WE WERE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THESE WERE MASS PRODUCED IN ITALY

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A labor rights group alleged Tuesday that crucifixes sold in religious gift shops in the U.S. are produced under “horrific” conditions in a Chinese factory with more than 15-hour work days and inadequate food.

“It’s a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.

Kernaghan held a news conference in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong, where he said crosses sold at the historic church and elsewhere are made.





Kernaghan said the factory’s mostly young, female employees work from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week and are paid 26 cents an hour with no sick days or vacation. Workers live in filthy dormitories and are fed a watery “slop.”





Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been “under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy.”



Dongguan lies at the center of China’s export manufacturing industry, which relies heavily on low wages to remain competitive. Factories there have been accused in the past of labor abuses, including those making products for McDonald’s, Disney, Mattel and the Beijing Olympics.

National Labor Committee: http://www.nlcnet.org/

DRINKING THE US CORPORATE MEDIA KOOL-AID: A CASE STUDY

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So you thought the US government had to overthrow the Venezuelan government because the constitution referendum for December 2nd is:

• going to nationalize the central bank which will lead to the dumping of huge reserves in devalued dollar denominated funds ,

• going to end the monopolies on food distribution currently held by the oligarchy which is used by them for political ends,

• going to allocate state revenues directly to neighborhood councils rather than the corrupt, patronage-infested municipal and state governments,

• going to allow the executive to declare a state of emergency and intervene in the media in the face of violent activity to overthrow the constitution, allowing dissent but also allowing democracy to defend itself against the enemies of freedom,

• going to accelerate Venezuela’s moves from political to social transformation,

• and from a capitalist welfare state toward democratic socialism,

• is going to expand a virulent case of anti-neoliberal, ‘class against class’ war, in which the entire future US "Latin American Empire" is at stake.
  

• going to mitigate against Washington’s hold on its biggest oil supplier.

Or is this what you thought

• is going to allow Chavez to run for reelection indefinitely ... (unlike our allies Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia who both declare martial law to remain in office indefinably because an election would send them fleeing for the next border).

• plus, the King of Spain doesn't like him

• and he has big lips

Well now there is an even bigger reason to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Compared to the "DynCorp pesticide, death squad democracy" the US created next door for the Colombians a study finds that the Venezuelan people are happier and more satisfied and more well adjusted.



Thanks to BoRev.Net for pointing out this study.

The Chilean polling firm Latinobarómetro has released a report on what the Latin Americans are thinking. Comparing the citizens of Venezuela against Colombia...

• How would you describe in general, the current economic situation of the country. Would you say that it is very good, good, etc

Venezuela 52
Colombia 20

• In the next few months do you believe, in general, the economic situation in the country will be much better, a little better, etc

Venezuela 60
Colombia 31

• Imagine the following situation: Two people, same age, working as computer programmers, doing the same job. One earns more than the other but their work is faster, more efficient and more reliable. Do you consider this pay differential just.

Venezuela 65
Colombia 48

• Do you agree that the privatization of state business has been beneficial?

(Incongruent. Must be a measure of overall satisfaction)
Venezuela 47
Colombia 33

• It is said that the state can resolve the problems of our society because they have the resources to do this. Do you think that the state can resolve your problems

Venezuela 67
Colombia 36

• How just do you believe the distribution of earnings are in the country. Here answer for only very just or just

Venezuela 55
Colombia 17

• In all countries there are differences and conflicts between different social groups. In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between the rich and the poor. Answers only for very strong or more strong

Venezuela 68
Colombia 84

• In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between business owners and workers. Answers only for very stron or more strong

Venezuela 54
Colombia 74

• In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between different racial groups. Answers only for very strong or more strong

Venezuela 43
Colombia 65

• In your opinion, how strong is the conflict between men and women. Answers only for very strong or more strong

Venezuela 47
Colombia 63

• Where a "0" is left wing and "10" is right wing, where do you locate yourself on this scale

Venezuela 5.26
Colombia 5.81

• In general, would you say that you are satisfied with the way functioning of democracy in your country?

Venezuela 59
Colombia 32

• How much confidence do you have in the political parties. Here answer only for much or some.

Venezuela 36
Colombia 18

• There are different opinions about access to justice in the country. Do you believe that people have equal opportunity to justice.

Venezuela 38
Colombia 23

• Have you are a family member been a victim of a crime in the last twelve months.

Venezuela 49
Colombia 34


And finally,

• Would you say that you are very satisfied, well satisfied, etc. with the education to which you have access.

Venezuela 74
Colombia 62





So the question is:

• Do you think the people of Colombia would like to trade places with Venezuela?

• Do you think the people of Colombia would like to have a Chavez rather than a Uribe?

If you answered yes then you would be right, and that is a big problem for the US

GRAFFITI: Universidad Nacional, Bogota
´Paramilitary working for Justice and Peace´ This piece refers to the impunity given to the crimes of ´demobilized´ paramilitaries by the Justice and Peace Law

DONT SERVE THE KOOL-AID!!

'a censored press' leads to 'hypocrisy', the greatest of vices...the government hears only its own voice...surrenders to the illusion that it hears the voice of the people...The people on its side falls either into political superstition or else into indifference, and so turns completely away from the life of the state

-C. Wright Mills

MICHAEL BARKER RESOURCE

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO ORGANIZATIONS
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Explanation






Explanation



Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia and writes on the question

"It seems that only when the wider progressive community has critically engaged with the work of the “democratic” proponents of civil disobedience, can activists begin to be more sure that they are adopting the most suitable strategies to enable our planet to move toward

• a high-intensity participatory democracy,

rather than

• a low-intensity neoliberal “democracy” or polyarchy."

All Articles by Michael Barker - ZNET

Michael James Barker’s Weblog

Articles by Michael Barker - Green Left Weekly

Michael Barker in Venezuelanalysis.com

DEBUNKING GLOBALIZATION THROUGH THE IDIOCY OF THOMAS FRIEDMAN

The World is Flat?
A large resource base

The Continuing Nuisance of Thomas Friedman

UPDATE:

Thanks to the commenter for providing this additional resouce.

The sadism and idiocy of Thomas Friedman

"MR. KING, DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE COUP D'ETAT

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...the king had "got very mad, like a bull. But I'm a great bullfighter - olé!"...Mr King, we are not going to shut up."

"perhaps Aznar thinks he is Fernando VII and we are still a colony. No, Carabobo [a battle of independence] already happened. Aznar, Ayacucho [another battle during the wars of independence] already occurred. The Spanish empire was already thrown out of here almost 200 years ago Aznar. Let those who stick their noses in Venezuela take note that we will not accept it."


United Left, a Spanish political party, qualified Juan Carlos' statements as "excessive." Willy Meyer, spokesperson for the party, said that Juan Carlos behaved as if he was still in the 15th or 16th centuries. "The King can't tell the Spanish President to shut up," he said, "and doesn't have the right to do this to others outside of Spain."

By attacking Juan Carlos, Chávez may cast himself as a true Venezuelan patriot fighting against the domineering attitude of the old Spanish Empire. It's a move that plays well to the Chavista base and Venezuelans' sense of national pride.

...Josefina Carbaño from San Juan de Los Morros questioned the authority of Juan Carlos to make such pronouncements. "A king imposed by the dictatorship of General Franco has no moral or political authority to silence the President of Venezuela," she said.


In 1969 Juan Carlos was formally designated Prince of Spain and heir apparent to fascist dictator, General Francisco Franco. Juan Carlos often performed official and ceremonial state functions alongside Franco before proclaiming a constitutional monarchy after the dictator's death in 1975.

ALL THORNS NO ROSES

Mark Almond is Lecturer in History at Oriel College, Oxford. He has visited Georgia a dozen times since 1992 on behalf of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group and (in 1995) the Norwegian Helsinki Human Rights Group. He only expresses his own opinions.

...the myth of People Power has been tarnished once more by the reality of the power struggles and back-stabbing among yesteryear’s “reformers”.

Georgia’s revolution in 2003 was actually been cited as a model by Western media for the saffron-robed monks of Burma protesting against the military government there.[6]

Many of the Western groups who funded and trained the so-called “rose revolutionaries” in Georgia in 2003 have been behind the scenes of the “saffron revolution” in Burma. If Burma’s military rulers should go the way of Eduard Shevardnadze will Burma fall through the floor into the same politics of corruption, drugs smuggling and backstabbing which have pock-marked Georgia’s tragic post-Soviet history.

The Economist and so-called human rights watchdogs like the Council of Europe have a lamentable record of fellow travelling with successive corrupt and cruel regimes

Washington Post’s Peter Baker who gushed about the new class ruling Georgia in 2004:

Western media like The Economist and CIA-endorsed outfits like the Jamestown Foundation attribute all the smuggling in the Gori region to the neighbouring breakaway province of South Ossetia, local school children know...

Every “People Power” revolution has had its murder mystery from shooting of Benigno Aquino on his return to Manila in August, 1983...death of Prime Minister, Zurab Zhvania, due to a gas leak while paying a late-night visit to the apartment of a young male friend in Tbilisi on 3rd February, 2005, never convinced many people in Georgia that Zhvania’s death was an accident.[25]

Zhvania had been a potential rival to Saakashvili for the presidency having enjoyed Shevardnadze’s patronage too and acted as his premier before shifting to the new Western-backed reformer,

the true power behind Saakashvili’s throne. ...Okruashvili accused Gigi Bokeria of destroying a church for gain.

Mr Bokeria is at the heart of the inner circles of the global People Power enterprise.

• He was the Rose Revolutionary who ran the Soros-funded Liberty Institute

• and organised the Kmara (Enough) youth movement

• which was the public face of the mob which gathered to storm the Parliament building on 23rd November, 2003.

• An index of how influential Mr Bokeria is was the glimpse of him smoking a large cigar [!] in the Washington offices of Bruce Jackson, NATO-expander-in-chief and LOckheedMartinMarieta alumnus, in the French documentary film Revolution.com.

...wanted the Georgian oligarch, Badri Patarkatsishvili removed by a car bomb was only one of the sensational allegations made by the ex-defence minister on the television channel, Imedi, which is a joint-venture between Mr Patarkatsishvili and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Badri Patarkatsishvili has links to both Russia’s exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky as well as to Rupert Murdoch. Berezovsky and Murdoch enjoy intimate contacts. Back in September, 2004, “Mudlark” put an intriguing item in his column in the Financial Times entiled, “Kremlinology”: “Rupert Murdoch and exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky had lunch yesterday at the Savoy Grill....

Badri Patarkatsishvili met Murdoch in New York on 25th September.[31] At about the same time as the Badri-Murdoch summit, Okruashvili appeared on their Georgian television channel, Imedi, to launch his sensational charges against President Saakashvili.

As his relations with the Saakashvili regime soured, on 31st October, it was announced by Imedi TV that Badri had “granted his shares” to Murdoch’s News Corp.[32] Then Badri flew back from his London base, home to so many distressed oligarchical folk, and announced modestly, ““I am not a person with an experience in staging demonstrations,

...Badri’s words echo the classic sentiments offered by People Power advocates denying their ambition for high office. Who said? “The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all...Those were Vaclav Havel’s sentiments as he embarked on his march on Prague Castle and twelve years in office! With Okruashvili’s forced exile, maybe Badri is stepping up to the plate as Georgia’s next Great White Hope...

...Having demanded media freedom for their onslaught against Shevardnadze in 2003, Bokeria’s former colleagues in the Liberty Institute drafted a media bill backed by the Georgian government which would have regulated what journalists could say...

...At the beginning of 2007, Richard Holbrooke, the would-be next Democratic Secretary of State declared, “the 38-year-old Saakashvili represents almost everything the United States and the European Union should support."[39] But as the year progressed ominous signs appeared that the Georgian President was no longer the darling of the West...

...Even the new hyper-active President of France who celebrated victory night by denouncing Russia’s “crimes” in Chechnya has distanced himself from his Georgian counterparts Russophobe rhetoric...

...The surprise visit of NATO secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, later on 3rd October was an indication of how alarmed Western security circles were by the developments in Georgia...

...Then at the beginning of November, Washington’s point man for People Power, Assistant Secretary of State, Dan Fried, appeared in Tbilisi and met the opposition leaders...

...When will Georgetown or Oxford or the Central European University, let alone Transparency International analyse the family trees of the public officials whose salaries George Soros pledged to pay out of his own funds to put corruption in the dustbin of Georgia’s history...

...On 6th January, 2004, the Soros-US taxpayer co-funded website “Transitions online” reported on “Georgia: A President without a palace”...

...for readers relying on Transitions online for information, the magazine never got around to telling them that before long Mr Saakashvili decided that populism is good but palaces are better...

...But surely the Open Society advocates and civil society NGOs in the West along with the Council of Europe, OSCE and inter-governmental human rights agencies ought to sit up and take notice. Consistency on human rights observation has never been one of the virtues of the OSCE and Council of Europe and their incestuous friends in the NGO community. Georgian regimes have got away with murder...

...Ordinary Georgians have seen no benefit from the coups in 1991 and again in 2003 which were hailed in the West as “People Power” pure and simple. However disillusioned Georgians and other long-suffering people around the world may be with the West’s cult of revolution, so long as bogus revolutions to suit geo-strategic purposes can be passed off as the work of the people,...

...dissidents in Georgia are only interviewed by key Western media or quoted by the International Crisis Group when the regime’s fate has been decided in Washington...

...will recall the sudden appearance of an anti-Shevardnadze article by Georgetown’s Charles King in the National Interest in 2001.[61] Early in the current crisis, a similar “Nina Andreevna”-style...

...When Zviad Gamsakhurdia sought asylum in the West after the pro-Shevardnadze Putsch...Now his son, Konstantin, is received in the halls of influence by some of the same long-serving political elite who derided his father. Saakashvili knows that such people don’t host luckless outsiders, only potential future insiders...

...Maybe Okruashvili’s spell in the Isolator will give him Khodorkovsky-style credentials: he can be sold as a martyr...but maybe Okruashvili’s video-confession will discredit him – opening the way for a more plausible anti-corruption champion like Salome Zurabishvili...Already using the presidential third person when speaking of herself, Ms. Zurabishvili may have grounds for seeing herself as the Benzir Bhutto of the Caucasus.

...There will be little comfort for Saakashvili that the Council of Europe’s Secretary-General, Terry Davis, was the rapporteur who approved Georgia’s...

GWOT RESOURCE

This website is the result of research which began shortly after September 11th 2001, at which time it soon became apparent that the "War on Terrorism" is merely a smoke screen that masks a hidden agenda. That agenda being the plan to shake-up the Middle East in favour of US "interests", primarily being the security of energy resources which are known to be in decline due to increasing global demand. The neoconservatives in Washington see this as vital if American global leadership is to continue. By declaring a 'War on Terrorism' the Bush administration was in fact going to invade other countries under the pretence of 'fighting the war on terror'. The attacks on 9/11 served as an ideal pretext to kick-start this plan.

There is no doubt that elements within the Saudi government/royal family were heavily involved with the hijacking plot. Pakistan's intelligence service (ISI), having long established ties with both the CIA and Saudi intelligence, also played a key part. It is clear that US intelligence knew in advance of the impending attacks, but took no action to stop them. Was this monumental incompetence or wilful neglect? America's use of Islamic militants for political purposes has a long history - further "independent" investigation could uncover CIA complicity.

Released under the Freedom of Infomation Act - The Cheney Energy Task Force documents feature a map of Iraqi oil-fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as the foreign suitors for Iraqi oil-field contracts - dated March 2001

EXTENDED SUPPLY LINES

the 24,000 U.S. troops who are stationed in Afghanistan would likely run out of fuel within a matter of days.

The U.S. military is now burning about 575,000 gallons of fuel per day in Afghanistan.

• 80 percent of that fuel is coming from refineries in Pakistan.

• only one other fuel supply line that extends more than 1,000 miles from northern Afghanistan to refineries in Baku, Azerbaijan and Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan. Fuel from the refinery in Baku is loaded on rail cars, put on barges that then traverse the Caspian Sea. When they land in Turkmenistan, they follow a circuitous rail route through Uzbekistan before they arrive at the Afghan border where the fuel is then transferred to trucks.

The long supply lines to the Caspian Sea underscore the importance of the Pakistani fuel.

Some 700 tanker trucks were being used to deliver the fuel and some of the trucks were taking a month or more to make a round trip delivery from their starting points in Pakistan. On some occasions, the U.S. military had as much as 4.7 million gallons of motor fuel in transit between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition to the sheer volume of fuel, Jennings and his team were dealing with pilferage, accidents, trucker strikes and cultural barriers.

By mid-2006, the total fuel storage capacity for forces operating out of the air bases at Kabul and Bagram was less than 3 million gallons. Although a contractor working for the U.S. military is now building an additional 3 million gallons of storage capacity at Bagram Air Base,

ALL LAMB, NO LION

Geoff Pevere
Movie Critic


...may prove most effective as a demonstration (as opposed to an antidote) of the political desperation that hamstrings the American middle-left.

The larger backdrop here is Bush's catastrophic 21st-century foreign policy, an incalculably grim situation the movie correctly identifies as the result of a number of equally culpable agencies:

• a media far more interested in entertaining and profiting than enlightening or challenging;

• a culture far more engineered toward consumption than action and

• a political system that cynically lets ends dictate means no matter how many may die in the spin cycle.

Redford's movie is astonishingly naïve, like something made by someone who's recently woken from a seven-year coma and found themselves transfixed in horror by CNN.

...may ultimately serve its most noble purpose in a hopefully more reasonable future when people are desperately trying to figure out just how out of touch the alleged opposition to Bushworld actually was.

• The answer, if this movie can be taken as any indication, is very out of touch indeed.

OTPOR (SERBIA) GOES TO VENEZUELA

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As a leader of Otpor (now called Canvas) meets with people in Colorado Springs and at Colorado College, it might be of interest to follow the trail of Otpor to Venezuela, and efforts of the US to overthrow Hugo Chavez there.

Contrary to how Otpor represents itself, it is not just a group of nice Serbian student leaders from Belgrade, that through Gandhi inspired tactics non-violently overthrew Milosevic in the wake of a very violent US war on Yugoslavia. The story is quite a bit more complex than that, so we follow their trail to Venezuela.

To understand the following Reuters report dated back in 2003, though, one must first realize that Otpor is connected with ‘The Albert Einstein Institute’ of which Colonel Robert Helvey is an integral part of. This is a US government run operation designed to link Gandhian methods of nonviolent protest to Pentagon and US State Department efforts to overthrow foreign governments. Hence, we move from Belgrade to Caracas as the US government goes after Hugo Chavez. It’s Gandhi in the service of the Pentagon to help make a coup!


US democracy expert teaches Venezuelan opposition
By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 30, 2003 (Reuters) - Retired U.S. army colonel Robert Helvey has trained pro-democracy activists in several parts of the world so he knows something about taking on military regimes and political strongmen.

Now he is imparting his skills in Venezuela, invited by opponents of President Hugo Chavez who accuse the leftist leader of ruling like a dictator in the world’s No. 5 oil exporter.

Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university.

Helvey, a former U.S. military attache in Burma and now a consultant with the private U.S. Albert Einstein Institution

But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime.

In the mid 1990s, he traveled to the Thailand/Myanmar border to give classes in non-violent resistance to exiled Burmese students opposing the military junta in their country.

His former students remember him as “Bob.”

“He used his military skills in strategic planning for non-violent protest methods … Everybody was fascinated by Bob, because he was a military man and was applying that to non-violence,” Aung Naing Oo, former foreign secretary for the All Burma Students Democratic Front, told Reuters.

WHAT DOES RADIO B92 - BELGRADE THINK?

...members of the Venezuelan students’ resistance movement, traveled all the way to Belgrade to gain a first-hand insight into the experience of Serbia’s students and Otpor (Resistance) members, who fought against the former regime in the second half of the 1990s.

• Ronel Galo, Estudiante de Comunicación Social de la UMA

• Geraldine Alvarez, Universidad Católica Andres Bello, Consejera Universitaria UCAB, Venezuelan Students Movement

• Rodrigo Diamanti, Egresado UCAB

• Eliza Totaro, Estudiante de Comunicación Social UCAB

Eliza Totaro said,

“Our government accused us of working for CIA, branded us terrorists and criminals trained by foreign governments and branded by the regime as "foreign mercenaries and traitors,"



Well, this group *was* in Belgrade to be trained by this CIA front group, with story here


GET YOUR TALKING POINTS HERE


This is what the CIA, Radio B92 and this group of Venezuelan Student leaders think of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been known for his

• statements against Washington,

• sharp criticism of what he calls "the imperialist capitalism",

• forced nationalization of companies and

• even schools and

• a rather odd request to move the country's time zone “so as to offer a more equitable distribution of sunlight to his people.”

On top of that, his regime is characterized by a

• complete control of the media, and a fact that,

• despite immense oil reserves,

• life standards in Venezuela are not improving, with the

• human rights violated on an almost daily basis.

Chavez is primarily concerned with his

• appearances in media, and with

• attracting attention by criticizing U.S. President George Bush.

• craving for media attention.

• more time apparently fighting Bush and the imperialism,

• instead of trying to curb poverty on his own doorstep,”

“He used to be very popular at the beginning of his career, but the

• citizens of Venezuela are becoming aware as time goes by that he failed to live up to their high expectations,”

• The students fear that the Chavez regime will grow to be even more repressive, but still

• harbor hope they will learn from the experience of their Serbian colleagues and successfully fight for freedom and respect of human rights in their country.

How about these revolutionary students and their very nice road trip to Belgrade while the real revolutionary students are fighting for reforms in the barrios of Venezuela.

LEFT WING VERSUS RIGHT WING IN CARACAS VENEZUELA

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THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION VERSUS "DADDY'S BMW" REVOLUTION

• The supporters of Hugo Chavez and the Constitutional reforms come from the left hand side of this photo

• The student opposition movement in Venezuela comes from the right hand side of this photo. They are opposed to the constitutional reforms and are in the streets because they do not have the votes to defeat it.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF STUDENT MOVEMENT

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They have began to call it the Marigold Revolution but in reality it is the..

• Bolivarian Revolution versus

• Daddy's BMW Revolution

Washington’s New Imperial Strategy In Venezuela
May 13th 2007, by Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com ,

link

Behind Venezuela's "Student Rebellion"
June 11th 2007, by George Ciccariello-Maher - CounterPunch

link

Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Instigating Student Violence
November 9th 2007, by Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com

link

Pro-Chavez Students Blame Opposition Students for Violence at University
November 9th 2007, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com

link

USAID in Bolivia and Venezuela: The Silent Subversion
September 12th 2007, by Eva Golinger

link

The Nature of CIA Intervention in Venezuela
Philip Agee interviewed by
Jonah Gindin, March 23, 2005 Venezuelanalysis.com

link

The Battle for Global Civil Society
William I. Robinson interviewed by
Jonah Gindin June 13, 2005 Venezuelanalysis.com

link

US Continues Destabilisation Push in Venezuela
Eva Golinger interviewed by
Sam King July 03, 2007 Green Left Weekly

link

NED Back on the Offensive in Venezuela
by Eva Golinger November 28, 2004 VHeadline

link

Washington's 'three fronts of attack' on Venezuela
by Eva Golinger November 27, 2006 Green Left Weekly

link

THESE "STUDENTS LEADERS":

• Stalin González, chairman of UCV's Students Association:

• Nixon Moreno

• Freddy Guevara,

• Rodrigo Diamante,

• Yon Goicoechea, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello

• Douglas Barrios, Metropolitan University of Caracas, Movimiento Estudiantil Mayo 2007

TRAINED BY:

• Centre for Applied NonViolent Action & Strategies - CANVAS

WHICH IS SIMILAR TO GROUPS LIKE:

• International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

• THE ALBERT EINSTEIN INSTITUTION

FINANCED BY:

• National Endowment for Democracy

• USAID

• Freedom House

• ...and others

WINNERS WRITE HISTORY

.

...and losers rewrite history continually as bills come due, consequences surface, newly revealed errors and shortcomings must be excused, and heavier blame must be shifted onto backs sturdy enough to bear it.

It looks like a bunch of bills are coming due.

Case in point: Michael Abramowitz's insider-propelled backgrounder in the Washington Post, U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions tries to explain why, despite its brave talk, the Bush administration isn't getting anything done on Darfur.

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



I became interested in Darfur when I became aware of the fact of an "obviously engineered" "Save Darfur" bandwagon. A bandwagon engineered by the "humanitarian interventionist" division of the US War Party.

The part of the CIA that did this kind of operation was shut down in the '70's by Frank Church, etc and then subsequently outsourced by Ronald Reagan to organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, George Soros' Open Society Institute with the CIA theory and management developed by Robert Helvey and Gene Sharp at the Albert Einstein Institution.

The "giveaway" that it is an "engineered operation" is that there is "no context". Now "no context" is a rule of not only propaganda but also of "humanitarian intervention" operations. If the "no context" rule doesn't work then disinformation is substituted.

Here is some good context from China Matters This isn't all the story or even 100% accurate, but it is an interesting place to start.

One riff in the article that I find interesting is the "I can be your friend or your enemy" ploy.

"The US engineered peace for Darfur, commonly known as Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) is both "fake and unsustainable"...Its prime engineer Mr Robert Zoelick and his arch Experts produced a document...the only other signatory of the DPA was Minni Minnawi and his SLM fraction...Lashing Minnawi to sign the agreement, Mr Zoelick warned him: "I could be a very good friend but could also be a nasty enemy"

The segment concludes with this observation, ...any agreement that is an outcome of bullying cannot guarantee "lasting and sustainable peace".

We encountered this same ploy in Pervez Musharraf's recent book where he explains that he entered into the USA GWOT because of a call from State Dept Richard Armitage who threaten that Pakistan would be bombed back into the Stone Age should the Pakistani leader refuse to join the U.S. fight against al Qaeda.

In John Perkins book, "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption", he explains that his job was to subvert elected officials with a line similar to this, “Look, you know, if you play our game, I can make you and your family very healthy. I can make sure that you get very rich. If you don’t play our game, if you follow your campaign promises, you may go the way of Allende in Chile or Arbenz in Guatemala or Lumumba in the Congo.”

The Fall of Northwestern Pakistan: An Online History

By Bill Roggio September 13, 2006 10:16 AM

Documenting the Taliban's rise to power in Waziristan and beyond over the course of 2006 and 2007

NWFP/FATA map. Red agencies/ districts controlled by the Taliban; yellow under threat. Click map to view.


Northwestern Pakistan, including the tribal belts. Click to view

A POWERFUL IDEA

On the other hand, for all the foibles, follies and crimes against humanity committed by communist regimes, the concept of a society of equals where exploitation isn’t the norm and the primary focus is on the common good of all rather than on profits, remains a powerful idea.

HEY BUDDY, TAKE A BREAK FROM THE PROPAGANDA AND REVIEW A FEW FACTS

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Source

Bush's Agenda in Iran

By Reese Erlich, AlterNet. Posted October 3, 2007.

• On Sept. 26, by a vote of 76-22, the Senate passed a "sense of the Senate" resolution calling on the United States to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.

• The Bush administration is preparing public opinion for a possible bombing attack on Iran.

• The White House is using the same propaganda techniques to whip up popular opinion

• Iran has no nuclear weapons and couldn't have them for years.

• it has no proof of Iranian plans to build nuclear bombs.

• EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) are easily made in Iraqi machine shops and can be purchased commercially for mining operations.

• For years Iran has given political, economic and military support to Shia and Kurdish militias, but

• the administration has never proven that Iran is intentionally targeting U.S. soldiers.

• Iran does not plan, nor does it have the capability of "wiping Israel off the map."

• Iran does support Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, but such support does not constitute a threat of Jewish annihilation.

• The U.S. and Israeli governments consciously distort and exaggerate Iran's threat in order to justify immediate military action.

• For two years the United States has helped splinter groups among Iran's ethnic minorities to blow up buildings, assassinate Revolutionary Guards and kill civilians in an effort to destabilize the Tehran regime.

• They hope to launch a massive bombing campaign which will so weaken Tehran that the regime will fall and Iranians will see the United States as their savior.

• The people of Iran, leading democracy advocates and even conservative Iranian-American exile groups oppose an attack.

• They understand that U.S. bombs falling on Tehran will only rally people behind the current government.

• Akbar Ganji wrote, "Even speaking about the possibility of a military attack on Iran makes things extremely difficult for human rights and pro-democracy activists in Iran.

• No Iranian wants to see what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan repeated in Iran."

In reality, a U.S. attack would be disastrous.

• Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 25 percent of the world's oil supplies pass.

• Oil prices would skyrocket.

• Iran could encourage Hizbollah to launch missiles into Israel.

• Muslims would hold demonstrations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

• Iran could mobilize that anger and encourage Shiite parties in Iraq to attack U.S. troops.

• Iran could encourage terrorist attacks inside the United States and in allied countries.

• Syria's President Bashar al-Asad in 2006, he said, "If you do a military strike, you will have chaos. It's very dangerous."

The United States does to Iran what it accuses Iran of doing in Iraq.

Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK-- posters of Ocalan hung on the wall along with the PKK flag

Reese Erlich's book, "The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of US Policy and the Middle East Crisis," will be published in September 2007. See his interviews with Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and other Iranian opposition leaders at: motherjones.com/iran_dissidents.
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TO CHANGE IRAN'S BEHAVIOR, WE MUST CHANGE OUR OWN

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Trita Parsi, author of the newly released Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. (Yale; http://www.treacherous­alliance.com), is president of the National Iranian American Council.

Rootless Cosmopolitan Iran, the Inflatable Bogey

source

1. Iran is ripe for regime change.

Not true.

the current choice Iranians face is not between Islamic tyranny and democratic freedom. It is between chaos and stability. The increased tensions with the United States over the past year have only strengthened the government's hold on power by limiting the space for prodemocracy activists


2. Iran is irrational and cannot be deterred.

Not true.

Iran is engaged in... cautious maneuvering toward a set goal: decontainment and the re-emergence of Iran as a pre-eminent power in the Middle East.

Iran often conceals its real objectives behind layers of ideological rhetoric, with the aim of confusing potential enemies and making its policies more attractive to the Muslim nations it seeks to lead.

During the Lebanon war of 2006, Israel signaled Tehran's leaders that it would retaliate against Iran if Hezbollah struck Tel Aviv with long-distance missiles.

3. Iran is inherently anti-American.

Not quite.

as long as Washington continues to seek a regional order based on excluding Iran, Iran will likely play on anti-Americanism to make Washington's policy of exclusion as costly as possible

4. Enrichment equals a nuclear bomb.

Not necessarily.

... does not mean that a small-scale Iranian enrichment program is tantamount to a nuclear bomb. ... intrusive inspections is the best tool to ensure that Iran doesn't divert its civilian program into a military one. ... inspections can only take place as part of a package deal with Iran that includes some level of enrichment.

5. Iran seeks Israel's destruction.

False.

The major shifts in Israeli-Iranian relations, .... have occurred because of changing strategic--not ideological--realities. ... realpolitik has prevailed. But Iran does not seek Israel's destruction, nor does its attitude toward Israel lack pragmatism. In 2002 Iran signaled that it was prepared to adopt a "Malaysian profile" on Israel. Iran would, much like Malaysia, be an Islamic state that would not recognize Israel and would occasionally criticize it but would not directly confront the Jewish state. Though Iran has a new and more radical president today, it is still ruled by the same Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,

6. The pressure on Iran is working.

Questionable.

In fact, after twelve years of sanctions Iran is more powerful and more defiant than ever. The combination of ineffective sanctions and unrealistic demands will get the United States nowhere.

7. Stability in the Middle East can be achieved only through Iran's isolation.

Quite the contrary.

History teaches us that an Iran that isn't part of the region's security architecture will be more destabilizing...In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, ... The policy was called "dual containment," the idea being that the United States would advance the Middle East peace process by containing both Iran and Iraq. ... And the weakest link in the American strategy was the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. ... Though Iran wasn't solely responsible for the collapse of the peace process, it did contribute to undermining it by supporting rejectionist Palestinian organizations at a time when the United States was at the height of its power and when Tehran was in a very weak position. ... we must recognize that Iran's propensity to act as the spoiler will decline when it is included, not when it's excluded.

• only Washington can offer Tehran what it really seeks: decontainment and reintegration in the Middle East. ...

• Iran can make it costly for the United States not to recognize it as a regional power, but it cannot gain its seat at the table without American agreement.

• There is an underlying geopolitical imbalance that must be addressed. The previous order in the region has crumbled

• Creating a new regional order, ... is a recognition that stability in the region cannot be achieved and sustained through the current strategy of pursuing an order based on the exclusion of one of the region's most powerful nations.

• To change Iran's behavior, we must change our own.

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The Iran Agenda:

About the Book
Reese Erlich

Based on firsthand reporting in Iran and the United States, The Iran Agenda explores the turbulent recent history between the two countries and shows how it has led to a showdown over nuclear technology. In addition to covering the political story, Erlich offers firsthand insights on Iran's domestic politics, popular culture, and diverse population He also interviews the former Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, as well as the members of Southern California's large Iranian expatriate community and reports on their efforts to shape Iran's future.

Articles by Reese Erlich

MANTA AIR BASE. RENEW THE LEASE?

Prof. Fredy Rivera of the Latin American University for Social Sciences stated that Ecuadorians oppose the base primarily because they do not want to be involved in Plan Colombia, of which the base is an integral part.


The Plan is a U.S.-funded counter-insurgency strategy against leftist forces in Colombia, crudely disguised as a counter-narcotics operation.

Since 1999 Manta has been used as a military location for U.S. air forces in conjunction with Ecuador for supporting anti-narcotics military operations and for carrying out surveillance flights in a strategic warfare program against Colombian drug trafficking cartels called Plan Colombia. It also serves as a geographical look out point for the U.S. for any war craft heading north from the Middle East and Asia. A regular stop for U.S. Navy warships, Manta proves to be of importance for its location and for the respite it offers the U.S. military with its beauty and untrampled wilderness.

DESOLATION ROW

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They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row...

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row...

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

DOES IT SEEM A LITTLE SCREWY?

...well, join the group.

Senior Military, Intelligence, and Government Critics of 9/11 Commission Report

Many well known and respected senior members of the U.S. intelligence services, military, and government have publicly expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Several even allege government complicity in the terrible acts of 9/11.

This web site is an effort to collect and summarize these public statements and make them easily accessible. It should be made clear that none of these individuals are associated with this website.

THUS SPAKE TWAIN

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To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.

- Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903

THE BASIC EVOLUTION IS THAT...

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Source


Regarding the importance of economic justice, years ago economist Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Labor, told me that

"The basic evolution is that...

1. ...first you have political institutions that are controlled by the people and not special interest groups - that's political democracy.


2. After workers get the right to vote then you have industrial democracy, which means worker participation in the work place. That's collective bargaining. Most countries have taken that further than us.


3. Then there's social democracy where you have safety nets - a minimum level of welfare services. Every industrial country in the world is more developed in social democracy than us in, for example, health care and education.


4. Finally, there's economic democracy where individuals and not special interests control their economic institutions. Economic democracy strengthens all other forms of democracy. If you have economic democracy then people can't intimidate you when you vote."

JUDEO-FASCISM WEEK

On November 4, 1995, after a demonstration held in support of the Oslo Accords, held in Tel Aviv's "Kings of Israel Square" (Kikar Malkhey Yisrael כיכר מלכי ישראל, now "Rabin Square" - Kikar Rabin כיכר רבין), Amir awaited Rabin in the parking lot adjacent the square, close to Rabin's official limousine, where he shot Rabin twice with a Beretta 84F semi-automatic pistol in .380 ACP caliber (serial number D98231Y). During the act, Amir also injured Yoram Rubin, a security guard, with another shot.

the circumcision of Yigal Amir's (the assassin of Yitzak Rabin) newborn son is to fall precisely on the 12th anniversary of the November 4 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

There is Larissa Trimbobler, who plays the beloved if dubious Sarah to Yigal Amir's Shabtai Zvi. Trimbobler's stated intention to someday tell her son, not that his lifer father Yigal was a murderer, but that he "sacrificed himself for his people."

the hilltop hopheads, the gunslinger grunge and grange society of the wild West Bank, the Kahane worshippers, the Muslim-baiters dance and rejoice

TACTICS

National Endowment for Democracy sponsored, financed and organized opposition movements designed to overthrow governments are currently happening in

• Russia

• Myanmar

• Venezuela

• Zambia

• Belarus

• Bolivia

• Iran

• Chechnya

• North Korea

• East Turkestan - Uyghur

During the cold war this was a CIA operation but beginning in the Reagan administration it was outsourced to the NED

The principal tactic is

to provoke a confrontation. The goal of these protests is to provoke a heavy-handed reaction from the government, in order to create wider sympathy for the protesters, and to awaken discontent for the regime.

This is a common strategy in such movements, they're doing what it takes to awaken people's political consciousness. But to omit this fact from media accounts is incredibly misleading. You get the sense that they were denied the right to voice their opinion, and once they did, they were surprised by a vicious OMON attack which no one could have foreseen.

What horseshit. One Western journalist I know told me that he regretted not including his interview with one protest leader, who openly admitted that it was the opposition's strategy to provoke the authorities, into his article.

Russian human rights activists
Moscow Helsinki Group and the
Russian-Chechen Friendship Society
People In Need Foundation
Free NK Radio. The founder ...Kim Seung Min

NED in Canada

The networks of "democratic" interference
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BUSH MUST BE WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE MAP...

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...alternative translation...


..."the occupation regime over Washington must vanish from the page of time"



Which is it?

But, protested Bush, who had just been told by Putin that he wouldn’t even be allowed to launch a "surgical" attack – much less another war of aggression – against Iran from our "temporary" air base in Azerbaijan,

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel."

(That’s a lie, of course. Ahmadinejad has never made such an announcement.)

link

VENEZUELAN BISHOPS AT ODDS WITH THE GOVERNMENT

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Last October 19, the Venezuelan Bishop's Conference (CEV) published a statement, Call to Live in Freedom, expressing their view on the proposed changes to the Constitution. It rejected the proposed changes to the Constitution.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, in unexpected declarations to official television channel VTV

• "the Catholic bishops we have here are a shame,"

• "The communiqué the bishops published is a real shame, as they are aligning with a coup,"

after sending his condolences over the death of Rosalio Cardinal Castillo, who passed away last week.

• Chávez regretted that the late Cardinal "was wrong all of these years."

• "There you have these bishops misleading the country. May God forgive them! Oh, Lord, forgive them for their ignorance and their lack of sense. All of the bishops remained silent, and silence implies consent."

Venezuelan Ambassador to the Vatican Iván Rincón

• "Bishops want to go back, back to the past, to the old democracy that sowed hunger in the country. The Venezuelan Church is making people believe that the seeds of communism are being planted, but it is not true,"

In a phone interview with VTV show En Confianza (In Confidence), Rincón added

• he advocated a Church that is critic, yet acknowledges the things that are done.

• "I do not understand this document, as it denies everything we have achieved."

Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolás Maduro reacted to a document the Venezuelan Bishops' Conference (CEV) published last October 19 by claiming that

• "those bishops do not represent us the Catholics."

• "Ask the Catholic people, the people who are building a revolution in peace, who want to overcome five centuries of domination, exploitation, backwardness, and dependence. You should ask the Catholic people in the streets for their opinion" about the CEV communiqué, Maduro said.

With an air of resignation, Roman Catholic leaders here called the changes “morally unacceptable.”

With his customary flourish, Mr. Chávez accused the bishops of forgetting their principles.

• “If Christ was alive, was here physically,” the president said this week,“he would drive them away with the crack of a whip.”

DO IT NOW!

The whole goddamn congress, judicial and executive branches should be in a water boarding detention center being asked some very intrusive questions.

It is now time for patriots in the FBI, CIA, Military and other agencies to answer the call of the Declaration of Independence, and arrest these scumbags - all of them - and set up a provisional government until such time a constitutional government can be restored.

FBI-US ARMY-US AIRFORCE-PROVOST MARSHAL: Do your job, you took an oath, you are either "servants of the constitution", or you're toast.

DO IT NOW! The bread you put in your mouth is paid for by our toil. We quit toiling and you starve. Simple as that. It really is that simple - think about it.
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Cadavre | 11.02.07 - 1:11 pm | #

Comments Section

THE HAND THAT SIGNED THE PAPER

The Hand That Signed the Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

Dylan Thomas