"The world is waking up" - Chavez lols

[Hey Bubu]

Yet he makes some good points, at least from the other side of the coin type good points.

MercuryNews.com | 09/21/2006 | Chávez eclipses Iran in assailing Bush in front of U.N. delegates

President Hugo Chávez, the combative Venezuelan leader, denounced President Bush in a U.N. speech Wednesday as a racist, imperialist ``devil'' who has devoted six years in office to military aggression and the oppression of the world's poorest people.

Speaking from the lectern where Bush spoke a day earlier, Chávez said he could still smell the sulfur -- a reference to the scent of Satan. Even by U.N. standards, where the United States is frequently criticized as the world's superpower, Chávez's remarks were exceptionally inflammatory. They were also received with a warm round of applause.

Chávez's address followed a series of strident speeches by U.S. adversaries, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Together, they represent an emboldened alliance of oil-rich states that defy U.S. demands to change their policies on a range of issues, including the development of nuclear technology and the role of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.

``Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world,'' Chávez told the chamber of international diplomats. ``I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.''

Bush administration officials dismissed Chávez's remarks as the ravings of a reckless political leader. ``I'm not going to dignify a comment by the Venezuelan president toward the United States,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. ``I think it's not becoming for a head of state.''

In an effort to bolster his case, Chávez waved a copy of Noam Chomsky's book ``Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance'' and recommended that everyone read it. The book, written by the American linguist and longtime critic of U.S. foreign policy, argues that the U.S. pursuit of political supremacy is having devastating consequences for the majority of the world's people.

``The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world,'' Chávez said. ``What would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? . . . I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people, think. They would say, `Yankee imperialist, go home.'

``The world is waking up,'' he added. ``I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism.''

Chávez's U.N. appearance is part of a Venezuelan campaign to gain election to the Latin American seat on the U.N. Security Council, a post that would place it in a position to challenge U.S. policies. The United States, which vigorously opposes Venezuela's candidacy, is supporting a competing bid for the post by Guatemala, a poor Central American republic with little political influence at the United Nations.

In portraying the United States as an imperial power, Chávez evoked memories of the Cold War, when Third World revolutionaries such as Cuban President Fidel Castro (an ally and mentor of Chávez) and Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe delivered scathing attacks against the United States.

U.N. experts said that although Chávez's speech may resonate with delegations who oppose a new world order built around U.S. power, it was so undiplomatic that it may undermine his chances of getting into the Security Council. It ``confirms the worst stereotypes about the U.N. General Assembly being a circus sideshow filled with venom and rabid anti-Americanism,'' said Edward Luck, an expert on the United Nations at Columbia University. ``I never thought anyone could make Ahmadinejad look like a moderate, but Chávez has done it.''

Although Chávez is renowned for his caustic views on the Bush administration, some senior U.N. diplomats were startled by his statement. Asked if Chávez had gone too far, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhao Xing said: ``He really said that? Are you sure? He would go that far?''

Britain's Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, suggested that the Chávez comments went beyond the pale of diplomatic protocol at the United Nations. ``Even the Democrats wouldn't say that,'' she said.

Some of the world's poorest countries, such as Bolivia, sought to prove they could stand up to the United States. Bolivian President Evo Morales, a close ally of Chávez, chastised the Bush administration for adding his nation to a list of major drug-producing countries because it permits the cultivation of coca, which is consumed by many Bolivians as tea but is also used to make cocaine.

Holding a coca leaf in his hand, Morales told the General Assembly he would never yield to U.S. pressure to criminalize coca production. ``With all respect to the government of the United States, we are not going to change anything. We do not need blackmail or threats,'' Morales said.

[jymcginley]

Darfur Vigil DAY 118 (now in NYC); 56 Days Hunger Strike since July 4, 2006 Stand With Darfur-White House II

Young Rachel Corrie saw a bulldozer intentionally bearing down on the house of a family, a family she probably never knew. She got in front of that bulldozer, between the bulldozer and the house, between the threat, and the innocents. "This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore." DARFUR GENOCIDE. WE-CITIZENS SITTING IN COMFORT AND SAFETY IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE, "THIS HAS TO STOP." (http://www.criticalconcern.com/rachelcorrie.html.)

We need to get between what is killing Darfur (Bashir's performance and the nonperformance by we-the-people, we world citizens) - and our children, sisters and brothers in Darfur. Now. And as of now we are not (http://standwithdarfurwhitehouseii.blogspot.com/2006/09/sept-17th-activism-awesome-but-not.html) How do we do that? How do we make it happen? What would a sufficient "wake up" look like? IF SOMEONE HAS THIS ALREADY STARTED, LET ME KNOW. I'll join you, or even back out if that is best.

I am deciding what I will do next, what I expect to be my final attempt to spark the Rescue of Darfur by waking up sufficient numbers of we humans in time, converting us from spectators, critics and activists-of-convenience into antiviolent warriors (think Civil Rights struggle) of profound courage, wisdom, tenacity and effectiveness; utilizing to the max the few weeks, days and seconds that our Darfur family has left.

What would Rachel Corrie start THIS WEEK? This question strikes me as the way to approach the task of deciding. The way to focus the mind to come up with the appropriate, proportional response of greatest chance - THE BEST AIMED "HAIL MARY" PASS.

Rachel Corrie stood in front of a bulldozer about to destroy a house of people she did not know (http://www.criticalconcern.com/rachelcorrie.html). Would a different role model help you more? How about Steve Beko (South Africa, movie, Denzel), a young Gandhi, a young Nelson Mandella, an antivioloent Rambo, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, John Q (from the Denzel Washington movie)...? You get the idea. Think of your own role model APPROPRIATE to this situation.

LET’S JOIN TOGETHER IN THIS QUANDARY, before it is too late, please: Send me, or post, your ideas (http://standwithdarfurwhitehouseii.blogspot.com/). Now. I expect to embark on whatever best plan by early next week at the latest, with anyone that wants to join together.

A CONSTRAINT: Suggestions must centrally embrace this notion of the problem from Samantha Power's inspired, Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Problem from Hell" (and I paraphrase AND take license): THE BATTLE TO STOP GENOCIDE HAS ALWAYS BEEN LOST ON THE FIELD OF PUBLIC OPINION. THE PEOPLE [WE THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD]... HAVE NEVER STOOD UP SUFFICIENTLY TO STOP IT.

HUNCH: The plan should involve leveraging STAND's Oct 5th Fast to make it into the END OF THE GONOICIDE, the START of a WORLDWIDE FAST UNTIL DARFUR GENOCIDE IS ENDING. One-day only by all participants is too-little-too-late. A one day fast is NOT what the world's response to the Holocaust, the extermination of 6,000,000 Jews lacked. Not by many orders of magnitude. Death rates are climbing toward 25,000 per week in Darfur, NOW. We must be REALISTIC. Code Pink's "Troops Home Fast" could be a model (www.troopshomefast.org). Make STAND's October 5th the START? THAT COULD DO IT.

But, WE NEED EVEN BETTER, MUCH BETTER SUGGESTIONS and specific ideas for approach and execution than I am hinting at.

RESPOND. PLEASE. Now; because THERE IS NO MORE T-I-M-E. (For those of you that just want to watch, and have a good laugh at my frantic gyrations, enjoy.)

What would Rachel Corrie start THIS WEEK?

Jay McGinley (jymcginley@cs.com) 484-356-6243

[Darren Afrika-ka-ka]

The world may be waking up...what a load of hogwash....