Renting Gaddafi's U-Haul -- Not To Caracas

Finding a New, "Warm Nest" 

for a Ragged Old Dictator

In the best of all possible worlds, the murderous madman in Tripoli will, sooner or later, realize that all his hyperbolics about dying a martyr in Libya are now creeping toward a far more literal nature.  Should Gaddafi remain in Tripoli, his soon to be realized, dramatic finale will be more similar to Romania's old dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, than the more genteel relocation enjoyed by his Egyptian equivalent, Hosni Mubarak.

So where could Gaddafi go when he's through tearing peoples' arms and legs off in his Libyan prisons?

His timely withdrawal from Tripoli would result in a serious reduction in the violence required to finally rid that capitol city of the mercenary remnants of his gang.  If Gaddafi's "death wish" turns out to be sincere, these "paid by the hour" foreigners would find themselves stranded in a city surrounded by insurgents while the fading King strummed "Nero tunes" on a melancholy lute in his palatial, well fortified, 1950-Holiday Inn-style,  Bab Aziza.

Further, those insurgents would most likely have already long ago disabused themselves of any compassionate reluctance to settle the matter quickly and permanently.

As far as the pundits in our domestic media go, the suggestion has been Venezuela.  Of course, there is no particular ideological reason why the Venezuelans would welcome this tired old dictator.  However, there is a very material reason why Venezuela keeps coming up in the wing nut "talking points" gushing around the US.

Why, exactly, is it that the dirty shirt talking points puppets continue to speak of Gaddafi retiring to Venezuela?  

Well, it may have more to do with Venezuela than with Gaddafi.   This means, of course, that it may have more to do with Venezuelan oil than with Gaddafi oil.  The spigot for Gaddafi oil is slowly closing, making the prospect of, somehow, "recapturing" Venezuelan oil all the more infatuating to the temporarily bored , trust fund Petrogarch. ("Petrogarch?"  A delightful new and economical MeanMesa abbreviation for the longer term, "petroleum oligarch.")

Why God Commanded 
Americans To Hate Hugo Chavez 

This Proves Nightmare Is Real (The Reagan Report)

Oooops.  (image source)

Oooops.  (image source)

Oooops. (image source)

Chavez replaced his more acceptable (That is, "more acceptable" to American Petrogarchs, at least.) predecessor, Rafael Caldera, in the wake of that previous oligarch's violent suppression of practically every Venezuelan who was not among the country's elite.  Aside from the obvious disadvantage of being the "wrong color," Chavez went on to nationalize the country's oil, feed the poor and create a fairly respectable universal health care system.

Quick Petrogarch Recipe for Creating a South American "Terrorist" Cake at Home

Yummmmm!

Beautiful Venezuelan Terrorist Cake ready for Dictator in Exile Decoration (image source)

One "wrong colored" Venezuelan Reformer

A few well connected, US Petrogarch families

Impressive oil Reserves

A South American Country With an Oppressive Elite Class of "Patrones"

1. Pre-heat oven to "Political Revolution" temperature
2. Shoot protesters in street to preserve US oil interests
3. Throw Head of Reform Movement in Prison for two years
4. Elect Head of Reform Movement President
5. Elitists Fail to Stop Enfranchisement of women and indigenous people
6. Reform President Nationalizes Foreign Oil Interests in Country
7. Reform President Begins to Divert Oil Revenues to Social Causes

Bake until an oil well casing comes out clean when drilled into center of cake.  Cover cake with elitist terrorism frosting when cooled.  Add decorative Libyan dictator in Venezuelan exile to re-inforce media idea that Chavez is a Terrorist.  Serve with plenty of cold Kool Aide to wing nut talk show pundits.

Enjoy!

Cheap Talking Points versus 

Bargain Priced Moving Crates

So, of course, the talking point puppets were absolutely besides themselves with the possibility of linking the conveniently, already soiled, Libyan dictator to the walking, talking, "terrorist threat" in Venezuela.  What better plan than to suggest -- over and over, of course -- that Gaddafi should go to Venezuela when he is run out of Libya by the revolutionary forces there.

Given the current "color state" of the elected President in the US, Chavez's "wrong coloredness" shock value has, happily, faded into oblivion.  His survival of both a recall election and military coup suggest that the Venezuelan people seem to prefer his popular "socialism" to the old starvation and  intimidation  scheme of the previous owners.


Naturally, the Glenn Becks of the fallen world find themselves only moments away from another bizarre "talking points" orgasm when they discover this new, threatening possibility to further horrify their illiterate listeners with the hopelessness of America's predicament.  These "mouth junk" miscreants would like to blame a rainy day on the President -- even if it meant taking a hit in their already teetering credibility and ratings.


The fact is that no one in their right mind would invite Gaddafi to a "new home" now that the International Criminal Court has begun a "crimes against humanity" investigation into the murderous old crow's record.  If Chavez were to actually allow the old Libyan a safe resting place for his last years, it would have more to do with his strong foundation of "community responsibility" --- not seeing twenty thousand Libyans die taking Tripoli -- instead of ideology.


So, if you're calling Tripoli Rent a Truck for Gaddafi's U-Haul, plan on the mileage to The Hague instead of Caracas.

No Bone to Pick with Mayor Elect Berry

Well, maybe just one.

The election for Albuquerque's new mayor is complete. The three way race required a 40% margin if the winner was to avoid a run-off. The new mayor, Mr. Berry, managed to win over a roughly 43% majority, making him the new mayor.

It was a three way race. The candidates were comprised of the three term incumbent, Mr. Chavez, a Democrat, Mr. Romero, a pseudo-Democrat emerging from the state Senate and the Albuquerque Public School system, and, Mr. Berry, a hard hat wearing conservative Republican. MeanMesa has no particular problem with Mr. Berry being mayor – yet.

MeanMesa also provided a lukewarm support for the incumbent, Mr. Chavez, a fairly progressive local type who consistently gored the bulls of citizens with all ideologies equally. Of course, there were always the hillbillies and bigots who criticized the old mayor as a serial killer, cannibal and psycho-obsessive abortionist searching for ways to destroy Western Civilization, but in Democratic New Mexico such types rarely got very far beyond the pages of the local Red State Rag, the Albuquerque Journal.

The game breaker in this matter turned out to be, however, quite a different matter. That strange political role, a reckless gambit in perfidy, fell to the grotesque Mr. Romero, an alleged Democrat who had just yesterday finished “re-allocating” his $23,000 Congressional war chest to Republican candidates all across the state after losing that 2008 election. A closer look at Mr. Romero's part in the election of a Republican Conservative to be mayor of a progressive Democratic city brings us to the central issue of this MeanMesa post.

A sober analysis of the votes cast reveals the problem. When we, perhaps over generously consider Mr. Romero a Democrat, around 70% of Albuquerque electors voted for Democratic candidates in the election, yet – the result was a conservative Republican mayor. Was this travesty an outrageous case of Rove-style election fraud? Sadly, no. It can be much more accurately described as a case of a subversive, neo-con, CANDIDATE FRAUD!

Mr. Romero, a screaming, ill groomed shill in the election, successfully portrayed himself – just barely – as a Democrat in the race. Under informed voters who were, very reasonably, reluctant to elevate Mr. Chavez to yet another term as mayor, but who were still firmly Democrats in all their other voting habits, fell for the scheme “hook, line and sinker.”

New Mexicans, like most other Americans, learned a dismal lesson from the consequences of creating the Bush Dynasty. Being “gun shy” of a mayoral dynasty – after all, Mr. Chavez kept getting himself elected, term after term – they embraced a change. However, the precise change they were embracing was different from the Titanic's ice berg only by being slightly smaller and quite a bit more soiled.

Ice bergs are rarely as oily as Mr. Romero.

Republicans, although horrible at foreign policy, limiting government, promoting the economy, winning wars and most other forms of traditional leadership once elected, are, still, incredibly adept at winning elections. They have mastered a juggernaut technique at exploiting every basic fear walking the streets of America from Boston to San Bernardino with their cheap little lies and deceptions. The wretched balloon they inflate with this gaseous reaction-ism stays aloft just long enough to insert them into office, then collapses under the burden of their inevitable greed and failed, simplistic ideology. The results are far too close and bloody to be conveniently dispatched as simply “bad luck,” “bad intelligence,” or any kind of some other “bad something.” You know, as someone else's fault.

Yet, here we are, staring down the barrel of the next four years with a Republican mayor and all the mischief we can credibly expect to accompany that unfortunate fluke. We'll give Mr. Berry the benefit of the doubt, but we won't be too surprised when we see Albuquerque's descent into a new carnival of even more distance between the “haves and the have nots.”

Mr. Berry's four year term may well prove to be long enough to re-establish the foothold of a new well connected, privileged elite. The wealthy subdivisions in the North of Albuquerque are full of repossessed mansions selling at 60% of the price they commanded two years ago. The state is rapidly filling with Stimulus Money, much of which will arrive for civic projects for Albuquerque. Under a Republican mayor -- especially one with an appetite for "hard hats" -- and a “purified” neo-con city government, MeanMesa has a sickening suspicion about exactly which Albuquerque citizens will get “stimulated.”

Yuck. They've done it again.

Albuquerque Mayor: Strange Bedfellows

WOW! The neo-cons at the Albuquerque Journal like Chavez while the progressives at the local ALIBI like Romero! MeanMesa, a stalwart ALIBI reader who uses the Journal to line his bird cage -- unread, of course -- is amazed! New Mexico is the land of mystery and enchantment, and this is a story of the mystery part! A true, high desert tale of strange bedfellows, indeed!


For our MeanMesa visitors who live far away from Albuquerque, please stand by. An infrequent but necessary aspect of being a blog from the "Other Mile High City" calls for MeanMesa to pay just a little bit more attention to the local mayoral campaign. Because "all politics is local," and because MeanMesa is both about as political and as local as you can get while you remain standing, we have to jump into the fray with respect to the main "?Democratic?" contender challenging the incumbent mayor, Marty Chavez.

We're not going to trot out another toad strangling concoction of Chavez's accomplishments because MeanMesa just mailed our mail in ballot -- we voted for him. So, what does that leave "on the table" for a quick blog posting?

Actually, quite a bit.

Mayor Chavez's "?Democratic?" rival has already shown his colors. His early campaign literature railed about the "crime wave" inundating our city while proclaiming that his policies would re-invigorate small business. As Richard Romero's campaign matured from this first onslaught of ill-defined positions, it simply "grew like Topsey," engulfing Albuquerque's Public School System and blaming the incumbent for predictable set backs in local industry occurring due to the flaming case of "recession" left over from the Bush Autocracy.

For background on Romero's gaseous "crime and small business" claims, jump back to

"A Mayor for Albuquerque. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid."

http://meanmesa.blogspot.com/2009/09/mayor-for-albuquerque-be-afraid-be-very.html

Now, however, it turns out that Mr. Romero is quite the neo-con turn coat in his own right. For those MeanMesa visitors old enough to remember, this campaign reminds us of the ancient neo-con crookery called The Silent Majority of the last century. In that case, sterile, aging, corporate reactionaries actually descended to ground level to propose a strategic, proletariat scheme to undo what had become, for them, a troubling shift toward progressive ideas and a burgeoning Democratic demographic in the voting electorate.

Their strategy? As usual, an unruly crowd of the standard unwashed hill billies and bigots of the time, marching under the Crusade-like, inflammatory toxin of dirty shirt preachers such as Falwell and Dobson, and allegedly validated by equally suspicious sorts such as Ronnie Rayguns (who, BTW, raised taxes more than any other President in history) launched a 20th Century version of the 21st Century campaign to Take Back America. The tactics they cooked up for this ambition of theirs were to start at the bottom. That meant that their supporters were to take local elections for dog catcher, school board, museum committees and the like, insinuating themselves into positions of local government from which they could spring forth into more important roles and, uh, Take Back America.

Well, all this would amount to little more than a tedious recounting of local politics, gleefully left in the dust bin of history, except for the matter of Mr. Romero. Now that this strange beast has emerged to run for Mayor, we see a bit of that old deception returning, cleaned and painted, of course, but even more virulent (In the words of President Bill Clinton describing the "right wing conspiracy" in an interview with Kristina Wong, ABC News -- http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/09/bill-clinton-says-right-wing-conspiracy-now-after-president-obama.html ).

What exactly about Mr. Romero is so troubling?

Well, he recently ran in a New Mexico Democratic primary election to defeat "$ Halliburton Heather $" (Republican Representative Heather Wilson), and, thankfully, lost to a real Democrat, Martin Heinrich. Now, old Heather had horribly soiled herself performing years of political fellatio on the autocrat's (the "W") every crooked, uh, scheme, so it was actually no big shocker that a Democrat replaced her -- except, as it turned out, NOT Mr. Romero! Immediately after losing that primary election, Mr. Romero started divvying up what was left of his campaign funds in gifts to State REPUBLICAN campaigns!

What's the problem? Well, Mr. Romero dutifully followed the Silent Majority style of the old Take Back America scheme by serving in the State Senate and being Principle in a local school. Those were his versions of the dog catcher, museum committee jobs. However, good old Mr. Romero actually went a even a bit deeper into the muck of the neo-con "swamp of deception."

He successfully masqueraded as a Democrat in his "dog catcher" days!!

After prancing around New Mexico for a long enough period -- long enough, he hoped, for everyone to comfortably forget his true stripes -- he emerged in the Congressional race. After failing to win there, he gave $20,000, or more, of his left over war chest to state Republican candidates, then jumped back into Superman's phone booth, changed his costume back into a Democrat, and ran for Mayor. Yuck.

That's why MeanMesa voted for Marty Chavez. As a mayor, he ain't perfect. But as a candidate, he remains refreshing in line with what he has always been!

The following link will take you to another interesting local blog, Democracy for New Mexico.

http://www.democracyfornewmexico.com/democracy_for_new_mexico/2009_albuquerque_mayoral_race/