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rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
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Filastin
As we all are a jury that continously judges things that happens around the world, I thought I could, with the interest I have in what's going on in South America, help with bringing forth the voice of the defendant, because no jury has a chanse to give a fair verdict without first listening to everything both/all sides have to say.


Below is an article with an example of how the Chavez administration tries to develop the whole of the country, and not just rely on oil to solve their needs.

Lula said he is “convinced that [Venezuela] is recuperating the time lost when all anyone thought about was selling oil and not developing a participatory model.”
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3609


Brazil and Venezuela Strengthen Bilateral and Regional Integration

July 1st 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, July 1, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez met in Caracas last Friday to discuss the progress of bilateral accords regarding the production and distribution of energy and food, Venezuela’s bid to become a member of the South American free trade bloc MERCOSUR, educational exchange, border relations, and the nascent South American Defense Council.

“We are showing that progress can be made toward actual integration among our peoples,” Lula declared after the meeting, which was the fourth of its kind since Chávez and Lula agreed to meet every three months to manage bilateral cooperation. “These quarterly meetings are more positive each time,” Lula added.

Relations between Venezuela and Brazil “are now at their peak, like never before in history,” Chávez commented after the 5-hour meeting. “Our countries are set to become driving forces in the South American, Latin American, and Caribbean integration process,” he said.

In the area of energy, the two presidents signed a cooperation accord to commercialize liquid natural gas from Venezuela in a refinery in northern Brazil.

The presidents also discussed how to further connect the electricity grids between the southeastern Venezuelan state of Bolívar, where mainly dams produce more than 70% of Venezuela’s electricity, and northern Brazil.

Another item on the agenda Friday was to work out the details of the mixed enterprise formed by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA and Brazil’s PETROBRAS for the construction of the Abreu e Lima oil refinery in northern Brazil.

PETROBRAS, which owns a 60% controlling share in the Abreu e Lima refinery, initiated construction in 2005. PDVSA came on board as a minority partner during the last bilateral meeting between Lula and Chávez late March. Chávez pledged to invest $4 billion in the refinery, which is projected to produce 200,000 barrel per day by 2010.

The two state oil companies have also formed a mixed enterprise for the exploitation of a section of Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt.

“I think this will be something extraordinary...we are going to be much more sovereign,” stated Lula regarding the oil accords. “The more petroleum we find in Venezuela and Brazil, the more powerful PDVSA and PETROBRAS will be,” Lula added.

Lula and Chávez also signed food cooperation accords by which Venezuela will import 12,000 tons of soy oil and 20,000 tons of chicken meat from Brazil.

This agreement is in addition to the $51 million technological cooperation agreement the two presidents signed in late March, which is aimed at bolstering Venezuela’s agricultural sector and promoting food sovereignty, a major goal of the Chávez administration, with the help of the Brazilian Pesquisa Agropecuaria company.

Lula said he is “convinced that [Venezuela] is recuperating the time lost when all anyone thought about was selling oil and not developing a participatory model.”

Lula predicted after meeting with Chávez that “it is only a matter of time” until Venezuela receives approval from the Brazilian congress to become a full member of MERCOSUR, whose current members are Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

With Lula’s support, Venezuela stepped up its campaign to become a member of MERCOSUR over the past year, and now needs congressional approval from Paraguay and Brazil in order to enter the economic integration initiative.

“I am sure the Brazilian National Congress is going to approve the entrance of Venezuela in MERCOSUR,” Lula said Friday.

Chávez spoke confidently about Venezuela’s future membership, declaring, “from the heart, we already feel we are part of MERCOSUR, it is the path of integration and strengthening of the South, the great South American bloc.”

Lula said that the wariness of the Brazilian private sector after a series of nationalizations by the Chávez administration, including the Argentine-controlled steel plant SIDOR, had been an obstacle to Venezuela’s admission to the trade bloc.

Now, this obstacle has been overcome, and “no more mistrust exists with relation to the possibility of integration,” Lula said Friday. “I am convinced that the majority of Brazil’s interests are inclined toward Venezuela becoming part of MERCOSUR.”

Trade between Venezuela and Brazil reached $5 billion in 2007, a 22% increase over 2006, according to the BBC World Service.

The two heads of state also discussed their plans to streamline border control and customs laws in order to facilitate the transit of people and merchandise between the two countries.

Moving forward on educational exchange accords signed three months ago, Lula and Chávez signed an agreement to allow 2,000 Venezuelan students to study in Brazilian universities.

Strategies to resolve the lingering diplomatic crisis in the Andes region, which was sparked by Colombia’s raid on an insurgent camp in Ecuador last March, were also discussed Friday.

Regarding the conflict between the Colombian Government and the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), Brazilian presidential spokesperson Marcelo Baumbach assured that his country “has always made it clear that this is an internal issue of Colombia, and any solution depends on Colombia’s agreement.”

Chávez and Lula spoke of the need to “mature” Brazil’s proposal for a South American Defense Council, which gained support after Colombia’s raid. During last month’s UNASUR summit, South American leaders confirmed their intention to hold a meeting about the defense council within 90 days.

The council is meant to be a tool for coordinating defense and resolving conflicts rather than a classic military alliance, and could be formed within a year, according to Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim.




I know the Chavez gvmnt has had to take a lot of unrightful critique in western press, downright lies actually, for not doing anything for the people. This is a little proof that that critique really were disinformation.


I will continue adding good articles to this thread.
 
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rockwool

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Apr 19, 2004
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Here's an article from the Independent dealing with the general western media.

On 1 March, the Colombian government invaded Ecuador and blew up a Farc training camp. A few hours later, it announced it had found a pristine laptop in the rubble, and had already rummaged through the 39.5 million pages of Microsoft Word documents it contained to find cast-iron "proof" that Chavez was backing the Farc.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-lies-kidnapping-and-a-mysterious-laptop-861286.html



Johann Hari: Lies, kidnapping and a mysterious laptop


You have been told that the Venezuelan President supports the Farc thugs

Monday, 7 July 2008



Sometimes you hear a stray sentence on the news that makes you realise you have been lied to. Deliberately lied to; systematically lied to; lied to for a purpose. If you listened closely over the past few days, you could have heard one such sentence passing in the night-time of news.


As Ingrid Betancourt emerged after six-and-a-half years – sunken and shrivelled but radiant with courage – one of the first people she thanked was Hugo Chavez. What? If you follow the news coverage, you have been told that the Venezuelan President supports the Farc thugs who have been holding her hostage. He paid them $300m to keep killing and to buy uranium for a dirty bomb, in a rare break from dismantling democracy at home and dealing drugs. So how can this moment of dissonance be explained?

Yes: you have been lied to – about one of the most exciting and original experiments in economic redistribution and direct democracy anywhere on earth. And the reason is crude: crude oil. The ability of democracy and freedom to spread to poor countries may depend on whether we can unscramble these propaganda fictions.

Venezuela sits on one of the biggest pools of oil left anywhere. If you find yourself in this position, the rich governments of the world – the US and EU – ask one thing of you: pump the petrol and the profits our way, using our corporations. If you do that, we will whisk you up the Mall in a golden carriage, no matter what. The "King" of Saudi Arabia oversees a torturing tyranny where half the population – women – are placed under house arrest, and jihadis are pumped out by the dozen to attack us. It doesn't matter. He gives us the oil, so we hold his hand and whisper sweet crude-nothings in his ear.

It has always been the same with Venezuela – until now. Back in 1908, the US government set up its ideal Venezuelan regime: a dictator who handed the oil over fast and so freely that he didn't even bother to keep receipts, never mind ask for a cut. But in 1998 the Venezuelan people finally said "enough". They elected Hugo Chavez. The President followed their democratic demands: he increased the share of oil profits taken by the state from a pitiful one per cent to 33 per cent. He used the money to build hospitals and schools and subsidised supermarkets in the tin-and-mud shanty towns where he grew up, and where most of his countrymen still live.

I can take you to any random barrio in the high hills that ring Caracas and show you the results. You will meet women like Francisca Moreno, a gap-toothed 76-year-old granny I found sitting in a tin shack, at the end of a long path across the mud made out of broken wooden planks. From her doorway she looked down on the shining white marble of Caracas's rich district. "I went blind 15 years ago because of cataracts," she explained, and in the old Venezuela people like her didn't see doctors. "I am poor," she said, "so that was that." But she voted for Chavez. A free clinic appeared two years later in her barrio, and she was taken soon after for an operation that restored her sight. "Once I was blind, but now I see!" she said, laughing.

In 2003, two distinguished Wall Street consulting firms conducted the most detailed study so far of economic change under Chavez. They found that the poorest half of the country have seen their incomes soar by 130 per cent after inflation. Today, there are 19,571 primary care doctors – an increase by a factor of 10. When Chavez came to power, just 35 per cent of Venezuelans told Latinobarometro, the Gallup of Latin America, they were happy with how their democracy worked. Today it is 59 per cent, the second-highest in the hemisphere.

For the rich world's governments – and especially for the oil companies, who pay for their political campaigns – this throws up a serious problem. We are addicted to oil. We need it. We crave it. And we want it on our terms. The last time I saw Chavez, he told me he would like to sell oil differently in the future: while poor countries should get it for $10 a barrel, rich countries should pay much more – perhaps towards $200. And he has said that if the rich countries keep intimidating the rest he will shift to selling to China instead. Start the sweating. But Western governments cannot simply say: "We want the oil, our corporations need the profits, so let's smash the elected leaders standing in our way." They know ordinary Americans and Europeans would gag.

So they had to invent lies. They come in waves, each one swelling as the last crashes into incredulity. First they announced Chavez was a dictator. This ignored that he came to power in a totally free and open election, the Venezuelan press remains uncensored and in total opposition to him, and he has just accepted losing a referendum to extend his term and will stand down in 2013.

When that tactic failed, the oil industry and the politicians they lubricate shifted strategy. They announced that Chavez was a supporter of Terrorism (it definitely has a capital T). The Farc is a Colombian guerrilla group that started in the 1960s as a peasant defence network, but soon the pigs began to look like farmers and they became a foul, kidnapping mafia. Where is the evidence Chavez funded them?

On 1 March, the Colombian government invaded Ecuador and blew up a Farc training camp. A few hours later, it announced it had found a pristine laptop in the rubble, and had already rummaged through the 39.5 million pages of Microsoft Word documents it contained to find cast-iron "proof" that Chavez was backing the Farc. Ingrid's sister, Astrid Betancourt, says it is plainly fake. The camp had been totally burned to pieces and the computers had clearly, she says, been "in the hands of the Colombian government for a very long time". Far from fuelling the guerrillas, Chavez has repeatedly pleaded with the Farc to disarm. He managed to negotiate the release of two high-profile hostages – hence Betancourt's swift thanks. He said: "The time of guns has passed. Guerilla warfare is history."

So what now? Now they claim he is a drug dealer, he funds Hezbollah, he is insane. Sometimes they even stumble on some of the real non-fiction reasons to criticise Chavez and use them as propaganda tools. (See our Open House blog later today for a discussion of this). As the world's oil supplies dry up, the desire to control Venezuela's pools will only increase. The US government is already funding separatist movements in Zulia province, along the border with Colombia, where Venezuela's largest oilfields lie. They hope they can break away this whiter-skinned, anti-Chavez province and then drink deep of the petrol there.

Until we break our addiction to oil, our governments will always try to snatch petro-profits away from women like Francisca Moreno. And we – oil addicts all – will be tempted to ignore the strange, dissonant sentences we sometimes hear on the news and lie, blissed-out, in the lies.

j.hari@independent.co.uk




I'd like to ad that Bolivia has similar problems with the US funding some oil rich states, like Santa Clara, there aswell.
 
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rockwool

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Apr 19, 2004
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The Margarita Declaration signed Friday lays out a working agenda for constructing a “new international communicational order” that is meant to “balance information and democratize the presence of the countries of the South in worldwide communication,” said the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Andrés Izarra, in his closing speech Friday.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3617



Non-Aligned Countries Endorse Venezuelan Proposal for Alternative World Media

July 6th 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com [/B]

Last week, Non-aligned countries agreed to construct a world system of news, radio, and information-sharing to connect and represent countries in the Global South.
Mérida, July 5, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- At the 7th Conference of Information Ministers of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries held in Venezuela’s Margarita Island last week, more than 80 country delegations endorsed Venezuela’s proposal to create an alternative worldwide media network.

The Margarita Declaration signed Friday lays out a working agenda for constructing a “new international communicational order” that is meant to “balance information and democratize the presence of the countries of the South in worldwide communication,” said the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Andrés Izarra, in his closing speech Friday.

“We now have a new tool,” explained Izarra. “The communicational task of our peoples today is to recuperate the words, the images of our existence which have been sequestered and used against us by the masters of the world.”

One proposal on the agenda is to start a Non-Aligned News Network (NNN) to cover news from the 118 mostly Global South countries in the movement. According to Izarra, this new network could be based on the model of Caracas-based Telesur.

Telesur is a television channel created in 2006 with the financial backing of the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It aims to rival other international news agencies while promoting consciousness of Latin American identity and history and give voice to the social changes going on in the region.

Other proposals included a radio of the South and strengthened southern information networks, which would “serve as an information bank, providing common access to these countries in order to pluralize the flow of information,” Izarra explained.

Many delegates credited a speech by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Thursday for propelling these ideas into the action plan of the Margarita Declaration.

“We are in a search for the democracy of information since there is a media tyranny in the world,” Chávez asserted Thursday. “Hopefully we can structure a grand social television of the world that has its offices, studios, cameras, and satellites dispersed around the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa,” he described.

“We have to do it now, in order to communicate among our peoples in our languages, it is vital so that our governments get to know each other,” Chávez encouraged.

Last year, the Chávez administration did not renew the broadcasting license of one of Venezuela’s largest corporate networks, RCTV, and instead granted the concession to Venezuelan Social Television (TVES), which currently broadcasts 229 programs by independent producers emphasizing educational and cultural content.

Chávez’s proposal was backed on Thursday by the Foreign Relations Minister of Cuba, Felipe Pérez Roque, who said the current media climate is such that the South is “silenced” and “bombarded continually” with “history from the perspective of the powerful.”

Considering this, “the current situation cannot be resolved with palliative measures, we must go to its base,” said the minister, explaining that “this unjust international order to which we are to be submitted is a product of the abyss that exists between the North and the South in terms of access, production, and flow of information.”

Venezuela’s first-ever Minister of Women’s Issues, María León, was also welcomed to the conference to share Venezuela’s current women’s rights policies with countries such as Namibia, Belarus, Dominica, Gambia, and Cambodia, which had expressed interest in learning more.

“Many have shown interest in finding out about what is occurring with women in Venezuela. There are very important advances that we can share. The importance that the media now gives to women, and we can see that of the 5 public powers, four are led by women,” León told the press.

According to the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations, Jorge Valero, the movement is “in a period of revitalization of this organization since the developed countries and the spokespeople of neo-liberalism had proclaimed the death of the non-aligned countries.”

President Chávez presented another South-focused proposal at the conference Thursday when he called on OPEC countries to help the poorest 50 countries on Earth pay for oil as prices continue to soar above $144 per barrel.

“OPEC, or some of its members, should take the responsibility to supply these countries through special mechanisms, subsidies, donations, agreements. It is not going to make us any richer or poorer,” said Chávez.

Venezuela’s most recent tax on oil profits to generate funds for social programs was passed by the National Assembly last April. Also, last month Chávez offered to use profits from oil sold for more than $100 per barrel to combat food shortages worldwide if other countries also agreed to participate.

Chávez predicted that oil prices would continue to rise, but not because OPEP countries want them to. “It is not our fault,” Chávez said. “Withdraw the troops from Iraq and you will see how immediately the price of oil will fall several dollars; stop the threats against Iran and Venezuela and you will see the price descend.”

The “exaggerated consumption” of oil by rich nations is another factor in the high prices, Chávez said, pointing out that the 50 poorest countries consume a total of 700,000 barrels of oil per day, while the United States consumes 21 million barrels per day.




Truly some hard blows to the Empire, and non of these things are reported in Sweden.
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
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The U.S screwed up South America so hard by installing U.S-friendly dictators and funding terrorist groups. It is truly amazing that people wonder why the U.S isn't seen in a positive light in many countries.

I haven't seen any news source in the U.S besides small, independent news sources print this kind of stuff, and it is a shame that profits are more important than information. It is an inherent flaw in a capitalist news structure, since news organizations will print what gets them the most money, and stories like these are dismissed as socialist propaganda then immediately discarded in favor of the latest news on Britney Spears' baby.
 

rockwool

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Apr 19, 2004
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Venezuela plans to share the oil wealth by reducing the daily work hours.

At a simultaneous conference about preventative health in the workplace last Friday, Labor Minister Roberto Hernández advocated the reduction of the workday nation-wide, and said that workers should be the protagonists in improving their working conditions for preventative health purposes.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3626


Venezuela Reduces Malnutrition in Children to 4%

July 8th 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com


Mérida, July 7, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- According to Venezuela’s National Nutrition Institute (INN), slightly more than 4% of Venezuelan children under the age of 5 suffered malnutrition in 2007 according to the standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This represents a raeduction of more than 16 percentage points in malnutrition since 1998, the year President Hugo Chávez was elected, when the figure was 21%, says the INN. The WHO has commended this achievement, according to the Bolivarian News Agency.

The INN also reported that 98% of Venezuelans eat three times per day, thanks to the emergence of several government programs for food security. These programs include the subsidized food markets known as MERCAL, and preventative health education promoted by the Barrio Adentro “Mission,” which provides free health care with support from Cuban doctors.

WHO representative Pedro Alabajar pointed out during an inter-governmental conference on Chagas Disease in the Andean Region last Friday that Venezuela’s efforts to combat and prevent Chagas Disease continue to be exemplary for the region.

The Pan-American Health Organization also recognizes Venezuela’s efforts, Albajar affirmed. According to the WHO website, Chagas Disease is found only in Latin America.

Alabajar highlighted, however, that since it was discovered that Chagas Disease can be transmitted orally, Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana will face new challenges in fighting the disease.

At a simultaneous conference about preventative health in the workplace last Friday, Labor Minister Roberto Hernández advocated the reduction of the workday nation-wide, and said that workers should be the protagonists in improving their working conditions for preventative health purposes.

The minister said that socialism in Venezuela means increasing the power of civil society over what has traditionally been controlled by private and government entities. “Each People, in accordance with its history, with its culture, creates concrete forms of socialism,” he articulated.

The minister acknowledged that the reduction of the workday was part of the constitutional reform proposal that was voted down last December in a national referendum, but “that does not mean that we cannot do it in another way, like in an ordinary law or even an administrative measure.”




In comparison, the rightwing coalition in Sweden chose to subsidze tax reductions to those who could afford to hire house cleaning services (the richest 20-30%), but more importantly, to give subsidies for house wife's to take care of their little brats. :disgust:
 
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rockwool

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Apr 19, 2004
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The U.S screwed up South America so hard by installing U.S-friendly dictators and funding terrorist groups. It is truly amazing that people wonder why the U.S isn't seen in a positive light in many countries.

I haven't seen any news source in the U.S besides small, independent news sources print this kind of stuff, and it is a shame that profits are more important than information. It is an inherent flaw in a capitalist news structure, since news organizations will print what gets them the most money, and stories like these are dismissed as socialist propaganda then immediately discarded in favor of the latest news on Britney Spears' baby.
Haha, we truly live in societies where the tabloids and television serve as "opium for the people". At least back in the days, when churches ruled over the thoughts of the masses, they were tought ethics and values by the pusherman, not to count the pubic hairs of Paris Hilton. :cheers:
 

Samirol

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Jun 23, 2008
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ahahaha who put the tag communist propaganda on? :rofl:

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/29/cia_documents_show_bush_knew_of

Newly released CIA documents show the Bush administration—at the very least–knew about the plot to overthrow Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez weeks before the April 2002 military coup and did nothing to stop it.

Until now the Bush administration has claimed it had no role in the failed coup and didn’t know one was being planned.

The CIA documents, which were heavily censored before being released, were obtained by Venezuelan-American attorney, Eva Golinger. One of those documents, dated April 6, 2002, says explicitly “dissident military factions…are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chavez, possibly as early as this month.” The document adds the groups: " may bungle the attempt by moving too quickly."

A CIA spokeswoman told Newsday the agency played no role in the coup and was merely collecting information about political events in Venezuela for top U.S. officials.

Chavez supporters have long-criticized the U.S. for supporting the failed coup attempt in April 2002. Chavez was removed from power by a coalition of military officials and business leaders but returned to office two days later.

U.S.-Venezuela relations have turned sour ever since Chavez was elected president in 1998. As president, Chavez has condemned the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States.

Since then, more than $1 million in U.S. government money has been given to Venezuelan opposition groups for democracy-training programs under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy–a private agency funded entirely by the U.S. government.
 
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rockwool

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Apr 19, 2004
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Yeah, I know, I've read Eva Golinger's book The Chavez Code which was litterally full of notes and referances to the back where all those FOIA documents were copied.

About the NED, they call them selves an NGO but they're financed by the US gvmnt.. They, the USAID, and the IRI, all contiribute quite a lot to the distabilization in Venezuela, and now also Bolivia, through finance and tactial advices.
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
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Ohh yeah, just remembered, in 2005 there was a conference about democracy in Stockholm, held at the parliament, with closed doors towards the general public, and where the Swedish rightwing government partisipated.

"To understand the obstacles of today for democracy" was the theme of teh day, which was the seventh conference by "the world meeting for democracy promoting foundations" (or similar as this is a direct translation).

Eva Golinger was sceduled to participate in a panel, named "support for regime change - democratic aid or intervention", where she would speak with Carl Gershman, the head of the NED. The panel and the talking was conducted, but Golinger was not allowed to participate.

The reason given for this was that she was "democraticly doubtable". According to unnoficial information it was the NED who demanded her to be taken away from the program. All this because of her insight in what happened in Venezuela.

Makes one think, what point is it in having a conference with discussions about current issues when nobody is allowed to think differently?
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
1,437
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Isn't Democracy Now a TV channel with indeapth political interviews etc?
They are a radio program, but they have video podcasts and a lot of their stuff is on youtube. They cover so many things that the rest of the media doesn't cover, they are a great alternative media source.

Ohh yeah, just remembered, in 2005 there was a conference about democracy in Stockholm, held at the parliament, with closed doors towards the general public, and where the Swedish rightwing government partisipated.

"To understand the obstacles of today for democracy" was the theme of teh day, which was the seventh conference by "the world meeting for democracy promoting foundations" (or similar as this is a direct translation).

Eva Golinger was sceduled to participate in a panel, named "support for regime change - democratic aid or intervention", where she would speak with Carl Gershman, the head of the NED. The panel and the talking was conducted, but Golinger was not allowed to participate.

The reason given for this was that she was "democraticly doubtable". According to unnoficial information it was the NED who demanded her to be taken away from the program. All this because of her insight in what happened in Venezuela.

Makes one think, what point is it in having a conference with discussions about current issues when nobody is allowed to think differently?
It is the rise of neoliberalism in my opinion, and the thinking that the only way for social changes to occur is for there to be a laissez-faire policy towards the economy.
 
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rockwool

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Apr 19, 2004
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Filastin
They are a radio program, but they have video podcasts and a lot of their stuff is on youtube. They cover so many things that the rest of the media doesn't cover, they are a great alternative media source.



It is the rise of neoliberalism in my opinion, and the thinking that the only way for social changes to occur is for there to be a laissez-faire policy towards the economy.
Right, saw them interview Evo Morales on youtube..


They talk alot about non-interference but actually do they quite opposite many times. Like the EU, and I think the US too, has tolls on products from non member countries, but through their foreign politics forces those nations to not have any tolls back at them, aswell as interfere in their internal politics when it comes to state owned companies et al.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
So an advisor tells George Bush that two Brazilian troops were killed in Iraq. He says, "Dang, thats alot...how many zeros in a brazilian?"
 

BurlyShirley

Rex Grossman Will Rise Again
Jul 4, 2002
19,180
17
TN
Rockwool, you really think Chavez is the great leader your unending articles make him out to be?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5755-2005Mar27.html

Chavez's Censorship
Where 'Disrespect' Can Land You in Jail
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 28, 2005; Page A17

Venezuela's minister of communication and information, Andres Izarra, recently accused The Post and several other American media of being part of a campaign to defame Venezuela directed by the Bush administration and funded by the State Department. Apparently I drew Izarra's attention by writing several columns and editorials lamenting President Hugo Chavez's assault on press freedom and the independent judiciary and his support for anti-democratic movements elsewhere in Latin America.

One of the journalists libeled by Izarra pointed out that he had no evidence to back up his accusations. According to the newspaper El Universal, that inspired the following outburst, in Spanish, from the cabinet minister: "Mister gringo, be sure that we are going to come back to defeat you . . . because we work with the truth, we have spirit and above all something very special, a leader who unites and inspires us, the commandante Chavez!"

It's easy to laugh at such buffoonery if, like me, you have the privilege of working for an independent newspaper in a capital where demagogues such as Izarra aren't taken seriously. In Caracas, however, the minister's rantings -- and those of his master, Chavez -- are no longer funny. Beginning this month journalists or other independent activists accused by the government of the sort of offenses alleged by Izarra can be jailed without due process and sentenced to up to 30 years.

To be sure, much of the Venezuelan media has aggressively opposed Chavez's populist "Bolivarian revolution," though not without reason: The former coup-plotting colonel is well on his way to destroying what was once the most stable and prosperous democracy in Latin America. Some newspapers and television stations openly sided with attempts to oust the president via coup, strike or a national referendum. Having survived all three, a strengthened Chavez is moving to eliminate critical journalists and create in Venezuela the kind of state-controlled media environment in which a minister of information such as Izarra is all-powerful.

The first step was a new media content law, adopted by the Chavez-controlled legislature last December, that subjects broadcast media to heavy fines or the loss of their licenses for disseminating information deemed "contrary to national security." Its impact was soon felt: Two of the most prominent anti-government journalists lost their jobs as anchors on morning television shows, and Venezuelans quickly noticed the appearance of self-censorship among those who remained.

Ten days ago Chavez handed Izarra a still-bigger stick: a new penal code that criminalizes virtually any expression to which the government objects -- not only in public but also in private.

Start with Article 147: "Anyone who offends with his words or in writing or in any other way disrespects the President of the Republic or whomever is fulfilling his duties will be punished with prison of 6 to 30 months if the offense is serious and half of that if it is light." That sanction, the code implies, applies to those who "disrespect" the president or his functionaries in private; "the term will be increased by a third if the offense is made publicly."

There's more: Article 444 says that comments that "expose another person to contempt or public hatred" can bring a prison sentence of one to three years; Article 297a says that someone who "causes public panic or anxiety" with inaccurate reports can receive five years. Prosecutors are authorized to track down allegedly criminal inaccuracies not only in newspapers and electronic media, but also in e-mail and telephone communications.

The new code reserves the toughest sanctions for journalists or others who receive foreign funding, such as the election monitoring group Sumate, which has been funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy. Venezuelans or foreigners living in the country can be punished with a 10- to 15-year sentence for receiving foreign support that "can prejudice the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela . . . or destabilize the social order," whatever that means. Persons accused of conspiring against the government with a foreign country can get 20 to 30 years in prison. The new code specifies that anyone charged with these crimes will not be entitled to legal due process. In other words, should Izarra determine that my Caracas-based colleagues continue to collude with the State Department against Venezuela, they could be summarily jailed.

Chavez and his propaganda apparatus don't feel compelled to live by their own rules.
The president has directed crude epithets at President Bush and even more vulgar sexual innuendo at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. His government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Americans in the United States who write articles and letters glorifying Chavez and attacking the Bush administration. Izarra himself could be charged under his own slander law for his false claims about American journalists. Lucky for him his adversaries here are a democratic government, and a columnist who merely thinks he's ridiculous.
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
1,437
0
Here is the Venezuelan side of the story:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/960

In an editorial on January 14 attacking the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the Washington Post wrote, “Mr. Chavez has pushed through a new law that allows the government to fine or shut down private media for vaguely defined offenses against 'public order'.”

That this is not true has not stopped repeated claims in the US media that the “authoritarian” Chavez is attempting to “silence critics”. Such claims have become a standard feature of US media articles about Venezuela.

The law referred to by the Washington Post is the Law on the Responsibility of Radio and Television passed by the National Assembly in November. It does not allow for the silencing of dissent, but merely introduces the same type of regulation of content that exists in most countries in the world. The law regulates when sexual and violent content can be shown, prevents slander against public officials and private citizens and seeks to guarantee space in the media market for independent media. The law does provide for fines and the suspension of broadcasting for 48 hours for repeated violations, but the law is not administered by the government, but by an independent body.

To understand why the Venezuelan government has felt it necessary to introduce this law, it is important to understand the role of the private media in Venezuela since Chavez came to power six years ago. The overwhelming majority of private TV, radio and print media have not only made no pretense at impartiality — they have led the campaign to overthrow the legitimately elected Chavez government.

In a comment piece posted at Venezuela Analysis on September 25, Eva Golinger argues that the two traditional parties that had governed Venezuela for four decades were so discredited because of their support for neoliberal policies that the private media stepped in to fill the role of political opposition to the pro-poor policies of Chavez.

The five main private TV channels and nine out of 10 national newspapers campaign against Chavez. Golinger reported that the five major TV stations control at least 90% of the market. Demonstrations by opposition supporters have received blanket coverage, while much larger pro-government demonstrations have been ignored.
A media coup

If this opposition was simply biased coverage, the government may simply have been able to develop alternatives. However, the private media played a crucial role in the military coup of April 11, 2002, that overthrew Chavez and installed the head of the Chamber of Commerce in power — before a popular uprising of the poor restored Chavez as president. The private media gave blanket coverage to calls for opposition demonstrations on the day of the coup.

When government supporters on the streets returned fire against unknown snipers, the private media distorted footage to make it appear as though they were firing on unarmed opposition supporters. This footage became the key justification for the coup. After Chavez was overthrown, coup leaders appeared on TV thanking the media for their assistance. When the uprising by the poor began, the private TV channels refused to broadcast it, showing soap operas and cartoons instead.

In December 2002 — when the bosses locked workers out to try to defeat them, especially in the oil industry — the private media repeated this role. Golinger wrote, “The four primary [TV] stations suspended all regular programming throughout the duration [of the lockout]. They broadcast an average of 700 pro-opposition advertisements each day, paid for by the stations themselves and by the opposition umbrella group, Democratic Coordinator.”

The problem goes deeper than simply the question of percentages in support of a particular president. The majority of the population — the urban and rural working people — are excluded from access to the media, in the same way that they have always been excluded from the political process.

Freedom of speech has been a formal right in Venezuela for decades. But while the media is so monopolised, it cannot become a reality. Golinger points out that for “several decades, commercial television in Venezuela has belonged to an oligopoly of two families, the Cisneros, who own Venevision, and the Bottome & Granier Group, which owns Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) and Radio Caracas Radio.”

The Cisneros family also own more than 70 media outlets in 39 countries, as well as Coca Cola bottling, Regional beer and Pizza Hut inside Venezuela. It is only to be expected that with such economic interests, it would be hostile to the anti-capitalist policies of the Chavez government.

The Bolivarian process is helping to break this media domination down and start to spread freedom of speech around. Faced with a hostile private media, supporters of Chavez in the poor neighbourhoods have begun to organise their own media. As the working people have begun organising themselves to win political power, there has been an accompanying explosion in media run by and for the poor communities. This has involved newspapers, TV programs and especially radio stations.

Community radio stations have been crucial to informing the poor and helping organise them to defend their interests. While the growth of community media is largely a grassroots movement, the Chavez government has both encouraged and helped facilitate it.

The new constitution adopted by popular vote in 1999 legalised a number of what had until then been illegal “pirate” radio stations and guaranteed access to community-based media as a right. The government has made funds available to help finance the growth of community media.

For all the accusations that the Chavez government is curtailing freedom of speech, it has not shut down a single media outlet — or given itself the power to do so. By protecting the right to community media, it has actually extended free speech, giving media access to those who have never had it. This process, which is still developing, is aiming at democratising the media, thus making freedom of speech not simply a formality but a living reality.

In an interview with Justin Podour on the ZNet website on September 13 last year, Blanca Eekhout, director of the new national community based TV channel Vive, which receives government support, commented “[Vive's] intention is to make visible the population that has been excluded to date — the majority — afro-descendent, campesino, indigenous, who were erased from the possibility of appearing in the media until now.”

Jeroen Kuiper, in a November 30 Venezuela Analysis article about a trip to the poor neighbourhood of Pinto Salenas in Western Caracas, interviewed Carlos Lujo, the director of the community radio station operating there, Radio Negro Primero 92.5 FM, which was named after an indigenous freedom fighter. Lujo told Kuiper that the station was used by “students, housewives, unemployed people, members of community organisations, politicians”. Although the station is not run by the government, Lujo estimated that 80% of the neighbourhood voted for Chavez. The station is one of more than 300 “free media” radio stations that now exist across the country.
Latin American TV channel

The push to extend free speech has not stopped at Venezuela's borders. The Chavez government has launched an ambitious project to develop a Latin America-wide media outlet. At the moment, the only Latin America-wide TV channel is Spanish-language CNN. Unsurprisingly, this channel repeats the bias of the rest of the US media — the Venezuelan government has sent a formal letter of complaint about distorted coverage of recent events in Venezuela.

A Venezuela Analysis article from January 25 reported that the Venezuelan government had formally launched its planned Latin America wide TV channel, known as Telesur, which is scheduled to start broadcasting in March. Although the Venezuelan government was the only shareholder when Telesur was originally launched, the aim is to convince as many other Latin American governments to sign on, with Argentina already agreeing to join the project. The Venezuelan government hopes that the TV channel will be able to empower the people of the continent and counter the domination of pro-US media monopolies.

It is clear that despite the standard line pushed by the US media about Chavez's alleged attacks on freedom of speech, the process led by the Chavez government is moving in the opposite direction — helping bring free speech to the previously excluded majority not just in Venezuela but across the continent.
That is the Venezuelan view, I think it is a load of bull****, but in the U.S we have the FCC.
 

X3pilot

Texans fan - LOL
Aug 13, 2007
5,860
1
SoMD
Before I will attempt a reply to this, Rockwool, do you live in Venezuela now or have you previously?

To step to the line first, I will state that I have spent time both on the mainland of Venezuela and on the island of Curacao (I can't make the dangly thing under the c) with the Navy and have witnessed first hand the day to day activity in the country.

Just trying to establish a base of where you're coming from...
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
Wasnt RW the same one who still thinks Cuba is the workers paradisio? Even after repeated smacks to the head from Cuban Monkees?
Thanks for remembering me, at least half your memory is good!

John, have you ever starved, or been malnutritioned during a growing period, that made you less smart than you could have been, if you had been fed propperly?

Have you had the same chanse to study and thus fullfill your dreams, all the way through university as the brats from the rich part of town?

Have you ever been turned down at a hospital due to lack of insurance, and thus been helpt too late and at a hospital that is less good too boot?

Did you grow up in a shanty tin and clay house, while your schoolmate has houses, flats, and cottages all over the world?

Does 80% of the US Americans own their own house?

How about seen your kids grow up through this type of life?

When is the next election in Venezuela?
2012, I think. But according to US/EU politicians and our press, Venezuela don't have any elections..

Before I will attempt a reply to this, Rockwool, do you live in Venezuela now or have you previously?

To step to the line first, I will state that I have spent time both on the mainland of Venezuela and on the island of Curacao (I can't make the dangly thing under the c) with the Navy and have witnessed first hand the day to day activity in the country.

Just trying to establish a base of where you're coming from...
In 2000 I did a stupid thing, I took a charter flight to Bali for two weeks. I went around the island, hanged with Indonesians, smoked peace pipe with them, did mushrooms, and generally took interest in their lives and society (cus I have an true interest in societies).

That only tought me this -> <- much. There's a lot more to learn, and a longer trip would only teach me a little bit more.

I'm from Sweden, mate, born in 72, and with relatives in Greece, of which two of them (who are right wing) have argued about politics with me, partially about the IIWW and the role the communist partizans played, only to hear that because I didn't live during that time, there's no way I can know anything better about it than they do.

Well, I guess they're right. That studies or genuine interest in sertain things can't give one better knowledge about it than a person that lived it. That's why all proffessors and doctors in WWII subjects are all toothless illiterates, and not scholars.

By the same logic, there's no way any of us can know anything about other planets (not arguing about the moonlandings now), as non of us been there (without a neon probe up our arse).

Venezuela, which I haven't been to, I can say what I heared last week, from a person I know a little that were there, and in Colombia, for marine biology study reasons. She said that the atmosphere among people there was not good at all, and that Colombia was quite the opposite, and that the difference was quite noticable. Which surprised me at first.
 
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stevew

resident influencer
Sep 21, 2001
40,494
9,524
2012, I think. But according to US/EU politicians and our press, Venezuela don't have any elections..
And what do you think the chances of there being more than one name on the ballot are?

I guess Zimbabwe's Mugabe is just a misunderstood nice guy too?
 
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X3pilot

Texans fan - LOL
Aug 13, 2007
5,860
1
SoMD
Cool, just seeing if your post was a reflection of something you had witnessed while in that country or just a statement of political belief/bias.

thanks for passing information that most of us may not see in mainstream media. It at least gives an interesting opposing view.
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
HTML:
And what do you think the chances of there being more than one name on the ballot are?

I guess Zimbabwe's Mugabe is just a misunderstood nice guy too?
Well, if you compare Zimbabwe with Venezuela it is obvious how disinformed you have been by the media you read/view. The Venezuelan democracy has proven it self several times with Chavez as a participator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Chávez

1.
Chávez went on to win the 1998 presidential election on December 6, 1998 with 56% of the votes.
2 + 3.
Responding to the stalling of his legislation in the National Assembly, Chávez scheduled two national elections for July 1999, including a referendum for and elections to fill a new constitutional assembly. The Constitutional Assembly was created when the referendum passed with a 72% "yes" vote, while the pro-Chávez Polo Patriotico ("Patriotic Pole") won 95% (120 of the total 131) of its seats.
4.
General elections were held on July 30, 2000. Chávez's coalition garnered two-thirds of seats in the National Assembly while Chávez was reelected with 60% of the votes.
5.
In early and mid-2003, Súmate, an opposition-aligned volunteer civilian voter rights organization, began collecting the millions of signatures needed to activate the presidential recall provided for in Chávez's 1999 Constitution. In August 2003, around 3.2 million signatures were presented, but these were rejected by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the grounds that many had been collected before the mid-point of Chávez's presidential term./..../In November 2003, the opposition collected an entirely new set of signatures, with 3.6 million names produced over a span of four days. /..../

The provision in the Constitution allowing for a presidential recall requires the signatures of 20% of the electorate in order to effect a recall. /..../

Finally, after opposition leaders submitted to the CNE a valid petition with 2,436,830 signatures that requested a presidential recall referendum, the CNE announced a recall referendum on June 8, 2004. Chávez and his political allies responded by mobilising supporters to encourage rejection of the recall with a "no" vote.

The recall vote itself was held on August 15, 2004. A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote.[54][55] The election was overseen by the Carter Center and the Organization of American States, and was certified by them as fair and open.
6.
Chávez again won the OAS and Carter Center certification of the national election on December 3, 2006 with 63% of the vote,[91] beating his closest challenger Manuel Rosales who conceded his loss on December 4, 2006.
7.
On August 15, 2007, Chavez called for an end to presidential term limits. He also proposed limiting central bank autonomy, strengthening state expropriation powers and providing for public control over international reserves as part of an overhaul of Venezuela's constitution. In accordance with the 1999 constitution, Chavez proposed the changes to the constitution, which were then approved by the National Assembly. The final test was a December 2, 2007 referendum./..../

The referendum was defeated on December 2, 2007, with 51% of the voters rejecting the amendments proposed by Chávez.[119] Chávez stated that he would step down at the end of his second term in 2013.
Cool, just seeing if your post was a reflection of something you had witnessed while in that country or just a statement of political belief/bias.

thanks for passing information that most of us may not see in mainstream media. It at least gives an interesting opposing view.
You're welcome. That is the only way to view media, as it is indeed controled by different interests, and is always biased, one way or the other, more or less, but non the less biased, one must hear all sides before having the ability to pass a fair verdict.





BurlyShirly, tell me, do you think these are actions of a great leader (also from that Wikipedia article):

By the end of the first three years of his presidency, Chávez had initiated a land transfer program and had introduced several reforms aimed at improving the social welfare of the population. These reforms entailed the lowering of infant mortality rates; the implementation of a free, government-funded health care system; and free education up to the university level. By December 2001, inflation fell to 12.3% the lowest since 1986,[38] while economic growth was steady at four percent.[39] Chávez's administration also reported an increase in primary school enrollment by one million students
According to Datos Information Resources, family income among the poorest stratum grew more than 150% between 2003 and 2006
On April 30, 2007 Chávez announced that Venezuela would be formally pulling out of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, having paid off its debts five years ahead of schedule and so saving US $8 million.[101] The debt was US $3 billion in 1999.[102] Chávez then announced the creation of a regional bank, the Bank of the South, and said that the IMF and the World Bank were in crisis
I see a leader that shows responsibility both for his own people, the poor and the indigenous foremost, but also does something for other poor countries. Not to forget that he gave poor US American families a 40% discount on heating oil for two winters in a row.

All these things have been possible because he renationalized the majority ownership of PDVSA. Imagine what the worlds most profitable company, Mobile Oil, could do for you lot..

That is indeed actions of a great leader, isn't it?

http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/1692054/
 

BurlyShirley

Rex Grossman Will Rise Again
Jul 4, 2002
19,180
17
TN
That is indeed actions of a great leader, isn't it?
Didn't Hitler bring Germany out of economic depression as well? I hate to resort to that lame tactic, but the stifling of public dissent/information (which you conveniently ignored in your post) is one of the most obvious signs of dictatorship.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
Thanks for remembering me, at least half your memory is good!

John, have you ever starved, or been malnutritioned during a growing period, that made you less smart than you could have been, if you had been fed propperly?

- I dont think so. But had I been better fed, I may have taken over the world...

Have you had the same chanse to study and thus fullfill your dreams, all the way through university as the brats from the rich part of town?

- No. I was from the wrong side of (A fairly decent) town, and have paid for my education myself. Too many kids, not enough $$, Pops died too early...

Have you ever been turned down at a hospital due to lack of insurance, and thus been helpt too late and at a hospital that is less good too boot?

- No, because I have always worked and had insurance, as did my father and mother. But dont get me started on US health care...

Did you grow up in a shanty tin and clay house, while your schoolmate has houses, flats, and cottages all over the world?

-No, it was brick and leaked. And yes, some of them did.

Does 80% of the US Americans own their own house?

-I dont think that is truly accurate.

How about seen your kids grow up through this type of life?

-No, because I resolved that they would not.

2012, I think. But according to US/EU politicians and our press, Venezuela don't have any elections..

-Are those elections truly free?

RW, we are both of a like mind, believe it or not. My Socialist leanings make me stick out liek a sore thimb at my work. But I dont see the SA dictatorships benefitting anyone but the dictators and their cronies. They wave the Che flag like it was 65, yet help themsleves to the natural resources of the country like they were GHWB.
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
Didn't Hitler bring Germany out of economic depression as well? I hate to resort to that lame tactic, but the stifling of public dissent/information (which you conveniently ignored in your post) is one of the most obvious signs of dictatorship.
I'm sorry I thought Samirol's post was enough answer to that Post article, aswell as the quotes I just gave in my bigass post above, but I'll get back to you with more.

- I dont think so. But had I been better fed, I may have taken over the world...

Who are you, MiniMe, MiniWho, MiniE?

- No. I was from the wrong side of (A fairly decent) town, and have paid for my education myself. Too many kids, not enough $$, Pops died too early...

- No, because I have always worked and had insurance, as did my father and mother. But dont get me started on US health care...

-No, it was brick and leaked. And yes, some of them did.

You understand the point I'm trying to make.. It's a country of about $3500 GNP (as I remember, but check CIA world fact book), that provides for all those basic human rights to ALL ITS CITIZENS! That deserves major respect! Still it's just the tip of the iceberg of all good things the cuban gvmnt has done for its citizens.

Does 80% of the US Americans own their own house?

-I dont think that is truly accurate.

I won't swear on that figure today, but I swear that's how I remember it. Still it was a remarkably high #.

-No, because I resolved that they would not.

I'm happy for you, but you too know that not everybody can out of several reasons.

2012, I think. But according to US/EU politicians and our press, Venezuela don't have any elections..

-Are those elections truly free?

Well, in the one in '98 Chavez wasn't in power, the wicked were, so in that case they "controlled the machines". Chavez won with 56%.

After doing a shipload of things that benefitted the vast majority of Venezuelans in his first few years (as partially shown in a wiki quote above) he gained a bit more popular in the next elections (60%, 59%, 63%). I find that logical, the majority has benefited tremendously.

That the opposition has been able to be so loud, domesticly aswell as internationally, even though they're quite outnumbered, is also proof of how free they are. They still own, what 90% of the media?

Different organizations have supervised the elections and have reported no foul. The Carter Center, the Organization of the American States etc.

Renown polling firms have continously backed up the election results with similar results them selves. Altough, a few polling firms have shown the quite opposite numbers; about 60/40 to the favour of the opposition. But there's no logic behind those numbers as the poor majority does not want to return to the old days of 150% lower wages, no doctors ever, less schooling, no participatory democracy, comunity run media, etc.

Lastly, Chavez did lose last years referendum, by 1%, and it also was supervised by foreign organizations and pollingfirms. How come their system worked just fine and fair then, according do GWB?

That is proof of a truly free system.
RW, we are both of a like mind, believe it or not. My Socialist leanings make me stick out liek a sore thimb at my work. But I dont see the SA dictatorships benefitting anyone but the dictators and their cronies. They wave the Che flag like it was 65, yet help themsleves to the natural resources of the country like they were GHWB.
I don't know of which countries and what years you are speaking of right now, but I remember that US marines invaded Haiti (2006?) and ousted the democraticly elected prez Aristide. Are they still a dictatorship? Can't think of any other right now.

About Venezuela, those Che hailing thugs made the futures of the masses look positive for the first time in history. The 60% of the revenues that now goes to all Venezuelans, went a few years ago only to a few hundred/thousand share holders.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales nationalized the gas and oil in a similar way as V (don't know their percentages though). On the Daily Show, the one hosted by Jon Steward (look on youtube), Morales apeared and said that before he nationalized their natural resourses, Bolivia was earning $200.000million per year, after nationalizations that went up to $2billion per year.

If these leaders were thinking about them selves and their cronies, wouldn't they then be better of with the old system, just the way it has worked for all previous administrations? Then they wouldn't have to spend it will all those millions upon millions of peasants.

You're way wrong here, be happy about it, we're finally turning this post feudal world around.

too. many. words. in. thread.
I know, I too have troubles reading fast, and comprehending on top of that, but you could always read the phat texts, and when you find somehing interesting you just deepen your self in that.
 
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JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
RW, I dig your stand...but you are the anti N8. While not neccesarily a bad thing, you buy the pro Chavez rhetoric hook line and sinker.
While Venezuelans and Cubans can get ahead in their country on $3500 US per, they cant get ahead in the world or out of the country on that. So they are stuck like Chuck in country...living the life they are told is great. Internet access is restricted, they digest the news that is filtered to fit governmental sizing.

Why, I bet they cant even get RM there...ANY VENEZUELANS HERE???

Chavez' biggest mistake is the saber rattling he throws at GHWB. If he was smart, he would just chill, and fly under the radar, collecting oil revenues and shuttling them off to Swiss bank accounts as a hedge against the day he is thrown out of power.
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
RW, I dig your stand...but you are the anti N8. While not neccesarily a bad thing, you buy the pro Chavez rhetoric hook line and sinker.
While Venezuelans and Cubans can get ahead in their country on $3500 US per, they cant get ahead in the world or out of the country on that. So they are stuck like Chuck in country...living the life they are told is great. Internet access is restricted, they digest the news that is filtered to fit governmental sizing.

Why, I bet they cant even get RM there...ANY VENEZUELANS HERE???

Chavez' biggest mistake is the saber rattling he throws at GHWB. If he was smart, he would just chill, and fly under the radar, collecting oil revenues and shuttling them off to Swiss bank accounts as a hedge against the day he is thrown out of power.
No man, that is a shallow insight after passing judgment to quickly. How many articles and news stories have you read/hear about Cuba or Venezuela made by western media? Doesn't the other side need a similar amount of time to reject all acusations that have been made towards them, you think? To me, this is pure logic and a nessesity if we are to call our verdict fair.

Just by these 4 articles in these thread you could make out that the heaviest accusations thrown at Venezuela are lies. For instance, I consider that it's democracy has been proven by those examples, since 98, 7 times through elections and referendums to be exact. Don't get me started on US elections (that's another thread, BTW)..

Cubans lives ARE GREAT! In no other thirld world country have every single person had it's basic human rights fullfilled. They even whip the hinies of industrialized nations in some aspects! That said, it is a third world country, that is also suffering a blockade (read Helms-Burton Act etc) from the worlds most powerful economic nation, and has so for 49 years, of which effects would be foolish to deny of the importance they have had on its development.

On top of that, the US has been a continuous military threat to them, who on top of that already has a huge amount of military and equiment on Cubas soil, and it has a partially outspoken plan, partially secret, of how to impost a regime change on another sovereign nation. :disgust1: Did this threat and arms race have any effect on the mighty Soviet Union, do you think, and if, how much bigger wouldn't that effect be on a super poor small neighboring country?

Internet is indeed restricted on cuba but by whom? The lack of telephones is another thing that is used anti cuban rethorics. Truth is, that every Carribean nation has UV cables to another country on continental mainland, but not Cuba. They have to reach other countries by sattelite, as the US propaganda on this part would, of course, fail, as it is they who are restricting Cubans, and not the Cuban gvmnt!

The internet? I know that Google and other pages that refuse access to cubans out of the very same propaganda reasons as above. In China, Google is cooperating with the Chinise gvmnt. In Cubas case, they are following the example of the US gvmnt, out of the very same reasons.

In all ways they possibly can, they are trying to silence the information coming out of Cuba, and in recent years this has been aplied to Venezuela too (probably Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Equador too, but those are lesser irritations). Why? Because of the examples their systems are for impriving the lives of the poor people.

Cuba has, this very moment, thousands of doctors and teachers around the world giving humanitarian aid. During fall-winter '06 there was a big earthquake in remote mountainious terrain in Pakistan. The Medecins Sans Frontieres were there in large numbers, the Cubans outnumberd them by alot. After a short while winter came. The MSF left, the Cubans stayed.

For all these decades that this poor nation has contributed with unconditional human aid (not like the US...), there have been Cubans abroad by the hundreds of thousand. These haven't been any two week excursions eather. Cuba couldn't possibly afford the fligts.. They write contracts of servitude for a year. A year in a foreign country teaches you alot.

Cubans are by no means "snowed in", and they are farkin highly educated to boot. The news, they are filtered, yes! But I see no difference in western media, particularily about Cuba adn Venezuela, but the south as a whole is not alowed to speak. Every story is told by western perspective.

That is why Venezuela, Argentina, Dominica, Cuba (and a fifth country) has started the TV station TELESUR. That is why Chavez proposed to start a TV channel together with all 80 non aligned countries! That is why he is so hated by those westerners who hold some type of power, cus they are losing more every day to Chavez side.

So, as filtered the news are on Cuba, as filtered they are in the west. The difference is by whom. With the impenatrable dissinformation controled by the private in the west, it is fully understandable that they don't allow it on Cuba. I fully support that as "there is an information war for our minds" going on.

It is foolish to belive that those who are wealthy enough to own a media outlet would have the best for the workers and the trailer peeps in their minds. They have an agenda of their own, and we would still live in a feudal like system if it was upto them.

Don't be silly. Not all European nations are present on RM eather, what does that mean?

Chavez's saber rattling might be a tactical misstake, but after all those years of society destructive contra democratic financing and organizing by the US, including a coupe against him, it would be to much to ask of a person not to be upset...

And the reason that Chavez isn't into stuffing his own pockets, is the reason why he has the poor majority with him. Because that is the very thing that differs him from all other shtty leaders of the past. That's why he's dangerous.



Excuse my long post, but ignorance resorting from dissinformation can only be answered with information. Information takes space.. Please continue listening also to what the other side has to say, they haven't had 1/10 of the time to speak up against their accusors. I'm positive you will see things a whole lot differently within time.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
RW, I admire your revoloutionary zeal...but...

You are reading what the propaganda ministers of Venzuela and buying it hook, line and sinker. Grow a little cynicism and look at it objectively.
Full on, true Socialism would be a paradise, just as Palto envisioned way back when. But what they failed to take into account is basic human nature. People are inherently lazy, selfish and greedy. Those who work for the good of the whole are inevitably taken advantage of by those who work for the good of the one. The commited socialist will give up the bread on his table for his neighbor, as have some of the SA countries, which is good. But power being what it is, it is impossible for a "socialist" government to remain truly commited to the cause.

Like you, I have traveled in SA, not lived there, but traveled quite a bit. I am puzzled. Why are people there so interested in coming to the US or other Western countries? How many people are willing to risk life and limb to go to Cuba or Venezuela?

Who was it that, on this very board, bore personal witness to the fact that Cuba is not the workers paradise that Castro and his boys have tried to portray all these years? Sanjuro?

I challenge you to MOVE there, live there. Experience the paradise and then come back and personally report your findings. Until then, we will have to respectfully agree to disagree.
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
1,437
0
But what they failed to take into account is basic human nature. People are inherently lazy, selfish and greedy.
I hear this a lot, but I am not so sure I believe it. The Native Americans, although very primitive, had societies that were vastly more altruistic than our modern society. I think when all of society rejects greediness and selfishness, to the point that altruistic people are more likely to pass their genes, then greater amounts of altruism happen in society.
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
The Native Americans, although very primitive, had societies that were vastly more altruistic than our modern society. [emphasis mine]
by what measure? adoption? institutionalized care for the poor, mentally unfit, elderly, & sick? civil rights?

wtf are you on about? feelings of white guilt?
 

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
1,713
chez moi
I hear this a lot, but I am not so sure I believe it. The Native Americans, although very primitive, had societies that were vastly more altruistic than our modern society.
Often said, often believed, but true? Histories often ignore actualities--especially oral ones from days far-long gone, and some things that may look 'altruistic' may in fact have been simple practicalities.

Paradise never was and never has been. Nor will it ever be.

This is not to say we should not pursue social justice in our society, just that we should not expect history to "end up" anywhere, most especially a stable, enduring collectively beneficial state. (sorry, Herr Marx...)

I think when all of society rejects greediness and selfishness, to the point that altruistic people are more likely to pass their genes, then greater amounts of altruism happen in society.


As Jack Handy said, "I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."

It only takes one person to smash an artificial equilibrium.
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
1,437
0
by what measure? adoption? institutionalized care for the poor, mentally unfit, elderly, & sick? civil rights?

wtf are you on about? feelings of white guilt?
In some societies, leaders were chosen based on how altruistic they were shows what was considered good characteristics to have.

Often said, often believed, but true? Histories often ignore actualities--especially oral ones from days far-long gone, and some things that may look 'altruistic' may in fact have been simple practicalities.

Paradise never was and never has been. Nor will it ever be.
There weren't class divides to the point that some died of hunger just because they were poor while others were doing perfectly fine because they were rich. There were class divides, but not to the extent found in European society.

If that altruism came from a need to survive, then human nature isn't greed and selfishness.
 
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MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
1,713
chez moi
In some societies, leaders were chosen based on how altruistic they were shows what was considered good characteristics to have.

There weren't class divides to the point that some died of hunger just because they were poor while others were doing perfectly fine because they were rich. There were class divides, but not to the extent found in European society.
If you compared these NA societies to tribal societies in early Europe, rather than something from the feudal era, I think you'd find much the same thing. But life in either was probably nasty, brutish, and short by our standards, regardless of any revisionist/pastoralist/idealist modern glaze we might put on it.