Ibero-American News Digest

Wherein the Duke Pretends To Allow His Duped Vassal To Govern

Nov. 6 (EIRNS)—Recall if you would, Dear Reader, the opening passage of Chapter 42 of Book II of Miguel de Cervantes's Classic, Don Quixote de la Mancha, wherein the aristocratic Duke and Duchess continue to amuse themselves with their playthings, the deluded Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza, by pretending to allow the latter to govern one of their islands.

"The duke and duchess were so well pleased with the successful and droll result of the adventure of the Distressed One, that they resolved to carry on the joke, seeing what a fit subject they had to deal with for making it all pass for reality. So having laid their plans and given instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to Sancho in his government of the promised island, the next day, that following Clavileno's flight, the duke told Sancho to prepare and get ready to go and be governor, for his islanders were already looking out for him as for the showers of May....

"'Recollect, Sancho,' said the duke, 'I cannot give a bit of heaven, no not so much as the breadth of my nail, to anyone; rewards and favors of that sort are reserved for God alone. What I can give I give you, and that is a real, genuine island, compact, well proportioned, and uncommonly fertile and fruitful, where, if you know how to use your opportunities, you may, with the help of the world's riches, gain those of heaven.'

'Well then,' said Sancho, 'let the island come; and I'll try and be such a governor, that in spite of scoundrels I'll go to heaven; and it's not from any craving to quit my own humble condition or better myself, but from the desire I have to try what it tastes like to be a governor.... Senor,' said Sancho, 'it is my belief it's a good thing to be in command, if it's only over a drove of cattle.'"

And now, Dear Reader, permit us to transport you from La Mancha in the 17th Century to London in the 21st, on the occasion of Nov. 5, 2009 in which a modern Duke (that of Kent) bestowed upon a reincarnated Sancho (President Lula of Brazil) the prize, not of governing the Island of Barataria, but the equally impressive Chatham House Prize 2009 for Lula's "innovative and responsible economic policies that have maintained fiscal balance." And listen in with us, if you would, on the comments written for the occasion by Chatham House Associate Fellow (and leading British Brazilianologist) Prof. Victor Bulmer-Thomas:

"Brazil is now at the forefront of the key international issues of the day and much of the credit must go to the winner of this year's Chatham House Prize. The award of the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro is the icing on the cake.... [Brazil's] global leadership pretensions were of necessity postponed by a combination of inward-looking development, military government and hyper-inflation. It was only in the mid-1990s, when Brazil had finally tamed inflation, opened its economy and consolidated its democracy, that a global role could again be considered.

"Aspiration is one thing and achievement is another. Fighting for a place at the top table is not easy.... [Brazil] will work to free the world of nuclear weapons, it will be constructive on climate change negotiations...

"Like other aspirants, Brazil will not move to permanent status without serving a long apprenticeship in the rich country clubs."

British Opium War Spreads Dark Age

Nov. 5 (EIRNS)—The amount of marijuana sold on the streets of Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, has jumped by 200% since the end of August, when that nation's Supreme Court capitulated to British imperial drug-pusher George Soros, and legalized "personal consumption" of marijuana. The 200% estimate was given by the head of the Argentine Anti-Drug Association, Claudio Izaguirre, whose organization has direct knowledge of the situation on the street.

Argentina had already the highest per-capita rate of cocaine use in the Americas after the United States, with the crack-like cocaine derivative, paco, devastating the slums of Buenos Aires, in particular.

The drug plague, which is seizing control over whole sections of cities and nations—from the favelas of Brazil's cities to sections of the German Ruhr, where marauding motorcycle gangs rampage for control over drug and prostitution fiefdoms—is a deliberate policy of the British Empire, just as it was when London imposed mass addiction upon China and India at gunpoint in the first Opium War. UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) executive director Antonio Maria Costa noted on Oct. 21: Not since "the plague of addiction in China a century ago" has opium caused such grief—a reference to the British East India's 19th Century Opium Wars.