If DU existed in the 70s, would the same people bashing Chavez now...

[ButterflyBlood]

be bashing Allende?

and if it were the 80s, would they be bashing the Sandinistas? Would we actually have people on DU defending Ollie North?

sadly, that probably would be the case.

[bigbillhaywood]

1. Yep.

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. No, because the DLC wasn't around to fuck up the party back then...

...and even Kerry would have been on the correct side of the issues.

[ithacan]

18. bingo...

The DLC's foreign policy is really no different than Bush's, the only difference is maybe they're a bit more polite, but they have the same goal, the same PNAC attitude, the same disastrous set of policies that is bound to decrease the security of the US and the world.

DLC would have cheered the overthrow and murder of Allende, definitely.

[JHB]

25. Oh, yes they would

Remember, Perle used to work for Democratic Senator "Scoop" Jackson.

Back then a set of rabid "hawks" could be found in both parties. The Committee on the Present Danger (practically an incubator for today's neocons) was populated by people from both parties.

[Bombtrack]

3. One can Bash Chavez without defending any sort of coup against him.

Chavez is a thug. Maybe his foriegn policy is better than Bush's, although it certainly isn't what I'd call good, cozying up to some of the most agregious violators of human rights in modern time as he has with Mugabe, Saddam, and most of all Castro(most of all by time he does doing it). But Bush could not dream of having as bad an economic policy as Chavez. He has utterly destroyed his economy.

Can you imagine if OUR dollar had been reduced in value by 80 FRIGGING percent since Bush or any president took office? People just apoligize for him here because he's on the left.

And that being said alot of his Venezuelan enemies on the right would be worse than him. Hopefully what some democrats like Carville are looking into is helping in a legitimate election to defeat both Chavez and the right wing thugs to get some third way type uncorrupt person to try and get Venezuela on a better path. And there is nothing imperialist about that. Carville is a political consultant not a US government agent.

[PeaceProgProsp]

4. How does "cozying up" (even if that's a fair characterization)

make Chavez a thug?

Every president in the history of America has "cozied up" to people way worse that Saddam, Mugabe and Castro. Was Carter a thug? Was Clinton a thug?

Setting aside "cozying," what has Chavez done that makes him a thug?

Also, I think you need to check your data on the Venezuelan economy. It has been doing pretty well notwithstanding the efforts of the right wing to destroy it.

By the way, PDVSA has been reformed and is making money for Venezuela, and not the oligarch. They're having record years under Chavez.

[noiretextatique]

7. well...those brown people have to do what "we say"

and if they don't, we call them "thugs" and "dictators" and "human rights violators." however, "we" don't have to do what we say, so our own thugs, dictators, and human rights violators (and the brown ones "we" train and support, as long as they please "us") get to occupy the white house, start pre-emptive wars, run rw thinktanks, and host radio and tv programs, and call the brown ones thugs, dictators, and human rights violators.

[Bombtrack]

10. Yeah, that's it. I'm a racist righty because I critisize a foreign country

that happen's to not be anglo-saxon.

When are you people going to come up with something new to dismiss logic with.

[tinanator]

11. no logic to your statements about Rachel Corrie

maybe racism isnt the word?

[Bombtrack]

13. Poking holes in the idiocy of the wannabe martyr status for a person

who kills herself to save a BUILDING mind you, not a person, a BUILDING, in the name of protecting people whose declared goal is to destroy another country, from a "peace activist". She was confused and utterly naive, not some visionary.

Pointing THAT out "has no logic?" Yeah, that's it. You people who hold her up as some sort of hero are not dealing in emotion. It's all logic, the cutesy innocent wittle goy-le getting slain by the big bad jews, sorry, "Zionists".

[tinanator]

17. a home is not a building

Homes contain lives, and buildings contain people. Even thousands. But you wouldnt admire anyone who stood in the way of that sort of destruction? shameless disrespect for human life is quite the opposite of what drove Rachel Corrie to stand against murdering Caterpillars. It is too bad DU cant be freed of the hatred and unAmerican agendas that are exhibited when peace activists are mocked by FReekish types who would put the term in derisive quotes. Christ forgive you.

[noiretextatique]

30. logic...psst: that's not logic

you may not be racist, but your country's foreign policy is.

[noiretextatique]

31. logic...psst: that's not logic

you may not be racist, but your country's foreign policy is.

[Bombtrack]

8. He's made it quite clear that Castro is somewhat of an idol to him

As far as you're assessment of his economic "success" I don't know how you can overlook his utter failure on that issue. This is just from this week:
" When Hugo Chavez became president in January 1999, 560 bolivars equaled $1, and gas was already a bargain at 47 cents a gallon. Since then, during five years of economic and political upheaval, the bolivar has lost 80 percent of its value
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2004/05/16/venezuelas_cheap_gas_has_high_price/ "

I have and have had finance, bussiness and economics professors who run the gamut and political spectrum and I've yet to hear a convincing positive spin for Chavez policies. The overwhelming evidence is that his policies are not solution driven, but politically driven. He can only hold power by polarizing people and he seems pretty intent on destroying Venezuela's private sector without having anything to replace it with.

[tinanator]

9. so much to learn

and so unwilling

[PeaceProgProsp]

19. How does it make one a thug to say that you idolize leaders

who stand up to imperialists and neocolonialists and neoliberals?

That doesn't make one a thug.

In fact, if he's saying that he idolizes leaders who stand up for the people, it sort of makes one the opposite of a thug.

Find the quote about idolizing Castro, and we'll see what it is that he likes about him.

This is an incredibly weak argument for being a thug.

Do you have anything better?

[PeaceProgProsp]

20. If you're poor and your wealth increases 100% or 200%

and inflation is only 80%, you're doing better with Chavez.

The poor couldn't read, had no schools and no heatlh care under the fascists.

Now they have 10000% more, in terms of opportunity. 80% inflation means nothing to them. (Furthermore, if you read the article, the poor aren't hurt by inflation since the gov't fixes the price of staple foods -- which is probably the reason the rich don't like it, only touches their wealth, which, thanks to the fascism of previous governments, is about 10,000% higher than they deserve.)

If you read venezuelanalyis, it is loaded with links to third party media reports (from Reuters) about foreign investment increasing (by companies like Ford and, I believe, Mercedes Benz just in the last few weeks), about investment banks stating that Venezuela's economy is doing great, and about how in every year except the year of the strike, Venezuela's economy has grown.

To pretend that the economy is doing poorly under Chavez is borderline absurd.

And if you don't understand what he's trying to do to the economy, I suggest you talk to economics professors who understand and appreciate what Roosevelt was trying to do with the New Deal.

Here's some reading for you:

This one says that the actual 2003 inflation rate was only 27%, and is about how the media overestimates that figure. It's actually kind of funny. It's a statistical analysis of how the media lies, or oversells in order to, shall we say, propagandize. The source of your news story is the Boston Globe, whichi is owned by the New York Times. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the New York Times published and editorial in support of the coup. I also believe their stringer in Venezuela was a close friend of the coup leaders and the Times only removed him after a very long time of allowing him to write lies which they happily published in their paper.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1109

This one is about putting the Venezuelan economy in perspective by comparing it to the previous government and to neighboring countries. Perhaps it will help you understand what it does to an economy to shift a lot of wealth down to the poor (ie, short terms stats look bad, long-term improvement to the economy is huge).
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1092

Daimler Chrysler's 20 mil investment
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1261

Venezuela’s Oil Company PDVSA Presents Ambitious Business Plan
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1260

IMF Says Venezuela’s Economy Will Grow 8.8% in 2004
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1257

Reserves Hit New Highs
Venezuela's Economy Grows Stronger Than Expected in 1st Trimester
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1243

Venezuela’s CITGO Contributes to Social Programs Thanks to Record Profits in 2003
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1225

Venezuela's Unemployment Drop of 6% in Ten Months, a Sign of Strong Recovery
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1200

Venezuela´s Agriculture Expected to Boom in 2004. Central Bank Frees Resources
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1185

Fiat plant to be reopened soon
Ford, GM to Increase Investments and Production in Venezuela
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1182

[rman]

15. US govt cosied up to Pinochet, Saddam etc..

actually the US actively supported these and other dictators; they were installed by the US. This doesn't reflect wel on US human rights policies, nor does Guantanamo Bay. Recently the US cosied up the pre-Arisitide dictatorial regime. US govt even has praised president Marcos for doing so much for democracy, and has denounced Turkey for being *undemocratic* when its government choose the side of the people in not supporting the US invasion of Irak.

Can you imagine a US president taking sides with the poor as opposed to enabling the big corporations to get even richer then they already are, at the expense of the people?

Given western trade interests in certain 2nd- and 3rd world nations, it is all to clear western commerce has an interest in painting the regimes of these nations as being bad, so that there will be support for some form of regime change in those nations. As to the source of our knowledge on these matters we get to choose between what 'our' media say and what 'other' media say.

Even if Chavez is as bad as US big-corp media make him out to be (and we do know better then to just believe our press at their word, don't we?) - then the US and much of the west is at least as bad.

[corporatewhore]

27. Chavez is a thug allright

well to poverty neoliberalism ignorance and big corporations.
From Greg palast

Look at the Chronicle/AP photo of the anti-Chavez marchers in Venezuela. Note their color. White.

And not just any white. A creamy rich white.

I interviewed them and recorded in this order: a banker in high heels and push-up bra; an oil industry executive (same outfit); and a plantation owner who rode to Caracas in a silver Jaguar.

And the color of the pro-Chavez marchers? Dark brown. Brown and round as cola nuts – just like their hero, their President Chavez. They wore an unvarying uniform of jeans and T-shirts.

Let me explain.

For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him.

Why am I explaining the basics of Venezuela to you? If you watched BBC TV, or Canadian Broadcasting, you'd know all this stuff. But if you read the New York Times, you'll only know that President Chavez is an "autocrat," a "ruinous demagogue," and a "would-be dictator," who resigned when he recognized his unpopularity.
hugo chavez is crazy
--------------------------------------------------------------
check this out this was an open letter to kerry from luis jose Garrameda who is speaking as if he was chavez

I was ousted on April 11, 2002, by a conspiracy in which the corrupt military, owners of the media, managers of the PDVSA (Petroleum Company), corrupt trade union leaders, and people of the Catholic Church among others, took part.

After having been overthrown and incarcerated, the brave Venezuelan people rescued me on April 13, 2002, and restored me to the post of President. All of those involved in this coup remain in liberty thanks to a ruling of the corrupt High Court which decreed that in Venezuela there was no coup rather only a vacancy in the presidency

* My enemies have blocked the television channels, one state station (VTV) and another (CATIA TV).

Between December 2002 and January 2003, those who participated in my overthrow initiated a strike in which they sabotaged the petroleum industry (PDVSA) in order to stop the flow of gasoline and inhibit petroleum exports. Food distributing companies hid stocks of food and wholesale distributors closed their doors affecting small retail shops. In those days there were all kinds of reprisals against the people, but at no moment did the government react by using public force against anyone. Instead we dedicated ourselves to importing gasoline, food and other items in order to alleviate the situation we had been plunged into by the participants of the coup.

In addition, I would like to inform you of some aspects of policy which my government has undertaken.

We have taught more than ONE MILLION Venezuelans to read, a number corroborated by UNESCO (the Robinson mission). Since I became president not one single journal or communication outlet in Venezuela has been closed, be it radio or TV. Rather, new communications companies have been started, both private and public, and neither has any single journalist been harassed.

Under my government there are no political prisoners.

In Venezuela, by means of the private communication media (TV and radio), there are more than 100 daily broadcasts at the national level, which attack my government, my family, my associates and all those who assist our task. I am the only Venezuelan President who has been insulted publicly by journalists and moderators of programs of public opinion.

We have created a net of Internet centers for the popular classes called INFOCENTROS, with the idea that all people should have access to the Internet.

We have created projects for people who do not have the resources to study, in order for them to have access to the secondary schools and universities. (Sucre, Riva and Bolivarian University projects).

We have developed plans to provide medical care for the poorest members of the society. (Barrio Adentro project)

We have created special food outlets for the most underprivileged people (MERCAL).

We are developing employment programs for the entire population. (Vuelvan Caras project) We have given incentives to the construction industry and are developing a railway and metro system. (Metro Caracas, Metro Valencia, Metro The Teques, Valles del Tuy Train, Second Bridge over the Orinoco).

International companies such as Telefonica de Espana, Movilnet-Verizon, KELLOGS, General Motors and others have invested multi-millions of dollars in our country.

I am not going to present more arguments, but I invite you and your collaborators to visit Venezuela and see for yourselves. In addition I wish to pose the following question to you: if I were or was thinking of becoming a dictator, would I be undertaking such a manner of development in and for my country
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=21057
------------------------------------------------------------
CHAVEZ VERSUS THE FREE TRADE ZOMBIES OF AMERICAS
Greg Palast reporting from Caracas
Friday, November 28, 2003
I


Every nation but one: Venezuela, the single and solitary nation to say "no thanks" at Miami’s treaty of the living dead economies. Today, I met up with Venezuela’s chief FTAA negotiator. Victor Alvarez was saved from zombification by his sense of humor. He noted that while the Bush Administration was preaching free trade to their dark-skinned compatriots south of the border, the USA itself was facing one of the largest penalties in World Trade Organization history for raising tariffs on steel products. He would have laughed out loud in Miami if it didn’t hurt so much: the illegal US trade barriers have closed two steel plants in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s ‘negociador jefe’ Alvarez went through the well-known data: in ten years of free market free-for-all, industrialization in Venezuela dropped from 18% of GNP to 13%. And Venezuela fared best. Elsewhere in Latin America, economies simply imploded. And NAFTA created employment only in a fetid trench along the Rio Grande, the ‘maquiladora’sweatshops which suck down wages on both sides of the Mexico-US border.

We finished our conversation as the President walked in. Hugo Chavez is not one for subtleties. "FTAA is the PATH TO HELL," said Chavez.

He meant this in the deepest theological sense. What is at stake for Chavez is Latin America’s mortal soul. "I have seen children shot to death," said the president, "not by an invading Army but by our own nation’s soldiers."

Chavez was referring to February 27, 1989. While the Northern Hemisphere was celebrating the impending fall of the Berlin Wall, "another wall was going up," he explained, "the wall of globalization." That day, the army massacred Venezuelans, young and old, during a demonstration against diktats of the International Monetary Fund imposed on that nation..

The President raced through a dozen more examples, from Bolivia to Chiapas, Mexico, where the miracle of the marketplace came out of the barrel of a gun.

FTAA is far more than a trade document. It’s not just about fruit and cars that we sell across borders. FTAA is an entire new multi-state government in the making, with courts and executives, unelected, with the power to bless or damn any one nation’s laws which impede foreign investment, foreign sales or even foreign pollution.

FTAA is revolutionary in the sense that governments are overthrown. And the easiest way to do that, of course, is to convince governments to overthrow themselves. Hence, the zombification process.

Chavez offers an alternative to FTAA. Following a numbing one-hour discourse on the philosophy of the nineteenth century founding fathers of South America (I could sympathize with this former history professor’s students), he dropped the Big One. Instead of ALCA , he proposes ALBA, standing for the Bolivarian Alternative for America. Named after his hero Simon Bolivar, Chavez would create a "compensation" fund, in which the wealthier nations of North and South America would fund development in the poorer states.
Chavez vs FTAA

[Djinn]

5. undoubtably

[tinanator]

6. Im not sure I understand

Are you saying there may be an element of unabashed conservatism set loose here that the FReeks would gladly embrace? Some very difficult to discern differences thinner than one dime? Antidemocratic pro coupists who would throw their own party members in the oven if it meant gains for their offshore interests? If thats what you mean, what can I say but "fraid so"?

[anarchy1999]

12. Defend Ollie North, Not on YOUR LIFE! People on DU defending?

What are you smoking? I am confused by your statement.

[wyldwolf]

14. Let's be fair...

The US tried to overthrow a legitimately elected president.

However, I have also heard from people on DU (haven't researched it enough to set my own opinion) that Chavez is a "thug" and not really the kind of leader I would support (doesn't mean he should have been removed)

So, why not both sides present their evidence in this case and educate those like me who haven't made this a front burner issue? (and I don't mean the silly "DLC/John Kerry/corporate isnterests are evil" meme from the usual suspects.)

How about a legitimate and fair accounting from both sides of this issue? Despite being elected, is Chavez deserving of being bashed?

[Bombtrack]

16. For starters he attempted a coup himself

about a decade before he was legitimately elected. I'll get some more info. My problem with so many people here is their attitude that because he's apposed by right-wing subversives, that he's unimpeachable and criticizing him as a liberal makes one an apostate.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

21. It's a complicated issue.

Chavez is certainly no saint.

[PeaceProgProsp]

23. I presume you're not really setting the bar as high "saintliness"

(who is saintly after all?). I'll pretend you mean that he's no non-thug (borrowing Bombtrack's word).

How is he a thug?

It's actually not that complicated. If we as Americans can't recognize what it looks like to be an effective democratic leader who cares about progress and about fighting fascism in a country like Venezuela, how are we going to recognize it in America?

[PeaceProgProsp]

22. He attempted a coup against FASCISTS who murdered their

own citizens who were protesting economic policies which impoverished them.

He was arrested, released from prison, started a political party, and won probably every election he has run in, partly thanks to the fact that he showed he cared about democracy by starting a coup against fascists who lost their legitimacy by killing their own citizens.

It's funny that you don't like Chavez because you think people think he's unimpeachable because fascists don't like him. Yet you're having an IMPOSSIBLE time impeaching him and you're relying on some really right wing arguments (particularly a hostility towards economic programs which shfit wealth to the poor couched in terms of "failing economics" which refrences ONE statistic which doesn't even prove what you claim it proves).

[blm]

24. The problem for Chavez is that he is acting dictatorial because BushInc

is making him act dictatorial. He will become even more paranoid and tougher even on legitimate opposition because of his certainty that the Bushies are working against him.

His paranoia will keep him alert and prevent another coup attempt, but it's still not healthy for democracy in the long run.

I think Chavez will loosen up once Kerry is in office because though there might be areas of disagreement with them, he knows Kerry isn't interested in controlling Venezuela's oil profits.

[PeaceProgProsp]

26. How is he acting dictatorial?

Name one thing he has done that is dictatorial?

Hopefull Kerry is the one who will loosen up after he is elected.

Accusations of Human Rights Violations in Venezuela Only in the Mass Media
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1221

There are no Political Prisoners in Venezuela, says Public Ombudsperson to US Congressmen
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1222

[blm]

29. It's his overall bearing. I don't blame him. BushInc has caused

many a leader to resort to tougher stances against their opposition than they might have otherwise, just for self preservation.

[PeaceProgProsp]

35. So what are you saying? Has he done anything thuggish?

Yes or no?

[rman]

43. Please be more specific.

"BushInc has caused many a leader to resort to tougher stances against their opposition than they might have otherwise"

Is rather broad and vague.

What specific actions by Chavez justify calling him dictatorial?

[blm]

44. His bunker mentality. Nothing specific. Like I said, I don't blame him.

BushInc makes ME have a bunker mentality and I don't have a country to run.

[AP]

47. We don't criticize Bush for "nothing specific"

You'd think that you'd be able to come up with SOMETHING...ANYTHING...to support such a firmly held opinoin (or is it opinion not so firmly held which you'd never share except that it now relates to something Kerry has taken as stance on?).

Look, I like Kerry, but I'm not going to try to defend him on this, and if Edwards had said the same things Kerry said, you can bet I'd criticize him for it.

[blm]

49. I don't think what Chavez does is inappropriate.

I think when he does toughen up against his opposition it is MORE reactionary BECAUSE of Bush's heavyhandedness with him first. So, it is appropriate in that context.

If I was a better writer you'd understand what I'm saying by now.

[AP]

50. You really need to give examples of him "toughening up."

He was the object of a coup and he hasn't done anything to anyone who plotted that coup.

How tough is a dictator who doesn't even punish coup plotters? Perhaps he isn't a dictator?

What you're saying might be appropriate for Castro. But I can't think of one piece of evidence that supports the same argument about Chavez.

Chavez started a political party back in 93 or 94 and built it up to what it is today. Everything he has done has been pretty much the exact opposite of what Castro did, and is way closer to what FDR did to fix the depression, if not more democratic -- and I bet you'd find arguments similar to yours in the voices which criticized FDR back in the 30s and 40s.

Now, writing skills aside, which side of history do you want to be on, really?

[blm]

51. You mistake what I said. I didn't say he was a dictator...

I said even when he acts dictatorially. Like when curfews were imposed.

I don't doubt that Chavez and Kerry will easily come to good terms next year.

[rinsd]

33. Venezuelanalysis is his own party propaganda arm....

It's like relying on FoxNews to tell us about Bush.

Here's what HRW has to say:

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=americas&c=venezu

Here's a recent article from Amnesty:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR530052004

Amnesty has more but their search feature doesn't save in the link.

www.amnesty.org is the website and there is a search feature in the right hand corner.

[PeaceProgProsp]

34. And the New York Times isn't propaganda for the neoliberals?

Care to summarize your arguments about Chavez so that we can take them on point by point?

[rinsd]

36. What the hell does the NYT have to do with it?

I didn't provide arguments for or against Chavez.

But someone pimping Venezuelanalysis as a good source for whether Chavez has been acting thuggish would do better to rely on the sources I provided. (Note...the NY Times isn't present among the links I provided). Certainly VA provides good info on occasion but then again on occasion so does Fox News.

"Care to summarize your arguments about Chavez so that we can take them on point by point?"

We? What you got a team working on this?

[PeaceProgProsp]

37. They own the Boston Globe which is the source for Bombtrack's

lose argument that Venezuela is suffering economically under Chavez.

The bottom line: what are your arguments? What arguments don't you agree with from that site? That inflation was only 27% in '03?

Just make your arguments, please.

Pimp your shit, I'll pimp mine, and we'll compare. And I mean "we" here, asnd above, as in "you and I."

[rinsd]

38. So what does that have to do with my argument? (nt)

You can continue to argue with Bomtrack but unless you have proof that HRW and AI are also run by the NYT, then stop bringing it up in an argument that has nothing to do with it.

[PeaceProgProsp]

39. What is your argument?

[rinsd]

40. see post 33 (nt)

[PeaceProgProsp]

41. Nine times out of ten when someone only posts links...

...without summarizing their own argument, it's because they don't have one.

What's YOUR argument about the links.

Can't you even summarize it?

[rinsd]

42. "Can't you even summarize it?"

Why should I bother at this point?

You ignored my original argument dealing with the credibility of VA when it comes to Chavez, so I linked to HRW and AI which I think most poeple would agree would be the best sources on that matter. I made no argument on Chavez himself.

You went into distraction mode bringing up a completely irrelevant argument that you were having with another poster. You didn't bother to read what my argument was and have demanded in 2 posts I make it again. At this point you have chosen to brow beat people about their sources while relying on a propaganda arm.

[corporatewhore]

32. see post 28

[corporatewhore]

28. The Thuggery of Chavez

Chavez is a big time Thug! He makes it a goal to squash poverty and ignorance and he has it out for neo liberalism.


From Greg palast

Look at the Chronicle/AP photo of the anti-Chavez marchers in Venezuela. Note their color. White.

And not just any white. A creamy rich white.

I interviewed them and recorded in this order: a banker in high heels and push-up bra; an oil industry executive (same outfit); and a plantation owner who rode to Caracas in a silver Jaguar.

And the color of the pro-Chavez marchers? Dark brown. Brown and round as cola nuts – just like their hero, their President Chavez. They wore an unvarying uniform of jeans and T-shirts.

Let me explain.

For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him.

Why am I explaining the basics of Venezuela to you? If you watched BBC TV, or Canadian Broadcasting, you'd know all this stuff. But if you read the New York Times, you'll only know that President Chavez is an "autocrat," a "ruinous demagogue," and a "would-be dictator," who resigned when he recognized his unpopularity.
Hugo Chavez is Crazy

____________________________________________________________________



check this out this was an open letter to kerry from luis jose Garrameda who is speaking as if he was chavez

I was ousted on April 11, 2002, by a conspiracy in which the corrupt military, owners of the media, managers of the PDVSA (Petroleum Company), corrupt trade union leaders, and people of the Catholic Church among others, took part.

After having been overthrown and incarcerated, the brave Venezuelan people rescued me on April 13, 2002, and restored me to the post of President. All of those involved in this coup remain in liberty thanks to a ruling of the corrupt High Court which decreed that in Venezuela there was no coup rather only a vacancy in the presidency

* My enemies have blocked the television channels, one state station (VTV) and another (CATIA TV).

Between December 2002 and January 2003, those who participated in my overthrow initiated a strike in which they sabotaged the petroleum industry (PDVSA) in order to stop the flow of gasoline and inhibit petroleum exports. Food distributing companies hid stocks of food and wholesale distributors closed their doors affecting small retail shops. In those days there were all kinds of reprisals against the people, but at no moment did the government react by using public force against anyone. Instead we dedicated ourselves to importing gasoline, food and other items in order to alleviate the situation we had been plunged into by the participants of the coup.

In addition, I would like to inform you of some aspects of policy which my government has undertaken.

We have taught more than ONE MILLION Venezuelans to read, a number corroborated by UNESCO (the Robinson mission). Since I became president not one single journal or communication outlet in Venezuela has been closed, be it radio or TV. Rather, new communications companies have been started, both private and public, and neither has any single journalist been harassed.

Under my government there are no political prisoners.

In Venezuela, by means of the private communication media (TV and radio), there are more than 100 daily broadcasts at the national level, which attack my government, my family, my associates and all those who assist our task. I am the only Venezuelan President who has been insulted publicly by journalists and moderators of programs of public opinion.

We have created a net of Internet centers for the popular classes called INFOCENTROS, with the idea that all people should have access to the Internet.

We have created projects for people who do not have the resources to study, in order for them to have access to the secondary schools and universities. (Sucre, Riva and Bolivarian University projects).

We have developed plans to provide medical care for the poorest members of the society. (Barrio Adentro project)

We have created special food outlets for the most underprivileged people (MERCAL).

We are developing employment programs for the entire population. (Vuelvan Caras project) We have given incentives to the construction industry and are developing a railway and metro system. (Metro Caracas, Metro Valencia, Metro The Teques, Valles del Tuy Train, Second Bridge over the Orinoco).

International companies such as Telefonica de Espana, Movilnet-Verizon, KELLOGS, General Motors and others have invested multi-millions of dollars in our country.

I am not going to present more arguments, but I invite you and your collaborators to visit Venezuela and see for yourselves. In addition I wish to pose the following question to you: if I were or was thinking of becoming a dictator, would I be undertaking such a manner of development in and for my country
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=21057
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CHAVEZ VERSUS THE FREE TRADE ZOMBIES OF AMERICAS
Greg Palast reporting from Caracas
Friday, November 28, 2003

Every nation but one: Venezuela, the single and solitary nation to say "no thanks" at Miami’s treaty of the living dead economies. Today, I met up with Venezuela’s chief FTAA negotiator. Victor Alvarez was saved from zombification by his sense of humor. He noted that while the Bush Administration was preaching free trade to their dark-skinned compatriots south of the border, the USA itself was facing one of the largest penalties in World Trade Organization history for raising tariffs on steel products. He would have laughed out loud in Miami if it didn’t hurt so much: the illegal US trade barriers have closed two steel plants in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s ‘negociador jefe’ Alvarez went through the well-known data: in ten years of free market free-for-all, industrialization in Venezuela dropped from 18% of GNP to 13%. And Venezuela fared best. Elsewhere in Latin America, economies simply imploded. And NAFTA created employment only in a fetid trench along the Rio Grande, the ‘maquiladora’sweatshops which suck down wages on both sides of the Mexico-US border.

We finished our conversation as the President walked in. Hugo Chavez is not one for subtleties. "FTAA is the PATH TO HELL," said Chavez.

He meant this in the deepest theological sense. What is at stake for Chavez is Latin America’s mortal soul. "I have seen children shot to death," said the president, "not by an invading Army but by our own nation’s soldiers."

Chavez was referring to February 27, 1989. While the Northern Hemisphere was celebrating the impending fall of the Berlin Wall, "another wall was going up," he explained, "the wall of globalization." That day, the army massacred Venezuelans, young and old, during a demonstration against diktats of the International Monetary Fund imposed on that nation..

The President raced through a dozen more examples, from Bolivia to Chiapas, Mexico, where the miracle of the marketplace came out of the barrel of a gun.

FTAA is far more than a trade document. It’s not just about fruit and cars that we sell across borders. FTAA is an entire new multi-state government in the making, with courts and executives, unelected, with the power to bless or damn any one nation’s laws which impede foreign investment, foreign sales or even foreign pollution.

FTAA is revolutionary in the sense that governments are overthrown. And the easiest way to do that, of course, is to convince governments to overthrow themselves. Hence, the zombification process.

Chavez offers an alternative to FTAA. Following a numbing one-hour discourse on the philosophy of the nineteenth century founding fathers of South America (I could sympathize with this former history professor’s students), he dropped the Big One. Instead of ALCA , he proposes ALBA, standing for the Bolivarian Alternative for America. Named after his hero Simon Bolivar, Chavez would create a "compensation" fund, in which the wealthier nations of North and South America would fund development in the poorer states.

Chavez vs FTAA

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. See "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

which is a film record of the anti-Chavez coup caught by some Irish filmmakers who happened to be there at the time.

Several things became clear from the film:

1) People interviewed at the beginning of the film said that they had voted for Chavez for the first time in their lives, because he was the first candidate that they felt positive about. He encouraged people to learn about their history and their constitution.

2) The anti-Chavez plotters looked like country club Republicans from central casting

3) News footage was cropped to make it look as if pro-Chavez forces had shot unarmed anti-Chavez marchers.

4) When the coup group took over the presidential palace, they did the following things: a) took the pro-government TV network off the air, b) dissolved the national legislature, c) dissolved the supreme court, d) fired and detained all the cabinet ministers, and e) had the gall to declare themselves to have done so in the name of "democracy."

5) Chavez was genuinely popular, and his ouster infuriated the majority of people. Some guards who remained secretly loyal to Chavez were encouraged by the crowds gathered outside the palace to make the first moves in the counter-coup.

6) Nothing much happened to the coup plotters after they were thrown out. No one was killed. The guy who declared himself president is living in (surprise!) Miami, and the private TV stations are still free to broadcast anti-Chavez material.

If you haven't seen this film, I urge you to see it, whichever side you're on.

[AP]

48. Add to your list, when the coup plotters escaped, they stole the contents

of the Miraflores (sp?) safe.

Nice guys, eh?

This is one of the best political documentaries I have ever seen.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. To answer the original question

Al Gore (yes, Al Gore!) and the other DLC types DID bash the Sandinistas. To their everlasting shame, many Democrats bought the Reagan administration's line about "saving Central America from Communism," which has turned out to mean "saving Central America as a location for sweatshops."

I don't remember the Allende era as well, but there were plenty of Cold War liberals who were great on domestic policy but turned totally rabid at the very idea of Communism. Chile was especially galling to Cold Warriors, because the U.S. propaganda line was that "no country has ever freely elected a Communist." (That wasn't quite true; Italy, France, and Japan had elected Communists for local government offices, but anyway...) Salvador Allende was the first Communist to be legally elected head of state, so that threw all the Cold Warriors into a frenzy.

The CIA worked with conservatives in Chile in purposely disrupt the Chilean economy and egg on Pinochet's forces. The full story can be seen in The Trials of Henry Kissinger.