Socialist-Democracy in action. Lose the democracy!

[guyone]

Venezuela's Chavez storms to re-election victory

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stormed to a re-election victory in Sunday's vote, handing him an ample mandate to broaden his promised socialist revolution and challenge Washington's influence in Latin America.

Worrying his opponents, Chavez has vowed to use a fresh mandate to scrap presidential term limits and create a single-party that he expects to lead in power for decades.

Having already taken on multinational oil giants to demand they hand more control to the state, Chavez will likely press for more share of Venezuela's vast oil and mineral resources and increase land distribution for the rural poor.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

I hear after he eliminates democracy he will make everybody in the country change their underwear every half hour.

[guyone]

(the sound of crickets)

[guyone]

I guess it's OK with you lefties that Chavez is making himself president for life and throwing away Venezuelas constitution. Lefties must truly feel some pigs are more equal than others...

[guyone]

Hmmm...no one cares to comment on this...interesting. I guess people will sell their freedom for a lefty cause.

It truly speaks volumes.

[thombergeron]

Maybe no one is responding because none of us are Venezuelan. Hugo Chavez was elected and has announced what he plans to do with his mandate. Why should we care?

That said, why on earth would Chavez want to eliminate democracy in Venezuela? He's won three elections and beat back a recall attempt. The voters clearly love him. I'm sure he understands that if he canceled elections (for no logical reason whatsoever), his popularity would plummet. And as 2002 demonstrated, there are elements of the Venezuelan military willing to undertake a coup. Democracy works really, really well for Chavez.

And what do presidential term limits have to do with democracy? The main argument against term limits is that they are undemocratic. The United States managed to go 170 years without presidential term limits. Was the U.S. undemocratic until 1951? Ronald Reagan made no secret of his opposition to the 22nd Amendment; he wanted a third term. Are you saying Reagan had antidemocratic, dictatorial aspirations?

[guyone]

You have to see through the smoke. Scrapping term limits, making all other parties illegal, and shutting down television stations kind of totalitarian don't you think?

[thombergeron]

If Chavez actually were outlawing opposition parties and shutting down television stations, then yes, that would seem very totalitarian.

Fortunately for Venezuela, he's not.

[guyone]

Oh I guess Rueters & AP got it all wrong?

[thombergeron]

Oh I guess Rueters & AP got it all wrong?

Well, you posted a piece of the Reuters story. Neither that nor the full story said anything about outlawing opposition parties and shutting down television stations.

As far as the AP, I've read what IHT picked up, and it said nothing about outlawing opposition parties and shutting down television stations. Perhaps you could offer a link or a quote or something beyond your fevered imagination.

[guyone]

Telemundo: Venezuela Halts Transmission

© 2006 The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela — Officials identifying themselves as members of a state regulatory agency forced the U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network Telemundo to halt transmission Sunday of its presidential election coverage.

"We're surprised by this," said Pablo Iacub, a member of Telemundo's eight-person team, which arrived last week. "We only want to do our work," he said by telephone.

At least six people who identified themselves as members of the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL), which regulates electronic media in Venezuela, arrived Sunday afternoon at the hotel from which Telemundo had been transmitting since Friday, said Iacub.

The officials said the network needed permission to transmit and lacking such could not, he said. Iacub said he was unaware of such a requirement but that the Telemundo journalists were accredited with Venezuela's national elections council.

Iacub said the Telemundo team asked how they could obtain permission and, after an hour, were told that they would not be able to transmit.

Telephone calls to Conatel offices seeking comment on the incident went unanswered.

Telemundo Communications Group is owned by NBC Universal Inc., which is controlled by General Electric Co. It claims to reach about 93 percent of Hispanic households in the U.S. and also has viewers in Mexico.




Chavez to close private TV stations

Story Highlights
• Tensions rise between Hugo Chavez and private media before Sunday's vote
• Chavez often has clashed with Venezuela's private TV and radio networks
• The Venezuelan leader warns he may refuse to renew some broadcast licenses

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez backed the possibility of holding a national referendum, if he's re-elected, on whether to shut down private television stations that he has accused of subversive activities.

Chavez's comments late Thursday came amid rising tensions between the government and the country's largely opposition-aligned private media ahead of Sunday's vote.

Chavez was asked in a televised interview if he would consider asking the nation whether the government should block certain channels from renewing their broadcast licenses next year. (Watch Chavez land a nod as Time magazine's Person of the Year Video)

"That is perfectly possible," Chavez said. "It's perfectly possible that the country gives its opinion, including for how long."

Chavez also said he regretted not having shut down the country's major private broadcasters right after a short-lived 2002 coup against him, citing four in particular: Globovision, Venevision, RCTV and Televen.

Chavez has clashed with the country's private television and radio networks, which are often highly critical of his government and have favored the opposition in recent years.

During the coup, several TV channels chose to broadcast cartoons and movies instead of his return to power by loyalists in the military amid a popular uprising.

Many media outlets also supported a devastating 2003 strike that failed to unseat Chavez.

In the run-up to Sunday's vote, Chavez has warned that he may refuse to renew their licenses, accusing them of fomenting conspiracies against his government, and also said he's ready to shut down any that try to disrupt the election.

On Thursday, he threatened immediately to shut down any outlet that defies electoral rules prohibiting exit polls and other unofficial counts from being reported until after the National Electoral Council issues its preliminary bulletin.

"You can be sure that they will be closed for breaching the law," he said.

Just a day earlier, a top lawmaker from Chavez's ruling party told government supporters to take over private TV stations on Election Day if they report that opposition challenger, Manuel Rosales, is in the lead ahead of official results, alleging the channel may use rigged exit polls to mislead the public.

"When they start to do that, we must take over the TV channels ... a peaceful takeover as we have always done at the doors of these TV stations," Iris Varela said.

Asked about the possibility that closing private TV stations likely would provoke an international backlash, the Venezuelan leader said that was what held his hand earlier but declared the days of a "permissive Chavez" were over.

"I don't care what the world says. I care about what happens in Venezuela," he said. "The world can say, 'Oh, dear!' but this is my country; I'm responsible."

Local media executives -- joined by the United States and the Miami-based Inter American Press Association -- argue that Chavez has sought to limit freedom of expression since taking office in 1999.

His government has passed a law restricting violence and sexual content over the airwaves, but critics call it a "gag law" that is deliberately vague so that the government can punish media outlets that oppose the administration.

Chavez has denied taking excessive measures, arguing that he is not trying to stifle criticism but rather clamp down on those allegedly using journalistic activities as a front for illegal efforts to topple his government.

Chavez was speaking in a joint interview with two state-backed and two private TV stations in the final hours before the end of campaigning.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



If the country does not like what's on television why don't they just change the channel? Isn't that the stock response from Democrats?

[thombergeron]

Reading comprehension’s a bitch, isn’t it?

Neither of these articles reports that Chavez has shut down television stations. The first reports on agents of the Venezuelan government interfering with the work of journalists from U.S.-based Telemundo. That is, unequivocally, disgraceful, but it’s not “shutting down television stations.”

Nor is it all that unique. Here is Reporters Without Borders’ 2006 Press Freedom Index. (http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=639)

Even with this act of press intimidation, Venezuela ranks 115 of 168, far above your buddy Pervez Musharraf, wallowing at 157. Egypt, the largest single recipient of U.S. aid, is 133. The extra-territorial U.S. – that’s mainly Puerto Rico and Guam – is below Venezuela at 119.

Obviously, I’d rather that every country on the planet be tied for first with a score of 0, but as far as you’re concerned, why are you squawking so loudly about middle-of-the-pack Venezuela? Where’s your condemnation of Russia, Thailand, Mexico, or the Philippines? Does your selective outrage have anything to do with the fact that Hugo Chavez is an outspoken leftist?

Now, if you read beyond the headline of the second AP article, you’ll see that Chavez is threatening to hold a referendum on revoking the licenses of certain television stations.

A vote.

I hope he doesn’t hold such a referendum, and I really don’t think he will. It seems like more of his bombastic rhetoric than a real threat.

But again, the article doesn’t actually report on “shutting down television stations.”

You seem to have dropped your allegation that Chavez is outlawing political parties.


If the country does not like what's on television why don't they just change the channel? Isn't that the stock response from Democrats?

I think that's the stock response from anyone opposed to censorship. Is that what you're trying to say? I don't think you can say that the Democratic Party is unified in its opposition to censorship, though, unfortunately. The Republican Party certainly isn't. Thanks for the idiotic V-Chip.

[guyone]

The truth is out there but you might as well keep on spinning.

BTW - V Chip was Clinton and all it does is let a user decide what type of programming he wants on his or her television. If you think it does anything else then it's high time you get back on your meds.

[chefmike]

LMFAO...

Suck it up....

So Bush Inc. remain thus far unsuccessful in their attempts to give Chavez the "Allende treatment"...

Maybe they are too busy looking for WMD's, or searching for that Bin Laden fella... :lol:

BTW...how's that workin' out for ya? :P

In the meantime, you can choke on this... 8)

The Spirit of Democracy in Venezuela

"Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger....another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the US again....Long live the socialist revolution....Destiny has been written....Socialism is human. Socialism is love."


This is how Hugo Chavez Frias characterized his smashing electoral victory on December 3 when he appeared on the balcony of the Palacio de Miraflores (the official presidential palace residence) and addressed a huge gathering of his followers below that evening telling them of his victory for the people and that he now has an even stronger mandate to pursue his Bolivarian Project to do more for them ahead than he's already accomplished so far which is considerable.

He told his loyal, cheering supporters his impressive landslide electoral victory is one more blow to George Bush, and it follows on the others won by populist candidates in the region in the past six weeks by Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil on October 29, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua on November 7, and Rafael Correa in Equador on November 26. Chavez will serve for another six year term that will run until December, 2012.

Earlier in the day, Hugo Chavez showed he's indeed a man of the people by casting his own vote the same way ordinary people do. Unlike George Bush who goes everywhere in an entourage of limousine, helicopter, or Air Force One luxury accompanied by a phalanx of security needed to protect him from the people he was elected to serve, Chavez drove himself in his aging red-colored Volkswagon to his assigned polling station accompanied by his young grandson in the back seat, voted, and then left the same unaccompanied way he came. That's how a man of the people does it - no bells, whistles or extravagant trappings of power that's a hallmark of how things are done to excess in the US calling itself a model democracy but one only for the few with wealth and power and that behaves like a rogue state that's only a model for despots and tyrants.

In Venezuela under Hugo Chavez there's real participatory democracy for all the people. After it played out in a fair and open electoral process, Chavez greeted his supporters in an atmosphere of jubilant celebration once National Electoral Council (CNE) president Lucena Tibisay announced at 10:30 PM election night that with about 78% of the vote tallied, Chavez received 61.4% (5,936,000 votes) to right wing opposition candidate Manuel Rosales 38% (3,715,000 votes).

The early figures were then updated showing Chavez increased his advantage to 62.89% (7,161,637 votes), handily defeating Rosales by about 26 points (at 36.85%) - an impressive nearly two to one thrashing. It was also announced that voter turnout was about 75% or the highest percentage in Venezuela's history making this election an historic event and a clear mandate for Hugo Chavez.

Once the first results were announced on election night, it was clear to Mr. Rosales he'd lost and he was forced to concede defeat. He added, however, he would continue opposing the policies of the Chavez government "struggling for the people of Venezuela (and announcing) we are beginning the struggle for the construction of a new time for Venezuela....and I won't stop there, from today on I will be in the streets (staying) in the struggle, in the fight." He didn't say what he has in mind is returning the country to its ugly past serving the interests of wealth and power and ignoring the needs of ordinary people, all his pious rhetoric aside. He's sure to get lots of encouragement and help from Washington as its unbending agenda going forward is to do precisely that. Short of an armed invasion, however, it may be harder than ever to do that as Hugo Chavez came out ahead in all 23 of Venezuela's states including in Rosales' home state of Zulia that went for Chavez with a 50.57% majority, an embarrassment he also neglected to mention in his concession statement cum bravado. A dozen other candidates participated in the election as well, but had nothing to brag about, getting in total less than half of one percent of the vote total.

From the US capitol, State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus added her government's response without a touch of irony from an administration that's already tried and failed three times to oust Hugo Chavez: The US government recognizes the right of the Venezuelan people "to elect the government of their choice and the path they want for their country." US Undersecretary of State for Latin America Thomas Shannon added: "We do not want a relationship of confrontation (with Venezuela). We've always looked for ways to deepen the dialogue with....President Chavez (and we hope) he will show a greater interest."

Neither US official tried explaining that their post-election good faith rhetoric is belied by their government's actions since the Bush administration came to power in 2001 trying every underhanded trick it could cook up to undermine and oust Hugo Chavez and is still engaging in subversion. It would be quite a change in the Bush White House if it ever practiced what it always disingenuously preaches fooling no one, especially Hugo Chavez and his government.

The same kind of post-election forked tongue comments came from US Ambassador William Brownfield who congratulated Venezuelans on a smooth and peaceful election and indicated Washington's willingness to have a less confrontational relationship with Chavez saying: "We recognize that and we're ready, willing and eager to explore and see if we can make progress on bilateral issues." Hugo Chavez understands full well the kind of relationship the ambassador means and responded to the overture: "They want dialogue but on the condition that you accept their positions. If the government of the United States wants dialogue, Venezuela will always have its door open. But I doubt the US government is sincere....we are a free country. We were once a North American colony, and we will not be one ever again."

Chavez was being polite but firm as he knows the US is never sincere in its dealings with other countries and is determined to remove him from office. Also, its relations with all Global South countries are uncompromisingly ones on an "our way or the highway" basis. For Hugo Chavez, that's no way, and it's hard to imagine relations between the two countries will change going forward, at least under a Bush administration. Chavez explained further saying: "How are we going to have good relations with a government that has financed conspiratorial activities here?"

It's also a government establishing closer ties with the military in Latin American countries (circumventing ruling governments if necessary) to counter the influence and spread of populist leftist governments like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Former US Southern Command General Bantz Craddock explained the real sentiment of the Bush administration toward the region when he said: "The challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean today are significant to our national security. We ignore them at our peril." He wasn't referring to the need to be more conciliatory to populist leftist leaders like those in Venezuela, Bolivia or Ecuador (in January) or Fidel Castro in Cuba (the US has tried and failed many dozens or even hundreds of times to kill) who have notions of governance much different than those in Washington.

For the moment at least, the cheering crowd outside the Miraflores on election night had other thoughts on their mind, but like their president demand nothing less than a relationship based on equality and respect with their dominant northern neighbor. They gathered in the late evening pouring rain dressed in their signature red T-shirts and caps, waving Venezuela flags and shouting "Uh, ah, Chavez no se va" - "Uh, ah, Chavez will not go." It continued all night in the celebratory streets of Caracas echoing Chavez's words repeating "Libertad (liberty) and telling the crowd this was a victory for them, for socialism and for the Bolivarian Revolution he now wants to advance to the next stage.

Venezuela Under Chavez - How Real Democratic Elections Are Run

The polls opened at 7AM on Sunday, December 3, but hours earlier people were already queueing up in their eagerness to participate in Venezuela's democratic electoral process. Most of them, as we know, were there to support Hugo Chavez Frias as their president and won't allow anyone else to have the job as long as he wants it. The lines were long at many of the stations, but observers noted voting across the country ran smoothly with only minor problems that were no obstacle to the electoral process. About 1400 observers were on hand to witness the day's events including 10 representatives from the Carter Center in the US, 130 from the European Union (EU), 60 from the Organization of American States (OAS) and 10 from the Mercosur Common Market of the South countries.

At day's end, OAS team leader Juan Enrique Fisher congratulated Venezuelan officials for a "transparent and well-run election....We congratulate the Venezuelan people for their spirit of citizenship, President Chavez for his popular mandate and candidate Rosales for his civic spirit and for fortifying democracy." He described the voting as "massive and peaceful" and added scattered reports of voting equipment malfunctions were minor and more attributable to voter unfamiliarity with the machines than to irregularities. Spanish parliamentarian Willy Meyer, one of seven members from the European Parliament, noted the process was smooth-running and turnout was "massive, well-arranged and happy..." European Union leader Antonio Garcia Velasquez said Venezuelan electoral officials gave them "complete liberty and with all requirements so that the job (of observing) can be fulfilled in conformity with our stipulations." The NGO Electoral Eye noted in an afternoon statement that 99% of the voting centers were operating "completely normally."

Voting took place using 33,000 ballot tables at 11,118 polling stations throughout the country, and each candidate in the election was allowed to have observers present at all of them if they wished. All registered Venezuelans, of course, could vote including the 57,667 eligible ones located in other countries. Voting took place on Sunday to make it as easy as possible for people to participate, and while polling stations were scheduled to close at 4PM Caracas time, most stayed open as long as there were people in line who hadn't yet voted.

Venezuela's Electoral Process Prior to the Election of Hugo Chavez

Before Hugo Chavez was first elected the country's president in December, 1998, less than half of all eligible Venezuelans were registered to vote and thus were unable to participate in choosing their elected officials who might help them raise their standard of living including the great majority of impoverished people in the country most in need of positive change. For decades previously, two parties in the country, Democratic Action (AD) and Social Christian Party (COPEI), dominated the political process through a power-sharing arrangement that served the interests of Venezuela's wealthy elite and its "sifrino" middle class ignoring the needs and rights of the great majority of poor and effectively disenfranchised. It finally boiled over in the streets in the late 1980s and 1990s that led to the governing coalition bringing Hugo Chavez to power in 1998 that changed everything - just the way Chavez promised he's do it if elected.

Along with his political and social revolution, Chavez promised to address the problem of electoral fraud and exclusion that had to be overcome for any true democracy to exist. At the outset of his first term in office, the National Assembly strengthened earlier reforms and initiated new ones focusing on voter access and rights, security and eliminating the kinds of fraudulent practices that characterized Venezuelan elections in the past.

A major and successful initiative was later established in 2003 known as Mision Itentidad (Mission Identity) that aimed to implement Article 56 of the Bolivarian Constitution stating: "All persons have the right to be registered free of charge with the Civil Registry Office after birth, and to obtain public documents constituting evidence of the biological identity, in accordance with law." The Mission constituted a combined mass citizenship and voter registration drive that's given millions of ordinary Venezuelans national ID cards granting them the full rights of citizenship they never before had. It also resulted in over five million Venezuelans being able to register and vote in elections for the first time ever up to the middle of 2006 - including qualified immigrants and indigenous people who never before had any rights. In 2000, before this initiative was begun, 11 million Venezuelans were registered to vote. By September, 2006, the number had grown to over 16 million in a country of 27 million people.

How the Electoral Process Is Administered

The electoral process is administered by the National Electoral Council (CNE). It's an independent body, separate from the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government or any private corporate interests. It's comprised of 11 members of the National Assembly and 10 representatives of civil society, none of whom are appointed by the President.

Elections are now conducted in Venezuela using Smartmatic touchscreen electronic voting machines with verifiable paper ballot receipts that voters can check to assure they confirm the vote they cast and then are saved by the CNE to have as a permanent record of vote totals that can be used in case a recount is needed. They also require voters to leave an electronic thumbprint to assure no one votes more than once.

The machines work as intended leading the Carter Center to comment, based on their observations of their use: "The automated machines worked well and the voting results do reflect the will of the people." Further independent studies verified the same thing including ones carried out by vote-process experts at the University of California Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and elsewhere. Great care was taken in their design to eliminate any possibility of tampering. It involves using a special technology splitting the security codes into four parts that has been endorsed in numerous voting security reports because it makes the machines used in Venezuela the most advanced system in the world according to the European Union Election Observation Mission in the country.

How Elections Are Now Run in the US

Contrast this exercise of real participatory democracy with the way things are done in the US, especially since the fraud-laden election bringing the Bush administration to power. A growing number of investigations have since revealed how corrupted the electoral process has become, especially in national elections, where a systematic effort has been made to disenfranchise portions of those segments of eligible voters likely to oppose Republican candidates or selected Democrats representing elitist interests. Many techniques are used to do it starting with the privatization of the electoral process that gives large electronic voting machine companies total unregulated control over it.

In the 2004 national election, more than 80% of the US vote was cast and counted on these machines owned, programmed and operated by three large corporations, most of which have no verifiable paper ballot receipts making it impossible to have a recount as any done, if needed, will only verify the first result being challenged. The process now is secretive and unreliable run by private corporate interests with everything to gain if candidates they support win, and based on what's now known, that's exactly what's happened. As long as this system prevails, the US electoral process is fraudulent on its face making a sham of the notion of the kind of free, fair and open elections that are a hallmark of the way things are run under Hugo Chavez.

It's what one observer, commenting on US elections, calls the "ultimate crime" as the very bedrock of democracy depends on the right of the electorate to exercise its will at the polls without it being subverted by private or other interests. Its importance is what Tom Paine said about it at the nation's founding: "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right (as has happened in the US) is to reduce a man to slavery."

Subversion with electronic voting machine manipulation is only part of the problem as investigations have also uncovered much more revealing a systematic perversion of the democratic process. In the 2000 and 2004 national elections in the US, millions of votes cast were never counted that included "spoiled ballots," rejected absentee ballots and others lost or deliberately ignored in the count. In addition, there's been massive voter roll purging, for a variety of reasons, that added up to one common denominator - eligible voters disenfranchised were likely to vote for the "wrong" candidates so they were denied the right to vote at all. In Venezuela under Hugo Chavez today, every eligible voter can register and is encouraged to vote without fear their vote cast will disappear, go to another candidate or they will be purged from the voter roles. That's how a true democracy is supposed to work, and in Venezuela today it does. In the US it doesn't, and it shows in the results. It also shows in that half or more of eligible voters here never bother showing up on election day believing, with justification, their votes don't count.

Another major difference between the two countries is in Venezuela the people are informed well enough to understand what the candidates stand for, how their government serves them, and they're willing to actively engage to keep their hard-won democratic rights and social benefits they won't give up without a fight. In contrast, in the US, the public is lulled into believing in an illusion of democracy and the rights of the people guaranteed under one that don't exist anymore, if they ever did. Because of their apathy, they're not in the streets like the people of Venezuela, their comrades in Mexico, who aren't as fortunate, or the anti-Bush/Olmert masses comprising up to half the population of Lebanon in the streets of Beirut demanding real democracy, justice and an end to Western domination. Instead, they're home or out shopping because they fail to understand unless they go there in large enough numbers for the rights they don't, in fact, have, they'll never get them.

Chavez's Goal to Build A Socialist Society in the 21st Century

Chavez first announced to the world his hope to build a socialist society in the 21st century in Venezuela at the January 30, 2005 Fifth World Social Forum. He wants a humanistic one based on solidarity, not the bureaucratic kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states where governments were top - down with no participation of the people who ended up ill-served. Later on, Chavez elaborated saying "We have assumed the commitment to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism....a new socialism....a socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality" beyond the free-market model based on exploitation of working people for the interests of capital.

The Chavez government has pursued these goals incrementally since it came to power in February, 1999 following Hugo Chavez's election in December, 1998. He promised Venezuelans his vision of a Bolivarian Revolution to free them from what 19th century liberator Simon Bolivar called the imperial curse that always "plague(d) Latin America with misery in the name of liberty." His Movement for the Fifth Republic Party (MVR) got a peoples' mandate for change at its outset to draft a new constitution that transformed Venezuela from an oligarchy serving wealth and power alone to a model humanist democratic state serving everyone based on solidarity and the principles of political, economic and social justice.

He delivered in ways unimaginable in the US where essential government-delivered services for the people are denounced as radical and denied in a nation now dominated by a reactionary ideology and the notion that only neoliberal market-based solutions are acceptable - even though it's proved they don't work. Under this flawed model, government only works for the privileged few that benefit under its law-of-the-jungle rules that come at the expense of the great majority losing out the way it always happens in a top-down society run by and for them. This is the state of things today in the US, a nation where its founding principles have been turned upside down and is now run by and for plutocrats with values corrupted by false notions of fairness, equity and justice.

That was how Venezuela was governed before the age of Hugo Chavez. In the 28 years before he was first elected, the people suffered from deprivation, neglect and indifference. Venezuelan inflation-adjusted per capita income fell 35% in those years, the worst decline in the region and one of the worst in the world. Chavez halted the decline and turned it around as high oil prices and a favorable economic climate lifted the nation's growth to the highest level in the region following the crippling 2002-03 oil strike and destabilizing effects of the short-lived coup deposing Hugo Chavez for two days in April, 2002. Since that time, unemployment declined and the crushing poverty level in the country fell from a high of around 62% in 2003 to a level near 40% today and falling.

Chavez, however, went much further by enshrining the principles of a participatory democracy and its social revolution in the new 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It mandates revolutionary structural changes for political, economic and social justice that include quality health care for all as a "fundamental social right and....responsibility....of the state." It bans discrimination, guarantees free expression Chavez's fiercest critics enjoy and use to the fullest against him without recrimination, provides for housing assistance, an improved social security pension system for seniors, assures support for the rights of indigenous people, and requires quality education be made available for all to the highest level that virtually eliminated illiteracy - compared to the stated 20% level here in the US according to the Department of Education figures but which, in fact, is much higher and increasing based on the best evidence of functional illiteracy among the secondary student populations of the nation's inner cities.

That would now be unacceptable in Venezuela where Chavez post-election wants to take his Revolution to the next level doing more than ever for his people. Along with all of the above, the government additionally already provides subsidized food for those in need, land reform, job training and micro-credit. It's a country in which most of the productive capacity is state or privately owned, but a great emphasis has been made to be innovative and go in new directions, experimenting with the idea of co-management with state-owned enterprises allowed to be jointly managed by the workers in them. A major effort has also been made to expand the number of cooperatives outside of state or private control, and since Chavez was first elected the total number of them has grown from 800 to 100,000 employing 1.5 million people or 10% of the adult population and rising.

Another of Chavez's top priorities since first taking office in 1999 has been land reform. The country has long been run by rich oligarchs including large land-owning ones that allowed 5% of the largest landowners to control 75% of the land and 75% of the smallest ones to have only 6% of it. Chavez is trying to implement land reform legislation allowing underused land owned by the latifundistas (the large rich landowners) to be redistributed to landless campesinos who'll put it to productive use and improve their lives in the process.

Chavez also wants to continue enhancing all the above-listed programs that have improved the lives of his people including the many innovative social Missions using the country's oil wealth to do it. His impressive electoral victory gives him a greater mandate than ever to advance his Bolivarian Project to the next level and his vision of socialism or social democracy in the 21st century. It won't be a simple task as the power of the oligarchs supported by the Bush administration, and what may succeed it, are powerful obstacles in the way of social advance. So far he's achieved wonders for the past eight years in the face of great odds, but much more needs to be done. With the power of the Venezuelan people standing with him, not willing to give up the great gains already gotten, Chavez is now looking ahead to advance the country's social democracy well into the new century.

Hugo Chavez is now an empowered symbol and leader of a growing social revolutionary populist movement slowly spreading in the region that needs to be turned into an unstoppable juggernaut. It represents a hopeful and promising alternative to generations of entrenched elitism backed by military power along with oppressive US dominance and the poisonous effects of the neoliberal Washington Consensus model savagely exploiting the Global South for the interests of capital in the North. It's a way to be free from the US-controlled IMF and World Bank debt-bondage demanding in return punishing fiscal austerity, state-owned industry privatizations, social neglect, the loss of organized labor rights in a system of market deregulation benefitting the privileged alone at the expense of staggering levels of poverty, deprivation and inequality for the majority. It's a way to build a free society of, for and by the people unbeholden to wealth and power. It's a way to reduce poverty and inequality and improve the lives of ordinary people in ways never thought possible in the developing world until Hugo Chavez had a vision and was able to implement it and begin its spread.

Chavez now has allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay and even Chile that still exists under the shadow of Augusto Pinochet and his 17 year dictatorship that crushed the strongest democracy in the region and from whose rule the country has yet to fully recover, but hopefully has a chance under its new more enlightened leader. They represent what author Tariq Ali refers to in the region as an "Axis of Hope," and Chavez has now earned enough political capital to bring it closer to fruition.

The momentum in Latin America is with Hugo Chavez and his allies if they can seize it and take it to the next level. The chance for success has never been better with the US more vulnerable than ever and staggering from its loss of dominance in the Middle East and the forces arrayed against it there showing they can stand up to the most powerful nation on earth and prevail. It's a sign America is not all-powerful, is in decline politically and economically and choosing an independent course is an alternative that can work if enough nations unite and do it together.

The region's most dominant nations have already shown they can oppose Washington and prevail. Following Argentina's IMF-imposed structurally adjusted economic meltdown at the end of the 1990s, President Nestor Kirchner got the financial markets in 2005 to accept his take-it-or-leave-it offer of 30 cents on the dollar payment on the country's unrepayable sovereign debt of around $130 billion and have to accept it in the form of long-term, low-interest bonds.

Then, events at the November, 2005 Summit of the Americas in Mar del Playa, Argentina sounded the death knell for the US-proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) expansion of the disastrous NAFTA model because the dominant Southern Common Market Mercosur countries in the region of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela want no part of it signaling for scholar Immanuel Wallerstein that "The Monroe Doctrine is dead. And there are few mourners."

And yet another blow to US-promoted globalization came with the collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha (so-called "Development") Round talks in July, 2006 because more developing countries now realize the US/Western-one-way trade deals have been disastrous despite disingenuous rosy promises of economic growth and prosperity that only delivered increased poverty, deprivation and environmental destruction instead.

Before these agreements from hell were ever agreed to, average per capital income growth in Latin America was 82% from 1960 to 1980 (4% per person, per year). Once the notion of globalization took hold after 1980 based on the Washington Consensus neoliberal model, the rate of income growth in the region through 2000 fell to 9% (less than half of 1% per person, per year), and since 2000 it dropped to 5% - a stunning indictment of how so-called "free-trade" US-style (that isn't "fair trade") is a formula for economic ruin for those countries adopting it, and significant ones like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and others in Latin America want no more of it.

It remains to be seen going forward if this kind of momentum can continue, gain strength with new allies working together for the common self-interest of all to break free from the dominant US chokehold by asserting their independence as Venezuela under Hugo Chavez has shown can be done and be able to get away with it and benefit as a result.

Further success in Venezuela and elsewhere depends on breaking free from what South African born and now activist and distinguished Bolivarian Venezuelan Professor of philosophy and political science Franz Lee says must be accomplished ahead: "(Getting) rid of all the five tentacles of capitalist imperialism: exploitation, domination, discrimination, militarization and alienation....in a class struggle against global fascism." In Venezuela, the process has only just begun. Hugo Chavez has taken up the challenge to move it ahead, but he'll need the support of other enlightened leaders to boldly go with him where he's already gone and then take it a lot further to achieve a peoples' victory over the forces that have long held them down and denied them the equity and justice they deserve.
_______


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/3769

[guyone]

A work of complete fiction. Meaningless in the real world.

[chefmike]

Uh huh....keep telling yourself that...

[guyone]

The vote was rigged. Wait until the people revolt.

[chefmike]

The vote was rigged. Wait until the people revolt.


Total fiction.

Election officials: Chavez wins by wide margin


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken opponent of the United States who has used Venezuela's oil wealth to give handouts to the poor, won re-election to another six-year term by a wide margin on Sunday, official results showed.

With 78 percent of voting stations reporting, Chavez had 61 percent to 38 percent for challenger Manuel Rosales, said Tibisay Lucena, head of the country's elections council. Chavez had nearly 6 million votes versus 3.7 million for Rosales, according to the partial tally.

*****

Voters waited for hours in snaking lines, and elections officials predicted a record turnout. An independent AP-Ipsos poll last month and other pre-election surveys gave Chavez a double-digit advantage.

*****
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/12/03/venezuela.election.ap/index.html


Fixing America's Broken Election

12/11/2006

Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, looking at the 2000 and 2004 voting havoc in the United States in general, but his home state in particular, examined the Venezuela voting process, and told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 24, 2004 that Americans could learn from Venezuela's process.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a non-partisan federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Commission, said last week that having no paper trail on touch screen machines erodes public confidence.

Venezuela has it, and we should have it throughout the country.

The Venezuelan voting system proved itself over the weekend. In South America, as in many other countries, part of the election process is the post-voting accusations and, as in Mexico's case, a refusal to accept the results. This was the first Venezuelan election in Chavez's time where, at the end of the day, the opposition announced it was accepting the validity of the process.

This is no small achievement in a tumultuous coup-ridden country. The Venezuelan system is both low tech and high tech - some of it is not new - some of it is unique. It uses a paper ballot audit of a sophisticated electronic machine as well as thumbprints dipped in ink to prove the voter did not vote twice.

Venezuela's paper ballot audits of electronic machines are as good as any other known voting system. I saw them operating this past Sunday in Sanarae in the province of Lara five hours southwest of Caracas. The voters I spoke to, whether they be for or against Chavez, had faith in the ballot counting. Not only does the voting work, but the voters feel their votes are being protected. That may explain why 73% of Venezuelans voted, a percentage never reached in America, with its over 200 years of a democratic process. In the 2004 American percentage was only 55% which, by American standards, is high.

The voting system I monitored was newly created by Venezuela's National Electoral Council. The Council is a separate branch of government not under the authority or the political control or manipulation by executive or legislature branches. It is carefully selected, with nominations to the Commission coming from elected officials, academics, university and non-profits. Its present President has ten years of experience in voting systems. Both sides experiences satisfaction with the Council - America does not have a corresponding entity.

In addition to monitoring the vote tally and making sure that the proper apportionment between political opponents has been recorded, the Venezuelan system tries to ensure that no one can vote twice. First, each Venezuelan voter has an ID card that is checked against the registry in large polling places. Computers at the entrance record the thumbprint of each voter in the register, these are then stored in a separate data base and the election observers are notified if that thumbprint previously cast a ballot. At the smaller voting stations, there is no access to the central data section. The thumbprint cannot realistically be used to tell which candidates the voter chose.

The voter then goes into the voting booth. He pushes an electronic keyboard that brings up the picture of his candidate on a touch screen monitor. The screen then asks if it has the picture of the candidate he selected. When the voter pushes the yes button on the screen, he receives a paper ballot. He then takes the paper ballot, leaves the machine and puts it in a cardboard box. The electronic tally is on each machine. The tally is also transmitted over the Internet to a central place.

After he puts the ballot in the box, he goes to another desk where he puts his little finger in indelible ink to make sure he can be detected if he tries to vote again.

The paper ballot has printed material that does three things. First, it includes a code to make sure that paper ballot box hasn't been manipulated. Second, it tells the voter he has voted. Third, it indicates who he has voted for. It doesn't indicate who the voter is.

When polls close, that paper tally for that one machine is correlated against all the paper ballots put in a cardboard box by everyone at the polling place. Although statisticians say a 3% audit is more than sufficient, the Venezuelan Council went further: 54.3% of the machines, arbitrarily selected, have their tallies audited by comparing the paper ballots with the electronic tally.

No matter how small the town, the ballot box can only be opened at the end of the voting day if at least three people are present - a member of each party, and a member of the Venezuelan election commission. Prior to the election, the Venezuela election Committee chooses how many machines from which areas will be audited to arrive at the 54.3% figure of one ballot box from each polling stations that will be audited. After opening the ballot box, each of the three signs his or her name confirming the paper tally and the electronic tally. If the tallies match, they say so. If it does not, they note that. When the paper ballots are counted, each of the parties and the Council member has an opportunity to look at each paper ballot to make sure that it is correctly being characterized as a vote for one candidate or the other, that it has the code, and that, when they are all added up, conform to the tally on the electronic machine.

Venezuela last week was flooded with international observers from the EEU, the OAS, the Jimmy Carter Center, as well groups of judges and elected officials from throughout the world. The European Union Election Observation Committee, earlier in 2006, looking at the system, said, "The Venezuelan voting system possesses a number of features that are in line with the most advanced international standards of e-voting. In certain aspects, such as the paper trail audit, the system developed in Venezuela is probably the most advanced system in the world to date."

The Carter Center previously looked at the system during the 2004 failed referendum to recall Chavez. According to their report of that year, "The Carter Center concludes that the automated machines worked well and the voting results do reflect the will of the people."

I saw Venezuelan voters standing in long lines for up to three to four hours. Chavez's opposition, which for the past three months had been claiming there were frauds, accepted the results on election day evening, the first time that his opponents have done so. During the day they claimed various irregularities and machine breakdowns. I was at some of the polls the opposition said were not functioning properly. I saw no irregularities. The eight places I saw were parts of a system where the people felt their votes counted. The Venezuelan National Election Commission, all the international observers agreed, had run an honest presidential election.

Senator Nelson, the Democrat from Florida, the scene of much of the American voting irregularities in the past elections, knows what he is talking about when he asks us to look at the Venezuelan system. The high number of blank votes on electronic screens in the recent Broward and Miami-Dade House race there resulted in an abstention rate of 18%, far higher than in nearly any other American race. That figure, unchecked, undermines the vote. The most probably explanation is that votes were sent into an electronic black hole. As a result, Broward County is just about to ask the taxpayers to junk 6,000 election systems after only four years, thus admitting a $26,000,000 mistake. Undervotes, that is where the machine only records part of the ballot, is endemic in America. Only a paper system can stop it.

There are all sorts of other combined electronic-paper suggestions. The model we use need not be the exact same one as the Venezuelan government. But what is perfectly clear is that there must be pieces of paper tied to an electronic vote. Broward County in Florida is now looking at an Optiscan system. With Optiscan voters fill out their paper papers, the ballot is fed into a machine. The machine tabulates it, and if the voter has not voted for all the candidates, the machine points out to the voter where the defect is in his ballot and alerts the voter, who can then correct it.

The 73% figure shows that if people believe their vote counts, they will vote. If Venezuela can afford a paper audit that works, we can certainly spend the money to have a better system.

MARTIN GARBUS was an international election observer at the December 3, 2006 presidential election in Venezuela.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-garbus/fixing-americas-broken-e_b_36066.html

[guyone]

I know the drill. Pinko Commies win - "what a fine just system" they lose - "There is fraud in them darn hills". Give me a break. I didn't see too many Democrats whining about voter fraud this past election.

[thombergeron]

The truth is out there but you might as well keep on spinning.

Ah, the O'Reilly Gambit. When your argument completely collapses from lack of evidence, declare reality biased and smugly retire.

Forgive me. I had you pegged as a Hannity drone.


The vote was rigged.

All three elections that Chavez won were rigged, or only the latest one? When the OAS certified each of those elections (as well as the 2004 recall referendum) as "free and fair," it must have been exhibiting its left-wing bias, right? That John Maisto's a pinko, isn't he?


Wait until the people revolt.

There were revolts in 2002 and 2004. The people voted against both, first with their feet, and then at the ballot box.


I didn't see too many Democrats whining about voter fraud this past election.

Then you're not paying attention. The results in Florida's 13th are still under dispute, and there is (again) evidence of significant fraud and disenfranchisement in Ohio's Franklin and Cuyahoga counties.

Look, Hugo Chavez is no saint. He has removed dissenting judges from the bench, possibly extraconstitutionally. That's not behavior that one likes to see in a democratic leader. But he's just a populist demagogue, same as our president.

All this hand-wringing over the "Chavez dictatorship" is just partisan crocodile tears. It reminds me of 2002, when the right wing suddenly discovered that Saddam Hussein was oppressing the Iraqi people.

What about the very real Mubarak dictatorship? The Egyptian government really does torture and kill dissidents, outlaw opposition parties, and shut down television stations. Where's your outrage at this offense to liberty and freedom? Egypt received almost $2 billion from the U.S. in military aid last year. Without that aid -- your tax dollars -- Mubarak would be gone, and with him a major source of instability in the Middle East. Maybe you should write to your congressman about this actual affront to democracy instead of coming on here and whining about a democratically elected loudmouth in South America.


BTW - V Chip was Clinton and all it does is let a user decide what type of programming he wants on his or her television. If you think it does anything else then it's high time you get back on your meds.

Clinton was certainly a coward for signing the ridiculous Telecommunications Act of 1996, but it was authored and passed by the 104th Congress, controlled, of course, by the Republican Party, notably Majority Leader Dick Armey. Clinton's supporters will claim that he didn't have the votes to sustain a veto, but I'm not inclined to give him a pass on that.

It's difficult to believe that someone claiming to be a conservative would defend this piece of nanny state legislation. How about asking parents to parent, instead of arbitrarily blocking boobies on my TV?

[guyone]

Forgive me. I had you pegged as a Hannity drone.

And I have you pegged as a communist so there...


All three elections that Chavez won were rigged, or only the latest one? When the OAS certified each of those elections (as well as the 2004 recall referendum) as "free and fair," it must have been exhibiting its left-wing bias, right? That John Maisto's a pinko, isn't he?

Yep.


Then you're not paying attention. The results in Florida's 13th are still under dispute, and there is (again) evidence of significant fraud and disenfranchisement in Ohio's Franklin and Cuyahoga counties.

Those counties have an unusually large population of whiners. I wouldn't worry about it though.


It reminds me of 2002, when the right wing suddenly discovered that Saddam Hussein was oppressing the Iraqi people.

Then why did we go there in 1990 for Desert Storm smart guy.



What about the very real Mubarak dictatorship?


What about the price of tea in china?



It's difficult to believe that someone claiming to be a conservative would defend this piece of nanny state legislation. How about asking parents to parent, instead of arbitrarily blocking boobies on my TV?

I didn't realize you were a luddite. It's only works if the user decides to use the functionality of the unit. I don't know about you but when I was a kid if there was something I wanted to watch on TV I'd find a way to watch it no matter what my parents tried. You see that is the basic difference between the left and the right. The right will always find a way to succeed while the left languishes in excuses and false accusations.

[thombergeron]

Then why did we go there in 1990 for Desert Storm smart guy.

Wow, are you the dumbest motherfucker posting to this forum, or what? I think you just took the title. I mean, your silly prattle about bolsheviks really pales in comparison to your breathtaking ignorance of recent U.S. history.

First of all, Desert Storm was in 1991. Three seconds on Google would have cleared up that mystery for you.

Second, Desert Storm was specifically not about liberating the Iraqi people from the Hussein dictatorship. Apart from a few recon units, coalition forces were inside Iraqi territory for five days. Voice of America broadcasts encouraged the Marsh Arabs in the south and the Kurds in the north to rise up aganst the Iraqi Army, promising that the coalition would back them up. After the cease-fire on Feb. 27, 1991, coalition forces withdrew from Iraqi territory, leaving the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds to fend for themselves. Literally millions of Kurds fled Iraq in the face of a massive Iraqi infantry onslaught in the north. Tens of thousands of Marsh Arabs were slaughtered by Iraqi gunships supporting Republican Guard armor in the south. I was on the ground in southwest Iraq in February 1991. I personally witnessed George H.W. Bush and General Schwarzkopf sell out the Marsh Arabs. So stop patting yourself on the back for something that didn't happen. The aftermath of the Gulf War is a dark stain on U.S. honor.




What about the very real Mubarak dictatorship?


What about the price of tea in china?

Thank you for proving my point for me. You don't care about actual dictatorship. You just serve as a cog in the partisan wheel.

"Oooh, socialists! Look everybody, socialists! Aren't they bad, bad people!"

Here's your real dictatorship, supported by almost $2 billion in U.S. aid every year, the second greatest recipient of U.S. aid on the planet:

Secularist Blogger Gets Jail in Egypt (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/22/AR2007022201909.html)

But that's ok, right guy? As long as Egypt maintains something like a market-based economy and is a steadfast ally in the War on Terror, Mubarak can throw whomever he likes in jail. Move along... nothing to see here.

[guyone]

I think it's about time to check yourself back into the mental institution. You are in dire need of your meds.

[thombergeron]

Nice retort, guy. Pretty much exactly what I expected from you.

[guyone]

I'm rubber you're glue whatever you say sticks back to you.