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Hands Off Venezuela: Rally Sunday

What: Rally Supporting Venezuelan Reforms
When: Sunday December 2, 12-2:00pm
Why: The United States CIA and allied forces have been attempting to undermine the will of the vast majority of Venezuelans since Chavez was democratically elected president. The media has been pushing lies to portray Chavez as an evil dictator, using shady polling companies to distort the reality of the will of the people, and executing plans to incite violence in the days following tomorrow's vote. It is up to us to spread the truth because like the lead up to the Iraq war, the mainstream media (mostly owned by right-wingers) is lying.

More Info & Updates:

2 comments:

Trevor Wright said...

'I' fundamentally think that Chavez (or any leader for that matter) should have term limits... 

I hope that ballot question is voted down. 

But keeping with the topic of the post, yeah hands off!

Mark D. Snyder said...

More info:

I think some of the reforms that will be voted on today are not progressive enough.

As far as term limits, I'm okay with them being done away with if the constitution is such that it actually gives power directly to the people.

Yet it is important to note that even after the reforms, Chavez will have less power as president than Bush has here.

This page below talks about the reforms that are "regressive" and the ones that are "progressive. The opposition has tried to twist the meaning of this article, claiming that it lays the groundwork for dictatorship because it supposedly means that the authorities of the popular power are named from above, since they are not elected.[3] This, however, represents a willful misunderstanding, as the popular power is supposed to be the place where democracy is direct, that is, unmediated by elected representatives."

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2943

"
many pundits, such as from the Venezuelan opposition and from so-called international experts, are painting a picture of a Venezuela that is about to finally slip into "Castro-communism," a picture that could hardly be further from the truth and that has been falsely predicted for Chavez's entire presidency of now nine years. While there are negative or not-so-good aspects of the reform, which for the most part involve giving the president some more powers, the Venezuelan president, even after the reform, is still does not have as much institutional power as the U.S. president.

Chavez's constitutional reform project deepens policies in five main areas: participatory democracy, social inclusion, non-neoliberal (socialist?) economic development, politico-territorial reorganization, and stronger (or more effective?) central government. "

""The people are the depositories of sovereignty and exercise it directly via the popular power. This is not born of suffrage nor any election, but out of the condition of the human groups that are organized as the base of the population."