Venezuela Calls for Leftist Defense Bloc

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Venezuela Calls for Leftist Defense Bloc

By JORGE RUEDA
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 7, 2007; 1:42 AM

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez called for the creation
of a common defense pact between Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and
Bolivia, while the leftist Latin American bloc announced the creation
of a development bank to finance joint projects.

Chavez said Wednesday that the four-nation Bolivarian Alternative for
the Americas, or ALBA, which began as a socialist-leaning trade group,
should cooperate militarily to become more independent of U.S.
influence.

"It seems to be the moment to establish a joint defense strategy,"
Chavez said. He called for joint military aid as well as intelligence and
counterintelligence cooperation "to prepare our people for defense so
that nobody makes any mistake with us."

Chavez denounced countries in the region that collaborate with the
United States on defense and security through the Washington-based
Inter-American Defense Board.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060700124.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. And now we will hear why this is very very bad.

How dare Venezuela build military and economic alliances with its neighbors! And CUBA! CUBA! We must INVADE NOW!

[GirlinContempt]

2. Well duh

It'd be like, moving in to a neighbourhood, and all the ladies coming over to introduce themselves and have coffee chat. Then when you break your leg re-shingling your house, they bring you pies and casseroles :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Digital]

6. I tried wrapping my mind around that one..

But I just can't seem to get it. I am feeling a little dense today.

Would you mind explaining that to me? If it's crystal clear to everyone else, I apologize for being so thick!

[GirlinContempt]

10. It's comparing local neighborhoods to local

political allegiances.

[Digital]

13. Oh!

That makes perfect sense now!:spray:

[originalpckelly]

30. How many legal political parties are there in Cuba?

[Peace Patriot]

3. Good idea. It is arguable whether the U.S. has EVER supported democracy in

the world, with the exception of post WW II Europe and Japan. Our government has supported one brutally fascist government after another in Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Africa. The Batistas and the Pinochets, and the kings and the fat sultans, and the white overlords--and not just supported. The U.S. has often DESTROYED democratic governments--as in Iran and Chile--in order to INSTALL bloody, torturing, murdering dictatorships. That is the sad truth of the matter.

Add the Bush Junta, and our hysterical, megalomaniacal U.S.-based global corporate predators, and their Democratic Party leadership enablers, in the current picture--trying to use the U.S. military to make up for their lack of ideas--and you have a situation in which the peoples of the world who desire self-determination and social justice HAD BETTER think about protecting themselves.

The word "treachery" comes to mind, as a summary of our current regime. I am haunted, for instance, by a remark of British WMD expert David Kelly, who was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances, four days after Valerie Plame was outed. Shortly before he died, he said that he had told the friends he had made in Iraq's weapons industry, as a UN weapons inspector, that if they cooperated with the UN weapons inspectors there would be no invasion. They cooperated, and then saw their country destroyed anyway.

The U.S. political establishment wants control of Iraqi and Iranian oil, and control of oil, gas, minerals, forests and other resources in the Andes region. And they do NOT want those resources to be used for the benefit of the people who live there. That is WHY, in 1954, they DESTROYED Iran's democracy and installed the horrible Shah of Iran, who inflicted the Iranian people with 25 years of torture and oppression--the background for the Islamic revolution and establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which, for all its stifling "sharia law," is nevertheless more representative and more just, from the point of view of ordinary people, than any government that has come before it. And that is ALSO why the U.S. government, under Bush, and many Democratic leaders--and their corporate news monopoly echo chamber--is so hostile to Venezuela, where, in fact, a genuine democracy has emerged, and has inspired a huge, peaceful, democratic revolution throughout the region.

Who DOES the Bush Junta favor in South America? Colombia!--the dinosaur of the continent, where the rightwing fascist regime has been slaughtering thousands of union organizers, peasants and leftists and throwing them into mass graves; where the rightwing fascist regime has been engaged in large scale drug trafficking! THAT is how the $4 billion of our taxpayer dollars that Bush has larded on Colombia has been used--to kill people, to savagely suppress the poor and to ship cocaine to the United States!

And who does the Bush Junta hate? Venezuela--which has the most vibrant democracy in South America, and where the government is using its oil revenues to build schools and medical clinics in poor areas, to wipe out illiteracy, to fund small businesses and coops, and for land reform and other beneficial purposes, including bailing Argentina out of ruinous World Bank/IMF debt and creating the Bank of the South to replace exploitative international financiers. Why isn't the U.S. government CELEBRATING these developments, instead of reviling Venezuela and trying in every way--including support for a violent military coup--to destroy democracy in the Andes region?

The rightwing paramilitaries and mercenaries in Colombia, larded with U.S. tax dollars (stolen from our children--FUTURE tax dollars), and in cahoots with the worst elements in South American society--are clearly plotting the restoration of fascist regimes and military juntas in the Andes region. One of the disclosures in the huge rightwing paramilitary scandal in Colombia is their plot to assassinate democratic leaders such as Chavez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia, destabilize those democratic governments, and take them over. These plots have been tied to the top echelons of the Colombia government (the chief of the military, the former head of intelligence, and many office holders). The rightwing elite in South America CANNOT gain power in strong democracies with transparent elections. That is WHY they seek power through violence (as the rightwing elite in this country seeks power through STOLEN elections, by creating the illusion of democracy--but their true colors are shown in Iraq--that's what they want to do here, AFTER they destroy OUR democracy, which they are well on their way to doing).

The Andean democracies would do well to create a defense pact--for the defense of legitimate government in the region. In BushWorld, they have no other choice. It would be irresponsible NOT to. As for Cuba, which has chosen economic democracy over political democracy--a choice we would not make, and one that other Latin American countries have rejected (they, as we, want both)--Cuba, interestingly, has aligned with the DEMOCRATIC governments in Latin America, and will become more democratic by their influence, if the U.S. does not interfere. But, of course, the U.S. under Bush--and more than likely under the Democrats (since no real democrat will be permitted to gain the White House)--fully intend to interfere. They want to overthrow Cuban economic democracy, and re-install some fascist pig puppet like Batista. That's what the U.S. government DOES. That's who the U.S. government aligns itself with. They don't give a crap about democracy in Cuba. Just take a look at what they've done in Iraq--the deliberate instigation of civil war and rule by neighborhood gangsters!

With menacing, very undemocratic forces within their borders, in neighboring countries, and, of course, to the north, running the U.S., countries with strong democracies like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, their allied leftist governments, such as Brazil, Chile and Uruguay (good governments, but not quite as strong in the struggle against U.S. influence), and Cuba--which lacks political democracy, but nevertheless supports independence and self-determination for itself and other Latin American countries--would all be wise to strengthen their military and other defenses (for instance, economic), as the predatory U.S.-based global corporate elite becomes more and more desperate for exploitable resources and ungodly riches, to insulate themselves from the impacts of their own failed economic and environmental polices. Our elite is an extremely greedy and treacherous bunch, who seem to have lost all sense of common values and loyalty to democracy, or even to their own country and its people. We once had hopeful leadership--people like Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, who were willing to learn and to revise U.S. policy in Latin America, to bring it more into line with our ideals. We are bereft of good leadership now--most certainly be design. So other countries had better take note--and are taking note--of the failure of THIS democracy and the danger that the U.S. therefore presents to other countries and to the world.

[annabanana]

20. Another stellar essay Peace Patriot..

I wish you would "journal" them. (I am squirreling copies away for my own elucidation.)

[Tatiana]

23. We should all hang our heads in disgrace over the paramilitary ops in Colombia.

Of course, this is funded with taxpayer dollars, partially under the guise of "Plan Colombia." We have NEVER supported democracy in Latin America - NEVER. Ask Allende's family. We'd prefer a dictator we can control over participatory democracy.

This is a good start. I want to see what Peru does or if other Latin American nations will join.

[BushOut06]

4. This gives me no small amount of pleasure

I am a huge fan of anything that serves to humble the United States, and to put it back in its place. We've been acting like we can do whatever we want, wherever we want, and however we want for far too long. We've been throwing our weight around in other nations for decades, demanding they act the way we want them to. We didn't need to use military force, we simply flexed our economic muscle around the world, and forced nations to do our bidding. It's nice to see countries finally waking up from this stupor and challenging American imperialism.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BushOut06]

8. I take it you approve of American imperialism?

Where did I say that I hated the US? I absolutely hate our imperialistic attitude, that we can force the rest of the world to do our bidding. Why do you think the rest of the world hates us so much? It ain't because of our freedom.

[Psephos]

48. When you relish the humiliation and excoriation of something, it's a valid question to ask

I'm not much concerned whether you hate the US or love it. It's your right, and what good is a right if it can't be freely exercised? Patriotism is nothing more than loyalty to one's in-group, and is of a piece with the blind loyalty that springs from dogmatic religious or political belief. Most of this thread is prima facie evidence of how that works.

What does interest me is why you go to lengths to hide your animosity to the US when Brentspeak asked you a direct question. Why not wear it on your sleeve?

I think what drives the patriot crowd crazy is not necessarily that someone feels hatred to the US, but that someone finds feels the hatred but weasels out of owning the statement.

As for me, I love the US when it is good, and don't love it when it is bad. I don't allow others to "help" me make the distinction.

[ret5hd]

9. And yet, people who move here because they couldn't live in their own...

country are told (even by people here) : "why don't you go fix your OWN country!"

[Bacchus39]

12. yet they keep coming here don' t they??

a fearsome group indeed, the Bolivian, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Cuban defense bloc.

[1932]

14. The US has been so scared of each one individually that they've been willing to pull some

crazy shit.

[Bacchus39]

15. yep, that alliance is formidable indeed

imagine the fear that the US military would have knowing that any attack against Bolivia would result in the mobilization of Nicaraguan forces.

[1932]

16. Why does US spend so much time undermining lefitst governments of each one individually

if the US isn't scared?

[Bacchus39]

19. oh, I don't know. what do you think they are scared of??

n/t

[annabanana]

22. Terrified of someone who might rein in the multinationals...

and harness some of that capital for the public good, probably.

[Bacchus39]

25. by forming a defense bloc??

take a reality check.

[1932]

32. How does US enforce hegemony? By force and threat of force. So, answer is 'yes'.

[hack89]

34. And you really think they can create a reasonable deterrent

without bankrupting themselves? Sounds more like a pay off to the South American Generals to stay out of politics - we know what staunch supports of democracy and the common man they are.

[1932]

35. If the US was terrified of these countries pursuing social democracies which undermined US hegemony

as individual countries -- so scared that we've spent millions and broken US laws to do it -- then why would the US be less scared of these countries working together.

[hack89]

36. I don't think we are scared of them

certainly not of any military capability they have.

[1932]

37. We're not scared of them militarily. We're scared of the power of an idea

and our inability to counter it by force or threat of force.

I think a lot of people with a vested interest in mainting massive disparities in political and economic power are probably quite terrified of that.

[hack89]

38. I doubt it

we have enormous influence over South America yet I am at a lost to how they have ever influenced me. What idea do they have that is so powerful and if it is so powerful, can you show where it has ever influenced America?

[1932]

39. Please. Sandanistas. Allende. Torrijos. We've crushed every idea with force.

And it's no coincidence that democracy is failing in the US and the powerful are ensconced in power.

Yeah, those ideas haven't influenced you. That's why your democracy is an extreme state of decay.

[BestCenter]

40. Please. Anglosphere?

The U.S.'s democracy is much more likely to be influenced by the British, or for that matter, that giant neighbor to the north. Whenever Americans look south, all they can see is Mexico, and we know what a great democracy that is.

[1932]

41. Where has the money come that has widened the gap between rich and poor in the US

which is, consequentially, destroying democracy?

From the British?

Uh uh.

It comes from exploiting developing countries in places like south and central America.

[BestCenter]

49. That's irrelevent

I'm refuting the concept that American politics will be somehow influenced by Latin America. American politics is much more likely to be influenced by the Anglo or European nations.

[1932]

50. It's totally relevant in two respects:

1) increasing the gap between rich and poor in the US threatens democracy at home, and one major source funding this polarization is the exploitation of developing countreis. These countries are challenging that exploitation. If they're successful, it will be harder to find the money to exploit Americans.

2) These countries are applying political ideas to their own internal politics that are just as relevant to the US. Bolivia threw out the water privatizers (specically, Bechtel -- the company that supplied some of the most influential members of the Reagan administration, by the way). Do Americans even think about whether the privatization of their own infrastructure is a bad thing? Bolivians and other Latin American countries may, in fact, be on the cutting edge of successfully challenging neoliberalism, and might help the US undo the damage it is doing here.

These are the two reasons some people in the US are afraid of Latin America.

[hack89]

42. What idea do they represent?

What is their secret that will make my life better?

[1932]

43. I already told you. That social democracy is good and neoliberalism doesn't work.

These countries believe that closing the gap between the rich and poor is good, that democracy works, and that using the wealth created in their countries to make their own citizens better off, whether it's from their labor, from oil or bananas or the panama canal or natural gas is the way foreward. Furthermore, it's the idea that privatization of public infrastructure is a bad idea.

Did you read the article in the New York Times yesterday about how private student loans in recent years have been used to create a class of indentured servants to capitalism in the US.

Venezuela recently implemented a student loan system that is the exact opposite of what we're doing in the US. The ideas they have in Venezuela about protecting working people from exploitation by the financial industry are so far ahead of the US. This is what the US is afraid of.

[hack89]

44. Their fatal flaw

is a streak of authoritarianism that is decidedly undemocratic. Regardless of their motivation they will eventually fall back into the pattern of authoritarian suppression of dissent, more dissent, more violence until a new leader takes over.

Left or right wing - the pattern is a dismally familiar one in South and Central America.

[1932]

45. Who? Allende? Their fatal flaw is not being as powerful as US and not being

able to resist the will of the US.

[Judi Lynn]

46. It was illuminated well enough by Richard Nixon who, in facing a leader he couldn't control

in Allende, instructed his people to "make Chile's economy scream," their big assignment which, through their execution nearly brought the entire nation to a complete standstill, and crises on several fronts.

They learned long ago they can cut the legs out from under democratically elected leaders by destroying essential features of their industries. With the truck strike in Chile, ships started jamming up in the harbor, and food shortages set in, and it snowballed.

Hard on any democratically elected leader when the natives start getting restless, and it makes it that much easier to start finding allies in the military, then it's all over but the shouting.

Dirty, filthy, dishonorable criminals, Republicans.

It's not as if we haven't seen the very same things _Bush has done to Chavez already.

They only care about "democracy" when they are claiming they have to invade countries to provide it to their citizens. Only good for politics.

[1932]

47. And if anyone does have momentary success in defending against the US's

efforts to "make economies scream" by, say, insisting that people patriotic to their country rather than to Wall St, have more cultural, economic and political power, then people knock them as being "authoritarian."

It's real Catch-22 to be patriotic about anything other than US hegemony-by-force or threat of force regardless of which country you're a citizen.

[1932]

33. How does US enforce hegemony? By force and threat of force. So, answer is 'yes'.

[1932]

31. Social democracy.

Isn't it obvious?

The US is terrified of it.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. Hoping for sarcasm...

...but doubting it.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Pathetic to hear DUers repeat the rightwing mantra of "America, Love It, or Leave It!"

I have been hearing that shit since the anti-Vietnam War marches, and here we are again!

[Judi Lynn]

18. It's so stupid when they tell people they should leave their own country if they don't support

murderous, greedy clowns like the Republican Presidents and their bloody histories in Latin America, laying waste to hundreds of thousands of exploited, enslaved desperately poor people, forcing the survivors to live in fear perhaps their whole lives, buying off their fascist politicians, undermining and destroying their beloved, popular leaders, and treating all the ones who don't bow and scrape to them like dirt.

What a shame Republicans discovered their constituents would far rather spend a billion dollars killing people than to spend one million helping them. Can you imagine an entire country composed of Republicans? The earth itself would probably try to scrape the country off into the ocean.

[annabanana]

21. exsqueeze me?

Where is your home, son. Do your folks know you're so far afield?

[Peace Patriot]

24. There is a difference between hating the hypocritcal, murderous, greedy policies

of the U.S.-based global corporate predator elite and hating the United States itself--its people and its democratic ideals. And it is idiotic--and the most jingoistic accusation in jingoistic BushWorld--to say, "America, love it or leave it!" What would Thomas Jefferson say to that? The U.S. was based upon the notion of strong internal criticism of government policy. That is not just our right, it is our safety net as a country. Combined with our right to vote, our right to criticize government and hold it accountable, is the means by which we can CORRECT the ship of state when it is headed to disaster, and DEMAND that it act lawfully and according to our best democratic ideals. These rights are the bulwark against tyranny and against rich, powerful elites gaining too much power for their own profit.

Further, when we see our government doing wrong, we are obliged as human beings to speak out against it, and we are obliged as the citizens of this country, to find out WHY it is doing wrong, and try to change those conditions, or bring powerful wrongdoers to justice.

Those who say, "America, love it our leave it," to critics of U.S. policy, are identifying what America IS with the most rightwing and greedy powers in our land. They are identifying with very undemocratic multinational corporations, war profiteers, union busters, thieves, murderers and the super-rich. They are identifying with liars, corporate news monopolies and fascists.

But these are usurping powers--greedy, awful people who have sucked at the tit of U.S. taxpayers and workers since the end of WW II, and are now just looting us blind, and have hijacked our military for corporate resource wars, and are dismantling our Constitution.

You want us to give up the fight for democracy in the U.S., and go elsewhere? No! We have a vision of a just and truly democratic country. OUR country. We are the Abolitionists, who fought against slavery. We are the union organizers, who fought against the Robber Barons. We are the suffragettes, who fought for women's rights. We are the New Dealers, who fought against the destruction of our economy by the greedy rich. We are the citizen soldiers of WW II, who fought and defeated Nazism and longed for world peace. We are the civil rights workers, who fought for full citizenship for the descendants of the slaves. We are the antiwar activists, who fought and fight against unjust war. We are the PEOPLE of this country, who demand lawful and honest government--because it is our RIGHT to have lawful and honest government.

When we see democracy arising ELSEWHERE, as in Venezuela, we praise it. When we see our government doing everything in its power to DESTROY another democracy--another democracy, in this case, which has far more honest and transparent elections than we do, and a far livelier political culture than our own--we cry out against such destructiveness, because it is unjust and unlawful, and the height of hypocrisy, on the part of our corporate overlords and their puppet politicians.

It is ridiculous to say, "Go live in Venezuela!"--as if to say, "SHUT UP!" about the injustice of our own government. If we, the People, ever DO shut up, it will be the final doom of this democracy. It will mean the bad guys won.

And with regard to Latin American immigrants to this country--legal and illegal--the great majority of them are Mexicans, Guatemalans and Hondurans--three countries which U.S. global corporate predators have particularly devastated, economically and politically. 200,000 Mayan villagers were slaughtered in Guatemala in the 1980s, under Reagan (and with his direct complicity), in order to destroy the leftist political movement in that country. Democracy was PREVENTED, by massive bloodshed. Fairness and justice were DESTROYED. All three of these countries now have rightwing governments that are continuing the devastation--colluding with Bush and the "free traders"--and actively oppressing the vast poor populations. Recently, in Oaxaca, yet another democracy movement arose, and was crushed by the Fox/Calderon government, which SUPPORTED the fascist governor and his murderous paramilitaries. There is vast poverty and disenfranchisement in these countries--supported and instigated by the U.S. government and its corporate rulers. If the U.S., instead, changed course, and supported democracy and justice in these countries, we WOULDN'T HAVE an illegal immigration problem. If the people who come here for poorly paid, hard labor jobs, had any hope of feeding their families and any hope of upward mobility in their own countries, they would remain there. They would PREFER to remain there. They love their villages and families and communities there. But they often have been stripped of their land by corporate predators. And they have often seen their unions and their rural cooperatives and honest, fair government smashed by local rich elites in collusion with multinational corporations. They have seen cheap U.S. ag products dumped on their markets to destroy local food self-sufficiency. They have seen every hope of fairness and justice destroyed. They have been forced into urban squalor or migration.

IF the U.S. government supported democracy in Latin America--and praised and helped governments like those of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, which are actively trying to create social justice and prosperity for all, instead of conspiring to destroy them and to loot their rich natural oil, gas, mineral, forest and other resources--THERE WOULD BE NO IMMIGRATION PROBLEM. IF people had hope, IF people were able to participate in their governments, IF people had jobs and saw the benefits of their labor, they would not migrate! But the economics are so out of balance, after decades and centuries of exploitation, and are KEPT so out of balance NOW--in the countries that LACK strong leftist governments--there is NOTHING for them in their native lands, and they come here, seeking our hardest jobs, often at the risk of their lives and often reluctantly, leaving family, culture and all familiar things behind. WE, who have exploited and oppressed THEIR countries for decades and centuries, still have some pittance to provide in wages for picking crops and cleaning hotel rooms. WE have business owners, bosses and corporations that prefer cheap, unprotected labor, and who, of course, have an interest in spiraling wages downward and busting unions. This combination of hopeless poverty there, and the ill intent of the rightwing moneyed class here, is the cause of illegal immigration by the poor. It is not a preference of the poor. It is a necessity of the poor. And it is NOTHING to crow about. ("Why do they come here, if our government is so bad?") It is a disgrace. It is a deliberate 'diaspora.' It is the product of ungodly greed on the part of the fascist elites in both places, and on the part of monster global corporations who have loyalty to no one.

[Judi Lynn]

27. Those countries haven't had the means to protect themselves from exploitation by multi-nationals

based here all this time. Looks as if they have finally grown so weary of watching the absolutely predictable policy from the U.S. right-wing, violent meddling pResidents that they are learning ways to start protecting themselves. More power to them.

Many of us already knew long ago that US taxpayer-agricultural crops have swept away the traditional markets for farmers in these countries who find they can no longer sell their crops at a profit any more and have been forced out of the very businesses which at least allowed their families to survive for GENERATIONS.

As you describe, these rapacious market practices have enabled wealthy firms here to destroy the lives of agricultural workers in Latin American countries, Caribbean countries, and throw them out of their homes, off their own lands, with no other jobs available, left to make their way across the border in their ONLY hope of survival.

And that's the NON-VIOLENT way of taking their countries, their economies. The faster, more expedient way has always been the course American right-wing pResidents seem to prefer, made so digestible to the mentally, spiritually flat lining American right-wing by labeling everyone they kill as a "communist," or a "terrorist," even though these people have been only unlucky enough to be in the wrong place when the death squads showed up, murdering ENTIRE VILLAGES in their paths, THE HARD WAY, by extravagant blood orgies, bashing, slashing, hacking, dismembering by chain saws, all in the attempt to frighten anyone learning about them later to death, immobilizing entire countries with fear..... All supported with gusto by American racist right-wingers.




So still, we get the occasional ignorant person who shows up and tells people to leave their own country if they don't like the measures taken by twisted right-wing politicians who have wormed their way into power. It's only the lowest among us who would support them. Human beings don't condone that behavior.

[Zandor]

51. The "Why Do You Hate America?" talking point???

That's a bogus allegation that is tossed at Democrats and progressives constantly.

The poster was objecting to an overly aggressive American foreign policy, and correctly so IMO.

[Cults4Bush]

5. I think its smart to protect that oil.

The US as it stands now cannot be trusted on any level of foreign diplomacy.

...

[medicis]

26. Chavez is doing

precisely what he should be doing to try to protect his country from the slavering oil and power thirst of the Evil Empire to his North. One which I am unfortunately compelled to support by being forced to pay income tax (which in itself is illegal).

[rayofreason]

29. Illegal income tax???

I guess you are a bit shaky on what is the definition of "legal"

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment16/

[StateRed]

53. ILEGAL INCOME TAX?

how are you going to support social welfare without income tax?

[annabanana]

28. kickin'.. lookin for rec.s. . . . n/t

[Zandor]

52. It's midgets uniting against a giant

From a practical military standpoint, it's meaningless. And the neanderthals that would be inclined to attack one of these countries would be undeterred.

[northzax]

54. sounds like a heck of a boon

to the Russian and Chinese military industries, more good old Venezuelan money flowing in over the transom.