The World According to Thor Halvorson

I was watching CÑÑ recently and the guest for the entire hour was a Norwegian-Venezuelan named Thor Halverson. You may have heard of his son, although I hadn't until I googled this man's name to make sure of his name's spelling and confirm his identity.

They say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, which in this case is both unfortunate, and cause for mild amusement. I rarely watch television and in fact had been experiencing a media blackout for months, but was quite entertained and amused.

According to this man who is the former drug czar of Venezuela in an adminstration prior to Chavez's, some institute in England concluded that the files found in Raul Reye's computer 3 years ago, confirm the connection between the FARC and Hugo Chavez and the FARC and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. He expressed absolute faith in the findings, but acknowledged that it is an issue that both the Columbian and Venezuelan governments have turned the page on.

He further went on to say that the Venezuelan government is involved in drug trafficking, the campaign of Rafael Correa accepted financial contributions from the FARC, the government of Manuel Zelaya was involved in drug trafficking as well, but the current government of Honduras no longer is, however, the Nicaraguan government is involved in drug trafficking , and during the 1980's, Fidel Castro set up the drug lanes for Pablo Escobar Gaviria. This last piece of information is absolutely astonishing. Not only did the government headed by Fidel Castro provide healthcare for all of its citizens during this time, at the very same time Fidel Castro himself set up the drug lanes for PEEG. Wow! That's what I call efficiency. What is the President of Mexico doing wrong?

Furthermore, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian jihadists, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban are involved in drug trafficking in Latin America as well. Also, all of this drug trafficking is destabilizing governments in West Africa. For his part, Thor expressed that he has always maintained excellent relationships with the CIA and the DEA. Meanwhile, the near non-existant coverage of Latin America by the Los Angeles Times continues. What is a well intentioned resident of Southern California and citizen of the world to believe?

On any given day, there is 2 to 3 times more coverage about Europe or the Middle East than Latin America, and it's been that way for years. How can this lack of coverage be justified, particularly when one considers that half of the population of Los Angeles County is of Latin American origin? Perhaps the Times can justify it by saying that those residents of Latin American origin don't read the L.A. Times, or by citing lack of resources, or by suggesting that what happens in Latin America is less important than what happens in Europe or the Middle East.

I do not criticize its lack of coverage, I merely point it out. However, according to Mr. Halvorson, intriguing, nefarious, criminal events involving governments and terrorists are occurring in Latin America, all with the ultimate aim of delivering lines of white powder to the noses of American consumers, and his claims are the subject of serious discussion on a prestigious cable network.

What can be expected of the average American to know about Latin America considering that major media outlets hardly cover it, and others provide a mainly distorted and biased perspective? Even PBS, in the documentary, The Hugo Chavez Show, referred to Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and Hugo Chavez, as "anti-American."

Since the turn of the century, numerous Latin American leaders have been elected who have asserted their country's sovereignty and challenged Anglo-saxon hegemony. At one point Cuba was largely ostracized from the rest of Latin America and excluded from the Organization of American States, which it subsequently refused to join. Now the Latin American countries have formed a new regional organization, CELAC, which Cuba is a part of, and excludes Canada and the United States. If Americans were aware of this process, of the unraveling of Anglo-saxon hegemony, perhaps they could relate it to the overall downfall of their empire, and have anticipated the direst recession since the great depression of the 1930s, and have been further along in the process of creating transformative solutions to our ecologically and economically unsustainable society. The reality is that the rest of the world does not depend on the resources of the U.S. to sustain itself, the U.S. depends on the resources of the rest of the world, particularly oil, to sustain itself.

In the year of 2012, when there is so much interest in Mayan culture and civilization, Anglo-saxon hegemony stands to be dealt another blow in Mexico's elections, and the words of an Aymara, Evo Morales when he visited Mexico, may come closer to being realized, that "Mexico too shall be free."

I suppose CÑÑ and other traditional media outlets will keep informing us how full of anti-American, drug dealing, socialists Latin America is.