Venezuelian Aggressor Only Changes 10% Of The Constitution!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Agathon


Not with any justification. And this exposes the fundamental idiocy of your position.

What's the point of having a consitution if you are going to stand idly by while it is overthrown by people taking advantage of the freedoms it affords to overthrow those very freedoms?

In certain cases governments are justified in suspending traditional or constitutional rights to ensure their preservation in the long run.

But Chavez did not stand idly by, he defeated the coup. There is more threat of a coup, but there is a very real threat that Chavez popularity could decline, and so he needs to eliminate as many opposition voices as he can get away with.

Your arguement comes down to the permanent crisis IS mentioned before. and if ever things calm down, Chavez will use either actions or rhetoric to stir up MORE crisis, thus justifying further crackdowns.

Thats why the TV shutdown must be seen in context. The context of the change on term limits. The nationalization of the oil company, and the politicization of employment there. etc, etc.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

There are many situations that might be comparable.

Is the new justice seeking president someone with the deep respect for liberty of Alberto Gonzales? Then yeah, hed probably seize on the excuse to ban the papers. If it was Russ Feingold? Abe Lincoln? Herbert Hoover? I dont know.

Of course you know. You just daren't say so because it would mean admitting defeat.

My work here is done.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Agathon


Oh I don't think they're in huts. We likely know where a lot of them are. Living in your country, under the protection of your government.

So great, they get up and announce a coup at the corner of Connecticut and 19th street NW. What happens in Caracas as a result. Nothing.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Agathon


Of course you know. You just daren't say so because it would mean admitting defeat.

My work here is done.

ah, then you do feel all warm and cuddly. Good for you.

Id say LordShiva did the most effective work here.

[lord of the mark]

"El Caracazo: The unseen military cover-up

Katy says: Yesterday was the anniversary of El Caracazo, a day that no Venezuelan can ever forget. On February 27th, 1989, thousands of poor people poured into the streets to protest a hike in the prices of gas and public transportation. As the crowds grew larger, people began looting, and pretty soon Venezuela's major cities were undergoing massive riots.

The rioting continued and grew worse through the night and onto the next day, when newly-inaugurated, democratically-elected President Carlos Andrés Pérez suspended constitutional guarantees and installed a curfew. What happened in the aftermath left a permanent stain on the country's soul.

To enforce the government's curfew, the Venezuelan military began killing people randomly in a desperate attempt to restore order in the country. Estimates say that more than 1,000 Venezuelans were killed during those days, most of them poor, many of them in their homes, while many more are missing. Numerous bodies were found in mass graves, while some were never recovered.

Yesterday we had a commemoration of sorts, with the government holding an official ceremony while at the same time vowing to end impunity. For all the grandstanding, though, the government's record in bringing those responsible to justice is dismal. The inescapable fact is that after eighteen years, not a single one of the people who murdered innocent civilians is in jail. More than a few of them have ended up, instead, in cush revolutionary jobs.

He has been in power for 8 of the eighteen years since el Caracazo. He has controlled the courts for plenty long enough to put the people responsible in jail and to implement measures to ensure abuses like this never happen again. Voices from inside and outside Venezuela, including respected human rights campaigner and victims' defender Liliana Ortega, have blasted the current administration for not doing enough to bring justice to victims' families.

Other criticism has come from an unlikely source: People's Ombudsman - and staunch Chávez supporter - Germán Mundaraín. Mr. Mundaraín came out with a report yesterday blasting the Prosecutor General's Office for not doing enough to bring about justice, only to be strongly rebuffed by Prosecutor General and former chavista Vice-President, Isaías Rodríguez. It was a rare instance of public disagreement between two men who have always worked in tandem to defend the government at all costs.

Why would a government that has made the memory of February 27th so central a part of its ideological memory fail so badly to bring those responsible to justice? The reason is that this is a military government, and the main perpetrator of the abuses during those days was the military.

President Chávez was a Lieutenant Coronel in the Venezuelan army when he tried to overthrow Pérez in February of 1992. Yet Chávez did not act alone that day: some of the officers who took part in or sympathized with the coup are now in the President's Cabinet, including the Interior, Defense and Telecommunications Ministers (Secretaries) and the head of the national tax-collecting office SENIAT. Even more are in positions of power in official chavista bureaucracy. They are now ambassadors, under-secretaries, superintendents, governors, mayors and even judges.

If all these people were active in 1992, they were also active in 1989. The fact that they remained in the military between 89 and 92 makes them immediate suspects in the 89 massacre, since they obviously did not disobey orders to shoot indiscriminately. And while certainly not all of them participated, it's safe to bet that some of them did, and they probably either hold positions of power or are connected to someone who does.

Take, for instance, the case of Crisanto Maderos. Maderos was murdered during those tragic days, a crime for which three military officers were charged: Col. Pedro Colmenares, Col. Jesus Francisco Blanco Berroterán and Maj. Carlos Miguel Yánez Figueredo. All three were active officers in 1992.

The trial ended in an acquittal, with the judge arguing that the crime had prescribed. Last July, the Chávez-appointed Supreme Tribunal upheld the acquittal. This acquittal was unrelated to a lack of forensic evidence; these guys got off on a technicality: a new low for chavista justice.

It turns out that Colmenares used to be Venezuela's military attaché in its Embassy in Washington. Colmenares has also represented the Chávez administration in the Interamerican Defense Board, and for a time was part of Chávez's personal security. Furthermore, Blanco Berroterán's brother has recently been appointed to a government post within the military justice system, having previously worked as one of the directors of the Palo Verde military jail, from which imprisoned union leader Carlos Ortega famously escaped several months ago. Yánez Figueredo, still in active service, is known for being part of the graduating class that controversially named Fidel Castro as its godfather. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the real reason these guys got out.

So while we all remember the terrible days of 1989 with sadness and thirst for justice, let's keep one thing straight: the impunity surrounding el Caracazo is not due to government foot dragging or to the usual delays of a sclerotic court system. It's the outcome of a carefully orchestrated cover-up."

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I believe the Socialist Workers Party of the United States does... they probably put out a newsletter. How much do you exactly want to narrow things here so no comparison is actually possible?

Bring it on home.

Wiki

1941: Minneapolis Sedition Trial - Socialism on Trial
The first Smith Act Trial occurred in 1941 with the prosecution in Minneapolis of leaders of the communist Socialist Workers Party in Minneapolis including James P. Cannon, Carl Skoglund, Farrell Dobbs, Grace Carlson, Harry DeBoer, Max Geldman, Albert Goldman (who also acted as the defendants' lawyer during the trial) and twelve other leaders of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) as well as union activists involved with Local 544 of the Teamsters union in Minneapolis where the SWP had had a degree of influence since the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.

On June 27, 1941, the SWP's offices in Minneapolis and St. Paul were raided by the FBI which seized large quantities of communist literature. Several weeks later, twenty-eight people, either members of the SWP or Local 544 (or both) were indicted by a federal grand jury with violation of the 1861 Sedition Act, which had never before been used, and the 1940 Smith Act.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Bring it on home.

And you believe they stopped?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


And you believe they stopped?

When they were in prison? What are you talking about, and what is your point?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
When they were in prison? What are you talking about, and what is your point?

The SWPUSA still is in existence. In a few times earlier last century they were cracked down on during war time (in, my opinion, acts blatantly violative of the 1st Amendment, and most Americans today consider reprehensible). However, the party still exists and, I'd imagine, still wishes for a socialist state. They still advocate it and haven't been shut down (nor has their literature).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

They still advocate it and haven't been shut down (nor has their literature).

Advocacy should be implied, however I don't think they speak out openly for it, and they didn't back then. But the question is whether they would be shut up if they openly advocated a coup, and they a failed coup took place, and then they spoke out openly in favor of that attempt. There's a pretty good chance that they would, depending on the actual situation.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Advocacy should be implied, however I don't think they speak out openly for it, and they didn't back then. But the question is whether they would be shut up if they openly advocated a coup, and they a failed coup took place, and then they spoke out openly in favor of that attempt. There's a pretty good chance that they would, depending on the actual situation.

They may, I'll admit, be shut down right after a failed coup if they advocated it (probably because there would be some raid on the editor and whatnot for being part of the coup, whether they were or weren't), but it'd be allowed to come back fairly quickly, I'm sure. Like pro-Confederate newspapers right after the ACW.

If anything, the SCOTUS would strike down a complete banning (as they have in the past).

Then again, the US has a fairly strong tradition of freedom of the press and even if some press is taken on during wars, very quickly afterwards the public would want to reverse it to restore the press freedoms.

[Kidlicious]

Like I said, it depends on the situation. You've got to consider the situation in Venezuela. I'll grant you that if it were just the matter of a failed coup that they would be allowed to resume, but national security would not be compromised.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Bring it on home.

Wiki

whats ironic is that the CPUSA SUPPORTED the use of the Smith act against their Trotskyite non-brethren. You will note the clampdown happened in June 1941. If youre clever you can think about what else happened in 1941 that suddently made the CPUSA sympathetic to the warmongering Roosevelt admin, and even more deeply hostile to the still antiwar SWP.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
whats ironic is that the CPUSA SUPPORTED the use of the Smith act against their Trotskyite non-brethren.

Well gee, let's just put all the blame on the CPUSA, because the act would never have passed without their support.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Well gee, let's just put all the blame on the CPUSA, because the act would never have passed without their support.

I believe theres actually something to that. I dont think you realize that the CPUSA actually had influence in 1940. At the very least, to get some folks on the left to accept what they otherwise might not have done. I also dont think you realize that the trotskyites were organizing strikes by the merchant marine, at a time when the UK was living on a shoe string across the Atlantic.

In any case there was no shutting down of major newspapers, some of which were bitterly hostile to Roosevelt and the "Jew deal" And yes, being associated with Jews was far less popular in the USA at that time than being associated with persons of color is in Venezuala today.