"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez,"
by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...Rumsfeld is planning Oil War II: South America. And Hillary Clinton echoes Rumsfeld here:
"If I am entrusted with the presidency, America will have the courage, once again, to meet with our adversaries. But I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or
Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions, until we have assessed through lower level diplomacy, the motivations and intentions of
these dictators. --Hillary Clinton (at GW University, 2/25/08)
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=6196Obama's statements about Chavez (read: Oil War II) have been more ambiguous and circumspect, but not particularly comforting. Neither Clinton nor Obama seem to understand that Chavez is NOT a "tyrant," has run a scrupulously lawful, elected government for ten years, and has a 70% approval rating. What do the Venezuelans know that our political establishment is deliberately hiding from us? That Venezuela has transparent elections, and we do not? That the poor majority deserves more than warm spit--they deserve REAL representation of their interests in government?
What Donald Rumsfeld and Exxon Mobil want to "defeat," and what Hillary Clinton won't talk to without "preconditions," and considers "tyrannical," and what Obama appears to be ambivalent about, are real democracy and real policies of social justice in Latin America. And our war profiteering corporate news monopolies just keep repeating these lies, along with the candidates, in an echo chamber of disinformation.
Well, here are some items of real news:
Venezuela: the spectre of Big Oil
February 26th 2008, by Paul Kellogg - PolEconAnalysis
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3201Exxon Is Demanding Ten Times its Investment, Says Venezuelan Oil Minister
February 16th 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3164Venezuela: Poverty has been reduced 40 percent in ten years
February 21st 2008, by ABN
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/newsbrief/3186Venezuelan health spending among highest in the Americas
February 20th 2008, by Kiraz Janicke Venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3184We need a movement to nationalize Exxon-Mobil
February 9th 2008, by Daniel Brockert
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/letter/3137And we will never hear THAT view--that what we need to do is nationalize Exxon-Mobil--in corporate monopoly "news and opinion," nor will be hear it from the permitted candidates. But that's really where the discussion should START: How many of these global corporate predators do we dismantle, given what they have done to our Constitution, to our government, to our economy, to our military, to the Iraqi people and to us?
We never hear WHY there is 40+ year civil war in Bush's favorite South American country--Colombia--where union leaders are chainsawed and their body parts thrown into mass graves, and where thousands of union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers and journalists have been killed.
We never hear how much a peaceful settlement of this civil war would mean, for social justice and for the well-being and prosperity for ordinary Colombians, as well as for neighbor and nearby countries. We wonder why it goes on and on--fed by the U.S. war machine and our tax dollars.
We never hear about the great reduction in poverty, and great improvement in health care, and also in literacy and other indicators, accomplished by the leftist government of Venezuela, by insisting upon a higher cut of Venezuela's own oil for Venezuela's social programs, as the price of oil companies doing business in Venezuela. And we never hear of the election system in Venezuela, which puts our own to shame for its transparency. Nor about Venezuela's strong, positive alliances with other South American countries--not just Cuba! (--but Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua), nor about these other leaders' friendships with Chavez. Nor anything real at all about Venezuela. Our corporate news monopolies just select and twist "news" to support Rumsfeld's lie--that Chavez is a "tyrant"--preliminary to Rumsfeld/Exxon Mobil's next moves in Oil War II.
The disinformation is appalling. It is pervasive. And it is the preliminary to war. Rumsfeld/Exxon Mobil will lose this war, but they can and will cause (and are causing) suffering and grief, in the process of losing. Rumsfeld has blithely killed 1.2 million innocent people already, in the global oil war. It's taken the entire U.S. military and $1 to $3 trillion of our non-existent tax dollars to get shaky control of Iraq. How much more? How many more dead? --while our Democratic leaders follow obediently along? --and the media quack-quacks about that "dictator" Chavez, who has harmed no one? But I think that Rumsfeld & co. are about to meet their "Waterloo" in the resistance of the South Americans to any more bloody and brutal interference by the U.S. Peace-minded, leftist democracy is winning. Cooperation is winning. Leftist alliances are winning. South American independence and self-determination are winning. Social justice is winning. Truth is winning. And North Americans will be the last to hear about it.
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