Lula: Maduro as President is the Venezuela Chavez had dreamed

[reorg]

Caracas, 02 Abr. AVN.- Socialist leader and former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that counting on Nicolas Maduro as president is achieving "the Venezuela Chavez had dreamed."

Lula sent a message to the Venezuelan people expressing that the current socialist candidate for Venezuela's presidential elections will carry out the goals set by the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chavez.

"Chavez and Maduro had the same conceptions concerning the challenges that Venezuela would face to defend the poor," said Lula in a video played in the extraordinary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Sao Paulo Forum, held in Caracas last Monday night.

Emphasizing that the decision of electing a new president falls to the Venezuelan people, Lula stressed however that "I can not leave aside my thoughts on behalf of the future of these people that are so dear to the Brazilian people."

http://www.avn.info.ve/node/164086

[idwiyo]

1. K&R

[ocpagu]

2. Thank you a lot for sharing the video!

Translation:

"My dear friends.

I was one of Chávez greatest friends and we fought together in favor of the oppressed people of Latin America. During this fight, I met Nicolás Maduro, who surprised me since the start for his competence, for the love for his people and, most of all, for the great affinity with the thoughts of President Chávez. In particular, with the defense of the poorest.

I do not intend to interfere in the domestic affairs of Venezuela, but I could not abstain of sharing my honest account. Maduro as President is the Venezuela Chávez dreamed of."

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thank you so much for the translation.

It's wonderful hearing his words again. Very thoughtful to provide a closer look for those of us who don't speak Portuguese.

This is so very good.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Good grief, he looks amazing without his beard, too! Stunning to see him again.

This is a tremendous idea, speaking to the public about his belief both in Chavez, since the right-wing has tried so hard to pretend he didn't approve of Chavez, had far different views, was the "good" leftist while Chavez was a loser, etc., etc.

It's damned good to see he made a point of giving his view, and his belief in Maduro, as well.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

5. I know nuance is completely lost on you, but I will nevertheless make my point,

and then get out of here.
My point:

Chávez, a bellicose former military officer, chose a confrontational style his supporters say was necessary to combat the oligarchies that had long mismanaged a state that had no right to be poor given its massive oil reserves.

Lula, meanwhile, adopted a more conciliatory style that was in keeping with his history as a union negotiator.

“Being a trade union leader you pressure and you go on strike but eventually you’re drawn to the bargaining table and that was very much Lula’s style and that is very different than Chávez,” says Dr. Munck. “Both come from humble backgrounds. So they share something in terms of background but their trajectory and training account for their different political styles.”

Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/0307/Chavez-vs-Lula-Two-distinct-approaches-to-poverty-reduction-in-Latin-America

This is the point I made on other forums many many years ago: Chavez would wind up being autocratic and radical, Lula would wind up being a normal politician, because Lula came from a background where you make demands but eventually end up bargaining, whereas Chavez was a military man.
I don't like military men, and I don't like autocrats. Chavez had a choice as to how to go about getting to where he wound up. He chose the path familiar to him. As the article also points out, it was probably necessary to be much more confrontational in Venezuela since it was a much more polarized place to begin with.
To explain that economically, as I have before: Venezuela is a supply region. It depends entirely on oil to fund itself. That means whoever controls the oil has the power.
He had it in his power to change that, and he didn't. As I have also noted (nuance again: warning) he obviously wasn't an actual dictator like Castro. The model that explains him is more like the PRI in Mexico in the old days, and his legacy will be the same: corruption, stagnation, and a de facto single party state that will slowly decay until, a generation from now, we'll be looking at the same thing as happened in Mexico a generation after the PRI gained its de facto (not de jure, like the Communist party in Cuba, note the nuance) monopoly on power: riots with the left breaking off, as it did in Mexico.
Also, he was personally corrupt, as was and is his family. All the jumping up and down and faux outrage you can muster up won't change that simple fact.

[ocpagu]

6. Lula had to make concessions to achieve governability...

... because there was no other way he could stay in power and make changes. The left wing in Brazil does not have the majority either in the Federal Senate or the Chamber of Deputies. He would get impeached at some point (as Lugo was in Paraguay), and early, if he did not move his electoral platform to center-left to achieve an heterodox majority. Actually, after making concessions, the right wing still plotted to get him impeached. Venezuela does not have this problem as they have majority in the Executive and the Legislative. The left in Brazil only has the Executive, the Justice is biased to the right and the Congress is not trustable. So this is the reason why it's more moderate than Venezuela. Structural changes proposed by the government are oftenly blocked by the Congress, the last one happened some weeks ago with Dilma's proposal of using oil profit to fund public education.

Lula was threatened, attacked, harassed and slandered from beginning to end by local media. The largest magazine in the country refers to him as "O Apedeuta" ("The Illiterate&quot , instead of president". He was oftenly labeled as an autocrat himself, and even called a dictator. He was accused of being racist, of rape, of murder, of pedophily, of forcing a woman to make an abortion. It's a hate campaign.

The foreign press treated him with a minimum of respect because they needed a counterpoint to Chávez. If there was no need for that, the foreign press would probably be echoing Brazilian press. At the beginning of his first term, New York Times tried to portray him as having drinking problems.

Lula said that, "in the future, historians will have to read foreign newspapers to understand current day Brazil", since the press was clearly distorting reality on a daily basis.

I so far ignore any proofs that Chávez or his family are corrupted, I can't understand how winning fair and clean and elections moving his country to direct democracy turns him into an autocrat.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

7. Good points. Thanks.

[Judi Lynn]

9. I recall the opposition's attempt to claim Lula had racial prejuidice against people with blue eyes!

I also remember their group episode in trying to label him an alcoholic! Both those dirty smears did make it as far as English-speaking newspapers.

Truly filthy behavior, exactly the conduct you learned to expect long ago from the right. If it weren't for hatred, and a total lack of conscience, these people would have no qualities at all. They'd be completely blank. Nothing about them comes through on the positive side, never will.

Thank you for your illuminating comments. Had no idea of these other things, all so damned ugly, whatsoever.

[ocpagu]

22. Yes, they did that!

Nevermind the fact that Mrs. Marisa is blonde and light-eyed.



NYT reporter Larry Rohter was asked to leave the country because of an article "offensive to the honour of the president", but the government backed because the press started screaming that Brazil had become a communist dictatorship.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x552365

[Peace Patriot]

10. Rec x 1,000! (if I could)

"...I can't understand how winning fair and clean and elections moving his country to direct democracy turns (Chavez) into an autocrat." --ocpagu

And thanks for the analysis of Brazilian politics (and its corporate media)! Lula was very courageous in his solidarity with Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, given the attacks on Lula in Brazil. He is one very, very smart leader, in his understanding of U.S./corporate "divide and conquer" tactics in Latin America, and his and Chavez's eyes were on the REGION and its general political/economic health. And he was in a position to know, very well, how democratic and inclusive Chavez was. He said, of Chavez, "They can invent all kinds of things to criticize Chavez but not on democracy!"

That is the truth. You can argue about Chavez's level of socialism, his personal style or the problems he didn't solve (versus the many he DID), or you can criticize him with deliberate falseness, like the fascists and the corporatists do, but there is no answer--except baldfaced lying--to Jimmy Carter's recent statement that Venezuela has "the best election system in the world," nor to the facts about public participation, voter turnouts, inclusion of previously excluded groups (women, African-Venezuelans, the indigenous and the poor in general), vast improvements in human and civil rights, public access to the public airwaves, and other democracy indicators in Venezuela.

Of course, we DO see a lot of baldfaced lying--truly mind-boggling lies--in all Corporate Media about these things, but Lula neither believed them nor pandered to them, and for his very public stance on this--his defense of Venezuela's democracy--at many critical points over the last decade, he truly deserves a hero's wreath and the thanks of the Venezuelan people--and of all of us who seek the truth.

[ocpagu]

23. I totally agree with you, and your former analysis on this issue too.

He didn't mind for media trollage, indeed. He said he stopped reading Brazilian magazines and newspapers and was getting informations from other sources. When the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo asked him why he didn't read newspapers he said "because it gives me heartburn. Brazilian press has a historical behavior toward me". And then recommended people to start searching for information elsewhere.

And it's not only toward him. Our first progressist president killed himself after a devastating smear campaing against him organized by the press. The other two were murdered. It's a "historical behavior" they have, indeed. They just can not accept a metal worker, a man from working class, has been the best president in the history of this country. The same arguments, the same talking points used to take Vargas out of power, the same arguments used against Kubitschek, the same arguments used to depose Jango in 64.

He knew what Chávez was going through. They didn't agree in everything (Lula is more idealist than realist, I sometimes believe), but he agreed with Chávez in everything that was essencial, and above all he completely agreed with the legitimacy of the Venezuelan democracy.

[joshcryer]

15. I don't think Chavez or his family was corrupt at all.

I think Chavez allowed corrupt individuals in his midst because by ousting the corrupt individuals would result in problems. The boligarchs instantly come to mind. Wilmer Ruperti, Arturo Sarmiento, Alberto Cudemus, Gustavo Cisneros, Jesse Chacon Escamillo, Pedro Torres Ciliberto and others.

There are exceptions, such as Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, who was arrested, but I think that is because he was involved in banking and not trade, so he wasn't particularly important to the revolution, and could fall rather easily. The other two involved in the scandal, Arne Chacon Escamillo, Pedro Torres Ciliberto walked free. And I'd bet money that Ricardo isn't in a run of the mill prison and may be under house arrest if not walking free.

So, you go after the corrupt boligarchs, the people behind the Aben Perl $700 million theft, the people behind the Fonden appropriations of failing mills and factories (which paid off millionaires who let their businesses crumble), what happens? Your ability to import goods falls dramatically, your ability to export oil, likewise, is crushed (Wilmer Ruperti is responsible for a huge chunk of oil exports, and his pockets are lined thusly; arrest him and his higher up managers for corruption, you have to start over, and that is quite a painful thing to do, it could set the country back worse than the strikes).

[bemildred]

8. I expect that Lula's statement above was intended precisely to refute the drivel you have posted.

Why should I listen to what CSM says about Lula when I can read what Lula himself says?

Right up there.

Lula refused to run for re-election as a Congressman in 1990, busying himself with expanding the Workers' Party organizations around the country. As the political scene in the 1990s came under the sway of the Brazilian real monetary stabilization plan, which ended decades of rampant inflation, former Minister of Finance Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB)) defeated Lula in 1994 and again, by an even wider margin, in 1998.

Before winning the presidency in 2002, Lula had been a strident union organizer known for his bushy beard and Che Guevara t-shirts.[17] In the 2002 campaign, Lula foreswore both his informal clothing style and his platform plank of linking the payment of Brazil's foreign debt to a prior thorough audit. This last point had worried economists, businessmen and banks, who feared that even a partial Brazilian default along with the existing Argentine default would have a massive ripple effect through the world economy. Embracing political consultant Duda Mendonça's advice to pursue a more media-friendly image, Lula became president after winning the second round of the 2002 election, held on 27 October, defeating the PSDB candidate José Serra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luiz_In%C3%A1cio_Lula_da_Silva#Political_career

So basically, this is all media bullshit they came up with to help get him elected.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

11. Your last sentence,

and this:

Lula foreswore both his informal clothing style and his platform plank of linking the payment of Brazil's foreign debt to a prior thorough audit

were precisely my point. Thanks for posting that.
Think about it.

[bemildred]

12. He compromised to get elected?

That's your point?

[bemildred]

13. To be clear:

If the point is that Lula compromised to get elected, then it is easy to demonstrate that Chavez did too, and more often and with greater success.

If the point is that Chavez was more belligerent and therefore less successful, the premise works but the conclusion fails, it is Chavez who was more successful, in terms of working his will, and his "belligerence" had a lot to do with that success.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

14. I'll make this simple

because, like jazz, this is one of those things you either get or you don't, so I can't see why I should have to go into a long explanation .

Brazil is a complete, well-rounded economy. Any leader there will, economically, be faced with only one problem: how to distribute the fruits of the people's labor. In that kind of environment, compromise works best.
Venezuela, as I keep pointing out to no one, it seems, since no one cares, is a single-product economy: oil. No one buys anything else from Venezuela. No one cares Venezuela exists except for that one thing: oil. In that kind of environment, bellicosity works best, because you are faced with a single, monolithic interest: the folks who own the rights to that oil. They aren't going to give that up with out a fight.
So, I am not surprised that out of that environment you'd get a Chavez. But Chavez had two things to address, not one: how to distribute the fruits of the people's labor, AND how to get Venezuela to diversify so that the world would buy more than just oil from it.
He succeeded in the first. He failed miserably in the second. If anything, Venezuela is now MORE dependent on oil earnings than it was before he got there. He also, personally, made sure that he - and his family - got access to the riches that oil produces. So, my criticism of him, which is not for the naive folks who inhabit this place, it seems, is very simple: he wasn't interested in developing Venezuela away from its dependence on oil because his real objective was to get some for himself. Not being one of the previously existing elite, he figured out the best way to do that was to use the people as a bludgeon to get it (once his attempt at using the army for that purpose failed, of course). As a side effect, he helped them out considerably. I have no problem with that. But he did nothing for the long run good of that country. A generation from now there will be a revolt against his party's monopoly on power. This is Mexico's history being repeated, for no reason other than Chavez's personal greed.

[naaman fletcher]

16. Great post. Nt

[joshcryer]

17. The Venezuelan constitution demands economic and agricultural self-sufficiency.

Which is why I am most critical of chavismo because it completely ignored that aspect of socialism. If you are to be socialist, you cannot be an cash crop economy. It's inherently dependent on globalization and inherently incapable of being actually socialist.

As far as "Chavez's personal greed," I don't buy it. I think that Chavez was stuck in a rough place after having to oust all of the PDVSA workers. The only people able to keep the country going were rich monopolists, later to be known as "boligarchs." He couldn't get rid of them too because the connections weren't there. I mean, in theory he could have, but it would've been painful. So he allowed guys like Wilmer Ruperti to "be patriots" and fill the void that existed. Nevermind that this action made Wilmer Ruperti the wealthiest person in Venezuela.

This is where it gets disgusting. If you feign loyalty you are allowed in, and if you're corrupt, you can get away with it because cleaning house will be painful and difficult and would be a slight upon the revolution. You can't have the image that you have corrupt individuals working for you, you can't have the image that billionaire oligarchs are running the show in the background. Sure, like Chavez, you can mention them in passing, lament their existence because you'd be a liar to do otherwise, but to actually clean house would be very difficult.

[bemildred]

18. Thanks, if that is simple, I'll definitely skip the complicated version.

And you are leaving out Uncle Sugar, who is the most important figure in the picture, even Uncle Sugar thinks so.

And talking down to me like I'm some sort of ignorant moron doesn't help your argument either.

Nor does what Lula has to say up there.

And Venezuela is very unlike Mexico, I hardly know where to begin. I mean they speak Spanish too, and they have oil, but that's about it.

[bemildred]

19. Am I now to understand that "He compromised to win" is not precisely your point?

That other post up there?

And it seems to me you just admitted that Chavez had a more difficult job, two things to do, but only did half of it, the easy part that Lula did too, redistribution, but he didn't finish the hard part about diversifying the economy which Lula supposedly didn't have to worry about?

[Benton D Struckcheon]

20. Lula did because he had to in his situation.

Chavez didn't given what he was facing, which isn't a bad thing necessarily; each situation is unique, and you do what you have to. "Finish the hard part" is not what I said: he didn't even start. He wasn't interested. 95% of their export earnings are from oil. That ain't good.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

21. Re Mexico

If you read what I actually said, it's that he made their political system like Mexico's was in the bad old days when the PRI had a monopoly on power. Actually worse; at least there a President was limited to one six year term, and still is, which at least puts some limit on their power. No such limit now exists in Venezuela, courtesy of Chavez.