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Mark Penn at Work
Mark Penn is chief strategist for the Hillary Clinton campaign. This article explains how Penn uses bogus polling and other dirty tricks to manipulate pubic opinion and "sell" candidates and ideas. He is the man behind the PR campaign that created a false illusion, as far back as January, that Clinton was the "front runner" and had broad support with the public.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=11471>Coup D'etat in Venezuela: Made in the USA The U.S.-designed Plan to Overthrow Hugo Chavez in the Days Following the Election by Chris Carlson
In his article, "Coup D'etat in Disguise," Jonathan Mowat described how these "polls" work: "Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) has played a pioneering role in the use of polling operations, especially "exit polls," in facilitating coups. Its primary mission is to shape the perception that the group installed into power in a targeted country has broad popular support. ""...the deployment of polling agencies' "exit polls" broadcast on international television...give the false impression of massive vote-fraud by the ruling party, to put targeted states on the defensive."
That is, the goal is to either get enough support to sway the election in their favor, or, if that isn't possible, to give the impression that the elections were fraudulent and encourage the population to overturn them. The strategy has been so successful in overthrowing regimes, or installing the regimes that the U.S. prefers, that the operation has evolved into a blueprint to be used in countries around the world. Ian Traynor described it in the Guardian in November 2004 as follows:
"he campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes...The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections"
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Last week, Mr. Schoen, of Penn, Schoen & Berland, released the findings of his latest survey on the Venezuelan evening news. As expected, Penn's survey showed that Chavez's opposition, Manuel Rosales, was nearly tied in the polls with Chavez. Chavez, it showed, had only 48% support, and his opponent Manuel Rosales had gained significantly up to 42%. This poll is now being reported across all the major Venezuelan media, to a huge audience, showing that Rosales was gaining more and more everyday, and could possibly win. Mr. Schoen added his personal opinion, "The momentum is clearly with Rosales."(10)
With the help of the mainstream media, almost all of which is vehemently opposed to the popular president, these fake polls have reached a wide audience. All the newspapers, the major television channels, and internet news sites report the poll results as if they were true, valid, findings. They don't mention the fact that these findings are not supported by any other polling agency. Again, although the reality is that Rosales has almost no chance of winning in the December elections, much of the population now believes he will. The reality doesn't seem to matter, all that really matters is what the population believes. When their candidate loses by a large margin, it will be a difficult reality to deal with. If the opposition strategy works, it might be possible to produce large protests and even riots.
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