BS: Venezuela: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?

Subject: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 10:12 AM

Anyone with knowledge of the history of the US CIA in Latin America has been watching events of recent days in Venezuala with tremendous concern for the frail democracies emerging from decades of Latin American bloody dictatorships.

Today's front page headline at Counterpunch reads:

The CIA and the Venezuela Coup

http://www.counterpunch.org/

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 09:55 AM

Whooops - you wrote too soon. Overnight events Returned to the status quo - now its time for heads to roll.

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: hesperis
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 01:28 AM

Here's a blue clicky for the first Guest.

Does anyone actually know what is going on in Venezuela? My friend says it's just a whole lot of rumours right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: kendall
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 05:34 AM

Shades of Allende

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Escamillo
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 05:48 AM

The only thing clear to me, is that President Chavez has been democratically elected and re-elected and re-positioned in his place by the people of Venezuela, because they were, and still are, absolutely fed up of traditional politicians. As exccentric or crazy as Mr. Chavez may appear to us, the reasons for which he is where he is, is the immorality of those who preceded him, and this is happening in Argentina too, and in many countries of Latin America.

Yesterday our government issued a decree by which all who sued the banks and won, and could partially recover their savings, are subject to a counter-measure by which they will have to deposit those amounts again in the same banks who robbed them. And all new legal actions will be suspended, with the complicity of all banks. Today we could see another day of rage, and I will be there.

Un abrazo - Andrés (in the troubled Buenos Aires)

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 06:53 AM

President Chavez has been democratically elected

Unlike one person further North.

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 07:57 AM

further North? Oh I see: Castro!

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 06:42 PM

Yes. A few details. Chavez got in trouble with the Venezuelan oil industry barons, as he tried in the last while to divert some of their enormous profits toward reducing poverty in Venezuela. The oil industry got part of the Army to do a coup against Chavez.

Most of the people shot down in the demonstrations that preceded that coup were Chavez supporters who were counter-demonstrating against those demonstrations. Precisely who shot them is not exactly clear (unidentified snipers in buildings). The private TV stations (also owned by some of Venezuela's richest citizens) showed clips of those people lying dead and wounded, and showed clips of Chavez supporters firing at...someone...implying that they were firing on the unarmed crowd. Needless to say, they were not firing at their own people, but their own people mysteriously were the ones who mostly got shot. This is from an eyewitness at the scene.

The coup then failed because the greater part of the Army decided to support Chavez. (Ooops! Somebody miscalculated.)

Venezuela is the 3rd largest oil supplier to the USA, and has actually had the nerve lately to sell some oil to Cuba as well...

They've just had their wrist slapped.

*** I have an indepth article from the Toronto Star (one of Canada's oldest and well established newspapers) that covers much of what I've said above regarding the oil connection, but I can't get to google at the moment for some reason...it won't load. I will try later. The article is in the Toronto Star, written by Thomas Walkom, April 16/02. The title of the column is: "Chavez fell foul of Bush doctrine")

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 06:46 PM

Him too.

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Amergin
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 07:16 PM

not surprisingly the american government is denying all connections to the coup....but then that is not saying that they were not involved....

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 08:33 PM

Here is the text of Walkom's article in the Star:

Chavez fell foul of Bush doctrine Thomas Walkom THERE ARE two George W. Bush doctrines. The second and best known has to do with terror. Those who harbour or support terrorists, or even those who are seen by Washington as not adequately opposing terrorism, are liable to U.S. attack. It is neatly summed in the U.S. president's pithy phrase: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

But there is a prior George W. doctrine, upon which the second is based. It is about energy and is reflected in actions which defined Bush's early presidency — his rejection of the Kyoto accord on global warming for fear that it might interfere with the hydrocarbon industry, his insistence on drilling for oil in an Alaskan wildlife preserve.

That first Bush doctrine could be summed up in the phrase: Those who do not supply us with the energy we want are against us.

Sometimes, the two Bush doctrines complement each other, as in Afghanistan, where the American president has used his pursuit of alleged Al Qaeda terrorists as an opportunity to establish military bases in and around the massive oil fields of Central Asia.

Sometimes, the two doctrines coexist uneasily — as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is finding in the Middle East.

There, petroleum-producing nations are reluctant to let Bush proceed with his plans to put the oil fields of Saddam Hussein's Iraq into friendly hands (under the guise of fighting terror) unless, at the very least, Washington reins in its client state Israel.

The result here is that Bush, in order to salvage his energy policy, has been put in the embarrassing position of chiding the Israelis for mimicking his own, stern terrorism policy. But rarely has Bush's energy doctrine been as starkly visible as it was on Friday. That was the day that rebel military forces overthrew democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and installed a pro-U.S., former oil company executive, as national leader.

While there is no evidence Washington organized the coup, it is hard to imagine that the plotters did not act without the Bush regime's blessing. Not only did the White House immediately support the coup, it blamed Chavez for his own downfall, a curious leap of logic.

The reason was oil. True, Chavez had irritated Bush by trading with Cuba's Fidel Castro. He even visited Saddam Hussein once. But his real sin was that he tried to rein in the country's powerful state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela. In so doing, he threatened U.S. interests.

Petroleos has long been a law unto itself. It uses the bulk of its hefty royalties to increase production. It sells that production to the U.S. As a result, Venezuela is America's third largest supplier of crude oil. In the politically important U.S. automotive gasoline market, its share is even larger.

Chavez wanted to target more of the country's oil profits to fight Venezuela's staggering poverty. The state oil company (and Washington) wanted to spend more on expanding oil production for export.

What's more, the president irritated multinational oil companies with his own version of Canada's long-dead National Energy Program — doubling royalties and requiring majority Venezuelan ownership in new projects.

To accomplish all of this, Chavez fired the head of the state oil company and appointed a new slate of directors, which, as the country's president, he was apparently legally empowered to do.

Earlier this year, oil company managers and workers responded by staging strikes that slashed crude oil imports to the U.S. by more than a third.

Then came Israel's massive military incursions into the West Bank. For Chavez, the timing was unfortunate. On April 8, Iraq announced a 30-day oil boycott in support of beleaguered Palestinians. The price of crude rose; analysts warned that U.S. economic recovery could suffer. On Friday, four days after the Iraqi boycott, a faction of the Venezuelan military deposed Chavez.

State oil company managers and workers ended their strike. The new president, installed by the military, announced he was cancelling laws the multinational oil firms didn't like.

Exports to the U.S. resumed. The price of crude slipped by 6 per cent. Not surprisingly, Bush's White House gave its imprimatur to the coup.

Alas, the U.S. had not put enough thought, and perhaps not enough effort, into this otherwise admirable use of Bush Doctrine One. The Venezuelan military, it seems, was split. Some senior officers still liked former paratrooper Chavez.

What's more, other Latin American nations friendly to the U.S. declined to play their usual accommodating role, instead bucking Washington to condemn the coup. On Sunday, Chavez was returned to office.

Still, the Bush White House was unrepentant. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice said she hoped Chavez had learned his lesson. Presumably, he has. So have we all. Bush wants the world's energy. As much as the events of Sept. 11, this is what drives U.S policy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Walkom's column appears on Tuesday. He can be reached at [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 08:41 PM

As for the eyewitness account of the Venezuela coup, it can be found at: http://www.counterpunch.org/wilpert0413.html

And it's text is as follows:

Coup in Venezuela: An Eyewitness Account by Gregory Wilpert

The orchestration of the coup was impeccable and, in all likelihood, planned a long time ago. Hugo Chavez, the fascist communist dictator of Venezuela could not stand the truth and thus censored the media relentlessly. For his own personal gain and that of his henchmen (and henchwomen, since his cabinet had more women than any previous Venezuelan government's), he drove the country to the brink of economic ruin. In the end he proceeded to murder those who opposed him. So as to reestablish democracy, liberty, justice, and prosperity in Venezuela and so as to avoid more bloodshed, the chamber of commerce, the union federation, the church, the media, and the management of Venezuela's oil company, in short: civil society and the military decided that enough is enough_that Chavez had his chance and that his experiment of a "peaceful democratic Bolivarian revolution" had to come to an immediate end.

This is, of course, the version of events that the officials now in charge and thus also of the media, would like everyone to believe. So what really happened? Of course I don't know, but I'll try to represent the facts as I witnessed them.

First of all, the military is saying that the main reason for the coup is what happened today, April 11. "Civil society," as the opposition here refers to itself, organized a massive demonstration of perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 people to march to the headquarters of Venezuela's oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The day leading up to the march all private television stations broadcast advertisements for the demonstration, approximately once every ten minutes. It was a successful march, peaceful, and without government interference of any kind, even though the march illegally blocked the entire freeway, which is Caracas' main artery of transportation, for several hours.

Supposedly at the spur of the moment, the organizers decided to re-route the march to Miraflores, the president's office building, so as to confront the pro-government demonstration, which was called in the last minute. About 5,000 Chavez-supporters had gathered there by the time the anti-government demonstrators got there. In-between the two demonstrations were the city police, under the control of the oppositional mayor of Caracas, and the National Guard, under control of the president. All sides claim that they were there peacefully and did not want to provoke anyone. I got there just when the opposition demonstration and the National Guard began fighting each other. Who started the fight, which involved mostly stones and tear gas, is, as is so often the case in such situations, nearly impossible to tell. A little later, shots were fired into the crowds and I clearly saw that there were three parties involved in the shooting, the city police, Chavez supporters, and snipers from buildings above. Again, who shot first has become a moot and probably impossible to resolve question. At least ten people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in this gun battle_almost all of them demonstrators.

One of the Television stations managed to film one of the three sides in this battle and broadcast the footage over and over again, making it look like the only ones shooting were Chavez supporters from within the demonstration at people beyond the view of the camera. The media over and over again showed the footage of the Chavez supporters and implied that they were shooting at an unarmed crowd. As it turns out, and as will probably never be reported by the media, most of the dead are Chavez supporters. Also, as will probably never be told, the snipers were members of an extreme opposition party, known as Bandera Roja.

These last two facts, crucial as they are, will not be known because they do not fit with the new mythology, which is that Chavez armed and then ordered his supporters to shoot at the opposition demonstration. Perhaps my information is incorrect, but what is certain is that the local media here will never bother to investigate this information. And the international media will probably simply ape what the local media reports (which they are already doing).

Chavez' biggest and perhaps only mistake of the day, which provided the last remaining proof his opposition needed for his anti-democratic credentials, was to order the black-out of the private television stations. They had been broadcasting the confrontations all afternoon and Chavez argued that these broadcasts were exacerbating the situation and should, in the name of public safety, be temporarily shut-down.

Now, all of "civil society," the media, and the military are saying that Chavez has to go because he turned against his own people. Aside from the lie this is, what is conveniently forgotten are all of the achievements of the Chavez administration: a new democratic constitution which broke the power monopoly of the two hopelessly corrupt and discredited main parties and put Venezuela at the forefront in terms of progressive constitutions; introduced fundamental land reform; financed numerous progressive ecological community development projects; cracked-down on corruption; promoted educational reform which schooled over 1 million children for the first time and doubled investment in education; regulated the informal economy so as to reduce the insecurity of the poor; achieved a fairer price for oil through OPEC and which significantly increased government income; internationally campaigned tirelessly against neo-liberalism; reduced official unemployment from 18% to 13%; introduced a large-scale micro-credit program for the poor and for women; reformed the tax system which dramatically reduced tax evasion and increased government revenue; lowered infant mortality from 21% to 17%; tripled literacy courses; modernized the legal system, etc., etc.

Chavez' opposition, which primarily consisted of Venezuela's old guard in the media, the union federation, the business sector, the church, and the traditionally conservative military, never cared about any of these achievements. Instead, they took advantage of their media monopoly to turn public opinion against him and managed to turn his biggest liability, his autocratic and inflammatory style, against him. Progressive civil society had either been silenced or demonized as violent Chavez fanatics.

At this point, it is impossible to know what will happen to Chavez' "Bolivarian Revolution"_whether it will be completely abandoned and whether things will return to Venezuela's 40-year tradition of patronage, corruption, and rentierism for the rich. What one can say without a doubt, is that by abandoning constitutional democracy, no matter how unpopular and supposedly inept the elected president, Venezuela's ruling class and its military show just how politically immature they are and deal a tremendous blow to political culture throughout Latin America, just as the coup against Salvador Allende did in 1973. This coup shows once again that democracy in Latin America is a matter of ruling class preference, not a matter of law.

If the United States and the democratic international community have the courage to practice what they preach, then they should not recognize this new government. Democrats around the world should pressure their governments to deny recognition to Venezuela's new military junta or any president they happen to choose. According to the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS), this would mean expelling Venezuela from the OAS, as a U.S. state department official recently threatened to do. Please call the U.S. state department or your foreign ministry and tell them to withdraw their ambassadors from Venezuela.

Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former Fulbright scholar in Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology of development.

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: hesperis
Date: 16 Apr 02 - 09:40 PM

Just to clear things up, the second article that Hawk posted is the one the Guest wanted mentioned, that I made a blue clicky to.

What's the url on the first one, Hawk?

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Escamillo
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 01:16 AM

Just to draw your attention to a typo in Gregory Wilpert's article above: "lowered infant mortality from 21% to 17%;" should be read 21 per thousand to 17 per thousand.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 11:19 AM

I've just sent those articles to my Rog and also our business partner and friend who was kidnapped and held at gunpoint during the recent melee in Caracas. They also shot one of his engineers. Fortunately, they were released, the engineer will be okay, and our partner is safe at home on the island of Magarita. Thanks for posting them.

He and Rog have done freelance for a lot of the TV stations down there and the Toronto writer is right on the money about the stations being owned by some of the richest people in VZ. Those people don't pay their bills. We were told, repeatedly, that the richer they are, the less they pay their bills. This was mostly before Chavez came into rule. When I called our State Dept. about help in collecting on a signed $20,000 contract, they sent me 20 pages of lawyers' names, in 6 point font, all of them in Caracas and willing to work with English-speaking people who needed help with the VZ "business community." It was overwhelming and seemed futile, so we finally gave up. This was just a small taste of what was happening all over the country, not only to foreigners who did business there, but also their fellow citizens.

This site has good, daily news from VZ: Venezuela Online News

For a little musical content, this is one of our favourite sites, with music of the "llanera" or cowboy: www.llanera.com

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 09:15 PM

In other words, the rich are used to robbing the whole country blind, and have no intention of letting Mr. Chavez change that by one iota. My, it all sounds so familiar, doesn't it? Latin America is drenched in the blood of peasants, workers, and reformist Catholic priests who have tried to do something about it and paid the final price for their democratic notions of human equality.

For "business community" in Venezuela, just substitute "gang of thieves".

Hesperis - the url for the Toronto Star article is a big one. It's: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1018866032676&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Escamillo
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 01:50 AM

Dear Kat, I deeply regret what happened to your partner in Venezuela, fortunately it was not worse. Tell Rog and friends to care themselves and not take unnecessary risks. It's so sad that magnificent countries are so fiercely exploited. And that hundreds of thousands of highly educated people are migrating to the US and Europe.

Spain, Italy and Israel are developing large immigration programs for Argentineans. A recent statistics shows that 60% of people who leave Argentina do not come back. The US has recently suspended the Visa Waiver program for Argentineans, because 50,000 tourists in the last 6 years have decided to stay as illegal immigrants.

I am dedicating my best efforts to a plan to export my software product, and stay here, but seriously thinking about migration if my sons finally take their decisions. My future and my wife's future may well be to grow old,looking at three photos. Traitors and usurers are destroying our families, not only our economies.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 12:54 AM

I am betting that LH is the original "GUEST" poster for 90% of these anonymous political threads - so she has a staw-dog

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: hesperis
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 02:25 AM

"She" who?

Glad to hear that your Rog is safe, kat.

Yeah. Sad to see exploitation anywhere.

I've been hearing quite different stuff about the events from my friend, but he isn't posting here, and he said himself that he doesn't completely know what's going on. Even though he lives there, it's mostly just rumours.

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 04:20 AM

Thank you, hesperis, but I should clarify, my Rog is here, safe and sound, thank goodness!*bg*

Andres, thank you, too. I am so sorry to hear the worsening of the situation. You are in my thoughts and thanks-givings and I know you and Graciela will make the best decisions possible, as will your sons. Poor Argentina...may she and her peoples rise up and recover from such anguish!

luvyakat

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: hesperis
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 02:15 AM

Hmmm, I hearing QUITE different stuff from my friend in Venezuela. (I hope I get all the line breaks needed.)

Please pardon the typos, it's late, he's too tired to type, and I'm too tired to clean it up. This is posted with Ian's permission.

ianfe(01:09 AM) :
it seems that the situation in Venezuela is far from normal, even beyond what I knew. I've been out of touch lately because it just had me depressed.

I'm not sure if I told you this, but my college decided to extend vacations for one week extra. It was believed that this was due to the time lost in teh whole crisis (almost one week), but I just heard that what's going on is that they're on STRIKE 'cause the governmenet owes the proffesors tons of money.

There's another march on May 1st, too. I'm worried about another massacre
Brassfire(01:09 AM) :
Oh no.
ianfe(01:09 AM) :
yup
ianfe(01:10 AM) :
if teh university does not get paid by the end of that weeek, they might go on indefinite strike, too. What'll happen to me then?
Brassfire(01:10 AM) :
I heard that it was mostly Chavez's supporters who died in the last one, though.

Aiee.
ianfe(01:12 AM) :
and I don't have my certified grades either, so it's not like I can apply for a transfer to another school.

You heard WRONG. Very, very wrong. Where did you hear that? WE were massacred. I was there, a guy was shot a few feet next to me, his neck blew out tons of blood. I breathed the tear gas, I got stained with blood, and heard teh shots.

There's even a video of these people shooting at us, and a lot of them were identified as leaders of one of CHavez's political parties
ianfe(01:12 AM) :
where did you get those news?
Brassfire(01:13 AM) :
Mudcat. That's why I want you to read that thread.
There's a lot of pro-Chavez stuff, but we haven't heard from anyone who's actually THERE. I'm hearing completely different stuff from you.
ianfe(01:15 AM) :
whoa
Brassfire(01:16 AM) :
and the only thing from someone who is there is from some journalist guy.

Oh, and Kat's guy's business partner was visiting at the time, and one of their engineers was injured.
ianfe(01:17 AM) :
yeah. a lot of foreigners who didn;t have anything to do with the whole business were inconvenienced and hurt by the incident. I'm very ashamed
Brassfire(01:17 AM) :
Yeah. That's what happens during total chaos.
ianfe(01:18 AM) :
yup
Brassfire(01:20 AM) :
And a lot of points were brought out that Chavez has a dictatorial attitude, but that he hasn't declared himself the ruler... and that he was making certain reforms that were not good for the richest strata, and were good for the poorer. I'd like your input on that.
ianfe(01:32 AM) :
Chavez is a communist, and a socially resented person, at heart. He is now talking of dialogue, but he is just buying time, distracting the opposition. He hasn't declared himself dictator, but he has said many, many, many times these words "I'm here until 2021" (I'm not sure about the exact year, but it's well over 2012. Weeelll over)

He *has* said a lot of things and made a lot of promises about helping poor people. He hasn't done much for it, though. You hear people from the lower classes on the streets now expressing how they're completely disillusioned with him.

Most of the laws he's actually passed, though, seem to have the single purpose of reverting all power and decision-making in the country onto the President (namely, him). Also, some laws have been made which would allow the government to appropiate lands that are privately owned (nad have been documented so since the 1800's) on pretexts such as being within 100 meters of a stream, lake, or sea (absurd!). He wants to grant a mysterious "terrain department" the right to enter, investigate, and appropiate literally every single property in the country. Where do you think that will lead?

You see, Chavez did two terrible things (among others): first he created a resentment, even hatred, between social classes. This was something unheard of before he arrived. Yes, there were poor people and there were rich people, and yes the former were a much bigger group than the latter. But now you hear people actively say "I HATE you because you have money and I don't." Secondly, he literally said stuff like "I'm going to make every property the middle and high classes have property of the lower classes. Soon, you will be able to walk in on the "oligarchs's" (that's his name for his enemies) houses and live there". He almost promised it.

What reaction did the ape expect? You hear things on the street like "you're a criminal because you have means. I want what is yours and I'm going to take it". Crime has soared, violence has soared... I can't keep talking about this
Brassfire(01:36 AM) :
*Speechless*
Sorry, Ian. So sorry...
ianfe(01:42 AM) :
I don't have the info on hand, but I can tell from what's going on in my college that it smells lie he literally wants it to close down. By people the education low he can manipulate people easier. Just like Mao in China, who burned all the books not approved by him.

And his favoritist deals with Cuba, whici nobody but he approves of. How can he sell Castro petroleum for half the price on the market?

There's a taped recording circulating of a call Chavez made during the march, in which he told a General to activate "plan Avila", which was what happened: Forcing a TV chain of a taped 2-hour speech by Chavez,shut down and military takeover of TV and radio stations, and in the meantime snipers (possibly from the Colombian guerrilla, or even from the middle-east, it's rumored) and military shooting at civilians with nobody to air it on the news.

The first general to whom Chavez gave the order refused, so he demoted him and then went on to order another person, which agreed. Al that on tape
ianfe(01:44 AM) :
I tell you, it's scary

Subject: RE: BS: Venezuala: Deja Vu of US Backed Coup?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 03:07 PM

Oh, joy! My feminine side is apparently showing again. LOL!!! On the other hand, that last GUEST post might have been me AGAIN, just trying to throw people off the track...

AAARGGHH! Paranoia strikes!

But what is a "staw-dog"??? Danged if I know. Oh, well, it'll keep 'em confused anyway.

Come on, GUEST, prove that you were not me too, pretending to attack me, just to make people think I'm not me. Ha! Ha! Ha! The GUESTS in this place should all get to be members for awhile, so they could develop a real appreciation for just how amusing and forgettable they are. It's easy enough, after all, to forget someone who has no face or name.

- LH