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Try www.venezuelanalysis.com, for info on Chavez and Venezuela.
1. Chavez has repeatedly been supported by the voters of Venezuela, in the most highly monitored elections in history, with hundreds of election monitors from the Carter Center, the OAS, and the EU in UNANIMOUS agreement that Venezuelan elections are honest and aboveboard.
2. The press in Venezuela is free to criticize Chavez and his government, and, since all media are controlled by the rich oil elite, Chavez is subjected to 24/7 vituperation by ALL media. They even openly supported the 2002 violent military coup attempt against him. No retaliation by the government. No effort to silence anyone.
3. Chavez's government is pursuing MODERATE reform, with strict adherence to the Venezuelan Constitution (respect for property rights, among other things). Venezuela's oil was nationalized long before Chavez. His reforms involve FAIR taxation of the oil giants, and use of the country's oil revenues to lift Venezuela's vast poor and brown population--who have never before been served by government--out of extreme poverty, by funding schools, literacy programs, medical clinics, cooperative businesses, and small business loans and grants. This MAJORITY population (the poor) is receiving representation in government for the first time, under Chavez.
4. When the 2002 coup attempt occurred (applauded and likely instigated by the Bush Junta), tens of thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets to stop it, and to demand return of their ELECTED president, and restoration of Constitutional government. They succeeded. When the Bushites then ILLEGALLY funded a recall election against Chavez, using OUR taxpayer money (a recall provision of the Constitution that Chavez had SUPPORTED), he won the recall hands down (60% of the vote). The Bushites further tried to destabilize the country with a crippling strike of the oil professionals. That also failed to unseat Chavez.
5. Chavez is one of the leaders of a huge leftist (majorityist) movement in Latin America--with leftist governments elected in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela and Bolivia, and strong new leftist movements also in Peru and Ecuador (Ecuador will turn "blue" this year). We're also seeing a resurgence of the left in Mexico and Nicaragua. The common themes of these representative governments is national and regional self-determination, and opposition to US and World Bank/IMF exploitation and domination (as well as a determination to never again permit the brutal US-backed dictatorships of former decades). Chavez's great crime is that he is an eloquent spokesman for this movement (called Bolivarianism, after the great Latin American revolutionary hero, Simon Bolivar, who wanted a United States of Latin America), and also that his country possesses a vast oil reserve (supplies 15% of US oil).
6. The US corporate news monopolies (run by 5 billionaire CEOs), acting in concert, using the same phrases, all vilify Chavez. You will see these same phrases, over and over again, in AP articles, the WSJ, WaPo, the NYT, etc. One of their common phrases is that he is "increasingly authoritarian," which is always prefaced by "according to his critics." It is never put in quotes or attributed. (I tracked it to a rightwing fascist Roman Catholic Cardinal, Carillo Lara, who spent his career in the Vatican finance office, and was expelled in the fascist banking scandals of the 1980s. He routinely rants against Chavez, to the embarrassment of the moderate and liberal Catholic clerics in Venezuela.) THERE IS NO EVIDENCE--NONE, ZERO, ZILCH-- that Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian" and is anything even remotely resembling a "dictator." NONE! What these fascists don't like is MAJORITY RULE!
PLEASE do not perpetuate this corporate news monopoly MYTH that Chavez is a "dictator" or that there is any taint whatsoever over his government. Recently, Mercosur, the regional Latin American group devoted to economic and political cooperation, made Venezuela a full member. Latin American governments will also be SUPPORTING Venezuela's bid for a temporary (2 year) seat on the UN Security Council starting next year. (The Bush Junta's strongarm tactics to prevent this have apparently failed.) Chavez is a brilliant and brave man, and a GENUINE representative of Venezuela and of Latin American interests. He speaks truth to power. He is colorful and a showman. Has there ever been anything truer spoken in the UN but that Bush left an odor of sulfur behind him at the UN podium. God, I love Chavez! What a treasure he is!
ANYONE who is as popular as Chavez is can get "dictatorial" notions. Anyone! I don't doubt it at all--although in the case of Bush, the opposite seems to be the case: the more UN-popular he becomes, the more dictatorial he gets. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Truer words never spoken. But I don't see ANY sign that Chavez has yielded to this temptation. Colorful, yes. A showman, yes. A bit full of himself (what politician ISN'T?). But NOT a powermonger, dictator or authoritarian. He seems to love people and open, wide-ranging discourse. And he seems very much to be working by consensus. And he is subject to searing criticism, by both right and left, in Venezuela.
Chavez has deliberately gone about the world on diplomatic missions seeking trade and allies, INDEPENDENT of US dictates. I think his initiative to Iran is particularly positive. What impact might it have on the Iranians--who were deprived of their democracy in 1954, and inflicted with 25 years of torture and oppression under the horrible Shah of Iran, by the US--to have a DEMOCRATIC hand of friendship extended to them? This could be the turning point from a world headed to nuclear war and destruction of our planet, to one headed for cooperation and peace. Chavez is doing what our president SHOULD BE DOING. Not stirring up more fear and paranoia in Iran. But cooling the waters. Showing them an example of the SUCCESS of democracy and the advantages of openness.
Our ILLEGITIMATE and fascist government, our US-launched global corporate predators, and our corporate news monopolies are all geared toward war profiteering, exploitation, brutal domination, and viewing the world's people--including Americans!--as slave labor or cannon fodder. It is no wonder at all that they revile Chavez who stands for the opposite: benign trade and cooperation, peaceful sharing of the wealth, justice for the poor, and democracy. Our government's blather about democracy is 100% hypocritical. They no more want democracy than Stalin did. ("It's not who votes that counts--it's who counts the votes.") Chavez is just a man. But he has also--bravely, I think--become a symbol. As Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, has said: "The time of the people has come." Chavez is the symbol of this new, worldwide, peaceful revolution. Is it any wonder that those who think they own the world are relentless in their effort to sully and destroy him and everything he stands for?
It is difficult to see our country, our government, and our corporate rulers from the point of view of the rest of the world, because our rulers dominate and dictate how we view others. To Latin Americans, for instance, Cuba is just another Latin American government. It is not evil. Its revolutionary history is rather heroic and admirable. There is a common bond in Latin culture. And in a Latin America NOT wrongfully dominated by the US, it is as normal for Latin Americans to have friendly relations with another Latin country--Cuba--as it is for the US to have relations with England (with whom we have a violent revolutionary history), Canada or France, all of whom has strong socialist policies. Our corporate rulers detest peoples' revolutions. They no doubt would have sided with the Bristish East India Company and the British Empire in our revolutionary war. And they have planted this notion in our heads that Cuba is a "devil" (as they are trying to do with Iran, and tried to do with Iraq). Is this how you get the idea that Chavez is "a bit suspicious"--that he has relations with Cuba, and considers Castro a friend? Castro is a revered Latin leader--admired throughout the south. He is no more a "devil" than Thomas Jefferson was. This does NOT mean that Chavez or Venezuela is following the Cuban model. They are NOT. What they are doing--and what nearly ALL of Latin America is now doing--is being INDEPENDENT of the US!
"The time of the people has come."
Viva la revolución!
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