The UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) recently declared Venezuela "THE most equal country in Latin America." Numerous polls indicate that the vast majority of Venezuelans like equality--good wages and benefits, high employment rates, excellent economic growth rates (5% to 10% over the last decade), universal health care, good nutrition and infant mortality rates, greatly improved access to education, use of the oil profits for social programs, and--not often mentioned--access to credit and to friendly and strongly regulated banks, fair taxation, government loans and grants to co-operative enterprises, government support for community-oriented and community-chosen development projects, and government promotion of public participation and inclusiveness.
Venezuelans approve of these policies in opinion polls and in the most important polls of all--elections. And they have, according to Jimmy Carter, "the best election system in the world." They recently re-elected the Chavez government by a 10% margin and threw out most of the rightwing governors, in the by-election following the presidential election.
All of this has been independently established, by UN agencies, by the Millennium Project, by every election monitoring group in the world, by independent pollsters, by numerous studies dealing in hard facts and by Venezuelan voters themselves in their choices of political leaders.
So, it doesn't matter in the least that Mark Weisbrot has advised the Bank of the South, or the Venezuelan government or anyone else. His articles are fact-based, REALITY-BASED, well-researched and well-written, and are infinitely more reliable than the so-called 'news' articles in the stupid-making corporate media (including the New York Slimes, which is guilty of egregious, slimy, 1%-er propaganda on the Latin American Left and especially on Chavez/Venezuela, fully as bad as Faux News and the Miami Hairball). (Note: The Slimes are cleverer than the others, in allowing a RARE column on the editorial page, by Mark Weisbrot--while publishing utter crap about these subjects elsewhere in their pages, including their 'news' pages, in what can only be described as a CIA-style campaign against the Latin American Left--a campaign of lies, distortion, disinformation and black holes where information should be.)
Speaking of campaigns: Our anti-Venezuelan, rightwing DU-ers apparently see an opportunity, in Chavez's illness and possible disablement or death, to trot out all of their FAILED rightwing "talking points" ONCE AGAIN, in the hope that Venezuelans can somehow be convinced to reject their own "New Deal" in the coming months, should a special election occur. In this, they may help the CIA stir up whatever trouble they can manage in a period of uncertainty and transition in one of their top target countries. They have failed, time and again, to destabilize Venezuela. Despite millions (and who really knows? perhaps billions) of our tax dollars (certainly billions in LatAm overall, not to mention the Pentagon's "Southern Command" budget) thrown into rightwing causes in Venezuela, in particular, and despite non-stop propaganda from the corporate media, here and there, they have failed to shake Venezuela's democracy and have failed to stop the historic and highly successful leftist democracy movement that Venezuelans helped to inspire.
They have built up a phantom--their bogeyman Chavez--and now they hope to knock him down, and, with him, the hopes, dreams and amazing accomplishments of the people of Venezuela and the people of allied countries, such as Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Nicaragua, who seek a fair and just society and sovereignty (control of their own affairs; no more bloody interference by the U.S. and its transglobal corporate rulers and war profiteers).
Notice how the usual suspects pile on Mark Weisbrot, above--as if his advocacy for fairness and justice in Latin America, and for sovereignty and REAL democracy in Latin America, somehow disqualifies him from citing facts and mentioning reality. His articles are one of the FEW sources that help to explain WHY Venezuelans have voted for the Chavez government time and again, by big majorities, in an election system that is far, FAR more honest and transparent than our own. This is what the corporate press, the CIA and rightwing propagandists DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW. It is the "black hole" in all the corporate, so-called 'news' articles about Venezuela--WHY Venezuelans support the Chavez government.
And the information in Weisbrot's article is key to what will likely happen next, in Venezuela--a fairly smooth transition from one "New Deal" president (Chavez) to the next (his VP, Nicholas Maduro), much like the transition from FDR to Harry Truman. It took transglobal corporations, banksters and war profiteers more than half a century to undo OUR "New Deal." It will take more than Chavez's death to undo Venezuela's, because it is DEEPLY ROOTED in both public participation (real democracy) and success (benefits to the people and the country--also to allied peoples and countries).
Yes, the U.S. has chipped away at the leftist democracy revolution in Latin America (Honduras, Paraguay) and all the billions in our tax dollars for the corrupt, murderous, failed "war on drugs" have had an impact, often quite terrible (Colombia, Honduras, Mexico) as to lives lost, social mayhem and the inability of the affected populations to achieve social justice and real democracy. But the counter-movement remains very strong, indeed. The counter-movement's successes--as to prosperity, sharing prosperity and political and social inclusiveness--are palpable--are undeniable--and, in my opinion, are not reversible, or will not be easily reversible.
Of course, the U.S., and its corporate rulers and war profiteers, and local fascists, will keep trying. They are no doubt peeing in their pants with glee that Chavez may be dying. They can't wait to dance on his grave. But everything they have lied about to this point--WHY Venezuelans support Chavez, THAT Venezuelans are active participants in their own "New Deal," WHY other peoples and leaders around Latin America support and have allied themselves with the Chavez government--all of this strongly militates against them getting their wish: no more "New Deals" for anybody in the world.
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