Ben.......I doubt that the US and British Media provides a very balanced view as well. Look at their track record covering both past and current issues. And I don't think you will agree, but I would take the word of educated students over what someone living in the slums has to say as the students are much more aware of current political events. Also, Think about why the US governemt would support a governemt under chavez? Are they getting anything from it? Secure oil reserves in a time when the threat of a major conflict in the middle east is brewing. The US government rarely acts without something being beneficial to themselves.


Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae

[This message was edited by Brent Howard on January 16, 2003 at 05:05 PM.]

Agreed - Our media is just as bad. I only read independantly owned newspapers and avoid the TV news. Awareness of your own nation's propaganda is vital with a war looming.

Having worked for a UK military contractor, I am under no illusions believe me.

Ben

Hope I didn't stir up too much of a hornet's nest, I promise I'll stick to money and religion in future.

Ummm... Fergus, you've confused me dude. I don't really understand what it is you're trying to say, specially that bit about morals, sponsors, donations to charity and world vision ads... but I do like the sentiment... I think.

Brent...

Your exactly right. Reading a few articles does not make me an expert which is why I was asking for a more detailed perspective from Alfonso (and people like yourself), rather than more of the simplistic "Chavez is a f*&^ing dictator" rhetoric.

You have confused some of my points though. I argued that Chavez being elected three times was in fact democratic. I then asked what Chavez had done for Alfonso to call him a dictator. You've interpreted this as:

"the arguement that being elected doesn't make chavez a dictator is completly wrong."

And then held up Hitler as an example of this. Sure, Hitler was a dictator but it wasn't because he was democratically elected, it was because he slaughtered 6 million Jews and made war on the world. Once again I ask, what has Chavez done?

You also stated:

"very few major political changes are initiated by the poor, as they do not have the means to enact change"

You're exactly right, the poor don't have the money, the land, the technology, the education or the guns. At best all they have is a vote.

Another comment you made:

"And I don't think you will agree, but I would take the word of educated students over what someone living in the slums has to say as the students are much more aware of current political events"

Your right: I don't agree with you at all. It would be nice to hear both sides but I don't think that's going to happen.

Ben....

I like your comment:

"I doubt you (Brent) are hearing a balanced view from Venezuela, in amongst dealing with poverty getting an internet connection and engaging in political discussion is fairly low on the priority list I suspect."

That's exactly what I was thinking but I thought I'd wait to hear Alfonso's story, and so give him the benefit of the doubt.

That's all I have to say, sorry for the political side trip, I just wanted a better understanding of what was happening. No hard feelings all round and best of luck to the USB team,

Scott

Regards,


Scott Wordley & Roan Lyddy Meaney
Monash FSAE Wingmen
http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

Hi everyone.
First of all I would like to give a really big thanks to all of you for all your concern about Venezuelan situation, it's really motivating to see all your thoughts about it and how well informed you are taking into account that you can not be aware of every detail since you are not here.
Second, I would like to apologize about introducing the political topic into the forum. At the homepage (fsae.com) there's a section for "OFF TOPIC" discussions, I'll put this post there to continue the discussion in that section.
Another thing, Scott & Roan, you are not killing the mood you are just giving your point of view of a political situation and lets remember these stuffs are just too subjective and we have to respect all point of views. Nowadays, I am so clear that to hear and to be heard is the main key point in Democracy
With my next words I'm not trying to convince anybody that I have the truth or the reason, I just want to give you guys an explanation from the inside of the events.
I read the article Scott & Roan recommend us and believe me guys, I was just so pissed off. And then I could understand why you (Scott & Roan) have that thoughts or questions.
I'll begin by saying that I think all the exterior policy (international) of the opposition has been managed terribly bad. The whole relations with the foreign reporters has been erroneous from the beginning and that have helped the strike hasn't had the international support it deserves. Right now I remember a CNN reporter (Whitheker) reporting lies in this TV channel, and believe me, we see one thing here and he reports another alive on CNN, so it makes me feel a little disappointed about the well managing of the information, and I realized how damage you can create when you change the events just to satisfied a side of the problem. I recommend you to visit this website: www.vcrisis.com .
It is true that Chávez was elected, and yes, three times. But, why wouldn't he be elected a forth time? On November, we recollected the necessary firms to convoke a referendum to go elections on February 2nd, all this based on the constitution, and when the Elections National Committee (CNE) approved that there were all the requirements done, Chavez decided that won't be any Referendum giving some excuses like one of the votes in the CNE was not valid and disrespecting the decisions of it and our democratic right to call for a referendum as is well said in the constitution.
Is Chavez a dictator? He is not a declared dictator, that's clear. But as well said Brent, the fact that he has been elected three times doesn't mean he's not, and what better example than Hitler. Now, he doesn't have to declare himself as a dictator to act like he was, Chavez don't respect the institutions of the country. By November the Metropolitan Police was taken its autonomy off and taken by the military forces. He didn't respect the decision of the CNE about the referendum. He has used so many times the National Guard to dissolve manifestations and marches of the opposition when it is clear mentioned in the constitution that a pacific civil protest can't be dissolve by this institution. And I haven't mentioned the hate transmitted in his political message. Any time Chavez talk in TV his transmitting a message of hate, repression and division between the Venezuelan people of different classes. He's always talking, as the reporter talked in the cited article, of the low class and poor people and in the other hand the rich, wealthy oligarchy of the higher classes. And in my point of view that's been the worst damage Chavez has done to the Venezuelan society, the big hurt of dividing us as Venezuelans and turning us against each other. You can destroy the economy of the country, you can have wrong political decisions or strategies, but you can't lie and manipulate a population injecting them with hate and envy about his neighbors and Venezuelan partners just to get your selfish ambitious done. And I can go on mentioning more and more reasons why Chavez can be considered a dictator as I said, and we can consider it is not a crazy idea knowing that his big friend and assessor is the communist Cuban Fidel Castro, but let me make this a little bit shorter.
Is the strike coming from the top of the society classes, the riches as Mark Weisbrot says? This is not true at all. I said very clearly every little shop or restaurant or commerce local that supported the strike is added to it, that means they are not working. By the first week of the strike, it was considered 80% successful and Chavez and his Ministers or the Vice-President Rangel appeared on TV saying there was no strike, that it was like 15 % successful. Of course this has turned down because a lot of little shops or locals have opened half time so they won't fall into bankruptcy. Another thing, in the website I recommended some words before you can see some pictures of marches of the opposition, watch them, and if you think all those persons are riches you should come to Venezuela.
How can we build a F-SAE car when 80 % of the Venezuelan population is in poverty? The Universidad Simon Bolivar is a public school and right now as many other institutions in the country it's going through a really hard economic and institutional situation. We in the F-SAE USB Team don't receive any economic help form the University funds. All our budget is covered by private companies that decide to support the team for its academic or publicity importance, and many of them are transnational companies like Schlumberger, Citgo, Bosch, etc. And you have to think this is part of education and you can't simply quit to it because of the hard political and economical situation your country is passing by.
Well, thank you again for all your thoughts, hope I answer and clarify some points, and you can expect some other posts form other guys of the team supporting my ideas.
You can email me directly for any other question or discussion if you want. I'll be glad to shared my ideas with any of you.
You can also read this article:

http://www2.theclarionnews.com/Opinions/9322.shtml


Alfonso Ochoa Vega
cabezota311@hotmail.com

Hi guys.....

I wrote a bit about this subject during the topic: What's everybody's progress for Detroit 2003??? But reading the past replies about Venezuela, made me think that I just should say some things about it. I MUST agree with Michael from Cornell about not using this as a political forum, but people have to know the truth. Maybe you will think my truth is not THE TRUTH. Maybe you are right and I am wrong. Maybe it is just a coincidence that Alfonso, David and me think the same way. You might think that we are just 3 guys of the minority of rich people that support the strike.

I ´ll try to make it short.

You are right about Chavez being elected democratically. But so was Hitler. What kind of elections?? He won the elections, because 65% of the people capable of voting decided not to vote. Not to vote, as a symbol of disagreement with the candidates. Ok, you are right if you think that is our fault, for not having good candidates up there. Shit happens I guess. He won, by saying that in 2-3 years the poor would become less poor, no kids would be on the street, and a bunch of other lies he just used to win. Why lies??, because 4 years later, poverty has grown. There are more people living on the streets then ever. One US dollar was equivalent to around 700 Bs (our currency) in 1998 when he took the presidency; nowadays around 1700 Bs = 1 US dollar. Deduct the inflation. Criminality has grown like e^x. Not only this. In these few years he has changed the Constitution, extended the President's term to six years (with the possibility of re-election) and established a transitory regime under which all the Supreme Court Justices, the Attorney General and the national electoral authorities, were elected by his people. He has majority at the congress and he substituted the existing judges of the court system with more of his people.

He attacks the media, and everybody else who disagrees with his government. Isn't this one of the beauties of democracy??? He arms the government supporters, and tells them to hit the streets to scare the people. To defend HIS BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION. Besides all of this, he, who claims to be a poor man from the flatlands, buys a plane for HIS use costing more than 60 Millions dollars; has been more than 6 months out of Venezuela during his 4 years, while his people, the ones that voted for him, starve. How can you explain, his best friend is Fidel Castro, his other friends are Saddam Hussein, the Chacal, among others. The people he has in his government, not only have criminal records, but belong to international communist groups and distribute illegal weapons??

At the bottom you will see 2 photos of the huge marches that have been made pacifically to show the unhappiness of the population

Well..... It is sad that the news you get, is not the ones we live. But we know that it is happening; and as a Venezuelan, I think I have to try to tell the truth, or my truth.

I would recommend you to view the following pages. I know you are busy working on the car, but PLEASE take your time to see these:


http://www.mipagina.cantv.net/jeaharatz
http://www.mipagina.cantv.net/jeaharatz
http://www.vcrisis.com

(read the facts at vcrisis.com)

Hope your cars are all going well..... and hope to see you all in pontiac, and discuss this, if necessary after the competition....






Andoni Mazeika
www.formulasaeusb.com

Now thats exactly what I wanted to hear.

Thanks for all the information and pics, I really appreciate the time and effort you guys took to respond so thoroughly to my questions. As you can tell we get a lot of mixed reports and sometimes we do get things completely wrong, in which case I apologise. Better to ask and be wrong than to live in ignorance. Same goes for Formula SAE.

Keep fighting for what you believe in and lets hope it all comes good soon.

Regards,


Scott Wordley & Roan Lyddy Meaney
Monash FSAE Wingmen
http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

Who in god's name thought engineers followed political events so closely? I'm quite impressed with the references and opinions expressed in the last 10 or so posts. Great job, keep your heads out of the dynamics texts and in the real world.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae