No Kidding.
Posted on 11/01/2007 7:41:41 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez could be re-elected indefinitely and detain citizens without charges during national emergencies under constitutional reforms .... to be put to a popular vote in December.
Chavez argues the changes are necessary so his government can steer Venezuela toward socialism. But Human Rights Watch strongly criticized some of the changes, saying they violate international law by allowing the suspension of rights to due process during a state of emergency.
"This amendment, if approved, would allow President Chavez to invoke a state of emergency to justify suspending certain rights that are untouchable under international law," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, at the New York-based Human Rights Watch...
Other reforms would give the government total control over the Central Bank, create new types of property to be managed by cooperatives, extend presidential terms from six to seven years and allow Chavez to run again in 2012...Chavez ... vehemently denies seeking indefinite power...Among other changes, the reforms also would enshrine socialist concepts in the constitution, reduce from 18 to 16 the minimum voting age and increase from 20 percent to 30 percent the number of voters' signatures required to trigger a presidential recall vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Simon Bolivar wept.
No Kidding.
I don’t get the write the headlines. But I do find it interesting that the IHT reports this, in Europe, but no one reports it here.
“to justify suspending certain rights that are untouchable under international law,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, at the New York-based Human Rights Watch...”
...and this is why the Venezolanos need to take back control of their own country, reassert their own constitutional rights and/or die trying. Too many talk tough, but aren’t willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in defense of the Bolivarian ideals.
Colegio Internacional de Caracas, Class of ‘75
The NY Times owns the IHT. Hence the Marxist cover-up headline. The NY Times reports the absolute minimum about all this, couching the horror in coy, deceitful terms.
...talk about “hosed in the head”....
Bottom line, Chavez is doing what DICTATORS do.
He's absolutely right. A free people won't accept his totalitarian socialism. He needs the ability to murder his opponents, because the only way that type of government can work is through absolute control via fear.
Plebescites are a common mechanism for dictators to ratify their tyranny. Napoleon and Hitler are just two examples. They are easy to manipulate and give the illusion of legitimacy.
HEY HEY!!! Jimmy Cartuh said hugo is ok..so that is ok with me..besides..who needs rights anyway../sarc
Memo to Venezuala - you had a chance to kill Hugo but you blew it.
We’re watching a dictator take over a country who we have a strategic need to trade with.
Nice.
The final paragraph of Joshua Muravchik's Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism:
By no means all socialists were killers or amoral. Many were sincere humanitarians; mostly these were the adherents of democratic socialism. But democratic socialism turned out to be a contradiction in terms, for where socialists proceeded democratically, the found themselves on a trajectory that took them further and further from socialism. Long before Lenin, socialist thinkers had anticipated the problem. The imaginary utopias of Plato, Moore, Campanella and Edward Bellamy, whose 1887 novel, Looking Backward, was the most popular socialist book in American history, all relied on coercion, as did the plans of The Conspiracy of Equals. Only once did democratic socialists manage to create socialism. That was the kibbutz. And after they had experienced it, they chose democratically to abolish it.
The dictatorship of the proletariat. What a concept!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.