Ecuador complains of meddling by Venezuelan opposition

[Judi Lynn]

Source: El Universal, Venezuelan opposition newspaper

Caracas, viernes 22 de agosto, 2008
Nacional y Política

Ecuador complains of meddling by Venezuelan opposition


The Ecuadorian government claimed on Friday that Venezuelan university leaders were in Ecuador "teaching tactics to the opposition" to spread violence in advance to the constitutional referendum on September 28th.

"One of the representatives of the Venezuelan violent youth came here to organize that; he came to teach people how to use violence," said Policy Minister Ricardo Patiño, AFP quoted.

Almost concomitantly, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said that the opposition had been following the same strategy as in Venezuela and Bolivia.

"They used the same tactic against (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chávez: to prompt young, university leaders to create confrontation and put the blame on the government," said Correa during a ministerial meeting in the Andean town of Guamote.



Read more: http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/08/22/en_pol_art_ecuador-complains-of_22A1934645.shtml

[GreenTea]

1. Rightist fucks, always trying to stop progressive' progress. US sponsored right-wing thugs

trying to keep hold of the land and cheap labor as well the resources and food production for the wealthy land holders and American corporations and military...Same old story as has happened for decades and centuries in Latin America...

But now progressive socialist Chavez has oil - because of the high cost per barrel on the world market Venezuelan oil is now very profitable.... In so much as Venezuela and can and has helped smaller nations in the region....which pisses off the suppressive wealthy land holders and American corporations.

We all know how badly the CIA, republicans and the corporations want to put a stop to it and overthrow Chavez, steal that oil and turn the countries & region back again into slave labor under American right-wing puppet control.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Your tax dollars at work--the rightwing Venezuelan students are funded and 'trained'

by the Bush USAID-NED.

The price of not impeaching Bush/Cheney is very high. Every day we hear of more civilians being slaughtered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan--in the back pages, or in the little sidebars of not very important news. God knows what the U.S. military and mercenaries are still up to in Iraq. It is barely reported. The Forever War has become the Forgotten War--on two fronts. Then there is Bush's dirty war in South America, using our money and acting in our name not only to fund ($6 BILLION!) the military and their closely tied death squads in Colombia, a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth, but also to disrupt and destabilize peaceful, democratic, leftist governments--especially the ones with the oil. The coup in Venezuela didn't work. Nothing the Bushites do has worked. South America just keeps going more and more leftist--most recently with the election of Fernando Lugo in Paraguay. Lugo (just inaugurated) has an incredible 92% approval rating. Correa in Ecuador has an 80% approval rating. Evo Morales in Bolivia, 70%. Chavez in Venezuela, 60% to 70%. All have been elected in election systems that put our own to shame for their transparency.

What are we doing sending rightwing students from Venezuela to "train" rightwing students in Ecuador to oppose their government? Why do they need "training"? What is the "training"? And what do Bushites "train" people to do, except to become oppressors, liars and cold-blooded killers, like themselves?

Every day they kill more people. Every day their murders and other crimes recede from our peoples' consciousness, because our war profiteering corporate 'news' monopolies don't think murder, theft, torture, spying and shredding of the U.S. Constitution are very important. Nor do they care that rightwing Bushite corporations are 'counting' all our votes in these shiny new electronic voting systems, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Vote 'counting' here is no longer in the public veneue. They don't care. It's mind-boggling.

And it's difficult for people to remember; it's difficult for people to keep all the crimes of the Bush junta straight. No one is doing anything about it. They just keep committing them--including this crime--this monstrous misuse of public funds for rightwing political groups, disruptors, thugs and greedy young fascists in South America.

[GreenTea]

3. Well said...excellent!!

[Zorro]

4. You left out Uribe

Isn't his popularity somewhere north of 90% these days in Colombia?

Got any proof that the US is funding Venezuelan students to be sent to Ecuador to oppose the Correa government?

I am no fan of this administration, but it seems very farfetched to consider everything that happens everywhere as some US-inspired conspiracy.

[Peace Patriot]

5. If you raise your head in a leftist cause in Colombia, you risk getting it blown off,

so I don't trust Colombian opinion polls or votes. Thousands of political leftists, union organizers, small peasant farmers, peaceful protesters, human rights workers and journalists have been whacked over the last decade. Over 40 union leaders have been murdered this year alone. Amnesty International attributes 92% of the murders of union leaders to the Colombian military (about half of that) and closely associated rightwing paramilitary death squads (the other half). 900 extrajudicial killings are languishing in the courts. Uribe and some 60 of his associates, including Uribe relatives, are under investigation for death squad activity and other crimes. Some of them are jail, including a legislator who has accused Uribe of bribing her to extend his term of office.

There is something worse than Uribe; that would Defense Minister Santos, who seems to be itching to run Colombia. I think there is real danger of a military dictatorship in Colombia, headed by Santos, particularly as the courageous prosecutors who have been investigating the death squad murders keep getting closer to top military commanders. This is likely why several of the death squad whistleblowers were extradited to the U.S. on mere drug charges, with the connivance of the Bush junta. This occurred suddenly in the middle of the night and prosecutors and human rights groups have protested it.

In this climate of brutal political murder, intimidation and fear, ordinary people--workers, campesinos, the poor, the members of the majority--would be fools to answer honestly that they oppose the government or the military. Fear of death for expressing your political opinion is a great silencer, and vote suppressor.

I'm not going to do your research for you on USAID funding and 'training' of rightwing students in Venezuela. And, if Rafael Correa says they are in Ecuador, I presume it is the same crowd, for whom USAID contractors held rightist-only seminars in Caracas, and who have traveled at our expense to Washington DC and Miami. Do your own FOIA requests, or google the subject and read what others have discovered. My presumption is not in the least far-fetched. The rightwing are notorious for their close ties to rightwing U.S. regimes, where they get funding, support, training and arms, and for their cross-border conspiracies of coordinated activity, such as Plan Condor (torture, murder) in several countries. These rightwing student groups are closely connected to the coup plotters in Venezuela, who suspended the Constitution, the courts, the National Assembly and the all civil rights in their short-lived, Bush junta supported coup in 2002. They are no more democratic than George Bush is.

That failed coup--peacefully defeated by the people of Venezuela--did not go down well in Venezuela or South America. It was a seminal event in the continent's strong move to the left. A second coup was planned in Venezuela, in 2006, and was discovered--and the opposition candidate was obliged to publicly disavow it. 'Training' these rightwing students is the Bushites' new tactic, to put a fresh face on old motives--toppling democratically elected leftist governments, especially those with the oil--Venezuela and Ecuador. And these student groups are likely coordinating with fascist groups who are planning to split off the oil-rich provinces of these countries, in secessionist movements like the U.S.-Bush test case in Bolivia. This is also a tactic based on the fact that the Bush junta and their local colluders can't win national elections. The rightwing Venezuelan students have one feather in their cap--they and the rightwing adults and Bushites behind them were able to defeat a package of Constitutional amendments in Venezuela, in a very close vote (50.7% to 49.3%). But they can't win national presidential elections, or majorities in legislatures, because their ideas are so fucked (the rich get rich, the poor don't exist). The Bushites plan is to disrupt and destabilize these countries, and and then support the local fascists in their cry for "independence" and secession from the Chavez and Correa governments. Correa has also spoken about this three-country, secession strategy (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia).

He is legitimately alarmed by these rightwing Venezuelan students arriving in Ecuador. Ecuador is about to vote on their new Constitution, proposed by the Correa government and the constitutional assemblies. Correa won an 80% mandate to initiate the process to re-write the Constitution, which is now completed, and will be put to a national referendum at the end of September. The Bush junta strategy is to disrupt that process, as the Bush-backed white separatists have done in Bolivia. That's what they are using our money for--to instigate civil wars. It is ugly, dirty and violent. And the USAID money that has been lavished on rightwing Venezuelan students is part of this pending Bush junta attempted oil grab. You won't find the memo on that in your FOIA request. You will be told that the money is being used to "spread democracy." Ha, ha, ha.

[Zorro]

8. Not do "my" research for me?

You're the one that's making the accusations. I would think there should be something substantive or authoritative (e.g. not some politically biased website) to back it up, which you could point to.

IMHO, Correa is doing whatever he can to slander any opposition to the proposed updated Ecuadorean constitution, which a month ago was lagging in support until he confiscated major Ecuadorean media outlets and appointed his henchmen to control the broadcasts and messages.

Correa wishes to consolidate more control within the office of the presidency, which is a very authoritarian approach. Authoritarians can indeed cut through inefficiencies created by messy democratic processes, but don't confuse the actions of Correa or Chavez as models of democratic virtue.

And again I reiterate: not everything that happens everywhere is a US-inspired conspiracy.

[Mudoria]

6. We don't trust polls that show Uribe as popular

because we don't like him. :eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

9. "We" apparently don't take the time to know what "we're" talking about.

If you'd spent any time reading what DU'ers who have lived in South America have said, or bothered to do any thinking about what polls mean in countries without means of contacting the citizens in representative numbers you'd be aware that polls mean the people who can answer phone polls, or can be polled by neighborhood poll takers, or people in shopping centers, etc.

In South America the majority of the people are poor. In Colombia, there's a HUGE number of people who have been forcibly removed from their homes by the right-wing paramilitaries and the state military, the SECOND LARGEST HUMANITARIAN DISASTER IN THE WORLD, RIGHT AFTER THE SUDAN. Where the hell do you think the pollsters go to poll these people?

Of the ones who still have homes, most of them don't have phones which can be dialed by conventional means, like taking their phone numbers from phone books, because most of them don't have phones.

Here are the stats on that:

Colombia Facts and Figures

. . . .

Number of radios per 1,000 people 575 (2000 estimate)

Number of telephones per 1,000 people 168 (2005)

Number of televisions per 1,000 people 298 (2000 estimate)

Number of Internet hosts per 10,000 people 26 (2003)

Daily newspaper circulation per 1,000 people 49 (1996)

Number of motor vehicles per 1,000 people 51 (1999)

Paved road as a share of total roads 14 percent (1999)

http://encarta.msn.com/fact_631504744/colombia_facts_and_figures.html

(It doesn't take a genius to recognize that in households where there is any kind of disposable income at all, people tend to have lots of radios per person, there are always more tv's in a house than people, multiple cars, computers, etc. Clearly some right-wing idiots are too dimwitted to realize that most countries have wildly different standards of living.)

Pollsters don't go into the barrios, where most of the city dwellers live. Period. They are afraid of the poor. We've had a great DU'er who lived there discuss it right here in very clear terms already, which alerted DU'ers to this in 2002.

They don't have an opportunity to poll the poor at the shopping malls, as the poor have no reason to be at the shopping malls.

Where the hey do you think polling companies have any chance to interact with the majority of Colombians who are poor, anyway, in determining just how "popular" Uribe is? I'd say I was crazy about _{George W. Bush,} too, if someone DID ask me, if he was closely affiliated with the death squads EVERYWHERE as they are in Colombia. They even run down witnesses who are hiding from them in places like Canada, which they've done recently.

Edit: spelling error corrected.

[Peace Patriot]

18. No, I don't trust polls where gov't forces whacked over 40 union organizers this year

alone, where there were 329 'extrajudicial murders' by the Colombian military and police this year, where there are over 900 unresolved 'extrajudicial murders,' where children's throats have been slit on suspicion of their parents being leftists, where some of the dead union leaders were cut up alive and their body parts thrown into mass graves, and where the president of the country and some 60 of his political cohorts are under investigation (and some are in jail) for their connections to death squads. These crimes are a screaming message: don't get involved, don't express your opinion, don't organize politically even for basic human rights and DON'T TELL THE TRUTH about the government.

It's more than possible that the polls are skewed. How much? --we don't know. Pollsters themselves may feel at risk. That alone could result in skewed questions, skewed answers and skewed results. It's possible that Uribe is popular because Santos (Defense Minister whom I suspect of plotting an outright military dictatorship) would be worse. Do the polls reflect an adequate range of choices? Who is doing the polls? Indeed, who would do polling in a country with so many unsolved political murders--and who would they tend to poll?

And that's just murders! What of beatings? What of threats? What of bullying and intimidation? Where there is widespread political murder, there is FEAR. The dead are dead because they objected to oppression. The lesson to the living is to keep your yawp shut or you, too, will be dead, or your children, or your relatives, or your friends.

I didn't say I didn't believe the polls. I said I don't trust them. Hitler was very popular at the height of his power, and much of his popularity was genuine, unfortunately. That could be true of Uribe--that his popularity is based on his talent at inspiring racial and class elites and fears, while benefiting from the brutal suppression of other views. The key difference between Hitler and, say, FDR, as to popularity, is that Hitler was popular in a police state and FDR was popular in a democracy. Colombia is a police state which maintains the forms but not the substance of democracy (and is ripe for military dictatorship, in my opinion, partly because civilian government stands on such thin ground). Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, and other countries with popular leftist leaders, on the other hand, are genuine democracies, where anyone is free to speak out, organize or run for office without fear of getting whacked by government forces or their death squads.

Paraguay is new to freedom from fear of the government, and Fernando Lugo's rather amazing surge in popularity (his electoral margin wasn't great, though his victory was nevertheless surprising--but his popularity is now 92%), is no doubt because people are coming out of the woodwork and saying what they really feel, now that it appears that there will be a stable, peaceful change of power, with the rightwing stepping down, unlike in the past. Indeed, this is the first peaceful change of power that Paraguay has ever experienced. The rightwing operates by fear and suppression of political opposition. The first thing the rightwing did, in Venezuela, in its 2002 coup, was to suspend the Constitution, the courts, the National Assembly and all civil rights. This was a naked expression of the intentions of the rightwing in South America. And the next thing they would have done was to round up and start killing the members of the Chavez government and its supporters, and other political leftists. We've seen this movie before. It is a horror flick. Colombia is the sequel.

The right cannot rule without suppression, since the right is a minority and its leaders serve the rich, and take dictation from Washington DC. There are other methods of suppression short of an outright military junta, including widespread brutality and death squads--the methods of the Colombian rightwing--and, if that is not sufficient to suppress civil rights and civil functions (such as the prosecution of top military commanders for death squad activity), and to protect and promote the interests of multinational corporations (and large drug cartels), then there will be a military dictatorship. (The other thing that the Colombian military and political elite are notorious for, besides their death squads, is drug trafficking.) (It's so ironic that the Bush junta has larded them with $6 BILLION for the "war on drugs." Har-har on us poor saps-- U.S. taxpayers!)

Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and other leftist countries--with Paraguay now joining--are politically FREE countries. Some have more developed democracies than Paraguay, which has now stepped onto the democratic leftist path. The Chavez government has been especially determined to encourage maximum political participation, and it formalized that goal in the creation of community councils (which have real power, vis a vis the federal government, and in which anyone in the neighborhood may take part). And all four of these governments reflect the coming to political power, at long last, of the poor majority (in the case of Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay, the indigenous majority--after centuries of brutal repression). I think it's totally amazing--a political miracle--that this has occurred peacefully. The poor and the indigenous in South America have suffered such outrages--most recently inflicted by U.S.-dominated "free trade" and the U.S. "war on drugs"--that violent protest, reaction and bloody revolution would not have surprised me. But--due to long hard work by many people on democratic institutions, such as transparent vote counting--these poor majorities have chosen a peaceful, democratic path, and they do not suppress the opposition.

But this hard work on democratic institutions--in so far as people have tried to accomplish this in Colombia--has not worked. And you know why? It has failed largely because the Bush junta has funded fascism and brutal suppression, and has in particular stoked the 40+ year Colombian civil war, rather than acting as peacemakers and encouraging a political settlement of this long war against armed leftist insurgents. War suits the the Bushites. They want it to continue. They found a vulnerable spot in South America, and poured salt on the wounds. And they are also actively trying to create civil war conditions in Bolivia, as we speak (and have similar schemes in Ecuador and Venezuela, according to Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa).

The Colombians who support Uribe--or who fear worse (a military dictatorship) and thus put up with Uribe--may identify with brutal fascist power, or, like many Germans under Hitler, or Argentinians, or Chileans, or Paraguayns, or Uraguayans, or others who have suffered brutal fascist governments, they blind themselves, they don't ask questions, they hide from reality. Uribe presents them with a "Big Lie" story about keeping them safe and cozy and prosperous and superior, and they buy it. But how can people truly support a government that is propped up by death squads, and hundreds of 'extrajudicial murders" by their military and police? Are they ignorant, blind, hypnotized?

I really don't know, and no one knows, what Colombians really think. That is my point. I don't trust what the polls are saying. And, personally, I suspect that Colombians are suffering, the way our people suffer, from ignorance born of government and corporate propaganda, only they seem to be even more isolated. What do they think when Amnesty International reports 329 political murders by their military and police--a 48% increase over the previous year? Does anyone ever ask them? Are they in denial? What? Are they so propagandized that they don't connect the murders with the Uribe government? Do they think AI is lying? Are they living in a surreal world, wherein some shadowy force, unconnected to anything, routinely whacks leftists, and nobody is really responsible? I don't know. This must be how the rest of the world felt, in 2003-2004, when Bush seemed to be popular here, while he slaughtered 100,000 people in Iraq, with no justification--mystified as to how such a heinous leader could be "popular," and wondering about our sanity.

[Zorro]

20. Here is something for you to ponder

Perhaps it will provide you some insight into what Colombians really think.

<snip>

Lina grips her face with her hands and lets out a groan of pain. Her uncle is standing over her, his hands forming the shape of a pistol and pointing down at an imaginary body on the floor. 'They had him on the ground, like this,' he says. 'They fired two shots into his head from here.'

'They humiliated him before killing him?' wails Lina, tears running down her face. Her body is bent double at the news of her brother's death. Gunned down aged 27 in her home town of Florencia, southern Colombia, he was murdered, she believes, by her former 'boss' - her commandant in the ruthless guerrilla army, Farc.

Lina was a member of Farc - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - for seven years. Last December, exhausted and demoralised, she deserted, handing herself in to the army. Farc does not take such betrayal lightly. A terrible revenge has been exacted upon her family...

<snip>

More at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/24/farc.colombia?gusrc=rss&feed=politics

[Peace Patriot]

25. AI attributes 92% of the murders of union leaders to the Colombian military and its

closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads, and only 2% to the FARC. The 329 'extrajudicial murders' recently reported (an increase of 48%) were all attributed to the Colombian military and police. There is simply no question that most of the violence in Colombia is perpetrated by government forces.

There are always atrocities in war, that either side can point to, to stoke up more hatred and more killing. This is why the world has developed DIPLOMACY--skilled people who can take an objective view and can broker a PEACE. My point is that that should be the role of the U.S. in a civil war in this hemisphere (or anywhere)--not arming one side with $6 BILLION in military aid, so that it can exterminate the other side, but actively encouraging and pursuing a peaceful settlement (as, for instance, Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa and others were trying to do, prior to the U.S. bombing/raid against Ecuador, to kill the chief FARC hostage negotiator).

What are we doing, siding with these fascists and their death squads? Some Colombians may support Uribe, because the corporate media and the government dwells on the crimes of one side of the civil war, and keeps them ignorant of the much more massive crimes of their side, and/or because they were personally harmed by the FARC, or know someone who was--but that should not lead us to be deluded about the basis of Uribe's popularity!

In other South American countries, we can verify the popularity or unpopularity of leaders, because the vote counting is generally transparent (and, in Venezuela, very transparent), and the voting takes place in non-intimidating and non-brutal circumstances. And the opinion polls line up pretty well with the votes, in these transparent and open political systems. Evo Morales, for instance, recently won a referendum on his presidency with 68% of the vote, and has a 70% approval rating. Hugo Chavez won the last presidential election with 63% of the vote, and currently has about a 60% approval rating (after a close--50.7% to 49.3%--loss on a complicated package of Constitutional amendments that was put to a vote of the people). No one suffers the threat of 'extrajudicial' government murder for opposing Morales or Chavez, or their proposals. We can generally trust the voting results. We can generally trust the opinion polls. With Colombia, however, we cannot trust either thing.

As for atrocities that Colombians have suffered at the hands of the FARC, I can only express my sympathy and sorrow, and I can understand how the traumas of war translate into the desire for revenge and for more war. But war is not the answer--neither FARC's war, nor that of the Colombian rightwing, and its military, police and death squads, nor Bush's wars. Peace and social justice are the answer. Ridding ourselves of war profiteers is the answer. That is very difficult for the parties in a war to acknowledge, and that is why they need the help of objective diplomacy. I don't see that happening any time soon. The Bushites and the oil corpos are preventing it--and, as with Iraq, they seem to have the Democrats bushwhacked into wasting billions and billions and billions of our hard-earned tax dollars on this worldwide corporate resource war. And that is a tragedy equal to any suffered by individuals in Colombia's 40+ year conflict. Bush's Forever War includes Colombia, and--God forbid it!--extension of that war to the South American democracies with the oil.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. i.e. The local equivalent of College Republicans

hoping to raise up the Ecuadoran Karl Rove.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Ecuador's Correa backers march for new constitution

Ecuador's Correa backers march for new constitution
Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:55pm EDT

QUITO (Reuters) - Thousands marched on Saturday to back Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa who polls show is inching closer to winning a September 28 vote to pass a new constitution that would expand the leftist's authority.

Correa, a former economy minister who took office last year, is widely popular for his spending on the poor and his pledges to fight powerful elites he blames for the political instability that toppled his last three predecessors.

The new constitution would bolster Correa's sway over the oil-producing country's economy and political institutions such as Congress and the top courts.

"We will crush the old country ruled by elites and mafia groups," Correa told cheering supporters waving the lime-green flags of his political party in the hilly capital, Quito. "We are not going to return to the past ... we will win this decisive battle."

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2343016020080823?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[Zorro]

11. Support For New Constitution For Ecuador Increases, but...

<snip>

Polling group Cedatos Gallup International said Friday that support for Ecuador's proposed new constitution has risen 3 points - to 44% from the previous 41%.

The Cedatos poll showed if the referendum were held now, 44% would vote in favor, while 34% would vote no and 22% would annul or leave their ballots blank.

In the previous poll, 35% opposed the new Constitution, according Cedatos.

Cedatos pollsters interviewed 2,124 people in the 15 Ecuadorian cities Aug. 15-19. Its poll has a margin of error of 3.2%...

<snip>

More at: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080822%5cACQDJON200808221808DOWJONESDJONLINE000744.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Support%20For%20New%20Constitution%20For%20Ecuador%20Increases%20-Poll

Sounds as if the majority of Ecuadoreans still aren't supporting the new Constitution. At least among the citizens of 15 Ecuadorean cities. That 22% that would annul or leave their ballots blank is a curious number; I daresay it isn't a vote of confidence for Correa.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Where do the polling companies look for people to poll, anyway, when there are only 129 phones per

1,000 people? You think phone polls will be getting a broad cross section of public opinion when they can only reach 129 phones for every 1,000 Ecuadoreans? You are attempting to pull a fast one on people who haven't had time to think things over, or haven't realized the wild difference in living standards between the U.S. and South America.

~~~~~~~~~
Ecuador Facts and Figures

. . . .

Number of radios per 1,000 people 413 (2000 estimate)

Number of telephones per 1,000 people 129 (2005)

Number of televisions per 1,000 people 216 (2000 estimate)

Number of Internet hosts per 10,000 people 2.5 (2003)

Daily newspaper circulation per 1,000 people 96 (2000)

Number of motor vehicles per 1,000 people 53 (2003)

Paved road as a share of total roads 17 percent (2003)

http://encarta.msn.com/fact_631504757/ecuador_facts_and_figures.html

~~~~~~~~~~
The people the pollsters reach are the more comfortable Ecuadoreans who clearly constitute a minority.

DU'ers, take time to research. Don't take ANYONE'S word. Look for the answers yourself. That's the only way you can be sure you're getting as close to the truth as possible. The rest of us can only discuss the truth we find, (or offer only pathetic opinions) but it's up to you to check up on what we post, as well!

[Zorro]

13. I'm posting a news article

That's not "attempting to pull a fast one on people who haven't had the time to think things over..."

For someone who embraces poll numbers when they indicate Correa's popularity, you certainly don't hesitate to question a poll's validity when it indicates a distinct lack of support for positions you favor.

Can't have it both ways. That's hypocritical.

[Judi Lynn]

14. What was pointed out is that the poor are not well represented. Is that difficult for you? n/t

[Zorro]

15. Care to tell us about Cedatos' polling technique in Ecuador?

What you pointed out was that many people in Ecuador don't have telephones; that doesn't mean that there are no other methods to gather polling data.

So why don't you enlighten us on your vast personal polling experiences in Ecuador?

[Judi Lynn]

16. Do they go out into the country? Do they go into the barrios?

The South American DU'er who brought up the subject here in 2002 said they most certainly DO NOT.

I have seen reports which indicate they don't.

That leaves the ones they don't have to spend money locating, doesn't it?

If they can't be reached by phone, which would mean MOST OF THEM, and if they can't be polled at home because the polling company won't go into the poor neighborhoods, where do you imagine the pollsters GET the information on the majority of people in the poor countries?

Personal rancor won't help your cause.

[Zorro]

17. So if you don't know how Cedatos conducts its polling

then IMHO it's a bit presumptuous to dismiss their poll results out of hand.

Can you point to previous Cedatos polls that indicated wildly divergent numbers from official results? That would help make your case.

[Rage for Order]

21. Is it safe to assume that you raised these same concerns...

When the Lancet published its estimates in October 2006 of the number of people killed in Iraq since the start of the US invasion? After all, how many working telephones do you think there were at the time in Iraq, not to mention intimidation by people who were out to kill others for a myriad of reasons? Using your reasoning, I'm calling bullshit on the Lancet's over-inflated number of people killed in Iraq, since they obviously couldn't have reached a large enough segment of the population to get a true representative sample.

[Solon]

22. This is perhaps the stupidest post I've ever seen...

Seriously, estimating fatalities in a war is NOT the same as polling by telephone. Its done, literally, by counting BODIES and estimating death tolls by looking at both official Military sources and unofficial sources as well, including news reports, eyewitness testimony, etc.

[Rage for Order]

23. You should pay closer attention

JudiLynn is arguing that the polls are inaccurate because many people in Ecuador do not have telephones. However, nowhere is it stated that telephone polling was the only method used to take the polls in question. I was merely pointing out that there are ways in which one can conduct a poll that will overcome the lack of traditional communication mediums.

[Solon]

24. Actually, polls are inaccurate, at most they give a "general" breakdown...

of how people think, but traditionally they actually under represent the poor and minorities, and this applies worldwide. Similar to the Census, even if the methodology is to "knock on doors and ask", poor people are easily intimidated to give the "right" answers, or simply are ignored altogether. This is particularly true in countries that have had oppressive governments in the past. Polling by telephone is, of course inaccurate because not everyone has one in Ecuador, but other methods may not be as accurate as well.

However, that isn't the point, the fact is that you did use a really fucking stupid comparison, considering that war casualties are more easily quantifiable.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Ecuador a moderate in Andean oil national takeovers

Ecuador a moderate in Andean oil national takeovers
Published: Sunday, 24 August, 2008, 08:22 AM Doha Time

QUITO: Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is steering away from the energy nationalisations of leftist allies, Venezuela and Bolivia, in a show of moderation that could help him keep oil output steady this year.

Correa spooked investors last year by hiking a sweeping windfall tax and ordering companies to rework contracts, but in recent weeks he secured deals with investors that analysts say will help stabilize weak output after he shunned calls for more aggressive oil field takeovers.

The approach shows the pragmatic streak of a tough-talking leftist, whom investors feared would boost state control over the oil sector with nationalizations in the style of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

“We are pragmatic socialists,” Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga said recently. “Our plan from the start was to reach deals with the companies ... but sometimes you need strong measures to get both sides to sit down and talk.”

~snip~
“At the end of the day, like Venezuela and Bolivia, we are also getting what we want, but using a different route.”
Correa’s surprise hike of a windfall tax last year rattled investors who still wonder if his moderation might ultimately take a back seat to strong leftist rhetoric, which tends to go over well with voters.

More:
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=237507&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28

[Peace Patriot]

26. New game: Spot the disinformation!

There is a lot of it hidden in this Reuters story, which has become as bad a the Associated Pukes on psyops 'news' stories about South America. (And please identify the source of news stories, even if it is a reprint. AP and Reuters regularly pollute many newspapers and other news outlets that subscribe to their 'services,' with utter crap about South America--and it is essential to know if one of these two--AP or Reuters--is the originator.)

-----

Spot the disinformation! (Your frequent gas user points, earned by winning this game, will one day win you a government that gives a fuck about whether you live or die...):

"...steering away from the energy nationalisations of leftist allies, Venezuela and Bolivia."--Reuters

Once again, for the upteenth time, Hugo Chavez did NOT nationalize the oil in Venezuela! The oil was nationalized long before Chavez. What Chavez did was to re-negotiate the oil contracts, from the 10/90 giveaway of the profits, to multinationls, that rightwing governments had permitted, to a much better 60/40 deal for Venezuela--profits that are used for schools, medical care, infrastructure development and many other benefits for the poor majority.

The other multinationals agreed. Exxon Mobil walked out of the talks in a snit, and went into 'first world' courts to try to grab $12 billion in Venezuela's assets--and lost that fight to Venezuela. Because Venezuela is a SOVEREIGN country, with a government of, by and for the people, and Venezuela's oil is a national asset--as it is in Norway, as it is in Mexico, as it is in many countries--a policy of the right, the center and the left in those countries (--although Mexico is now facing a fight over the privatization of its constitutionally protected PUBLIC oil resource, led by the pro-Bush rightwing government).

Reuters just slips this disinformation into the sentence--implying that Venezuela, under the Chavez government, recently nationalized the oil, when the Chavez government not only didn't nationalize the oil recently, it didn't nationalize the oil ever.

-----

I get 100 frequent gas user points toward my reward of a government that gives a fuck if I live or die!

200 points, because they repeat it, in this sentence:

"The approach shows the pragmatic streak of a tough-talking leftist, whom investors feared would boost state control over the oil sector with nationalizations in the style of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Bolivia’s Evo Morales."

-----

Spot the disinformation! Win points!

This is a tougher one, so you get 1000 points if you spot it. Hint: It has to do with phrases like "spooked investors," "roiled Wall Street" and "rattled investors," with bonus points for spotting the disinformation about Exxon Mobil's failed lawsuit against Venezuela. (Hint: Nowhere does Reuters say that Exxon Mobil lost the lawsuit.)

More hints: The slump in oil production has almost nothing to do with either Venezuela's or Ecuador's oil industry policy (i.e., the government taking majority control of the oil projects, or not). They are both members of OPEC, for godssakes! Correa's policy likely has more to do with his cooperation with the leftist government of Brazil, which has a major contractor involved. Chavez was dealing with Exxon Mobil and Chevron (!)-- which, of course, want ALL THE PROFITS--on the one hand, and state oil companies (Norway, France), on the other, which RESPECT national sovereignty as to the oil resource (and agreed to the deal). Exxon Mobil and Chevron objected to Venezuela's position, and Chavez told them to fuck off. And Venezuela is doing very well as a consequence. The disinformation here (and pardon me for giving you 1000 points, gratis) is that little countries have to bend over for big fuckwad Bushite corporations, or they will "spook Wall Street." Reuters is writing the WSJ "wishful thinking" version of what is happening in South America.

Truth: The little guys have the oil, and are learning very fast how to use that power to benefit their people. The big fuckwads need the oil, and have to go begging to these unimportant little brown guys who don't scare easily and have each other's backs. "Divide and conquer"--and re-constituting the 4th Fleet to harry Venezuela's oil coast, and every other goddamn trick the Bushwads have pulled--are not working.

------

Spot the disinformation!

"...reduces Ecuador’s reliance on investment that Chavez has promised but may never deliver."

WTF? "...may never deliver"?!

(1000 points--pending.)

[Judi Lynn]

28. Hard to believe they expect ANYONE to buy this crap as a news piece, isn't it?

Staggering liberties taken for injecting pure rot into an area which is supposed to be reserved for posting actual news, real information offered WITHOUT spin, WITHOUT slanting, WITHOUT venom!

They just don't want to leave it to the readers any more. We might be tempted to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, and ease up on our hard-charging xenophobia they try so hard to stoke and maintain.

Nope, they lunge right in there at the first, pushing, shoving, getting in our faces and TELLING US how we are expected to view these new elected Latin American leaders.

Thanks to you in pointing out what people may just pass over without realizing what they're actually reading. It's there to influence, to mold our attitudes, our beliefs BEHIND OUR OWN BACKS by stealth.

You challenge us to BECOME CONSCIOUS, if it's not asking too much, not reading through stuff, but reading the words CONSCIOUSLY. Once conscious contact is made with the material we'll be able to spot lies, psychological trickery in future propaganda renderings.

We are NOT treated with respect by the propagandists who do this for a living. They attempt to deny us our right to legitimate information as citizens of the world. Why SHOULD we be lied to, and jerked around, anyway? We pay THEIR salaries. We are NOT their property, their subjects, even though they think they've got us where they want us. They are wrong to even try it. They know, their right-wing scummy minions know it, and we, by god, always knew it. It goes against people's spirit 100%. Only criminals would be this dirty.

[Peace Patriot]

29. I'm changing their name (in my usage) to Rotters.

Associated Press (AP) = Associated Pukes

Reuters = Rotters.

I continue to find it shocking--though I should be inured to it by now. I kind of like that they can't "inure" me, cuz I think that's one of their purposes--and it is very Bushlike--to be such intellectual whores, rotters and pukes, in their coverage of real democracies, that perceptive readers lower their expectations.

If these 'news' organs had any integrity, they would be wildly celebrating the success of democracy in South America. It's what the corpo 'news' is always saying they want--democracy, freedom, blah, blah, blah. But a democratic government in a REAL democracy fighting with Exxon Mobil, in the interest of its people? Not so much. Real democracy is actually 'tyranny,' don't you know? And--horror of horrors!--it "rattles Wall Street." And that is so funny--when you think about it--considering the housing meltdown and all that--I wonder if they have heh-heh giggles about it in the 'news' room like Bush has about weapons of mass destruction, in the Oval Office. Lying as a sport. Hey, there's a new game for the Olympics! Which country has the best liars? The U.S.A. would take that gold for sure! Cuz "We're Number One!" (biggest peepees in the world).

Rotters used to be an English/European news service. I wonder if they still are. You never know these days. They could be owned by the Carlyle Group or Howard Ahmanson (ES&S, brethren to Diebold) or Chevron--or, hey, they could be owned by AP itself, in an interlocking monopoly on all 'news' everywhere, which would explain why their such Pukes.

[lonestarnot]

27. Rugh ro.