Chavez: Longer presidential terms

[MaNuMaNiAc]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/16/venezuela.chavez.ap/index.html


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez called for radical changes to Venezuela's constitution Wednesday night, proposing reforms that would eliminate current limits on his re-election and extend presidential terms.
Chavez, speaking to the National Assembly, also proposed ending the autonomy of Venezuela's Central Bank, which would give him access to billions of dollars of foreign reserves. He also called for increasing the government's power to expropriate private property before getting a court's approval.

The self-styled revolutionary said presidential terms should be extended from six to seven years, though he denied he wants lifelong power as his opponents allege.

"I propose to the sovereign people the seven-year presidential term. The president can be re-elected immediately for a new term," Chavez said. "If someone says this is a project to entrench oneself in power. No, it's only a possibility, a possibility that depends on many variables."

If approved, the reform of the constitution would be Chavez's most radical step yet in his drive to transform Venezuela (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/venezuela) along his vision of socialism. Since winning re-election to a new six-year term in December, he has aggressively advanced that goal, nationalizing the oil, telecommunications and electricity sectors.

Critics accuse Chavez of seeking to remain as president for decades to come, like his close friend Fidel Castro in Cuba. Many fear he is steering this oil-rich South American nation toward Cuba-style communism.

"Chavez is seeking to reduce the territory held by the opposition and give his intention to remain in power a legal foundation," said Gerardo Blyde, an opposition leader and former lawmaker.

He said many other reforms are likely to be "red capes" like those used by a bullfighter "to distract Venezuelans from his real objective."

Hugo Chavez (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/hugo_chavez), a former paratrooper commander who was first elected in 1998, denies copying Cuba and insists that personal freedoms will be respected. He and his supporters say democracy has flourished under his administration, noting he has repeatedly won elections by wide margins.

Chavez pushed through a new constitution in 1999, shortly after he was first elected. He said the charter must be redrafted so that Venezuela's capitalist system "finishes dying" to make way for socialism.

The Venezuelan leader's political allies firmly control the National Assembly, which is expected to approve the reform plan within months. The plan would then have to be approved by citizens in a national referendum.

His proposals also included creating new types of property that would be managed by cooperatives, reducing the workday to six hours and creating "a popular militia" that would form part of the military.

Chavez, who constantly warns the U.S. may someday invade the country, has already begun training neighborhood-based civilian militias. Government opponents say he is trying creating the means to suppress dissent and defend his presidency at all costs.

Although Chavez proposed formally ending the Central Bank's autonomy, he has already appointed political allies to its board of directors and they have allowed him to remove several billion dollars from the reserves into social programs.

Critics of the transfers say they undermine the Venezuelan currency and harm the country's standing in international financial markets.

Outside the National Assembly, crowds of cheering red-clad supporters held flags and signs reading: "Yes to the reform, on the path to 21st Century Socialism." Giant video screens were set up, and folk music blared from sound trucks near a two-story-tall inflatable figure of Chavez.

Hours earlier, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that the United States would wait for details of Chavez's proposal before commenting on it. He added that Chavez in the past "has taken a number of different steps ... that have really eroded some of the underpinnings of democracy in Venezuela."
gee... I wonder how this one is going to end :rolleyes

[boutons_]

President-for-Life, just like in African shit-hole countries.

As Lyndon Johnson said, if you get enough votes, you can do anything.

caveat: within limits of the Constitiution. But the Repug Exec has shown that the Exec is above the law. I figure Chavez will get any damn thing he wants.

[Gerryatrics]

Wonder what Jimmy Carter is going to say about this...

[smeagol]

Wonder what Jimmy Carter is going to say about this...

. . . and what is Dan going to say.

Will he continue swinging from Chavez' nuts, now that he shows he is a true dictator a la Fidel?

What say you, Danny-boy?

[Jelly]

I think we all saw that coming.

[hater]

President-for-Life, just like in African shit-hole countries.


this is not always a bad thing. Look what Pinochet did with Chile, it is the most prosperous country South of the border

in this case though, yeah it's probably bad

[DarkReign]

Every country in the world should eliminate Private Central Banking systems. Your economy will take a hit on the national level at first, but the long-term power of the national currency will rest solely with the government, not a bank.

[SAtoDallas]

Gee we never saw this one coming!

[Oh, Gee!!]

GW would make a great 3rd world leader

[Extra Stout]

this is not always a bad thing. Look what Pinochet did with Chile, it is the most prosperous country South of the border

in this case though, yeah it's probably bad
Look what Pinochet did with Chile? What, rape four-fifths of the population in order to give everything to wealthy elites and foreign businessmen? Abduct and assassinate anybody who opposed him?

Every time a Chilean's lungs burn when trying to breathe the opaque brown winter air over Santiago, he can thank the legacy of Pinochet as he scuttles back to his shanty home made of cardboard and sheetmetal.

[Wild Cobra]

I wonder when people will wake up and see Chavez for what he really is?

[smeagol]

Look what Pinochet did with Chile? What, rape four-fifths of the population in order to give everything to wealthy elites and foreign businessmen? Abduct and assassinate anybody who opposed him?

Every time a Chilean's lungs burn when trying to breathe the opaque brown winter air over Santiago, he can thank the legacy of Pinochet as he scuttles back to his shanty home made of cardboard and sheetmetal.
If this were entirely true, the candidate he supported in 1988, after he stepped down from power, couldn't have gotten close to 30% of the votes as hi did, with the other center-right candidate obtaining 15%.

By the way, Chile by far, is the most developed country in Latin America, with the highest growth rate of the last 30 years, the lowest unemployment rate, the least corrupt society and the most open economy. And wether you like it or not, this is thanks to Pinochet (with all Pinochet's faults).

And as for your "everything given to the wealthy elites and the foriegn businessman" comment, that is complete bull shit. With that respect, Chile is no different that the US.

[smeagol]

So Dan, any comments on Chavez wanting to perpetuate himself in power like you buddy Fidel?

[xrayzebra]

I wonder when people will wake up and see Chavez for what he really is?


I think most of the world views him as what he is. But
who is going to take him out of power. The poor view him
as a savior and support him. And the group in power will
support him. There is little doubt, in my mind, he is going
to sit himself up as another Fidel. Hell every lefty in the
U.S. support him. Because of his little gifts of heating
oil to the poor of America. (his words not mine)

[Oh, Gee!!]

When do we invade? He has sweet, sweet oil. Err, I mean he's violating U.N. policy.

[xrayzebra]

^^It wont be us. Why would we? If Billary gets in next election
she will kiss and make up with him. Birds of a feather...sort of
thing..

[boutons_]

"When do we invade? He has sweet, sweet oil."

I have no doubt that dickhead and the olicos have war-gamed it.

"Exxon Mobil, BP Plc, Shell, ChevronTexaco and Total SA, the five largest publicly traded oil companies, last year reported net income of about $85 billion, equal to the economic output of Venezuela, a nation of 25 million people and the third-largest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries."

http://www.energybulletin.net/4379.html

The oilcos could beef up Blackwell, Aegis, etc, and invade VZ to grab the oil. Certainly the VZ middle and upper classes would support them. Another possible quagmire? Quaqmire didn't stop them from going into Iraq.

[DarkReign]

War games and reality are two very different concepts when talking about implementation.

I certainly hope the government has "war gamed" with every country in the world and every possible combination thereof. Its the militaries job.

Be prepared, son. Cuz' old Satan Clause, he's out there.

[Nbadan]

President Hugo Chavez called for radical changes to Venezuela's constitution Wednesday night, proposing reforms that would eliminate current limits on his re-election and extend presidential terms.
Chavez, speaking to the National Assembly, also proposed ending the autonomy of Venezuela's Central Bank, which would give him access to billions of dollars of foreign reserves. He also called for increasing the government's power to expropriate private property before getting a court's approval.

Wow........so, Chavez wants the National Assembly to change the Constitution....eh gad...what's next? A vote?

[Wild Cobra]

"Exxon Mobil, BP Plc, Shell, ChevronTexaco and Total SA, the five largest publicly traded oil companies, last year reported net income of about $85 billion, equal to the economic output of Venezuela, a nation of 25 million people and the third-largest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries."

I wonder how many people own shares of stock between them? It could easily match the 25,000,000 number, or even exceed it! Profits are around $6.00 a share aren't they? I forget the number. How about looking it up your self.

[Wild Cobra]

I certainly hope the government has "war gamed" with every country in the world and every possible combination thereof. Its the militaries job.
Me too. Nothing like being as prepared as possible.

[boutons_]

With a tsunami of $400B+ GUARANTEED to play with every year, the Pentagon does all kinds of stupid, frivolous projects, such like war-gaming the invasion VZ as a threat to national security (as opposed to invading to grab the oil).

But they can't find the time to monitor the rampant fraud and corruption by Pentagon suppliers.

[smeagol]

Wow........so, Chavez wants the National Assembly to change the Constitution....eh gad...what's next? A vote?
You fucking nitwit, he wants indefinite re-election. A la Castro.

Are you blind?

Are you stupid?

Are you both?

Oh, he also want to abolish private property.

Great guy! :depressed

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Dan is only going to realize the truth once Chavez has spent 30 or 40 years in power. On second thought, I think the jackass is still going to be claiming its a democratic government.

Let me ask you something Dan, what are the chances of a president being democratically elected EVERY TIME for the rest of his life? Think about that, and we'll talk when Chavez has been in power two more decades.

[Wild Cobra]

Do your part. Never buy at a CITCO station!

FYI, the stock values for the six largest oil companies exceed $1.3 Trillion dollars. Numbers are $1,305,744,500,000 with todays stock prices excluding Shell with over 17 billion shares of stock between the five. Combined net earnings for the five was $108,353,420,000. These five also paid $85,929,934,000 in taxes. People complain about the oil company profits, but that amounts to them only keeping 55.77% of their earnings!

I didn't find current data for Shell with Yahoo, and not going to spend more time on it.

Links:

Exxon:
Summary (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=XOM)
Key Statistics (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=XOM)
Income Statement (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=XOM&annual)

BP plc:
Summary (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BP)
Key Statistics (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=BP)
Income Statement (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=BP&annual)

Shell:
Summary (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RDS-A)


Total SA:
Summary (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TOT)
Key Statistics (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=TOT)
Income Statement (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TOT&annual)

Cheveron Corp.
Summary (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CVX)
Key Statistics (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=CVX)
Income Statement (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CVX&annual)

ConocoPhillips:
Summary (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=COP)
Key Statistics (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=COP)
Income Statement (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=COP&annual)

[ChumpDumper]

Do your part. Never buy at a CITCO station!Why?


Neither a "buycott" nor a boycott is likely to accomplish much beyond the symbolic. In the first case, the Citgo brand (marketed by Citgo Petroleum Corporation, which has been owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company of Venezuela, since 1990) doesn't have nearly the capacity and presence in the U.S. to satisfy demand and wean American consumers from Middle Eastern oil supplied; in the second case, boycotting a gasoline brand over political issues is problematic for a number of reasons (not least of which is the notion that threatening not to buy gasoline from someone who is threatening not to sell it to you doesn't sound like an effective ploy for either side).

Many different oil companies buy crude oil from Venezuela, so even Americans who shun CITGO brand gasoline have no guarantee that they aren't still sending their money to that country. And although Citgo may be owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, it is a formerly American company which is still headquartered in the U.S. (in Houston, Texas), employs 4,000 people, and supplies 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline and other petroleum products; Americans with no substantive connection to Venezuela who would be economically harmed by such an action. (Citgo also provides free or discounted heating oil to low-income communities and tribal reservations within the United States.) And, of course, in today's oil market Citgo could likely find alternative buyers for its products far more easily than the U.S. could make up the shortfall created by a cut-off of Venezuelan oil.

As we've noted in many other articles discussing various schemes regarding where and how people should purchase gasoline, the global and fungible nature of the world oil market doesn't really provide consumers with many effective opportunities to influence political issues through their buying patterns.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/citgo.asp

If you can point me to a gas station that can guarantee its gas was not made with Venezuelan oil, I'll make a note of it.

[ChumpDumper]

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, Chavez is a dangerous fool. We just have to hope for the people of Venezuela to realize that before it's too late.

[Nbadan]

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, Chavez is a dangerous fool. We just have to hope for the people of Venezuela to realize that before it's too late.


Yep....the people of Venezuela would be much better off if Chavez just let globalist rape and pillage Venezuela's resources...just like the rest of S.A..

[Jamtas#2]

Yep....the people of Venezuela would be much better off if Chavez just let globalist rape and pillage Venezuela's resources...just like the rest of S.A..

So it's either dictatorship or getting pillaged by globalists in your eyes?

[ChumpDumper]

Yep....the people of Venezuela would be much better off if Chavez just let globalist rape and pillage Venezuela's resources...just like the rest of S.A..So autocracy is the best they can hope for?

[Nbadan]

Autocracy :lol Don't believe everything from the M$M and the Pinochet burros who post here


The Old Iran-Contra Death Squad Gang Is Desperate to Discredit Chavez By John Pilger
08/17/07 “Guardian”


.I walked with Roberto Navarrete into the national stadium in Santiago, Chile. With the southern winter’s wind skating down from the Andes, it was empty and ghostly. Little had changed, he said: the chicken wire, the broken seats, the tunnel to the changing rooms from which the screams echoed. We stopped at a large number 28. “This is where I was, facing the scoreboard. This is where I was called to be tortured.”

Thousands of “the detained and the disappeared” were imprisoned in the stadium following the Washington-backed coup by General Pinochet against the democracy of Salvador Allende on September 11 1973. For the majority people of Latin America, the abandonados, the infamy and historical lesson of the first “9/11″ have never been forgotten. “In the Allende years, we had a hope the human spirit would triumph,” said Roberto. “But in Latin America those believing they are born to rule behave with such brutality to defend their rights, their property, their hold over society that they approach true fascism. People who are well-dressed, whose houses are full of food, bang pots in the streets in protest as though they don’t have anything. This is what we had in Chile 36 years ago. This is what we see in Venezuela today. It is as if Chávez is Allende. It is so evocative for me.”

In making my film The War on Democracy, I sought the help of Chileans like Roberto and his family, and Sara de Witt, who courageously returned with me to the torture chambers at Villa Grimaldi, which she somehow survived. Together with other Latin Americans who knew the tyrannies, they bear witness to the pattern and meaning of the propaganda and lies now aimed at undermining another epic bid to renew both democracy and freedom on the continent.

The disinformation that helped destroy Allende and give rise to Pinochet’s horrors worked the same in Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had the temerity to implement modest, popular reforms. In both countries, the CIA funded the leading opposition media, although they need not have bothered. In Nicaragua, the fake martyrdom of La Prensa became a cause for North America’s leading liberal journalists, who seriously debated whether a poverty-stricken country of 3 million peasants posed a “threat” to the United States. Ronald Reagan agreed and declared a state of emergency to combat the monster at the gates. In Britain, whose Thatcher government “absolutely endorsed” US policy, the standard censorship by omission applied. In examining 500 articles that dealt with Nicaragua in the early 1980s, the historian Mark Curtis found an almost universal suppression of the achievements of the Sandinista government - “remarkable by any standards” - in favour of the falsehood of “the threat of a communist takeover”.

The similarities in the campaign against the phenomenal rise of popular democratic movements today are striking. Aimed principally at Venezuela, especially Chávez, the virulence of the attacks suggests that something exciting is taking place; and it is. Thousands of poor Venezuelans are seeing a doctor for the first time in their lives, having their children immunised and drinking clean water. New universities have opened their doors to the poor, breaking the privilege of competitive institutions effectively controlled by a “middle class” in a country where there is no middle. In barrio La Línea, Beatrice Balazo told me her children were the first generation of the poor to attend a full day’s school. “I have seen their confidence blossom like flowers,” she said. One night in barrio La Vega, in a bare room beneath a single lightbulb, I watched Mavis Mendez, aged 94, learn to write her own name for the first time.

More than 25,000 communal councils have been set up in parallel to the old, corrupt local bureaucracies. Many are spectacles of raw grassroots democracy. Spokespeople are elected, yet all decisions, ideas and spending have to be approved by a community assembly. In towns long controlled by oligarchs and their servile media, this explosion of popular power has begun to change lives in the way Beatrice described.

It is this new confidence of Venezuela’s “invisible people” that has so inflamed those who live in suburbs called country club. Behind their walls and dogs, they remind me of white South Africans. Venezuela’s wild west media is mostly theirs; 80% of broadcasting and almost all the 118 newspaper companies are privately owned. Until recently one television shock jock liked to call Chávez, who is mixed race, a “monkey”. Front pages depict the president as Hitler, or as Stalin (the connection being that both like babies). Among broadcasters crying censorship loudest are those bankrolled by the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA in spirit if not name. “We had a deadly weapon, the media,” said an admiral who was one of the coup plotters in 2002. The TV station, RCTV, never prosecuted for its part in the attempt to overthrow the elected government, lost only its terrestrial licence and is still broadcasting on satellite and cable.

Yet, as in Nicaragua, the “treatment” of RCTV is a cause celebre for those in Britain and the US affronted by the sheer audacity and popularity of Chávez, whom they smear as “power crazed” and a “tyrant”. That he is the authentic product of a popular awakening is suppressed. Even the description of him as a “radical socialist”, usually in the pejorative, wilfully ignores the fact that he is a nationalist and social democrat, a label many in Britain’s Labour party were once proud to wear.

In Washington, the old Iran-Contra death squad gang, back in power under Bush, fear the economic bridges Chávez is building in the region, such as the use of Venezuela’s oil revenue to end IMF slavery. That he maintains a neoliberal economy, described by the American Banker as “the envy of the banking world” is seldom raised as valid criticism of his limited reforms. These days, of course, any true reforms are exotic. And as liberal elites under Blair and Bush fail to defend their own basic liberties, they watch the very concept of democracy as a liberal preserve challenged on a continent about which Richard Nixon once said “people don’t give a shit”. However much they play the man, Chávez, their arrogance cannot accept that the seed of Rousseau’s idea of direct popular sovereignty may have been planted among the poorest, yet again, and “the hope of the human spirit”, of which Roberto spoke in the stadium, has returned.

The War on Democracy, directed by Christopher Martin and John Pilger, will be shown on ITV on Monday at 11pm.

John Pilger has been a war correspondent, film-maker and author, and has twice won British journalism’s highest award, that of Journalist of the Year. He has also been named International Reporter of the Year, and won the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. For his broadcasting, he has won France’s Reporter Sans Frontieres, and television academy awards in the United States and Britain. He holds the prestigous Sophie Award for “thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights”

Link (http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/08/17/the-old-iran-contra-death-squad-gang-is-desperate-to-discredit-chavez-by-john-pilger)

[smeagol]

Left-wing dictators are much better than right-wing dictators.

We all know that, Dan.