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repeatedly endorsed by his countrymen in TRANSPARENT elections (can we say the same of our own?), and is as popular as he is because he is a bold thinker about the resources, economies and political situation of third word countries, including his own, who have been systematically exploited and brutalized for many decades, by their own fascist elites in collusion with the US government and US-based global corporate predators.
He bases his beliefs on the 19th century revolutionary hero, Simon Bolivar--who led the revolt against Spain and freed the slaves. Bolivar wanted to see the South American states unite, like the U.S., into a powerful financial and political entity that could better see to the interests of all South American peoples. He particularly wanted Bolivia (named after him), Venezuela and Peru to unite. He failed in that regard (he died too young to realize it). South America was carved up into a bunch of weak, separate, and far more exploitable states--very like what was done to the Middle East and Africa in post-colonial mapmaking. Chavez has been working on regional cooperation on energy resources and food production. He has a compadre in the recently elected first indigenous Indian president of Bolivia, Evo Morales. (Chavez is part Indian, part black and part Spanish.) One of the things that propelled Evo Morales into office in Bolivia was the popular revolt against Bechtel Corporation. Bechtel had privatized the water in one Bolivian city, then jacked up the prices to the poor, even attempting to charge poor peasants for collecting rainwater. The Bolivians threw Bechtel out of their country and elected Morales. Control of natural resources and their use for the benefit of ordinary people is a major issue in both countries. Chavez and Morales have been trying to influence Peruvians to elect another indigenous, Ollanta Humala, as president of Peru, so they will have a triumvirate of power for dealings with the powerful global corporations that are exploiting, or want to exploit, the rich resources of this region--and for countering the lethal influence of the Bushite US government, which has been pouring US tax dollars into rightwing parties and fascist cabals in all three countries. The Bushites accuse Chavez of "interfering" with Peruvian elections. Believe that if you will, but the vast indigenous population of the Andes that straddles these artificial, colonial-made borders sees things differently. THEIR interests are best served by the cooperation and compatibility of the people-serving, democratically elected governments of the region.
Chavez has also reached out to other S/A governments. For instance, Venezuela just helped bail Argentina out of crippling IMF/World Bank debt (a severely depressing kind of indebtedness that hurts social programs and the environment most of all--it is a set-up for Corporate rule and exploitation). And Chavez and Venezuela are by no means alone in their leftist/socialist trend and anti-Bush, anti-Corporate policies. South America is in fact undergoing a sweeping, peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution--with socialist Michele Batchelet (who was tortured by the US-backed dictator Pinochet) becoming the first woman president of Chile, recently, and leftist governments covering virtually the whole map of the continent--in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and Venezuela, a leftist (Humala) in a competitive race in Peru, and a leftist voter uprising even in Columbia (it didn't succeed but it was new, no doubt inspired by what's happening in the rest of So. America). There is also a leftist likely to win the presidency in Mexico this year (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, mayor of Mexico City). And revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega is running for president in Nicaragua (probably won't win--too much US influence, the result of the Reaganites illegal war on the left in that country, the infamous Iran-Contra scandal).
What is so remarkable about Chavez--and, indeed, about this entire revolution--is the PEACEFUL transformation of the Left into the powerful political force that it has become (because, face it, ONLY Leftists represent the interests of the majority). Until recently, the Left was divided about peace vs. armed conflict. Conditions in So. America have been so oppressive, so brutal, that the best leaders--Che Guevara, for example (a physician turned guerrilla fighter, killed by the CIA)--saw no way out of it except by force. Meanwhile, though, really tremendously important work has been done by local civic groups, the OAS, EU monitoring groups and the Carter Center, on achieving transparent and fair elections in South America. People like Chavez and Humala--both rank and file military--once tempted by armed revolution, are now running for office and winning. And it's interesting that, when Chavez participated in a failed leftist coup, early in his career, and was jailed, THAT is when he became a great hero. That's where his political popularity began. When he came out of prison, he committed to constitutional, democratic change, ran for president and won.
Chavez's story is a paradigm of this whole amazing revolution. The brutalities and oppression of the past, which have sometimes elicited angry, violent reaction in seemingly hopeless conditions, have somehow been transformed into DEMOCRACY and GOOD GOVERNMENT. I would be tempted to call it a miracle--given what Latin America has suffered over the last century--except for what I know about the hard work on fair elections that has occurred. Hard civic work. Faith. Maintaining hopefulness. Long term thinking. We need those things here now, in the U.S.
The war profiteering corporate news monopolies have made much of Chavez's friendship with Castro, and financial agreements with Cuba (oil for doctors). But Venezuela has ALSO developed relations with China, Argentina, Bolivia, Iran, England and other countries (and, indeed, with states of the United States--cheap fuel oil deals for the poor). Free of US/Bush/Corporate domination (i.e., led by a popularly elected government, acting in the interests of its people), Venezuela is making its OWN judgments about other countries. It has a common Latin culture with Cuba. Why SHOULDN'T it be friendly with Castro and engage in mutual aid? The frequent mention of this relationship by our corporate news monopolies seems to be aimed at tagging Chavez as a "communist"--which he is decidedly NOT--in order to push those tired old buttons in the US psyche. Venezuela has a mixed economy and there is no sign that Chavez or his supporters (60% of the population, the great majority), or anyone in his government, want anything else. They are an ELECTED government, operating under a Constitution. They are not appropriating anyone's property or jaguars. They are not violent. They are not even envious (from what I can tell). There is no bitterness about the past. They are on to the future. They are CREATING the future. Talk about envy. Don't WE wish that WE had such a government, looking progressively and optimistically to the future, seeking justice and equity, and developing both visionary and pragmatic solutions for poverty and for environmental protection!
Stupid, and utterly uninformed comments, like the one above--"Chavez is a Bush wannabe," or, like those we find in our corporate news monopoly press (Chavez is "authoritarian," or Chavez is "increasingly dictatorial"--always sneaked in, and attributed without quotes to "opponents"--and NEVER with ANY evidence) often make discussion of these important developments in South America difficult. There are no snap comments that are adequate to the topic. It seems that some of us here at DU can't get past the disinformation and stereotyping fed into our brains by the corporate illusion machine. Here's an easy formula to use: Whenever you read/hear/see anything in the corporate news monopolies about Chavez, substitute the phrase "Iraq WMDs" for "Chavez," and ask yourself how much truth these sources gave you about Iraq WMDs. THAT is the amount of truth you are getting about Chavez and South America.
For excellent comment and analysis of the modern Bolivarian Revolution, try: www.venezuelanalysis.com.
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