AP: Venezuela to Nationalize Power Company

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801646.html

like they were given fair payment...even after they horribly served the country. I don't think anyone can say this is unfair.

I think Chompsky said it, but China is the golden example. The government deeply manipulates the "free" market to their advantage.

to us manipulating their "free" market for OUR benefit.

Energy prices in this country didn't spiral out-of-control until the municipal-controlled power companies were turned into privately-controlled power companies. Privatization is one of the biggest swindles ever foisted upon the American public.

Why can't you say you he did the right thing without the preface?

The guy survived a coup attempt by us, the coup plotters admitted it on TV, and most of them didn't even go to prison. Instead, the military people involved were allowed to retire, and the TV station that actively participated got to keep their license until it expired.

Do you think Bush would have responded like that?

I say hooray to Chavez for that. I wish Lula had the same guts.

This is another step toward workers' control over the means of production. Hopefully this can continue.

Note that the nationalization is not confiscatory: they are paying a fair price for controlling interest in the utlity. Venezuela's oil resources are for once being used for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.

If you're going to nationalize a company or industry, you have to give the owners fair market value for their property. If not, it will be extremely difficult to attract future foreign investment if and when it is needed.

I thought all nationalization was theft? That's what the free marketeers tell me!

Didn't schweitzer take back for the state ownership of the electric company after he got elected?

In the United States, government-owned power plants have lower rates and fewer blackouts than privately owned ones. I lived for seven years in a town in Oregon that had a municipal power company, and when I told people what my monthly electric bill was, they were always astonished at how low it was. In those seven years, we experienced ONE blackout.

Also, durng the "rolling blackouts" and sky-high rate increases in California in 2001, the cities that had government-owned power plants mysteriously went on functioning normally at low prices.

alone stole $9 billion--almost the entire state budget surplus. God, how I hate Texas/Bushite energy companies. They are the worst of the worst, and we absolutely should nationalize every goddamned one of them.

Dennis Kucinich has a story about this. He fought for city/public control of energy, then lost an election to rightwing/corporate forces, but the city/public control was preserved anyway. He saved the city and its residents many millions of dollars, and was later re-elected mayor and his policy acknowledged as the right one. Cleveland, I think. (I'm trying to recall something I read long ago.)

One of the reasons that our war profiteering corporate news monopolies are so anti-Chavez (to the point of absurdity) is they DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT A COUNTRY'S RESOURCES CAN BE USED TO BENEFIT THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE. They want to kill that idea. They also want to kill the notion that Chavez's policies are not just Chavez's policies--they are the policies, and expressed will, of the people of Venezuela, in fair and square elections. So, the next time you read "..Hugo Chavez, whose critics say has become increasingly authoritarian," translate as follows (substituting "the people of Venezuela" for "Hugo Chavez, thus): "...the people of Venezuela, whom critics say have become increasingly authoritarian..." Yup, the sovereign people of Venezuela, in their capacity as voters, have become "increasingly authoritarian," in demanding government policy that benefits...the people of Venezuela.

The corporate news monopolies try to make this about Chavez. It is not about Chavez. It is about the PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA, who have resisted all their corporate propaganda and voted for who they damned please. And every time they call Chavez "increasingly authoritarian," they are insulting the people of Venezuela and calling them idiots and sheep. The same kind of super-rich rightwing assholes called FDR "a dictator" because he was elected by the rabble, who demanded good progressive government policy after the super-rich had destroyed the economy.

You wonder why we have rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations "counting" all our votes with "trade secret," proprietary programming, and a 0% or 1% audit, with some jurisdictions being unauditable because they have no paper ballot at all? This is why. We might just elect our own Hugo Chavez--and they are well aware that we did so once before. Guess how much of the vote Venezuelans subject to an automatic recount, or audit? FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT! And THAT is the difference between good government--of, by and for the people--and what we have now--a fascist junta.

I swear, if some U.S. politician got up now, and ran for president, saying, "Nationalize the oil companies!," he or she would be swept into office by a landslide such as we have never seen. Except for one thing: the rightwing Bushites who are "counting" all our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy. Nothing proposed in the so-called Democratic Congress is going to change this. If we want TRANSPARENT elections, we will have to achieve it with pressure campaigns at the local/state level. This is lesson no. 1 of the leftist (majorityist) revolution that is occurring throughout South America:

1. TRANSPARENT elections.
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

should they be raised or lowered?

does Chavez know the protocol?