Out of Pod Experience

I was recently having a discussion with a young venezuelan that sadly, was more hyped about how good Batman was, than about the current political climate of her country.

So as a retort, I told her that comics and hollywood movies usually fall short regarding "heroes" and "villains", and that for a small sample I asked her about one of our presidents, named Romulo Betancourt. She knew nothing and asked me what kind of relationship it had to Batman.

Well, Romulo Betancourt who was president of Venezuela, was the most prominent detractor and lifelong enemy of self proclaimed De Facto Lider of Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo.

Enmity between them was so strong, they usually sent people to thwart or hinder each other, and sometimes assasinate them.

So our beloved president, that started a radical communist but ended a radical defensor of democracy got almost killed by a car bomb, sent by Trujillo and in an incredible show of will, with hands a nd a good portion of his body still burning from the blast he immediately went to national TV (you could see his hands bloodied and bandagef over a faux suit he had to wear) asking the Venezuelan people to remain calm. His story is filled with exiles, fighting for his ideals and against tyrants.

For matter of fact bonus in history, Trujillo was such a bloody Tyrant he was famous, amongst other things for the Parsley Massacre.

So just by using some real people from history I showed her, Latinamerica has more stories of struggles and power plays than all of Game of Thrones combined.

No need to go back in time to Europe and the Borgias or Africa today and the Idi Amins of there, we had/have some real bloody tyrants in our own personal tale of growth.

Apply to your own local youngsters, and they all still amazed at how comic book action hero powerplays a villain as local knowledge of their own countries fades into oblivion.

Just a train of thought. Honestly I wish I had learned national history in a much better and engaging way than someone repeating over and over a bunch of dates that meant nothing to me.

To keep in this same line, Trujillo was also an enemy of the infamous Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier ...

Also Betancourt had to flee Venezuela three times due to Coups, Angry Dictators and local political instability.

So much history and so much blood and assassination attempts, so many overt and covert wars all hidden there for anyone to tap and show ...

Latinamerica is not Cuba and Fidel Castro, we have/had the Sandinistas, the Panama Canal, The Guerrilla, The Time of Violence in Colombia (where head chopping was the fashion) , El Porteñazo (communist invasion of Venezuelan Soil, the "rebels") and on and on ... Sometimes I wonder when our own local writers and filmmakers will begin showing history to us with the budgets of the latest Abraham Lincoln movie in the US.

So many stories, lost in the poverty of our own ignorance, corruption and indolence.

Right now Colombia had a major TV series hit with the life of Pablo Escobar . Life down here is sometimes so cheap, cheaper than even Africa. Just wish we had bigger exposure, our stories deserve to be told to the world.

I have always hated the way history is portrayed in Latinamerica, dusty, old fashioned and represented by people that barely know how to convey it to the masses. I hate how history here is taken for granted. That´s my main issue. I linked the Pablo Escobar series just to show the amount of things we can portray. Also if you can grab a bit of it , do it, its an awesome view into the life of one of the bloodiest strong men in the history of Modern Latinamerica.

Just a bit of rambling and ranting, hope you enjoyed it, take care, back to my work.

An interesting read, we don't realy get much media coverage of this part of the world up in Britain, the only new news story was revolving the ongoing statements coming from Argentina. From that perspective I have to ask the question...

What does latin america think about a certain cluster of islands off the southern tip of the continent sitting in the atlantic ocean?

I know its a tricky issue to articulate, but I'm hoping to get some insight from the area.

It's quite simple realy. The Falklands are British, we bought the islands fair and square from the French long before Argentena became a nation. There have never been indiginous people to murder and kill off before their lands were raped, unlike Argentena, and the rest of the Americas.
However, I will admit, that was an exception to the case for the UK, because we have done more then our share of that sort of thing in other parts of the world.

Yes, I am sure it is an annoyance to the Argentines, it'd be like if they laid claim of ownership to the Isle of Man or the like.

The Falklands is something the Argentine government roll out now and then to distract their people from the fact that are screwing up their country. I was a part of the force that 'evicted' then from the islands in 82, and you know what, the average Argentine POW couldn't give a damn about the place. Most were more interested in how all the crap had effected the two Argentine footballers that had just signed to one of the big London clubs, sorry, can't remember the names or club in question.

However, the big sad thing is that, last year I went back to the Falklands to see if it had been worth it, and to pay my respect to a friend who did not come home. It saddened me greatly to find out that the Argentine war graves were in a bad state of repair.

That Argentena cannot be bothered to maintain the graves of those young men who it forced to go to war

You mean in 82? By 83 they were repatriated. Pretty sure it all went down in 82, my tabletop wargame group was following the engagements methodically, reenacting battles and such. By 83 I had formed a D&D group, wasn't involved in wargames any longer at all. Had gotten a C64 in 83 and developing custom D&D modules which is why I remember the year. Unless you are referring to a different event. I remember it very much being followed in newspaper and television here in the US, it was a big deal here. Quite an interesting conflict.

Oops My bad. Missed the key missed the mistake.

Can I just say, while I am passionate about this issue, I don't want to cause offence, and appologise if I have done so already. And no I am not a British Colonialist. As strong as I feel about the Falklands, I also support the Spanish in that it's about time we game Gibraltar back. We only took it in a war over two hundres years ago, and all it does now is serve to be a festering sore in the relatinship between the UK and Spain[