Reply #29: Venezuela just signed EIGHT corporations, from as many countries, to develop the Orinoco Belt, [View All]

--the biggest oil reserve on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's)--as well as signing up China last week for the same purpose--all on Venezuela's terms, including majority Venezuelan government control of the enterprise, and a 50/50 split of the profits, with Venezuela's share funding social programs. Venezuela's oil was nationalized BEFORE Chavez. The problem was that the rightwing governments were giving the oil away in a 10/90 split of the profits, favoring the multinationals, and skimming off the top for their own rich oil elite, while utterly neglecting the majority of Venezuelans, on education, health care and all the decencies of a good society.

The Chavez government has changed all that and is now running the country for the people. They have reduced poverty by half, and extreme poverty by 70%, doubled high school and college enrollment, provided health care to all and many other benefits, and have furthermore run clean, transparent, internationally monitored and certified elections, with the goal of maximum citizen participation. Life has never been better for most Venezuelans, which is why they keep voting for the Chavez government, time and again, by big majorities. And what few of our people know, because it is NEVER REPORTED HERE, is that the Chavez government managed a sizzling 10% economic growth rate, during the 2003-2008 period, with the most growth in the PRIVATE sector (not including oil), and landed Venezuela on its feet amidst the Bushwhack Financial 9/11 of September 2008, with high cash reserves, low debt, good credit and low unemployment.

So I don't know what you're talking about when you say "it worked so well for Venezuela." The model that the Chavez government has created, of "New Deal"-type spending to bootstrap the poor majority, reversing privatization where necessary for the common good, taking sovereign control of use of the country's resources, and taking the attitude that FDR took toward the rich--"Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred!"--has OBVIOUSLY, provably benefitted the majority of Venezuelans AND their overall economy--as it is benefitting Bolivia. Evo Morales had Venezuelan government advisors' help in dealing with the multinationals who were exploiting Bolivia's gas resource, and renegotiated those contracts to DOUBLE Bolivia's gas revenues (from one billion to TWO billion per year)--very like what the Chavez government did with regard to Venezuela's oil resource. And the only one to walk away from THAT negotiation (Venezuela's) was Exxon Mobil. Everybody else benefited. In fact, the Italian oil company (among the eight winners) was thrilled to get the business, and said so in the press conference announcing the deal. What is bad about getting tough with multinationals and big business--and nationalizing them when they don't act in the country's interest? What is bad about making big business COMPETE for contracts and shutting them down when they try to monopolize the resource and control the government? If they are price-gouging, NATIONALIZE them? If they are colluding on starting corporate resources wars, put the fuckers in jail!

I am all for the TRULY FREE marketplace--but that is NOT what multinational dragons like Exxon Mobil, and their multinational and local imitators, want. They want a MONOPOLY. They want NO TAXES. They want ALL THE PROFITS. They want NO RESPONSIBILITY for society. So, shut 'em down, and shut 'em out! There are numerous entrepreneurs who will take their place and who will play by the rules that a sovereign people lays down. And there are numerous workers who can run businesses better than the assholes who take all the profit and then DOWNSIZE. Venezuela is experimenting with all of these methods of GETTING BUSINESS TO SERVE SOCIETY. So is Bolivia. And both governments are doing very well by their people. Bolivia's elderly poor have small pensions now for the first time in their lives. They have worked and raised families all their lives and had nothing--NOTHING!--when the rich white separatists in Bolivia were running things. They had BECHTEL trying to charge poor peasants for COLLECTING RAINWATER! They had "free trade for the rich" which means NOTHING for the poor, no matter how hard they work.

You need to ask those tens of thousands of new college students in Venezuela, who had NO CHANCE of a college education prior to the Chavez government, how they think things are going in Venezuela. You need to ask the poorest of the poor what they think of having food on the table. You need to ask elderly women in Bolivia, who have worked as maids for the rich all their lives, with no pension system, what they think of not starving to death. You need to ask the virtually enslaved farm workers in eastern Bolivia--where the white separatists rule--what they think of having a national government that acts in THEIR interests, not in the interests of the rich. You need to STOP thinking like the rich bastards who are running things here, and START thinking what's best for society, what's best for everybody, what's best for the common good. What should be public and what should be private? Should water--the essence of life--be run by private profiteers? Should food? Should basic infrastructure? What needs to "attract private investors" and what is ESSENTIAL to EVERYONE and can be done without them?

The system that you seem to be defending--predatory capitalism--has failed! It has become an oligarchy, with the very rich lording it over the poor, smashing the middle class, destroying small businesses everywhere you look, controlling our government, instigating wars, looting the public coffers, destroying our educational system and all common good efforts. It is time to reign these anti-democratic multinational monsters in--these moguls, these cheaters, these banksters, these fleecers of small investors and pension funds, these destroyers of countries, these conscienceless bastards with no loyalty to anyone need to be curtailed. That is what Chavez and the people of Venezuela are doing. That is what Morales and the people of Bolivia are doing. And that is why these two leaders and the peoples who support them are so thoroughly hated and reviled by our corporate rulers and their toady press corps.