abc news.com
— The practice of “hot saucing” a child’s tongue as a method of discipline may seem cruel to some parents, but those who regularly use the punishment say it teaches their charges valuable and long-lasting lessons.

Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair on the popular 1980s TV series Facts of Life, is an advocate and practitioner of “hot saucing.” Whelchel, the author of Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, says the practice worked for her children when other disciplinary actions did not.

“It does sting and the memory stays with them so that the next time they may actually have some self-control and stop before they lie or bite or something like that,” Whelchel said on ABC News’ Good Morning America.

Whelchel says she would have never used hot sauce to discipline her three children if it caused lasting damage.
full article

What is the definition of ‘long-lasting damage?’ Everyone was incensed about Janet Jackson’s breast at the Super Bowl, but nobody said a word about the commercial that aired that day featuring a bar of soap stuffed in a child’s mouth. Children have no activist groups protesting their everyday brutalization. It is legal for a parent to physically assault his/her child as long as no marks are left. In balanced, healthy societies, parents do not assault their kids.

by Michael Shifter Washington Post—Full Article
It’s easy to interpret Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s big win at the polls as a sure sign that leftist radicalism is about to sweep the rest of Latin America. So far, though, there is little evidence to support that view.

Chavez’s victory in the Aug. 15 recall referendum can be attributed to reasons unique to Venezuela. Record-high oil prices enabled Chavez to employ preelection gimmicks reflected in spectacular social spending in poor barrios. There is nothing radical about such a practice; rather, it is blatantly old-fashioned patronage politics of the sort Chavez has, ironically, often railed against. Chavez also benefited handsomely from turmoil over the U.S. Iraq policy that he so vehemently attacked.

Well this one is good for a giggle. Shifter is v.p. at Inter-American Dialogue, an outfit started in 1982 (just in time for the Contra war in Nicaragua), peopled by IMF, Council on Foreign Relations, Open Society Institute (Soros), Human Rights Watch (Soros),anti-Castro Cuban-types, and the like. As if these guys have the ultimate word on whether Chavez’s Venezuela represents a ‘real’ revolution or not, being in the vanguard of the revolution as they are…When guys like Soros think ‘revolution’ (shudder), they think dirty commies, and later on in this editorial Shifter points to evidence in the fact that Chavez deals with the petroleum big boys, and thus cannot be a revolutionary. I think it’s pretty subversive to use the big bucks of the capitalists to rebuild your infrastructure, rooting out the curruption and dealing with the oil companies on your own terms. He praises Lula in Brazil for promptly selling out his country. Either these guys have not caught up to the new face of Latin American anti-colonialism, or they know darned well it’s revolution they’re looking at, and are trying to play it down. I suspect the latter. Any country with natural resources like Venezuela can do the same, and then move on to help detox other countries with the IMF/World Bank monkeys on their back.

Inter-American Dialogue Staff (i.e. Rogues’ Gallery)

counterpunch.org—Full Article
This is what the Brave New World of Iraqi Sovereignty looks like:

* US military bases remain, with more being built.

* Some 160,000 troops of the United States and its allies remain, the Americans for at least five years.

* US military commanders will continue to exercise final authority over not only these troops, but also all Iraqi police, security and army units.

* Immunity from Iraqi criminal charges for US military and contractor personnel continues.

* A giant American embassy is being built, to hold a thousand employees.

* Before his departure, the US administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer, issued a raft of edicts. The new interim government has very limited power to change these laws and regulations, one of which is an elections provision that gives a commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support.

* Bremer also appointed at least two dozen selected Iraqis to key government jobs with multi-year terms.

* The prime-minister, Ayad Allawi, who was chosen by Bremer, is a former (?) CIA asset. (Allawi has a vicious, ruthless background, including working with Saddam Hussein, and reportedly has personally engaged in horrible, sadistic acts as prime minister.)

* The United States retains custody of Saddam Hussein.

* The United States continues to bomb the people of Iraq and smash down their doors wherever and whenever it wishes.

Washington Post—-Full Article
LAST FALL, DEFENSE Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ducked the embarrassing matter of grossly offensive, anti-Islamic remarks by Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin by asking the Defense Department’s inspector general to examine his behavior. This was a ruse. The problem with Gen. Boykin’s words was never the possibility that they violated this or that department regulation — the sort of thing inspectors general are charged with investigating. The problem was that Gen. Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was delivering himself of bigoted remarks — generally while in uniform — that directly undercut President Bush’s repeated insistence that America’s war is not against Islam generally and is not a clash of religious civilizations. By unloading the matter on the inspector general, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush avoided having to condemn the remarks forthrightly while seeming to take appropriate action.

Boston Globe Full Article
TEHRAN — Iran said yesterday that it plans to build a second nuclear reactor with Russia’s help and that at least two other European states have expressed interest in such a project, brushing aside US accusations that the Islamic state wants to build atomic weapons.

Russia is building Iran’s first nuclear reactor, which was begun by West Germany but interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Damage caused to the nearly completed facility in Bushehr during Iran’s 1980-88 war with Iraq also led to the postponement of its planned inauguration from 2003 to August 2006.

Despite the delays and the project’s $800 million cost, Iranian nuclear officials say they want Russia to build more nuclear reactors to help generate greater amounts of electricity.

The comments yesterday reflect Iran’s determination to push ahead with its nuclear program despite US and international concerns that it seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

Reuters
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told his opponents on Sunday they should not fear his left-wing “revolution” after his referendum win and pledged to respect private wealth and fight corruption.

While he offered a dialogue to foes who accepted his victory in the Aug. 15 recall poll, Chavez said he would ignore opposition leaders who refused to recognize his mandate and urged other Latin American leaders to ostracize them as well.

…`All this stuff about Chavez and his hordes coming to sweep away the rich, it’s a lie,” he said. “We have no plan to hurt you. All your rights are guaranteed, you who have large properties or luxury farms or cars.”

But he pledged to intensify social programs for the poor and proceed with reforms of Venezuela’s Supreme Court and judiciary that critics say are squandering the country’s oil resources and seek to consolidate his personal grip on power.

He also vowed to “fight to the death against corruption.”

…“We cannot talk with people who don’t recognize this result or the constitution … if they want to start a rebellion in the mountains, then let them,” said Chavez. full article

Well I guess it all depends on whether they can get their luxury cars up the mountains, and what sort of accomodations they will receive once they arrive. This is not a ‘revolution.’ It’s a revolution.

LA Times
After making his service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his presidential bid, Sen. John F. Kerry now finds himself defending his role as a protester of the war — the chapter of his biography that first gained him prominence but which he has discussed infrequently this year.

The new focus on the antiwar part of Kerry’s past is the latest twist in a more than 30-year evolution of the role his actions during the Vietnam era have played in his political life.

Kerry used his leadership in the Vietnam protest movement as a springboard into politics, running as an antiwar candidate in his first campaign in Massachusetts — a race for the U.S. House that he lost. He also distanced himself from his military career at least once in his next five campaigns, all of which he won.

But his involvement in the peace movement receded as a key element of his political resume, as the nation’s attitudes toward the Vietnam War changed. full article

Well this is what comes of a basic lack of integrity, opportunistically highlighting certain parts of your history and trying to distance yourself from others. I know people who are in favor of Kerry because of his ‘integrity’ in 1971, coming home to tell the truth about the war, but what they don’t see is that Kerry does not want people to remember that chapter of his life, and instead has decided that the way to win the election is to out-Republican the Republicans. Every speaker at the Dem. convention got up there and emphasized Kerry the soldier, the war hero, the guy with the cojones to stand up to those A-rabs. The Republicans have a point about Kerry’s waffling. Rove and the boys set the trap, and he stepped right in. Kerry has a history of leaning whichever way the wind blows, to the point of misrepresenting himself as an Irishman to get votes in Massachusetts, where every other politician is named Kerry. If you stand on your history, you stand on all of it, or none of it is worth a damn.

by Charles M. Sennott Boston Globe
GRANADA, Spain — On a hillside overlooking the Sierra Nevada mountains, a gnarled olive tree and a simple granite marker stand where historians believe Spain’s most celebrated 20th-century poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, was summarily executed and dumped in a communal grave.

It was August 1936 when Garcia Lorca, who romanticized the ruggedness of the landscape and the people of southern Spain in poetry and plays, and who stated, “I will always be on the side of those who have nothing,” was killed by Francisco Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War.

…The effort to document the past has provided a political theme in modern Spain, a sense that if it is to progress as a modern country it must recognize injustices.
The issue is not prosecution or a formal truth and reconciliation committee, as in South Africa, Chile, and elsewhere. Spain’s journey toward truth is about a “persistence of memory,” to borrow a phrase from Salvador Dali’s depiction of a melting clock, that has lasted through three generations. full article

Mas, como el recuerdo de la tierra, como el petreo
esplendor del metal y el silencio,
pueblo, patrio y avena, es tu victoria.

Your tattered banner advances
like your breast above the scars
of time and earth.
Pablo Neruda

by Mike Whitney counterpunch.org
“They say freedom and democracy and yet they appoint a government. Appointment cannot agree with freedom and democracy. Rather, we are demanding with all our strength the formation of an Iraqi government and sovereignty, but not through the Americans and occupiers. They have no right to interfere with Iraqi affairs whatsoever…”
Muqtada al Sadr

“Al Sadr must be killed or captured.”
General Mark Kimmet

“Shia leader Muqtada al Sadr has rejected an ultimatum to withdraw his besieged fighters…and US troops are reportedly advancing from several directions”
Al Jazeera Thurs, Aug 19

The siege of Najaf has two clearly defined objectives; disband the “al Mehdi” militia and restore the city to occupation control.

The conflict is being heralded as the “first major test” of the new provisional government of US “appointee” Ayad Allawi. Most critics conclude that if the US military backs down now the credibility of the new regime will be in shambles.

So, the siege will continue.

Early reports from Al Jazeera indicate that fighting has already resumed and that “29 casualties have been brought in from clashes in the heart of the city.”

The current conflict with al Sadr has been quickly conveyed to most of the major cities in Iraq. The possibility of a widespread Shiite rebellion seems inevitable.

As journalist Robert Fisk predicted some weeks ago, “Iraq is ready to explode.” full article

Council on Foreign Relations: Latin Expert Schneider: Chavez Victory Gives Venezuela’s Populist President Momentum
CFR
…One would hope, given this victory, that Chavez would reach out; look for ways to incorporate part of the opposition, at the very least in consultative mechanisms; give greater space in the legislature for opposition views to be considered; and move away from the enormously polarized environment. I was there in early March. I felt as if I were in Nicaragua in the late ’80s, when the entire country seemed to be divided either for or against the Sandinista president. Venezuela is a country where traditionally there’s not been that kind of venomous partisan emotion. It seems to be a different country now.

Were you personally surprised by the outcome?

I was. I thought it would be much closer. I wasn’t sure which side would win, but I thought it would be very, very close. I think it’s worthwhile to talk about the international aspect. One of the things the Bush administration has gone after Chavez about–and it’s been reciprocated in the sense that Chavez responded with a lot of anti-Bush and anti-U.S. rhetoric–is Chavez’s support for Castro’s leftist, populist operations in other countries, including providing sanctuary to the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist rebel group] and ELN [National Liberation Army, a rival Marxist group] along the Colombian border. Interestingly, in the weeks just prior to the referendum, Chavez again seemed to reach out and present [a] slightly different image. He met with [Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe and made some significant agreements about oil exports that would go through Colombia and allowed Colombian oil to go through Venezuelan pipelines, which was unusual. The other [issue that has strained relations with the Bush administration] is that there continues to be concern about Chavez’s linkage to [Bolivian left-wing politician] Evo Morales’ radical side of the Bolivian political spectrum, [and] and there are allegations about similar linkages in Peru. That’s something I think people are going to watch very closely over the next couple of months. full interview

It’s good to check in on the CFR and observe what oily rhetoric they’re pumping out this time. O yes, for these are reasonable men. They speak in measured terms of the Venezuelan elite’s’ sad feelings of being left out, of their coup attempt, of the strikes they fomented to bring chaos, without a word of US involvement in these antics, acting as if Chavez’s crushing victory is merely a mildly disappointing and baffling development in a woebegone little country. The problem is that this has all the makings of a true Bolivarian revolution, and a redemption of Simon Bolivar’s valiant efforts to end European control of Latin America. And guys like this Schneider know it.

By defeating recall, Chavez inspires Left Boston Globe
CARACAS, Venezuela — By handily defeating a referendum aimed at ousting him, President Hugo Chavez has broadened his mandate and inspired left-leaning groups throughout much of Latin America.

From the snowy peaks of Bolivia to guerrilla hideouts in the Colombian jungle, Chavez’s win fortified a common cause among anti-American radicals: the fight against “imperialist” economic policies that they believe Washington intends to impose on the region.

After results of Sunday’s recall referendum were announced, Evo Morales, leader of Bolivia’s Indian coca farmers, told The Associated Press that Chavez had become “Latin America’s leader of liberation forces.” full article