'Venezuelan humanism vs US terrorism’ — Chomsky

[IndianaGreen]

UNITED STATES: 'Venezuelan humanism vs US terrorism’ — Chomsky

Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas

“By sending gas for heating to poor, homeless people for free and at very low prices for those who can pay, Venezuela is giving a great example of cooperation and solidarity with the people of the United States. And this is being seen by the entire world”, Noam Chomsky, well-known US intellectual, told a public meeting of teachers, students, researchers and journalists on February 13 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a special report in the February 15 Caracas newspaper Diario Vea.

Chomsky also said that the majority of North Americans “receive little or no information of the great achievements of the Bolivarian revolution, that is headed by President Hugo Chavez, because the mass media only emphasise the bad, and are silent about the positive.

“The United States, according to the foreign policy of George Bush, thinks it has the right of declaring 'terrorist’ whatever person or country it likes. According to this concept, we must accept that our own air force in Washington, under the authority of the US government, protects Luis Posada Carriles and has done so despite the application for extradition made by Venezuela against one of the most infamous terrorists of the continent, who is at the point of being released.

“Posada Carriles, ex-CIA agent, fled from a Venezuelan jail, where he was facing trial for the crime of bombing a Cuban airliner and other actions. He was welcomed in North America and then sent to El Salvador, where together with Captain Oliver North, he organised the Nicaraguan contras among other activities.

“Now, the Cuban-born terrorist is in a jail in El Paso and the Venezuelan request for extradition has not had a reply. It all appears to be in limbo and, for sure, tomorrow, Posada will appear in Miami, walking free. With this example, there is a deep contradiction between what the US government says and does in this country regarding terrorism.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/657/657p14d.htm

[Mika]

1. I noticed something funny..

Chomsky also said that the majority of North Americans “receive little or no information of the great achievements of the Bolivarian revolution,

Receive little or no information?

How about.. too damned lazy to read anything challenging?

Its not like Americans don't have access to information.

[acmejack]

2. Depending on where one obtains information, there will be a large delta

between what the media relays as truth and the actuality in Bolivia. The vast majority in this Country have no clue who Evo Morales is or why he is important and really couldn't care less, which is the frustrating part. Just like politics, they don't want to talk about politics or they don't care about politics. What in the F does it take to make them start caring?

[Peace Patriot]

3. That's a darned unkind remark, Mika. How about, working three jobs,

taking care of sick kids and old parents, can't afford medical insurance, price of gas tripled, spends a third of the day on freeway bumper to bumper trying to get here and there, exhausted at night, can barely keep an eye open for bit of mindless TV entertainment, before drooping into oblivion. Doesn't have a lot of time to hunt down reading material on something s/he may not have heard much about--and has been given no reason to think it relevant to her/his life.

Despite all this, nearly 60% of the American people opposed the Iraq war, way back before the invasion (Feb. '03), 63% oppose torture "under any circumstances" (May '04), the great majority (way up in the 60% to 70% range) oppose every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, and have for some time, and over 60% have given Bush bad approval ratings all year (over 80% for Cheney), and have never given B/C much credence at any time (generally under 50%). They also gave the Democrats a blowout success in new voter registrations, nearly 60/40, in 2004, and, according to the exit polls, a 3% margin of victory in the election (4% to 5%, if you count all the poor, black, other minority and student votes that were suppressed, or purged).

And all of this--this overwhelming trend of decency and thoughtfulness, in numerous polls over time--is because most Americans are good, decent people, who are better informed than anyone gives them credit for, and who desire peace and justice like most people in the world. They just have not yet realized the extent of their disempowerment, and, above all, disenfranchisement--nor the depth of the failure in all of their political institutions, from the Democratic Party (who were silent as two Bushite corporations took over the election system with "trade secret" programming code) to the war profiteering corporate news monopolies.

We've basically been thrown back to a word-of-mouth culture, and I think the American people are doing pretty well in this circumstance. The internet certainly helps, for those who can afford it and have the time. It's our new "committees of correspondence," from which American Revolution II may well spring--but it takes time.

If you plug in too much to the corporate news monopolies, you get the impression that this great progressive majority (generally 60% against everything the junta does) is a minority. It is not. We are the majority. But this is the junta's triumph, that, somehow, despite these overwhelming numbers who disagree with the junta on everything, each one of us feels isolated and alone, and sometimes angry at what we imagine to be the stupidity and ignorance around us. I think our first task is to realize that that is the heart of the Big Lie, and its most potent and demoralizing and successful illusion--an illusion maintained in spite of the news monopolies' own issue and opinion polls (and corroborating, independent polls) that show a long-standing, and quite overwhelming progressive trend among Americans polled.

Word IS getting around on Venezuela--and on the amazing revolution that has swept South America (and is likely going to hit Mexico this year, with the election of the leftist mayor of Mexico City as president)--in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Bolivia, with Peru likely next. A truly amazing and wonderful development--the result of a lot of hard work on transparent elections and grass roots organization. Venezuela is not alone. It is part of a major and historic change toward real democracy and self-determination. I think it is going to inspire us. If Latin America, with its difficult U.S. "death squad" history of assassinations and dictators, and U.S./World Bank domination, can spring itself free of the corporate rulers, so can we.

Chile just elected its first woman president, socialist Michele Batchelet, who suffered torture, and loss of her family, under U.S.-backed dictator Pinochet. Bolivia just elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Amazing events!

[IsItJustMe]

4. Hear! Hear! Skepticism vs. cynicism

Had a Aunt onetime that told me, "as long as there is life, there is hope".

Enjoyed what you wrote.

And yet I completely understand Mika's and acmejack's frustration with the slow evolution of truth that seems to have been stymied in this country for so long now.

It's hard man. Damn hard.

[Mika]

5. Point taken. I stand corrected.

Thanks, Peace Patriot, for posting that patient response.

Sometimes, after reading about so much of the breakdown, my frustration gets the better of me (and my postings).


:hi:

:hug:

[Peace Patriot]

6. Acmejack, this is what happens in a dictatorship, when people feel (and

are) disempowered and disenfranchised. They'd rather talk about something else, because they feel that they can't influence the situation, they don't count. And some feel afraid, too. What will be the consequences of speaking out, of disagreeing? Loss of job? Phone tapped? FBI knocking on your door? Car trashed by Freepers for having the wrong bumper sticker on it? Better to shut up and tend your own garden. Some, by no means all. Others just shut up because, what's the use? This is the most corrosive result of powerlessness. It doesn't mean that people aren't aware of things. (If nothing else, the polls tell us that they very much are.) But they can't see any way to change things, and they feel defeated. This is one hazard of spreading the word about our very non-transparent and very rigged election system--although it must be done--that people feel even more powerless.

But I don't believe in lying to people--and it's better in the long run. At least they know that there is a very concrete, and also fixable REASON we can't elect good people, despite huge turnouts, despite big voter registration victories, despite the obvious deficiency of a man like Bush. It's very simple. His buds own the "trade secret" programming that tabulates all the votes electronically, over which there is virtually no audit/recount control. It's by no means the only problem, but it's our basic mechanism of change. And, as more people learn what's what with our election system, our election officials will have less and less ability to get away with this crap.

The disenfranschisement comes first. Then the demoralization and disempowerment. So you have to get back to square #1: the disenfranchisement, and find the way to restore transparent elections. (--county by county, state by state, I think, with exposure and pressure on election officials).

Anyway, go to Saudi Arabia, or Uzbekistan, and see if people talk politics. Although we are a bigger and much more diverse country, and have a strong democratic heritage, we are not much better off than these, as to the ability to change things, and the hope of changing things. And our government, like theirs, is torturing people and killing people (tens of thousands in Iraq), and subjecting the poor to murderous neglect, and ripping up our laws and our constitution, and robbing us blind, with impunity. Like theirs. After a while, people stop hoping, and stop talking. What is the use? (And what are the dangers?) We are not far from outright dictatorship--with jack boots. It's a scary time. I think our diversity and our heritage will save us. We are not an easy country to control. And the fight has just begun, really. It's going on in Pennsylvania right now--and in California, and New York, and North Carolina, and Alaska, and other places. The fight over restoring transparent elections. (Pennsylvania is a very interesting situation--see www. votepa.us.) (And, in California, clearly the bad guys know that they must have Diebold machines to win. See www.debrabowen.com.)

Our oppression is unique in many ways. But I think it's very real--and is the cause of the silence of some people. They feel at a loss; unheard; and have maybe never before participated much in politics, and are utterly bewildered by what's happening. But vast discontent among Americans is also very real (as it is in other dictatorships). How long can this discontent go on--with 60% and more of the people feeling unrepresented and disenfranchised--before the majority finds the ways to rid itself of our sham news media, and our sham Congress, and our sham President, and our sham elections? Well, we'll see. But I think there is a seething element to the discontent, and that it might not be that long before this country starts moving very quickly in the other direction--toward real and fundamental reform, radical reform, such as is occurring in Latin America, and such as we haven't seen here since the 1930s and the FDR administration.

[ladjf]

7. You have made a very good point. Far too many Americans

are living their lives as slaves. Just because they can leave work and go to "their home" doesn't mean that they aren't slaves. The fact is, literal slaves have to be be housed, clothed and feed by their owners. But, American fascist businesses expect their "slaves" to pay for the basic necessities out of their "slave wages" while working under slave conditions.

My definition of slavery is when people are forced to work so hard and long that there is almost no energy or time to have good quality in their lifestyles.