quote:

---

Originally posted by Caissa:
Tutu's analysis is the poignant. It is sad to see Mugabe's transformation from freedom fighter to indefensible thug.

---

The kernel of it is that Mugabe is captured by his senior commanders who are afraid they will be on trial in the Hague if they lose power. In particular they note that Charles Taylor went on trial even after cutting a deal to transfer power. As a consequence the Zimbabwe leadership will do anything to stay in power.

Sometimes elections are not good for democracy, just as cosmetic elections, in some other countries, discredit democracy. I suppose this is a useful lesson.

The ANC, under Jacob Zuma, has finally remarked in their recent statement that "In a society that is already highly polarized, a run-off election will only serve to widen the divisions."

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
The kernel of it is that Mugabe is captured by his senior commanders who are afraid they will be on trial in the Hague if they lose power. In particular they note that Charles Taylor went on trial even after cutting a deal to transfer power. As a consequence the Zimbabwe leadership will do anything to stay in power.

Question arise. Is it counter productive to take tyrants to court if they do a deal to leave power? Does the court at the Hague need to do plea bargains? Can courts function if they don't have overwhelming power on their side?

---

That’s a fascinating question.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sven:
I'm not intending to pick on our ol' Fidel by saying this (frankly, I like the old fart look forward to his return from his babble "vacation"), but I was thinking about Stephen Gordon's First Rule of Babble (i.e., "All Threads Lead to Cuba") and I believe there is a Universal Theory of Babble: All evil is rooted in America.

---

I guess the real test will be a US supported tyrant retiring happily.

BTW, got a citation for your version of events?

[ 25 June 2008: Message edited by: jrootham ]

excerpt:

The Queen revoked the honour acting on the advice of Foreign Secretary David Miliband. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that Britain no longer recognizes Mugabe as Zimbabwe's legitimate leader.

quote:

---

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai sought to assure the world on Thursday that he does not advocate international intervention in his country, saying a commentary calling for action by United Nations peacekeepers was falsely published under his name in a U.K. newspaper.

---

Ah, yes. Objective British journalism at its colonial best.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
All those guys were prior to Taylor's getting busted, so the examples are not relevant.

---

Ineffectual Zimbabwe Violence Denunciation-o-Tron

[ 26 June 2008: Message edited by: Doug ]

Reading the CNN version of events sounds like the MDC leader changed his mind. BTW, Tsvangirai may have been concerned that calling for an invasion of his own country by foreign troops just might be considered treasonous by the Harare government.

Even under normal circumstances, anyone who called for the invasion of his/her own country would get special attention from law enforcement and the secret police. And things in Zim are anything but normal.

quote:

---

In the US, where United States Code, Section 2385, “prohibits anyone from advocating abetting, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States by force or violence,” opposition leaders like Tsvangirai, Mutambara and Biti would be charged with treason (Biti has been.)

---

[ 26 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
Is it counter productive to take tyrants to court if they do a deal to leave power? Does the court at the Hague need to do plea bargains? Can courts function if they don't have overwhelming power on their side?

---

The problem isn't that the courts don't have enough power it's that they don't have any legitimacy and that those seeking to evade them have no shortage of ridiculous biases and flaws to point to.

One solution would be to make them "legitimate" but the US will never surrender the right to protect their own citizens or their allies from prosecution - and neither will any country with the power to do so.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Stephen Gowans: Zimbabwe at War

A different perspective for sure. You won't get any of Gowans' arguments and information on the pages of the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, or the UK Guardian.

---

Indeed. And as an extra bonus, you'll get a link to a page explaining how noted democrat and defender of human rights Alexander Lukashenko is a victim of Western propaganda.

[ 26 June 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

About the MDC:

quote:

---

Gowans: The main political opposition party, the MDC, is the creation of the Rhodesian Commercial Farmers' Union, the British government and the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons are former British foreign secretaries Douglas Hurd, Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind and whose chair is Lord Renwick of Clifton, who has collected a string of board memberships in southern African corporations. The party’s funding comes from European governments and corporations, and its raison d’etre is to reverse every measure the Zanu-PF government has taken to invest Zimbabwean independence with real meaning. Civil society organizations are funded by governments whose official policy is one of regime change in Zimbabwe. The US, Britain and the Netherlands finance pirate radio stations and newspapers, which the Western media disingenuously call “independent”, to poison public opinion against the Mugabe government and its land democratization and economic indigenization programs.

---

And what does the MDC stand for?

quote:

---

MDC spokesman Eddie Cross, former vice-chairman of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, in advance of the 2000 elections:

“We are going to fast track privatization. All 50 government parastatals will be privatized within a two-year time-frame, but we are going to go beyond that. We are going to privatize many of the functions of government. We are going to privatize the central statistical office. We are going to privatize virtually the entire school delivery system. And you know, we have looked at the numbers and we think we can get government employment down from about 300,000 at the present time to about 75,000 in five years.”

---

Shock doctrine. Make the economy scream. It's an old recipie.

[ 26 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

'Ugly perversion of democracy,' Harper says of Zimbabwe vote

quote:

---

Prime Minister Stephen Harper condemned the presidential run-off election in Zimbabwe Friday and said Canada could take diplomatic action against Robert Mugabe's government.

Speaking to a conference of the Jewish organization B'nai Brith Canada in Ottawa, Harper said Canada and other countries must press for a free and democratic vote in the southern African country.

---

AU Summit in Egypt

Contrary to the pious lies that only the ZANU-PF leadership is being affected by the sanctions of the super rich G-8 countries, Canada in fact withdrew all direct funding to the government of Zimbabwe in March 2002. Stephen Gowans notes, as well, that "[t]he Canadian government doles out grants to NGOs through an organization called Rights and Democracy. Rights and Democracy is currently funding the anti-Zanu-PF Media Institute of Southern Africa, along with the US government and a CIA-linked right wing US think tank."

quote:

---

CMOT Dibbler: What does Morgan Changoorai(sp) stand for?

---

The MDC has a website and it looks like they've had some (foreign) help with a carefully worded set of policies. There's a .pdf file you can check out on their site.

Tsvangirai has been careful to avoid openly rejecting policies of the Mugabe government that are popular. One critic noted that, for example, the MDC leader didn't openly reject land reform and redistribution ... but rather called for "compensation" (for white farmers), the enshrinement of property rights, privatization, and the usual litany of neo-liberal "improvements".

quote:

---

Gowans: These days Tsvangirai equivocates on land reform, recognizing that speaking too openly about reversing the land democratization program, or taxing black Zimbabweans to compensate expropriated Rhodesian settlers for land the Rhodesians and other British settlers took by force, is detrimental to his party’s success. But there’s no mistaking that the land redistribution program’s life would be cut short by a MDC victory. “The government of Zimbabwe,” wrote Tsvangirai, in a March 23, 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, “must be committed to protecting persons and property rights.” This means “compensation for those who lost their possessions in an unjust way,” i.e., compensation for the expropriated Rhodesians. Zimbabwe’s program of expropriating land without compensation, he concluded, is just not on: it “scares away investors, domestic and international.” [8] This is the same reasoning the main backer of Tsvangirai’s party, the British government, used to justify backing out of its commitment to fund land redistribution. ...The MDC’s goals, in the words of its leader, are to “encourage foreign investment” and “bring (Zimbabwe’s) abundant farmland back into health.” [22] “It is up to each of us,” Tsvangirai told a gathering of newly elected MDC parliamentarians, “to say Zimbabwe is open for business.” [23]

---

It should be said, however, that Tsvangirai's toughest critics doubt that he will be the real power in any case; his backers, primarily the foreign governments of the US and Britain and The Netherlands, will be calling the shots, they say.

I think I've quoted this already but perhaps it bears repeating ...

quote:

---

The main political opposition party, the MDC, is the creation of the Rhodesian Commercial Farmers' Union, the British government and the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons are former British foreign secretaries Douglas Hurd, Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind and whose chair is Lord Renwick of Clifton, who has collected a string of board memberships in southern African corporations. The party’s funding comes from European governments and corporations, and its raison d’etre is to reverse every measure the Zanu-PF government has taken to invest Zimbabwean independence with real meaning. Civil society organizations are funded by governments whose official policy is one of regime change in Zimbabwe. The US, Britain and the Netherlands finance pirate radio stations and newspapers, which the Western media disingenuously call “independent”, to poison public opinion against the Mugabe government and its land democratization and economic indigenization programs. It’s impossible to hold free and fair elections, because the interference by Western powers is massive, a point acknowledge by Mugabe opponent Munyaradzi Gwisai. [62]

---

The quotes are from Gowans.

[ 27 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

He's the most popular candidate on the ballot

People will participate happily, survive the militias, , and not be joyfully beaten if they can enthusiastically provide proof they have pink ink stains on their hands, and can show their ballot papers.

[ 27 June 2008: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

But ultimately there is this.

quote:

---

Zimbabweans who fought for the country’s independence and democratization of land ownership are not prepared to give up the gains of their revolution simply because a majority of Zimbabweans marked an “X” for a party of quislings.

---

I will not support or trust anyone who makes statements rejecting democracy in those terms.

What's the evidence that he's not lying through his teeth?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

Indeed. And as an extra bonus, you'll get a link to a page explaining how noted democrat and defender of human rights Alexander Lukashenko is a victim of Western propaganda.

[ 26 June 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:
Just out of curiosity, Doug and Stephen, how many heads of state can you name that are in the U.S. rogues' gallery that really are not as bad as all that?

---

quote:

---

Tsvangirai has been careful to avoid openly rejecting policies of the Mugabe government that are popular. One critic noted that, for example, the MDC leader didn't openly reject land reform and redistribution ... but rather called for "compensation" (for white farmers), the enshrinement of property rights, privatization, and the usual litany of neo-liberal "improvements".

---

It would seem that, even if Tsvangirai did paticipate in the Zimbabean elections, the people of Zimbabwe still wouldn't have much of a choice. It's like Cuba, you can vote for the Authoritarian freedom fighter, or American bankers with free market fetishes, who would have you selling your body parts in order to pay for food.

[ 28 June 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

Furthermore, it took a guerrilla war to bring the white minority regime in Rhodesia down. They have, therefore, a completely different political "spectrum" from a country like Canada, where the colonizers constitute the same sort of overwhelming majority and, where there is plenty of room for a liberal and social democratic "middle" for the majority. Our own political templates might not fit over a former Apartheid regime.

[ 28 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

This is Africa, CMOT. In Zimbabwe, blacks make up 98% of the population. So it's not really helpful to put forward the name of some enlightened white guy in such circumstances. I know you mean well but just think how it sounds.

---

quote:

---

A film that graphically shows how Robert Mugabe's supporters rigged Zimbabwe's election has been smuggled out of the country by a prison officer. It is believed to be the first footage of actual ballot-rigging and comes as Zimbabwe's president faces growing international pressure.

---

quote:

---

False premise: The idea that a majority in Zimbabwe is awaiting the help of Westerners is at odds with reality. If you check, you'll discover that the governing Zanu-PF party won the popular vote in the March 29 elections, but owing to Zimbabwe's first past the post system, won fewer seats than the MDC did. It would be more accurate to say that somewhat less than 50 percent of Zimbabweans would welcome the MDC coming to power, and fewer than that, I suspect, would welcome further misery from a stepped up Western intervention.

---

Sounds like another former British colony that needs to ditch the Westminster system.

[ 07 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Under FPTP the majority party gets a bonus not a penalty.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
That claim is logically suspect.

Under FPTP the majority party gets a bonus not a penalty.

---

Zimbabwe election results March 2008

MDC 100 seats with 42.88% of pop. vote
Zanu PF 99 seats with 45.94% of pop. vote

And several Zimbabwean parties that received smaller percentages and no political representation in Zimbabwe's parliament.

quote:

---

Besides, the real issue here is not the quirks of the voting system, it's the government killing the opposition.

---

Sure it is, like Ethiopia's U.S.-backed TPLF-regime of Zenawi Meles who:

- lost the election in 2005
- EU observers confirmed the defeat
- an "election comittee" reversed the decision
- thousands of Meles' opposition consequently imprisoned and hundreds of protesters were shot to death in the streets

Who else do you support among African despots of the past generation? Idi Amin - who used to put the severed heads of his murdered political opponents on shelves in a meat locker - so he could give speeches to the row of heads? Or maybe you have a soft spot in your heart for Jean Bokassa who had 200 school children machine gunned to death because they protested school uniforms they had to wear - plus he apparently surreptitiously served human meat to Valery Giscard d'Estaing when the latter was on a state visit to the Central African Republic.

Mugabe is every bit as much of fiend as these pigs Babble is POLLUTED by the fact that anyone dares to be an apologist for him and his sadistic acolytes.

[ 07 July 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

Unless their stooge wins elections tainted by U.S. and British political interference, the sanctions remain in place?

Now imperialists are calling for surrounding countries to cutoff electrical power exports to Zimbabwe similar to Israeli policy for making life harder for Palestinians.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:

Did i hear someone say DELUSIONAL???

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:
So, you must think that U.S. and British sanctions on Zimbabwe, in place for March elections and the recent runoff no less, are to foment an environment for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe?

Unless their stooge wins elections tainted by U.S. and British political interference, the sanctions remain in place?

Now imperialists are calling for surrounding countries to cutoff electrical power exports to Zimbabwe similar to Israeli policy for making life harder for Palestinians.

Your reasoning, so-called logic, and your thoughts on democracy leave a lot to be desired, imo.

---

Killing political opponents is not democratic.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:
So, you must think that U.S. and British sanctions on Zimbabwe, in place for March elections and the recent runoff no less, are to foment an environment for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe?

Unless their stooge wins elections tainted by U.S. and British political interference, the sanctions remain in place?

Now imperialists are calling for surrounding countries to cutoff electrical power exports to Zimbabwe similar to Israeli policy for making life harder for Palestinians.

Your reasoning, so-called logic, and your thoughts on democracy leave a lot to be desired, imo.

---

Condemning the violence and tactics now documented on tape does not inevitably mean one supports sanctions or even that they support any Western intervention at all.

When faced with clear evidence of vote rigging, the election results are meaningless.

Amnesty International documented the violence
faced by anyone trying to participate in the political process.

Intervention is debatable but the condemnation of the ZANU-PF should be clear from their behaviour throughout the election. The number of Zimbabweans who voted for Mugabe is irrelevant.
The vote was rigged and the violence caused widespread fear.

Why does any thread discussing so many other countries descend into accusations of

quote:

---

... vicious toadying to Zimbabwe's former brutal colonizers and U.S. imperialists

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by laine lowe:
This is an interesting read:

Zimbabwean Anarchists Interviewed

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ghislaine:
The vote was rigged and the violence caused widespread fear.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
Fidel, are you in favour of the political murders happening in Zimbabwe?

---

I will refrain from suggesting you are in favour of British SAS and Blackwater gestapo murdering and torturing to death thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans for the sake of illegal and immoral military occupations of those countries.

quote:

---

If asked about you now, I would say yes, but that is an inference.

---

You support ZANU-PF, ZANU-PF murders some of its opposition. Therefor you support political murder.

a) What is the hole in that argument?

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
You support ZANU-PF, ZANU-PF murders some of its opposition. Therefor you support political murder.

---

That is false. YOU said that.

quote:

---

a) What is the hole in that argument?

---

The hole in your false premise above would be that Zanu-PF and Zimbabwean police have not been targets of violence perpetrated by U.S. and British-funded NGO's and so-called left-wing groups in Zimbabwe.

And in contrast to other former British colonies and U.S.-backed puppet regimes in Africa, Zimbabwe is relatively violence-free by comparison.

quote:

---

b) What is the corresponding argument that I support the Iraq invasion?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
Who else do you support among African despots of the past generation? Idi Amin - who used to put the severed heads of his murdered political opponents on shelves in a meat locker - so he could give speeches to the row of heads? Or maybe you have a soft spot in your heart for Jean Bokassa who had 200 school children machine gunned to death because they protested school uniforms they had to wear - plus he apparently surreptitiously served human meat to Valery Giscard d'Estaing when the latter was on a state visit to the Central African Republic.

Mugabe is every bit as much of fiend as these pigs Babble is POLLUTED by the fact that anyone dares to be an apologist for him and his sadistic acolytes.

---

This is outrageous baiting, and you've been warned so many times in the past about putting words in people's mouths like this. You will now stay out of this thread, and any future Zimbabwe threads.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:
And I think vicious toadying to Zimbabwe's former brutal colonizers and U.S. imperialists has no place on a progressive board, thanks very little.

---

Fidel, I realize that Stockholm goaded you, but would it kill you to take the high road once in a while?

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
You support ZANU-PF, ZANU-PF murders some of its opposition. Therefor you support political murder.

---

I haven't seen Fidel say that he supports political murder in this thread or any other. I've seen him say that this political murdering is no different than that of other countries that do it, and that the reason why the political murders in Zimbabwe are causing so much of an outcry is because people in the west tolerate political murder much better when it is done in the name of imperialism than if it's done in the name of resisting imperialism.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with his analysis. But if people on this forum weren't so quick to raise the stakes, turn the opposing side in a debate into supreme villains, and maybe, just maybe, once in a while give each other the benefit of the doubt, then these kind of nasty fights where people are screaming "murderer!" at each other just might not happen.

Is that even possible?

quote:

---

Why is Thabo Mbeki so soft on Mugabe? Is it simply loyalty to a past of "joint struggle", as has been suggested? Here is a clue.

In September 2005, a study submitted to Parliament in Cape Town compared the treatment of landless black farmers under apartheid and their treatment today.

During the final decade of apartheid, 737 000 people were evicted from white-owned farmland. In the first decade of democracy, 942 000 were evicted. About half of those forcibly removed were children and about a third were women.

A law intended to protect these people and put an end to peonage, the Security of Tenure Act was enacted by the Mandela government in 1997. That year, Nelson Mandela told me: "We have done something revolutionary, for which we have received no credit at all.

There is no country where labour tenants have been given the security we have given them … where a farmer cannot just dismiss them."

The law proved a sham. Most evictions never reached the courts and bitterness among black farm workers has grown inexorably and so too has the whole question of land, actual and symbolic. When the ANC came to power in 1994, the "priority" of land restitution was allocated 0,3% of the national budget. By 2005, it was still less than 1%.

When Robert Mugabe attended the ceremony to mark Thabo Mbeki's second term as President of South Africa, the black crowd gave Zimbabwe's dictator a standing ovation. The embarrassment and message for Mbeki was like a presence. "This was probably less an endorsement for Mugabe's despotism," noted the writer Bryan Rostron, "than a symbolic expression of appreciation for an African leader who, many poor blacks think, has given those greedy whites a long-delayed and just come-uppance."

---

quote:

---

I recommend a succinct analysis by Africa's Roman Catholic bishops of why 300-million Africans live on less than a dollar a day.

Their list is as follows: "huge crippling debts" mostly to Europe; an "iniquitous" and "atrociously immoral" system that keeps prices for African raw materials artificially low while those for rich-world exports continue to rise; the desecration of the African environment by Western corporations; the withholding by European banks of wealth looted by deposed and dead dictators; colonial interventions by European powers on the side of armed factions; and a devastating arms trade.

While the British government claims it leads the world in the "fight against poverty" it is the major arms merchant to 10 out of 14 conflict-racked African countries.

---

But that's hardly an argument in favour of Mugabe, who blew his chance to create any sort of economic growth at all in Zimbabwe.

The Pilgers of the world seem to think that the rottenness of capitalism is an argument for Communism.

The Sandinista's turned out to be serious democrats, Chavez has demonstrated a commitment to democracy, and Western European Communist parties have not pushed repression.

Cuba (while not being democratic) has demonstrated that life outcomes can be improved over similarly positioned capitalist countries.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
But that's hardly an argument in favour of Mugabe, who blew his chance to create any sort of economic growth at all in Zimbabwe.

---

And so did a long list of other countries under tutelage of the west blow their chance to create widespread prosperity. Never mind S. Africa, what about Thailand? That country followed NeoLiberal doctrinaire the closest of any country, and what a thirdworld capitalist shithole it is today.

Haiti, the "freest trading nation in the Carribe" just 55 miles from Cuba, has also enjoyed U.S.-managed elections. And there are plenty more thirdworld capitalist hellholes you won't want to point to as an example for any country to follow.

quote:

---

But it isn't, because Communism is worse. It doesn't solve ANY of the problems of poverty, and is far more repressive to boot.

---

They'll never know whether communism or even the Pan-African nationalism of Lumumba would have worked. Lumumba was the first and last democratically-elected prime minister of the Congo, Jeff. CIA and Belgians tortured him to fucking death in '61. Making sure the barbarians divided and conquered is their way. Democracy is the right's most hated institution and always will be.

Food Crisis: "The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model"

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Damn! Bad break, huh?

And what if I said "capitalism would have succeeded if only Bobby Kennedy hadn't been shot!"

And, while your favorite countries, Zimbabwe and Cuba, are among the least successful in the world, there are still three or four worse ones!

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Hey, that's funny Fidel! Patrice Lumumba is your best argument for Communism, and he died in 1961!

---

Lumumba, like Fidel, first appealed to the West for recognition. Unlike Fidel, CIA and Belgian colonialists didn't wait for the possibility of democratic elections post-revolution.

quote:

---

Damn! Bad break, huh?

---

It was the visible hand of hypocrisy at work for the 13 dozenth time. A hex on them and theirs and every toady who shills for them.

quote:

---

And what if I said "capitalism would have succeeded if only Bobby Kennedy hadn't been shot!"

And, while your favorite countries, Zimbabwe and Cuba, are among the least successful in the world, there are still three or four worse ones!

---

Cubans aren't resorting to eating "pico" as they are on that shithole of an island just 55 miles from Cuba, that's for sure, Jeff. You condemn me for pointing out the foreign policies of that country which you and I both would never willingly choose to live. But pointing out the failures of "capitalism", if we can still call it that, moves you deflect any and all criticisms of the vicious empire. Why?

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ][/QB][/QUOTE]

Which is why Mugabe's repression is a strategic failure. If he had created democratic institutions no foreign intervention could have succeeded in Zimbabwe.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
Which is why Mugabe's repression is a strategic failure. If he had created democratic institutions no foreign intervention could have succeeded in Zimbabwe.

---

Unfortunately, Leninist parties make democracy well-nigh impossible.

You can't have a Central Committee deciding policy in secret, then sending the correct line out to be spun in public by the cadres, and expect anything democratic to come from it.

And you can't have a single party claiming to represent the proletariat, and then killing or exiling anyone else who disputes the claim.

The Sandinistas were composed of three separate political parties in cooperation, and this fact loosened their dictatorship.

Cuba isn't an economic success. People who live in Cuba today are living less well than fifty years ago. It takes a week to earn enough to buy a toothbrush, and caloric intake is low, 1850 or so, similar to Somalia and well below India.

http://www.trivia-library.com/b/daily-calorie-intake-of-the-average-person-in-20-countries.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070928214552.htm

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

Cuba isn't an economic success. People who live in Cuba today are living less well than fifty years ago. It takes a week to earn enough to buy a toothbrush, and caloric intake is low, 1850 or so, similar to Somalia and well below India.

---

You're always free to travel to Cuba, and to travel to Haiti and over 30 thirdworld capitalist
shitholes where food riots are underway.

NeoLiberal darling Thailand has soldiers standing by to guard the cash crops for export from hungry Thai's.

India's still a basket case, Jeff. Every eight years democratic capitalist India produces more skeletons than China did in all its years of shame, from 1958 to 1961.

eta:I forgot to remind Jeff that capitalism is a monstrous ideology, a colossal failure.

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

While Chavez was democratically elected, his instincts are not democratic, as one can see from the kind of vast powers he wanted in his plebiscite.

It was undemocratic in the way it was set up, too. People were told they could vote for a thirty-hour work week and excessive power for Chavez, or they could vote against both.

Also, in the last days before the referendum was defeated, the Venezuelan government put out all sorts of scare-propaganda about an "imminent" coup, which of course required Chavez to have dictatorial powers.

quote:

---

Cuba isn't an economic success. People who live in Cuba today are living less well than fifty years ago. It takes a week to earn enough to buy a toothbrush, and caloric intake is low, 1850 or so, similar to Somalia and well below India.

---

Several errors. You are confusing averages with minimums. Also, outcomes are more important than inputs. Life expectancy in Cuba has increased substantially over that period.

The 1850 number was during the economic crisis, I was told by my Cuban friends that there was a lot less food then. Given the number of chickens on roofs that woke me up in the morning I believe it.

[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
PS.

While Chavez was democratically elected, his instincts are not democratic, as one can see from the kind of vast powers he wanted in his plebiscite.

---

We've been over this before. Chavez actually wanted fewer constitutional ammendments than the government proposed for national referendum, the third national referendum in Venezuela since Chavez was elected.

Meanwhile in Bogota, at least 33 members of Colombia’s Congress are under arrest with 60 more investigated for death squad activities. Most of them are Uribe's backers, and himself standing accused of leading a brutal massacre of Colombian peasants in the 1990's. Why do these U.S. client states demanding U.S. military bases on borders with oil-rich Venezuela all have to be such brutally repressive hellholes, Jeff? I ask you.

And it looks like the death squad stooge president will parlay for a third term

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

It was undemocratic in the way it was set up, too. People were told they could vote for a thirty-hour work week and excessive power for Chavez, or they could vote against both.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
I haven't seen a reference to this story in any of these threads.

The kernel of it is that Mugabe is captured by his senior commanders who are afraid they will be on trial in the Hague if they lose power. In particular they note that Charles Taylor went on trial even after cutting a deal to transfer power. As a consequence the Zimbabwe leadership will do anything to stay in power.

Question arise. Is it counter productive to take tyrants to court if they do a deal to leave power? Does the court at the Hague need to do plea bargains? Can courts function if they don't have overwhelming power on their side?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by laine lowe:

In case you didn't see this. There are no winners in this dog race.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

What happened to this line of discussion in this thread? Its the only interesting new topic in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Yes, Pilger doesn't like the poverty of Africa.

But that's hardly an argument in favour of Mugabe, who blew his chance to create any sort of economic growth at all in Zimbabwe.

The Pilgers of the world seem to think that the rottenness of capitalism is an argument for Communism.

But it isn't, because Communism is worse. It doesn't solve ANY of the problems of poverty, and is far more repressive to boot.

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"That Mugabe is an appalling tyrant is beyond all doubt"

"While the British government claims it leads the world in the "fight against poverty" it is the major arms merchant to 10 out of 14 conflict-racked African countries... None of this excuses the outrages of Mugabe."

Tommy Douglas types were murdered across Africa decades ago. What's happening today is a struggle for a lowest form of democracy in Zimababwe, which used to be Rhodesia as recently as 1979. And neocolonialists want a lesson in people's democracy. What Zimbabweans will get is a distorted end result of the outside pressures and political interference in their fledgling democracy.

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

So what? As Pilger says, there can be no doubt he's become a tyrant.

quote:

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Originally posted by jeff house:
The fact that he gets applause elsewhere in Africa results from the fact that other Africans don't have to live in Zimbabwe.

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You're right. The vicious empire needs to crank up the sanctions until such time as their pre-selected stooge is handed the reins of power in Rhobabwe. Have you ever thought about giving a lecture in democracy building and civics in general? NED and IRI are looking for people just like yourself. You'd be an asset for the democratizers, we can be sure.

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by jeff house:
The fact that he gets applause elsewhere in Africa results from the fact that other Africans don't have to live in Zimbabwe.

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I think the fact that he gets applause in South Africa also explains a lot about why Mbeki isn't eager to kick him out of office.

Landless Africans who've been promised land reform again and again see the only Leader who's taken action being chased out of office. Mugabe's a bad guy to make a hero out of. But he's all they've got.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
He had no business interfering in a foreign war. It's not as if Zimbabwe can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars intervening in other countries.

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That's right. Other Africans shouldn't be competing with international criminals Barrick Gold, the Bush crime family, Brian Mulroney, a few U.S. senators, and a western mining and lumber cartel for raping the Congo. It's white western privilege to be funding and orchestrating the slaughter and ongoing holocaust in the Congo.

If the CIA is involved, that's the USA! BOOOOO!!

Mugabe? Castro? YAAAAAY!

Anything to deflect blame from the vicious empire and their capitalist dogs is good enough, right Jeff? You make me want to vomit.

[ 10 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
He had no business interfering in a foreign war. It's not as if Zimbabwe can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars intervening in other countries.

If it's OK for Mugabe to send troops two countries over to Congo - then that would justify every American military intervention in the world as well - and we don't want to do that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Stockholm don't you understand? It's a DOUBLE STANDARD! If it is done by Mugabe or Castro, it is FINE to meddle in civil wars....

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Stockholm, the war in the Congo was not a civil war. The war started shortly after Laurent Kabila seized power from Joseph Mobutu. Kabila tried to kick the Rwandans and Ugandans who helped install him out of the country. Their refusal to leave, and subsequent claims on Congolese territory led to all out war. Kabila called for assistance to save his government and recieved it from Zimbabwe and others.

[ 10 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Stockholm, the war in the Congo was not a civil war. The war started shortly after Laurent Kabila seized power from Joseph Mobutu. Kabila tried to kick the Rwandans and Ugandans who helped install him out of the country. Their refusal to leave, and subsequent claims on Congolese territory led to all out war. Kabila called for assistance to save his government and recieved it from Zimbabwe and others.

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Karzai "asked for help" from the US and NATO - does that justify the presence of western troops there? Does that also mean that the US was right to send troops to free Kuwait after it was invaded by Iraq?

This isn't so different from the 1980's and 90's when the CIA funelled billions of dollars to and creating the most ruthless Islamic Gladios in Central Asia for proxy war against the Afghan PDPA government, which then called Moscow for help in dealing with western-funded mercenaries coming in from as far away as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and even Brooklyn, NY.

The vicious empire you can't stand for anyone to criticize is really the Grim Reaper, the kiss of death, and the source of most of the terror, butchery, and torture in the world, Stockholmer. How do you feel about that?

[ 10 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]