Venezuela's oil

Venezuela's oil coup-strike-lockout for the rich. 

In 1974 80% of oil income went to the state. Today 80% of Venezuelan oil income goes to the rich, and to "operating costs." Only 20% goes to the state. Chavez reforms will help reverse this in January 2003. This is why the coup-plotters, "strike"-promoters, and corporate media are in such a hurry to overthrow the fairly-ELECTED Chavez government. They want to prevent these reforms, and reverse others already-implemented. Reforms that help the poor and lower middle class. Massive corporate-media disinformation, destabilization campaign going on inside Venezuela. Support President Chavez! Please forward widely. 
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=39515  and 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1555816.php  --Latest version. 

Search Venezuela news sites. Progressive news search engine. Choose site from dropdown window below. 
This search form below can be emailed in HTML (color and graphics) email. Or just send the URL of the page where you found this. You can click "save" in the file menu of your browser. This will save it to your computer for use anytime you are online. It is easy to add or delete site choices in the search form below. Just look at the HTML code in any web page editor. Google indexes some sites more often than others. So for the very latest info you may have to go to the websites directly, and browse there, or use their site search engines there if they have one. 

Some Venezuela news sources. 
http://www.aporrea.org  (in Spanish)
http://www.narconews.com  (English, Spanish)
http://www.vheadline.com/p1/  (English)
http://www.einnews.com/venezuela/  (English)
http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.htm  (English)
http://sf.indymedia.org  (English, Spanish. Use search engine there to find Venezuela articles and many comments)

SEARCH Venezuela news sources. Standard Google searches. Click, and then add additional search terms. Some sites are also indexed daily by Google News, so try clicking the "News" tab. For the absolute very latest news click the site's homepage link in any of the result pages.   
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:flashpoints.net  KPFA Flashpoints Radio. (English). 
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:narconews.com  (English, Spanish)
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:vheadline.com  (English)
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:zmag.org  (English)
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:einnews.com  (English)
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:aporrea.org  (Spanish)
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:sf.indymedia.org  San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia. After clicking this link, you can also click the "News" tab to get very up-to-date results for the only Indymedia site indexed by Google News. SF Indymedia also has its own excellent search engine. 

Google News. Some search shortcuts for very up-to-date Venezuela news. 
Click, and then add additional search terms. Can also click the "sort by date" link.  
http://news.google.com/news?q=venezuela  Approximately 4000 Google News sites. 
http://news.google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:narconews.com  NarcoNews.com
http://news.google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:indymedia.org  Indymedia.org sites. Only San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia shows up. 
http://news.google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:sf.indymedia.org&scoring=d  San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia. Sorted by date. 
http://news.google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:sf.indymedia.org  San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia. Sorted by relevance. 
Google does not seem to be indexing the "Local News" or "Global News" columns on the San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia homepage here: 
http://sf.indymedia.org  Only the items in the "Other/Breaking News" column is indexed by the Google News spider when it shows up daily. If an item is transferred too quickly out of "Other/Breaking News", then the spider may not see the item during its daily (or more often?) indexing of selected news sites. I suggest the Indymedia staff leave copies of items in "Other/Breaking News" because, for now, San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia seems to be the ONLY Indymedia news site indexed by Google News. 
A Search Form, and compilation of news excerpts: 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1555816.php 

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Bold formatting and larger text sizes have been added to some of the text in the excerpts below. 

Outside observers and organizations find Venezuelan elections to be free and fair. 
"Human Rights Watch, in 2000, cited Venezuela as the only Latin American country where human rights had improved. The viciously anti-Chávez Organization of American States sent a team of election observers to monitor both the 1998 and the 2000 elections in Venezuela, and despite all motive to discredit the vote, was forced by the facts to conclude that the elections were scrupulously fair. As for press freedom, Venezuela has stood alone among Latin American nations: Not a single journalist has ever been imprisoned under Chávez's watch..."
 -- Al Giordano. NarcoNews.com - April 15 2002. 
http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html  and many more articles: 
http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+fair+election+site:narconews.com  --Search shortcut. 

The vast majority of Venezuelans are poor or poor lower middle class. 

"The average annual salary of these 22 'strike' leaders is 6,000 U.S. dollars a year; almost 100 times the per capita income of the average Venezuelan citizen of ,760 dollars per year."
 -- Al Giordano of NarcoNews.com - December 22 2002. 
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article571.html

"When the captain of the Pilin Leon first dropped anchor, he was expressing his solidarity with the anti-government strike in Caracas. But the tanker's crew were opposed to the strike and their captain's piratical action. When the marines boarded, on the orders of the embattled president Hugo Chavez, only the captain needed to be replaced. ... The trump card of the opposition, in April as in December, has been the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, often described as the fifth largest oil exporter in the world, and an important supplier to the US. Nationalised more than 25 years ago, it has been run over the years for the exclusive benefit of its employees and managers - its profits being invested everywhere except Venezuela. Before the arrival of Chavez, it was being prepared for privatisation, to the satisfaction of the engineers and directors who would have benefited. But with a block placed on privatisation by the new Venezuelan constitution, the company's middle class and prosperous elite has been happy to be used as a shock weapon by the leaders of the Pinochet-style opposition, and they have tried to bring their entire industry to a halt." 
 -- The Guardian, Dec 10 2002. Richard Gott: Racist rage of the Caracas elite. 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,857027,00.html 

"The organizers of this so-called “strike” are the very same collection of slimy forces that backed the April [2002] coup d’etat and Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona, who, once in power, abolished the Supreme Court, the Congress, shut down Community TV and Radio Stations, assassinated 50 political activists, and nullified the Constitution. Carmona also freed the sniper-assassins who had fired shots from rooftops on April 11th into crowds of people, creating the pretext for what was, back then, a military coup. (Stay tuned for our upcoming report about the undisclosed conflicts-of-interest of one of the foreign reporters that helped to create this pretext last April.)"
 -- Al Giordano of NarcoNews.com - December 22 2002. 
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article571.html 

"Much of this struggle is about oil.  Venezuela is the world's fourth largest oil producer and its oil industry is critical to its economy.  Chavez's 'bolivarian revolution' argues for a role for the state in the oil industry, the redistribution of oil income, and the use of revenues from this resource to build economic independence.  But since 1974, the oil industry has been moving in the opposite direction.  At that time [1974] , the state-run-oil company kept 20% of its revenue in operating costs and turned 80% over to the state.  In 1990 it was 50-50 and in 1998, when Chavez was elected, the company kept 80% and turned 20% over.  What the neoliberals had in mind in the late 1990s was full privatization-not a reversal of the trend of the previous 20 years.  Added to this, the administration of the oil industry is in the hands of anti-Chavez forces, making it possible for them to go on strike in order to promote privatization.

"What are Chavez's other crimes?  Severance pay was restored in the constitution of 1999, after being eliminated in 1997.  Social security was set to be privatized in 1998, but was also impeded by the constitution of 1999.  The Land Law, passed last year, was an agrarian reform law that tries to make rural life viable for Venezuelans and slow rural-urban migration at the expense of large plantation owners and real-estate speculators." 
 -- by Justin Podur.  ZNet, December 10, 2002. 
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=2729 

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http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article571.html

[snip. Excerpt begins]

There was, this month, one sector of oil company executives that claimed they were on “strike,” but who in fact have spent this month actively working to lock-out rank-and-file employees and, according to their own public statements, to facilitate the sabotage, including eco-terrorism, of oil facilities.

According to public records at the Venezuela Secretary of Mining and Energy (MEM, in its Spanish initials), these were the annual salaries of the 22 major oil “strike” leaders, including their bonuses, paid vacations, and other benefits, at the trough of the state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela, or PdVSA:

Edgar Paredes makes 837 million bolivars a year (3,000 U.S. dollars).

The lowest paid of these 22 ringleaders, Luis Ramírez, makes 310 million bolivars a year (8,000 U.S. dollars).

The highest paid, Karl Mazeika, makes 990 million bolivars a year (1,000).

The average annual salary of these 22 “strike” leaders is 6,000 U.S. dollars a year; almost 100 times the per capita income of the average Venezuelan citizen of ,760 dollars per year. In the Venezuelan economy, 6,000 gives somebody more buying power than people who make millions of dollars a year in the United States.

Check out the rest of their salaries in the Venezuelan currency of Bolivars (at 1,300 bolivars to the dollar), here they are, the annual booties of the oppressed “vanguard” of The Strike That Wasn’t:

Luis Andrés Rojas: 688 million
Vincenzo Paglione: 979 million
Raúl Alemán: 687 million
Horacio Medina: 320 million
Juan Fernández: 399 million
Edgar Rasquin: 668 million
Rogelio Lozada: 410 million
Luis Matheus: 533 million
Carlos Machado: 542 million
Iván Crespo: 498 million
Luis Aray: 530 million
Andrés Riera: 508 million
Maria Lizardo: 444 million
Armando Izquierdo: 501 million
Luis Pacheco: 542 million
Gabriel García: 322 million
Francisco Bustillos: 643 million
Salvador Arrieta: 596 million
Armando Acosta: 471 million

Each of these oil executives, of course, had their own team of highly-paid middle managers underneath them: controlling the paperwork, the computers, the hiring and firing, and all other aspects of the company.

In recent weeks, they locked out the workers, and installed their own men at key strategic points where sabotage has been committed to facilities under their watch.

The “opposition” complains about graffiti on the wall of a Commercial TV station and calls it “vandalism” or “violence.” These guys, meanwhile, have presided over the destruction of pumps, pipelines, tankers and other ships, trucks, and other key points in the flow of oil from the ground to the consumer, including to the United States.

If they had tried anything like this inside the United States, we would see the White House calling them terrorists, locking them up in Guantanamo Bay, and suing them for the millions of dollars of losses that they have caused. Some of the members of the “oil-igarchy” have made public statements that some oil supplies have been contaminated, and some facilities have been booby-trapped to cause environmental disaster if they are re-started.

Between the oil drilling facility and the gas pump there are many stops along the road. Shut down or sabotage one of those points, and you shut down the entire pipeline. That has certainly happened at various points. 

[snip. End of excerpt from NarcoNews]

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Reports disagree as to how many of the middle class agree or oppose the Chavez reforms. Pro-Chavez rallies have been huge and have had many, many middle class participants. The situation is fluid and the reforms help much of the middle class too. Many progressive Chavez reforms are listed at this link: 
http://www.vheadline.com/0212/14352.asp 
The Gregory Wilpert article below lists some additional progressive Chavez reforms. 

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Women and the new 1999 Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela. 
72% of men and women voted FOR it. Many more details on the progressive aspects of the new constitution and legislative reforms, and how they effect women and others, are in the source messages here: 
http://www.vheadline.com/0212/14352.asp --Most complete version. 
http://indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=22333&start=0

“We women reject the organizers of hate and chaos.

"We women are on the front line for our right to live in peace and to defend the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, which gives us, for the first time in history, the right to full legal equality, to social security, to a pension for housewives. We are on the streets backing our President and our Bolivarian Revolution.

"Long live the Constitution! No to the fraudulent referendum! No to the pro-coup fascist stoppage! Don’t stop for the stoppage!”

----Go to the link above for many more details.--------

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Le Monde diplomatique. June 2002 article. "The perfect crime."  by Ignacio Ramonet. 
He described the likely scenario for overthrowing Chavez:
http://mondediplo.com/2002/06/01edito/ 

[Excerpt begins]

“[T]here will be a coalition of the well-to-do, bringing together the Catholic Church …, the financial oligarchy, the employers’ organizations, the bourgeoisie and corrupt trade union leaderships – all repackaged as ‘civil society.’ The owners of major media will collude ... to support the campaigns that they will each launch against the president, in the name of defending that ‘civil society.’...

“The press and TV will brandish terms ‘the people, democracy, liberty,’ etc. They will mobilize street demonstrations and any attempt by the government to criticize them will be immediately described as ‘a serious assault on freedom of expression,’ ... they will revive the insurrectional strike and encourage ideas of a coup and an assault on the presidential palace. ...

“The Venezuelan media currently uses lies and disinformation in the biggest ever destabilization campaign against a democratically elected government. Since the world hardly seems to care, the media hopes that this time it will succeed in committing the perfect crime.”

Excerpt above was found toward the end of this article: 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/138635.php 

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[snip. First part deleted. Excerpt begins]
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article549.html 

Here’s a photo of the “anti-strike day” [Dec 2 2002] mega-market organized by defenders of the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution and the elected presidency of Hugo Chávez that the pro-coup elements want to abolish…



Here’s an aerial view of the multitudes who flooded the streets [Dec 2 2002] to violate the “strike” ordered by the super rich…



See the photos by VenPres in their full size and glory, with moment-by-moment coverage (in Spanish) of how the “strike” is collapsing in every region of Venezuela:

http://www.aporrea.org/dameverbo.php?docid=1934

----end of NarcoNews article excerpt---

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"The conspirators, including Carmona, met at the offices of Venevisión. They stayed until 2am to prepare "the next stage", along with Rafael Poleo (owner of El Nuevo Pais) and Gustavo Cisneros, a key figure in the coup. Cisneros, a multimillionaire of Cuban origin and the owner of Venevisión, runs a media empire - Organización Diego Cisneros. It has 70 outlets in 39 countries (9). Cisneros is a friend of George Bush senior: they play golf together and in 2001 the former US president holidayed in Cisneros's Venezuelan property. Both are keen on the privatisation [theft] of the PDVSA [Venezuelan oil company] (10). Otto Reich, US assistant secretary of state for Interamerican affairs, admits to having spoken with Cisneros that night (11). At 4am on 12 April [2002], to avoid bloodshed, Chávez allowed himself to be arrested and taken to the distant island of Orchila."
 -- Maurice Lemoine. Le Monde Diplomatique. August 2002. 
http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela  and 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1551768.php  and 
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=2321 

"After the shooting began, authorities of the government of President Hugo Chávez immediately apprehended some of the rooftop snipers who had lit the fuse to the violence. But after Chávez himself was placed into custody later that day by military generals, the rooftop assassins, whose identities are still unknown, were incredulously set free by the dictatorship of Pedro Carmona - and this tells us everything about which side hired those snipers - as the dictator-for-a-day Carmona simultaneously abolished the Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution. For a more detailed history of these events, in which the Venezuelan people overthrew the U.S.-sponsored dictatorship within three days and changed the history of our América, see "Three Days that Shook the Media," (Narco News, April 18, 2002: http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html  ).
 -- Al Giordano of NarcoNews.com - Summer 2002. 
http://www.narconews.com/communitymedia1.html 

Venezuela opposition, state waging battle through media. 
Caracas, Dec 21 2002. AP 
http://www.petroleumworld.com/story0048.htm 

[Excerpt begins]

In recent days, seven national private TV channels repeatedly have broadcast slickly produced ads blaming Chavez for everything from street crime to gasoline shortages. The gas problem stems from the TV-supported strike.

"We will not give up the fight, we won't give up until he resigns," one ad drones on Venevision.

"Not one step backward. Out! Leave Now!" states another, paid for by the Democratic Coordinator opposition umbrella group and repeatedly broadcast on the Globovision 24-hour news network.

Yet another ad, titled "History of a Failure," shows clips of dirty street kids, long unemployment lines and acts of political violence. A voiceover repeatedly accuses Chavez of "Failure! Failure!"

Commercials for Christmas gifts have been replaced by political propaganda since the strike began Dec. 2. Normal programming - soap operas, cartoons, sitcoms - has been swapped for near-constant news coverage and marathon talk shows with opposition politicians.

[Excerpt ends]

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[Excerpt begins]
"Associated Press (AP) is a 'non-profit' company run by the AP Managing Editors Association; your local managing editor or news director is technically the boss, and therefore responsible for the errors and distortions of fact that have plagued AP's coverage from Venezuela and other lands.

"But there's zero accountability at AP. 'The AP is unaccountable to its millions of readers,' notes Feder. 'Unlike at many newspapers, there is no AP ombudsman who 'speaks for the readers.' There is no letters page for the AP, and individual newspapers rarely print letters responding to wire stories.'

"And it's only going to stop when your local managing editors and news directors find the backbone to send inaccurate stories back to AP - like they would with one of their own reporters - and insist on a rewrite."
 -- Al Giordano. NarcoNews. Dec 18 2002 email to his Yahoo Group:  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconews/message/478  --Many more details at links below: 
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article567.html  and 
http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=2775 

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From San Francisco Indymedia homepage: 
http://sf.indymedia.org 

-----end of San Francisco Indymedia homepage excerpt---

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*Terrorism of USA. Death Squads, Drug War. LINKS worldwide. Revised. Millions killed over decades. Mostly US-run or US-aided terrorist death squads worldwide. Other death squads, too. Today's death squads, and older ones such as the US-run Phoenix Program during the Vietnam war. Terrorism and corruption at all levels of politics, police, society, media, business, unions, government, etc.. Lists in alphabetical and chronological order. Huge LINKS list. 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/squads.htm and  
http://corporatism.tripod.com/squads.htm  

*Stop corporatism. "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor). 
http://corporatism.tripod.com  

Hemp for Oil! Stop Big Oil! 
Hemp biomass conversion to fuel. No more oil wars, oil politics, and oil coups. 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction

"When Andres Perez tried to give the country away to the rich in 1989 the poor complained and Perez had 1000 of them gunned down in the riots called the Caracazo. Chavez led a coup against Perez in 1992. Perez was impeached for corruption in 1994 and Chavez was freed from jail. Chavez was elected President in 1998 and 2000 by landslide votes. In 1998 Chavez had the luxury of a mandate to purge and restructure the judicial, military and administrative branches of the government. Even the right wing in the US applauded some of these efforts."

--December 18 2002 article:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1551928_comment.php

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/02/ma_208_01.html --Much more on 1989 Caracazo deaths.

"And when the big oil dollars started flowing in the early 1970s, it was a system that organized one of the longest-running fiestas of the 20th century. Awash in a seeming sea of money, Venezuelan elites built themselves wide highways, a sparkling subway, a glittering array of office towers and luxury apartments, a beautiful national theater. They imported great chefs, danced in glamorous clubs, vacationed in Paris, annexed large chunks of Miami. Jeep Wagoneers, bottles of Johnny Walker Black, kilos of French cheese -- all were heavily subsidized with public money.

"In February 1989, the era of black gold came to a sudden, violent end. Oil prices had been falling for years, and everyone knew the party had to slow. But when the Pérez government tried to pass much of the bill on to the country's poor through higher bus fares and bread prices, hundreds of thousands took to the streets. At first the mobs burned buses, then they looted and burned stores, then they looted the apartments and houses of anyone who seemed to have more. Scores died in battles among neighbors. And when the army came, many hundreds more were shot down. Yet thousands of people refused to go home, even after soldiers opened fire with automatic rifles. In some neighborhoods, mobs armed only with sticks and rocks repeatedly charged ranks of terrified soldiers trucked in from the countryside. No one knows exactly how many people died, but many estimates put the total at well over 1,000. "The Caracazo," as the riot was called, was the single bloodiest uprising in Latin America in the last half century. ...

"Even at the height of the good times, the country's democracy was a preserve of the upper and middle classes, and it was protected at gunpoint. Anyone who tried to oppose the government from outside the two-party system ran a risk of being arrested, beaten, or killed by the National Guard or the federal police known as the DISIP."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/02/ma_208_01.html Excerpts from January 2003, Mother Jones article.

More on April 2002 coup:

"Carmona’s fate was sealed when the military refused to fire on the slum dwellers, leaving the repression to the metropolitan police force. The police, controlled by Caracas Mayor Alfredo Peña, killed dozens of Chávez supporters after the coup, according to Human Rights Watch, but proved unable to defend the new regime. ... Today, despite an oil industry that generates billion a year, 80 percent of Venezuela’s 24 million inhabitants are poor, according to government figures, and half of those are malnourished. ... The main business group, Fedecámaras, and the largest labor organization, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), united to organize one “general strike” December 10 and another that began April 9. Fedecámaras didn’t accept a Chávez offer to talk. And the government refused to negotiate with the CTV leadership, which appeared to have won its October 25 [2001] election through fraud (the union’s filings with the national electoral commission included signatures for only half of the alleged voters)."

http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200205_Venezuela_Coup/20020501_index.htm

"April 4 [2002]: Another work stoppage led by PDVSA managers interrupts oil production. But the three main oil unions, including the Petroleum Workers Federation (Fedepetrol), urge Venezuelans to go to work and defy calls for a general strike."

http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200205_Venezuela_Coup/20020501_Timeline.htm

More on the Media War:

"They also control the media. All of Venezuela's private television stations and national newspapers are owned by the opposition, and all are employed to deliver an unadulterated flow of anti-Chávez propaganda in the form of news, popular music, even soap operas. The distortions can be dramatic. Today's anti-Chávez march is covered by all four TV channels from five in the morning until midnight. The pro-Chávez march three days later -- though twice as large -- is ignored entirely by three of the channels, and covered only sporadically by the fourth. (The American media also played up the anti-Chávez march, inflating its turnout to a million.)"

-- Barry C. Lynn. Mother Jones article. January/February 2003 Issue.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/02/ma_208_01.html

More Venezuela news sites and shortcuts:

Venezuela news sources. For the latest news click the links below. If needed, use onsite search engines.

http://www.motherjones.com (English). Onsite search. Some URLs indicate year and month.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela (English) Comprehensive Venezuela compilation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/archive (English). Chronological link list.

http://www.alainet.org (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French).

http://www.alainet.org/venezuela.phtml (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French). Venezuela page.

http://www.thegully.com/essays/venezuela/021220_media_mindshock.html See links to mid-left of page.

http://www.narconews.com (English, Spanish).

http://www.vheadline.com (English). "Venezuela's Electronic News."

http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.htm (English). Venezuela articles page.

http://www.flashpoints.net (English). KPFA Flashpoints Radio. Text, photos, audio.

http://www.petroleumworld.com (English, Spanish).

http://www.aporrea.org (Spanish). Venezuela news.

http://www.americas.org/venezuela (English). Up-to-date Venezuela news links.

http://www.commondreams.org (English). Use onsite search for daily indexing. URL indicates exact date.

http://www.einnews.com/venezuela (English). Must pay monthly fee.

http://italy.indymedia.org/features/guerreglobali/#395 (Italian). Venezuela news link compilation.

http://belgium.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=44547 (English, French, Dutch). Link compilation.

http://sf.indymedia.org (English, Spanish) Onsite search engine returns many Venezuela articles and comments.

Search shortcuts to pass on. Sometimes this is easier or more convenient than passing on the search form. Click any of the links below. If the site is not one of those indexed daily by Google News, then go to the sites themselves for the very latest news.

SEARCH Venezuela news sources. Standard Google searches. Click, and then add additional search terms.

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:alainet.org (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:americas.org (English).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:aporrea.org (Spanish).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:commondreams.org (English). Click the Google News tab, too.

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:einnews.com (English).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:flashpoints.net (English).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:guardian.co.uk (English). Click the Google News tab, too.

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:motherjones.com (English). Click the Google News tab, too.

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:narconews.com (English, Spanish). Click the Google News tab, too.

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:petroleumworld.com (English).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:sf.indymedia.org (English, Spanish). Click the Google News tab, too.

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:thegully.com (English).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:vheadline.com (English).

http://google.com/search?q=venezuela+site:zmag.org (English).

Google News. Very up-to-date Venezuela news. Daily indexing.

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela Around 4000 Google News sites. Click "sort by date."

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:commondreams.org (English).

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:guardian.co.uk (English).

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:motherjones.com (English).

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:narconews.com (English, Spanish).

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:indymedia.org Indymedia.org sites. Only San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia shows up.

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:sf.indymedia.org&scoring=d San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia. Sorted by date.

http://google.com/news?q=venezuela+site:sf.indymedia.org San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia. Sorted by relevance.

You're spamming the site with all that narconews disinformation nonsense. The most likely result in Venezuela will be a forcible removal of Chavez from office. He simply must go.

This article tells the real story as opposed to the narconews propoganda pieces.

B.A.
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by Bush Admirer ? Friday January 10, 2003 Frit 04:28 AM









Nothing could be more ridiculous than to quote sources of leftwing propoganda and news distortion such as narconews.com. One of the front page articles has the byline "Nessie." That's funny. Nessie is a well known lunatic from SF Indymedia who specializes in conspiracy theories.

If you're going to criticize real news sources, then you'll need to come up with something better than narconews.com, mother jones, or Pacifica Radio or other similar disinformation propoganda outlets for far left radicals.

To find out what's really going on with Venezuela, read news sources with high credibility, such as the Financial Times of London. Furthermore, read articles written and reported by credible authors like the Harvard Professor who wrote the piece below, and not some clown like Nessie.

B.A.
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Chávez must yield to election calls

By Ricarado Hausmann

Published: January 7 2003

Venezuelans used to take uneventful politics for granted. No more. They now march in unprecedented numbers against a president - Hugo Chávez - who is unable to keep things running. A six-week general strike has shut down much of the economy, including the oil industry. The crisis now competes with Iraq and North Korea for space on the front pages.

The decline in oil production has raised world prices and disrupted the supply of petrol in the Americas. Fiscal solvency has evaporated, raising the spectre of a default on Brady bonds and a crisis in the mostly foreign-owned banking system. What is fuelling the passions behind the protests?

The Venezuelan story has three main ingredients: poorly diagnosed bad economic performance; the perils of constitutional reform; and the totalitarian implications of revolutionary ideals.

After being the fastest-growing economy on record between 1920 and 1980, Venezuela experienced an extraordinary reversal of fortune in the following two decades, with income per capita falling by half. Disappointed with their lot, Venezuelans voted for a candidate who blamed corruption and privilege - not lack of growth - for their miseries and who offered a political agenda centred on constitutional reform. Since Mr Chávez took power four years ago, income per capita has fallen by another 20 per cent, in spite of high oil prices.

The constitutional reform approved in 1999 did away with a 40-year-old constitution that had generated enough political stability to ensure the transfer of power to nine elected presidents, seven of them running from the opposition. Enough checks and balances were put into the system and sufficient institutional space was created for political parties so that all constituencies found it in their interest to play by the rules and to search for consensus.

The new constitution, through design and circumstance, ended up concentrating power in the presidency and eliminating most checks and balances. It was drafted by a constituent assembly elected through a rule that gave Mr Chávez 92 per cent of the seats with just over 50 per cent of the vote, essentially disenfranchising the opposition. This winner-take-all assembly dissolved the elected Congress and appointed loyal supporters to the Supreme Court, the attorney-general and the comptroller-general without following constitutional procedures. In addition, the new constitution extended the presidential period, allowed for a one-time re-election and substituted a two-chamber congress with a one-chamber national assembly, in order to lessen the burden of consensus-building. This concentration of power has allowed the government to get away with murder, misuse public funds, arm violent gangs and disarm opposition local police.

Last, Mr Chávez's revolutionary ideology, for all its romanticism, inevitably involves a totalitarian system of values that is inconsistent with an open society. According to him, inherited institutions and organisations are a priori bad, income is a sign of corruption, merit a sign of privilege. Stealing is fine if you are poor. Consensus-building is a sign of weakness.

These ideas rub most Venezuelans the wrong way. After all, the country exhibits the highest social and political mobility in the hemisphere. The middle classes find that their dwindling incomes are well deserved, a product of the dramatic rise in educational attainment over the past generation. They feel that a society that does not reward effort, recognise excellence and punish crime is bound to become chaotic. But these values are eroded by the president in his interminable speeches.

To regain governability, the country must return to a political representation that expresses society's wishes and checks and balances to force consensus and limit abuse. This can be achieved only by new elections and reappointing the Supreme Court, attorney-general and comptroller-general. This would require constitut- ional reform or a constituent assembly.

The government has opposed this because it fears losing its power and impunity. The opposition, meanwhile, thinks it can impose it without negotiations. The deadlock is costing all dearly. The international community instead of just facilitating dialogue, as has been the case, should put its force behind a quick electoral solution.

The writer is professor of the practice of economic development at Harvard University. He was minister of planning in Venezuela

Source: http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1039524265782&p=1012571727126

While I have no disrespect for the author of that article, nor of his education, but being a FORMER minister of planning in Venezuela means he has been displaced (voluntary or not). This creates a bias, as how are we to determine if he is not a disgruntled former employee? Also, there really is no need to be baggin on other media outlets (Pacifica, Narconews, etc.), let people read and make up their own minds. Financial Times of London is obviously of a bent more towards finances and economics rather than political reform or social welfare and well-being. That doesn't make it any less credible, but like the outlets you referenced, it must be taken in it's context.

As for reporting in Venezuela, that is the biggest problem for those outside venezuela. There simply is not broad, independent, informative, substantive, live reporting going on down there. We had CNN anchors broadcasting from Bagdhad while it was being bombed by the US, but there are none offering cogent analysis from the streets of Caracas on a nightly basis. Therefore, all the news we are receiving is being filtered no matter which source we are getting it from.

The author of the article BA posted:
"The writer is professor of the practice of economic development at Harvard University. He was minister of planning in Venezuela"

Enough said. I rest my case. Disinformation galore in that article.

There are lots of good news sources besides the Indymedia-loved NarcoNews.com, and the fact is that the article above of mine linked to those sources. So get a clue, BA, and pull your head out of your ass. Here is the latest expanded search form and Venezuela news site links.

Google-Search Venezuela news sites. Some sites (such as MotherJones.com, NarcoNews.com,  Guardian.co.uk, CommonDreams.org, and San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia) are indexed daily by Google News. Click the "News" tab in the Google search results page. Then click "Sort by date." Some sites (such as Vheadline.com) have search engines onsite that index daily. 

Venezuela news sources. For the latest news click the links below. If needed, use onsite search engines.
http://www.motherjones.com  (English). Onsite search. Some URLs indicate year and month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela  (English) Comprehensive Venezuela compilation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/archive  (English). Chronological link list.
http://www.alainet.org  (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French).
http://www.alainet.org/venezuela.phtml  (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French). Venezuela page.
http://www.thegully.com/essays/venezuela/021220_media_mindshock.html See links to mid-left of page.
http://www.narconews.com  (English, Spanish).
http://www.vheadline.com  (English). "Venezuela's Electronic News." 
http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.htm  (English). Venezuela articles page.
http://www.flashpoints.net  (English). KPFA Flashpoints Radio. Text, photos, audio.
http://www.petroleumworld.com  (English, Spanish).
http://www.aporrea.org  (Spanish). Venezuela news.
http://www.americas.org/venezuela  (English). Up-to-date Venezuela news links. 
http://www.commondreams.org  (English). Use onsite search for daily indexing. URL indicates exact date. 
http://www.einnews.com/venezuela  (English). Must pay monthly fee.
http://italy.indymedia.org/features/guerreglobali/#395  (Italian). Venezuela news link compilation.
http://belgium.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=44547  (English, French, Dutch). Link compilation.
http://sf.indymedia.org  (English, Spanish) Onsite search engine returns many Venezuela articles and comments.

I would say that Ricarado Hausmann is someone with inside knowledge of what's really happening in Venezuela. He's been there and he's had personal responibilities for economic planning. He's very bright and he knows his subject.

He correctly identifies Chavez as nothing more than a Demogogue who is destroying Venezuela's economy and leading the people there toward the worst poverty they've ever known.

Chavez is a snake oil salesman who's 'con' is that by voting for him you can become richer. He's going to do that by 'redistributing wealth.' Truth is quite the opposite. Just the threat of someone like Chavez coming to power is sufficient reason for wealth and captical to flee the country. When you see a Chavez on the horizon it's time to protect your assets and open a Swiss account. It's not the time to participate in the Venezuelan economy. So you drive off those who drive the economy and you have nothing to replace it with.

If, like Castro, you really do confiscate property and wealth, then you're headed into economic disaster for the long haul. As exhibit 'A,' I give you Cuba.

I know from long experience that arguing with a moron is a lost cause, but it IS funny to ridicule you, BA. :)

Ideology, Idiot-ology, Political Parties.

http://corporatism.tripod.com/ideology.htm

>> I know from long experience that arguing with a moron is a lost cause, but it IS funny to ridicule you, BA. :)

In other words, you're unable to refute a single point raised in Ricarado Hausmann's excellent article.

>> Ideology, Idiot-ology, Political Parties.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/ideology.htm

So you paste in a link to yet another disinformation propoganda site. It doesn't work for Lynx, why would it work for you? It's comical but it's not effective debate.

Any idiot who would use the name of a current politician as their user name shows what a dumbass dittohead they are, O Bush Admirer. And since Bush really is a MORON, then what does that make you, a sub-MORON? You are nothing but a troll who writes ideological message after ideological message. You are in the Rush Windbag cult of corporatist dittohead pinheads who can't think for themselves. You spout off so much obvious misinformation that no one but other complete dumbasses believe what you say. I love it when you post, because it shows anyone with a brain what NOT to believe in.

By the way, the whole original article of excerpts I posted refutes what Ricarado Hausmann wrote. But then again people like you aren't confused by the facts.

Eco- Man

You are nothing but a troll who writes ideological message after ideological message. You are in the James Carville cult of leftwing dittohead pinheads who can't think for themselves.

You spout off so much obvious misinformation that no one but other complete dumbasses believe what you say. I love it when you post, because it shows anyone with a brain what NOT to believe in.

Once again, you've shown your inability to dispute even one of the points raised by Ricarado Hausmann's article.

But then again people like you aren't confused by the facts.

Well, Bush Admirer, I'm glad you at least read the article I wrote called

"Ideology, Idiot-ology, Political Parties.

http://corporatism.tripod.com/ideology.htm

And I am glad you liked the Cranial-Rectal Inversion image in the article. But you again prove my point about ideologues being unable to think for themselves. Because all you did was copy what others wrote and posted. In this case, copied from me.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

And I already refuted Ricarado Hausmann's article. In the original article in this thread. By the way, I, Eco Man also go by the name of Media War. But then again, ideological morons like you are always confused by people who don't fit into consistent labels and categories.

Eco Man --- Get a hole cut in your stomach, so that you'll be able to see out. Then we can talk.

Since some of the mirror pages are temporarily unavailable, here are several mirror copy locations for Bush Admirer's favorite web page:

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/ideology.htm and

http://corporatism.tripod.com/ideology.htm and

http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/ideology.htm

To note the top three Venezuelan banks are internationally owned

"The Santander Group and the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria own the Banco de Venezuela and Banco Provincial respectively. U.S. banking giant Citibank is also a major player in Venezuela."

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030113-124724-1830r

Also for fun...

"PDVSA is one of the world's largest oil and gas companies and is heavily engaged in various downstream activities, including petrochemicals. Koch Petroleum Corporation is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc., a diversified U.S.-based energy concern, which is involved in the oil, gas, and chemicals industries worldwide. Polar is Venezuela's largest privately held industrial group, whose core business is the manufacture and distribution of beverages, foods, and related products with other investments in the Venezuelan oil and petrochemicals industries. Inelectra, one of the largest Venezuelan private companies, is active in engineering and construction, telecommunications and information systems, and oil and gas exploration and production. Inelectra is the general contractor of Profalca."

http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/IFCExt/lacweb.nsf/69823871932bfcb2852565160076a19b/b5593687b52fdd1e8525679a0043ee1a?OpenDocument