For the Common Good

Venezuela. Prosecutors charge head of anti-Chavez TV channel (Globovision). Venezuelan prosecutors filed charges against the head of an opposition-aligned TV news channel on Friday, accusing him of usury and conspiracy to commit a crime after authorities seized 24 new vehicles on his property. (The man owns 2 car dealerships.)

Nicaragua. (June 23, 2009) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today criticized the shutdown of a Nicaraguan radio station just as it was about to initiate broadcasting and claimed excessive force was used in the confiscation of its equipment, an action seen as retaliation for its owner's "criticism of the government."

Ecuador. Reporters Without Borders urges the government and National Council for Radio and Television (Conartel) to withdraw the latest administrative proceedings against the privately-owned national TV station Teleamazonas, which could force it off the air. The offensive comes amid a war of nerves between the station and President Rafael Correa, who has said he wants to "put an end" to news media he regards as "corrupt" and "mediocre." The latest administrative proceedings against Teleamazonas got the green light from Conartel chairman Antonio Garcia on 9 June. The station has already been punished once, but this time it could be silenced for good. The proceedings are in response to a recent Teleamazonas report about the environmental consequences of a project by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA in the southwestern Gulf of Guayaquil. The issue was already raised by the daily El Universo, which is also in the president's sights.

Does this mean PDVSA (Chavez) is fudging on environmental consequences? But ... but ... Bubba, I thought the "left" was deeply concerned about the environmental impact of oil/gas projects. And concerned about "freedom" and justice and other warm common fuzzies. You know Bubba, Chavez has ran so many gringo oil firms out or under that he's had to look for new and improved partners for his oil. China, Iran, Belarus, India, and an assortment of other nations.

Word is that Peru, is making a "left" turn, again. They tried in the '60s and 70's with socialism, attempting a wealth redistribution and independence from gringo nations - nothing changed, other than the bosses. I hear now you can just put a "made in China" stamp on Peru too. Listening to the "left" in the US you would think Peru's president Garcia is a rightwinger but don't believe everything you hear from the US "left." Still, el presidente Garcia is not "left" enough to suit Hugo Chavez, yet.

Look at this story from the WSJ. "Textile exporters in Peru are upset with the government of Venezuela, saying the Venezuelan currency board is dragging its feet on authorizing payments worth $500 million. In the letter to Chavez, Sanchez Aizcorbe said that some 400 small-scale producers in Gamarra are on the edge of bankruptcy due to a six-month delay in receiving payments from Venezuela for their products. The mayor said that the purchasers of the products have deposited the payments for their goods in local currency in the state-owned Banco de Venezuela, alongside the needed documentation, but that the government still hasn't authorized the payments in U.S. dollars. "It is money that has been paid to the Banco de Venezuela and it could stay there for a year or so while companies here go bankrupt," Sanchez Aizcorbe told RPP Radio on Friday. Venezuela enforces a strict system of currency controls that the pegs the bolivar to the dollar at rate of VEB2.15. Companies that want to buy dollars at that rate must receive approval of the government's currency commission. This year, as oil revenue has dried up, the government is curbing the sale of dollars at that rate, forcing some companies to turn to the parallel market, where they have to pay three times the official peg."

Oil revenue drying up? All that "free" stuff of socialism costs a lot, huh Hugo.

Democracy Now, one of the links in the chains of the socialists-are-here-to-help you folly, reported recently of government genocide in Peru, indigenous people versus "the man." The Peru/Garcia government was opening large tracts of land to foreign investment, etc., going to France, Spain, and US oil companies, which of course could greatly benefit the standard of living for the villagers, but only if that foreign investment is negotiated by the "left." What Democracy Now doesn't tell you is that these indigenous people are also infiltrated and ran by Sendero Luminosa - the decades-old Maoist freedom fighters turned jungle thugs. Old "leftists" don't die out, they adjust their M.O. DemNow also won't tell you dozens of cops were killed in this confrontation by means other than native clubs, or they will downplay it, or believe it a false figure - as the only good cop is a "left" cop.

Like Venezuela, Peru can "cleanse" the "capitalist police forces of the past" and replace them with a national "humanist" police force. Bubba, you're gonna love 21st century "socialism" - beans and rice in every pot and armed humanist guards on every corner. Although I'm not sure what will become of white folks since they really have no "identity" politics - other than presumably everything wrong in the world is their fault.

Nor will DemNow inform you that the Peruvian indigenous umbrella groups AIDESEP, CONAPA, INDEPA, etc. will eventually issue press releases that they and the government are dialoguing, environmentalists will claim that all rainforest development is "green," and babbling, mostly white "activists" around the globe will gloat and chalk up a win for the "left." The upper echelon of local villagers will be happy with new T shirts, pencils, free vaccinations, and maybe a jeep or two, but most of the indigenous will live as they always have in the jungle, or worse, work in mines and oil fields while their "leaders" sup and negotiate wages in the big house with the Sino-Latino state-owned corporations, who will make indigenous lives worse than the US ever did. But Bubba, all you will hear about is the good deeds of 21st socialism, for the common man ... the free tee shirt and vaccinations, the cement block house instead of mud brick, with dish tv.

Although Obama has the czars of apparatus in place, he best be hurrying - otherwise we might witness a Latino exodus from the US and Canada - headed for Utopia, SA. I must be one of those folks you gotta browbeat or force into the socialist empire, for the common good of course. Kum ba yah mmmlord, someone's laughing lord, kum ba yah.