Venezuela's Chavez calls Bush administration a 'mafia,announces plan to b

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela's Chavez calls Bush administration a 'mafia, announces plan to buy Russian military planes
The Associated Press

Published on 2006-05-25 10:28 (KST)

President Hugo Chavez compared U.S. President George W. Bush to the infamous mobster Al Capone on Wednesday, and said Venezuela will buy Russian fighter jets because the U.S. has blocked sales of replacement parts for its military planes.

Chavez took sharp issue with Bush's remarks this week about an ''erosion of democracy'' in Venezuela, and also criticized a U.S. move to curtail arms sales after Washington said the South American nation was failing to cooperate in counterterrorism efforts.
(snip)

Chavez said his military has been able to maintain its U.S.-made Hercules transport planes only with great effort.

''We can't maintain them anymore. Why? Because the parts are American,'' he said. ''Now what am I going to do? Buy some Antonovs from Russia -- modern transport planes.'' Chavez didn't say how many planes, but he has previously said Venezuela is considering buying Sukhoi Su-30 and Su-35 fighter jets to replace the country's aging fleet of U.S.-made F-16s -- for which the U.S. had stopped selling him upgrades.
(snip/...)

http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=294370&rel_no=1

[peacetalksforall]

1. So are any mid and low level employees of our manufacturer and its

parts going to have to give up their house? Any college educations affected if the employee has to take a menial job?

I'm sure that answer is no because we have so many other countries to sell the aircraft and parts to. That's the way ruined deals work, right. No one country can bring us down, right?

(With all due sarcasm and disrespect for our leaders.)

I don't need to ask about the CEO's. They are ALWAYS taken care of.

[Virginia Dare]

2. Call me crazy, but....

there's not a whole lot that Hugo Chavez says that I don't agree with.

:crazy:

[aquart]

4. Yup. I have that problem, too.

[redqueen]

10. Me three. n/t

[donbrunton]

14. me 4

ding

[KansDem]

16. Include me in your group...

President Hugo Chavez compared U.S. President George W. Bush to the infamous mobster Al Capone...

Damn! I've been saying this for years! Could I possibly be Venezuelan by birth, and brought to this country at an age so young I don't remember? Are there any blue-eyed, blond-haired Venezuelans with Irish surnames? If not, there is now!

Al Capone would be green with envy; He had only Chicago--Bush has the entire world.

[TankLV]

38. Me too.

[EFerrari]

42. And me. He's right. I'm reading "Overthrow " and it looks like

the United States has always treated Latin America like their turf. In other words, you are a "stable" and "democratic" country if you let the multinationals control your resources. If you don't, you are (choose the bad thing du jour -- communist, socialist, terraist).

:wow:

[lumpy]

44. This has been the US trend

since 'Teddy' Roosevelt.

[EFerrari]

68. I never realized that it was so ingrained in our foreign policy.

That is WAS our foreign policy.

The Dulles family has a lot to answer for. And so do we all for not paying attention. Hawaii, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Iran, the Phillipines, Chile, El Salvador, Viet Nam.

Geezus, I'm not even through the book yet.

:(

[Bacchus39]

25. I don't have that problem thank God

I think he's an idiot!!

[Buzz Clik]

36. Agreed. A potential problem, at that.

[TankLV]

39. I think bush* is an idiot, too. God Bless Hugo Chavez!

Don't you have a LIEberman "brown nosers for bush" rally to attend?

[donbrunton]

47. Elucidate

If you actually can.

[Jim Sagle]

49. Who's the idiot, Chavez or w? I say w.

[FyurFly]

51. Fuck Chavez n/t

[4_TN_TITANS]

55. Prefer W???

I wonder about these posters who are so secretive with their profiles and quick to blast a democratically elected leader who gives a shit about the poor....
:shrug:

[IndianaGreen]

58. Because they are capitalists that hate the poor

They blame the poor for their poverty, while they themselves benefit from their lofty class status. I would like to remind them of the words of Prophet Jesus, PBUHN:

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

and...

"You cannot serve both God and Money."

[Joe Bacon]

61. Rockefeller and the needle...

I remember my grandmother telling me this story

"A preacher approached John Rockefeller and said 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven'. Rockefeller responded "God gave me enough money to make a VERY LARGE NEEDLE'...

[bennywhale]

59. Constructive point

[happydreams]

64. You all call for Chavez's execution, then talk about democracy.

Yea you're all for democracy unless it includes people you don't like.

[bennywhale]

60. In every respect?

I think he's a bit of a buffoon at times. What is it you particularly don't like? I also think he isn't as marvelouslly generous with the old distribution as people make out, but i'm pretty sure he's a moral man with a concern for the poor and he has done some amazing work to help the poor in Venezuala after decades of class and racial dynasties ruling brutally. He is also the most democratically elected leader on the planet. He's won 7 'free and fair' elections

[aquart]

3. Well, aren't we clever.

We've alienated the major oil producer in the Americas. They've got all this money to buy our goods, but, instead, they're buying someone else's. Because we're just so SMART.

[reichstag911]

5. The problem is...

...the whole democratically-elected government thing in Venezuela. The US will pay any price to keep that trend from spreading!

[Virginia Dare]

6. Not to mention the whole populist/socialist trend...

that scares the poop out of them, you can be sure.

[katinmn]

48. Bringing people out of poverty. Wouldn't want that here.

:sarcasm:

[cliss]

8. It's like they're almost taunting Chavez

to pull his oil. I'm sure Hugo Chavez has been thinking about it. Chavez really doesn't need to sell to the US. He has lots of other countries clamoring for his country's oil.

Without Venezuelan oil, gas prices in the US would shoot up to about $5.50/gallon (just a guess). It would effectively torpedo Bush, permanently. Bush would never recover from that.

Of course, we would all end up paying to oust Bush. But maybe it's a price worth paying?

[saigon68]

15. John Negroponte is at this moment planning to KILL Chavez

Since John likes to kill nuns, his agents and thugs have a bigger task.

[aquart]

21. Chavez knows it, too.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if he....oh, never mind, that would be wrong.

[dusmcj]

32. ol' 316. nt

[987654321]

33. It's not like we have...

any kind of trade deficit or anything like that.

[Veronica.Franco]

7. Bush idiocy continues ...

Alienate everyone ... rinse, repeat ...

[Judi Lynn]

9. New article on discounted oil to US poor on the East Coast from Venezuela

Chavez One, Bush Zero
by Audrey Sasson
May 22, 2006

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced last September that he wanted to help low income Americans cover the costs of their rising heating bills, his critics were quick to question the sincerity of his motivations. Was he saying this just to get a rise out of his diplomatic rival, President Bush? Would he actually deliver on such a ‘populist’ promise? But only a couple of months later, he launched a pilot program in the Bronx to transform rhetoric into action. Through the Venezuelan-owned, American-based Citgo Petroleum Corporation, Chavez has provided 181,000 American households with 40 million gallons of heating oil at a 40 percent discount, as well as free heating oil to hundreds of homeless shelters across the Northeast.

While she was aware of Chavez’s promise, Bronx resident T. Patrice White-McGleese never imagined that she and her family would ultimately benefit from the plan. “I would never have thought that they would just happen to choose The Bronx… and of the three CDCs they picked, I happen to live in one,” she says enthusiastically. “C’mon, what are the odds?” Since its inception, the program has expanded to include communities in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Maine.

White-McGleese was one of approximately 150 beneficiaries who attended a community assembly on Saturday, April 8th, to celebrate and evaluate the program’s effectiveness. Held at the United Family Church in the South Bronx, the Citgo-hosted event brought recipients from across the Northeast into contact with Venezuelan officials and Citgo representatives for a festive gathering highlighting American-Venezuelan solidarity. Recipient after recipient stood up to express gratitude to the people of Venezuela and to President Chavez himself for helping make the difficult winter that much more bearable.
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=10308

[MrPrax]

17. I can't remember the

last time a politician of any strip made poor people happy...

They are usually bashing them to pander to their wealthy exploiters...

This stuff is both brilliant, moral and dangerous.

If a lot fo these NGOs (like homeless shelters) can get needed fiscal help with the budgets, then more money of the group can go to organzing, outreach, services, etc. They have MORE resources to the help the poor.

Same thing about the "Mision Milagro"--certainly it is a wonderful thing for a dirtpoor person to be able to have a simple CHEAP operation and see again (135,000 sightless now seeing in 11 countries to be exact), but the real impact is that each family unit that has to expend all that energy and resources to care for that blind person, are now free to use those energies and resources for something that might bring the family unit out of poverty and might make that family unit make a meaningful contribution to the society.

This is moral and dangerous to our values. He embarasses progressives.

The U.S. Government which will be fully aware of the needs of Africa, the needs of the poor. Let's assume that we have a government here in the United States that overnight decides to cut in half the military expenses and withdraw the troops from around the world and declare it is the champion of peace of the world and declare itself an enemy of imperialism and then devote billions of dollars to the poor. Last year the defense budget was $400 billion in military defense. Just for one single year. One single year. For those $400 billion we can go to Africa, in the poor countries of Asia, in the Caribbean and Latin America, we can help them.

I’ve learned to appreciate the thinking of John Kennedy. John Kennedy once said, and that's why he was assassinated, listen to the South, he said once. The recent revolution going on in the south in Africa, in Asia, and Latin America. It was in the 1960's, where the people, the black power was raging. Che Guevara said, one, two, three, Japan, and Vietnam and Asia. The world was fed up with misery and inequities. As he said, the cause of all the revolution is poverty. And he said this sentence, today more than ever is valid, he said, those who shut down the doors to peaceful resolutions open the doors to violent revolutions. That's a reality. I do believe that the U.S. people – is the other super power that Noam Chomsky is referring to. What is the other super power? Public opinion. The peoples of the world. That's the other super power. And the U.S. People have a major responsibility in the world. I think that we're going to save the world. And I hope that you take part in this struggle in the same way we are doing today. And many other people, women and men in this country, in this soil.

from the Democracy Now! interview

When has a Progressive ever heard a politician talk like this or admit tot he fact his references run the gambit from Luxemburg to Kennedy to Che.

Maybe Progressives should use 'Just for one single year' as their slogan--
You've done things your way for 2000 years, how about for 'Just for one single year' you try it our way.

[coalition_unwilling]

30. "I can't remember the last time a politician of any strip made poor people

happy ..." -- Think Robert F. Kennedy in '68 or George McGovern in '72. (Which goes to show how far we have fallen.)

[987654321]

35. thanks for posting this

[987654321]

34. Compassionate Oil Producers?

Why that's un-American!

[Vidar]

11. The West Wing is gone; Chavez is the best game in town.

[Zorra]

12. Mike Malloy calls it the Bu*h Crime Family. Chavez is correct. n/t

[drduffy]

13. and my thanks to the Bush Crime Family

for all the help they've given the poor......

I am imagining something happening to all of the Bushies and their cohorts.... but of course I cannot say what I am imagining......

[Name removed]

18. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[me b zola]

19. one more thing to add to the 'proof that bush* is an idiot' list

...and that list was already long.

Viva Chavez!

K&R

[stepnw1f]

20. Chavez is Correct... It's a GOP Thing Hugo... Not Democratic

fucking stupid republicans

[AllieB]

22. Wow, where's the usual peanut gallery?

:popcorn: :popcorn:

This thread is just way too civilized for a Chavez thread!

[stepnw1f]

54. No Kidding

Where are they when ya needed a laugh?

[K-W]

23. In the old playbook, this is when you call them commies

announce that they plan to attack America as part of the communist conspiracy and then invade Venezuala.

Luckily for Chavez its easier to force a country to buy military equipment from Russia than it is to get them to cooperate with Muslim militants, especially a Latin American country.

Not only are our resources invested in the Middle East, so is our propaganda. Yet another reason latin america has so much freedom these days.

[Bacchus39]

24. yeah, uh huhh

freedom to be poor. have you ever been to latin america?

[K-W]

27. No, but I do know what a non-sequitor is. EOM

[Bacchus39]

28. didn't think so

n/t

[K-W]

29. What an astounding feat of perception.

You guessed that I am in the vast Majority of Americans.

[happydreams]

57. I like it when the Righties succumb to political correctness

It's no longer "cool" in their circles to use anti-commie rhetoric, so people like Bacchus resort to childish name calling with nothing to back it up. If we were live they'd probably be sticking their tongues out at us. :eyes:

[ret5hd]

26. Judi Lynn, would you check your pm's. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

31. Thanks! n/t

[Matilda]

37. The man is wonderful.

But I fear for his safety. He's like a big kid tap-dancing in front of a bunch of sharpshooters.

Viva Chavez!

[upi402]

40. Can America get more retarded?

Blocking plane parts so they are even weaker when the neocon thugs whack them? Come on!
Of course he'll go somewhere else... France, Russia, ...China???

My god! Those Republicans are ruining US!

Chavez took sharp issue with Bush's remarks this week about an ''erosion of democracy'' in Venezuela
IRONY just doesn't do it- Phonyfucker is apropriate here I think.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. "Erosion of democracy"

This is coming from a man who went all the way to the Supreme Court to stop the legal counting of votes

:banghead:

[upi402]

43. "erosion of democracy" BushCo style...

[happydreams]

56. You'd think the

Military Industrial Complex would be against Bush for cutting them out of a market. :crazy:

[Azathoth]

62. The neocons are ideologically driven

They're willing to sacrifice the profits of the defense contractors in order to craft a foreign policy that fits their "vision".

[saigon68]

45. kick

[Judi Lynn]

46. U.S. envoy: Chavez not helping in battle

Posted on Thu, May. 25, 2006
U.S. envoy: Chavez not helping in battle
CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER
Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - The U.S. ambassador to Venezuela said Thursday that Colombian guerrillas have an "active presence" in the country and accused President Hugo Chavez of being uncooperative in counterterrorism efforts.

Ambassador William Brownfield said the United States is concerned about the presence in Venezuela of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, both of which the U.S. considers terrorist organizations.

"We have requested specific collaboration from the Venezuelan government over 100 times in the last two years, mainly regarding immigration and movements of specific people in Venezuelan territory and the truth is we haven't received any answers," Brownfield told Venezuelan reporters.

"Hopefully, the two governments can talk and try to resolve these problems," he said.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14668881.htm



You may remember this sack of excrement who claimed last month, after some young men and their girlfriends chased his limo away from a little league baseball game, throwing fruits and vegetables from a local produce market, that they were government supporters, and implied the Venezuelan gummint put them up to it.



Terrifying protestors throwing dangerous fruits at Brownfield's limo!

[Peace Patriot]

50. The leftist (i.e., mainstream) revolution that has swept South America

based on TRANSPARENT elections (long hard work by local civic groups, the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center) has got the sheiks of Bushdom in a tizzy. Imagine a country's resources being used to help the poor, rather than buying palaces and servants and private jets for the super-rich! Imagine countries being run for the benefit of the majority!

These are seriously dangerous precedents to the Bush crime family and to other billionaires who benefit from their coup.

But it's not just Chavez. Someone upthread said they are worried for his safety. Yeah, I've no doubt the Negroponte death squads have him in their sights, but there is no way they can behead this very widespread, deep, peaceful, democratic revolution all over South America--in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia--virtually the entire continent--with hopeful signs also in Peru, Nicaragua and Mexico. It is huge. Chavez is just the most visible and vocal leader of it--and a convenient way for our war profiteering corporate news monopolies to personalize, demonize and marginalize it for US consumption. But Chavez is a clever fellow, indeed. Every time they try to demonize/marginalize him, he comes back with yet another zinger of truth that they then have to quote.

It would be very upsetting to the vast majority of South Americans if the Bushites kill Chavez. But, a) I think these democracies are much studier than our own, at this point--they will weather it; and b) if it happened, who would doubt, at this point, that the Bushites were behind it? Their disrepute--and the alienation of the entire brown population of the western hemisphere--would be complete.

You wonder why Bush has wanted to stir up hatred toward brown people who speak Spanish? THIS is why. Brown people are showing us the way back to democracy. TRANSPARENT elections. Majority rule; good government; government that benefits everybody; open political debate with a REAL political spectrum (not the one created by our war profiteering corporate news monopolies--from right to far right). Grass roots democracy. Strong civic organizations. Real not fake patriotism--the kind of patriotism that seeks self-determination for individual countries and regions, and maximum participation in politics and business. An emphasis on workers' rights and human rights.

Very scary to the Bushites. They want to stir up racism and bigotry so we won't notice that countries full of brown people have much better and stronger democracies than we do, and governments that seek the common good. South America is not all brown, of course. But the brown and the indigenous predominate, and they have been the most oppressed, the most robbed, the most de-landed and impoverished population in Latin American countries, who are now coming into their own, as the majority, through TRANSPARENT elections. Chavez himself is part indigenous, part black and part Spanish. His neighbor, Evo Morales, the new president of Bolivia, is 100% indigenous Andes Indian.

"The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales

Think 1776. Could THAT be stopped? No way. And THIS revolution has the great strength and benefice of peacefulness. It's not the "shot heard round the world." It's "the VOTE heard round the world"!

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

And to my fellow and sister citizens of the U.S., I say...

...throw Diebold, ES&S and all these election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW! --if you want to have a democracy at least as good as that of Venezuela.

The odds against Latin American democracy ever flourishing were very great, indeed--much worse than the odds are now in the U.S. If they can overcome centuries of oppression and interference and bloodshed, and produce leaders like Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Michele Batchelet (Chile), with transparent elections, so can we.

[ronnie624]

63. I wish I had your way with words.

Thanks for your excellent posts.

[Judi Lynn]

52. Bush Squares Off with Bolivia and Venezuela over Hemispheric Model

Bush Squares Off with Bolivia and Venezuela over Hemispheric Model
by Roger Burbach
May 26, 2006

George W. Bush has come out with harsh words for the governments of Bolivia and Venzeuela.``Let me just put it bluntly - I'm concerned about the erosion of democracy in the countries you mentioned,' Bush said in response to a question put to him about Venezuela and Bolivia. ``I am going to continue to remind our hemisphere that respect for property rights and human rights is essential for all countries,” he added.

While Bush’s hostility towards Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is well known, his critical comments about Bolivia came as somewhat of a surprise, given that Evo Morales has served only four months as the country’s first Indian president and has done nothing to thwart the democratic process. As Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca noted: “We are creating a participatory democracy and the world knows it. I don’t understand how the United States can say democracy is eroding...”

Bush’s true agenda is reflected in his call for “respect for property rights.” A change is taking place in South America as Morales and Chavez move to exert greater control of their energy resources and challenge US plans for a hemispheric free trade zone. As the president of the Bolivian Senate, Santos Ramirez, noted: "Bolivia and Latin America are no longer the servile democracies that tolerate...poverty and the surrendering of sovereignty."

Early in May Morales announced that Bolivia would nationalize its energy resources, particularly its natural gas exports. While no foreign corporations were expropriated out right, Morales made it clear that “the looting of our natural resources by foreign enterprises is over.”
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=10330

[BREMPRO]

53. Bush again showing his true constituency..

not to US citizens interests, but to the narrow interests of multi-national oil companies and their control of resources for profit. If other SA countries follow Venezuela and Bolivia's lead, nationalizing their energy industries and use the profits to help their citizens, there is less windfall profit available for Exxon etc and their investors. What he means by "erosion of democracy", is erosion of corporate control... the irony is we here in the US are experiencing significantly more of an erosion of democracy than Venezuela and Bolivia- where the will of our public is subverted by corporate elites and crooked politicians. CHavez has offered discounted heating oil to low income citizens in US states- what has Exxon done for you lately? So obviously hypocritical it's pathetic.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

65. Property rights first, human rights second. Says it all, innit? -nt

[Tight_rope]

66. No argument from me...Been saying a new Mafia called Bushco has...

been running this country for years.

[Cha]

67. I like Chavez and I want

him and his guards to watch his back even closer!

Who knew the USA would have an idiot murdering smirk for a pResident and many Americans would be cheering on ..a South American country President to Victory over their own misleader? It's a no-brainer.