Latin America
Related: About this forumRebels of F4: The situation of Venezuela is worse than in 1992
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140204/rebels-of-f4-the-situation-of-venezuela-is-worse-than-in-1992
On February 4, 1992, Lieutenant Colonel Yoel Acosta Chirinos led the "José Leonardo Chirino" 421st Battalion, which rebelled against then Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Today, 22 years later, Acosta is not among the officers commemorating the anniversary of the revolt.
"Today the conditions are worse than those existing at the moment of the uprising, because corruption, insecurity, and high cost of living are now accompanied by widespread uneasiness among people," he said.
Acosta noted that February 4 is the result of the civil revolts of February 27-28, 1989 in Caracas. The reasons leading to such rebellion are widely known, yet they have not been solved, he added.
Further, Acosta highlighted the ideological differences between the Bolivarian project and what the government is actually doing. "Bolivarian socialism does not exist. One thing is socialism and another thing is Bolivarianism. Bolívar was a humanist not a socialist.
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Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)El Presidente marchó la tarde de este martes hasta el Museo Histórico Militar, al que llegó a las 4 de la tarde en compañía de su esposa, Cilia Flores, del presidente de la Asamblea Nacional, Diosdado Cabello, del vicepresidente Jorge Arreaza, y del presidente de Tves, Winston Vallenilla.
“Madrugada luminosa de resurrección de la patria aquel 4 de febrero de 1992 que la juventud bolivariana se rebeló contra la dominación imperial”, escribió el mandatario.
Por su parte, la ministra de la Defensa, Carmen Meléndez, aseguró desde el museo que “podemos decir que hay un antes y un después del 4 de Febrero, por todo lo que hemos vivido, esa transformación con las misiones, las Fuerzas Armadas”.
La Primera Dama, Cilia Flores, destacó que “son 22 años de ese por ahora, 22 años de que el comandante Chávez salió ante las cámaras y se metió en el sentimiento de los venezolanos, se metió en los corazones y se quedó allí (…) Se convirtió en el sentimiento nacional”.
Flores indicó que actualmente “se están poniendo todos los recursos para cumplirle al pueblo” en lo que respecta a la crisis económica actual.
Sobre el anuncio de Fedecámaras de demandar la nulidad de la Ley de Precios Justos ante el TSJ, Flores dijo que “no podíamos esperar menos, ellos son parte, son los que promovieron la desestabilziación, son los primeros que deben ser investigados, estas cúpulas, están defendiendo sus propios intereses (…) Están traando de desestabilizar”, aseveró.
La jefa de Gobierno del Distrito Capital, Jacqueline Farías, dijo que desde que Hugo Chávez asumió la derrota en la intentona de Golpe de Estado, “cambió para siempre la historia de Venezuela, gracias a Chávez volvimos a sr bolivarianos”.
El alcalde del municipio Libertador, Jorge Rodríguez, señaló que contra la “oscuridad” y las “tinieblas”, que asegura existían en 1992, “irrumpió el pueblo de Venezuela el 4 de febrero con su comandante Chávez”.
El Jefe de Estado condecoró con la orden 4F en su primera clase a los civiles y militares que participaron en esta acción comandada por el ex presidente Hugo Chávez.
Además, con la misma orden del 4F, Maduro distinguió al actual gobernador del Táchira, José Vielma Mora; al alcalde de Libertador, Jorge Rodríguez; a las señoras Gina Martins, Iris Felicia García, a Elías Eljuri y a Marleny Contreras.
Because, you know, the best thing to demonstrate how democratic you are is by decorating those who participated in a coup 22 years ago.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)Indeed, he became a hero during the period he served in jail for that rebellion.
Similarly, the people of Brazil have elected Lula da Silva (former) and Dilma Rousseff (current) president of Brazil. Da Silva was jailed by the U.S. supported fascist regime for union organizing. Rousseff was jailed and horribly tortured for belonging to a leftist guerrilla group opposing the U.S. supported fascists.
Similarly, the people of Uruguay have elected Jose Mujica president (current) of Uruguay. Mujica was jailed and horribly tortured by the U.S. supported fascist regime for belonging to a leftist guerrilla group.
Similarly, the people of Nicaragua have elected Daniel Ortega president (current) of Nicaragua. Ortega led the guerrilla army that ousted the horrible, U.S.-supported Batistas.
Similarly, the people of El Salvador appear poised to elect Salvador Sanchez Ceren president of El Salvador this year. Ceren, a former guerrilla leader, almost won the presidency in the first round run-off election, this week.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110825321
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110825334
Similarly, voters in Chile just reelected Michele Bachelet as president of Chile. Bachelet was persecuted by the U.S.-supported fascist regime, which tortured her father to death merely for opposing them. (He wasn't a guerrilla leader.)
It is a badge of courage in these days of democracy in Latin America to have taken up arms against U.S. supported fascists. So it's damn well true that awarding medals to those who did so "demonstrates how democratic you are." The Venezuelan people approved of Chavez's rebellion. The Perez government that he and these others rebelled against slaughtered 500 to 3,000 people during the El Caracazo protests. A coup was justified to stop these murderers--so judged the people of Venezuela.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Andrés_Pérez
Fascist dictators and pro-U.S. "neo-liberals" (a form of fascism that parades as democratic, i.e., Venezuela under Perez) are losing, big time, in Latin America, as the region becomes more democratic, more progressive and more independent. Thus, past rebels against these non-democratic governments--whether they took up arms or rebelled in other ways--are heroes, and, according to the people of Latin America, deserving of high office, medals and other honors. Similarly, we honor George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, James Madison, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and other leaders of our own revolution, who took up arms against George III and the British East India Company, or supported the rebellion in other ways, at great risk to themselves.
So, who are your heroes, hm? Those who killed hundreds of poor protestors during El Caracazo, or those who tried to stop the Perez government horrors by rebelling against it? The horrible, murderous Batistas in Nicaragua, or those who ousted them? The U.S. supported fascists in El Salvador who slaughtered priests and nuns, or those who fought them? The fascist murderers and torturers of Latin America and their U.S. "trainers"--or their victims?
Please clarify. Who are your Latin American heroes?
Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)Which means that my heroes are not those who shot at protestors in the Caracazo, and certainly not Chávez and those other a-holes who supported him during the coup. You also forget to mention it was Rafael Caldera, the president who came before Chávez, who gave him amnesty for his actions, not the Venezuelan people. Certainly a mistake that Caldera will probably be most well-known for, since it resulted in getting the most corrupt figuredhead of our history getting elected and basically sending down Venezuela into the drain, which obviously you're not really aware of since you've never even lived most of your life in the country itself or speak the native language, like I do.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)And, of course, El (non) Universal would find him and play up his distinctly minority view. They are as bad as the Wall Street Urinal and our other 1%-er propaganda rags.
The Venezuelan people just ousted most of the anti-Boliviarian Revolution governors, mayors and other local officials, after electing Hugo Chavez's successor, Nicholas Maduro, as president. And it couldn't be clearer why they did so. The UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean designated Venezuela as "THE most equal country in Latin America" on income distribution, and numerous other indicators--the Millennium Project, Gallup polls--point to vast improvements in the lives of ordinary Venezuelans, on educational opportunities, health care, poverty reduction, wages/benefits and other quality of life issues. These advances are a direct consequence of the Bolivarian Revolution and Chavez/Maduro government policies.
The Bolivarian Revolution is not Chavez alone. It is a creation of the Venezuelan people, who longed for, and organized for, a fairer economy, elected Chavez and his responsive government, and defended that government, at great risk to themselves, when it came under assault by fascist coupsters and their U.S. government colluders.
It is the Venezuelan people who extrapolated from Bolivar's rebellion against Spain, to their own rebellion against "neo-liberalism" and fascist government. As with the New Deal here, they wanted political fairness--sovereignty of the people, democracy, independence-- to develop and include economic fairness. You can't really have a democracy--or you have only the illusion of democracy--when a few are very rich and everybody else is very poor. Chavez took up this cause and led this second revolution, but he would have gotten nowhere without the fulsome backing of the Venezuelan people.
So, Lieutenant Colonel Yoel Acosta Chirinos's argument is with the Venezuelan people. According to the Venezuelan people, he is wrong when he says that, "The reasons leading to such rebellion are widely known, yet they have not been solved" (if that's what he said--it's not in quotes, in the article). The chief spark of that rebellion--the Perez government's massacre of poor protestors (El Caracazo)--certainly has been solved. The government no longer massacres the poor; instead, it supports their aspirations, with education, health care, housing and other New Deal type programs. He points to problems that have not been solved--which got him a forum at El (non) Universal--but he ignores the fact that the Venezuelan people, in election after election, see Bolivarian Revolution leaders as their best bet for solving problems and continued progress toward economic fairness.
He makes a curious distinction between humanism and socialism. Can the predatory capitalism of today--which is destroying democracy here and elsewhere, conducting savage resource wars, and, indeed, is destroying the very planet we live on--be considered "humanist"? Would Simon Bolivar, if he were alive today--a revolutionary leader who freed the slaves, as well as freeing Latin America from Spain--oppose socialism and support the banksters, the Wall Street speculators, the 1% who are getting richer and richer at the expense of everyone and everything else?
On the contrary, Bolivar would likely see socialism as a humanist response to predatory capitalism, and a necessary and much to be desired correction of it. The corporate rulers of the U.S. and their military enforcers are behaving much like Spain--vastly exploitative and violent on behalf of the 1%. Would Bolivar support this, and those in Venezuela and Latin America who get rich off the poor and are allied with, and supported, by the U.S. corporate/military machine? Or would he support the socialists who oppose it?
EVEN IF there is still some corruption in Venezuela, and EVEN IF not all problems have been solved (such as street crime), it's pretty clear to me that Simon Bolivar would, a) support the socialists in Venezuela as the best available--and, what is more, freely chosen, elected--advocates of Venezuelan and Latin American sovereignty, and b) support the educational, health care and other programs for the poor majority, as expressions of humanist values.
That is one woman's opinion, but it appears to be the opinion of most Venezuelans as well. It is their political revolution. Simon Bolivar is their revolutionary hero. The Chavez/Maduro socialists are their most popular political expression. And those socialist policies--education for all, health care for all, pensions for all, regulation of the banksters, fair taxation and so on, and, in general, government "of, by and for the people"--are an outgrowth of the Enlightenment era and its humanist values.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)you ignore the violence, corruption, inflation, shortages, exodus of the people, and incompetence of the government. No-one is following the Venezuela model. You wallow in your ignorance of never having visited Latin America so simply can imagine a fantasy world without any basis in reality. Bolivar would kick Maduro in the balls if he saw what was happening there.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)Government "of, by and for the people" cannot solve every problem. All it can do is try, and then the people judge those efforts. Clearly, in Venezuela, the people have judged those efforts and elected and re-elected the Chavez/Maduro government, and recently threw out most of the rightwing local officials, in favor of chavistas, as well, in an election system that Jimmy Carter has called "the best in the world."
Clearly, on the evidence of election results, independent polls (such as Gallup's Well-being poll) and independent data, most Venezuelans approve of the Bolivarians' efforts to solve problems, approve of their goals--such a poverty reduction, education and health care for all, use of the oil revenues for social programs, etc.-- and believe that they are the best problem-solvers in Venezuela. The UN Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean does not lie. They designated Venezuela as "THE most equal country in Latin America" on income distribution. Against accomplishments like this, Venezuelan voters have to judge problems not yet solved, or problems caused by the fascists and their CIA tutors, such as hoarding goods.
It is YOU who are positing a "dream society"--a society without problems. i would never expect there to be no problems, in any society. I posit DEMOCRACY as the most likely method of governance to solve problems, including grossly unequal income, lack of educational opportunity, improper use of natural resources to make the rich richer and so on. if problems remain, despite honest, transparent elections and real democracy (high levels of public participation, such as in Venezuela), I trust DEMOCRACY to address them, at the least, and to solve or mitigate SOME of them. I would never expect all problems to be solved--especially in a country that has been a CIA/Wall Street target for over a decade. It is amazing to me what the Chavez/Maduro government, and the people of Venezuela, have been able to do--as to problem solving--IN SPITE OF the vicious hostility and active interference of U.S.-based corporate predators and their U.S. "military-industrial" enforcers and local fascist allies.
There is no "dream society." There are only more democratic, or less democratic, or undemocratic societies. Democracy is not a panacea; it is rather a method of governance that, in theory, trusts the wisdom of "the many," as a collective entity, as opposed to traditional (pre-American revolution) rule by the few. We in the U.S. are suffering a very degraded democracy, at the moment--in a steep degradation path since Reagan--characterized by the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, lack of opportunity, neglect--and even contempt for--social decency, such as aiding the poor, the homeless, the unemployed and underpaid, over-worked workers in almost every field, as well as all out assaults, by the moneyed few, on the decencies we HAD--on Social Security, food stamps, progressive and easily available education, good wages and other benefits of the "New Deal" era, and assaults on our "commons"--on our government as a common enterprise, rather than a shill for the rich; on our infrastructure; on our once great public school system; even on the postal service--all to suck ungodly profits from the things that we have built together, for a decent society.
Venezuela is a much better democracy, with a far, FAR better election system. I applaud these achievements of the Venezuelan people and their chosen leaders. I don't expect--and no one should expect--perfection. That is YOUR problem, not mine.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)Do they not have the right to protest freely without threat of violence?