Venezuela: Still A Democracy

On 2 December Venezuelans will vote on a number of amendments to their constitution. Generally speaking the proposals have been portrayed in the media as the next step on the road to dictatorship.

That's because the mainstream media generally abandons quaint notions of balance and objectivity when reporting on Venezuela. Curiously, this often extends to left-of-centre newspapers not known to slavishly follow the Bush administration's lead when reporting on other oil states where regime change is either sought, Iran, or in process, Iraq.

The biggest fuss this time seems to be the amendment that would abolish term limits for the presidency.

Perhaps it is because I am from Chicago, and had only one mayor from the time I was born until I graduated college, that I am unable to see this as the making of a dictatorship.

Not to mention that if Hillary Clinton is elected next year, we will have Bushes and Clintons as heads of state for a full consecutive 24 years, and possibly 28.

President Lula da Silva of Brazil defended Venezuela last week, asking why "people did not complain when Margaret Thatcher spent so many years in power". He added: "You can invent anything you want to criticise Chavez, but not for lack of democracy." Lula has repeatedly defended Venezuela's government as democratic, but these comments are never reported in the English language media.

Chavez is also castigated for proposing to get rid of the independence of the Central Bank, which is inscribed in the 1999 constitution. This is portrayed as just another "power grab." However, there are sound economic reasons for this amendment.

Central Banks that are not accountable to their elected governments are not altogether "independent" but tend to represent the interests of the financial sector. In the trade-off between growth and employment versus inflation, the financial sector will always opt for lower inflation, even if it means stagnation and unemployment.

The increasing independence of central banks, and the resultant overly-tight monetary policy is very likely one of the main reasons for the unprecedented long-term growth failure in Latin America over the last quarter-century.

There is also an amendment that would provide Social Security pensions to workers in the informal sector, which would be a major anti-poverty measure, given that this includes about 41 percent of the labour force.

Another would reduce the working week to 36 hours. This is being reported in the media as a 6-hour day, but more likely it will be interpreted as four eight-hour days plus four hours on Friday.

There are also amendments that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or physical health; provide for gender parity for political parties; guarantee free university education; make it more difficult for homeowners to lose their homes during bankruptcy. It is hard to argue that these are punishing or repressive measures.

Another amendment would reverse the 1999 constitutional provision protecting intellectual property. This would not abolish patents or copyrights but would allow more flexibility for the government in addressing the enormous economic inefficiencies caused by state-protected monopolies, e.g. in areas such as patented pharmaceutical drugs. This is difficult to argue against on economic grounds.

There are other amendments that are more controversial, most of them added not by Chavez but by the National Assembly (Chavez cannot veto amendments added by the Assembly; these have to go to the voters).

For example, one amendment would allow the government to suspend the "right to information" (but not due process, as reported in the international media) during a state of national emergency. Another would allow the President and the National Assembly to create new federal districts and provinces.

Some of these provisions have drawn opposition even among Chavez's supporters. If they are approved, it will likely be because the majority of voters trust Chavez and the government not to abuse their powers.

And there is some basis for this trust: the National Assembly earlier this year gave Chavez the power, for 18 months, to enact certain legislation by executive order. The pundits screamed about Chavez "ruling by decree," but in fact this power has not been used much at all, except in dealings with foreign corporations.

In any case, the voters will decide, with a far stronger opposition media than exists in the United States proselytising against the government. Venezuelans have not lost civil liberties the way people in the U.S. (or even the UK) have in recent years, and ordinary citizens continue to have more say in their government, and share more in its oil wealth, than ever before. It is doubtful that the referendum will reverse these changes, regardless of the outcome.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and has written numerous research papers on economic policy.

Source URL: http://www.newstatesman.com/200711210001
Source URL: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2888

they liked. or when chavez was ousted in a coup they supported. or when bushco corrupted elections here. or when they joined in a coup in haiti and tossed out the legit govt.

their recent record on democracy is piss poor.

"Not to mention that if Hillary Clinton is elected next year, we will have Bushes and Clintons as heads of state for a full consecutive 24 years, and possibly 28."

Not to mention, also, that only those with the backing of the rich and powerful, of the employers and controllers of capital, (and those who make a parade of their piety) can hope to be elected. We (this applies to most in the west) just like to pretend that we live in a democracies. Good luck to those in Latin America who are trying to make it a reality.

"Chavez" didn't add those controversial amendments is, to be plainspoken, entirely disingenuous.

Here's the opposing view, from one of Chavez's former allies: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/06/america/venez.php

voted overwhelmingly not only for Chavez for president (and have done so several times, the last with 63% of the vote, in highly transparent elections), but have also voted overwhelmingly for representatives to the National Assembly who support Chavez programs. That REALLY makes Chavez a "dictator"--that the people like him, trust him and approve of his programs so much that they VOTED FOR a supportive legislature.

Gee, the teeming masses must really be sheep in Venezuela, that they would VOTE FOR Chavez-approving legislators. They must really want to head down the path of Bush- and Musharaff-style dictatorship, and the path of the Venezuelan rightwing, which SHRED or SUSPEND constitutions, overrule or SUSPEND national legislatures, and undermine, violate or SUSPEND civil rights, which torture prisoners and arrest, imprison and kill people who get in their way, and arrest, imprison and kill people who even look at them crosswise.

The Venezuelan rightwing is on the farthest fascist end of these actions--they SUSPENDED the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts and civil rights, in their first coup attempt. They are right up there with Musharaff, who outright suspended anything that resembled democracy, and are closely aligned with the Bush Junta, which might as well have suspended our Constitution, for all the power we have to stop his goddamned war and stop the bleeding of our national treasury into the pockets of the super-rich.

Those stupid Venezuelan voters! Don't they recognize dictatorship when they see it! WHY, WHY, WHY do these peons keep VOTING FOR this dictatorial, authoritarian, gun-toting, leftist revolutionary, Castro-loving, communistic, powermongering, megalomaniacal buffoon, and for representatives to the National Assembly who support him?

The FACT of their DEMOCRATICALLY expressed SUPPORT FOR Chavez and his policies MUST BE evidence that he is a dictator!

That's it! That's it! It's the "DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT"! Those little peons teeming in Venezuela must be dictators in their hearts!
What they really want is to seize the property of the rich and chop off their heads! Ah! We've finally hit it! THAT'S why they VOTE that way, in the most transparent and highly monitored elections on earth--their all Stalinists!

And look out! When that powermongering buffoon gets all those dictatorial powers that the Stalinist voters of Venezuela are FREELY discussing, arguing about for months, holding rallies and demonstrations about--pro and con--and VOTING ON, *THEN* Hugo Chavez is going to BECOME a dictator, and *THEN* he is going to start torturing and imprisoning the rightwing madhatters, and seizing their property, and declaring all sorts of states of emergency, and suspending all the laws, and sending dissenters to "re-education" camps, and slaughtering millions, and invading Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina.

Oh wait, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina already have Bolivarian governments VOTED ON by the people, with Bolivia and Ecuador ALSO re-writing their constitutions in a DEMOCRATIC process. Well, THEY will BECOME dictatorships, too, and TOGETHER they will invade Peru and Colombia, and turn THEM into...uh, dictatorships. Brazil, too. Gosh, the president of Brazil thinks Chavez remaining president of Venezuela as long as the VOTERS vote him that office, is an okay. Brazil, too, must be a communist dictatorship. And they're all going to invade the United States and impose "the dictatorship of the proletariat" HERE. Oh, God! Oh, Miami Herald! Oh, Faux News! Oh, Wall Street Journal! Oh, Associated Press! Oh, Bush! Oh, Condi! Oh, John Negroponte! Oh, General Raúl Isaías Baduel! Save us from a fate worse than death! Save us from Hugo Chavez, and his millions and millions of little peon dictator supporters!

MADem, your argument that the National Assembly is pro-Chavez and that Chavez must therefore be DICTATING their every word and thought--even as to amendments that he did NOT propose--is just this silly. And its implication, that the voters of Venezuela are themselves "dictatorial"--or stupid sheep--reeks of contempt for democracy.

Everyone else bailed. And you know that, but it doesn't suit your pro-redshirt agenda, so you ignore it.

But hey....Que viva CHAVEZUELA!!

People who can't read, write, or think critically are going to hand this guy all the power--not some, all--and you think that's dandy.

One person, holding ALL the power, is NOT a democracy, by definition. But whatever--you have your little mind made up. It's only a dictatorship if it's someone OTHER than Hugo...

:eyes:

Hugo Chavez, and suspended the Constitution, dismanted the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and sent police out searching the homes of presidential cabinet members and staff to arrest them and put them in prison.

THAT is a dictatorship.

A dictatorship would have been apparent in the actions of Carlos Andres Perez, friend of the _{George H. W. Bushes} and current opposition celebrity, who was impeached, but not before he ordered his miltary to fire directly into the faces of protesting Venezuelans who poured into the streets after he imposed severe, crippling economic measures on the poor, making their daily lives wildly harder, in his own massacre, "El Caracazo."

Where were the imbeciles shrieking "dictator" during the times they HAD a bonafide dictator at the helm?

Unless you are living in Simpletonville.

facing his punishment like an adult. At the time it happened, he bacame a national hero, because the people were well aware they weren't going to willingly allow another President to slaughter them in the streets again.

Hugo Chavez was later pardoned by a Venezuelan President.

People who were filmed for news programs at the time, in 1989, indicated that their revolution gained solidarity during and after El Caracazo, and that there would be no turning back. At that time, they had never heard of Hugo Chavez.

The simpleton working this message board is one who concocts ignorant, wildly twisted summaries of what other people have said.

even if it is done with the best of intentions.

This will end badly, if the vote goes Hugo's way.

requested special powers from the National Assembly to ennact measures in specific areas (for the THIRD TIME, actually, only our media didn't know about the first two times, apparently, in time to go beserk!). As you probably recall, they couldn't calm down here, those who are shrieking now: it was 24/7 Dictator, dictator.

Interesting remark from the original article:

....the National Assembly earlier this year gave Chavez the power, for 18 months, to enact certain legislation by executive order. The pundits screamed about Chavez "ruling by decree," but in fact this power has not been used much at all, except in dealings with foreign corporations.
(snip)

No doubt most Venezuela news-watching DU'ers noticed DU has had comments from Australian, German, and Canadian DU'ers who informed us, starting some time ago that they are absolutely familiar with and accustomed to VERY lengthy multiple terms from their leaders. They find it wry that those among us who are bouncing off the walls about what is happening in Venezuela (while completely ignoring _Bush'shorrendous violence in the world) are so deeply ignorant of all the first tier countries where this has been the practise for ages.

I mean, besides Venezuela having honest, aboveboard and transparent elections that put our own to shame.

What happened in the last by-elections in Venezuela is interesting, as a study of Bush USAID/NED/CIA activity in South America. Chavez had won the US/Bush-funded Recall election with 60% of the vote. (Yup, the Venezuelans have the power to recall their president.) And, in each election in Venezuela, over the last several cycles, the Bush Junta strategy has been to claim that the election results are wrong, that the wingers actually won, and that there is something wrong with the election system. The Carter Center, the OAS and EU election monitors--who are permitted to crawl all over Venezuela during elections--and their reports that Venezuelan elections are honest and transparent to the contrary notwithstanding, Bush's local rightwing Venezuelan operatives use the rightwing corporate media monopolies in Venezuela, and Washington DC P.R. firms who produce false polls, to whine, and cry and rend their garments that they 'was cheated.'

So, just prior to the last elections for National Assembly (the by-elections), they took their complaints to the independent elections council and threatened to BOYCOTT the elections if their demands were not met. 'What do you want?' the elections council asked them, 'that would help insure fairness?' Well, the rightwing couldn't think of much. Venezuela uses electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they hand-count a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud.* And other system procedures are similar--honest, transparent, aimed at maximum participation. They even do fingerprint ID of the voters. And that's what the rightwing seized upon. The fingerprinting. They said there was something wrong with that process. So the elections council--wanting to go out of their way to accommodate this group of whiners--suspended the fingerprinting--at their request--in the by-elections.

Independent polls, however, indicated that the rightwing opposition was going to get whomped in the by-elections. So, this is what they did. Despite the elections council bending over backwards to accommodate them, they BOYCOTTED the elections ANYWAY. Why? Because that was the "talking point" that the Bush Junta--through USAID/NED and its operatives--was pushing as the strategy of the Venezuelan rightwing: that the elections were, somehow, despite all the evidence, unfair. The Bush Junta, those worshipers of transparent vote counting!

The rightwing opposition thus lost seats in the National Assembly that they might otherwise have won, and, more than this, discredited themselves in the eyes of Venezuelans who believe in democracy and who have a high regard for their own. (70%-80% of Venezuelans rate their democracy as one of the best in the world.) The rightwing was, in effect, slandering Venezuela.

It was this event that first made plain to me the nature of the rightwing opposition in Venezuela. I hadn't realized, first of all, how stupid they are--or, more precisely, how little they are used to thinking for themselves. They've been taking orders from Exxon-Mobile and Washington DC for so long, they couldn't see the stupidity of boycotting elections in which they might have won or retained some seats, giving them more of a voice in the National Assembly; or, even in losing a seat, maintaining a respected, loyal opposition voice with which to trumpet their views in the compliant rightwing corporate media. They not only sacrificed their chance of winning or retaining seats, they sacrificed RESPECT. Why? Because, in general, they expect to regain power, not by legitimate means, but by another US/Bush-sponsored rightwing military coup.

Why should Venezuelan voters respect these clowns, and seriously consider their views, and maybe vote for them in the future, if they BOYCOTT Venezuela's highly transparent, democratic elections? The rightwing showed its hand, in other words. It showed that it is not willing to compete IN A FAIR PROCESS.

And, frankly, I was dismayed to learn this. Popular leaders, like Chavez, NEED opposition and criticism. Chavez gets quite a lot of it from generally pro-Chavez critics, but that may not be sufficient to insure a voice for certain sectors--say, the small business community. A good example is a story I read about a very small grocery store in a poor area of Caracas. Private business, single owner. The owner complained that the new state-operated grocery story, which was designed to alleviate hunger among the poorest of the poor, was undercutting her prices and driving her out of business. Now, I don't know if she was price-gouging or serving her customers well. The article did not look into things like that. On the other hand, she may have been a community institution--you know, one of those little neighborhood stores where people gather, and that serve important community functions far beyond providing retail goods. I don't know the whole story, good or bad. But she is nevertheless an exemplar of the type of citizen who MIGHT not be well-represented in the Chavez government, and whose interests MIGHT not be getting sufficient attention.

A healthy pro-business political opposition to the Chavez government--a REAL opposition--could be her voice, and could help insure that her interests, and those of other small, vulnerable businesses, were heard and attended to. Hunger and food self-sufficiency are critical problems in Venezuela, and all sectors of society--private, government, non-profit--need to be mobilized to address it.

But the opposition in Venezuela is the voice of global corporate predators and the Bush/CIA--who want massive globalized chain stores everywhere, that gobble up and destroy small businesses and ruin communities and neighborhoods.

The rich and the corporate often exploit the problems of small business, to gain more power and ungodly riches for themselves. We've seen that often enough here. But the balance between private enterprise and government activism is nevertheless an important issue, especially in the creation stages of the kind of system that the Chavez government favors--a mixed socialist/capitalist system, with a strong element of social justice.

And the loudmouth, whiny, ego-centric, Bush-funded, fascist Venezuelan opposition is NOT providing that reasonable "conservative" view that might be important to some segments of the population, and to the overall efficiency and prosperity of the country. And that lack cannot be laid at the door of the Chavistas, or the Chavez government, or Chavez, who have PROMOTED democracy, and have done everything they can to insure maximum citizen participation and free and open discussion. It can be laid at the door of the White House, in its wretched advice to, and collusion with, the rightwing extremists in Venezuela. They've done the same thing to the Republican Party here--turned it into a fascist shill for global corporate predators, denying and disempowering and bullying and purging the kind of Republicans we used to have, who would be appalled at things like the looting of our Savings and Loan institutions, Wal-Mart destroying local business districts, Enron looting the entire California budget surplus, the government 'establishing' religion, corporations hijacking the U.S. military for a corporate resource war, and the sheiks of Saudi Arabia and Chinese communist-fascists OWNING a TEN TRILLION dollar U.S. deficit.

Chavez would have had a majority in the National Assembly anyway, but the reason he has an overwhelming majority is the traitorous opposition who would sell their own country to the Bushites and their corporate pals. This was never more evident than when they boycotted those by-elections to fulfill a "talking point" written in the Bush State Department.

I hope it gets remedied (as I hope it gets remedied here). The opposition had a candidate for president in Dec. '06, who publicly disavowed the then-current Bushite plot for yet another coup attempt--for which Penn and Schoen in DC created the false poll that was to precipitate it, and which was likely connected to Bush- (U.S. taxpayer-) funded rightwing paramilitaries in Colombia, who intended to assassinate Chavez. But it does not appear that the Venezuelan opposition, as a whole, has abandoned this kind of treason; on the contrary, they seem to building up to yet another fascist coup attempt this December (re the vote on the constitutional amendments), funded and directed by the Bush Junta. If they can't get Iran's oil (Russia and China seem to have blocked that venture), then they surely want to reclaim Exxon-Mobile's and other corporate predators' ground in the Andes region (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia), where real democracy is flourishing, and where there are vast oil, gas, mineral and other resources that they want to steal. The rightwing opposition in these countries is colluding with foreign robber barons. That's why, in free and fair elections, they LOSE.

We were seeing, for ages, that the coming election was going to be a resounding defeat for the opposition, right after their media attacks 24/7, their violent coup, their labor lockout, and their recall referendum failed. Everyone knew they were going to lose spectacularly: that's why many people watched with amusement when we heard the news they were telling their supporters to "boycott" the election, as if that came as a shock.

They tried to make it appear that the only reason they lost is because they CHOSE not to participate. Oh, sure! They would have lost any way they did it, considering everything they had already done which was so stupid, and so obstructionist, racist, elitist, and simply wrong for a supposed democracy.

Once again, you've created a post which needs to be bookmarked, and remembered.

"People who can't read, write, or think critically are going to hand this guy all the power--not some, all--and you think that's dandy."--MADdem

The ignorant masses. The peons. The poor, whom Venezuela's rich elite didn't even have the decency to provide schools for, "are going to hand this guy all the power." So now, the spokesperson and advocate for this rich elite at DU, can argue that the huddled masses of Venezuela "can't read, write or thinking critically."

If true, whose fault is that--but the people who hoarded all the money, and didn't build and staff schools for the poor, and didn't fund adult literacy programs, and created a huge poor underclass with their bottomless greed, and didn't provide any support for the poor to become educated, trained, employable "critical thinkers"?

But IS it true? Are Venezuelan voters illiterate and unable to think critically? The Chavez government engaged in an intense program to wipe out illiteracy in Venezuela, and, in five years, achieved 100% literacy, according to them. I think that's probably a slightly exaggerated claim, and they are counting people who can now read but aren't fully literate (haven't read all the books you and I have had the privilege of reading). Still, it is a major achievement. Interestingly, among the new amendments to the Constitution is a proposal for the right to a free education through university. So SOME of those semi-literate folks, who are bright but uneducated, will have a chance to reach their potential. They WILL BE ABLE to start reading all those books, and doing all those math problems, and spending time in all those laboratories, and libraries, that you and I, and the Venezuelan rich elite, had access to.

That's one of things they're voting for.

When I was in my 20s, I was moved to join Martin Luther King's voting rights project in Georgia and Alabama. I was a privileged white Californian--poor, but being educated (in college). And I was moved by the vast injustice against black citizens in the south. What was happening in the south in that era--1965--was that the wealthy white elite was using a literacy test to bar black voters from voting. If you were black, you had to read the Constitution or some such document to be able to qualify to vote. No matter that blacks understood their civil rights, and were some of the finest "critical thinkers" in our land, if they couldn't read, on demand, in an extremely hostile atmosphere, they couldn't vote. And, for those who could read under those conditions, the white elite used poll taxes, beatings, and lynchings, to prevent them from voting. And, of course, the white elite also impoverished them, and saw that they had inferior schools--schools without textbooks, without pencils, without blackboards--so that, if they didn't have to work in the cotton fields all day to support their families, and could afford shoes, when they did manage to attend school, MORE handicaps were placed in the way of learning--such as no books!

One of the main purposes of the voting rights project was literacy classes--to help extremely poor people learn to read, and get their reading skill up to a level at which they could read under the intense pressure of bigoted election officials. And, of course, the reason for doing that--the literacy classes--was so that blacks could VOTE, and elect officials who weren't bigoted, and who would insure good schooling for black children, and who would address issues of poverty and exclusion.

Some of the people I met that summer--poor blacks--were some of the most courageous and intelligent people I have ever known. And whether they were literate, or not literate, had nothing to do with it. NOTHING! And, indeed, some of the people I met that summer who COULD read--bigoted whites--were some of the most ignorant and cowardly people I have ever met.

When voting first began--back in the mists of history--it was done with stones, and nobody could read. The right to vote, the right to have your say, and to be a respected citizen of a group, tribe, province, state or country, is an INHERENT human right, and the ability to read has NOTHING TO DO with native intelligence, common sense or the ability to discern your interests. An "X" has always been accepted on contracts and other legal documents, no matter the signer's ability to read. And, would you, if someone cannot read, deny them the right to make contracts, or to engage in the social contract between government and its citizens, that voting represents?

Maybe you would; maybe you wouldn't. But clearly you have nothing but contempt for the poor, and for their ability to think for themselves, and you would like someone to intervene, on behalf of the well-educated and the well-off, to prevent the poor from approving of a government that has, as one of its primary goals, EDUCATION FOR THE POOR. You would have the elite choose government leaders and constitutional amendments. And what did they choose before? NO SCHOOLS, NO TRAINING, NO UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONS FOR THE POOR!

In any case, MOST people in Venezuela--the vast majority--CAN read. They have made an especially persistent effort to do so. Christ, they print parts of the Constitution on grocery bags in Venezuela! They hand out miniature copies of the Constitution on the street, to anyone who wants one. They ALL KNOW the provisions of the Constitution. And when the rightwing military coup was attempted, in 2002, the first thing on Venezuelans' lips--before even the fate of their kidnapped president--was, "WHAT ABOUT OUR CONSTITUTION?"

----------------------------------

You say, "One person, holding ALL the power, is NOT a democracy...". But this is the OPPOSITE of what is happening in Venezuela. The "many"--the majority--now hold the power in Venezuela. They have the power to vote leaders in or out of office, in transparent elections. They even have a special recall provision for the president. They are permitted to vote on their own Constitution. They have thousands of community councils which control federal money and what projects it should be used for. They have a government which has acted to MAXIMIZE citizen participation. They have a grass roots-driven democracy, from the bottom up, not the top down. And Chavez, as president, is RESPONSIVE to the people BECAUSE he knows that THEY are the ones who kept him in power, and supported legitimate government, when push came to shove. He owes his life to them! He owes his presidency to them. Whatever power he has he owes to the Venezuelan peoples' devotion to democracy.

Really, you ought to review the film "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," and try to see it NOT through the eyes of the privileged and the well-off, but with objective eyes--as objective as any of us can be. What are the people of Venezuela saying? That they want a dictator? That they want someone to tell them what to do? The situation in this documentary (by Irish filmmakers who happened to be present when the coup occurred): Their president has been kidnapped, and may be dead. And, clearly, the Venezuelan people don't need to be told what to do. They ignore the lies on TV that say the president has resigned. The cabinet hides other office holders, such as the vice president, so they will not be kidnapped as well. And the people pour into the streets--on their own volition, with no leaders--surround Miraflores Palace (the seat of government), and peacefully, by their sheer numbers, stop the coup, reverse the coup, get their president back, and their Constitution.

Are these stupid peons? Are these sheep? Hell, they put us to shame. They really do.

As I watched this film, I had only to see the fascist Catholic cardinal join the coupsters--and hear the announcement of these smug bastards, that they were suspending the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts, and all civil rights, and were hereby canceling all laws passed by the legislature and the people of Venezuela, to know which side I was on. I can't say I was objective after that. I always try to be, in anything I see or read. So I know what I'm asking, when I say watch it objectively. Try to put your conditioning and your prejudices aside.

I am a highly educated, well-read person, with strong critical thinking abilities. In truth, if you plunked me down amidst the Catholic prelates, and generals, and well-to-do Venezuelans, who participated in this coup, I might well be more comfortable--socially, anyway--than if you plunked be down in a shantytown in Caracas, amidst the dirt poor victims of this rich elite. But I can widen my perspective, and reach into my soul, and pull out a human heart, when I contemplate the struggles of the poor in South America, or in our own south. It is their world, too. They are human beings, too, and are EQUAL TO ME in every way that matters. And some of the privilege that I have had, in my life, has been at their expense. Open your heart! Understand what is really happening in this film, and in Venezuela, and in South America, and in our country, where we truly do have a form of dictatorship, and where "our" government supported THAT rightwing coup.

And, please, never again--never again--write with contempt of "people who can't read or write," or people who, in your opinion, "can't think critically." They are your brothers and sisters. And they are no less human and no less intelligent than you and I are. And, frankly, I think we could put the least of them up against Bush--the most illiterate, poorest citizen of Venezuela--and come up with a better president. You want the elite, the "Harvard-educated," the smart "critical thinkers" to choose leaders and make the rules? Contemplate Bush.

Deeply appreciate your spirit, and your awareness.

citizen. Small wonder our papers do not carry such a radical agenda; Americans might wise up. It didn't work too badly for us when FDR was pres for 3+ terms. Sometimes the time is right.

FOUR terms in office (he died in his fourth term), because the people wanted and needed his leadership. And the rightwing and the robber barons of that era railed against him as a "dictator," too, because he was using his political strength on behalf of the poor.

The conditions of the Great Depression are similar to the conditions today in Venezuela and all over Latin America. The robber barons and the collusive rich have destroyed economies, ruined whole countries, and have impoverished millions and millions of people. The situation is critical. And strong measures are needed to reverse it. So the people elect strong leftist leaders to do just that. And they are doing it throughout South America, not just in Venezuela.

There is also war danger--nothing so big and menacing as the Nazi and Japanese imperialist war machines--NOT YET--but low level war IS occurring, instigated and funded by the Bush Junta, which has lavished billions of dollars on the Colombian military and associated rightwing paramilitaries, who are not only in a shooting war against leftist guerrillas in Colombia, have not only been using that war to slaughter union organizers, small peasant farmers and political leftists, and are not only engaged in both drugs and weapons trafficking, but who have ALSO been hatching plots to destroy the neighboring democracies (Venezuela, Ecuador) and Bolivia.

The presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia live in constant danger--from Bush Junta operatives. U.S.-funded destabilization activities are on-going in their countries. And I have little doubt that the Bush Junta has its plans for use of the U.S. military in these plots, just as they had maps of Iraq's oil fields all carved up and ready to go, before 9/11 ever happened. They are finding great resistance among South American leaders--and in Latin America generally--to their bad intentions. Rafael Correa, in Ecuador, for instance, is going to evict the U.S. military from its base in Ecuador. (He said a funny thing about this. He said he would agree to renewing the U.S. military lease if the U.S. would agree to an Ecuadoran military base in Miami!) These leaders KNOW what's going on. They know what the U.S. "war on drugs" is all about. It's U.S. "boots on the ground" in South America (including Blackwater boots, in Colombia at least), and U.S. military surveillance and potential assistance to rightwing coups, and U.S. collusion with rightwing paramilitaries.

God knows what Rumsfeld may be cooking up in his "retirement." Truly we have reason to suspect the worst. And so do the leaders and peoples of South America. They have REASON to want strong leadership. They have REASON to want their leaders to possess adequate powers to protect themselves and their democracies. I have not read transcripts of the debates in the Venezuelan National Assembly, which led to their proposal to beef up the president's emergency powers, but I have little doubt that the menace from the north was at the heart of it. They have plenty of reason to fear interference and even invasion. They've had traitors in their own midst, trying to sell their country to Exxon-Mobile and the Bushites. They have plots going on NOW, and infusions of U.S. cash--and god knows what else--into their affairs. They are as much at risk from fascist forces as U.S. citizens were during WW II. Perhaps more so, because they are virtually defenseless. They have no war machine to fight back with. A their economies are crippled from decades of looting and exploitation.

And people wonder why Venezuelans (and also Bolivians and Ecuadorans) want a strong president, who is empowered to act, and retain control in any coup situation?

The bitter irony is that those who FAIL TO CRITICIZE Bushite actions--supporting a coup in Venezuela, and pouring OUR money into destabilization strategies in all three of these countries--echo Bushite criticisms of the voters in these countries (which they mask as criticisms of "Chavez, the dictator") in voting for strong presidents and empowerment of their presidents, for sound reasons of SELF-PROTECTION. They even criticized Chavez for trying to upgrade the Venezuelan military's rifles! The Bush Junta has placed what are virtual sanctions on contracts with the Venezuelan military. Chavez had to go to Russia, just to maintain equipment. The Venezuelan military! That menacing force! That great war machine which threatens its neighbors, and is going to duke it out with the biggest military machine in human history! They can't even have rifles! And if they try to GET new rifles--oh, horrors, it's that "dictator" Chavez again, building a war machine to take over the world.

Anyway, the parallels to FDR's tenure are interesting, educational and hold up well, when you think it through. The people turned to FDR, and re-elected him four times, because of the assaults by fascists at home--in looting their economy and creating vast poverty--and the threat from abroad, of menacing, predatory fascist war machines. They wanted and needed strong leadership, in the face of these threats, and repeatedly voted for a strong leader, and cared as little about the rightwing's "dictator" smear as Venezuelans do today. It is an illusion. It is "the Big Lie."

Fascists love power, when it lines their pockets. And they despise power--and call it "authoritarian" and "dictatorial"--when it is employed to help the poor, and when it is strong enough to fend off the dirty rotten schemes of the fascists to gain power illegitimately.

Fascists love the power of kings and dictators and billionaire CEOs, and corporate cabals and cabals of the rich. They hate democratic power. The best societies are those that balance these tendencies in human beings, with strong components of social justice, civil and human rights, upward mobility and the rule of laws not men. There always have been, and their probably always will be fascists, powermongers and the greedy. Our Founders understood this quite well--they were no pollyannas about human nature--and they tried to create a system of "checks and balances" to keep the tyrants curtailed. That system lasted for over 200 years, and survived the Great Depression and two world wars; and, indeed, that system, which required the consent of the governed, helped save this country, by insuring that the voters could elect the leaders they needed to handle great crises. It has only been defeated recently, with the age of the Corporate Behemoths--circa Reagan--who rule over us now, and bat our Constitution away as if it were nothing, and steal elections, and are freely slaughtering and bullying others to get their oil, and looting us blind.

The Venezuelans, Bolivians and Ecuadorans are at the ragged edges of this giant Corporate Imperium, trying to CONSTRUCT constitutions that can deal with this kind of overweaning global power--the U.S.-based, fascist-controlled war machine and looting expedition. They need their FDRs to help them recover, to keep local fascism in check, and fend off U.S./corporate aggression. It is no wonder that the Bushites and their lapdog corporate news monopolies oppose these determined, democratic countries, and slander them and their leaders, with absolutely no respect for the facts and the truth. Their ilk did the same thing in the 1930s and 1940s here. In fact, they have yet to get over "FDR, the dictator," and are bent on unraveling every "New Deal" reform. When they use the word "dictator," they mean us--the people. The majority. The benefit of the many, as opposed to the benefit of the few. The benefit of the many, to them, is "dictatorial." Not Chavez. The people of Venezuela.

I've never understood the fuss about term limits. Here (Britain), a Prime Minister can serve as many terms as they can keep getting elected for. Thatcher won three, so did Blair (although neither finished their third terms). I never voted for either of them but their elections were completely fair. So far, Chavez's election victories have been honest (and a damn sight more transparent than those of the US).

Of course, a change to the nation's constitution should be up to the voters but, wait, Chavez is going to the country with his reforms and he'll presumably do so again to seek a third term. Perhaps I'm being dense here but I thought that was how things were meant to be done? I find the power to suspend the "right to information" mildly alarming but since it's being put to the voters, it's up to them to decide on it. Certainly, he's a reformer and something of a radical and I can understand how that can be alarming but I really don't understand why he's repeatedly referred to as a dictator unless one is an ancient history buff (the word "dictator" originally meant simply someone given additional powers for the duration of an emergency). He's done everything legally and been elected fairly and honestly. Criticism is fair enough if one disagrees with his policies but "dictator" is just dishonest.

Look, Chavez isn't perfect. He's made a few mistakes (or what I consider mistakes anyway), he's occasionally crass and, like any politician, he should be watched like a hawk for any signs of abusing his powers but nor is he a dictator or the antichrist. When he refuses to leave office after losing an election, then is the time to start calling him a dictator.