You think capital stops playing the class war when its rival – at the end, its debtor – goes under?

Further, on Sistani, his pushing of elections hardely retroactively justifies the US murder of 600,000 + Iragis, which some dead-enders still support, not unlike those who sat with Adolf in his bunker.

Have some on the Left supported dictatorsihp over democracy? It depends, again, how you constitute either of the phrases. Elections don’t make a democracy, and lack thereof don’t make a dictatorship. People have more control over their lives, including “bourgeois” freedoms in some dictatorships than they do in some democracies. Life is far better in Syria than in Morroco, for example.

They sure as hell want to.

Clearly, I’d go with India – with large reservations that I have about their foreign policy, and much inequality, India – especially in parts of India governed by Left parties – has achieved far more social justice than most countries anywhere, let alone China. I’m talking Kerala, etc. On the other hand, agribusiness is destroyign India’s farmers.

China is improving but I think of it as the worst of both worlds.

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/senator_craig_arrested

Liza Boors,
Systems Analyst
“I don’t have any problem with his behavior, as long as he wasn’t trying to marry the guy.”

Tom Hawkins,
Bus Driver
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking? What was a senator from Idaho doing in Minnesota?”

Joe Palazzo,
Meter Reader
“This situation begs a much bigger question: Why is our police force so tempting?”

Howabout China vs. India? Neither have great records on economic justice. How would JC evaluate those two countries? (No doubt the better country is the one that is more anti-American.)

I have sympathy with the left’s concern with economic justice. They just seem to dismiss out of hand formal institutions of democracy. (To take one concrete example, Sistani forced the U.S. to have more democratic elections in Iraq. Would JC consider this development unimportant? Unoteworthy?)

“I can’t say why Bachelet is following these policies but I’d bet there is a lot of residual fear of the Army stepping in again. Particularly given the crowd now in power in Washington.”

Why can’t people remember the Cold War is over???????

Why didn’t the army step in when NATO Turkey elected a Muslim President?

Some on the left are stuck in a time warp. I was led to believe the U.S. would bare its capitalist fangs once the Soviet Union went under. It would get medieval on the countries who didn’t get inline and submit to the lone hyperpower.

Chavez would have been assassinated the 2nd day in office, with no U.S.S.R. to protect him. In reality Chavez is invited to the U.N. (that pawn of the capitalist center) and calls Bush the devil!

Some on the left have a proven record of supporting dictators (i.e. anti-democracy) as long as said dictators are enemies of the U.S. Enemy of my enemy, I guess.

For the record, my benefits are decent (I work for the State), I am in debt, I have traveled in Chile and I know things are changing there and throughout Latin America because it is there for all to see.

Countries (re)taking over their resources is a major accomplishment. It just so happens Allende already did that, so what is next in Chile??

Since it can no longer be argued that Venezuela is making enviable social strides, let’s talk democracy. Cooper mentions the following: Nepotism… corruption, a bully president who can legislate by decree, a stacked Supreme Courts, a tampered-with media, and a congress which votes 100% with the president who has just removed all terms limits.

Nepotism was surely not invented by the Chavez family, nor in Venezuela – ask Hillary and the Bush’s. Corruption? Come on. I read he once asked for God’s forgiveness on TV, because he said he would like to kill the couple army officers who pocketed development money (in his home district I believe). Many of those corrupt are opposition members who don’t respect the State – like the old Supreme Court Justice Valasquez who skipped town after allegedly skimming off the top.

Does Cooper mean the “stacked Supreme Court” that just ruled against Chavez’s government a few weeks ago saying (quite amazingly) that RCTV is not a national broadcaster because it has an office in Miami and sells a few (Venezuelan) shows abroad. Everyone knows RCTV is Venezuelan, but the Court said the Govt. did not have clear enough language in the law. The media question has been dealt with enough, but I hope everyone is aware that the coup-mongering RCTV channel is back on the air, there for anyone with cable to watch their provacative soap operas…

The lowest blow is the swipe at a 100% compliant Congress. First off, it is not true that the National Assembly just removed term limits – the people must vote to allow that. And second, as you fail to mention, the pro-Chavez composition is solely the fault of a brilliant opposition strategy to boycott elections. The oppsoition knew it was going to get wiped out so they bailed… perhaps knowing the US public would not get that part of the story in most of their Fox news reports…

Meanwhile, 9 years after his first election, Chavez has won 5 elections by an ever greater margin. The high hopes he has given the poor, have evidently not run dry as he maintains a higher approval rating than nearly anyone else in Latin America. This despite the fact that he gets beat up and insulted by the press 10x more than Bush ever has seen, the CIA has set up an Iraq-level desk to deal with him and the opposition remains as desperate and anti-democratic as ever. Far from hoarding power, Chavez has centered his constitutional reform program on devolving real power (planning and budgets) to community councils – a seperate new democratic pillar truly of the people.

Chavez is not perfect and has made many mikstakes – most with his mouth. But if you really care about poverty and power to the people, he is clearly showing the way in results and even just by trying so many new (and some old) things. The same old same old just ain’t cuttin it…

My thinking is the fear/ick factor is very much a guy thing. And, the sooner guys can get beyond it, the likelihood of encountering the Larry Craig’s of this world in a men’s bathroom will drop like a rock.

As far as the law (as opposed to my personal views) is concerned, I’m generally with the Duchess, who didn’t care what people do, so long as they don’t frighten the horses. Public bathroom sex, though, even noiseless, is in the horse-spooking category.

No sirven empa’nada. It’s bad because I made it up. Anyway, GOM, it’s more Peruvian immigration than Bolivian which is the big deal. (Argentineans too but the ones I know tend to own places, rather than work at them). But you’re right the Peruvians get paid bad even for Chilean standards, a lot of Peruvian women working as maids, long unpaid overtime, etc, although I don’t know where you get off calling them “hard working”, according to a shopkeeper I spoke to they’re lazy, a cabdriver affirmed that and warned me to watch out because they’re generally dirty and rowdy when they drink, which is always. Despite that, they still manage to steal jobs from Chileans, who are sweet and kind.

“The Clinic” (liberal magazine founded in celebration of Pinochet’s arrest in a London clinic) published a joke a while back about Bolivia taking out a loan to buy a TV. My Chilean girlfriend chastised me for laughing because according to her it’s a totally racist joke, so now I feel totally guilty every time I repeat it, and laugh. “Craig’s Lisp” was pretty good, it wasn’t square or 70′s-ish, because craigslist didn’t exist in the 70′s. Sorry for explaining the joke. “Lisp” is pretty bad, but it’s nice to see people erring on the side of humor.

Anyway, to be a stick in the mud (sorry), and talk more about the Chilean economy: Sergio, wn, you’re ridiculously optimistic but it’s inspiring. Probably a loose analogy but I think Lagos et al ARE your Chilean Reagan, Thatcher, whoever. I think it’s in the second YouTube video above where Claude cites an interview that Carlos Altamirano, a friend of S. Allende, gave to La Tercera saying that Lagos was the best center-right president of Chile in the past century. In terms of the economy, Lagos was more brutal than Pinochet in many ways.

I admit I don’t really know much about the US labor movement except what i saw in Sacco and Venzetti (which harped on that playful dance that xenophobia and classism do, although then the Chileans were among those being scorned by the prosecutor), so it certainly seems like it was rough even decades into the 20th century, but still I think culturally there’s something that the US has that Chile doesn’t, which is a higher value placed on the individual, and human capital, whereas in Chile it’s still very much human livestock. I honestly don’t think much has changed in that sense since the 1907 Iquique massacre of 3,000 men, women and children, followed by ups and downs in the labor movement till 1973, which brings us back to D’oh, today, there aren’t that many building blocks as the US, the US 100 years ago, that’s my conjecture not really knowing US history as much as I should, what do you think, wn? Was the US really as bad off then as Chile is now?

It would be an intrusion on a person’s peace only if they actually noticed the signaling and knew enough to interpret it.

I don’t imagine the average ‘kid’ would notice. Further since homosexuality (to any degree) does not equal pedophilia, the kid’s likely not even at risk. I get a real kick out of the parents of “16 year old boys” wringing their hands over this. Part of me wants to say, “Oh, your kid should be so attractive.” Another part of me wants to say, “At 16 maybe you want to explain the ‘birds and the bees’ to your kid and/or help him understand that everyone isn’t like him.” Maybe what airports (and other public places) really need are single occupancy restrooms where parents can inspect the rest room in advance for its safety and stand guard at the door until their kid exits.

There’s something unsavory about it.

Still, the average citizen wants to be able to take a dump in peace–or send her son into the men’s room to relieve himself in peace–while changing planes. Someone has to do the unsavory job, I guess.

On another subject–does Chile let Bolivians sneak in to Santiago? No doubt they’re needy, hard-working, and will demand less in wages than the Chilenos.

Neither funny nor line-crossing, to be honest. The “lisp” joke is the kind of stale humor you heard among dimwit squares in the 1970′s. And even then it wasn’t funny. Oh well.

Craig’s Lisp
Craig’s Limp Answer
Craig Turns Lavendar
Craig’s Back-Ended Explanation
Craigs Gets the Bum Rush
Craig’s Boner
Craig Sucks The Big Weenie

Now ive crossed all the lines, I hope. I love it how you say what I wrote was funny but nevertheless “crossed the line.” Hope you make it to church today to confess having laughed at such outrageous and blatant homophobia. Here’s an eraser — make your life simpler.

BTW, Randy’s got the legal issue correct. Cross-stall sexual solicitation in a public bathroom is totally inappropriate. As we only have single-sex bathrooms these acts are by definition of a homosexual nature. If we had ambi-sexual bathrooms, what would these scolds think of a guy tapping on the high heels of the gal next to him as she was trying to relieve herself?

And anyways, Cummings has the answer as usual. IN an ideal world, you see, there would be no sexual frustration. Once the proletariat seizes power and the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society is resolved, levels of alienation will soon decline. As the state whithers away, so will aberrational social behavior. That’s obvious, isn’t it?

I mean, look at China. While not really communist, it’s at least along the road. There. female children are often abandoned or aborted thereby reducing the potential pool of victims of sexual abuse. A clear advance over capitalism/

The cops aren’t there to “arrest lonely closet cases”. They are there because of there have been complaints and the cops wish to drive the behavior away by making an example or two.

To bring this back to topic, was is the status of furtive public sex in Chile?

For the record, my benefits are decent (I work for the State), I am in debt, I have traveled in Chile and I know things are changing there and throughout Latin America because it is there for all to see.

Countries (re)taking over their resources is a major accomplishment. It just so happens Allende already did that, so what is next in Chile??

Since it can no longer be argued that Venezuela is making enviable social strides, let’s talk democracy. Cooper mentions the following: Nepotism… corruption, a bully president who can legislate by decree, a stacked Supreme Courts, a tampered-with media, and a congress which votes 100% with the president who has just removed all terms limits.

Nepotism was surely not invented by the Chavez family, nor in Venezuela – ask Hillary and the Bush’s. Corruption? Come on. I read he once asked for God’s forgiveness on TV, because he said he would like to kill the couple army officers who pocketed development money (in his home district I believe). Many of those corrupt are opposition members who don’t respect the State – like the old Supreme Court Justice Valasquez who skipped town after allegedly skimming off the top.

Does Cooper mean the “stacked Supreme Court” that just ruled against Chavez’s government a few weeks ago saying (quite amazingly) that RCTV is not a national broadcaster because it has an office in Miami and sells a few (Venezuelan) shows abroad. Everyone knows RCTV is Venezuelan, but the Court said the Govt. did not have clear enough language in the law. The media question has been dealt with enough, but I hope everyone is aware that the coup-mongering RCTV channel is back on the air, there for anyone with cable to watch their provacative soap operas…

The lowest blow is the swipe at a 100% compliant Congress. First off, it is not true that the National Assembly just removed term limits – the people must vote to allow that. And second, as you fail to mention, the pro-Chavez composition is solely the fault of a brilliant opposition strategy to boycott elections. The oppsoition knew it was going to get wiped out so they bailed… perhaps knowing the US public would not get that part of the story in most of their Fox news reports…

Meanwhile, 9 years after his first election, Chavez has won 5 elections by an ever greater margin. The high hopes he has given the poor, have evidently not run dry as he maintains a higher approval rating than nearly anyone else in Latin America. This despite the fact that he gets beat up and insulted by the press 10x more than Bush ever has seen, the CIA has set up an Iraq-level desk to deal with him and the opposition remains as desperate and anti-democratic as ever. Far from hoarding power, Chavez has centered his constitutional reform program on devolving real power (planning and budgets) to community councils – a seperate new democratic pillar truly of the people.

Chavez is not perfect and has made many mikstakes – most with his mouth. But if you really care about poverty and power to the people, he is clearly showing the way in results and even just by trying so many new (and some old) things. The same old same old just ain’t cuttin it…