This Luca Mundaca tune reminds me a great deal of this one by Marisa Monte, both in terms of theme and vocal stylings:
Both make loneliness and getting by a little easier, and make them sound downright lovely.
News of the Restless A door at the end of a dead-end street…
Festive Left Friday Blogging: Two million and counting!
January 27, 2012 — Sabina BeckerAhem. Make that two and a HALF million…
And now, the story from Aporrea:
At 10:06 this morning, and three months shy of his second anniversary on Twitter, President Hugo Chávez made history as the most-followed head of state on the social network, with two and a half million followers.
1394 tweets, following 21 tweeters, and found on 55,400 lists, @chavezcandanga exceeded all expectations. We can emphasize that he has more followers than @Facebook, which was created on December 7, 2009.
Here is a list of the most-followed heads of state in Latin America, as of 10:21 am:
1. @chavezcandanga (Venezuela): 2,500,038
2. @FelipeCalderon (Mexico): 1,392,980
3. @DilmaBr (Brazil): 1,044,256
4. @CFKArgentina (Argentina): 830,906
5. @SebastianPinera (Chile): 677,821
6. @JuanManSantos (Colombia): 677,294
7. @MashiRafael (Ecuador): 207,911
8. @Laura_Ch (Costa Rica): 86,812No doubt about it, this is one more demonstration that the Bolivarian Revolution is consolidating itself in all spaces, considering that @chavezcandanga is one of the best communicators in history.
Translation mine; linkage as in original.
If the Internet is the marketplace of ideas, then it looks like a leading anticapitalist is the top seller. Outpacing even Facebook on the tweeter — how about that?
And if you think it’s just a tweetish fluke, I can assure you it’s not. His messages also appear on Facebook, and get huge numbers of “likes” in no time at all. The only one who gets “liked” faster is Cristina Fernández (a.k.a. CFKArgentina), mainly because she uses Facebook more she does Twitter. Which she does almost as much as Chavecito.
But then again, Chavecito has only to get on Facebook himself (he doesn’t seem to have a personal profile there yet, only a generic “politician” page and a whole slew of fan pages), instead of simply linking it to his Twitter account. The day he does is the day Facebook’s entire server farm crashes from all the happy Bolivarian traffic welcoming him aboard the Internet’s biggest time-suck.
Watch out, Fuckerberg!
Festive Left Friday Blogging: Flamengo comes to Bolivia
January 20, 2012 — Sabina Becker…and Evo had a great time meeting one of the great Brazilian soccer team’s heroes (and his own too, no doubt), Ronaldinho:
Evo also presented Ronaldinho with a special medal for his outstanding contribution to South American sportsmanship:
And there was a friendly match between Flamengo and a local team, Universitario de Sucre, at which Ronaldinho undoubtedly shone:
Bonus: Here’s a little song by Jorge Ben, which pretty much sums up Brazilian pride in teams like Flamengo (and other fun things about life in a tropical country):
“I live in a tropical country/Blessed by God and beautiful by nature/In February there’s Carnival/I have a Fusca and a guitar/I root for Flamengo and my girlfriend’s name is Tereza…”
Portrait of the president as a young Marxist guerrilla
December 6, 2011 — Sabina Becker
A young Dilma Rousseff, being interrogated by the Brazilian military junta in the 1970s. She looks pretty fearless and pugnacious, no? Here’s the story behind the picture, courtesy of Cubadebate:
This past Saturday, Brazilians saw the first photo from the guerrilla phase of Dilma Rousseff, during the military dictatorship of the 1970s. The current president of Brazil can be seen in it at age 22, during one of the interrogations she was subjected to by the military, after nearly a month of tortures.
In the image, Dilma Rousseff appears in the Military Auditorium in Rio de Janeiro. In the background are the officials who interrogated her over her participation in the revolutionary struggle. The photo, published by Época magazine, was part of the book titled Dilma: Life requires courage, by journalist Ricardo Amaral, which will soon be appearing in bookstores.
The interrogation in the picture took place after 22 days of torture of the young guerrilla.
Dilma Rousseff fought throughout the military dictatorship in various revolutionary groups. She has always maintained that she never shot or killed anyone. She said that she hid the weapons of her comrades under her bed, and that the only thing she knew how to do was “arm and disarm” rifles and pistols, which she never got to use.
During her two years in jail, she communicated with her fellow prisoners by concealing messages using a box of sand that served as a litterbox to a cat, which the female prisoners kept along with a pet turtle.
Translation mine.
I don’t know what Dilma’s actual revolutionary duties entailed; only she knows these for certain. But it is quite possible that she never fired a gun. Her Cuban counterpart, Aleida March, who met Che Guevara (whom she would later marry) during the course of her own duties as a clandestine guerrilla courier in the late 1950s, probably never fired a gun either, but she did smuggle bombs under her wide 1950s poodle skirts.
Depending on where they operated, female Marxist guerrillas of Latin America might have seen a great deal of gunfire. One of these was Tamara “Tania” Bunke, an Argentine who worked in East German and Cuban intelligence, and fought alongside Che in Bolivia before becoming separated from his column and picked off by the Bolivian army at the Yeso Ford in late August, 1967. Others saw very little to none. Many served, as Dilma says she did, to conceal or pass weapons along clandestinely, since women were less likely to be searched, and, at least for a while in those machista cultures, were considered unlikely to be actual fighters. The fact that many of them were at least as brave as the men puts the lie to the very notion. The Marxist guerrilla movements were often the only places in Latin America where women came anywhere near to gender equality, and many of them did it long before their North American sisters ever heard of feminism.
And as Dilma’s defiant look in the picture above shows, many of them withstood terrible tortures for weeks on end without once betraying their comrades. And without a moment’s regret. It’s a potent lesson for us all now, as we come up against disaster capitalism. Do we have that kind of courage?
Festive Left Friday Blogging: Lula’s new ‘do
November 18, 2011 — Sabina Becker
First, it was Lugo; then, Chavecito. Now, a new South American head of state (pun intended) has gone bare:
The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, shaved his beard and head in anticipation of hair loss due to chemotherapy, which he began on October 31, for laryngeal cancer.
The job of shaving the former leader fell to his wife, Marisa Leticia, who published on her Web page a picture of Lula, bald and beardless but still wearing his mustache and a smile, getting a hug from the former first lady, who wore a sweater with a logo from a campaign against breast cancer.
In another photo, Marisa Leticia can be seen passing a razor over the face of the former president.
Lula, 66, received a diagnosis of cancer of the larynx on October 29, and two days later began chemotherapy treatments in the Syrio-Lebanese Hospital of São Paulo, where the illness was diagnosed.
The former president stayed in hospital a few hours and later returned to his apartment in São Bernardo do Campo, near São Paulo. He has received various visitors since then at his residence, among them current president Dilma Rousseff, his successor.
Rousseff, who was also treated for lymphatic cancer while a minister in Lula’s cabinet, visited him on November 10 and affirmed afterwards that he is doing very well. She was accompanied on that occasion by the Brazilian minister of health, Alexandre Padilha.
In his own case, Lula is receiving prescribed medication intravenously, and has received countless messages of support from foreign dignitaries, Brazilian politicians, and anonymous citizens.
The medical team ruled out an operation due to the intermediate stage of the tumor, and considers the likelihood of a cure to be high, given that the cancer is localized and has not metastasized.
Latin America has already seen presidents such as Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela left bald as a result of chemotherapy.
Translation mine.
Here’s the other pic of Lula, getting his shave:
And yeah, he looks a little less like an Ewok, for the time being. But like Chavecito and Lugo (and Dilma, too!), his prognosis is good. And baldness becomes him, especially when he smiles.
Festive Left Friday Blogging: A friendly visit from Ollanta
July 15, 2011 — Sabina BeckerGuess who was in Venezuela today:
Yup, Ollanta was in the house today. He met with vice-president Elías Jaua in this video, and gave a short press conference in which he expressed a wish to visit Chavecito, to see him “as a friend”, and to talk at length about the “common past and common future” of Venezuela and Peru. Which, of course, they did:
This visit comes at a delicate time for Chavecito, as he’s between recovering from his emergency surgery, and preparing for chemotherapy and possible radiotherapy in Cuba. Initially there was some talk of his going to Brazil for the treatments, at the same hospital — the Syrio-Lebanese Hospital in São Paulo — where Chavecito’s Paraguayan counterpart, Fernando Lugo, was also successfully treated for lymphoma awhile back. The invitation reportedly came from Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who is also a cancer survivor herself. But it looks like it will be Cuba after all, and likely Chavecito will visit again with the same Havana doctors who operated on him recently. He has asked the National Assembly to grant him a medical leave, and is bound to receive it.
In the meantime, this nice friendly visit with Ollanta is certainly not inopportune. It will give Chavecito the morale boost he needs as he prepares for the next phase in his treatment, and that can only be a good thing.
Pa’lante, Comandante. ¡Arriba Ollanta!
UPDATE, Saturday, 10:45 am: Here’s the official video of the request to take leave and continue treatment in Cuba. He will be travelling there today.
Ollanta, Evo. Evo, Ollanta.
June 22, 2011 — Sabina Becker
This is such a nice shot of Ollanta and Evo that I was tempted to save it for Friday. But the story that goes with it is too hot to sit on for three whole days, so here it is:
The president-elect of Peru, Ollanta Humala, said on Tuesday in Bolivia that he dreamed of one homeland, united, as it had been for centuries.
In a speech at a luncheon given by Bolivian president Evo Morales, along with representatives of government ministries, social organizations, the military and the diplomatic corps, the dignitary emphasized that he was talking about a single nation, a single country.
Humala also said that Latin America is changing thanks to its peoples and their new leaders — a continent, he said, with Amazonia, the largest freshwater reserve, but with unequal distribution of these and other natural resources.
In this spirit, Humala called upon Morales to work with him to create economic policies that create more integration, development, and to solve the principal problems of the sectors historically marginalized by previous governments.
Hours before returning to his country, Humala explained that the tour he had begun, which had previously taken him to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, and which will take him in turn to Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States, is to send a message of unity.
He said of his upcoming inauguration, slated for July 28, that he would only serve the people, and not the economic powers.
Humala criticized previous governments, who forged a state in republican days that only attended to 30 percent of the population and neglected the remaining 70 percent, who remained cut off and marginalized, mostly in rural areas.
He also praised the possibilities of Bolivia, demonstrated at that same luncheon, where indigenous dignitaries sat at the same table as uniformed officers, executive authorities, legislators and diplomats.
For his part, Bolivian president Evo Morales stated that the current successes in Bolivia were the result of the struggles of the social movements, much as would occur in Peru.
Morales wished Humala strength for the hard work ahead, above all against those who would try to derail the changes and transformations to come, as had occurred in Bolivia.
When you serve the people, the bases will defend you, Morales added, and remarked: “With the conscience of the people, we will overcome.”
Translation mine.
Well. So much for those who think Ollanta will be just more of the same for Peru. Unity with Bolivia and other Latin American countries? A more equal distribution of wealth and resources? More integration and inclusion for the marginalized indigenous? This is definitely not another Twobreakfasts García we’re talking about here, kiddies.
And I don’t think he’s going to be another Lula, as the English-language bizmedia have been trying to position him, either. Lula’s most notable failure? Improving things for the landless peasants of Brazil, who’ve been left to carry on their struggles without him (although things ARE looking up now that former guerrilla Dilma Rousseff is at the helm; sign here to help keep a certain pair of feet to the fire). Ollanta is definitely sending the message that he’s going to take his cues from his neighbor, Evo, who has succeeded at the so-called impossible.
And the parallels are hard to miss: A poor, marginalized, largely indigenous majority, set against rule by a minority which is mostly white and all of it rich? The situation of both countries was the same for a long time, until Evo broke with it. Bolivia is now on the verge of exiting the poor-country category and entering a solid middle ground. Pretty impressive for a place that had long been given up as stuck in the Third World!
But here’s no coincidence: 70% of Peruvians were marginalized. Guess what Ollanta’s current approval rating is? The exact same figure. We know who approves of him already: That same excluded majority. Their reasons for approval are varied, but I think they’d probably like it if he were more like Evo. They can’t have missed the evidence that Bolivia is pulling ahead of Peru in many respects.
I don’t believe there will be an actual dissolution of the borders between Bolivia and Peru, but if the latter can take its cues from the former, it will certainly look as if the two are one.
Festive Left Friday Blogging: Ollanta Presidente!
June 10, 2011 — Sabina BeckerMy gosh, the dominoes are just tumbling in Latin America, aren’t they? It’s getting so that you’d hardly recognize the place anymore. First it was Venezuela, then Bolivia and Ecuador. Argentina and (for a while) Chile have had some progressive types, too. Brazil is now on its second one. And Paraguay got a “red” ex-bishop, and Uruguay an old Tupamaro. Honduras had a liberal guy who took his cues from the more progressive neighbors to the south, and he scared the shit out of Washington so badly, they had to back a coup to depose him before he rewrote the Honduran constitution on true democratic lines. And now, after a bloated, disastrous term of “investment grade” Twobreakfasts García, look who’s finally in power in Peru:
Yep, he made it. He increased his vote respectably following his loss last time around, and beat out the daughter of a dictator on the second round of balloting this time ’round. That it even went to a second round between those two, of all people, was something surprising for me; I’d have thought Peruvians were so tired of neoliberal neofascism that they’d be electing him in one. Especially since the booming success of Venezuela under Chavecito, who hasn’t been a bit shy about his moral support where Ollanta is concerned. WTF, Peru?
Of course, all the usual voices of unreason have started cranking up already, with the usual belchings of fact-free prose. The CS Monitor, in particular, haz Teh Stoopid in a major way. How the election of a leftist could possibly mark a decline in the Latin American left, I don’t know. Guess they had to spin this in favor of neoliberal bullshit somehow, or the corporatists behind them would scream. Everyone who’s been following Otto (who is not an Ollanta fan himself) even halfway attentively, knows that “investment grade” Peru’s so-called economic growth is a big lie for the most part. My advice is to take whatever Sara Miller Llana says and rotate it 180 degrees if you want to get anywhere near the truth, and then dump a huge truckload of salt on it.
Or better still, read Upside Down World. They’ve also got good analysis from Mark Weisbrot, who notes that in fact, the big losers here were the traditional ruling caste of Peru. Stick THAT in your crack-pipe and smoke it, Sara!
And The Nation is another solid go-to place. They actually report on LatAm leftists without prejudice, and their piece on Ollanta’s win and what it means is must-read analysis. (It’s also very damning of the imperialist interference revealed by Wikileaks. Read it, read it, READ IT!)
Meanwhile, here are my own thoughts:
Plenty of Peruvians, especially in the working classes, are surely hoping Ollanta will, indeed, be the “Peruvian Chávez”. They’re also looking at the changes in neighboring Bolivia and hoping that some of Evo’s hard-won good luck rubs off. They’ve been waiting an awfully long time; at least five years, probably much more. Of course, how much Ollanta will succeed in copying Chavecito’s and Evo’s success depends on how much of the Peruvian parliament he can get behind him. I don’t know what’s up with that.
It would be nice if Ollanta’s Peru could be the next ALBA signatory; it would be especially hopeful for the indigenous peoples, who’ve seen all kinds of terrible (and bloody) setbacks under the overtly racist rule of Alan García, who had no qualms about selling their land right out from under them and even called them “dogs” for daring to protest against that. (None of them are sorry to see HIM go.) But I don’t know whether or when that will happen; again, a lot hinges on the parliament, and it appears to be a house much divided against itself.
Let’s face it, in a country as counterintuitive as Peru is, any victory over imperialism is worth celebrating, however small. I don’t know if Ollanta will exceed expectations or even meet them. But at least he’s not going in there totally friendless and alone; he’ll have support from Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, at the very least. And in any case, he can do no worse than has already been done. He beat out the worst, so it’s worth hoping for the best. I dare to hope he will change Peru for the better, and I look forward to seeing how he does that.
¡Viva Ollanta PRESIDENTE!
Short ‘n’ Stubby: If this is Tuesday, it must be Libya
April 5, 2011 — Sabina Becker
…and if the Stumpy Cat is meowing, it must mean she has some news for us. And of course, being Ms. Manx, she ALWAYS comes through:
On the WSWS (always a good place to go for the real news), Patrick Martin reports a preponderance of evidence that the Libyan rebels have CIA ties. Shocking? Only to those who’ve had their heads stuck in a heap of oily sand since, oh, about 1946 or thereabouts.
And if you find that surprising, there’s the additional fact that recent defector Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister, has been in British intel’s pocket for lo these many moons. MI6, to be quite precise:
As head of Libya external intelligence, Mr Koussa was an MI6 asset for almost two decades. He was charged with conducting negotiations over Libya’s giving up its weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
Of course, says the Manx, the converse is also true: If you’re not surprised that the rebels have CIA ties, then this little item shouldn’t surprise you either. In fact, it probably explains a lot. Our stumpy friend points out that the rats are actually reluctant to leave a sinking ship unless there is someplace safe for them to swim to nearby.
Meanwhile, the good ol’ Dissociated Press is doing yeoman’s work for the CIA again, claiming that they’re just now scrambling to “help” the “freedom fighter” rebels, and that they’ve barely had time to get their boots on the ground. Where have we heard all that before? Oh yeah: Iran-Contra. But hey, even the AP can have a weaselly little moment of truth, for about one second every 12 hours:
The CIA’s precise role in Libya is not clear. Intelligence experts said the CIA would have sent officials to make contact with the opposition and assess the strength and needs of the rebel forces in the event Obama decided to arm them.
Uh-huh, saith the Manx. Actually, the CIA’s role in Libya is quite clear to those who know what signs and symptoms to look for As is the CIA’s role in determining how much (or rather, how little) is said about their operations, and in what tone. Remember, Operation Mockingbird never ended; it merely “went volunteer”. This story tells just enough to make the reader think they’ve learned something, but actually, it’s the AP’s and WaHoPo’s contribution to the “fog of war” that serves the CIA’s real nefarious purposes only too well. If their hand is not up the armed insurrectionaries’ backs, then MI6′s certainly is. And again, Iran-Contra should serve to remind us just what a dead giveaway the words “freedom fighter” really are.
Speaking of war and fog, how do you like those grey clouds coming out of His Barackness’s mouth? He says no ground troops for Libya? Funny, his own NATO chief says just the opposite. Gee, who are we to believe? When in doubt, says the Manx, always believe the worst. The ground troops are probably in there already. Probably disguised as “diplomats”, too, like that CIA/Blackwater spook who went on a murderous rampage in Pakistan. Remember him?
And while we’re on the subject of murderous rampages, some Russian doctors have come forward saying that civilians are being killed–by the coalition that’s supposed to be “helping” to “liberate” them from that “murderous tyrant”, Gaddafi. Should we believe Teh Russkies? Ms. Manx says “Da.” It happened in Vietnam, it happened in Afghanistan, it happened in Iraq–what makes anyone think it wouldn’t happen in Libya? Fog of war, baby!
And while we’re on the subject of Russkies and Libya, did you know that the Russian military has found that Gaddafi’s forces have NOT been waging air strikes against the rebels on the ground? Meaning that the whole “no-fly zone” excuse is, pardonnez my franglais, a lot of merde de bull? C’est vrai! But then again, Teh Russkies don’t have a dog in this fight; they’ve got their own oil in the Black Sea region, which I’m sure the oil-hungry Europeans can’t possibly have designs on, and they’re also in a rather nice trading relationship with Venezuela, which has more oil than Libya, Iraq, or even Saudi Arabia. So, of course, their word can safely be discounted, right?
Meanwhile, down in another part of Latin America–Brazil, to be exact–it looks like His Barackness’s much-hyped grand tour of last week has failed to get a major intended ally on side. Dilma Rousseff, like her comrade Lula before her, refuses to isolate Iran, Venezuela OR Libya. Instead, she’s showing a surprising amount of fair-mindedness and even solidarity! Gasp! The lovely lady has backbone, who’d of thunk? Well, Ms. Manx would have…but then, like all cats, Ms. Manx can tell these things with surprisingly little effort. It’s only the stoopid hoomins who’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
