Questions to wrap up your weekend

[sabotabby]

Everyone's sick of talking about the stupid cartoons (although I have a new-found confidence in gaybortion, which is way better than any of them and also has never caused a riot. So hah!), so let's talk about more interesting subjects.

Baby Godwin is a sad panda.

Rumsfeld compared Hugo Chavez to Hitler.
Then Chavez said that Bush was worse than Hitler.

[Poll #667317]

(Hat tip to roter_terror and springheel_jack.)

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Also, OCAP and Uprising are doing joint movie nights and are looking for recommendations for movies to show. They must be fun (that means no didactic documentaries, kthnx) and political in some way. Until the spring, exceedingly long movies like The Battle of Algiers cannot be shown because Uprising has no heat.

La Haine, They Live!, Life and Debt and The Harder They Come have all been recommended, and I'm being told to quash any suggestions of Bread and Roses. (Heh.)

Personally, I recommend this political movie.

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Marinetti thanks everyone for the birthday wishes and fealty. He is now passed out in the living room.

Comments

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Hard to beat that one!

Land and Freedom? Bit obvious I guess. Les Mis? Is there a film version? Motorcycle Diaries? (OK, ok, everyone's already seen it.)

I do worry a little about Chavez making the most of the prospect of US invasion and Bush is teh Hitler and buying lots of new weapons and creating a million-person army and so forth. Even for the good guys, that sort of thing is a great way of instilling unquestioning obedience in a population. Mind you, the US under Bush really might invade, if only out of frustration that they don't have any good way of invading Iran. And 1,000,000 Kalshnikovs will cause the Americans a lot more trouble than the Spanish fighters they're buying that'll be vaporised before they leave the ground.

[sabotabby]

People keep giving me looks when I recommend Spanish Civil War movies. (I also suggested The Devil's Backbone for Halloween...)

And I haven't seen The Motorcycle Diaries. It's the #1 question I get asked when I wear my Che t-shirt, though.

I doubt he'll do that. Although I don't think it would hurt, other than being a likely waste of resources. I mean, who is Chavez going to invade, really?

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

I saw Motorcycle Diaries at my stepdad's when I was up in Scotland. I was decidedly impressed. It was political, but it brought the politics in quite subtly and very non-preachily. It was basically a human story but where part of that story is the experiences that shaped this guy and his political beliefs.

How can anyone not like Spanish Civil war movies? Unless they, say, like happy endings.

Chavez will invade Harlem to liberate America's poor and huddled masses and incorporate them into the Bolivarian Republic.

[sabotabby]

I don't think it's a matter of people not liking Spanish Civil War movies. It's more of a reflex:

"Oh, you're an anarchist?"
"Yep."
"STFU about the Spanish Civil War."
"But I haven't said anyth-"

Chavez will invade Harlem to liberate America's poor and huddled masses and incorporate them into the Bolivarian Republic.

Can I defect?!

[seaya.livejournal.com]

The Les Mis film version is very very bad. Very bad.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Ah. I had a vague recollection that might be the case. (Or that it was generally said to be the case.) A shame, as I rather liked the musical.

[sabotabby]

Even the black-and-white version? I remember the more recent one being surprisingly awful, but I didn't think the old one was that bad.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Mind you, the US under Bush really might invade

You don't seriously believe this, do ya?

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Probably not, but you can never tell with these guys. Rumsfeld's remarks? Softening people up so that they could if they really decided they wanted to. I can't see a scenario where it would become likely, but I wouldn't put it past them if somehow circumstances were to arise that gave them a reason. At any rate, if I were a Venezuelan military planner, I'd consider it an eventuality that should be taken seriously and planned for as a worst-case scenario. Or perhaps slightly more likely, a US-backed attack by Colombia.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

I think that the popular support Chavez has would spell out *massive guerilla warfare*. I mean it's nothing like Saddam Hussein, who was mostly reviled, even by the people who had sectarian sympathies or connections with him. Chavez actually has massive popular support. Considering the quagmire that the U.S. is currently in Iraq, and the intense strain it is creating on the entire armed forces in the U.S., a military operation in Venezuela is unlikely.

As for proxy forces, well, Columbia isn't even in control of itself, and setting off that kind of regional algebra might end up worse for the U.S. in the end. I mean you start a war only because you're completely desperate or you think you have a massive advantage over the other party. I don't think that the U.S. is in either position, and unlike Iraq, I don't think it's even deluded to be in either position.

As far as invading countries goes, I'd put a lot more money on Iran, which could be even stupider than invading Venezuela in a way, but more relevant to U.S. geopolitical interests. I mean Iran is selling its oil and gas in 25-year contracts to China and India, but I don't think Venezuela is. Iran is probably meddling in Iraq as well as trying to get nukes, and is a constant threat to Israel.

Venezuelan oil is still flowing freely to the U.S., and while it's gaining some influence in Latin America, it's still relatively benign outside its own borders, other than shoring up Cuba, which is a symbolic rather than actual threat.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. Venezuela is not the country the US is most likely to invade. But from the point of view of Venezuela, the US (possibly via Colombia) likely is their most significant potential external threat. And the load of Kalashnikovs they're buying and the million-person army Chavez talks about would be aimed at enabling just that sort of mass guerrilla resistance you talk about.

Still, I suspect that all this militarist talk may well be more directed towards promoting internal pro-government feeling, and that's what concerns me just a little bit.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Oh, totally.