Reply #9: They float this one every once in a while. The Andes is the NeoCon's backup theater of war.

[Peace Patriot]

Rich is oil, gas, minerals, forests, fresh water and other natural resources. Leftist (majorityist) governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, and soon to be in Paraguay (the "bishop of the poor," Fernando Lugo, has announced his candidacy for president, and will likely win it). All these countries are undergoing a remarkable peaceful revolution, of which Chavez is the most well-known spokesman, although Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa, the US-educated leftist economist who won the presidency of Ecuador last year, are each quite eloquent, in their own way, and are very strong allies of Chavez, as is Nestor Kirchner in Argentina.

The tenets of this revolution are Latin American self-determination, independence from the U.S. and its loan sharks (the World Bank/IMF) and other global corporate predators, local control of natural resources, regional cooperation, and social justice. The malicious buttheads in Washington DC (and their allies in the Miami anti-Castro mafia) want very, very, very badly to toss Chavez out an airplane as a lesson to South America's vast poor population, and as the opening shot in destabilizing the region's democracies, but he has too many friends--because, a) he really is a democrat; and b) has really good ideas and the moxy and toughness to get things done (--such as initiating the Bank of the South, which is pushing the World Bank out).

His friends not only include the presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina (and soon, Paraguay), but also the leftist presidents of Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Nicaragua. Brazil (Lula da Silva) and Chile (Michele Batchelet) are a little more ambivalent vis a vis the U.S./Bush, for economic reasons (--not particularly good ones; for instance Lulu wants to cut a biofuels deal with Bush), but they nevertheless add to the bulwark of overwhelming pro-Chavez opinion in South America, and revulsion at past and current Reagan/Bush State Dept. evil and violent designs. Batchelet, for instance, was tortured by Pinochet (U.S.-backed dictator). Condi Rice twisted her arm to abstain from voting in the big brouhaha last year about Venezuela achieving a seat on the UN Security Council, but she could not get Batchelet to vote against Venezuela, because Bush is just too disgusting and ill-intentioned. Panama was the compromise. Batchelet paid a political price for not fully backing Venezuela. (Chavez really is popular throughout Latin American--VERY popular.)

Then, just recently, Venezuela won a seat on the OAS human rights commission, against loud howls from the Bushites who have their own ideas about human rights (waterboarding, chainsawing union activists and throwing their body parts into mass graves--as their buds in Colombia are doing--bombing tens of thousands of innocent people, instigating chaos and civil war, death squads, spraying poor peasant farmers with U.S. chemical's latest poison, dumping depleted uranium everywhere, ripping off aid and reconstruction funds, blowing little children's heads and limbs off, and like that). The reason that the OAS voted Venezuela onto its human rights commission is that CHAVEZ IS A DEMOCRAT AND VENEZUELA IS A FREE AND LAW-ABIDING COUNTRY WITH THE LIVELIEST POLITICAL CULTURE IN SOUTH AMERICA, WHOSE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T TORTURE, KILL AND OPPRESS PEOPLE.

You wouldn't know that from reading the Bush State Dept. propaganda that gets retyped and reprinted by our war profiteering corporate news monopolies, but it's true. Just think: Iraq, WMDs--and you will realize how little you can trust what you read/see/hear about Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution in our very NON-"mainstream," fascist/corporate news media. (Note: Every time we call them the "mainstream media," chuckles break in the corporate news media monopoly board rooms.) ('Heh-heh, stupid leftist bloggers think WE speak for the majority.')

Speaking of Colombia, in the recent scandals there, involving rightwing paramilitary murder of thousands of union organizers, peasant farmers and political leftists, and large scale drug trafficking--with very close ties to the Uribe (friend of Bush) government, including the chief of the military, the former head of intelligence and many Uribe office holders including Uribe relatives--one of the plots uncovered was a rightwing paramilitary plan to assassinate Chavez, and other democratically elected leaders in the Andes region, and destabilize the region, so that rightwing dictatorships can be re-installed. Bush and the so-called Democratic Congress just larded Colombia with billions more in U.S. taxpayer dollars for the murderous U.S. "war on drugs" (--a policy that has been soundly rejected by the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador). Nothing like assassination and chaos plots to attract U.S. tax dollars, through the fingers of fascist or corrupt U.S. politicians.

The notion that Venezuelans are "fleeing" the country for human rights, or even economic, reasons is total bullshit. We cannot trust anything that any Bush-controlled government agent says about this, nor any rubber-stamp corporate news organization. Let me put it this way: If you believe the Bushites' tales about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch, then go ahead and believe that Venezuelans are "fleeing" to the U.S. because of "oppression" at home. It is WAR propaganda. It is laying down a narrative that will help them lull the people of the United States, when they make their next move against the PEACEFUL, DEMOCRATIC revolution that is occurring in South America.

Reuters (European financial interests, including World Bank/IMF) is SOMETIMES a cut above our filthy, lying, dirtbag, corporate propaganda machine that we call "the news media." But not by much. You can feel a bit of a struggle in this Reuters piece between the reporter (who may want to tell the truth, and seeks out a quote from a Venezuela official about the Bush/US manipulation of asylum numbers) and the corporate agent over him, likely the editor, who assigned the story at the suggestion of the Bush-purged CIA. (--just guessing, but likely, in my opinion). Although they find a Johns Hopkins professor who uses the phrase "as the regime hardens" (people are fleeing), the meme that Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian" comes straight from the Vatican. I tracked it, at one point. The corporate media kept using it, and kept attributing it this way: "According to his critics...." (Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian." But I couldn't find anyone who had actually said; then I stumbled upon an actual quote--by Cardinal Carillo Lara, a Venezuelan prelate who had spent his entire career in the Vatican finance office (and was fired in the fascist banking scandals of the 1980s). HE called Chavez "increasingly authoritarian."

It has also been repeated, I have since learned, by the Archbishop of Caracas, who directly participate in the Bush-backed violent military coup attempt against Chavez in 2002 (signed the fascist declaration that swept Venezuela's government away, suspended the Constitution, the National Assembly and the courts, and appointed a toady president, who lasted for three days; and appeared with the coup plotters when they announced this from Miraflores palace, the seat of government).

Venezuela's past rightwing regimes wrote financial support of the Catholic Church by Venezuelan taxpayers into Venezuelan law. Chavez has cut back some of these payments. That is why the top layer of the Venezuelan purple-robe crowd hate Chavez, and rail against him as "increasingly authoritarian"--an accusation for which there is NO evidence. None. Zero. Zilch. Every bit of so-called evidence for this allegation evaporates upon examination. For instance, is Chavez shutting down opposition news media in Venezuela? No. His government refused a license renewal to ONE station, RCTV, that openly and blatantly participated in the violent military coup attempt. (You can see it happening in the Irish filmmakers' documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." They film the RCTV segments hosting the coup plotters, during the coup, and broadcasting disinformation in support of the coup--for instance, telling the baldfaced lie that Chavez had resigned.)

And what is happening NOW to this PUBLIC airwave, which, prior to RCTV's license non-renewal, was filled with incendiary calls for civil disorder and violence, and non-stop fascist propaganda? The government has invited the people of Venezuela to participate in design of a station that will broadcast a wide range of independent productions, and will be more inclusive of Venezuela's poor, minorities, the indigenous and other excluded voices. Yes, this is certainly a "dictatorship"--if you yourself are a fascist pig and want to exclude everybody else, and shut everybody else up, and torture, kill and oppress the poor. If RCTV's and the Vatican's and George Bush's fascist coup had succeeded, how long do you think that anyone who spoke out publicly against that coup would have remained among the living?

Is land--or any property--being confiscated by the Chavez government? No. They are scrupulously following the law and private property rights in their land reform program. Venezuela imports much of its food and has a critical need to keep farmers on the land, and to attract small farmers back to the land, so it is looking for every bit of unused farm land that it can find, for food production. When such land has clear title, the owner is compensated. Further, the Chavez government nixed a proposal by the more leftist mayor of Caracas to seize two country club/golf courses in Caracas to build low cost housing for the poor (a desperate need) because, as the Chavez government stated at the time, "private property is protected by the Venezuelan Constitution." How dictatorial is that? The Constitution. Hm-m. Rule of laws, not men. Interesting idea.

Is Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution hurting anyone financially? No. All indicators are up, with the private sector the largest area of growth over the last several years. Yup. The PRIVATE sector.

There have been several attempts by the Bush Junta and its fascist allies in Venezuela to overthrow the democratically elected Chavez government. The violent military coup attempt of 2002 (which was foiled by the people of Venezuela, who poured into the streets by the tens of thousands and surrounded Miraflores palace, demanding the return of Constitutional government, and their kidnapped president) was followed by the crippling oil professionals' strike, which was also aimed at toppling the government. The issue was how the already nationalized (long before Chavez) state oil company would be managed, and how much of the revenue would be used to help Venezuela's vast poor population, and how much would leave the country as foreign oil corporation profit. In the end, Chavez had to fire all these privileged managers and oil workers, and replace them. They were striking on behalf of foreign oil corporations, and their parting shot against their own country was to sabotage all the computers that were vital to oil production.

Having recovered from the crippling oil strike, the Chavez government was then hit with a Bush (U.S. taxpayer funded) recall election, which Chavez won handily (with nearly 60% of the vote). The Venezuelan Constitution provides for recall of the president--a Constitution that Chavez fully supported and helped write. This particular recall election was wasteful and absurd. Chavez has the overwhelming support of the Venezuelan people. Last year, he received 63% of the vote in the presidential election.

Wish we had a recall provision here.

Anyway, the meme that Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian" originated from well-fed looking Catholic Church monarchs whose government gravy-train was threatened. Odd that the Vatican would be writing U.S./Bush State Dept. copy. Well, maybe not so odd. And who knows, really, which is the wag and which is the dog, of this tail?

I should add that, since the death of the Archbishop (Velasco), the more Liberation Theology-oriented segments of the Church in Venezuela have emerged--the lower rungs of the clergy, and the more enlightened bishops. And Pope Benedict seems to have concluded that the anti-Chavez activism of the top clergy was a bad move. The Church is fast losing members in South America, and the Church's open fascism in Venezuela is one of the reasons. The vast majority of people support Chavez, democracy and social justice, and long to be free of U.S. domination and exploitation. In short, the Church has backed off.

The leftist (majorityist) revolution in South America is a political/social movement whose time has come. There is no stopping it. This is not to say that the Bush Junta will not cause trouble and inflict more suffering. They likely will. They are pouring money into Colombia, and badmouthing Chavez at every opportunity, for that purpose. And Bush appointed John "death squad" Negroponte as Undersecretary of State for Latin America, for that purpose. But they will not succeed. And I think Pope Benedict (a fascist himself) is a pretty good bellweather for that prediction. The Church cannot afford to "lose" South America, and it has tempered its policies accordingly. (Also, I think Chavez may have backed off a bit, on the financial cuts of Church subsidies, after the 2002 coup attempt--wise fellow that he is.)

Unfortunately, many of the Venezuelans who come here are the greedbags and the coup supporters whom democracy has defeated. They cannot become the dictators of Venezuela, so they cry in their beer with their fellow would-be dictators of Cuba, in Miami, who are angling for government subsidies of these Venezuelan "refugees" to bolster their numbers in support of fascist Bushite/Corporate policy. It is "shuckin jive" of the most lethal kind. And it is one of the most disgraceful policies of the Bush Junta--after Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, of course--that our government is not supporting the amazing triumph of democracy in Venezuela, and in South America, and is, instead, conspiring to return the Pinochets of this world to power there. And it is very saddening.

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Note: A good place to start getting unbrainwashed about the Bolivarian revolution is www.venezuelanalysis.com. The documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is available in DVD at www.axisoflogic.com.)