You would have to explain what blatant violations those are.
āCorrupt backward countryā
Heās not coming home.
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Youāre funny. You care about āhuman rightsā in Venezuela, but not at home.
Would you be more impressed with Venezuela if they spent vast fortunes on imprisoning people in illegal prisons in Cuba? Or if they invaded a few countries and propagated some illegal wars?
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Citation needed
"Also Chavez made it possible to remove elected officials part way through their terms, which I think increased the level of democracy compared to many nations. "
And removed the term limits for himself. When that was not successful in an election, he removed the term limits for all positions. The they succeeded. Yes, really democratic. ChĆ”vezā relatives all all over the place in positions they are not qualified for, just because their last name. Extremely democratic, if you happen to be called ChĆ”vez, I guess. THe same brother of ChĆ”vez, Argenis, was moved from president of the national electrical company to a very high position in charge of picking the judges. Is this guy some kind of super man, specialist in everything, or what?
Venezuelan elections have been conducted under international monitoring. In fact Jimmy Carter had this to say
āof the 92 elections that weāve monitored, I would say the election
process in Venezuela is the best in the world.ā
Why donāt you read the latest report on Venezuelan elections by European observers? http://www.iaee.eu/material/Informe_Final_Observacion_Electoral_Venezuela_14_abril_2013.pdf , they found a lot of problems, that Carter never did is actually a sign that his observation is not as sharp as it should be. Also, the problem is not the elections themselves, but using the collective resources of all Venezuelans to support the governmentās candidate. If Bush had used federal resources to make sure that McCain won, we would have seen thousands of (rightly so) comments here on Boingboing.
āSo this may be a case of journalists using private investigators to bug people rather than nationwide monitoringā
No it is not. Donāt forget that these journalists are public employees, working for one of the several state channels. These guys kept in the air for years, and despite of the blatant illegality of what they did, they were not even charged. So, donāt try to absolve the responsibility of the govt in this.
Imagine if the US media were as involved in the coup as the Venezuelan
media were involved in the coup there. I wonder how many US
journalists would be languishing in prison.
So, according to your argument, any govt that feels threatened can do whatever it feels it needs to do to remain in power.
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Oh, yes, because the current elites are not wealthy and willing to spy on their citizens just to remain in power. No, Sir, no. How could you think that?
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Thatās, simply, not true.
ChƔvez ran on his last election proposing a govt that would achieve the planetary peace and the universal equilibrium. State media is full of bullshit about how we are the freest and most democratic country in the world.
Sources:
http://blog.chavez.org.ve/programa-patria-venezuela-2013-2019/geopolitica-internacional/
PD: Please inform yourself before making this kind of statements. Thanks
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I guess itās a question of which āelitesā that the masses feel better about having in power. Time and time again they donāt seem to want oligarchs and neoliberals. They seem to know the difference between the elites.
Sour grapes. Itās why āliberalsā seem to have no problem attacking democracies when it suits them, whether in Latin America or over in The Eastā¦ Same reason military coups and massacres are A-okā¦ Same reason why there hasnāt been much posting on Egypt latelyā¦ Oopsies! How embarrassingā¦ The good side just massacred tons of people and took over the media and now there may be a civil war. Whoops!
Name-calling isnāt going to make your case. That would be like me assuming youāre either working for a hostile foreign govāt or so politically correct youāre ready to surrender to an enemy ideology. While one of those is possible, it would be silly for me to say those are the only two possibilities I can see.
I never said itās worth mass surveillance on us. I said Iām not sure thatās exactly whatās happening. I tend to doubt most conspiracy theories. My own position on spying is that this is something we should be doing to our enemies, not us. The price of Snowdenās mischief is that heās made that more difficult.
In fact, while heās made it more difficult to spy on our enemies, I can see several scenarios where heās made it easier to spy on the U.S. And yet, I suspect that he wouldnāt care if that was the result.
No it is not. Stealing funds, nepotism and using state resources to fund your own campaign while not giving the same funds to the opposition is wrong, no matter who approves it. Or is it that the Iraq War was a good thing because Bush was elected twice? Gay bashing in Russia is acceptable because the majority of people there really hates gays?
āTime and time again they donāt seem to want oligarchs and
neoliberals.ā
They do want oligarchs, as they elected this govt. More precisely, about half of them wants oligarchs. The other half chose an alternative, and the election is being disputed. In any case, these guys have grown to be very fat cats who will do anything to remain in power.
They seem to know the difference between the elites.
Many of them donāt really know. Itās not that difficult to make people riled up and get them to vote emotionally against their own interests, Americans should have learned this a long time ago.
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Your govt has brought that onto itself. Spying all your citizens increases the noise and does make harder to spy your enemies.
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There were several things going wrong at Abu Ghraib, and people tend to mix them up. There were things that were authorized, but not done in the manner approved. There were things that were never authorized, but done anyway. And there were various crimes.
As for trying to make changes, a soldier gave the pictures to Army CID in January 2004. A few days later, the general in charge had to step down while General Taguba began an investigation of the abuses. The next month, the first guards were charged. Tabugaās report showed problems that led to the abuses, and that led the Army to begin a wider investigation. All that was happening before the pictures were released.
Abu Ghraib is another reason I donāt believe in conspiracy theories. Most people havenāt a clue what went on there.
Maybe so, but we have yet to see that for sure. And Iām not one of those who ever believed the āhope and changeā was intended to mean change for the better.
Perhaps you missed Obamaās follow-up speech after a guy named Edward Snowden released records in regards to the National Security Agencyās collection of US citizenās phone calls. Essentially they probably have all the basic information of your phone calls and mine. So considering the 4th Amendment is to protect US citizens from unreasonable search and seizures, itās kind of a violation of that right.
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Well, itās not only about āmaybeā, since we know a few things about noise and signal, and also, you have your pesky fourth amendment. Your govt should not be doing what it is doing.
Calling this a National Security Secret is what the NSA calls it. Theyāve kind of cleverly left part of it out; Itās a National Security Agency secret. Thereās a big differenceā¦
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Iām sorry, but, Iām confusedā¦ At what point does OSGuido is saying that he supports coups, and actions of that sort? Funny how Chavez supporters abroad seem to oversimplify the issue, and reduce everything to a false dilema/strawman fallacy attack: If a Venezuelan is against ChĆ”vez, then he must be a coup-supporter-anti-democracy guyā¦ Because no other alternative is possible, right?
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Chavism is pretty much founded on name-calling.
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See Reasonable Expectation of Privacy. This is from a source, EFF, that obviously operates from the assumption that there is some violation going on; they have to, given their role is to tug in the direction of privacy. I mention that to show EFF is an unimpeachable source on what courts actually have ruled.
[quote=āIon, post:52, topic:2974ā]
I never said itās worth mass surveillance on us. I said Iām not sure thatās exactly whatās happening. I tend to doubt most conspiracy theories. [/quote]
You are not sure exactly what is going on? The president of the United-fucking-States-of-America came on TV and awkwardly explained and confirmed that yes, the NSA is collecting all phone records of all Americans, among other horrific violation of the liberty. When el presidante gives a press conference and tells you he is doing it, it stops being a conspiracy theory.
And exactly what several scenarios are those? He blew open a massive domestic spying operation and the fucking government confirmed it. The government has now been sued by the ACLU and the EFF for violation of the Constitution of the United States, and this time the lawsuits canāt be thrown out by the government on the grounds that those civil liberty organizations have no proof. Those lawsuits are going ahead. If that is āmaking it easierā, when need to make it a fuck-ton easier to spy, preferably by cutting off funding to the NSA and clawing back all of their warrantless domestic spying powers.
Iām not name calling. I am making a pretty general observation. If someone refused to clean themselves because they feared slipping and falling to their death in a bathtub, we would call that person a coward (or very mentally ill). Terrorism kills fewer people than bathtubs. If you are going to rabidly defend the NSA, a military spy agency, collecting every single phone record in the US, I am going to go ahead and observe that by basically any definition of the word, you are a coward or a shill. Only a coward or a shill thinks that the largest violation of the fourth amendment in the history of the US is a-okay because the terrorist are so scary. I suspect cowardice, but please, feel free to correct me and explain your love of domestic spying by military spy agencies has another motive besides cowardice.
I am not a fucking coward. I donāt find the pathetically small danger presented by terrorist as being worth living in a surveillance state that strips its citizens of their liberty while pissing away trillions of dollars to do it. Someone willing to tolerate such a state of affairs for a pathetically small increase in their safety is, by any sane and rational definition of the word, is a fucking coward (or being paid off). I personally am happy that someone had the balls to risk their life and liberty expose such a mass violation and donāt give two shits if he is a Russia spy, āmurica hatinā A-rab, or is a card carrying EFF member who loves liberty and hates cowards. If he really is a nasty Russian spy, then I am even more disgusted at my nation than before, because any American with a little courage and an ounce of love of liberty should have run screaming to the media with what the NSA was doing and none did. Suggesting that he is a spy (which is a laughable claim that not even the government has made) just means that Americans are too fucking pathetic to react with proper horror and bravery when they discover that their government is busy stripping them of liberty in the name of a pathetic and small threat.
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What Snowden or his supporters do not realize, is that he is going to be used a propaganda tool for the Venezuelan government, whether he want it or not. That is simply not optional. Snowden will surely be paraded by Maduro, and used ad infinitum as a poster boy to legitimize his government, and support his shaky (and very questionable) ādemocraticā credentials.
Snowden, the person who is horrified about U.S. espionage on its citizens, will go to the country that is actually (and very intensely) spying on its citizens, that is using their private conversations as political, social and even legal means of punishmentā¦ And with his travel, he will endorse that ditch-living. Voluntarily or not.
(Oh, BTW Mr. Snowden, bring your own toilet paperā¦ We have sort of an scarcity issue over hereā¦ Better be safe than sorryā¦)
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