AN ANTHOLOGY OF INFAMY

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

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MIAMI, Sep 9 2008 (IPS) - Spanish radio personality Federico Jimenez Losantos has called Barack Obama a hollow caricature and said that comparing him to Paris Hilton is insulting to her. McCain, he says, has done nothing since he left Hanoi, but his wife Cindy is more interesting because she\’d be a good lay, writes Joaquin Roy, \’\’Jean Monnet\’\’ professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami. More of his remarks: Castro should hold off on dying and live on with his artificial anus, suffering a prolonged and agonising death from Parkinson\’s disease. After him on the \”kill\” list would come Hugo Chavez, the missing link. How does he get away with this? In this analysis, Roy writes that anything goes. It is believed that whatever is shown on TV is true and credible. Few know that Jimenez Losantos was tried and found guilty of slandering impeccable figures of the right like Ruiz Gallardon and Jose Antonio Zarzalejos, ex-editor of the newspaper ABC. And no one has the courage to sue for significant damages, American style as opposed to the 36-100,000 euro fines imposed by the Madrid courts for slander. No one is bringing criminal charges for defamation of character despite the fact that it is clearly defined in the criminal code. At present, the newspaper barons that are protecting this systematic operation are not giving it a second thought.

The alternative would be John McCain, not very exciting. He is a very “proper” candidate who has done nothing since he left Hanoi. His wife Cindy is equally unappealing but more interesting because she’d be a good lay. McCain, in keeping with the historic obligation of the United States as the preeminent world power, would have to order the invasion of Ecuador and Venezuela, using a strategy shaped around the slogan “it’s for them”, which worked so wonderfully for the Spanish football team in the European Cup.

Castro should hold off on dying and live on with his artificial anus, suffering a prolonged and agonising death from Parkinson’s disease. After him on the “kill list” would come Hugo Chavez, the missing link and proof of man’s evolution from primates, a process that is not linear but marked by highs and lows, including jumps backwards. His attitude towards power is like that of the gorilla, while his pre-hominid disciple Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, is a chimpanzee, a more limited, modest creature, more at home at the tree top. While in Central America the miserable Daniel Ortega is in power, accused of abuse and rape of an adolescent over a number of years, in Ecuador President Rafael Correa grows increasingly dangerous.

Only one would be spared the flames, Colombian Alvaro Uribe, president of the healthiest part of the Americas. Though Oscar Arias deserves consideration, he also has his defects. Thus there is nothing strange about the fact that Alan Garcia is acceptable after leaving Peru in ruins. Argentina is in the grips of a corrupt marriage.

While it is impossible to answer the question, Who elected these idiots? take a look at the other side of the Atlantic. It doesn’t look very good. Spain is ruled by a corrupt monarch and friend of Fidel. He pockets commissions from Chavez for buying oil from the Venezuelan ape, and trades with the Arab sheiks as well. While the monarchy is of no use (Prince Felipe is an unknown), the republic isn’t the solution either: President Rodriguez Zapatero is a wanker, a dangerous idealist, and a complete idiot convinced that he can change reality. He is no “Bambi”; he has grown horns. He was re-elected, by a handful of votes, because almost all the communications media were for him. Rather than meet the fate of his Latin American colleagues, it would be better if he were struck down by disease.

The right isn’t much of an alternative either, since Mariano Rajoy, candidate of the Popular Party formerly lead by Jose Maria Aznar, simply wanted to inherit the power of Zapatero. The real leader of the right is the mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, a true villain.

What is one to do when faced by such a panorama? Hole up in a hotel in Miami in full summer with parkas to protect you from the air conditioning? After all, it’s a country that, without Europe’s help, would be Nazi farm and Soviet concentration camp.

The above is simply the direct transcription of some of the gems of Spanish radio personality Federico Jimenez Losantos made on the television programme of Peruvian Jorge Bayly broadcast on MEGA TV and various Latin American channels (and available on YouTube). While some may applaud this rare cornucopia of insults and rubbish, others would be stupefied.

Why? To begin with, because anything goes. Because it is believed that whatever is shown on TV is true and credible. Because many do not know that Jimenez Losantos was tried and found guilty of slandering impeccable figures of the right like Ruiz Gallardon and Jose Antonio Zarzalejos, ex-editor of the newspaper ABC. Because the conservative sector of COPE, the broadcast network of the Spanish Episcopal Conference where Jimenez Losantos is a star, dominates the moderates that are frightened. Because no one has the courage to sue for significant damages, American style -for millions of dollars- as opposed to the 36-100,000 euro fines imposed by the Madrid courts for slander. And because no one is bringing criminal charges for defamation of character despite the fact that it is clearly defined in the criminal code. At present, the newspaper barons that are protecting this systematic operation are not giving it a second thought. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)