Colombia calling

"The president and his closest supporters are deeply implicated in the so-called parapolitica scandal, which has exposed ties between them and the rightist paramilitary organizations responsible for massacres and thousands of killings. At least 33 members of Colombia’s Congress are currently under arrest and some 60 more under investigation—nearly all of them Uribe’s backers—for such connections. The president himself has been implicated in one of the most savage massacres of the 1990s."

And it's these people that swear, swear Betancourt's release was a bloodless coup. The point here is not that any of this vindicates FARC - hostage taking, drug trafficking, bombing towns are not exactly emphasised in The Communist Manifesto - but it reshows the fact that the media are complicit in propagating the lies of the political elite. Overall, this episode is just a passing fête but it's all part of the wider media and state onslaught to create a passive compliant electorate fatalistic in the face of the economic crisis and reluctant to mobilise in the face of the coming blows. Don't let it succeed.