Venezuela: America hones her talons, Its the OIL !

[gr8fuldaniel]

Article by Greg Palast, Uncovers communications and a contract between Ashcroft and ChoicePoint, (the guys who rigged Florida elections) Using terrorism as an excuse to investigate citizens of several South American nations....God help us, we are the slime of the earth. Dont forget PNAC The "All American" vow to rule the world

Will The Gang That Fixed Florida Fix the Vote in Caracas this Sunday? Venezuela Florida-ted by Greg Palast Hugo Chavez drives George Bush crazy. Maybe it's jealousy: Unlike Mr. Bush, Chavez, in Venezuela, won his Presidency by a majority of the vote. Or maybe it's the oil. Venezuela sits atop a reserve rivaling Iraq's. And Hugo thinks the US and British oil companies that pump the crude ought to pay more than a 16% royalty to his nation for the stuff. Hey, sixteen percent isn't even acceptable as a tip at a New York diner. Whatever it is, OUR President has decided that THEIR president has to go. This is none too easy given that Chavez is backed by Venezuela's poor; and the US oil industry, joined with local oligarchs, has made sure a vast majority of Venezuelans remain poor. Therefore, Chavez is expected to win this coming Sunday's recall vote. That is, if the elections are free and fair. Greg and Chavez in Venezuela They won't be. Some months ago, a little birdie faxed to me what appeared to be confidential pages from a contract between John Ashcroft's Justice Department and a company called ChoicePoint, Inc., of Atlanta. The deal is part of the War on Terror. Justice offered up to $67 million of our taxpayer money to ChoicePoint in a no-bid deal for computer profiles with private information on every citizen of half a dozen nations. The choice of citizens to spy on caught my eye. While the September 11 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Arab Emirates, ChoicePoint's menu offered records on Venezuelans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans and Argentines. How odd. Had the CIA uncovered a Latin plot to sneak suicide tango dancers across the border with exploding enchiladas? What do these nations have in common besides a lack of involvement in the September 11 attacks? Coincidentally, each is in the throes of major electoral contests in which the leading candidates -- presidents Lula Ignacio da Silva of Brazil, Nestor Kirschner of Argentina, Mexico City mayor Andres Lopez Obrador and Venezuela's Chavez -- have the nerve to challenge the globalization demands of George Bush. The last time ChoicePoint sold voter files to government it was to help Governor Jeb Bush locate and purge felons on Florida voter rolls. Turns out ChoicePoint's felons were merely Democrats guilty only of V,W,B,, Voting While Black. That little 'error' cost Al Gore the White House. It looks like the Bush Administration is taking the Florida show for a tour south of the border. However, 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's Chavez. In Caracas, I showed Congressman Nicolas Maduro the ChoicePoint-Ashcroft agreement. Maduro, a leader of Chavez' 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 immeasurably help their computer-aided drive to recall and remove Chavez. A ChoicePoint 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 Chavez' recall organizers, who claim to be armed with computer lists of the registered. How did they get those? The fix that was practiced in Florida, with ChoicePoint's help, conscious or not, appears to be retooled for Venezuela, then Brazil, Mexico and who knows where else. Here's what it comes down to: The Justice Department is averting it's gaze away from Saudi Arabia while shoplifing voter records in Venezuela. So it's only fair to ask: Is Mr. Bush fighting a war on terror -- or a war on democracy? --- Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.' This commentary is based on 'Tango Terrorists,' in the new chapter of the book's Expanded Election Edition (Penguin 2004). For Palast's reports on Venezuela for the Guardian of Britain and his exclusive interview for BBC Television with President Hugo Chavez, go to www.GregPalast.com.

Anyone heard about Venezuela elections this Sunday? Nice day for a coup. I dont like what we are becoming at all.

[Gorgo]

Becoming? What has changed?

[gr8fuldaniel]

I say becoming because we are not a pure fascist state, yet.

[bishop]

reminds me of everything surrounding allende and pinochet.

[Paavo]

Thought I'd post a link to a thread I started some time ago on this.
Makes me sick in many ways.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Maybe its Hugo Chavez is a really bad guy and we don't like really bad people...

dunno about you guys, but this article reads like a Michale Moore wet dream.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Good post Paavo.
Hey you can combine the two threads if you want, I didnt see that one. This one is about the recall election coming up in a few days. Same country, different coup threat.
From Venezuela News: CIA executives gathered in Santiago de Chile revealed in contingency plot to overthrow Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias

[Mr.Vicchio]

Can any of yyou "ITS ALL FOR OIL!" explain why hugo Chavez is just ths misunderstood guy, not the really nasty leader that has his country in an uproar?

Or do you just see oil and wig out?

[bishop]

isn't it great that bush is supposedly promoting democracy in the middle east, while putting it down in south america?

sure makes what we're doing in iraq look like a sham. we'll never let someone win power (through a democratic process) who isn't going to do exactly what big brother tells him he can do.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio, Can any of yyou "ITS ALL FOR OIL!" explain why hugo Chavez is just ths misunderstood guy, not the really nasty leader that has his country in an uproar? Or do you just see oil and wig out?

Do you remember when Chavez was elected 2 years ago? The USA press was reporting protests (against Chavez) by 100,000? Those were white protesters.
The next day there were 200,000 protesters in support of Chavez that were not reported in USA (except by Indymedia),they were brown (natives) The numbers are in favor of Chavez. Bush and the CIA are greedy beyond comprehension. The New World Order doesnt want to pay fair market value for the oil they are pumping out of venezuela. So they will overthrow the government (Remember Iraq?) So they can steal the oil, and still charge us a premium for it at the pumps. See how it works now?

EDIT to fix spelling

[Mr.Vicchio]

okay, so all you see is oil, clears that one up.

oil, race warfare...

But hey some research, I found people that agree with you:

Last week, as readers of Marxist.com will already know, I visited Caracas to attend the Second International Gathering in Solidarity with the Venezuelan Revolution. It was held on the second anniversary of the defeat of the attempted counterrevolution of April 2002. In the course of one hectic week I spoke at several meetings, putting the Marxist case, mainly to audiences of workers and poor people – activists of the Bolivarian Movement and the main protagonists of the Venezuelan Revolution. I attended the mass rally on 12th April and witnessed first-hand the revolutionary fervour that motivates the masses and enabled them to stop the counterrevolution in its tracks. --- The coup of 11th April As soon as the oligarchy realised that they could not reach an agreement with Chavez, that he could not be bought, they began to attack him. The elite began to organize and mobilize its forces. They used their control of the mass media to whip up the middle classes into a frenzy. They used the CIA to bribe corrupt trade union leaders to organize reactionary strikes, following the pattern of the lorry drivers' strike against the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. They staged an investment strike, shipping billions to bank accounts in Miami. They were preparing the ground for the counterrevolutionary coup of April 11, 2002. It goes without saying that all the threads in this conspiracy went back to Washington. Why does US imperialism hate Chavez? Why does it fear the Bolivarian Revolution? So far, Chavez has not expropriated the property of the big US companies in Venezuela. He has not halted the shipment of oil to the USA. He has not nationalized the property of the oligarchy. In part, the hostility of Washington to Chavez is dictated by his fierce determination to resist the impositions of US imperialism. He was from the beginning one of the firmest advocates of maintaining a high price of oil – a policy that goes against the interests of US capitalism that is struggling to get out of recession and needs to keep oil prices low. In the past, Washington could rely on a pliable government in Caracas that would (for a suitable sum of money) adopt a policy more to its liking. The Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, though formally nationalised, was controlled by corrupt bureaucrats who ran PDVSA like any other capitalist enterprise and were more than friendly to the big US oil companies. http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/encounters_...ugo_chavez.html

Oh and Al-Jeezera agrees too:

Aljazeera.Net - Chavez sees Bush as real rival Chavez sees Bush as real rival. ... Embattled Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claims the forthcoming recall vote is really a confrontation with Washington. ... english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ 2BDB7E6E-2C64-4924-96F5-BA2A58BCA8DD.htm

Some insight into Mr. Chavez:

This admirer of Fidel Castro's Cuba and avowed anti-globalist was pushed from office on 12 April - as a result of his attempts to take control of the world's fifth-biggest oil industry. But just two days later, after his supporters - mainly Venezuela's poor - took the streets, he was back in the presidential palace. Eight months on, Mr Chavez is facing his fourth national strike this year - one that is threatening to severely disrupt the country's economy. Revolutionary promises The former army paratrooper burst back on to the political scene in 1998, promising to transform Venezuela. But as Mr Chavez proved unable to bridge the huge gap between the country's rich and poor, his combative rhetoric alienated and alarmed the country's traditional business and political elite. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1925236.stm

So there we have it, Al-Jeezra likes him, Marxist like him, he's an admirer of Fidel Castro and you guys see oil.

I am begginging to wonder if your hate for Bush is so great that you cannot see past it, or that you use it to mask your true beliefs on what is "good" in this world.

[giuliano]

how does anything in your post excuse bush's interfering with the sovereign democractic process in venezuela?

[bishop]

that's a topic they'd rather not discuss.. democracy only if the elected official does what we want them to do. so blatantly hypocritical.

maybe they think that everyone in the world likes us? hell, people are winning elections all across the world on anti-american platforms. you'd think that the wise man could take a step back and ask, "why?".

[Gorgo]

When you talk about these kinds of things, it's good to knkow about the IRI and the NED:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=3&q=h...rg/iri.php&e=42

[Gorgo]

Bush doesn't have much to do with it. This kind of stuff went on with Clinton and Carter. It's just that the people that are behind the Bushes and Reagans take everything to the extreme ridiculous right.

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio, I am begginging to wonder if your hate for Bush is so great that you cannot see past it, or that you use it to mask your true beliefs on what is "good" in this world.

[Gorgo]

http://www.zmag.org/

ZNet Commentary
U.s. Supports Anti-democratic Forces In Venezuela Recall August 11, 2004
By Robert Jensen

Imagine the scandal if a foreign government had for years funneled millions of dollars to political groups in the United States in an attempt to affect the outcome of a U.S. election. Even worse, what if some of the groups that received money had been involved in a failed coup attempt against a democratically elected U.S. president? Would the U.S. public not have a right to be outraged at the attempt to manipulate our political process?

Of course we would -- which is why the people of Venezuela have a right to be outraged at the U.S. government's ongoing attempts to meddle in the electoral process in Venezuela.

On Sunday (Aug. 15), Venezuelans will go to the polls for a referendum on the recall of President Hugo Chavez. Polls show Chavez running 8 to 31 percentage points ahead. But whatever the result, Bush administration actions in Venezuela should alert the U.S. public that the commitment to "expanding democracy" we hear so much about is largely rhetorical cover for the typical U.S. interference in the politics of nations in Latin America -- and around the world.

The vehicle for this meddling in Venezuela is the National Endowment for Democracy, which calls itself "a private, nonprofit organization" but is funded by U.S. taxpayers. Its self-described mission is "to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts."

In the case of Venezuela, "strengthening democratic institutions" has meant financing groups that helped carry out the failed coup attempt against Chavez in April 2002. Coup leaders representing the traditional oligarchy in Venezuela, and their supporters in the U.S. government, saw a "problem": Chavez is genuinely interested in a fairer distribution of wealth and refuses to subordinate his country to U.S. policy. Their "solution" was a coup that lasted for 48 hours, during which an illegal decree installed a businessman as president and dissolved the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. The United States quickly backed the coup, until loyal officers and civilian groups restored Chavez to office.

In the continued quest to promote "democracy," the NED kept funding some of those same opposition figures as they shifted to a strategy of work stoppages and lockouts aimed at crippling the country's vital oil industry.
When that failed to dislodge Chavez, they finally took up a legal route, the recall election. (Documents regarding NED funding obtained through the Freedom of Information Act are available online at http://www.venezuelafoia.info/)

Whatever objections U.S. officials might have to the Venezuelan president's policies, it is clear the attempts to push Chavez from power have nothing to do with the charge that he is an authoritarian president (or "quasi-authoritarian," as one U.S. newspaper described him in an editorial, or perhaps a "quasi-editorial"). Since his 1998 election, Chavez's real "crimes" have been not just consistently speaking out against the unjust distribution of resources in his country but taking tangible steps to help the poor, such as literacy programs and community-based health clinics.

Unlike so many U.S.-backed leaders in Latin America in over the years, Chavez has respected freedom of speech and an open political process. Most of the private media outlets, in fact, are rabidly anti-Chavez, representing the interests of the Venezuelan elite. Those television stations remain on the air. Chavez has consistently stated he would abide by the results of the referendum, which the opposition leadership refuses to do. The fact is that Chavez has acted in a less repressive manner than any prior Venezuelan president.

And for all this, Chavez has been demonized by the Bush administration, a strategy that John Kerry seems determined to mimic. This suggests that the current fashionable rhetoric among U.S. policymakers about supporting democracy around the world is -- as it was during the Cold War -- empty rhetoric. If democratic elections put into power leaders willing to back U.S. policy, then all is well. If people around the world reject U.S.-backed "leaders," then those people are likely to get some timely instruction in democracy -- Washington style.


For independent information on events in Venezuela in English, go to http://venezuelanalysis.com/, http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.cfm, and http://www.cepr.net/pages/americas.htm.


Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of "Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity" from City Lights Books. He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Dude you are quoting Znet again...



What I posted BTW show that the opposition to Chavez is political, and that you people would support a marxist in your blinded by oil hatered.

Democracy? China is a democracy your point?

[gr8fuldaniel]

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio, Democracy? China is a democracy your point?

China doesnt seem bent on empire building and global domination like the USA

[Mr.Vicchio]

Empire building generally doesn't involve hadning over the said coutnries to the people that live there.

And how little you know China...

[gr8fuldaniel]

The people elected Chavez and the people of Haiti elected Aristide. Both situations are the same. Haiti was an act of bravado to threaten Chavez. We need to but out. What can we offer them? Fair elections? Shouldnt we try to have one of our own 1st?