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"...she accused (Venezuela) of 'attempting to influence neighbours away from democratic processes'."
1. Chavez has been repeatedly elected and endorsed by big majorities of Venezuelans in highly monitored elections. The OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center have all confirmed that Venezuelan elections are honest and aboveboard. The same cannot be said for the United States and the Bush junta and our completely NON-TRANSPARENT election in 2004, in which rightwing Bushite corporations (Diebold and ES&S) counted all the votes using 'TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code (they have open source in Venezuela) with virtually no audit/recount controls, and in which Republican operatives in Ohio and other states actively and illegally suppressed tens of thousands of black, poor, student and other Democratic votes.
2. Reality is exactly the OPPOSITE of what Rice is saying here. She accuses Venezuela of "attempting to influence neighbors AWAY from democratic processes." In truth, Chavez and Venezuela are part of a huge trend of previously UN-democratic countries TOWARD democratic processes. Chavez is a big supporter of Constitutional government, the rule of law, and open, fair elections, and Chavez/Venezuela are only one aspect of profound leftist revolution that is sweeping Latin America, with virtually the entire map of South America turning "blue" over the last few years, and leftist governments getting elected in BRAZIL, ARGENTINA, CHILE, URUGUAY, VENEZUELA and recently BOLIVIA, with PERU likely next. This huge, and deep, democratic/leftist trend is also moving north--it looks like MEXICO is going to elect the leftist mayor of Mexico City as president this year. Chavez is helping to inspire this profound peaceful revolution, but he is by no means alone. In BOLIVIA, for instance, they elected their first indigenous president, Evo Morales, who swamped the other candidates in a field of eight. He, too, campaigned on anti-imperialist themes--and in particular against Bechtel (which the Bolivians ejected from their country) and the murderous U.S. "drug war." In CHILE, they elected their first woman president, Michelle Batchelet, a woman who lost her family to Pinochet (US-backed dictator), and was herself tortured. BRAZIL, another leftist government, was the leader of a coalition of third world countries that revolted against the dictates of the US/World Bank cabal at the WTO meeting in Cancun a few years ago. Similarly, ARGENTINA has had it with US/World Bank imperialism and is actively seeking an independent economy. Chavez is as much a product of these developments, as he is a leader of it. This is a huge, GRASS ROOTS movement of the people of Latin America, based on TRANSPARENT elections. The Bushites cannot stop it. They cannot assassinate it. It is not dependent on one leader.
3. There is no way in hell that the Bush junta can "inoculate" anyone (whatever the hell that means) against the entire subcontinent of South America. They can try to inject whatever poison they will, but it simply will not work--the opposite is happening. The third world is inoculating itself against BUSH & CO. They are making their own decisions and forming their own economic, political and security alliances, and they couldn't care less what Condoleeza Rice thinks about it. The Bush regime is financially bankrupt. It has wasted and destroyed the U.S. military, and much of our government solidity and infrastructure. They're selling U.S. ports to the UAE shiekdom, for godssakes. And they have destroyed whatever goodwill the U.S. had in the world prior to the invasion of Iraq. Chavez speaks for much of the world. Condoleeza Rice speaks for a hated minority of billionaires and transnational corporations, and everybody knows it.
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