The Battle of Venezuela – Michael McCaughan

books and books review, Imperialism, politics
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Cover of The Battle of Venezuela


The Battle of Venezuela
Michael McCaughan
166 pages
published in 2004

If there’s any subject where the failure of the western news media to fulfil its supposed function of objectively informing its audience is completely uncontroversial, it should be Venezuela. This was especially apparant during the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, when leading western newspapers like The New York Times portrayed it as a democratic uprising against a dictator. It ignored the fact that while Chavez had been democratically elected and had made no attempt to suppress political opposition against his government, the coupists immediately suspended the constitution, started imprisoning Chavez supporters and in generally behave like the traditional juntas off Latin America. Even after the coup failed the agitation against Chavez in western media continued, again portraying him as a dictator and a lunatic for withdrawing the broadcasting licence of a television station heavily involved in the coup. In short, it’s impossible to get an objective view of Venezuela from
the mainstream media.

And while there are alternative news sources that attempt to correct the skewed portrayal of the country, but I’ve found for myself that these are not enough to get the whole picture if like me you don’t speak Spanish. Which is why The Battle of Venezuela was such an excellent find, as here you have a short to the point history of Venezuela and the Boliverian revolution, written by a “proper journalist” with no axe to grind against Chavez. At this length (only 166 pages in the edition I read) you can’t expect an in-depth analysis, but as a general introduction it would be hard to beat.

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Long live the European constitution Lisbon Treaty

EU "democracy"
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Michael Greenwell calls out the fundamental undemocratic nature of the European Union:

The rebranding of the constitution has also allowed New Labour to squirm out of its manifesto commitment to a referendum as it promised a vote on the constitution (which it cancelled after the defeat in Holland and France ensured it couldn’t be ratified – all the countries have to agree for something of this sort to be passed) but it hadn’t promised a vote on the treaty.

The people of Ireland will have the chance to have a referendum and it looks like they are going to be the only ones. Myself and millions of others can only hope they say no but given the importance that the leaders in various European countries attach to this treaty I can only assume that every trick in the book will be employed to make them say yes and that a lot of cash will be given to the yes campaign.

If the public had went along with the idea then I am sure panegyrics would have been written about the wonderful democracies we live in. The fact that the public didn’t and don’t want these measures means that instead our (sic) leaders simply change the name, try to do it on the quiet and say ‘fuck you’ to the lot of us (Iraq, trident, nuclear power, GM foods etc etc).

That’s the whole point of a liberal democracy, of which the European Union might just be the ultimate example: the voters are only there to give their consent to the decisions their leaders made for them. If they withhold their consent, they don’t fulfill their part of the contract. Because France and the Netherlands said “no” last time they don’t get to vote this time, as these voters have proven themselves to be irresponsible. If the Irish are so willful as to reject the Treaty, another referendum will be held until they vote the right way. The European project is too important to be endangered by democracy.

Ammonite – Nicola Griffith

books and books review, Feminism, science fiction
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Cover of Ammonite


Ammonite
Nicola Griffith
386 pages
published in 1993

Nicola Griffith is a writer I’ve heard a great deal of but so far had never read anything by. Ammonite was her first novel and immediately made a strong impression on publication, winning both the James Tiptree Award and the Lambda Award. As these awards confirm, Ammonite is a classic feminist science fiction novel, straight in the tradition of writers like Ursula Le Guin (Left Hand of Darkness), Joanna Russ (The Female Man) and Sheri Tepper (The Gate to Women’s Country).

The world created in Ammonite is also a classic feminist science fiction trope: that of a world without men. In this case, it’s the colony world of Jeep where an alien virus killed off all men and a large percentage of women, leaving the survivors to rebuilt their societies on a one gender basis. How they’ve managed to do so is the central mystery of Ammonite, which is partially a puzzle story and partially a leisurely planetary romance as our protagonist, anthropologist Marghe Taishan, travels the planet in search of answers. Marghe is working for SEC, the government agency that was set up to safeguard the interests of indigenes of rediscovered colony worlds like Jeep from exploitation by the Company, which has a monopoly on space exploration and which whom Marghe has some unpleasant history…

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The Decentist philosophy in a nutshell

Decentists and other ex-lefties, War on Iraq
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Jamie has it, in a quote from one Paul Rogers taken from a review in the house organ of the English cruise missile left, Decentiya:

What wretched timing for Rogers then, that his book should be released at a time when American success in prosecuting the War on Terror is possibly at its highest point since the halcyon days of early 2003.

What moves it from standard decentist “we so are winning the war on terror! We are! We are!” boilerplate is the phrase “halcyon days of early 2003”. For most of us, the “halycon days of early 2003” was when a disastrious war was started that so far has claimed the lives of a million or so Iraqis, cost literally trillions of dollars and has left Iraq a wasteland. For the decents this was the start of their glorious democratic crusade against totalitarism and the last time they could pretend that it was indeed a glorious crusade, instead of the clusterfuck it really was. Normally, they are self aware enough to realise most of us don’t share their nostalgia and hence temper their longing in public somewhat, but not Rogers.