Did anyone here see Hugo Chavez's 4 hour speech on C-SPAN tonight?

I don't really know if it was 4 hours, but it seemed like it! ;) He made Bill Clinton seem 'short and to the point', BUT I thought his speech was EXCELLENT. He explained the complete, uncensored, SORDID U.S. policies in Latin America since forever.

He called for changing over to the Euro instead of the weak dollar.:scared: He said we have an economy that isn't realistic, it's a projected (? I think that's the word he used..this is all from my BAD memory :)) economy.

He called for more Latin American countries to join OPEC and make their OWN countries stronger with THEIR OWN resources instead of letting the U.S. dictate and run their oil supplies..

He called for a bottom price on a barrel of oil to be $50.00 and the ceiling cap...infinite.

He talked about how 90% the Venezuelan people use to drive ALONE in cars and that % has dropped to under 50% now...in order to save resources. He also talked about how wasteful WE ARE and if the entire world would change tomorrow to live in the same manner the U.S. citizens live, we would need 7 EARTHS to sustain it!

The man is smart as a whip and I was so damned impressed by him and his world vision. He knows where we're headed if we continue on the path we're on. He is SPOT ON when he says the U.S. is an Empire ready to fall and the world will rejoice when it does....that got a loud applause.:( We are truly DETESTED around the entire WORLD! If you get a chance, you MUST HEAR THIS SPEECH!

kool aid if he knows what's good for him... </sarcasm> :)

and he better be watching his back...STILL.:scared: He minced no words.

OPEC kept the barrel of oil at $1.00 a barrel for DECADES because of U.S. policies and control. The Venezuelan people got NOTHING in return. Nothing but poverty. I'm sure the cabal doesn't like the $50.00 minimum either, but guess what? It's THEIR oil, not ours and is NOT a renewable resource and MUST be reserved. He also capped Venezuelan production at 3 MILLION barrels a day instead of the 6 MILLION the U.S. wants them to produce. It's THEIR oil to do with what they want. It's not our oil and that is why we MUST develope alternative fuel sources.

What's our oil doing under their soil?:eyes:

refine into usable oil in the US, at $50/barrel it would encourage their investment in production of this crude (C-Span, their ambassador, I think said that it was still well below what we are paying now, and I think, it would make them the #1 producer in the world).

Look, I think we need to get off the oil fix, but, since our gov't. and too many citizens, don't seem to interested in the near future, they have every right to look after for their national interests! Isn't that our excuse for the Iraqi war?

Which CSpan was it on, hopefully either 1 or 2.

so that means it will repeat on 1 or 2, but I don't know when.

but Bush wants to make him our enemy for his own selfish purposes. I agree that this nation will fall and it will be a good thing for then the true patriots of this country can begin to rebuild it. We need to return to our once greatness. We need to return to being humanitarian. We need to mind our own country's business. We need to value our own citizens first. None of this will happen until this nation is brought to it's knees. It is sad that it is the only hope for us.

and how we pulled off 2 coups. Hugo would be our friend if it wasn't for this government. He LOVES Bill Clinton. He spoke fondly of him. He hates Bush.

It really was a great speech.

We've almost reached rock-bottom, and will be receptive to re-hab.

He fights for the poor people. In Bushworld, there is no greater sin. Chavez is interesed in distributing his country's oil wealth to its people and building a lasting economic infrastructure. As opposed to Bushies's best buddies, the Saudi princes. Who build great monuments and castles for their glory.

it was EXCELLENT. If you want to hear the history of the U.S. policies in oil rich countries...give it a watch. He started his history lesson in the early 1900s. As I said, it was a VERY LONG seech.

John Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" author said pretty much the same thing in his book as Chavez said. Chavez isn't making this stuff up.

*********QUOTE**********

From, A People’s History of the United States by Howard ZINN (paperback)

p. 149: We take nothing by conquest, thank God

…. “Violence leads to violence, and if this movement of ours does not lead to others and to bloodshed, I am much mistaken.“ ….

p. 150: In the White House now was James Polk, a Democrat, an expansionist, who, on the night of his inauguration, confided to his Secretary of the Navy that one of his main objectives was the acquisition of California. His order to General Taylor to move troops to the Rio Grande was a challenge to the Mexicans. ….

Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans was clearly a provocation. ….

p. 151: “A corps of properly organized volunteers…would invade, overrun, and occupy Mexico. They would enable us not only to take California, but to keep it.” It was shortly after that, in the summer of 1845, that John O’Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, used the phrase that became famous, saying it was “Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” Yes, manifest destiny.

All that was needed in the spring of 846 was a military incident to begin the war that Polk wanted. ….

The Mexicans had fired the first shot. But they had done what the American government wanted, according to Colonel Hitchcock, who wrote in his diary, even b efore those first incidents: “I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors…. We have not one particle of right to be here….”

P. 152: Polk recorded in his diary what he said to the cabinet meeting: “I stated … that up to this time, as we knew, we had heard of no open act of aggression by the Mexican army, but that the danger was imminent that such acts would be committed. ….

The country was not “excited and impatient.” But the President was. …. Polk spoke of the dispatch of American troops to the Rio Grande as a necessary measure of defense. As John Schroeder says (Mr. Polk’s War): “Indeed, the reverse was true; President Polk had incited war by sending American soldiers into what was disputed territory, historically controlled and inhabited by Mexicans.”

Congress then rushed to approve the war message. “The disciplined Democratic majority in the House responded with alacrity and high-handed efficiency to Polk’s May 11 war recommendations.” …. p. 153: Debate on the bill providing volunteers and money for the war was limited to two hours, and most of this was used up reading selected portions of the tabled documents, so that barely a half-hour was left for discussion of the issues.

The Whig party was presumably against the war in Mexico, but it was not against expansion. ….Also they were not so powerfully against the military action that they would stop it by denying men and money for the operation. They did not want to risk the accusation that they were putting American soldiers in peril by depriving them of the materials necessary to fight. The result was that Whigs joined Democrats in voting overwhelmingly for the war resolution, 74 to 4. ….

In the Senate, there was debate, but it was limited to one day, and “the tactics of stampede were there repeated,” according to historian Frederick Merk. The war measure passed, 40 to 2, Whigs joining Democrats. …

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was not yet in Congress when the war began, but after his election in 1846... …. …His “spot resolutions” became famous--he challenged Polk to specify the exact spot where American blood was shed “on the American soil.” But he would not try to end the war by stopping funds for men and supplies. …. …he said, “…The declaration that we have always opposed the war is true or false, according as one may understand the term ‘oppose the war.’ …. The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and property to destruction… ….With few individual exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the necessary supplies….”

p. 154: Accompanying all this aggressiveness was the idea that the United States would be giving the blessings of liberty and democracy to more people. This was intermingled with ideas of racial superiority, longings for the beautiful lands of New Mexico and California, and thoughts of commercial enterprise across the Pacific.

p. 156: The churches, for the most part, were either outspokenly for the war or timidly silent. ….However, one Baptist minister, the Reverend Francis Wayland, president of Brown University, gave three sermons in the university chapel in which he said that only wars of self-defense were just, and in case of unjust war, the individual was morally obligated to resist it and lend no money to the government to support it.

p. 157: As the war went on, opposition grew. ….The abolitionists, speaking through William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, denounced the war as one “of aggression, of invasion, of conquest, and rapine--marked by ruffianism, perfidy, and every other feature of national depravity…” ….

p. 158: Where was popular opinion? It is hard to say. After the first rush, enlistments began to dwindle. The 1846 elections showed much anti-Polk sentiment, but who could tell how much of this was due to the war? ….

p. 160: We know much more about the American army--volunteers, not conscripts, lured by money and opportunity for social advancement via promotion in the armed forces. …. At first there seemed to be enthusiasm in the army, fired by pay and patriotism. … This initial spirit soon wore off. ….

p. 161: By late 1846, recruitment was falling off, so physical requirements were lowered, and anyone bringing in acceptable recruits would get $2 a head. Even this didn’t work. …. And soon, the reality of battle came in upon the glory and the promises. ….

p. 163: Meanwhile, by land and by sea, Anglo-American forces were moving into California. …. It was a separate war that went on in California, where Anglo-Americans raided Spanish settlements, stole horses, and declared California separated from Mexico--the “Bear Flag Republic.”

p. 165: After Taylor’s army took Monterey (Mexico) he reported “some shameful atrocities” by the Texas Rangers, and he sent them home when their enlistment expired. But others continued robbing and killing Mexicans. ….The U.S. bombardment of the city (Vera Cruz) became an indiscriminate killing of civilians. ….

p. 166: It was a war of the American elite against the Mexican elite, each side exhorting, using, killing its own population as well as the other. …. P. 167: As often in war, battles were fought without point. …”He had originated it in error and caused it to be fought, with inadequate forces, for an object that had no existence.” ….

p. 168: “Although they had volunteered to go to war, and by far the greater number of them honored their commitments by creditably sustaining hardship and battle, and behaved as well as soldiers in a hostile country are apt to behave, they did not like the army, they did not like war, and generally speaking, they did not like Mexico or the Mexicans. …. The glory of the victory was for the President and the generals, not the deserters, the dead, the wounded. ….

p. 169: Mexico surrendered. There were calls among Americans to take all of Mexico. The Treaty… llll just took half. ….The United States paid Mexico $ million, which led the Whig Intelligencer to conclude that “we take nothing by conquest….Thank God.”

**********UNQUOTE*************

how much better off the poor people are? how much healthier their economy is? etc.

msongs
www.msongs.com
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mugs and shirts

They are importing buses from CHINA for mass transit and will soon be opening a factory (JOBS) to build their OWN buses. Now that they have repaid their 'debt' to the U.S., the $$$$$ they make on their oil will be theirs to improve their own economy.

2nd in the world, I think Paris was #1! It was so automated back then, that a voice came over and announced every stop, and it was so darn spanking clean, yep, 1992!

I worked in Manhattan, in 1995 and live in the Philly area, and clean subways, please!

That was even before Chavez, the US is so gullible about our superiority!

to that system and is enlarging it to cover more of the country. Imagine that! A subway system for the entire country or MOST of it....and we have politicians HERE trying to get rid of our Amtrak system. THIS country should have had a countrywide subway system YEARS ago. We are so far behind when it comes to mass transit.:( Hell, just a few years ago my city FINALLY started a bus system. :( Is that sad or what? Absolutely pathethic. Superior? Puh!

The scale of this is respectable, but "the entire country or MOST of it"? It pales in complexity when compared to the MTA or even San Francisco's BART.

thanks for the heads up in_cog_ni_to
Cspan 2
10:13 PM EDT
1:24 (est.)
Speech
Venezuelan President Address
OPEC
Hugo Chavez , Venezuela

01:50 AM EDT
1:24 (est.)
Speech
Venezuelan President Address
OPEC
Hugo Chavez , Venezuela

Cspan 1
05:31 AM EDT
1:24 (est.)
Speech
Venezuelan President Address
OPEC
Hugo Chavez , Venezuela

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp

:hi:

it will be but an unachieved dream when he finds himself up to his ass in American Paratroopers. Just like Noriega.

Remember....WE ARE DETESTED AROUND THE WORLD. There's no way in hell they would just stand by and let that go down without a fight. Our economy is weak, our soldiers are occupied and will be forever and we DO NOT have the resources to attack Venezuela. We'll be busy in Iraq, Iran and Syria for a while, I think. Chavez has also warned the world that if ANYTHING happens to him personally...LOOK AT G.W. BUSH.

with 3rd Ranger Battalion. It was done with 30,000 troops. Less than 15% of our forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan right now.

Believe what you will, but if we jumped in like we did into Panama in the middle of night, the Commander of the American forces would be having breakfast in the Presidential Palace by morning.

No neighbor of Venezuela would want to subject their forces to the same beatdown of Chavez's. Not after seeing them cut down like wheat overnight.

Who will come to his defense from overseas? Any country who tried would have their ships sunk less than a hundred miles from their own shores.

Chavez is in power because, the US does not really care if he is in power or not. Much like a gnat, Chavez is considered little more than insignificant. But once gnats make themselves to much of a bother. They tend to get slapped and without too much effort.

The reaction of the world to Chavez all of a sudden having rock and roll blared at him by American troops outside his hiding place would amount to little more than rhetoric and fist shaking at the UN.

Chavez stays as long as the US says he stays, he just does not realize it.

Not every person is a gnat. Not every gnat can be slapped away. You have a very distorted view of American power and influence.

a lot of people have a enlarged and distorted view of the power and influence of Hugo Chavez.

I have seen American power before. I was a part of it twice in Panama and in Desert Storm.

It was not fully unleashed in Iraq and we are now facing the consequences of not having done so.

but you must understand that the laws of the universe are at play here. The US is a technological superpower. But look at where we are in the world, we are a pariah. Our influence will soon be limited to our willingness to kill people. We don't have long. So, yes, we can blow Chavez and his army out in 36 hours, but these things do not happen in a vacuum. Iraq 1 would have been no different than Iraq 2 if in Iraq 1 we went into Baghdad. In fact, it would have been much worse. He was much better equipped then.

My belief is that a country that spreads mayhem for no just cause is doomed. It has always been that way. The US has created enough misery in the world since WWII that the damage simply can no longer be undone.

What gives Chavez power is his iconic value. He is revered as a populist. He is in a position to be a martyr. The US has already tried to take him out. They can they can't do it openly because of Chavez' stature in the third world. So they try to do it with astroturf revolutions.

Sorry for the rant, but I tend to look at these things in a broad and historical context.

of the US military capability, but I don't think there's any point to that. I would ask though, do you think it moral for the US to invade Venezuela? Was it moral to do so in Iraq? What standards have to be met to justify such actions?

and conflicts? Religious? Economic? Influence? Resources? Has it ever been benevolence? Ever?

such as Kosovo and WWII.

was a set-up. Saddam was our friend then and he was duped. Then his ego wouldn't allow him to back out. He was told by April Glaspie that the US has no role to play in the Kuwaiti conflict. He was never going to go into Saudi. That was a lie.

Panama I know very little about. I do know that Noriega and Bush Sr. were partners. Bush was completely aware of Noriega's drug running and he was on the CIA payroll. When he was no longer any use to Bush he was taken out.

There's only one thing worse than being a Bush enemy, that's being a Bush friend because you never know when you'll get offed.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-05.html

"On the same day -- the day Panama was invaded -- the White House also announced plans (and implemented them shortly afterwards) to lift a ban on loans to Iraq. The State Department explained with a straight face that this was to achieve the "goal of increasing US exports and put us in a better position to deal with Iraq regarding its human rights record...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Neocons...always looking ahead to the next invasion.

noriega please. and how many civilians died in gulf 1? how many soldiers have died since of the effects of depleted uranium, ptsd, and countless other conditions? or do you even care?

what makes you think this country has the right to go after a LEGITAMATELY elected president of a sovereign nation? and what do you think would happen to this country if the rest of the world decided that we were the overgrown gnat that needed to be dealt with? your macho, bullying, swaggering BS is not impressive, and that attitude (which seems so prevalent in the chimperor's inner circle) is going to be the ruin of this country. do us all a favour and get over yourself and your war "heroics".

is huge, almost everywhere. And in Latin America, it's overwhelming. From the Monroe Doctrine on, the US has acted like we ultimately rule Latin America, & any leaders must rule only w/our permission. The US has never hesitated to take out leaders we dislike in order to install puppet governments that we think will favor our ideological interests. We've supported the assasination of leaders we disagree with. We've influenced & corrupted Latin American elections. We've funded terrorist groups that support our ends. I don't doubt that the US could & would consider taking Chavez out - it's part of the long, bloody legacy in Latin America. But that's a bad thing, & not something we should be accepting. Chevez might be a loudmouth, but he's the elected leader of Venezuela & we have no business meddling in their affairs.

:sarcasm:

I am proud of having been part of the operation. Still saddened by the loss of one of my soldiers there though.

It was the biggest combat drop since WW2. Pretty historic actually. And it went off without a hitch. Have not heard much about Panama since then, have you? So I guess it all worked out.

for a while. A couple of troops patroling a perimeter fence were killed about a month before the Invasion. There had been stand offs between American MPs and Panamanian Defense forces.

There was an election coming up so the US waited. Manuel Noriega looked like he was going to lose the election, so he would cease to be a problem.

When the election was held he lost, then refused to step down, and had his opponents beaten by soldiers wearing civilan clothes at a rally. The US said that it would no longer recognize Noriega as the leader of Panama.

This infuriated Noriega, he appeared on TV waving a machete and slamming it on a podium. A couple of days later a school bus full of American children was stopped and surrounded by Panamanian soldiers.

American MPs showed up to escort the bus to the base it was headed to, guns were drawn, M16s were raised, finally a platoon of American Infantry showed up and the Panamanians left. That was the last straw.

It was right after that that the entire 75th Ranger Regiment, 82nd Airborne, Marines and other Units went on alert and invaded.

I honor your service. You should be proud of making the sacrifice. That should be understood. The debate is about a larger issue, as is evident.

my lack of faith in Chavez stems from the intense distrust I learned to view politicians with in Mexico. The worst of everything political and corrupt goes on in Mexico. Every politician in Mexico makes the public sneer and spit on the ground.

You are left with a choice. Vote for the guys who have been fucking you for years, or vote in a new guy to fuck you. Sometimes you go with the new guy because he may kiss you first before he fucks you.
The other guys never kiss you anymore.

Of course politics in the US are not great source of inspiration either.

Chavez strikes me as trying too hard. Guys that try too hard usually want something and will even distribute a few goodies. But in the end, those are candies and flowers and before you know it, he has his hands down your pants and then you are getting fucked again.

I see all this gushing over Chavez and I can't fight the urge to yell, slow down! There is a reason he has those flowers and candies!

What would you consider the justification for a U.S. invasion of Venezuela such as you describe?

justification and an invasion won't happen. I really would not see any justification other than the oil spigots being turned off. Mind you that that would be the US's justification not mine.

The owners of a commodity are certainly at liberty to sell, or not sell, to whomever they please.

sometimes the need of one country for a commodity exceeds the need the owner of the commodity to sell it. If the one who needs it is infinitely more powerful than the one who owns it, there really is not a choice.

But you would not agree that a strong man had the right to take an old woman's purse and wallet merely because he needed some money and could easily take it from her. If he did so, he would be a criminal, and someone you would enjoy beating to a pulp.

but sometimes a person or a country can keep the person from being a bully by agreeing to terms that are for the benefit of both. Even then, both parties do not have to like it.

That is true enough.

But a unilateral "embargo" of oil is pretty pointless anyway: in the final analysis, everyone buys from the same pool. What one country does not sell to someone it sells to someone else, who in turn does not buy from someone else, who in turn sells to the first's original customer. The stuff is worthless to its possessor unless sold to someone, and so of course it will be sold, not simply sat on.

Your words:
But you have to consider...sometimes the need of one country for a commodity exceeds the need the owner of the commodity to sell it. If the one who needs it is infinitely more powerful than the one who owns it, there really is not a choice.

Is this not rape?

just stating that if the US wanted that and Chavez did not want to sell it to us, the US would have that oil.

Maybe I am misreading your last few posts.

If Venezuela decides to not sell the oil to the US, but the US needs that oil, do you think that the US would not have that oil?

That is what I mean by there no really being any choice for Chavez in whether the US gets that oil or not. The only choice he really has is whether he sells it or we take, not whether we can have it or not.

The one difference today - and its a huge difference - is that our neighbors in the South have awoken to the fact that living by US rules means being in bindage forever. This wave of populists that are being elected - Chavez, Lula, Morales - are going to try and do things on a social democracy system.

Until now they have lived by our rules, which are basically designe to take their resources in exchange for enriching the already wealthy. This is why the Bushies hate these guys.

have always been the ones who promise a social democracy. I truly like our system better. In a social democracy, everyone, except the ones who promised to save us, is poor and stuck there. No one will rise up out of that.

In the US it is possible. I have done it and was not even born here. One of my best friends was completely homeless when he was released from prison a few years ago and now has a very successful small business.

I prefer a system that allows those opportunities, than one that would keep everyone equal.

a socity based on accumulation of wealth is an end-game society. It is not sustainable.

Would that be how YOU treat women, Mr. Boo?

If so, I'm guessing you've been through several divorces.

she was a wanton adultress. Seeing the way politicians treat the ones they rule showed me early on, that is no way to treat a woman.

You obviously misread my metaphor. The candles and flowers comment was about how politicians treat the people and how offensive I find it. Not actions I would take myself.

With my charm, good looks and athletic prowess I have no need of flowers or candy. I may be lacking in humility, though. :)

by)what appears to be a tone of swaggering macho.

This is a tone that will make almost everyone else at DU(with the exception of a guy named MrBenchley, who probably wants to draft you as a presidential candidate in '08)squirm.

That tone, projected by our leaders and the troops they sent in to intervene in their name, has produced little but misery and savagery in the years after 1945(I think our troops in WW2 presented themselves as more modest and down-to-earth, in the spirit of a people's army)and I and most others at DU tend to find it terrifying.

To us, it evokes My Lai, Abu Ghraib, and Fallujah. Further back in history, it reminds us of what this nation did to Native Americans and Mexicans when it stole their lands.

It represents all that we are fighting against, all the arrogance, the savagery, the bloodthirstyness that we sincerely believe this country no longer needs.

Maybe you prefer the law of the jungle, but some of us want the world to move beyond that, flawed and sinning as we ourselves are. As Oscar Wilde once put it "we are all in the gutter, but some of us are dreaming of the stars".

I hope this explains the discomfort some people at DU feel reading your posts.

I will allow for the fact that your posting style may be a character or persona you adopt for some sort of effect.

And I appreciate the fact that you've been willing to engage in a bit of a dialogue with me.

Are you proud of the fact that we "haven't heard much about Panama"? If so, why? I didn't like Noriega but he was basically harmless.

He refused to step down for the newly and democratically elected leaders of the country. Soldiers were dying on perimeter guard duty. There were escalating confrontations between US and Panamanian soldiers and a stand off involving a busload of American School Children.

He was not harmless.

And clearly our record of intervention has usually left us responsible for creating situations that were far worse for the residents of those countries(Guatemala, the Dominican Republic)than the situations we decided we simply couldn't accept.

If we overthrew Chavez and the result was a Pinochet-style state or a false democracy where parties of the right had an electoral system built to guarantee their victories, would you consider that a victory?

to rigging an electoral system which will keep him in power for decades. If that okay because it is a more leftist style government?

with more direct democratic features(such as constitutional assemblies in which ordinary Venezuelans, as opposed to the economic elites who always dominate South American political parties)can have a real say.

I also see it as Chavez protecting the progressive Venezuelan majority from the efforts of the U.S. government and international finance to force them to accept austerity capitalism whether they want it or not.

Why should the "Westminster-style" parliamentary model(a model that is rigged in favor of bourgeois parties and the rich)be considered the only valid form of democracy?

And can you honestly say that a U.S. intervention would produce anything in Venezuela that wouldn't be a total misery for the Venezuelan people?(like, for example, Nicaragua, where we armed a bandit army and forced the country to elect a right-wing government which served only the rich.)

I don't trust our leaders do have any positive intentions for the other nations of this hemisphere. Do you?

Or is it your view that what's good for the American ruling class is all that matters?

that it is the people who matter, not the politicians.

My concern as regards Venezuela is that, if Chavez were overthrown, the progressive majority of the Venezuelan people will be brutally repressed and silenced, as the working class in Chile was after 1973. I can't imagine anything that would ever justify subjecting people to that kind of ruling class retribution ever again.

As to the US, I believe that as a first step we need a major reform of our electoral system, with direct presidential elections, Instant Runoff Voting for all elections including the presidency and an absolute ban on corporate campaign contributions in any form.

I also believe we ultimately need democratic control of the economy with the people, rather than the rich, making the major economic decisions, which, after all, are the only decisions that really matter.

Real History is more interesting than fake shit. You should read it.

HE participated! Real History indeed.

Did you miss where the Carter Center signed off on the latest election(s) as completely legitimate?

You either don't know what you're talking about, or you're being willfully dishonest. I'd like to think it's the former.

operation. Was it 3,000 murdered in Panama to capture one former U.S. ally?

consisted of a mechanized infantry unit and an elite unit comperable to our own. This was away from Panama City and not too many civilians around.

We also had several follow on and stability mission in the days following the resistance involving dug in infantry and paramilitary units. Hardly any civilians around there also.

If Panamaninans wound up dead there, they were trigger pullers not non-comabatants.

:eyes: Puh-leeeeeeaze

of what?

Obviously, the US sees him as a threat, we still have sanctions against Cuba. The US tried REAL hard getting him out. Operation Mongoose. Cuba is only 90 miles away. Hell, we have a military base on the island, we had a back door. Why didn't the US "squash Castro like a gnat"?

It was not a huge concerted effort. It was basically an outsourced operation and the people it was delegated to were not up to the task.

Castro is far from a military powerful. Someone else wanted Castro out bad enough to force him out, we provided some help.

The US does not want Castro out bad enough to commit a massive amount of troops to it. Prefering instead to toy with him with sanctions and the embargo. Probably trying to get Castro to swing first.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man?

Remember a few days back when I said Chavez didn't really believe $50 a barrel should be the maximum price of oil and you ranted that I was just a sucker for the corporate media. Yeah. About that...

I like Chavez, but that doesn't mean he's not still a politician. He may have very noble aims for his country and his cause, but he still uses the same tactics as any smart politician. What you missed is that in my own sick mind, seeing him as a little bit Machiavellian is a complement, not an insult.

"The ceiling cap should be infinite"

Exactly what I was saying to you before. He may have said oil should go for $50 a barrel with Palast, but there is no way he meant it. And now he changes his mind.

I rely on Occam's razor too much you say?

but there won't be a ceiling -- and I suspect that he means that it will be impossible to set a ceiling if the US invades Iran. And I suspect that he was saying that he would like to sell at $50.

If you get a transcript of the speech, I willing to bet that what I posted in that other thread is exactly right. Chavez wants oil to be $50/barrel today.


Here's a newspaper report:


"We'll have to be very watchful," he said. "$50 is a fair price, but as a minimum. That's how we see it."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Venezuela_OPEC_Chavez.html

You see Chavez's statement as saying preferably $50 a barrel, whereas I see the statement as saying $50 a barrel but only if necessary. Looking at the phrasing, it could be interpreted either way. I still think his actions don't line up with actually desiring a price of $50 a barrel. The source you cite has Venezuela proposing cuts in production, but being overruled by the rest of OPEC.

change and the price could be higher.

He says that he believes today's high price ($70) isn't due to supply and demand but is due to futures prices being high because of fear of an attack on Iran.

I don't know what more you need from the guy. He's not trying to destory the west. He's aiming at fairness which allows developing countries to get a fair price for their resources while not causing misery to the rest of the world. Two years ago he said that price was $40. With the decline in the value of the dollar, now that price is $50. He's amazingly consistent on this issue. If you're confused about his intentions, I don't think it's Chavez's fault. There's plenty of resources out there for you to read.

change and the price could be higher.

He says that he believes today's high price ($70) isn't due to supply and demand but is due to futures prices being high because of fear of an attack on Iran.

I don't know what more you need from the guy. He's not trying to destory the west. He's aiming at fairness which allows developing countries to get a fair price for their resources while not causing misery to the rest of the world. Two years ago he said that price was $40. With the decline in the value of the dollar, now that price is $50. He's amazingly consistent on this issue. If you're confused about his intentions, I don't think it's Chavez's fault. There's plenty of resources out there for you to read.

nt.

Tell that to the people of Venezuela who helped him regain power after the failed coup attempt (undertaken by the rightwing opposition with tacit U.S. support).

He was out of power for...two days. The people took to the streets and helped reinstate their democratically-elected president - no wonder, considering the first act of the coup plotters was to literally tear up the Venezuelan constitution.

You are stunningly ignorant of the situation. I would suggest some education, and fast.

(And my father also unfortunately took part in the illegal action in Panama, wherein hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed. It's easy to "cut them down like wheat" when they're unarmed.)

Venezuela is a fairly large country, not like tiny Panama, Haiti, or (insert any small sized nation the U.S. has intervened militarily HERE) It would be hard to take a country like Venezuela. Plus the people are behind Chavez. We go in there it will be Iraq and Vietnam combined. It seems our "Mission Accomplished" banner for Afghanistan was a little premature just as the one for Iraq. The US can not win a medium intensity conflict.

in Venezuela. There would not have to be the massive destruction of infrastructure and Venezuelans are not going to be blowing each other up like the Islamists. Religion is a much more powerful motivator to fight for than Chavez.

No one is fighting for Saddam in Iraq. There are other motivations behind the insurgency in Iraq than just not wanting to be occupied. You have several sects fighting for power. They all think they can beat the other sects, but they have to make the Americans leave first.

Not that kind of discord in Venezuela. There was no insurgency in Panama either. Completely different culture.

Check out Venezuela's neighbor Colombia. The countries of Northern South America have a strong nationalistic fervor that goes back to Bolivar. It has been boosted by Chavez's populist rhetoric. Venezuelans won't roll over and let the US take their oil. Plenty of mountainous jungles and tepuis to hide in Venezuela.

by what they fight for. A man is never a reason. It wa not Che or Castro who motivated the revolution in Cuba. It was what they were selling that motivated it.

They were just men and people fight and kill for them everyday.

to Jesus and Muhhamed than just them.

And with that, I will depart. I have a bid to make in the moring on lucrative account I have been wanting to get for a while.

Good night, All.

a far right dictatorship with the neoliberal "Washington Consensus" policies imposed by US guns.

You don't think the pro-Chavez Venezuelan majority would fight to the end to prevent that kind of misery and humiliation?

Let's not forget that

If it had, we can assume it would have been a repeat of Chile in 1973, or maybe Indonesia in 1965, with a higher body count because most of the victims weren't white.

Thanks for the heads up.

If so, why? What did the people of Venezuela ever do to you that you want them returned to the misery of capitalism?

the same thing. What did I ever do that so many people want to impose the yoke of socialism on me in the US?

Chavez's "socialism" is nothing more than him being a populist. Sure he will throw a few programs out there, make people think he cares about more than his own power. But those are just candies and flowers. The fucking will come later.

I have no faith in politicians and the bombastic one are even worse.

I'm guessing your instincts would be authoritarian. It's kind of hard to feature you, from your posts, as a supporter of, say, nonviolent anarchism and voluntary worker cooperatives(which is, in the model I myself would actually prefer if it were ever feasible, which it isn't at present).

that they will be saviors or save us from anything. I do prefer our current system, flawed as it is to others.

At least here the government is structured to where the politicians are about as usefull as a broke dick dog, they leave you (but not your money) pretty much alone, compared to other places.

Fair enough(although I hope you don't support the refusal of those who run our system to allow us to elect the president directly and with each vote carrying equal weight). You have the right to want what you want in terms of our own country's internal politics and our own economic system.

It strongly appears that, in much of Latin America, the people there would prefer other ways of running their countries and their country's economic systems. Do you believe it is legitimate for the U.S. and the World Bank to use coercion to say to those countries that they have no right to run their economic and political systems in the way THEY wish to run them?

no wonder they want him gone. The guy said it all...and he said it beatifully. I wish I spoke Spanish so I could have understood him in his language.

I've never heard him give a speech like that and was truly impressed. I've only seen snipits of him saying things and never realized how damn INTELLIGENT he is. I just couldn't stop watching that speech and it was LONG, LONG, LONG. It really is MUST SEE TV.

I was watching Last Comic Standing!!

I will definitely watch it on the replay.

I'm staying up for a few more hours...yawn...its already 12:30

with Mr. Toliet and Mrs. Toliet Paper.

at http://www.c-span.org/

I'm GOT to see this.

Surely appreciate your observations and recommendation.

I've got my vcr primed and ready to go.

Friday night - 1:30AM - staying up for cspan :(

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp

I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

I wonder if the program had simultaneous translation or subtitles?

why do they do that, castro used to do that too?


if you have a good message, what's wrong w. short and punchy?

For people who didn't watch it. Chavez said that, in the 90's, Venezuela was being used as a Trojan Horse to destroy OPEC from within. It made me think about Greg Palast's claim that Bush wanted to keep Iraq's oil, state owned and in OPEC! I wonder if Iraq is the new Trojan Horse. Very interesting stuff.

actually knew history and all the important issues facing his nation and the world.

He speaks for most of the world.

and it really made me smile! Chavez pulled a miniature copy of the Venezuelan CONSTITUTION OUT OF HIS POCKET...JUST LIKE ROBERT BYRD DOES! LOL! I said to my husband, "We have a Robert Byrd in the making here!" I Just LOVED seeing him do that.:)

Anyway, I've been gone and haven't been on DU. Does anyone know if C-SPAN has the video of the Chavez speech on their site? I searched for it and couldn't find it. I need to share it with someone. Thanks in advance!:hi:

I read that Venezuelans all carry the constitution around and talk about it and debate it. He's doing what millions of Venezuelans do.

:hi: