HUGO CHAVEZ IS NOT A DICK-TATOR!!!!!!!!!!

Is it toooooo much to ask the Democratic front runners to STOP calling Hugo Chavez a Dick-tator? What the fuck is their problem. Maybe this is their way of trying to pacify those extreme RW Cuba Mafia fascists that live in Miami but all it does is make them look like LIARS! If they are CONFUSED they can always read good Ole Wikipedia..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_chavez

Hugo Chavez has WON three Presidential elections.. One in 1998, one in 2000, and one in 2006! As far as I know Dick-tators don't win elections. They either pull coups, like the one pulled ON Hugo Chavez in 2002 by the USA! OR they run against nobody and win 99% of the vote like Saddam Hussein.

If Hillary needs to find a Dick-tator to beat up why doesn't she go over to the Whitehouse. There is a guy sitting in the Oval office who has NEVER won a Presidential election. His name is George W Bush and he has STOLEN two. One in 2000 and one in 2004! He has also in Dick-tator fashion, repeatedly attacked the Constitution, stacked the Supreme Court with CRONIES and is threating to seize the assets of everybody who tries to make him follow the law! Now this guy, George W Bush is a REAL DICK-TATOR! According to the definition anyway. He's also a WAR CRIMINAL too. He's a REAL BAD BAD GUY! So go fuck with him why don't you!

PLEEZE either put down your focus-group tested talking points and do some reading or just SHUT THE FUCK UP! As long as Hugo Chavez wins elections the old-fashion way by COUNTING THE VOTES then he is by all description the PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA! That's more than you can say about that THING sitting in the Whitehouse.

Thank you for listening to my rant!

GAWD BLESS HUGO CHAVEZ!

:eyes:

how that has anything to do with this thread.

I'm no fan, but I somehow don't cotton to the notion that she want to destroy democracy

That's what supporting the embargo and taking blood money from Miami exiles means.

Hillary cares about nobody but the rich. If she cared about the poor, she'd oppose globalization and neoliberalism.

Her brother's (Hugh Rodham) wife is a South Florida Cuban American.

Damned pity. She is completely closed on the subject, it appears.

That settles it. She has to be stopped.

NAME: Hugh Rodham
RELATIONSHIP: Hillary Clinton's brother
AGE AT CONVENTION: N/A

BIO:
Hugh played second string quarterback on the football team at Penn State and graduated in 1972. He spent two years in the Peace Corps in Colombia. He took advanced degrees in education and law at the University of Arkansas, then moved to Miami to practice criminal law. He eventually became a public defender, working on the controversial drug court created by Janet Reno when she was Dade County state attorney. The court advocates treatment over jail time for drug addicts and Hugh Rodham helped develop an innovative approach to help people overcome drug addiction by way of acupuncture, counseling and frequent urine tests.

Hugh met his future wife, Maria Victoria Arias, a Cuban immigrant, when she was a college intern at the Miami public defender's office. They married in 1986, and Hugh moved out of the apartment he had shared with brother for three years. Hugh said in 1992 that he "loved" the apartment he shared with his brother, and unsuccessfully tried to convince his wife to move in after they married.

Hugh Rodham ran for the U.S. Senate in 1994, losing to incumbent Republican Connie Mack 70%-30%. Though President and Hillary Clinton campaigned for him, he didn't raise much money and received little help from Florida's Democratic establishment. He ran only one television ad, an anti-gun spot focused on the October 1994 attack on the White House, where Martin Duran fired two rounds at what Hugh's voice over called "my family." Hugh now has a liberal leaning talk radio show.
(snip/...)

http://www.cnn.com.nyud.net:8090/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/democrat/clinton/rodham.shtml



Unlike something you ate which doesn't agree
with you, bad news just lodges there!

~snip~
Four years ago, senior State Department diplomats hoped Clinton would breathe fresh air into U.S.-Cuban relations. Miami's fiercely anti-Castro Cuban-American community had long blocked any thaw, though the Pentagon had concluded that Havana posed no threat to the region, and Washington had made peace with almost all its cold war enemies. But half a dozen Cuban-American Democrats who raised huge sums for Clinton in 1992 convinced the new President he could win Florida in '96 if he became even more anti-Castro than Ronald Reagan or George Bush had been.

Senior Clinton aides call the cabal the "core group." It includes Maria Victoria Arias, a Miami lawyer married to Hugh Rodham, the First Lady's brother; and wealthy businessman Paul Cejas, who occasionally stays overnight at the White House. Arias telephones Hillary frequently and often sends Clinton clippings from Florida newspapers. In regular meetings at the Colonnade Hotel in Coral Gables or at Little Havana's Versailles Restaurant, the core group plans strategy and prepares appeals, which are sent by way of private notes to Clinton's top political aides. "When an issue comes up, we try to get a consensus and present a united front," says core-group member Simon Ferro, a Miami Democratic activist.

Clinton came to the Oval Office with his own Castro obsession. In 1980 he lost re-election as Governor partly because Cuban refugees rioted at an Arkansas Army post. As President he ordered the CIA to estimate the chances of an upheaval in Cuba during his first term: the agency said better than fifty-fifty. Clinton aides later pressed the cia to fund Cuban dissidents secretly. Burned by a dirty-tricks campaign against Castro in the '60s, the agency sidetracked the idea.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985376-1,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Horrid, isn't it?

Because it told the truth that there are no progressive Miami Cuban exiles.

I'm sure you can provide a quote that indicates that what she wants.

That's what taking campaign donations from Miami Cubans means.

If you do that you can't be on the side of the poor or of working people.

To be "anticommunist" is to be right-wing.

every president for the last 48 years has been right-wing.

That's an awfully simplistic way of looking at things.

Also, you DO realize she didn't say she wouldn't talk to Castro, right?

That's what the Truman-JFK-LBJ tradition in foreign policy was: outside our own shores, the poor and the workers could go to hell.

That's what our leaders wanted when they opposed revolution and social change. That's what they wanted when they wanted the rich to win. They wanted the poor to suffer. Post-1945 American foreign policy was driven largely by hatred and fear of the majority of the world. We have to break with this and support the Global Majority.

Don't you WANT us to stop backing the bad guys?

didn't say she wouldn't talk to our "enemies". That's a gross misreading of what she said.

To the white Americans they were properly taken from, and to negotiate the surrender and end of the Revolution.

The point is, there is no good reason to continue to treat Cuba as an enemy anymore. We should now treat it as just another country.

I have to ask for a quote from her to that effect.

It's just more proof that Hillary never really stopped being a Goldwater Girl.

Wanting Fidel overthrown means wanting a right-wing world. And enforcing the embargo means wanting Fidel overthrown and the Batista days brought back. It can't mean anything else.

prove your ridiculous assertions? I thought not.

End of discussion.

You can't want social justice in one country but not in all.

it's not the end of discussion.

But then, you think she should be disqualified from the race because her sister-in-law is Cuban, so I'll take your assertions with a huge grain of salt.

Don't you get it? Being obsessively right-wing on Cuba means you will be right-wing toward the rest of the world.

You can't ally with the Miami Cubans and have progressive beliefs. They won't tolerate it. Their love of Nixon and Reagan proves that.

Those guys just want to go home and kick workers in the teeth. They have no positive ideas.

demonstrated anything right-wing about Clinton's supposed foreign policy.

And don't fucking dare question my credentials as a democrat. Somebody who posts as much stupid shit as should focus on his own views.

This type of policy has always pitted the United States against the poor and dispossesed of the world. We were never really fighting "the Communist menace" since most of the developing world didn't want Soviet Communism. This tradition was against all hope for the world's poor, and it's the tradition Hillary subscribes to without question.

We don't have to lower ourselves to JFK in '61 to win. That means consigning the poor to eternal misery.

logical as everything you've posted on this topic - that is to say, not at all.

In every situation, the foreign policy status quo(which Hillary unquestioningly champions) was for the rich against the poor, for war instead of peace, and for pollution above survival.

You know this. Why pretend otherwise.

Do you not agree that we have an obligation to completely break from this tradition, since it can never be progressive, humane or positive?

Creating the Peace Corps? Liberating Kosovo? The Marshall Plan?

Your thinking is far too simplistic.

The only times when our leaders didn't act EXCLUSIVELY on short-term corporate self-interest.

They don't justify the rest.

We can't undo what was done in the past, but we can avoid repeating the past arrogance.

You would, I assume, agree that our country must NEVER again do the following:

1)Overthrown democratic governments.
2)Force other countries to adopt austerity budgets and immiserate their populations through our dominance of the "World" Bank.
3)Put the needs of the rich before the needs of the working class and desperately poor Global Majority.

All people like me are saying is that our country must never again be the bad guys. Is that really asking so much?

she wants to overthrow democratic governments. In fact, you haven't shown where she's said ANYTHING at all. And in the debate, she didn't say she wouldn't talk to our "enemies". She said she wouldn't promise to do so within her first year in office.

And those three things were just off the top of my head given about 30 seconds thought. And you think the Marshall Plan was a "minor" thing?

Here's a few more 'minor' things: Jimmy Carter brokering the Egypt/Israel peace accord. Carter speaking out on behalf of human rights. The Clinton administration brokering a settlement to the fighting in Northern Ireland. Trying to provide some humanitarian relief in Somalia.

Again, you're being overly simplistic.

None of the things you mentioned required Democrats to support the bad things in the foreign policy tradition.
None of them required mindless "anticommunism" or escalation in Vietnam or supporting neoliberalism or keeping the School of the Americas open or anything else you "Scoop Jackson" types insisted we support. And they never required us to always take the side of the rich against the poor.

We never need to support hardline policies again. None of them achieved anything.

And Hillary is anti-Chavez, which means ultimately that she wants a right-wing Venezuela and a right-wing Latin America. That's what supporting "democracy and capitalism" means, when you insist on locking the two together.

just adamant that there are only two options. The world isn't black and white.

It's possible to criticize Chavez for his excesses WITHOUT believing that oligarchs should run Venezuela. That kind of either/or thinking is how Bush thinks.

Indeed, on that there is little to criticize him about. Hillary is against him because he's on the side of the poor. Nobody she'd approve of would be.

without providing any evidence whatsoever.

Every time, in that history, that workers and the poor have organised for their rights and defeated oppression in a developing country, the US has opposed them and worked to make them submit to the rich again.

That's what we did in Guatemala. That's what we did in Chile. That's what we did in Nicaragua. "Mainstream" Dems like yourself defended all of those acts. Read Chomsky and Zinn(especially Zinn).

Is it asking too much for this country's leaders' to say "If a country wants to put human needs first, we won't make them stop"?

And Clinton never said she wants to overthrow democratic governments.

Of course nobody *announces* publicly that they would overthrow a democratic government. They do it in secret.

Is it possible some things are SURREPTITIOUS?

Say, that isn't how Nixon and Kissinger set up the circumstances in Chile that culminated in the assassination of a couple of high-ranking Generals who wouldn't participate in a coup, then the actual death and coup against Salvador Allende, is it?

You don't think the C.I.A., and military advisors enter into anything like subversion of governments, do you? I'm sure they don't! Not if someone official doesn't SAY they do!

http://duffmaru.freeservers.com.nyud.net:8090/bushduh.jpg

About U.S. foreign policy and the backing of Miami exiles to Hillary Clinton.

I'm Cuban-American on my mother's side and I contributed money to Hillary. I'm certainly not a RW mafia fascist. WHy do some of you refuse to accept that Castro is a deeply flawed man with a failed government? I'm not going to say he's as evil as Hussein, or Hitler, like some other Cubans do, but his policies have failed as a whole. If you want a socialist model to look up, much better to look up to Canada or France where they have implemented socialism where it makes sense and still maintained political freedom and economic prosperity

terrorism by people living only 100 miles away, and a filthy economic embargo, an act of economic warfare by a huge country many, many times their size.

They've had quite a far easier time getting things up and running, without pure violent idiots conducting a terror campaign against their citizens for DECADES, as well as an invasion, and constant threats by a huge country breathing down their necks.

Canada and France also weren't plantation slave colonies, and were not continually under the thumbs of harsh superpowers who refused to leave them alone.

Whereas they have both achieved great freedom for themselves, Cuba has NEVER been able to draw a free breath YET, thanks to diseased, power-sick lunatics in the U.S. Congress, and their hideous patrons in South Florida, to whom they turn for financial support in return for their Congressional support on Cuba-related matters. Jesse Helms was a big Cuban "exile" friend, as well as Dan Burton, a few nutso Democrats, like the deeply corrupt Robert Torricelli, and Joe Lieberman, and a fair majority of the Republicans in the House and the Senate.

You must take DU'ers for fools to think we don't know anything about this. The very idea anyone would DREAM of comparing Cuba with those two countries is grotesque. They couldn't have developed in any possible way more wildly different.

talk to the cubans who keep swimming through shark infested waters to get here and you'll see that their major concern wasn't american "terrorism", but simply surviving. castro's legacy is the doctors and lawyers prostituting themselves on the malecon.

As for people dying on the way to get to the U.S., you'll need to acknowledge the fact that people come in small, dangerous boats from ALL OVER THE CARIBBEAN to get here, some as far as 900 miles away, and they ALL GET SENT BACK if they are not Cubans.

Cubans get a full array of benefits at the great, ENORMOUS EXPENSE of U.S. taxpayers, including instant legal status (they don't get chased around by border patrol and immigration agents like all the other groups), instant social security, work visa, welfare, Section 8 HOUSING, Food Stamps (One Florida Senator David Rivera's GRANDMOTHER was written about in Florida newspapers after the old bitch threw a fit in government offices when she believed the clerks weren't polite enough to her when she went to get her food stamps, and got 6 or so of them FIRED)(That's right, a Florida State Senator's GRANDMOTHER is using U.S. taxpayer-provided food stamps), medical treatment, financial assistance for education, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Immigrants from other countries die in the HUNDREDS each year trying to get across the ocean, the Rio Grande, the desert, mountains, canals, from California to Texas, knowing they might also get shot or beaten to death as soon as they cross over, and some have been hit by cars, as well, and killed. All this, knowing if they are caught, they will be returned. All this, knowing they don't get any benefits like hassle-free existance, and sweet treats from the U.S. taxpayers, thanks to some tricky legislation provided by politicians in trade for support from the Cuban "exile" community.

The Florida legislators are currently hot on the trail, trying to convince the rest of Congress that they should extend the same fat package of goodies to Venezuelan expatriots, as well, by heating up the disinformation campaign against the Venezuelan people's President.

Doctors, lawyers prostituting themselves on the Malecon? That's hot.

I had heard that some of the doctors drive cabs, but have NEVER heard they work as prostitutes, from people who travel to Cuba frequently. Hilarious. Someone in South Florida has an overactive, but shabby imagination.

Who do you think makes more money? A prostitute or a cab driver? So what would a young woman choose to do if she wants a better life and to help her extended family?

This is reality, not spin. Talk to your friends who have been to Cuba and ask them if prostitution isn't prolific all over the island.

Why do you like Castro so much anyways? He could have done great things, but his ego and idealism destroyed not only his own legacy, but the entire island. He could have played ball with Kennedy, shut down the gambling and mafia operations, but left the sugar companies alone. They could have come up with some programs to vastly iprove the lives of the Cuban working class together, return the island to a democracy with a mixed economy, maybe even put up a plebescite to join the States like Puerto Rico, then he could have gotten a package with options on the sugar market and retired to Miami a hero...living with beautiful women and watching Yankees games on television...but no...he had to play revolutionary...

I tend to believe them.

Ridiculous!

Why do I like Castro so much? That's stupid, isn't it? You need to develope an orderly mind.

Learn to speak in a mature, civilized way. I don't care about your Miami gibbering, it makes absolutely no sense at all. It's crap, actually. What are you talking about? Grow up.

it's stupid. Most people don't like Castro, so why are you so fond of him?

And I'm not from Miami, I'm from the Chicago area.

There is no point in trying to reason with that one. Take the slander that she broadbrushes Cuban-Americans with and apply it to a race or religion, you can see what you are up against.

to throw at the next apologist for the Cuban immigrant community that I come accross?

The author of this information discussed introduction of legislation extending these priviledges to Nicaraguans seeking asylum during the Iran-Contra filthy assault on Nicaragua during Reagan's administration, which swept in and affected people in the surrounding countries, as well. It shows you how much this Cuban Adjustment Act, the legislation which put all these benefits in place, is controlled for the benefit of the right-wing here:

When a few years ago there was some legislation (I forget which)
affecting the extension of refugee status to Nicaraguans living
irregularly in the United States, the same status was denied to the
hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who found
themselves in the same boat.

In explaining this, Cuban-American ultra-right Congresscreatures
Ileana Ros-Lehtinin and Lincoln Diaz Balart were gauche enough to
openly state that they did not want Salvadorans and Central Americans
to get such status because the fact that they originally came here
fleeing right wing, US supported dictatorships proves they are not
trustworthy, whereas Nicaraguans "fleeing" from the left wing
Sandinista government were obviously better material for citizenship.

This is simply an extension of the attitude toward Cubans. By the
way, this led to the current crisis in the Salvadoran community here
in which there are 220,000 Salvadorans living in the United States
under "Temporary Protected Status", about to be terminated (in
September) and perhaps folded into President Bush's horrible "guest
worker" program.

These Salvadorans had in many cases come here fleeing the wars and
dictatorships of the 1980s and early 1990s, had NOT been able to get
refugee status or political asylum because of the above mentioned
political considerations, and only were given this Temporary
Protected Status after implorations by the Salvadoran government
subsequent to an earthquake which destroyed much housing and
infrastructure in El Salvador.

The quid pro-quo of this is that El Salvador agrees to join CAFTA and
send troops to the war in Iraq. Last year, when it seemed that
leftist candidate Shafik Handal might win the Salvadoran presidential
elections, the United States put out the word that if that happened,
the US might end the Temporary Protected Status and deport all
220,000 Salvadorans covered by it.

This would have been a double disaster for El Salvador because its
economy could not absorb the return of so many people needing jobs,
and because it would severely cut back the remittances Salvadorans in
the US send back to their families in El Salvador.

Whether because of these threats or not, right wing candidate Antonio
Saca won the presidency, and has just announced that he is sending
more Salvadoran troops to Iraq.....
(snip/...)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/46124

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This link may only be available to members of this journalist Walter Lippman's Cuba News group, not completely sure.

Adorable photos of the three right-wing loon reactionary Florida Cuban Congressfolk, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Mario Diaz-Balart. (The Diaz-Balart's aunt Mirta was married to Fidel Castro back in the 1950's, and possibly early 1960's.)



Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen with Elián Gonzalez, Mario Diaz-Balart



They are 3 of the 4 South Florida Congressmen being sworn in together.
The 4th is Democrat, Kendrick Meeks.He's just fine. He's a terrific Democrat.



Tony Saca, the man _Bush decided should run El Salvador
when he threatened to send back all the Salvadoran immigrants if
he should lose the election to a leftist.

That's democracy for you, isn't it?

What horse shit. Communism wouldn't be good for Dem's or Repugs since both would be banned under communism.

I mean, and this is obvious, the use of the "c-word" to silence debate about policy towards any particular country or to put the U.S. on the side of the rich against the poor.

It was NEVER enough for U.S. "anticommunists" to be against the dictatorial tendencies of the Stalinist states(in which category I wouldn't necessarily put Cuba, though it has been more repressive than I would have wished it to be). The only thing "anticommunists" would accept was total opposition to any movement for progressive social change anywhere on the planet.

No "anticommunist" every supported anything progressive or humane for the developing world. And no, Kennedy's "Alliance for Progress" doesn't really count, it was window dressing and was accompanied by military aid to right-wing juntas.

They've run roughshod over all possible opposition in South Florida since the ugly moment they started arriving, fleeing the wrath of the Revolution, after serving as Batista's legislators, cabinet members, governors, henchmen, executioners, torturers, death squad operators, like Rolando Masferrer, who fled to Miami, only to bombed in his car later on, by fellow Cuban "exiles." Here's a reference to his brilliant RIGHT-WING WORK FOR BATISTA:

Puebla, who has since become a Brigadier in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces (RAF), first joined the July 26 Movement as a 15-year-old school student. Like many other young men and women of her generation, Puebla was from a poor peasant family and was horrified by the savageness of the Batista regime.

In my village, she tells Waters, the infamous Masferrer's Tigers death squad would “tie victims up and put them in a sack .... pour gasoline on them and set them on fire”. Puebla also recalls, how many of the young women in the village, including a relative, were gang raped by 50 or more of Batista's soldiers from the nearby Manzanillo barracks. It was this brutality which propelled Puebla, her two brothers and her uncles to join the Rebel Army.
(snip/...)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2004/579/32651

They also were available to chase real or imagined "dissidents" through the streets of Havana, shoot them down with machine guns from their cars, or grab them, take them to torture them, and hang their bodies from streetlamps.



Mr. Masferrer, master of the death squad "Tigres,"
and South Florida citizen until murdered.

These guys turned Miami into a complete hell-hole as soon as they moved there, causing the FBI to designate Miami as "Terror Capital of the United States." They even bombed Cuban people who spoke out publicly against their violence. This was the Cuban RIGHT-WING wave which graced the State of Florida with its presence starting in the early 1960's.

When the Miami Herald, with publisher David Lawrence wrote articles they didn't like, nasty little Cuban "exile" right-winger Jorge Mas-Canosa started a campaign against them, with death threats to the paper made continuously, feces smeared all over Herald newspaper vending machines, advertising taken on the sides of buses saying "I don't believe the Herald." It got so bad that David Lawrence and his wife both started having people check their cars for bombs before starting them.

As you have seen in recent times, the Miami Herald is sniveling servile to that community. Sad, sad, sad.

Human Rights Watch cited them for violation of free speech. Check the paragraphs immediately above this excerpt, as well:

Human Rights Watch/Americas issued reports in 1992 and 1994 that condemned the perils to free expression in Miami and warned that right-wing radio stations were inciting groups to violence. "Only a narrow range of speech is acceptable, and views that go beyond these boundaries may be dangerous to the speaker," said the 1994 report, the last study the group made of the region.
(snip)

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=766

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This kind of "anticommunism" is, by god, most CLEARLY right-wing.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I can't believe the people who can't get this thru their heads..

he won't let the wealthy imperialists around the world rape his lands for oil and resources. He favors lowly peasants over the elite. And what's worse, he had the nerve to defy Bush when he tried to overthrow him a couple of times. He is a dangerous, dangerous man!

n/m

:rofl:

:eyes:

But shhhhhh. The truth isn't allowed in America!

in FAILED STATES. I don't think the world outside the U.S. thinks Chavez is a danger. What's Hillary's problem? With an attitude like that I wouldn't vote for her if I could. And I can't. Thanking my lucky stars for that.

Further on Hillary anybody who believes the 9/11 terrorists came in through Canada is seriously misinformed about something rather important.

Afraid I agree with Chomsky about the Clintons. BUT agree Dems are better than the present regime.

In the past few years, Dutch media, including public radio and television (which is half state-sponsored and half paid for by taxes), are writing and broadcasting nothing but bad stories about Hugo Chávez. They're always very one-sided and sound like the stories you'd hear in American media. E.g., when a few months ago Chávez legitimatly shut down the tv station which participated in the attempted coup against him in 2002, Dutch media barely mentioned the part the station played in the coup. And when they mentioned it, all they said was that Chávez accused the station of being involved, thus making it look like Chávez made it up. I wrote angry e-mails to newspaper editors, but none of them acknowledged their one-sided bias.

that the Dutch are rather "conservative" in spite of their rather intelligent tolerance toward "sin crimes"...

Not too surprising, eh?

"Sin crimes"? And what does it have to do with media stories about Chávez?

I love the way the Netherlands handles drugs and prostitution. Decriminalize and regulate what people WILL do and you do away with most of the real harm that criminalizing human activities causes.

When I was in Amsterdam I was amazed at how sane those policies were. You folks in Holland appear to be generally "conservative" but not entirely stupid...

Although I did hear that there were some there who were trying to bring back the "good old days" of you phony "war on drugs"...

Anyway, what's your take on that...

But the conservative bent would result in media accounts that are anti-Chavez...

You may be right. In the last elections, we've seen the rise of the right-wing populist 'Freedom Party', led by a mad man whose only point is to get as much 'Islam' out of our country as possible. On every issue, he lays the blame for any problems at the feet of the Moroccan and Turkish people who are living here. He won 9 seats out of nothing. Meanwhile, Labor Party got set back from 42 to 33 seats and the Green Party lost one seat and got back to 7 seats. At the same time, the Socialist Party grew from 9 to 26 seats, surpassing the right-wing People's Party for the first time in history. Unfortunately, they're left-wing conservatives. Yes, in recent years, The Netherlands have lost their progressive views and are voting for the most extreme and conservative people. Still, government is made up from a coalition from moderate parties.

Yes, in recent years, the ruling Christian Democratic Party tried to bring back the 'war on drugs', but they couldn't get anything done because their coalition partners, the Democratic Party and the People's Party, were opposed to it, as was a majority of the 'House'. The 'Attorney General' tried to ban coffee-shops, where people can buy and smoke marijuana. He was never successful. And I'm glad, because as you said, our policies seem to work pretty good.

You folks, like everyone else, are WAY TOO COMPLEX to be labeled as generally ANYTHING...

Maybe that's the big problem. We try to simplify life and events by labeling them instead of reveling in the wonderful differences, complexity and texture of life.

It is a trick our brains are capable of doing at birth though. It's how our brains can manipulate complex ideas -- by boiling them down into easy to manipulate symbols, etc. It's a bit of wiring that allows us to create and use language...

Anyhoo, it sounds like the Netherlands are going through the same kind of period spoken of in that old Chinese Curse "May you live in interesting times". :hi:

The US is often labeled as 'conservative' by Dutch people, because of the Bush-administration's policies, prominent media figures like O'Reilly, and of course old stereotypes. But I've met so many progressive Americans; I know better. :)

I'm sure you may have noticed!

:hi:

Thanks for sharing.
I'm sure some need to read it...a LOT.

with boat loads of information..
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/
and my other favorite..
http://www.globalpolicy.org/

And thanks again.
I'm saving and sharing.
Having toooo much fun watching Junior Repub convention!
Hey and there's a Jena 6, too!

Interesting sites :hi:

Great post! It deserves a LOT of attention. Would be great if you'd post it in it's own thread. People have to wake up to the facts of the death and destruction the U.S. has caused. Both political parties help elite build their empire. They go in and destroy any country that threatens to be a true democracy. It's what they've always done.

Sure, sure, I know how terrible the Bush-administration has been to the average American citizen, to the American economy, to the Constitution etc. But, there are many who dream of a pre-Bush US that never supported torture, that didn't make peace with dictators, that never fought a bullshit war for the wrong reasons... And I ask myself: are they serious??? And didn't Democratic presidents support those brutal dictators as well???

I know this website is designed t support the Democrats, and I do, really. But these are historical facts that can't be neglected. What's your take on this?

They just don't know any better. Mainstream media doesn't talk about they tyranny our system...republicans AND democrats...supports. Instead, they call it democracy. This little game they play...'free' elections and so forth...leads most to believe we live in a democracy with two parties and we'll be able to make everthing better if we just get the 'good guys' into office. Trouble isl...there ARE no good guys.

Wasn't there a war about that?

with a synopses on each friendly...

:hi:

But eh, Hitler? Didn't FDR like, I don't know, brought an end to his evil empire?

Until such a time comes that Venezuela has no resources that help manufactured goods get to the market, expect all US politicians who hope to avoid being propagandized against, a la John Birch Society, to say nasty things about Hugo.

That's just how it is.

But they own the media.

I have to wonder: if a Dem had been in power, would Hugo have had any reason to get testy in the first place?

For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
A commencement speech at Yale in 1962

NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMIC POLICES ARE DEAD! DEAD I tell you. THE WORLD IS ROUND and it's going to STAY THAT WAY! That's the way people like it. Poor countries are TIRED OF BEING POOR and that means getting rid of globalization, trade deals and the BANKS that promote them, BYE BYE WORLD BANK AND IMF. BYE BYE WTO. BYE BYE EVIL CRIMINALS.! It's going to happen.

I applauded him. The newspapers savaged him.

Iran is still on the table for dinner in the near future for the people calling Chavez tinpot of the month.

I think it's funny that we used to threaten nations with invasion for "Voting irregularities," and now we call other nations dictatorial while we haven't had clean elections in over 6 years.

:eyes:

:hi:



Aquila capit Cerberus

I admire your work!

:thumbsup:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/04/299/
Published on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

Is Hugo Chavez a Threat to Stability? No.
by Mark Weisbrot

I have been asked to comment on the question of “whether President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela poses a threat to regional stability and how his critics, including the Bush administration, should respond.” This is an easy one.

One may agree or disagree with any of President Chavez’s policies or statements, but the idea of him or his government posing a threat to regional stability is ridiculous. In fact, a far more reasonable argument can be made that his government has contributed to stabilizing the region.

It has done so by using its $50 billion dollars of foreign exchange reserves to act as a lender of last resort, and provide other forms of financial aid to countries throughout the region. This is what the International Monetary Fund was alleged to have done in the past but almost never did. It is especially important now that Latin America is going through a major historical transition, where governments of the left now preside over about half of the population of the region.

Latin America is emerging from a long period of failed economic reform policies, known as “neoliberalism” there, which resulted in the worst economic growth performance in more than 100 years. From 1980-2000, regional GDP (gross domestic product) per capita grew by just 9 percent, and another 4 percent for 2000-2005. By comparison, it grew by 82 percent in just the two decades from 1960-1980. As a result of the unprecedented growth failure of the last 25 years, voters have demanded change in a number of countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Uruguay.

Venezuela has loaned more than $3 billion to Argentina, and has loaned or committed hundreds of millions of dollars to Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other countries. It also provides subsidized credit for oil to the countries of the Caribbean, through its PetroCaribe program, and provided many other forms of aid to neighboring countries. These resources are provided without policy conditions attached - unlike most other multilateral (IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank) and bilateral aid. By providing these resources, Venezuela is helping other countries to bring their policies more in line with what voters have demanded, and greatly reducing the threat of economic crises in the process of doing so.

For example, before the Nicaraguan elections last November, US government officials made many threats to the voters of that country that if they elected Daniel Ortega, they would suffer greatly from cutoffs of loans, aid, and even the remittances that many Nicaraguans depend upon from their relatives in the United States. None of these threats have been carried out. This is partly because Washington knows it would be useless and counterproductive to do so, since Nicaragua would simply replace US-controlled funding sources with more borrowing from Venezuela. The same is true for Bolivia, which has vastly increased its hydrocarbon revenues, and is in a stronger bargaining position knowing that it has an international lender that will not try to interfere with its domestic political agenda. The new progressive president of Ecuador, who faces a number of important political battles to deliver on his promises of governmental reform, pro-poor and pro-development policies, is also strengthened by having Venezuela as a lender. When the Argentine government decided to say goodbye to the IMF in January of 2006 by paying off their remaining $9.9 billion in debt, Venezuela’s loan of $2.5 billion helped that government to avoid pushing its reserves down to dangerously low levels.

In all of these cases and more, Venezuela’s financial support is helping other governments to deliver on their promises to their own voters, thereby contributing not only to stability but to the strengthening of democracy in the region. Washington-sponsored aid, by contrast, has often had the opposite effect - provoking “IMF riots,” and sometimes economic crises (e.g. the 1998-2002 Argentine depression), by trying to impose policies that were deeply unpopular and, as we now know, economically flawed.

No other government in the region accepts the Bush Administration’s charge that Chavez is a threat to regional stability - not even President lvaro Uribe of Colombia, which shares a 1300 mile conflict-ridden border with Venezuela. When Uribe met with members of the US Congress last year, he refused to criticize Chᶥz- reportedly even in private. The vast majority of Latin American governments also supported Venezuela’s bid for the UN Security Council last year, even after he called President Bush “the Devil” at the UN, and despite all the pressure that the United States - whose economy is 67 times the size of Venezuela’s - brought to bear on them.

What should the Bush Administration do about the non-threat from Venezuela? It could start by acknowledging that it was wrong to support the April 2002 coup that overthrew Chavez. The US Congress should have a real investigation of this involvement, as it did for the US-sponsored coup against the democratic government of Chile in 1973, which yielded volumes of information. The documents that we have so far on the Venezuelan coup from the State Department and the CIA show that the Bush Administration paid some of the leaders of the coup, had advance knowledge of it, and tried to help it succeed by lying about the events as they transpired. The administration also tacitly supported a devastating oil strike that tried to topple the government in 2002-2003, and funded opposition groups through the 2004 failed recall attempt and beyond. In fact, the US Agency for International Development, which is not supposed to be a clandestine organization, continues to pour millions of dollars into Venezuela, Bolivia, and other countries for activities and recipients that it will not divulge. This, too, needs to be made public.


Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC.


This column was published by International Affairs Forum on April 2, 2007.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/04/299/

You don't seem terribly serious, what with the dick-tater stuff and all.

to do it here. I'm making fun of the word dictator because it's soooo abused. Might as well make it a joke.

"serious" police. I could tell you were as serious as a bushit coup.

Not a comment on your guy Hugo ...... just on your underlying premise.

Hillary will do what the polls/DLC/centrists/AIPAC ADVISE her to do. Simple as that!

Nice try Though!

:)

:hi:

bought and paid for.

"In this pocket I have a contract that will make you very, very rich, in the other I have a gun and a bullet with your name on it. Which one will you choose?"

She really fucked up by starting this fight. Hugo Chavez is something she should just shut up about.

And I LOVE Dennis Too!

:)

is trying to kill him? Because this little sawed-off POS says so? Fuck him! I think this 'toon says it all.

You have interesting friends. Check out the top few bits of their Blog Roll

BLOGS
Little Green Footballs
InstaPundit

4 Mile Creek
9/11 Families for America
A Blog For All
A Little More To The Right
Argghhh!
Aaron's cc
Able Kane Adventure
AlphaPatriot
American Mind
Andrew's Notepad
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Ardeshir Dolati
Armchair Intellectual
Army of Mom
At Level Ground
Atlas Shrugs
........................

Yep that sez it all alrighty.
John Bolton would be a model hero of theirs.
Pinochet a great hero. Bush a great hero.

Think these guys are concerned about the people? The truth? Really??

seeing your post, found this:


Pathetic trash.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've never heard of these creeps. Sure glad you made your statement. Bringing out the truth is always a great idea.

analyze the site, but you must admit that the Chavez cartoon hits the nail on the head.

*verified legitimate by international observers including OAS (Jimmy Carter).

He's just another out for himself jerkoff who lusts for power. Those who can't see that much of what he does is worthy of condemnation probably are a bit guilty of being cultish.

Fuck Chavez.

He's fighting corruption! Those are just the facts!

It is not the good one does, it is their potential for bad. His potential for bad is as such to make him a unworthy of respect. He's a run of the mill piece of shit leader who only lusts for power and admiration. He can go fuck himself.

He's delivering. If he has a bad personality. Oh well. Bigger things matter!

So, what you're saying is; purely hypothetical future events trump real world actions in the present.

Are you accusing Chavez of Thoughtcrimes?

Sheesh... :eyes:

Sometimes the truly despicable mask their quest for power by doing good deeds as cover. The sheep will fall for such. But the aware will recognize the truth. Someday, may you join us.

However, I will continue to base my assessment of Chavez on actual facts, not on your hyperventilating vulgar name-calling.

other sources. I compare statistics and analyses, sources and biases. I have been following news stories about Venezuela and Chavez for far longer than YOU have been on DU.

I am not some naive starry-eyed idealist incapable of rational thinking and objective critique. And I certainly don't find your repeated insistance on labeling Chavez a “thug” any sort of compelling argument, in view of the years of research I've devoted to the subject.

In fact, the only thing that “disgusts” me are your repetitive and misinformed ad hominum attacks on Chavez.

sw

Go debate in a nuthouse where some of your delusions might be understood by the meds dispensers.

No really :rofl:

The Washington Post: “The meeting with Mr. Obiang was presumably a reward for his hospitable treatment of U.S. oil firms, though we cannot be sure since the State Department declined our invitation to comment.”

"Obiang, an unsavory and corrupt character who seized power in a 1979 coup, runs a regime regularly condemned by the State Department for human rights violations, including torture, beatings, abuse and deaths of prisoners and suspects. He told CBS's "60 Minutes he's gotten as much as 97 percent of the vote in recent elections, but that was because "there is no one left in the opposition."
Human rights groups and the State Department officials were beside themselves that Rice would meet with what one advocate called "one of the most brutal, most corrupt and unreconstructed dictators in the world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/16/AR2006041600737.html

Murder, torture, dissent crushed. Yet our media ignores him. Rice calls this butcher "her good friend".

So why the US media and political anger at Chavez, while ignoring Obiang?
Because Obiang has a deal with Exxon and runs his billions through the Riggs Bank in DC.

Nothing else matters to some.

What, you haven't seen all the anti-Obiang posts here every week?
Has he built any hospitals in his country? No, just fills them?

what do tell are the facts?

It goes without saying that overthrowing Chavez would have to make everything worse in Venezuela. And it's not like it's legitimate for us to ask the Venezuelan people to just start over again and choose someone YOU could live with, especially since that person would have to be a right-wing austerity freak like Carlos Andres Perez, the guy who killed workers to enforce "structural readjustment" for the IMF.

You aren't a group that favors social justice or worker's rights, whoever you and your "us" are(assuming anyone's actually in agreement with you).

"It's not the good one does, it is their potential for bad."

So lets ignore actual events in favor of nightmare fever dreams.

It would be nice if you actually had any arguments other than name-calling.

regardless of evidence.

But he's as much a piece of shit as the rest of them. Fuck Chavez.

Your replies always seem so loud and obnoxious.
"uilty of being cultish" and "worthy of condemnation" are statements you are directing at fellow DUers. Do you really think that by saying those things you are going to sway someone to your side of the debate?
I don't know OPERATIONMINDCRIME, but it seems to me that you attack more than educate.
Pity, 'cuz you have such a cute name.

And if I recall correctly, it was you attacking our community in the last few days, by twisting reality as to what is and isn't allowed here. So spare me your false preaching.

And if I recall correctly, it was you attacking our community in the last few days, by twisting reality as to what you want and don't want to be allowed here.
So spare me your false preaching.

And I have never attacked this community, though you cannot claim the same.

No more food for you.

That must really get you.
You know, when when you don't get the last word.
Now, "now more food for you."
:)

:rofl:

cursing and swearing and typing in CAPS somehow means anything at all.

Or are you just back to trolling mode?

believe all the shit propaganda thrown at them about South American leaders and presidents who tell the USA to go to hell. Chavez is keeping all those American companies away from Venezuela's oil assets so he must be demonized and gotten rid of, the sooner the better. Don't believe all the smears you read about him. It's a tried and true method of our corporate government M/O to get rid of any uncooperative governments. We like to exploit the natural assets of those countries as if they were ours without having any pesky American rules and regulations in the way like here in the "homeland".

The American people are propagandized to hate the man. It makes it easier to move the CIA thugs in to help stage a coup, murder the President and then set up a puppet government, which usually turns out to be a real is a dictatorship with no regards for human rights. Read up on what our government did to Chile back in the 1970's, the country I was born in.

If you actually research this man and the history of Venezuela, you will find out that all the hyperbole our State Department wants you to believe about Chavez is biased and often out and out lies.

He's consolidated media outlets under govt control and arrested peaceful public dissenters (there is no such thing as free speech in Venezuela). He's also consolidated all energy companies and most utility based services. These aren't socialist moves, that's Communism and it doesn't work. Name one Communist country that was glad it chose that route. Yeah, he is helping surrounding leaders, more than we ever have, which is why 7 members or his little pseudo communist party were elected around S. America. Let's not assume this man isn't a politician.

It's important for America to keep an eye on these things simply because the world is round. We can't ignore it when radical movements start taking over regions of the world. They won't stay there anymore. But I don't think we should kill him.I don't think that not talking to a leader of a sovereign country is acceptable foreign policy either. I don't think we should treat Venezuela like it were Cuba. The way we've treated Cuba over the last 50yrs or so is in part what breeds guys like Chavez in S. America. Eventually South America will realize Chavez's way of thinking is bad for them, and they'll overthrow him themselves. I said it about Iraq and I'll say in about anyone, you can't give freedom to people, they have to want it and they have to fight for it themselves. I think America needs to get out of the habit of helping people who aren't asking for it. But really guys, just cause he doesn't like Bush and Oil Co. doesn't mean he's the greatest leader in the world. He's a tyrant, just like Castro, just like Husein, and just like the countless dictators and elected tyrants we've help put in power throughout history. Even if he were in lock step with our economic interests, he'd still be a tyrant.

Why can't we talk about how we have sucked in the past with out putting some despot on a pedestal.

a sovereign nation and the people of Venezuela will unelect him if he screws up without any help from us. Now, since I and several other DUers read the Spanish language press about this, everything you have listed on your post is propaganda from our State Department to discredit Hugo Chavez.

For starters, he is not a communist, but our government has labeled him as such because he is pro-working class and pissed off the big American oil companies he kicked out. So democracy and free elections are radical movements in your eyes? Phew, I'm sinking in the astroturf here.

I get sick of hearing Canada and European countries labeled "socialist" when they are not. Canada has a Conservative Federal government. Alas! I would love to be living in a socialist country.

Check out standards in truly socialist countries. Higher than yours, higher than ours. Anything that smacks of providing a decent life for the average person is denigrated by your corporate media. Thus because Canada has universal health care we are called socialists and commie pinkos. Bad words in corporateland. Too ridiculous! Americans are so brainwashed against anything leftist. They have moved far to the right even of Nixon.

over ours, but I definitely lean toward social democracies.

"(there is no such thing as free speech in Venezuela)"

Then why the fuck are the other 3 TV networks of the oligarchy still on the air and the coup plotters on RCTV can still broadcast their shit on cable???

You think the bushies would allow a network that called for a coup on Cox and Comcast???


Spouting nonsense and expecting us to believe it without any proof is a waste of your and our time...

The emotional intensity of your anti-Chavez manifestations dwarves even Pavulon's and Bacchus's. Did Chávez shoot your dog or something?

instead of spouting your mindless bile...

http://www.amazon.com/Chavez-Venezuela-New-Latin-America/dp/1920888500

You're welcome to spout your vile fantasies anywhere you want, just don't expect anyone to listen when they are based in an obviously mindless hatred of someone you know nothing about.

Try to supply a factual basis for your ravings and someone might listen... :shrug:

Sounds like you think anybody to the left of Lieberman should be overthrown by the Marines.

All Chavez is guilty of is not being easy to overthrow.

As usual with nothing but hot air.
:eyes:

loon looking for a Guru? :eyes:

Foool you have never argued your case with substance, only hyperbole and horsesh$t.

it is hilarious as fuck

:eyes:

US Relations with Venezuela Take Center Stage in the US Presidential Campaign
http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2749.html

Will North Meet South? Obama Said Yes, Clinton Said No, and It's a Whole New Ballgame in the US Presidential Campaign

By Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
July 25, 2007

During Monday night’s YouTube-CNN debate among eight Democrats vying for the nomination to succeed US President George W. Bush, for the first time the questions to the candidates came not from media professionals, but from normal people.

China’s Chairman Mao and US President Richard Nixon
One of those questions came from Stephen Sorta of Diamond Bar, California. He asked the candidates whether, as the next US president, they would “be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration… with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries.”

Three candidates – luckily, the three frontrunners – answered. Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) said yes. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) said no. And former Senator John Edwards (D-North Carolina) said maybe, sort of, perhaps.

“I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them—which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration—is ridiculous,” answered Obama, interrupted by applause from the Citadel Military College auditorium in Charleston, South Carolina. “And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.”

Clinton responded saying, “Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year… I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse… we’re not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.”

The difference in policy positions quickly escalated into a heated war between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, more than any other between the two leading Democratic candidates to date. By Wednesday, MSNBC referred to Obama going to “DefCon Three” and the Democratic nomination fight now has its first substantive dispute between the candidates that doesn’t involve a candidate’s race, gender, wardrobe or hairstyle.

We’ll bring you the play-by-play of how, in three short days, Clinton went from being what her chief strategist has called “the inevitable nominee” to a frontrunner stumbling over the foreign policy messes left by the previous Clinton administration, particularly in Latin America. And we’ll detail for you the serious conflict-of-interest with special interests in Venezuela that led Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, to chart a course this week that has proved disastrous for the Clinton campaign.

But first we’ll let you watch all three minutes and 27 seconds of the full exchange – the question and the answers by the three presidential candidates – now itself an important piece in the rapidly changing history of US-Latin American relations:

Senator Obama’s stated willingness to meet with US-shunned leaders of other countries marked a sharp break from the Bush-Clinton-Bush policies of the White House over the past 18 years. In the case of Cuba’s Fidel Castro he broke with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, too. But it’s the case of Hugo Chávez – the democratically elected president of Venezuela since 1998 – that has demonstrated the inutility of Washington’s childish gestures that have substituted for authentic diplomacy.

US President Bill Clinton and President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian National Authority
Each time the Bush administration and the Clinton administration before it tried to subvert the democratic will of most Venezuelans, they only succeeded in making Chávez more popular not only at home, but throughout the world. And they did so with constant cheerleading from the Commercial Media. In particular, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, AP, Bloomberg, Fox News and most of the major news networks have dedicated themselves incessantly for the past nine years to discredit Chávez’s Venezuela, to the point where they at first cheered or ignored the violent 2002 military-and-media coup d’etat against him: see “Three Days that Shook the Media,” Narco News, April 15, 2002).

Chávez’s influence and popularity have grown in Venezuela, throughout Latin America and much of the world, in spite of (at times because of) all the scorn heaped upon him by the US government. How popular? When, last October he spoke at the United Nations and called US President George W. Bush “the devil,” he was enthusiastically applauded by what seemed like a majority of nations’ delegates to the UN.

Here’s a typically yellow US media report – this one’s from ABC – also available, coincidentally, on YouTube:

That was last October. By now, a record number of US citizens feel the same way about their disgraced president, according to every public opinion poll. And that makes the contest for the Democratic Party nomination to the presidency very closely watched even now, six months before the first votes will be cast next January in the Iowa and Nevada Caucuses and in the New Hampshire primary.

Senator Clinton has led in all public opinion surveys of Democratic primary voters to date: generally by fifteen percentage points or more. But gaining on her has been Senator Obama, who in the first six months of this year received a record amount of campaign fund donations from more than 250,000 American citizens, raising up a bigger arsenal than Clinton or any other candidate, Republican or Democrat. Obama has contrasted Clinton’s votes to authorize the war in Iraq with his own long opposition to that war, and has promoted himself as “the candidate of change.” On July 9, Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn issued a public campaign memo casting Clinton as the inevitable nominee.

All that changed on Monday night.

After the two-hour debate in South Carolina, CNN announced that its “focus group” of Democratic primary voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire had been wowed by Obama. In response to a question from CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer about the results, reporter Mary Snow said:


“Well, Wolf, there’s a surprise here tonight. We’re here with 24 Democrats, independents, who thought that Senator Hillary Clinton would be the best performer here tonight, but the results that we just got in, this is a focus group; show that Barack Obama got the most favorable in terms of the best performance from the 24 people who are here tonight.”

The Fox News focus group in South Carolina found the same result. Pollster Frank Luntz, interviewed live on the Hannity & Colmes show, called the public’s response “off the charts” for Obama:


“...we saw something really interesting tonight. I want to take it right to the voters.

“By a show of hands, how many of you walked in here supporting Hillary Clinton as your first choice for president? Raise your hands, raise them high. You all were first-choice Hillary voters. How many of you thought she won the debate? Look at what happened, Sean.

“Now, how many of you walked in here picking Obama as your first choice, only your first choice? Now, how many of you thought Obama won the debate, raise your hands? Check this out.”


Read the transcript, where one of the participants was apparently moved by Obama’s answer about his willingness to meet with world leaders:


LUNTZ: But more of you came into this room supporting Hillary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But don’t we need that type of charismatic person to make those connections with foreign nations? We need someone who is believable, someone who’s trustworthy, and someone who wants to create peace.

LUNTZ: And who is that person?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obama.

LUNTZ: Interesting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Hillary has skills, knowledge. She’s been around a long time. I think she has a lot to bring to the plate, but I think tonight Obama was really on target. And he convinced and pulled in, I think, those of us that were sitting here.

Here’s a 28 second video excerpt:

Simultaneously, over on the popular Drudge Report website, which logs 15 million visits a day, more than 27,000 readers had voted in a poll there by 2:30 a.m. The question was “Who Won the DemYouTube Debate?” 40 percent answered Obama and only 13 percent answered Clinton, tied for second place with US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

These polls don’t say much about how voters will cast their ballots in 2008, but they are snapshots of momentum at this point in the contest. And the “off the charts” response for Obama caused Clinton’s chief political strategist, Mark Penn, to spin a bit too erratically as he tried to turn the tide.


Mark Penn’s Meltdown

After the debate, candidates and their consultants swarmed into the CNN-YouTube “Spin Room” to explain to reporters why their candidate “won” the debate.


Chilean Military Dictator Augusto Pinochet and US President George H. W. Bush
Penn seized upon Obama’s answer to Stephen Sorta’s question about meeting with world leaders, according to The New York Daily News:


Clinton strategist Mark Penn said Clinton’s answer was a “presidential moment” that would become obvious in the fallout from the showdown. “That was an essential moment that showed she knows what it means to be President,” he said.

But Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod, countered that Obama knows very well that the President doesn’t sit cavalierly with enemy dictators, and that Clinton’s team was trying to “manufacture” a dispute.

The exchange may have embellished Clinton’s leadership credentials. Still, the freer format seemed to help Obama, who may have met expectations for the first time. GOP pollster Frank Luntz said 18 of 30 South Carolinians in a focus group felt Obama won, even though only 11 went in backing Obama.


And Newsday reported:


Obama aides said he romped in in focus groups of debate viewers. But Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn said Obama’s commitment to meeting hostile foreign leaders would haunt his campaign bypointing up his inexperience. “When you got the money question, he stumbled,” said Penn.

Interestingly, for a question that concerned Venezuela and Hugo Chávez, Penn is hardly a disinterested party. In 2004, Narco News caught Penn pushing an inaccurate and dishonest “exit poll” in Caracas on the day of the recall election won overwhelmingly by Chavez. Penn had violated the ethics code of the American Association of Public Opinion Research when he did not disclose that his Venezuela poll was taken by members of a US government-funded anti-Chávez political group named Súmate, and that Penn also broke Venezuelan law by releasing his cooked “results” before the polls had closed. (In that same story we review a similar scandal, in Mexico in 2000, in which Penn had engaged in illegal and unethical activity meddling in that country’s presidential race.)

So what was Penn thinking Monday night when decided that the debate angle to spin would be that Obama “stumbled” by saying he’d meet with Hugo Chávez?


US President George W. Bush with Saudi Crown Prince (and later King) Abdulla bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud
By any standard of smart politics, Penn was out of his mind. In US politics, the frontrunner never helps her self by attacking her nearest rival. It’s a de facto admission that the rival is gaining too fast (and in this case had won the hearts and minds of debate viewers). Perhaps he thought he was still in Venezuela, where the anti-Chávez Commercial Media gives him a free ride?

Later that night, Penn’s anti-Obama attack strategy began to crumble, when Clinton’s own statement from April 2007 in which she said she favored talking with US-shunned world leaders, began circulating across the Internet, including on the aforementioned Drudge Report. Clinton had told reporters in Iowa three months prior to the debate:


“I would begin diplomatic discussions with those countries with whom we have differences, to try to figure out what is the depth of those differences… I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. You don’t make peace with your friends—you have to do the hard work of dealing with people you don’t agree with…”

What could have possibly, then, caused Clinton to change her position in just three months? Here’s a guess: His first name is Mark and his last name is Penn, and in his efforts to paint his candidate as more “presidential,” did Penn convince Clinton to change her position based on perceived political expediency just to contrast herself with the Obama Juggernaut crashing up to the front from the outside? Or was it something beyond politics? Perhaps his lucrative contracts with the Venezuelan opposition led him to ill serve his candidate in the United States? Or maybe his ideological blinders simply make him a bad consultant? Those are questions the Clinton campaign and candidate ought to ask of themselves as this matter now explodes in their faces much like that cigar-bomb that the CIA once plotted to send to Cuban Comandante Fidel Castro.

All the reported 3,000 YouTube video questions, including that by Stephen Sorta, were made available to the public – and thus to the candidates and their chief strategists – prior to the debate. The larger campaigns, like those of Clinton, Obama and Edwards, had the ample staff resources to vet them and prepare scripts for their candidates as to how to best answer them. The behavior by Penn and Clinton during and since the debate strongly suggests that this was their plan all along to try to paint Obama as inexperienced. But they didn’t count on the fact that the American public itself is tired of the way its own government has made a mess of its foreign policy, and that fatigue isn’t necessarily restricted to the Bush administration, but also may include the Clinton administration before it, when US President Bill Clinton refused to meet with the leaders of the countries in Sorta’s video question.

On Tuesday, the Clinton campaign trotted out former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and an army of “surrogates” to scold Obama’s stance. US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) was among those that allowed himself to be so cravenly and poorly used by Penn and Clinton in the cowardly charade of a candidate having others step in to get their hands dirty for her. Obama, for his part, sent his own platoon of former US diplomats and current lawmakers to counter them.

But in the end, the candidates themselves had to enter the fray. Also on Tuesday, Clinton told the Quad City Times in first caucus state Iowa that Obama had been “irresponsible and frankly naïve” in his willingness to talk to world leaders. Obama fired back that Clinton was “irresponsible and naïve” when she voted to authorize the war in Iraq.

By Wednesday, Obama struck back, passionately and without backing down. Granting an interview with NBC News, he said:


“I think what is irresponsible and naive is to have authorized a war without asking how we were going to get out—and you know I think Senator Clinton hasn’t fully answered that issue.

”The general principle that I was laying out is that we should not be afraid as America to meet with anybody.

“Now, they may not like what we want to hear—so if I’m talking to the President of Iran, I’m going to inform him that Israel is our stalwart ally, and we are going to do what’s necessary to protect them—that we will not accept a nuclear bomb in Iran, but that doesn’t mean we can’t say that face to face. And obviously, the diplomatic spadework has to be done ahead of time…

”But the general principle is one that I think Senator Clinton is wrong on—and that is if we are laying out preconditions that prevents us from speaking frankly to these folks, then we are continuing with Bush-Cheney policies, and I am not interested in continuing that…

“That ultimately is what’s going to create the environment in which we can reduce some of the threat levels we are facing. To fail to do that is the same conventional Washington thinking that led many including Senator Clinton to go ahead with the war without having asked adequate questions.”


Later on Wednesday, a member of the US Congress, US Rep. Steve Rothman (D-New Jersey) that had been wooed by all the Democratic presidential candidates, got down off the fence, based on this very question:


...the New Jersey Congressman said when he watched that debate he finally decided he was going to support Obama for president, and today he fired off a press release enthusiastically endorsing Obama ‘08.

“Barack’s appearance in the last debate confirmed for me what I’ve believed all along,” said Rothman. “It’s new thinking versus old thinking. This notion of Hillary Clinton’s that we should continue down this path of not talking to our enemies is a policy that has proven to be disastrous to our country. These are not the views of someone who professes to be an agent of change.”

The Real Problem for Clinton

Beyond the inexcusable conflicts-of-interest and poor political judgment of her chief strategist Mark Penn, Senator Clinton has a deeper problem with the matter of whether the United States government can mend its disastrous relationship with most of the rest of the world. The claim to “experience” by this one-term US Senator is wholly based on the eight years she already spent in the White House with US President Bill Clinton. And while President Clinton enjoyed slightly better relations with some other countries and their leaders, that is not the case in the American hemisphere or other important regions.


If US President Bill Clinton had met with North Korea’s Kim Jong-il instead of just sending surrogate Madeline Albright, would there be as many problems between the two countries today?
A President Hillary Clinton would not likely see any success at all in convincing the rest of the world that US foreign policy will improve under her watch, much less inspiring the world with the kinds of bold steps that her rival Obama has consistently projected. Among the baggage from the previous Clinton administration she carries is the multi-billion dollar failed military intervention known as Plain Colombia, which has emboldened paramilitary death squads and narco-traffickers in the region, and which both Clintons continue to actively support. Their Colombian connection recently went to the extreme that Bill Clinton accepted, from disgraced Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, the “Passion Award… for ’believing in our country and encouraging others to do the same.’” This, as most US Democratic party legislators have become so concerned about human rights abuses in Colombia that they’ve scuttled a free trade agreement between the two countries, and even the former Vice President Al Gore, according to AP, “backed out of an environmental conference in Miami to avoid appearing alongside Uribe.”

Try to imagine a President Hillary Clinton holding meetings with the leaders of Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Iran or North Korea and it becomes evident why Senator Clinton has flip-flopped on her initial stated willingness to conduct such diplomacy: Her baggage, combined with her Dukakis-like bureaucratic hall monitor personality do not bode success for such ventures, chiefly because residents of the rest of the world will view her presidency as a continuation of eighteen years of Bush or Clinton rule. To the rest of the world, the distinctions between the two are much slighter than they are perceived to be inside the US. Speaking of Dukakis: A Clinton-Chávez meeting (the one that, on paper, ought to yield vastly improved relations between the US and this oil producing giant) would likely go as well as when 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis invited rival Jesse Jackson to dinner and served New England clam chowder to the lactose-intolerant civil rights leader. Clinton simply does not believe that America needs to embark on a different course with the world than that set by the previous Clinton White House.

Obama, on the other hand, carries none of that ballast, and his responses to the citizen questions Monday night carry a very different vision. When he said, asked about meetings with world leaders that an isolated US has failed to turn into global pariahs, “I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them—which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration—is ridiculous,” an equivalent of the Berlin Wall began to crumble on this side of the oceans, the wall between North and South. And the US Democratic primary presidential contest now has a defining contrast that, beyond signaling a paradigm break with the failed bipartisan policies of the past, has awakened the attention of the rest of the world to the 2008 presidential campaign in the United States of America.
http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2749.html

very informative on many accounts. I didn't know that thing about Penn.It's also nice to see another person realize Hillary is not the way to change directions in foreign policy.

Edwards has the best domestic agenda, but he still does anti-Iran saber-rattling.

Maybe Hugo isn't a dictator, but he is consolidating power to the presidency, which is the start of a dictatorship. Communism doesn't work as an economic policy! It's already been proven, so the only reason to try and reconstruct it is so in the end you're "THE DECIDER" (I think we can all attest to the fact that no matter how good your intentions might be, this is inevitably going to turn out bad. Also his last election was in dispute. The polls run before the election had him 10pts behind his opponent and exit polls didn't match up with the votes tallied. Half of Venezuela's votes were cast on electronic voting machines, furnished by the same company in fact that furnished some of the machines in question in the U.S. Also, when you talk to poor Venezuelans about how they feel about Chavez, it's not really about how great he is as much as how the U.S. policies screwed them over.

Still I think you're right that we should stop calling them EVIL. That's such a loaded word. How can you say this dictator is EVIL but this one is just, what?, unsavory? difficult to work with? And how can you talk with anyone if you really see them as Evil? Wouldn't that mean no good can come out of them? Let's leave deciding the difference between good and evil to God, and let's work with right and wrong. Our policies toward South America has been wrong in general. But his policies in Venezuela aren't much better. He called our President the Devil, and while I'm not here to defend Bush's character, that's just as bad as Bush calling him Evil.

As for how I feel about Hugo Chavez: I think he is AS BAD as Bush. They are both pompous peacocks strutting around, desecrating their office with radical hate speech and fundamentally shifting world view of both their countries into the negative. But since Venezuela can't do anything to us but stop selling us oil, we should work on the one that's destroying democracy at home.

cheney is consolidating power to the Presidency too. Nobody's calling Bush a Dictator. I guess I have a problem with the language and the Hypocrisy. The American people are mis-informed enough. All I'm asking for is some accuracy.

not the deportation of dissenters...not the oppression of voices of opposition and not being given absolute powers to make decrees right after the third time.

Getting elected three times is all the proof one needs to prove they're not a dictator.

:eyes:

Quit spouting right-wing bullshit unless you can back it up with authoritative sources...

Thanks :hi:

I can't utilize the search feature since money's tight. If you would like, I can provide sources outside of DU later on. I didn't bookmark them so I'll search for them.

:)

It took only a few minutes to find and it's no different than what many DUer's use as sources. I didn't use Newsmax, either :)

Democracy Hugo Chavez-Style

For workers at Venezuela's state-owned oil company, supporting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez isn't a choice; it's a direct order.

According to an internal memo obtained by ABC News, workers at Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) were recently instructed to support Chavez's re-election campaign or else be terminated.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/11/democracy_hugo_.html

Chavez set to receive decree powers

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's Congress delayed by a day on Tuesday its vote to give President Hugo Chavez decree powers enabling him to nationalize oil and utility assets and press his drive to turn Venezuela into a socialist state.

Congress, which has no opposition lawmakers due to a boycott of elections in 2005, had been set to approve the measure on Tuesday but postponed action until Wednesday to hold an unusual open-air voting session in Caracas's central square -- increasing public exposure.

If passed as expected, the vote will empower Chavez for 18 months to issue decrees expected to overhaul the OPEC nation's economic landscape by imposing state controls over such sectors as energy, mining and banking.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2007/01/30/chavez_set_to_receive_decree_powers_in_venezuela/

Chavez Shuts Venezuelan TV Station

Venezuela's oldest private television station went off the air following President Hugo Chavez's decision to pull the plug on the popular channel harshly critical of the government, a move that sparked violent clashes between protesters and police.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/05/28/international/i003955D76.DTL

This is just what I found in a few minutes.

"For workers at Venezuela's state-owned oil company, supporting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez isn't a choice; it's a direct order."

Fine, a hit piece written by some intern that implies that a directive came from Chavez with no mention of WHO in PDVSA sent the memo and then the 2nd half of the article quotes Roger Noriega, the fascist prick, at length about how bad Chavez is... Wooohoooo another balanced piece of journalism from Disney News...

You do remember that the upper and upper-middle class "workers" of the PDVSA were in the front lines of the coup, don't you?

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

As for the other two, they have been handled at length here at DU and totally discredited as "proof" of Chavez the "Dictator"...

RCTV is back on cable with their soft-core porn "novellas"....

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

Try again.

this is just what I found in a five minute google. If I had a lot more time and energy, we could probably debate the objectivity of the writers, news organizations, and their sources for quite a while.

and many anti-Chavistas have spent untold hours trying to discredit him and have been unable to come up with any reputable source that proves any of their claims...

Do those of us who support him "worship" or "idolize" him? Not really. Not me...

Do those of us who support him hope that he can avoid the trap of "power corrupting"? Well, yes. I hope he can resist such temptations. From having read his whole story, his history, his struggle and triumphs, I think there's a chance.

I believe that Socialism is a more sustainable, more Earth-friendly and People-friendly economic system than corporate capitalism. Forms of it work quite well in Scandinavia and parts of Europe.

I would like to see it tried in Latin America without the constant threat from the Monster in the North. I'm overjoyed to see it tried by someone who really can say "fuck you" to the corporate masters in the North.

Thanks for the dialog, you've been civil and I appreciate that. I like to sharpen my thinking and test my opinions at every opportunity. :hi:


"Getting elected three times is all the proof one needs to prove they're not a dictator"

doesn't being elected 5 times in rather democratic elections (according to the Carter Center) qualify as being "democratically elected"??

But I'm not prepared to endorse the man because I think he's a poor excuse of a human being and his people would be better served with someone else, IMO. Yeah, call me an 'anti-chavistas'. I don't get the need to add 'istas' to every public figure that some either like or dislike. It's really weird, you know. It's been done with Hillary, Cindy Sheehan and a few others here at DU. Very odd, IMO.

IMO, power is corrupting him already and I do hope someone can keep him in check. Having voices of opposition usually does that. Respect for the opposition and a willingness to work with them does a great deal of good. I'm disturbed that I haven't heard anything about Chavez working with the opposition.

I thik socialism has some great benefits, but I feel the same about capitalism, too. I'm not ignoring the dangers that each can present. I just feel that it's possible to have a healthy balance of both. Those that work hard can enjoy the fruits of their labor without squashing the little guy. I'm only a layperson, but that's a short description of how I feel about them. And you're quite right...forms of socialism have worked quite well in other countries, but we've got a RW nutjob section in this country that sees it, points at it and scream 'Stalin' at the top of their lungs.

As far as the number of times a person is elected...I don't know. Saddam was elected more than once with a 98% majority. I figured he stuck the 2% in there to give an impression of fairness. I have never qualified how many times someone is elected to mean that it was legitimate.

Anyway, interesting discussion. :hi:

"I think he's a poor excuse of a human being"

I would suggest you read about him in his own words.

http://www.amazon.com/Chavez-Venezuela-New-Latin-America/dp/1920888500

Everyone should have the chance to state their own position without having it defined for them by the MSM spin machine...

Later :hi:

bush and his minions do it all the time. Sorry, no thanks. I get enough of that just with this administration.

you won't even give his side a listen?

Hmmmm...

Well that is what our corporate masters desire. Keep UsAmericans ignorant of any other modalities and everything will be fine...for them...

hasn't impressed me all that much. Political leaders, for the most part, spin and do what they can to make themselves look good. I take what majority of them say with a grain of salt...as we all should, IMO.

I remember some years ago I got into a discussion with someone over Bill Clinton. I expressed my views and because I didn't share his opinions about Bill Clinton he basically accused me the same thing of what you're attempting to do now. He said I'm ignorant, I'm a victim of the mainstream media and that I listened and believed everything they said.

I'll tell you the same exact thing I told him.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

on the MSM?

But you haven't read his own story in his own words....

That's only listening to the one side, the side that hates him because he's not a willing tool of capitalism...

That one is getting really old.

As far as the number of times a person is elected...I don't know. Saddam was elected more than once with a 98% majority. I figured he stuck the 2% in there to give an impression of fairness. I have never qualified how many times someone is elected to mean that it was legitimate.

Yeah, but were the Iraqi 'elections' monitored by the European Union, the Carter Center and the Organization of American States and certified as completly transparant, honest and democratic? They were in Venezuela. (They weren't in the USA in 2000 and 2004.)

do people always have to compare Bush when defending Chavez? Chavez can be a sorry pile of shit without Bushy. I cannot understand why people cannot separate the two.

.....both that Bush's administration can be accused of doing the same thing as Chavez and the hypocrisy of calling him him EVIL. I don't agree with that mentality anymore than you do. I'm sure Chavez is doing some good things with his presidency. But don't you see if, you look hard enough you can say that about Bush too. He increased aid to Africa to x4, he's been the most responsive to the tragedies in Darfur as any President to date. And I know 2 families that get $600 dollars extra in their taxes cause of Bush's taxcuts (they're on the cusp of the cut off, one a small business owner). It still doesn't make up for the fact that he's dismantling our Constitution, that he's ruined our image around the world with the Iraq occupation, the stripping of Habeas Corpus and the torture of unconvicted "terrorists". Not to mention he's brought to a head the growing cancer of special interest groups and political cronyism that's been crafting legislation like the WTO and NAFTA for years. I will agree with you that Bush and co are Hypocrites, we all are at one point. I will also agree with you that the crimes they've committed are unforgivable. I'm just saying I think you're dipping into the same Hypocrisy and it undermines your argument. But it was a rant, so I'll give you some credit.

to spatter that misinformation all over a message board where most of the Democratic posters have been keeping informed, doing their homework for ages on this subject.

Happy to post a reference to the elections you've tried to question, even though they'be been the most heavily monitored elections in the world (your own sweet pResident refused to allow observers, incidently). This was written by a tremendous DU'er, Peace Patriot:

Because of my interest in our own election system and its ill results, I've paid particular attention to the electoral conditions in Venezuela, as Bush/US and corporate news monopolies have demonized Venezuela's president. They call him "increasingly authoritarian" and a "dictator" (while ignoring Bush's egregious tyranny and ripping up of our own Constitution), but there is no evidence for these charges against Chavez. None. I've looked into every one of them, and find them baseless. First of all, Venezuela has the cleanest elections in the world. They have been repeatedly certified by the Carter Center, the OAS, and EU election monitoring groups, who have been permitted to send hundreds of election monitors to crawl all over Venezuela during elections and vote counting. Also, Venezuela uses electronic voting, but it is an open source code system (anyone may review the code by which votes are counted--unlike here, where the code is a "trade secret" owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations), and, significantly, Venezuela hand-counts FIFTY FIVE PERCENT of the ballots, as a check against machine fraud. (Know how much WE handcount? If you don't know, you should look into it.*) The elections are clean. Chavez has been repeatedly elected, the last time with 63% of the vote.
(snip/...)

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Peace%20Patriot

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've only had time to see a few of your masterpice posts, and so far it appears you are bending all effort to cramming as much bogus material into these threads as possible. Good luck. DU'ers know a lot about this subject.

I think you're hoping that no matter how many times people answer you, if you just keep spewing, no one can ultimately cover all the lies, all the time. You may be right, but I have a feeling you're not going to win.

The rightwing plan was to publish FALSE polls leading up to the election (12/3/06), use the rightwing corporate news monopolies to foment dissension and riots the day after the election, and bring in a faction of the military for another coup attempt. The opposition candidate, to his credit, disavowed this plot, and distanced himself from the plotters.

The polls were FALSE! The election was heavily monitored by the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center. Chavez won the election with SIXTY-THREE PERCENT of the vote.

In Venezuela, they use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the programming code by which the votes are tabulated--and they handcount FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the ballots, as a check on machine fraud! 55%! Know how much WE handcount? ZERO percent in many states, and an extremely inadequate 1% in only the best states, and that is with an electronic system run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations (Diebold and ES&S, which do not operate in Venezuela, because they can't steal elections there!). (The Venezuelan voting firm is an international division of Sequoia, which was required to create an OPEN SOURCE CODE system with a VERIFIABLE paper ballot for Venezuela.)

Please get your facts straight! I can't believe the disinformation that has been promulgated by Venezuela's rabid, coup-hungry, greedy rightwing, by Bush's USAID/NED (aided and abetted by James Carville!), and by our war profiteering corporate news monopolies. It is simply mind-boggling. It is on the same order as Saddam and the WMDs. You are being LIED TO!

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


"Also his last election was in dispute. The polls run before the election had him 10pts behind his opponent and exit polls didn't match up with the votes tallied. Half of Venezuela's votes were cast on electronic voting machines, furnished by the same company in fact that furnished some of the machines in question in the U.S." --Soulshine

of media, politicians and Astro Turf...

Ranted at home here myself everytime I read some Dem candidate spouting chimphouse talking points on Chavez. :wtf: did he ever do to the them or do anything but help the people of his country? They sound like major wusses when they do it.

You're right..they need to read up on what a goddamn dictator is and maybe they'll recognize THE bUSHITS.

tyranny so that they can enslave more people and expand their empire.

Vote for Kucinich.

He will never be elected. 'They' make sure of that.

if they think twisting the truth works politically, telling the truth is not on their list of top priorities

Which has gotten more people elected, lies or truth?

All throughout history in any place where socialism has taken root there have been capitalist interests who have tried to destroy it. Socialism is an economic system in which corporations do not own the government and oppress the people, and it's people over profit in socialism. This is why so many out there wish to destroy what Chavez has built.

Who knows, maybe Hillary wants to "get" Venezuela. Sometimes I really wonder if she was ever in cahoots with the PNAC.

otherwise, why mention Chavez in the same sentence with Iran and North Korea...

She's doing the work of our corporate masters...

otherwise, why mention Chavez in the same sentence with Iran and North Korea...

She's doing the work of our corporate masters...

Chavez is trying to do the work of the People...

This is what amazed me during the Haiti action. Americans felt as though they had to support Aristide or Cedras, as though because one might be a little less of a murderous leader, well, he'll be my guy!

Please. In many of these countries, there's little difference between a coup and an "election."

Chavez is a thug. To defend him is beyond reason.

:sarcasm:

:applause:

Chavez is not perfect but he speaks for the people.

Government is supposed to be for the people, and for nothing else.

Go Hugo!!!!

Of course we start with Hugo Chavez. But then we have:

David Duke
Michael Savage
Pat Buchanan
Kim Jong-il
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Osama bin Laden
Omar al-Bashir
Robert Mugabe
Fidel Castro

I bet you have fantastic parties...

:eyes: