A Coup in Venezuela Means Another Victory For Corruption

[Judi Lynn]

A Coup in Venezuela Means Another Victory For Corruption
Posted: 03/12/2014 5:27 pm

The United States and Canada have plenty of reasons to be afraid of the (oil rich) Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, so they are doing their utmost to address their perceived problem.

The US, in particular, fears that Venezuela's social democracy will set a dangerous precedent, and that, if allowed, other countries will follow suit. They also fear the status quo, wherein they are denied control over Venezuela's oil reserves (the world's largest).

The Bolivarian revolution itself, initiated by late president Hugo Chavez in 1998 and continuing with president Nicolas Maduro, is emblematic of the US' s "problem", even as the legitimacy of the revolution is beyond dispute:

Chavez, who died of cancer on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, won 18 of 19 contested elections in a country whose electoral system was described by former US president Jimmy Carter as "the best in the world".

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-taliano/venezuela-politics_b_4948047.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Unavoidable facts mentioned in the article:

~snip~


Some of the Bolivarian Revolution's accomplishments are listed below:

-Between 1998 and 2011, the poverty rate dropped from 49% to 27.4%

-Venezuela's extreme poverty rate dropped from 11.4% to 6.9% in ten years

-Venezuela reduced its extreme poverty rate from 6.3% to 5.5% in 2013 alone

-Venezuela now boasts the lowest Gini coefficient in Latin America (a measure of income inequality, lower numbers mean less inequality)

-Venezuelans have access to free and universal healthcare

-Access to quality education (at all levels) is guaranteed for all

-Food is deemed affordable

From 2006 to 2011, Venezuela moved up 7 spots in the United Nations' Human Development Index , to 73 out of 187 countries

ETC.

[hack89]

6. The flaw in that logic

Is that it was not sustainable. Declining oil revenues, shortages of foreign reserves, crumbling infrastructure have caught up with VZ. They are hemmoraging dollars as the public desperately tries to protect their money from 50% inflation and their domestic economy has ground to a halt because of the lack of dollars.

[Loudly]

2. I don't think this is a counter revolution. The people have grievances and they're being repressed.

Maduro is behaving like a fascist.

[Judi Lynn]

4. You need to spend some of your valuable time doing your homework, like others.

Why on earth would you expect Fox news to tell you everything an intelligent person would need to know?

Just as DU'ers have to stop talking long enough to listen, and to look for answers, you must, as well.

Don't just sit in front of Fox News and imagine you know it all.

Get busy and grow up. Start looking for the answers you need BEFORE you start arguing.

[Loudly]

5. You might disagree, but it doesn't mean I'm either brainwashed or wrong.

In fact, how vigorously do you think Barack Obama supports Maduro?

[Judi Lynn]

8. As vigorously as he supported Hugo Chavez.

He knows how far he'll get in his life if he DARES challenge the official government position on Latin American popularly elected leftist Presidents who don't put US interests before the interests of their own people.

[Loudly]

9. Ok, then answer me this.

Are those students in the street politically to the left or the right of the Maduro government?

Do you really think they want robber baron capitalists running things?

[Judi Lynn]

10. It's time you start doing your own research. Immediately. n/t

[Doctor_J]

20. No, but it's a good indication

Venezuela has a right-wing electronic media cabal just like the US. Believing anything you hear from Big Media in the US or in VEN is a bad idea.

[Loudly]

22. The United Nations is deeply concerned about government mistreatment of its citizens.

And Assad of Syria fully supports Maduro.

Does this tell you anything?

[Catherina]

3. As long as the people can afford housing, utilities, food, education

without signing away their entire life to banks, it's not really *democracy* according to the new definition.

"The US, in particular, fears that Venezuela's social democracy will set a dangerous precedent, and that, if allowed, other countries will follow suit. They also fear the status quo, wherein they are denied control over Venezuela's oil reserves"

I love how the 1% and its lackeys always go on and on about corruption when what they're really going on about is their loss of profits.

Rec'd

[Judi Lynn]

7. Nothing could have been better for them, when their favorite President,

Carlos Andres Perez, raised the cost of heating oil, mass transportation, and groceries, and the poor people ran into the streets to protest the new prices which were beyond their ability to afford, and Carlos Andres Perez sent his military, in tanks, to shoot them all down where they stood, murdering at least 3,000 of them in no time at all, and shoveling many of them into a mass grave.

At the time, the 1% yammered among themselves that the poor brought it on themselves, deserved it for rioting.

Thanks.

[bvar22]

12. A snippet about Carlos Perez...for DUers who might not know who he is:

On 20 March 1993, Attorney General Ramón Escovar Salom introduced action against Pérez for the embezzlement of 250 million bolivars belonging to a presidential discretionary fund, or partida secreta. The issue had originally been brought to public scrutiny in November 1992 by journalist José Vicente Rangel. Pérez and his supporters claim the money was used to support the electoral process in Nicaragua. On 20 May 1993, the Supreme Court considered the accusation valid, and the following day the Senate voted to strip Pérez of his immunity.

Pérez refused to resign, but after the maximum 90 days temporary leave available to the President under Article 188 of the 1961 constitution, the National Congress removed Pérez from office permanently on 31 August.

Post Presidency

The Pérez' trial concluded in May 1996, and he was sentenced to 28 months in prison.

In 1998 he was prosecuted again, this time on charges of embezzlement on public funds, after secret joint bank accounts held with his mistress, Cecilia Matos, were discovered in New York. Before the trial, he was elected to the Senate of Venezuela for his native State of Táchira, on the ticket of his newly founded party, Movimiento de Apertura y Participación Nacional (Apertura), thus gaining immunity from prosecutions. However, as the newly approved 1999 Constitution of Venezuela dissolved the Senate and created a unicameral National Assembly, Pérez lost his seat. In 1999 he ran again for the National Assembly, but did not gain a seat.

On 20 December 2001, while in Dominican Republic, a court in Caracas ordered his detention, on charges of embezzlement of public funds. On 3 February 2002 he was formally asked in extradition. After that, he self-exiled in Miami, Florida, from where he became one of the most vehement opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

On 23 October 2003, at 81 years old, he suffered a stroke that left him partially disabled. On 24 February 2005 he was prosecuted for his responsibility in the Plan Ávila he endorsed while President in 1989, to allow the Army to repress the citizenry during the Caracazo, causing the death of hundreds of civilians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Andr%C3%A9s_P%C3%A9rez

When I hear right wingers complain about "all the corruption" of the Chavez administration,
I can only laugh and say,
"You have NO IDEA how much things have improved."

Latin America certainly has its problems,
but the Populist Reforms did not CAUSE these problems.
These reforms are part of the SOLUTION.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Your information allowed me to learn this clown ALSO, to avoid prosecution,

ran for office, was elected, by hook or CROOK, and hid in the country's Senate, just like Chile's Augusto Pinochet, and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe.

The murderous scum have this all down to a science, don't they?

The stone cold killers are always supported by the U,S, Gov't, and financed by U.S. citizens' taxdollars. What a treat for the people of conscience in this country.

Thanks for the educational material. We need it, and god knows we will never get the truth from our corporate media!

[Catherina]

21. +1. It's always the same bank-loving rightwingers too

The always line up against the people, regardless of which country is involved.

[polly7]

19. Zing!!!! That's exactly it. And when you stem the obscene profits for the 1%'ers,

blood will run in the streets.

[bvar22]

11. In Venezuela,

[font size=4]The POOR are celebrating,
and the RICH are protesting![/font]

I like that arrangement.

In Venezuela,
a percentage of Corporate Profits from Venezuelan Resource Extration has been dedicated to:
*Healing the Sick

*Feeding the Hungry

*Educating the Ignorant

*Housing the Homeless

*Empowering the Disenfranchized.

I understand why our 1% and their Mouth Pieces in Washington HATE & FEAR these new Populist Democracies.

Something like that could be very popular here if WORD got out.
That might cut into the luxurious lifestyles of OUR 1%.
The Water Carriers for the 1% have been given their orders.

I suggest that anyone who is NOT a 1%er, Help Spread the WORD!
Our neighbors in Latin America have given us the Blue Print for change.
VIVA Democracy!
I pray we get some here soon!

DURec!

[blkmusclmachine]

13. OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL

Mr. Moneybags~>

[Archae]

14. Every time a ruler gets unilateral "power of decree" it is bad.

And Maduro is no exception.

[Judi Lynn]

16. President Maduro Is Calling for Peace and Dialogue - It's Opposition Extremists That Want Violence

From Huffington Post, via EFerrari:

President Maduro Is Calling for Peace and Dialogue - It's Opposition Extremists That Want Violence

Posted: 10/03/2014 12:01

The narrative being pushed by politicians from the right-wing opposition coalition that this is a popular rising against a failing government omits some basic facts.

Firstly, the current protests are highly unpopular. A poll conducted by the Venezuelan company ICS shows 86 per cent of Venezuelans disagree with the violent protests. Secondly, it is estimated that fewer than 2000 people out of 30 million are taking part in the violent protests". Thirdly, the government won a national set of elections just two months ago with a margin of 10%. The right-wing opposition coalition had labelled those elections a referendum on the government.

This meant a total of four electoral defeats for the opposition in the past 18 months, two of which have been under President Maduro. Following yet another electoral defeat, minority elements in the opposition coalition appears to have lost patience, having initially thought that, with the death of Hugo Chavez, they would soon sweep back into office.

This triggered a switch of tactics with extreme right-wing leaders of the opposition, Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado, declaring a strategy for the ousting - "La Salida"- of President Maduro and his government. They are explicit that their aim is regime change which will come about by "getting the people into the streets".

The subsequent wave of violence has left 20 dead and 260 injured so far. The stepping up of opposition violence unleashed on 12 February clearly appears pre-planned. A leaked recording of Ivan Carratu Molina, a former Vice Admiral and Fernando Gerbasi, former Venezuelan Ambassador to Colombia discusses how events the next day would be "very similar to April 11th (2002 coup)".

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/alvaro-sanchez/venezuela-protests-maduro_b_4912155.html

[Judi Lynn]

17. In Defense of Venezuela

In Defense of Venezuela
Posted: 02/20/2014 1:53 pm EST Updated: 02/21/2014 9:59 am EST

The U.S. media, echoing the sentiments of the U.S. government, is openly encouraging violent regime change in Venezuela. An emblematic story from yesterday was aired in what is considered a "liberal" media source, National Public Radio (NPR). In short, this piece featured claims of Venezuela at the precipice of "economic collapse," and spoke in glowing terms of the opposition's hopes for a "coup" to overthrow President Maduro. This type of reporting is not only irresponsible, but it is deeply misinformed.

While the U.S. government and media have been portraying Venezuela as a basket case ever since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, this is far from the truth. Indeed, if we look at the UN's Human Development Index, which measures several key indicators of the health of a country's citizenry (e.g., life expectancy, income, education, equality), we see that Venezuela has actually experienced a steady growth in such human development indicators since Chavez took office with a total Human Rights Index score of .662 in 2000, and rising to .748 in 2012. See, Table 2 at p. 149 of the UN Report. Significantly, Venezuela had a huge relative increase in this index during that time, jumping nine (9) rankings in the HDI chart from 80 to number 71 in the world.

If we compare this to Venezuela's neighbor, and chief U.S. ally in this hemisphere, Colombia, that country has been stuck at position 91 in the world during that time same time period. Moreover, in terms of human rights, there is no comparison between these two countries with Colombia, one the largest recipients of U.S. military support in the world, having the dubious distinction of leading the world in forced disappearances at 50,000 and internally displaced peoples at over 5 million.

Moreover, it is the very poor and those of darker skin tone who have benefited most from the improvements since the election of Hugo Chavez, and it is they - by the way, the vast majority of the Venezuelan population -- who support Chavez and his successor the most. Of course, the U.S. government and its compliant media openly side with the white, wealthy elite - such as Kenyon and Harvard trained right wing leader Leopoldo Lopez -- against Venezuela's poor in their current cheer leading for the opposition. Again, the NPR story is notable in this regard.

Without irony, the media fulminates about Venezuela's alleged lack of democracy (again, ignoring Colombia's death squad violence against its own population) to justify its open support of Venezuela's elite opposition. However, as Chilean writer Pedro Santander recently put it so well:

Regarding the supposed "democratic deficit of the Venezuelan regime", the facts speak for themselves. Since 1998 there have been four national plebiscites, four presidential elections, and eleven parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections. Venezuela is the Latin American country with the highest number of elections and it also has an automatic electoral system (much more modern than Chile's one), described by Jimmy Carter, who has observed 92 elections in all continents, as "the best system in the world".

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/in-defense-of-venezuela_b_4824494.html

[Jefferson23]

18. Kick and recommend. n/t