VENEZUELA:DATE WITH DESTINY -U.S. supports anti-democratic forces in Venezuela recall(barf alert)

Imagine the scandal if a foreign government had for years funneled millions of dollars to political groups in the United States in an attempt to affect the outcome of a U.S. election. Even worse, what if some of the groups that received money had been involved in a failed coup attempt against a democratically elected U.S. president? Would the U.S. public not have a right to be outraged at the attempt to manipulate our political process?

Of course we would - which is why the people of Venezuela have a right to be outraged at the U.S. government's ongoing attempts to meddle in the electoral process in Venezuela.

Venezuelans are going to the polls today for a referendum on the recall of President Hugo Chavez. Polls show Chavez running 8 to 31 percentage points ahead. But whatever the result, Bush administration actions in Venezuela should alert the U.S. public that the commitment to ``expanding democracy'' we hear so much about is largely rhetorical cover for the typical U.S. interference in the politics of nations in Latin America - and around the world.

The vehicle for this meddling in Venezuela is the National Endowment for Democracy, which calls itself ``a private, nonprofit organization'' but is funded by U.S. taxpayers. Its self-described mission is ``to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts."

In the case of Venezuela, ``strengthening democratic institutions" has meant financing groups that helped carry out the failed coup attempt against Chavez in April 2002. Coup leaders representing the traditional oligarchy in Venezuela, and their supporters in the U.S. government, saw a ``problem": Chavez is genuinely interested in a fairer distribution of wealth and refuses to subordinate his country to U.S. policy. Their ``solution'' was a coup that lasted for 48 hours, during which an illegal decree installed a businessman as president and dissolved the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. The United States quickly backed the coup, until loyal officers and civilian groups restored Chavez to office.

In the continued quest to promote "democracy," the NED kept funding some of those same opposition figures as they shifted to a strategy of work stoppages and lockouts aimed at crippling the country's vital oil industry. When that failed to dislodge Chavez, they finally took up a legal route, the recall election. (Documents regarding NED funding obtained through the Freedom of Information Act are available online at http://www.venezuelafoia.info/.

Whatever objections U.S. officials might have to the Venezuelan president's policies, it is clear the attempts to push Chavez from power have nothing to do with the charge that he is an authoritarian president (or "quasi-authoritarian,"as one U.S. newspaper described him in an editorial, or perhaps a "quasi-editorial"). Since his 1998 election, Chavez's real "crimes" have been not just consistently speaking out against the unjust distribution of resources in his country but taking tangible steps to help the poor, such as literacy programs and community-based health clinics.

Unlike so many U.S.-backed leaders in Latin America over the years, Chavez has respected freedom of speech and an open political process. Most of the private media outlets, in fact, are rabidly anti-Chavez, representing the interests of the Venezuelan elite. Those television stations remain on the air. Chavez has consistently stated he would abide by the results of the referendum, which the opposition leadership refuses to do. The fact is that Chavez has acted in a less repressive manner than any prior Venezuelan president.

And for all this, Chavez has been demonized by the Bush administration, a strategy that John Kerry seems determined to mimic. This suggests that the current fashionable rhetoric among U.S. policy-makers about supporting democracy around the world is — as it was during the Cold War — empty rhetoric.

If democratic elections put into power leaders willing to back U.S. policy, then all is well. If people around the world reject U.S.-backed "leaders," then those people are likely to get some timely instruction in democracy — Washington style.

For independent information on events in Venezuela in English, I recommend the following Web sites: http://venezuelanalysis.com/, http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.cfm and http://www.cepr.net/pages/americas.htm.

I am including the rebuttal article from ChronicallyBiased.com

August 16, 2004, 07:00 AM
Chron publishes Robert Jensen... again
By Owen Courrèges

The Chronicle has published yet another op-ed from that left-wing nutball, Robert Jensen.
Jensen, a professor of Journalism at the University of Texas, was first published in the Chronicle on September 14th, 2001 - just three days following the attacks on the twin towers. In that op-ed, he notoriously wrote that the attack on the World Trade Center "was no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism - the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes - that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime."
Given the timing and the rhetoric, this was clearly over-the-top. Yet the Chronicle published Jensen then, and now they've published him yet again. In this op-ed, which concerns the recall election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his rhetoric is no less inflammatory and unreasonable:

Whatever objections U.S. officials might have to the Venezuelan president's policies, it is clear the attempts to push Chavez from power have nothing to do with the charge that he is an authoritarian president (or "quasi-authoritarian" as one U.S. newspaper described him in an editorial, or perhaps a "quasi-editorial"). Since his 1998 election, Chavez's real "crimes" have been not just consistently speaking out against the unjust distribution of resources in his country but taking tangible steps to help the poor, such as literacy programs and community-based health clinics.
Of course, in reality Chavez has expressed kinship with the likes of Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein. He has also corresponded with a convicted terrorist, Ramírez "Carlos the Jackal" Sánchez, with whom he expressed "profound faith in the cause". I understand that, as a wing-nut, Jensen wishes to defend Chavez, but ignoring his support of vile dictators and terrorists is more than a tad intellectually dishonest.

Ultimately, I suppose the Chronicle sympathizes somewhat with Jensen's position. That, and they probably love running his pieces for shock value. It just goes to show how awful a paper they truly are.

There is zero evidence of the US interfering in that country. The opposition is too liberal for Bush for crying out loud. Real sad.

Democracy in Venezuela is over.

Next comes nationalization of the media

killing the opposition leaders

jailing and repressing opposition sympathizers.

Government takeover of the church.

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