Mr. Abrams Goes to Venezuela

 

“Lenin was sent into Russia by the Germans in the same way that you might send a phial containing a culture of typhoid or cholera to be poured into the water supply of a great city, and it worked with amazing accuracy.”
— Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

At a February 13 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing to question newly appointed Special Representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, on United States policy toward that country, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) impugned Mr. Abrams’s veracity since he is a known liar who narrowly escaped felony perjury charges in 1991 by cooperating with Iran-Contra Affair Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh. Mr. Abrams took exception to Ms. Omar’s statement. She went on to outline his participation in war crimes and meddling in the internal affairs of several Latin American countries, all while serving as the Reagan administration’s Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, an Orwellian title for someone who demonstrated contempt for human rights if they got in the way of his neo-conservative anti communist dogma.


None of the activities and attitudes Representative Omar outlined as pertaining to Mr. Abrams are in dispute, yet in the February 13 public hearing he didn’t want to own up to them. Elliott Abrams has been the point man for dirty work abroad for Republican administrations for nearly 40 years, and yet he expects American citizens and the people of the world to believe he has performed his services only for democracy and for human rights. When someone points out publicly how his record has demonstrated the exact opposite, Mr. Abrams gets testy, even nasty. Apparently his narcissism doesn’t allow for anyone calling him out as the nasty person he truly is, though it’s interesting that in his reaction he confirms it.

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Memorial of December 1981 massacre site at El Mozote, Morazán, El Salvador. Photo by Efrojas.

Everyone around the world must know, and the Venezuelans in particular must realize, that since the current presidential administration has assigned Elliott Abrams to the case in Venezuela that country is now in for a nasty, horrific time at the hands of the new envoy. It is as if a hockey team has sent in its most egregious enforcer off the bench. With Mr. Abrams on the job, Venezuelan oil will soon be back within the control of big American and European fossil fuel companies and the international banks will be able to squeeze indebted Venezuela dry, and that’s the endgame of the whole regime change charade and manufactured humanitarian crisis of aid supplies rotting at the Venezuelan border. The only ones who don’t know this, or pretend not know, are corporate media outlets and the consumers who uncritically suck at the corporate media teats of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and major newspaper and radio outlets. Slap a patina of democracy and humanitarianism on it, no matter how flimsy, and the American public will largely stand up and salute it, no questions asked, lest they be branded unpatriotic. It worked in 2003 for the Iraq invasion and has worked innumerable times before.

And it’s a tactic which has always worked wonders for Elliott Abrams in his career of promoting democracy and humanitarianism, while only incidentally serving corporate and government interests, which are the same thing. What a great guy! Anyone who believes otherwise is unpatriotic, and possibly a communist. A reasonable person might question why the despicable Mr. Abrams is representing the United States abroad in any capacity at all rather than lying low in shame, if not in jail, but then to stay sane a reasonable person had best give up such honest questions in today’s America.



A scene from the 1984 film Dune, directed by David Lynch, with José Ferrer as the Emperor, Siân Phillips as the Reverend Mother Gaius, Kenneth McMiIlan as the Baron, and Alicia Witt as Alia. Warning: gruesome images.

 

It wouldn’t be surprising news if the current administration resurrected for its damnable purposes Mr. Abrams’s fellow war criminals Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger. Now that’s a triumvirate of inglorious foreign policy pros to sicken the world! In their world it’s bad enough up is down, 2+2=5, and evil has the upper hand, but everyone is also expected by the current administration, its leaders and its followers, and even by the press, the so-called Fourth Estate for its purported independence from power, to not only swallow their hypocritical bilge, but attest to its toothsome flavor and heartily endorse it for others to swill in large doses. Here’s to you, Mr. Abrams!
— Ed.

 

Everyone Knows it’s Windy

 

The Trump Baby balloon that floated over London, England, last Friday was the culmination of efforts on the part of graphic designer Matt Bonner and a team of political activists and balloon fabricators who wanted to make a statement about the petulant and childish temperament of the current American president. As a mocking indictment of his destructive behavior, it is an effective piece of work. The activists plan to have the balloon shadow it’s real-life angry baby model as much as possible wherever he travels around the world.

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The Trump Baby balloon rises over London’s Parliament Square. Photo by Michael Reeve.

Large balloon caricatures came about with the work of Tony Sarg on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the 1920s. Mr. Sarg was a German-American puppeteer who took the concept of marionettes and simply turned them upward and inflated them, though the comparison ends there because the guide ropes for a balloon caricature do no more than tether and control them, as opposed to the thin wires that puppeteers use to manipulate the movements of small marionettes.

The technology for creating large balloons with discretely modeled characteristics like arms and legs has changed over the years, of course, with the biggest difference coming in the planning stage when designers can now model the character with 3D animation on a computer, eliminating some of the trial and error involved in the design and fabricating of earlier balloons. Experienced engineers at the fabricating plant can then examine those computer designs and make or suggest alterations that will improve the balloon’s stability when floating overhead and streamline its manufacturing, all without greatly changing if possible the designer’s intent.

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The statue of Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square. Photo by Braveheart.

These protest balloon caricatures appear to be gaining popularity, and it’s easy to see why since they fit the criteria of making an impact over a wider area than a hand-held placard and they can show up around the world as needed with a relatively small support team. An excellent graphic design can also generate revenue for the protest movement through merchandising. The main difficulty in deploying the balloons is in securing permission from government officials, which ought not be that much different from acquiring the usual permits for a protest other than stipulating a maximum height for the balloon when it is in the air.

Since the balloons are not intended to float higher than about 50 feet, conflicts with aviation should be minimal. The main obstacles aloft to safe deployment, besides high winds, are things arising from the ground such as power and light poles and electrical and communications cables. Let’s hope these symbols of protest continue floating freely wherever there’s enough helium a need for them, as a reminder to everyone that many powerful public figures need to have the air let out of them, not necessarily for their benefit since it can be all but impossible to deflate their often massive egos, but for ours as citizens in a still relatively free society.
— Techly