Home | Community | Message Board

MushroomCube.com
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: PhytoExtractum Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder   North Spore Cultivation Supplies   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Bridgetown Botanicals CBD Concentrates   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Mushroom-Hut Liquid Cultures

Jump to first unread post Pages: < Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >  [ show all ]
OfflineUnagipie
Pilgrim -DBK鰻

Registered: 08/11/05
Posts: 6,300
Loc: The Trenches of France
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4576504 - 08/24/05 08:42 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

If the 'Zualans love him, I love him.


--------------------

Don't fight it. Just let the illuminados take over your mind. You be at bliss soon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineUnagipie
Pilgrim -DBK鰻

Registered: 08/11/05
Posts: 6,300
Loc: The Trenches of France
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4576510 - 08/24/05 08:43 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)



--------------------

Don't fight it. Just let the illuminados take over your mind. You be at bliss soon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleRavus
Not an EggshellWalker
 User Gallery

Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4576603 - 08/24/05 09:03 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Most good leaders have those traits.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibletrick

Registered: 10/22/04
Posts: 1,059
Loc: unknown
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Unagipie]
    #4576726 - 08/24/05 09:23 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

I posted this on another forum I am apart of. Alot of people were saying "fuck Chavez" and all that shit. Although I don't like the bastard I know how powerful he is. Here's the post.

Venezuela exports oil to Cuba. That's why there's such a big deal about this. I think people have failed to report that the Venezuelan state has control of Petr?leos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) which has an U.S. subsidiary (PDV America) that owns CITGO.

Now, look at these international statistics:

" Internationally, PDVSA maintains a significant network of refineries, distribution and sales outlets in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Caribbean. In the United States its subsidiary PDV America owns Citgo Petroleum Corp. and has a 50% holding in Unoven Co. in association with Unocal of California. In Europe, PDVSA has established a presence through its subsidiary PDV Europe, which has a 50% stake in Ruhr Oel GmbH of Germany in association with Veba Oel, and holds 50% of AB Nynas Petroleum of Sweden, in association with Neste Oy. In the Caribbean, the subsidiaries Petroleum Corp. (BOPEC) and Bahamas Oil Refining (BORCO) own and operate oil terminals in the islands. In Curacao, the subsidiary Refiner?a La Isla operates a refinery and oil terminals. Additionally PDVSA maintains market intelligence offices in New York (PDV USA) and London (PDV UK).

This range of activities and achievements has consolidated PDVSA as a world-class oil corporation, which facilitates the establishment of alliances under the guidelines of the policy of opening the petroleum industry to the private sector. According to the Wall Street Journal, PDVSA is now the second largest oil company in the world."

http://www.internet.ve/araqreyn/opart2.html

You want to see what happens when the U.S. pisses off Chavez?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4147622.stm

Chavez knows it's all about oil. Infact, shortly after Condoleeza Rice was appointed Chavez named Al? Rodriguez (former president of PDVSA) Foreign Minister. Some say it was a response the U.S., know why?

"From 1991 to 2001 Rice served as director of the Chevron Corporation, for which she received the distinguished, if short-lived, honor of having an oil tanker named after her (it was renamed after a controversy broke out once she became National Security Advisor to the President, while a Chevron tanker sailed the high seas with her name on the bow)."

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1323

Chavez can say what he wants because he has power. Oil is power. Chavez also believes the U.S. already tried to assassinate him and will cut off all oil ties to U.S. if he deems necessary.

"Chavez is tightening his personal security, accusing Washington of backing a plot to assassinate him. While U.S. officials seek to isolate a leader who has become a symbol of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, Chavez is warning he will cut off oil exports to the United States if it supports any attempt to overthrow him."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-16-venezuela-chavez_x.htm

So for all you people that says fuck Venezuela...do you want to drive cars?

Venezuela's oil revenue goes to Venezuelan poor, that's one reason he's so god damn popular.

You want to know what Chavez is willing to do for *Poor* (shock!!) Americans? Chavez has also offered to give poor U.S. citizens cheap gas through CITGO and:

http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/idioma/ingles/2005/ago1venezuela-cuba.htm

I don't support Chavez but, he does what he can for his country. And if you want what's best for yours then I don't think you should tamper with him.

The U.S. will probably try to get Chavez like they did Castro. Fake counter-revolutionaries (aka terrorists) being sent in and paid by American companies and then Castro is called an oppressor because he jails these people.

Despite all this I don't like Castro, Chavez, or Bush. They can shove their countries up their asses.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineUnagipie
Pilgrim -DBK鰻

Registered: 08/11/05
Posts: 6,300
Loc: The Trenches of France
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: trick]
    #4576787 - 08/24/05 09:38 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

The U.S. will probably try to get Chavez like they did Castro. Fake counter-revolutionaries (aka terrorists) being sent in and paid by American companies and then Castro is called an oppressor because he jails these people.




Like I said earler, who wouldn't throw dissidents in jail?


--------------------

Don't fight it. Just let the illuminados take over your mind. You be at bliss soon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblebukkake
Male

Registered: 05/28/05
Posts: 2,764
Loc: Classified
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4577063 - 08/24/05 10:43 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phred said:
And of course, there is ample evidence of massive fraud in the last two Venezuelan elections, particularly this last one.



No, there isn't. But there is ample evidence that suggests many of the signatures on the referendum recall were fake.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleSilversoul
Rhizome
Male User Gallery

Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4577083 - 08/24/05 10:50 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phred said:
Charisma and balls of steel? Sounds a bit like the governor of California*. Or Adolf Hitler.



Phred



*Kaleeforneeah


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleKingOftheThing
the cool fool
 User Gallery

Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 27,397
Loc: USA
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Unagipie]
    #4577427 - 08/25/05 12:23 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

i like him too, especially for telling the fucking DEA to piss off. who cares if he is a leftist? maybe communism works better for venezuela. the UN watched the last election and called it fair. just because he's not a USA loving right wing loonie, the right cant believe he actually got elected.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblebukkake
Male

Registered: 05/28/05
Posts: 2,764
Loc: Classified
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: KingOftheThing]
    #4577510 - 08/25/05 12:46 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

I became a fan after he joked Condoleezza Rice has sexual fantasies about him at night and he refuses to marry her. She constantly talks about him, so it's possible.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleKingOftheThing
the cool fool
 User Gallery

Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 27,397
Loc: USA
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: bukkake]
    #4577558 - 08/25/05 12:59 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

wow thats awesome, i like him even more now

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineUnagipie
Pilgrim -DBK鰻

Registered: 08/11/05
Posts: 6,300
Loc: The Trenches of France
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: bukkake]
    #4577566 - 08/25/05 01:01 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Haha. I'm getting a Hugo Chavez t-shirt


--------------------

Don't fight it. Just let the illuminados take over your mind. You be at bliss soon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4577567 - 08/25/05 01:01 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Using the Enabling Act, Hitler's government soon banned all other political parties, labour unions were put under Nazi control and any opposition was suppressed. The autonomy of local government was curtailed. In July 1933, a Concordat (agreement) was signed with the Vatican. In only a few months Hitler had achieved authoritarian control. President Paul von Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. Rather than have new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law combining the offices of president and chancellor, with Hitler holding both offices (including the president's decree powers) as leader and national chancellor




I don't believe Hitler actually ever held real elections. He certainly was not put into power by elections, as Chavez was. Hitler was placed there by people already in power, not the voters of Germany.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFrankieJustTrypt
and fell

Registered: 01/27/04
Posts: 537
Loc: MI
Last seen: 9 years, 8 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Redstorm]
    #4577698 - 08/25/05 01:57 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Venezuela and Argentina: A Tale of Two Coups - 2004 Project Censored Award
The Guardian - New Internationalist Magazine - BBC Television
Tuesday, October 7, 2003

by Greg Palast

The big business-led coup in Venezuela failed, where international finance's coup in Argentina has succeeded. Greg Palast gives us the inside track on two very different power-grabs.


Blondes in revolt


On May Day, starting out from the Hilton Hotel, 200,000 blondes marched East through Caracas' shopping corridor along Casanova Avenue. At the same time, half a million brunettes converged on them from the West. It would all seem like a comic shampoo commercial if 16 people hadn't been shot dead two weeks earlier when the two groups crossed paths.

The May Day brunettes support Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez. They funnelled down from the ranchos, the pustules of crude red-brick bungalows, stacked one on the other, that erupt on the steep, unstable hillsides surrounding this city of five million. The bricks in some ranchos are new, a recent improvement in these fetid, impromptu slums where many previously sheltered behind cardboard walls. 'Ch?vez gives them bricks and milk,' a local TV reporter told me, 'and so they vote for him.'

Ch?vez is dark and round as a cola nut. Like his followers, Ch?vez is an 'Indian'. But the blondes, the 'Spanish', are the owners of Venezuela. A group near me on the blonde march screamed 'Out! Out!' in English, demanding the removal of the President. One edible-oils executive, in high heels, designer glasses and push-up bra had turned out, she said: 'To fight for democracy.' She added: 'We'll try to do it institutionally,' a phrase that meant nothing to me until a banker in pale pink lipstick explained that to remove Ch?vez, 'we can't wait until the next election'.

The anti-Chavistas don't equate democracy with voting. With 80 per cent of Venezuela's population at or below the poverty level, elections are not attractive to the protesting financiers. Ch?vez had won the election in 1998 with a crushing 58 per cent of the popular vote and that was unlikely to change except at gunpoint.

And so on 12 April the business leadership of Venezuela, backed by a few 'Spanish' generals, turned their guns on the Presidential Palace and kidnapped Ch?vez. Pedro Carmona, the chief of Fedecamaras, the nation's confederation of business and industry, declared himself President. This coup, one might say, was the ultimate in corporate lobbying. Within hours, he set about voiding the 49 Ch?vez laws that had so annoyed the captains of industry, executives of the foreign oil companies and latifundistas, the big plantation owners.


The banker's embrace


Carmona had dressed himself in impressive ribbons and braids for the inauguration. In the Miraflores ballroom, filled with the Venezuelan ?lite, Ignazio Salvatierra, president of the Banker's Association, signed his name to Carmona's self-election with a grand flourish. The two hugged emotionally as the audience applauded.

Carmona then decreed the dissolution of his nation's congress and supreme court while the business peopled clapped and chanted, 'Democracia! Democracia!' I later learned the Cardinal of Caracas had led Carmona into the Presidential Palace, a final Genet-esque touch to this delusional drama. This fantasy would evaporate ?by the crowing of the cock,? as Ch?vez told me in his poetic way.

Ch?vez minister Miguel Bustamante-Madriz, who had escaped the coup, led 60,000 brunettes down from Barrio Petare to Miraflores. As thousands marched against the coup, Caracas television stations, owned by media barons who supported (and possibly planned the coup) played soap operas. The station owned hoped their lack of coverage would keep the Chavista crowd from swelling; but it doubled and doubled and doubled. On l3 April, they were ready to die for Ch?vez.

They did not have to. Carmona, fresh from his fantasy inaugural, received a call from the head of a pro-Ch?vez paratroop regiment stationed in Maracay, outside the capital. To avoid bloodshed, Ch?vez had agreed to his own 'arrest' and removal by the putschists, but did not mention to the plotters that several hundred loyal troops had entered secret corridors under the Palace. Carmona, surrounded, could choose his method of death: bullets from the inside, rockets from above, or dismemberment by the encircling 'bricks and milk' crowd. Carmona took off his costume ribbons and surrendered.


Taking on the oil giants


I interviewed Carmona while I leaned out the fourth floor window of an apartment in La Alombra, a high-rise building complex. I spoke my pidgin Spanish across to his balcony on the building a few yards away. The one-time petrochemical mogul was under house arrest - the lucky bastard. If he had attempted to overthrow the President of Kazakhstan (or for that matter, the President of the US), he would by now have a bullet in his skull. Ch?vez, in a gracious if strained nod to the ultimate authority of the privileged, simply confined Carmona to his expensive flat.

In response to my question about who gave him authority to name himself president, coup leader Carmona responded, 'Civil society'. To him this meant the bankers, the oil company chiefs and others who signed his proclamation.

Most telling were Ch?vez's laws to which Carmona and coup leaders objected. The prime evil was the Ley De Tierras, the new land law which promised to give unused land to the landless, in particular, properties held out of production by the big plantation owners for more than two years. But Ch?vez's tenure would not have been threatened had he not also taken on the international petroleum giants. Ch?vez's crimes against the oil industry's interests included passing a law that doubled the royalty taxes paid by ExxonMobil and other oil operators from about 16 per cent to roughly 30 per cent on new finds. He had also moved to take control of the state oil company PDVSA - nominally owned by the government, but in fact in thrall to the foreign operators.

Ch?vez had almost single-handedly rebuilt the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by committing Venezuela to adhere to its OPEC sales quotas, causing world oil prices to double to over $20 per barrel. It was this oil money which paid for the 'bricks and milk' programme and put Ch?vez head to head against ExxonMobil, the number-one extractor of Venezuelan oil.

This was no minor matter to the US. As OPEC's general secretary Al? Rodrigu?z says: 'The dependence of the US on oil is increasing progressively. Venezuela is one of the most important suppliers of the US, and the stability of Venezuela is very important for [them].' It was the South American nation that broke the back of the 1973 Arab oil embargo by increasing output from its vast reserves way beyond its OPEC quota. Indeed, I learned from Al? Rodrigu?z that the 12 April coup against Ch?vez was triggered by US fears of a renewed Arab oil embargo. Iraq and Libya were trying to organize OPEC to stop exporting oil to the US to protest American support of Israel. US access to Venezuela's oil suddenly became urgent.

In an interview Ch?vez told me: 'I have the written proof, I have the time of the entries and exits of the two military officers from the United States into the headquarters of the coup plotters - I have their names, who they met with, what they said on video and still photographs.' He elaborated: 'I have in my hands a radar image of a military vessel that came into Venezuelan waters on 13 April. I have radar images of a helicopter that takes off from that ship and flies over Venezuela and of other planes that violated Venezuelan air space.'

With such powerful enemies, it seems unlikely that attempts to remove Ch?vez will stop there.


Exception to the New Order


While the immediate cause of America's panicked need to remove Ch?vez was a looming oil embargo, the Bush administration's grievances go much deeper. Miguel Bustamante-Madriz, a member of Ch?vez's cabinet, paints a bigger conflict with the global corporate agenda: 'America can't let us stay in power. We are the exception to the new globalization order. If we succeed, we are an example to all the Americas.'

Despite the European and American media's hoo-ha over how Ch?vez has 'ruined' Venezuela's economy, in fact last year its Gross Domestic Product grew by 2.8 per cent. And it wasn't all due to improvements in oil-prices; excluding crude oil, economic activity jumped by about 4 per cent. Compare the 'ruined' Venezuelan economy to Argentina's. That 'poster boy' of neoliberalism ended last year in a depression which has since turned into an economic death spiral.

Ch?vez is an old-style social democratic reformer: land to the landless, increasing investment in housing and infrastructure, control over commodity export prices. But with Marx discredited as the philosophy of the 'losers' of the Cold War, 'Chavismo' is as radical as it gets. His redistributionist reformism offers an operating, credible alternative to the corporate-friendly free-market prescriptions of the kind currently being handed to Argentina by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Since 1980, the World Bank and IMF have peddled a four-part free-market agenda: free trade, 'flexible' labour laws, privatization and reduced government budgets and regulation. Ch?vez rejects it all outright, beginning with the phoney 'free' trade agenda under the terms of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (which the US would expand to South America under the aegis of the Free Trade Area of the Americas). Trade under these terms is anything but free to the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere. Instead he calls for a change in the North-South terms of trade, increasing the value of commodities exported to Europe and America. Ch?vez's longer-term policies of rebuilding OPEC and higher tariffs on oil must be seen in the context of smashing imbalanced trade relations epitomized by the WTO.

World Bank and WTO rules have also forced nations such as Argentina to sell off their state-owned and locally owned banks and insurance companies to foreign financial giants such as America's Citibank and Spain's Banco Santander. These swiftly vacuumed up the country's hard currency reserves, setting the stage for the national bankruptcy at the first hint of speculator-driven currency panics.


The anti-Argentina


Argentina accepted the World Bank's four-step economic medicine with fatal glee. Not that it had much choice. I have obtained the secret June 2001 'Country Assistance Strategy' progress report of the World Bank, ordering Argentina to pull out of its economic depression by increasing 'labour force flexibility'. This meant cutting works programmes, smashing union rules and slicing real wages. Contrast that with Ch?vez's first act after defeating the coup: announcing a 20-per- cent increase in the minimum wage. Ch?vez's protection of the economy by increasing the purchasing power of the lower-paid workers, rather than cutting wages, is anathema to the globalizers.

His Venezuela is the anti-Argentina, taking a path exactly opposite to the guidance given, and ultimately imposed, on Argentina by the World Bank and IMF.

For example, in the June 2001 document, World Bank President James Wolfensohn expressed particular pride that Argentina's Government had made 'a $3 billion cut in primary expenditures'. Slicing government spending in the midst of a recession is economic suicide, killing demand when it's most needed. Who could have pushed the banks to demand such a berserk programme? The answer is hinted at in the document. That $3 billion cut will 'accommodat[e] the increase in interest obligations' to pay off those foreign banks - Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Lloyds Bank - who, having bled the nation of capital, lent Argentina back its own money at rates that can only be called usury. Foreign banks working with the IMF had demanded that Argentina pay a whopping 16-per-cent risk premium above US Treasury lending rates.

Ch?vez would take Venezuela in the opposite direction. His plan is to pull out of a downturn threatened by a corporate embargo of investment in his nation by taxing the oil companies and spending - the 'Bricks and Milk' solution, old-style Keynesianism.

And while Ch?vez moved to renationalize oil and rejects the sale of water systems, Argentina sold off everything including the kitchen-sink tap. The World Bank beams: 'Almost all major utilities have been privatized.' That includes the sale of water systems to Enron of Texas and Vivendi of Paris, companies which immediately fired workers en masse, let the pipe systems fall apart and raised prices as much as 400 per cent. Wolfensohn, for some reason, is surprised to note that after these privatizations, the poor lack access to clean water.


Coup Nouvelle


George W Bush is an oil man; he owned oil companies, now it looks like they own him.

Certainly the Keystone Kops-style plot against Ch?vez by Venezuela's military-industrial complex served Big Oil's interests. But that's an old-style shoot'em-up coup, likely to fail. The coup d'etats of the 21st century will follow the Argentine model, in which the international banks seize the financial lifeblood of a nation, making the official presidential title-holder merely inconsequential except as a factotum of the corporate agenda.


--------------------
If you want a free lunch, you need to learn how to eat good advice.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineAldous
enthusiast
Male User Gallery

Registered: 10/19/99
Posts: 980
Loc: inside my skull
Last seen: 16 days, 20 hours
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4577738 - 08/25/05 02:18 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phred said: However, dictators can be elected. Hitler comes to mind as an example.


How poor a comparison.

How many times was Hitler elected?
How many times was Chavez elected?
Why did Chavez include a mid-term referendum in the Constitution?
What other dictator ever did this?
How democratic is the US-supported coup-staging opposition?
How many privately employed journalists has Chavez jailed?
How many coup-supporting private media has he shut down?
In what way has he ever curbed freedom of expression?

Quote:

And of course, there is ample evidence of massive fraud in the last two Venezuelan elections, particularly this last one.


Ample evidence? I'm curious.
If there's 'ample evidence' of that, there's 'absolute certainty' about Bush having stolen 2 elections.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleKingOftheThing
the cool fool
 User Gallery

Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 27,397
Loc: USA
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Aldous]
    #4577805 - 08/25/05 03:00 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

this is a great man, much greater than our horrible leader

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePirate_Patrick
Stranger
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/20/05
Posts: 342
Last seen: 17 years, 3 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: KingOftheThing]
    #4577876 - 08/25/05 04:26 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

If for example Chavez does in fact cut export of oil to the USA, how much do you think gas prices would climb?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleKingOftheThing
the cool fool
 User Gallery

Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 27,397
Loc: USA
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Pirate_Patrick]
    #4577880 - 08/25/05 04:38 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

he said he'd sell oil to us ...the poor (i make under 30,000) at bargain prices.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Aldous]
    #4578004 - 08/25/05 07:23 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Here's a cut and paste from http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=1495

I don't want to spend an hour fiddling around making all the embedded links in the page active -- instead I've just highlighted them in red. If you go to the main link above you can click on the embedded links for tons more information. The recall "election" was a complete farce. A bigger farce than even the 2004 election.

BLEAK VENEZUELAN ELECTION

First reports are in on today?s municipal elections in Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez is ?winning.?

But turnout is so thin that the government has extended voting by two (update: now three) hours to try to make it a double-digit turnout. First reports say it?s running at about 8%. Updated, with the polls closed, the turnout is estimated at 20%. That?s an 80% abstention rate.

What a sad sorry affair this is. About 3350 municipal positions are at stake. Jimmy Carter must be so proud of his job instilling confidence in the system last August, which by his own words, was the aim of his observation of Hugo Chavez?s recall referendum. Besides this, note that Venezuela had all the fanciest and highest tech electronic equipment for this vote. Neither has made Venezuelan voters confident in the system, given the turnout. Clearly something else is needed to instill confidence. It?s not there.

This is not the first time Venezuela?s polling hours have been extended. They were also extended during the recall referendum, but for very different reasons - because turnout was so high. Ironic. Obviously, public perceptions of fraud and retribution are so strong that very few people are willing to participate in the farce.

Bloggers here, here and here have warned that the fingerprint machines are recording voters? choices, something that could lead to retribution for those whose choices do not win, and other setups that should lead to a rigged result. It?s a sad picture.

Miguel reports a ghost town at the polls in Caracas and has photos of the polling stations to show it.

Daniel has an hour by hour superb (Daniel at his best) summary of the voting situation in Yaracuy state to the west of Caracas, cattle country, where he says the voting stations were ?deserted? and the only people in the area were soldiers in Cuban-like military uniforms, definitely an ugly site, he notes. How this this for an observation?

In fact I could not help but to observe that the lottery ticket shop two blocks away had more people than the voting station. Obviously people know where the odds of a better future lay.

Daniel says that Mercal soup-kitchen coupons were reportedly handed out to chavistas who showed up to vote. In addition, Miranda state reportedly had busing in of non-locals to vote in the local elections, the media are covering that actively. He said when he voted, no one showed up at all. And voting had been extended from 6 to 7 yet again. Chavistas are saying it?s due to ?high? turnout and are making keister-covering statements on the state television. Sounds pathetic.

Nothing yet from Tomas Sancio in Miranda state, but will continue to monitor for his reports. Update: Tomas has checked in, he describes the intransparency of the voting process in his precinct in plain English. Read it here.

Miguel has a new post saying that Venezuelan government officials are admitting that turnout is exceptionally low, and voting hours are extended: ?so that militants can vote.? (Do they mean FARC, I wonder? Does crossing the border from Colombia takes extra time?)

Meanwhile, a Chavista apologist named Oscar Heck at the spyware-laced VHeadline writes that the four private television stations are not covering this event. I would await a second confirmation from a reliable source but it?s here if you want to look at it.

Daniel
reports that the ?boring? election is not so boring anymore - the cries of fraud have begun amid disputes over the extended hours of the polls - Venezuelan law says that extensions can only occur if there are people waiting in line to vote - not the case here. The election officials on television are defensively saying they did everything right and it wasn?t their fault turnout was so invisible. They sound nervous.

UPDATE: More than 12 hours have passed and there is still no word from the Hugo-Chavez-stacked election board that was nervously thrashing around on state TV trying to justify the turnout last night. The purpose of the electronic machines, nominally, was to ensure swiftness of results. I?ve seen swifter results in African elections. Something has broken down. Something is being hidden. They aren?t saying what.

UPDATE: Bandera Negra, a new Web site in Spanish, has some information about the results here.

UPDATE: Still no official results to report from the government.

UPDATE: Alek Boyd has a news release from a Venezuelan civil society organization operating in Venezuela, reporting that abstention seems to have reached 90%. Read it here.

UPDATE: Miguel has a string of new updates, coming by the hour on his blog, this is well worth looking at - describing a 70% to 77% abstention figure. He also notes that the electoral office has yet to announce the results at this late date. He writes:

Is this transparency? Were the voting machines worth it? Are they adjusting the results?

You have to wonder. Read it here.

UPDATE: Tomas Sancio reports that the electoral officials are acting in an unusually arrogant manner. He?s got a very eloquent post up on the meaning of electoral fraud that they casually dismiss. He notes that abstention is approaching a record high. However, as a silver lining, two good mayors who have worked hard in Caracas and who are not chavistas did manage to retain their seats. That, to me, is significant. Read it here.

UPDATE: Daniel Duquenal reports that this election leaves a very bitter taste for Chavez. He writes that apparently, abstention rates were higher among chavistas than non-chavistas. That may mean the opposition gained seats even with abstention rates as high as these. He corrects historic figures on abstention rates - about 48%, it seems, meaning that the results we are seeing now may be a disaster for the chavistas. He writes:

apparently rumors fly that the opposition might have gotten way more seats than planned in spite of the abstention. If this is true, then abstention was really as much a chavista phenomenon than an opposition one and something really important happened yesterday. Could this be a defeated victory for Chavez? To be continued.

Read the whole thing here.








Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineBaby_Hitler
Errorist
 User Gallery

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 03/06/02
Posts: 27,634
Loc: To the limit!
Last seen: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Phred]
    #4578237 - 08/25/05 09:16 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Sounds more like a shady country than a shady election to me.

I have yet to see anything about Chaves that I didn't like.


--------------------
"America: Fuck yeah!" -- Alexthegreat

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”  -- Thomas Jefferson

The greatest sin of mankind is ignorance.

The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally. --Salena Zeto (9/23/16)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleSilversoul
Rhizome
Male User Gallery

Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
Re: Hugo Chavez [Re: Baby_Hitler]
    #4578263 - 08/25/05 09:22 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Baby_Hitler said:
Sounds more like a shady country than a shady election to me.

I have yet to see anything about Chaves that I didn't like.



I love how he thinks he's going to be sticking it to the US by selling us cheap oil. Thanks a lot, buddy.


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: < Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >  [ show all ]

Shop: PhytoExtractum Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder   North Spore Cultivation Supplies   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Bridgetown Botanicals CBD Concentrates   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Mushroom-Hut Liquid Cultures


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Hugo Chavez has tape of CIA plotting Venezuala Coup SquattingMarmot 880 4 09/21/03 07:47 PM
by afoaf
* Hugo Chavez appears to have widespread support
( 1 2 all )
carbonhoots 2,173 26 12/10/05 10:26 AM
by Alex213
* Hugo Chavez can be re-elected indefinately
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 all )
lines 6,205 121 03/03/09 05:19 PM
by ScavengerType
* Hugo Chavez: What do you think of him and his government and why?
( 1 2 all )
johnm214 3,165 31 07/18/11 06:35 PM
by EntheogenicPeace
* I like Hugo Chavez even more now
( 1 2 all )
BrAiN 2,062 29 08/30/05 02:03 PM
by bukkake
* Will the USA overthrow Hugo Chavez? carbonhoots 951 9 03/01/05 10:29 PM
by Dark_Star
* Hugo Chavez: The revolution will not be televised kotik 463 1 09/28/06 12:42 PM
by AlteredAgain
* Hugo Chavez Battles Breast Implants lines 608 8 03/17/11 07:12 PM
by Icelander

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Enlil, ballsalsa
5,249 topic views. 2 members, 13 guests and 13 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.03 seconds spending 0.008 seconds on 15 queries.