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The Associated Press (AP), which I have found to be a completely unreliable news source on Latin American politics, has had a number of ways of describing Venezuela's president aimed at stirring up fear and hatred among North American consumers of war profiteering corporate monopoly "news." "Friend of Fidel Castro" is one. I won't bother to check if they include here. They almost always do. No matter that Chavez is also friends with the democratically elected presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, and Nicaragua, and with many social and political leaders in Latin America, his friendship with Castro is a thorn up their butts, and they frequently mention it, to the exclusion of all other Chavez friendships, in order to suggest that Chavez is not representative of Latin American opinion, when in fact he is. Castro is not the monster that U.S. corporate news monopolies would like you to believe. He is a hero to the vast population of Latin America's poor, who have heard of the benefits of Cuban communism--a place where everybody eats, everybody has shelter and useful employment, everybody has health care, and a free education--and many in the Andean democracies have benefited directly from the Cuban doctors who have staffed local medical centers. The rich elites in countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia have utterly neglected their own country's health care and educational systems. They have failed to create equitable societies in which the poor have hope and a chance at a good life. By contrast, Cuba devotes most of its resources to these goals. Communist revolution is not the route that other Latin American poor populations have chosen. They have chosen--and are passionately intent upon--democracy. But they don't see any reason to hate Cuba, and much reason to admire it and learn from it what government should be doing for all citizens.
And that is just one tactic that AP uses to try to keep us stupid about Latin America, and to disinform us about the Latin American democracy movement, of which Chavez is one leader. This democracy movement is coming from the bottom--from long hard work on grass roots organization and transparent elections. Chavez is a product of this revolution, as much as he is a leader of it. When the fascist military coup attempt was tried in Venezuela in 2002, it was the million Venezuelans who poured into the streets in opposition to it, that was the critical factor in restoring Constitutional government and in the return of their elected president, Hugo Chavez. Chavez owes his power to THEM. To the People. Our corporate news monopolies instead dwell on Chavez as a personality--and use every writing tactic they can to convey a sense of "strongman," "warlord," "gun toting leftist revolutionary," "dictator," etc.--and ignore this vast, people-driven movement that has swept him and many other Latin American leftists (majorityists) into power. And AP is the worst offender in this respect.
Now they are calling Chavez "Venezuela's firebrand leader." Yet more incendiary description. No matter that Chavez's comments are eminently reasonable and truthful. Bush cares as much for the Latin American poor as he does about the victims of Katrina and the tens of thousands of people he has slaughtered in Iraq. He "cares" about them absolutely not at all. He is lying. And Chavez is pointing this out. What is "fiery" about that? Nothing. It is the simple truth. Chavez is also correct that "it's too late." Bush's fascist thug buddies in Latin America cannot win, at this point. Democracy has too much momentum. But they can still cause a lot of trouble and grief--and that is why Bush is larding them with billions of US taxpayer dollars (checks written on our future) to keeping killing peasants and leftists in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, to try to prevent democracy in those countries, and to try to spread this mayhem to the good governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua, to destabilize them, and keep them from forming a South American Common Market. Bush also has ill purpose in Peru and Paraguay--to try to stop the big leftist movements there from winning electoral victories.
It's too late for the fascist thugs. There are huge scandals in Colombia and Guatemala right now about the activities of Bush/US-funded rightwing paramilitaries--drug trafficking, mass murder, an assassination plot against Chavez. There is also a simmering scandal about the rightwing paramilitary kidnappings, rapes, tortures and disappearances of hundreds of community leaders in Oaxaca, Mexico, with the collusion of the state and federal government. And the smartest South American leaders--Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, and Correa in Ecuador (as well as the rising leaders in Peru and Paraguay) have rejected the murderous US "war on drugs" for what it is: the US war on the poor. So the real question for Bush is, what else can he deliver to his corporate masters, in this circumstance of massive rebellion against US fascism and global corporate predation, in order to keep them propping up the Bush/Cheney junta and to keep its chief perps out of prison? Chavez is right again. Bush is there to "confuse" the region--to disrupt developments in Mercosur, the So. American trade group, that are tending toward regional cooperation and a Common Market in which US global corporate predators will have to compete on fair terms. There are also discussions of a common currency (to get off the US dollar). And one of the reasons that these self-help measures are possible for South America is the role of the Chavez government is helping Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador get out from under World Bank debt and its onerous repayment conditions. The World Bank/IMF is the Corporate Rulers' tool for keeping these countries destitute and unable to fight back against exploitation. Chavez is helping his fellow/sister South Americans bust that power.
Dictator. Authoritarian. Self-styled leftist. FriendofFidelCastro. Firebrand. All aimed at blinding you to what is really going on in South America. Democracy is winning, at long last!
As Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, has said: "We want partners, not masters." The Associated Press, a war profiteering corporate news monopoly, wants you to perceive that desire for justice and fairness as a threat, because it threatens our Corporate Rulers and their ungodly profits. That is why they dwell on Chavez--the most vocal and colorful leader of this vast movement--and try to stigmatize him in your mind as a "dictator" and a demagogue, a man who won the last election in Venezuela with 63% of the vote, in an election process that, time and again, has been unanimously certified by the OAS, the Carter Center and EU election monitoring groups, who have been free to crawl all over Venezuela with hundreds of election monitors. By comparison, our own election process could have been invented in Stalinist Russia, it is so incredibly non-transparent--a fraudulent election system that AP protects and covers up for. Beware of AP articles on Latin America. Look for the "ap" in the url.
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