Reply #14

That is from the Slimin Romero article ("Venezuela more violent than Iraq") and it has been thoroughly debunked. You have no facts to prove it and neither did Romero.

"Street crime" was the chief "talking point" of the rightwing in Venezuela in the last legislative elections. That is why the New York Slimes published that lying headline--to help the rightwing in Venezuela. It is a typical theme of the rightwing here, there and everywhere. And the irony is that, if Chavez approached "street crime" with Big Boots--and tried to take Venezuelans' guns away, and was kicking in doors with federal troops, and dragging people off to jail, and spouting rightwing slogans like "zero tolerance" and "getting tough on crime"--the rightwing, the corporate media and no doubt you yourself would be screaming tyranny.

Furthermore, "street crime" is mostly the purview of governors in the provinces, not the federal government. A good number of Venezuelan governors are rightwing. This is a shared problem, not a political problem, yet the right treats it like a political problem, no doubt because their guidance counselors in Langley told them to. "Memes" like this are run through the corporate media and end up with absurdities like "Venezuela more violent than Iraq."

The U.S. slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, not Chavez.

I repeat: Chavez has killed NO ONE, and your absurd implication that he wants "street crime," that he approves of street crime, that he set out to create street crime, is rightwing, Tea Party-ish ("Alice in Wonderland"-ish) slander.

Your final comment that these are the "most exciting elections in the hemisphere" gives you away. You are excited that the leading leftist in the hemisphere--the leader who sparked the leftist democracy revolution everywhere else--might lose an election or die trying? And you base this on a rightwing primary turnout and one poll? You know, it may be that Chavez is tired--and he is certainly ill--and it may be that the Venezuelan people are tired of Chavez--for whatever reason (been around too long, can't deliver everything that everybody wants), but to describe his fancied demise as "exciting" puts you in league with rightwingers, at the least, and your ease with Tea Partyish propaganda ("Venezuela more violent than Iraq") puts you squarely in the rightwing camp. Your view of this is not reasonable. It is political propaganda--rightwing political propaganda.

I apologize to you if you have acknowledged any achievements of the Chavez government (for saying that you, like the Corporate Press, never, ever have). But your comments are nevertheless relentlessly anti-Chavez and furthermore anti-chavista--that is, anti-left, anti-the poor majority. I can only be guided by what you say, as to my assessment of your politics. And I have seen TOO MUCH "liberal"--or I should say, "neo-liberal"--sliminess to be fooled by smooth-talking candidates like Capriles with their hidden corporate, pro-1%, anti-99% agendas.

In Chavez--as with the many other leftists who have been elected in Latin America, by voters and grass roots activists inspired by the Venezuelan people and the "New Deal" that they voted for themselves--I see a leader who has actually--for real--implemented as much of the "will of the people" as he and his government could accomplish. "Liberals" and rightwingers disguised as "liberals" are almost as bad as outright fascists at doing the opposite--serving the interests of transglobal corporations and the very rich. So when someone like Capriles comes along, looking "mediagenic," and claiming to support social programs--not to mention uniting the fractious rightwing parties--I smell a rat. I don't believe him. I think his program is to deconstruct Venezuelans' "New Deal" like ours has been deconstructed, starting with Reagan (and with the complicity of the Democratic Party leadership). If he fools enough Venezuelan voters to oust the Chavez government, or if Venezuelans vote against Chavez for whatever reason, I think that they will bitterly regret that decision.

And if that happens, there will be "dancing in the streets" in Washington DC and in Freeperland. Where does that place you, on the political spectrum, that you find that prospect "exciting"?

I DON'T think that Venezuela's political revolution and its "New Deal" are dependent on one man--I think that these things are part of an historical change of huge import throughout Latin America, that first occurred in Venezuela--but I DO think that Chavez is a strong, FDR-like leader, and has been able to accomplish some things, that might not have happened, due to his leadership qualities and personality. Nevertheless, it will take time for the right, in league with U.S. forces (government, corporations, banksters) to deconstruct what both the Venezuelan people and Chavez and his government have created. We may not see Exxon Mobil back in the saddle, stealing Venezuelan's oil wealth, right away. We may not see Venezuela hogtied to the U.S. war/exploitation machine in Capriles' first term. But those are the goals of the interests who want Chavez out (and, believe me, if Capriles doesn't deliver, for the interests that so fervently want him to defeat Chavez, he will be replaced).

Capriles is no Lula da Silva (a strong ally of Chavez, by the way). Capriles tries to paint himself as a Lula da Silva--a center/leftist. He is not. He is a rightwinger with a smooth veneer. He is backed by the coupster right--the people who overturned Venezuelan's democracy (suspended the Constitution, the courts, the National Assembly and all civil rights) in their belief that they are "born to rule." His object is to defeat Chavez (the Left). And you want him to win. Where does that place you on the political spectrum?

The right has united to defeat Chavez. Maybe they will succeed. They are better-tutored this time, to present a "moderate" image. And they have ALL of the corporate press and ALL of the Western World's corporations, war profiteers and bought-and-paid-for governments behind them. They have the behemoth to the north behind them. They have the Miami mafia and the coupsters behind them. And they have Chavez's illness in their favor. (He has been a great campaigner in the past but likely won't have that kind of energy this time.) And if this leftist democrat*--the leader who defined what social justice means, for real--falls, you will be celebrating. What does that say about your politics--or, if you are not a rightwinger--about your naivete?

I am not attacking you. To say that you are rightwing is my best judgement of your political stances and your comments. You call it an "insult." I do not intend it that way. It is an evaluation of the kind of "talking points" that you use--for instance, Venezuela being as violent as Iraq and Afghanistan. I have followed anti-Chavez "memes" like that for many years. And when I see them being repeated--with absolutely no effort to analyze them or track them back to their source, and evidently no awareness that they have been called into question and even demolished by the facts (as the Huffington Post article does, in that case)--I judge them as rightwing propaganda. I am attacking your "talking point"--not you--and I am analyzing your "excitement" at the idea of Chavez being defeated as rightwing (in the context of your anti-Chavez comments in general).

Maybe you don't think of yourself as a rightwinger but that is the effect of your comments, in my opinion. Whatever you think you are doing, you are serving rightwing interests when you promote rightwing "talking points." And I think DUer's have a right to know how I evaluate that and on what basis I am doing so.

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*(Lula da Silva said, of Chavez: "They can invent all kinds of things to criticize Chavez--but not on democracy." NEVER has there been such free political discussion, such honest elections, such big voter turnouts, with a real chance for the peoples' will to be done, and NEVER has there been such big participation by the poor majority, as there has been in Venezuela, over the last decade. THAT is provable and that IS democracy. And it is one of the greatest accomplishments of the Chavez government and the people of Venezuela. It is also precisely because it is such a great accomplishment that it has been attacked, time and again, with an intense disinformation campaign by the Corporate Press and the U.S. government, very nearly from Day One of the Chavez administration--the moment they sniffed a real democrat with a small d. The rightwing and its corporate backers are benefiting from Chavez's LACK OF repression. They are free to say whatever they want--to lie, to manipulate, to distort--with every rightwing "talking point"--even the most twisted, absurd "talking points"--trumpeted by Corporate Press, as with the New York Slimes' "Venezuela more violent than Iraq." Such irony! They benefit from Chavez NOT being a "dictator" as well as from the damned lie that he is!)