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| Separated at birth? Assange and Ron.... |
Alek Boyd gives us the goods on Assange, preferring Lukashenko to the Venezuelan media. That is, if we are to believe the thesis of Alek, Assange is just yet another mediocre anti US creep who use a silly US army guy who is now in jail while Assange is a "celebrity". He got embassy cables that have not revealed much that was not known already, and proved in fact that the US foreign service was much nicer than what folks like Assange could have ever suspected. As a result it will be more difficult to make diplomacy in the world, open talks will be rarer and of course we will all pay the price for that since when lousy or unpalatable deals cannot be made with discretion the option left is open confrontation, or worse. And some people are nominating Assange for the Peace Nobel! Dear Lord!
The other item, closer to home, is the death of Lina Ron. At 51, this more than A type personality had it coming and she died of a heart attack. At a private clinic, mind you, not some hospital or CDI for the people managed by the glorious revolution she defended.
They say that you should not speak ill of the departed but in her case there is really no positive eulogy you can come up with unless you are from the idiotic chavista fringes: many inside chavismo disliked her heartily. I will leave to Gustavo for her life resume and legacy of violence which started with her burning the US flag in front the US embassy after September 11. Nothing good could have ever been expected from this crazed pasionaria.
However I will discuss something that you may not find easily elsewhere because nobody from either side will dare to admit to it. In the past decade Lina Ron has been the lone chavista to establish a leadership of her own. Not one in the opposition or the PSUV has been able to create the devoted following that she did, to the point of worrying Chavez more than once. Not that she was able to really threaten in any way, like Assange she was too messy and prima donna to have a true long term strategy, but in her own sickly ways she was an indication of the true nature of chavismo lumpen, something that scared even Chavez were he to lose control of her someday. Of all chavista leaders she is the only one that I followed, with an anthropological fascination, as the embodiment of the latent violence and amorality of Venezuelan society
To end this obit of sorts on a more positive note, Lina's passing is an interesting coincidence when finally more civilized leadership is starting to make inroads. I suppose that we had to go through people like Lina Ron to finally understand that we needed to follow people like Lopez or Radonski if we wanted to climb out of Barbary some day.
PS: Well, well, well, Lina Ron gets an obit from the BBC itself.... Those Brits are always suckers for this type of people, so un-phlegmatic.....
I hope they can find room for her at the local landfill.
ReplyDeleteanonymous
ReplyDeleteyour comment was offensive, after all she is dead and no one deserves the land fill. but thinking more about it, i decided not to erase it becasue, after all, she probably woudl have types the same thing about you....
Hi Daniel, I have not posted a comment for a LONG time, although yours is the one blog i read EVERY day...just a thought about ANONYMOUS's comment...I can agree that the statement is offensive, but I have to agree with the sentiment he expresses, after having watched La Bruja in action for so many years (both while i lived in caracas, and from back home in canada) i felt such a bitter sense of emasculation based upon her utter deffiance of common manners, lawlessness, and hatred towards any and all who didnt agree with her.
ReplyDeletethe motto i try to live my life by is "i do not agree with what you are saying, but i WILL defend your right to say it"...that being said, it is impossible to have any sympathy for a person who would NEVER under any circumstances return the favor, but who would expect the favorable treatment from others.
"if you cant take it, then you had better not dish it out" is another good "lima" and applies to this specimen of a chavista as well...i can recall her saying many obscenities and saying things that were even more cruel than what anonymous just said about her.
in closing, i dont find his comment that offensive, words are just words....in and of themselves harmless...and instead see his expression as a sort of catharsis for many who must be too the breaking point and possibly beyond. NOW, if only they could channel such frustration into working FOR any opo that might oppose HRH Hugo in the next election, then me might be on the right track to get out of the mess in Venezuela...cheers
Cosa más fea!
ReplyDeleteI Read you daily. I have not posted in some time either. How can you show any respect for someone who had no respect for anyone. She will ROT in HELL, About Time. Nuff Said!!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent post by Stubble Jumper , coundnt agree more .
ReplyDeleteAnon's comment was very offensive. I hate myself for agreeing with it. She was a waste of carbon.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the lady who said "Si Chavez pierde en 2012, me muero". Well, it did no take long.
ReplyDeleteInteresting what you say about Ron being a threat to Chavez. One thing for sure, she was the only one that had some "arrastre". Here's what I wrote about Lina Ron:
ReplyDeletehttp://cuentosintrascendentes.blogspot.com/2011/03/lina-ron.html
her crooked fingers reached out,
ReplyDeleteher fury blew through the streets
bloated with drunken steps
Unwanted anger- intoxicated female, disturbing the peace
it was pride and hate that filled her life-
but now the revolutionary mask is gone
wrapped in funeral robes
black eyes peering out from
beneath a fierce brown face
bye bye creepy red soldier
jettisoned into space
maybe a better life awaits her
maybe she will shed that thick skin of hers
made from bits and pieces like Frankenstein
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI wonder if her passing will hinder or help Chavez in the upcoming election.
She has been somewhat of a loose canon and if Chavez is going to try to appear more " reasonable" she might not be the best ally to have around.She may have already served her purpose as Chavez's attack dog when he wanted to intimidate the opposition.
FIREPIGETTE
I gather that Ron was the worst sort of fascist supporter of Chavez.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing that you would compare her to Assange, whose revelations you have used on your blog.
Assange has the same duty to respect US government secrets that I have to respect Cuban or Venezuelan secrets:
none.
anonymous
ReplyDeletei have already exposed my position over wikileaks and assange. i am not restarting that futile debate here.
With a little conspiracy theory twist...As Lina was becoming more of a liability than an asset, was this a natural heart attack, or assisted? You know that if there was foul play involved, they would never admit that there was trouble in paradise.
ReplyDeleteOver the last few months, I have struggled with my own convictions in the case of WikiLeaks and Julian Assuage. On one hand, I am quite sure that he is breaking no U.S. or international laws. I would hate to be the prosecutor, who was asked to make a case against him. You can't even broad-brush him with a charge of Treason, because he is not a U.S. Citizen.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, he seems to have personally declared war on the U.S. Government. In times past, such actions would probably have resulted in a classified executive order that would have resulted in him having an unfortunate fatal accident. But, times are different now, and that is not going to happen, unless some private party decides take up the cause.
I am pretty sure that the world would be better off without this loose cannon running around, but I will be damned if I can think up any moral or legal justification for anyone to do something about it. I even tried to twist the principle that one cannot yell "Fire" in a crowded theater into an argument to prosecute him. No dice. I couldn't make it fly.
I would be interested in hearing any legal, rational, and/or moral argument for depriving Julian Assuage of his rights in favor of the interests of the rest of the public.
Roy
ReplyDeleteDo not anguish: Assange is merely a misguided savant idiot that lets his anti US bias take over even if in the end it might end up helping the US in achieving goals that displease him.
concerned
ReplyDeleteif there is a conspiracy theory it is not from chavez: he still needed her more than what she needed him. for chavez to say the word he has to need a supporter less than what the supporter needs him: then he can either blackmalil him and ridicule him (arias cardenas) or he can dispose of that person (jesse chacon the the most dramatic recent example).
if there is any conspiracy theory (like slipping something in her drink) it comes from her enemies within chavismo. the opposition had no reason to do so becasue she was way to useful as a scarecrow for them as for chavez, paradoxically if you want.
and enemies within chavismo she had aplenty.
"Hugo Chavez" and "Lina Ron" are the two names that i could instantly recall how they look like when these names appear in the news that i am reading.
ReplyDeleteNow i got one less image to remember.
Apparently my comment was lost.
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
I think Assange's action as a whole were counter-productive. Still, I find it strange you are so obssessed with him but apparently fail to see other things (hello, war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I mean war crimes, not "collateral damage). After all: we are talking about something beyond Venezuela.
Regarding the Venezuelan media, I have to say it sucks big big big time. I may find El Universal rather decent and some people writing for Tal Cual, but other than that, the panorama is rather bleak. Wikileaks was not choosing one source per country, but one on both sides of the Ocean per language, as far as I see. I cannot understand why you were so puzzled or annoyed or whatever by them choosing Le monde (you mentioned that). Le Monde is not Le Monde Diplomatique and you know it. It is one of the "standard" newspapers in France (not that France has much of a printed media, I frankly do not like it).
Are French speaking Belgians wondering why Le Soir or another French newspaper in Belgium was not elected instead of France's Le Monde?
Spiegel is not precisely "lefty"-pro-Chávez.
These guys were just choosing among the most respected publications in every region. Venezuela does not have anything of that sort to offer, no matter how much you or I detest Chávez and there are newspapers trying to dennounce Chávez's crime. Still: they are not up to the task.
Regarding Belarus: I wonder if there proofs those Lukashenko accussations come from Manning's files (pre-April 2010) or that is what Luka claims.
Kepler
ReplyDeleteObsessed with Assange? Moi? Compared to what blogs?
It seems that I need to repeat what I wrote earlier:
One thing is to report war crimes and another embassy gossip. If people cannot tell the difference, then I give up.
About the conspiracy theory, the twitt that I pointed out in my post was quite telling.
ReplyDeleteI found very strange that she was given an autopsy, and so soon after her death. Can someone tell if an automatic autopsy is practiced in case of heart attacks in Venezuela?
bruni
ReplyDeletei am not aware of the specifics of the law in venezuela. but does it really matter considering that the law will be applied depending on the needs of the regime when this one is involved.
this being said, when you die in a private clinic or hospital of "natural causes" there is neither need nor mandate for an autopsy. when this one takes place it is because someone suggests foul play: an authority, a relative, or political reason which is likely the case for lina ron as she has been widely reported of having some "problems".
i think we might well be in front of the first twitter mandated autopsy. as i understand, wihitn minutes of her announced death already rumors circulated as to an OD as her cause of death. whether this is true or not the regime had to act fast to squelch the rumor and thus the only thing that maria anela salazar achieved (i think she is the one that started the rumor) was to get lina ron an autopsy and possibly some cover up of sorts.
one must keep in mind that the causes of lina ron death, even if natural and legit, are a matter of state as it is the case in ANY authoritarian regime where death and its cause are announced when convenient for the regime. it is part of the general paranoia associated to such regimes and of which lina ron herself suffered lately as she was surrounded by bodyguards and not seen in public as often and as freely as she was as recently as a couple of years ago. for all that we know the autopsy request might be due to internecine struggles of her entourage as to whom will inherit her organization....
Kepler,
ReplyDeleteWith regards to U.S. "war crimes" in Irak and the non-existent WMD, please let's remember that Saddam Hussein and his regime was complicit in this error. While he did not actually have these weapons, he played a very dangerous game of deception. He was playing a lot of shell games with various sites to make his neighbors think he had them. In the end, the game blew up in his face.
Look, I won't defend the management of the war, or more specifically, its aftermath. However, it is not fair to simply claim that the U.S. Government completely invented and knowingly lied about the WMD. As such, I am not comfortable with charging the U.S. with war crimes, simply because they believed fabricated evidence that they weren't supposed to believe.
Kepler, re Venezuelan media you're miles away from el pote brother, needless to say ni de vaina salpicando p'adentro.
ReplyDeleteRoy, I don't know if you had the chance to see it, but I will never forget a rather serious, supposedly authoritative and circumspect Colin Powell, saying with a straight face in a press conference, before the attacks began, that they had evidence of Saddam's "mobile factories of WMD"
Mobile Roy. Factories. Of weapons of mass destruction. A three year old child can see how fucking preposterous that argument is. From then on, there was only way for things to develop...
the German media outlets, such as the "Spiegel" and "Stern" have an infamous history of BDS and anti-Americanism and Spiegel has to satiate their ever hungry -insecure Hate-America readership in order to keep their numbers up.
ReplyDeleteAB,
ReplyDeleteI think you are further away. I understand your visceral hatred towards anything that may sound/look "commie", but you are more out of touch with what press standards are by any means.
Venezuelan media, by the way, has always been like that, well before Chávez, when there was not the pressure we see now. I mean: you can see it even at the level of language. One thing is to be a blogger and make errors of all kinds and another to be the team of a newspaper and publish articles chock-a-block with simple misspelling errors. This is just a superficial thing and should not affect quality of content, but it is in reality a very good telltale: ni siquiera eso.
As Bruni has remarked earlier, investigative journalism is more than lacking in Venezuela. But for some exceptions, it has always been like that, this is not a situation due to Chávez repression.
You and Daniel may not notice, but the pathetic ways of Globovision (and even more, of VTV, for that matter) are more counterproductive than anything to whatever they want to achieve.
Roy,
I was not referring to the WMD and the invasion on themselves, but to the way war was conducted. Even if a country came into war for "fair" reasons according to international law and even if the ruler/army of the other country is committing horrendous crimes, you may not commit war crimes yourself. And those things are still called war crimes.
One does not really have to be a saint to abide for this. Fair enough, the US government does try to correct its handling of such cases, as much as it can see, in a better way than, say, Venezuela or, of course, Congo or Iraq. Still: war crimes have been committed and many were largely unreported in the US media (not in the German, not in the Scandinavian, not in the Arab press).
Alek,
ReplyDeleteI remember the press conference too. I believed it at the time, and I believe that Colin Powell believed it too. If there were people who didn't believe the evidence they presented, those people were silent, or drowned out. I remember that this came after years of inspections that were stymied, and various provocations by the Saddam Hussein regime. At the time, it all seemed to make sense. As well, he had indeed used previous stockpiles of gas weapons on the Kurds in the insurrections following the first Gulf War, so it didn't seem out of character.
As I said, Saddam Hussein also wanted people to believe that he had these weapons, for reasons of domestic control and to intimidate his neighbors. And, he had a history of massive diplomatic blunders in his communications with the west.
This is another one of those things that will probably need 50 years to pass, before all the classified documents come to light and the historians can piece together what really happened.
Kepler, one other thing about war crimes vs cable leaks: Assange did not become a celebrity when the war crimes info came out. With the cables, it was all about him.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Roy.
ReplyDeleteIt is very easy to create conspiracy theories after the fact, but at the time, not only the US but other Western countries as well believed Sadam had WMD.
It is impossible to have a perfect war.Anything can happen.However as a rule I think the US is far more humane in war than are other countries.When mistakes or abuses are uncovered the US dedicates enormous amount of time on investigating and commenting about the problem in the press.These situations are more the exception than the rule but because of the extensive reporting that is then reproduced all over the world, an impression is created as if the US is the main perpetrator of war crimes.Other countries where these actions are much more common, try to minimize their exposure as much as possible.
Not that we are above criticism but what strikes me as odd is that there are folks who claim to be democrats but harp more on what the USA does wrong and less on much worse things than the dictators are doing.
Kepler, you have written how many posts now decrying the poor quality of the education in Venezuela? A bit of context mate, please. Or do you think Globo and RCTV are manned by an army of Robert Fisk clones? In fact, the quality of the Venezuelan media is but a reflexion of the intellectual depth and education level of the population at large. In a country of utterly ignorant, superficial, self centered people, that suffer from attention deficit disorder, what kind of media can you possibly expect? Telenovelas sell, not because TV channels forced them onto the public at the detriment of more culturally enriching programming, but rather becasue that's what people want to watch. After all, even mentally retards can change the channel.
ReplyDeleteAs per my understanding of what press standards should be, please, save the lesson for someone who wasn't born and raised in the country.
Roy, I just can't believe any rational thinking person could not dismiss immediately such a preposterous argument. It's common sense. Mobile factories of WMD. I'd venture to say that you believed it, as POwell, because you wanted to believe it. And this has got nothing to do with Saddam's little hyde and seek game with UN observers, or the fact that he had gassed the Kurds before. The level of technical/technological expertise to have mobile factories of WMD is the stuff of science fiction. But please, do prove me wrong if you know, anywhere on earth, of such facilities.
Alek,
ReplyDeleteI am not a chemical engineer, and I really do not know what is involved in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. However, if someone can set up a meth lab in a basement, it doesn't seem too far-fetched to me. I am certain that a simple mustard gas, like was used in WWI, cannot be all that complex to produce, especially is one is not too fastidious about normal industrial safety regulations.
Are there any experts out there, who would care to comment?
Firepigette,
ReplyDelete"It is very easy to create conspiracy theories after the fact..."
Just so, and well said.
Alek,
ReplyDelete"In a country of utterly ignorant, superficial, self centered people, that suffer from attention deficit disorder..."
Yike! While I can't disagree with you many or even most Venezuelans have some or all of these deficiencies, such an all-inclusive and sweeping denunciation is too harsh.
It's nice to see some in the Venezuelan blogosphere won't take off the gloves for Lina Ron's passing and praise her "authenticity." Never more than an unhinged thug, her authenticity was akin to that of Bonnie Parker or Charles Manson.
ReplyDeleteSo rest in peace, if indeed you are dead.
Juan Cristobal
ReplyDeleteBonnie Parker is good, Charles Manson I am not sure. I think that the guy from La Piedrita would fit better. By the way, any news from him since Chavez asked for his apprehension?