Letter Never Sent

The plans of the IMF and corporate interests are not going as planned in Venezuela. Despite statements by the presiding military junta to the contrary there has been no evidence that Chavez resigned. His daughter reported talking to him over the telephone and he told her he had been imprisoned and had not resigned. No formal letter of resignation has been made public. Despite all the evidence of a violent extraconstitutional military coup the Bush administration is standing behind the planned military dictatorship.

This is the biggest story going on right now, but it really isn’t getting that much attention. Venezuela is the 3rd largest supplier of oil to the United States! There is nothing the US would like more than to have a ‘friendly’ government there, dictatorship or not. CNN is reporting on the pro-Chavez protests that are going on right now. The ‘interim’ government has postponed the swearing-in of the US-supported business puppet, Carmona, due to huge street protests:

Another military commander, army Gen. Julio Garcia Montoya, said in a telephone interview with Cuban television that the constitution must be followed.

“We don’t recognize de facto juntas,” Garcia said. He said Chavez’s Vice President Diosdado Cabello should be named interim president and that elections should be held within one month.

Venezuelan TV and many radio stations did not carry his comments, and have not reported on Saturday’s disturbances.

Notice how the media lines up behind the business dictatorship even in Venezuela.

Outside the presidential palace, police used tear gas to push back hundreds of Chavez supporters rallying outside the palace, chanting, “Chavez will be back!” and “Democracy, not dictatorship.” Gunshots were heard coming from Catia slum near the presidential palace. …

Mexican President Vicente Fox said his country would not recognize Venezuela’s new government until new elections are held, and the leaders of Argentina and Paraguay called the new government illegitimate. Leaders of the 19-nation Rio Group of Latin American countries condemned “the interruption of constitutional order” in Venezuela.

Since Chavez’s ouster, police and soldiers have arrested some members of his government and hunted groups of his supporters thought to have been given weapons before Chavez fell.

Pro-Chavez protests were reported in at least 20 neighborhoods of Caracas, as well as the cities of Los Teques, Guarenas, Maracay and Coro. “We want to see Chavez. The Venezuelan people don’t buy it that he has resigned,” said Maria Brito, 36, who lives in the Catia slum.

Earlier Saturday, Carmona — who has promised elections within a year — dissolved the Chavez-controlled Congress, Supreme Court, attorney general’s and comptroller’s offices, and declared a 1999 Constitution sponsored by Chavez null and void.

This is the “Constitution that now provides guarantees for indigenous rights and women’s rights, free health care and education up to the university level. To reduce corruption Chavez has restructured the judicial and legislative branches. The government serves breakfast and lunch to schoolchildren year round and enrollment has increased by over a million students.” Later the new dictatorship met with their friends in the US and EU.

“There have been detentions that are not legal and don’t respect the Constitution,” said Liliana Ortega, director of the local Cofavic rights organization. New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that rights and the rule of law were threatened in Venezuela.

Thousands of Cubans demonstrated Saturday in Havana to protest Chavez’s removal. Cuba’s government condemned the harassment and called on the United Nations to investigate the overthrow of Chavez

Earlier Saturday, Carmona and newly appointed Foreign Minister Jose Rodriguez Iturbe met with the ambassadors of the United States and Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Officials did not immediately give any details of the talks.

In a case of birds of a feather flocking together, the Bush administration has applauded the coup of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. As Steve from Ethel the Blog points out, Chavez’s real sins are what led the US to support the coup:

Chavez won Presidential elections in 1998 and again in 2000 by the largest majority in four decades. He has been governing Venezuela following the principles of a new social movement called the Bolivarianism, named after the South American independence hero, Simón Bolívar. Nearly all Venezuelans were eager for drastic change. They wanted a new government that would eradicate corruption and graft, and redirect the money from the vast oil fields away from the multinationals towards the 80% of the Venezuelans living in poverty.
Using his enormous popularity, Chavez has managed to implement an unprecedented amount of reforms. To highlight just a few, Chavez has ratified a new Constitution that now provides guarantees for indigenous rights and women’s rights, free health care and education up to the university level. To reduce corruption Chavez has restructured the judicial and legislative branches. The government serves breakfast and lunch to schoolchildren year round and enrollment has increased by over a million students. In a change that affected the world economy, Chavez reinvigorated OPEC, raising oil prices from $8 a barrel to $27 – currently the price is $18 a barrel.

So, he’s popular and he works to help the poor majority of his nation. That’s the whole problem. We can’t have someone providing a bad example like that. The current thief in the Whitehouse, Senor Bush, got up on his high horse and intoned, “This man was elected by the people. We respect democracy in our country, and we hope he respects the democratic institutions within his country.” Okay, what does that have to do with him being overthrown by the military? His deposal was not the product of democracy! Bush, obviously, is unclear on the subject.

Despite what has been reported by most of the media, Chavez never resigned. He is at this moment, in prison by the hands of the military junta which the US has expressly and loudly supported. Venezuela is now being ruled by a prominent businessman and by the leaders of the coup.

The exact circumstances of how Mr. Chávez left office remained unclear today, but the former president’s strident supporters as well as some political experts were concerned that he did not resign, violating the Constitution. The interim government caused further concern as it began wiping away vestiges of Mr. Chávez’s rule, dissolving the National Assembly, which Mr. Chávez controlled, firing the Supreme Court members and repealing a series of “revolutionary” laws approved in December.

“This is a classic coup,” said Teodoro Petkoff, editor of the Caracas newspaper Tal Cual and a strident critic of Mr. Chávez who nonetheless is concerned about the changeover in power. “There no letter of resignation for Chávez. We do not see it anywhere.”

The Bush administration has as little respect for the Venezuelan constitution as it has for our own Constitution.

It’s finally happened. The democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez has been overthrown by the military. The IMF and the US have been very outspoken about the fact that they would financially support a ‘transitional’ government once Chavez has been removed. The US has already been busy grooming his replacement, Alfredo Peña, the Mayor of Caracas. In December Pena visited the State Department and the World Bank in Washington. Chavez has been on the Evil Empire’s bad side for a while “for not allowing drug-surveillance flights over Venezuela, being opposed to plan Colombia and working with OPEC.” Basically, Chavez has been acting like the leader of his country instead of as a cabana boy for the US.

This is exactly the same strategy they used with Chile when the US Government helped in the coup there and with the assassination of Salvadore Allende. Be proud of your corrupt government, a supporter of assassination and dictatorship. Money and oil take precedence over freedom and democracy for the United States. My thoughts go out to the Venezuelan people tonight.

I’ve been reading Witness to a Century by George Seldes (at the time of the writing 97–he lived to be 104!). It’s an amazing and inspirational book. I was able to finally locate a copy at Half-Price. George Seldes is an amazing journalist. He led early campaigns against press censorship by government and business interests. He exposed the dangers of tobacco in the 1940’s and the anti-labor, illegal strikebreaking activities of the American Legion. In the 1930’s the American Legion broke more strikes than the national guard! It’s also no coincidence that the American Legion was created and financed by prominent businessmen. The best thing about reading George Seldes is that he inspires a feeling of optimism and a desire to get out and change things yourself.

1. Snips from George Seldes’ Victory over Fascism (New York, 1943)
2. Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press a documentary by Rick Goldsmith
3. Is the Entire Press Corrupt? by George Seldes in EXTRA by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
4. Correspondence between George Seldes and Emma Goldman
5. George Seldes: Muckraker, Journalism Critic, Anti-fascist
6. Chapters 1 & 2 from the book Facts and Fascism by George Seldes

CIA and American government lament proliferation of spy satellites. They’re not complaining for nothing. I’m sure they’re doing it to get more money for new corporate/military projects. Lo and behold here’s the pitch later in the article:

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, who has studied these issues, suggested the military develop ways to jam satellite transmissions and prevent ground stations from receiving the pictures.

“The more information an adversary has, the more vulnerable we are,” he said. “We have to think about jamming and other capabilities at the appropriate times.”

Both the United States and the former Soviet Union worked on weapons that would bring down spy satellites in the event of a major war. But interest in those technologies has waned.

James also said he worries that the United States is losing its edge in building the best satellites. New restrictions on exports of satellite components, while slowing the transfer of sophisticated technology, have also caused U.S. manufacturers to close, he said. These rules were enacted after an investigation into the Clinton administration’s decision to let two U.S. aerospace companies export satellites to be launched atop Chinese rockets.

So, look for more public funds squandered developing ‘jamming’ technology or other advanced satellite technologies. It should be of no surprise to anyone that one of Mac Thornberry’s largest campaign contributors is Lockheed-Martin. They have a plant in nearby Fort Worth. If the government and the military decide to throw some money around for satellites Lockheed-Martin will benefit big time. Lockheed-Martin has already benefitted directly from the ‘war against terror’. Not only has their stock increased by 50% since September 11, but they have also secured huge, lucrative government contracts since then which could be worth more than 200 billion dollars! That’s $200,000,000,000.00 and that’s only counting their contract for the ‘joint strike fighter’. This is corporate welfare at its best.

When I read the part about bringing satellites down I wondered why interest has waned in that strategy? Maybe the reason is that satellites are extremely vulnerable to attack and the US would be the biggest loser if it started attacking satellites. The US would be absolutely crippled without satellite communication. I’m also guessing that the tools for bringing down satellites would be fairly easy to develop ie. coherent energy weapons like lasers or directed emp weaponry. That could open up a whole new kettle of worms.