jurebasu

anti-war; pro-peace-- anti-globalization, big business; pro-small business-- anti-rich; pro-poor "The only way of ending poverty is giving power to the poor. Knowledge and consciousness are the main power!" – President Hugo Chávez

Friday, July 30, 2004

Violence Needed Against Chavez, Venezuela Opposition Leader Says. Dictatorship Must Follow

Caracas, Venezuela. July 28 (Venezuelanalysis.com).- Venezuelan opposition leader, and two time president Carlos Andres Perez (CAP), made a series of statements calling for violence and hinting at an eventual dictatorial period that the Venezuelan opposition must implement if current President Hugo Chavez is to be removed from office. "I am working to remove Chavez [from power]. Violence will allow us to remove him. That's the only way we have," said CAP in an interview published Sunday in El Nacional, one of Venezuela's main daily newspapers.

CAP, who was speaking from Miami, denied being involved in a plot to assassinate Chávez, but said Chavez "must die like a dog, because he deserves it."

Chavez is facing a recall referendum on his mandate to be held Aug 15. Most polls show him as the winner.
In 1992, while he was a military officer, Chavez led an unsuccessful coup against CAP, who was very unpopular at the time, after implementing an economic policy package mandated by the IMF. CAP was later impeached on corruption charges, while Chavez remained in prison for trying to overthrow a democratically-elected government.

During the interview, CAP hinted at a possible dictatorial period to be implemented in case Chavez is removed from office. "We can't just get rid of Chavez and immediately have a democracy... we will need a transition period of two or three years to lay the foundations for a state where the rule of law prevails… a collegiate body (junta) must govern during that transition and lay the democratic foundations for the future,” CAP said.

"When Chavez falls, we must shut down the National Assembly (Congress) and also the Supreme Court. All the Chavista institutions must disappear," the opposition leader added.

When questioned on the Venezuelan people’s desire to not go back to the past when corruption and bad government policies -including his own- led to a significant decrease in living standards, the ex-President agreed that the past cannot return, but added that "I am not the past, I am the future [of Venezuela]". CAP's political plans are unknown, but he denied seeking a third term.

President Chavez reacted to CAP’s comments by making an appeal to the rest of the opposition do distance themselves from the ex-president. "We need an opposition that’s loyal to the country, so we can work in the building of our nation in spite of our differences," Chavez said.

Chavez said the hoped the “more rational opposition” would not welcome “that new call for violence from the most radical sectors of Venezuela’s oligarchy.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked the opposition not to answer calls for violence from former President Carlos Andres Perez.

Chavez said the opposition is desperately looking for another way to remove him from power, as polls show he will survive the upcoming recall referendum. He challenged polling companies, whose executives are known to oppose his government, to publish the results of their recent polls. Venezuelan Information Minister Jesse Chacon said recently that he has copies of the polls favoring Chavez, and threatened to publish them if the companies or the opposition don’t come forward.

Last Friday, Venezuelan Vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel, asked opposition leaders to sign an accord in which both sides promise to respect the results of the recall, and not resort to violence. Chavez has repeatedly said he will abide by the results of the recall, but so far no opposition leader has made a similar promise. United Nations Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Latin American Issues, Diego Cordovez, made an appeal to the opposition to openly state they will respect the results of the recall.
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--and the opposition (like CAP) is funded by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Unleashing Terror Abroad and Preserving the Charade at Home

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The political defeat in Iraq cannot hide the reality that had it not been so, had the colonization and occupation of Iraq succeeded as those in power had envisioned, Bush and the neocons would today be emblazoned, confident and powerful, preparing to attack Iran and Syria, extending the machines of war and death yet again, terrorizing the world, killing thousands more and making America a much more dangerous place to live. The debacle in the sands of the Middle East has at least temporarily halted the advances of military devastation onto other sovereign nations.  Were it not for the very successful guerilla war in Iraq, history might be directing us toward a truly bleak future controlled by warmongers and evildoers.  
 
It was Iraqi nationalists and freedom fighters who prevented catastrophe from extending its grip to other lands and peoples; it was they who history will one day thank for halting the evil that state sponsored terrorism unleashes; it is they who prevented the terrorists in Washington and Tel Aviv from fulfilling their sinister vision that would have murdered thousands more innocent civilians and patriotic but misguided American soldiers conditioned to fight for the corporate masters under the rubric of blind patriotism.  It is they the world will one day look back to as the ones who defeated the lunatic administration in Washington and the Zionist puppeteers whose call they heed. 
 
Unfortunately, it was American men and women who had to pay the ultimate price for the profiteer, warmonger and corporate driven war that sent so many to untimely death and debilitating injury.  If blame is to be passed, which it surely must, then it should be directed at those in power, those who war benefits most, those who under false pretenses sent soldiers to die and those whose interests are furthered by unleashing state sponsored terrorism onto innocent civilians in distant lands.  Do not blame freedom fighters for the death of American soldiers, they are simply doing what you and I would do if invaded and occupied, humiliated and oppressed.  Blame Bush, blame Sharon, blame the military-industrial complex and the corporate media for a war without cause or necessity based on an amalgam of premeditated lies disguised as liberation, WMDs, democracy and wrapped in the charred remains of a post-9/11 American flag that has so far led to the death of 900 US soldiers and to the injury of 10,000 more.
 
Love of America covered in blind, ignorant patriotism was conveniently exploited by warmongers intent on altering an entire region.  The simmering rubble of the World Trade Center had yet to dissipate and already the terrorists in power were manipulating its deep emotional discharges in the American psyche for their own evil intentions on the peoples of Muslim faith possessing oil, the devil’s excrement.  Thinking they were fighting the perpetrators of 9/11 and protecting America from the WMD’s of a madman – thanks to sinister manipulation of lies and deceptions by leaders – and believing Bush’s rhetoric of bringing freedom and democracy to distant lands, America’s soldiers were sent to a war that was lost from the very beginning. 
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Sunday, July 11, 2004

We the People versus a Government of, by and for The United Corporations of America

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Sinister Correlation of Power and Terrorism



A Leviathan comprised of terrorists runs amok, perpetrating crimes against humanity and the planet that is killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. Yet these terrorists control power, and are instead labeled industry and corporations. From their evil is spawned environmental degradation that penetrates lungs and bodies, creating cancers and disease. From their evil are spawned fabricated foods, chemicals, additives, preservatives and hormones that are altering our behaviors, our bodies and perhaps even our genetic composition.

Corporate terrorists are polluting waterways, the air we breathe, the land we live on and the Earth we dwell in. These miscreants care nothing about us; to them we are but the consumers from which to harvest profits and the assembly line from which to garner the next generation of producer and consumer.

Their policies have and continue to eviscerate futures, talents and opportunities, condemning untold billions to lives living in perpetual castes. It is from this careful and methodical social engineering that once promising human energies are transformed into the pawns of those in power, becoming exploitable and subjugated entities remaining in their predetermined lot while enriching the few at the top.

Corporate terrorists send our children to war, sent to die or get maimed in body and mind. They ruin us with interest payments, riddle us with growing debt and deny us medical attention needed. They help turn healthcare into an exercise in class warfare, dividing us into the treated and untreated, the rich and poor. Playing God, these terrorists determine who lives and dies, who heals and who withers. Putting profits over people, money over morality, these charlatans get rich off of others misfortune and suffering. Disease is their mistress, their reason for being. To them, it seems, healthcare cannot be universalized, communalized or socialized. To these terrorists it is a privilege, not a right, available only if fate has endowed you with the ability to pay.

While Arab terrorists are marketed as those we must most fear, it is the corporate kind that kills hundreds of thousands each and every year. It is they who are committing mass acts of genocide, it is they perpetrating crimes against humanity and the planet. It is they whose policies help impoverish hundreds of millions worldwide, using their mechanisms to create a mass slave labor workforce. It is they who do not allow peace from evolving that should be called terrorists. It is they whose pursuit of perpetual war for perpetual profit that sleep and dwell in caves of human evil.

It is those who purposefully instill fear into our minds for political reasons who we should fear most. It is those robbing us of treasure and of loved ones that belong in The Hague. It is hypocrites who spawn death of innocents and destruction of lives under the rubric of claiming to rid the world of evil that are evil themselves. It is those who torture and semantically bend the rules of international law who are terrorists. It is those who decapitate and maim thousands through missiles and bombs that have the same moral cavity as those who behead on video. Just because they govern America does not make these criminals less of a terrorist than others. Simply because they claim victory does not make them champions. Because they can foster unrelenting propaganda does not mean they are saviors to the world.

It is those who see War as Peace, Ignorance as Knowledge, Lies as Truth, lack of Education as Progress, Occupation as Liberation, Death and Destruction as Moral Superiority, Greed as Good, American Capitalism as Freedom and Democracy and Poverty as Wealth that the world should be fighting and purging from power.

Are we to label as terrorists individuals who decimate futures and abilities by preventing opportunity, increasing indigence, eviscerating education, polluting land and humans, manipulating minds, exploiting their brethren and controlling us through fear and insecurity? Should the Leviathan be labeled the greatest threat facing humanity, the ultimate cold blooded terrorist? To many of us, the answer is yes.

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"corporations cold turn you to stone before you realize...." - Zack de la Rocha

Venezuela’s Triumph in Mercosur

YES! are we about to see a counterforce to the "beloved" NAFTA??
i hope so!

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“Venezuela will be a fundamental element in giving Mercosur a new dimension.” - Lula da Silva

“for Argentina it is not only an honor, it is above all a necessity to have Venezuela with us, so as to deepen the changes that we want to bring about.” - Nestor Kirchner

Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, July 8, 2004—Finally, after eight years, five protocols, and a decade of applications and frustrated attempts, Venezuela joins the Common Market of the South (Mercosur). Venezuela was admitted as “associate member” number four, this July 8, during a marathon meeting of the presidents’ summit that took place in the Argentinean city of Puerto Iguazú, on the border with Brazil and Paraguay.

Mexico received “observer status” in Mercosur, while the small print is fixed, which would allow it to join as well.

For the government of the “Bolivarian Revolution” this is a political and diplomatic triumph, perhaps its most important since the reconstruction of OPEC, between 1999 and 2000. The best expression of this reality we received from a high official in the Argentinean foreign ministry, who told us, off the record, “Now what will they accuse Venezuela of? It is our ally in Mercosur. We will not forget the generosity of its supply of gasoline our energy crisis this past February.”

This is enough to make sense of the happy faces of the participating heads of state in Iguazú, who refuse to support the isolation that the U.S. is submitting Venezuela to in the United Nations, the OAS, and the international media.

The entry of Venezuela into Mercosur is more valuable diplomatically, at this moment, than its membership in the OAS, where the U.S. would like to isolate Venezuela with the Democratic Charter.

The membership institutionalizes, in a sub-regional context, Venezuela’s tight new economic and political relations with Brazil and Argentina. The doubling of trade with Argentina and the tripling with Brazil will be sustained from now on a supra-state level.

Chavez summed up this new institutional reality in a phrase with strategic content: “We want to see in our ships, in our pipes, in our medicines, and in other goods the words, ‘Made in Argentina’ or Made in Brazil’ instead of ‘Made in the U.S.A.’”

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Finally, the president announced that the $4 billion that PDVSA must pay in valves, components, and replacement parts for its industry, within the “Plan PDVSA 2005-2012,” whose total amount is $37 billion, will be offered to Argentinean and Brazilian businesses. “For this we joined Mercosur, in order to liberate us of the North,” proclaimed Chavez.
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Venezuelan Opposition’s New “Consensus Plan” Is U.S. Government Creation

once again, the U.S. interferes into the affairs of a sovereign country that has a democratically elected president/government.

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The opposition has come under attack recently in the international press and by its own members for not offering any concrete alternatives to the Venezuelan people, but merely clamoring for the ouster of the current President. Many of the key political parties and members comprising the Democratic Coordinator umbrella group are members of former governments and of political parties, such as Acción Democrática and COPEI, which lost power based on their lack of policies to address the vast majority of poor and working class Venezuelans and their exclusionary politics that catered to Venezuela’s elite.

The new Consensus Plan offered today may, on its face, appear as a viable alternative, yet there exists one major fact that chips away its credibility: The Plan is a creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, a US Government entity that has been funneling in millions of dollars to anti-Chávez groups in Venezuela to aid their coup and strike efforts back in 2002-3, and now to springboard the referendum campaign and this new transitional government “Plan”.

The National Endowment for Democracy awarded a grant of approximately $300,000 in early 2003 to The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), a US based entity and one of four core NED grantees, together with the Center for Dissemination of Economic Information (CEDICE), a Venezuelan organization. CEDICE is presided by Rocio Guijarro, one of the initial signors of the “Carmona Decree,” enacted during the brief dictatorship that took control of Venezuela’s government during the 48-hour coup d’etat against President Chávez back in April 2002. The “Decree” authorized businessman Pedro Carmona as “President” and dissolved all of Venezuela’s democratic institutions, such as the National Assembly (and all its elected members), the Supreme Court, the Constitution, the General Attorney and the Public Defender’s office.

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which reminds me of president bush, who on his recent trip to turkey, openly said how he wanted to see turkey as a part of the european union. i am sure however, if the french president would have made remarks on u.s.-mexican relations, the u.s. would not have liked it either...
neither did we europeans like george's comments...

peace,
jure

Monday, July 05, 2004

The Propaganda Apparatus of Venezuela’s Media Tycoons: An Echo Chamber that Would Make Goebbels Proud

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Imagine a society where almost all private media, in accordance with the interests of the dominant class that owns and controls them, have made a conscious decision to subordinate their advertising, political "reporting" and publication of "polls" to the goal of overthrowing a democratically elected government. Venezuelans have no difficulty imagining this; most of the country’s private media are completely devoted to the overthrow of a government that they consider insufficiently subservient to their interests.
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Venezuela's private media have essentially become a vast echo chamber, where debate is limited to tactical questions of how best to extinguish the threat to dominant class interests. Unfortunately, the de-pluralization of political discourse within private media tends to have highly degenerative effects on the rational faculties of those sectors of society that either belong to the economic elite or come under the mesmerizing influence of its propaganda apparatus. As one can easily see, the de-pluralization of discourse leads to increasing intolerance of dissenting views, thereby exacerbating authoritarian tendencies among both elites and the technocratic sectors to which they are aligned. This is especially the case during historical junctures when dissenting views come to hold greater sway among the general population and thus directly compromise dominant class interests.
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