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Video: Alternative
Views
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Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
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Video: Alternative
Views
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Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
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Doug's New Books & Related
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TV/Radio
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Tuesday, April 30, 2002
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Venezuelan Asylum Seekers Fly to U.S. Via Bolivia
Once again the US is asylum for rightwing coup plotters who attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government; Bush coup adventures misfire and the US gets the dreck. dk
Monday, April 29, 2002 Print This | Email This
Venezuelan Asylum Seekers Fly to U.S. Via Bolivia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Three retired Venezuelan military officers and family members who sought asylum in the Bolivian Embassy in Caracas after a short-lived coup against President Hugo Chavez have traveled via Bolivia to the United States, Bolivia's Foreign Minister said on Monday.
Gustavo Fernandez told reporters in Caracas the group of 10 Venezuelans had flown at the weekend first to Santa Cruz in Bolivia and then on to the United States.
Following the collapse of the coup that briefly deposed Chavez, who was restored by loyal troops April 14, the three anti-Chavez military officers and their families went to the Bolivian Embassy and asked for political asylum.
They had remained there as "guests", while negotiations took place for their departure, Fernandez said.
"Through their own free will, these persons asked to be allowed to leave to a third country, and my government agreed after consultations with the Venezuelan government and that country," the Bolivian foreign minister added.
"They left on the night of Saturday to Sunday and yesterday morning they made the connection from Santa Cruz to the United States," he added.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman told Reuters he had no information about the 10 Venezuelans or under what status they had traveled from Bolivia to the United States.
The group included retired Air Force Col. Pedro Vicente Soto Fuentes, his wife and three children, and another retired Air Force colonel, Silvino Jose Bustillos, accompanied by his spouse and two children. The other member was a retired National Guard captain Luis Garcia Morales.
All three of the officers had been forcibly retired by the Venezuelan president, himself a former paratroop officer, for speaking out in public against him before the April 11 coup that removed him from power for 48 hours.
Senior armed forces officers briefly deposed Chavez after refusing to obey his order to deploy tanks and troops during a huge anti-government march in which 17 people were killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire in central Caracas.
Chavez has ordered an inquiry into the April 11 deaths and into the subsequent killings of several dozen more people during protests by Chavez supporters and widespread looting.
The Bolivian foreign minister was in Caracas to fix a new date for a summit of leaders of the Andean Community (CAN) which was due to have been held May 3-4 in Venezuela but was suspended in the aftermath of the coup.
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Copyright © Reuters 2002. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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Monday, April 29, 2002
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Sunday, April 28, 2002
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AlterNet -- Bush's Master Oil Plan
Michael Klare, one of the best critics of oil companies, articulates Bush Administration Master Oil Plan
AlterNet -- Bush's Master Oil Plan
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Observer | 'Why the Left is failing us'
Former Brit Labor Party leader tells the Left to get it together and stand for someone if it wants to be major player in politics today.
Observer | 'Why the Left is failing us'
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Independent News
Evidence of atrocities in Jenin by British journalists;
Independent News
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The Frederick News-Post
There is serious suspicion that US military scientists were involved in the production of the highly developed and military grade anthrax used in post-September attacks through the US postage service; there was also a report recently that there was anthrax contamination at the main US chemical-biological weapons lab..
The Frederick News-Post
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Saturday, April 27, 2002
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Budget Deficit for '02 May Top $100 Billion (washingtonpost.com)
The Bush administration is wrecking the federal budget, returning to massive deficit spending. This is a conservative strategy to cut back on federal spending: in the face of a massive deficits, Repugs claim govt programs need to be cut. But it also distributes wealth upwards as banks and financial institutions benefit from financing of the deficit, scamming the people.
Budget Deficit for '02 May Top $100 Billion (washingtonpost.com)
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Protest Against McDonald's
McDonald's is now the poster child for protests against corporate capitalism. Everytime there is a major demonstration, McDonald's are targeted. Likewise, as the story below indicates, there are increasing protests against the building of McDonald's in many places where they are deemed undesirable. There is a group Mcspotlight that documents the worldwide struggles against McDonald's which has mutated in recented years from a symbol of the triumph of American capitalism globally to a symbol of massification, cultural imperialism, and bad food. Thus McDonald's is a contested symbol. Here is an example of an ungoing protest from the McSpotlight list which also tells how one can join.
09/04/02
p r e s s c u t t i n g .
,
SEU News
,
ROMANIA
ACTIONS AGAINST McDonalds IN VORONEZH, ROMANIA
For more than two weeks protests against the building of a
McDonald's restaurant are going on in the historical center of
the city of Voronezh. Local citizens together with the
representatives of environmental, political and social
organizations are taking part in the protest actions.
McDonalds is supposed to be built on the place of the only
park in the city center. On the 14th of March 2002 'Stop
McDonalds' Committee was formed during the first public meeting
against the building of McDonalds on the place of city park.
The protesters' demand:
1. Stop the building of McDonalds! This project does not take
into account the opinion of the citizens, and violates many
regulations about the building of such objects.
2. Reconstruct the park as a historical place of Voronezh.
In Spring 2001 McDonalds Corporation acting through the false
firm has bought the right of the land-lease for the building of
four fast-food restaurants, one of them was supposed to be built
in the historical center of the city. Sale of the right for
land-lease was carried out with many breaks, which was confirmed
by the city prosecutor's department. Despite of the city
regulations and the opinion of the citizens the administration of
the city permitted the building of restaurant in the park.
Blockade of the building process lasted for five days and on
the 25th of March, the six day of the blockade, it was stopped by
the active intervention of the police and administration of the
city. The blockade went on since March 20, activists organized
daily duty in the park and did not allow the builders to start
their work, staying under the basket of excavator and taking
apart the fence around the park. On the morning conference
Voronezh major A. Kovalev, with red and angry face, shouted that
the building should be continued in spite of the protest, which
involved several deputies of the Regional Parliament, and that he
was going to organize the ceremonial beginning of the building
together with the main city architect.
Instead of the promised ceremony the police regiment arrived
in the park and pushed the protesters away from the building
machines. Local citizens reminded to the police, that in this
park two police officers were killed by the criminals ten years
ago, and that McDonalds could not be a good memorial to them. Two
hours later police arrested four participants of the protest for
'participating non-sanctioned meeting'.
"If this is called 'non-sanctioned meeting', about 200 people
participated in it together with us including bureaucrats from
the city administration, - said one of the arrested activists,
Svetlana Dorokhova. - It seems that if you support the building
of McDonalds then your participation is sanctioned, if you are
against then you break an order in the city." Next day the local
court made the decision that three activists of the Stop
McDonalds committee were not guilty.
Beside of it, about 20 paint-artists were already left
without place for selling their pictures as they were thrown out
of the park, and more than 10 beautiful old trees were sawed off
in the park. On 29th of March "Stop McDonalds" Committee
organized the street party, musicians from Voronezh and several
other cities played for free near the park to protect it. On the
3rd of April activists attended the exhibition of architecture
projects, where the project of McDonalds was presented, and
spoiled the opening ceremony, staying near mayor, head of the
region and the city main architect in the T-shirts with STOP
MCDONALDS slogan, and distributing the invitations to the meeting
against the building. Later they were removed from the exhibition
by the police 'for wearing wrong clothes'.
During the actions activists collected more than 1000
signatures against the building of McDonalds. After distributing
call-for-solidarity letter we received more than 50 letters of
support (and the city administration received the letters of
protest) from France, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Russia
and USA. Activists from Nizhniy Novgorod supported us with two
pickets of McDonalds restaurants in their city. 'Stop McDonalds'
Committee is not going to stop its activity, the struggle is
going on.
More info stop_mcdonalds@mail.ru Photos:
no-corp.voronezh.net/photo/090402
_____________________________________
---- the McLibel mailing list ----
McDonald's, McLibel, multinationals
http://www.mcspotlight.org
get on: send blank mail to list-subscribe@mclibel.org
get off: send blank mail to list-unsubscribe@mclibel.org
help: send blank mail to list-help@mclibel.org
human: send meaningful email to list-owner@mclibel.org
submit: send stuff to list-submit@mclibel.org
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Thursday, April 25, 2002
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Wednesday, April 24, 2002
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Media Reader
Here's a good source on media and politics including Danny Schecter's weblog
Media Reader
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Tuesday, April 23, 2002
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washingtonpost.com: Top Bush Aide Resigning as White House Counselor
big surprise! Hughes has been top Bush advisor since Texas and a master of Bushspeak; i.e. spin, lies, and evasion. She is confrontational and is not liked by significant members of the press corps. She was also in charge of propaganda effort in Afghan war, a policy that I argue was a resounding failure in part because Hughes is pretty dim and rightwing. Yet one wonders the story behind her resignation. Are the rats leaving a sinking ship? Is Hughes too much of an embarassment? Enquiring minds want to know....
washingtonpost.com: Top Bush Aide Resigning as White House Counselor
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Sunday, April 21, 2002
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Crises Strain Bush Policies (washingtonpost.com)
One of the first US establishment critiques of complete incoherency and growing failure of Bush administration foreign policy; the WP article cites lack of clarity in Afghan and Terror War policy; muddle in the Middle East; confusion over Venezuela coup; and growing conflicts and lack of "conviction, clarity, and stability" in the Bush administration
Crises Strain Bush Policies (washingtonpost.com)
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Friday, April 19, 2002
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Front
Oddly, the story of four Canadians being killed yesterday in Afghanistan from US "friendly fire" has hardly gotten any US coverage. There were no stories on it in the NYT and WP today for instance. In Canada, of course, it is a very big question.
Front
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Thursday, April 18, 2002
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Wednesday, April 17, 2002
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Howard Zinn interviews on Terrorism and War
Dear friends,
I wanted to let folks know that a new book of interviews I edited with
Howard Zinn called "Terrorism and War" is now available from Seven Stories
Press (and in bookstores). It is the second book in the important new Open
Book series, following Noam Chomsky's best-selling 9-11.
More info at:
http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100383580
In solidarity
Anthony
*
New book of interviews with Howard Zinn now available!
Terrorism and War
By Howard Zinn
Edited by Anthony Arnove
http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100383580
Based on new interviews conducted since the tragic events of September 11
and the bombing campaign against Afghanistan, Terrorism and War provides
Zinn's most up-to-date thinking on war, terrorism, the new global order,
and resistance.
Truth is indeed the first casualty of war, but war has many other
casualties, Zinn argues, including civil liberties on the home front and
human rights abroad.
In Terrorism and War Zinn explores the growth of the American empire, as
well as the long tradition of resistance in this country to U.S.
militarism, from Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party during World War One
to the opponents of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan today.
Terrorism and War includes eight chapters, appendices, and suggestions for
further reading. It is the second book in the important new Open Book
series, following Noam Chomsky's best-selling 9-11.
Howard Zinn is professor emeritus at Boston University. He is the author of
the classic A People's History of the United States, "a brilliant and
moving history of the American people from the point of view of those .
whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories" (Library Journal).
Anthony Arnove is publisher and an editor at South End Press in Cambridge.
He is the editor of Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and
War. An activist based in Providence, Rhode Island, he is a member of the
International Socialist Organization and the National Writers Union.
Available at independent bookstores and from Seven Stories:
http://www.sevenstories.com/about/index.cfm?fa=contact#order
Also available as an E Book:
http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100383580
See other books in the series:
http://www.sevenstories.com/openmedia/
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Tuesday, April 16, 2002
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The Administration's Latin American Folly
Good critique by Paul Krugman in the NYT showing folly of Bush Administration support for those who attempted failed coup in Latin America; US was sole country to support that coup; rest of Latin America was appalled;
Losing Latin America
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Monday, April 15, 2002
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More McKinney
Representative McKinney has called for an investigation in Bush administration policy before September 11 and intelligence failures; She is getting attacked by various sources for this reasonable request and here is her response to her critics:
ajc.com | News | McKinney comments
See my own analysis of September 11 and the failures of the Bush administration
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Report on Venezuela Drama
Here's an excellent report on situation in Venezuela from Zmag, dk
Please visit www.zmag.org/weluser.htm for continuing coverage not only of the events in Venezuela, of course, but the Mideast, and the world
more broadly -- for essays on strategy, vision, news, and analysis -- updated daily.
But, for this morning...our voice from Venezuela, reports again...
---
Venezuela: Not a Banana-Oil Republic after All
Gregory Wilpert
The Counter-Coup
It looks like Venezuela is not just another banana-oil republic after all. Many here feared that with the April 11 coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela was being degraded to being just another country that is forced to bend to the powerful will of the United States. The successful counter-coup of April 14, though, which reinstated Chavez, proved that Venezuela is a tougher cookie than the coup planners thought.
The coup leaders against President Chavez made two fundamental miscalculations. First, they started having delusions of grandeur, believing that the support for their coup was so complete that they could simply ignore the other members of their coup coalition and place only their own in the new government. The labor union federation CTV, which saw itself as one of the main actors of the opposition movement to President Chavez, and nearly all moderate opposition parties were excluded from the new "democratic unity" cabinet. The new transition cabinet ended up including only the most conservative elements of Venezuelan society. They then proceeded to dissolve the legislature, the Supreme Court, the attorney general's office, the national electoral commission, and the state governorships, among others. Next, they decreed that the 1999 constitution, which had been written by a constitutional assembly and ratified by vote, following the procedures outlined in the pervious constitution, was to be suspended. The new transition president would thus rule by decree until next year, when new elections would be called. Generally, this type of regime fits the textbook definition of dictatorship.
This first miscalculation led to several generals' protest against the new regime, perhaps under pressure from the excluded sectors of the
opposition, or perhaps out of a genuine sense of remorse, and resulted in their call for changes to the sweeping "democratic transition"
decree, lest they withdraw their support from the new government. Transition President Pedro Carmona, the chair of Venezuela's largest
chamber of commerce, immediately agreed to reinstate the Assembly and to the rest of the generals' demands.
The second miscalculation was the belief that Chavez was hopelessly unpopular in the population and among the military and that no one except Cuba and Colombia's guerilla, the FARC, would regret Chavez' departure. Following the initial shock and demoralization which the coup caused among Chavez-supporters, this second miscalculation led to major upheavals and riots in Caracas' sprawling slums, which make up nearly half of the city. In practically all of the "barrios" of Caracas spontaneous demonstrations and "cacerolazos" (pot-banging) broke out on April 13 and 14. The police immediately rushed-in to suppress these expressions of discontent and somewhere between 10 and 40 people were killed in these clashes with the police. Then, in the early afternoon, purely by word-of-mouth and the use of cell phones (Venezuela has one of the highest per capita rates of cell phone use in the world), a demonstration in support of Chavez was called at the Miraflores presidential palace. By 6 PM about 100,000 people had gathered in the streets surrounding the presidential palace. At approximately the same time, the paratrooper battalion, to which Chavez used to belong, decided to remain loyal to Chavez and took over the presidential palace. Next, as the awareness of the extent of Chavez' support spread, major battalions in the interior of Venezuela began siding with Chavez.
Eventually the support for the transition regime evaporated among the military, so that transition president Carmona resigned in the name of preventing bloodshed. As the boldness of Chavez-supporters grew, they began taking over several television stations, which had not reported a single word about the uprisings and the demonstrations. Finally, late at night, around midnight of April 14, it was announced that Chavez was set free and that he would take over as president again. The crowds outside of Miraflores were ecstatic. No one believed that the coup could or would be reversed so rapidly. When Chavez appeared on national TV around 4 AM, he too joked that he knew he would be back, but he never imagined it would happen so fast. He did not even have time to rest and write some poetry, as he had hoped to do.
So how could this be? How could such an impeccably planned and smoothly executed coup fall apart in almost exactly 48 hours? Aside from the two miscalculations mentioned above, it appears that the military's hearts were not fully into the coup project. Once it became obvious that the coup was being hijacked by the extreme right and that Chavez enjoyed much more support than was imagined, large parts of the military decided to reject the coup, which then had a snowball-effect of changing military allegiances. Also, by announcing that one of the main reasons for the coup was to avoid bloodshed and by stating that the Venezuelan military would never turn its weapons against its own people, Chavez supporters became more courageous to go out and to protest against the coup without fear of reprisals.
Very important, though, was that the coup planners seem to have believed their own propaganda: that Chavez was an extremely unpopular leader. What they seem to have forgotten is that Chavez was not a fluke, a phenomenon that appeared in Venezuela as a result of political chaos, as some analysts seem to believe. Rather, Chavez' movement has its roots in a long history of Venezuelan community and leftist organizing. Also, it seems quite likely that although many people were unhappy with Chavez' lack of rapid progress in implementing the reforms he promised, he was still the most popular politician in the country.
The media and the opposition movement tried to create the impression that Chavez was completely isolated and that no one supported him any longer. They did this by organizing massive demonstrations, with the extensive help of the television stations, which regularly broadcast reports of the anti-Chavez protests, but consistently ignored the pro-Chavez protests, which, by all fair accounts, tended to be just as large. The television channels claimed that they did not cover pro-Chavez demonstrations because protestors threatened their lives. While this seems unlikely since the demonstrators usually unequivocally want their demonstrations covered by the media, they could have gotten protection, if they had cared to.
The Media
Nearly the entire media is owned and operated by Venezuela's oligarchy. There is only one neutral newspaper, which is not an explicitly anti-Chavez newspaper and one state-run television station. During the coup, the state-run station was taken off the air completely and all of the other media kept repeating the coup organizer's lies without question. These lies included the claim that Chavez had resigned and had dismissed his cabinet, that all of the demonstration's dead were "martyrs of civil society" (i.e., of the opposition, since the media does not consider Chavez supporters as part of civil society), and that Chavez had ordered his supporters to shoot into the unarmed crowd of anti-Chavez demonstrators.
The media never addressed the repeated doubts that members of Chavez' cabinet raised about his resignation. Also, the media did not release the names of those who were shot, probably because this would have shown that most of the dead were pro-Chavez demonstrators. Finally, the media edited the video footage of the shootings in such a way as to avoid showing where the Chavez supporters were shooting-namely, as eyewitnesses reported, at police and individuals who were shooting back while hidden in doorways. Also, they did not show the pro-Chavez crowd repeatedly pointing at the snipers who were firing at them from the rooftop of a nearby building.
These media distortions in the aftermath of the coup drove home the point just how powerful the media is at creating an alternate reality. Those Chavez supporters who were at the demonstration and witnessed the events realized more than ever that power needs a medium and that those who control the media have much more power than they let on. This is why the television stations became a key target in the hours leading up to Chavez' reinstatement. The take-over of four of the eight stations was essential to Chavez' comeback because it showed the rest of the military and the rest of Venezuela that Chavez still had strong support among the population and that if the people really wanted to, they could fight for what was right and win.
Quo Vadis Chavez?
An aspect of the rise of Chavez to power that is often forgotten in Venezuela is that as far as Venezuelan presidents are concerned, Chavez has actually been among the least dictatorial. True, Chavez is a deeply flawed president with many shortcomings, among which one of the most important is his autocratic style. However, earlier presidencies, such as that of Carlos Andres Perez (1989-1993), the killing of demonstrators were nearly a monthly occurrence. Also, the outright censorship of newspapers was quite common during the Perez presidency. None of this has happened during the Chavez presidency.
President Hugo Chavez is an individual who raises the passions of people, pro or con, unlike anyone else. It almost seems that Venezuelans either love him or hate him. A more balanced picture of the president, however, would show, first, that he is someone who deeply believes in working for social justice, for improving democracy, and believes in international solidarity. Also, he is a gifted and charismatic speaker, which makes him a natural choice as a leader.
However, one has to recognize that he has some very serious shortcomings. Among the most important is that while he truly believes in participatory democracy, as is evidenced in his efforts to democratize the Venezuelan constitution, his instincts are that of an
autocrat. This has led to a serious neglect of his natural base, which is the progressive and grassroots civil society. Instead, he has tried to control this civil society by organizing "Bolivarian Circles" which are neighborhood groups that are to help organize communities and at the same time to defend the revolution. The opposition easily stigmatized these circles, however, as being nothing other than a kind of SS for Chavez' political party. Another crucial flaw has been his relatively poor personnel choices. Many of the ministries and agencies suffer from mismanagement.
Finally and perhaps the most often mentioned flaw, is his tendency for inflammatory rhetoric. Accusations that Chavez divided Venezuelan
society with his constant talk about the rich and the poor are ridiculous, since Venezuelan society was divided along these lines long before Chavez came to power. However, by trying to belittle his opponents by calling them names, such as "escualidos" (squalids), he made it virtually impossible for real dialogue to take place between himself and his opponents. The crucial question that Chavez-supporters and opponents alike are now asking is whether Chavez has grown through the experience of this coup. In his initial statement after being freed from his military captors, was, "I too have to reflect on many things. And I have done that in these hours. . I am here and I am prepared to rectify, wherever I have to rectify." Right now, however, it is too early to see if he really is going to change his ways, so that he becomes more productive in achieving the goals he has set for Venezuela. While Chavez' many progressive achievements should not be forgotten, neither should his failures be overlooked, most of which have important lessons for progressives everywhere. The first lesson is to keep the eyes on the prize. Chavez has become so bogged-down with small day-to-day conflicts that many people are no longer sure if he remembers his original platform, which was to abolish corruption and to make Venezuelan society more egalitarian. While greater social equality is extremely difficult to achieve in a capitalist society, it is fair to say that Chavez' plans have not had enough time to bear fruit. He has a six-year social and economic development plan for 2001-2007, of which only a small fraction has so far been implemented. However, on the corruption front, he has fallen seriously behind. The second lesson is that the neglect of one's social base, which provides the cultural underpinnings for desired changes, will provide an opening for opponents to redefine the situation and to make policy implementation nearly impossible. By not involving his natural base, the progressive and grassroots civil society, Chavez allowed the conservative civil society, the conservative unions, the business sector, the church, and the media to determine the discourse as to what the "Bolivarian revolution" was really all about. The third lesson is that a good program alone is not good enough if one does not have the skillful means for implementing it.
Chavez has some terrific plans, but through his incendiary rhetoric he manages to draw all attention away from his actual proposals and focuses attention on how he presents them or how he cuts his critics down to size. Finally, while it is tempting to streamline policy-implementation by working only with individuals who will not criticize the program, creates a dangerous ideological monoculture, which will not be able to resist the diverse challenges even the best plans eventually have to face. Chavez has consistently dismissed from his inner circle those who criticized him, making his leadership base, which used to be quite broad, smaller and smaller. Such a narrow leadership base made it much easier for the opposition to challenge Chavez and to mount the coup.
Whether Chavez and his opposition have learned these lessons remains to be seen. Venezuelan society is still deeply divided. One has to recognize that, at heart, this conflict is also a class conflict. While there certainly are many Chavez opponents who come from the lower classes and numerous supporters from the upper classes, the division between Chavez supporters who come from the lower light-skinned classes and the opponents who come from the higher dark-skinned classes cannot be denied. What Venezuela needs, if social peace is to be preserved, is a class compromise, where social peace is maintained at the expense of a more just distribution of Venezuela's immense wealth. However, today's globalized world makes such a compromise increasingly difficult to achieve because free market competition militates against local solutions to this increasingly global problem. But perhaps Venezuela is a special case because of its oil wealth, which might allow it to be an exception. Such an exception, though, will only be possible if power plays, such as the recent coup attempt, come to an end.
Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology of development. He can be reached at: Wilpert@cantv.net
----------------------------------------
Gregory Wilpert, Ph.D. Central
University of Venezuela, Caracas New School University, New York
----------------------------------------
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Sunday, April 14, 2002
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Tales of the Bush Dynasty
The September 11 terror attacks, succeeding anthrax hysteria, and war fever following the Bush administration military intervention in Afghanistan created a situation of unparalleled media and popular support for the Bush presidency and elevated Bush into a top-tier celebrity, almost immune from criticism. As I write in early 2002, a USA Today poll rates Bush as the most admired person in the United States and he enjoys the highest approval ratings in modern times.
Yet the media can destroy what they build up, and a coming Bushgate could reverse the fortunes of the Bush dynasty with a series of crime dramas, political corruption and conspiracy narratives, and family melodramas that would rival any comparative saga in American literature or history. I would indeed recommend to a future Theodore Dreiser or Oliver Stone a trilogy of books or films starting with Prescott, that detail the stunning story of Bush family patriarch Prescott Bush who was, in effect, Adolph Hitler’s financial agent. Prescott helped manage through the Union National Bank several key Nazi businesses that ran in the U.S. and globally, including Hapag-Lloyd Shipping Lines and Thyssen United Steel Works. The Union Banking Corporation was seized by the U.S. government in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, and Prescott Bush was listed as a top board of director. The Bush’s held onto the bank through the war and sold out in the 1950s, attaining their family fortune through an institution that had help finance National Socialism. But somehow the scandal never came out during Prescott’s senate campaigns and he died a respected family patriarch.
This epic history of ruling class scoundrels would also present the story of Herbert Walker, Prescott Bush’s close business associate and father of his wife Dorothy Walker. George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush were named after the man who helped run businesses for Stalin’s Russia, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany. The secretive wheeler dealer is perhaps best known for his golf spectacle the Walker Cup and the construction of Madison Square Garden, while his son Herbert Walker junior (“Uncle Herbie”) was one of the owners of the New York Mets, a sports spectacle that helped get George W. Bush interested in baseball. The Walker-Bush alliance is one of the shadiest and most scandalous in U.S. economic and political history and uncovering this story will be one of the great spectacles of the new millennium.
The second part of the trilogy would tell the remarkable saga of George (Herbert Walker Bush), detailing an astonishing life of intrigue in economic and political scandals, including a stint as CIA Director which involved interesting but largely unknown relations with scoundrels like Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega. George would also have engaging spy thrillers like the October Surprise, the Iran/contra scandal, and support of Islamic fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan era that later helped form the Al Qaeda network and Taliban. This monumental epic would include Reagan-era scandals like the S&L crisis and the tremendous increase in the global drug business when George was given drug-czar responsibilities during the Reagan years. It would include some curious business relations with the bin Laden family, strange relations with Rev. Moon and some other sinister figures on the right, and could delve into the affairs of the Carlyle Fund. The latter constitutes one of the biggest holders of military stocks at a time when the bin Laden family and Bush-Baker cliques were chief investors and managers of the fund. At the same time, their sons George Junior and Osama bin Laden were protagonists in the Terror War that is so far the defining spectacle of the new millennium, and a source of great profit for the Bush-Baker and bin Laden cliques.
The Bush family saga could also present the remarkable business careers of George H. W. Bush’s three sons, looking into the Silverado S&L scandal and the involvement of Neil Bush; it could examine how Jeb Bush was involved in businesses with rightwing Cuban crooks who scammed HUD and Medicare for millions, and made a fortune for Jeb who became governor of Florida and one of the architects of theft of the White House in Election 2000. And it would require an entire separate study of how W. made his fortune and then succeeded in state and presidential politics. This story, found in a series of books and Internet sources, but generally left out of mainstream media, would tell the remarkable tale of how George W. Bush made his fortune, obtained the presidency through Grand Theft 2000, and fronted the Terror War that saved his failing presidency and enriched his family, friends, and wealthiest supporters.
The W. story would recount how after years of frat boy ribaldry at Yale, Bush got his father to pull strings so he would not have to go to Vietnam and then got into the Texas National Guard Air Reserves. During his lost years in the 1970s, W. reportedly went AWOL for a year from military duty, was a heavy alcohol and drug abuser, and a nair-do-well failure who finally decided to put together an oil company when he was already well into his 30s. Investors reportedly included the bin Laden family and other unsavory types. His initial company Arbusto went bust and was eventually taken over by Harken Energy Corporation, with family friends again jumping in to bail Junior out. Harken soon after received a lucrative Bahrain oil contract in part as a result of Bush family connections, and the Harken stock went up. But as a member of the Board of Directors, Junior knew that declining profits figures for the previous quarter, about to be released, would depress the value of the stock, so George W. unloaded his stock, in what some see an in illegal insider trading dump. Moreover, young Bush failed to register his questionable sale with the SEC, although later a paper was produced indicating that he had eventually registered the sale, some eight months after he dumped his stock (it helped that his father was President when Junior should have been investigated for his questionable business dealings).
With the money made from his Harken disinvesture, Junior invested in the Texas Rangers baseball team and was made General Manager when some other Texas good old boys put up the money. Using a public bond issue that he pushed upon voters to finance construction of a new Rangers stadium, the stock value of the baseball team went up. Once again, Bush sold out for a hefty profit and then ran as Governor of Texas, despite no political experience and a shaky business history. His two terms in office wrecked the state economy as it went from surplus to deficit thanks to a tax bill that gave favors to the wealthiest and sweetheart deals and deregulation bonanzas to his biggest campaign contributors. Governor Bush helped make Texas the site of the most toxic environmental pollution and outrageous corporate skullduggery in the country. Bush provided questionable favors to a nursing home corporations that faced state investigation and strong support for the wheelin’ and dealin’ Enron Company, one of the biggest financial contributors to Bush’s campaigns and a corporation that underwent the biggest collapse of any U.S. company in history, under highly questionable circumstances.
The Bush spectacle is therefore far from over and it will be highly instructive to see how the family history continues to be constructed and perceived in the media and by the general public. It will also be interesting to see if the Internet spectacle replaces television and Hollywood spectacle as the foremost conveyer of news, information, entertainment, and politics as the millennium proceeds, providing multiple sources of information and entertainment that will be impossible for the Bush clique to control. Or will Terror War provide a spectacle that will enable the Bush administration to close the open society and create a military and police state? How will the Bush clique manage an U.S. and global economy in crisis, in which as of the end of 2001 more than 1,800,000 jobs in the U.S. have been lost since Bush stole the presidency and a healthy surplus was replaced by spiraling deficit? Will U.S. democracy and the global economy survive the Bush spectacle, or is a new form of military-police state and an Orwellian nightmare the coming spectacle of the New Millennium? Whatever the answers to these questions, it is clear that the forthcoming narratives of the Bush presidency will be among the most interesting and fateful in U.S. history.
For more of this story, see Douglas Kellner,
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/prespolitics.htm
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Buzzflash comments for the Day
Al Gore Came Out Swinging at the Florida Democratic Convention. We have three articles on BuzzFlash.com about his remarks, in which he came out of hibernation and gave the Bush administration a lashing. One word of advice Al, show some courage and attack Bush's foreign policy. Anyone who was President after September 11th would be appropriately anti-terrorist. That doesn't make Bush a leader. The reality is that he has been a bumbler through the Middle East and managed to lead an airstrike assault on a pre-stone age country. That's not leadership.
In any case, Al's "coming out" speech in Florida reminds BuzzFlash that you might want to remember the stolen election of 2000 by reading:
"Too Close to Call" or "Grand Theft 2000." Both are available on the BuzzFlash page by going to:
http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/premium
By the way, they celebrated the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, after a CIA sponsored coup failed. "Venezuela would not tolerate an autocracy," Mr Chavez said, once inside the palace. Too Bad BuzzFlash Can't Say the Same for Residents of Our Own "Land of the Free." The day after the Federalist Society Supreme Court judges stole the election for Bush, it was business as usual in America.
We have several articles on the restoration of democracy in Venezuela up on BuzzFlash. Fortunately, Mr. Chavez was not forced to "commit suicide," as Salvador Allende was, and lived to return to the position he was democratically elected to hold.
Whatever, you think of Mr. Chavez, if you believe in democracy, you believe the Bush Administration and the CIA don't have a right to undo the will of the Venezuelan people. Of course, having obtained power through a Supreme Court coup in the U.S., the Bush team doesn't really care about such subtleties.
Just some thoughts for the day from BuzzFlash.com...
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Very weird!
Chavez returns to power in Venezuela after massive demonstrations in the country! Click on the stories linked in this WP story that do postmortem on Chavez and the Left, that report on US attitude and denial that they were involved in the coup. Of course, this story is far from over but already many twists and turns...
Chavez Freed, Returns to Power in Venezuela (washingtonpost.com)
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Saturday, April 13, 2002
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Congressional Investigation called for in Bush administration pre 9/11 policy
Smirk's new cloning dilemma!
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020411witt.html
Species makes unexpected resurgence!
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020412MoPaul.html
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Glass House Syndrome Epidemic!
Dreaded disease sweeps GOP's loudest
by Tamara Baker
April 13, 2002 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA
(APJP) -- By now, we've all heard about Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney's remarks calling for a full investigation of the September 11th
tragedy and what led up to it, including an official examination of the
Bush family's connections, via the Carlyle Group, to Osama bin Laden and
other Mideast terror figures.
The Bush White House is trying to laugh her off, but one need not be a
conspiracy theorist to be justifiably angry at the Bushies' handling of
certain aspects of September 11th -- such as the unconscionably long delay
in scrambling the Air Force fighter jets, jets that are supposed to be in
the air the minute a plane has deviated without warning or permission from
its flight path.
Remember how a few years ago, under Clinton's watch, the Air Force had
fighter jets following Payne Stewart's doomed plane all the way across
America until they knew for sure it was going to crash in a unpopulated
area -- in this case, a Midwestern farmer's field? How come under Bush's
watch, four large off-course commercial airliners didn't get that same
level of scrutiny?
And as for Congresswoman McKinney's remarks being "nutty": seriously, are
they any nuttier than Senator Trent Lott's recent comments? Lott's the man
who went ahead with a ginned-up lame-duck impeachment railroading that
seriously impeded Bill Clinton's efforts to find Osama bin Laden, fight
Slobodan Milosevic, and punish the Kenyan embassy bombers. Now, the man who
once said it was OK to criticize a wartime President is now calling Tom
Daschle a traitor for daring to make some very mild critiques of George
Bush.
"Nutty"? What about conservatives like Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter
blaming September 11th on gays, feminists and the ACLU? Yet I haven't heard
the Bush White House or the RNC making long and sustained efforts to
condemn those remarks.
Is what Congresswoman McKinney said anywhere near as "nutty" as that?
Oh, well. I'm just astonished that the RNC hasn't started calling her
"slutty", too.
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American Politics Journal is the longest-running political commentary on
the Internet. For over a decade, our commentary has been read by
America's most powerful decision shapers and opinion makers.
We tear the lid off the funny business that passes for politics, press
coverage, justice and punditry in America. We pull no punches. We speak
truth to power. And we even manage to find a chuckle or two in the
process!
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Instant message surveillance on the rise
Associated Press
April 12, 2002 | FOSTER CITY, Calif. -- An instant message exchange might seem as fleeting as a phone call or face-to-face chat. But, like everything else on the Net, it can have much more staying power than users think.
Unlike e-mail, the brief IM remarks that pop up on computer screens are not kept on central servers. But that hasn't stopped companies from developing software that snags every message -- including those unflattering to the boss.
Interest in IM monitoring is soaring as companies not only look to record important communications but also control information leaks and discourage cyberslacking.
Skeptics say it's just another example of how privacy has all but disappeared in the workplace.
"Some of the practices are far too invasive," said Sarah Andrews, research director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "There should be limits on what they can or can't collect."
Just like e-mail or Web traffic, instant messages can be monitored by corporate network administrators -- whether those messages are sent to colleagues using a company's own software or flashed to friends across oceans using freely available programs from America Online, Yahoo! or Microsoft.
Privacy advocates say they know of no major incidents so far of disciplinary action for IM abuse. But it may be just a matter of time.
As of last year, only about 20 percent of all instant messenger accounts belonged to business users, according to the consulting firm Radicati Group. By 2004, the percentage is expected to increase to 50 percent.
Jupiter Media Metrix says instant messaging use in U.S. businesses more than doubled from 2.3 billion minutes in September 2000 to 4.9 billion minutes last September.
First marketed as toys for consumers, IM programs quickly pervaded the workplace as people installed them without asking permission, said Michael Gartenberg, research director at Jupiter Media Metrix.
"There was no planning and encryption built in," he said. "This started as an enthusiast tool for people chatting with each other one-on-one."
Even so, once in the workplace, employees found IM useful for fast communication with colleagues and clients.
The financial services industry first felt the need for advanced snooping software to monitor IM traffic because federal regulators require that all communications with clients be kept for auditing.
Though the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to order that instant messages be kept, investment banking firm Thomas Weisel Partners decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
Last summer, the San Francisco firm blocked all IM traffic. But clients missed the convenience and, by the fall, the messenger programs were back, said Pamela Housley, the firm's director of compliance.
Thomas Weisel Partners signed up for FaceTime's monitoring software, which runs on a computer on the firm's internal network, recording all IM traffic. Certain keywords can be defined to alert managers, or the traffic can simply be put into storage in case it's needed.
So far, there has been no need to inspect the data. And Housley said the company is not interested in reading every message.
"It's just easier to archive it all," she said. "I don't have the manpower to have somebody look at this all day long." FaceTime also works with electronic archiving systems from companies like SRA International and Zantaz.
It must be installed within a corporate network in order to capture all traffic that originates or is received by users of that network. Earlier this month, White Plains, N.Y.-based Communicator Inc. signed up eight large financial institutions for its Hub IM, which tightly controls communications among customers and competitors with encryption and authentication by directing all traffic to Communicator's systems, the trusted third party.
But unlike FaceTime, all messaging occurs through a proprietary program -- not a public system like AOL Instant Messenger. The companies that make such products see lots of opportunity beyond finance.
"The technology can be applied to any market and any industry," said Gabriela Garner, marketing director for Zantaz. "In fact, we have received a lot of interest across the board in corporate America."
There's no reason not to think that instant message chats won't wind up as fodder in investigations. Stored e-mail has already played a role in probes involving the Clinton White House and Enron Corp., to name a few examples. Privacy advocates wonder, though, whether constant monitoring of simple chats might be taking paranoia too far.
"We know people do a certain amount of personal business at work," said Richard M. Smith, an Internet and privacy consultant. "A company has a legitimate interest in limiting that...but if it's personal they don't have any right to listen in."
So far, the courts have yet to make any distinctions between instant messages and other forms of electronic communications, such as e-mail. Though some argue that the technology deserves protection like telephone calls, instant messages are more likely to be treated like e-mail.
Employers typically issue guidelines and warnings against personal use of e-mail when company equipment and networks are involved. "In the private sector, the law has been charitable to employers...as there is a reasonable amount of notice," said Lee Tien, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney.
Customers of Zantaz reported a lot fewer e-mail jokes and goofing off when it began deploying its e-mail monitoring products, said Garner, the company's marketing manager. "It changed the employee behavior. Their productivity went up," she said. "They were a little bit more careful with their communication. It will be the same with IM."
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Friday, April 12, 2002
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Venezuela President Resigns
Note the differences in the AP story of Chavez's resignation from the two Z analyses just posted; the official account does not state how Chavez "irritated" the US but gives different account of the events leading to his resignation...
Yahoo! News - Venezuela President Resigns in Tumult
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Coup in Venezuela?
Here are some accounts from ZMag of events in Venezuela; reportedly the Bush administration has been closely monitoring the leftist government there and of course has its eyes on oil reserves so one wonders if the US/CIA is back into the Latin American interventionist game, Big Time...
Coup in Venezuela: An Eyewitness Account
By Gregory Wilpert
The orchestration of the coup was impeccable and, in all likelihood, planned a long time ago. Hugo Chavez, the fascist communist dictator of Venezuela could not stand the truth and thus censored the media relentlessly. For his own personal gain and that of his henchmen (and
henchwomen, since his cabinet had more women than any previous Venezuelan government's), he drove the country to the brink of economic
ruin. In the end he proceeded to murder those who opposed him. So as to reestablish democracy, liberty, justice, and prosperity in Venezuela and so as to avoid more bloodshed, the chamber of commerce, the union federation, the church, the media, and the management of Venezuela's oil company, in short: civil society and the military decided that enough is enough-that Chavez had his chance and that his experiment of a "peaceful democratic Bolivarian revolution" had to come to an immediate end.
This is, of course, the version of events that the officials now in charge and thus also of the media, would like everyone to believe. So what really happened? Of course I don't know, but I'll try to represent the facts as I witnessed them.
First of all, the military is saying that the main reason for the coup is what happened today, April 11. "Civil society," as the opposition
here refers to itself, organized a massive demonstration of perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 people to march to the headquarters of Venezuela's
oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The day leading up to the march all private television stations broadcast advertisements for the demonstration, approximately once every ten minutes. It was a successful march, peaceful, and without government interference of any kind, even though the march illegally blocked the entire freeway, which is Caracas' main artery of transportation, for several hours.
Supposedly at the spur of the moment, the organizers decided to re-route the march to Miraflores, the president's office building, so as to
confront the pro-government demonstration, which was called in the last minute. About 5,000 Chavez-supporters had gathered there by the time the anti-government demonstrators got there. In-between the two demonstrations were the city police, under the control of the
oppositional mayor of Caracas, and the National Guard, under control of the president. All sides claim that they were there peacefully and did
not want to provoke anyone. I got there just when the opposition demonstration and the National Guard began fighting each other. Who
started the fight, which involved mostly stones and tear gas, is, as is so often the case in such situations, nearly impossible to tell. A
little later, shots were fired into the crowds and I clearly saw that there were three parties involved in the shooting, the city police,
Chavez supporters, and snipers from buildings above. Again, who shot first has become a moot and probably impossible to resolve question. At least ten people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in this gun battle-almost all of them demonstrators.
One of the Television stations managed to film one of the three sides in this battle and broadcast the footage over and over again, making it
look like the only ones shooting were Chavez supporters from within the demonstration at people beyond the view of the camera. The media over and over again showed the footage of the Chavez supporters and implied that they were shooting at an unarmed crowd. As it turns out, and as will probably never be reported by the media, most of the dead are Chavez supporters. Also, as will probably never be told, the snipers
were members of an extreme opposition party, known as Bandera Roja.
These last two facts, crucial as they are, will not be known because they do not fit with the new mythology, which is that Chavez armed and
then ordered his supporters to shoot at the opposition demonstration. Perhaps my information is incorrect, but what is certain is that the
local media here will never bother to investigate this information. And the international media will probably simply ape what the local media
reports (which they are already doing).
Chavez' biggest and perhaps only mistake of the day, which provided the last remaining proof his opposition needed for his anti-democratic
credentials, was to order the black-out of the private television stations. They had been broadcasting the confrontations all afternoon
and Chavez argued that these broadcasts were exacerbating the situation and should, in the name of public safety, be temporarily shut-down.
Now, all of "civil society," the media, and the military are saying that Chavez has to go because he turned against his own people. Aside from
the lie this is, what is conveniently forgotten are all of the achievements of the Chavez administration: a new democratic constitution
which broke the power monopoly of the two hopelessly corrupt and discredited main parties and put Venezuela at the forefront in terms of
progressive constitutions; introduced fundamental land reform; financed numerous progressive ecological community development projects;
cracked-down on corruption; promoted educational reform which schooled over 1 million children for the first time and doubled investment in
education; regulated the informal economy so as to reduce the insecurity of the poor; achieved a fairer price for oil through OPEC and which
significantly increased government income; internationally campaigned tirelessly against neo-liberalism; reduced official unemployment from
18% to 13%; introduced a large-scale micro-credit program for the poor and for women; reformed the tax system which dramatically reduced tax evasion and increased government revenue; lowered infant mortality from 21% to 17%; tripled literacy courses; modernized the legal system, etc., etc.
Chavez' opposition, which primarily consisted of Venezuela's old guard in the media, the union federation, the business sector, the church, and
the traditionally conservative military, never cared about any of these achievements. Instead, they took advantage of their media monopoly to
turn public opinion against him and managed to turn his biggest liability, his autocratic and inflammatory style, against him. Progressive civil society had either been silenced or demonized as violent Chavez fanatics.
At this point, it is impossible to know what will happen to Chavez' "Bolivarian Revolution"-whether it will be completely abandoned and
whether things will return to Venezuela's 40-year tradition of patronage, corruption, and rentierism for the rich. What one can say
without a doubt, is that by abandoning constitutional democracy, no matter how unpopular and supposedly inept the elected president,
Venezuela's ruling class and its military show just how politically immature they are and deal a tremendous blow to political culture
throughout Latin America, just as the coup against Salvador Allende did in 1973. This coup shows once again that democracy in Latin America is a matter of ruling class preference, not a matter of law.
If the United States and the democratic international community have the courage to practice what they preach, then they should not recognize
this new government. Democrats around the world should pressure their governments to deny recognition to Venezuela's new military junta or any president they happen to choose. According to the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS), this would mean expelling
Venezuela from the OAS, as a U.S. state department official recently threatened to do. Please call the U.S. state department or your foreign
ministry and tell them to withdraw their ambassadors from Venezuela.
----
An Imminent Coup in Venezuela?
by Gregory Wilpert
April 10, 2002
It appears that the strategy of President Chavez' opposition is to create as much chaos and disorder in Venezuela as possible, so that Chavez is left with no other choice than to call a state of emergency. This, in turn could either lead to a military coup or U.S. military intervention.
Given that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere; it is distinctly possible that the U.S. government is going
to intervene overtly, if it is not already doing so covertly. This means that the current crisis in Venezuela is probably a planned conspiracy to
topple the Chavez government with the support of the U.S.
As I write this, on April 9, Venezuela's largest union federation, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV) has called for a
two-day general strike. Venezuela's chamber of commerce, FEDECAMERAS, has joined the strike and called on all of its affiliated businesses to close for 48 hours.
This was the second time in four months that the two federations, of labor unions and of business owners, decided to join forces and strike
against the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez. What is happening in Venezuela? Why are these and many other forces uniting
against Chavez?
Chavez took power in late 1998 in a landslide electoral victory, calling for a "Bolivarian Revolution," in reference to Latin America's hero of
independence and Venezuela's favorite son, Simon Bolivar. Since then, Chavez has tried to root out the entrenched powers of Venezuelan
society, represented by a political and economic elite, which had governed Venezuela for over 40 years in a pseudo-democratic form by
alternating power between two entrenched political parties.
Chavez first reformed Venezuela's constitution, through a constitutional assembly and a referendum, making it one of the most progressive
constitutions in the world. The old elite were nearly completely driven from political power in the course of seven elections, which took place
between 1998 and 2000. However, the old elite of the labor unions, the business sector, the church, and the media are still in power and have
recently begun making life as difficult as possible for Chavez.
Although Chavez originally had popularity a rating of around 80%, his popularity has steadily declined in the past year, supposedly reaching
the low 30's now. Whether the reason for this decline was the slow pace of his promised reforms, the lack of significant progress in reducing
corruption and poverty, or if it was because of the incessant media assault on his government, is not clear - most likely it is because of a
combination of these factors.
The conflict between Chavez and the old elite has recently come to a head. First, when Chavez passed a slew of 49 laws, which, among many
other measures, were supposed to increase the government's oil income and redistribute land. The chamber of commerce vehemently opposed these laws and decided to call for a general business strike on December 10.
Venezuela's labor union federation, the CTV, decided to join the strike, supposedly out of concern for the harm the laws did to the business
sector and thus to employment in Venezuela.
More likely, though, the CTV's support of a general strike was in retaliation for Chavez having forced the unions to carry out new elections of the CTV's leadership and for not recognizing its leadership, due to charges of fraud, when the old guard union leadership declared itself the winner of the election and refused to submit the official results and ballots to the government.
The second major issue, which has resulted in a serious challenge to Chavez, occurred when Chavez appointed five new members loyal to him to the board of directors of the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, the largest oil company in the world and the third largest supplier of oil
to the U.S.
Also, he appointed a prominent leftist economist and long-time critic of PDVSA as its president. The management of PDVSA cried out in protest, arguing that the appointments were purely political and not based on merit and thus threatened to undermine the company's independence and its meritocracy.
Chavez has since countered that board members and president have always been political appointments and that the state needed to regain control over PDVSA because it has become increasingly inefficient, a state within a state, whose top management is living a life of extreme luxury.
Furthermore, and less explicitly, Chavez wants to assure that PDVSA adheres to OPEC's production quotas, so that the oil price remains at a
stable and profitable level. PDVSA, however, has a history of undermining OPEC quotas because its management places a higher premium
on market share than on a good oil price.
Following a two weeks of protest and of labor slowdowns within PDVSA, mostly on the part of management, the labor federation leadership of the CTV, who all belong to the discredited old elite, decided to join the conflict in support of PDVSA's management, arguing that it was acting in solidarity with PDVSA workers in its call for a day-long general strike.
The chamber of commerce rapidly followed suit, seeing this as another opportunity to humiliate and perhaps topple Chavez, and supported the
strike as well. Considering the first day a complete success, the CTV and the chamber of commerce have decided to extend the general strike
another 24 hours. However, as PROVEA, Venezuela's human rights agency has noted, even though Venezuela's constitution guarantees the right to strike, the strike is completely illegal because it bypassed the legal requirements for democratic legitimation of such a strike.
Given that a large majority of private businesses are members of the chamber of commerce and oppose Chavez, the strike has appeared to be quite successful. Whether workers actually believe in the strike and intentionally stay away from work in protest to the government, is
almost impossible to tell, since most businesses were closed by management.
Many businesses were open and most of the informal sector was actively selling its wares on the streets as usual. Of course, all government
offices and all banks, whose hours are regulated by the government, were open. Together, these sectors account for about 40% of Venezuela's workforce.
The conflict in Venezuela has come to take on epic proportions, if one listens to the rhetoric of the two sides of the conflict. Both sides
make extensive use of hyperbole, alternately calling the strike either a complete and total failure or a complete and total success.
Other examples of how passionate and heated the debates have become are reflected in the opposition's repeated references to Chavez as a
"totalitarian fascist dictator" who wants to "cubanize" Venezuela. Chavez and his supporters, for their part, refer to the opposition as a squalid ("escualido") corrupt oligarchy.
Both sets of labels are caricatures of the truth. Certainly, Venezuela's oligarchical elite opposes Chavez, but the opposition to Chavez has
become quite strong and has grown far beyond the oligarchy, to include many of his former friends and supporters. On the other hand, even
though Chavez uses a lot of inflammatory rhetoric, the opposition has yet to find a single instance in which he has violated Venezuela's very
democratic constitution in any way.
Chavez' greatest failure, from a progressive point of view, probably lies in his relatively autocratic style, which is why many of his former
supporters have become alienated from his government. Whenever someone opposed his policies he has tended to reject them and cast them out of his government circle.
The result has been a consistent loss of a relatively broad political spectrum of government leadership and a significant turn-over in his
cabinet, making stable and consistent policy implementation quite difficult.
This loss of broad-based support has made itself felt particularly strongly during the recent crises, making Chavez look more isolated than
he might otherwise be. Other than his party supporters, who are quite significant in number and come mostly from the poor "barrios," the
progressive sectors of civil society have been neglected by Chavez and have thus not been active. Instead, the conservative sectors of civil
society, such as the chamber of commerce and the old guard union leadership are among the main mobilizers of civil society.
Still, Chavez' policies have been almost without exception progressive in that they have supported land redistribution for poor farmers, title
to the self-built homes of the barrios, steady increases in the minimum wage and of public sector salaries, and the enrollment of over 1 million
students in school who were previously excluded, to name just a few accomplishments.
In terms of international issues, Chavez has been on the forefront in working for greater intra-Third World solidarity, in opposing neo-liberalism, and in supporting Cuba.
Figuring out what this epic conflict is about has been somewhat difficult for an outsider. Passions are so inflamed that it is practically impossible to find calm and reasoned analyses about what is going on. Are the chamber of commerce, the labor federation leadership, the upper class, and significant sectors of the middle class really primarily concerned about the "politicization" of PDVSA and the appointment of a pro-government board of directors?
Perhaps. But does opposition to these appointments justify a general strike? Definitely not. More likely these sectors are concerned that
politicization of PDVSA means a loss of access to Venezuela's cash-cow: oil. Not only that, the most common complaints one hears about Chavez have more to do with his style than with any concrete policies he has implemented. There often is a racist undertone to such complaints, implying that Chavez, because of his folksy and populist style and his Indio appearance, is sub-human, a "negro."
It does not help that almost all of the media, except the one government-run TV network, out of about five major TV networks, and one out of approximately ten major newspapers is completely opposed to Chavez.
The media regularly cover nearly every single opposition pronouncement and rarely cover government declarations. Chavez, out of frustration
with the media has relentlessly attacked the media for belonging to the old guard oligarchy and for printing nothing but lies, occasionally
threatening them with legal action for slander.
The media has, of course, responded in kind, by accusing Chavez of intimidating journalists with his pronouncements and of sending gangs to
threaten journalists with physical violence. The media has tried to embarrass Chavez internationally by taking its case to the Organization
of American States and to the U.S., which have responded favorably to their complaints and have criticized Chavez for his supposed lack of
respect for human rights.
The other thing Chavez has done to combat the media is to exploit a law which permits the government to take over all of the airwaves for
important government announcements. All TV and radio stations are required to broadcast these announcements.
During the general strike Chavez decided to go all-out and interrupted all TV and radio broadcasts numerous times during the strike. The
government's use of the airwaves has now provided additional ammunition to the opposition and constituted an important factor in their deciding to extend the strike from one day to two.
Chavez' greatest error has been his truly fundamental neglect for cultivating a culture which would support his "Bolivarian Revolution,"
one which progressive sectors of civil society would support and promote amongst the population and internationally, even against a strongly
oppositional media.
Despite this grave fault of his presidency, Chavez continues to deserve the support of progressives because the only alternative that has
presented itself until now is a return to the status quo ante, where the upper class, together with selected sectors of the labor movement and
the government bureaucracy share Venezuela's oil pie amongst themselves, leaving the poor, who constitute three quarters of Venezuela's
population, to fend for themselves.
Currently, however, the most immediate and most likely alternative to Chavez is either a military coup or U.S. intervention, since Chavez
definitely won't resign and since he is legally in office at least until the 2004, when a recall vote can be called. This means that progressives
around the world should act in solidarity with Chavez' government and support him, if another Chile-style coup is to be avoided.
Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology of development.
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Thursday, April 11, 2002
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Massacre at Jenin?
US media has not given much detail about events in Jenin and evidently media are not being allowed in. I heard BBC reports via radio that there were massacres but accounts were vague. Here's a report from the British Telegraph that suggests at the end that there were indeed massacres that Israel is trying to cover over.
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The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
April 11, 2002
By Alan Philps in Rumana, West Bank
Sharon wins battle of Jenin but the PR war is not over
AFTER a week of house to house battles, the guns fell silent yesterday at the Jenin refugee camp.
Despite their threats to die fighting, when the shrinking band of defenders had fired off their last rounds they picked up stones to throw at the Israeli army before giving themselves up.
For the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, it was the destruction of a vipers' nest of terrorism, the source of many of the suicide attacks launched against Israeli civilians in recent months. For the Palestinians, it was a new "massacre".
Already the fall of Jenin - a bloody military defeat for the Palestinians in the eyes of the Israeli army - is being hailed as a great victory for the lightly-armed fighters who made their stand in the winding alleys of the camp.
Today will be celebrated by the Palestinians as "the day of heroism and massacre". Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian local government minister, claimed that the Israelis had killed 500 people during the 12 days of their assault on Palestinian towns and refugee camps.
No one knows the real figure, but it is likely that dozens of Palestinian bodies lie in the rubble of the camp.
Among the dead was Mohammed Tawalbeh, the local leader of Islamic Jihad, who was freed from a Palestinian prison by his supporters in February.
By its standards, Israel has paid a heavy price for the sweep of the city - 23 soldiers killed, 13 of them in a single ambush in an alley in the camp.
After the surrender, the Israeli Defence Force quickly began to secure the remains of the camp: an army spokesman said sappers were demolishing homes that were booby-trapped.
Neighbours watching from Jenin saw heavy movement by Israeli armoured bulldozers, which had earlier ploughed through the narrow alleyways, shaving the facades of homes on both sides to make space for a passing tank.
No one who lived through the six days of fear will forget them. Abdullah Washahi described how his brother, Munir, 17, was hit by a heavy round from a helicopter that went straight through the hollow breeze-block walls of the family home at 2pm on Saturday.
The family tried to call an ambulance, but none could make it through the shooting. "We called the hospital in Jenin, but the doctor said they were not allowed to leave the hospital," said Mr Washahi. "A soldier took the phone and started cursing us in Hebrew."
His mother went out of the front door to call for help, but was shot in the head and died a few hours later. The younger brother bled to death after eight hours. The family then sat with the two bodies until early on Monday morning, when they were summoned by the Israelis to leave their homes.
"We went out, one by one, the men stripped to their underwear and leaving their clothes in a pile in the street. The women and children were taken away separately. To this hour I do not know what happened to the bodies of my brother and mother," said Mr Washahi.
Like several hundred other Palestinians, the men were taken out of the camp and subjected to security checks, some for three days. According to those released by the Israeli army who have sought shelter in the nearby village of Rumana, they had to sit on gravel without food, blindfolded and with their heads between their knees, until they were cleared.
Mr Washahi's younger brother Tha'ir was released after three days, with the word "terrorist" scrawled in magic marker on the cover of his identity card, even though he was sent away without charge. "It is an invitation for every Israeli soldier to beat me," he said.
Another man, Mahmoud Saadi, said he and two cousins were made to walk, in their underclothes, as human shields in front of an armoured vehicle. He gave himself up after soldiers blew down his front door and then began knocking holes in the wall of his house with large hammers to move to the next home - a technique known as "mouseholing".
Mr Saadi described how the detainees were made to lie face-down on the ground in a line, while a tank revved its engine. "I was so scared I was about to be run over and crushed to death. I shouted, 'I don't want to die'. The soldiers dragged me closer to the tank," he said.
About 600 released detainees are being fed, clothed and housed by the people of Rumana and other nearby villages. Their main concern is what happened to their families - who were probably expelled to Jenin - and the dead.
Concern over the fate of those corpses is the one thing that unites Israelis and Palestinians. Now that the military battle is won, the Israelis are adamant that no moral victory should be claimed by the losing side. The Palestinians are equally determined to do exactly that.
The Israeli government has made it clear that it will not allow photographs of piles of bodies amid the ruins of the refugee camp that Shimon Peres, the foreign minister, has said would give the impression that a massacre had been committed. It was, he insisted, a fight against armed men.
Nahum Barnea, Israel's leading newspaper commentator, wrote yesterday that military officials had concluded that the bodies must be swiftly buried in Israel to avert a public relations disaster. "If Israel does not find some way to give them a dignified burial, the bodies will bury Israel," he concluded.
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McDonald's Angles for Loyalty Of Little Girls With Fancy Dolls
By SHIRLEY LEUNG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
McDonald's Corp. Friday plans to start distributing a promotional version of the most expensive toy in the Happy Meal's 25-year history: the Madame
Alexander doll.
Little girls who dine at the nation's No. 1 burger chain can get a miniature edition of the classic Madame Alexander, an elaborately dressed 8-inch doll that sells for $50 or more at high-end retailers such as FAO Schwarz and Neiman Marcus. For boys, meanwhile, McDonald's is offering Happy Meals with Matchbox classic cars -- a toy that retails for as little as $1.29.
Why the gender gap? McDonald's says it doesn't have a strategy for targeting girls. But marketing experts say it's clear the hamburger chain has to work harder to woo girls than boys. Boys, it seems, don't need much coaxing when it comes to hamburgers, fries and the whole McDonald's experience. Indeed, they grow up to become the fast-food industry's most loyal customers: young men.
McDonald's miniature version of Madame Alexander's Little Red Riding Hood doll.But as girls grow older, they lose interest in dining at McDonald's more quickly than boys do, some research data suggest. According to Children's Market Services Inc.'s Kid Trends survey, 45% of six- to eight-year-old girls say McDonald's is their favorite restaurant; only 22% of nine- to 11-year-old girls choose the chain. Boys, in comparison, are more steadfast: 47% of six-to eight-year-old boys favor McDonald's, compared with 37% of nine- to 11-year-olds.
At around 11 or 12, girls and boys begin to exhibit very different eating habits, dietitian Tammy Baker says. Boys develop voracious appetites and don't think twice about downing burgers, fries and milkshakes. Meanwhile, girls at that age start to become aware of their looks. Many gain weight during puberty and start to diet. They begin to gravitate to salads and yogurt. According to Vegetarian Resource Group, a Baltimore education group, girls are twice as likely as boys to grow up to become vegetarians.
Boys and girls also have different role models, Ms. Baker says. "Boys start looking at sports heroes," she says. Girls "are influenced by the models and movie stars who are underweight."
So McDonald's is lavishing attention on girls, and the efforts go well beyond toys. Recent innovations - -- a yogurt parfait, new salads, a smaller value meal - -- are clearly targeted at females. "For McDonald's, almost every choice they are making are choices designed to keep women in the food," says Doris Derelian, a San Diego dietitian and past president of the American Dietetic Association. McDonald's won't say how sales of Happy Meals break down between the sexes."We're here to appeal to all children," spokeswoman Lisa Howard says. "We're about the most innovative and most fun toys."
The McDonald's version of the Madame Alexander doll is just 4ć inches tall and will be available in eight characters, including Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan and Caucasian and African-American versions of a bride and groom, for three weeks. The small dolls will come complete with the ignature open-and-shut "sleep eyes," rooted hair, delicately painted faces -- plus a burger, fries and drink, of course -- all for $1.99.
McDonald's has been offering gender-specific Happy Meals for at least a decade, toy experts say. It isn't unusual for the girls' Happy Meal to be based on a more-expensive product. Every year there is a Happy Meal promotion featuring tiny Barbies for girls and Hot Wheels for boys. Regular Barbies sell in stores starting at $4.99; regular Hot Wheels sell in stores for about 99 cents.
Industry experts say the gender-specific Happy Meals have helped close the gap between boys' and girls' loyalty. The effort appears to be working. A 1996 survey by Teenage Research Unlimited, of Northbrook, Ill., found 62% of 12- to 19-year-old girls had eaten at McDonald's in the past seven days, compared with 67% of boys. The same survey taken within the past year found no difference between the sexes.
Some toy experts say the extra effort and expense devoted to girls' Happy Meal toys reflect the belief that little girls are simply harder to please. "Girls are more discerning," says Robert J. Sodaro, a Happy Meal toy collector and author of "Kiddie Meal Collectibles." "To boys, a car is a car is a car."
McDonald's says it chose Madame Alexander because the dolls appeal across generations. But for many McDonald's customers, the $50-and-up price tags of the real dolls put them out of reach. "We're making Madame Alexander dolls available to people who can't afford to buy them at retail," says Douglas Freeland, the chain's director of national marketing.
Alexander Doll Co., based in the Harlem section of New York, has been making the dolls for about 80 years. McDonald's says it approached the dollmaker last year after internal research showed the line would appeal to five-and six-year-old girls.
At first, Alexander Doll worried McDonald's wouldn't be able to mass-produce the dolls while retaining their high-quality features. After working closely with the burger giant, the dollmaker says it was confident McDonald's supplier would accurately replicate the "sleep eyes," sculpt of the faces and quality fabrics.
"It was something we felt strong about," says Jane Abrahams, Alexander Doll's director of marketing. "It was a challenge they set for themselves."
Ms. Abrahams says Alexander also wanted to expandits customer base, which primarily consists of collectors in their 40s. "We really looked at it as a new business, a new approach for our company," she says. "It's the younger generation we want to get our arms around."
McDonald's says it doesn't expect the Madame Alexander dolls to inspire the same frenzy that its Teenie Beanie Baby Happy Meal promotions have touched off in recent years. But it does expect them to be popular. McDonald's declined to reveal its costs for manufacturing the dolls or the number it has produced, but says it is confident it can meet demand.
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Enron Death
It's strange that there hasn't been more media coverage of the unsettling circumstances of the Cliff Baxter death, surely as worry of scutiny as the Vince Foster suicide. Here may be the beginning of mainstream queries.
This article forwarded to you by BuzzFlash:
The Mysterious Death Of An Enron Exec
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/10/eveningnews/main505845.shtml
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2002
It may be the biggest outstanding mystery in the Enron story: the death of Cliff Baxter, a former top Enron executive. He'd just agreed to testify to Congress in the Enron case. A congressional source tells CBS News that Baxter wasn't a target in the probe, he was to provide evidence against others.
But on the morning of January 25th he was found in his car - shot dead.
Police were criticized for calling it a suicide before investigating, so they kept the case open. The fact that it's still open more than two months later has made the Cliff Baxter case prime fodder for murder conspiracy theories, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
Adding to the mystery is a letter - perhaps a suicide note - that Baxter's wife is fighting to keep private. Groups like the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation want at least part of it made public.
"I believe very strongly that Enron is mentioned in it," said Joel White, the group's attorney.
More questions are raised in police, autopsy and lab reports obtained by CBS News.
Police won't talk while the case is open, so CBS News asked two experts - independent coroner Cyril Wecht and former homicide detective Bill Wagner - to review the reports. While suicide appears likely, both experts say the documents make it impossible to discount foul play.
Asked why he couldn't rule out murder, Wagner said, "because murder can be made to look like a suicide. ... Someone who is knowledgeable about forensics can very well have the ability to stage a murder, commit a murder and stage it to look as if it was a suicide, understanding what the police are going to be looking for."
The experts found several things highly unusual. First the peculiar ammunition: not regular bullets but something called "rat-shot".
"This kind of ammunition cannot be easily or readily traced back to the gun from which it was fired," explained Wecht.
"It's not as frequently used by people for any reason. It's not the type of ammunition one finds in guns - it has a specific purpose: shooting at snakes and rodents in order to get a distribution pattern of the small pellets contained within the nose portion of the bullet. It's not something that a person is likely to have and to use if they intended to kill themselves," said Wecht.
Other unanswered questions include mysterious wounds on one hand and unexplained shards of glass in Baxter's shirt. All reasons to look deeper to rule out murder.
But Wagner says glaring police errors may make it harder to close the books on the Baxter case.
First, nobody wrapped the hands to preserve evidence.
"When the body did finally arrive for the autopsy, the hands hadn't even been bagged," said Wagner.
"I'm just amazed frankly that the hands were not bagged," Wecht said.
"From what I've seen looking at the vehicle, it doesn't appear they even fingerprinted it," continued Wagner.
"The police narrative is vague for this type of investigation. It's important to get a timeline of the events that took place through the course of investigation - that appears to be lacking in the original report from the crime scene. Without that, without being able to piece together what was done when, it's very difficult to understand the events that took place and how they unfolded from that report," said Wagner.
The gun and other evidence were moved before photos were taken. The body was moved as well. There's a puzzling mention of blood outside the car from someone laying Baxter on the ground.
Wagner says that only should have happened if rescuers pulled him out to revive him. But even that scenario doesn't add up - the body is back in the car when the funeral home arrives "and that's something that is not explained in the police reports," said Wagner.
"I think there were some very important things omitted from the original investigation report that should have been included in it. I would like to have known what were the first couple things the Fire Department did to treat the victim allegedly as he was sitting in the car and from that point how did they change the initial crime scene. What was moved? Did they remove the body from the vehicle? It's actually unclear how they treated the actual scene," Wagner said.
Incredibly, even though an autopsy is required by law, none was ordered. By the time that decision was reversed, Baxter's body was being processed at a funeral home.
The coroner says police still won't tell her exactly who handled and who saw the body before it finally reached her and won't even give her routine information.
The official finding on Baxter's death may well end up being suicide, but for now his death certificate remains unsigned. And at least one provocative question is left permanently unanswered: what, exactly, Cliff Baxter would have told investigators about the biggest corporate scandal in history.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/10/eveningnews/main505845.shtml
You can also read:
Questions left unanswered in Enron execs death
http://www.khou.com/news/local/KHOU020410_rc_BaxterDeath.604fff03.html
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Sunday, April 07, 2002
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Human cloning is happening!!!!
Maybe... Antinori and Zavos are hypers...
New Scientist
On the cloning and stem cell research debate, see Best and Kellner.
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A very good overall assessment of dangers of Bush's foreign policy from Afghanistan to the Middle East
Document Details
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