Lifestyle > Train of Thought
If you had to live in one NON WHITE country in the world...
virtuoso:
I am not even going to comment on that one single article, its very dangerous to do so as its from fox news. This could be another false story like the one they brought out about Iran forcing the Jews to wear unique clothing identifying themselves. However I am not going to be a fake about it, I will research into that and private message you my response when I know more about it.
Narrator:
--- Quote from: Real American on September 28, 2006, 05:10:03 PM ---Me personally, I would commit suicide before living in a non white country. Non whites don't even want to live in them, so I know that I definitely wouldn't want to!
--- End quote ---
Don't worry, you'll be living in a non-white country sooner than you know it. :laugh:
I don't like living in a mostly-white country. Especially in the South with all these fucking hicks...some days I want to put the 100-round drum in my AK and go shoot up a trailer park.
Sikotic™:
--- Quote from: Real American on September 28, 2006, 05:10:03 PM ---Me personally, I would commit suicide before living in a non white country. Non whites don't even want to live in them, so I know that I definitely wouldn't want to!
--- End quote ---
Yeah, that's why they're having their babies in Namibia.
virtuoso:
I just found this Ant its in response to your above article
By Justin Delacour
Latin America News Review
May 8, 2006
A little scrutiny of a recent Associated Press report about Venezuela provides a lesson in how the English-language press often gets the story wrong. Take the first sentence: "President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that Venezuelan voters should have the chance to decide whether he should govern the country for the next 25 years."
No, such a referendum would not be about "whether he should govern the country for the next 25 years." A referendum would be about whether Chavez would be permitted to run every six years and --in the event that he were to continue winning elections-- serve multiple presidential terms. The AP report's opening sentence makes it sound as if such a referendum would do away with elections in Venezuela, as if its intent would be to grant Chavez a new 25-year term in office! The website of The Calgary Sun even titles the wire report "Chavez seeking 25-year term"!!
This is obviously an extremely poor piece of reporting. Chavez made it clear that, if the opposition committed to participating in the upcoming presidential election, he would not convoke a referendum to end presidential term limits. He explained that the intent of his threat to convoke such a referendum was not to perpetuate himself in power but rather to defend the Bolivarian Revolution.
Fortunately, Agence France Press (AFP) got the story right. The opening sentence of AFP's Spanish-language report reads, "Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez claimed Saturday that, if the opposition decides not to run candidates in the December presidential election, he could decree a referendum to permit his reelection for multiple terms until 2031."
So the choice for the opposition is simple. If they don't want a referendum that would end presidential term limits, they shouldn't pull out of the upcoming presidential election. As far as I'm concerned, the threat of a referendum is a perfectly reasonable (and democratic) way to dissuade the opposition from trying to delegitimize Venezuela's electoral process.
When Venezuela's opposition knows it's going to lose an election, it has a tendency to try to delegitimize the electoral process. Instead of facing up to the fact that it is unpopular, the business-led opposition tries to shift the blame for its electoral misfortunes to the National Electoral Council (CNE). The opposition claims that the CNE could commit "fraud" and that the vote might not be secret. Opposition conspiracy theories of this nature are legion. Never mind that there have been international observers on hand that have testified to the fairness of Venezuela's elections. Never mind that even the opposition's own polls show that Chavez is much more popular than they are.
In other words, many members of the opposition aren't really interested in trying to win elections because they know that they lack popular support. Many in the opposition prefer, instead, to try to create the impression internationally that Venezuela's electoral process is illegitimate.
One has to understand that, given the combination of the opposition's economic interests and political incompetence, it is very desperate. Since it is unable to attract popular support domestically, the opposition resorts to attempts to draw more U.S. hostility toward Chavez in hopes that such hostility might somehow weaken or destroy his presidency. Electoral boycotts are part and parcel of this strategy. The opposition wants to create the (false) impression internationally that Venezuela is another Ukraine and that Chavez wins elections by "fraud," etc. etc. That's what Chavez is up against.
OAS General Secretary Jose Miguel Insulza effectively summed up the problem that Chavez faces when he said the following about the opposition's boycott of legislative elections last December:
"We had a problem with the Venezuelan opposition, which assured us that they would not withdraw from the [electoral] process if certain conditions were met. These were met and, despite this, they withdrew."
Insulza continued, "if the path of abstention is chosen, then one cannot complain that the entire parliament is in the hands of one's political adversary."] END OF QUOTE
The blog http://lefti.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_lefti_archive.html also covered this quite well. One poster there made this quite accurate observation:
"The direct context of these statements should be kept in mind. ... [Chavez] is proposing this if the opposition boycotts the election. Given the opposition's demonization of Chavez, I think he is trying to irritate them while driving home the point that he is extremely popular in Venezuela and COULD win such an election. That's an important point - because the tactic of a boycott is meant to imply that he is not popular but somehow rigging the elections (not true, of course, as the Carter Center and others have said)."
In fact, Chavez is in no way, shape or form proposing a 25-year term, that is not what he said or has ever said. Of course those who've already made up their minds that he's someone to hate and fear won't listen to reality. They live in their own petty little universe of terror of foreign brown guys. I find it amazing how the western press, pundits, and the general public (like American rightwing dittoheads) time after time after time after time (decade after decade after decade) are driven to a hysterical frenzy over imagined threats of a perpetual series of nasty (usually brown) foreign leaders who are elevated to devils and demons, lunatics, something out of a Hammer horror film.
Real American:
That article doesn't mean anything. Chavez is still trying to change Vanaezuela's constitution to do away with term limits and allow him to run as many times as he wants. This is your champion of democracy?
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