Viva Chavez
by Mike Whitney - Information Clearing House"
"We are facing the threat of global challenges stemming from the genocidal, immoral, sick, and corrupt elite currently governing the United States, which appear to have no limits"
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chavez is a self-made man. He wasn’t piggy-backed into Harvard on a
legacy grant (Affirmative Action for plutocrats) or shoehorned into the White House
by corporate gangsters. He grew up in a two-room thatched palm-leaf house with his
five siblings and dreamt of moving to New York to play baseball for the Yankees. At
age 18 he chose to make the most of his meager opportunities by enlisting in the
military.
For 17 years, Chavez served his country; gradually moving up the chain of command to
lieutenant colonel. Unlike his American counterpart, GW Bush, Chavez never went AWOL
during wartime or stumbled through years of idle profligacy peering at the world
through beer-goggles.
While Bush was busy driving three consecutive companies into insolvency and
fattening his bank account with the loot from insider-trading scams, Chavez was
putting together the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement; a leftist political
organization which promoted redistribution and civil rights.
Chavez was lifted to the presidency on the backs of peasants and working-class
people while Bush was selected by 5 venal judges who repealed the democratic process
and suspended the counting of ballots.
The differences between the two men go on and on. It is an interesting study in
contrasts and one that is particularly relevant to the deteriorating state of world
affairs. So far, Bush’s views have carried the day; the global superpower is
free to act unilaterally and without concern for either international law or basic
standards of decency.
Chavez, however, has presented a competing vision of global integration, collective
action, and participatory democracy. His world-view is clearly ascendant.
"Capitalism is barbarism," Chavez says; a point that is persuasively driven home in
the daily accounts of butchery in Iraq, Afghanistan or Haiti. In Bush-world the
mounting death toll is simply the price of opening new markets like the cheerful
ringing of a cash register. Its no wonder the system is collapsing all around
him.
Chavez has taken the lead in denouncing Bush and the system that supports him:
"For the horror it has created around the world in the last century, the United
States’ war machine should be dismantled. It is a threat against all of
mankind, particularly against our children."
He has wisely taken aim at Bush, an indigent patrician without any identifiable
qualifications, as the foremost symbol of a system run amok:
"The worst genocidal leader in the history of humanity is the President of the
United States. Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W Bush… He
is a terrorist, a drunkard, and a donkey".
The stark contrast of the two men’s personalities has been a boon to Chavez.
Even the feeble attacks by the media have only enhanced his popularity and
strengthened his case for socialism:
"This model, the so called American way of life, the extreme capitalism, is not
sustainable, life on this planet will come to an end if we continue down this road,
that is why we are motivated to seek socialism and abandon capitalism, the
individualism, the selfish consumerism, the so called destructive development that is
destroying this planet, we are all in danger, and not so much us, our children and
grandchildren."
Chavez has been a thumb in the eye of the Bush Empire. His criticism of
America’s duplicitous foreign policy resonates with poor and working class
people alike.
Presently, he is meeting with leaders of Libya and Algeria (supposedly) to discuss
"increased cooperation on oil production" and to develop "social programs for the
poor based on oil revenues". Chavez has initiated similar programs at home, but he is
using his increased visibility to publicly denounce Bush and American foreign
policy:
"We are against America, the imperialist. We don’t accept its hegemony. The
whole world should unite against America."
Chavez’s trip comes at a time when there are renewed fears of an attack on
Iran. Could it be that the Venezuelan president is actually working behind the scenes
to stem the flow of oil if Iran is bombed? Or, maybe he is orchestrating a "run on
the dollar" (transfer to euros) which Russia and Venezuela have already threatened?
Whatever the plan, he has vehemently condemned the administration’s hostility
to Iran while other nations continue to cringe.
"The world needs to do everything possible to avoid the madness of a military attack
against Iran. We call upon the government of the United States to halt its
warmongering, which will throw the world into an abyss of more wars, more terrorism,
more death, and more desolation. Europe has a very important role to play in this,
and instead of supporting this war, it should help to stop it."
Chavez has been equally blunt in his criticism of the war in Iraq. In an interview
with British Channel 4 he was asked what he would do if he was living in occupied
Iraq. Chavez answered:
"If I was an Iraqi I would be resisting. I would be in the trenches; I would have a
rocket-launcher; I would be defending the holy sovereignty of my country against the
abuses and oppression of the empire."
His sense of moral clarity is a reprieve from the evasive gibberish of other world
leaders who try to soften their rhetoric so they don’t offend Washington.
In the same interview Chavez was asked (disdainfully) why people outside of his
country "think he is crazy"?
Chavez responded, "If those people think I’m crazy, well, God forgive them,
because they are victims of a media campaign. I am just a human being like you; no
more, no less. But, I am totally devoted to this cause of equality and justice to see
if we can save this planet….The great crazy guy is in Washington, not
here."
Chavez is slowly transforming Venezuelan politics and making significant headway in
areas of redistribution and social welfare. The country’s 25 million people now
have full access to free health care and illiteracy has been eliminated. Government
programs now provide15 million people with subsidized food, medicine and other
essentials. Medical clinics have sprung up in every barrio in Caracas and college
enrollment has increased exponentially.
Chavez has created a model of governance that is based on human needs rather than
rigid ideology. This has made it more difficult to discredit him as dogmatic or
authoritarian. His policies of income redistribution have created a burgeoning
Venezuelan middle class which is changing the political dynamic throughout Latin
America. He has become Washington’s "biggest nightmare" and a threat to
America’s economic dominance in the region.
"Let's consider socialism," Chavez said. "Let's debate it and build it. I believe
that mistakes were in the economic analysis, and there should be social praxis. 21st
century socialism should be based on solid human values."
No one has done more to reenergize the Left than Hugo Chavez. He has become the face
of anti-imperialism and the champion of progressive socialism. His views on
education, poverty-reduction, social justice, and the equitable distribution of oil
revenues are sweeping the hemisphere; brushing aside centuries of colonialism.
The politics of personal accumulation and perennial war are on the decline. Nothing
can stop an idea whose time has come. As Chavez says, "We must embrace a new type of
socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans, not machines and not the state, above
everything".
This century’s Enlightenment is coming from south of the border.
Viva Chavez.
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