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Stupid, stupid Bush:
Venezuela has time and again proven itself to be not just a democracy, but a very good democracy. In Venezuela, they vote electronically, but they hand-count FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the paper ballot backup, cuz they don't trust the machines. Know how much of OUR vote gets hand-counted? (0% to 1%, depending on how much of a grip our Bushite electronic voting corporations have on local/state election officials--ergo our system is wide open to election fraud by insider hacking.) Venezuela furthermore has a raucous free press, if you figure corporate news monopolies excoriating the government 24/7, and one else owning any media, to be a "free" press. Not free as to money/corporate influence. But certainly free to say what they damned please. The corporate press even openly supported the violent military coup against Chavez in 2002. Chavez's government, despite enormous provocation, has made not the slightest effort to shut the corporate news monopolies up. Venezuela has a citizenry that is devoted to its Constitution, and participation in politics, elections and government by all citizens is intense.
In a normal world, the United States would be applauding Venezuela for its achievement of a truly democratic election and political system, and for its progressive policies on lifting up the vast poor population with their enfranchisement, and with schools, medical clinics, community centers, small business loans, baseball parks, cultural and sports funding, and a host of services to the majority poor population who have never before been served by government.
Instead, the Bush Junta supported the violent coup against Venezuela's democratically elected government in 2002, has poured billions of dollars (OUR tax money!) into Chavez's opposition--the country's tiny rich oil elite--for various activities to disrupt the government, including a crippling oil professional's strike and a wasteful and absurd recall election (which Chavez won handily with nearly 60% of the vote), and has never lost a chance to vilify Chavez as dictatorial based on no evidence whatsoever. He may be dictatorial to giant foreign oil companies--telling them they will pay their fair share of taxes; there is no sign AT ALL that he is "dictatorial" to anyone else.
In other words, the Bush Junta has deliberately and stupidly alienated Venezuela, its government and it people, solely based on the Bush Junta's greedy interest in oil profits. U.S. policy is being controlled by oil giants, to the detriment of the interests of the American people and democracy.
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Stupid, stupid war profiteering corporate news monopolies:
By their relentless and monotonous and disinformational focus on Hugo Chavez, and their insistence that he be viewed as some kind of gun-toting leftist revolutionary--with phrases like "authoritarian" and "increasingly dictatorial" and "friend of Castro's Cuba" endlessly repeated--the war profiteering U.S. corporate news monopolies have done a tremendous disservice to the American people including the American business community, who have been left ignorant of the vast sea change that has occurred THROUGHOUT South America, where the new leftist (majorityist) governments are fast moving toward an EU-like trade group, with a common currency like the euro (to get off the US dollar). Leftist (majorityist) governments have been elected in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--virtually the entire continent--and will likely be elected in the next election cycle in Peru. The phenomenon of leftist (majorityist) rule is also evident in Central America, with the election of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and the vast uprising of the indigenous in southern Mexico and Mexico City (it's only a matter of time in Mexico). A common theme of these governments, and of this huge political movement, is rejection of the "neoliberal" policies of the past, including U.S./World Bank/Global Corporate Predator domination, often enforced by brutal U.S.-backed dictators, and a new emphasis on Latin American self-determination and regional cooperation.
The new leftist president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, is a friend of Chavez. He repeated Chavez's UN remark that Bush is "the devil" (he said that it insults the devil) during his recent victorious campaign for president. The new leftist president of Bolivia, Evo Morales--the first indigenous ever to be elected president--is a friend of Chavez. Chavez awarded Morales Simon Bolivar's sword upon his inauguration. (Bolivia named after Bolivar, the great Latin American revolutionary hero, who, among other things, wanted a "United States of South America," but died too young to see his dream realized.) Lulu da Silva, the former steelworker president of Brazil--who led the 20-country third world revolt at the WTO in Cancun several years ago--is a friend of Chavez, and arranged a state visit to Venezuela for the opening of the new Orinoco bridge a couple of weeks before the recent Venezuelan presidential election. Nestor Kirchner, the leftist president of Argentina, is a friend of Chavez. Venezuela recently bailed Argentina out of crippling World Bank debt, and helped put Argentina's economy on the road to recovery. In fact, Venezuela's help LED TO to Argentina opening talks with Brazil on a common currency.
All these developments have been marginalized in the U.S. corporate monopoly press, with its singular focus on convincing the American public that Hugo Chavez as a dangerous "dictator"--in the teeth of the facts, that he has been repeatedly elected and re-elected by 60% majorities in Venezuela, in the most highly monitored elections on earth, and is very popular throughout Latin America FOR A REASON--that his IDEAS are GOOD for Latin Americans, and are the COMMON view of the MAJORITY of Latin Americans!
And we really need to get this through our heads. Latin America is the FUTURE. WE, with our fascist Bushite government, are the PAST. WE are quickly becoming the "banana republic" of the Bush Oil Cartel (run by the Saudi Arabian monarchy!) and associated global corporate interests.
And Hugo Chavez--in his dealings with OPEC--has been given no reason to favor the interests of the United States, i.e., the Bush Oil Cartel. He could have been our ally. He SHOULD HAVE BEEN our ally. He has time and again demonstrated that he is a friend of the American PEOPLE. Neither he nor his government nor the people of Venezuela are OUR enemies. They oppose the BUSH JUNTA.
The Bush Junta is prowling the world seeking to control all of the last oil deposits, and seeking to profit from the worldwide oil economy that is killing the planet. THIS is the reason for their war on Iraq--this and stuffing the pockets of war profiteers. They have hijacked the U.S. military in the service of private profit. THIS is the reason for their belligerence toward Iran. (And anyone who thinks their purpose is protecting Israel is a fool.) THIS is the reason for their seemingly mindless slandering of Hugo Chavez, and their alienation of OTHER South American countries--especially those with oil, gas and mineral riches--by ALSO interfering in the elections in Bolivia and Ecuador (very unsuccessfully) and in Peru (successful, but only temporarily), and by their use of "free trade" agreements and military funding to bully and bludgeon South American governments and their voters.
Bush Junta policy in Latin America has been DISASTROUS for the interests of the American PEOPLE. And it hasn't done their Global Corporate Predator buds much good either, as a matter of fact. Their fascist model of brutal exploitation is being rejected in country after country. In Bolivia, for instance, when Bechtel Corp. privatized the water in one Bolivian city, and then jacked up the prices to the poorest of the poor--even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater!--the Bolivians rose up and threw Bechtel out of their country, and elected socialist and indigenous indian Evo Morales as president. In Argentina, when the World Bank/IMF put the squeeze on Argentinians with onerous loans, the poor and middle class joined forces, and went round with tiny hammers and broke every bank ATM display window in Buenos Aires, in protest. Three governments later--in quick succession--they finally got a good leftist (majorityist) government that promised to get them out of World Bank debt and never get into it again (which Kirchner has accomplished).
Our war profiteering corporate news monopolies DON'T WANT US TO KNOW that the mineral riches of a country can be used to benefit the people, as is occurring now in South American, due to majority rule and honest and aboveboard elections. They don't want us to know that Bush and his corporate brethren have turned half the western hemisphere against the United States, in their nefarious efforts to turn back the clock to the era of death squads and military coups and gross exploitation.
In the end, what is happening in Latin America will help us. For one thing, the Latin Americans are teaching us a thing or two about democracy (TRANSPARENT elections!) that can help us in restoring democracy in the U.S. For another, it does neither of our populations any good to have all of our manufacturing outsourced to Latin American and other countries. They get sweatshops, and shit wages. We get massive unemployment. FAIR trade is good for both of us! "Free trade" (neoliberalism) is not. For another, destroying their economies and impoverishing their populations results in massive illegal immigration to the U.S. for the shit jobs here (what is happening with Mexico now--also Guatemala--and both of their fascist/neoliberal governments). In Venezuela, the government is providing help to small farmers, to keep them on the land (for one thing, to benefit the country in their goal of food self-sufficiency). In Mexico, peasants have been pushed OFF the land--by multinational corporations--creating vast poverty and immigration north for low paying jobs. In most cases, it is often US-based global corporate predators who are causing all the problems, in collusion with local rich elites. These corporate predators are now destroying OUR country as well. We need to throw them off! South Americans are pointing the way.
And it is important to note--regarding this OP and Venezuela/Iran--that Iran, too, suffered the gross interference of the U.S. The U.S. destroyed Iran's democracy back in 1954, and installed the horrible Shah of Iran, who inflicted 25 years of torture and oppression on the Iranian people. We DROVE the Iranians into the arms of the mullahs. The mullah-run Islamic Republic is far better than what they had before. Iran is now one of the few places in the Middle East where all the oil profits are not going to a bunch of fat sultans. They have GOOD REASON to be afraid of us. They, too, have been given no reason to cooperate with us. If our government was not being run by the Bush Oil Cartel (the Saudis), we would find that we have much in common with the people of Iran. They are the most potentially progressive people among Israel's neighbors!
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupidity reigns supreme in our Bush Monarchy. That's what monarchy is all about. The super-rich get super-richer, while the peasants and cannon fodder, kept stupid by the imperial propaganda machine, wonder what happened to their jobs, their pensions, their schools, their communities, and THEIR abundant natural resources.
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