Chavez redistributing the sun to the poor

Ecofarm · Aug 30, 2007

Atticus: Maybe, I don't remember reading anything about persecution of opposition or such things from BBC news.

Spoiler :

There are also countless articles about Chavez jailing people on strike (opposition). Do you really read the BBC, or are you just making claims from ignorance?

Atticus: BTW: did you know that the Fox news has a bad reputation even here?

Are you aware that EVERY news organization has a bad reputation according to some people? Do you know of ANY news organization that is universally accepted as un-baised? Of course not.

To answer your question: Yes, I am aware that FOX news (and every other news organization) has a bad reputation according to some people - everywhere. Really, it is common sense. Are you aware of this? Do you really think that anyone is ignorant enough to think that any news organization (or FOX in particular) is universally accepted in Finland? Was I to be under the impression that leftist organizations in Finland approve of and support right wing news outlets? Pa-lease.

Perhaps you could provide a source documenting this "bad reputation"? I'm curious which leftist news organizations/groups in particular you are referring to.

BTW: do you know that Finland has a bad reputation even here?

skadistic · Aug 30, 2007

Its all Americas fault!!
:lol:

Its all the evil mega-cops fault!!

I'm surprized you didn't blame the Israelis.

Atticus · Aug 30, 2007

Ecofarm said:
Are you aware that EVERY news organization has a bad reputation according to some people? Do you know of ANY news organization that is universally accepted as un-baised? Of course not.

No, I'm not claiming that, and bad reputation of course doesn't implicate bad journalism, but it's amazing how some media can have bad reputation on the other side of the world. And yes, I am aware of those certain people who are very critical on the main stream media, but so uncritical of their own, and I usually don't pay much attention to them.

Ecofarm said:
Perhaps you could provide a source documenting this "bad reputation"? I'm curious which leftist news organizations/groups in particular you are referring to.

Well, the before mentioned Helsingin Sanomat, which I wouldn't call exactly leftist news organization. I'll see if I can find a link.

Ecofarm said:
Do you really read the BBC, or are you just making claims from ignorance?

I don't read it on daily bases, but every now and then.

Now about those news, some of them are alarming, at least one is misleading, and the rest of them just provide not enough information. The misleading one is the "no opposition"-thing: The opposition boycotted the election (it's mentioned in the article also). Those heavy sentences are alarming, but these news just doesn't really tell on what grounds they were given.

I'm not claiming that Venezuela would be the paradise of freedom and liberty, there is surely many problems, but you must remember that some of them (like corruption and police violence) have been a part of South American government for long time, they aren't creations of Chavez, and it isn't easy to get rid of them. Also it isn't easy to establish and sustain freedom if your government is being overthrown.

And to make it even clearer: I don't support Chavez nor do I oppose him. I'm just saying that evidence on hand doesn't entitle to as radical actions as proposed in this thread.

Ecofarm · Aug 30, 2007

Atticus said:
I don't support Chavez nor do I oppose him. I'm just saying that evidence on hand doesn't entitle to as radical actions as proposed in this thread.

To not oppose the establishment is to support it. Don't play semantic games with us. You can be pro-Chavez, it's ok. And/or you can be anti-radical action. Noone will arrest you or shoot you. But please, do not pretend that complacency with the established authority is a neutral position. To think such rhetoric would go unnoticed is arrogant.

innonimatu · Aug 30, 2007

Ecofarm said:
To not oppose the establishment is to support it. Don't play semantic games with us. You can be pro-Chavez, it's ok. And/or you can be anti-radical action. Noone will arrest you or shoot you. But please, do not pretend that complacency with the established authority is a neutral position. To think such rhetoric would go unnoticed is arrogant.

Arrogant? I'm sure you know about arrogance, it takes a lot to use that old, spent propaganda tactic of presenting your opponent with a black or white situation, framed as it better suits you, and pushing him to declare for the side you support. At this late stage in a discussion no one who remains is going to fall for it. People who bother checking various sources for "news" (aka propaganda) know all those black and white scenarios are build on lies.

Atticus · Aug 30, 2007

Ecofarm said:
To not oppose the establishment is to support it.

Maybe it would be if I lived in Venezuela. As an example I don't oppose Otmar Hasler, the prime minister of Liechtenstein (who I've probably never heard before I got his name from wikipedia for this example), but that doesn't mean that I support him.

As my chances to influence the situation of Venezuela are practically zero, it doesn't seem very important to choose any side here.

luiz · Aug 30, 2007

innonimatu said:
I've been arguing that he looks better than your proposal of a real tyrant murdering him, taking over power ans suppressing democracy until the venezuelans were persuaded that Chavez and his proposals were bad and shouldn't be voted for. Something with which even most of the venezuelan opposition agrees.

No, you actually like him and have expressed so in other threads. Maybe your opinion is already chaging, as it becomes more obvious that he is a tyrant.

What I have been claiming is that when there is a tyrant ready to have his gunmen shooting at the opposition, democracy is gone. When Congress is 100% controlled by the government, democracy is gone.

innonimatu said:
Really, you're basically claiming that a tyrant would be better that some guy who was repeatedly elected, in elections that all foreign observers declared free and fair. And you still pretend to be taken seriously as a supporter of democracy?

Elections in which the opposition was scared into submission by Chávez militias. Indeed the vote count appears to be correct (at least according to Carter) - but let's keep in mind that voting is not compulsory in Venezuela, and scare tactics work well. The opposition in Venezuela is in a much similar situation to the blacks under Jim Crow.

innonimatu said:
As for the comfort of the european liberal democracy on my country, it's because I know how it was built and how it could have been derailed that I bother denouncing those ideas about simply overthrowing Chavez.

Was it built with gunmen and shutting down dissenting media? I think not.

innonimatu said:
Why, thank you for those two links. They actually support what I had written in my previous post. Why is it that all is quiet during the many anti-Chavez marches and strikes, then at key moments such as just before a prepared coup or after a contested ballot, "pro-Chavez gunmen" show up randomly shooting the opposition - precisely when such a thing would cause the most damage to Chavez?

The April 11 2002 shootings were used to justify the coup (which, no doubt, had been planned before, no one carries out a coup, even an incompetent one, in a few hours notice). They happened after anti-Chavez march was deliberately led to confront a pro-Chavez march. The media, at the time, showed deliberately edited pictures and video footage of four people shooting in the general direction of the pro-Chavez march. The full video, later released, actually showed them returning fire, after being shot from the pro-Chavez march, perhaps (no one agrees here) from police present. The police was aligned with the opposition and just a few hours later took part in the coup to oust Chavez. Coincidence?

There is one freelance journalist (who has no personal sympathy for Chavez) who in his blog gives an interesting account of what he witnessed and what he put together about the days of the coup:

Most sources about those days are biased, but the images of the specific incident you mentioned certainly show that the BBCs simple comment "National Guard and pro-Chavez gunmen clash with protesters - more than 10 are killed and 110 injured." is misguiding. This particular journalists account of those days is interesting because, if we believe it, it shows just how volatile and unpredictable the situation was.

And, as we already have the anti-Chavez account (presented by you) and an attempt at a neutral account, it's only fair to add a link to a pro-Chavez account of those days also. Let those interested read them all, research further if they want, and decide. Or cling to their present ideas, if that's too much work (ant it certainly can be, I won't spend any more time on this subject).

So the BBC and PBS are biased, but your obscure journalist is correct? Yeaaaah. :lol:

And I defy you to find a single statement of Chávez condemning the shootings. He actually encourages that sort of behavour; hell, he armed the militia himself. Didn't he?

And for your information, it was the pro-Chávez march that was organized after and only to confront the opposition march. And how do you feel knowing that a horde of 150,000 people were marching against Chávez? Maybe it's not only the evil CIA-backe elite that opposes him, after all...

innonimatu said:
Just to sum up our discussion, you claimed that Chavez was a tyrant, and when challenged about that presented three justifications:
1) he had armed militias terrorizing the opposition;
Proven false, there were a few (very few) shootings in the past 8 years, with several dead people on both sides.

No, he armed the militias who killed the oppositioners and he is directly responsible for the deaths, which happened in key moments such as election day and had an unmeasurable impact on the outcome.

You said there were no such militias or shooting, I proved you wrong with two extremely reliable sources, to which you replied with some free lancer which I had never heard about.

innonimatu said:
2) he shut down the media that opposed him;
Again, false. He recently shut down one TV channel, buy all other private media still opposes him, and has been free to so so for the past 8 years. He would have hardly been an effective tyrant this way. Just imagine the likes of Pinochet (or Castro) doing it...

You are wrong. No other TV station critices him, after what he did to RCTV. Globovisión accepted to present a pro-Chávez view of things.

innonimatu said:
3) his supporters won almost all seats in the 2005 elections for the National Assembly.
Since when winning a free, democratic election is tyranny?

They occupy all seats. There was such widespread persecution that nobody outside the government even took part in the elections.

You still did not answer me. Show me a single democracy where the government controlls 100% of the Congress and where 100% of the SC judges were appointed by the current president. Come on, show me.

luiz · Aug 30, 2007

Godwynn said:
The Congress is controlled by the government. Could you elaborate on that?

Everyone of the congress members belongs to the government base. 100%. The last elections were carried out in such climate of political persecution that the opposition simply did not run.

Civil servants were threatned with firing if they voted against Chávez. In public schools, the teachers aksed the kids who their parents would vote for. In the streets, Chávez gunmen would fire at opposition rallies. Such is venezuelan democracy.

VX250 · Aug 30, 2007

Chavez is already living on the moon based on his wild ideas and views. He's clearly suffering from a lack of oxygen to the brain.

amadeus · Aug 30, 2007

Princeps said:
amadeus. interesting. Weren't you the one who chided me for quoting a leftist blog (which quoted a mainstream media source, but not that people make the distiction), while you quote the John Boltons of this world and see what they say about socialist policies.

I have no reason to believe that the Heritage Foundation's data is skewed toward or against any specific countries. Why do the Scandinavian countries score so high, yet have such burdensome income tax policies?

innonimatu · Aug 30, 2007

I do hate leaving questions unanswered...

luiz said:
Elections in which the opposition was scared into submission by Chávez militias.

Most of the opposition chose, of its own free will and as a tactical maneuver, not to participate in the elections.

luiz said:
So the BBC and PBS are biased, but your obscure journalist is correct? Yeaaaah.

The BBC statement you mentioned was ambiguous, and I believe deliberately do. The PBS piece was just the opinion of one other journalist, who wasn't even present in Venezuela at the time of that shooting.

luiz said:
And I defy you to find a single statement of Chávez condemning the shootings. He actually encourages that sort of behavour; hell, he armed the militia himself. Didn't he?

And for your information, it was the pro-Chávez march that was organized after and only to confront the opposition march. And how do you feel knowing that a horde of 150,000 people were marching against Chávez? Maybe it's not only the evil CIA-backe elite that opposes him, after all...

I've already posted links to accounts of the events that are not as simplistic as you'd have them seem, those interested may read them...

luiz said:
No, he armed the militias who killed the oppositioners and he is directly responsible for the deaths, which happened in key moments such as election day and had an unmeasurable impact on the outcome.

Which election? Post a list of those deaths (or the shootings, at least) with the dates and the election's dates. For additional credibility you could also post the names of the victims and their affiliation.
As far as I know there have been a few shootings with deaths on both sides of the venezuelan divide, and neither in a scale not at a time capable of influencing electoral results.

The basic list I ask for ought to be easy to put together and post here. If you can't produce it we'll know just how credible are your claims.

luiz said:
You said there were no such militias or shooting, I proved you wrong with two extremely reliable sources, to which you replied with some free lancer which I had never heard about.

Extremely reliable sources? I think not! And I never wrote there were no shootings (quote me if I ever did!). What I wrote was that there were few shootings, and no clear attribution of responsibility for those. Not at all like you try to make it look like (people trusting your posts would imagine there were daily shootings, instead of the handful of documented ones in 8 years). You only provided links to pieces about a single sooting, by the way.
The final report from the EU Election Observation Mission to the 2005 elections is available on-line. Anyone who reads it will find, among other things, that both sides has some condemnable behavior prior to the election but nothing like you're alleging. I personally do not like some of the options taken about the elections, such as the use of voting machines, but many other countries use them. Globally, media coverage probably slightly favored the opposition, despite the government's media favoring the Chavez supporters.
There was no relevant violence, and mo militias terrorizing anyone, prior to or during the election.

luiz said:
You still did not answer me. Show me a single democracy where the government controlls 100% of the Congress and where 100% of the SC judges were appointed by the current president. Come on, show me.

Oh, I'll grant you that venezuela's democracy is in bad shape. Where I disagree is in the attribution of responsibility. You're obsessed with blaming Chavez and only Chavez for it. I see also an opposition that has been playing with fire and getting burned. They withdrew from the election because they expected to loose. By increasing the abstention they hoped to be able to claim all the usual abstention as additional votes for them and the exceptionally high total abstention as an anti-Chavez vote. But they failed to capitalize on that, and have only themselves to blame for not having won any seat - by refusing participation in the election they refused to play according to democratic rules, after all.

amadeus · Aug 31, 2007

VX250 said:
He's clearly suffering from a lack of oxygen to the brain.

And I dare say that Venezuela is suffering from an abundance of oxygen in his brain...

MadScotsMan · Aug 31, 2007

daylight savings time always confuses me

luiz · Aug 31, 2007

innonimatu said:
Most of the opposition chose, of its own free will and as a tactical maneuver, not to participate in the elections.

Not most, all. When every single opposition faction decides not to run, claiming that there was massive intimidation going on, something is wrong.

innonimatu said:
The BBC statement you mentioned was ambiguous, and I believe deliberately do. The PBS piece was just the opinion of one other journalist, who wasn't even present in Venezuela at the time of that shooting.

It was not ambigous at all. It very clearly states that 10 oppositioners were killed and over 100 were wounded by the National Guard and pro-Chávez gunmen.

innonimatu said:
Which election? Post a list of those deaths (or the shootings, at least) with the dates and the election's dates. For additional credibility you could also post the names of the victims and their affiliation.
As far as I know there have been a few shootings with deaths on both sides of the venezuelan divide, and neither in a scale not at a time capable of influencing electoral results.

Eh, the PBS link does say that the victim was killed during Chávez' last election. It was a woman attending at an opposition rally, when Chávez militiamen opened fire against the crowd. It very explicitly said so.

innonimatu said:
The basic list I ask for ought to be easy to put together and post here. If you can't produce it we'll know just how credible are your claims.

Both the BBC and PBS, as well as all brazilians newspapers I have read, mentioned the deaths caused by Chávez' gunmen. But if you want to claim it's all a media conspiracy, what can I do?

innonimatu said:
Extremely reliable sources? I think not! And I never wrote there were no shootings (quote me if I ever did!). What I wrote was that there were few shootings, and no clear attribution of responsibility for those. Not at all like you try to make it look like (people trusting your posts would imagine there were daily shootings, instead of the handful of documented ones in 8 years). You only provided links to pieces about a single sooting, by the way.

I presented proof that the opposition (and only the opposition) was shot by Chávez militias, as I have been saying all along. You may say that relatively few people died, but to that I reply, how many people died in your country's last election because of their politics? In my country it was zero, and God knows we are no exemple of anything. If it was more than zero, serious things would happen. Like, you know, questioning the validity of the result.

innonimatu said:
The final report from the EU Election Observation Mission to the 2005 elections is available on-line. Anyone who reads it will find, among other things, that both sides has some condemnable behavior prior to the election but nothing like you're alleging. I personally do not like some of the options taken about the elections, such as the use of voting machines, but many other countries use them. Globally, media coverage probably slightly favored the opposition, despite the government's media favoring the Chavez supporters.
There was no relevant violence, and mo militias terrorizing anyone, prior to or during the election.

Don't make me laugh. Chávez had 22 times more TV time than his oppositioner. And there were was a freakin' shooting during the elections, did you not read the quote I posted??

innonimatu said:
Oh, I'll grant you that venezuela's democracy is in bad shape. Where I disagree is in the attribution of responsibility. You're obsessed with blaming Chavez and only Chavez for it. I see also an opposition that has been playing with fire and getting burned. They withdrew from the election because they expected to loose. By increasing the abstention they hoped to be able to claim all the usual abstention as additional votes for them and the exceptionally high total abstention as an anti-Chavez vote. But they failed to capitalize on that, and have only themselves to blame for not having won any seat - by refusing participation in the election they refused to play according to democratic rules, after all.

It is 100% Chávez' fault. He is the one who wants to stay in power forever and who can't deal with criticism.

Read the links provided by Ecofarm (BBC links), they show what type of man Chávez is. A dictator, nothing less. The only difference between Chávez and Castro is that Chávez is slowly killing the institutions, as opposed to fulminant revolutions such as the cuban. But the result will be the same, and you know it as well as I do. Chávez has said, with exactly that words, that he wants to be in power untill 2030. Those are the words of a monarch, not a president. He showed all of his disdain for democracy in his coup against a democratic government (you criticise the coup against Chávez, but fact is he is much more authoritarian than the government he tried to depose by force. How does that add up?).

Face it, Chávez is evil and it would be much better for Venezuela if somebody could just put a bullet in his head. Is his life any more valuable than the lifes of those his militias killed?

RE Lee · Aug 31, 2007

Funniest socialist idea ever, and there a lot of funny ones.

Chavez redistributing the sun to the poor

Ecofarm

Deity

skadistic

Caomhanach

Atticus

Deity

Ecofarm

Deity

innonimatu

the resident Cassandra

Atticus

Deity

luiz

Trendy Revolutionary

luiz

Trendy Revolutionary

VX250

Down With Swingtown

amadeus

Apply directly to the forehead

innonimatu

the resident Cassandra

amadeus

Apply directly to the forehead

MadScotsMan

The Ruler of Cattle

luiz

Trendy Revolutionary

RE Lee

Chieftain

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