Chavez' Revolution in immediate and serious danger

[serryjw]

My heart bleeds. I know this is the good work of the USA!:sarcasm:

quote........

At present time, the bloody political carnival continues around the Plaza de Toros (the bull-ring), in front of the faculty, where student "matadores" are using military arms ... shotguns and pistols ... and seem to be well-organized, aided by some university authorities who oppose the Chavez government.

Many buses full of anti-chavistas students from other national universities were detained by security forces in nearby Ejido preventing their arrival to Merida City in destabilization attempts to cause total chaos.

end quote..........

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=59105

[LoZoccolo]

1. Cue apologists defending detainment of student protestors.

Tiananmen Square all over again.

Told you all he was the Bush* of South America. Gettin' worse in some ways.

[serryjw]

2. Hugo is wonderful

He wants to get his people out of poverty. If there is an uprising it's being caused/financed by USA!

[ugarte]

3. 'Tiananmen Square'? You must be joking...

Sounds like our tax dollars at work.

[Webster Green]

4. Bullshit!......He's fighting the CIA...

The "Bush of South America" is our own war-chimp. He thinks he's in charge of Venezuela too.

[serryjw]

8. I worry for Chevez's life

He won't live much longer.

[William769]

6. Got that right!

He's a piece of shit just like our pResident!

[htuttle]

10. I don't recall the students at Tiananmen being armed

[1932]

16. Neither did they shoot National Guard with the slightest of pretext.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1976

[1932]

15. Appropriately, the alleged student leader's first name is Nixon.

The 10th year senior protesting the Supreme Courts ruling in a case brought by other students who feel the matriculation requirement should be enforced is named Nixon.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1976

[High Plains]

5. Venezuela says students got guns from Colombian paras...

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/world/3913634

May 29, 2006, 11:22PM



Arms used in protests traced to Colombia
Venezuela says paramilitary units gave students machine guns
Reuters News Service

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Venezuela is investigating whether right-wing Colombian paramilitary groups armed student protesters who shot and seriously wounded a number of police last week, Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said Monday. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said "promoters of violence" wanted to expand the unrest to portray Venezuela as a chaotic country when OPEC ministers meet in the capital of Caracas Thursday.

Dozens of police, national guardsmen and protesters were wounded in two days of clashes at Venezuela's autonomous university in Merida, near the Colombian border. Several police were shot and seriously wounded by some protesters who carried submachine guns, shotguns and pistols, authorities said. The unrest was sparked by a court ruling suspending student elections.

"Someone protesting with an Uzi is not a student," Chacon told a news conference, adding that officials were investigating possible links with Colombian paramilitary groups. "Where do these arms come from? We have some hypotheses and information that indicate the intent of (Colombian) paramilitary groups to penetrate Venezuela with arms," he said.

Rangel said Sunday, "Promoters of violence want to extend this situation to other parts of the country. "They want to spark action in Caracas for the OPEC meeting, with the aim of projecting abroad an image of chaos in Venezuela."

[serryjw]

7. If you believe that

I will sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Chevez has thumbed his nose up at * and his oil buddies. They don't want them to destroy the country and inslave his people.

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. Chavez - the media and free speech

If anyone of us tried to practice the degree of freedom of expression that is openly expressed in Venezuela 24 hours a day/7days a week -- we would be in a lot of trouble very fast.

In spite of the fact that the local private elite-owned media is overwhelmingly hostile to the point of having supported force and violence against the popular democratically elected government. This is something that would never be allowed in the U.S. media or almost anywhere else for that matter

link:

http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela

snip: "Never even in Latin American history has the media been so directly involved in a political coup. Venezuela’s ’hate media’ controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and it played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chavez, in April. Although tensions in the country could easily spill into civil war, the media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president - if necessary by force."

snip:

"After Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main privately owned channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión and CMT - and nine of the 10 major national newspapers, including El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País, and El Mundo, have taken over the role of the traditional political parties, which were damaged by the president’s electoral victories. Their monopoly on information has put them in a strong position. They give the opposition support, only rarely reporting government statements and never mentioning its large majority, despite that majority’s confirmation at the ballot box. They have always described the working class districts as a red zone inhabited by dangerous classes of ignorant people and delinquents. No doubt considering them unphotogenic, they ignore working class leaders and organisations."

snip: ""Take to the streets" thundered El Nacional on 10 April (in an unattributed editorial). "Ni un paso atrás! (not one step backwards)" responded the hoardings on Globovisión. Another TV company broadcast: "Venezuelans, take to the streets on Thursday 11 April at 10am. Bring your flags. For freedom and democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will defeat us." The call to overthrow the head of state became so obvious that the government applied Article 192 of the telecommunications law. More than 30 times -for all television and radio channels - it requisitioned 15-20 minutes’ air time to broadcast its views. But the broadcasters divided the screen in two and continued to urge rebellion."
__________________


I would be very suspicious of all this U.S. media concern about Chavez's human rights record which incidently has improved dramatically since his government took office. And for the record Chavez's record with any credible, independent human rights groups is no worse and probably not as bad as the U.S. and many other western democracies and far worse than that of the leading receipients of U.S. Aid.

http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Venezuela.asp

"Reporting on the ongoing issues, such as the protests and Chavez’s economic policies in Venezuela have shown similar signs of one-sidedness, from both the mainstream media of western countries such as the U.S. and U.K., and from Venezuela’s own elite anti-Chavez media, which “controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and ... played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chavez, in April 2002.... The media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president — if necessary by force.”

And let's compare his record to the largest recepients of U.S. aid
Here are the three largest receipient of U.S. aid (after Iraq) in order. Feel free to compare them with Chavez's record which is not perfect but a lot better than any of these three.

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

1. Israel - link:

http://hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=isrlpa

2. Egypt - link:

http://hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=egypt

3. Columbia - link:

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


and here is the report on the U.S.'s own human rights record:

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=usa
__________________________

Also the good people at FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) on their weekly radio program Counter Spin did a special program regarding Hugo Chavez and the media on 3 March 2006.

Here is the link for downloading or listening online:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2832
_______________

The Venezuelan Revolution : 100 Questions-100 Answers



by Chesa Boudin, Gabriel Gonzalez, Wilmer Rumbos

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1560257733/sr=1-1/qid=1145697377/ref=sr_1_1/002-1846545-3744063?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books

[Sadie5]

11. Chavez stood up to * when no one else dared

to anger Washington. The things he does are for the good of his people. Unlike * hugo actually wants to help the citizens of his country get out of poverty which is more than I can say about *.

[Scoody Boo]

17. Yeah Right!

Chavez is just as insignificant in the US's eyes as Castro, meekly shaking his fist at the US. Just like Manuel Noriega slapping a podium with a machete a few days before he found himself up to his ass in American Paratroopers.

Chavez keeps this up he is going to be listening to rock and roll being blared by American Paratroopers outside whatever hole he crawls into hiding in.

Chavez in the same class of people I left Mexico to get away from. The "revolutionaries" and socialists, who for all of their rhetoric always have more money that the "masses" and have grand plans for everyone else's money but their own.

I never met a "poor" socialist in Mexico. I doubt that there are any in Venezuela, either.

[1932]

18. Can I trouble you for even the slightest bit of evidence to support those

claims about Venezuela?

[Scoody Boo]

19. Can You Provide...

the slightest evidence that Chavez is anythng resembling a world power that should have the US quaking in it's boots?

[1932]

20. Why is that question relevant?

I'm more curious about the claims you made at the end of your post rather than your speculations made in the beginning of your post.

Nonetheless, you should read Aleida Guevara's book on Chavez, Richard Gott's book on Venezuela, watch the documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and read the journalism featured at http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/.

[Scoody Boo]

21. Because my original...

post said that Chavez amounted to little more than a pimple on a gnat's ass as far as the US was concerned about his rhetoric.

Why doesn't this man slap a machete on a podium a few times like Noriega and just get it over with. I'm tired of listening to him.

[serryjw]

12. 10 minutes after finishing

Confessions of an Economic Hitman I read this. It has the paw print of our government all over it. Chevez did stand up and thumb his nose at * and our Imperialism. We will never back down. We want his oil and won't stop until we get it.

[serryjw]

13. Things are getting interesting.........Just came over the wire

quote.......
Russia will help Venezuela build plants to make Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition after the United States restricted arms sales to the South American nation, President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.

snip......

Washington banned all weapons sales to Chavez's leftist government this month because of U.S. concern about his ties with Cuba and Iran and what it called his inaction against guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.



The sanctions led to a diplomatic freeze with Venezuela, a major U.S. energy supplier and the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

Chavez rattled the White House earlier with a deal to buy 100,000 Russian automatic weapons.

Earlier this year, the United States expressed concern about Spain's plans to sell $1.56 billion in military ships and planes to Venezuela.

end quote.......

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-05-31T021856Z_01_N30135886_RTRUKOC_0_US-VENEZUELA-RUSSIA.xml

[1932]

14. The 100,000 Kalashnikov story feels like it's 10 years old.

I bet more print has been spent per rifle on this story than on any rifle ever. These are the most famous rifles ever!

[Igel]

22. Just about every revolution is always

in immediate and serious danger. One must always augment one's revolutionary vigilance, be on the lookout for counterrevolutionaries and diversionists out to sabotage the marvellous wonder that the revolution will yield in the coming year.

And if it doesn't come, that marvellous wonder, it's because there was a lack of revolutionary vigilance, people weren't sufficiently on the lookout for counterrevolutionaries and diversionists out to commit sabotage, so that one must strive harder to augment one's revolutionary vigilance....

The violence is lamentable; on the other hand, that the government feels stable and secure enough to allow protesters disagreeing with it to assemble is a good sign.