21 Apr 2008

Vivan Las Americas!

People have been literally dancing in the streets to celebrate the defeat of the Colorado Party, a "bureaucratic apparatus" which allowed the US-backed military to rule Paraguay for over 60 years. Here's how a US State Department official describes the result:
"We have dropped the ball yet again in Latin America, and Chavez, flush with oil money, has picked it up," said the official.
No, you idiot, Chavez hasn't picked it up - the people of Paraguay have. And it's not your ball to hold, it's theirs!

I remember walking the streets of Asuncion one night back in the 1980s. It seemed like there was a beautiful young prostitute standing in nearly every doorway. It was sad. That was towards the end of General Stroessner's 35-year dictatorship. In neighboring Chile, a young girl said she wanted to marry me because I bought her friends a hamburger - they were all just desperate to escape from Pinochet. In Argentina, I was arrested by a policeman at three in the morning. Luckily, he was just fishing for a bribe: the world was just beginning to ask what happened to the thousands who simply "disappeared" from that country's streets.

This is why they hate you, America. And until you change the way you think and act on the world stage, they will continue to hate you. And all your Hollywood movies will not stop it.

PS: I wonder if Bush will now think of selling his 99,000 acres of Paraguayan land?