5 myths about the Venezuela crisis
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/07/5_myths_about_the_venezuela_crisis_partner/1. Latin America is wild about Chavismo
Many on the left believe that Chavismo, the leftist movement launched by the late Hugo Chavez, has the backing of most Latin Americans. That’s not borne out by the research. Latinobarometro, a Chilean nonprofit that tracks public opinion in 18 countries in the Americas, found Chavez’s approval rating was mildly negative across the region for much of his time in office. On a scale where 0 indicates “very bad” and 10 “very good,” he scored between 3.9 and 5 over the period 2005-2011. Although there are no similar studies on his political heir, President Nicolas Maduro, there are reasons to believe he may be faring worse than his mentor. He won last April’s presidential election — amid a national outpouring of grief over Chavez’s untimely death from cancer — by a razor thin margin, 50.6 percent to his opponent’s 49.1 percent. Venezuela’s deep-seated economic problems have reached crisis proportions since Maduro took office, while even some of his supporters acknowledge he lacks Chavez’s personal appeal. Within Venezuela, Maduro’s popularity is falling. According to one study by pollster Datanalisis, his government’s approval fell from its peak of 55 percent to41 percent last November.
2. The opposition is a bunch of “fascists”
Maduro routinely dismisses the entire Venezuelan opposition as “fascist” and “coup-mongers” — even as he calls for national reconciliation. He gets away with it in part thanks to the US-backed 2002 coup attempt against the democratically elected Chavez, an event that discredited the Venezuelan right for years. But just how right wing is the new wave of younger opposition leaders? Not very, if you pay attention to what leaders such as Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro last April, actually say. His Democratic Unity alliance says it’scommitted to establishing a social security system “that works for all,” and strengthening the missions, Chavez’s revered social programs targeting the poorest. Capriles has also spoken out against discrimination against gays — in response to homophobic comments from Maduro highlighting his opponent’s singleton status. Meanwhile, the small Popular Will party of Leopoldo Lopez, the jailed leader awaiting trial for allegedly inciting anti-government violence, is affiliated with the Socialist International movement. To be a member, you don’t actually have to be socialist, but you do at least need to uphold European-style “social democratic” principles. Within the US, Capriles and Lopez might possibly feel at home somewhere on the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. As Harvard political scientist and Latin America expert Steven Levitsky has pointed out, their problem is not that they are “fascist” but that they are “posh,” a serious political handicap in a country still wracked by poverty and conditioned by 15 years of class war rhetoric
3. Chavismo is good for the poor
If Maduro and Chavez have a single claim to justify their combined 15 years in power, it’s that they have significantly benefited Venezuela’s poor majority. No one seriously questions that the percentage of Venezuelans classed as poor has dropped from around 50 percent to 30 percent over that period. The problem is that many other countries in Latin America, including staunchly free-market economies Chile and Peru, have registered similar progress over the same period. Just take a look at this graph by Argentine economist Lucas Llach. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a research nonprofit, confirmed to GlobalPost that most of the victims of the horrific violent crime overwhelming Venezuela are poor. The country’s food scarcity and eye-popping inflation — 56 percent last year — also hurt the poor more than the rich, many of whom live in heavily guarded gated communities and have offshore dollar bank accounts. As if that wasn’t enough, there are serious doubts about the sustainability of Chavez’s social programs, which rely heavily on funding from the ailing state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). It accounts for a staggering 96 percentof Venezuela’s exports and half of all government revenue from taxes. Any new administration wanting to maintain or improve the missions will first have to take the painful steps of sorting out Venezuela’s economic meltdown, and ending its addiction to easy petro-dollars.
4. The United States has influence
Some in the United States want the Obama administration to take a stronger stance against the Venezuelan government, most notably Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), who are pushing for “targeted sanctions,” including visa bans, for Maduro and his senior officials. Although the US has much at stake in Venezuela — not least the 750,000 barrels of oil the US imports from the South American nation each day — Washington might do well to remember how it came to be viewed with such hostility in the South American nation. Many Venezuelans remember bitterly George W. Bush’s support for the failed 2002 coup against Chavez. That memory still provides high-caliber ammunition for Maduro’s speeches railing against US “imperialism.” Even the Venezuelan opposition now avoids being seen to associate with US officials. Using proxies to pressure the Maduro administration won’t work either, given the echoing silence coming from most Latin American leaders about events on the ground in Venezuela. Possibly, the smartest US strategy would be to do nothing, beyond offering verbal condemnation of Maduro’s repression, and let his government run aground all on its own. That appears to be exactly what the Obama administration is doing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
= new reply since forum marked as read
Venezuelanalysis.com? Really? You are aware that they are nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Venezuelan govt aren't you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelanalysis.com
Get back to me when you have a credible source.
The two ideologies, capitalist-fascism/democratic-socialism, are opposites.
This hatred is aroused esp. when democratic socialism wins elections, as in Venezuela.
So, naturally, capitalist fascists suggest that the democratic gov't that they hate is "a dictatorship", and, when not pushing that blatantly false message, they do everything in their power to push a message that the electoral victories of democratic socialism aren't significant.
The only significant elections recognized by capitalist-fascists are those that elect a neo-con over a neo-lib, or vice-versa, in a tweedledum/tweedledee electoral farce. Capitalist-fascists are all too willing to deny political rights to the socialist left. HUAC isn't all that long ago, and those who designed HUAC went on to even more effective works - many of those works being in Latin America.
Capitalist fascists are all too willing to empower a right-wing coup overthrowing a democratic socialist gov't. This has been proven over and over in Latin America, and not just in Latin America. But fascists are never willing to claim actual responsibility. Their denial of history is astounding -- and in the midst of their denial of history, of responsibility, they will spew accusations that democratic socialists are lying.
Even in this forum there are some who are now denying that there was an aborted 2002 coup against the democratically elected gov't of Hugo Chavez -- they say that documentaries like 'The Revolution won't be Televised' are false, made up shit, and they promote a tidier opposition friendly account (the opposition, in this case, being that of the fascist would-be coup plotters). They deny any news or analysis of Venezuela that isn't brought to the world by big money MSM interests - saying that such news and analysis is communist propaganda.
Democratic socialists work toward ideals like single payer health and education systems, systems which *block* private insurance companies, for example, from participation. Democratic socialists work toward single payer medicare and pharmaceutical care, both of which regulate what would otherwise be the most despicable profiteering on the back of desperation. Both of which, when combined, would put impetus behind the creation of community health care clinics, behind prevention, behind the promotion of generic alternatives to costly drugs, etc. All of which would give even the least advantaged, in however numbers, a more equal opportunity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a modern world.
Democratic socialists work toward the ideal of community/state ownership (and regulation) of natural resources. The fascist right requires, as a sine quo non of their definition of "reality", of their "reality based world", 100% private ownership of all natural resources, as well as all means of production. Such a "reality", to them, is a natural state (and they have natural gods, as well - like an "invisible hand"
, and thus they define the object of social democracy out of existence. When in power they do everything that they can to make their fascist system permanent - by systematically stripping the gov't of all power to work toward a common good, in favor of instituting new powers that give the moneyed elite an unimpeded, unregulated hand.
