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The legitimate Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, declared that the pseudo-elections, that the dictatorship has organized to perpetuate itself under a clout of legitimacy, managed to attract only 35% of voters.
The coupists are claiming that abstention was of only 30%, when actually reached 65%. We have 1400 of the total 5000 polling stations sampled and we also have the acts and voting numbers. That means: we have enough data to demonstrate that the dictatorship is falsifying the truth - declared the ousted President to the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN).
The USA and Panama have already declared they would acknowldege the result of these illegitimate elections. Colombia and Peru might do as well. Most other countries of America will surely keep their support for Zelaya, even if only nominally.
It is interesting to read imperialist media like the pseudo-prestigious BBC because they only mention the dictatorship's claims. It says a lot about the real "objectivity" of such media.
So we can say now that Honduras had fraud elections and that the dictators lost... though they claim otherwise.
With less than 35% of popular support (there were huge pressures on citizens to vote) the oligarchic tyranny has a problem to keep itself afloat. The conflict is likely to continue for some time until the coupists are ousted and a constitutional assembly can be elected with guarantees.
There were no neutral international observers in this election. Only far right US groups sent some but they are anything but neutral.
Amnesty International already denounced the "threatening atmosphere" in which this poll took place. There are reports that in some places armed troops in plain clothes rounded up the citizens forcing them to vote. The state of emergency in which the poll took place did not impede that demonstrators took to the streets again in San Pedro Sula, however the police repressed them violently. The repression against those who support the legitimate president is spreading up to the point that this jouney dressed of democracy has been dubbed the second coup in Honduras.
We'll see what happens but, unless a patriotic commander makes a counter-coup, the totalitarian situation can extend in time, bringing destabilization and potential increased conflict to all the region. But one thing I am sure about: the Honduran people will not submit.
Update: the National Front of Resistence Against the Coup in Honduras declared only 21.5% went to vote.
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22 comments:
So he claims. I have seen that already. I first want to see the
actas.
By the way, Zelaya was going to use Venezuela 'technology' for his illegal referendum (a referendum that made him a coupster as well, at the same level as Micheletti).
Bbc is "pseudo-prestigious"? And what is the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN)? The mother of truth?
The less proofs you have, the more you will need to use adjectives.
"There were no neutral international observers in this election. Only far right US groups sent some but they are anything but neutral."
So you would be neutral? Who else is neutral? chavez? castro?
"Amnesty International already denounced the "threatening atmosphere"
Great. Amnesty International did something. We will come back to Amnesty International then over and over as you apparently are accepting their verdict here.
"There are reports that in some places armed troops in plain clothes rounded up the citizens forcing them to vote."
The same was said about people in slums in Venezuela...by chavismo. Do you believe it true?
Micheletti is a coupster, but what you don't understand here is that we are dealing con dos grupos de bandidos y la gente de fuera está sencillamente apostando a uno o al otro, not out of care for Honduras, but to advance their bloody agendas, be them lefties or righties.
"Habíamos avizorado que si la abstención superaba el 50% del padrón electoral las elecciones debían anularse. Una elección así no representa el sistema democrático al que nosotros los latinoamericanos y hondureños aspiramos", ha asegurado Zelaya en declaraciones a la cadena TeleSur.
Do you know the abstension in 2005?
Under such thinking, there was no democratic election back then either.
When is the very trustworthy Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias going to interview people who oppose the position of the chavista regime, Maju?
Man: if you're going to defend elections at gunpoint, then you can erase your name from the divine roll of the true democrats.
There was a coup. The Honduran people is against the coup and with the President. It's exactly like Haiti just that they could use the local armed forces instead of having to invade. But otherwise Zelaya and Aristide have suffered the same fate.
The proposed referendum was just a consultation on whether these elections were for a constituent assembly (or something like that). Whatever you think of that, it's no reason to demote a president and a judicial order can't do that. You need a formal impeachment process, and that's what the fascists in Honduras did not want to go through - probably because they knew they could not win.
They have brought disgrace and civil war to their nation. They just want to do what Chiquita orders. How pathetic!
They will be gone, don't worry. The problem is how much it'll take in time and in blood.
And reading other media is good for your mental health. That's why I read the BBC, so I can prescind of the CNN and still know all sides of the issue.
They are not equal sides: the people has been speaking in the streets all this time. If both are "bandits", then one is Robin Hood and the other the evil sheriff.
And we all love Robin Hood, don't we?
They carried out a coup and it was not justified. What I am telling you here is that Zelaya was, according to Honduras' law, also breaking the law. Polls said Zelaya did not have the majority, anyway, but we know how it goes with the great Venezuelan system (which was the one to be used in Honduras). The material was arriving from Venezuela.
Let me be clear: Micheletti was breaking the law, but so was Zelaya. Honduras' laws, whether we like them or not, are not Spain's or Venezuela's or Norway's and they foresaw a total prohibition to even mentioning re-election by an incumbent. Was it a stupid law? Well, that was the law and there was probably a reason and it was for all. The problem in L.A. is that the whole electoral system is controlled by the ones in power. You don't get it.
Zelaya refused to abide by what the court had said. Did Micheletti and all those old barones react wrongly? Sure they did.
This is a case of two thug bands shooting at each other and killing their people and others in the process. Neither side is justified.
Had Zelaya wanted to carry the reform for the will of Honduras he could have suggested it after he had left the presidency, which would have been fine, but he just wanted to go the Hugo way: constituyente, big gerrymandering and so on.
Asamblea constituyente? We know about those constituyentes.
Next year we are going to have new Asamblea and the regime has again changed the rules to allow for huge gerrymandering and other ways of violating representative participation.
All that is being exported to Honduras.
For all I care I think Micheletti should be behind bars now, but Zelaya should at the very least go to court (of course, the problem is that there is no longer an independent court in Honduras, just like in Venezuela).
The real solution would be for international observers - and not just you and your favorite parties in Europe and not mine, but a real international representation - monitor a process of free elections.
That is not happening.
No one there wants transparency.
Do you think Hugo is defending Latin America from the chiquita kind of companies? I wish he were. In reality he and those groups behind him are just using the moment to keep themselves in power forever. For that they would pact with the Devil, be it blue, yellow, brown or green or anything.
We will just have to learn some 汉语 and work for 中国汇源果汁集团有限公司. Big shit, just red and yellow and not white and blue and red. And the opportunity to really become independent from foreign domination is being wasted...again.
Bbc is "pseudo-prestigious"? And what is the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN)? The mother of truth? -
In this case it's clear: the BBC did only echo the official version, totally ignoring Zelaya's camp version.
I'm not claiming that ABN is aything, just that in this case, it was the first media to propagate Zelaya's version, which I am interested in.
... but we know how it goes with the great Venezuelan system (which was the one to be used in Honduras).
Unlike in Honduras (or the USA for the case), there was widespread presence of international observers in Venezuelan elections and they all confirmed they were fair.
I don't like voting through computers but that doesn't mean that every one who does makes fraud. Chávez knows well he would not be able to stay in power without popular support.
Asamblea constituyente? We know about those constituyentes.
I don't. We haven't got one in this state since... 1812, I think. Constitutions yes but constituent assemblies not.
And Spain badly needs one in order to destroy the Francoist constitution it has and become a federal republic with full recognition of rights to its constituent nations and effective social orientation. Right now, Spain is ruled by the voters of rural circumscriptions like Avila or Toledo, where they can only choose between the two officialist parties.
The real solution would be for international observers...
How can there be international observers if the poll took place in the midst of a state of siege with no civil rights or anything? The coupists had many chances to make a deal a fix the problem they created but they knew they had the US backing and preferred to get away with their farce by means of force.
With less than 22% of support now we all know the real popular support they have anyhow: virtually none.
We will just have to learn some 汉语 and work for 中国汇源果汁集团有限公司.
I have a slim hope that in the midst of this global changes, Brazil will eventually become a new and better leader for the West and the World. China anyhow is doomed to have a revolution one of these days: they can't go on all the time with that kind of hyper-corrupt authoritarian system that calls itself "communist" but is more capitalist than the USA.
But that's another story. To allow Brazil to slide to the left and become eventually a center for a new Socialist West and planet, we need to support the revolutionary processes in Latin America now. Otherwise the USA and its imperialist system will take over again and then, yes, only China will be some sort of alternative.
"Unlike in Honduras (or the USA for the case), there was widespread presence of international observers in Venezuelan elections and they all confirmed they were fair."
I said they were optimized. Hugo won big time in 1998, 1999. He won in 2006 very easily as well and probably got it this year. Still: in 2004, in 2006, in 2007 and 2009 there were "optimizations", some more than other times.
Optimizations matter a lot, even if they are not right away decissive. When Hugo had to "recognize" his defeat in 2007 (the time he forced all the TV stations and radios to broadcast his "fue una victoria de mierda, de mierda, de mierdaa") his popularity plunged a lot for several months. When he forced again the referendum on the same issue in 2009 (not before taking out 12 billion dollars from the reserves to spend in very short term solutions a la free food or mixers) and he won, his popularity went up again.
Who are you talking about? The carter center? The same one lead by the same guy who considered murderer Shah a democrat and a true friend? The same center that did not answer our technical questions on the machines because they are a bunch of sociologists who think that "fair" is "not threatening you with a gun at you and allowing Globo to broadcast crap?"
The electronic system is a black box. I develop software myself but you don't have to do it to know that. There is basically no way you can test it and be sure UNLESS you verify a large amount of ballots with paper trail and not the ones the government lets you check and then only for each occassion in which a thorough recount of paper ballots is done under that condition. Thing is: the paper trail does not work. Don't you believe me? I sent you a link where you can see the governor of a state tearing to pieces the paper ballot and voting again "because the paper ballot was wrong" and that was an officialist. Oppos who tried to do that were thrown to jail for destroying electoral material, but big officialist honchos could revote until the paper trail gave them the right answer. Hello? Hugo's dad also tried to vote and several times the machine produced the wrong vote.
Is that fair?
And the EU observers? I put here again the link. Read the account of one of those EU observers.
I am just nextdoor to the EU and I know those guys as a whole are not better than the rest. I have taken part in research projects for the EU and I have seen a lot of what is in there. What do you think they did? Those were a bunch of (mostly very young) blokes mostly with socio-political studies who had done some "evening course" on monitoring and who were kept in the Hotel Avila during the whole thing until they were allowed to go to the voting centres the very same day. Please, read the EU observer's account. The guy was honest but now he won't be traveling to nice tropical countries on EU money.
Here the links:
http://venezuela-europa.blogspot.com/2009/04/venezuelas-voting-system.html
"Chávez knows well he would not be able to stay in power without popular support."
Look at the PowerPoint I link to here if you have time:
http://venezuela-europa.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-venezuelans-want-sort-of.html
"With less than 22% of support now we all know the real popular support they have anyhow: virtually none."
Is it 22%? Who says that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honduran_general_election,_2009
I am sure Zelayistas were set to say abstention was anything higher than the very high abstention when he won.
Will you say the elections of Venezuela in 2005 were not valid either? At that time the Venezuelan opposition did exactly what Zelaya did about this one, to my disapproval.
"system that calls itself "communist" but is more capitalist than the USA."
I agree it is not a communist country, but then there is never a possibility of any communism.
You have tried it over and over and over again and it is never a
communism.
"we need to support the revolutionary processes in Latin America now. "
You can count on me even if I am a capitalist. Dónde? Dónde? Please, let me know me when you find a revolutionary process in Latin America.
You can have a little look at how the boliburguesia has stolen so much from the poor by browsing briefly through the last posts of this guy:
http://caracasgringo.wordpress.com/
We have been denouncing for a long time the massive theft carried out by the Boliburguesia, with names, proofs, anything, but there is no independent judiciary.
Arné chacón is one of the richest men in Venezuela now and he had not a penny in 2001 and there is no way he can explain how he got all that money to start buying banks. He is brother of one of the top chavistas. Another owns many companies.
The Hugo clan owns huge amounts of land in Barinas under front men and everyone knows it but they are untouchable.
The deputies did not want to tell how much they earn in Venezuela. An employee managed to knack the system and published the whole details of the salary of that most communist of all communist. All deputies earn basically the same plus or less child allowance and stuff. Do you know he earns more NET than EU deputies?
Do you know what a primary school teacher or a policeman earns in Venezuela? Less than 300 dollars a month and life in Venezuela is much more expensive than in Bulgaria or many Latin American countries.
After the news went out (only crappy Globo on TV, our FOX News, which can be seen only by 30% of the population) and via newspapers (I have written how low the circulation is), the revolutionary deputies threatened to put in jail the person who revelead what they earned. Then they realised how bad that a step would be.
Juan, a Venezuelan now living in the US and working as economist, wrote this honest piece:
http://www.caracaschronicles.com/2009/11/fun-with-skype.html
You can see my comments there.
At least among the very varied opposition (people from the very left to the very right) there is much more honest discussion about how rotten the whole society is in Venezuela
And we can discuss and insult our leaders and nag on each other. Try to see what happens when some chavista says something to "mi comandante"
And it is always like that: proto- pseudo- semi "revolutionary systems only thrive on personality cult.
Don't know what to say. I guess it's better under Uribe's boot, right?
It does not need be "either you are with me (George, Maju, Kepler) or you are with the terrorists (i.e. the others).
I am no socialist but I tell you Hugo is the worst that could have happened to socialism in many decades in Latin America.
Do you think pluralism is for sissies? I don't. I hope we get a system where all ideas are in permanent competition and not one tries to have the definite answer or the TRUTH.
Extreme lefies and righties abhorr that.
Do you think pluralism is for sissies? I don't.
For sissies too. Why discriminate? Pluralism for all, consensus can only arise from diversity.
Extreme lefies and righties abhorr that.
Wake up: your ideological paradigm is not anymore. There's no center anymore, maybe there was never any.
The global system is imploding as we talk and the only way out is to innovate socially, environmentally, economically and politically.
You can't advance while you are stuck in the old collapsing system. Maybe Hugo cannot advance either for that same reason.
But whatever the case, the challenge is global, not specifically Venezuelan, not Colombian either. It's maybe the greatest challenge ever for humankind.
"Maybe Hugo cannot advance either for that same reason."
OK, I understand. It will never be commies' fault. If something fails it was because the real thing was not tried, but it can, even if...well, if mankind has never tried.
OK, now I woke up. What should I read next? Lenin's What to Do? I read it when I was 12 (not out of conviction, but because the Soviet embassy was giving it for free)
I think this topic has come to a dead end.
By the way: some Venezuelan banks collapsed. Miguel and other bloggers were saying it for years: the government was making some boliburgueses rich and they would implode. Now it happened and Hugo is blaming it on capitalism. There is a scapegoat (a big corrupt) but other equally corrupt will never see jail as they make up a lot of Hugo's cabinet.
El viejo sistema, claro.
You can apply the same song to your ideology: Capitalism is a total failure: people don't have enough to eat, don't have any job security, bad health care if any, bad public services when at all, tendency to monopoly, continuous crisis, solving things by means of war and repression, etc.
And, above all, an absolute lack of any sense of direction nor any sense of community either. What fucking sort of humankind is that? You can keep your shitty Capitalism that I'd rather jump the Berlin Wall in reverse direction. Not in vain the old commies are winning the elections in East Germany, even when faced with systemic ostracism. Many things were wrong then but many things were right and clearly better.
By the way: some Venezuelan banks collapsed.
I read about that. Lucky you that can nationalize (Germans did too and are doing ok). In Gringoland or Britain they take your money and give it to the whining banks. That is Capitalism: take from the poor, give it to the rich. They also had a scapegoat in Madoff but all the others are still getting salaries that can be a thousand times what a normal worker gets. Absolutely crazy, when you think that these vampires can't work much more than the rest (probably less, unless playing golf is work now).
Kepler: you may want to read this interview with a high PSUV official, Alberto Müller Rojas, who is quite self-critical, sometimes in your line (but from a left-wing perspective).
Maju,
The issue with the banks in the UK and the US was a disgrace and a crime but it was a completely different origin. The Venezuelan government had to intervene because the guys were stealing so rapaciously, even using the whole money of deposits to buy new banks, that those banks were like empty egg shells.
This was going on for many years. They still only put in prison some of the figures, some others are still untouchable because they are very close relatives of our revolutionary socialists.
Miguel writes the whole details, but it gets pretty much into the economics:
http://devilsexcrement.com/
I don't believe in capitalism as you in communism. I don't think there is a law in economics or society as in physics. I don't believe in a magic "invisible hand", or magic "free trade", nor do I believe in an Klassenkampf as defined by Marx. You guys from the extremes pretend to give to your believes in politics and economics the validity of a natural science. That is just wrong.
I know Müller well. He is still an honest believer, but he is blind. He will end up completely out, he was almost...
Let's go through some of Müller's points:
1) enterprises, taxes? communial councils? What? And this is new? You do know what "soviet" means in Russian? Yes, you do: council. Do you know what the NEP was? I think so.
Not that Venezuela is a socialist country or going towards that, but they are making the same errors as the Soviets and some others. The only thing they are not doing is the terror there was in Soviet times and colectivization, but then they would not last a day if they tried.
2) bureaucracy has actually increased a lot more under chavismo (but I am sure it always does in "transition periods" according to you)
3) well, if the burguesía is only the cisneros kind of guys I don't know why Hugo keeps calling at least 45% of the population "burgueses".
In reality 70 to 80% of the population is poor and chavismo has max. 30% of die-hard supporters. A 30% can go one way or the other given very easy cash. It was so before and it is so now.
In reality some of the richest men in Venezuela now are chavistas, as Arne chacón...and cisnero is right now playing the fiddle, even if he may hate or not hate chavismo.
"Sí. Eso existe y es una de las debilidades del proceso."
That is the understatement of the decade.
What's wrong with the soviets? What's wrong with the NEP?
You say you're not an extremist but you reason like a conservative (which IMO is a reactionary extremism).
What's wrong with the councils?, I wish we'd have anything like that here. But the concept of "democratic participation" here is a new district office with some facilities and social content.
And what's wrong with the NEP? It was the apogee of the bourgeois revolution in Russia!
What is maybe an error is to agglutinate all revolutionary forces in a single party. That kills the pluralism in the left and allows the opposition to exist only at the right. On the other hand, it serves to rally all forces into a single direction.
Probably a looser more federative bloc would be better. In any case the problem is that the class war, you like it or not, is there, polarizing everything. Of course there is a difference between "objective interests" and "conscience", to use classical Marxist terminology, but still 30% die-hard supporters is a practical majority because you can always rally the center, the ambiguous, the critical ones... unless the right would vanish. It is in fact this ideological and real class conflict which fuels the polarization and the vices that it can generate.
Anyhow, all revolutions are complex and interesting. And this one is no exception... even if soft and incomplete. Remaining in this rotten state of Capitalism is no realistic choice anymore and it's admirable to see a people that tries to create something else, something better. They may fail but they can't fail in a very essential sense:
"For what they were, we are. For what we are, they will be". (not sure if it is from F. Krutwig or is a genuine saying).
You don't really seem to understand the importance of the red thread. How it has shaped the idealistic facets of the bourgeois society, how it has worked its revolutions only to be buried under the boots of the soldiers... only to rise again like the tide to engineer yet another marvel: crafting jewels out of the trash.
And of course you don't see the black heart of Hitler in the hypocritic patricians of the Empire.
Is this idealism? Maybe. But you also have some prosaic idealism that essentially consists in believing in such a standarized doctrine that you don't even recognize it as such.
It's ok. It's normal, I guess. But what the heck was wrong with the soviets as such?
What the heck is wrong with the soviets?
Well, what is wrong with the Reyes Magos? I understand there are pros and cons
The only difference is that in the process of establishing a farce of "councils" with the "people's power", a lot of thugs just carried out their crimes and "pagan justos por inocentes". In the case of los Reyes Magos you give presents to a child for some years and then you disappoint her one big time and that is all.
The "Soviet" thing was a farce, it was the bureaucrats who got the power and the party leaders. When I ask WHAT people are going to do different now they just don't know. Of course they don't say they don't know. They just tell me the things the "Soviets" tried.
What is wrong with the NEP? Because it is an interim measure before proceeding to disaster, like giving some oxygen before beating the patient to death with a shoe.
I'm flippant. I would have many things to do different in my neighborhood for instance, like forcing the supermarket to have what the people needs and not what corporations want to publicize. Too many times went for this or that and was finished. But that doesn't happen to those vitalinea or coca-cola, who never nobody buys but are always on stock.
I would make sure that glass and paper recycling bins would be back and in the proper places. Now we can't recycle because there are no bins.
I would make sure that whole street is made pedestrian and traffic redirected in some other direction. It's too narrow for cars here.
These things (first stuff I could think of in a matter of seconds) and so many others can be done with a participative government system, without need to apply to a remote, oligarchic and capricious municipal government.
With soviets the people can blockade destructive projects like the high speed train or the incinerator. With the oligarchic pseudo-representative system, they just ignore the majority and pass over them.
And as worker I'd also love to have much more say on what is going on in my company: not just salary/time but specially working conditions and making sure that we make a quality product that is what the people really needs, not just another pseudo-shit that works bad again.
Soviets, councils, assemblies... are necessary for any participative democracy, that is for any real democracy. If we delegate, we will be betrayed eventually. So the best thing is to represent ourselves directly and be able to place and remove executive officers as need be. Whatever else is not democractic.
"Para que el que mande mande obedeciendo".
And your ideas about the NEP are very odd for a bourgeois: it's Capitalism at its best. Wouldn't have been for Stalin the USSR would have become a normal capitalist system. But you can also blame the Brits for that because they insisted so much in being paid the debts that the people never acquired and reinstating the Tsars.
However I don't like the NEP nor any social-democratic mediocrities either: land can't be private property and nobody can earn or own too much of anything else. However legitimate use and enjoyment (actual possession right, versus the perverted property right) must be uphold and guaranteed.
Koljozes are great. Even today they keep afloat the Eastern economy in some places, because, unlike the private companies, they can't desert their workers and leave them without job.
We need much of what the USSR was but surely avoiding the bad things: the single party bureaucracy, the military and secret service total control... not that these are much worse than what we have in the "democratic" west. But I believe we can and must do better than that.
The central question, we can agree is whether the people does participate in the process at all levels, from bottom to top as much as possible. For this reason a soviet democracy is necessary.
Actually, most of what you propose is reality in Switerland with their referenda. They propose things not only at national level but at canton level. They vote whether they build this tiny bridge here or not, they even vote whether they want someone to become a Swiss or not.
That has nothing to do with communism or capitalism.
Yah, the Swiss style of democracy, more or less, is closer to what would be desirable.
However there are many shortcomings. There is a canton where women are still not allowed to vote, self-determination of Jura took a lot to succeed and they are highly dominated anyhow by the big capital.
And one of the risks of democracy is to get absurd decisions like this one of the minarets (if they would have proposed to ban all religious prominences... but this is hyper-sectarian).
The main problem they have is that the economy is not really ruled democratically: the economy like almost everywhere is in the hands of a few oligarchs and their corporations. When workers rule in Nestlé, I'll say Switzerland is a true democracy (more or less - there are always imperfections).
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