A Bitter Chávez Castigates U.S., Saying It Misjudges Him

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/americas/18VENE.html?ex=1080190800&?en=f51b7c2157acd459&?ei=5062&?partner=GOOGLE

Published: March 18, 2004

excerpt:

Why, he asks, is the United States, the neighbor and customer that is the cultural touchstone for so many of his people, seeking to drive him from power? He would like to know why the Bush administration is sowing rumors that he is, take your pick: encouraging insurrection in Bolivia, supporting rebels in Colombia, colluding with Fidel Castro and, most distressingly, plotting class warfare and disenfranchising the middle and upper classes of his country.

"Unfortunately, there has been no way of talking with this administration," he said in an interview Saturday at the presidential palace. "They don't respect us. I'm tired of trying to carry out the mandate of Christ, turning the other cheek. I've been slapped so many times, my cheeks are purple."

Bush administration officials say Mr. Chávez is responsible for his own undoing and they stand by all the charges he accuses them of spreading. They say his hunger for total power and his contempt for Venezuela's ruling class have pushed him to the tipping point. Even though one chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court overturned a decision by his government to disqualify more than 800,000 signatures on Monday, Mr. Chávez is pressing his case with another chamber of the court.

<snip>

With the American-assisted ouster of Haiti's president last month still reverberating in the region, the tensions with Washington have added urgency. The idea that an elected leader, one who challenges the elite by mobilizing a desperately poor, neglected population, could be "kidnapped" by American officials and whisked from his country is an unsettling precedent for Mr. Chávez.

...more...

(edited to fix link)

[bemildred]

1. More propaganda.

I like this bit:

They say his hunger for total power and his contempt for
Venezuela's ruling class have pushed him to the tipping point.

A little Freudian slip there.

[UpInArms]

2. I thought it quite a

snarky hit piece on Chavez - the NYT was one of those papers that came out for the coup in 2002.

sheesh

[AP]

16. NYT is heavily pro-neoliberal. Neoliberalism is their north star.

[Chicago Democrat]

21. Didn't the NYT used to be just plain Liberal?

They suck now. Paul Krugman is the only worthy writer they have left.

NYT sucks donkey.

[AP]

23. Not according to this book:

The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa
by Milton G. Allimadi,

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974003905/qid=1079593463/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/103-8298429-5519032?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

They have a long history of a neoliberal editorial slant.

If it's good for business...

[Chicago Democrat]

24. Ok What is Neo Liberalism please...

I have heard this term before, and need an education quickly. I always thought Liberal was a good thing. Why is "neo" liberal bad?

[AP]

25. Lisa Duggan's book The Twilight of Equality:

An analysis of the political and cultural agendas that have underpinned the success of neoliberalism



We've now all heard about the shocking redistribution of wealth—to the rich—that's occurred during the last thirty years, and particularly during the last decade. But economic changes like this don't occur in a vacuum; they're always linked to politics, to ideas about things like the proper role of government, what is natural and unnatural, good and bad, and what we imagine for our country and ourselves.



The Twilight of Equality searches out these links through an analysis of the politics of the 1990s, the decade when neoliberalism—free market economics—became gospel. Through a series of political case studies, Duggan shows how neoliberal goals have been pursued through racial codes, populist campaigns, culture wars, and sex panics—demonstrating conclusively that progressive arguments that separate identity politics and economic policy, cultural politics and affairs of state, can only fail.



This is a book for intellectuals and activists—feminist, lesbian and gay, antiracist, and antiwar—interested in how neoliberalism has functioned to increase global inequality and seeking a way to revitalize progressive politics in the U.S. today.



Lisa Duggan is associate professor of American studies and history at New York University. She is coeditor of Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and National Interest and author of Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity, which won the John Boswell Prize of the American Historical Association in 2001.

http://www.beacon.org/catalogs/f03/duggan.html

[ret5hd]

27. maybe others (AP for example) can explain it better...

but is is the idea of the primacy of capital...the free flow of capital is more important than the welfare of the people of a country. There is nothing "liberal" about neo-liberalism. It is the bedrock of the ideas underpinning the IMF/WorldBank, NAFTA, "free trade", etc. In short, it is the idea that it is perfectly OK for a foreign company to enter a country, strip this country of it's resources and profits, then leave the country with nothing.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

36. It "liberalizes" governtment / national regulations and safeguards.

Hence the name.

[AP]

44. Yeah. Think of the worst human rights abuses you can imagine in the...

...service of making a buck for a huge corporation, and that's neoliberalism.

But seriously, check out Lisa Duggan's book.

[TahitiNut]

45. I think of 'neoliberalism' as virtually identical ...

... to the multinational corporate interests who capitalized on the labor camps in WW2.

[tinanator]

34. the title alone tells you all you need to know

loaded garbage from garbage wholesalers

[bemildred]

39. Yes, the loaded adjectives are all you really need to see.

Positive or negative, they always indicate a hack writer.

[nicecakes]

3. Did he mention any good news about his buddy Mugabe?

MAybe Chavez can get some of his charm and goodness to rub off of Mugabe and help clean up the mess over there.

[daleo]

6. He probably stuck to the topic at hand

Which is Bushco's scheming to overturn another democratically elected government, in favor of the 'ruling classes', as the NYT so elegantly put it.

[windansea]

14. know much about Venezuelan constitutional law??

the midterm recall provision was supported by Chavez, but that was before his popularity tanked, and he continues to try and thwart the democratic process

while it's true the NED has given some money to opposition groups, it is an NGO and not controlled by the executive branch..but by a bipartisan board of directors...the NED enjoys overwhelming congressional support and as president, Kerry will raise its funding.

I believe the NED has given about 1.8 dollars to opposition groups in the past 2 years, hardly enough to cause 3.5 million citizens to sign a recall referendum in 4 days.

[w4rma]

15. Why shouldn't the NED work with Chávez instead of trying to overthrow him?

If the folks currently waiting on the sidelines takeover Venezuela, will you be shouting from the rooftops about the problems going on then? Will U.S. newspapers care about anything that the government might do that would appear oppressive, then?

Is the answer something other than no?

[AP]

17. His popularity is up 20 pts since the CIA/NED-organized strikes.

[windansea]

32. Poll Numbers Devastating for Chávez

CARACAS, Feb 5 (IPS) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez would be defeated by a wide margin in any election or any referendum on his mandate, according to two private polling firms that released their survey results here Wednesday.

Polls conducted in 64 cities and in rural areas show ''consistently since late 2001 that, at a ratio of around 70-30, the electorate would vote against Chávez,'' Luis León, director of the Datanálisis firm, told the foreign press.

In a potential referendum to revoke Chávez's mandate -- a vote that the opposition is seeking and which the Constitution allows as of August -- ''64 percent of the electorate would vote against Chávez and 34 percent in favor,'' said León. Saúl Cabrera, of Consultores 21 polling firm, told the press that ''in any election Chávez would lose.''

''It's what you could say about someone gravely ill with cancer: he is going to die in a month, six months or a year. But he is going to die,'' said the public opinion expert. Both polling companies said their predictions for the Venezuelan elections of the past few years were consistently very close to the official results.

http://www.hacer.org/current/VENEPOLLS.php

[TahitiNut]

35. Neofascist Disinformation Alert!

The Hispanic American Center for Economic Research is just another one of a 'family' of right-wing ideological spin factories, cloned entirely from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a "free-market" Scaife-funded component of the "Mighty Wurlitzer."

History

The Hispanic American Center for Economic Research was established as a not-for-profit corporation, under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in 1996.

HACER was founded by officers of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation as a part of that organization's mission to assist in "organizing, developing, and raising funds for institutes throughout the world whose purpose is the promotion of authoritative studies on major public policy issues in the public interest."

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Atlas_Economic_Research_Foundation
http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?recipientID=591


One edit - Just a little clue for the clue-deprived: A major corporate funding source for this wallpaper cabal is ExxonMobil.

[windansea]

38. these polls not conducted by Hacer

they were done by Datanalisis & Consultores 21, both of which were accurate in predicting Chavez victories in the past.

also...

''Put yourself in Chávez's shoes. He's no dummy,'' Leon told reporters. ''Why would he encourage elections if he knows he is going to lose? If he weren't scared of losing, he would have already held elections, like he did before (seven different elections in two years), when he had the majority in his pocket.''

http://www.hacer.org/current/VENEPOLLS.php

[TahitiNut]

40. Unfuckingbelievable!

Consultores 21, from their own website ...

Consultores 21 has an important number of clients in the most varied economy fields and in companies of different sizes: industrial, finance, social communication media, services, public and private companies, multinational and political ones. Our principal clients are:

• Alcaldía del Municipio Sucre
• Alitalia
• Asociación Civil Prohombre
• Amoco
• Banco Central de Venezuela
• Banco Mercantil
• Banco Provincial (Grupo BBV)
• Banco Venezuela (Grupo Santander)
• Banesco
• Bayer de Venezuela
• C.A. Cigarrera Bigott,Sucs.
• C.A. La Electricidad de Caracas
• Cadena Capriles
• Coca-Cola
• Compañía Anónima Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela (CANTV)
• Consejo Nacional para la Promoción de Inversiones (CONAPRI)
• Corp Banca
• Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF)
• Corporación Remmore
• Cyanamid
• Diario El Tiempo
• Diario El Nacional
• Diario Hoy
• Empresas Polar (División Alimentos)
• Empresas Polar (División Cervezas)
• Envases Venezolanos
• Fondo Común
• G-Tech
• Gobernación del Distrito Federal
• Gobernación del Estado Miranda
• Banco Internacional / Interbank
• Intevep (Filial de PDVSA)
• Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA)
• Iridium
• KLM
• Leo Burnett de Venezuela
• Lotería de Caracas
• Mavesa
• Multinacional de Seguros
• Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA)
• Policía del Municipio Sucre
• Siderúrgica del Turbio,S.A.(SIDETUR)
• Siderúrgica de Venezuela,S.A. (SIVENSA)
• Skytel
• Universidad Central de Venezuela
• Vencemos (Vencemos, Cemex)
• Vencerámica
• Venevisión
• Venezuela Competitiva

consultores 21 has been permanently giving services of strategical and research consultation in other Latin American countries, especially in the political area. Likewise, it has performed important works for many companies and international organizations. Our principal clients are:

• CIRM - Italia
• Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF)
• Fundación Hanns Seidel – Alemania
• Fundación Konrad Adenauer – Alemania
• Gallup de Korea
• Gobierno del Ecuador
• IRI – Estados Unidos
• Lego Overseas S/A – Dinamarca
• Partido Democracia Popular – Ecuador
• Partido Nueva Fuerza Democrática – Colombia
• Sociedad de Estudios de América Latina (SEAL) - Perú
• Unión por el Perú – Perú
• Univisión – Estados Unidos
• USIA/USIS – Estados Unidos

Can anyone even pronounce "global neofascist corporatism"?? :eyes: I really do believe many people would munch happily on a dog turd if it came in a 'Baby Ruth' wrapper!!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

41. I'm sure certain people don't think it exists.

:eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

47. Amazing list, simply amazing.

Hard to overlook Univision, owned by Gustavo Cisneros, good "hunting friend" of George H. W. Bush, and coup-plotter, himself.

[windansea]

50. so how do you explain the same polls

being accurate in predicting Chavez victories previously??

[TahitiNut]

43. Here's another clue ...

Venezuela’s Chavez Approval Ratings at 51% in Upward Trend
<snip>
Last December, polling company Consultores 21 (thought to favor the opposition) gave Chavez a 45% approval rating, with an upward trend. In the same poll, 70% of people thought that electoral authorities will be impartial when deciding on referendum and elections matters.
<snip>

---

The Mighty Wurlitzer is VERY extensive in polluting the information regarding Venezuela.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

37. Yes, I wonder how he can survive?

http://www.badattitudes.com/VenCoup.html

Too bad, because an intriguing question has been left hanging: What sent the Venezuelan people out into the streets to undo the coup that toppled their unpopular president?

Every story agreed that President Hugo Chavez’s eighty percent electoral majority in 1998 had dwindled to an approval rating of about thirty-five percent by the time the oil-and-army crowd made its hapless move on him.
<snip>

Still, none of this explains how a president with such dismal poll numbers could be reinstated by popular demand. For that we are left to speculate.

Who paid for those polls? Mrs. Avila from the proceeds of her underwear business? Or someone like Venezuelan TV mogul Gustavo Cisneros, a fishing buddy of George W. Bush’s who recently moved his headquarters from Caracas to Coral Gables, Florida?

[Judi Lynn]

46. Thanks for the news of Cisneros' move to Coral Gables

beloved of the Miami Cuban "exile" rightwing looneytoons.

Very interesting, and NO SHOCK whatsoever.

Wonder if this means he doesn't necessarily see the result he likes coming in Venezuela.

Some would say it looks as if he fears Venezuela may become democratized.

[Fridays Child]

4. He mustn't have contempt for the ruling class. No. Wouldn't be prudent.

...He must bow and scrape and do their bidding. /sarcasm

If Venezuela's ruling class is anything like our own, they would not even be worthy of contempt.

[windansea]

5. poverty still rising

"His "Bolivarian revolution" has failed so far to improve stubborn indexes of misery, with unemployment officially at 20 percent and poverty still rising, from 60 to 70 percent, according to statistics by Andrés Bello Catholic University."

[nicecakes]

7. Why not scrape more off the top salaries of the elite

And pass it down to those that really need it? The imbalance of wealth can't be healthy for the people.

[bemildred]

8. Yeah, it's really surprising that the poor aren't more

eager to dump him, what with how he is ruining all their lives.
But then I guess he has them all fooled.

[windansea]

11. a good portion are ready to dump him

this is why he fears a recall vote and waves his fingers at the US bogeyman

[bemildred]

12. He looks more irritated than scared to me. nt

[windansea]

33. see post 32 n/t

[AP]

18. Possibly because everyone with power wants to sabotage the economy.

But the economy is still showing improvement since the strike that justified clearing out the oligarchs from PDVSA. (And, it looks like PDVSA is now having record profits which will be cycled back into VZ rather than off to Miami an Swiss bank accounts).

[Crachet2004]

9. Sounds like a man at the end of his rope. eom

[bemildred]

10. That's what I noticed, makes him sound like a rambling loon.

You really have to wonder how he's managed to hang on this
long and defeat all those attempts to remove him, don't you?
I suppose it's just been luck.

[AP]

19. That's the lying, neoliberal American media for you.

This is the paper that editorialized in favor of the coup. You expect them to tell the truth?

Hello?

[bemildred]

20. Stay calm.

:hi:

[AP]

22. Oops. Sorry. A little friendly fire there.

Duck!

I didn't even realize that was you.

[Vladimir]

28. no

that's where he'll be if the CIA have tehir way...

V

[Crachet2004]

51. All it takes is for one man to be a man...

Archimides lever: 'Give me a place to stand, and I can move the world'.


'Student Prince', Machiavelli: 'Give me just ten stouthearted men, who will fight for the rights they adore. Give me those ten, stouthearted men, and I'll soon give you ten thousand more'.


Horatious at the Gate: '...all men die soon, or late. But how can
Man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of their Fathers, and the Temples of their Gods?'


Longfellow, 'Psalm of Life': 'Speak to me no mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream.

For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem.

Life is real, Life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.

Dust thou art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul!

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and departing, leave behind us Footprints in the Sands of Time.

Footpints that perhaps another, sailing o'er Life's rocky main...some forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing, shall take heart again!

Let us then be up and doing! With a heart for any fate...always achieving, always pursuing, learn to labor-and to wait!


And so you see, the sages and poets say it better than ever I could. Chavez is a man whose connection to the mythic is...possible. His exemplar is Simon Bolivar. He stands on the fulcrum of history.

I am convinced he cares only for the welfare of his people. This is something most Americans do not understand, as it has been so long since we have had a leader like that.

We will see what happens...but in Chavez, I think I am seeing a Man.

[w4rma]

13. The U.S. *could* try to work *with* Chávez. It is my understanding that

Chávez tried to work with us, but was turned down by the whackos in the White House.

[schultzee]

26. Under educated Americans think Socialism is Communism and

to GW and rich greed pigs friends, anything that helps the ordinary person live a good life is bad. After all GW wants a pesantry in the whole of the world and an international aristocracy.

[Matilda]

29. He's more a nationalist than a socialist.

He wants the oil wealth to stay in Venezuela and not go offshore.
And he wants it to benefit the poorest sectors (which is the
majority). But to the U.S. right-wing, anything that moves wealth
from the rich to the poor is socialism. And of course, the elite
of Venezuela are willing to side with the U.S. against their own
countrymen in order to uphold the status quo.

The U.S. pushed nationalist Ho Chi Minh into the arms of China, and
Castro into the embrace of the Soviet Union, and Aristide - well,
they've pushed him out twice now, and the only crime of all these
leaders was that they wanted the right of their countries to control
their own lives, and not allow the people and the resources to be
exploited.

Having said that, if they were socialist, it's no crime, but in fact
they all started out as nationalists. None of them ever declared
that the U.S. was the enemy, and there has been no reason why the
U.S. shouldn't have continued normal relations, and respect their
right to control their own destiny. Except of course that the
profits of U.S. corporations would take a big dip, and that's a
cardinal sin.

[Vladimir]

30. So he's a national socialist then!

NAZI!

</sarcasm>

V

[Judi Lynn]

31. I dread to think of what can possibly happen

if Chavez doesn't simply roll over and play dead, and allow _Bush and his horde to help the "opposion" re-rape Venezuela.

[tlcandie]

42. Maybe Spain and some of the countries now starting to back-

peddal on * will come to his aide. One can only hope! If they don't stop this madness there will not be ONE single country left that the US hasn't overthrown since * took over this country.

[Judi Lynn]

48. Now that's a thought. Would be a wonder to behold, as well.

I'd like to think all is not lost, for sure.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we learned later the Spain train bomb was an attempt to drive the Spanish masses closer to the right-wing, hawk side of their government options, and it backfired.

Latin America could use some REAL allies around this time.

[pescao]

49. funny it was published 3 days after it was written

and what's the hidden message here?

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4590314

U.S. Has Few Options Against Venezuela's Chavez
Wed Mar 17, 2004 02:33 PM ET
By Pablo Bachelet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has few, if any, options against Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, who is using increasingly strident anti-U.S. rhetoric and openly working to scuttle a referendum on his rule which Washington backs, analysts said.

...

In the latest insult to U.S. policy, Chavez Tuesday said he would not recognize the new government in Haiti, set up with U.S. involvement, and invited ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Venezuela. The White House partly blames Aristide for Haiti's crisis and facilitated his departure last month.

...

One option open to Washington would be to squeeze Chavez with economic sanctions and condemnations, but even that "would not be very fruitful," said Felix Martinez, of Florida International University. He noted that such a policy had failed to remove Fidel Castro from power.

...

Short of an outright U.S. invasion, which is "not even in the realm of consideration," Diaz suggests holding top Venezuelan officials and Chavez himself accountable to any human rights violations, much the same way the U.S. arrests corrupt Latin American officials who seek refuge in Miami.

...


i'm suprised this hasn't been posted yet ;)

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/3/17/162930.shtml

Latin America in Crisis: Venezuela Falls Into Castro's Orbit
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Thursday, March 18, 2004
See part one of series, Castro's Power Grows, and part two, Brazil Shifts Left, Considers Nuclear Option

Under President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is on the verge of becoming a satellite of dictator Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba.

Chavez is blocking a popular movement to remove him through a referendum, and his actions have caused violence in the streets. The nation could be on the way to a bloody revolution. In part three of this series, NewsMax.com examines Chavez and the threat this Castro stooge represents to the peace and stability of Latin America. Venezuela is in chaos, with rioting in the streets as Chavez defies citizens’ demands that a referendum leading to his ouster be held.

...

The nation’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the regime must accept the signatures, but the regime is resisting the rule of law. Venezuelan and foreign intellectuals have denounced Chavez as the greatest political threat generating turmoil in Latin America and exhorted the world to watch over freedom in Venezuela. International Foundation for Freedom warned, “The international community must express itself clearly in favor of the implementation on the agreed date of the recall referendum and declare its opposition to the stratagems devised to prevent it.” A report from the army’s Special Patrol and Reconnaissance Unit revealed that, during July 2003, orders were issued from superiors to abort an operation in the state of Zulia intended to evict Colombian FARC terrorists from Venezuela. He emphasized that, since 2000, no operations had been conducted in that border zone. In other words, three years have elapsed without any large-scale actions to expel FARC’s forces.

...

Despite media reports this year that Venezuelan identification documents might have been issued to Arab radicals, Chavez appointed as the No. 2 official in the nation’s passport office a Venezuelan of Syrian ancestry, whose father and uncle served as officers in the Venezuelan branch of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, and in the former Baghdad branch.

...