Preparing the next war… Latin America
On March 1, the Colombian military (with US Special Forces help) illegally attacked a FARC-EP rebel camp inside Ecuador. US satellite telephone tracking located the site. Washington signed off on the mission. Over 20 people were killed, including 16 or more FARC-EP members while they slept. Key among them was Paul Reyes, the FARC-EP’s second-in-command, key peace negotiator and public voice, and lead figure in the Chavez-led hostage negotiations with Colombia.
The action was a clear act of aggression and premeditated murder. It’s not how the dominant media played it. Hostile verbal exchanges took place between Hugo Chavez and Ecuador’s Raphael Correa on the one hand and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe and George Bush on the other. US presidential candidates, as expected, supported the White House and Bogota.
Tensions heightened further when Colombia’s vice-president, Francisco Santos Calderon, revealed his nation’s army recovered three laptops and other material at the FARC-EP camp with provocative evidence on their hard drives. He claimed it showed Chavez…
Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves:
Relevant to the topic… When do semantic search engines become disinformation tools?
Someone came up with this hit on my site from a Google search for “Drug Gang” this morning.
I suspect this wasn’t what they were looking for… hope they got an eyeful.
21 May 2008, 9:25 amLinda C.:
Stan - thank you for this. I have sent it along to others.
21 May 2008, 11:51 ampeggy:
Buffalo - You have the term “drug gang” on your site, so it came up in a (presumably) Google search for the term “drug gang.” I don’t think this makes Google a disinformation tool. A search engine could certainly be turned into a disinformation site, but the leading search engine for now is not that.
21 May 2008, 7:41 pmMarc R:
1) Fiction already exists that has a ‘disinfo’ arm for Google. Erasing embarrassing things was one of the things listed in the story. Everyone has a price. Sometimes the price can not be met, but everyone has a price - and why would Google not have a price for such a ’service’?
2) http://www.google.com/search?q=grasso+farc&btnG=Search How can one mention the FARC and US actions and not toss in the Richard Grasso visits the FARC links?
22 May 2008, 7:11 amDa' Buffalo Amongst Wolves:
Peggy, you are right about using those words in the body of the post, albeit I’m surprised that the body was notated by Google as as I’ve alway thought most searches work on words in the title, header, “tagging”… MAYBE the first paragraph or so
It’s something I would have expected from “Carnivore”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)
However, I was not intending to imply an intentional disinformation campaign by collusion of the site operator, although the it IS possible to artificially increase one’s position in search engine rankings by concerted efforts of third parties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb
22 May 2008, 9:38 ampeggy:
To get to the main topic of this thread:
God, I can’t believe we’re still at it. “We” being the U.S. government.
25 May 2008, 6:40 pmDa' Buffalo Amongst Wolves:
That’s because, as a society, we’re addicted to war, never forget that the “We” (the government) you speak of is “Doing it ALL for us…” and it’s a tough habit to break given the (media pimped/pandered) standard of (material)living it provides. That pimping pandering media lies to get our ‘permission’ to make these wars because only someone brainwashed or psychotic would kill just for the sake of “stuff”
Vietnam was a good example… “Domino theory”… Spread of Communism through SE Asia etc… NAH! It was the tin oil rubber… lets just call them ‘extractive resources’.
In the long run, we, as a nation, end up rationalizing, in denial, and lying to ourselves.
It makes for quite the dysfunctional society in case no one’s noticed.
27 May 2008, 7:21 pmCharles:
SANTIAGO DE JUXTLAHUACA, OAXACA, MEXICO - 31MAY08 - The assembly of
the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations in the Mixteca
region of Oaxaca, one of the poorest areas in Mexico. A large
percentage of the indigenous population of Oaxaca and other states
has left to work in northern Mexico and in the United States.
The FIOB is a political organization of indigenous communities and
migrants, with chapters in Mexico and the U.S. It advocates for the
rights of migrants, and for the right not to migrate — for economic
development which would enable people to stay home.
Delegates discuss FIOB’s bylaws and political positions, vote to
22 June 2008, 7:14 pmadopt them, and then elect new binational leadership in a democratic
and open process. Julio Sandoval, a delegate from Baja California,
recounts his experience as a political prisoner in the penitentiary
of Ensenaada, where he was held for three years after leading a fight
for housing for indigenous migrants. At the end of the assembly,
Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, newly elected as FIOB’s binational
coordinator, addresses the delegates, and a group of Triqui women
rise to their feet with a clenched-fist salute.
Lisa:
The Fourth World War
Directed by Rick Rowley. With Suheir Hammad
4th World War - taken from a speech by Marcos calling the war against globalization the 4th World War - is a brief, documentary of radical resistance to global capitalism
Despite the titanic struggles of dispossessed peoples around the world, the wealth of nations continues to reside in fewer and fewer hands. The economies of poor countries collapse under vicious IMF policies, and capitalism’s global ‘clubs’ thrive ever and ever upward. Meanwhile, people keep struggling, ultimately downward.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20153.htm
23 June 2008, 6:56 pmLisa:
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room
By LAURA CARLSEN
It’s rare for the junior partners of NAFTA—Mexico and Canada—to have a chance to sit down and discuss regional integration without the dominating influence of the United States. Even when they do, of course, the U.S. is the elephant in the room.
Full article:
http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/05/21/preparing-the-next-war-latin-america/#comments
3 July 2008, 3:25 pmJorge:
The Peasants’ Oil
September 3, 2008
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
WASHINGTON—Little international attention has been paid to the recent conflict between the Peruvian government and thousands of indigenous people in the oil-rich Amazon region over President Alan Garcia’s attempt to make it easier for tribal communities to sell their land. The issue contains lessons for the entire continent—in which the tension between modernity and tradition is a recurring source of strife.
In May and June of this year, the Peruvian government passed two decrees that reduced the consent necessary for peasant communities, including tribes, to sell their land from a two-thirds majority vote to half of the participants in an open assembly. The norms, aimed at native communities all over the country, triggered a monumental rebellion in the Amazon jungle, an area rich in hydrocarbons that has largely been earmarked for oil and gas exploration and where about 300,000 indigenous people live in abject poverty.
Under pressure from nongovernmental organizations and leaders of indigenous movements, the Peruvian Congress repealed the decrees, but the government is trying to rescue part of its proposal through some form of negotiation.
The authorities argue that changing the protectionist laws would lead to a modernization of some of the poorest parts of the country through massive private investment. Critics argue that the natives would be easily manipulated by big companies whose energy projects would devastate the environment and the inhabitants of the rainforest.
http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2307
6 September 2008, 12:26 pm