“Michael von Chavez on 11/01 at 7:52 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

Maybe because the protest movement is waning as the U.S. inches toward victory and is just no picking up steam in Venezuela. Further, all this talk about “class interests” is absurd. Chavez is setting up the sytem so that he becomes president for life. Surely, nobody here approves of that?”

You should listen to the reports from returning troops instead of Faux News.  Over 2,000,000 Iraqis are now refugees, and the remainder of the country has divided into hardened enclaves that are amassing arms and waiting for us to pull back so they can get down to a serious civil war.

On October 27, more than 100,000 Americans took to the streets in protest of this war, and like every other antiwar protest, the supposedly ‘left wing’ media either ignores it or under reports it. 

If you believe this lie about progress in Iraq, its only because you’ve believed the rest of Bush’s lies, and want some redemption.

Well, sorry, but you’ve been fooled again.
I’m more worried about Bush setting himself up as Emperor for life than Hugo Chavez.

Hugo should run for the US Presidency.  He’d have my vote.

Did you see anything about the PEACEFUL demonstration in Caracas on Sunday?

Imagine that! 100,000 or more in the street, no rocks, bottles, etc. Boring, or not to the liking of the MSM?

Regarding #111224 by Leonel:

Leonel, YOU need to watch and learn:

http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/feb /video/dnB20060215a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=29:31

You really think you have to be a Marxist or at least a socialist, a “lefty” as you put it, to be against blatant, rank deceipt? American onservatives AND liberals are naive as heck for the most part. They have no idea what’s really going on, and those in power expertly use our “free” media to manipulate you while they snicker in derision. They love to talk about the “liberal” media because most REPORTERS indeed tend to be liberally biased (about 60% last time I saw reliable estimates).

They neglect to mention that the editing staff are beholden to the owners who have the ultimate say in what is publishable and what’s not. Guess who they represent? Pretty much the same people for whom our government effectively works, maybe? Sit down and do some serious viewing of the video at the link above. I’ve been around a bit and I’m not stuck with a tourist view of the world, since I speak several languages and make a point of mixing with the local populace wherever I go. Most Americans are completely clueless about our real role in the world and the kind of dirty pool we play. Ask yourself why THAT doesn’t ever make it into our media if it’s truly free? Oh, actually, it may make it in. A lot of what you see on here in truthdig is pulled from mainstream media. They just never make the headlines, which is where most people get off. No, they do “balanced” reporting. They just put the real nitty-gritty on Z-31!

Yeah, you can rent a helicopter and drop all the leaflets you want without getting arrested, but all the mainstream media have to do is call you radical and most Americans will remain as duped as ever. That’s much more effective than having you arrested, isn’t it? Can you legitimately call that a free, informative press that allows our citizenry to vote or develop any kind of significant political will for positive change?

Regarding #111180 by Eric Barth:

Eric, did you read my post #111067? That’s exactly the kind of thing Gaghan was referring to in his interview on Charlie Rose.

Matt, “comupins” means come-up-ance?

To David Eccles #111157,

Right you are. But the analogy needs more extreme components to fit the reality. The TV station not only called for the extrajudicial overthrow of Chavez, it took an active part in the planning and execution of the US involved ‘02 Coup which included the kidnapping of Chavez, the armed occupation of the government complex, disbanding the legislature and shutting down the Supreme Court.
Therefore, a more accurate analogy would be: If CBS called for a coup to overthrow the Bush regime from 2001 until 2005 and then took an active part in the coup which involved the armed kidnapping of Bush, the disbanding of Congress and the shutdown of the Supreme Court, would the Bush regime wait two years and then just deny CBS’s license renewal. Obviously, Bush, the sadist, would have everyone and their relatives imprisoned and all the principals (and 1 step removed) tortured with the state media pumped up “right wing” cheering them on.
As others have inferred in their comments, imagine if demonstrators in the US (even as affluently dressed as those in the video) had attacked the police and repeatedly smashed them with iron grates etc. No doubt in my mind, there would likely be dead demonstrators in the street, again cheered on by the media pumped right wing.

Chavez is both the most democratic and popular freely elected leader in the hemisphere with election winning margins greater than any US president in history. 
Venezuela is a threat because of its promotion of freedom, democracy, justice and equality not because it suppresses them.  The false vilification of Chavez is as always to justify attacks on him (diplomatic, economic, covert OPs, military etc). 
This is not the first disappointing post on Truthdig, although I remain a fan.
JK

YA GOTTA KNOW THE STAKES......

Another reason for the Bush administration’s aggressive stance towards Venezuela is that President Chávez has made possible a new political and economic reality that directly challenges globalization and neo-conservative policies (or neo-liberal as they are referred to in Latin America) pushed by the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and multinational corporations. The so-called Washington Consensus—consisting of privatization of public services, deregulation, lifting of tariffs, unrestricted investment flows, and free access of large corporations to public contracts and domestic markets—were measures foisted on Latin American governments by making them conditions of international loans and even by threats. 

Touted as instruments of development, they have been a spectacular failure by almost any indicator: 

Between 1960-80 income per person in Latin America grew by 82 percent whereas in the next 20 years, it grew only by 9 percent and in the last 5 years, it has grown by only 1 percent
In one decade, the number of poor increased by 14 million
From 1990 to 2002 U.S. banks and multinational corporations remitted $1 trillion in profits, interest payments, and royalties from Latin America
In the 1990s more than $178 billion of state-owned industries were privatized, more than 20 times the value of privatization in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
None of this could have occurred without the willing collaboration of Latin American elites and their satellite middle classes.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Venezuela, in particular, has the most Americanized middle class on the continent by virtue of the penetration of the oil industry early on. The sham 40-year elite-driven democracy left oil-rich Venezuela in 1998 with:

80 percent of its population in poverty
75 percent of arable land in the hands of 5 percent of the population
crumbling schools and hospitals
70 percent school dropout rate
7 percent illiteracy rate
60 to 70 percent of the people without access to basic medical care....READ THE REST OF MARIA PAVEZ VICTOR, WHO IS VENEZUELAN, AT..
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jun2006/victor0606.html

More radical sectors, such as Hermann Escarrá from the National Resistance Command have called for the reforms to be stopped, “through all means possible,” prompting fears among some Venezuelans of an attempted repeat of the April 11 military coup against Chavez in 2002.

According to the October 24 edition of Diario VEA, senior United States officials met with Venezuelan opposition groups in Prague between October 7 and 9 to demand that the Venezuelan opposition ask the Supreme Court to consider the proposed reforms as a “constitutional coup” and that it should call for “social upheaval, organize acts of economic sabotage against infrastructure, destroy the food transport and delivery chain ... and organize a military coup with all means possible, including bloodshed by means of paramilitary force.”

This afternoon, 20-30,000 protesters from opposition students groups and political parties marched to the CNE in Caracas overturning trash cans, starting fires, throwing rocks, and clashing with police and the National Guard. A delegation of 15 students were allowed into the CNE then attempted to chain themselves to the stairwell, before being removed by police.

Chavez has called on opponents of the reforms to participate in the referendum
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2793

Failure to take note of class interests is absurd.  Just look at who Hugo Chavez’s supporters are and who his opponents are.

A couple of years or so ago I watched Charlie Rose interview Stephen Gaghan about his film, Syriana. Toward the end he talked about a meeting he was taken to by Robert Baer, a man with many years in the middle east as a CIA agent.

The meeting was among oil men in a brownstone mansion on 5th Avenue in NYC. The host was the wealthiest of them all. He told how he bought media stories and headlines, then bought mob organizers, talked about how much it cost to overthrow this and that government using this approach, etc., specifically mentioning how much it cost to get Nigeria in line (US$50 million), in order to further petroleum interests.

Just a few months after this meeting, the riots in Venezuela took place. Gaghan couldn’t specifically link Venezuela to this conversation, but it fit the general picture he had been given perfectly. Gaghan said he found this all very unsettling. If anyone reading this doubts that things work this way, take a look at this video interview of Perkins about his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”:

http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/feb /video/dnB20060215a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=29:31

You can also view the archived interview with Gaghan here:

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/stephen-gaghan

#111009 by Kevin James on 11/01 at 4:47 pm: “Interesting how TRUTHDIG did not report on the mass street protests against the WAR in the United States on October 27th...”

Scheer has also bought the fantasy about “box cutters” in 9/11, uhh......

Some students from the upper classes at the private colleges in eastern Caracas see Hugo Chavez as a threat to their class interests.