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  Posted By: freemedia @ 12/03/2007 11:08:16 PM

  Venezuela Solidarity Network (US) Statement on the Dec. 2, 2007 Referendum, Dec. 3, 2007
  Part Two of Two:
  
  I DARE Newsweek to print this. If you doubt the content, or the source, look them up.
  
  It is time for the US government and US corporate media to acknowledge that
  Venezuela??s electoral process is free and fair. Its electronic voting
  machines issue paper receipts which make fraud almost impossible. We only
  can wish that electronic voting in the US were as reliable. A defeat by
  only 1-1/2 percent would have been converted to a victory by those in power
  in many countries. Mexico??s long tradition of dirty elections easily comes
  to mind, as do our own last two (or more) rigged elections.
  
  It is time for the US government to stop interfering in Venezuela??s
  democracy and time for the US corporate media to stop aiding and abetting
  it. Reports are that the US government, through the US Agency for
  International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy, spent $8
  million of US taxpayer??s money to influence the vote on the referendum.
  That would be the equivalent of a foreign country spending $92.6 million on
  a national referendum ?? if we had such a democratic tool ?? in the US. Would
  we tolerate that? The Venezuela Solidarity Network organized a delegation to
  Venezuela in October of 2006 to investigate US government interference in
  that year??s presidential election. The US embassy official who met with us
  freely admitted that the US was spending $26 million on Venezuela??s
  presidential election. What would be the reaction in the US if Venezuela
  spent the equivalent $301 million on our upcoming presidential election?
  
  It is time for the US government to close the Office of Transition
  Initiatives housed in the US embassy in Caracas. Venezuela??s transition to
  a real democracy that began with the rejection of the old political parties
  of the elites in 1998 is alive and well and doesn??t need any so-called
  ??democracy building?? from the United States. Indeed, there??s a lot we could
  learn about democracy from the Venezuelans.
  

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  Posted By: freemedia @ 12/03/2007 11:07:00 PM

  Venezuela Solidarity Network (US) Statement on the Dec. 2, 2007 Referendum, Dec. 3, 2007
  Part One of Two:
  
  I DARE Newsweek to print this. If you doubt the content, or the source, look them up.
  
  With a registered voter turn-out of about 55%, Venezuelan voters rejected
  two referendum questions asking for approval of a total of 69 amendments to
  their constitution. Each question was defeated by a margin of 1.5 percentage
  points.
  
  As a result, Venezuelans will not have a constitution that gives them a 36
  hour work week, that gives informal sector workers social security, that
  recognizes the contributions of African and indigenous peoples to the
  building of Venezuelan identity, that eliminates discrimination in all
  forms. They also won??t have a seven year presidential term without term
  limits, definitions for the four classes of property, and other changes that
  ?? on paper ?? would move the country more rapidly toward what is being called
  ??21st century socialism.??
  
  Venezuelans get to vote on constitutional amendments unlike citizens in the
  United States. In the US, two-thirds of both houses of Congress must
  approve an amendment and then it must be approved by three quarters of the
  state legislatures. Voters never get a direct say. Which country has the
  greater democracy? With 11 national votes in the past nine years since Hugo
  Chavez was first elected president in 1998, is it any wonder that
  Venezuelans follow only Uruguay among Latin Americans in their satisfaction
  with their democracy?
  
  It is time for the US government and the US corporate media to acknowledge
  that Venezuela is a vibrant democracy and that Hugo Chavez is its elected
  president. He is not a dictator and he obviously does not have autocratic
  control of the system or the amendments he supported would not have been
  voted down.
  
  It is time for the US government and the US corporate media to acknowledge
  that freedom of speech and assembly are alive and well in Venezuela. The
  wealthy opposition to the ??Bolivarian process?? owns the great majority of
  print and electronic media and was completely free to attack the proposed
  amendments and Chavez himself, which it did daily and in language that we
  would never see outside of blogs in the United States.
  

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  Posted By: jojoc10 @ 12/02/2007 5:23:58 PM

  There's something to be said about Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy of "speaking softly but carrying a big stick." In this case, Chavez is doing neither.