Is CIA Fomenting Unrest to Challenge Referendum in Venezuela?

[Gold Metal Flake]

Is CIA Fomenting Unrest to Challenge Referendum in Venezuela?
Amy Goodman interviews James Petras
Democracy Now, November 30, 2007
James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Latin America Studies at Binghamton University, New York. He is author of a number of books including "Social Movements and State Power."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Amy_Goodman/James_Petras_interview.html

Snippet from the transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Let me ask you, in this country, the main focus has been, obviously, in the corporate media on the attempt to do away with term limits for the president. But this is a very extensive major reform of Venezuela's laws or its constitution. Could you talk about the various other reforms that are involved in this vote on Sunday?

JAMES PETRAS: Yes. One of them, and probably one that's going to turn out the biggest votes for Chavez, is the universal social security coverage for many of the street vendors, domestic servants, other people that are in the so-called informal sector, which covers up to 40% of the labor force. So this 40% of the labor force will be covered now by universal social security coverage.

The second thing is the thirty-six-hour work week.

The third is the devolution of community funds directly to local neighborhood organizations and what they call communal councils, which incorporate several neighborhood councils. They will be directly funded by the federal government, instead of the money going through municipal and state governors, where a lot of it is skimmed off the top. So there's another very positive factor.

[burythehatchet]

1. Is the bear Catholic? Does the pope shit in the woods?

[Pavulon]

2. I am just waiting for that CIA

memo chavez has. Once that hits this issue will blow up.

Chavez is a petro puppet. His only relevance is gained from the rotted flesh of dead animals under the ground. Other than that he is totally irrelevant in the world community.

If oil drops he will be back on the list with the president of namibia nd the DPRC.

NEXT.

[tritsofme]

3. So is Hugo's plan to declare the vote invalid if it fails?

Due to "outside interference"?

Sounds like the scenario he's setting up.

[Gold Metal Flake]

5. From the link...

"JAMES PETRAS: Well, I picked it up off the Venezuelan government program. It describes in some detail what the strategy of the US embassy has been, and most likely the author, Michael Middleton Steere, who's listed as US embassy, may be a CIA operative, because he sends the report to Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA.

Now, what the memo talks about essentially is, first of all, the effectiveness of their campaign against the constitutional amendments, and it concedes that the amendment will be approved, but it does mention the fact that they've reduced the margin of victory by six percentage points. The second part is more interesting. It actually mentions the fact that the US strategy is what they call a "pincer operation." That's the name of the document itself. It's-"pincer" is "tenaza," and it's, first of all, to try to undermine the electoral process, the vote itself, and then secondly, once the vote goes through, if they are not able to stop the vote, is to engage in a massive campaign calling fraud and rejecting the outcome that comes from the election. So, on one hand, they're calling a no vote, and on the other hand, they're denouncing the outcome if they lose."

Not sure what this "sound" is that you are hearing. Perhaps you have gas?

[mitchtv]

7. Yeah, I know, "outside interference"

would never happen in Latin America. I remember sept 11, 1973.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Our humanitarian and demcracy loving CIA?? Perish the thought.

They would never do such a thing as sabotage a democratically elected government or try to influence an election! Unless it was in our, you know, "vital national interests".

[burrowowl]

6. Oh my gosh!

I would be surprised if the CIA has a hand in this!

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[bullimiami]

8. so you know how illegal it is for foreign powers to interfere in our elections? pretty damn illegal.

so why the hell is it ok for the US to keep tampering with elections all over the world?

[L. Coyote]

9. Who killed Allende, who installed Arbenz and Somoza, who murdered Ben Linder and Linda Frasier?

Who cares where bears shit? I want to know when someone will be prosecuted for killing my neighbors!

[Warren Stupidity]

10. I am fairly sure none of the rabid Chavez haters have bothered

to do any research about what is in the proposed changes. They simply parrot the False Noise from their TV sets. It is really rather discouraging. One would think, what with us now stuck it seems permanently in Iraq based on a pack of intentional lies and the dutiful stenography of the Bullshit Media System, that more here on DU would have a fucking clue that they are being lied to on a continuous coordinated basis. But it seems that this is not so.

[madrchsod]

12. there`s that change in the election law and one other change

(i can`t remember right now) that is troubling but the rest of the changes seem very good. it will be very interesting to see if this passes....come to think of it we have been living under an installed president for 7+ years...hell chavez won his fair and square

[L. Coyote]

11. What if Islamic Fundamentalists Or Brit NeoCons had rigged Florida 2000 for Bush?

Would we look as askew on our election being fixed, as we do now?