A bishop's run for president kicks off with small campaign rally

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Herald Tribune

A bishop's run for president kicks off with small campaign rally
The Associated Press
Published: August 6, 2007

ASUNCION, Paraguay: A Catholic bishop who resigned to run for president has formally launched his campaign for an April 2008 election, but only some 200 people showed up at his campaign kickoff.

Fernando Lugo, who is challenging six decades of one-party rule in Paraguay, was cheered Sunday by a small crowd Sunday in Villa Hayes, a town west of Asuncion.

Lugo, who resigned as bishop in December to avoid Paraguay's constitutional ban on clergy seeking office, has the support of Paraguay's main opposition party, the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, and a host of peasant, labor and social groups.
(snip)

Nonetheless, Lugo gained significant organizational support when he agreed in June to accept a running mate from the Radical Liberals, which have spent decades challenging Colorado rule and can help finance and mount a nationwide campaign.
(snip)

Like many Paraguayans, Lugo blames the Colorados for the struggling economy, rampant corruption and politics that favor rich elites in the landlocked, agrarian nation.


Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/06/america/LA-POL-Paraguay-Bishop-for-President.php

---

[burrowowl]

1. Godspeed!

Is he, cough, a liberation theology type, Benedict won't like him?!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Oh, you bet! They're very hot under the collar at him at the Vatican.

Here's a decent look:

Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006, 12:21 GMT
Vatican warns Paraguay candidate

The Vatican has made public its displeasure at the decision of a retired bishop to run in Paraguay's 2008 presidential elections.
Papal officials released the text of a letter handed last week to Fernando Lugo warning him of possible sanctions.

Mr Lugo said on Monday he hoped to lead an alliance against President Nicanor Duarte and had left the priesthood.

The Pope "can either accept my decision or punish me. But I am in politics already," the 55-year-old said.
(snip)

Known for his work among the poor, Mr Lugo is leading in the opinion polls.

Many believe he is the only figure who can unite the opposition to defeat the conservative Colorado Party, which has been in power for about 60 years.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6211695.stm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You KNOW how well the right-wing in Latin America loves liberation Catholic clergy! They can't kill enough of them.

[burrowowl]

3. Don't forget to recommend!

[MisterP]

13. Pope Angry was the Holy Office enforcer under JPII against Liberation Theology

starting 1978

[Tom Joad]

4. I predict a US invasion.

the u.s. will never accept a democracy in Paraguay.

either invasion or crushing economic embargo, followed by u.s. sponsored coup.

[burrowowl]

5. Hopefully the People will prevail!

And we, the American People, have to stop the U$ Corporatists or the whole world is going down, including us!

[Judi Lynn]

6. Better believe it! It's where Bush will be clearing brush one day, when it gets too hot for him here

Paraguay in a spin about Bush's alleged 100,000 acre hideaway


Tom Phillips in Cuiab
Monday October 23, 2006
The Guardian


Meeting the new couple next door can be an anxious business for even the most relaxed home owner. Will they be international drug traffickers? Have they got noisy kids with a penchant for electronic music? As worries go, however, having the US president move in next door must come fairly low on the list.

Unless of course you are a resident of northern Paraguay and believe reports in the South American press that he has bought up a 100,000 acre (40,500 hectare) ranch in your neck of the woods.

The rumours, as yet unconfirmed but which began with the state-run Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, have triggered an outpouring of conspiracy theories, with speculation rife about what President Bush's supposed interest in the "chaco", a semi-arid lowland in the Paraguay's north, might be.
Some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the Paraguayans.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1928928,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget _Bush buddy, the Emperor of the Universe, Sun Myung Moon owns an ENORMOUS blob of land right over the Guarani Acuifer, himself.

[Tom Joad]

7. would it not be nice though if this new movement is victorious, and bush's land is given to peasants

[Judi Lynn]

8. It's about time Latin Americans got the chance to live according to their OWN choices,

run their OWN governments, and everyone else butted OUT, isn't it?

There are centuries of slavery, slaughter, abuse, exploitation at the hands of Europeans needing to be cleansed from their countries' memories, and it just won't happen as long as these big, red-nosed, beady eyed idiots keep butting into their lives.



Yanqui, go home!



Paraguay President, Nicanor Duarte and future neighbor

[burrowowl]

9. Kick!

I'm going to bed!

[Peace Patriot]

10. This is a hit piece if I ever saw one. Lugo is WAY ahead in the polls!

But then, LOOK WHO THE REAL SOURCE IS: The Associated Press. Always look beneath the source, to the source. AP often lurks beneath the headline as the real Bushite/Corporate Rule stenographer whose lackeys transcribe U.S. State Department "talking points," or invent their own anti-left angle, as here ("only some 200 people showed up").

And here comes "critics said"! Ha-ha! The anti-Hugo Chavez classic ("his critics said")! First they bury Lugo's support by the largest opposition party, plus a "host of peasant, labor and social groups," plus the Radical Liberal party, under the headline "small campaign rally," then...

"But CRITICS SAID the small turnout underscored friction with two other opposition parties that have refused to unite behind Lugo's campaign." (emphasis added)

We DON'T GET A STATEMENT FROM LUGO OR HIS SUPPORTERS on the campaign rally! We get "CRITICS" dissing his support, saying he doesn't have the support of every goddamned party in the country (just the most important ones!). We DON'T KNOW (aren't told!) **what** Lugo may have planned for this announcement. Very possibly it wasn't planned to be a big rally. (I've seen that very "hit" cynically used by Corporate Toady Media before--I have personal experience of it.) We also don't know the weather or transportation conditions that may have prevented people from coming. We have NO INFORMATION from LUGO HIMSELF about the size of the crowd (as expected? disappointing? less than expected? MORE than expected? was it merely a PRESS CONFERENCE that supporters turned into a spontaneous little rally?). We only get info from his "critics."

It surprised me to see this shit in the International Herald Tribune. Usually they don't descend to crude tactics like this. Then I saw it was AP! Ha!

The "his critics" hit on Hugo Chavez--that got endlessly repeated--was that he was "increasingly authoritarian," which I eventually traced to the most fascist Catholic Cardinal in Latin America--Carillo Lara--who spent his career in the Vatican finance office, and got fired in the fascist banking scandals of the 1980s. "His critics," indeed. The same here--they don't say WHO the "critics" are, even while they USE whoever it is to CREATE the headline and its lame explanation.

And, sure enough, the Vatican is active in opposition to this leftist (majorityist) politician as well. And their reason is hilarious. The latest Vatican/Bush State Dept./Global Corporate Predator "talking point" on Hugo Chavez is that he wants to be "president for life." And guess what the Vatican criticism of Lugo is? From this article...

"The Vatican has refused to accept Lugo's resignation, saying bishop status is 'for life,' and the head of the Paraguayan Bishops Conference has suggested Lugo risks excommunication if he keeps up his campaign."

You can be "bishop for life"--cuz that institution is the THE most monarchical on earth--but dare to seek a third term (as FDR did) and you become a "dictator."

AP would be amusing if the future torture and slaughter of thousands of union leaders, peasant farmers, community organizers and political leftists was not the goal of their DISINFORMATION.

It is not funny. It is sick.

And what do you bet that the Vatican is the one responsible for "only some 200 people showing up"? Did they threaten to "excommunicate" anyone who attended?

Twisted, fascist SOBs!

[Judi Lynn]

11. Priest takes on Paraguay's party monopoly

Priest takes on Paraguay's party monopoly
A rural priest hopes to become Paraguay's president on his promise to fix long-standing social ills such as poverty, and in the process unseat a party that for 60 years has run the country top to bottom.
Posted on Wed, Aug. 08, 2007

BY JACK CHANG
McClatchy News Service

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- For 60 years, Paraguay's Colorado Party has used political patronage -- as well as fraud and violence -- to remain in control of the country, longer than any other political party in the world that's still in power.

But now Fernando Lugo, 48, a country priest with no previous political experience, appears poised to bring that long run to an end -- a challenge that reflects a Latin America-wide trend against long-ruling political elites who have failed to deliver better lives for the poor.

In 2000, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was then the world's longest-ruling, lost its first presidential election in more than 70 years. After that, former union head Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became Brazil's first president of working-class origins, Bolivia elected its first indigenous leader, and socially conservative Chile chose its first female president.

''Political parties all over Latin America are in crisis because they haven't responded to the social demands of Latin Americans,'' Lugo said during an interview with McClatchy in his office in a working-class neighborhood of the Paraguayan capital, Asunción.
(snip)

Some critics suggest that he would ally himself with regional leftist leaders who have harshly criticized the Bush administration.

Lugo was vague about his agenda in the interview. He said his priorities would include cleaning up Paraguay's corrupt justice system, launching an agrarian reform program and strengthening the rule of law to attract more investment.
He suggested that discussing his ideology was a throwback to a different time.
''It's a discussion from the 1970s,'' he said.``We just need bread, and it doesn't matter whether it's from the right or the left hand.''

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/196043.html

[Peace Patriot]

12. Judi, you should give this article its own thread. It's lost here. DUers need to know

about Lugo, and about the evils of entrenched political parties--in our case, an entrenched political class comprised of the moneyed leaders of both parties.

DUers also need to be prepared for the inevitable Bush/CIA disinformation campaign on Lugo. They may be working this one differently than Venezuela--this time, directly through the Vatican. But I still expect lies and distortions and smears.

There are also signs that Paraguay was a picked spot as one of the launching pads for Bush Cartel War II: South America. Lugo may spoil those plans, so who knows how brutal the fascists may get to suppress this movement? The more people here know, the safer people there are!

This is also a good example of the VAST DIFFERENCE between McClatchy News Service and the war profiteering corporate news monopolies. Ever since McClatchy bought up the Knight-Ridder news service (the ONLY reliable news source in the U.S. on the Iraq War), McClatchy has been making a bid for the REAL journalism market, and has been publishing well-written, well-researched and well-investigated articles on a number of corporate predator/war profiteer touchy subjects. Their articles stand out in marked contrast to the lousy, stinking disinformation we get almost everywhere else. This is information that DU needs to have, and needs to promote.