Paraguayan jeers singing US ambassador

[Judi Lynn]

Paraguayan jeers singing US ambassador
June 26th, 2008 @ 8:02pm

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) - U.S. Ambassador James Cason's singing isn't music to the ears of one Paraguayan senator.

Cason released a CD two weeks ago of himself singing Paraguayan folk songs in the local Guarani indigenous language.

Cason tells the newspaper ABC Color he recorded the CD titled "The Field of Promises" because his wife says he has a beautiful voice.

But opposition Sen. Domingo Laino begs to differ and has asked Paraguay's Congress to denounce the diplomat.

More:
http://www.620ktar.com/?nid=46&sid=879824

[Judi Lynn]

1. U.S. diplomat now a music star in Paraguay

U.S. diplomat now a music star in Paraguay
Until January, a career diplomat appeared to be readying for retirement in Miami. Now the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay is the country's most unusual singing sensation.

Posted on Tue, Jun. 24, 2008

http://media.miamiherald.com.nyud.net:8090/smedia/2008/06/24/16/342-interview00_CASON_mhl.embedded.prod_affiliate.56.JPG

BENJAMIN N. GEDAN / FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
U.S.Ambassador to Paraguay James C.Cason
is interviewed by a Paraguyan television
reporter at the Centro Cultural Paraguayo
Americano in Encarnación, Paraguay, on
Saturday, June 14, 2008. Cason visited
the center to celebrate its grand opening
and promote his CD. The proceeds from CD
sales support scholarships for Paraguayans
to study English.

By BENJAMIN N. GEDAN
Special to The Miami Herald

BENJAMIN N. GEDAN / FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay James C. Cason is interviewed by a Paraguyan television reporter at the Centro Cultural Paraguayo Americano in Encarnación, Paraguay, on Saturday, June 14, 2008. Cason visited the center to celebrate its grand opening and promote his CD. The proceeds from CD sales support scholarships for Paraguayans to study English.

Audio | Listen to Cason's music

ENCARNACION, Paraguay -- Becoming famous in this poor and isolated nation would not seem like a huge challenge. But even here, U.S. Ambassador James C. Cason seemed an unlikely candidate for national celebrity.

That was before he learned the obscure Paraguayan Guaraní language, recorded a music album of indigenous folk songs and sold 1,000 tickets to a concert in a downtown theater. Now, in the final year of his four-decade diplomatic career, Cason has suddenly become the toast of Paraguay, or at least the country's most unusual pop star.

''He's been on TV and in all the newspapers,'' said Nelson Viveros, 16, who traveled to meet the ambassador recently in Encarnación, by the Argentina border. ``It's strange, but people love it.''

Until January, it appeared Cason, 63, would go quietly into retirement in Miami, whose Cuban-American community he knows and where he was considering running for office or seeking a job related to Latin America.

Paraguay is the last foreign service posting for the New Jersey native, following assignments in Jamaica, Honduras, El Salvador, Bolivia, Panama, Uruguay, Italy, Venezuela and Portugal. Before moving to the capital city of Asunción in 2005, he spent three years as chief of mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/582020.html

Wouldn't know it's the same guy, would you?

[struggle4progress]

2. Repudian a Embajador de EEUU por cantar en Guaraní

Asunción, 26 de junio (Télam).- Un histórico senador del Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) de Paraguay, aliado del presidente electo, Fernando Lugo, propuso al Congreso repudiar al embajador de Estados Unidos en Asunción, James Cason, por haber interpretado temas en guaraní en un CD de su autoría ...

En declaraciones telefónicas a la agencia Télam, Laíno subrayó que "los restos más preciados" de cantantes paraguayos ya desaparecidos, como Samuel Aguayo, Luis Alberto del Paraná y Aníbal Lovera, "deben estar revolcándose en sus pacíficas tumbas" por las interpretaciones de Cason.

El insólito proyecto llama la atención al embajador "por haber ofendido al pueblo paraguayo con su horrible voz" y lo invita a cantar "en su inglés, para los presos de Irak o los árabes inocentes que están en la prisión de Guantánamo", Cuba ...

http://ar.news.yahoo.com/s/26062008/40/n-world-repudian-embajador-eeuu-cantar-guarani.html

Asuncion, June 26 (Telam) .- A PLRA senator allied with president-elect Lugo, wants Congress to repudiate the Ambassador Cason, for his CD interpreting Guaraní themes ... In a statement to Telam, Laine said great Paraguayan singers -- like Aguayo, Lovera and Hannibal -- "would roll in their peaceful graves " at Cason's interpretations ... The project criticizes the ambassador "for offending Paraguay with his horrible voice" and invites him to sing "in English, for prisoners in Iraq or innocent Arabs imprisoned in Guantanamo ...

[struggle4progress]

3. Here's an interesting op-ed:

James Cason y su éxito con la crítica y el público
Escrito por Luís Agüero Wagner
12-06-2008

La historia de Roma nos enseña que la ambición del emperador romano Nerón de ser reconocido por su talento como cantor y músico era tan grande que incluso cuando se vio perdido por la traición del general Galba, exclamó antes de suicidarse “que gran artista pierde el mundo” ...

Un caso parecido hoy padece el Paraguay con el representante de George W. Bush, mister James Cason, quien prioriza su faceta artística antes que la diplomática con un gran éxito de crítica y público ...

Cason se presentó en el escenario vistiendo una camisa de ao po’iy un poncho de sesenta listas y apenas hizo su aparición, se escuchó una ovación y gritos de histeria como si se hubiera hecho presente una estrella de rock. Antes de empezar a cantar, se dirigió a los presentes en un pésimo guaraní, con el que trató de manifestar su agradecimiento, además de aclarar que no es un cantante profesional, aunque esto último innecesariamente dado que es muy notorio ...

... Doña Yvera Barboza subió espontáneamente al escenario para agradecer personalmente a Cason la interpretación de “Reservista...”, que lleva música de su difunto esposo Agustín Barboza, y letra de Félix Fernández, y por cortesía omitió mencionar que la guerra del Chaco de la cual habla la música, fue una tragedia arrojada sobre Paraguay y Bolivia desde Washington, por el gobierno y las empresas que hoy Cason representa ...

Ni falta hace aclarar que el concierto y la actuación de Cason tuvo un resonante triunfo en la crítica especializada, especialmente en las páginas del diario ABC color de la capital paraguaya, fuertemente subsidiado por USAID y la National Endowment for Democracy.

http://elmercuriodigital.es/content/view/10591/1/

Cason's success with critics and the public
By Louis Wagner Agüero

Roman history shows Emperor Nero's desire, to be applauded as a singer and musician, was so great that when betrayed by Galba, he cried before committing suicide "the world is losing a great artist" ...

Paraguay today suffers similarly from Bush's representative Cason, who emphasizes, not any great diplomatic success, but rather his artistic side ...

Cason ... before he started singing, attempted to express his gratitude in very poor Guarani and tried to clarify that he is not a professional singer, which was unnecessary since that was very noticeable ...

Dona Barboza jumped on stage to personally thank Cason for his interpretations of "reservations" ... and failed to mention that the Chaco War of which the music speaks, was a tragedy thrown on Paraguay and Bolivia by the government and business that Cason represents today ...

Nor should we fail to mention that Cason's performances are resoundingly applauded in Paraguay's capital by the daily ABC Color heavily subsidized by USA and the National Endowment for Democracy

My Spanish isn't quite good enough for me to decide whether the comments claiming Cason is buying off president-elect Lugo and his supporters are outrage or sarcasm: but the snark I can parse is so delicious, I simply couldn't resist posting this anyway

[Judi Lynn]

4. Unbearably sublime commentary. Can't get any better than this! It does remind us to look up the

Choco War A.S.A.P.

I've run across it again and again in reading, and have always been it too big a rush to find out what happened. Sounds absolutely necessary to know what happened there.

Here's a link to information on it. I'm going to come back to read it later:
http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/chaco.htm

Thank you so much for this info. Really sheer delight to read this, and would be for anyone who has watched this maggot work prior to his assignment to Paraguay.

[struggle4progress]

5. The Chaco War (US govt website)

... The origin of the war was a border dispute between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Chaco. This vast area was largely undeveloped except for some minor oil discoveries by Standard Oil in Bolivia and Royal Dutch Shell in Paraguay. The Chaco, which Bolivia traditionally regarded as a province (Gran Chaco), became more significant to Bolivia after the latter lost its Pacific Ocean outlet to Chile. Bolivia hoped to gain access to the Atlantic Ocean with an oil pipeline across the Chaco to the Paraguay River ... After the war, a group of middle-class professionals, writers, and young officers questioned the traditional leadership. This group, which came to be known as the "Chaco Generation," searched for new ways to deal with the nation's problems. It resented the service of the rosca on behalf of the tin-mining entrepreneurs and criticized Standard Oil, which had delivered oil to Paraguay clandestinely through Argentine intermediaries during the war ...

http://countrystudies.us/bolivia/15.htm

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thanks for providing these resources. It should help any of us who realize a deficiency in awareness

Of South American history.

Will be reading through these later. It was a huge event, we need to understand what happened.

[struggle4progress]

6. Murder for Profit: El Gran Chaco (New International, Vol.1 No.2, August 1934)

Apparently, this is not a US govt source

... The tin mined in Bolivia is not smelted there. There is no coal; hence a premium on oil exploitation, and also electric power. British interests monopolize Bolivian tin-smelting, but once smelted, it is consumed chiefly by the United States, over half of the British smelting output being bought by United States Steel. Thus tin ore is American property, smelted tin becomes British, and the metal ready for the making of cans, is bought back by American firms. Plenty of fuel in Bolivia might do away neatly with the British smelting business, and with the metal smelted in Bolivia itself, or in Chile or the Argentine, the tin supply the United States will need when war comes, is in the bag.

Enter the Standard Oil, with seven and a half million acres of holdings, spread down the middle of Bolivia and overlapping the western end of the Chaco Boreal. To ship this oil to the Pacific would mean sending it over the Andes, an impossibly costly undertaking. On the other hand, a pipe-line run through the Chaco to the Paraguay River, and oil shipped down that river through the middle of Paraguay to the Plata and Buenos Aires, there or en route to be refined and either shipped back or sent on into the Atlantic is a feasible undertaking. So the old dispute over the ownership of the Chaco, which in itself would never have caused a war, is revived. To Bolivia, it means a possible oil-port; to Paraguay it means Bolivian ships travelling through the heart of the country, and puts the capital itself at their command. Furthermore, there is oil in Paraguay and in the Argentine too, controlled by Dutch Shell (British) which of course is not anxious to see Standard open up vast new fields ...

... Where did the money for the war come from? Well, take a look at the slick-paper magazine, Bolivia, issued by the New York Consulate of that country. Page 1: full-page ad of Curtiss-Wright Osprey, who recently were allowed to ship over a million dollars’ worth of airplanes and war supplies, on the pretext (Hull!) that the order had been placed before the embargo. Page 2: half-page ad, General Motors; half-page, Colt’s revolvers. Page 3 : half-page, Ford; quarter, Federal Laboratories, Pittsburgh; quarter, Granwell Corporation. Page 4: half-page, Webster & Ashton, advertising “commission agents and representatives” – of the American Armament Corporation, as can be seen by another half-page in the back of the book. And a half-page, Tide Water Oil, represented by the same agents as General Motors. In the back: half-page, Bolivian Bank (“Formerly Bolivian National Bank”); half-page, Grace Lines; another half, Webster & Ashton, advertizing Remington Dupont, and on the next page American Armament. Below, General Flectric. On the next page, Goodrich Tires, and below, Webster & Ashton again, for International Motor Trucks ...

In the early part of the war, the Bolivian Indians fought in American uniforms, “bought cheap”, and from which they even “forgot” (!) to remove the scream-eagle buttons ...

http://marxists.architexturez.net/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol01/no02/mendez.htm

[struggle4progress]

7. US v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp (1936)

Facts of the Case

Curtiss-Wright was charged with conspiring to sell fifteen machine guns to Bolivia, which was engaged in an armed conflict in the Chaco. This violated a Joint Resolution of Congress and a proclamation issued by President Roosevelt.

Question

Did Congress in its Joint Resolution unconstitutionally delegate legislative power to the President?

Conclusion

The Court ... found no constitutional violation

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1901-1939/1936/1936_98/

U.S. Supreme Court
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.
No. 98
Argued November 19, 20, 1936
Decided December 21, 1936
299 U.S. 304 ...

14 F.Supp. 230, reversed.

APPEAL, under the Criminal Appeals Act, from a judgment quashing an indictment for conspiracy ...

MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

On January 27, 1936, an indictment was returned in the court below, the first count of which charges that appellees, beginning with the 29th day of May, 1934, conspired to sell in the United States certain arms of war, namely fifteen machine guns, to Bolivia, a country then engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco, in violation of the Joint Resolution of Congress approved May 28, 1934, and the provisions of a proclamation issued on the same day by the President of the United States pursuant to authority conferred by § 1 of the resolution. In pursuance of the conspiracy, the commission of certain overt acts was alleged, details of which need not be stated. The Joint Resolution (c. 365, 48 Stat. 811) follows:

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if the President finds that the prohibition of the sale of arms and munitions of war in the United States to those countries now engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco may contribute to the reestablishment of peace between those countries, and if after consultation with the governments of other American Republics and with their cooperation, as well as that of such other governments as he may deem necessary, he makes proclamation to that effect, it shall be unlawful to sell, except under such limitations and exceptions as the President prescribes, any arms or munitions of war in any place in the United States to the countries now engaged in that armed conflict, or to any person, company, or association acting in the interest of either country, until otherwise ordered by the President or by Congress."

"Sec. 2. Whoever sells any arms or munitions of war in violation of section 1 shall, on conviction, be punished by a fine not exceeding $10,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both."

The President's proclamation (48 Stat. 1744), after reciting the terms of the Joint Resolution, declares:

"Now, therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, acting under and by virtue of the authority conferred in me by the said joint resolution of Congress, do hereby declare and proclaim that I have found that the prohibition of the sale of arms and munitions of war in the United States to those countries now engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco may contribute to the reestablishment of peace between those countries, and that I have consulted with the governments of other American Republics and have been assured of the cooperation of such governments as I have deemed necessary as contemplated by the said joint resolution, and I do hereby admonish all citizens of the United States and every person to abstain from every violation of the provisions of the joint resolution above set forth, hereby made applicable to Bolivia and Paraguay, and I do hereby warn them that all violations of such provisions will be rigorously prosecuted" ...

http://supreme.justia.com/us/299/304/case.html