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and the U.S. supported violent rightwing coup attempt?
The Chavez government...
--has been repeatedly elected by overwhelming majorities in honest, transparent, internationally monitored elections and has enjoyed continual approval ratings in the 55% to 60% range throughout its tenure;
--has provided universal free medical care to Venezuelans, nearly wiped out illiteracy, and has doubled higher education enrollment and greatly improved education at every level;
--has cut poverty in half and cut extreme poverty by 70%;
--has presided over a period of amazing economic growth (10%) over the five year period 2003 to 2008;
--has managed the Venezuelan economy very competently, resulting in low debt, high cash reserves, good credit, low unemployment and a very conservative budget for 2010/2011 based on only $40/barrel for oil (it's now double that)--excellent conditions for facing the Bushwhacks' Financial 9/11 of September 2008; and they have done all this WHILE fully funding many new social programs;
--re-negotiated the oil contracts with multinational corporations to give Venezuela a 60/40 share (controlling share) in its own oil and a 50/50 cut of the profits for Venezuela's social programs, as opposed to previous (rightwing/neo-liberal) governments' 10/90 giveaway of the oil to the multinationals (with the rich oil elite taking a cut for themselves and completely ignoring the needs of the poor majority and the good of the country);
--recently signed eight oil corporations from as many countries to develop the Orinoco oil belt on Venezuela's terms;
--has vastly improved the civil and human rights of the poor majority, of women and gays, of African-Venezuelans, of the Indigenous and other previously excluded groups;
--has greatly improved public access to broadcast and other communications;
--has joined with Brazil and other countries in numerous cooperative political/economic projects to "raise all boats" in the region (help to smaller/poorer countries), and to move toward a Latin American "common market";
--has initiated numerous forward-looking regional projects, for instance, the Bank of the South (which is elbowing the World Bank/IMF loan sharks out of the region) and ALBA (Central American/Caribbean trade group with social justice goals).
So, tell me, WHAT HAS THE CHAVEZ GOVERNMENT DONE to harm the U.S.? What has it done to merit a decade of hostility, including several coup attempts, a relentless, lying, slandering, psyops/disinformation campaign, and massive USAID/CIA funding of rightwing, coup plotting, rich elites? And what has the U.S. done to be friendly to Venezuela's democracy and to its social justice goals, and to create a climate favorable to U.S. business in Venezuela?
When the Chavez government asserted Venezuela's RIGHT to better profits from its oil, Exxon Mobil walked out of the talks and into a "first world" court and tried to seize $12 billion in Venezuela's assets--the biggest, richest corporation on earth literally trying to take food out of the mouths of poor children and books out of their hands. And THAT appears to be who is running U.S. foreign policy in Latin America--Exxon Mobil. That is the attitude of the U.S. government--under the Bush Junta and now under the Obama administration as well. Exxon Mobil's attitude.
Yes, the Chavez government invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Venezuela. So did Brazil. So did Bolivia. Why shouldn't they? Are these not SOVEREIGN governments with the RIGHT to make their own foreign policy? Yes, Chavez called Bush "the Devil." Who here would disagree? Did Bush not slaughter a hundred thousand innocent Iraqis, in the first weeks of bombing alone, to steal their oil? Did Bush not instigate torture dungeons around the world? Did Bush not rip up the U.S. Constitution and bust the U.S. economy? "Devil" is a good epithet for him and his puppetmasters. And that was after four years of U.S. coup attempts and other dastardly deeds against Venezuela's elected government! Did Chavez not have a right to say that? Who had more right, except the families of the dead at Bush's hands?
The U.S. has meanwhile been propping up a violent, narco-thug government and military right on Venezuela's border, with $7 BILLION in military aid to Colombia--a country with one the worst human rights records on earth, a country where tens of thousands of union leaders, human rights workers, community organizers, teachers, journalists, peasant farmers and others have been slaughtered, with U.S. help. Yet another mass grave was just found in La Macarena, Colombia, with up to 2,000 bodies, in a region of special interest and activity by the U.S. military and the USAID. Local people say the bodies are of local 'disappeared' community activists. The suspicion is growing that the U.S. military, also the U.K. military, have been participating in these political "cleansings" of regions of Colombia--but even if they haven't directly murdered Colombian civilians, the U.S. has fostered a climate of militarism and lawlessness that encourages Colombian military and paramilitary mass murder. Furthermore, tens of thousands of refugees--of the FOUR MILLION displaced peasant farmers in Colombia--have fled over the border into Venezuela, also into Ecuador, creating a massive refugee headache and expense for those countries and creating instability in the border areas.
So, why shouldn't Venezuela look ELSEWHERE for foreign investment--which it has very successfully done? Exxon Mobil, Bush-Cheney and the continuum of U.S. policy toward Latin American which the Obama administration is furthering, have poisoned the well in Latin America for U.S. business interests. U.S. corpo-fascists have done this to themselves. It did not have to be. The contracts for Venezuela's oil and Bolivia's lithium, gas and oil, and for other development of Latin America's rich resources are going to go those countries and corporations who respect Latin American sovereignty and play by the rules set down by Latin American countries. They are creating their own "level playing field" BECAUSE the U.S. has played dirty--throughout the history of U.S./Latin American relations, and recently, and the Obama administration, particularly by its actions on Honduras and Colombia, have made it very clear that they are no different. They are playing the same old dirty--bullying, militaristic--game as the Bushwhacks and virtually every U.S. government for the last half century.
What the U.S. and its corporate rulers and war profiteers find intolerable in Latin America is REAL democracy, REAL sovereignty and REAL people power. And it has become increasingly clear that they find these things intolerable here as well. Thus, the fast-tracking of 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, with virtually no audit/recount controls, all over the U.S. Tell me what 'TRADE SECRET,' non-transparent, unaccountable, corporate-run vote counting is FOR, except to continue corporate/war profiteer rule, as the looting and the militarism get worse. What is FOR, hm? Why have we been deprived of the RIGHT--the essential democratic right--to SEE how our votes are tabulated?
They have that right in Venezuela. We do not.
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