Democratic Underground - But there you go--doing what so many do, associating the STUDENTS with the opposition.

And that's just BS. It's simplistic, and it's what the CHAVEZUELISTAS want you to believe.

The students only got covered because they haven't come out in force until recently. Many of them are just regular kids, yet Chavez accuses them, because they disagree with him, of being rich brats.

Here, let's look at the right wing (cough, choke) Christian Science Monitor's take on the issue of the students, for a bit of context:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1128/p01s09-woam.htm

University student Elena Mela had never protested in her life.
But last week she joined thousands of students in the streets of Caracas to fight against Sunday's referendum on President Hugo Ch�vez's plan to scrap term limits on his rule. "This will change our entire country," says Ms. Mela. "I will keep fighting for my values."

Despite recent polls showing a decline in support for Mr. Ch�vez's proposed constitutional reforms, most analysts say he will prevail. But unlike other chapters in his eight-year reign, the growing opposition among students and even from members within his own party � including a longtime ally and former general � could signal that he is pushing changes too fast and too hard. ...says Edgardo Lander, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela. "I think this is a serious problem because the legitimacy of the Venezuelan government up to now has to a great extent come from the fact that they have never gone beyond the constitution. Now for the first time there is a break in constitutional norms. I think it will eventually weaken the government."

In addition to abolishing presidential term limits, Ch�vez's proposed reforms would lower the voting age to 16 from 18, reduce the workday from eight to six hours, and establish Venezuela as a socialist state....The referendum has provoked an enormous � and at times tense � display of people power. One man was shot dead on Monday ....Among a fractured opposition, students have emerged as the most cohesive antireferendum force.

"The students have woken up the Venezeulan population to show that discontent goes beyond the political parties," says Enrique M�rquez, the vice president for organization within Un Nuevo Tiempo, an opposition party. ... students have been careful not to link themselves to the opposition, which has been defeated repeatedly at the ballot box since Ch�vez, was first elected in 1998. Students say they are focused solely on the referendum � not on the ouster of Ch�vez as the opposition often calls for.

"We all understand this is not about getting the president out; if he is there or not we'll still have the same problems," says Alejandro Narvaez, one of the student organizers...Students, as they have across Latin America, have played important roles in Venezuela, protesting its dictatorships, first in 1928 and then again 30 years later. But during the Ch�vez regime they had remained quiet � until the shutdown of an opposition television station in late May that was widely watched by Venezuelans of all economic backgrounds.

This is the first time they emerged in force during his rule, and analysts say it caught the country off-guard. "This went after something that really touched a nerve," says Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "It was the first egregious example of overreaching ." .... students resent the fact that Ch�vez has linked them to the so-called oligarchy � at one point calling them "rich bourgeois brats."

"I'm not the daughter of rich parents, like the president says," says Mela, who voted for Ch�vez during his first election because the country needed a change, she says, and put herself through school with a scholarship and job.

Reply #63: But there you go--doing what so many do, associating the STUDENTS with the opposition. [View All]