Remember those South African Mercenaries that were arrested in Zimbabwe when their plane stopped at Harare?
"Almost all the 70 mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea have pleaded guilty in a Zimbabwe court."http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3912051.stm
Apparently they weren't simple "security agents" bound for Congo. Related to Equatorial Guinea on coup alert from March. Yet another oil rich country which has an oppressive authoritarian government.
The real question is who was behind the coup attempt…
Today would have been the 100th birthday of Pablo Neruda, poet laureate of Chile. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971 and in my opinion is one of the great Spanish language poets. NPR introduced him "The child of a railway worker, he began writing poetry when he was 14, became a Communist soon after and won a Nobel Prize in 1971" - something rather reductionist about that description, especially the "Communist" labeling I can't tell if its a way of slighting Neruda's accomplishments, or an "in spite of being a communist" attempt, or perhaps glorifying original thinkers for actually believing in an alternative to exploitive economic system.
Anyways, politics something flies out the window shmolitics he was brilliant. Here's a quick and dirty biography on the Nobel site, and some poems:
Nothing But Death
Pablo Neruda
Translated by Robert Bly
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
The Song of Despair
Pablo Neruda
Translated by W. S. Merwin
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!
Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.
In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.
You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
Pilot’s dread, fury of a blind diver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!
In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!
I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.
Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.
Like a jar you housed the infinite tenderness,
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.
There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.
There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.
Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!
How terrible and brief was my desire of you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.
Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.
Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.
Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.
And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.
This was my destiny and in it was the voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!
Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!
From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.
You still flowered in songs, you still broke in currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.
Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only the tremulous shadow twists in my hands.
Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.
It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one.
"They" are truly mad. "They" did not want to postpone the results for a full recount in 2000 because the electoral college "had" to vote on a certain day else the country was in a "constitutional crisis."
What about a crisis of democracy?
The best quote i've seen commenting on this was made 140 years ago when "They" wanted to suspend the 1864 election. Even though Lincoln was behind in polling and it was generally thought that he would lose to McClellan, he said:
"The election is a necessity, we cannot have a free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forgo, or postpone, a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered us."
BBC headline: "Al-Qaeda 'targeting US election"
Al-Qaeda is aiming to attack the US to try to undermine the presidential election in November, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has warned.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3878009.stm
Yes, Mr. Ridge like they did in Spain - tell us something we don't know like how often you poop your pants. What was Goering's line at Nuremburg when asked about how the Nazi's were able to lead the German people into the insanity of the 30's and 40's?
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country."
– Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
sources: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
and http://naw.ijaq.net/conversation_with_Goering.htm
