The lies being told about Hugo Chavez

[Briar]

The lies being told about Hugo Chavez

In his presidency, the proportion of Venezuela's GDP in the private sector has actually increased

Johann Hari

After the landslide victory comes the landslide of lies. Last week, Hugo Chavez was re-elected as President of Venezuela with 63 per cent of the vote - in an election declared "totally free and fair" by the international legal monitors, in a country where almost all of the media militantly opposes him.

I know the reason why. Her name is Maria Gonzalez. She is a lined, stooped 60 year-old grandmother I stumbled across last year in Barrio Neuva Tacagua, a fetid slum made of tin and mud in the high hills around Caracas. Maria grew up in a Venezuela that was dripping in oil wealth - but she never went to school and she never saw a doctor, because the country's petro-profits surged only into the bank accounts of the country's 25 richest families. Like the vast majority of Venezuelans, she was left to live and die in makeshift rust-and-cardboard shacks.

The day I met her, Maria wrote her name - in shaky handwriting, on a blackboard - for the first time in her life. Since Hugo Chavez was first elected, in another free and open election in 1998, Maria's world has begun to change. The new President began to use the country's oil wealth to build clinics where Maria could be treated free of charge, to subsidise food prices for the 70 per cent of Venezuelans who, like her, live in grinding, binding poverty, and to establish mass literacy programmes to teach his country - and a million Marias - how to read.

But somehow, somewhere in-between Maria's Venezuela and the newspapers and television screens of the US and Britain, Chavez undergoes a strange transformation. He ceases to be the most popular leader in the democratic world, and instead morphs into "a grotesque dictator", "like Hitler, Stalin or Mao".

For why that is read on at:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article
2064733.ece

[The Magistrate]

1. Indeed, Ma'am

The question of Col. Chavez and his rule of Venezuela has several distinct components as an issue, and it seems to me wise to seperate these out when people here take stands in this matter.

One element is that of the domestic politics of the United States itself. There remains something of a hang-over among the people of our country from the Cold War, that inclines a great many to a dislike of foreign leftists, as these would have been in those days certainly enough allies sooner or later of the Soviets. The number of people readily moved in this direction is larger than the number readily moved to support of such figures, and therefore it does not bother me much if a Democratic Party politician makes occassional noises of distancing or even denunciation of Col. Chavez: that is how the game is played. The issue really has very little impact on U.S. politics, so it is a cheap way to gain some armor against standard rightist attack lines. Nor does it bother me that a Democrat does not share my views on the matter, but views Col. Chavez with disfavor: my view is that such persons are in their hearts un-reconstructed Cold War sorts, and being myself someone who viewed the Soviets as well worth fighting, this strikes me as perfectly understandable. But it is a fact that the Cold War is over. The rise of a left government, even a radical left government, in some other land is not today an added increment of power and global influence to the Soviet Union. This removes, in my view, any real legitimate interest of the United States in the matter: even if one opposes such governments on principle, the over-riding American principle that people get to hie themselves to Hell by the conveyance and route of their own choice seems to me to supercede in such a matter. Put bluntly, it simply is not our business what political choices other countries make, or what political developments they acquiesce in, providing these do not pose a real threat of violence against our country.

One element is that of whether the rule and programs of Col. Chavez are good for the people of Venezuela or not, or popular with the people of Venezuela or not. It seems to me that the answer is yes on both counts. Venezuela is a country that has long been afflicted with grotesque disparities of wealth, with a great majority of its people mired in circumstances that offer no prospect of anything hard work in life-long poverty. There is no doubt that Col. Chavez has in some small but measureable degree improved the condition of this poverty-mired mass of his country's people. Both diet and education among the poor of Venezuela have improved under his rule, and there is every prospect this will continue. It is abundantly clear that he enjoys the deep allegiance of the greatest proportion of Venezuela's people, by every available measure from the loyalty of conscripts in the armed forces durng an attempted coup against him to the total of votes in his various campaigns for office. Even if one were to accept for purposes of arguement a characterization of him as a dictator, it could still not be denied that he is a very popular dictator, and it is an interesting point for debate whether a genuinely and widely popular dictator is in fact an anti-democratic phenomenon: if one accepts as a base definition of democracy that the will of the majority of the people is the animating element of their government, an excellent case could be made that such a dictator is not an anti-democratic figure, though he might not be the best possible expression of democracy.

One element is the actual state of political and social affairs in Venezuela. There is no doubt that Col. Chavez is a revoutionist, and that the alterations he seeks to make in Venezuela's social and economic life are revolutionary ones. Where-ever there is revolution, there will be counter-revolution, for revolution cannot be made to the of the benefit of some without stripping existing advantage from others, and these latter naturally will resist losing advantages they possess, and owing to these very advantages, they will be well placed to make effective resistance in their own interest. It is, therefore, a mistake to read political events in Venezuela today as if they were about the same thing as, say, a parliamentary election in Europe, or the next Presidential cycle in the United States. They have no more similarity to these things than negotiations by diplomats have to combat on a battlefield. That both the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionaries in Venezuela are conducting themselves in an unusually civil fashion, so that the process has been a largely bloodless one over the past several years, should not blind any observer to the fact that it is indeed a revolutionary struggle, and both sides are pressing it with full awareness that is what it is. Either the revolution will prevail, and the old order be overthrown to be remade into something the mass of Venezuela's disadvantaged desire, or the counter-revolution will prevail, and the old order be re-imposed in a manner removing any potential threat to the priviliges and prerogatives of the small slice of persons that has traditionally held the reins, and reaped the profits, of its economic structure.

"Revolution is not a tea party."

[Peace Patriot]

3. A revolution by democratic means is not a revolution. It is DEMOCRACY.

Chavez speaks of revolution, but he is not all that revolutionary. He is not confiscating anybody's jaguars. In fact, his government recently put the kabosh on a plan by the mayor of Caracas to confiscate two country clubs/golf courses for low cost housing, because the Venezuelan Constitution PROTECTS PRIVATE PROPERTY. Chavez is much more of a moderate socialist than most people realize. It is not particularly revolutionary to provide dirt poor people with literacy classes and medical care. Hell, the British imperialists and royalists did that. It's common decency and also responsible social policy. But where Chavez IS revolutionary is in his view--and the view of the other new South American leftist (majorityist) governments, that is, the consensus view in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador (and a good portion of Peruvians, as well)--that the era of US domination of South America is over. They have had it with US-backed brutal dictatorships, and US-imposed "free trade" and onerous World Bank/IMF policy to the benefit of US-based global corporate predators. This, really, is the issue. The desperate poverty in South American countries is an effect of US domination (and collusive local rich elites). It didn't happen by accident. South Americans were not destined to be poor. They are sitting on some of the greatest natural riches on earth--oil, gas, minerals, clean water. But, as the history of the Reagan-Thatcher-Bush-Bush regimes starkly reveals, the US has actively destroyed South American democracy, time and again--by assassination, by torture, by throwing leftists out of airplanes, and 'disappearing' them into hidden graves, by slaughtering poor peasants, toppling elected leaders and installing brutes like Pinochet. And, in the Clinton era, by inviting the local rich elites to rip off World Bank loans, shatter social services, and open up South American countries to theft of their natural resources and slave labor.

The real story of South America, today, is not about Chavez personally. It is about the South American people, their revulsion at past US abuses, and their revolt against its new manifestation--"free trade" and World Bank/IMF policy. This revolt has occurred in country after country, and has RESULTED in the election of good leftist leaders who are into national and regional self-determination, and social justice. Not the other way around. The leaders are not the story. The people who elected them, and their social movements, are the story. How did they do it? How did they manage to elect leaders who represent the majority? Long hard civic work on transparent elections and grass roots organization. (US voters, take note!)

This is the story that is being suppressed by our war profiteering corporate news monopolies. PEOPLES' governments being ELECTED all over Latin America. Amazingly! Almost miraculously! After decades, and centuries, of US-backed fascism and attendant horrors.

Magistrate, I don't like your tone very much. Your attitude of "they can all go hang themselves" if US national security is not involved is, well...uncaring? Myopic? Oblivious to US history in South America? Now that we've sucked them dry, good luck to 'em trying to help the multi-millions of people whom our banks and corporations mercilessly ripped off? Your tone is of boredom and disinterest. And your excuse for Democratic politicians bad-mouthing Chavez--that they are living in the Soviet era in their heads--is also a bit thick. Really, there is no excuse for these Democratic politicians. They are mouthing the Corporate Ruler line, in lockstep with the corporate news monopolies. Their attitude is either collusive with Corporate Rulers who itch to kill these new leftist leaders and topple their democracies, or mind-bogglingly ignorant. Neither thing is excusable in a Democratic politician.

-----------

A good source on Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution: www.venezuelanalysis.com

[The Magistrate]

6. If, Ma'am, You Have Some Objection To Revolution

Know that it is not shared by me. Revolution is frequently the only proper recourse for the people of a country subjected to mis-rule. It hardly seems to me a disparrangement of a man to call him a revolutionist, when he is operating in a circumstance where revolution is an appropriate response. That he is mostly remaining within the law in pressing a revolution is certainly to his credit, but does not alter that he is engaged in one, and one that is widely popular with the people of his country.

Why you should take such exception to the line that "what people in other countries do is none of our business" quite escapes me, since it is a powerful and popular argument against interference in the affairs of Venezuela, and many other places, by the U.S. government. It is true enough that local elites in South America have had help from time to time in their exploitation of their people, and that much of the profits of South America's resources and its initial modernizations were shipped off abroad to various foreign investors, but it cannot be emphasized enough that the root of this difficulty is not the foreign exploitation but the much more long-standing exploitation by the native elites in these places. Foreign intervention in any modern sense did not create this, and has had only a marginal effect on its survival into the present day.

Regarding the domestic politics of this matter, the two most important facts are that the great bulk of the people here do not care at all one way or the other about it, and that among the small number who do, those who have a set against left and revolutionary regimes out-number those who support such things. This is what will determine the content of speeches most political figures bother to make on the matter. It is not the politicians who remain in a Cold War hang-over, at least not in the main: it is a sizeable bloc of the people in our country who do, and they will be catered to in some degree. Since there is no sizeable constituency, however, for actual action, such speeches are mere noise, and will remain mere noise.

[ms liberty]

2. K&R - we need more like Chavez n/t

[denverbill]

4. How many 'dictators' would allow 'most of the media' to militantly oppose him?

Criminy, how many newspapers did Hitler and Mussolini shut down? How many editors were jailed or worse? Can you imagine Hitler allowing a radio station within his own borders to broadcast non-stop anti-Hitler programming?

I support Chavez, however, there are times I wish he would shut his mouth. I can understand how he feels about Shrubby and Co, but his petty name-calling has got to stop. It really undermines his credibility IMO.

I also with there were a few high-profile Democrats that would openly support and talk with him.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. "...his petty name-calling has got to stop..."

in the same sentence that you refer to the president and his administration as "Shrubby and Co."

????

[denverbill]

7. I'm not a world leader. Chavez is.

If Chavez wants to call the Dumbass in Chief 'the Devil', let him log on to DU under the nickname 'CaracasHugo' and flame away.

When Chavez does it (and when Shrubby does it) in an official capacity at the UN or in speeches in his country and elsewhere, it makes him look childish. He can denounce the policies and behavior of the US all he wants to. But he needs to stick to civil debate and not stoop to name-calling.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. But it is OK for us to call Amadinijad a "madman", to refer to the

elected Hamas leadership as "terrorists", to call the French president "deluded"...

Or to call Chavez a dictator, when he is not and never has been.

Maybe if our "leaders" treated the rest of the world with respect, they might gain a little in return.

[denverbill]

9. I don't care what anyone calls any world leader on DU.

What I care about is world leaders doing the name-calling, whether it's Shrubby calling Iraq-Iran-North Korea the 'Axis of Evil', or Reagan calling the USSR the 'Evil Empire' or Chavez calling Bush a drunkard. It does nothing but drive the governments further apart and alienate moderate citizens and legislators in the other country. Chavez is doing Bush's work for him by calling Bush 'the devil'. When Hillary Clinton goes on record denouncing Chavez because he called Shrub the devil, that shows that it's more than just Shrub that is being alienated.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Chavez called bush 'the devil' after years of the bush administration

calling him a dictator and despot, and backing at least one coup attempt against him - you know, I think that gives him cause.

What's good for the gander...

[ninkasi]

11. Chavez is helping his people

He is not bankrupting the wealthy, as far as I can tell, but is making sure that the country's wealth is more evenly distributed. Maria Gonzalez, and the millions like her, are why I'm glad he was elected again. It's hard for me to shed tears over the ultra wealthy not being able to accumulate more wealth by grinding the poor into the dust.