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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Realize there is always at least one other side, and often more players than are spoken of.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
I'd have to look into it more, but the two reports I saw reported thousands, not millions. They also reported an equal number of counter-demonstrators. So it's possible it's about a specific thing affecting a specific group. But as I said, I'd have to look unto it more.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
I find it peculiar that you would post an objection to someone saying they want more information.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
Well, it's not exactly 'demonstrations' any more, it's pretty violent. It seems fairly simple- President Nicolás Maduro is at best incompetent and at worst a serious scumbag. You don't show up on the street unarmed facing dudes in riot gear to protest an unfair beer tax. Another thing, STUDENTS. Young people usually know the score, and have less to lose for standing up for what's right. Remember who resisted the Vietnam War?

I suppose it could be a gigantic cover for the US toppling yet another government to 'protect its interests' so I'll have to allow for that possibility...

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
CHRIS - The students in Venezuela are usually wealthy. They're protesting because of a beer tax???

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Yeah well, saw this comin - one MIGHT remember way back when I pointed out Hugo was an idiot for expanding the power of his office in such a fashion...
Reason being that no matter how decent you are, how noble your goals, some day yer gonna cap it, and the next sumbitch might NOT be so noble, and there goes all yer progress, right down the fucking tubes.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Realize there is always at least one other side, and often more players than are spoken of.

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Of course, but when I see unarmed civies willing to confront tear gas & guns, I figure it's not over some petty policy disagreement...

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
I didn't see a reference to a CIA plot in your link. I'd be interested in following up on that. The US government has deliberately destabilized economies in the past, and if it's the case now there are probably telltale signs.

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According to President Nicolás Maduro, the food shortages are being artificially induced by the opposition. He claims they form part of wider plan concocted by the CIA to destabilise his government, sabotage the oil industry and trigger power cuts.

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Leaked documents [who leaked them? Where were they leaked from??? Signy] have revealed evidence of a plot to destabilize Venezuela and undermine the rule of leftist President Nicolas Maduro. The papers appear to substantiate Caracas’ claims of outside attempts to cripple the country through internal sabotage.

Documents obtained by a contributor to RT’s Spanish channel, Eva Golinger, detail a structured plan to erode the stability of Venezuela with a view to “returning real democracy and independence that have been hijacked for more than 14 years.”

The plans are allegedly the product of a conference between American company FTI Consulting and two right-wing Colombian groups affiliated with former President Alvaro Uribe in the Colombian city of Cucuta in June of this year. Former President Uribe was an outspoken critic of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, referring to him openly on Twitter as a “dictator” and an “assassin.”

The three groups propose an initiative they name “The Venezuelan Strategic Plan” and list the ways in which they can disrupt all facets of Venezuelan society in the run-up to December’s regional elections.

“The suggested aims in the plan are especially geared towards the municipal elections on December 8,” writes the document. In the elections the Venezuelan population will choose 335 mayors, 2,435 municipal councilors, 69 local indigenous representatives, 2 mayors and 20 district councils.

The document is broken down into bullet points, which deal with how to maximize the impact on “all sectors of the Venezuelan population.”

The strategies to be employed include: “creating crisis on the streets, facilitating the intervention of North America and NATO forces with the Colombian army,” power cuts, food shortages, support and financing of the political opposition.

The document writes that violence should also be encouraged and “whenever possible lead to deaths and injuries.” It also gives special mention to Venezuelan opposition figure Henrique Capriles who lost in the presidential elections at the beginning of the year, advising support of his political campaign.

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After days of protests led by students and opposition forces, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the expulsion of three US consular officials whom he accused of conspiracy and meeting students involved in anti-government protests. Maduro did not identify the US officials, but pledged that the Venezuelan foreign minister would give more details later.

"It's a group of US functionaries who are in the universities. We've been watching them having meetings in the private universities for two months. They work in visas," Maduro stated in a nationally televised broadcast.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
FREM
No, as a matter of fact I don't recall you saying anything about Chavez. What was it that he did which made you post?

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And this is why, good intentions be damned, Hugo was a moron for expanding the powers of his office without a sunset provision, cause no matter how decent the current resident of an office is, this is no guarantee the next one won't be an asshole, and you just made it easier to grab for even more.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
MORE INFO

Leak reveals plot to destabilize Venezuelan govt.

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RT, previously known as Russia Today, is an international multilingual Russian-based television network. It is registered as an autonomous nonprofit organization[2][3] funded by the federal budget of Russia through the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation.[4][5]

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Protests in Venezuela continue (despite President Maduro's proclamation that the nation is in "absolute calm"), with both the government and the opposition holding rallies, leaving several streets and subway stations in Caracas closed. 10 students who were arrested amid violent protests last week have been released, though 6 students remain in custody. Demonstrators do not yet have the numbers or support base to unseat President Nicolas Maduro's administration, but as Stratfor notes, these protests could mark a turning point as the economic situation deteriorates there is a chance that protests like this could begin to generate additional social momentum in rejection of the status quo.


he challenge that the student movement will face is in finding a way to include Venezuela's laboring class, which for the most part still supports the government, and relies on its redistributive policies. Their inability to rouse broad support across Venezuela's social and economic classes was in part why previous student uprisings, including significant protests in 2007, failed to generate enough momentum to trigger a significant political shift.

But the situation has changed in Venezuela, and as the economic situation deteriorates there is a chance that protests like this could begin to generate additional social momentum in rejection of the status quo. President Nicolas Maduro has been in office for less than a year, and in that time the inflation rate has surged to over 50 percent and food shortages are a daily problem. Though firmly in power, the Chavista government is still struggling to address massive social and economic challenges. Massive government spending, years of nationalization and an overreliance on imports for basic consumer goods have radically deteriorated inflation levels, and undermined industrial production.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
GEEZER
Yes, BEWARE! Because IT'S RT!!! And NOBODY knows how to read media coverage without a shitscreen!!!!

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5) What are our (USA) politician's geopolitical and corporate interests, and how are they spinning this in our media?

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Be extremely cautious when the words "freedom", "freedom fighter", and "rebel" appear in our coverage. Those words are very powerful, and they have been used too many times to whip up support/ cover a multitude of sins. I can't emphasize this enough. I have never... and I mean NEVER.... as in, I literally can't think of a single intervention that we supported that was for "freedom"... seen those words mean what they're supposed to mean. Maybe in WW2, but that war is long gone.

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Originally posted by whozit:
I'm not buying gas at CITGO anymore.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by whozit:
I'm not buying gas at CITGO anymore.

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You mean you have been buying from Citgo - EVER ?



Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Originally posted by whozit:
I'm not buying gas at CITGO anymore.

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Yes, BEWARE! Because IT'S RT!!! And NOBODY knows how to read media coverage without a shitscreen!!!!signy

When you cite them to support your points, it seems apparent that some folks don't.-geezer

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5) What are our (USA) politician's geopolitical and corporate interests, and how are they spinning this in our media?-signy

Interesting that to you no other government has geopolitical or corporate interests. -geezer

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1) Who is on one side, and what are they fighting for? What percent of the population do they represent?
2) Who are their governmental and/or corporate/banking supporters?-signy

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Be extremely cautious when the words "freedom", "freedom fighter", and "rebel" appear in our coverage. Those words are very powerful, and they have been used too many times to whip up support/ cover a multitude of sins. I can't emphasize this enough. I have never... and I mean NEVER.... as in, I literally can't think of a single intervention that we supported that was for "freedom"... seen those words mean what they're supposed to mean. Maybe in WW2, but that war is long gone.=signy

Not Castro? Not Che? Not all the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Socialists that started as freedom fighters and ended as "President for Life"? -geezer

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On April 11, 2002, the day Chávez was overthrown, the Venezuelan and international media and the White House used juxtaposition of images of Chavistas shooting pistols in downtown Caracas, on the one hand, and peaceful anti-government demonstrators, on the other to justify the coup. However the Irish-produced documentary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and other documentaries demonstrated by the flow of the camera that the demonstrators were far away from the Chavistas and that they were shooting in response to sniper fire against them. If snipers were responsible for the 15-20 killings (of opposition demonstrators along with Chavistas) that justified the coup of April 2002, is there any reason to doubt that the unidentified individuals who are attacking demonstrators are not acting on behalf of sectors of the opposition?

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10377

Unlike What the Media Says or Implies, the Violence in Venezuela Is Being Perpetrated by the Opposition

The slant of the Venezuelan private media and the international media on what is happening in Venezuela is clear: The government is responsible for the violence. In the first place government-ordered gunmen are shooting at pacific demonstrators and the violence generated by the opposition is just a response to the brutality of police and military forces. But there is considerable evidence that shows that the violence, including that of unidentified motorcyclists against the demonstrators, is being carried out by the opposition. Consider the following:

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Aporrea.org is a Web site for the dissemination of news and opinion, socio-political and cultural, identified with the process of revolutionary and democratic transformation of our country, Venezuela, with a vision that is extrapolated to the rest of humanity, in the prospect of the settlement of the historical subjugation and build free societies, based on the power of the workers and the people, without exploitation of man by man.

Aporrea.org is a popular alternative news agency, the people's movement and the workers open and interactive digital billboard. It is a means of expression, information, debate and dissemination of contents of collective interest, mainly political, social, economic and cultural promotion. It has also become an instrument of "social intelligence".

We are a medium for debate, denunciation and the generation of ideas, with a view to the construction of the socialism of the 21st century. We seek to break through media imposed by private communication media committed to the coup and counterrevolutionary conspiracy in Venezuela, manifestation of imperialist globalization, against which we fight together with the other peoples of the world.

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So far, US and international media has generally portrayed Lopez as an outspoken “maverick,”alluding only in passing to his oligarchic pedigree and hardline right-wing politics. Lopez has been involved in coup attempts that aimed to oust Hugo Chavez since the late president was first elected. Lopez’s leadership of the current round of protests after a hard fought election won by Chavez’s successor, President Nicolas Maduro, appears to be an extension of those efforts.

I wrote about Lopez in my investigation of Thor Halvorssen and his Potemkin Village-like Human Rights Foundation. Halvorssen is a former right-wing campus activist who has leveraged his fortune to establish a political empire advancing a transparently neoconservative agenda behind the patina of human rights.

Among Halvorssen’s main PR megaphones is Buzzfeed, whose correspondent Rosie Gray flew to Oslo in 2013 to write a fawning profile of him and his Oslo Freedom Forum. (Gray has not disclosed whether Halvorssen covered her travel expenses or provided her with resources like food and lodging). Michael Moynihan, another writer who was flown to Oslo to participate in Halvorssen’s confab, published an editorial in the Daily Beast this week praising “the handsome, telegenic, and Harvard-trained Leopoldo Lopez” and slamming President Nicolas Maduro as “Mussolini-on-the-piazza.” The Daily Beast followed up with a translated version of the dramatic and carefully staged speech Lopez delivered before he turned himself in to Venezuelan authorities, which Halvorssen promptly promoted on Twitter.

Besides being the son of a CIA asset who channeled money from Venezuelan oligarchs to the Nicaraguan Contras, Halvorssen happens to be Lopez’s first cousin — Leopoldo is the son of Thor’s oil executive aunt. Through his human rights apparatus, he has played a critical role in marketing Lopez to an international audience.

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Originally posted by Geezer:

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10377

Unlike What the Media Says or Implies, the Violence in Venezuela Is Being Perpetrated by the Opposition

The slant of the Venezuelan private media and the international media on what is happening in Venezuela is clear: The government is responsible for the violence. In the first place government-ordered gunmen are shooting at pacific demonstrators and the violence generated by the opposition is just a response to the brutality of police and military forces. But there is considerable evidence that shows that the violence, including that of unidentified motorcyclists against the demonstrators, is being carried out by the opposition. Consider the following:

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Following your rules, let's look at who's behind venezuelanalysis.com

That'd be Aporrea.org.

Here's their "about" section, translated.

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Aporrea.org is a Web site for the dissemination of news and opinion, socio-political and cultural, identified with the process of revolutionary and democratic transformation of our country, Venezuela, with a vision that is extrapolated to the rest of humanity, in the prospect of the settlement of the historical subjugation and build free societies, based on the power of the workers and the people, without exploitation of man by man.

Aporrea.org is a popular alternative news agency, the people's movement and the workers open and interactive digital billboard. It is a means of expression, information, debate and dissemination of contents of collective interest, mainly political, social, economic and cultural promotion. It has also become an instrument of "social intelligence".

We are a medium for debate, denunciation and the generation of ideas, with a view to the construction of the socialism of the 21st century. We seek to break through media imposed by private communication media committed to the coup and counterrevolutionary conspiracy in Venezuela, manifestation of imperialist globalization, against which we fight together with the other peoples of the world.

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Per Wikipedia (also translated), "American Revolutionary Popular Assembly or Club is a Venezuelan partner related news portal -political and cultural information explained from the point of view of the supporters of the President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution."

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporrea.org

So not exactly "Fair and Balanced", eh?

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So not exactly "Fair and Balanced", eh?

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