LA Quick Hits: Calderon's Challenge(s), Mexican Mess, Manny To Go Free (Kind of), Hugo is Nice, Paper War Continues, Evo & ETA & More

• CSM closes out its excellent series on the troubles facing Calderon. The last piece focuses on the income gap in Mex.
• Speaking of Mex income Calderon said no gov't official should make more than him. Is that before or after bribes?
• Mexican tourism officials are freaked out over the new passport requirements that took affect Tuesday. They should be.
• A PRD official from Oaxaca was gunned down.
• W mentioned Cuba in the State of the Union last night, Ros-Lehtinen was predictably ecstatic. Somehow Fidel's nephews did provide a quote to the Herald. Meanwhile some lawmakers want to make life easier for Fidel and his posse.
  
• Manuel Noriega will be set "free" Sept. 9 although it appears that he will be extradited to France or Panama where he is wanted for crimes. The Panamanians want him but France is more likely to get him.
• US wants good relations with Correa - I doubt he does.
• I have no idea what Marcela Sanchez means when she calls Chavez' s 21st century socialism polite but she comes across like a fellow travelling apologist.
  
• A once prominent Chavista turns critic - too little too late.
• A pretty decent profile of Chavez's Venezuela in today's NYT. It features the best definition of Chavismo that I've seen thus far "It is a series of arbitrary improvisations from a fellow obeyed by everyone in his circle."
• ChiTrib has its own Chavez profile but it hits familiar points.
• Only the geniuses at Vigilia Mambisa could make a puny group of Chavez apologists look rational.
• World Court says Argentines can block bridges into Uruguay - Uruguay is steamed and Kirchner says that Uruguay has no choice but to talk to them now.
• Evo denies ties to ETA - liar!
  

LA Quick Hits: Evo is Loved, Hugo Beats China, Ecuador Kicks US Out, Lula's Package, Calderon Fights and Fights, Harleys in Havana & More

• One year in and Evo is still popular but divisive. What helps is the increased revenue from his nationalization program and that the economy is still growing. Evo marked the anniversary with a Fidel-esque 4 1/2 hour speech.
  
• The biggest customer in the arms market since 2005? Would you believe Hugo? Venezuela chipped in $4.3 billion to buy weapons and other military hardware (en esp.) while the China Reds ponied up $3.4 billion.
• Ecuador made clear that it is booting the US from the base in Manta (en esp.) in 2009, when the pact with US expires. Ecuador also looks to get into the LA arms race. (en esp.)
• CSM's excellent series on Calderon continues. Now the discussion focuses on his economic policy particularly the difficulty of dealing with monopolies. Ironically FT has a story on Calderon's planned assault on monopolies.
• Lula unveiled his growth package and it was bigger than expected.
• Calderon unveiled an 8-point plan to fight the drug war. He plans to rely more on local police in the future.
• Speaking of the police in Mex another cop was killed in Monterrey and...
• ...police in Tijuana are using slingshots, while they wait for their guns back.
• Miami (and Hugo) has given us a new pressure group Independent Venezuelan-America Citizens. They seem to be following the CANF model except that they will try to reach out to middle America by speaking English.
• Danny sliced his salary and those of his cabinet. (en esp.)
• Having a Harley in Cuba isn't easy.
  

LA Quick Hits: Hugo Talks (and Talks and Talks), Nutty Correa, Lula's Plan, Evo is Stuck, Monterrey, Cuba Libre! and More

• Hugo's babfest, Alo Presidente, was back on the air. Hugo told US to "go to hell," spoke of Brazilian babes in string bikinis, the hanging of Saddam, a plan to jack up taxes, raise the famously low price of Venezuelan gasoline and his plan to not pay market value for the nationalization of CANTV (en esp.) - the telecom company.
• FT has a round up of LA. Among the issues explored: Hugo's power grab and insane fiscal policy, Correa's even nuttier fiscal plans and the promising start of Calderon.
• Lula is set to unveil a growth package for Brazil. Among the features of Lula's plan: tax breaks, increased public spending on infrastructure along with other cuts in spending.
  
• Mercosur tabled plans of expansion, despite Hugo's enthusiasm for it.
• CSM begins a very promising series on Calderon's crackdown.
• Calderon's people insisted that they will carry on with the drug war and the AG insisted that extradition of drug traffickers had nothing to do with pressure from US.
  
• Bolivia's constitutional assembly is stuck in the mud and the politics of that country are a mess. Divisions abound and Evo has had to adjust.
• 5 killed by FARC bomb.
  
• 11 Iraqis bound for US were arrested in Mexico.
• Residents of Monterrey are accused of being cheap by fellow Mex. Is it an accident that Monterrey is the most business friendly and entrepreneurial major city in Mex?
  
• Monterrey is finishing off its own "River Walk."
• Who wants a free Cuba? No one but US.

Delayed Quick Hits

Due to unforseen circumstances I will not be able to post until the early evening. I apologize for the delay.

LA Quick Hits: Elections Colombian Style, Shut 'em Down Hugo Style, A Bunch of Stuff on Drugs - An Arrest, A Fungus and A Runner & More

• Uribe blew off para leader Mancuso's revelation that the paras pressured voters to support Uribe. (en esp.)
  
• Want to know why Hugo is shutting down RCTV? WaPost has the best story thus far on what it is about RCTV that ticks Hugo off.
• Texan lawmakers are asking for $850 million dollars over five years to fight the drug war in Mexico. Once again we are looking for a proxy to do our fighting for us. Once again we are looking for our southern neighbors to bear the brunt of the drug war. Why don't we spend $850 million to get people off drugs or to get them off of our streets?
• Pedro Diaz Parada, allegedly a drug cartel leader, was arrested in Oaxaca. This is the first major arrest of the Calderon crackdown.
• "Franken-fungus" a powerful herbicide may be to controversial and dangerous to spread here but some in DC don't have a problem in using it in LA to combat drugs.
• Colombian authorities stumbled on $54 million worth of loot while conducting drug raids in four houses.
• Cubans wait and wonder as to the state of Fidel's health. I'll say it again, when he dies there will be wailing in the streets. I'm just preparing myself psychological for the sight and the glowing news reports.
• Cuba is keeping a Colombian drug runner under lock and key, even though they haven't charged him with anything drug related. The insinuation in the piece is that if they let him go he may reveal something to embarass the Cubes. Not that I think the Castro Bros. don't run drugs (I do) but I doubt they would have made a high profile case over a weak link.
• A miner's death has some in Coahuila skittish. 65 miners were buried alive last year and safety remains a concern.
• Former LA prezes are being nailed when they leave office. The Herald explains why...I'll do it quicker most LA gov't's are dirty.
  

...& His Cultural Revolution

Hugo really wants to control aspects of Venezuelan life, even its entertainment and culture:

Welcome to another dimension of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's socialist "revolution" and war against the West. The man who recently announced plans to nationalize key industries and who has become the world's most outspoken scold of President Bush also wants to take on Walt Disney and Snoop Dogg.

He is trying to promote a national identity and more independence from "imperialist" America by forcing radio stations to play indigenous music, granting prominent space to amateur Venezuelan artists in museums, and setting up a state-run movie studio. It may be one of the world's bolder – and most controversial – experiments in trying to engineer a culture.

To supporters, the move may well give artists who otherwise might be swept aside by the forces of capitalism and commercialism an opportunity to develop their craft – and, by extension, enhance the artistic diversity of a nation.

But critics, including many artists themselves, see the move as a political gambit – one that, in trying to promote a national cultural identity, threatens the very integrity of the culture itself.

"They [Chávez administration officials] have no respect for culture in Venezuela," says Beatriz Sogbe, an art historian here. "You can't hang culture within the law."

Chavez wants to take on Hollywood, which is odd because it is so close ideologically to him:

In its attempt to counter what it sees as the hegemony of Hollywood, the Chávez administration has created "Cinema Village." It has put $42 million into the project, through the Ministry of Culture, with the intent of producing 19 feature-length films a year, in addition to documentaries and television series. The project also calls for building 24 screening rooms throughout the country in places without movie theaters. Six have been constructed so far.

The idea is to encourage films that incorporate themes of social empowerment, Latin history, or Venezuelan values. Participants insist it is not a form of political propaganda, but an incubator for budding auteurs and an alternative to American movies and their "stereotypes."

"Hollywood creates movies to sell tickets, and in doing so, we are taught that all Arabs are terrorists, that Africa is poor because it wants to be, that all women in Latin America are prostitutes," says Lorena Almarza, Cinema Village's president, a hip 30-something wearing a red "Chávez" bracelet.

Hugo's Holy War...

Want to know how to create a dictatorship? Here's a how to courtesy of WashTimes:

There are three things all aspiring dictatorships seek to control or destroy. The first is private property. Undermining this institution encourages economic dependency on the state while simultaneously stripping people of private resources they might use to support political opposition. Thus we see Mr. Chavez nationalizing various industries, confiscating land, and attempting to control private companies, especially in the oil industry.

A second target of dictatorships is the family. Most such regimes seek to weaken family loyalties by turning children and parents against each other and encouraging everyone to regard the state as an alternative parent. Here Mr. Chavez's moves have involved attempting to militarize as many young people as possible, and his education law which will, Cardinal Urosa Savino believes, result in the "politicization and ideologizing of education" and diminish parents' ability to control their children's education -- especially their religious education.

This brings us to the third objective of any dictatorship: suppression of religious liberty. The autonomy enjoyed by the church creates a sphere of activity independent of the state. Invariably this results in dictators attempting to demolish religious faith, as one saw in the Soviet Union, or a Kulturkampf against churches, as occurred under the Nazi regime.

Solving Iran and Venezuela

CSM is feeling pretty confident that if we leave Iran and Venezuela to their own devices that they will collapse just like the Soviet Union did and Cuba is doing. Sorry, but some of the logic in their case is blown by bringing up one regime that lasted over 70 years and one that is 47 years strong. Nor does CSM mention anything about contesting the two headed monster of Iran and Venezuela indirectly in other theaters. Do they think that we should allow Hugo to pile up buddies all over LA and allow him to sink them to the ground too? Anyway here are the highlights:

The more their socialist populism falters, the more Chávez and Ahmadinejad try to divert the attention of their poor majorities into believing the US is a threat. "Imperialism [meaning Washington] won't rest in its effort to weaken us, and one of the strategies is to weaken the price of oil," Chávez said during the visit of Iran's president.

Indeed, falling oil prices have reduced the money available for both governments to continue social handouts or makeshift jobs. For Chávez, who now wants to alter the Constitution to stay in power for a very long time, the solution is to grab added wealth by gaining more control of the means of production, Cuban style. He plans to nationalize the electricity company EDC and the telecom company CANTV. He also will end the central bank's autonomy and demand more revenue from foreign oil producers.

Such steps are a throwback to the failed policies of nationalized industries in Latin America during the 1970s. They are based on the false assumption that primary causes of poverty are wealth disparity and elitist politics, rather than a widespread culture of corruption and lack of education and smallscale capital.

Venezuela now ranks as the second most corrupt Latin American nation, and Chávez's socialism has produced rampant crime, high inflation, and slowing oil production. Unless he starts to buy Iranian know-how to make bomb-grade nuclear materials, the best the US can do is let his economic experiment fall of its own weight, as the Soviet Union's did, and as Cuba's is still doing.

The self-isolation of Iran and Venezuela comes out of a faulty vision in economics and a heavy hand in reducing democracy down to autocracy. The more they try to use oil wealth to win other nations over to an anti-US axis, the more they put their weak policies on display. Some revolutions aren't very revolutionary.

Solving the Drug War

Alvaro Vargas Llosa visits Colombia, finds cocaine cheap and plentiful and comes up with his own ideas on how to solve the problem:

In a country that has made admirable progress on other fronts, the drug war is preventing the government from finishing off the narco-terrorist organizations. Between 2002 and 2005, Uribe’s “democratic security” policy successfully pushed those organizations, especially the Marxist empire known as FARC, away from many cities. There was a one-third drop in the number of murders and a two-thirds drop in the number of terrorist attacks. The economy picked up handsomely. But then a stalemate ensued in the campaign against the terrorists that cannot be attributed only to the country’s jungles. The mafias that owe their existence to the criminalization of cocaine continue to generate enough funds to match every attempt by the government to beef up its military capability.

The frustration is reopening the debate on the drug war. Some politicians are openly calling for decriminalization. Others propose intermediate mechanisms. Analyst Olga Gonzalez says that “in the last 15 years, hundreds of Colombians have been extradited to the United States and hundreds of thousands of hectares have been fumigated, and yet cocaine remains an excellent business. The link between mafias and politics has now reached the upper echelons of power, as the revelations of ‘para-politics’ show.” She recalls that Colombia had a lucrative marijuana trade in the 1970s. When Americans started to grow their own, the Colombian mafias disappeared. Why don’t American laboratories, she asks, continue to develop the synthetic cocaine for which there is already a prototype? Or why don’t Americans develop a genetically modified coca leaf needing less solar radiation and tropical humidity so that consumers can grow it in their balconies?

Actually, all of these solutions would face the barrier of prohibition at the consumer level. And in the case of synthetic cocaine, the real thing is much cheaper to produce—the drug war notwithstanding. The debate that needs to be addressed is the one about decriminalization. The place to open that debate is not Colombia but the United States. No Latin American government could decriminalize drugs unilaterally without incurring the fatal wrath of the United States, exposing its country to ferocious reprisals. A recent example is former Mexican President Vicente Fox’s attempt to sign into law a bill passed by Congress legalizing tiny amounts of certain drugs for personal consumption. When the seven plagues of Egypt fell upon Fox—courtesy of Washington—the conservative president was forced to rethink.

Dresser on Calderon's Crackdown

Denise Dresser is a pretty reasonable especially when you consider that she is a professor at UNAM. In an op-ed that appeared in LAT Dresser concedes that Calderon had little choice but to act with force. She also notes the role that corruption and the police play in the drug trade:

The government's drug enforcement efforts are undermined by the corrupting influence of the drug trade, yet the drug trade cannot survive without the protection of compromised elements within the government. Cocaine traffickers spend as much as $500 million on bribery, which is more than double the budget of the Mexican attorney general's office. As a result, it frequently becomes difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Police regularly play dual roles: They act as drug enforcers and as protectors of the smugglers. Violent conflicts routinely erupt between police operating as law enforcers and police acting as lawbreakers. So it's no wonder that as part of Operation Tijuana — the Calderon crackdown that made headlines this month — local police were forced to relinquish their weapons.

This leads to the military's role in all this. Much like me she concerned about the affect this will have long-term, particularly in corrupting the military (further):

In the face of police corruption, Calderon has turned to the military to take on the anti-drug effort — 3,300 army, navy and federal officers took part in Operation Tijuana. But moving soldiers — who are separate from the federal police — around the country at will is a cause for concern, and not just because of potential human rights violations. As a result of its expanded role, the military is becoming the supreme authority — in some cases the only authority — in parts of some states. And greater militarization frequently leads to corruption. When cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from jail several years ago, it is believed that generals helped him do so. So using the military as a roving cleanup force may solve some short-term image problems, but it also creates other, intractable ones.

For the long haul Calderon has a plan but Dresser thinks he needs to do more...and she's right:

Calderon hopes to overcome the corrupting influence of the drug trade by creating a new national police force as well as a special anti-drug division, similar to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He believes that with greater resources and more autonomy, those in charge of combating crime will not end up succumbing to it. But setting up a new agency and extending its reach will not be enough. Calderon needs to deal with Mexico's culture of illegality and pervasive impunity.

Over the last decade, Mexico's transition to democratic rule has cast a glaring light on the country's limited rule of law. Often judges, prosecutors and state officials have been unable to withstand the corrupting influence of the drug trade, a $7-billion-a-year business. And the credibility of public institutions has suffered when those proved guilty have eluded punishment.

So, while Calderon's efforts are to be applauded, they must also be accompanied by comprehensive measures that entail more than soldiers on the streets and photo-ops of the president dressed in olive green. The prospects for a stable, less insecure Mexico will be contingent on Calderon's capacity to enact a major overhaul of the country's judiciary and law enforcement apparatus. In other words, he needs to fight not only drug traffickers but the political networks that protect them.

If Calderon's "surge" is unable to rein in drug-related violence and bring its perpetrators to justice, even after using the army as an instrument of last resort, drug lords and their allies will know that the president's hand is weak — and that his efforts are too little, too late.

LA Quick Hits: Fidel's Ass, Former Para Talking (Dead Man Walking?), Isa Going to Jail?, Correa Takes Reins, Nica Poverty Fight, Just Say No! & More

• Castro almost got an artificial anus but opted against it. This and other scintillating details about Fidel's colon and rectum were revealed by el Pais in Spain.
• Salvatore Mancuso, a former "para" leader in Colombia, confessed/boasted about his crimes in an effort to take advantage of a deal provided to all "paras" to disclose crimes and serve reduced sentences.
• A second arrest warrant has been issued for Isabel Peron, a request for extradition should come next.
  
• El Salvador marked the 15th anniversary of the signing of the peace accords that allowed the FMLN to put down its weapons.
• Correa marks his first day on the job by signing an oil deal with Hugo.
• Nicaragua's new finance minister is making poverty his number one concern. He says the right things but is incredibly vague as to the policies that he will implement - that is rarely a good thing.
  
• Calderon starts a jobs program providing incetives to companies to hire first time workers.
• Evo's land reform is posing challenges to its benficiaries.
  
• Mexico is ticked that an illegal border jumper was killed by the Border Patrol.
  
• Texas border mayors say "no" to a fence. I can respect that but what should be done then, any suggestions? One mayor sends that a barrier would send the "wrong message." The message that a wall/fence says to me is don't cross the boder illegally - is that the "wrong message."
  

LA Quick Hits: Fidel is NOT Going to Die, Unfortunately Correa Isn't Either, Garcia and Hugo, Calderon's New Buddies? & Much More

• The doctor who prompted the latest Fidel is going to die rumors is refuting them.
  
• Correa is now in charge of Ecuador. He wants a constitutional assembly, to renegotiate debt, kick US out and move his nation towards socialism. I love the fact that papers keep harping about his doctorate from U of Illinois - it exposes what goes on in most University eco depts.
• The Herald explained why Correa has no support in the Congress - his party ran no candidates.
• Alan Garcia of Peru and Hugo kiss and make up. Relations within the two countries should be renewed within the month. I wouldn't expect Garcia to get too cozy with Hugo, he has to great an ego to be anyone's follower. I think both sides just felt like this was an unnecessary distraction.
• Venezuela cut off negotiations with oil companies concerning Orinoco ops.
• Manfred Reyes Villa, the Evo hating gov of Cochabamba, is concerned that Ecuador stands on the precipe of civil war. (en esp.) I don't know about Ecuador but Cochabamba is certainly undergoing one as we speak.
  
• The not so shocking news of the day: Cuba is unhappy that Posada was only charged with lying.
  
• HoustonChron has a piece explaining that Calderon is hanging with LA lefties to distance himself from the idea that he is close to the US. That's fine since Mex and US really do not have coinciding interests for the most part. Calderon is the most agreeable head of state that we could have desired but that does not necessarily make him a close friend.
• Some are deriding Calderon's use of the military to fight the drug war and to provide security in strife ridden areas of Mex. I'm of two minds - only the military can provide the security and safety desired but the longer they are out there the more suceptible they are to corruption.
• Uribe blew off concerns that he may nationalize sectors of Colombian economy. (en esp.) Now that would surprise me.
• Speaking of blowing off - that is exactly what Venezuela did with the accusation from a former Colombian drug trafficker who snitched on Boliviarians for drug running. (en esp.)
  
• Stuff like this is custom made for VDARE - a mother of a slain Mexican "migrant" (illegal border crosser) wants the Border Patrol agent who shot her son to get the death penalty.
  
• I can't believe that it's news that one police officer in Mexico has been arrested for ties to a drug cartel. Let's see how many they get in Tijuana - I doubt they nail even one.
• The DEA wants three offices on the other side of the border.
• Cuba sent out a mixed message on freeing the press - trust me if it is mixed ignore it. When things get tough the gov't will rescind the good stuff and ante up the bad.
• Police are still trying to clean up Rio.
  

Castro Death Watch

I think it's been over a month since I linked to a "Fidel is going to die soon" story. Hat tip, like he needs one, to Drudge.

Those Racist Scumbags at VDARE

Actually I don't mean that but seeing as how an incendiary post got VDARE's attention I couldn't help myself. I am genuinely flattered that Peter Brimelow saw fit to respond to my post and send some traffic my way. Up until now I could only count on my family and three friends to read this crap. That being said I would like to clarify some misconceptions:

• OK I did whine about Alien Nation but not that much. There is much in it that is worthwhile and I agree with over 75% of it. Not that anyone cares but I am a proud owner of a first edition autographed copy of Alien Nation.
  
• Actually what blew my fuse was the fact that Jared Taylor was still being published in VDARE and not the actual piece.
• For purposes of demographic pigeonholing I suppose that I am a free-market Hispanic. Being the disagreeable person that I am I have a problem as being labeled as such. Personally I loathe loaded concept of "Hispanic" - stick a Puerto Rican, Mexican and a Cuban in a room and the only thing they'll agree about is that they hate each other.
  
• As for rallying to my supposed ethnicity nothing could be further from the truth. I am of Cuban descent but the reason I chose my nom de plume was to hat tip Cardinal Richelieu. He pursued his nation's best interests despite his supposed allegiance to his religion and the Vatican. I choose to support America's national interest despite the fact that I am of Cuban descent. Unfortunately I do not write enough to make that clear.
  
• The reason I choose to focus on Latin America is my overwhelming concern that we do not pay enough attention to the issues that affect it. Not because I feel allegiance to the countries south of our border but because I sincerely believe that our negligence inspires movements that act contrary to our interests.
• As for the free-market part I am guilty as charged. I'm a proud Adam Smith/Jeffersonian Liberal. In modern parlance a libertarian who swings right, or a libertarian without libertinism.
• The "allied blog" was a failed collaborative effort and is defunct. Don't read too much into what I wrote there since I was writing for a group and not for myself.

Now that I got everyone's attention I must say that I enjoyed some of the comments from VDARE's defenders. Most of them were thoughtful and I appreciated that they took the time to write. There were the obligatory flamers who contributed nothing to the debate but I posted them too just for the hell of it.

As for VDARE I wish it luck, I will continue reading despite some disagreements, specifically about Taylor and increasingly about Roberts. I did rip Roberts in the comments page but I should mention that I linked, heavily excerpted and generally agreed with his his piece on Pinochet. I should note that I considered adding his book The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America in The Library section. Unfortunately due to no fault of his own it is somewhat dated. Written during the heady days of so called neo-liberalism it spoke of nations that seemed to ready to turn the corner to prosperity and freedom. Tragically LA reverted to the loony lefty populism that has plagued it for nearly a century.

I should mention that I still enjoy reading Alan Wall's posts even when disagreeing with them. It is no accident that the longest stretch of time that I went without VDARE was when he was shipped out to Iraq. I hope that Mr. Wall also got around to reading Mexico Mutilado by Francisco Martin Moreno yet another bestseller that exposes prevailing Mexican sentiment towards the colossus to the north.

As for Mr. Brimelow I confess to taking a cheap shot and perhaps should have chosen my words more carefully. I would never engage him in any sort of verbal confrontation because I don't stand a chance but I hope he sees that my post was written more in frustration than anything else. I agree with much of what he says, I agree with much of what he proposes but much like Buckley jettisoned some of the more unsavory elements of the right to further the conservative movement so should he to improve the prospects of immigration reform.

Now if you'll excuse me Jack Bauer is on.

When Good Writers Go Racist - The Case of Peter Brimelow

When I was younger (so much younger than today) I used to love reading Peter Brimelow's pieces in Forbes. In fact his work was one of the reasons that I was a subscriber. He was always cutting against the grain, making novel arguments for free market solutions and coming up with unique solutions to supposedly difficult issues. When Brimelow put out his book Alien Nation I stuck with him. Nonethless parts of Alien Nation made me feel uncomfortable. There was one passage in which he reflected on what kind of future awaited his blue-eyed boy in society being swamped by immigrants. Then he started up the anti-immigration site VDARE. Again I stuck with him, but I started to keep my distance. There is nothing wrong with an honest immigration debate, particularly once it comes to assimilation but the tone of VDARE started to concern me. Then Brimelow embraced Jared Taylor and the racist American Renaissance (Jack Kemp should have trademarked that, damnit). I can't possible support Brimelow and VDARE now.

I mention this for no other reason that I went on VDARE today and saw another Taylor piece on Hispanics. As for American Renaissance if you aren't sure they are racist just check out the comments posted by their readers. I love one genius bemoaning the fact that right wing members of the EU Parliament don't use "biological origin" to unite and line up support. You'd think they would at least try to hide the fact that they are racists.

Harvard + Hugo = Stupidity

True it is over 2 months old but only a journal with the name "Harvard" in it could come up with something as ignorant as this:

Furthermore, these leftists are not dictatorial. Chavez has won multiple elections and the opposition has not been squelched. He has allowed partisan, anti-Chavez mass media outlets to continue broadcasting. For example, multibillionaire Gustavo Cisneros’s Venevisión, the main commercial television channel in Venezuela, actively supported the 2002 coup against Chavez and has repeatedly called Chavez supporters “mobs” and “monkeys.” Nonetheless, Chavez has not shut down these types of operations. Thus, while he is perhaps guilty of some abuses of power (including a statement about his desire to stay in office for 25 years), US attacks on Chavez’s democratic legitimacy ring false and often help him to boost his support.

Elections do not a democracy make. The USSR had elections, Cuba has elections, so does Zimbawe. Mexico had elections for over 70 years with the same party winning every stinking time. Does that make a country a democracy?
Somehow, someway the piece got worse:

While some trends in Latin America do present some serious concerns, the region’s new left offers great opportunities and few threats for its own people and for the United States. (emphasis mine) In US policy circles, however, the term “leftist” continues to raise alarm, provoking counterproductive policies that have frequently strengthened the positions of the administration’s ideological opponents. Like Hezbollah and Hamas, Latin American populists have learned that they can gain political support by providing the poor with needed social services. A recent USAID study shows that democracy has been improved where aid has been targeted to those truly in need. The United States has not learned these lessons and has continued using policies of isolation and angry rhetoric. Engagement, alternatively, could advance mutual interests and offer much greater promise than isolation.

Falcoff Speaks the Truth About Cuba (and US)

Here are a some things that I believe about Cuba that distances me from the rest of my right-wing bretheren: that American policy should be based on America's best interest not Little Havana's, that nothing much is going to change in the Fidel aftermath, if it does change we (Cubiches in Miami) are probably going to be disappointed and that both sides of the straits have an inflated (and delusional) sense of what Cuba is and what it has to offer. Mark Falcoff from AEI has his own opinions about post Castro Cuba I could not agree more with his assesment of our (America's) overriding concern - stability not democracy:

As for fear of the United States, the harsh truth is that Cubans are living in an historical time warp when their country was far more important both economically and strategically; today it has nothing we need or want--not even beaches and warm climate. (One of the most important side effects of the Cuban revolution was the development of a major tourist industry in South Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.) The present U.S.-Cuban impasse is driven by historical grudges and ideology, not concrete interests.

What could those interests be? Unfortunately, the most important of all is not the restoration of democracy on the island--as desirable as that obviously would be--but the avoidance of a massive migration crisis, which is to say, a repetition of the Mariel boatlift in 1980-81, when thousands of Cubans scuttled to leave the island, including some criminals and mental defectives whom Castro perversely included in the mix. This explains why the Bush administration has validated the 1994 agreements by which we take a floor of 20,000 unhappy Cubans each year. What Raúl Castro was offering Washington last December 2 was a guarantee that no such crisis would occur as long as the two governments respected each other’s broader priorities. After all, Raúl Castro must be thinking, Washington had no problems with Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s long reign in the Dominican Republic or the Anastasio Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua; why can’t it make its peace with my leadership in Cuba?

Apart from implicit assurances to continue the current migration regime, Raúl Castro might well offer some other incentives to the United States, or rather, to U.S. business. Unlike his elder brother, he is said to be impressed by the Chinese model, which combines free markets, foreign investment, and iron-clad dictatorship by the army and the Communist Party. The lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and the ban on tourist travel would call into existence a new business lobby in Washington--hotel chains, airlines, and exporters of foodstuffs and construction materials--with a vested interest in good relations. Contrary to the persistent delusions of some members of our Congress, the Cuban market as a whole offers very little to the United States; it is a mere speck on the economic screen. But to those directly involved in commerce with the island, it would not be negligible. For example, the port of Jacksonville, Florida, exports a billion dollars’ worth of products (mostly foodstuffs) to the Dominican Republic each year, largely to provision its tourist industries. A similar or even larger figure could easily be imagined in the case of Cuba--certainly enough to justify the hiring of expensive legal talent on Washington’s K Street to downplay the unpleasant news from Cuba’s ghastly prisons.

To be sure, a transition to the Chinese model would require Raúl Castro to negotiate past some formidable obstacles. The Helms-Burton Law (1995) specifically names him as one of two personalities with whom the United States will not negotiate under any circumstances. It also enumerates a series of conditions for the United States to resume relations with Cuba. These would in effect require the entire dismantlement of the dictatorship and the calling to life of a full-blown democratic system. Indeed, Helms-Burton raises the bar so high as to suggest that its purpose was not so much to bring about democracy in Cuba as to prevent some future (presumably Democratic) administration from making its peace with the status quo. However, the very fact that Raúl is a less flamboyant personality and a (marginally) less delectable target for the wrath of the exile community can be counted among his assets. One or two gestures beyond business or migration incentives--such as the release of political prisoners, or at least an agreement to admit the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights and instate new rules which respect workers’ rights in joint ventures--might well shatter the fragile coalition that buttresses Helms-Burton and lead to its repeal. (As it is, the latest Gallup poll shows a majority of Americans favor resumption of diplomatic relations with the island.)

The biggest obstacle to Raúl Castro’s apparent dream of a seamless transition to a Communism that works is not, however, U.S. policy or domestic politics, but the fact that Cuba is not China. It is not part of a huge continent home to a millennial civilization, and it can never dream of global influence or power in its own right. Nor can it wholly insulate itself from the impact of the United States or Spain, much less similar countries nearby to which it is linked by language, customs, and history, such as Mexico, Costa Rica, or Colombia. Even Venezuela, currently in the thrall to a demagogue who claims to want to replicate Fidel Castro’s political trajectory, must appear to the island’s elite as a dangerously disorganized (that is, open) society excessively awash in consumer goods. Meanwhile, who knows what inconvenient political fallout will spill onto the island with the eventual return from Venezuela of Cuban doctors, teachers, and sports trainers currently seconded there?

In spite of Fidel Castro’s best efforts, Cuba is and remains a Latin American country, and it cannot escape forever the broader trends which have swept and transformed the region over the past half century. Perhaps this is why Raúl Castro feels the time has come to make peace with the United States before the currents of history overtake him and the regime he and his brother have created.

Why Hugo Wins

FP has a Web Exclusive on Hugo's winning ways. First they lay to waste some of his outlandish claims concerning poverty eradication:

The most commonly cited statistic in defense of the Chávez-helps-the-poor hypothesis is the decrease in poverty rates, from 42.8 percent when he took office in 1999 to 33.9 percent in 2006. But this decrease is neither unprecedented nor surprising, given that the Venezuelan economy is in the midst of an economic expansion fueled by a five-fold increase in global oil prices since his first term began. Historically, drastic declines in poverty in Venezuela are associated with periods of substantial real exchange appreciation similar to the current one. The last such episode, which lasted from 1996 to 1998, coincided with an even larger decline in the poverty rate, from 64.3 percent to 43.9 percent. The fact that Venezuela is presently running a fiscal deficit despite unprecedented global oil prices signals that the current improvement, just like previous ones, will sooner or later be reversed.

A full reading of Venezuela’s health and education statistics shows no signs of the dramatic turnaround in well-being often claimed by the Chávez government and its supporters. For instance, the percentage of newborns who are underweight actually increased from 8.4 to 8.8 percent between 1999 and 2004. The infant mortality rate has declined, but it has been declining steadily since the 1940s. There isn’t even much evidence that the government is trying to do more for the poor. The average share of social spending, excluding social security, has actually decreased during the Chávez administration (29.3 percent for the period from 1999 to 2004, in contrast to 31.5 percent for period from 1990 to 1998 before Chávez was in office).

So why did he win? Easy, it's the economy stupid:

But if Chávez’s social policies are not working, why did he win such a clear victory in the December elections? The explanation lies largely in Venezuela’s economic growth. The country has experienced three straight years of near-double-digit growth, partly because of the recovery from the 2003 national strike and partly because of the dramatic increase in worldwide oil prices. If there is one universal rule of voting behavior, it is that incumbents do well when the economy is growing.

That high economic growth would obviously be a point in favor of Chávez if it weren’t so clearly unsustainable. Despite a five-fold expansion in oil prices, Venezuela is currently running a fiscal deficit projected at 2.3 percent for 2006. A decline in oil prices, or perhaps even something less dramatic, will make this house of cards come tumbling down. When it does, it will be the Venezuelan poor who will pay the heaviest price.

And when that time comes, Venezuelans of all stripes may have no choice but to accept Chávez’s continued rule. He has used his time in office, and his country’s ample resources, to consolidate a formidable political machinery whose power is based not only on its ability to hand out rewards to supporters, but also to punish its opponents by systematically denying them access to employment and public services. Every arm of the state, from the tax collection agency to the judicial system, is being used to ensure that Chávez’s opponents pay a high cost for their political opinions.

Explaining the "J-Curve"

Ian Bremmer returns to TNI to hype up his idea and his book, (sub. required) which incidentally happens to be a future Bookshelf item. I'm not going to say that the J-Curve is original that there need to be a number of pre-existing conditions for a democracy to be forged and to thrive yet the measurement that Bremmer proposes tries to chart this.

The first thing Bremmer does is remind us that building a democracy is not easy:

To build democracy in a state with little or no democratic history is the work of decades—and it can’t be done on the cheap. To invest considerable human, political and financial capital in support of the construction of democracy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, as if national elections and good police work will create an inexpensive and self-sustaining momentum toward stable political pluralism, is foolhardy.

He then lays out his thesis:

To understand why this is so, consider the relationship between a state’s stability and its “openness.” A country’s stability is a measure of its government’s capacity to implement policy in the event of a political, social or economic crisis. Openness is a measure of the degree to which people, ideas, information, goods and services flow freely in both directions across the state’s borders and within the state itself.

Some countries—Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom or Brazil—are stable precisely because they are open. Commercial, intellectual and social interactions across borders render their cultures and economies ever more dynamic. Other states, such as North Korea, Iran or Cuba, remain stable only so long as they remain closed and isolated.

Now imagine a graph on which the vertical axis measures stability and the horizontal axis measures openness. States that appear as points higher on the graph are more stable, while those lower are less stable. Those further to the right on the graph are more open; those on the left, less so. Were you to map every possible combination of stability and openness that a given state could generate, those points would form a shape very much like the letter “J”.

This “J-Curve”, properly understood, can be an effective tool for the architects of foreign policy, because it reveals a great deal about how other states define their interests and develop governing strategies. The J-Curve is agnostic on questions of the relative virtues of democracy. There are plenty of states that are more stable as dictatorships than they would be if they were governed with the consent of the governed. The relationship between stability and openness also reveals that a democracy’s success depends not on happy accidents of history, but on social, cultural and economic circumstances within a country that do or do not favor its development.

Because the left side of the J-Curve is considerably steeper than the right, it means that whenever a closed society begins to open up and interact with a globalized world, the chances are much higher that such a state can more quickly and easily fall down the curve into instability than a state that is on the right side of the curve. The process of democratization can create instability especially in states where democracy is a recent import, where long-repressed demands for change are released and when previously disenfranchised players scramble for the first time for a share of the country’s political and economic spoils.

A state’s relative prosperity determines its baseline for stability. If North Korea suddenly struck oil, it would become more stable at every point along the curve, because it would have more resources with which to artificially reinforce stability at every given level of openness. If oil prices suddenly crashed to $20 per barrel, Saudi Arabia would become considerably less stable. But the basic relationship between stability and openness (the shape of the curve) remains the same whether the entire curve is rising or falling.

Given the steepness of the left side of the curve, a formerly closed state that has begun to implement some reforms can more quickly restore damaged stability than a state that has gone further down the reform road—in its attempt to reach the levels of openness and stability of right-hand states. It is faster and easier to restore stability by declaring martial law—closing the country—than it is to create an open, stable, functioning civil society and attract foreign investment. This is especially the case if large amounts of external support are not available to guarantee a baseline level of prosperity while changes are underway or—unlike in the case of a number of Central and East European states—there is no guarantee that the adoption of painful reforms will lead to guaranteed results.

Bremmer then tries to apply the J-Curve to current for policy quandries:

U.S. policies toward Iran and North Korea are failing for precisely the same reason that Bush Administration policy toward China shows more promise: The isolation of authoritarian states is self-defeating. If the aim is to undermine a dictatorship, one should open it to the outside world.

Is it realistic to expect the U.S. government to respond to Iran’s uranium enrichment and North Korea’s nuclear test by engaging these countries and by promoting investment in their economies? If enabling growth (and greater openness) in China makes good sense, why not pursue the same strategy in other politically repressive states?

The United States is going to face a number of challenges and disappointments over the next two years—Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China and Russia, among others. The first reaction of many U.S. politicians is to be confrontational. Easing tensions with rogue states and with countries perceived to be opposing U.S. policies will not win the president points with those who prefer a muscular strategy. But decisions need to be made on the basis of long-term U.S. interests, not short-term sound bites. The best reason to avoid self-congratulatory legislation that isolates rogue states to change their behavior is that we know this approach won’t work.

Why LA is the Sick Man of the West

We all owe Wilson Quarterly a great deal of gratitude for recapping "Latin America in the Rear View Mirror" which appeared in print in the Fed Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Review. The piece discards commonly held assumption of what ails LA:

The authors rule out many of the usual explanations for the region’s lagging performance. Compared with the rest of the world, Latin America does not suffer from massive unemployment, a lack of basic education, a capital shortfall, a staggeringly high birthrate, or an utter lack of democracy. Quite the con­trary, say Cole and Ohanian, professors at UCLA, and econ­omists Riascos, of the Banco de la Republica de Colombia, and Schmitz, of the Federal Reserve Bank of ­Minneapolis.

The Latin American employ­ment rate is about 70 percent of the rate in Europe and the United States, a significant gap, but not enough to explain the region’s economic stagnation. Argentina’s and Chile’s over-25 populations in 1990 had 7.8 and 6.2 years of schooling, respectively, the authors say. Latin America has not experienced a major deficiency in the amount of capital available for investment in recent decades, and Latin Amer­ican governments on average have been almost as democratic as those in Western Europe over the past 15 years, according to research cited by the ­authors.

So what is wrong?

The inefficiency of Latin Amer­ican economies can be traced, in part, to government policies, the auth­ors say, including tariffs, quotas, multiple exchange-rate systems, regulatory barriers to foreign products, inef­ficient financial systems, and large, subsidized ­state-­owned ­enterprises.

In one of several instances when barriers were lifted—foreigners were allowed to invest in Chile’s previously nationalized copper industry—copper production grew by 175 percent in 10 years. Individual mines became more efficient, and Chile’s relative productivity in­creased from 30 percent to 82 percent of the U.S. level. The 1991 privatization of the Brazilian iron ore industry, after nearly 20 years of negligible growth, sent productivity soaring more than 100 percent by 1998. One key to the growth of the industry, the authors say, was changes in work rules that had limited the number of tasks a worker could perform. Ma­chine operators, for example, were prohibited from making even trivial repairs to their machines. With looser rules and private ownership, output increased by 30 ­percent.

In contrast, the authors say, the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry in 1975 led to a decline of 70 percent in productivity and 53 per­cent in oil output in less than 10 ­years.

Why would a government choose to make its economy unproductive? The answer, the authors contend, is that a small part of society would be harmed by economic changes, and this group has sufficient resources to block their ­adoption.

Governments have an incentive to make it virtually impossible for foreign competitors or even local entrepreneurs to start businesses that compete with incumbent, ­low-­efficiency producers. “When com­pet­itive barriers are elimin­ated and Latin American producers face significant foreign competition, they are able to replicate the high pro­ductivity level of other Western countries,” the authors ­conclude.

LA Quick Hits: Cochabamba Clash, MAS Scrap, Correa/Uribe Talk, Peron Lives, Hugo Helps Danny, Human Rights Watch Wakes Up & More

• Violence broke out again in Cochabamba yesterday leaving two dead.
  
• Evo's MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) is threatening to scrap the Constitutional Assembly. Evo had previously threatened to impose his reforms by edict if this happened.
  
• Correa is touting the successful dialogue that he had with Uribe (en esp.) concerning the spraying on the border.
  
• Isabel Peron, the former president and the strongman's widow, has an arrest order for her from an Argentine judge. This stems from accusations made about her role of the disappearance of a leftist during the "Dirty War." Peron lives in Spain.
• Nicaragua has signed a couple of pacts with Venezuela to take advantage of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). (en esp.) This is Hugo's version of what we call the FTAA but that our Spanish speaking neighbors refer to as ALCA. Danny's deal gets him a refinery and housing.
• FT has an incredibly tepid op-ed on Hugo's "Left Turn."
• Oppo leader Manuel Rosales said that Hugo wants to perpetuate his reign - I'm glad he told me because I never would have guessed. (en esp.)
• Human Rights Watch rips Hugo for stacking courts and destroying the independent judiciary.
• Human Rights Watch also expressed disappointment over the new and improved UN Commission on Human Rights. I can't believe that it took them this long to realize that the reformed commission is barely an improvement over its previous incarnation. The whole thing should be scrapped - obviously the UN is beyond being an effective defender of Human Rights.
• Cubans paid homage to deceased dissident Miguel Valdes Tamayo. Tamayo died at 50 of a heart attack.
• Posada Carriles has been indicted for lying...that's like saying he has been indicted for breathing. I've said before and I'll say it again - if Posada would have kept his mouth shut and laid low no one would have bothered him. Unfortunately ego, delusions of his supporters and the cloistered hardline Cuban exile community allowed the genius to stage a grand press conference drawing attention to him and his cronies. The US gov't had to act then. The man got what he deserved.
• The UN is looking to help Monterrey Mex with its drug war.
  

LA Quick Hits:

• Both Hugo and Danny were inaugurated yesterday. Hugo was so excited that he hurriedly flew off to Managua to see the once and future commandante get sworn in.
• Hugo continued in his quest to scare the bejeezus out of everyone. Chavez wants to introduce a constitutional amendment that would extend his rule. He brushed off concerns over the historic stock market plunge in Caracas, declared during his swearing in that Jesus Christ was the greatest socialist of all time and mixed Fidel's closings and used them as his own.
• The Herald has a confusing piece. At first noting that some Venezuelans are scared but that the changes being sought will just bring back a status quo to the 70's and 80's. This is outrageous - even NYT didn't go that far. One things for sure Venezuelans expats are freaked out .
  
• An LAT op-ed takes a look at Venezula's future and is less than optimistic about its prospects.
• Even the Brazilian press is scared of Hugo. (en esp.)
  
• Danny's inauguration was more of a mixed bag. Before he had a chance to give his speech Hugo was already hogging up the spotlight by presenting him with a sword and babbling on about Danny being one of history's indispensable figures. Then Danny went on to rip neo-liberalism, his hope to combat poverty but he also went on to assuage fears that he'll swing hard left. FT says Danny has his work cut out for him.
  
• Feeling a tad overlooked in all this Evo reminded anyone who would listen that he plans to nationalize the mining industry this year. (en esp.)
• Five governors in Bolivia issued a statement declaring that Evo practices "state terrorism." (en esp.) They issued this in support of their beleagured collegue in Cochabamba.
• The Herald ruins a good op-ed about the situation in Bolivia with a wishy-washy conclusion asking for compromise from the warring factions there.
• As if this weren't enough fun the news out of Caracas is that Iranian Prez will be visiting Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador next Saturday. (en esp.)
  
• The resurfacing of Castro cronies that purged cultural circles in Cuba during the 60's and 70's has intellectuals on the island upset. That's their problem for living within the system - I personally don't care.
• Cuba is upset about restitution being paid out from frozen assets.
• Mexican troops are on their way to Acapulco - and it's not for a vacation.
• AG Albert Gonzalez asked for patience as Mexico fights the drug war for us. Ok, I added that last part.

Back in Cochabamba

Jim Shultz from Blog from Bolivia is talking about Cochabamba again. Here is his closing:

Today's march, unlike yesterday’s, resulted in no burned buildings (the outside of the governor’s office is all smoke stains and broken windows) and no gassing. It is important to note that, according to everyone I spoke with who was actually there yesterday, the police clearly started firing gas on a peaceful protest and the assault on the state building was an angry reaction. In addition to the march in the city center, protesters have also begun to blockade the highways in and out of town.

Watching it all I couldn’t help feel like the whole scene was about regular people, on both sides, being caught up in a game of political chess not of their making. All of this is about a power struggle between politicians at the highest level. Morales and MAS are fed up with the demand that a minority be given veto power over every procedural move in a Constituent Assembly that is utterly stalled. Manfred Reyes Villa wanted to get in the national political game and did so by allying himself with the anti-Evo forces of the nation’s eastern departments.

Looked at coldly, as political chess, it is easy to wonder whether Ryes Villa looked even a move or two ahead. Even though he played a central role in the water privatization here seven years ago (as Mayor he signed the local water company’s authorization of the , Reyes Villa has never been the target of the social movements that are so powerful here. Not until now.

A month ago he was happily governing his region utterly above the fray of the national political battle over the Assembly. A month ago he looked like a future president just waiting for his moment down the road. The people of Cochabamba voted by an overwhelming 63% against regional autonomy when it was on the ballot six months ago. Why Manfred set out to make himself a champion of what his voters so soundly rejected is anyone’s guess.

Today he has thousands of angry constituents demanding his resignation. And while some observers might say – he benefits from this, he looks like a victim of MAS strong-arming – there is one other rule in politics, be it in Bolivia or anywhere else. Having that many people so pissed off at you that they shut down a city to get you out of office, that isn’t where you want to be.

Latin Americanist Makes Me Feel Guilty

After ripping them for using them Prensa Libre, 3 of the next 4 posts have had links to FoxNews.com.

What's at Stake in Bolivia?

Carlos Sabino from the libertarian Independent Institute tries to explain what is so important about what is going on in Bolivia:

What's at stake today in this Andean nation is nothing less than a continental expansion of socialism devised by Hugo Chávez, who has picked up the banner of the Cuban Revolution. If the Bolivians give in to President Morales, they will find themselves living in a foregin-supported tyranny, stripped of their freedom. Democracy will become a simple facade, behind which the worst abuses will be committed. If they struggle on, as everything seems to indicate, the tensions will continue and very possibly lead to violence.

The nations in our region still do not understand that governments like Chávez's and Evo Morales' are a real threat to peace in Latin America as a whole. The fact that Morales won by a temporary popular majority does not mean that all his actions—some of which are openly destabilizing—should be accepted or that his ambitions of imposing his outdated political models on all neighboring countries should be tolerated. Let us hope those nations will soon see the light, before violence erupts in the heart of our continent.

Babalu Before Sunrise

I was wrong (savor that for a moment because it does not happen often) I said Babula Blog would nail Oscar Corral before sun up. Well sun up came and went at 7:09 but Val @ Babalu did not get around to it until 7:14.

LA Quick Hits: The Hugo Effect, Evo Destruction, Insulted Insulza, The AMLO Show, Babalu Bash & More

• The markets respond to Hugo's nationalization plans with a freefall. The Carcas exchanged dropped almost 19% and the street value of the bolivar plumetted to almost half its previous value. The Hugo effect also nailed other LA markets with Argentina, Mexico and Brazil registering almost 2% losses or more. I would imagine Mexico will bounce back relatively quickly with Argentina and Brazil trailing but recovering too. It is unlikely that any of them will follow Hugo. I'm sure that investors in the Hugo alliance (Ecuador, Bolivia and maybe Nicaragua) will think twice before fronting more money. If nationalization goes through the US is expecting compensation but as far as I'm concerned they don't deserve it. I am incredulous at investors who are shocked that this is happening quicker than they thought. Does that mean that they expected it to happen anyway and were hoping he just took his time. These companies deserve what they got.
• CSM has an overview of what is going down in Venezuela.
• Evo lovers are making a mess in Cochabomba - they are hoping to oust the anti-Evo gov. Blog from Bolivia thinks this is unlikely and unproductive.
• The Cuban dissident in Bolivia has been deported to Colombia. Sure the US helped, via the UN, (en esp.) but why wouldn't we take him?
• Ecuador cried to the OAS yesterday (en esp.) about Colombia's border spraying.
• OAS members backed Insulza (en esp.) after Hugo's tirade.
• The AMLO show had it's premiere - the paid infomercial ripped Calderon's anti-crime initiative and proposed a law to break up "monpolies." God idea! Let's start with PEMEX!
• I can't defend Oscar Corral this time...he trots out the old boring story that we've heard a thousand times - that travel restrictions and the embargo divide the Cuban exile community. I can recite that crap in my sleep. This piece will get ripped on Babalu before sun up.
  
• This is a shock - Mexico extradited a murder suspect back to the US. I doubt we waived the possibility of the death penalty.
• There are now "only" 333 dissidents in jail in Cuba. Newsflash - the entire friggin' island is a jail.
• More Cuban doctor stuff. How can you beat propoganda like that? Perhaps by doing some of it yourself. It's certainly cheaper than funding crop eradication and it makes someone happy.
• In case anyone was wondering ETA confirmed that they bombed Madrid...oh and by the way the ceasefire is still on. Go ahead Zapatero - take the bait.
  

LA Quick Hits: Coming Through For the Kids, Evo Haters and Lovers, Tijuana Gets NO Love & More

• Calderon is making good on his promise to cover health insurance for all kids born during his sexenio.
• Bush thinks he can get along with Ortega - he wants to reach out.
• Evo haters have become increasingly wary of the increased Venezuelan military presence.
• Evo lovers in Cochamamba, scared that the ruling gov is going to ask for autonomy, went crazy and rioted.
• Former Chelean Prezes claim that they never indulged in gifts offered to them.
• Tijuana policeman are threatend with death threats via phone.
  

LA Quick Hits: The Hugo Edition - 21st Century Trotskyism, Orinoco Flow or Lack Thereof, How to Say "Mother F' Idiot in Spanish & More

We're splitting Quick Hits in two today because Hugo made too much news yesterday:

• Hugo's 21st Century Socialism looks a lot like 20th century communism to me. Hugo swore in his 27 cabinet ministers yesterday and then Hugo announced plans to nationalize the country's electrical and telecommunications industries, end the independence of the central bank and expand his powers. WaPost reports that AES Corp. of Virginia, which holds and 86% stake in the largest private utility in the country is going to take a massive hit. In 2005 the firm made $613 million from Venezuela and lists the value of its assets in the country at $1.85 billion. WaPost also notes the importance of the ousting of Rangel, who had his own power base independent of Hugo. As I mentioned previously this move is reminiscent of Fidel purging the Cuban gov't as he concentrated his power. The ousting of Huber Matos, disappearance of Camilo and the exporting of Che were just the most obvious examples of his quest for undiluted power.
• HoustonChron highlights Hugo's threat to become more involved in the heavy oil Orinoco projects. The Chron notes that "Since the late 1990s, Houston-based ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and other firms have invested more than $17 billion into four major ventures in the vital Orinoco basin of eastern Venezuela." The Chron notices the Fidel parallel.
• LAT reports that 1/5 of Venezuela's oil production comes from Orinoco.
• All this talk of Orinoco has me thinking of Enya.
• The Herald points out that Hugo referred to himself as Trotskyist in a sense and that he closed his speech by using Fidel's tired closing, "Patria o muerte!," (The Fatherland or death!). Not mentioned is that he mixed it with a line from Che which everyone in LA would recognize.
• NYT predicatably downplays Hugo's moves in the headline but the story is comprehensive and good. Hugo's second most memorable quote of the day, "All that was privatized, let it be nationalized." is mentioned as is a very polite translation of the most popular quote of the day, which I will get into later.
• FT does a good job covering the business angle of the moves. They also analyze how the moves will affect petrol companies and the telecoms, specifically Verizon . FT also explains why this was a surprise (the incoming Fin. Minister didn't give a hint) and again another explanation of the booting of Rangel.
• As for the most memorable quote Hugo referred to OAS head Insulza as a "pendejo" and asked him to resign. (en esp.) No for the non-Spanish speaking audience out there it is impossible for any translation to English to do this word justice. The beauty of Spanish is the crudity implicit in most of its insults. Trust me that ripping someone in Spanish is a great deal more satisfying than in English. As for Hugo's choice of words, NYT noted that it can be translated to "idiot" but it is more honest to say that it means "stupid mother f****** idiot." or just use the crude word associated with the part of the female anatomy located below the waist.