Here: Hugo Chavez Interview on "Nightline"
It's good to see a fairly evenhanded treatment of the Venezuelan president on an American TV network (Ted Koppel - ABC). I am very interested in getting a good read on Chavez. I realize he spouts some inflammatory rhetoric against our gummint, but I also realize our gummint often seeks to undermine foreign regimes - usually at the request of invested interests. I have no doubt that BUSHCO was behind the "recall" movement against Chavez.
So far I have seen Chavez using oil revenues to establish healthcare and education services for the long-neglected poor people of his country. And gasoline is very cheap in Venezuela, which should free up cash for other necessities or consumer goods.
So he's probably a Marxist. A pragmatic, democratic socialist regime is probably just what is required to foster an eventual market economy which would never work in a country where the rich own everything and the poor are denied the right to own property. If Chavez' movement can accomplish redistribution of the land, he'll go down in history as a true revolutionary. Remember, his hero isn't Lenin or Stalin or Castro - it's Simon Bolivar.
IRAQ & RUIN
Chris Floyd writes:
The war is lost. Three years after the invasion, the occupation forces control less and less of the country all the time. The level of wanton violence -- from all sides -- keeps rising. The physical infrastructure of the country continues to deteriorate. The social fabric is in tatters. "Reconstruction" has degenerated into outright robbery and all-pervasive graft. A piecemeal, many-sided civil war has begun. Each day of the occupation is a fresh boon to violent Islamic extremism. Each day of the occupation further brutalizes and decimates the American military, sinking it deeper into the dishonor of serving a criminal cause: the illegal, unwarranted invasion and occupation of a sovereign country, on behalf of a radical political faction that deliberately lied its way into war.
... Baghdad's water, electricity and sewers are in worse shape than a decade ago. Huge sums - such as the alleged $1bn for military supplies - are being stolen and stashed in Jordanian banks. The new constitution is a dead letter except the clauses that are blatantly sharia. These are already being enforced de facto in Shia areas...Signalling withdrawal would, it is said, give a green light to the gangs and private militias, to revenge attacks, ethnic cleansing and even partition. That threat is no longer meaningful since these are all happening anyway. The militias have reportedly infiltrated at least half the police and internal security forces in each area. Barely a tenth of the army is considered loyal to the central authority. That a Basra police station should be vulnerable to al-Sadr irregulars is appalling.
The 150,000 foreign troops on Iraqi soil are overwhelmingly committed to self-protection. They do not do law and order any more. Power is finding its new locus, in the mafias, sheikhdoms, militias and warlords that flourish amid anarchy. Where there is no security, the gunman is always king....
America left Vietnam and Lebanon to their fate. They survived. We left Aden and other colonies. Some, such as Malaya and Cyprus, saw bloodshed and partition. We said rightly that this was their business. So too is Iraq for the Iraqis. We have made enough mess there already.
If Iran takes over Iraq they will give the Iraqis what we have not: a strong, central, unifying authority that is not Saddam Hussein, for good or ill. Maybe the prospect of an Iranian encroachment would unify the various factions against a common enemy besides the US.
Turn it over to the UN. What the hell do we pay all those dues for? We can't be the world's policeman. And if we continue to throw more good troops and resources after bad to try to salvage something out of the neo-cons' criminal war for empire, we will bankrupt our gummint and lose our republic.
Hell, if we're living in the last days of a declining world power, I'd rather enjoy some good old-fashioned Roman-style decadence and excess. I see no upside to pissin' away our fortune on a hunk of real estate with warring tribal factions.
War for oil was always a non-starter. Whoever controls the oilfields will sell to us as long as we can pay.
A BILLION HERE, A BILLION THERE -
PRETTY SOON, YOU'RE TALKIN' REAL MONEY!
The Guardian reports that Iraqi authorities are preparing an arrest warrant for the former defense minister under the Bush-appointed interim government of Ayad Allawi. The minister, Hazim Shaalan, who is "understood to be living in Jordan," is implicated in what Iraq's senior anticorruption official calls "possibly the largest robbery in the world" -- the bilking of more than $1 billion from the Iraqi treasury. According to the official, Judge Raid al-Rahdi, as much as $2.3 billion has "disappeared" from Iraqi government accounts, in part through multimillion-dollar arms deals, not vetted through proper channels, in which grossly inflated prices were paid for outdated or substandard equipment.
I know the moola's missin' from the Iraqi treasury - but didn't it come from the American taxpayers?
THOSE "EX-GAY" MINISTRIES?!
Actress ANNE HECHE - has often spoken of her dysfunctional childhood growing up in a family of nut-fundies. From her website:
Ellen and I had a three and a half year relationship that ended sadly, not because we were both women, but because we both wanted different things for our lives.
This NONSENSE about my mother praying for me is really making me angry. My mother never approved of my relationship with Ellen. Her hatred for our relationship is one of the many things that ultimately led to my breaking off all communication with her. (My mother, that is, not Ellen.)
The "Ex-gay" events that are going on right now make me sick. The fact that my mother is using my name to promote this movement makes me even sicker. I could not disagree more adamanty with what she and her group of unloving, unaccepting, Bible preaching hate mongers are doing. I do not believe that homosexuality is something that should be brainwashed out of someone. I do not believe that homosexuality should be anything but celebrated if that is the thing that makes an individual feel good about their life. I believe, as I have always said, that people should love who they want to love.
And for anyone who ever thought that Ellen and I broke it off becuase of sexuality, you couldn't be more mistaken. And for anyone who thought my mother's prayers had anything to do with me marrying a man, forget it ...
There are several of these nasty outfits that purport to de-program homosexuals. They're all run by nut-fundies and they have questionable results. Young people have come out of these programs and committed suicide. One of the more prominent among these Jesus-huggin', gay-bashin' groups is EXODUS, International.
Faux Beau Guy Caballero
BRIDGET - WHAT'CHA GOT IN YOUR DIARY?
So - Actress Renee Zellweger has split with Country Music personality Kenny Chesney after 4 months? Who cares? The operative words would seem to be "fraud" and "annulment". Isn't that what you'd expect her to say and the document she'd file if Kenny-boy was wedding to quiet the groundswell of rumors and jokes about his sexual orientation? Yup, he may be a fraud, but Renee must not have been paying attention . . .ACLU: Stop Religious Discrimination in Head Start
This week votes are planned that could make the Head Start program a victim of federally funded religious discrimination. Now, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has announced that he will introduce an amendment - possibly this week - that would allow these religion-based groups that already are receiving public money, to discriminate in hiring/firing and other practices on the basis of religion.
Unless Congress explicitly prohibits discrimination in the Head Start reauthorization bill, the Bush Administration has made it clear that it will allow religious organizations that receive federal funds to discriminate against applicants for jobs on the basis of religion, marital status, sexual orientation or any other characteristic that a religious organization finds objectionable. Federally funded programs must protect, not gut, the civil rights of all Americans.
Well, howdy! Check out this SWEET low-slung '59 CITROEN. Yup, it's French...
Good Fortune . . .
