the Vice President said the Bushites need Valium, they are so freaked out about Chavez not renewing RCTV's license to use the public airwaves.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2698054Missy! I love it! Go to hell, gringos!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Here's a good site on Venezuela's economy, politics and other matters: www.venezuelanalysis.com
It's a mixed socialist/capitalist economy with a strong component of social justice--but perhaps the main key is Bolivarianism, the concept of South American self-determination, named after the great revolutionary hero, Simon Bolivar, who led the fight to free South America from Spain, and dreamed of a United States of South America. If you understand Bolivarianism--this guiding philosophy of the great democracy movement in South America of which Chavez is just one spokesman and leader--you will understand that Chavez's economics are not ideological, they are pragmatic, with the goal of South American independence from the great exploiter and oppressor in the north, the U.S., which has repeatedly backed heinous dictators and policies of assassination, torture and genocide in Latin America, capped by the invasion of US-based global corporate predators who have ruined the economies of many countries and left a vast population of impoverished people, who never benefit from their own country's resources or their own labor. The nationalization of the telecom network, or oil, these are not based on ideology (for instance, Marxism), but rather on the goal of South American independence and the democratization of the use of its resources. Chavez doesn't mind dealing with Exxon-Mobile on an equal basis, with the understanding that the oil belongs to Venezuela. It is patriotic. As Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia--has said: "We want partners not masters." It's as simple as that. And socialist policies are the quickest way to get there: to South Americans making the decisions about their resources, their economy, their regulations and taxes, their future, rather than the US-controlled World Bank/IMF, Exxon-Mobile, Bechtel and other capitalist predators.
So in Venezuela you find a thriving private sector--big growth in that sector last year--and lots of development--the new Orinoco bridge, low cost housing construction, plans for a gas pipeline, new factories (including co-ops), land reform (to help keep small farmers on the land--for food self-sufficiency), the fruits of loans and grants to small business (lots of new small businesses), a revival of local music and other arts, and other very positive, creative, industrious activity, as well as the promotion of regional cooperations, for instance, in the South American trade group, Mercosur. It appears to me that the Venezuelans (and other South Americans) are taking the best from all worlds. Private property is protected, and cannot be taken without compensation (--guaranteed by the Bolivarian Constitution, and enforced by the Chavez government). They are not taking land and property from the rich (as has happened in communist revolutions). They are aiming at equity--at the poor having a chance. Education, for instance, is a very big new item--schools, free university education, new universities established, and a far reaching adult literacy program, as well as programs to keep kids in school. The rich oil elite that was running the country prior to the Chavez government utterly neglected these things--the things that make a good country, a strong country, a country with a future. And this is why the Chavez government is so incredibly popular in Venezuela, and why the Bolivarian revolution is spreading like wildfire over the whole continent.