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like the one the Bushwhacks supported in Venezuela in 2002, and the oil professionals' strike that followed soon afterward in a second effort to destabilize the country and topple its elected government, and the multimillions of US tax dollars poured into rightwing groups, through USAID-NED, CIA, DEA and other budgets, in Venezuela and other countries with leftist governments, to foster coup d'etats, civil war, white separatist causes in gas/oil-rich regions, armed rebellion, riots, murder, trashing of government buildings, assassination plots, anti-democratic cabals within the military, and war on small farmers with toxic pesticides and displacement of millions of people by the failed, corrupt, murderous, destabilizing US "war on drugs," and other such activities aimed at denying an orderly democratic society in these countries.
And if you don't hate these wrongfully funded (US taxpayer) anti-democratic activities--and your posts would indicate that you don't--perhaps you are hoping that they will succeed at imposing the deadly 'stability' of fascist rule. Nothing more 'stable' than a fascist dictator who can deliver the country's resources up to the likes of Exxon Mobil, on real good terms for the oil barons, with no opposition whatsoever, cuz the opposition has been crushed--tortured, murdered, 'disappeared'--and the interests of the country and its people have been sold for dirty coin.
It's interesting how you pit Venezuela against Brazil in a contest for the US oil market. I can see Exxon Mobil's hand in this, and that of its Bushwhack and other US corpo-fascist strategists. Divide. and. Conquer. But I think you greatly underestimate the determination of a leader like Lula da Silva to, a) never let the US do to South America what it has done in the past and what the Bushwhacks have tried to do again recently, and b) create solidarity among Latin America's leftist leadership to prevent such interference and to build a South American "common market" on the philosophy of "raising all boats."
I've noticed several of the anti-democratic posters here at DU touting Lulu as their preferred leader in South America, and ignoring and even outright denying the overwhelming evidence of friendship and accord between Lulu and Chavez. And I'm sorry, Braulio, but you called the Chavez government "communist" and that is so wildly out of sinc with reality that I have to categorize you as anti-democratic. Lulu and Chavez represent different shades of the same political philosophy--sovereignty for South America and social justice. They differ in personality, and their countries differ, politically and economically, but they are in accord on those principles, and nothing shows that more than the restrictions on the use of Brazilian oil that Lulu has insisted upon, including Brazilian control of the oil industry--and particularly as to the new big oil finds--for the benefit of the poor. That is exactly what Chavez insisted upon, to Exxon Mobil--local majority control of the enterprise--and what Exxon Mobil arrogantly refused to agree to, while British BP, France's Total, Norway's Statoil and others did agree. They will respect Venezuela's sovereignty and Exxon Mobil will not. Exxon Mobil wants to own everything, including all profits, everywhere. That is their M.O. And they will do everything they can to break that resistance to corporate rule, even if it takes decades of "divide and conquer" and other nefarious, brutal activities, up and including, what they did to Iraq--hijacking the US military to slaughter a million innocent Iraqis, to get at their oil.
When you seemingly innocently make a statement like, "As an observer of the oil market, I like stability...," you are trailing loads of Wall Street Journal propaganda in your wake. They no more want "stability" than Exxon Mobil does. They want their corporate pals to have total power over governments and resources, at any cost. "Freedom = the freedom to loot"--Donald Rumsfeld. Social stability is immaterial to them, as long as they have soldiers paid by somebody else (US taxpayers) to seize the resources they want to steal and guard their oil platforms. And when they run up against resistance to their "taking all the marbles," they will do to Lula da Silva and the Brazilian people exactly what they have tried to do to Chavez and Venezuelans, and to Morales and Bolivians, and are plotting to do to Correa and Ecuadorans, and any others who resist corporate rule and who insist on democracy and a fair deal for their people.
Lula da Silva sees all this very well. He is a visionary leader. And it's too bad that his term of office is coming to an end, because the vultures are waiting, and the bribes have been paid out, and netherworld systems have been put in place to rip Brazil to shreds, if monsters like Exxon Mobil can get away with it. He is trying to put everything in place--strong rules for use of the oil, the alliance with Chavez, the stability of neighboring smaller countries (Bolivia and Paraguay, in particular) and the stability and solidarity of the entire region (for instance, by his support of President Zelaya in Honduras). We're talking real stability--not Exxon Mobil-gets-all-the-marbles stability. But I don't see strong leadership arising to follow Lulu. Maybe that's what people like you--"observers of the market"--are counting on.
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