It has been 57 years since the Navy deployed the Fourth Fleet in the waters off the coast of South America.  But apparently Bush does not like some of the Presidents who have recently been elected in South America so Bush has decided to redeploy the Fourth Fleet.  This is Bushevikism/Fascism/Corporatims all rolled into one.

The last few days there have been a number of fine diaries about torture enabled by the DoJ, CIA and of course our President. Read here here here here  and here.  I am shocked by the number of people who for some reason believe this is new. The roots of our violent, regime changing, torturing, death squad, secret prisons and extraordinary rendition school of foreign relations go back far more than 50 years but for the sake of brevity this diary only covers the time from the late 40's. I should tell you too I originally published this diary 10-07-07 under my old NYM of ghengismom. I have updated some information but it is essentially the same text.

Follow me below the fold for a glimpse of our shameful past, present and future and when we stopped being the good guys to the rest of the world.

A London investment firm and the government of Guyana will agree to place a monetary value  on preserving a segment of one of the world's last four intact rainforests, securing one million acres of tropical rainforest.

.... .... .... .... ....

I'm posting this as the fluffy bunny tale end of the diary I posted several hours ago but didn't have room for to include all I wanted so cut short. Please consider this a complementary companion diary to my earlier one:

Uncage the Chocolate Easter Bunny: Modern Child Slavery
by CSI Bentonville
Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 02:27:04 PM EDT

Bonus is that it's a non-can-did-ate diary to occupy those with insomnia overnight. :)

It takes
10 full
cacao
pods
to make
6 bars
of chocolate.

Looks like this may take longer than I had wished, and now is the time to dig deep to help.

We need to win this to save the Democratic party, to assure a positive future for the country, and to retain all those enthusiastic new voters.

The truth is that Obama, with our help, fought her to a draw - even as she cast doubt on his credentials, his patriotism, his veracity, and his honor.

I  do hope the Party elders step in

While everyone here is concentrating on the primaries, (and understandably so), by the warm Caribbean waters south of Aruba, the drums of war are getting louder and louder...

The leader of the despicable organization known as the FARC has been killed in battle. I posted the news on an open thread, and nobody seemed to care very much. However, Hugo Chavez is moblizing his army and sending it to the Colombian border. War looms.

The United States imports 60-70% of its oil needs which equates to about 20 million barrels of oil per day and Venezuela imports 1.246 million of those barrels every day. China and India have grown into economic powers. This economic growth has increased the need for power along with the need of energy to fuel that power.  Unfortunately, now the United States must compete for tightening oil supplies with China, India, and the rest of the growing third world.  Moreover, political instability has caused both NYMEX and Brent crude to spike over the last few years. As recently as Friday, crude hit 103 dollars per barrel.  Higher oil prices have been squeezing the middle class, working poor, and poor by eating away at their purchasing power.

The Irony of Valentine's Day is that so much of what we give as gifts are awash in pain and suffering. It does not have to be that way.

THE TOPICS:
In this diary I'll talk about possible gifts for your Valentines as well as alternatives, providing much alternative and further reading at your discretion. Among the topics included are:

♥ Flowers
♥ Non-Sweets
♥ Chocolate
♥ Coffee
♥ Doing Without
♥ Dinner & a Show
♥ Jewelry
♥ Wine
♥ How to find "Love" and support kossoks too

Part of how I ended up at dKos was finding out how Republican the grocery store Safeway was. I already despised Wal-Mart (and more with each new thing I discovered about them) but was still to discover just how neck-deep in Neo-Con they are.

Essentially, I didn't want another damn dollar of mine going to support Bushco keeping them in power. As Dr. Phil would say:

By Candace Talmadge / North Star Writers Group

For as long as I have known him (two-plus decades), Bob Whitt has always been a marvelous raconteur. Throughout the years of our association, he has offered up amazing stories about his action-packed life as the publisher of a U.S. news magazine in South America.

Now Bob has taken his sagas and fleshed them out for a memoir called "Expat: Survival of an Expatriate in Latin America" by Robert Ampudia Whitt III (Tate Publishing & Enterprises).

The book is compelling not simply because I know the author and know that it reads exactly like he talks – including his dryly humorous observations about cross-cultural miscues between Norte Americanos and their southern counterparts.

For many years, South America has been a zone of negative peace, where it appeared that the military competition that had characterized the continent for much of this century had yielded to economic competition. It was living proof of the liberal belief that trade brings peace.  To quote A.O. Hirschmann, the interests (commerce) had tamed the passions (conflict), and one of the most potent political arguments for capitalism was given physical form. Even the backlash against neo-liberalism at the beginning of this decade looked to accept the central premise that the world was a positive sum place, but the political underpinnings had to be moved to allow for economic justice.

From our great Congress, a resolution was passed on Tuesday:

Iran Sees Venezuela as Doorway to Americas, Republican Says:

Top U.S. officials who avoid confrontation with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should exchange their passivity for a more forceful Latin American policy, Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said in an exclusive interview with the Cybercast News Service.

Otherwise, rogue nations and terrorists will continue to use Venezuela as a conduit for dangerous enterprises that jeopardize U.S. interests, the Florida Republican argued. As it stands, Iran's influence in the region is already growing at a quick pace thanks in large measure to the Chavez government, said Mack.

...

.
On March 2, 2007 Brazzil Magazine
Here Is Why Brazil Should Adopt the New Asian Currency
Written by Ricardo C. Amaral  

http://www.brazzil.com/...

Then as a follow up to the above article I wrote a 4-part series of articles detailing plan for China’s investment in Brazil.

The Smartest Thing China Could Do Right Now: Invest US$ 200 Billion in Brazil
Written by Ricardo C. Amaral    

Monday, 01 October 2007
Part 1 of 4
http://www.brazzil.com/...

Friday, 05 October 2007
Part 2 of 4
http://www.brazzil.com/...

Thursday, 11 October 2007
Part 3 of 4
http://www.brazzil.com/...

Tuesday, 16 October 2007
Part 4 of 4
http://www.brazzil.com/...

.

A few days ago this essay was posted on docudharma it concerns state sponsored terrorism and torture enabled by the DoJ, CIA and of course our President. My response to the essay has evolved into a diary about the roots of our violent, regime changing, torturing, death squad, secret prisons and extraordinary rendition school of foreign relations.

Follow me below the fold for a glimpse of our shameful past, present and future and when we stopped being the good guys to the rest of the world.

To watch NEOLIBERALISM in action right now, check out what's happening in Costa Rica. They are set to vote on membership into CAFTA on Oct 7. The opposition to ratification is being outspent 10:1 or more but polls show the vote going either way.

From time to time we see a lot of misinformation passed around by both sides of the American political machine pertaining to some foreign country or another.  So much of it passes for gospel in the United States, but, as has been the case over and over again in U.S. history, what the American public thinks it knows and what the reality is are two very different things.  

Hugo Chavez is a case in point.

Let's explore 4 myths about Hugo Chavez and see if we can bust them or not.

Below are a few extracts from issues of the Economist in the past month only. They consist of side notes in articles meant to be descriptive rather than judgemental, or conclusions of articles suggested as objectively analytic rather openly biased. They are the kinds of unsubsantiated assertions presented as obvious facts that help build up the narratives that we're fighting, whatever else may be written in their columns, because they are peppered throughout, and repeated uncessantly week in and week out, and help create and sustain perceptions that have very little to do with reality.