Venezuela: America hones her talons, Its the OIL !

[gr8fuldaniel]

Check out the book here

[bishop]

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio, Basically its all about the oil right Bishop? If the country has oil, and Bush is involved, then its evil, and nothing will turn your hate off. Gotcha.

on the contrary.. i guess oil has nothing at all to do with it, eh?

[Gorgo]

It has to do with power. Not all of Latin America has oil, but much of Latin America has, and has had dictators propped up by the U.S.

Oil just has the potential to bring more power than some things sometimes.

[Gorgo]

I wish people like Vicchio were disenfranchised.

He doesn't like death squads, he sUUUUUUrely don't like Reagan too much.

Originally posted by Compugasm, I wonder if he's a disenfranchised voter?

[Paavo]

From a thread on another forum:

Take a look at a documentary called "The Revolution will not be Televised". It shows in real footage how the rich minority of Venezuela executes a coup against Hugo Chaves. With the help of US. People protest but the US media distorts the streets fights as peoples agression against Chavez. In the end the military shifts side and reinstalls Chavez. The coup was supposed to give US exploitationrights for next to nothing whilst Chavez wanted US to pay a fair price to be reinvested in Venezuela for the benefit of the poor. The film is also on P2P or suprnova.org. You can make your own opinion after seeing that.

I think that might be the one I saw some time ago (which prompted me to start that thread), I think everyone interested in this should see it. *sees the Bushistas walking away*

[gr8fuldaniel]

What do Ashcroft, ChoicePoint, Elections, and Venezuela have in common? Find Out

[gr8fuldaniel]

This webpage has a lot of good links on the topic

TopDog I say this was a happy coincidence for Choicepoint stockholders because it meant that Bush won the election, and as you may have gathered by now, in the stuggle between citizens' rights to privacy and the interests of major corporations, Bush sides with the corporations every single time. He seems to honestly believe that letting corporations do anything they want is the key to a growing economy. Or maybe he really sees rising unemployment as a good thing. After all it keeps workers on their toes, and starves the labor movement. The Guardian story goes on to explain: Since the election, ChoicePoint has been the beneficiary of a huge increase in the freedom of government agencies to gain access to personal data. The USA patriot act, passed after September 11, allows government investigators to gain access to more information on US citizens without a search warrant, and to see data on private emails with such a warrant but without a wiretap order. The act also means banks must make their databases accessible to firms such as ChoicePoint. In Mexico, the president of the federal electoral institute, Jose Woldenberg, revealed that his investigators had talked to the Mexican company that said it paid a "third person" 400,000 pesos (£24,500) for a hard disk full of personal data drawn largely from the electoral roll. It sold this to ChoicePoint for just $250,000, indicating the huge profitability of ChoicePoint's contracts - last year's $11m payment was part of a five-year contract worth $67m. "The companies had to know that it is forbidden to use the information in the electoral register for any other purpose than elections," said Julio Tellez, a specialist in Mexico's information laws at the Tec de Monterrey University. "It is a federal crime to misuse the information, and they did that by selling it and putting it in the hands of a foreign government." Mr Tellez said he believed that this makes the companies and the US government liable to prosecution. Click here for a story on ChoicePoint's record profits the last two years. I have a bad feeling that if Mexican American opinion begins to turn against Bush as Mexican opinion started to over the war, we may see ChoicePoint selling their newly acquired lists of Latin Americans to Republican governors nationwide, so that Mexican Americans with similar names and birth dates can be turned away from the polls as "suspected illegal immigrants." The very patronizingly named and ineffectively implemented Help America Vote Act is supposed to help preserve our right to vote, but will it? It forces the states to adopted statewide lists like the one used in Florida, adds strict new provisions to discourage voter fraud, and allows the states to hire firms like ChoicePoint to "scrub" their voter lists.

Features > May 12, 2004 Fear for Sale By Greg Palast <snip>------------------------------------------------------ ......When Mexico discovered ChoicePoint had its citizen files, the nation threatened company executives with criminal charges. ChoicePoint protested its innocence and offered to destroy the files of any nation that requests it. But ChoicePoint, apparently, presented no such offer to the government of Venezuela, home of President Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chávez drives George Bush crazy. Maybe it’s jealousy: Unlike Mr. Bush, Chávez won office by a majority of the vote. Or maybe it’s the oil. Venezuela sits atop a reserve rivaling Iraq’s. In Caracas, I showed Congressman Nicolas Maduro the ChoicePoint-Ashcroft agreement. Maduro, a leader of Chávez’s political party, was unaware that his nation’s citizen files were for sale to U.S. intelligence. But he understood their value to make mischief. If the lists somehow fell into the hands of the Venezuelan opposition, it could im-measurably help their computer-aided drive to recall and remove Chávez. A Choice-Point flak said the Bush administration told the company they haven’t used the lists that way. The PR man didn’t say if the Bush spooks laughed when they said it. Our team located a $53,000 payment from our government to Chávez’s recall organizers, who claim to be armed with computer lists of the registered. What was practiced in Florida, without Choice-Point’s knowledge, could be retooled for Venezuela, then Brazil, Mexico and so on. Is Mr. Bush fighting a war on terror…or a war on democracy? Which brings us to the Third Circle: That which took shape here is a disguised kind of intelligence…which is annexed to the third security ring, which is the invisible ring. The man spoke these words in Spanish, with an American accent, unaware of the camera. He added a moment later, “We are doing a job and [I trust] he will not be childish, Mr. ‘Corey,’ and that he will be on the corner saying, ‘I am from the CIA, I am from the CIA.’” I watched this murky video in Vene-zuela’s capital. The men caught in the lens discussing these vague espionage plans worked for Wackenhut Corporation, Caracas. You may recall Wackenhut, the jails-R-us guys who got caught running the illicit spying operation on Alaska oil industry whistleblowers. The man who headed Wackenhut’s oper-ations in Alaska shifted to Venezuela in 1991 where, according to Spy magazine, he ran a “black” information (i.e., disinformation) campaign against the government. Currently, the company has a contract to protect the U.S. embassy, a delicate job after our State Department’s applauding a coup against the elected Chávez government. Wackenhut does not deny the authenticity of the Third Ring tape. It was just “an ordinary meeting of company officials.” And here the darkness descends. Wackenhut says its rent-a-spies acted legally for a client they cannot name. Is it credible to believe that Wackenhut, doing sensitive security work for the U.S. ambassador, could conduct operations, legal or not, which could provoke a foreign power? Indeed, a plotter on the tape says, “All of you must be invisible with regard to everything that is related to the American embassy.” What exactly is Wackenhut up to? And how does the Bush crew use or misuse ChoicePoint’s lists of Latin electorates? Herein lies the danger of this brave new world of the privatization of spookery: We lose control. By “we,” I mean Americans and our elected representatives. Even in the worst days of the CIA, Senator Frank Church held hearings and exposed the dangerous rot in our intelligence services. A special prosecutor went after Ollie North’s Iran-Contra gang, which gave weapons to the Ayatollah. But how do we challenge the new privateers in espionage who can go for Mr. Ashcroft or Mr. Bush where prudence or the law tells them not to? Hacking the Constitution There are glimmers of ill doings already. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Washington, sued to obtain Ashcroft-ChoicePoint documents. The contract—no-bid, of course—remains so secret, even its true cost and title has been, extraordinarily, withheld. But EPIC found several gems, including the gushing notes of a government spook who requested that agents think of “far-out, funky” ways to use data. More....

Dont we have one single cop in America, with the balls to arrest these <s>cocksuckers</s> criminals. I think we have plenty evidence. We can get them for impersonating Americans, or tresspassing or a zillion other charges

[gr8fuldaniel]

NewsMine.org April 12, 2002 Venezuelan Generals Backing Interim President are SOA Grads Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda, two of the major military backers of a transitional government, received training at the notorious US Army School of the Americas (SOA). Vasquez attended the school from January 23rd to December 2nd, 1988, taking a course called “Command and General Staff Officer Training”. General Ramirez took a course called “Auto Maintenance Officer Training” from May 8th to August 11th, 1972. With military backing, Pedro Carmona, president of business leaders association Fedecameras, has assumed the position of interim president. The SOA, renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. SOA graduates are consistently involved in human rights abuses and atrocities throughout Latin America. SOA Watch is still researching, with concern, the events in Venezuela. The involvement of SOA trained militaries follows a clear pattern in Latin America. Former Congressperson Joseph Kennedy, stated "the US Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world." In total, the school has produced at least eleven Latin American dictators. Its graduates include, among others, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, Major General Guillermo Rodriguez (who overthrew Ecudor’s elected government and became dictator), Major General Juan Velasco (who did the same in Peru), Lieutenant General Roberto Viola and Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri (responsible for Argentina’s “Dirty War”), Bolivian General Hugo Banzer Suarez (who despite murdering labor leaders and opposition politicians and sheltering a Nazi war criminal, was honored as a member of the SOA Hall of Fame in 1988), Major General Guido Vildoso (military dictator of Bolivia), Brigadier General Juan Melgar Castro (military dictator of Honduras), and José Efraín Montt (dictator of Guatemala). In anattempt to diffuse public criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation the Pentagon renamed the SOA in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. SOA Watch maintains that the underlying purpose of the school, to control the economic and political systems of Latin America through aiding and influencing Latin American militaries, remains the same. SOA Watch, founded in 1990, is a national, grassroots conscience-based group committed to human rights and the promotion of democracy. With offices in Columbus, GA, Washington DC and chapters in communities and on campuses around the country, our goal is to work in solidarity with the people of Latin America and to close the SOA/WHISC.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Supporting Marxist wanna be dictators, Saddam Hussain... doesn't matter who, as long as they are against Bush they are A-OK in our books. - ABB handbook, Ch. 1 Page 2.

[Pooeypants]

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio, Supporting Marxist wanna be dictators, Saddam Hussain... doesn't matter who, as long as they are against Bush they are A-OK in our books. - ABB handbook, Ch. 1 Page 2.

I'm sorry, please explain how the Iraqi dictator entered this debate.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Plenty of info at Caracas News... this is what the front page looks like Democracy May Be Real Winner in Venezuela CARACAS, Venezuela - Two years after a failed coup against President Hugo Chavez, the opposition's bitter and often bloody effort to oust him culminates in a recall vote Sunday. |  | The former military c... Oil gushes to new highs as demand strains producers Crude oil prices soared to record highs Friday as hot world demand strained producers, sharpening an array of threats from a possible strike in Venezuela to Iraqi pipeline sabotage. | New York's benchmark light... Oil market could suffer if Chavez loses referendum DILEMMA: Analysts say if the Venezuelan president is forced to step down, the opposition will have a tough time working with the state-run oil company | If President Hugo Chavez loses a bitterly contested weeke... Chavez fights for political life at the polls By Hannah Baldock in Caracas | Both sides eagerly expected victory ahead of today's vote, refusing to believe that the other side could win if the referendum were clean. The result is expected by 6pm today but ... Chavez predicts win in Venezuela referendum THE ‘Chavistas' were out in force yesterday as oil-rich Venezuela prepared for a vote that will determine the future of its charismatic president. | Hugo Chavez was elected to office five years ago on a wave ... Venezuela to deliver verdict on Chavez's turbulent reign Carla Melo leans out of the window of her battered Ford Fiesta and hisses a word of admonition at the driver of a car that refuses to move out of her way: 'Chavista!' | Such is the tension across Venezuela as i... History's man As a young man, Hugo Chávez discovered that his great-grandfather was a renowned guerrilla fighter, though he had been brought up to believe he was a criminal. Chávez set off to explore the area aroun... All of Latin America is watching: what’s at stake in Venezuela? | By Yves Engler | Supporters of democracy should be watching Venezuela this weekend. Has respect for the rule of law and constitutional government truly taken root in Latin America or will traditional ruling e... Oil prices soar to historic peaks above $46 | LONDON: Oil prices surged to fresh historic peaks this week, above $46 per barrel in New York, fuelled by concerns over disruptions to supply in the wake of reduced exports from Iraq, the fear of strike actio... Chavez predicts referendum victory | Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has predicted a massive victory in this weekend's referendum on his mandate, which markets are watching nervously amid concerns for the stability of the oil-rich South America... Venezuela Leader: I Can Keep Oil Flowing CARACAS, Venezuela Aug. 14, 2004 — President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that Venezuela's oil supply would remain steady if he defeats a recall vote. | Venezuela's current government is "the only one that g...

AP Venezuela Holds Referendum on President 1 hour, 26 minutes ago  By ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer CARACAS, Venezuela - The opposition's long and bitter campaign to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez finally came down to a recall referendum Sunday, with the leftist leader hoping a huge turnout among the poor will keep him in power.

EDIT to fix quotes and add:
It has ben hard to find any news of the Venezuela Recall/Referendum in American papers. Thats why I have posted so many articles. The top of this post offers an important link to caracas news . I finally found a good source for news in that area... Since we cant rely on our own "embedded", "liberal media". Anybody know exactly what day the NWO overthrew our Free Press?

[gr8fuldaniel]

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio, Supporting Marxist wanna be dictators, Saddam Hussain... doesn't matter who, as long as they are against Bush they are A-OK in our books. - ABB handbook, Ch. 1 Page 2.

Isn't Bush a "wanna be dictater"?

If Only I Were A Dictator, by George W. Bush A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS Yes, George W. Bush has stated he'd prefer to be a dictator at least three times, according to BuzzFlash.com: * * * "You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98) -- From Paul Begala's "Is Our Children Learning?" "I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked. -- CNN.com, December 18, 2000 "A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " [Bush] said. -- Business Week, July 30, 2001

[gr8fuldaniel]

GW Bush must be terribly jealous of Chavez, who won his title of El Presidente` by a majority popular vote. What a concept.

The Konformist Since the sole difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that the leaders are popularly elected by the masses of people rather than by seizing office by force, being appointed by an elite or by assuming power via a fixed election there can be no other way to describe the GW Bush administration than as a dictatorship. The mechanisms whereby the Bush dynasty has seized power and the real agenda they mean to institute become more evident each day. Can conservatives see through the Bush propaganda and beyond their hatred of Clinton/Gore? His cabinet appointees are so far without exception men and women whose entire careers involve being groomed by the military-industrial complex, his father's criminally-motivated business circles, far right think tanks with a history of CIA involvement or by the most corrupt channels of Texas oil politics. Rather than being an expression of bipartisanism, the Bush appointees far more closely resemble what police call, the usual suspects. What conservatives don't yet fully realize is that the Bush family - including GW - are neither genuine Republicans nor are they genuine conservatives. What they are is genuine corporate-fascists.

Much More...

[gr8fuldaniel]

Well the death squads showed up in an impoverished neighborhood on motorcycles. Injured 12, killed 1, This was in a pro Chavez district so they were definately trying to sway the vote, but it was too little too late. Chavez Wins!! Oil prices drop immediately, so that was just a ploy to sway the vote away from Chavez. Thank God and Jimmy Carter for showing up and monitoring the votes. It could have been a lot worse.

[Paavo]

Greg Palast (via GNN):

I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I've ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, "Chavez - dic-ta-dor!" The plantation owner griped about the "socialismo" of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible.

Found that funny and very telling.

Article here ->
http://www.guerrillanews.com/government/doc5075.html

[Dieval]

Originally posted by gr8fuldaniel, Thank God and Jimmy Carter for showing up and monitoring the votes. It could have been a lot worse.

It may have just gotten worse....
Breaking News: Venezuela’s Recall fraud has been unveiled

By Aleksander Boyd London 17 August 2004 – 20:33GMT – Political consultant J.J. Rendon presented irrefutable proof of the electoral fraud performed during the recall referendum in Venezuela. In Bolivar state something suspicious took place; say voting centre X has 3.000 people in the roll. Said centre has three polling booths: in number 1, 1.100 people must vote; in number 2, 1.000; and in number 3, 900 people. Tallies from booth number 1 showed 683 votes for the NO option and 103 votes for the YES option. Tallies from booth number 2 resulted in 587 votes for the NO option and 103 votes for the YES option. Tallies from booth number 3 evidenced 519 votes for the NO option and again 103 for the YES option. Electoral officials assigned to said centre thought it was extremely unlikely to get such repetitive number of votes for the YES option. So they got in touch with other centres in the area. It turned out that tallies from other centres showed the same pattern, although diverging numbers, i.e. tallies from machines at Y voting centre showed the same consistency for instance 133 votes for the YES option repeated four times. Statistically speaking it is almost impossible for such a pattern to occur. However similar cases have been reported in Merida, Bolivar, Miranda and Anzoategui. Naively the electoral officials from some centres in Bolivar state compared the tallies from contiguous voting machines realising that the YES option seemed to have been capped at a given number. In one case it was 103 votes for the YES option in three different voting machines; in another it was 133 votes for the YES option in four different voting machines. Here is a more concrete example: Nombre COLEGIO MARIA AUXILIADORA Direccion 1RA TRANSVERSAL NO 15 MONTECRISTO Estado EDO. MIRANDA Municipio MP. SUCRE Parroquia PQ. LEONCIO MARTINEZ Total Votantes 1796 Cantidad de Votos 1389 Total SI 1065 Total NO 324 Cuaderno 1 Votos 463 SI 356 NO 107 Cuaderno 2 Votos 454 Si 353 No 101 Cuaderno 3 Votos 472 SI 356 No 116 The only way in which these doubts can be cleared is: 1. To compare and contrast tallies of each polling centre in the country where more than one voting machine were utilised to establish whether the numbers of YES votes show a repetitive pattern; 2. To add the receipts of each options (YES / NO) issued by the voting machine and compare the results with the numbers reported in the tallies.

[Samildanach]

Haha now its the lefts turn to yell conspiracy theory!!!

[gr8fuldaniel]

Same thing happened in California Recall November, 2002. There was no recount. The Repubs won (I think kids were allowed to vote, because Arnie won)so a few indiscrepencies were overlooked. ChoicePoint was involved. They dont say what type voting machines were employed in Venezuela, California used Diebold in the questionable Districts. Would I be surprised if Diebold machines were used in S. America? Not. Chavez didnt need to cheat, he had the majority. I would suspect the Imperialists are at it again. They saw they were losing and data can be entered into a computer from anywhere, anytime. Criminals will be ruling the world if Diebold isnt sued for every dime they've got.

Edit to fix spelling

[gr8fuldaniel]

Originally posted by Samildanach, Haha now its the lefts turn to yell conspiracy theory!!!

Actually, the YES votes were FOR a recall, to remove Chavez. So the right (God I hate using that term) just made it look like Chavez cheated.

[Dieval]

Originally posted by gr8fuldaniel, SChavez didnt need to cheat, he had the majority.

So the people there are actually there are questioning the voting machines, yet you can say conclusively, that he won?