Media Prepare New Color Revolutions

November 30, 2007

As noted in an earlier piece this week, the U.S. officially defines freedom as derived from ‘free-trade’, i.e. in a pure economic, neo-liberal sense .

Any slight attempt by a country to implement policies that are somewhat socialist makes them thereby less ‘free’ and in need of U.S. intervention.

Russia and Venezuela are such countries. In renegate democracies as these revolutions are the proscribed remedy. Color Revolutions like they took place in Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan:

Each time massive street protests followed disputed elections and led to the resignation or overthrow of leaders considered by their opponents to be authoritarian.

Elections are coming up in Russia and in Venezuela a referendum to change the constitution will take place this weekend. There are signs that in both cases, but especially in Venezuela, attempts for color revolutions will follow.

Back in 2004 the Guardian explained:

The Democratic party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros’s open society institute.

There are ten steps in these revolutions to be taken under the guidance and with funding from ‘western’ pseudo Non Governmental Organisation (NGOs):

Ratch up internal and external pressure by economic measures (World Bank-IMF), diplomatic measures and the national and international media.
Demonize the leader of the ruling party up for reelection
Unite the opposition behind some U.S. selected common leader
Organize an activist student movement
Spread doubts about the fairness of the upcoming election
Organize alternative poll measurements like ‘independent’ exit polls
Use the ‘independent’ polls to dispute the election results
Launch demonstrations, if needed violent ones, against the ‘stolen’ election
Add international pressure on the incumbent to step back for new elections
Finance the opposition to win the new election against the now discredited incumbent

Step 5 to 10 are to be repeated until the indented result is achieved.

It is difficult to apply international economic pressure on Russia and Venezuela as both are oil exporters. But in Venezuela internal economic pressure is applied through the businesses opposed to Chavez by withholding foodstuff from the market. Chicken and milk are currently rare to find in the stores.

Demonization is clearly attempted against Chavez as well as Putin. The changes in the Venezuelan constitution to be voted on on Sunday will abolish term limits. This is described in ‘western’ media as a step to a Chavez dictatorship. Never mentioned is that neither the UK nor Germany have term limits. Tony Blair ruled ten years and Helmut Kohl sixteen years. Chavez was elected three times by solid majorities. What is the factual base to claim he has dictatorial aspirations?

Let’s look at some of the current media pieces that support the "color revolution" propaganda scheme.

A typical one is Roger Cohen’s column in yesterday’s New York Times:

“The measures amount to a constitutional coup,” said Teodoro Petkoff,
who edits an opposition newspaper.
…
Unlike other votes during Chávez’s nine-year presidency, and unlike the assured victory of Putin’s United Russia Party in voting the same day, the referendum is not a foregone conclusion.

Overcoming inertia, opponents led by students have energized a “No” campaign. A general once close to Chávez has denounced a looming coup d’état. Polls suggest a close outcome.
…
Chávez’s grab for socialist-emperor status is grotesque and
dangerous–as Fascism was–a terrible example for a region that has been
consolidating democracy.

The only ‘witness’ Cohen’s quotes in his rant, Teodoro Petkoff, is not just someone who ‘edits an opposition newspaper’:

Petkoff served as Minister of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning (Cordiplan), directing the government’s economic policies. From Cordiplan, Petkoff managed the Venezuela Agenda, a neo-liberal government program for reducing the size of the public administration, controlling inflation and stopping the currency devaluation, …
…
On April 21, 2006, after rumours indicating that a number of intellectuals and middle-class liberal activists had asked him to run in the 2006 Presidential election, Teodoro Petkoff launched his campaign to be the next president of Venezuela.

The US government’s ‘NGOs’ were heavily engaged in financing the opposition and to delegitimize Chavez victory in the 2006 election.

Ken Silverstein at Harpers reveals Cohen’s hypocrisy by comparing the column to Cohen’s earlier laureation of the Egyptian dictator Mubarak. He concludes:

Cohen is no democrat. Like so much of the pundit class, he favors democracy when convenient, but when authoritarianism protects “American interests,” dictator-coddling is perfectly fine.

Another propaganda piece ran in today’s Guardian under the headline Fraud, intimidation and bribery as Putin prepares for victory. The piece claims that Putin’s and the state administration’s appeals to the people to actually vote, amounts to manipulation in favor of his party.

Six anonymous persons and some anonymous Russian Livejournal bloggers are their witnesses. Two ‘experts’ confirm the nefarious scheme:

The president enjoys genuine popular backing but a spokeswoman for Golos, an independent organisation monitoring the elections, said "big pressure on voters across the country" was being used to balloon the result for United Russia.

and

"The elections are going to be falsified," said Mikhail Delyagin, an economist and the director of Moscow’s Institute on Globalisation Problems. "The elections that took place in the Soviet Union were less falsified than this one."

The Guardian’s journalists forget to mentions that the ‘independent organisation’ Golos is financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Mikhail Delyagin is a founding member of The Other Russia, the ‘western’ organized anti-Putin organisation headed by Gary Kasparov.

The Other Russia was formed during a constitutional meeting on July 11-July 12, 2006, (during the G8 summit) in Moscow. Western diplomats, including British Ambassador to Russia Anthony Brenton, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Barry Lowenkron, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, were attending the conference. The two main liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, were boycotting the event over the participation of what they consider to be nationalist and extremist groups.

At the founding congress of The Other Russia 6 of the 36 international ‘guests‘ (scroll down) were functionaries of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

Both ‘independent’ experts quoted in the Guardian piece are essentially payed by the U.S. government. The anonymous ‘witnesses’ quoted were likely ‘recommended’ by these ‘independent’ experts.

Sewing doubt over election results is a centerpiece of the ‘color revolution’ scheme. ‘Western’ media is a big party in these manipulations.

We can now expect demonstrations, maybe violent ones, by ‘student activists’ against the voting results in Russia as well as in Venezuela. Keep in mind who pays the bills for these.

Posted by b on November 30, 2007 at 19:33 UTC | Permalink

Comments

an example of this, this very night – al jazeera announces massive demonstrations for the yes & chavez – but the footage was of the demontrations yesterday of the no
it is quite consistent as is its representation of the situation in bolivia
it has represented annapolis this week as the light on the hill & it approaches the situation in pakistan & the phillipines with great recklessness
& in iraq & in afghanistan – centcom & nato could not be happier with their subservience

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 30 2007 20:00 utc | 1

b
thanks very much for this post
i am so fucking tired of their lies – & their mediocre representations of this & that ‘revolution’
the empire not only makes us a poorer world in a literal sense – but it has such an impoverishing effect on information
our meagre efforts to counteract it are reson for hoope in this almost universla darkness

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 30 2007 20:06 utc | 2

Polls suggest a close outcome.
i’m w/r’giap i am so fucking tired of their lies
we are already hearing this hear, contrary to every poll. this drumbeat only serves to prop up the excuse of how it could ever happen here after they steal another election.
really, how long before they just admit what we all know anyway.

Posted by: annie | Nov 30 2007 20:53 utc | 3

a very useful site on venezuela & on the current campaign to besmirch the will of the people

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 30 2007 23:34 utc | 4

I’ll still give the odds to Chavez on this one. It is likely to be closer than others as there’s nothing like a bit of familiarity to breed contempt. That is the honeymoon with Chavez is over and although Chavez has made every effort to implement real reform not just a simulation of it, people tend to look at their own back yards take what they have gained for granted, then focus on what hasn’t changed. That makes it hard but Chavez does still carry the support of most Venezualans, something even Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden concedes in his memo of last week entitled ‘Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer’ from Counterpunch

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the ‘yes’ vote by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.
The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) [Operación Tenaza] be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as calling for a ‘no’ vote. The run up to the referendum includes running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a ‘no’ vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter.. . .

Of course the inroads the Chavez administration has made in transforming society means the divisions are in the rightist forces as well:

The CIA-Embassy reports internal division and recriminations among the opponents of the amendments including several defections from their ‘umbrella group’. The key and most dangerous threats to democracy raised by the Embassy memo point to their success in mobilizing the private university students (backed by top administrators) to attack key government buildings including the Presidential Palace, Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council. The Embassy is especially full of praise for the ex-Maoist ‘Red Flag’ group for its violent street fighting activity. Ironically, small Trotskyist sects and their trade unionists join the ex-Maoists in opposing the constitutional amendments. The Embassy, while discarding their ‘Marxist rhetoric’, perceives their opposition as fitting in with their overall strategy.

Of course the Trots who oppose any authority figure that reminds them of their dads have conveniently forgotten their alleged raison d’etre the people, and concentrated on opposing the new authority, the Chavez administration.
As long as the right has the Trots onside they can expect everything they touch to end in chaos and recrimination.
There is a bigger issue here, the one that really pisses me off and that is that in order to keep the forces of the wealthy minority at bay, Chavez will have to organise a very structured political machine. Inevitably that will piss of more than just Trotskyist oppositionists.
Even when the humans win they lose because the continual attacks on any attempt to express the will of the masses is opposed by a wealthy minority who misuse their material advantage to sabotage the masses’ will. It seems the only effective way to counter that is to become what the masses don’t really want, a force interfering in their individual expression.
This is a challenge that we must all rise to, it may seem irrelevant in amerika where the notion of an administration whose primary goal is the welfare of the masses appears very distant indeed, yet it has been this inability of humanist administrations everywhere to successfully counter political sabotage without what the oppressors dismiss as ‘collateral damage’ that has prevented the humanist societies from being eternal.
Even if the english hadn’t wounded Lenin, the presence of foreign organised anti-humanist forces within Russia meant that Stalin would become the only viable option for the survival of the regime.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 30 2007 23:34 utc | 5

debs
in the coup in 2002 it was the people in the final analysis who decided & i hope that will be true with this referendum but everything & i mean everything exposes practically the schemes of the empire – including the double jeu of impeding the referendum & of questioning the veracity of the votes
all the media today – has made a point of saying there is an increase of the no vote allowing the questioning of any success by the people. i imagine the people understand well the menace they are sufferring under but you will remember well that this need to be constantly vigilant fatigued the people of nicaragua under the constan & murderous attacks by the united states
i could understand that same fatigue must be playing a part but the murderous oligarchs of latin america & their bosses in washington will never allow power to be appropriated the people. they never have. i do not possess the optimism of john pilger because the criminal impilses of the american empire have shown no signs of ceasing
i hope the people of venezuela will not be swayed from their sacred purpose

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 30 2007 23:46 utc | 6

witness all the coverage tonight – very close shots of the yes rally – trying to reduce the enormous numbers & in every instance that i have witnessed – intercutting or jump cutting to images of the no rally – always commentary by critics of chavez or of junkyard ‘journalists’ just mouthing those kind of commentary
again it has tp be said what a subnormal species journalists are – they are the worthless servants of power, any power & of the paycheck
they are so suppliant that they do not have to be comprimise – they are coimprimised already & i magine when their corrup editors bark out of their whisky glasses they follow supinely whatever orders they are given
they are the enemy in eqaul measure to those that they serve & to paraphrase john bolton – if you levelled all the offices of newscorp & their minions & mendiants – it would not be much of a loss

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 0:03 utc | 7

what media exposure in fact always exposes is the pure & unfiltered hatred of the people
they do not drown themselves in celebrity for nothing. wherever elites gather & have their vassals speak for them – we can witness at a glance how much they hate us
when they give a colour or a flowers name to a revolution for them it is just another version of a television reality programme – where they think they are doing the choosing
they love themselves
i will repeat that comic episode of that buffoon john simpson ‘leading’ the troops in the invasion of kabul. he clearly really imagined himself as alexander the great or at least edward murrow but these clowns do not have a real journalistic bone in their body
they are whores of the worst kind – that is to say – they only service power. they make a culture of the hatred of the people & this hatred of the people is not benign as it may have been in an evlyn waugh or a v s naipaul – where it is a character default requiring psychiatric treatment – no it is a hatred that cultivates the instinct for death & it is always an illussion of reality, it is never reality
these cretins who mouth their elites mumblings have neither humour or rigour, but what they lack most noticably – is grace
for their sins, they should be locked in a room with bernard kouchner, jack straw trent lott & the surving members of leonard skynard singing seashanties from scotland from the seventeenth century

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 0:43 utc | 8

You would think this MoA stewpot of East Coast liberal thinking might grok on the
novel concept, turning the tables on their Neo-Zi foes. When the Neo-Zi’s bomb US,
the resistance says, make IED’s. When the Neo-Zi’s control the propaganda, the
resistance says, use the internet. And when the Neo-Zi’s corrupt the election
process, the resistance says, corrupt their caucus process in return.
They couldn’t perpetrate this dementia without enablers, well-paid, but unprotected.
The streets still belong to US, whether marching Wall Street, Pennsylvania Avenue,
outside the Bush Compound in Texas, in front of Bill O’Reilly’s house, massing in front of NBC Morning Show, surging the picket lines in Hollywood, etc.
King George goaded US, “Bring it on!” So let’s bring it. Read Abby Hoffman’s tome.
Preferred solution is to register as a Republican and work as a campaign organizer
for the elections, going door to door with the Goober script, then really freaking
people out by going way over the top with it. After all, their plank is insanity,
and it doesn’t take a Shakespearian actor to mock a Neo-Zi version of MacBeth.
“Hi, I’m working for the Bush campaign and we’d like to earn your vote! Did you
know President Bush sponsored legislation making it legal to eat aborted babies?
That’s right! Wait, there’s more! Under the Republican plan for Social Security, young wage earners will no longer have to support their parents in old age. The
elderly will be warehoused in Federal detention facilities, with only Fox TV!!
And it’ll be paid for by deficit spending! Isn’t that wonderful? No new taxes!!”
One door at a time, one voter at a time, turning off the thousand points of lies.
—
Short version, Steal This Book. We didn’t drive Nixon out of power by churning up
the keystrokes in our hippie crashpads. We went out and clashed! This isn’t about
Cambodia and college kids at stake, this is the Future of America as we know it!!
Imagine if Chicago 7 just stayed at home, furiously hacking on their keyboards.
“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a
particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.”
.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/3CHICA%7E1.jpg
Coming soon in a movie theatre near you!
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/409120/The-Trial-of-the-Chicago-7/overview

Posted by: Lash Laroo | Dec 1 2007 1:38 utc | 9

Looks like Chavez has plans other than lying down and taking it;
“Venezuela threatens to cut oil exports to U.S.”
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he will cut oil sales to the United States if the American government interferes in Sunday’s referendum aimed at allowing him to run for reelection indefinitely.
Chavez told supports at a rally that the state oil company will halt sales to the United States on Monday if Washington interferes with the vote on the proposed constitutional reform.
The Venezuelan leader and Cuba ally also said he had ordered the military to protect oil fields and refineries in case of political violence.
The reform would also give him direct control over foreign currency reserves while reducing the workday to six hours and expanding social security benefits for informal workers like street vendors.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071130/wl_nm/venezuela_oil_dc

Posted by: Lysander | Dec 1 2007 2:07 utc | 10

i hope chavez can place his trust in the people – the people who defeated the coup against him
equally chavez has every right to put the u s on notice that he will not allow their interference in the sovereign affairs of venezuela & i would think guarding the oil fields a prudent measure
the french press, the english & the italian press are as slavering as their u s bosses. the same talking points – the same insistance on – what if the results are too close – preparing the way for yet more destabilisation or another coup

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 2:18 utc | 11

Very good article in the exile about democracy and the west.

When Russia told the OSCE that their election monitoring mission would be severely limited last month, it seemed as though Putin had fired an authoritarian shot out of the blue, baring his inner Stalinist once and for all. The West reacted as if the OSCE was the crucifix of democracy, and Putin’s rejection of that crucifix was evil rejecting good.
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another way is that the recent Russia-OSCE door-slamming episode is the inevitable outcome of years of cynical Western manipulation of an organization that once held enormous promise and impeccable credentials, but is now with good reason considered a propaganda tool for the West.
If that last sentence sounds like the paranoid rant of a Putin-era silovik revanchist, then think again. It’s the view held by none other than the man who headed the OSCE’s 1996 election mission in Russia, Michael Meadowcroft.
“The West let Russia down, and it’s a shame,” said Meadowcroft, a former British MP and veteran of 48 election-monitoring missions to 35 countries.
In a recent telephone interview with The eXile, Meadowcroft explained how he was pressured by OSCE and EU authorities to ignore serious irregularities in Boris Yeltsin’s heavily manipulated 1996 election victory, and how EU officials suppressed a report about the Russian media’s near-total subservience to pro-Yeltsin forces.

More, much more
Essentially, as long as they were our bastards, everything Yeltsin and Putin did was democratic. Including bombed villages in Chechnya votng for the president tat bombed them:

Evidence of fraud, such as entire towns in Chechnya voting overwhelmingly for Yeltsin, caused Meadowcroft to liken the 1996 election to those held in African dictatorships. “In Chechnya they’d been bombed out of existence, and there they were all supposedly voting for Yeltsin. It’s like what happens in Cameroon,” he said.

So, judging by earlier elections Putin probably will cheat. As he refuses to be the wests pawn, he will be described as a dictator and cheator in any case. So he might as well do it.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Dec 1 2007 3:39 utc | 12

this hatred of chavez, from the imperialist media & the people whose worldview it represents & promotes, also stems from their disgust for the very symbolic power that chavez holds — chavez, of indian & african blood, leading a modern day revolution that not only reminds the ruling classes of the model that cuba set for so-called third-world nations across the globe in the recent past, but perhaps even rivals the historical impact of haitian revolution on a geopolitical scale.
question on the cia memo – was it not originally in english or was it, which would seem unconventional for a cia document, only en espanol? if it was originally in english, why is there a discrepancy between petras’ account (“pincher”) and golinger’s (“pliers”)?
as i pointed out a couple nights ago, golinger wrote

The original document in English will be available in the public sphere soon for viewing and authenticating purposes.

i’m assuming that (at least) petras has only seen the venezuelan translation. tenaza translates to “pliers”.

Posted by: b real | Dec 1 2007 3:45 utc | 13

The “tenaza” “document” is certainly interesting, and its authenticity will certainly be denied. Indeed, here is a denial.
Should it be, after all, authentic (and not merely believable, as even the above denial concedes) one can only wonder how it was surfaced. Venezuelan moles at the U.S. embassy, Venezuelan SIGINT, or internal opposition within the firm? All of these seem unlikely, though not impossible.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 1 2007 9:25 utc | 14

in their perception, Chavez’s opponents beleive they are confronted by class-war. Hence they are organized accordingly. Chavez, however has been busy inspiring new hegemons to confront the old across all fronts, socially & culturally included. Gramsci observed how difficult it can be for people to understand & account for the hegemons that prevail over their lives. While the old hegemons defer to political wield & economic power, Chavez’s reaches into the barrios in search of the “invisible” & “unspeakable” sensibilities & aspirations of the “rabble”.
and now it seems like the opponista’s have been fighting the wrong war since Chavez taught Grandma to read.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 1 2007 10:19 utc | 15

As to how information about plans to do in Chavez can get out to Chavez — it is instructive to read about Timothy Leary. In the case of the raid organized by G. Gordon Liddy — Timothy Leary had information given to him by the teenagers in the families of the guys planning the raid, and he was ready.
The Venezuelan upper crust is large and made up of all kinds of people, some of whom will have various motives to help Chavez — disgruntled wives, angry teenagers, some young and not-so-young people who are interested in JUSTICE and fair play.
Heck, even the Venezuelan Catholic Church is obviously split —

Posted by: Owl | Dec 1 2007 10:38 utc | 16

we might as well move on to the next big story on Venezuela. Between the USA & the opposition, theres been enough bungling of the “proccess” to boost Chavez a few points.
and the next big story will be how Chavez stole the vote.
also, rather than confront them directly on the matter, Chavez lets the opposition cosy up to the USA. Theres a surreal similarity here to the Cuban experience. And by becoming so tightly wedded to the USA strategies, the opposition sets itself up to live and die by the USA’s conduct. Then the opposition figures out they’re a tool & jump on the next plane to Miami. Or Bogota.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 1 2007 14:24 utc | 17

destabilisation

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 15:22 utc | 18

fidel on venezuela

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 15:25 utc | 19

i’m deeply ashamed that i was one of the first people on this site to sing the praises of aljazeera in english.
i clearly misunderstood the moment. my aspirations for a more objective media was infantile in fact. power blocks & distorts information by design. the absence of a real distribution of information is also a design
on every key issue al jazeera has proved itself as a comrade-in-arms of the murdoch medias
it’s latin american coverage is entirely disreputable – attacking the will of the people whether it is articulated in bolivia, venezuela, ecaudor or nicaragua, demonising cuba & praising the corrupt oligarchies of el salvador & colombia
it makes a mockery of coverage in the middle east – in which it supports the bush white hous 98% & its coverage in iraq must be cause of profound shame for independant arab media. the regularity in which ccentcom hacks & clowns like bolton get to speak disproportionally – is unbelievable & in this it is closest to foxnews
the coverage of africa is full of the sentimentalised brutality that has become the cloak of western media
its synthesis with the oligarchies of south east asia is perpaps the clearest
so i want to offer an apology to the comrades here for believing that al jazeera might have been capable of real information, a democratisation of information
it has not
& because the media of the elites think that we the people are so fucking dumb – they carry out their plans before our eyes
the destabilisation in venezuela is happening in exactly the way it has been indicated in cia document

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 18:05 utc | 20

these same elites try to turn the awful bloody nightmare of iraq into a fucking redemption story
let me state what is blatantly obvious – they hate the people – profoundly & the concerns, desires & destinies of ordinary people the world over are not a concern for them
the culture of western civiliastion is so malignant, sp putrid in its false & pretentious morality, so in love with the fear it feels itself with itself & running with open arms to notions of security that are so transparently transitory & wishing for something more solid
so that the foul mouthed polemics of someone like a pygmy martin amis are not so odd – he just expresses what that whole culture feels – & if it was n ot muslims it would be someone else & in our glorious future it is certain to be somebody else
in my work of 35 years i have seen on a number of continents how the hatred of the marginalised, of the so-called ordinary & the so-called simple people has taken concrete form in both cultural agencies of so called civilisation. high & low culture is nothing more than the depraved dots that dop out of the mouths of intellectuals instead of words, instead of critiques
to live in our moment is to witness what constitutes real depravity, what constitutes criminal complicity, what constitutes – the necessary ignorance of so-called culture. in three languages of the so called civilisation – you do not have one, not one figure of substance – nor you you have dissidents to dominant ideology. the exceptions are not so unlike us – that is to say they are silenced & ignored – whether it is a edward bond, a armand gatti or a thomas harlan even a harold pinter
intellectuals – if indeed they can be called that – have retreated in the face of power & their obscene colour coding of either revolutions or states of emergency. the parallels with the majority of german intellectuals under the nazis is so evident it needs no elaboration
edward said & noam chomsky were & are perhaps the last of the real public intellectuals. the last that this corrupt civilsation can allow & it is for that reason that dissidence by people like ourselves has become increasingly important

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 19:27 utc | 21

they are whores of the worst kind – that is to say – they only service power.
They are, directly or indirectly, part of power.
Some don’t know, or pretend not to know. They treat their jobs as routine. Rather like the ‘newbie’ on the fashion mag who is told do short skirts this week see so and so and no black women next recipes of Countess Ladida here’s her phone etc.
They refuse all responsibility, and often don’t follow news themselves at all. Of course, in the media -all of them-, under a sort of cool veneer, a very strict hierarchy and vicious control prevails. Only fawning lackeys, ambitious manipulators, are hired, with the first being preferred. All the rules are unwritten, which makes their enforcement ..well no more blather about that it is boring.

Posted by: Tangerine | Dec 1 2007 20:35 utc | 22

There will be no color or other externally induced revolutions in Russia or Venezuela.
The color revolutions haven’t been a success. Georgia? Ukraine?
Post communist (FSU = former soviet union) countries, all of them, bamboozled, so what did they get, another corrupt domineering bunch of goons, running fire sales some of ‘em.
It was the fashion to demonstrate brightly in the street – 68’ish – have flashy pic in the in’lt press, teevee coverage, get a a gig with CNN, get some cash, go to the new disco with Soros money? …throw out one lot…to get another candy flavor, in some cases, worse than what went before. The mirage of the West (lifestyle, etc.) – never materialized, and the ppl ‘there’ now understand that plunder was the driving force.
Who remembers the Tulip revolution in Kyrgystan? It accomplished what? Belarus? (not that I know anything much about it, ie, nothing positive transpired…)
The color revolutions are finished. A superficial wash of low grade lead paint, or pixellated flash on the screen, all of it, tinny, overblown by western media … Shelf date, PAST.
Russia, under Putin? Never.

Posted by: Tangerine | Dec 1 2007 21:23 utc | 23

it is becoming increasingly apparent that the u s & their vassals in venezuela want the blood of the people. it seems to me that tommorrow & in the weeks following there will be armed attempts to destabilise the elected governments of venezuela & bolivia

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 1 2007 22:52 utc | 24

“As he refuses to be the wests pawn, he will be described as a dictator and cheator in any case. So he might as well do it”
This is exactly my opinion concerning Chavez. He should just as well shoot the wealthy venezuelan elite, seize their fortune and redistribute the whole thing throught the state, since he’s accused of being a murderous tyrant already, even when he didn’t kill any opposition big guy. In fact, it’s been a few years since I consider his reluctance to murder the bastards as a major mistake, but only time will tell.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Dec 2 2007 2:49 utc | 25

clueless
the film ‘the revolution will not be televised’ which is at the site of venezualanalysis reveals in very graphic terms how their govt is held in the hands of the people. without them chavez would have been assassinated in the 2002 coup – but they have been under such relentless attacks by the pawns of imperialism that i fear they will panic
& yes there is an argument to be made that the state & chavez are not ruthless enough because imperialism will gladly massacre these people as it has done beofre, it will gladly impoverish & starve them as it has done before & it will forget them as it has always done except in these moments when it looks like they will upset the master’s table

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 2 2007 3:04 utc | 26

Some proof:Students Become Potent Adversary To Chávez Vision

Many of the anti-government students and their leaders do hail from such elite universities as Andres Bello, the prominent Catholic university in Caracas. And some student groups have received funding for workshops from the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to documents made available to The Washington Post on Saturday.
The U.S. documents, obtained through a freedom of information request filed by a researcher for the National Security Archive at George Washington University, show that $216,000 was provided from 2003 through this year to unnamed student groups at several universities for “conflict resolution,” “democracy promotion” and other programs.
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Jeremy Bigwood, the researcher, has obtained other documents in recent years showing U.S. aid for anti-Chávez groups. He said these documents show, at the very least, that the Bush administration wanted to “keep a finger on the pulse of the student movement.”

Posted by: b | Dec 2 2007 13:05 utc | 27

some commentary on polling in venezuela

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 2 2007 17:53 utc | 28

The company I work for has an office in Columbia. I talked with a fellow who had been there recently and I was about to break my jaw from it falling on the the floor.
He told me Chavez was going to make himself a life-time president, that all cell phones were going to be disconnected and that the internet in Venezuela was going to be closed. I have no idea as to where he heard this crap, but I assume it was the kind of disinformation being disseminated there.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Dec 2 2007 20:16 utc | 29

eva golinger at her blog ‘postcards from the revolution’ warns again of the implicit & direct menace from the united states & its vassalls in venezuela
i have been listening to radio vivo from caracas – where the results are not known – that le monde – with no evidence at all will lead on monday with a story saying the voting will be close. gollinger speaks very clearly of the disinformation being elaborated elsewhere
gollinger believes that the yes vote has won, that the imperial power knows it & that it will try to establish a colour or a plant revolution though the voting has passed both quietly & rapidly

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 2 2007 22:32 utc | 30

b
eva gollinger spoke a great deal about the color revolutions in relation to destabilisation process

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 2 2007 22:34 utc | 31

things will get interesting now in caracas

Posted by: b real | Dec 3 2007 5:39 utc | 32

How will the ant-Chavez hawks no uphold their talk about the “anti-democratic dictatorship” of Chavez?
Venezuela Hands Narrow Defeat to Chávez Plan

Voters in this country narrowly defeated a proposed overhaul to the constitution in a contentious referendum over granting President Hugo Chávez sweeping new powers, the Election Commission announced early Monday.
It was the first major electoral defeat in the nine years of his presidency. Voters rejected the 69 proposed amendments 51 to 49 percent.
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The outcome is a stunning development in a country where Mr. Chávez and his supporters control nearly all of the levers of power. Almost immediately after the results were broadcast on state television, Mr. Chávez conceded defeat, describing the results as a “photo finish.”

Well dear NYT – Chavez does not hold “nearly all of the levers of power” – but you will never admitt that will you … most of the article was obviously prewritten with the perspective that Chavez would win and protest would follow. It talks about possible manipulation and recounts and so on …
In Russia the bureaucracy and the people seem to have determined that it lives best under Putin: Party’s Triumph Raises Question of Putin’s Plans

With President Vladimir V. Putin’s opponents persistently hobbled by the Kremlin, his party swept Sunday to the kind of landslide long predicted for the parliamentary elections.
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With nearly half the vote counted Sunday night, United Russia received 63.2 percent, followed far behind by the Communist Party, with 11.5 percent. Two parties that support Mr. Putin — the Liberal Democratic Party, with 9.1 percent, and Just Russia, with 7.8 percent — also have a good chance of winning seats in Parliament. The threshold is 7 percent to win a seat.
…

Posted by: b | Dec 3 2007 8:50 utc | 33

Voter turn out was low for Venez. (afaik.)
Chavez asked for too much executive power. I guess it was basically his voters who did not show up. Perhaps they even saw it as overstretch, a mistake, so preferred to abstain. Or they agreed with parts or much of the proposal, but not with others – again, = abstention. This was a classic example of too much all at once. Big danger in referenda or made-up-on the-spot plebiscites – I’m surprised he made that mistake. (Of course the Swiss are experts on that, 🙂 )

Posted by: Tangerine | Dec 3 2007 16:53 utc | 34

i agree tangerine that perhaps he moved too quickly – but with the pressure of the empire & its vassals – it seems an understandable mistake

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 3 2007 17:46 utc | 35

agreed Tangerine.
the real story — the Chavez supporters who stayed home.
this may be the best outcome for Venezuala. Even though Chavez’s personal popularity was probably sufficient to earn him (the man) the powers he sought, a significant portion of his supporters were understandably concerned enough about what these powers might portend under future presidents post-Chavez. Hence, they stayed home.
and a slim victory for Chavez would have catalysed the perception that he is primarily the product of his core support — the Native/Afro of Venezuela.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 4 2007 0:52 utc | 36

I kinda like Tariq Ali’s analysis

Posted by: DeAnander | Dec 4 2007 2:06 utc | 37

The Venezuelan Ambassador to Britain was the initial guest tonight, Friday Dec. 7, on George Galloway’s Talk Radio show. The Ambassador was informative explaining the recent defeat and he spent some time answering guests who called in to the show. The callers illustrated a greater grasp of information and understanding than one would typically find here in the United States.
Listen to Hugo Chavez’s man in London.

Posted by: Rick | Dec 8 2007 3:17 utc | 38

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