venezuela: land of islam

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/23/robertson.chavez/index.html (CNN; file under 'comedy')

Okay, this is what convinced me that Pat 'Liquor Officer' Robertson is merely a shill for power interests and has no genuine religious faith. To shamelessly connect an oil-rich country with recalcitrant leadership to Osama bin Laden, when that country is overwhelmingly Christian and nowhere near the Muslim world, is so obvious that he's no longer fooling anyone.

Let's think about that phrase, 'sphere of influence.' Robertson tosses it off pretty casually. It's shorthand for saying that we own these countries. They may have their own governments and we may pretend that they're sovereign, but in reality we consider them to be our property, and their inhabitants cannot be allowed to do what they want. But it's bad PR to say Central and South America are made up of slave nations, so it's better to depict the ones that periodically get out of control as being run by lunatic dictators who seized power against the will of the people. (Chavez was favored by 58% of voters in the last recall election, which is better than Bush did during either of his. The results split closely along class lines, with the poor favoring him and the wealthy and business interests opposed.) Then we can hire private armies to destabilize the country, or invade outright and install a government favorable to the United States, then say that the ends justified the means and justice was served. You've got to give Robertson credit for coming out and saying it, sort of.

Chavez must know that he's living on borrowed time. The idea that he can thumb his nose at us from what we consider to be our personal property, without any consequences, is probably not one he seriously believes in, not when he's survived a coup attempt and had to go through a recall election. But he's going for it anyway, the crazy bastard. Maybe he's got our number, considering how Iraq's going.

As for Pat Robertson's statement that assassination is cheap and easy, I say "Don't give me any fucking ideas, Pat."

[Update: Pat Robertson later withdrew his statement about Chavez, saying "You know, I meant 'take out' like to a restaurant... like Black Angus! That's a nice one. Mmm, beef."

No he didn't.]

(no subject)

Ravers say cops were too rough making bust

If I understand this article correctly, then the police might have already screwed their own case. At least against the people attending the party. The legal basis of the raid was the lack of a permit, but the stated intent of the raid was to confiscate drugs. The fact that they've been watching the promoters for weeks without notifying them of the permit violation indicates that the police were waiting to use the violation as an opportunity to do drug searches. Well, I think that's illegal... the legal basis for the raid has nothing to do with drugs and nothing to do with the people being searched. It's kind of like if a restaurant had a health code violation and the cops came in and searched all the diners and arrested those with contraband... it wouldn't even begin to stand in court.

That's for the attendees. As for the promoters, they're probably not going to do so well in a criminal case. But in a civil case, say one where the promoter is trying to win damages, the cops aren't going to look so good; they've effectively stated outright that they deliberately sabotaged this event. Even if the civil case goes against them, the police will have succeeded in their primary objective, to intimidate 'the underground' and make it seem too risky to put on a gathering. The cops would never have dispersed a Britney Spears concert, even though the amount of drug use at a major concert venue must be comparable or greater than what you'd find at a rave... the amount of pressure that Britney's label and promoters could bring to bear would be irresistable.