BoRev.Net

I’d hate to be the guy with shepherd’s crook at tonight’s Latino Coalition conference. Apparently nobody had asked aging Venezuelan beauty queen Maria Conchita Alsonso for her opinion on anything in years, and the dams are about to burst and flood the valley with paranoid fantasies, delusions of grandeur and a hilariously off-kilter interpretation of current events. Glug glug!

The Coalition’s media advisory is a Faulkneresque three page run-on sentence of Maria Conchita’s increasingly deranged non sequiturs. For instance, did you know:

>>> Che Guevarra was afraid of motorcycles?

>>> Richard Nixon was a Maoist?

>>> Venezuela’s coup was a plot by “Chavez’s assassins” to give him favorable media coverage or something?

>>> Barbara Walters thinks she’s a fucking loon? (Ok that one you could have guessed)

>>> Hugo Chavez is a lot like Hitler? And he wants to “own” children?

>>> Her upcoming movie about Venezuela will be “very different” than movies about Bobby Kennedy?

>>> The script for the movie is held under “tight security” so that “Chavez will not see it in its finished form until he goes to the movie theater like everyone else"?

Oh and of course her life is in jeopardy for all this truth telling.

When she finally stops, The Latino Coalition wraps up with an open invitation for “Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Danny Glover or whomever” to come rebut this lunatic at their next conference. The End.

You may have missed this in the non-flurry of press apathy last week, but Peru’s Congress granted Alan Garcia powers to rule by decree for the next six months. But don’t worry! He won’t use it against multinational oil interests. Just peasant farmers and trade unions and “criminals,” however he defines them.

Did you know that the rest of the world is Communist? It’s true! They celebrate something called “Labor Day” on May 1st, where the sweaty farmers and grubby factory workers get to pretend that they contribute to society or something. We patriotic Americans of course know that May 1st is really supposed to be “Loyalty Day,” where we renew our vows to our president and refuse to think impure thoughts about poverty or health care or Red China. Honestly, it’s more fun than Lent.

So you can imagine what a slap in the face it was that Venezuela chose yesterday of all days to enter into public-private partnerships with multinational oil firms. The symbolism was not lost on Time Magazine, which notes that it was all part of Hugo Chavez’ “garish knack for making the world think he's the most radical of radicals.”

But, Time argues, the move is not radical at all. They note that virtually every oil rich nation on the planet has already done the same thing, and in less U.S.-friendly ways. Frankly, I’m not sure if it’s even ok to think these kinds of thoughts so close to Loyalty Day. If true, it would mean that Neil Cavuto, Bill O’Reilly, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Rudy Giuliani and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board have been faking this story all along.

For me, it’s easier to believe that Time is has been infiltrated with effete May-poll twirling pinko saboteurs. If Loyalty Day is to mean anything, dear readers, we must be ever-vigilant against this type of unorthodox journalism, for Jesus is not free, and Freedom will soon return.

South America’s tiniest narco-strongman is in town begging for your money again. Apparently this time he’s really, seriously going to stamp out that little drug problem in Colombia if you’ll just agree to give him a few billion more dollars. Personally, I think most of that shit is going up his nose.

Bush was totally excited to have his little buddy around, and praised Uribe’s “good solid record” this morning. I’d like to assume he wasn’t referring to the “record” of levels of genuine terrorists in cabinet level positions, or the “record” numbers of killers who were trained in an acting president’s yard, or even the “record” amounts of cocaine flooding into our country, but it’s Bush, so even he probably doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

For their part, Congressional Dems are acting like pussies (No for real!). They’re pretending to oppose a Colombian trade deal until “stronger labor standards” are written into it. That’d be nice, like if we were talking about wages, hours or working conditions, but this is Colombia, so we’re starting from STOP SHOOTING UNION ORGANIZERS. Which, by the way, is what they want your money for in the first place.

So the only meaningful opposition came from a demonstration organized by labor and human rights groups today. There must have been something satisfying for the real live Colombians whose family members have been murdered by Uribe’s regime getting to shout in his face (see lots of fun pics at Global Trade Watch’s blog), but ultimately, the little Napoleon is probably happy to endure a little heartburn for another billion dollars. Besides, he’ll have their relatives killed the moment he gets back home.

To the extent that I have any sympathy for the nasty, brutal, short guy, it’s because he has no real control over his coke-fueled economy. On the eve of President Uribe’s meeting with President Bush, the Colombian government announced they’d made the largest blow bust in Colombian history. Good news! But today, that projection had been downscaled. In a big way. They are now saying it’s about half of their original projection, and blaming it on “the initial sight count.”

Umm...ok, but Colombian drug officials have been doing this sort of thing for a few decades—they don’t get their “sight counts” off by 100 percent. And don’t you think they’d maybe reconfirm a historic number like this before sending out the press release the night before Uribe comes here to tout his record? All told, the missing coke is worth about a quarter of a billion dollars. Homeboys are selling it.

Christ. Corruption, incompetence and the ritual sacrifice of precious freedoms? These two should get a room.

If you ever wondered how some of the crazier stories from Venezuela make it into the public consciousness, here’s one way: Your tax dollars fund the National Endowment for Democracy. They, in turn, publish a journal on international governance, commissioning “academics” in other countries to float rumors that tend to advance U.S. interests in those countries. Having been legitimized as academic "fact", the rumors are fair game for U.S. academics, journalists and pundits to report as truth.

The Oil Wars blog holds your hand through one recent, egregious Venezuelan example.

Stripped of their power to Rule the World, IMF & World Bank turn out to be just your run of the mill predatory lenders.

Stripped of his power to turn Venezuela into a bloody war-ravaged hellhole, John Negroponte turns out to be just a whiney little bitch.

Business world shocker! Houston newspaper values U.S. oil interests over foreign brown people.

In an historic turn, FBI agents in Havana may be doing something useful.

Oh no, wait. Probably not.

It’s the Iran-Contra Anniversary, everyone! Can you believe it’s been twenty years since those revelations of mass murder and paper shredding shamed and titillated America? Bernardo Ruiz does such a nice job with his “where are they now” piece in the Salt Lake Tribune today that all we have to do is cut and paste. The shame continues! Enjoy!

“During his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s, John Negroponte was put in charge of "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua," The New York Times reported. A 1997 CIA inspector general's report concluded that Negroponte covered up reports on human rights abuses committed by the U.S.-backed Honduran military that was linked to "death-squad activities." He was appointed ambassador to Iraq in 2004. Today, he is the U.S. State Department's deputy secretary of state.”

“Under Reagan, Otto Reich headed the Office of Public Diplomacy. "The purpose of his office was none other than to get the American people to side with war over peace, using propaganda methods determined to be 'improper,"' wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez. A U.S. government investigation concluded that Reich's office engaged in "prohibited acts of domestic propaganda," according to The New York Times. Despite this history, Reich was appointed assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere in January 2002”. That’s three short months before the Venezuelan coup!

“During Iran-Contra, Elliott Abrams pleaded guilty on two counts of unlawfully withholding information, but was later pardoned by the outgoing President George H.W. Bush. At the start of this president's second term, Abrams was promoted to the role of deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy - a role that is responsible for advancing democracy abroad.”

“Donald Rumsfeld's replacement, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, served as deputy CIA director while the illegal Iran-Contra operations were taking place. "I was trying to learn the ropes while all this was going on," Gates wrote in his memoirs. But Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a private group that has collected hundreds of thousands of pages of documents on the scandal, calls Gates "the ultimate hear-no-evil, see-no-evil high official during Iran-Contra."

Alvaro Uribe is like the Incredible Hulk. At least the kind of Hulk that turns bright pink and grows from “dwarf” to “medium sized woman” when he gets torked off. The point is that that he’s got an anger management problem. Now this can be an asset when you are a diminutive leader of a narco-fueled terror state. When you are in Washington pretending not to be a deranged lunatic, though, it’s significantly less of an advantage.

Fabulously, his meltdown took place in the middle of a Congressionally sponsored cocktail party. Even more fabulously, the target of his rage was the Americas director of Human Rights Watch.

According to the Miami Herald, Jose Miguel Vivanco questioned the littlest strongman on some dubious numbers he’d been throwing around in his public presentations. “As Vivanco spoke, Uribe became visibly upset and fidgety, the witnesses said. Uribe then unleashed a long and emotional rebuttal,” which included calling Vivanco a “liar” and accusing him of colluding with left wing guerilla groups.

All together now, people: Finger to temple. Rotate. Repeat: “loo loo loo loo.”

After a scene like this, the Democrats will be forced to hem and haw for at least a week before giving him another fifty million dollars to finish off his war on trade unionists.

You may have heard, but everything changed™ after September 11th. Even the dictionary! This used to confuse the crap out of me because the new definitions are carefully guarded by a select group of Washington insiders and doled out as-needed when stupid people use the old meanings, but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

You can image the chagrin that Human Rights Watch must feel today. They’ve been operating for the past 5 years under the assumption that state sponsored kidnappings and murders by the thousands still constitute a “violation of human rights.” Ha ha! Not even close!

As the Washington Post ed board (read: über-insider Jackson Diehl) was forced to clarify today, Colombia’s “so-called human rights ‘crisis’” doesn’t exist, because President Uribe is a “defender of liberal democracy.” In our post 9/11 world, it’s actually countries like Venezuela who are the real human rights violators, on account of their unorthodox economic policies and a president who “portrays the U.S. president as ‘the devil.’”

See? It’s easy. If you still don’t get it, here’s another example. Some America hating “journalist” published another a story on South America’s best ever democracy today. We’ve summarized it below, and included Post 9/11 language for you to study. If you want to read the original story, you can find it here.

More than two hundred farmers evildoers were discovered in a Colombian mass grave detention center today. They had been brutally murdered tried and convicted by right-wing death squads with links to Uribe’s regime liberal democrats who then stole reclaimed their land to produce cocaine create peace and rainbows. The End.

Bill Moyers’ scary-ass documentary of the American media in the run-up to the Iraq War is available online. For fun, substitute the word “Venezuela” for “Iraq” and find out what we’ll all be talking about in 2008!

>>> Pro-Evo Bolivian professor denied visa to teach in the U.S. based on “political views.”

>>> British professor will obviously meet the same fate after writing this must-read piece on Venezuelan politics.

>>> Cutie-patootie boy genius orchestra conductor becomes Venezuela’s latest gift to the U.S.

>>> Midcentury “philosopher” who fetishized rape & kicking homeless people has her own “Institute,” and they’re about as whacked as you would expect.

You may have read about the North-Koreaesque food shortages that Venezuela is suffering from, but you can’t possibly understand the full depth of the horror until you take this photo tour posted on an opposition blog.

Apparently it’s so bad that on some afternoons they are out of the top-shelf mayonnaise and only have “an assortment of other brands.” If that weren’t enough, there are days when generic cooking oil is replaced by row after row of extra-virgin olive oil!

How could it have come to this? The problem is “very complex,” but it’s “greatly aggravated by an increased purchasing power from the lower classes.” Curse you, low unemployment rate! The poor people can afford to shop, and they are hogging the good stuff. That never would have happened before Chavez.

Hey parents! Worried about the gathering threat of global antipoverty movements and third-world democracy? Want to make your socially retarded teen part of the solution? Now it’s easy!

Real-life war criminal Oliver North knows that it can be expensive to send your kids to fancy training camps in Kabul or Karachi, so he’s brought all the magic home to the USA! This summer, he will host weeklong “Military Leadership Academies” in Jacksonville and San Diego where your little delinquents can channel their hormonal rage into an American asset!

They’ll learn the latest in improvised explosive technology, counter-insurgency warfare, and the art of circumventing the pussy “human rights” bureaucracy from the men and…um…men who pioneered the field! Space is limited so sign up now!

>>> Miami Herald finally decries the “double standard” in the Posada Carriles trial, but then it turns out they’re just talking about people who want to see him locked up.

>>> DC paper condescends to let the Venezuelan government actually voice their opinion on all this.

>>> John Negroponte will be in Ecuador tomorrow. Rafael Correa must capture his ring, throw it into Tungurahua volcano, save humanity.

>>> How goes that Venezuelan economy? Car sales are up 52%.

>>> 18,000 Messicans get nekkid!

Hey! Check out this cute little kid and her cute little message! She’s totally down with the BoRev, and in our ongoing quest to be all Web 2.0 interactive, you can be too. Hooray!

Here’s how it works: just take a digital photo with your own BoRev message, and we’ll post it here. Arty, sexy or otherwise unique pictures are encouraged. All we need is the pic, along with the name of the city and country from whence it came, and you can join our little photo essay project. Here are a few examples, for inspiration.

Photos can be submitted to borevnet at gmail dot com

Mass murdering airplane bomber Luis Posada Carriles, who was freed last month, was freed freed yesterday when a federal judge dropped all charges against him on a technicality. There’s really not much left for the courts to do now other than absolve him of all past and potential future crimes and land him an instructor job at Ollie North’s Jesus Jihad Summer Camp.

We have a new nominee for USAID’s top spot! The good news is this one isn’t likely to pay Central American sex slaves to fuck her. The bad news is, this is only true because she thinks Central Americans are “lazy.” She also thinks blacks “prefer pushing drugs on the street to working in factory jobs,” and that Asians are back-stabby middle manager types.

Congressman Donald Payne, whose race puts him in the "drug pusher" category, was awesomely understated with his reaction: “I still think that a person that has a background of this nature puts her at a disadvantage, and when you get into something as sensitive as USAID, where you're dealing with developing countries, and people of color.”

Ha ha! You think?

>>> Bush personally threatens Haitian leader not to deal with Venezuela or he’ll…or he’ll…um right we’ve already done everything humanly possible to thoroughly screw this country.

>>> Bush appointee pressures Europeans to pretend that Venezuela, not Colombia, is the region’s major cocaine producer; Europeans tell ‘em to piss off.

>>> Bush appointee met with hostility in Colombia of all places; on his way to Ecuador.

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Since the Washington Post clearly hasn’t convinced you that Colombia is a goddamned Eden of liberal democracy and dancing animals, today they’ve deployed special agent Bobby Novak to drive home their distorted version of reality. It’s all so…Pre-Iraq invasion. The problem is, those “journalistic techniques” he used back in ‘03 now seem so nostalgically bogus today. Let’s take a quick look back at them, if only to recapture our lost innocence for a few fleeting moments.

Create Fake Enemies: Pre Iraq, Novak painstakingly blurred the line between Saddam Hussein and the September 11th hijackers. Today, he quaintly links Hugo Chavez with Colombian “narco-guerillas.”

Emasculate Your Critics: Remember how Democrats were limp-wristed wussies for backing sissy institutions like “UN weapons inspectors” and “France?” Today they are faggy weinerdogs for listening to “human rights activists, environmentalists and labor leaders.”

Cite “Credible Sources” Who Turn Out To Be “Crazy People”: Back in the day, Novak fawned over the likes of Ahmed Chalabi and Richard Perle. Today, God help us, it’s Denny Hastert and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Just Make Shit Up: Why not? It worked in '03! Novak’s claim that Uribe is on the “assault” against “both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas” is hilariously reminiscent of…well just about every sweetly shameless argument he made before the war. In the case of the paramilitaries, this might actually be true if by “assault,” he means “train them on your own property and then grant them legal amnesty when they commit atrocities.”

Anyway, it’s comforting to know that no matter how quickly this crazy ol’ world changes around us, Bob Novak will always be a douchebag.

Thanks to our sharp-eyed reader who sent us this important journalistic lesson: headline writers are half-assed hacks. Yes, this is ground we’ve covered this before, and yet it stays so relevant!

You may have read, but today Venezuela completed the purchase of a controlling stake in the telecommunications firm CANTV. They paid market rates and all sides expressed their happiness blah blah blah. The AP headline reports the situation: “Venezuela Buys Controlling CANTV Stake.” Fair enough, right? Not for Bloomberg. They needed to sex up the story a bit. And thus: “Venezuela Seizes Largest Telecom.”

Whatever. I’d comment on this but it’s been a long day and it’s getting late, so I’m going to head down to the corner to seize some dinner and perhaps engage in the full-on seizure of a six-pack.

Korrecshun:
A number of readers have pointed out that it wasn't Bloomberg, but the International Herald Tribune, that came up with that stinker of a headline. BoRev.net regrets the error.

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Well at least one U.S. agency recognizes a terrorist for what he is. Sure, mad airplane bomber Luis Posada Carriles had all charges dropped on a technicality earlier this week, but he still had a hard time getting back to his Miami command center. As the New York Times reports, “Mr. Posada and other members of the team were driving the 1,930 miles from El Paso to his family in Miami because he was on the federal government’s no-fly list.” The move places Posada in the same axis of inconvenience as other notable terrorists, including Senator Ted Kennedy, Bush critic James Moore, and the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens.

The families of his victims should drink-in this special moment, because it's probably the last form of justice they'll ever see in the case.

>>> The New York Times' bourgiest little foreign correspondent gets his latte on as he finds something to rave about in Caracas: gentrification!

>>> The Washington Post’s free-market-iest columnist is worried that free market competition might be crowding out the influence of the World Bank and the IMF, who, you know, are all about promoting free market competition.

>>> The world’s imperial-iest magazine makes another lame attempt to drive a pretend wedge between Caracas and Brasilia.

>>> California’s hippiest college town gets down with the BoRev.

Your bod here! Send BoRev photos to borevnet at gmail dot com

Larry Craig to the rescue! The Idaho Senator has heard the May Day mayday cries of the long-wronged multinational oil firms who now have to pay taxes in Venezuela or something, and totally demands action. And by “demands action,” we are not talking about anal sex, because he’s not gay, ok?

Anyway, Senator Craig (pictured above with cowboy friend) has a plan to wean America off foreign oil, particularly the oil from “leaders such as Hugo Chavez…who loathe all that America stands for.” And he’s written it all up in a format suitable for publication in Idaho’s eighth largest newspaper.

Larry’s piece (we’re referring here to his editorial, not his "piece",) is filled with all kinds of well-researched tidbits. For instance, did you know that Chavez opposes “our ideals and our way of life”? Or that “his goal is to hobble the United States”? Or that the super-straight Senator could go on all day “venting about the hypocrisy of Chavez and other anti-capitalists fueling their regimes with the very same private investment and profit they rail against”? Me neither.

Clearly, Senator Craig is no hypocrite, so it’s a really good thing he’s not a closet case who enjoys anonymous gay sex in the bathrooms of Washington’s Union Station. The very notion is impossible, because he’s a married conservative Republican who is inordinately opposed to gay civil rights. And he comes from a cowboy state. And cowboys are never gay. Or hypocritical. So he’s not. Stop bugging him about it and pay attention to Venezuela.

>>> Florida paper decries Chavez’ “egotistical power play” over Latin American influence; recommends U.S.-sponsored egotistical power play.

>>> Even Alberto Gonzales is pissed that Posada Carriles was released from jail. But then, he just gets off on detaining people.

>>> Of course, the case against Posada is probably “more solid than the secret evidence against most of the detainees at Guantanamo.”

>>> Colombian paramilitary leader promises to name names linking America’s bestest friend to death squads.