This blog is now read by more machines than humans: RSS robots, spam-laying insectopoids, echoes of blog-gathering .edu projects. This essentially is the state of affairs that all human activities w
Cleaning Up the Nation
Austin Bay:
If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt funding trail and cynical abuse of a poverty program would be front page news at the NY Times and full-time mega-scandal at
Rank Materialism
Freedom. I am now the proud new owner of a Gateway 6020GZ laptop, perfect for students and others with limited means. I can now go into a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble and look like I'm doing some
Fallujah Fonda
Uh-oh. From the Telegraph comes this exciting news:
Jane Fonda is returning to anti-war activism and embarking on a cross-country tour to call for an end to US military operations in Iraq.
Acros
John Pilger: Partner in Terrorism
In an outrageous piece of terrorist propaganda appearing on the cover of today's New Statesman, John Pilger puts the blame for the 7/7 London attacks not on the terrorists, but rather on Tony Blair:
Leftier than Thou
Here's a really weird story from the Washington Post (rr):
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Sporting a red shirt embossed with a picture of the revolutionary Che Guevera, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome Sunday at the World Social Forum, where activists greeted him with hugs and cries of "Here comes the chief!"
Tens of thousands of people attending the six-day gathering held to protest the simultaneous World Economic Forum in Switzerland consider Chavez their strongest voice against the U.S.-sponsored spread of liberalized trade in Latin America, a move they say benefits multinational companies while enslaving workers....
While Chavez was cheered at the social forum, some jeered Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva when he spoke Thursday, accusing him of failing to come through on promises of social reforms to eradicate Brazilian misery.
Brazilian activist Gledson Oliveira, who lives in the country's impoverished northeast, called Chavez "an icon of the struggling classes right now from a socialist perspective."
"He's taking on agrarian reform and improving education, showing he's a true revolutionary," Oliveira said. "I think the Brazilian public was expecting from Lula something like Chavez is providing in Venezuela."
What's more depressing than this leftist one-upsmanship is the item itself, an AP wire story, which has no problem characterizing the solutions in Latin America as left vs. even more left. There is a token quote from someone who thinks the whole thing is crap:
Government opponents, including cattle ranchers and owners of large land estates, argue the law is unconstitutional because it violates private property rights that are constitutionally guaranteed.
That aside, and the item does quickly push it aside, the article is a big Chavez puff-piece and its treatment of da Silva reads like a Leninist critique of Trotsky. I can almost envision the reporter wearing his own red Che shirt, protesting against that poser Lula.
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© 2002-2006
Brian O'Connell.

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