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Post by artemis on Mar 14, 2013 7:24:28 GMT -5
"Hugo Chavez: Friend of the American People, Enemy of US Hegemony and Washington’s Injustice On March 5, 2013, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and world leader against imperialism, died. Washington imperialists and their media and think tank whores expressed gleeful sighs of relief as did the brainwashed US population. An “enemy of America” was gone. Chavez was not an enemy of America. He was an enemy of Washington’s hegemony over other countries, an enemy of Washington’s alliance with elite ruling cliques who steal from the people they grind down and deny sustenance. He was an enemy of Washington’s injustice, of Washington’s foreign policy based on lies and military aggression, bombs and invasions. Washington is not America. Washington is Satan’s home town. Chavez was a friend of truth and justice, and this made him unpopular throughout the Western World where every political leader regards truth and justice as dire threats. Chavez was a world leader. Unlike US politicians, Chavez was respected throughout the non-western world. He was awarded honorary doctorates from China, Russia, Brazil, and other countries, but not from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford. Chavez was a miracle. He was a miracle, because he did not sell out to the United States and the Venezuelan elites. Had he sold out, Chavez would have become very rich from oil revenues, like the Saudi Royal Family, and he would have been honored by the United States in the way that Washington honors all its puppets: with visits to the White House. He could have become a dictator for life as long as he served Washington. Each of Washington’s puppets, from Asia to Europe and the Middle East, anxiously awaits the call that demonstrates Washington’s appreciation of his or her servitude to the global imperialist power that still occupies Japan and Germany 68 years after World War II and South Korea 60 years after the end of the Korean War and has placed troops and military bases in a large number of other “sovereign” countries. It would have been politically easy for Chavez to sell out. All he had to do was to continue populist rhetoric, promote his allies in the army, throw more benefits to the underclass than its members had ever previously experienced, and divide the rest of the oil revenues with the corrupt Venezuelan elites. But Chavez was a real person, like Rafael Correa, the three-term elected president of Ecuador, who stood up to the United States and granted political asylum to the persecuted Julian Assange, and Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia since the Spanish conquest. The majority of Venezuelans understood that Chavez was a real person. They elected him to four terms as president and would have continued electing him as long as he lived. What Washington hates most is a real person who cannot be bought. The more the corrupt western politicians and media whores demonized Chavez, the more Venezuelans loved him. They understood completely that anyone damned by Washington was God’s gift to the world. It is costly to stand up to Washington. All who are bold enough to do so are demonized. They risk assassination and being overthrown in a CIA-organized coup, as Chavez was in 2002. When CIA-instructed Venezuelan elites sprung their coup and kidnapped Chavez, the coup was overthrown by the Venezuelan people who took to the streets and by elements of the military before Chavez could be murdered by the CIA-controlled Venezuelan elites, who escaped with their own venal lives only because, unlike them, Chavez was humanitarian. The Venezuelan people rose in instantaneous and massive public defense of Chavez and put the lie to the Bush White House claim that Chavez was a dictator. Showing its sordid corruption, the New York Times took the side of the undemocratic coup by a handful of elitists against the democratically elected Chavez, and declared that Chavez’s removal by a small group of rich elites and CIA operatives meant that “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.” The lies and demonization continue with Chavez’s death. He will never be forgiven for standing up for justice. Neither will Correa and Morales, both of whom are no doubt on assassination lists. CounterPunch, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, and other commentators have collected examples of the venom-spewing obituaries that the western presstitutes have written for Chavez, essentially celebrations that death has silenced the bravest voice on earth. www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/08/obituaries-for-hugo-chavez/fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/in-death-as-in-life-chavez-target-of-media-scorn/Perhaps the most absurd of all was Associated Press business reporter Pamela Sampson’s judgment that Chavez wasted Venezuela’s oil wealth on “social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs,” a poor use of money that could have been used to build sky scrappers such as “the world’s tallest building in Dubai and branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.” www.fair.org/blog/2013/03/06/ap-chavez-wasted-his-money-on-healthcare-when-he-could-have-built-gigantic-skyscrapers/Among the tens of millions of Washington’s victims in the world–the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, with Iran, Russia, China, and South America waiting in the wings for sanctions, destabilization, conquest or reconquest, Chavez’s September 20, 2006 speech at the UN General Assembly during the George W. Bush regime will stand forever as the greatest speech of the early 21st century. Chavez beards the lion, or rather Satan, in his own den: “Yesterday, the devil himself stood right here, at this podium, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.” “We should call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘the Devil’s Recipe.’” The UN General Assembly had never heard such words, not even in the days when the militarily powerful Soviet Union was present. Faces broke out in smiles of approval, but no one dared to clap. Too much US money for the home country was at stake. The US and UK delegations fled the scene, like vampires confronted with garlic and the Cross or werewolves confronted with silver bullets. Chavez spoke about the false democracy of elites that is imposed by force and on others by “weapons and bombs.” Chavez asked, “What type of democracy do you impose with Marines and bombs?” Wherever George W. Bush looks, Chavez said, “he sees extremists. And you, my brother–he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there’s an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him. The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It is not that we are extremists. It is that the world is waking up. It is waking up all over and people are standing up.” In two short sentences totaling 20 words, Chavez defined for all times early 21st century Washington: “The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.” Throughout South America and the non-western world, Chavez’s death is being blamed on Washington. South Americans are aware of the US congressional hearings in the 1970s when the Church Committee brought to light the various CIA schemes to poison Fidel Castro. The official document presented to President John F. Kennedy by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, known as the Northwoods Project, is known to the world and is available online. The Northwoods project consisted of a false flag attack on American citizens in order to blame Cuba and create public and world acceptance for US-imposed regime change in Cuba. President Kennedy rejected the proposal as inconsistent with morality and accountable government. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_NorthwoodsThe belief has already hardened in South America that Washington with its hideous technologies of death infected Chavez with cancer in order to remove him as an obstacle to Washington’s hegemony over South America. This belief will never die: Chavez, the greatest South American since Simon Bolivar, was murdered by Washington. True or false, the belief is set in stone. As Washington and globalism destroy more countries, the lives of elites become more precarious. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that security for the rich required economic security for the underclasses. Roosevelt established in the US a weak form of social democracy that European politicians had already understood was necessary for social cohesion and political and economic stability. The Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes set about undermining the stability that Roosevelt provided, as Thatcher, Major, Blair, and the current prime minister of the UK undermined the social agreement between classes in the UK. Politicians in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also made the mistake of handing power over to private elites at the expense of social and economic stability. Gerald Celente predicts that the elites will not survive the hatred and anger that they are bringing upon themselves. I suspect that he is correct. The American middle class is being destroyed. The working class has become a proletariat, and the social welfare system is being destroyed in order to reduce the budget deficit caused by the loss of tax revenues to jobs offshoring and the expense of wars, overseas military bases, and financial bailouts. The American people are being compelled to suffer in order that elites can continue with their agendas. The US elites know what is coming. That is why they created a Nazi-style Ministry of the Interior known as Homeland Security, armed with enough ammunition to kill every American five times and with tanks to neutralize the Second Amendment rights of Americans. www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34259.htmwww.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/Pistols and rifles are useless against tanks, as the Branch Davidians found out in Waco, Texas. The protection of a small handful of elites from the Americans they are oppressing is also the reason the police are being militarized, brought under Washington’s control and armed with drones that can assassinate the real leaders of the American people who will be, not in the legislative, executive, or judicial chambers, but in the streets. www.globalresearch.ca/the-militarization-of-law-enforcement-in-america-use-of-military-technology-and-tactics-by-local-level-police/5326303Internment camps in the US appear to be real and not a conspiracy theory. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfkZ1yri26s info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdfThe threat that the US government poses to its own citizens was recognized on March 7, 2013, by two US Senators, Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY), who introduced a bill to prevent the US government from murdering its own citizens: “The Federal Government may not use a drone to kill a citizen of the United States who is located in the United States” unless the person “poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to another individual. Nothing in this section shall be construed to suggest that the Constitution would otherwise allow the killing of a citizen of the United States in the United States without due process of law.” www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=339952The “indispensable people” with their presidents Bush and Obama have begun the 21st century with death and violence. That is their only legacy. The death and violence that Washington has unleashed will come back to Washington and to the corrupt political elites everywhere. As Gerald Celente says, the first great war of the 21st century has begun."
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Post by artemis on Mar 14, 2013 10:27:12 GMT -5
"The Idea of Hugo Chavez and What it Means for the Future of Venezuela
The Passing of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has people from all over the world mourning. Many are also celebrating, especially in Washington. What does the loss of Hugo Chavez and his idea of the Bolivarian Revolution mean? Would Venezuela’s political, social and cultural transformation in the last 14 years be dismantled with the next presidential elections if Henrique Capriles Radonski were to be elected? Yes, of course that’s why he is Washington’s choice. But the idea of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela will never die. The people will vote for Vice President Nicolas Maduro and will win because he will continue the revolution.
Hugo Chavez may be physically dead, but his idea and spirit is alive among the Venezuelan people. Hugo Chavez proved to the world that alternative political and economic solutions are possible and that Washington’s Neoliberal policies have been a failure. I am not just talking about the system of the Bolivarian Revolution, but also alternative political and economic systems that are democratic in nature were ideas that resonate even today; those that would allow people to participate and make decisions that affect their everyday lives.
There are a number of ideas from the past that were democratic such as the participatory democracy of the Iroquois Confederation, which was a political system that united several tribal nations that made political decisions based on a consensus. The Iroquois confederation was located in North America that existed centuries before European contact. A Republic was another idea where the state was ruled by representatives elected by the people. The United States had a Republic at one time in their history before it became a corporate democracy. Both political entities started with an idea, one that advanced human right principles for every man, woman and child. They were allowed to decide and vote for what is in their best interests for themselves and their communities. American-style Democracy and its neoliberal policies have failed in Latin America. That is why Chavez came to power with a new idea, one that would transform Venezuelan society forever.
Chavez and the Venezuelan people have been fighting Neoliberal economic policies dictated by Washington since he got into office in 1999. Reforms based on the Bolivarian revolution’s principles undermined major oil companies, international banks (IMF and the World Bank) and Washington’s political class in terms of profits that only benefitted oil executives and Wall Street. Chavez reversed that trend by nationalizing the oil industry to benefit the vast majority of Venezuelan people that were poor and disenfranchised. What is wrong with using profits made from a nation’s natural resources to benefit the people? Oil companies should be able to make a profit that is reasonable and fair, but with the majority of Venezuelans living in poverty for so long shows the opposite.
Washington and Big Oil corporations were obviously unreasonable. Chavez was instrumental in orchestrating land and oil industry reforms that made him an enemy of Washington. With the reforms, he improved the education system for school-aged children and created ‘Mission Robinson’ a literacy program for adults who learned how to read and write. Back in 2005, UNESCO declared Venezuela an “Illiteracy Free Territory”. It is interesting to note that on March 7th, CBS news reported that the largest and most expensive school system in the United States, the New York City Public School system was a failure.
Why? Because more than 80% of its high school graduates entering the City University of New York (CUNY) community colleges as freshmen cannot read or write or do not know basic math skills according to CUNY officials. Chavez also provided universal healthcare, job training programs, free university tuitions and subsidies to single mothers helped elevate the Venezuelan people to a better life. He has reduced poverty levels by more than half where at one time close to 70% percent of the population was living below the poverty line.
Let’s get into a hypothetical scenario. What if the US government decided to use its natural resources such as natural gas (although “Fracking” has become a serious environmental problem that poses a threat to drinking water and the public’s health) or untapped oil reserves to rebuild its infrastructure or to help the poor with basic needs? Wouldn’t that be reasonable? What if a fair share of profits made from oil and natural gas sales were returned to the people in America for basic services such as healthcare or a college education? There are millions of people who do not have health insurance (ObamaCare would not solve the problem!) and millions more who owe thousands of dollars for student loans. Many would say that the US government does help the poor in America.
Yes they do in a way, but American tax dollars pay for a failed public education system, corrupt welfare programs, the Military-Industrial Complex and its ongoing wars and for the defense of Israel. The United States has one of the most unequal societies in the Western Hemisphere. It imprisons more people than any other country in the entire world. It has the worst public schools (indoctrination centers) and a mediocre healthcare system. It has gone to war and created political instability in more than 35 countries since the end of World War II including Venezuela. In fact, Venezuela has not invaded any country for that matter.
Venezuela has set an example for the rest of the world, one that has elevated its political and economic status among its people to a fairer and just society. Venezuela does have one of the highest crime rates in Latin America along with a huge drug problem and it still has a significant number of people living in poverty. There were close to 70% of people living below the poverty line with 40% of those living in extreme poverty with an inflation rate of that exceeded more than 100% by the end of 1996. The neo-liberal economic model that Washington wanted Chavez to follow was harsh to say the least. It impoverished Venezuela for decades only benefitting Venezuelan ultra elites aligned with Washington. Many of the Venezuelan elites also have homes in Miami, Florida where many former dictators such as Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista or the “Mafia’s President” and Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza lived. Under Chavez, poverty levels have decreased by 50% and extreme poverty levels by 70%. Economist and Co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Mark Weisbrot summed it up in The Guardian on October 2012:
Since 2004, when the government gained control over the oil industry and the economy had recovered from the devastating, extra-legal attempts to overthrow it (including the 2002 US-backed military coup and oil strike of 2002-2003), poverty has been cut in half and extreme poverty by 70%. And this measures only cash income. Millions have access to healthcare for the first time, and college enrolment has doubled, with free tuition for many students. Inequality has also been considerably reduced. By contrast, the two decades that preceded Chávez amount to one of the worst economic failures in Latin America, with real income per person actually falling by 14% between 1980 and 1998.
In a report conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) called the “2011 Social Panorama of Latin America” stated that in 2010 the number of Venezuelans living in poverty reached 27.8 %, making Venezuela the third-lowest poverty rate among Latin American countries. Chavez changed the system and defied Washington. The people of Venezuela would not want their country to return to the policies of the past which was dictated by Washington and big oil corporations that has devastated the country for decades. Chavez had the idea that a different way of life is possible and that idea is within the people of Venezuela. US President Barack Obama’s statement in regards to Chavez’s death stated the following:
“As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.”
This is coming from an American president who supports numerous dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, where Human Rights Watch stated in the past that:
Authorities continue to systematically suppress or fail to protect the rights of nine million Saudi women and girls, eight million foreign workers, and some two million Shia citizens. Each year thousands of people receive unfair trials or are subject to arbitrary detention. Curbs on freedom of association, expression, and movement, as well as a pervasive lack of official accountability, remain serious concerns.
The US also supports Uzbekistan (who boiled two prisoners to death as reported by The Guardian) and Jordan, where torture is common. In the past, the US supported dictatorships in Latin America and the Caribbean such as the Somoza Dynasty of Nicaragua, Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier of Haiti, Augusto Pinochet of Chile and many others in Asia and Africa.
The new President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro will encounter threats from Washington as did Chavez. Maduro will continue the same policies of the Chavez government that will advance the political and economic future for the people of Venezuela. The Venezuelan people will back Maduro. If Washington were to remove Maduro from office by a Coup d’état, assassination or through fraudulent presidential elections (which is possible) there would be another Chavez in the future with the same idea that would continue its fight for basic human rights and principles the Venezuelan people deserve. The idea of Chavez is in the minds of Venezuelans and that is hard to overcome. The war of ideas between Washington and Chavez was long, but in the end Chavez won the battle. US President John F. Kennedy once said “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” The idea of change is possible and will live on in Venezuela.
What does Washington want? A dictatorship that is subservient to Washington, Wall Street and Big Oil Corporations. President Franklyn D. Roosevelt once said that “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch Anastasio Somoza Garcia was a corrupt Nicaraguan dictator who tortured and murdered dissidents was backed by the United States. Washington is waiting for the next “Son of a Bitch” to run Venezuela. The opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski who would bring back the same Neoliberal policies that impoverished Venezuela would fit the job description. But that will not happen any time soon, but then again Washington is capable of doing anything to regain control of Latin America it once had. We shall see."
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Post by artemis on Mar 15, 2013 8:04:31 GMT -5
"President Hugo Chavez: A 21st Century Renaissance Man
Introduction
President Hugo Chavez was unique in multiple areas of political, social and economic life. He made significant contributions to the advancement of humanity. The depth, scope and popularity of his accomplishments mark President Chavez as the ‘Renaissance President of the 21st Century’.
Many writers have noted one or another of his historic contributions highlighting his anti-poverty legislation, his success in winning popular elections with resounding majorities and his promotion of universal free public education and health coverage for all Venezuelans.
In this essay we will highlight the unique world-historic contributions that President Chavez made in the spheres of political economy, ethics and international law and in redefining relations between political leaders and citizens. We shall start with his enduring contribution to the development of civic culture in Venezuela and beyond.
Hugo Chavez: The Great Teacher of Civic Values
From his first days in office, Chavez was engaged in transforming the constitutional order so that political leaders and institutions would be more responsive to the popular electorate. Through his speeches Chavez clearly and carefully informed the electorate of the measures and legislation to improve their livelihood. He invited comments and criticism – his style was to engage in constant dialogue, especially with the poor, the unemployed and the workers. Chavez was so successful in teaching civic responsibilities to the Venezuelan electorate that millions of citizens from the slums of Caracas rose up spontaneously to oust the US backed business-military junta which had kidnapped their president and closed the legislature. Within seventy-two hours – record time – the civic-minded citizens restored the democratic order and the rule of law in Venezuela , thoroughly rejecting the mass media’s defense of the coup-plotters and their brief authoritarian regime.
Chavez, as all great educators, learned from this democratic intervention of the mass of citizens, that democracy’s most effective defenders were to be found among the working people – and that its worst enemies were found in the business elites and military officials linked to Miami and Washington.
Chavez civic pedagogy emphasized the importance of the historical teachings and examples of founding fathers, like Simon Bolivar, in establishing a national and Latin American identity. His speeches raised the cultural level of millions of Venezuelans who had been raised in the alienating and servile culture of imperial Washington and the consumerist obsessions of Miami shopping malls.
Chavez succeeded in instilling a culture of solidarity and mutual support among the exploited, emphasizing ‘horizontal’ ties over vertical clientelistic dependency on the rich and powerful. His success in creating collective consciousness decisively shifted the balance of political power away from the wealthy rulers and corrupt political party and trade union leaders toward new socialist movements and class oriented trade unions. More than anything else Chavez’ political education of the popular majority regarding their social rights to free health care and higher education, living wages and full employment drew the hysterical ire of the wealthy Venezuelans and their undying hatred of a president who had created a sense of autonomy, dignity and ‘class empowerment’ through public education ending centuries of elite privilege and omnipotence.
Above all Chavez speeches, drawing as much from Bolivar as from Karl Marx, created a deep, generous sense of patriotism and nationalism and a profound rejection of a prostrate elite groveling before their Washington overlord, Wall Street bankers and oil company executives. Chavez’ anti-imperial speeches resonated because he spoke in the language of the people and expanded their national consciousness to identification with Latin America, especially Cuba ’s fight against imperial interventions and wars.
International Relations: The Chavez Doctrine
At the beginning of the previous decade, after 9/11/01, Washington declared a ‘War on Terror’. This was a public declaration of unilateral military intervention and wars against sovereign nations, movements and individuals deemed as adversaries, in violation of international law.
Almost all countries submitted to this flagrant violation of the Geneva Accords, except President Chavez, who made the most profound and simple refutation against Washington: ‘You don’t fight terrorism with state terrorism’. In his defense of the sovereignty of nations and international jurisprudence, Chavez underlined the importance of political and economic solutions to social problems and conflicts – repudiating the use of bombs, torture and mayhem. The Chavez Doctrine emphasized south-south trade and investments and diplomatic over military resolution of disputes. He upheld the Geneva Accords against colonial and imperial aggression while rejecting the imperial doctrine of ‘the war on terror’, defining western state terrorism as a pernicious equivalent to Al Qaeda terrorism.
Political Theory and Practice: The Grand Synthesizer
One of the most profound and influential aspects of Chavez’ legacy is his original synthesis of three grand strands of political thought: popular Christianity, Bolivarian nationalist and regional integration and Marxist political, social and economic thought. Chavez’ Christianity informed his deep belief in justice and the equality of people, as well as his generosity and forgiveness of adversaries even as they engaged in a violent coup, a crippling lockout, or openly collaborated and received financing from enemy intelligence agencies. Whereas anywhere else in the world, armed assaults against the state and coup d’états would result in long prison sentences or even executions, under Chavez most of his violent adversaries escaped prosecution and even rejoined their subversive organizations. Chavez demonstrated a deep belief in redemption and forgiveness. Chavez’s Christianity informed his ‘option for the poor’, the depth and breadth of his commitment to eradicating poverty and his solidarity with the poor against the rich.
Chavez deep-seated aversion and effective opposition to US and European imperialism and brutal Israeli colonialism were profoundly rooted in his reading of the writings and history of Simon Bolivar, the founding father of the Venezuelan nation. Bolivarian ideas on national liberation long preceded any exposure to Marx, Lenin or more contemporary leftist writings on imperialism. His powerful and unwavering support for regional integration and internationalism was deeply influenced by Simon Bolivar’s proposed ‘United States of Latin America’ and his internationalist activity in support of anti-colonial movements.
Chavez’ incorporation of Marxist ideas into his world view was adapted to his longstanding popular Christian and Bolivarian internationalist philosophy. Chavez’ option for the poor was deepened by his recognition of the centrality of the class struggle and the reconstruction of the Bolivarian nation through the socialization of the ‘commanding heights of the economy’. The socialist conception of self-managed factories and popular empowerment via community councils was given moral legitimacy by Chavez’ Christian faith in an egalitarian moral order.
While Chavez was respectful and carefully listened to the views of visiting leftist academics and frequently praised their writings, many failed to recognize or, worse, deliberately ignored the President’s own more original synthesis of history, religion and Marxism. Unfortunately, as is frequently the case, some leftist academics have, in their self-indulgent posturing, presumed to be Chavez’ ‘teacher’ and advisor on all matters of ‘Marxist theory’: This represents a style of leftist cultural colonialism, which snidely criticized Chavez for not following their ready-made prescriptions, published in their political literary journals in London, New York and Paris.
Fortunately, Chavez took what was useful from the overseas academics and NGO-funded political strategists while discarding ideas that failed to take account of the cultural-historical, class and rentier specificities of Venezuela .
Chavez has bequeathed to the intellectuals and activists of the world a method of thinking which is global and specific, historical and theoretical, material and ethical and which encompasses class analysis, democracy and a spiritual transcendence resonating with the great mass of humanity in a language every person can understand. Chavez’ philosophy and practice (more than any ‘discourse’ narrated by the social forum-hopping experts) demonstrated that the art of formulating complex ideas in simple language can move millions of people to ‘make history, and not only to study it’..
Toward Practical Alternatives to Neoliberalism and Imperialism
Perhaps Chavez greatest contribution in the contemporary period was to demonstrate, through practical measures and political initiatives, that many of the most challenging contemporary political and economic problems can be successfully resolved.
Radical Reform of a Rentier State
Nothing is more difficult than changing the social structure, institutions and attitudes of a rentier petro-state, with deeply entrenched clientelistic politics, endemic party-state corruption and a deeply-rooted mass psychology based on consumerism. Yet Chavez largely succeeded where other petro-regimes failed. The Chavez Administration first began with constitutional and institutional changes to create a new political framework; then he implemented social impact programs, which deepened political commitments among an active majority, which, in turn, bravely defended the regime from a violent US backed business-military coup d’état. Mass mobilization and popular support, in turn, radicalized the Chavez government and made way for a deeper socialization of the economy and the implementation of radical agrarian reform. The petrol industry was socialized; royalty and tax payments were raised to provide funds for massively expanded social expenditures benefiting the majority of Venezuelans.
Almost every day Chavez prepared clearly understandable educational speeches on social, ethical and political topics related to his regime’s redistributive policies by emphasizing social solidarity over individualistic acquisitive consumerism. Mass organizations and community and trade union movements flourished – a new social consciousness emerged ready and willing to advance social change and confront the wealthy and powerful. Chavez’ defeat of the US-backed coup and bosses’ lockout and his affirmation of the Bolivarian tradition and sovereign identity of Venezuela created a powerful nationalist consciousness which eroded the rentier mentality and strengthened the pursuit of a diversified ‘balanced economy’. This new political will and national productive consciousness was a great leap forward, even as the main features of a rentier-oil dependent economy persist. This extremely difficult transition has begun and is an ongoing process. Overseas leftist theorists, who criticize Venezuela (‘corruption’, ‘bureaucracy’) have profoundly ignored the enormous difficulties of transitioning from a rentier state to a socialized economy and the enormous progress achieved by Chavez.
Economic Crisis Without Capitalist Austerity
Throughout the crisis-wracked capitalist world, ruling labor, social democratic, liberal and conservative regimes have imposed regressive ‘austerity programs’ involving brutal reductions of social welfare, health and education expenditures and mass layoffs of workers and employees while handing our generous state subsidies and bailouts to failing banks and capitalist enterprises. Chanting their Thacherite slogan, ‘there is no alternative’, capitalist economists justify imposing the burden of ‘capitalist recovery’ onto the working class while allowing capital to recover its profits in order to invest.
Chavez’ policy was the direct opposite: In the midst of crisis, he retained all the social programs, rejected mass firings and increased social spending. The Venezuelan economy rode out of the worldwide crisis and recovered with a healthy 5.8% growth rate in 2012. In other words, Chavez demonstrated that mass impoverishment was a product of the specific capitalist ‘formula’ for recovery. He showed another, positive alternative approach to economic crisis, which taxed the rich, promoted public investments and maintained social expenditures.
Social Transformation in a ‘Globalized Economy’
Many commentators, left, right and center, have argued that the advent of a ‘globalized economy’ ruled out a radical social transformation. Yet Venezuela , which is profoundly globalized and integrated into the world market via trade and investments, has made major advances in social reform. What really matters in relation to a globalized economy is the nature of the political economic regime and its policies, which dictate how the gains and costs of international trade and investment are distributed. In a word, what is decisive is the ‘class character of the regime’ managing its place in the world economy. Chavez certainly did not ‘de-link’ from the world economy; rather he has re-linked Venezuela in a new way. He shifted Venezuelan trade and investment toward Latin America, Asia and the Middle East – especially to countries which do not intervene or impose reactionary conditions on economic transactions.
Anti-Imperialism in a Time of an Imperialist Offensive
In a time of a virulent US—EU imperialist offensive involving ‘pre-emptive’ military invasions, mercenary interventions, torture, assassinations and drone warfare in Iraq, Mali, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan and brutal economic sanctions and sabotage against Iran; Israeli colonial expulsions of thousands of Palestinians financed by the US; US-backed military coups in Honduras and Paraguay and aborted revolutions via puppets in Egypt and Tunisia, President Chavez, alone, stood as the principled defender of anti-imperialist politics. Chavez deep commitment to anti-imperialism stands in marked contrast to the capitulation of Western self-styled ‘Marxist’ intellectuals who mouthed crude justifications for their support of NATO bombing Yugoslavia and Libya, the French invasion of Mali and the Saudi-French (‘Monarcho-Socialist’) funding and arming of Islamist mercenaries against Syria. These same London, New York and Paris-based ‘intellectuals’ who patronized Chavez as a mere ‘populist’ or ‘nationalist’ and claimed he should have listened to their lectures and read their books, had crassly capitulated under the pressure of the capitalist state and mass media into supporting ‘humanitarian interventions’ (aka NATO bombing)… and justified their opportunism in the language of obscure leftists sects. Chavez confronted NATO pressures and threats, as well as the destabilizing subversion of his domestic opponents and courageously articulated the most profound and significant principles of 20th and 21st Marxism: the inviolate right to self-determination of oppressed nations and unconditional opposition to imperial wars. While Chavez spoke and acted in defense of anti-imperialist principles, many in the European and US left acquiesced in imperial wars: There were virtually no mass protests, the ‘anti-war’ movements were co-opted or moribund, the British ‘Socialist’ Workers Party defended the massive NATO bombing of Libya, the French ‘Socialists’ invaded Mali- with the support of the ‘Anti-Capitalist’ Party. Meanwhile, the ‘populist’ Chavez had articulated a far more profound and principled understanding of Marxist practice, certainly than his self-appointed overseas Marxist ‘tutors’.
No other political leader or for that matter, leftist academic, developed, deepened and extended the central tenets of anti-imperialist politics in the era of global imperialist warfare with greater acuity than Hugo Chavez.
Transition from a Failed Neo-Liberal to a Dynamic Welfare State
Chavez’ programmatic and comprehensive reconfiguration of Venezuela from a disastrous and failed neo-liberal regime to a dynamic welfare state stands as a landmark in 20th and 21st century political economy. Chavez’ successful reversal of neo-liberal institutions and policies, as well as his re-nationalization of the ‘commanding heights of the economy’ demolished the reigning neo-liberal dogma derived from the Thatcher-Reagan era enshrined in the slogan: ‘There is no alternative’ to brutal neo-liberal policies, or TINA.
Chavez rejected privatization – he re-nationalized key oil related industries, socialized hundreds of capitalist firms and carried out a vast agrarian reform program, including land distribution to 300,000 families. He encouraged trade union organizations and worker control of factories – even bucking public managers and even his own cabinet ministers. In Latin America , Chavez led the way in defining with greater depth and with more comprehensive social changes, the post neo-liberal era. Chavez envisioned the transition from neo-liberalism to a new socialized welfare state as an international process and provided financing and political support for new regional organizations like ALBA, PetroCaribe, and UNASUR. He rejected the idea of building a welfare state in one country and formulated a theory of post-neo-liberal transitions based on international solidarity. Chavez’ original ideas and policies regarding the post-neo-liberal transition escaped the armchair Marxists and the globetrotting Social Forum NGO pundits whose inconsequential ‘global alternatives’ succeeded primarily in securing imperial foundation funding.
Chavez demonstrated through theory and practice that neo-liberalism was indeed reversible – a major political breakthrough of the 21st century.
Beyond Social Liberalism: The Radical Definition of Post-Neo-Liberalism
The US-EU promoted neo-liberal regimes have collapsed under the weight of the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Massive unemployment led to popular uprisings, new elections and the advent of center-left regimes in most of Latin America , which rejected or at least claimed to repudiate ‘neo-liberalism’. Most of these regimes promulgated legislation and executive directives to fund poverty programs, implement financial controls and make productive investments, while raising minimum wages and stimulating employment. However few lucrative enterprises were actually re-nationalized. Addressing inequalities and the concentration of wealth were not part of their agenda. They formulated their strategy of working with Wall Street investors, local agro-mineral exporters and co-opted trade unions.
Chavez posed a profoundly different alternative to this form of ‘post-neoliberalism’. He nationalized resource industries, excluded Wall Street speculators and limited the role of the agro-mineral elites. He posed a socialized welfare state as an alternative to the reigning social-liberal orthodoxy of the center-left regimes, even as he worked with these regimes in promoting Latin American integration and opposing US backed coups.
Chavez was both a leader defining a more socialized alternative to social liberation and the conscience pressuring his allies to advance further.
Socialism and Democracy
Chavez opened a new and extraordinarily original and complex path to socialism based on free elections, re-educating the military to uphold democratic and constitutional principals, and the development of mass and community media. He ended the capitalist mass media monopolies and strengthened civil society as a counter-weight to US-sponsored para-military and fifth column elites intent on destabilizing the democratic state.
No other democratic-socialist president had successfully resisted imperial destabilization campaigns – neither Jagan in Guyana , Manley in Jamaica , nor Allende in Chile . From the very outset Chavez saw the importance of creating a solid legal-political framework to facilitate executive leadership, promote popular civil society organizations and end US penetration of the state apparatus (military and police). Chavez implemented radical social impact programs that ensured the loyalty and active allegiance of popular majorities and weakened the economic levers of political power long held by the capitalist class. As a result Venezuela ’s political leaders, soldiers and officers loyal to its constitution and the popular masses crushed a bloody rightwing coup, a crippling bosses’ lockout and a US-financed referendum and proceeded to implement further radical socio-economic reforms in a prolonged process of cumulative socialization.
Chavez’s originality, in part the result of trial and error, was his ‘experimental method’: His profound understanding and response to popular attitudes and behavior was deeply rooted in Venezuela ’s history of racial and class in justice and popular rebelliousness. More than any previous socialist leader, Chavez traveled, spoke and listened to Venezuela ’s popular classes on questions of everyday life. His ‘method’ was to translate micro based knowledge into macro programed changes. In practice he was the anti-thesis of the overseas and local intellectual know-it-alls who literally spoke down to the people and who saw themselves as the ‘masters of the world’ …at least, in the micro-world of left academia, ingrown socialist conferences and self-centered monologues. The death of Hugo Chavez was profoundly mourned by millions in Venezuela and hundreds of million around the world because his transition to socialism was their path; he listened to their demands and he acted upon them effectively.
Social Democracy and National Security
Chavez was a socialist president for over 13 years in the face of large-scale, long-term violent opposition and financial sabotage from Washington , the local economic elite and mass media moguls. Chavez created the political consciousness that motivated millions of workers and secured the constitutional loyalty of the military to defeat a bloody US-backed business-military coup in 2002. Chavez tempered social changes in accordance with a realistic assessment of what the political and legal order could support. First and foremost, Chavez secured the loyalty of the military by ending US ‘advisory’ missions and overseas imperial indoctrination while substituting intensive courses on Venezuelan history, civic responsibility and the critical link between the popular classes and the military in a common national mission..
Chavez’ national security policies were based on democratic principles as well as a clear recognition of the serious threats to Venezuelan sovereignty. He successfully safeguarded both national security and the democratic rights and political freedoms of its citizens, a feat which has earned Venezuela the admiration and envy of constitutional lawyers and citizens of the US and the EU.
In stark contrast, US President Obama has assumed the power to assassinate US citizens based on secret information and without trial both in and out of the US . His Administration has murdered ‘targeted’ US citizens and their children, jailed others without trial and maintains secret ‘files’ on over 40 million Americans. Chavez never assumed those powers and never assassinated or tortured a single Venezuelan. In Venezuela , the dozen or so prisoners convicted of violent acts of subversion after open trials in Venezuelan courts, stand in sharp contrast to the tens of thousands of jailed and secretly framed Muslims and Latin American immigrants in the US . Chavez rejected state terror; while Obama has special assassination teams on the ground in over 70 countries. Obama supports arbitrary police invasions of ‘suspect’ homes and workplaces based on ‘secret evidence’ while. Chavez even tolerated the activities of known foreign (CIA)-funded opposition parties. In a word, Obama uses ‘national security’ to destroy democratic freedoms while Chavez upheld democratic freedoms and imposed constitutional limits on the national security apparatus.
Chavez sought peaceful diplomatic resolution of conflicts with hostile neighbors, such as Colombia which hosts seven US military bases – potential springboards for US intervention. On the other hand, Obama has engaged in open war with at least seven countries and has been pursuing covert hostile action against dozens of others.
Conclusion
Chavez’s legacy is multi-faceted. His contributions are original, theoretical and practical and universally relevant. He demonstrated in ‘theory and practice’ how a small country can defend itself against imperialism, maintain democratic principles and implement advanced social programs. His pursuit of regional integration and promotion of ethical standards in the governance of a nation – provide examples profoundly relevant in a capitalist world awash in corrupt politicians slashing living standards while enriching the plutocrats.
Chavez’ rejection of the Bush-Obama doctrine of using ‘state terror to fight terror’, his affirmation that the roots of violence are social in justice , economic pillage and political oppression and his belief that resolving these underlying issues is the road to peace, stands as the ethical-political guide for humanity’s survival.
Faced with a violent world of imperial counter-revolution, and resolved to stand with the oppressed of the world, Hugo Chavez enters world history as a complete political leader, with the stature of the most humane and multi-faceted leader of our epoch: the Renaissance figure for the 21st century."
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Post by artemis on Mar 19, 2013 7:10:24 GMT -5
"Who Was Hugo Chavez?
The Venezuelan elite’s opposition to Chavez arose primarily out of his seizure of the nation’s oil industry. It previously controlled the country’s petroleum output, providing the United States with a cheap supply in return for a majority of the profits. Upon nationalizing oil, Chavez brought the nation’s indigenous population to nearly full literacy, paid poor housewives as workers, and provided free health care and education to the public. For this, he was bitterly accused of socialism, and his efforts to work with American presidents, beginning with Bill Clinton, were spurned.
This was because rich Venezuelans living in the United States were working with the American government to end Chavez’s rule. The wealthy wanted their silver spoons, and the American government wanted to control Venezuela’s economy. In April 2002, plans for a coup were realized. A street march against Chavez was directed to the presidential home and a firefight in which a number of people died was orchestrated by business and military leaders. Chavez himself was kidnapped and an unelected dictator was sworn in.
Within hours of the revolt however, word got out that the events leading up to it had been staged. Venezuela’s poor came down from their barrios on the hills and demanded the return of their president. Miraculously, the plotters surrendered, and Chavez was returned to his palace within 48 hours of the coup’s start.
Some time later, it came out that the Bush administration had for months been funding groups that were involved in the coup, just as the U.S. has done in democratic countries throughout Latin America since the middle of the 20th century. But this time, the effort to overthrow an elected leader failed. Nonetheless, Chavez lived as all such leaders do—with the knowledge that one of the world’s most powerful governments was working with some of his fellow citizens to bring an end to his rule and his life.
Of the impoverished Venezuelans’ decisive response to the coup, Chavez says in the film: “I have nothing left to do, especially after that, but dedicate all the life I have left to those people, and above all the most deprived, the poorest.”
Of Venezuela’s difficulties with the United States, one woman in the film said: “This isn’t just Chavez’s struggle, it’s our struggle. What Chavez has released is a recognition of this struggle, and we are in it together, and we’ll carry on fighting. So the empire’s struggle isn’t with Chavez, it’s with us.”
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Post by artemis on Mar 21, 2013 5:34:35 GMT -5
"Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution: Legacy and Challenges
The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has prompted the international left to acknowledge two key features about him and Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution.
The first is Chávez’s commitment to fighting for the poor and oppressed. Plenty of statistics demonstrate this. Literally millions have been lifted out of poverty and given new opportunities to improve their lives. Examples from daily life abound. I remember speaking to an upper class anti-Chavista once who was complaining about how, since Chávez came to power, it had become difficult to find maids. Many of the poor women she used to hire, she explained, had enrolled in a free education program provided by the government, one of the highly successful ‘missions.’
Another time, an empanada maker who lived with his son in the same 10-foot by six-foot stand he cooked out of told me how, since Chávez arrived, his community became emboldened to organize themselves into a cooperative with the mission of fighting the hotel and restaurant chains in the area, and create a community controlled tourist zone.
A second feature about the Bolivarian Revolution also cannot be elided: the political impasse in addressing corruption, bureaucracy, political clientalism and finding an alternate model of economic management. When workers organize to take over a factory (for example, Sidor in 2008), they have to fight not only the capitalist owners, but often also the local or provincial government (even at times Chavista ones). If they win the fight, workers then have to struggle with government supervision, which often seems more concerned with meeting technocratic goals, rather than developing a genuine participatory democracy in the workplace. And, as the latest round of currency devaluation shows, unless added measures are forthcoming, it is the poor who will bear the burden of reduced living standards (through inflation) for the problems of economic management without compensatory gains in increased workers’ power in workplaces (Lebowitz, 2013).
This top down tendency is also expressed in the area of foreign policy. When the ‘Arab Spring’ erupted, rather than supporting those struggling in the streets of Egypt and Syria, a one-dimensional anti-imperialism had Chávez aligning Venezuela with the oppressors, rather than siding with the poor and workers and against imperial interventions. There is also the alliances with the likes of Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that go beyond the necessities of finding support against Western imperialism and U.S. empire. Socialism in the 21st Century
However, hidden within these two opposing developments is a third, potentially more vital one. As a result of the Bolivarian Revolution, we can now begin to think of what in recent decades had become unthinkable, namely a socialism in the 21st century. In the 20th century, socialist politics predominantly took two forms. The first was the path taken by social democratic parties that sought social transformation by populating the state with reform-minded officials and proceeding to attempt to manipulate the economy from above through a variety of technocratic measures. At best, this would eliminate the worst abuses of capitalist markets. ‘Cast your vote and leave it to us’ was the technocratic message to the working classes.
A second strategy was some version of Lenin’s theory of dual power in which the exploited and oppressed were to build toward a counter power parallel to the capitalist state. At a decisive juncture, the old state would be ‘smashed’ and old rulers overthrown; the masses formed via a vanguard party would then replace the old state with a new one built in opposition to it, and buttressed by new organs of working-class power. A political elite in the vanguard party would then grab hold of the reins of this new state and lead the transition to a new society. Unfortunately, as the experiences of socialism across the 20th century tells us, both these paths failed. For they both insulated the masses from genuine democratic participation in the state. If the technocratic message was ‘leave it to us,’ the vanguard’s message ended up being ‘do as we say.’
Venezuela’s path, which has confused the majority of commentators, has been neither one of the above. It is both. Communities and workers have been organizing from below; and technocrats and bureaucrats have been passing laws from above. Each fights and cooperates with the other in an uneasy alliance. In a way, over the last decade Venezuela resembles the political theorist Nicos Poulantzas’ (1978) alternative to the above two paths, what he called a “democratic road to socialism,” where struggle for a transition necessarily has to take place through, against and apart from the state. Similarly, more contemporary thinkers (such as Ciccariello-Maher, 2007) have conceptualized this path as having features of dual power through, rather, than against the state.
This is not, however, all that is happening in Venezuela. If it were, all Venezuela would demonstrate is how it is not possible to take two seemingly incompatible paths at the same time; and that the forces of bureaucracy, because of their institutionalized power, are likely to win out over time in a lengthy battle of attrition. But Venezuela is also showing that something new is being created. Venezuela’s co-managed ‘socialist enterprises,’ an initiative Chávez was central in developing, perhaps best illustrate this point. Socialist Enterprises
In these relatively new enterprises, the class relation expresses itself most forcefully in the struggles between workers and state managers. Although at first it appears that this is the same old capital-worker relationship, but with a different name, upon closer inspection, something more complex is happening. Unlike workers in unions that tend to struggle for things like higher wages or labour rights, workers in these enterprises tend to struggle for things like equal wages, genuine democratic participation, and the elimination of a rigid social division of labour within the plant.[1] In other words, this is a more developed form of the class relation, a sharper form, one that Poulantzas was able to hint at, but was not quite able to fully articulate. Thus herein lies the importance of Venezuela. As workers struggle against managers in these state-owned enterprises, we begin to see a glimpse of what 21st-century socialism might look like. In other words, we get a glimpse of the future. In this future, it is new workplace relations centered on participatory democracy that stand on the side of progress, while it is the state that, paradoxically, becomes the guarantor of the class relation, and therefore the sight of the next rupture.
There is so much more to be learned from the Bolivarian Revolution. Here, I’ve only been able to barely scratch the surface. The communal councils, the struggle to build the new communes and communal cities, the experiences with participatory budgeting, the Bolivarian universities; all these and the many other innovations in Venezuela represent pieces of the revolutionary puzzle. A puzzle out of which a new future can be seen right here in the present. A puzzle that, as we are reminded of with his passing, Hugo Chávez played an important role in, opening up the political space and encouraging self-organization of the poor and workers. No revolution can be built by a single person or by decrees from above, no matter how well intentioned. Yet, at his best, Chávez, from the presidential palace, was like an activist in the streets: he told the truth, he risked his life and sung a song of hope. Hope for a better world. Indeed, for another world. Chávez, presente! Challenges Ahead
It is widely expected that Nicolás Maduro, now interim President of Venezuela, will win the upcoming Presidential elections on April 14. If elected President, he has promised to take up the five priorities set out by Chávez in his final strategic proposal, Plan de la Patria 2013-2019: multipolarity; national independence; Bolivarian socialism; environmentalism; and economic development.
What is far from clear, however, is how the contradictions evident in these five priorities can be reconciled by the existing state. For example, the priority to preserve the planet and save the human species (environmentalism), stands in sharp opposition to the government’s plan to further strengthen the extractive industries in the country, including natural gas, mining and the development of the Faja del Orinoco, which contains the world’s largest known reserves of heavy and extra heavy crude oil, or tar sands. The document does mention the need to develop new technology with low environmental impact, but no further details are provided.
In addition, the goal of deepening participatory democracy as the central mechanism behind ‘Bolivarian Socialism’ clashes with the goal of achieving national independence and ‘multipolarity,’ that is, a world with multiple poles of power that is free of imperialism. Although a worthy enough pursuit in theory, in practice, multipolarity has in some cases translated into open support for leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad, hardly models of participatory democracy and 21st-century socialism. It is worth mentioning that it was indeed Maduro, as Minister of foreign-policy, that played an important role in developing and maintaining these alliances.
In spite of these contradictions, the five priorities outlined also contain a path forward, namely that of strengthening the ‘popular economy.’ That is the building up of the constellation of organizations, such as cooperatives, co-managed enterprises and communal councils found throughout the country. It is these organizations that have the most potential for resolving the above-mentioned contradictions.
Consider Pedro Camejo, one of the co-managed ‘socialist enterprises’ located in the city of Carora. With its mission to contribute to the achievement of ‘food sovereignty’ in the country, this enterprise has been providing small and medium local farmers agricultural technology and technical assistance at below market price. As a result, agricultural production in the area has increased considerably in recent years. At the same time, workers within the enterprise have been learning new capacities, skills and values, such as collective management and solidarity, largely as the result of the practice of participatory democracy. In addition, the technology comes from PAUNY, one of Argentina’s ‘recuperated enterprises’ that builds tractors. As part of an agreement, workers from PAUNY traveled to Carora to train the Venezuelan workers and share their experiences in a spirit of international solidarity.
Although far from perfect, this one example does demonstrate how the five priorities outlined can be met in a more positive way. The challenge for militants within state agencies and institutions will be figuring out how to strengthen this sector of the economy without suffocating it with bureaucracy. The challenge for workers and communities will be to figure out how to enter these spaces while retaining enough autonomy so that struggles can be launched against the state when needed, as is frequently done. Indeed, workers and communities know something the state doesn’t, namely that participation within these new democratic spaces, although crucial, is only half the equation. The other half is continued organization and struggle from below.
It remains to be seen what direction a Maduro government will lean in the post-Chavez era. The impasse of the Bolivarian revolution over the last few years is about to be broken. The future is uncertain. But more than ever it is contingent on how the workers and poor that have been empowered by the Bolivarian revolution over the last decade organize and push toward the promise of a 21st century socialism. •
Manuel Larrabure is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science department at York University in Toronto, Canada. His research is on Latin America’s “new cooperative movement” and “21st-century socialism.” During 2013, he will be conducting fieldwork in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela."
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Post by artemis on Mar 25, 2013 16:17:05 GMT -5
"Political Assassinations: Chavez Knew US Special Services Were After Him
Hugo Chavez was not the man obsessed by the thought he was being followed and watched, that’s what the propaganda tried to make him look like. He was a politician who faced the reality and knew how hated he was in Washington for opposing the United States on all political or economic issues. He treated seriously the threats coming from presidents Bush and Obama, the State Department and the Pentagon.
He knew well the Western special services had a diverse arsenal of means to physically liquidate people… Fidel Castro shared his own experience, there had been over 600 assassination attempts to kill him committed by the CIA and US military intelligence. Even a limited number of documents declassified prove the special services went to any length, including snipers and poison, to do the job. Fidel accused him of being carefree and told him to watch around. He said new technology appeared, it was not safe to take the food one was offered. He told Chavez: «Chávez take care. These people [the Americans] have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat… a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what».
The President and the security service were concerned about massive Western propaganda than demonized Chavez, presenting him as a threat to “free worldâ€, religion, private property and traditional family values. Some people subject to systematic emotional effect become prone to committing terrorist acts. According to statistics, there had been dozens of assassination attempts against Chavez committed by deranged people coming armed to take part in meetings and demonstrations. Some law enforcement personnel fell victim to such impact. In February 2008 some National Guard officers were arrested accused of taking part in an assassination attempt. In September 2008 a group of servicemen was detained while preparing an attack with the use of grenade launchers against Air Force 1.
The US special services made the first attempts to have it over and done with Chavez in the days of the 1998 presidential campaign. A group of professional hitmen, hired by the CIA in Columbia and the Dominican Republic, followed the candidate during his campaign in out-of-the-way places of Venezuela. Snipers lying in ambush were seen near the places where the President made public speeches. After that, hunting terrorists trying to accomplish the mission to kill Chavez became a daily routine for Bolivarian security services. In May 2009 Frederic Laurent Bouquet, a Frenchman, and three Dominicans were detained. There were sniper rifles, machine guns, grenades and a kilogram of explosives found in the apartment. The group was tasked with Chavez assassination, According to Venezuelan Internal Affairs Minister Tarek El – Aissami, Bouquet was a military on active service in the armed forces of one of European countries. According to Internet leaks, the US services arranged to send the French military intelligence officer to Venezuela.
The victory of Chavez at the 2012 presidential election was inevitable. Accordingly, in the period 2009-beginning of 2010 the mission of eliminating Chavez was on the US intelligence community’s priority list. The traditional methods, for instance, murders committed by deranged persons, aircraft crashes and the like, were off the table. Using well known poisons were out of the question too. There had been too many cases the Latin American leaders were neutralized this way. A bullet, an aircraft crash or poison would indicate who stood behind the action.
So, contamination leading to an incurable decease was chosen as the way to do the job. It was technically possible. José Vicente Rangel wrote in the article Cancer Inoculated published in the 03.17.13 edition of Ultimas Noticias newspaper that the experiments on creating cancerous growth had been conducted in the US for no less that forty years. The laboratories situated in Fort Detrick, Maryland, conduct clandestine research on biological arms; the National Cancer Institute is situated there too. The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research functioning under the CIA and the Pentagon supervision is an example.
As the Internet sources report, a special virus cancer program has been successfully fulfilled there. The cancer virus gets into blood and lymph. Access to DNA makes the virus personalized and more effective. It brings to mind a WikiLeaks post –the document with State Department instructions to the US embassy in Paraguay to stealthily get DNA of the four candidates for presidency. It mentioned all four on purpose to cover the one who was of real interest – the left wing forces candidate Fernando Lugo, a potential ally of Hugo Chavez, who supported the idea of creating “an axis of populist states†on the continent. Two years after the election, Lugo fell ill of lymphatic cancer, a less dangerous form of the decease. He had to go for cure to Brazil, while Vice-President Federico Franco, the favorite son of the CIA and the State Department, ruled the country.
The Latin American cancer epidemic spread around striking left-wing presidents, the fact couldn’t go unnoticed. Fernando Lugo, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Dilma Rouseff, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner were given this diagnosis –they received the Black Spot, the warning that it is not safe to oppose the US interests on the international scene. The death of Hugo Chavez demonstrated the implications that may follow. For someone who is not convinced the US is involved in cleansing trying to get rid of unfriendly leaders, suffice it to recall the fate of many influential politicians in many regions of strategic importance. The punitive actions are not over. They swoop on Syria, Iran and Pakistan are next. Then it’ll be the turn of BRICS members, the US will do its best to prevent it from becoming an international powerful force of the XXI century.
Chavez warned about it. He always called a spade a spade. For him, the United States was “an evil empireâ€, an aggressor, a terrorist state constantly waging wars to conquer the territories rich in resources… He called upon his colleagues in Latin America and the Caribbean basin to create alliances with teeth to counter the US policy. He paid dearly for it. The leadership of Venezuela and the leading Latin America leaders, who were friendly with Chavez, don’t believe he died for natural causes. The guesses it was a special operation are voiced more and more often. On the day of Chavez’s death, Vice President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said in an address to the nation that “there’s no doubt that Commandante Chavez’s health came under attack by the enemy.†He said there was solid ground for launching an investigation.
According to him, “We have not a single doubt and at the proper moment we will convene a medical board to confirm that Chavez was attacked.†He linked Chavez’s case with that of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, whose death, Maduro said, was caused by poisoning by the Israelis. According to the findings of laboratory research conducted at the Institute de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, Arafat was poisoned by polonium – 210. Nicolas Maduro said Chavez was taken tissue samples to make a diagnosis. The Patient’s name undisclosed, the samples were sent to Brazil, China, Russia and even the USA. The reply was the same, the cancer cells have special features, like unusual intensiveness of propagation and multiplication never encountered before in medical practice.
According to Maduro, a special investigation commission tasked to comprehensively review the details of Chavez demise will be created after the election on April 14. The news came the Bolivarian government plans to pay a million dollars reward to those who will help to make precise the circumstances and concrete perpetrators of the crime – the murder of President Chavez."
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Post by emerald on Feb 6, 2019 10:36:05 GMT -5
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