Canserbero...Aceptas?

Recently I learned that several months ago, the Venezuelan rapper Canserbero killed his friend by knifing him and then jumped out of a ten story window to his own death. According to published reports, his mother passed away when he was 9, and his half brother was killed 5 years later. Death was a recurring theme in his music. I stopped paying attention for a while and one of the best narrators of dark tales, whose name refers to the canine guardian of the under world, did something as outrageous as this. While he was alive, he wrote what I consider to be one of the best songs to emerge from the Latin American rap movement. A song which reflects the revolutionary consciousness of Latin America and asks young people if they're willing to accept the challenge of changing the world. 

Venceremos

I am happy for everything he accomplished in life. What I will most miss about him are his colorful speeches. He was a brilliant speaker who could deliver a two hour speech without even glancing at notes. As an American I was fascinated to see a Latin American leader speak about the empire and the history of Latin America. He spoke in an illuminating manner about issues which American media outlets rarely discussed.

Contrary to how he may be depicted in the vast majority of the American media outlets, Hugo Chavez was not anti-American. One of the most quotable things he ever said was, "The U.S. is a great country, and it will always be a great country, but there will come a day when it will no longer be an empire, and the driving force of a hegemonic project. "

To refer to Latin American leaders such as Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa who assert their countries' soveriegnty as anti-American is like referring to black people who assert their civil rights as anti-white.

Among his accomplishments was to assert Venezuelan control over Venezuelan oil resources, an important achievement for any country, to control its own resources. He also diversified the client base for Venezuelan oil. Apart from this, unlike his American detractors who are obsessed with perpetuating their radical oil dependence, he was aware that an oil rich country cannot transform itself without diversifying its economy. He invested in education and provided free healthcare to all of Venezuela's citizens. He also made a commitment to achieving nutritional self-sufficiency within his country.

Yet, perhaps his greatest accomplishment is not any of the foregoing, but the fact that like other men who came before him such as Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, King, X, Cesar Chavez, etc., he changed the consciousness of the world he lived in. He demonstrated that it is possible to create revolution and challenge the Anglo-Saxon hegemonists of the North American continent.

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.

Congratulations Venezuela

The constitutional amendment which will permit Hugo Chavez to be re-elected to the presidency was approved yesterday with 54.85% of the votes in favor.

Hugo Chavez:, "You guys were capable of confronting lies, the attempts at manipulation by the oligarchy and its media. You guys have managed to defeat lies. The truth has imposed itself."

"You guys should study history. The complete history, and diffuse it. Like Bolivar said, history is an immense womb which contains more hopes than past events, and future events will be greater than the past ones. History is a teacher and a mother to the peoples."

Hugo Chavez on Al Jazeera: The multi-lingual video



One of the most powerful aspects of the internet is that it allows a person to have a bird's eye perspective. No longer do we have to limit ourselves to a monolithic perspective from a national television network. Such a monolithic perspective can be compared to other points of view throughout the world. One of my favorite personalities is Hugo Chavez for this reason. I found this video interesting because he is speaking in Spanish, there is an Arabic voice-over translation, and English subtitles, creating an intersection for perspectives from diverse regions of the world's population.

Here, Hugo discusses the American empire, how it is a threat to the world, how it attempts to perpetuate the American lifestyle through the acquisition of oil resources, and how such an empire must be countered through the rise of a multi-polar world. Since this interview, the American empire has become further debilitated, and the multi-polar world has gained strength.