson to be learned from history.

But what we need now, beyond this, is a leap into a better, more humane, more understanding, less dogmatic future—one that reaches out to fellow human beings with a sense of mutuality in needs and in abilities. 

One encouraging tendency persists in spite of grave wars, fears, hatreds and barbarisms:  the ability to cooperate, to live together in large groups with many differencess among individuals. The results of this “civilizing process” have been remarkably gratifying in many ways, in spite of the fact that ignorance keeps people isolated and fearful and prone to outbreaks of violence.  Overall, though, there is hope that we can and will survive this transition period full of danger and possibility.

Its de olde, “We are right and every sob ( all non jews and others like em) on
dis planet is RONG.

  US Foreign policy starting with Henry Kissinger… Madeleine Allbright ....
AIPAC….Netanyahu. Perle, Feith, Wurmsers,, Clean Braek plan/projects to make
Israel safe and secure.

  Rabbi Kook the Elder, a much revered Jewish leader, expressed a similar view:
“The difference between a Jewish soul and the souls of non-Jews—all of them
in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a
human soul and the souls of cattle.”

  Elliott Abrams,  (Norman Podhoretz’s son in law ) and who was President
George W. Bush’s senior advisor for “global democratic strategy,” and in 2006
was a key advisor on Middle East affairs to the US Secretary of State.

  In his book Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in Christian America,  he
writes: “Outside the land of Israel, there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to
the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nations in
which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart—except in
Israel—from the rest of the population.” …”

“We’re Right, the Whole World’s Wrong,”  written by Rabbi Dov Fischer, an
attorney and a member of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the
Jewish Federation of Los Angeles.

  Rabbi Fischer is also national vice president of the Zionist Organization of
America. In his essay, Rabbi Fischer tells readers: “If we Jews are anything, we
are a people of history … Our history provides the strength to know that we
can be right and the whole world wrong.” He goes on:

“We were right, and the whole world was wrong. The Crusades…. the Talmud
burnings in England and France, leading those nations to expel Jews for
centuries. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. The ghettos .....

“Today, once again, we alone are right and the whole world is wrong. The
Arabs, the Russians, the Africans, even the Vatican….”

Modern US policy was dictated by a group of individuals whose basic aim was
to bring about so-called religious prophesies dating over 4500 years ago.

martin weiss, June 16 at 3:13 pm:
’... Inalienable rights means for everybody.
It also means the end of nation-states, borders,
identification papers, corporate person-hood,
invasive war, and fascist oligarchies.’

Many agree.  So, what’s your plan for achieving this state of affairs?

moonraven, June 17 at 6:33 pm:
’... A bloody revolution won’t make it any better—unless that revolution is perpetrated by MY people, ...’

That’s what they all say.

Great discussion everyone, Ouroborus mentioned Johan Goltung, epert on Empires how they rise and fall, call me roy , wow working overtime, Martin Weiss reminds me of my dearest Albert, sticks his tongue out at me every day, Alberts book “My Ideas and Opinions” excellent read, includes his article “Why I AM A Jew”. All is good yet my mind jumps to all the Hidden Agendas, China has one plan for the earth, Muslims another Plan to dominate religion, Soldiers for Jesus American Evangelists, E.U. and the Corporate dictatorship`s Bp etc. their Hidden Agenda, Communists like, North Korea, Burma, Cuba, soon Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru etc, another agenda, Russians have their worldly vision and the Jews want Jerusalem and to be left alone, Iran Syria Turkey Lebanon, Libia, Egypt Saudis all have HIDDEN AGENDAS. No one puts it all out on the table, hard facts become opinions history distorted to suit the agenda, truth is nowhere to be found, only within as the Kabbalahist says, only within.

The Real Reason They Hate Us by Frank Gaffney

For the first time in its history, the United States is trying to wage and win a war without accurately identifying the enemy or its motivations for seeking to destroy us. That oversight defies both common sense and past military experience, and it disarms us in what may be the most decisive theater of this conflict: the battle of ideas.
Such a breakdown may seem incredible to veterans of past military conflicts. Imagine fighting World War II without clarity about Nazism and fascism, or the Cold War without an appreciation of Soviet communism and the threat it posed.
Yet today, the civilian leaders of this country and their senior subordinates - responsible for the U.S. military, the intelligence community, homeland security and federal law enforcement - have systematically failed to fully realize that we once again face a totalitarian ideology bent on our destruction.

The Real Reason They Hate Us (Continued)

That failure is the more worrisome since the current ideological menace is arguably more dangerous than any we have faced in the past, for two reasons. First, its adherents believe their mission of global conquest is divinely inspired. Second, they are here in the United States in significant numbers, not just a threat elsewhere around the world.
What, then, is this ideology? It has been given many names in recent years, including political Islam, radical Islam, fundamentalist Islam, extremist Islam and Islamofascism. There is, however, a more accurate descriptor - the one its adherents use. They call it “Shariah.”
Perhaps the most important thing to understand about Shariah is that it is authoritative Islam, which presents itself as a complete way of life - cultural, political, military, social and religious, all governed by the same doctrine. In other words, this comprehensive program is not simply the agenda of extremists hunkered down in caves in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Neither can its directives be attributed to deviants hijacking Islam.
Rather, Shariah - which translates from Arabic as “path to God” - is actually binding law. It is taught as such by the most revered sacred texts, traditions, institutions, top academic centers, scholars and leaders of the Islamic faith. Fortunately, hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world do not wish to live under a brutally repressive, woman-demeaning, barbaric and totalitarian program. Such Muslims are potentially our allies, just as those who do adhere to Shariah are our unalterable foes.
The immutability of Shariah-adherent Muslim hostility toward the rest of us derives directly from the central tenet of Shariah: Muslims are explicitly required to seek the triumph of Islam over all other faiths, peoples and governments.
The ultimate objective of Shariah is the establishment of a global Islamic state - Sunni Muslims call it “the caliphate” - governed by Shariah. The means by which this political outcome is to be achieved is called “jihad.”
Since 9/11, many Americans have become unhappily acquainted with the terrifying, violent strain of jihad. Under Shariah, violence - often described by non-Muslims as “terrorism” - is the preferred means of securing the spread and dominion of Islam, as it is the most efficient.
While Shariah deems jihad to be the personal obligation of every faithful Muslim capable of performing it - man or woman, young or old - they can forgo the violent form when it is deemed impracticable. In such circumstances, the struggle can be pursued through means that are, at least temporarily, non-violent. Taken together, the latter constitute what renowned author and expert Robert Spencer calls “stealth jihad.” Adherents to Shariah call it “dawah.”
Examples of stealth jihadism abound in Western societies, notably Europe and increasingly in the United States. They include the demand for symbolic and substantive accommodations in political, economic and legal areas (for example, special treatment or rights for Muslims in the workplace, in public spaces and by government); the opportunity to penetrate and influence operations against government at every level; and the insinuation of the Trojan horse of “Shariah-compliant finance” into the West’s capital markets.

The Real Reason They Hate Us (Continued)
If stealth jihad seems less threatening than terrorism, the objective is exactly the same as that of violent jihad: the subjugation to the Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) of all non-Islamic states that, like the United States, make up the Dar al-harb (House of War). It follows that those who seek ostensibly to impose Shariah through non-violent techniques - notably in the West, the organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood - are our enemies every bit as much as those who overtly strive to defeat us by murderous terrorism.
Many Western elites, including the Obama administration, have been seduced by the seemingly benign quality of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, we know from the 2008 prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation - the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history - that the Muslim Brothers’ mission in the United States is “a kind of grand jihad to destroy Western civilization from within ... by their own miserable hands.“Another Brotherhood document, titled “The Rulers,” was seized in a 2004 raid and describes how the organization will try to overthrow the U.S. Constitution in five phases:
Phase I: Discreet and secret establishment of elite leadership
Phase II: Gradual appearance on the public scene, and exercising and utilizing various public activities
Phase III: Escalation, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through the massmedia
Phase IV: Open public confrontation with the government through the exercise of political pressure
Phase V: Seizing power to establish an Islamic nation, under which all parties and Islamic groups will become united
“The Rulers” makes plain that all the above-mentioned phases “are preliminary steps to reach the (fifth) phase.”
The Muslim Brothers know that by masking their ideological agenda as a religious program, they can use Western civil liberties and tolerance as weapons in their stealthy jihad. For this strategy to succeed, however, they must suppress any discussion or understanding of the true nature of Shariah.
Adherents to Shariah insist that their law prohibits any slander against Islam or Muhammad. Under such a catch-all restriction, virtually any kind of conversation about - or critique of - Islam can be considered impermissible if Muslims find it offensive. Particularly in Europe, the ever-present prospect of violence, like that which followed the September 2005 publication of Danish cartoons poking fun at Muhammad, is generally sufficient to induce self-censorship.
In this country, the application of such prohibitions seems unthinkable, given the guarantees of free speech enshrined in the Constitution’s First Amendment. Unfortunately, the Obama administration last year co-sponsored with Egypt a relevant and deeply problematic resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Council, promoted for years by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a group of 57 Muslim-majority nations that stridently embraces Shariah and seeks to legitimate and promote its advance around the world.
The resolution calls on members of the United Nations to prohibit statements that offend Islam. It also calls for criminal penalties to be applied to those who make such statements.
The U.S. implementation of such a resolution would obviously be a matter not just for the executive branch, which supported it, but for Congress and the judiciary as well. It is a safe bet that any formal effort to supplant the First Amendment in this way would meet with great resistance.
To a stunning degree, U.S. leaders have been effectively conforming to Shariah slander laws for some time now. For instance, presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have both repeatedly described Islam as a “religion of peace,” without acknowledging the requirement for jihad its authorities demand, pursuant to Shariah.

The Real Reason They Hate Us (Continued)

At the Muslim Brotherhood’s insistence, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have barred the use of perfectly accurate terms like “Islamic terrorism.” The U.S. government has also embraced the Muslim Brothers’ disinformation by translating jihad as nothing more than “striving in the path of God.” Under the Bush and Obama administrations, the favored name for the enemy has been “violent extremism” - a formulation that neither offers clarity about the true nature of our foe nor lends itself to a prescription for a successful countervailing strategy. Even when al-Qaeda is identified as the enemy, it is almost always accompanied by an assurance that its operatives and allies have “corrupted” Islam. Ignored, or at least earnestly obscured, are two unhappy realities: such enemies are implementing Shariah’s dictates to the letter of the law, and they have millions of fellow adherents around the world who view Islam’s requirements the same way.
One of the most egregious examples of this practice of unilateral disarmament in the battle of ideas is the January report of the independent review of the Fort Hood massacre, co-chaired by former Army Secretary Togo West and former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vernon Clark. Their 86-page unclassified analysis purported to dissect an event allegedly perpetrated by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan - a medical officer whose business card described him as “Soldier of Allah,” whose briefings justified murder of his comrades in the name of jihad, and who shouted the Islamic martyr’s cry “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is great!”) as he opened fire, killing 13. Incredibly, the words “Islam,” “Islamic terror,” “Shariah,” “jihad,” and “Muslim Brotherhood” were not used even once in the West-Clark report.
Such political correctness, or willful blindness up the chain of command, doubtless caused Hasan’s colleagues to keep silent about his alarming beliefs, lest they be punished for expressing concerns about them. Now, reportedly, six of them have been designated as the scapegoats for what is manifestly an institutional failure.
The painful truth is that however we rationalize this sort of behavior, our Shariah-adherent enemies correctly perceive it as evidence of submission, which is the literal meaning of the word “Islam,” and what Shariah demands of everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
Indeed, Shariah offers non-believers only three choices: conversion to Islam, submission (known as dhimmitude) or death. Historically, dhimmitude was imposed through successful Muslim conquests. In more recent years, tolerant Western nations have increasingly succumbed to stealthy jihadism, backed by more or less direct threats of violence.
That trend, worrying as it is, may be giving way in this country to a new campaign: jihad of the sword. The past year saw a fourfold increase in the number of actual or attempted terrorist attacks in the United States. Sadly, that statistic will likely be surpassed in the year ahead. Four of the nation’s top intelligence officials have testified before Congress that it is certain new acts of violence will be undertaken in the next three to six months. Worse yet, a blue-ribbon commission has calculated that the probability of the use of weapons of mass destruction somewhere in the world by 2013 is now over 50 percent.
Is this dramatic upsurge in violent jihad directed at the United States unrelated to our behavior? Or does it reflect a growing calculation on the part of our Shariah-adherent enemies that violence against the United States is now, once again, practicable?
Either way, the time has clearly come to make a far more serious effort to defeat both the violent and stealthy forms of jihad being waged against this country. If we are to do so, however, we have to start by telling the truth.

The Real Reason They Hate Us (Continued)

Our enemy is not “violent extremism,” or even al-Qaeda alone. Rather, it is the millions of Muslims who - like the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and their allies - adhere to Shariah and who, therefore, believe they must impose it on the rest of us.
We are at war with such individuals and organizations. Not because we want to be. Not because of policies toward Israel or the Middle East or anything else we have pursued in recent years. Rather, we are at war with them because they must wage jihad against us, pursuant to the dictates of Shariah, the same law that has guided many in Islam for some 1,200 years.
What is at stake in this war? Look no further than The American Legion’s Americanism Manual, which defines Americanism as “love of America; loyalty to her institutions as the best yet devised by man to secure life, liberty, individual dignity and happiness; and the willingness to defend our country and Flag against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Such values cannot coexist with Shariah, which demands the destruction of democratic nations like the United States, its governing institutions and liberties. Shariah would supplant them with a repressive, transnational, theocratic government abroad and at home.
The extraordinary reality is that none of this - the authoritative and malevolent nature of Shariah, its utter incompatibility with our civilization, and its adherents’ determination to force us to convert, submit or die - is concealed from those willing to learn the truth. To the contrary, the facts are widely available via books, the Internet, DVDs and mosques, both here and overseas. Interestingly, on Dec. 1, 2005, Gen. Peter Pace, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called on his troops to expose themselves to precisely this sort of information: “I say you need to get out and read what our enemies have said. Remember Hitler. Remember he wrote ‘Mein Kampf.’ He said in writing exactly what his plan was, and we collectively ignored that to our great detriment. Now, our enemies have said publicly on film, on the Internet, their goal is to destroy our way of life. No equivocation on their part.”
As it happens, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a lawyer and Army Reserves intelligence specialist recruited by the Joint Chiefs to be their expert on the doctrine and jurisprudence of jihad, took Pace’s admonition to heart. He wrote a master’s thesis inspired by the chairman’s quote, titled “To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad.”
Coughlin’s briefings explicitly and repeatedly warned military leaders of the enemy’s “threat doctrine” - drawing from, among Islamic texts, passages the Fort Hood suspect used to justify his massacre. Unfortunately, engaging in such analysis, let alone acting on it, was powerfully discouraged in January 2008 when Coughlin was dismissed from the Joint Staff after he ran afoul of a Muslim Brother then working for Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England.
In short, we are today confronted by the cumulative effect of a sustained and collective dereliction of duty, one that is putting our country in extreme peril. Our armed forces - like their counterparts in the intelligence community, Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement - have a professional duty to know the enemy and develop appropriate responses to the threat doctrine. If this dereliction is allowed to persist, it is predictable that more Americans will die, both on foreign battlefields and at home.
The American people also need to become knowledgeable about the threat of Shariah and insist that action be taken at federal, state and local levels to keep our country Shariah-free. This toxic ideology, if left unchecked, can destroy the country and institutions that are, indeed, “the best yet devised by man to secure life, liberty, individual dignity and happiness.”

A peaceful religion?
As the Progressives continue to help us with their politically correctness. we need to defend the “Anointed One” since his ratings are going (how do you say) into a hole in the sand? Oh, going down the toilet. So we will just let the liberal infidels call our jihad “domestic violence”? Let the filthy ones call it whatever they want. Never mind that my daughter had to pay the price for wanting to change religions? It is like when we told the stupid Americans that our Muslim scholars says it supports airline safety , but it is “deeply concerned” about the use of airport scanners that show nude images of the human body. How ignorant the Americans are. Now, lets get back to work , this white wire here goes to the detonator…..........

Franklin Graham (like his father) is a courageous man who is stating the obvious to millions of Americans - that Islam is not a peaceful religion. But his words fall like a hammer to those on the politically-correct Left who don’t even believe there is such a thing as right and wrong, good and evil. To them, all things are shades of gray, especially when it comes to religion. But all you have to do is look at what Islam produces in a society where it is the dominant religion. Where on earth is there a place that Islam is dominant where you also find respect for human rights, freedom of religion, and an absence of terrorist jihadist activity? Franklin Graham said he and Obama spoke briefly about the Pentagon spat, with the younger Graham saying that activists with an agenda were trying to pull all religion out of the military. “I wanted to make him aware of that,” Franklin Graham said. “He said he would look into it.”
I loved it when Barry Barak Hussen Obama took an afternoon relaxing drive to go see Billy and Franklin Graham. Of course it was just coincidence that just days before the Pentagon disinvited Franklin from speaking at the National Day of Prayer observance at the Pentagon because Franklin had said Islam was evil. On Islam, Graham stood by his past remarks when he was asked by Campbell Brown if Islam is an “evil religion.” Graham responded: “Well, Campbell, if you take just the way they treat women, I have a real problem with Islam - I do. The way they treat women - it is horrid. It is not a peaceful religion that President Bush and President Obama tried to tell the American people it is - it is not that at all.” Franklin Graham said he and Obama spoke briefly about the Pentagon spat, with the younger Graham saying that activists with an agenda were trying to pull all religion out of the military. “I wanted to make him aware of that,” Franklin Graham said. “He said he would look into it.” Franklin Graham’s mesaage is exactly why Barry Hussen Obama visited the Grahams.

Arabian Sinbad:

Of COURSE the American system is flawed:  It’s based on genocide and slavery.

A bloody revolution won’t make it any better—unless that revolution is perpetrated by MY people, but genocide has been a pretty effective tool for keeping us down.

A sober piece… but…!

Since I started reading, observing and reflecting on current affairs fifty years ago, I have read and written, in four major languages, about the disastrous, immoral and split vision of the US foreign policy.

Things have gotten worse with the passage of time to the point that I now believe that the whole American system is flawed, and short of a bloody revolution there is no hope it will change for the better. In fact, the more things change superficially the more they stay the same or get worse. Take, for example, all the hope many of us placed on the election of Obama, yet the difference between him and Bush is a matter of cosmetics and “color!”

Autocrats or Democrats?
That may be the real question. 
One-million dead in Iraq and we can’t relate.
One person tortured and we can’t relate.
A family member dead by violence and we can’t relate?
None of this is about “policy”.
Can we “relate” without violence—even to ourselves? 
No one has to be “right” or “wrong” to stop rationalizing violence.

Empire Envy     empirePie       June 16th, 2010

What can we learn from dying empires?
What can we learn from vying empires?
What can we learn from rising empires?
What can we learn from flexing flesh or the dawning of a new day
or the new day of the big money lay away?

Has the stage become too complex?
Is the subject of Easter Island too much to vex?

Have a look beyond tomb of Ozymandias to the board rooms
of enamored puppets of power blight, ... of denial of might; ... all with copious
short sight
as we exchange plenty for scarcity monopoly and control
to power the wag dogged garden of paternity
the full frontal lobotomy of Mars penis envy
ejaculating nationhood with isms swimming in the oily ‘Love Channel’
to build bolder mansions for namesakes to also be long forgotten.

What will it take to return to the garden?
What will it take to return to our home,
uncontested by borders or hoarders
or new world orders?

Condi Rice once proclaimed that “the whole world has American values.”  Fictionalized fact:  Factalized fiction:  Whatever it’s called, such a belief is dooming us as a nation and may, if not stopped send us smack dab into the third world.

A perfunctory check of history would educate us in what happens to nations hell-bent on ‘converting’ the world into its model by way of political, social, economic and intellectual imperialism.  Political imperialism is a slam dunk (Afghans and Iraqis are voting last I heard) but the other ‘imperialisms’ are doomed from the start.

The small lesson taught us by L. Paul Bremer III in Iraq who had a new Iraqi flag of his design hung (it lasted about 2 hours before it was torn down) on a government building in the capital is an example of how receptive people are to foreign intervention into their national pride.  (Hang a ‘new’ flag on the American White House and you’d be lynched on the spot.)

quote from Albert Einstein:

“In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality… The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. “This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor… This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism…”

Inalienable rights means for everybody.
It also means the end of nation-states, borders,
identification papers, corporate person-hood,
invasive war, and fascist oligarchies.

If humans were as free as birds or money…
no power could control them, exploit, subjugate,
enslave, dupe, or extort them.
If the US merely lived up to the ideals
in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution,
or even the Pledge of Allegiance:
freedom and justice for all—
hubris could not conquer,
nor arms coerce,
hostages to human needs be freed,
and Life worth more than Gold.

What to make of the resurgent interest in the writings of Ayn Rand? I guess that definition of insanity is still relevant. America WILL achieve world domination by employing the same strategies as in the past but will do so in a much better and intelligent manner. Next stop, Oblivion!

FRTothus, June 16 at 9:18 am:

Necessary illusions.  The Author’s portrayal of
events is plagued by several fundamental
misunderstandings, which seriously weaken and
undermine any arguments or conclusions to which they
might lead.  Perhaps the most dangerous is a fairy-
tale notion of the United States as some lumbering
giant, stumbling around the world, sometimes making
mistakes, but always trying to do good. ...

You are correct, but Truthdig’s practice of presenting neocon columnists from the likes of the Washington Post so that they may be derided and abused by that portion of the audience not busy working up their next rant seems to be default procedure on this website.  Interestingly, the U.S. ruling class has never settled on an overtly imperial narrative since the beginning of its overseas adventures in empire-building in the late 19th century.  One wonders if they will make it all the way through to the proverbial ash-heap of history without ever having acknowledged the truth of their desires, policies and actions.

Modern US domestic policy has not been all that great either:  How about that APARTHEID for Native Americans?

“…resistance, at root, must mean more than resistance against war.  It is resistance against all kinds of things that are like war…so perhaps, resistance means opposition to being invaded, occupied, assaulted and destroyed by the system.  The purpose of resistance, here is to seek the healing of yourself in order to be able to see clearly…I think that communities of resistance should be places where people can return to themselves more easily, where the conditions are such that they can heal themselves and recover their wholeness.”

~Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh

If u slay 3mn people, destroy their forests-fields and lose 60k of own people [mostly from lower classes]it is not a win-win or win for south asians and a loss for americans.

Win-win solution as of necessary truth ?always exists on international and interidealogical levels, but US cld not afford it.
The win-win solution in US-vietnmam conflict [being solely ideological] was easily achievable. All one needed to grasp was the fact: if i can THINK, u can also THINK.

For what are ideologies [includes religions] but ideating. And any idelogy can be compared to any other including islamic, christian, talmudic.

However, asocialistic ideology, being basicly a win-lose proposition for people and peoples, cannot allow another example for living.

Thus, their constant demonization of and warfare against some idelogies and mountains of praise for their own.

This simplicity cannot be rendered more simply; thus, comlexification of it by all MSM collumnists.

We can also aver that WE ALL THINK. However, one can comlexify it by simply stating: he’s dumber than she.
And since thinking cannot be ever seen, how does one know that one person’s thinking is of lower grade than another’s?

But the swindle has worked for at least 10k yrs. It is time we put stop to the artifice! also spricht bozhidarevski! danke

PS, No, i am not cherman. I am part apache, roma, zuni, turkic, slav, chermnanic, shemitic; in short, well-mixed up!

I would suggest Amy Goodman’s Tuesday program;

http://tinyurl.com/3xmj9p6

Featuring Johan Galtung on the War in Afghanistan and
How to Get Out.
This is the voice of reason I can live with.

Necessary illusions.  The Author’s portrayal of
events is plagued by several fundamental
misunderstandings, which seriously weaken and
undermine any arguments or conclusions to which they
might lead.  Perhaps the most dangerous is a fairy-
tale notion of the United States as some lumbering
giant, stumbling around the world, sometimes making
mistakes, but always trying to do good.  It is simply
a false assumption, and it is incredibly naive to
presume otherwise in any argument of any substance. 
Also dangerous to a full understanding of US history
is arguing that the US lost the war in VietNam
(suggesting that the US is therefore some kind of
innocent victim here, worthy of our pity) turns the
facts on their head.  Maybe it would take too many
column-inches to tell the truth of things, but to
simply parrot the party line gets us nowhere. The
historical record shows that the US accomplished most
all of its major goals in VietNam, and to seriously
infer that VietNam won that war is madness.  I am
curious as to what other fractured fairy-tales of US
history are between the covers of his latest book. If
there are historical lessons to be learned, then we’d
best get the history correct, first, wouldn’t you
say?

Palindromedary,
Thanks for the link!

Prof. James Petras wrote an interesting article at Global Research that is rather eye opening..and scarey.
“War with China? The Dangers of a Global Conflagration
Rising and Declining Economic Powers: The Sino-US Conflict Deepens”—by Prof James Petras—
Global Research, April 29, 2010

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18913