Tagged: venezuela
Why Washington Hates Hugo Chavez
| January 3, 2011 | 8:57 am | Latin America | Comments closed

By Mike Whitney

In late November, Venezuela was hammered by torrential rains and flooding that left 35 people dead and roughly 130,000 homeless. If George Bush had been president, instead of Hugo Chavez, the displaced people would have been shunted off at gunpoint to makeshift prison camps–like the Superdome–as they were following Hurricane Katrina. But that’s not the way Chavez works. The Venezuelan president quickly passed “enabling” laws which gave him special powers to provide emergency aid and housing to flood victims. Chavez then cleared out the presidential palace and turned it into living quarters for 60 people, which is the equivalent of turning the White House into a homeless shelter. The disaster victims are now being fed and taken care of by the state until they can get back on their feet and return to work.

The details of Chavez’s efforts have been largely omitted in the US media where he is regularly demonized as a “leftist strongman” or a dictator. The media refuses to acknowledge that Chavez has narrowed the income gap, eliminated illiteracy, provided health care for all Venezuelans, reduced inequality, and raised living standards across he board. While Bush and Obama were expanding their foreign wars and pushing through tax cuts for the rich, Chavez was busy improving the lives of the poor and needy while fending off the latest wave of US aggression.

Washington despises Chavez because he is unwilling to hand over Venezuela’s vast resources to corporate elites and bankers. That’s why the Bush administration tried to depose Chavez in a failed coup attempt in 2002, and that’s why the smooth-talking Obama continues to launch covert attacks on Chavez today. Washington wants regime change so it can install a puppet who will hand over Venezuela’s reserves to big oil while making life hell for working people.

Recently released documents from Wikileaks show that the Obama administration has stepped up its meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post by attorney and author, Eva Golinger:

“In a secret document authored by current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Craig Kelly, and sent by the US Embassy in Santiago in June 2007 to the Secretary of State, CIA and Southern Command of the Pentagon, along with a series of other US embassies in the region, Kelly proposed “six main areas of action for the US government (USG) to limit Chavez’s influence” and “reassert US leadership in the region”.

Kelly, who played a primary role as “mediator” during last year’s coup d’etat in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, classifies President Hugo Chavez as an “enemy” in his report.

“Know the enemy: We have to better understand how Chavez thinks and what he intends…To effectively counter the threat he represents, we need to know better his objectives and how he intends to pursue them. This requires better intelligence in all of our countries”. Further on in the memo, Kelly confesses that President Chavez is a “formidable foe”, but, he adds, “he certainly can be taken”. (Wikileaks: Documents Confirm US Plans Against Venezuela, Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution)

The State Department cables also show that Washington has been funding anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that pretend to be working for civil liberties, human rights or democracy promotion. These groups hide behind a facade of legitimacy, but their real purpose is to topple the democratically elected Chavez government. Obama supports this type of subversion just as enthusiastically as did Bush. The only difference is the Obama team is more discreet. Here’s another clip from Golinger with some of the details on the money-trail:

“In Venezuela, the US has been supporting anti-Chavez groups for over 8 years, including those that executed the coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. Since then, the funding has increased substantially. A May 2010 report evaluating foreign assistance to political groups in Venezuela, commissioned by the National Endowment for Democracy, revealed that more than $40 million USD annually is channeled to anti-Chavez groups, the majority from US agencies….

Venezuela stands out as the Latin American nation where NED has most invested funding in opposition groups during 2009, with $1,818,473 USD, more than double from the year before….Allen Weinstein, one of NED’s original founders, revealed once to the Washington Post, “What we do today was done clandestinely 25 years ago by the CIA�” (America’s Covert “Civil Society Operations”: US Interference in Venezuela Keeps Growing”, Eva Golinger, Global Research)

On Monday, the Obama administration revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador to Washington in retaliation for Ch�vez’s rejection of nominee Larry Palmer as American ambassador in Caracas. Palmer has been openly critical of Chavez saying there were clear ties between members of the Chavez administration and leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia. It’s a roundabout way of accusing Chavez of terrorism. Even worse, Palmer’s background and personal history suggest that his appointment might pose a threat to Venezuela’s national security. Consider the comments of James Suggett of Venezuelanalysis on Axis of Logic:

“Take a look at Palmer’s history, working with the U.S.-backed oligarchs in the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone, South Korea, Honduras, “promoting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).” Just as the U.S. ruling class appointed an African-American, Barack Obama to replace George W. Bush with everything else intact, Obama in turn, appoints Palmer to replace Patrick Duddy who was involved in the attempted coup against President Ch�vez in 2002 and an enemy of Venezuelans throughout his term as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela.” (http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_60511.shtml)

Venezuela is already crawling with US spies and saboteurs. They don’t need any help from agents working inside the embassy. Chavez did the right thing by giving Palmer the thumbs down.

The Palmer nomination is just “more of the same”; more interference, more subversion, more trouble-making. The State Dept was largely responsible for all of the so-called color-coded revolutions in Ukraine, Lebanon, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan etc; all of which were cookie cutter, made-for-TV events that pitted the interests of wealthy capitalists against those of the elected government. Now Hillary’s throng want to try the same strategy in Venezuela. It’s up to Chavez to stop them, which is why he’s pushed through laws that “regulate, control or prohibit foreign funding for political activities”. It’s the only way he can defend against US meddling and protect Venezuelan sovereignty.

Chavez is also using his new powers to reform the financial sector. Here’s an excerpt from an article titled “Venezuelan National Assembly Passes Law Making Banking a “Public Service”:

“Venezuela’s National Assembly on Friday approved new legislation that defines banking as an industry “of public service,” requiring banks in Venezuela to contribute more to social programs, housing construction efforts, and other social needs while making government intervention easier when banks fail to comply with national priorities.”…

The new law protects bank customers’ assets in the event of irregularities on the part of owners… and stipulates that the Superintendent of Banking Institutions take into account the best interest of bank customers – and not only stockholders… when making any decisions that affect a bank’s operations.”

So why isn’t Obama doing the same thing? Is he too afraid or is he just Wall Street’s lackey? Here’s more from the same article:

“In an attempt to control speculation, the law limits the amount of credit that can be made available to individuals or private entities by making 20% the maximum amount of capital a bank can have out as credit. The law also limits the formation of financial groups and prohibits banks from having an interest in brokerage firms and insurance companies.

The law also stipulates that 5% of pre-tax profits of all banks be dedicated solely to projects elaborated by communal councils. 10% of a bank�s capital must also be put into a fund to pay for wages and pensions in case of bankruptcy.

According to 2009 figures provided by Softline Consultores, 5% of pre-tax profits in Venezuela’s banking industry last year would have meant an additional 314 million bolivars, or $73.1 million dollars, for social programs to attend the needs of Venezuela’s poor majority.” http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5880

“Control speculation”? Now there’s a novel idea. Naturally, opposition leaders are calling the new laws “an attack on economic liberty”. But that’s pure baloney. Chavez is merely protecting the public from the predatory practices of bloodthirsty bankers. Most Americans wish that Obama would do the same thing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Ch�vez has threatened to expropriate large banks in the past if they don’t increase loans to small-business owners and prospective home buyers, this time he is increasing the pressure publicly to show his concern for the lack of sufficient housing for Venezuela’s 28 million people.”

Caracas suffers from a massive housing shortage that’s gotten much worse because of the flooding. Tens of thousands of people need shelter now, which is why Chavez is putting pressure on the banks to lend a hand. Of course, the banks don’t want to help so they’ve slipped into crybaby mode. But Chavez has shrugged off their whining and put them “on notice”. In fact, on Tuesday, he issued this terse warning:

“Any bank that slips up�I’m going to expropriate it, whether it’s Banco Provincial, or Banesco or Banco Nacional de Cr�dito.”

Bravo, Hugo. In Chavez’s Venezuela the basic needs of ordinary working people take precedent over the profiteering of cutthroat banksters. Is it any wonder why Washington hates him?

Venezuela: Let’s step back and try to get an overall picture of the September race
| June 13, 2010 | 4:35 pm | Analysis, Latin America | Comments closed

By Arthur Shaw

The National Electoral Council of Venezuela (CNE) reported that 6,465 candidates have registered to run in the elections in September, for 165 seats in the National Assembly.

VHeadline commentarist Arthur Shaw writes:

Wow! …6,465 candidates average out to something like 40 candidates per seat.

Does the excess of candidates help revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries?

Will the excess of candidates dilute the revolutionary (PSUV) or the counter-revolutionary (that is, bourgeois-led opposition) vote?

The revolutionary tactic is to run only one candidate for each seat in the hope that the revolutionary sector of the working class will concentrate its votes for this single candidate and thus give the single revolutionary candidate the most votes and the victory. The revolutionaries pray that the counter-revolutionaries will adopt the opposite tactics, that is, the revolutionaries pray the reactionaries will run about 40 candidates for each seat and dilute the counter-revolutionary turn-out over a field of candidates, giving the revolutionaries the victory on a silver platter.

The data doesn’t let us say whether God or some other divine being answered the prayers of the revolutionaries for dilution of the counter-revolutionary vote because the excess of candidates may be interpreted in two ways … either a Venezuelan electoral peculiarity or a dilution.

Some Venezuelans, it seems, like to run for public office … their running has nothing to do with winning or losing. They only want to run. To accommodate these Venezuelans who like to run, Venezuelans organize and register hundreds of political parties so that a candidate can easily find a place on a ticket. Presently, there are about 700 parties … more than enough … registered with National Electoral Counci (CNE).

So, these 6,465 candidates may express this peculiarity of some Venezuelans for running … or … the 6,465 may be dilution.

The bourgeois media in Venezuela and the USA tell us that the opposition made deal for a unified campaign among its 40 parties. The terms of the deal were supposed to be that about 30 of the opposition’s 40 parties would not field candidates at all in order to improve the odds of opposition victory. That the 10 opposition parties that would field candidates would cut up among themselves the 87 electoral districts. And, a party entitled to run candidates would only field candidates in electoral districts assigned to the party.

Given the rumors of this deal for a unified opposition campaign in the bourgeois media, everybody was surprised when the opposition staged a farce called a primary election in April 2010 in which reactionary candidates sought the opposition’s nomination in only 15 of the 87 electoral districts. Only about 300,000 reactionary voters turned out for the opposition primary election. Two weeks later, the PSUV held its May 2010 primary election which attracted 2.6 million voters who nominated candidates in all 87 electoral districts.

So, the question seems to be whether most of the 6,465 candidates, who registered for 165 legislative seats up for grabs in September, are representatives of the opposition or mere expressions of electoral peculiarity that involve a mere love of running for office?

We cannot be sure but it sure seems that the 30 parties in the opposition that agreed not to run candidates are indeed running candidates either in the parties’ name or in the name some front group.

Again, we cannot be sure but it sure seems that the 10 parties entitled to run candidates, under the unified campaign deal, are running candidates in electoral districts assigned to them and, in violation, of the deal, running candidates in districts not assign to the party.

The tactics of the opposition are so confusing. It’s hard to make heads or tails out of them. The bourgeois media aren’t any help in understanding these tactics. Some people believe that not even the opposition understands what the opposition is doing or trying to do.

Let’s step back and try to get an overall picture of the September race.

There are 165 seats in the National Assembly up for grabs. The revolutionaries want to hold on to their two-thirds majority in seats, because a two-third majority is required to amend certain laws called organic laws. So, the revolutionaries got to win, at least, 109 of the 165 seats. The opposition is trying to get, at least, 57 of the 165 seats to prevent a two-thirds revolutionary majority. The 165 seats will be filled like this … 110 seats contested by individuals in 87 electoral districts, 52 seats contested by lists submitted by parties in the various states and 3 seats contested by indigenous candidates before the indigenous sector of the electorate. The counter-revolutionaries are expected to get their seats out the 110-seat group that are individually contested. Revolutionaries are believed to have an edge with 52 candidates chosen by proportional representation and the 3 indigenous candidate. To keep their two-thirds majority, the revolutionaries will have to get a good chunk of the seats in the 52-seat group filled by lists submitted by parties at the state level.

The 110 seats that are individually contested drew 5,245 of the total 6,465 candidates registered with the electoral council.

So, if the 40 parties which compose the opposition are welching on their rumored deal for a unified campaign, then the deal-breakers are part of 5,245 candidates seeking 110 seats available to candidates in their individual capacity.

Will the various counter-revolutionary candidates coordinate their campaigns against the single PSUV candidate or will the counter-revolutionary deal-breakers stab each other in back and spit on each other?

Logic suggests that the counter-revolutionaries are running as much against each other as against the single revolutionary candidate in the race. So, if one of the counter-revolutionaries in the pack pulls away from the pack in name recognition or candidate visibility, the pack is likely to stab him in back or, at least, spit on the frontrunner. The counter-revolutionary candidate who pulls down, tears up, and defaces more campaign materials of his counter-revolutionary opponents is the candidate who is most likely to emerge as the frontrunner in the pack. These were tactics that opposition candidates used in their poorly-attended April 2010 primary elections.

The opposition may be nonchalant about the candidate situation because the opposition isn’t doing candidate-based or driven campaign. The opposition may be doing an issue- or media-based campaign in which the central propaganda line of the bourgeois media is “The economy is breaking down.”

Of course, no “breakdown” is happening or about to happen.

In other words, the campaign isn’t about candidates, rather it’s about the alleged “breakdown.”

If this is what the opposition, the bourgeois media, and US imperialists are up to, then the revolutionaries in proletarian media and so-called “community” media just have show the electorate the many economic successes of the revolution, which the bourgeois media either never mentions or always denies.

Socialism is a transitional combination of capitalist and non-capitalist sectors of the economy. The capitalist sector in Venezuela is being sabotaged by capitalists in the hope of manipulating the September election. But the economy isn’t breaking down.

Indeed, the non-capitalist sector is flourishing.

Inflation in May 2.6% … first five months 14.2%

The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and the National Statistics Institute (INE) have released the latest inflation figures. In May, inflation was 2.6%, which comes as a relief to the government after April’s disastrous 5.2% figure.

The total inflation for the first five months stands at 14.2%, which is 5.3 points more than it was for the same period in 2009.

The factors that helped bring down inflation in May were housing services (0.7%), rents (0.9%), clothes and shoes (1.1%), communications (1.2%), educational service (1.4%), health (2.1%), home equipment (2.2%).

Alcoholic beverages and tobacco were up 4.4%, along with transport 3.5%, restaurants and hotels 3.2%, non-alcoholic beverages and food stood at 3.3%.

The government’s readjustment of prices in May contributed to that month’s lower inflation rate.

September elections: revolutionary workers want to win more than 51% victory
| May 17, 2010 | 10:37 am | Analysis, Latin America | Comments closed

By Arthur Shaw

GIS XXI asked the electorate whether bourgeois leaders of the opposition primarily take care of their personal financial interests.

A staggering 76% of the electorate said that bourgeois leaders are only out for themselves, only 13% believes bourgeois leaders care about anything other than their personal interests, leaving 11% either unresponsive or undecided.

This finding is shocking because it implies that that the huge bourgeois media in Venezuela which tout and praise bourgeois leaders, on a 24/7 basis, has almost no credibility and almost no influence with the electorate because the electorate has a low opinion of these highly touted and praised bourgeois leaders. Again, the GIS XXI poll did not look at the public’s perception of leaders of the workers’ and their broader revolutionary movement. But since the revolutionary workers’ movement “owns” more or less about 60% of the electorate, the 76% finding of the GIS XXI poll on the undesirability of bourgeois leaders can’t be all revolutionary workers. The finding implies that at least 16 points of the 76% represent the views of counter-revolutionaries who are, to some extent, won over by the workers’ movement.

Leaders are only one thing but a whole movement of capitalists and counter-revolutionaries is another thing. So, what does the electorate think about the counter-revolutionary movement or, in other words, the so-called opposition.

GIS XXI asked the electorate whether the opposition represents hope for better things for Venezuela.

About 29% of the people said the counter-revolutionary movement offers hope of better things, 58% said the counter-revolutionary movement is hopeless, leaving 13% undecided. It hard to say whether the Venezuelan people think less of bourgeois leaders or less of the capitalists’ movement, for 76% of Venezuelans think bourgeois leaders are worthless and only 29% think the capitalists’ movement is cause for hope.

If the GIS XXI numbers are correct, then the capitalists’ and wider counter-revolutionary movement is in a state of crisis.

Some of the GIS XXI findings however seem to contradict other GIS XXI findings.

For example, GIS XXI asked the electorate “Does the opposition have anything to offer?”

Some 39% said the opposition has something to offer. The poll didn’t identify WHAT the opposition has to offer, but 39% of the people believes the opposition has “something.” Some 47% said the opposition has nothing to offer. Since the capitalists’ movement has for many years “owned” about 40% of the electorate in Venezuela, the 39% finding of the GIS XXI poll implies that the opposition has held on to its base, despite the negative perceptions by much of the base of the opposition.

This seems contradictory.

Why would almost the same number of counter-revolutionaries, today as well as yesterday, believe that the capitalists’ movement still has something to offer if these counter-revolutionaries today judge bourgeois leaders as worthless and the capitalists’ movement as hopeless?

This contradiction may be more apparent than real. But the workers’ and revolutionary movement better watch out and not get smug and big-headed over these suspect but happy-looking numbers from GIS XXI.

In the September legislative elections, the revolutionary workers’ movement wants to win more than a mere 51% victory. They want to win at least a big, juicy 66% victory. Since this worker’s movement “owns” only about 60% of the electorate, the revolutionary workers need at least 6 extra points to get over.

There are basically two ways to get the six extra points if we exclude the combination of the two ways:

(1) win over a number of reactionaries equal to 6 points or

(2) get a differential in the abstention between the revolutionary and reactionary turnouts of at least 6 point … in other words, more reactionary no-shows than revolutionary no-shows

GIS XXI poll throws, at least, some light on the possibilities of (1) and (2) because the poll measures voter attitudes on bourgeois leaders, the capitalists’ movement, and whether the movement still has something to offer. If the revolutionary campaign concentrates on the worthless bourgeois leaders and on the hopeless capitalists’ movement, then the revolutionaries will have their best chance for getting 6 extra points. But if the revolutionaries let themselves to be sidetracked into a debate about what, if anything, the capitalists’ movement still has to offer, then the opposition will have its best chance to deny 6 extra points to the revolutionary workers’ movement.

To be more precise, since GIS XXI poll … which perhaps will be confirmed by other subsequent polls … suggests the Venezuelan electorate almost universally holds bourgeois leaders in contempt. So, the corrupt and incompetent character of these bourgeois leaders … in general … should be the main issue of the campaign for legislative seats.

The revolutionaries used something similar to this tactic in the struggle over the constitutional amendment in February 2009 when the revolutionaries argued that bourgeois leaders in general suffer from an irrepressible propensity to tell lies.

The reason why this tactic was so effective in 2009 was that the people already knew that bourgeois leaders were liars.

Similarly, if the GIS XXI poll is sound and if revolutionaries this year focus on the corrupt and incompetent bourgeois leaders, in general, the tactic will work because the people already know that bourgeois leaders are corrupt and incompetent.

US imperialists are “hard-pressed” to see the threat they pose to Venezuela
| April 8, 2010 | 11:48 pm | Analysis, Latin America | Comments closed

By Arthur Shaw

QUESTION: And also, in Venezuela. Venezuela and Russia – there is this thing that they want to buy and the Russians apparently want to sell them about $5 billion worth of weapons. Have you anything on this? Do you consider this a threat? Do you know which kind of weapons?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, what relationships governments have is up to them. What they do in those relationships is, again, a matter of a bilateral issue between Venezuela and Russia. We don’t care. On the other hand, to the extent that Venezuela is purchasing military equipment, we’re hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for this equipment. Our primary concern is not – if Venezuela wants to acquire these – this equipment, we can probably think of better things that could be invested on behalf of the Venezuelan people. But our primary concern is that – that if Venezuela is going to increase its military hardware, we certainly don’t want to see this hardware migrate into other parts of the hemisphere. And we would simply remind Venezuela that through a number of accords has responsibility for transparency in its acquisitions and must make clear about the purpose of acquiring these materials.

Two days later, April 7, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez described the concerns of the bourgeois and imperialist regime in Washington, over arms deals between Venezuela and Russia, as cynical. Chavez pointed out that the imperialist regime under Obama is fueling the military build-up in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“They are so cynical that they criticize us just because we are trying to strengthen our defense,” Chavez said.

US imperialists spend more on arms than all of the other countries of the world combined. They have over 800 military bases scattered all over the globe which threaten all peoples of the world, including Venezuelans. The runaway military spending of the imperialist US regime has helped to bankrupt the regime, plunging the desperate regime into trillions and trillions of dollars of debt. The ongoing aggressions and occupations by the armed forces of the imperialist regime in DC are exterminating human beings at monstrous rate … 2,000,000 war-related fatalities in seven years so far in Iraq demonstrated by a series of scientific mortality studies, an estimated 5,000,000 war-related fatalities in Afghanistan in nine years, and the fatalities in Pakistan are approaching the magnitude of the Iraqi and Afghan numbers, 30,000 occupation-related fatalities in the two year occupation of Haiti between 2004-2006 that was supervised by the Bush regime. As pretexts for its aggressions against other countries, the imperialist regime resorts to lies, facts, and everything between lies and facts. The imperialist regime in the USA deploys huge non-combat private armies of US mercenaries … 110,000 mercenaries in Iraq … which conduct genocide or mass extermination operations against civilians of countries occupied by US imperialists. The savage regime of US imperialists operates a international network of 70 concentration camps that holds over 500,000 political prisoners, often kidnapped or “rendered” and often tortured or subjected to “enhanced interrogation” before many of them are murdered or “executed or neutralized extra judicially.”

Most of these atrocities or these massive violations of human rights, the US imperialists openly boast about and they argue that their regime has to do these terrible things in order to win the so-called war on terrorism. This is the same argument that Hitler and Pol Pot made.

Like Hitler and Pol Pot, the imperialist regime in Washington is itself the main terrorist.

With this rogue regime in Washington on the loose in the world, the rogue says “We’re hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for this equipment” which Venezuela buys from Russia to defend itself. Clearly, the Obama regime believes that the needs of a country to defend itself from US imperialist aggression, occupation, and genocide is not legitimate.

“We are threatened by the empire,” Hugo Chavez said on April 7.

Why are US imperialists “hard-pressed” to see what are Venezuela’s “legitimate defend needs” given the imperial threat aimed at Venezuela? The only way US imperialists could be “hard-pressed” to see Venezuela’s legitimate defense needs is the imperialists close their eyes to Venezuela’s legitimate defense needs. When one closes one’s eyes, one is “hard-pressed” to see anything. Using its quislings in Venezuela, US imperialism in April 2002 tried to overthrow democracy in Venezuela and set up a brutal bourgeois dictatorship that was friendly to US imperialists. No doubt, the US imperialists are “hard-pressed” to see anything wrong in this 2002 aggression against the Venezuelan people. In 2009, the US imperialists announced they were increasing the number of US military bases in Colombia, a country that borders Venezuela on the west, from three to ten and expanding the size and capabilities of all 10 US military bases in Colombia. No doubt, these US imperialists are “hard-pressed” to see that their military expansionism poses a threat to Venezuela and all of Latin America.

Naturally, US imperialists deny that they were behind the 2002 attempt to overthrow the democratic government of Venezuela. But US imperialists always lie when they are asked to admit their culpability in these things. So, their denials should never be believed, unless confirmed by independent sources. No such sources have so far confirmed the imperial denial.

Among the main threats to Venezuela mentioned by Chavez are US military bases in Colombia, Panama and the Netherlands Antilles, as well as the reactivation of the 4th US Fleet in the Caribbean.

Compared to the huge US imperial military presence in the Caribbean, Russia’s recent arm sales to Venezuela are miniscule.

Russia has sold to Venezuela MI Helicopters, Sukhoi aircrafts and AKM rifles, and Venezuela is expecting the arrival of anti-aircraft tanks and shoulder-fired SAM missiles that utilize cutting-edge technology.

By the way, what “legitimate defense needs” do the US imperialists have for their current huge military presence in the Caribbean?

I am “hard-pressed” to see any legitimate defense needs of the imperialist regime in Washington that are served by its 13 US military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We know that about one third of the US people … the reactionaries or the conservatives … are delighted by the imperial bestiality exhibited by two Bush regimes and the Clinton and Obama regimes. Most of the highly-paid US mercenaries who are skilled in genocide come out of this reactionary sector of the US people. These animals are eager to do genocide on the Venezuelan people or any other people, including their own people in the USA.

Another third of the US people … so-called independents who occupy ideological and political space between the reactionaries and liberals … are more or less disposed against the adventures of US imperialists, but they are not disposed very strongly. The idea of another US imperialist attack on Venezuela appals them, but they are not prepared to fight to prevent another US imperialist attack on Venezuela.

The remaining third of the US people … the liberals … are disposed against the adventures of US imperialist predators against other countries, including Venezuela, and are fighting to prevent such attacks. So, the basic issue is whether the liberal or the reactionaries will win over the independents.

The de-composition that is the imperialist sector of the US bourgeoisie says it speaks for the US people, but in reality they speak only for the reactionary sector of the US people, a mass of animals.

The majority of the US people opposes the adventures of US imperialists and this majority is rather consistent in expressing their opposition when they vote or otherwise express themselves.

The problem is the US imperialists pay little or no attention to the majority of the US people.

Sanguino (PSUV) and Goicoechea agree that bourgeois politics is a pigsty…
| April 2, 2010 | 7:28 pm | Analysis, Latin America | Comments closed

By Arthur Shaw, via VHeadline

Democracy seems to be a form of state in which supreme power resides in the body of citizens entitled to vote, where these citizens elect their representatives who are accountable to these citizens and who exercise state power in accordance with the rule of law. If this concept of democracy corresponds to reality, bourgeois democracy is never democratic … because in bourgeois democracy, supreme power always resides in the capitalist class, the class of millionaires, not in the body of citizens entitled to vote.

Only proletarian democracy is really democratic, because in theory or practice or both, supreme power resides in the people.

But bourgeois democracy however is widely believed to respect the electoral principle of democracy … that is, citizens elect their representatives. The bourgeoisie in Venezuela, along with its working class and middle class tail of reactionaries, is loosely organized into something that calls itself the “opposition.” Almost nobody in the opposition believes either the people or even the members of the opposition elect their representatives. Yon Goicoechea, the youth leader from the reactionary Primero Justicia party which belongs to the opposition, says “It’s the same old story of the Fourth Republic parties, which refuse to die. They keep doing the same maneuvers to exclude bases from their own organizations.”

By “bases,” Yon Goicoechea means the reactionary sectors of the people entitled to vote. The Fourth Republic was the collection of bourgeois regimes that immediately preceded the Venezuelan Revolution of 1999 when state power began to pass by degrees from the capitalist class to the working class.

Yon Goicoechea begs the main bourgeois parties in the opposition to carry out real primary elections to nominate their candidates. The opposition demands its candidates give a ton of money to participate in a rigged procedures which the opposition calls “primaries.”� The candidate for a given seat who gives the most money to the opposition is virtually guaranteed the nomination of the opposition. To buy the nomination, the candidates must woo the millionaire stratum of the opposition and US imperialists for financial contributions, unless the candidate is very rich.

The tail, consisting of middle class and working class supporters of the opposition, have no voice in the nomination process.

Goicoechea, who jumped into politics after leading counter-revolutionary college students in anti-government protests, said “There is no chance that someone opposing the [the Chavez] government could win an election if he or she is not a member of a political organization. The Unity Table [the executive committee of the opposition] is just a table to distribute the posts.”� Goicoechea is right. The Unity Table or the executive committee of the opposition sees counter-revolutionary college students as an element of the tail that is firmly attached to the rear of the opposition. As these reactionary college students and former students grow older or grow up, they are divided and absorbed into various bourgeois parties that compose the opposition.

Goicoechea must be aware that he and his ex-student followers can organized their own bourgeois party and challenge the opposition ruling clique for leadership of counter-revolutionary sector of the Venezuelan people. But currently there are, to varying degrees, incorporated in the tail that dangles from the hideous rear of the opposition about 30 riff-raff bourgeois parties. Collectively, the riff-raff in the tail of the opposition gets less than 1% of the reactionary vote. Evidently, Goicoechea and his colleagues don’t want to become the 31st member of the riff-raff that populates bourgeois politics in Venezuela.

In contrast to the rigged and venal procedures of the opposition, the PSUV, the main working class party in Venezuela, will hold internal elections to nominate candidates on May 16. The bourgeois media throughout world which covers Venezuelan electoral processes in minute detail generally ignore this important difference in the internal processes between the working class and bourgeois parties.

“The opposition espouses the capitalistic conception of politics. While we [the PSUV] consider politics social action oriented to solve problems jointly with communities. They [the opposition] see it just as a way to get personal profits. To them, politics is a business. To us, a social apostolate,”� National Assembly deputy Ricardo Sanguino (PSUV) said.

Sanguino, the the middle-aged revolutionary, and Goicoechea, the twenty-something counter-revolutionary, seem at least to agree that bourgeois politics in Venezuela is a pigsty.

Eva Golinger: Venezuela 101
| March 7, 2010 | 11:23 am | Analysis, Latin America | Comments closed

Venezuela: No ‘repressive apparatus’
| February 7, 2010 | 7:40 pm | Analysis, Latin America | Comments closed

By Arthur Shaw via VHeadline

The people of Venezuela, not just Hugo Chavez, are setting up a working class state to replace a bourgeois state. The working class state will have a pristine democratic form, largely defined by the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution. Bourgeois propaganda outlets, like VenEconomy, see a working class state that is not chiefly composed of the bourgeoisie and that doesn’t chiefly exercise state power for the bourgeoisie, as “despotic,” no matter how pristine the democratic form of the working class state.

VenEconomy tries to palm-off its vile class arrogance as democracy. That is what it truly “looks” like.

* Trying to make trouble, VenEconomy wrote “Ramiro Valdes is here as the head of a Cuban technical commission that has come to cope with Venezuela’s current electricity crisis.”

Ramiro Valdes is the Cuban Minister of informatics and communications and one of six vice presidents of Cuba. The technical commission, which Valdes heads, will consider cost-efficient ways to expand the generation of electricity and to reduce the consumption of electricity in Venezuela. Cuba, with a huge force of highly-trained electrical engineers, has extensive experience on the national and international levels in what Cuba calls the “energy revolution” and Valdez has been deeply involved in the energy revolution on the national and international levels. The mass of electrical engineers of many countries largely believe in the monopoly capitalist approach to energy problems, not what revolutionaries call the “energy revolution.”

Many countries, especially in the Caribbean, have sought and accepted Cuban cooperation in their energy revolutions. Most of these countries speak highly of Cuban cooperation in the field of electrical generation and consumption. In addition to cooperation from Cuba, Venezuela has sought and accepted cooperation from Argentina, Brazil, and China on cost-efficient ways to win the energy revolution.

US imperialism is violently opposed to Cuban ideas on how poor or less developed countries can win the energy revolution. US imperialists believe that Cuban ideas about the generation and consumption of electricity adversely affect the interests of monopoly capital, especially the worldwide AES company, in the energy industry. VenEconomy, of course, grovels before US imperialists.

VenEconomy doesn’t believe Valdes is in Venezuela to help win the “energy revolution” … VenEconomy believes Valdes is in Venezuela to do something else. So, VenEconomy asks “The question, then,what is task has Ramiro Valdes been assigned to carry out in Venezuela by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez?” VenEconomy answers its own question when it says “Chavez revving up the repression apparatus.”

Why is he allegedly doing this?

At this point, VenEconomy goes queer on us, saying it has two contradictory reasons why the alleged “repression apparatus” is being revved up.

First, Chavez is too weak to survive unless he revs up.

Second, Chavez is so strong that he can afford to rev up…

Obviously, VenEconomy has no idea of what it is talking about.

Relying chiefly on Colombian and Venezuelan terrorists, the bourgeois-led opposition in Venezuela has resorted to violence, especially murder and assaults, as its main electoral tactic.

The opposition is trying to intimidate the Venezuelan voter, by mass murder and mass assaults, into abandoning the revolution. But the increasingly working class state in Venezuela will maintain law and order without revving up some “repression apparatus.”

Indeed, there is no “repression apparatus” to rev up under the current revolutionary government.