What’s at stake in the Venezuelan elections (Progreso Weekly)

[Peace Patriot]

25. You're shouting at the wrong person. Judi Lynn made no such claim.

I am the one who said it--that the Chavez government had wiped out illiteracy. And you're right, that that was inaccurate. I believed a government press release of a couple of years go, without looking into it further.

However, I still credit the Chavez government for making a big effort, even if they exaggerated their success, to eliminate illiteracy entirely, and also, as Judi Lynn, points out, for very significant achievements in education, including doubling of college enrollment. There is literacy and there is quality literacy--being able to read and understand the Constitution, or a ballot, or Gabriel Marquez novels. The Chavez government, and the people of Venezuela, have not only aimed at total literacy, they have aimed at a well-educated, well-informed population, with no one excluded from school because of poverty, and no one held back from education to the limit of their abilities, for lack of money.

Lord, they print the Constitution on grocery bags in Venezuela! They want people to read. They want people to understand. It is the major thrust and policy of the Bolivarian Revolution.

To say that, because a tiny fragment of the population is still illiterate, Venezuelan voters are going to misread a ballot that has been deliberately designed by the CNE to confuse voters and lose Capriles votes, is absurdly false. It is not only an insult to Venezuelans, it is an insult to truth itself.

The CNE has been closely monitored by every major elections group in the world, has been repeatedly certified by all of them, and has been recently praised by none other than Jimmy Carter, as being "the best election system in the world." There is no way that the CNE would risk their reputation on a faulty ballot, and if a mistake of some kind was made, they would immediately correct it, and, if need be, postpone the election. Furthermore, by statute, the CNE includes full and active participation by all parties. If there is a faulty ballot, it is as much the fault of the Capriles campaign as anyone else.

To allege that the CNE has deliberately designed a ballot to favor Chavez, and to imply that Venezuelan voters are stupid and illiterate and the CNE is preying upon them, is worse than a lie. It is vicious propaganda.

I admitted my mistake, but I guarantee you that whoever is putting forth this vicious propaganda will not admit theirs.