For the hundreth time, don't believe anything the US media tells you.
According to the UK Guardian, the elites are doing ok with Chavez in office.
Welcome to the Chávez revolution - where the rich keep getting richer
Wht sn't srprsng s tht lftsts wrshp ths thg dcttr nd thrfr dcmntng hs crmnlty s cnsprcy. Th dss sprds.
[Editor: ignore=off]Alex
which begs the question why do they want Chavez gone.
For that article to infer that the economy there is a neoliberal economy is ludicrous.
Posted by soccerdad at November 26, 2006 06:16 AMThe CIA has been meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela for years, doing all it can to unseat Chavez.
Once again Bush loyalists, it's only because Venezuela has oil that the U.S. has taken such a great imperialistic interest in who runs the country.
Were Venezuela just another poor South American nation, the CIA would leave them alone and set their sights elsewhere.
Posted by Christopher at November 26, 2006 06:27 AM"the CIA would leave them alone and set their sights elsewhere" -- like they left the Haitians (no oil in Haiti) alone to choose their own President? the NED / CIA ops are in every country with or without oil
Posted by thehaitiman at November 26, 2006 06:53 AMAh yes, Big Brother and the Facists meddling again in another country's internal affairs..
I personally believe that any American in the diplomatic corps stationed in Venezuela should be immediately arrested tried and imprisoned for interfering in a soverign country's affairs. I personally do not see President Chavez as anything other than a man of and for the people. He has helped his country and it's people more than most of the capitolist's have ever done. He isn't .001% a thug if you compare him to Herr Bush and the rest of the dog shit eating repigs who hold office in the United States today. I believe that the world court will try a Repuke from the United States before it ever looks at any member of the Chavez cabinet. I am honored that Chavez is a Socialist and is forming alliances in South America against the United States, I only hope that the rest of the world will do the same..
I will be voting for Segolene Royal in the coming election at home....
Just this old Chief's 2¢
Posted by Maheanuu at November 26, 2006 07:02 AMthe CIA plans will fail. Unlike Allende who did not arm the people. Chavez did arm the populance. Thus, Chavez has created a popular militia who will not stand for a coup.
Posted by mje at November 26, 2006 07:08 AM...CIA ops are in every country with or without oil...
No question that U.S. foreign policy is almost universally fucked up and suspect.
"worship this thug dictator"
He was elected, moron.
As far as being a thug, how many illegal and unnecessary wars has he started? You want to talk about thugs? Let's talk.
Posted by ran at November 26, 2006 07:51 AM"worship this thug dictator"
"He was elected, moron."
Ran, and there is a perfect example of how uneducated Benito is. He gets his 'talking points' early in the morning, and never questions them. Why? Because he is too stupid to know what questions to ask or whether or not the information is correct and factual.
Posted by Judith at November 26, 2006 09:03 AMSoccerdad
That quote was one person's opinion.
"...If you look at what it has accomplished, it is a neoliberal government," Douglas Bravo, a former Marxist guerrilla who was once close to Mr Chávez, lamented to the daily El Nacional."
Dispensing with the labels (ex: neoliberal), Chavez has done a very smart thing reinvesting the profits from the oil revenue back into the country's lower income and middle classes, so they can be get education and skills, and build the stronger middle classes and build the economy.
Same thing that FDR and Truman did with the New Deal in the US. You remember. When the country was growing because it had invested in itself.
"A US opinion pollster, Alex Evans, said the boom was insufficient reason for the elite, comprising 5% of the population, to support the incumbent. "They just don't like the guy.
And as anyone can expect, there will always be the very small group of malcontents who are unhappy no matter what. They're the ones that usually played by themselves when they were kids.
Bendito, keep drinking your koolaid. Rev George W Jones has led the Gay Old Party to the brink of extinction up to now. The next two years ought to finish the job. And btw, even "god's party" can sell their soul with the wrong people in charge.
Soccerdad,
Chavez figured out the difference between philosophy (lots of ideas) and ideology (only one idea).
He's more of a realist and gets things done. That's why he has an 80-90% approval rating as an elected official.
Something Fearless Leader can only dream of when he's not delusional.
Posted by Alex at November 26, 2006 09:35 AMAlex,
Thanks for rersponding
I agree with you, for what thats worth!
Posted by soccerdad at November 26, 2006 10:28 AMIgnorance is one explanation Judith. Another is that rethugs - from Shrub down to useful idiots like Bendito - like to make shit up and hope noone notices.
So, don't like an elected leader of another country? Call him a dictator!
Do like some actual thug dictator - like Mubarek - that we coddle and support? Call him an indispensable ally in the war on terror!
Posted by ran at November 26, 2006 10:43 AMHugo Chavez was elected.
George Bush was installed.
Choose your poison.
Posted by Christopher at November 26, 2006 11:31 AMAnybody who supports the CIA 'status quo' in Central/South America must, by definition, have an amnesiac condition that precludes them from remembering yesterday, let alone the past 50 years:
Off the top of my head: Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Columbia, and now, Venezuela have suffered mass interference by the CIA, bent to the task by US Big Business interests.
(please let me know if I missed any)
On top of that, they can't even keep their story straight from month to month--Torrijos in Panama was supposedly a dictator, and had to be replaced by 'our man' Noriega, who then, presto, was later revealed to be a dictator himself...after he refused to play ball with the CIA.
The rationale is ever-changing, to align with the US devil du jour, which is why i'm expecting the US govt to advance the claim that Chavez is financing Al Qaeda and given them training bases in Venezuela!
Posted by cheSF at November 26, 2006 12:41 PMcheSF,
Guatamala.
Guatamala suffered a 35 year civil war fueled and orchestrated by the CIA.
Once U.S. isolationism came to a close following WWII, our "leaders" seemed to think the developing world was a table game we could play with and rearrange at will.
Wrong!
Posted by Christopher at November 26, 2006 12:45 PMHoward Zinn had some interesting things to say on The Uses of History and the War on Terrorism.
You can read it or download the mp3 and listen to it.
Here are a few excerpts:
"And this psychologist took notes and, in fact, a couple of years after the war, wrote a book called Nuremberg Diary, in which he recorded -- put his notes in that book, and he recorded his conversation with Hermann Göring. And he asked Göring, how come that Hitler, the Nazis were able to get the German people to go along with such absurd and ruinous policies of war and aggression?
And Göring said, “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.”
I was interested in that last line: “It works the same way in any country.” I mean, here, these are the Nazis. That’s the fascist regime. We are a democracy. But it works the same way in any country, whatever you call yourself. Whether you call yourself a totalitarian state or you call yourself a democracy, it works the same way, and that is, the leaders of the country are able to cajole or coerce and entice the people into war by scaring them, telling them they’re in danger, and threatening them and coercing them, that if they don’t go along, they will be considered unpatriotic."
...
"If the American people really knew history, if they learned history, if the educational institutions did their job, if the press did its job in giving people historical perspective, then a people would understand. When the President gets up before the microphone, says we must go to war for this or for that, for liberty or for democracy, or because we’re in danger, and so on, if people had some history behind them, they would know how many times presidents have announced to the nation, we must go to war for this reason or that reason. They would know that President Polk said, “Oh, we must go to war against Mexico, because, well, there was an incident that took place on the border there, and our honor demands that we go to war.”
They would know, if they knew some history, how President McKinley took the nation into war against Spain and Cuba, saying, “Oh, we’re going in to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control.” And in fact, there was a little bit of truth to that: we did go in, we fought against Spain, we got Spain out of Cuba, we liberated them from Spain, but not from ourselves. And so, Spain was out, and United Fruit was in, and then the American banks and the American corporations were in."
...
"The people who go off to war are not doing fighting for their country. No, they’re not doing their country any good. They’re not doing their families any good. They’re certainly not doing the people over there any good. But they’re not doing it for their country. They’re doing it for their government. They’re doing it for Bush. That would be a more accurate thing to say: “I’m going off to fight for George Bush. I’m going off to fight for Cheney. I’m going off to fight for Rumsfeld. I’m going off to fight for Halliburton.” Yeah, that would be telling the truth."
...
"...Einstein said this after World War I. He said, “War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished.” War has to be abolished..."
Posted by Alex at November 26, 2006 01:25 PMHaiti happened because white people weren't about to allow a black nation (which staged the only successful slave uprising on a national level) govern themselves.
Uppity black and brown people in nearby US and other elitist nations might start to get ideas
Haiti and Venezuela are BOTH victims of US interference. That's because the people who run the US, under the facade of America's shining "values" are really criminals who believe they are entitled to run the world at gunpoint.
Posted by marblex at November 26, 2006 05:27 PMyes, and in Haiti's case they ran the democratically elected President off at gunpoint in 2004, a fact that doesn't even seem to exist in the mainstream press - so be sure to include interventions in Haiti since 1915 until present day
Posted by thehaitiman at November 26, 2006 07:40 PM