Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
ChavezVictory * US-Iraq Mishaps * MatrixPolitics
18 August 2004
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear
-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry
of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil
at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up
if we did not blindly rally behind it ..."
~~ General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
1) Dick Cheney, Hugo Chavez and Bill Clinton's Band- - Chavez garners world support with big referendum victory
- - Why Hugo Chavez Won a Landslide Victory
- - Buy Citgo gas to Fuel Democracy
- - Afghan Vote Threatens Bush's Credibility
2) US-Iraq and Global Mishaps- - Army will withhold payment to Halliburton due to suspicious bills
- - 'Boiling Point': Who's to Blame for Global Warming?
- - Was our son murdered by the CIA?
- - Taken at Gunpoint, U.S. Journalist and Interpreter Missing in Iraq
- - Police fire at reporters as US tanks roll up to shrine
3) Living the Matrix -- Can You Believe It?- - Olympics: Parade of Nations, Parade of Ignorance
Editor's Notes:There are lots of insights in this 5th year anniversary issue of Flyby News and the Cassini-Earth flyby. Congratulations on our survival, (up to this point). Flyby News is planning a fund raiser and music extravaganza in Amherst-Northampton, MA area, for after the elections in November to help cover expenses. So far some great performers are showing interest. More on this later. Till the election, Flyby News is committed to helping the nonviolent removal of George W. Bush from US office. It won't come a moment too soon, and will require a unifying spirit. Get ready to help distribute or promote Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" film for voters in US Swing States and help convince nonvoters to register and vote in 2004, for the rapid demise of our survival is on the line.
VIVA Chavez & VIVA Flyby News
from point of origin thru transformation..
8/18/1999 -- 12/21/2012 -- and beyond..?
1) Dick Cheney, Hugo Chavez and Bill Clinton's Band- - Chavez garners world support with big referendum victory
- - Why Hugo Chavez Won a Landslide Victory
- - Buy Citgo gas to Fuel Democracy
- - Afghan Vote Threatens Bush's Credibility
DICK CHENEY, HUGO CHAVEZ AND BILL CLINTON'S BAND
Why Venezuela has Voted Again for Their 'Negro e Indio' President
Monday Aug 16, 2004
by Greg Palast
[Excerpt]
There's so much BS and baloney thrown around about Venezuela that I may be violating some rule of US journalism by providing some facts. Let's begin with this: 77% of Venezuela's farmland is owned by 3% of the population, the 'hacendados.' I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I've ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, "Chavez - dic-ta-dor!" The plantation owner griped about the "socialismo" of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible.
That week, Chavez himself handed me a copy of the "socialist" manifesto that so rattled the man in the Jag. It was a new law passed by Venezuela's Congress which gave land to the landless. The Chavez law transferred only fields from the giant haciendas which had been left unused and abandoned.
This land reform, by the way, was promoted to Venezuela in the 1960s by that Lefty radical, John F. Kennedy. Venezuela's dictator of the time agreed to hand out land, but forgot to give peasants title to their property.
But Chavez won't forget, because the mirror reminds him. What the affable president sees in his reflection, beyond the ribbons of office, is a "negro e indio" -- a "Black and Indian" man, dark as a cola nut, same as the landless and, until now, the hopeless. For the first time in Venezuela's history, the 80% Black-Indian population elected a man with skin darker than the man in the Jaguar.
So why, with a huge majority of the electorate behind him, twice in elections and today in a referendum, is Hugo Chavez in hot water with our democracy-promoting White House?
Maybe it's the oil. Lots of it. Chavez sits atop a reserve of crude that rivals Iraq's. And it's not his presidency of Venezuela that drives the White House bananas, it was his presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. While in control of the OPEC secretariat, Chavez cut a deal with our maximum leader of the time, Bill Clinton, on the price of oil. It was a 'Goldilocks' plan. The price would not be too low, not too high; just right, kept between $20 and $30 a barrel.
But Dick Cheney does not like Clinton nor Chavez nor their band. To him, the oil industry's (and Saudi Arabia's) freedom to set oil prices is as sacred as freedom of speech is to the ACLU. I got this info, by the way, from three top oil industry lobbyists.
Why should Chavez worry about what Dick thinks? Because, said one of the oil men, the Veep in his bunker, not the pretzel-chewer in the White House, "runs energy policy in the United States."
And what seems to have gotten our Veep's knickers in a twist is not the price of oil, but who keeps the loot from the current band-busting spurt in prices. Chavez had his Congress pass another oil law, the "Law of Hydrocarbons," which changes the split. Right now, the oil majors - like Phillips-Conoco - keep 84% of the proceeds of the sale of Venezuela oil; the nation gets only 16%.
Chavez wanted to double his Treasury's take to 30%. And for good reason. Landless, hungry peasants have, over decades, drifted into Caracas and other cities, building million-person ghettos of cardboard shacks and open sewers. Chavez promised to do something about that.
And he did. "Chavez gives them bread and bricks," one Venezuelan TV reporter told me. The blonde TV newscaster, in the middle of a publicity shoot, said the words "pan y ladrillos" with disdain, making it clear that she never touched bricks and certainly never waited in a bread line.
But to feed and house the darker folk in those bread and brick lines, Chavez would need funds, and the 16% slice of the oil pie wouldn't do it. So the President of Venezuela demanded 30%, leaving Big Oil only 70%. Suddenly, Bill Clinton's ally in Caracas became Mr. Cheney's -- and therefore, Mr. Bush's -- enemy..
..Even under Chavez, land redistribution remains more a promise than an accomplishment. But today, the landless and homeless voted their hopes, knowing that their man may not, against the armed axis of local oligarchs and Dick Cheney, succeed for them. But they are convinced he will never forget them.
And that's a fact.
---
The complete article is posted at:
www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=361For more information, visit:
GregPalast.com.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Chavez garners world support with big referendum victoryVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez won international approval from supporters and detractors alike Monday on his decisive referendum victory over opponents trying to oust him. Cuba's communist government and Spain's left-leaning parties said the triumph confirmed the legitimacy of Chavez's government, arguing that it could jumpstart leftist movements across the region. With the victory, which was endorsed by international monitors, Chavez converted one of the biggest challenges of his presidency into an even broader mandate to carry on his "revolution for the poor."
For the National Post [Canada], 17 August 2004, article, see:
www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=aace5d49-60ce-407a-9d18-2430370c55eb= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Why Hugo Chavez Won a Landslide Victoryby Medea Benjamin
Published on August 17, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
www.commondreams.org/views04/0817-01.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Buy Citgo gas to Fuel DemocracyCitgo is a company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Citgo is the US refining and marketing arm of Venezuela's state oil company. Revenue from this oil at the current high market price that has enabled Hugo Chavez to carry out social investments and democracy-building. A success for that democratic economic experiment in Latin America is a threat to the corporate control everywhere. The social spending of the state-owned oil company has made him the target of an Old Guard that is trying to oust him. That Old Guard is supported by the international oil corporations that do not want to see a state-run oil company funneling profits into social spending for the poor. A simple, painless way for American progressives to continue social change in Venezuela is to fill up at Citgo stations. You can click following link to locate Citgo gas stations:
www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator.jspPlease forward this information widely!= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Afghan Vote Threatens Bush's Credibilityby Carol Harrington and Jared Ferrie
KABUL—With evidence mounting of plans for widespread vote-rigging in Afghanistan's upcoming elections, U.S. experts say the controversy could emerge as a serious liability for U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election campaign.
Published on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 by the Toronto Star :
www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1092694222919&call_pageid=968332188854or
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0817-01.htm
2) US-Iraq and Global Mishaps- - Army will withhold payment to Halliburton due to suspicious bills
- - 'Boiling Point': Who's to Blame for Global Warming?
- - Was our son murdered by the CIA?
- - Taken at Gunpoint, U.S. Journalist and Interpreter Missing in Iraq
- - Police fire at reporters as US tanks roll up to shrine
- - Army will withhold payment to Halliburton due to suspicious bills17 Aug. 2004
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The U.S. Army has decided to withhold 15 percent of future payments to Halliburton because the company apparently billed taxpayers for work that was never undertaken or completed, Reuters reports. Halliburton had said yesterday that the Army would give it more time to explain the suspicious bills, but today's news indicates that was not the case. The company told Reuters that its claim yesterday that Army officials had given it more time to explain the suspicious bills "were accurate at the time based on clear oral assurances from senior Pentagon representatives."
The Pentagon last week told Halliburton's KBR subsidiary that $1.8 billion in bills from the company's work in the the Middle East are not verifiable. The $1.8 billion represents 43 percent of Halliburton's total bills submitted to the Pentagon for reimbursement. The company was given until Aug. 15 to justify those bills, but failed to meet that deadline. It also failed to meet two previous deadlines that had been extended, Reuters reported.
If Halliburton fails to justify its expenses, the Pentagon can withhold up to 15 percent of requested reimbursements. The Army estimated that KBR work orders with a future value of $8.2 billion could be affected by a 15 percent withholding, or $60 million per month. So far, Halliburton has received $4.3 billion from the Pentagon for its work under the Army's LOGCAP contract. Under LOGCAP, Halliburton's KBR subsidiary is charged with feeding the troops, transporting military supplies and personnel, and constructing military housing -- mostly in Iraq and Kuwait.
The withholding of payments will affect future, not past, invoices submitted by Halliburton.
"At the end of the day, we do not expect this will have a significant or sustained impact on liquidity," said Cris Gaut, chief financial officer, in a news release. "There are very few companies in the world that could or would adapt this quickly while, at the same time, financing an operation of this magnitude."
Halliburton will take legal action against the Pentagon over the dispute, CBS News MarketWatch reports. The company wants a judge to rule that the 15 percent withholding does not apply to its LOGCAP and Restore Iraqi Oil I and II contracts with the Army, which constitute the bulk of its work in the Middle East.
For related link from HalliburtonWatch.org:
Pentagon says 43% of Halliburton's Iraq expenses are not verifiable
Halliburton overcharged for meals by $186 million
Two reports explain how Halliburton took taxpayers for a ride in Iraq
Gasoline Overcharges
Government widens criminal probe of Halliburton's gas overcharges
For article and links see:
www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/withhold_payment.html= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - 'Boiling Point': Who's to Blame for Global Warming?How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis -- and What We Can Do to Avert Disaster.
By Ross Gelbspan.
254 pp. Basic Books. $22.
NY Times book review by Al Gore
'Boiling Point': Who's to Blame for Global Warming?
By AL GORE
Published in the NY Times: August 15, 2004
THE blend of passionate advocacy and lucid analysis that Ross Gelbspan brings to this, his second book about global warming, is extremely readable because the author's voice is so authentic. When Gelbspan first encountered the issue as a reporter nine years ago, he writes, he had no inkling of how it would change his life. But as he put together the evidence of the global climate crisis he describes in this book, he found himself pulled inexorably to do more than simply write about it. So he now feels called to a kind of mission: to describe what is happening, to single out the specific failures and misdeeds of politicians, energy companies, environmental activists and journalists who share responsibility for our predicament, and then propose bold solutions that -- unlike more timid blueprints already on the public agenda -- would in his view actually solve the problem.
Gelbspan's first book, ''The Heat Is On'' (1997), remains the best, and virtually only, study of how the coal and oil industry has provided financing to a small group of contrarian scientists who began to make themselves available for mass media interviews as so-called skeptics on the subject of global warming. In fact, these scientists played a key role in Gelbspan's personal journey on this issue. When he got letters disputing the facts in his very first article, he was at first chastened -- until he realized the letters were merely citing the industry-funded scientists. He accuses this group of ''stealing our reality.''
In this new book, Gelbspan focuses his toughest language by far on the coal and oil industries. After documenting the largely successful efforts of companies like ExxonMobil to paralyze the policy process, confuse the American people and cynically '' 'reposition global warming as theory rather than fact,' '' as one strategy paper put it, he concludes that ''what began as a normal business response by the fossil fuel lobby -- denial and delay -- has now attained the status of a crime against humanity.''..
Search at
nytimes.com for complete article.
{Al Gore, formerly vice president of the United States, is the author of ''Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit.''}
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"..There may be no more splendidly ruthless moment
in a movie this year than when Senator Shaw explains
the facts of life to her son. 'The assassin always dies,
baby,' she says. 'It's necessary for the national healing.'"
– John Powers
{From review of recently released version of the movie: "The Manchurian Candidate."}= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Was our son murdered by the CIA?by Jenny Shields
Sat 17 July 2004 - The Scotsman
It has been a difficult month for Robin and Daphne Wild. In July last year, their son Richard was murdered in Iraq, shot in the back of the head as he crossed the road in Baghdad. Since then, the parents of the Cambridge University graduate have tried to piece together the events of that day. Mr and Mrs Wild - who feel they have been hindered, rather than helped, by the Foreign Office at every turn - have come to a startling conclusion; they believe their son's murder was ordered by the CIA. The Wilds are intelligent, educated people, not generally given to conspiracy theories or flights of fancy. The tale of their horrendous year is told in simple, moving terms, with a constant air of disbelief at what has happened. "We are not naive, we know unpalatable things are done," says Mrs Wild. "But when you are drawn into it, it is terrifying." She is shivering as she speaks, as a squally wind and heavy mist casts a summer chill over the Wilds' baronial home in the shadow of the Eildon hills in the Scottish Borders..
For the complete article, see:
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=815622004= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Taken at Gunpoint, U.S. Journalist and Interpreter Missing in IraqMicah Garen, an American journalist who was investigating the looting of ancient artifacts in Iraq, was missing along with his Iraqi interpreter on Monday after the two were led at gunpoint on Friday from a shop in the southern city of Nasiriya, according to news reports and the men's families.
www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/international/middleeast/17journalist.html= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Police fire at reporters as US tanks roll up to shrineThe bullet that whistled through the lobby of the Sea Hotel in Najaf yesterday, embedding shards of glass into a foreign reporter's cheek before lodging itself in an air-conditioning unit, carried an unmistakable message: "Get out." In Najaf... the Iraqi police threaten journalists, and the insurgents welcome them.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/16/wirq216.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/16/ixnewstop.html
3) Living the Matrix -- Can You Believe It?- - Olympics: Parade of Nations, Parade of Ignorance
- - Living the Matrix -- Can You Believe It?August 16 by Vincent L. Guarisco
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..."
~~ General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
Ever since we fell into this dark, gloomy abyss shortly after the thievish 2000 (s)election, many of us felt stranded -- forced to live in fear and confusion above the transitory rabbit hole. More times than not, I felt I was locked in an alternate universe -- playing out the movie character "Neo" like in the 1999 cyber-thriller, "The Matrix."
The last four years have been surreal. A dreadful and draining experience -- one hell of a hawkish, bloody four-year "Nebuchadnezzar" ride! However, Americans have an amazing resilience for truth and compassion. You can fool them once, twice -- even more -- but once they realize their freedom, their democracy, is in danger, they become an irresistible force.
In case you haven't noticed, many of our misinformed, behavior-modified citizens have already wised-up. And, every day, countless more are choking down Morpheus' symbolic, mystic "red pill" serum to receive their long-overdue wake-up call..
For the complete article, see:
thomasmc.com/0816vg.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Olympics: Parade of Nations, Parade of IgnoranceParade of Nations, Parade of Ignorance
One Fan's Disillusionment with the TV Games
by Daniel Patrick Welch
The author tells of his infatuation with the Olympic games from early childhood--a spell unfortunately broken by ruminating on current events, US policy, and the mind-numbing chatter of American talking head celebrity commentators.
See: Parade of Nations, Parade of Ignorance
danielpwelch.com/0408poi.htmSpanish translations of prior columns available at:
danielpwelch.com/articles-s.htm
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