Re: [Biofuel] The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat
Hello Frank Does the Carter Center approve of US elections? If you mean post-2000, not if they have any sense. This report is in the list archives: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2452/ -- In These Times December 29, 2005 Ghosts in the Voting Machines By Joel Bleifuss snip The GAO concluded: Until these efforts are completed, there is a risk that many state and local jurisdictions will rely on voting systems that were not developed, acquired, tested operated, or managed in accordance with rigorous security and reliability standards. Rep. Conyers responded to the report this way: I am shocked at the extent and nature of problems that GAO has identified. ... It is incumbent upon Congress to respond to this problem and to enact much needed reforms such as a voter verified paper audit trail that protects all Americans' right to vote. Carter weighs in Former President Jimmy Carter has voiced concerns similar to Conyers'. Few people are as familiar with running fair elections as he. The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections worldwide. In a September 2004 Washington Post article, Carter predicted that the looming presidential election would be as contentious as the one in 2000, with Florida again at the center of the storm. He wrote that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida, the most significant of which were: * A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during or after the actual voting takes place. * Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus on maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida, he wrote. As Carter predicted, in 2004 Florida again featured prominently, if less publicly, as a state where incidents of voter suppression and alleged election fraud tilted the vote toward George W. Bush. But the big story in 2004 was the swing state of Ohio, where the presidential election is thought to have been decided. Carter weighed in again, in September 2005, when the Commission on Federal Election Reform released its report. Carter and James Baker III, co-chairs of the commission, wrote in the report's introduction: We propose ways to give confidence to voters using electronic voting machines that their votes will be counted accurately. We call for an auditable backup on paper at this time. snip Anyway I'm sure you can find out for yourself easily enough: http://www.cartercenter.org/homepage.html The Carter Center: Advancing Human Rights and Alleviating Suffering http://www.oas.org/main/english/ Organization of American States - OAS http://europa.eu/ Europa - The European Union On-Line Let us know, won't you? Best Keith On 12/15/06, Keith Addison mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3009http://www.fair.org/index.ph p?page=3009 Extra! November/December 2006 The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat Painting Chávez as a 'would-be dictator' By Steve Rendall Hugo Chávez never had a chance with the U.S. press. Shortly after his first electoral victory in 1998, New York Times Latin America reporter Larry Rohter (12/20/98) summed up his victory thusly: All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in Venezuela's presidential election on December 6, Hugo Chávez has revived an all-too-familiar specter that the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo. Notwithstanding that interring caudillos has not been a consuming passion of Latin America's ruling elite (or U.S. policy makers), it is fitting that the Times reporter sided with that elite. A few years later, in April 2002, following Chávez's re-election by an even greater margin, Times editors cheered a coup against Chávez by Venezuelan elites (Extra! Update, 6/02), declaring in Orwellian fashion that thanks to the overthrow of the elected president, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. For Pedro Carmona-the man who took power in Chávez's brief absence, declaring an actual dictatorship by dismissing the Venezuelan legislature, Supreme Court and other democratic institutions-Times editors had much nicer language, calling the former head of Venezuela's chamber of commerce a respected business leader. Following Chávez's return to office a few days later, Times editors issued a grudging reappraisal of their coup endorsement (Extra! Update!, 6/02). Still insisting that Chávez was a divisive and demagogic leader,
Re: [Biofuel] The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat
Hi Keith, Thanks for all of your efforts on the Journey to Forever website and in this list. While a summary opinion of the state of the US Elections process can't be found on the Carter Center website, they certainly have been keeping track of the shortcomings of the US system since 2000. After the 2000 election, a newsletter called for the uniformity of voting machines throughout the US, somewhat pushing for the use of electronic voting machines which were already in use in certain foreign countries that they monitor elections for (i.e. Mexico). The focus was on the inadequacy of US technology in voting, but not on fraud. Here's a link: http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/211.pdf. Perhaps regretting their call for such a switch electronic voting machines and not predicting the ability to manipulate such systems, the Center held a conference in March, 2005 (as oulined on the following link) regarding what to beware of in coming elections: http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/nondatabase/automatedsummary.pdf As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. contends in his recent Rolling Stone article ( http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen) the 2004 presidential election might have been stolen via voter machine fraud. I don't think the Carter Center was quite prepared for the unprecedented wrong doing of the Bush administration. Perhaps in the coming elections they will try to have some legislation passed or keep a stricter eye on the events to ensure the accuracy of the outcome of our vote. On 12/17/06, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Frank Does the Carter Center approve of US elections? If you mean post-2000, not if they have any sense. This report is in the list archives: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2452/ -- In These Times December 29, 2005 Ghosts in the Voting Machines By Joel Bleifuss snip The GAO concluded: Until these efforts are completed, there is a risk that many state and local jurisdictions will rely on voting systems that were not developed, acquired, tested operated, or managed in accordance with rigorous security and reliability standards. Rep. Conyers responded to the report this way: I am shocked at the extent and nature of problems that GAO has identified. ... It is incumbent upon Congress to respond to this problem and to enact much needed reforms such as a voter verified paper audit trail that protects all Americans' right to vote. Carter weighs in Former President Jimmy Carter has voiced concerns similar to Conyers'. Few people are as familiar with running fair elections as he. The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections worldwide. In a September 2004 Washington Post article, Carter predicted that the looming presidential election would be as contentious as the one in 2000, with Florida again at the center of the storm. He wrote that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida, the most significant of which were: * A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during or after the actual voting takes place. * Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus on maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida, he wrote. As Carter predicted, in 2004 Florida again featured prominently, if less publicly, as a state where incidents of voter suppression and alleged election fraud tilted the vote toward George W. Bush. But the big story in 2004 was the swing state of Ohio, where the presidential election is thought to have been decided. Carter weighed in again, in September 2005, when the Commission on Federal Election Reform released its report. Carter and James Baker III, co-chairs of the commission, wrote in the report's introduction: We propose ways to give confidence to voters using electronic voting machines that their votes will be counted accurately. We call for an auditable backup on paper at this time. snip Anyway I'm sure you can find out for yourself easily enough: http://www.cartercenter.org/homepage.html The Carter Center: Advancing Human Rights and Alleviating Suffering http://www.oas.org/main/english/ Organization of American States - OAS http://europa.eu/ Europa - The European Union On-Line Let us know, won't you? Best Keith On 12/15/06, Keith Addison mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3009http://www.fair.org/index.ph p?page=3009 Extra! November/December 2006 The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat Painting Chávez as a 'would-be dictator' By Steve Rendall Hugo Chávez never had a chance with the U.S. press. Shortly
Re: [Biofuel] The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat
Does the Carter Center approve of US elections? On 12/15/06, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3009 Extra! November/December 2006 The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat Painting Chávez as a 'would-be dictator' By Steve Rendall Hugo Chávez never had a chance with the U.S. press. Shortly after his first electoral victory in 1998, New York Times Latin America reporter Larry Rohter (12/20/98) summed up his victory thusly: All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in Venezuela's presidential election on December 6, Hugo Chávez has revived an all-too-familiar specter that the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo. Notwithstanding that interring caudillos has not been a consuming passion of Latin America's ruling elite (or U.S. policy makers), it is fitting that the Times reporter sided with that elite. A few years later, in April 2002, following Chávez's re-election by an even greater margin, Times editors cheered a coup against Chávez by Venezuelan elites (Extra! Update, 6/02), declaring in Orwellian fashion that thanks to the overthrow of the elected president, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. For Pedro Carmona-the man who took power in Chávez's brief absence, declaring an actual dictatorship by dismissing the Venezuelan legislature, Supreme Court and other democratic institutions-Times editors had much nicer language, calling the former head of Venezuela's chamber of commerce a respected business leader. Following Chávez's return to office a few days later, Times editors issued a grudging reappraisal of their coup endorsement (Extra! Update!, 6/02). Still insisting that Chávez was a divisive and demagogic leader, the editors averred that the forcible removal of a democratically elected leader is never something to cheer. As if this pro-opposition bias were not enough, in January 2003 the Times was forced to dismiss one of its Venezuela reporters, a Venezuelan national named Francisco Toro, when it was revealed that Toro was an anti-Chávez activist (FAIR Action Alert, 6/6/03). The Times anti-Chávez campaign was manifest in a recent book review (9/17/06) of Nikolas Kozloff's Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the United States, in which Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein rebuked the author for praising the Chávez government, explaining that Chávez has militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions. But Lowenstein failed to provide much evidence for his charges-a frequent characteristic of Chávez bashing-or to note that similar charges can be made against other governments, including one much closer to home. Calling names The New York Times is not alone. A Newsweek column (11/7/05) asserted that Venezuela has turned to destructive populism under Chávez, while a news report in the magazine (10/31/05) cited the increasingly authoritarian tilt of the Chávez regime, which has packed the Venezuelan judiciary with pliable magistrates and enacted legislation curtailing press freedoms. In his May 2006 Atlantic profile, New Republic editor Franklin Foer complained that under Chávez's presidency Venezuela had taken an anti-democratic turn. The Washington Post's news pages have relentlessly criticized Chávez in news stories, calling him autocratic (8/12/04) and authoritarian (8/7/06). However, a much more ferocious campaign is waged against Chávez on the Post's editorial and op-ed pages. In one column after another, the Post's opinion pages have charged him with assaulting democracy and stifling dissent. In one column (10/16/06), deputy editorial editor Jackson Diehl called Chávez an autocratic demagogue and accused him of dismantl[ing] Venezuela's democracy. Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt (12/26/05) explained that Chávez had consolidated one-party rule and moved to export his brand of populist autocracy to neighboring nations. Even putative liberal commentators have joined the media chorus. On the O'Reilly Factor (12/5/05), Fox News contributor and NPR reporter Juan Williams said of Venezuela, What you're seeing there is really communism. In September, when Democratic operatives Paul Begala and James Carville appeared on New York City public radio station WNYC (9/25/06), Begala told host Brian Lehrer that Chávez was an autocrat, not a democrat, and said he had a terrible human rights record. Carville told Lehrer, I've worked in Venezuela and I would be very reluctant to call Chávez a democrat. What Carville didn't say was that he worked in Venezuela as an advisor to Venezuelan opposition groups leading an economically devastating strike by managers of the national oil company in an effort to destabilize the
[Biofuel] The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3009 Extra! November/December 2006 The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat Painting Chávez as a 'would-be dictator' By Steve Rendall Hugo Chávez never had a chance with the U.S. press. Shortly after his first electoral victory in 1998, New York Times Latin America reporter Larry Rohter (12/20/98) summed up his victory thusly: All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in Venezuela's presidential election on December 6, Hugo Chávez has revived an all-too-familiar specter that the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo. Notwithstanding that interring caudillos has not been a consuming passion of Latin America's ruling elite (or U.S. policy makers), it is fitting that the Times reporter sided with that elite. A few years later, in April 2002, following Chávez's re-election by an even greater margin, Times editors cheered a coup against Chávez by Venezuelan elites (Extra! Update, 6/02), declaring in Orwellian fashion that thanks to the overthrow of the elected president, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. For Pedro Carmona-the man who took power in Chávez's brief absence, declaring an actual dictatorship by dismissing the Venezuelan legislature, Supreme Court and other democratic institutions-Times editors had much nicer language, calling the former head of Venezuela's chamber of commerce a respected business leader. Following Chávez's return to office a few days later, Times editors issued a grudging reappraisal of their coup endorsement (Extra! Update!, 6/02). Still insisting that Chávez was a divisive and demagogic leader, the editors averred that the forcible removal of a democratically elected leader is never something to cheer. As if this pro-opposition bias were not enough, in January 2003 the Times was forced to dismiss one of its Venezuela reporters, a Venezuelan national named Francisco Toro, when it was revealed that Toro was an anti-Chávez activist (FAIR Action Alert, 6/6/03). The Times anti-Chávez campaign was manifest in a recent book review (9/17/06) of Nikolas Kozloff's Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the United States, in which Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein rebuked the author for praising the Chávez government, explaining that Chávez has militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions. But Lowenstein failed to provide much evidence for his charges-a frequent characteristic of Chávez bashing-or to note that similar charges can be made against other governments, including one much closer to home. Calling names The New York Times is not alone. A Newsweek column (11/7/05) asserted that Venezuela has turned to destructive populism under Chávez, while a news report in the magazine (10/31/05) cited the increasingly authoritarian tilt of the Chávez regime, which has packed the Venezuelan judiciary with pliable magistrates and enacted legislation curtailing press freedoms. In his May 2006 Atlantic profile, New Republic editor Franklin Foer complained that under Chávez's presidency Venezuela had taken an anti-democratic turn. The Washington Post's news pages have relentlessly criticized Chávez in news stories, calling him autocratic (8/12/04) and authoritarian (8/7/06). However, a much more ferocious campaign is waged against Chávez on the Post's editorial and op-ed pages. In one column after another, the Post's opinion pages have charged him with assaulting democracy and stifling dissent. In one column (10/16/06), deputy editorial editor Jackson Diehl called Chávez an autocratic demagogue and accused him of dismantl[ing] Venezuela's democracy. Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt (12/26/05) explained that Chávez had consolidated one-party rule and moved to export his brand of populist autocracy to neighboring nations. Even putative liberal commentators have joined the media chorus. On the O'Reilly Factor (12/5/05), Fox News contributor and NPR reporter Juan Williams said of Venezuela, What you're seeing there is really communism. In September, when Democratic operatives Paul Begala and James Carville appeared on New York City public radio station WNYC (9/25/06), Begala told host Brian Lehrer that Chávez was an autocrat, not a democrat, and said he had a terrible human rights record. Carville told Lehrer, I've worked in Venezuela and I would be very reluctant to call Chávez a democrat. What Carville didn't say was that he worked in Venezuela as an advisor to Venezuelan opposition groups leading an economically devastating strike by managers of the national oil company in an effort to destabilize the government (Washington Post, 1/20/03).
