Venezuela Solidarity - Call Obama

[roody]

Call or Write President Obama

Action:


The current foreign policy belligerence toward Venezuela, expressed in President
Obama's UNIVISION interview on January 12, 2009 is a continuation of the George
Bush policy of disrespect and provication. If we are to have a foreign policy change,
it will be up to us, the every-day citizens who are tired of aggression as usual,
who went to the polls in November, and voted for change, to ensure that our vot
was not spent in vain.

As supporters of the Bolivarian Process taking place in Venezuela, now is the time
to act. Please call the White House comment line with this simple message: "Normalize
relations with Venezuela and stop the false verbal attacks on President Chavez."
The White House comment line is 202-456-1111 and the e-mail is
[e-mail]
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The current foreign policy belligerence toward Venezuela, expressed in President
Obama's UNIVISION interview on January 12, 2009 is a continuation of George W.
Bush's policy of disrespect and provication. If we are to have a foreign policy
change, it will be up to us, the every-day citizens who are tired of aggression
as usual, who went to the polls in November, and voted for change, to ensure that
our vot was not spent in vain.

In a 13 minutes interview with Spanish language TV UNIVISION simultaneously translated
and aired in Venezuela in two parts during the week before the inauguration, Obama
is translated to have said Chavez has "been a force that has interrupted progress
in the region." In the same interview he is also is quoted saying, "We need to be
firm when we see this news, that Venezuela is exporting terrorist activities or
supporting malicious entities like the FARC."
The Venezuelan Solidarity Network asks that you call the White House at 202-456-1111
or e-mail them at [e-mail] and
ask that this continuation of Bush foreign policy lies about Venezuela stop
immediately.

[Idealism]

1. I don't forsee any change in our stance towards them, unfortunately

The American public is taught to question Chavez's legitimacy as a ruler. We are encouraged to become outraged when he simply asks his people to vote for changing the law to get rid of how many times he can run for re-election. The United States props up brutal dictators, tries to install puppet governments all across the world, and is friends with some of the most oppressive countries in the world, but we never hear these things mentioned in the MSM. We are taught to hate Chavez because the transnationals hate him. They hate him because Venezuela is a socialist state, and they aren't allowed to come in and rape the country. It is long past the time when South America was a venture capitalists dream. This is the same reason why the Cold War happened; capitalism doesn't like when a country tells them they can't invest there.

[Jim Sagle]

2. This is DU not VU. PPPFFFFBBBBBBBTTTTT!!!!!

[subsuelo]

8. where obviously the intelligence level reaches soaring heights

[mecherosegarden]

3. Sorry, but no

Have you heard Chavez saying " Yankee go home." Chavez hates the USA; he calls this country Imperialist.

[nerddem]

4. haha, yeah, seriously

so it's bad for the us to "disrespect" chavez but it's ok for him to the disrespecting?

he might have an iota of credibility as an anti-imperialist if he himself wasn't imperialist.

[roody]

5. Which countries has he invaded and occupied?

[nerddem]

7. direct, 19th century imperialism is passe

right now he's just occupying 1 country.

nowadays it's more subtle.

let me ask you this: how do you feel about campaign contributions, and what effect they may have on the relationship between contributor and receiver?

[subsuelo]

9. He's a democratically elected president

You consider that "occupying the country"?

[nerddem]

10. even elected leaders can run amok

i don't think i need to come up with examples as they are more than prevalent, and it's certainly possible to have illiberal democracy.

it's hard to deny the authoritarian tendencies he's exhibited, pretty much textbook (perhaps why he seems to come in a lot of my classes, ha). but yeah, we're talking about restrictions on the press, mobilization of the population, etc. then there's the alteration of government: chavez certainly views his regime in a delegative democratic light, so the legislature took a passive role, he instituted limits on the transfer of power from himself, changed the constitution to keep his base happy and himself in power, etc. and along the lines of what i said earlier about imperialism, these days you can't just blatantly rig elections, so instead you put in obstacles for the opposition such as purposefully making it more difficult/too time consuming to vote (think ohio 2004), unrealistic or burdensome requirements to run for office, you use the trappings of state power and money to balloon your own party's campaign effort, etc.

now, this very sober account will certainly fall on deaf ears of many around here who admire chavez and will go to many unreasonable lengths to defend him. if anything, i feel bad for them and especially evo because he looks up to tio hugo so much, he thinks he's sooooo anti-american yet the truth remains that one of the united states' biggest suppliers of oil is, you guessed it, venezuela. keep in mind that the us for the most part has a realist foreign policy approach, such that we tolerate chavez's obviously meaningless rhetoric because he'll gladly keep taking american money that he needs to fund his own programs domestically and abroad that he uses to maintain his sphere of influence.

[EFerrari]

13. I'd ask you to provide links to your allegations but I know that you can't.

In fact, the press is free in Venezuela and largely owned by the opposition. In fact, the freedom of assembly in Venezuela is alive and well. In fact, Chavez has not changed the constitution as you suggest but the people of Venezuela have voted to make changes to their constitution in elections that are more transparent than ours. In fact, more people are voting now in Venezuela than ever.

Your post is bullshit and you should know better than to post this crap here where there are people who actually know something about Venezuela.

[roody]

15. no examples

[EFerrari]

14. You have no idea what imperialism means, do you?

[EFerrari]

12. Do you know what "imperialism" means?

Good grief.

[roody]

6. If the cap fit, let them wear it.

[EFerrari]

11. Are you kidding? Venezuela provides heating oil to thousands of poor American families

and employees thousands more. You have to stop watching Fox "News".