The article that you cite by Bob Dart (8/20/04) appears to be the cleverest piece of anti-Chavez propaganda that I have yet to come across in the US news monopoly press--attempting to conflate concerns about a stolen election here with Chavez's re-election in Venezuela, via the electronic voting theme.
What the article doesn't tell you is that the programming code in Venezuela's election was open source, that all voters were fingerprinted, that there was huge participation by Venezuela's poor (long lines in the poorest areas starting at 3 am), that the election was monitored by dozens of international election monitoring organizations for months in advance as well as during and after the election, including the Carter Center, and that ALL declared the election valid, fair and transparent.
The oil elite in Venezuela has a big trumpet--complete control of Venezuelan media--which they used to try to cast doubt on Chavez's big win of the recall election (by about 60%, as I recall). They also play upon the US Bush Cartel's hatred of Chavez (who believes that some of Venezuela's oil profits ought to benefit its poorest citizens), and they have a sure "in" within the Bush regime, which wants to topple or assassinate Chavez. But toppling Chavez is not an easy task--as it was in Haiti, where they toppled a popularly elected president, whose life was saved by the quick action of the Black Congressional delegation in the US and by African and Central American governments that are pro-Aristide and pro-Haitian democracy. Despite Artide's huge popularity, Haiti's democracy was very weak--and the country ravaged by debt to the French (former colonizers).
Venezuela's democracy on the other hand is quite strong, and Venezuela's majority is passionately committed to it. They have "democracy fever." They strongly believe in constitutional government, after years of dictatorship. Chavez is the key to that commitment. He turned away from efforts by the military to install him as a dictator, and chose to help create Venezuelan democracy instead, and ran for office (and won). His platform is the Bolivarian Revolution--peaceful accession to power of the vast, largely brown and poor population, who have been kept in a state of extreme poverty by the great corruption and greed of the ruling class over the decades. But he is not seizing anybody's land, or putting anybody in jail, or engaging in persecution of any kind. He is PEACEFULLY distributing land that he has the legal right to distribute--to peasants who have been without land to grow food for their families ever since western colonization began. Venezuelan democracy is underpinned by Venezuela's oil wealth (unlike Haiti, which has no natural wealth), and thus it has a much better chance of success. And neither is Chavez acting like a dictator in that regard. He has the right to negotiate how Venezuela's oil wealth is managed and spent (and the oil elite--people who live like westerners and drive jaguars--and who have heretofore grabbed all the wealth for themselves, are very upset by any kind of fairness or justice in the use of oil revenues.)
Chavez is hugely popular, an excellent organizer, and a good president--the relentless propaganda against him by US news monopolies to the contrary notwithstanding. The Bush line here--followed by EVERY NEWS MONOPOLY IN THE US--is that Chavez is somehow a dictator. From everything I can gather, nothing could be further from the truth. He is the FIRST leader of Venezuela who has EVER represented the WILL OF THE PEOPLE, and has been truly representative of the majority, as well as being entirely peace-minded, non-repressive and good-hearted.
I've done a bit of research on Bob Dart, and I find it hard to believe that he would deliberately write propaganda. He seems to be a good reporter. So I don't know what to make of his swallowing the lies of the Venezuelan oil elite in this article on electronic voting. I suspect he may have just succumbed to the overwhelmingly negative rap that Chavez is given in the controlled press here. However, the artfulness of this particular article--the play upon suspicions of Bush Cartel-controlled electronic voting to cast doubt upon Venezuela's election--makes me wonder who was behind it, and how it got written.
The other thing I suspect is that Dart is simply ignorant of developments in Venezuela--and has no idea who these "critics" of Chavez are (who are trying to cast doubt on his election). He should have seriously questioned his sources on this, and done some investigative reporting. (The numerous international organizations that monitored the Venezuelan election all, unanimously rejected the unsupported claims of the anti-Chavez forces regarding a bad election.) Nor does Dart seem very savvy regarding the Bush Cartel and their nefarious plots in central and south America, and their blatant and very bloody schemes to control all the last remaining oil on earth.
I think we have little understanding of how our own so-called liberal elite--or important portions of it--is playing along with the Bush Cartel, regarding control of all the earth's oil wealth, tax cuts for the rich, and corporate global rule. (Just think for a moment WHO signed NAFTA into law--Clinton/Gore.) With regard to PREVENTING any true majority rule--which would necessarily be rule by the poor and the brown and black, both in the US and in much of the world--the rich are of one mind (or most of them are). THEY get to rule, control and profit--and the rest of us do not. This may go some way to explain the pervasive anti-Chavez propaganda throughout the US news establishment, with hardly a word in his favor even in so-called "liberal" journals--as well as the stupid, uninformed, kneejerk repetition of the standard line on Chavez by reporters and editors.
Here's another example of Dart's reporting (seems quite even-handed, and democracy-minded):
"Right, left hit Patriot Act
"As legislation comes up for renewal, many seek to curb its power," by Bob Dart (4/5/05)
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/2284272p-8663244c.htmlIn researching Bob Dart, I came across a gold mine of intelligent news and commentary on the Bush regime and related matters, at
http://www.transnational.org/features/2003/Collection_Iraq2.htmlDart seems to be cited, from time to time, by truthful news websites.
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Sidelight: The Transnational web site had this article by Zogby, which caught my eye: Zogby's damning discussion of how Dick Cheney misinterpreted Zogby's poll of Iraqis:
http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=6114
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