If Chavez is dead, we need to be in solidarity with the people of Venezuela.

[Ken Burch]

The only chance the poor and the dispossessed of that country have is for the revolution to survive. They will be struggling with all their might to preserve it...and the alternative to preserving it is to have the Bain model imposed on that country through international financial pressure(or through the imposition of Capriles, a man who is pretty much the Mitt Romney of Venezuela).

A man may be dead, but the people fight on.

La Lucha Continua!

[cali]

1. Maduro is favored in the upcoming election

[Ken Burch]

4. That assumes the State Department, the CIA and Wall Street will respect the results.

It wouldn't surprise me if the "idealistic" John Kerry were to sign off on a destabilization campaign to justify getting to be "idealistic" on a few trivial side issues...that's how it often goes with the "moderate liberals".

[cali]

7. I'm not assuming anything. I'm just posting what's being widely reported.

I do think that it's problematic when a revolution is centered almost completely around one person, as was the case with Chavez. For the health of the revolution it might have been better if he had handed over the reins to someone else after 8 or 10 years.

[Ken Burch]

9. Well, we're going to see what happens now.

Yes, Maduro may be leading, but Allende was always leading the polls in Chile...didn't stop our leaders from doing what they did.

This is one of the main reasons I was pushing for Obama to publicly repent the entire U.S. history in Latin America and to vow that nothing we did there in the past would ever be done again.

[zeemike]

18. Obama does not have that power.

In fact there is a lot of things Obama has no power over...but we are deluded to think that he has so we have someone to blame.
That is why this all survives no matter how many times we change presidents.

[jtuck004]

71. Obama doesn't have the power to hold a press conference? n/t

[zeemike]

78. And say what?

That the MIC wants their country and it's oil, and and there is nothing he can do about it?
That might be what I would do, but I would never last long talking like that.

[jtuck004]

118. Exactly what was suggested above. n/t

[Swede Atlanta]

27. Obama is no different than previous presidents....

he will use anything within his power to get the world he wants......

I have no doubt he would install a new dictator if it suited his needs.

Hate to be cynical about him but he is no different from the rest in some regards. He loves his power and will use it to get his tickle.

[Ken Burch]

28. I hear what you're saying...and he did just that in Honduras(which is now a police state).

n/t.

[BainsBane]

68. So are you equating Obama with Nixon?

The coup against Allende was done will full complicity of the White House. The US is getting oil from Venezuela. Why would Obama want to overthrow its government?

[Ken Burch]

84. I'm saying the way our government deals with Latin America hardly ever changes. no matter the prez.

Obama isn't Nixon, but he accepts a lot of Nixon and Kissinger's notions about the world...one of which is that the U.S. can't tolerate ANY alternative to "our model" of economic organization(JFK accepted a lot of the same notions, btw).

When it comes to this hemisphere, it will be a long time, if ever, before we have a leader who is willing to let the poor and the workers have a chance for a life.

[BainsBane]

86. I don't know

I see Obama as different. Perhaps I'm naive, but my sense is his growing up in Indonesia exposed him to different points of view. I guess we'll find out when documents are released in future years.

The other point is the guy's got his hands full with the Middle East and Asia. Latin America doesn't play anywhere near the role it once did in US foreign relations.

[JackRiddler]

126. * cough * Honduras * cough *

[Ken Burch]

127. Exactly...that was exactly the same as what Nixon did to Chile.

And tons of "liberals" defended it, right here on this site.

[JackRiddler]

130. Although... I'm certain...

Like all post-Nixon presidents, he kept his well-advised distance until well after it popped. (Shh! Let me find out what I did from the papers after I did it, okay?) Not that he doesn't have a micromanaging streak - *cough* kill list *cough* - but he combines with a strict adherence to the rule of law as defined in a timely fashion on the fly by his lawyers (and always for progressive reasons, natch). With Nixon it was all so personal!

[Cleita]

2. I'm with you.

He is a complicated man, but one who accomplished much good. There are those here though who still regard him as murderous dictator.

[redqueen]

3. Well said.

K&R

[DAVEDCHICAGO]

5. No intervention though.

We don't need to do that.

[Ken Burch]

6. Our work will be to OPPOSE intervention.

The rhetoric used to justify the past coups will be invoked any time now.

[arcane1]

8. That train is never late!

Almost never, anyway.

[Taverner]

10. Hasta la victoria! Siempre!

[stevenleser]

11. There was no revolution. Chavez was elected democratically. nt

[Ken Burch]

12. A democratic revolution.

A revolution doesn't always have to mean armed struggle...what matters is the transformation.

[stevenleser]

13. All the state institutions that existed before him, exist now. Hard to define it as a revolution.

I am basically lukewarm when it comes to Chavez, Morales and those folks.

Latin America as it existed in the 70's and 80's needed immense change. The rich have/had such a stranglehold on wealth it was suffocating. That said, I am not sure that Chavez and Morales are the change that was needed.

I am not happy to see him gone. I am not sad to see him gone.

[Ken Burch]

23. The community councils didn't exist, and that's a massive thing.

Those councils are the only level of democracy that actually includes the poor in Venezuela...or, really, anywhere else, since conventional legislatures are always rigged to favor the rich.

[Cleita]

30. And it was with the help of our government that things were as they were prior to the 80s.

I lived with my parents while growing up in an American mining company town in Chile. I got very familiar with our Monroe Doctrine based State Department policy in South America. American mining and oil companies were king and at the top of the food chain. They were backed by our nation who fed carrots to the ruling classes, no matter how corrupt and cruel they were. The sticks were administered to anyone who dissented, who were immediately labeled communists and somehow ended up at the wrong end of a revolution and often dangling from a lamp post. No one who opposes American interests in South America is going to be treated as anything other than a murderous dictator.

The only American who really gets what goes on in those Southern Hemisphere nations is Noam Chomsky. He speaks the truth about our policy there. If Noam says Chavez was or Morales is a murderous dictator then I will believe it and not before. He is the only American scholar on the subject that I trust.

[stevenleser]

32. I don't trust Chomsky.

He is automatically going to frame everything a certain way.

[Cleita]

36. Why do I bother?

He's the only scholar who has observed what I observed first hand. I was one of the privileged classes but I saw it was privilege obtained on the sweat and suffering of those underclasses beneath those of us who benefited from it. He's the only American who gets it. That's what he is framing, but go your own way. It's the American way. It's hard for Americans to admit that they are no better than the Romans or the British Empire. The Roman Empire collapsed as did the British Empire. We are going there if we don't start being better neighbors to the nations south of the border. We could start by reporting what Chavez and Morales are really about and who they were and are instead of the oil industry astro-turf that has been so successfully spread in our English media.

[stevenleser]

49. I'm perfectly willing to call out wrongdoing by people and countries that I like.

And I am perfectly willing to recognize people and countries that I don't like for doing the right thing when they do it.

Chomsky isn't able to do that. In fact, Chomsky is an excellent example of the Halo and Horns effects.

People, groups and countries that Chomsky likes he writes of as if they were otherworldly angels impossible of any wrong.

People, groups and countries that Chomsky doesn't like he writes as if they were uniformly evil in any and all things they do.

I dont take people like that seriously.

[Cleita]

58. I've not known him to write about countries he doesn't like. He writes about those

regimes in countries he doesn't like the regime that is. He writes about American hegemony in the world, particularly third world countries, and this is where he really gets it right. But I understand. He's hard to digest by those who don't understand just how evil a lot of our foreign policy has been in the past.

[stevenleser]

62. LOL, I know our foreign policy record very well. Its not one-dimensional

You would think it is one dimensional if you listen to Chomsky.

We have done bad things, we have done good things, we have made mistakes, we have lucked into the right thing.

You dont get that if you listen to Chomsky. HE reduces the governments he doesnt like to that portrayed in a bad B-movie.

You dont actually buy that, do you?

[Cleita]

64. I don't just read Chomsky, but he really gets Latin America, so I like him best.

I know we get some things right. We just don't do it because it's right anymore. We did at one time. We did right by Europe and Japan after we destroyed them in WWII. However, our policy has been one of American Imperialism since then.

[stevenleser]

67. If you agree that we get some things right, you are at odds with Chomsky

I am generally fair with all countries. I don't treat some like they can do no wrong and others like bogeymen.

I dont buy the contention that the US is or acts like an empire. I also didnt buy that IRaq was a threat to us or that Iran presents one now.

[Cleita]

70. What else is raiding countries that really are no threat to us other than exercising empire? n/t

[Ken Burch]

85. Other than World War II(and even then only the European part of it)

Our foreign policy record has been and endless crusade to preserve the dominance of the rich.

We have NEVER, other than in the struggle against Hitler, fought for the people, for the poor, for the dispossessed, for the workers. It's been purely right-wing other than that. It's been a betrayal of every principle this country was built on. Property rights and profit rights were all we fought for other than in Europe in World War II.

And you know it.

You can't point to any other instance in which our foreign policy has ever been progressive, democratic, or humane.

Our treatment of the world HAS been one-dimensional. That's what fighting for capitalism and property rights means...fighting for the defeat of the people.

[stevenleser]

99. Let's cut to the chase, how many examples proving you wrong do you want. Pick a number.

You are completely wrong and ridiculously so.

Pick a number

[Ken Burch]

101. What examples could you possibly offer?

Other than World War II, our country's foreign policy has never been progressive or humane.

We(by which I mean our gov't) never stood with the people against the patrons in Latin America-never stood against colonialism in Africa or Asia-never challenged the notion that the wealth of the world should be controlled solely by people of Northern European descent, and only the wealthiest of those at that.

When we committed to putting "private property" and "access to markets" first, we committed to destroying all hope for the world's poor(or insulting them with usurious proposals like "micro-credits", as if things like that help anybody in the global majority). When we made it clear we'd tolerate no alternatives to "market economics", we consigned the children of the Earth to eternal misery, since the markets are nothing but slave markets to most of them.

Even when we half-heartedly pretend to embrace the anti-apartheid movement, we sabotaged it(we being our government)by forcing the anti-apartheid movement to commit to austerity in government.

The "Good Neighbor Policy" and the "Alliance for Progress" were token handouts, when there were handouts at all.

And the "Marshall Plan" was pretty much tied to letting American corporations get control of European markets in exchange for the underfunded bailouts.

Those were pretty much the only examples you even had to offer, I'm guessing.

What tiny bits of tokenism were you going to mention?

[stevenleser]

106. I'm not reading any response on this other than a number. nt

[Ken Burch]

108. What does that even mean?

Why even pretend that we've ever been humane and progressive towards the rest of the world in any meaningful way?

It's impossible to be humane and progressive while still insisting on "free trade" and neoliberalism.

[krhines]

111. I guess

He has no reply? Who the fuck doesn't like Chomsky? Haha

[nadinbrzezinski]

80. What about Latin American specialists (not necessarily American)

Who say these revolutions have benefited the poor? I am talking UNAM here, not the American New Left who Chomsky happens to be part off? FYI, not that American new left will like it, the American New Left is distrusted all across LatAm. Though, I admit, for very different reasons than you do.

[stevenleser]

102. First off, they are not revolutions. In each case, these folks were elected.

It's hard to do worse for the poor than the leaders they replaced. If those organizations are measuring that based on how the poor fared under prior Latin American leaders, that's not particularly impressive. It's like saying African Americans did better in 1880 than they did under slavery. It's undoubtedly true, but its also not saying much.

It certainly is not saying that the Chaves or Morales models are the best leadership and economic systems for those countries.

[Ken Burch]

103. A revolution CAN come to power in an election.

Why insist on defining "revolution" solely as something based on an armed struggle?

What economic models would be better for Latin America? We've already proven, once and for all, that "market economics" can NEVER be progressive or humane...we're living the proof in what "the market" is doing to OUR country now...and what it's doing now is the only thing it can EVER do. The market can't grow a soul and it can't become compassionate.

[stevenleser]

104. Your say so is not compelling no matter how many times you repeat it. It's not a revolution.

I'm not buying the rhetorical device.

[Ken Burch]

107. What, pray tell, does it have to be to COUNT as a revolution?

Is it ONLY a revolution if guns are involved? Why are you being absolutist on THAT, of all things?

And why should we take your word for that when you insist(with no evidence)that our country's foreign policy has progressive and humane aspects to it?

You haven't provided ANY examples of us ever playing a compassionate, egalitarian role in the world.

[stevenleser]

112. Something like these

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution#List_of_nonviolent_revolutions_by_era


List of nonviolent revolutions by era

[edit]Decolonization
1930 – Salt Satyagraha in India in an attempt to overthrow British colonial rule
[edit]Cold War
[edit]In nations of the Warsaw Pact
1968 – The Prague Spring, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia.
The Revolutions of 1989: Even though many of these revolutions did not take place entirely in 1989, they are usually grouped together as such.
1980–1989 – The Solidarity movement in April marshals popular resistance to communist rule, though progress is halted by the imposition of martial law.
1987–1989 – The Singing Revolution – a cycle of singing mass demonstrations, followed by a living chain across the Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia), known as the Baltic Way.
1989 – The Peaceful Revolution in the German Democratic Republic leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall
1989 – The Velvet Revolution – the bloodless revolution in Czechoslovakia leading to the downfall of the communist government there.
1989 – The bloodless revolution in Bulgaria that resulted in the downfall of the communist government.
1990 – The Golaniad – a protest in Romania in April by Bucharest students who demanded a non-communist government. The protests ended in bloodshed after an intervention of miners called in by President Ion Iliescu (the Mineriad).
The successful resistance to 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt which had the effect of a revolution was mostly non-violent.
[edit]Outside of the Warsaw Pact
1974 – The Carnation Revolution in Portugal.
1979 – The Iranian Revolution in Iran.
1986 – The People Power (Yellow) Revolution in the Philippines, where the term people power was coined.

[Ken Burch]

114. The Velvet Revolution wasn't really a revolution.

It's not a "revolution" when the capitalists come back to power-it's just a right-wing restoration, and nothing even liberal has happened in what used to be Czechoslovakia...just theft by the foreign rich-other than that, the place has been a dead zone and is known now mainly for crushing poverty for many and obscene wealth for a few.

[stevenleser]

115. The difference between us is that I have backup and links for my opinions. nt

[Ken Burch]

116. You have no backup for the idea that the Velvet Revolution was a real "revolution"

It's only a revolution when the poor and the workers make GAINS

It's only a revolution involves movement to the Left...nothing that puts capitalism back in power can ever be called a revolution, since capitalism can't liberate anyone.

I hated the old Stalinists...but all we can call any events where they were driven out was the deposition of a bad regime, with nothing good replacing it...there were NO gains for the people in Eastern Europe(elections where you choose between austerity parties aren't a gain).

[stevenleser]

117. I got it from the link. The link is my backup. nt

[Ken Burch]

119. I went to the link...nothing there supports the notion that it was a revolution

Overthrowing a regime isn't a revolution...it's simply an overthrow...you can only legitimately use the term "revolution" if it leads to clear and nearly immediate gains for the people. There were NONE in Czechoslovakia(or the two countries that were created from it in the Western-orchestrated "Velvet Divorce".

It's not a revolution if the result is capitalism and austerity-those are always counter-revolutionary results, and can never liberate anyone. Basically, the only people who gained from the Velvet Revolution were Western hipsters who wanted someplace else to hang out in.

And free speech and "elections" in name, while nice, aren't revolutionary at all...they simply mean that a different system is in place. The term "revolution" can only be applied if that new regime actually makes life better for the people, and, in the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it didn't...it simply meant that the old police state was gone-which is nice, but really not that important when you're out of work and sleeping in the street.

[nadinbrzezinski]

105. If you define a revolution only by the force of arms you'd be correct

Alas historians are a tad more broad than just armed revolts. You know what s classified as a revolution? Oh yeah, the New Deal...it changed the nature of the United States, so did the Reagan Revolution, to a certain extent.

Not all revolutions involve the force of arms, and that is a good thing. Nor are all violent revolutions successful either.

And I will be brutally honest...Latin America will take generations for the colonial period to finally let the grip go. In fact, Mexico, due to Neoliberalism, is reversing some critical gains of the revolution of 1910...

[stevenleser]

109. None of those are large enough changes to qualify.

The New Deal comes closest. The basic order did not change under the New Deal, it didn't change under Reagan and it didn't change under Chavez.

The changes were relatively minor.

[nadinbrzezinski]

110. Alas historians do not agree

Have a good day.

I am trashing the thread.

[stevenleser]

113. Yes they do, see my response upthread. nt

[Ken Burch]

122. A revolution is only a revolution if it produces left-wing results

Most of the revolutions at your Wikipedia "nonviolent revolution" link don't fit that qualification, since the people didn't gain from them-especially the ridiculous "color revolutions" of the "former East Bloc" world...all of which produced right-wing and useless results that helped no one.

It's NOT a revolution simply to bring down a bad government...positive change has to be an equal and quickly-realized part of it. Nothing that produces a capitalist restoration counts as a revolution, because none of those produces positive results for the workers and the poor.

[stevenleser]

123. Then you have invented a new definition of the word. One that I do not accept. nt

[Ken Burch]

124. How can you define something as a revolution when the rich win?

Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2013, 12:37 AM - Edit history (1)

Or when the results are right-wing?

It's not a revolution simply to overthrow a government...that's just a coup. And the installation of a conservative government can never be considered a revolutionary result.

OK?

It would have been a revolution of Czechoslovakia had ended up with a radical Green Left government of some sort...where's the revolution in splitting a country and restoring a system of exploitation?

You fail to make the distinction between a revolution and an overthrow. That's what I'm saying.

[Ken Burch]

128. It only qualifies if the change is to the genuinely democratic and radical Left

It's never a revolution when the result is a right-wing government-like the Velvet Revolution, where Vaclav Havel pissed on everything Alexander Dubcek lived, fought and died for, where nothing good and beautiful happened at all, where nothing GOOD happened at all. I doubt most people in Prague think it was worth it anymore.

[nadinbrzezinski]

81. Alas he is not the only one reporting on this

And he s distrusted across Latin America as well as the rest of the American New Left. Yup, his books sell, but his name is not that shinny, and the unidimensional analysis is part of it.

<----- I have talked to historians and sociologists and linguists in Mexico City...the main criticism of the New Left is all talk and no action.

[Ken Burch]

88. What dimensions is he missing, for God's sakes?

Nothing that Chomsky has ever criticized in U.S. foreign policy was ever actually justified, and nothing he ever attacked ever had positive results for anyone but the bazillionaires.

All Chomsky is guilty of is refusing to say that U.S. brutality was justified at times by the Cold War. That's the only thing he's really "guilty" of.

He agreed that massive casualties occurred in Cambodia...it doesn't make any difference what the size of the figure he agreed to was...it was equally wrong either way.

And Chomsky was never an apologist for the USSR(he's an libertarian socialist, and as such automatically anti-Stalinist), so what else can you really bust him on?


The fact is, U.S. foreign policy, with the sole exception of the European theatre of World War II, has always been reactionary and imperialist. It had no progressive or humane components whatsoever. We need to just admit that and work to repudiate the whole ugly status quo on that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

89. As I said the main critique from abroad f the New Left

Is all talk, no action.

I know inside the us this is rarely heard, but the American new left is either pitied or even critiqued, as part of the Imperial machine. None, including my cousin, of a small group of intellectuals expects the New Left to do more than write.

[Ken Burch]

90. I see. Well, Occupy was action(and the New Left backed it).

You need both, though...action AND analysis.

[nadinbrzezinski]

91. Occupy is not the new left though

And occupy is still ongoing.

I am just telling you how people look at it from abroad. After all the old left did both.

[Ken Burch]

93. Who, exactly, are you defining as the New Left?

And, as to Chomsky, for example, the man travels the country speaking about the issues, at times speaking to huge rallies, and trying to get the country to care...what more could he DO?

Does he have to personally grab a rifle or something?

[nadinbrzezinski]

95. Not me, common term in usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left

[Ken Burch]

96. The Sixties New Left was enormously active...they didn't succeed in transforming this country

but it may not have been possible for them to do so.

The New Left, however, by those standards, has largely passed from the scene...and Chomsky, for example, was never exclusively tied to the Sixties formation of it.

This next question isn't aimed at you...but I ponder it...what kind of "action" do the Latin Americans want from us? This isn't a country, for example, where an armed struggle Left could ever work.

[nadinbrzezinski]

97. Well, here we enter into the long view of history, don't we?

It's not just LatAm...but people abroad would love to see more than the coffee shop intellectual and strikes are well...needed. You see, somebody like Michael Moore is trying, he is not new left either.

Regardless, every time this is raised folks have this reaction.

Have a god day. Good bye.

[Ken Burch]

100. I suppose I see myself as Next Left...

Neither the Old Left(CP variety) of reducing everything to the class struggle nor the New Left notion that the class struggle doesn't matter(although I do agree with them on the need to reject the Stalinist rigidity a lot of the Old Left had degenerated into, something that to my mind wasn't Left at all). The other causes the New left introduced into radical thinking need to remain part of the struggle, and the greater emphasis on small-d democracy they brought in needs to be included as well, yet a recognition that workers are still part of it all, probably still the major part, needs to be there, too.

Action is always needed...but you have to know which actions to take.

And yes, strikes ARE needed, as is a general "culture of resistance&quot a term a friend of mine came up with).

The Next Left will combine the best ideas of the old with the need to combine greater speed of action and the need to adjust to new modes of communication.

[Comrade Grumpy]

37. I don't trust stevenleser.

Ditto.

[stevenleser]

47. I dont trust you either. nt

[BainsBane]

72. You don't have to trust Chomsky

There is solid documentary evidence that the US overthrew the government of Chile in 1973 and funded and supported subsequent human rights abuses under Pinochet. Other interventions are also well document. The other poster is wrong that Chomsky is alone in "speaking out." You would learn any of this in any Latin American history class that covers the 20th century. A good source is the National Security Archive. They have analysis and primary documents released through Freedom of Information requests.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

[Cleita]

82. I lived in Chile before Allende became President. I'm quite familiar with that event and

the repercussions from it. When I lived there the communists were distrusted by the American interests there. It only took the Chileans electing a red leaning President for our government to go into full throttle taking down the commies mode. They destroyed one of the oldest democracies in South America, one of the few nations that up until then only had one revolution, the one to free them from Spain. They put an evil, cruel man in place as their desired puppet. I really can never forgive my government for doing this to Chile, until they change their policy. All this rubbish about Chavez is just that. America just doesn't like nations that fight back at American Corporate interests.

[stevenleser]

98. I know all of that already. nt

[Fantastic Anarchist]

14. That's not mutually exclusive in a sense.

[lunasun]

15. Hungry wolves surround - rich oil supply + fantasies of privatization in their heads

[unreadierLizard]

16. I love how

in your mind, being critical of Chavez means that you must want a "bain" model imposed on the country. That's laughably black or white, like a lot of hard-line socialists: "You're with us or against us".

Oh, and Capriles was a centre-left candidate. He supported most of Chavez's economic safety nets.

Chavez did do some good, I won't deny that, but he got his way through suppressing disagreements, violating fair judicial codes and by building a personality cult around himself.

[Ken Burch]

20. Being critical was one thing...declaring his government illegimate was another.

Chavez' opponents never acted as a "loyal opposition"...they never criticized without being sounding like they wanted a coup.

And if Capriles had won, he'd have been claiming the next day that there was some "hidden fiscal crisis" that he'd just found and that the Chicago School boys would be flying in on the next plane. The fact that the man was backed by the wealthiest people in Venezuela is a demonstration of whose side he'd have been on.

[unreadierLizard]

21. From what I remember

Capriles also had the backing of some of the poorest people in Venezuela.

That was his charm; he was able to gather both sides of the economic divide to his side, instead of pushing them to fight one another as Chavez did.

[Ken Burch]

24. Basically, he paid some poor folks to attend his rallies(a common practice in Latin America).

It's not like he ever helped the poor in the state he governed..."market values" never do help the poor.

[randome]

17. No matter the different opinions on DU, the people of Venezuela supported him.

And will miss him.

[craigmatic]

19. Chavez was a great man. He was a social democrat and one of the few in South America who stood up

for his people and their interests. I wish we had a leader like him in the US who was not afraid of standing against the rich and special interests.

[timdog44]

51. Hear, Hear.

In total agreement.

[Whisp]

22. thank the f*** Hillary isn't Sos or she would install Lanny Fuckin' Davis as leader of Ven. n't

[Ken Burch]

25. Not Lanny-Rahm...with his own drones...and Pinochet's laid-off torture squads.

[Fuddnik]

26. She can't do that!

He's busy running Honduras.

[Ken Burch]

29. She could've said he was having trouble making ends meet, and needs a second job. n/t.

[RudynJack]

31. You think Hillary Clinton

established her own foreign policy, independent of the President?

[Ken Burch]

34. She had a major role in it...she never just took orders from Obama.

And virtually all of the most right-wing foreign policy things that happened in Obama's first term were based on HRC ideas.

[dbackjon]

33. Chavez Dead - now there is hope for Venzuela

Hopefully Democracy can return, now that the Dictator is dead.

[Ken Burch]

35. Venezuela never had democracy before Chavez

It only had government for the rich...it wasn't democracy when Perez murdered 3,000 workers in downtown Caracas just for marching against an austerity government.

And it was never democracy when you just had a conventional legislature, a body that will always be rigged against the poor.

The choice between the old Conservative and Liberal parties never mattered...neither represented anyone but the rich-and you know it...that's how it always is in "free market" countries.

That's what it's about for you...for you, democracy means "all power to the wealthy".

And you didn't even spell the country's name right, ffs.

[Ken Burch]

39. "And shun the frumious bandersnatch"!

He's probably posting from Langley, anyway.

[Comrade Grumpy]

41. I may have to take my vorpal sword in hand.

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Given the lies and misdirection, and direct intervention in the Americas over the last 100+ years

which is open, known history, just like the shit we pulled in the Philippines...

I have to at least reserve the possibility that Chavez was not as commonly portrayed in the US. Maybe not an angel. Neither a devil.
I will reserve judgment until I can acquire unbiased sources/facts/background. Currently, I cannot pretend that I have any.

[WinkyDink]

44. Bwahahaha! He was democratically elected. Only oligarchs and their running-dogs opposed him.

[idwiyo]

153. They are free to start building skyscrapers instead of spending money on healthcare! YAY!!!

You are really funny

[WinkyDink]

42. Not much of an "if" there.

[santamargarita]

43. Yes, unlike those right-wing assholes!

[Perseus]

46. I wonder how many of you have visited Venezuela

And I wonder how many know the reality of the situation in Venezuela that you keep singing praises to Chavez when this man, because of his greed for power, his lack of vision, his hate towards the United States, and his allegiance to Fidel Castro has done so much damage to Venezuela and its people. He had a great opportunity to become the second liberator of Venezuela and he wasted it.

I challenge anyone on this blog, who has not been, to go to Venezuela, and if you come back without getting mugged, or worst killed, then I hope that your stay there is with an open mind and clear objectivity.

Like any politician, Chavez talked the talk but did not walk the walk. The poor are worst off today than they were before is reign, and whether you believe it or not, many of the very wealthy are better off than they were before.

He surrounded himself with incompetent people who could not and do not know how to govern, the one thing they have done is rob from the coffers of the country. Diosdado Cabello being one of the richest man in South America when he was only low middle class when Chavez took power. Cabello has appropriated many industries and has accumulated large sums of money doing so, that is a crime here, there and everywhere.

Rangel, who was the first Vice President under Chavez now lives in a mansion in Chile, and the list goes on.

The streets in Caracas are full of holes, they even have a joke about the Venezuelan GPS, doesn't tell you how to get anywhere, only tells you how not to drive in a hole.

When Venezuela had the highest revenue in its history because of the Oil, the number of poor has more than doubles, the infrastructure is in shambles, the crime rate is one of the highest in the World. Of ten people I know, nine have been robbed at least once, and the horror stories that one hears everyday would make even Stephen King cry.

Again, I wonder how many of you Chavez admirers have ever been in Venezuela or know the truth about the situation.

Can anyone explain how Cuba has become an Oil exporter?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/10/cuba-oil-idUSN1049707420090610

[uppityperson]

50. Did you notice the link is 3 years old?

[uppityperson]

56. I am expecting several of them coming in to inform us of all sorts of things.

[Perseus]

77. Its so easy to hide your lack of knowledge behind a wisecrack

and I understand that I am assuming you lack knowledge because otherwise you may have refuted my statements, but you chose instead to give it a shot at trying to be funny.

Like someone responded to my initial blog, (her boyfriend is from Venezuela) there are celebrations in Venezuela at this time, although there is a lot of apprehension because as I said, the people Chavez surrounded himself with do not how to govern, they are only there to rob.

If you and the other wise people who responded to my entry have better things to say, mainly facts, I welcome that knowledge, but as you think that my Reuters link doesn't help my argument, which is actually based on facts, your wisecracks don't make a good defense either.

How about if we try to have an intelligent exchange?

Thank you.

[uppityperson]

79. It is easy to claim things on the internet, to tell stories and all. Did you know I am an astronaut?

See? It is easy to claim things.

As far as being afraid in the city, that is true for a lot of large cities all over the world.

[Ken Burch]

94. No one who cares about the poor and the workers is celebrating.

Why would they? Capriles has nothing to offer any non-millionaires.

[timdog44]

59. Correct.

I am in awe of someone who has been to Venezuela. Probably there to admire what they think will be their future oil. Mayhaps a relative of Koch.

[Perseus]

73. I am not taling about tourist

getting mugged, that is how much you know about the situation in Venezuela. The link might be 3 years old, but still holds true.

I was born in Venezuela, I do know what I am talking about, I lived there, I grew up there. When I was a teenager I could be rollerskating, which was something all young people did during Christmas, until six or seven in the morning, you can't even go to a store now because you are afraid of getting mugged or getting killed.

This is what happened to someone I know:

In daylight four people on motorcycles cut him off, they were armed, he was with his nine-year-old son, they asked him for the keys of the car, he gave them the keys, the wallet, and then said to them "please take everything but don't do us any harm", the guy said "so you don't care about the car, your watch, your money or anything?" they person I know said, "no, take everything but let us go"...the criminal shot his kid then said "you do care now?"

This is not an isolated story, this happens every day in Venezuela.

Please get informed and stop defending what you know very little about.

[uppityperson]

75. Sounds like many large cities all over the world.

[timdog44]

129. Are you Venezuelan then?

Son of an immigrant? And this makes you an expert?

[Purveyor]

55. Have you visited Detroit, lately? Just saying... eom

[timdog44]

66. Well, I've never been to Spain. n/t

[Ken Burch]

92. But I kind of like the music n/t.

[anonwonder]

61. Thank you for this

This is the first post about the country on here that has some sort of truth in it. My boyfriend is from Venezuela and just returned from a trip there on Sunday. His family was always middle-class (his dad served in the Venezuelan military for his whole life).

Chavez was the worst possible thing to happen to that country. All of you who say he was voted in democratically have no idea the extent to which his people went to influence the vote in the last election. When he was falling behind, the administration started calling the poorer families that hasn't voted yet and threatening to take away their homes, cars, etc, if they didn't go vote for Chavez. There was an uproar that got silenced because the government should not have had the information about who had voted, but they did.

Also, the situation there has become dire. People are kidnapped not for money, but for groceries. Prostitution is rampant. And to the person with the article posted, you are wrong.

Before anyone gets on the soap box to think that this will become an Obama plot for oil or something, witness the celebrations happening in Venezuela today.

And to you who say the rich we're behind the opposing factions - everyone was for them. The "rich" aren't rich anymore because Chavez has destroyed the economy for everyone who is not right along with him. You opposed him, he destroyed you.

I say good riddance to the first "democratic" dictator!!

[timdog44]

63. I say.

Are you the girlfriend of Perseus?

[uppityperson]

76. Could be.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014406581#post3

[timdog44]

69. One post

Two post
Three post
More

Daylight come and me wanna go home.

[Ken Burch]

87. Chavez was NEVER falling behind...no polls ever showed Capriles in the lead.

Don't make things up.

And Capriles had no ideas other than moving the country further right-"market values" have nothing to offer anyone who isn't born rich, and especially not anyone who isn't North American.

[magic59]

54. I'm afraid they will turn into another USA

were the rich fascist class rules,

R.I.P. President Chavez and my condolences to his two beautiful daughters.

[Carnage251]

65. Yeah we can only hope to reach the status of Venezuela

*where

[madokie]

57. If there was something I could do for them I'd do it

I've seen the anti-Chavez bullshit as it is from the start. Of course I pay attention to what is happening to our southern sisters and brothers and have for years. I think it was the coup that deposed Allende that opened my eyes

[timdog44]

74. I wonder about

Perseus and anonwonder

[treestar]

120. If there is a functioning system, then the death of one man does not harm it

If that one man's death has a great effect, that's a bad sign that the system was one of men not of laws.

[Ken Burch]

121. All systems are, at least in part, of people as well as laws.

The phrase "this is a government of laws, not of men" is an intrinsically right-wing sentiment, and no progressive should ever use it, because such a phrase describes a dehumanized, soulless system.

[Flatulo]

139. Say what???

OK, that comment is just over the top.

Seeya.

[Ken Burch]

141. Why?

A country Just "of laws" will be a country where mercy and compassion don't enter into it. Why pretend otherwise.

The human element is required.

Besides "we're a country of laws, not of men" is the kind of phrase J. Edgar Hoover used to use.

[Flatulo]

142. No, the system you describe and desire ca be corrupted by cronyism and political pull.

How can the powerless get the same treatment as the powerful unless we rely on the law?

Sorry, no sale.

[treestar]

147. That is NOT what it means

Quite the opposite. One should be judged neutrally. There can be mercy and compassion written in.

Do you know what you are saying? Then if the banksters' friends are in power, they get mercy and compassion. Most people would call the corruption. As it would be if I got to break the law at will because my uncle was chief of police.

[Ken Burch]

148. Money will get them favored, no matter what.

What I'm saying is that we shouldn't have a system that treats people as abstractions, that acts without humanity, that just says "the law is the law" and leaves it at that.

[treestar]

149. The law is written to try to be as fair as possible

Humans are imperfect, so there are imperfections, but the law is an attempt at it. Mercy is fine but it must be extended to people similarly situated on an equal basis. That's what the saying means. The government of laws though imperfect, strives for fairness and equal treatment. The government of men is the one where you have advantages if you buddies are in power and and treated unjustly if they aren't.

[treestar]

146. No way. That is not the sentiment expressed there at all.

It is the idea that the law is neutral. A government of men is one in which those in power reward their friends. If your brother-in-law is a cop, and he stops you speeding, he should give you a ticket. Every such failure - where you get away with it because your brother-in-law is a cop - is a failure, not a good thing.

The law is not soulless, either. Good judges can make good rulings, and juries are supposed to be neutral. Many things are done to keep it that way - so that if you are being tried, your worst enemy is kicked off the jury, and your friends are kicked off, too.

[rhett o rick]

125. So how are we, the masses going to help the masses in Venezuela?

I bet our government will pick the dictator they like the best and give him billions in arms support. just sayin

[Catherina]

136. Chavez committed the ultimate sin of educating them

about the dangers and tricks from the North. Our government will try but my money's on the people who will fight to the death to protect their revolution.

[rhett o rick]

144. The problem with revolutions is that eventually a dictator takes over. nm

[Judi Lynn]

150. It happens that way when the U.S. creates and finances the revolution

and supplies and supports the dictators, as it has already happened time after time after time after time, etc. in the Americas.

[rhett o rick]

151. Yes but it doesnt matter who backs the revolution. The power vacuum sucks in

authoritarian leaders that recognize that force is needed to bring peace.

[moondust]

131. American oil barons

may see this transition period as an opportunity to make a move on Venezuela's oil (see: Iraq invasion). Their greed knows no bounds.

[tavalon]

132. Is Chavez Dead?

[Ken Burch]

133. Maduro announced it yesterday.

Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2013, 07:46 PM - Edit history (1)

(edited).

[tavalon]

134. Been a little busy in my real life

I know I usually spend enough time here to be up on the latest news but since I don't have cable and wouldn't have had time to turn it on, please don't roll your eyes at me because I asked for confirmation from a thread that said "if Chavez is dead,......". It's not like my real life gets this harried all the time and it's not like I ask a question that you knew the answer to all the time.

[Catherina]

135. Yes sadly. He died yesterday afternoon.

And his people are giving him a hero's farewell as they took his corpse to rest at the Military Academy in wait for the funeral

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xio7e2_globovision-en-vivo_news?start=27#.UTeB7TDXh8E

The love they have for him is impossible to deny.

[tavalon]

137. I respected him and loved that he threw the Imperialistic American games right back in our faces

It was well deserved. I wish his family peace and also his country. May they choose as wisely for a leader in the future.

[Catherina]

138. Me too

I had tears streaming down my face witnessing the depth of their respect and love for him. I echo your last thoughts and wishes.

[Ken Burch]

140. Edited my post to remove the snark. Sorry.

Didn't mean to snap at you...that was uncalled for on my part.

[Catherina]

143. You're a good man Ken Burch n/t

[tavalon]

145. Thanks,

and I snarked back. I apologize too.

[Ken Burch]

154. It's all good.

People DO have lives out there, after all.

[idwiyo]

152. K&R