Who supports Hugo Chavez in this Sunday's Recall Vote?

[Larkspur]

Poll question: Who supports Hugo Chavez in this Sunday's Recall Vote?

August 15, 2004 is a big day for those who support participatory democracy and could have ripples affects all through Central and Latin America, as well as our own country. How do you stand on the Recall and on Hugo Chavez's presidency?

[Sandpiper]

1. If Bushco opposes him

He must be doing something right.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sandpiper]

15. The biggest reason Bushco wants him gone

Is because he's threatened to turn off the oil spiggots if the US interferes in his country anymore.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. i support chavez and oppose the recall

[Supply Side Jesus]

3. After seeing "The Revolution will not be televised"

I'm behind Chavez 100%. What you see going on is a class struggle in the most classical sense, IMHO.

[JohnLocke]

4. Support Chavez.

[UdoKier]

5. I support the Venezualan people having their say.

I don't support the CIA or the oligarchy ousting him, but if the Venezualan people are tired of waiting for his reforms to work, it is their prerogative to get rid of him.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Viva Hugo! Venceremos! Por los pobres de Venezuela!

[goodhue]

7. Dear President Chavez

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2203336

Dear President Chavez

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=122-08122004

August 12, 2004

Dear President Chavez,

We are writing to express our solidarity during this important moment in Venezuela's history. It is our hope and expectation that, on August 15, you will once again win an electoral mandate from the Venezuelan people to be their president.

The world knows that you are achieving something remarkable in Venezuela: you are investing your country's vast oil wealth in ways that benefit everyone, not just small minority of well- connected elites. Over the last year your government's literacy campaign taught one million Venezuelans to read. And today, millions of others are benefiting from the governments investment in job training, small businesses and health care.

We are disturbed by our own government's interference in your internal affairs. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a group funded by the U.S. Congress, has financed radical opposition leaders in their efforts to cut short your term. Some of the individuals funded by the NED participated in the April 2002 coup attempt against you.

Polling done by both the Venezuelan government and its opposition shows that you will defeat the recall referendum on August 15. We have every expectation that on August 16 Venezuelan relations with the U.S. government will begin to improve.

We are committed to doing what we can, as U.S. citizens, to heal those relationships and encourage Congress and the White House to see Venezuela not only as a model democracy but also as a model of how a country's oil wealth can be used to benefit all of its people.

Sincerely,

Reverend Jesse Jackson, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Dr. Howard Zinn, Edward Asner, Dr. Saul Landau, Naomi Klein, Doug Henwood, Dr. Blase Bonpane, Liza Featherstone


Biographies of Signers

Reverend Jesse Jackson, Civil rights leader and former US Presidential Candidate

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Represents Ohio's Ohio's 10th District in Congress. Ran for president in 2003-04.

Dr. Howard Zinn, Historian and Playwright. His A People's History of the United States is an international bestseller.

Edward Asner, An accomplished television and movie actor whose career has spanned more than 3 decades, Asner has also been a long-time activist.

Dr. Saul Landau, Internationally known scholar, author, commentator, and filmmaker. Winner of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, and an Emmy Award for "Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang."

Naomi Klein, Award-winning journalist and author of the international best- seller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies.

Doug Henwood, Editor and Publisher of the Left Business Observer, and author of After the New Economy and the best-selling Wall Street.

Dr. Blase Bonpane, A journalist and author, Dr. Bonpane is the director of the Office of the Americas.

Liza Featherstone, Journalist and author of Students Against Sweatshops: The Making of A Movement.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=122-08122004

[On the Road]

9. Wow! I Thought DU Was Split on Chavez

Seems pretty unanimous from this poll.

VOTA NO!
Uh! Ah! Chavez No Se Vas!

[Pastiche423]

10. I support Chavez 100%

If he is victorious on Sunday, it will give me hope that good can prevail.

[frylock]

11. i support chavez and oppose the coup

[mitchum]

12. 100%

[comradebillyboy]

13. my venezuelan exchange student thought (still does)

hugo chavez was pretty awful and is mainly responsible for the ongoing civil unrest. remember, the mere fact bush wants to get rid of him doesn't automatically make him a good guy.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

16. My Venezuelan best friend thinks the opposite, go figure.

Also the people he represents don't get to be anybody's exchange students. Some of them can't even write in their own language. I think good and bad guys are for the movies. In real life it's lot more complicated than that.

[TankLV]

17. I does in my book.

EVERYTING bushco supports - everything - I support the opposite.

I haven't seen a thing that criminal has done that I support.

I can take that to the bank and sleep soundly.

[Nevernose]

18. I liked his space program

At least until I found out it meant cancelling all the other stuff in the space program.

Did you go to the rally on Tuesday?

[TankLV]

21. No.

Too busy w/work this time around. That's why I can't volunteer - I wouldn't be dependable enough.

Heard it was great.

[K-W]

14. I oppose the recall based on Chavez's endorsers in the US. EOM

[slutticus]

19. I don't follow Venezuelan politics much..

...but my ex gf is from Venezuela and she despises Chavez.

She also says that the documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" was total Pro Chavez propaganda.

She fears that Chavez will turn the country to communism.

I don't know who to believe, as I don't follow it much....but I don't know a single Venezuelan that supports Chavez. (I know about 8 Venezuelans).

Due to the overwhelming response on this poll, I'm going to do some research on it.

Am I friends with only Venezuelan RWingers?

[eridani]

20. What color is your gf's hair?

Do poor people in Venezuela travel abroad a lot?

http://www.newint.org/issue347/coups.htm

On May Day, starting out from the Hilton Hotel, 200,000 blondes marched East through Caracas’ shopping corridor along Casanova Avenue. At the same time, half a million brunettes converged on them from the West. It would all seem like a comic shampoo commercial if 16 people hadn’t been shot dead two weeks earlier when the two groups crossed paths.


The May Day brunettes support Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. They funnelled down from the ranchos, the pustules of crude red-brick bungalows, stacked one on the other, that erupt on the steep, unstable hillsides surrounding this city of five million. The bricks in some ranchos are new, a recent improvement in these fetid, impromptu slums where many previously sheltered behind cardboard walls. ‘Chávez gives them bricks and milk,’ a local TV reporter told me, ‘and so they vote for him.’