Venezuela's Challenge for the 21st Century: Building a Democratic, Humanis

Venezuela's Challenge Challenge for the 21st Century: Building a Democratic, Humanist Socialism

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We have to invent the new socialism for the 21st century. Capitalism is not a sustainable model of development. Hugo Chavez, March 4, 2005

In recent months, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has begun to explicitly advocate for socialism, marking a significant development for both the Bolivarian Revolution in that country and for the broader international movement.

There is no doubt that the United States government understands the significance of the current direction of the process in Venezuela. An oil-rich country with a radical, anti-imperialist government which has received repeated, indisputable democratic mandates and now advocates for socialism, the government in Caracas poses the gravest ‘threat of a good example’ since the Cuban Revolution of 1959. As if taunting Uncle Sam for its historic failure to destroy and isolate Cuba completely, Chavez now flaunts his close friendship with Fidel Castro, inviting thousands of Cuban doctors to Venezuela, and sending oil at preferential prices to the energy-starved Caribbean island.

Little surprise that, with a newly emboldened Bolivarian government and an increasingly demoralized opposition, there have been repeated warnings of plots to assassinate the Venezuelan president. Chavez addressed the situation with a threat of his own, announcing on his Alo Presidente radio show that “the Venezuelan people will stop even one drop of oil from going to the U.S. if there is any attempt made on my life” (Bloomberg, March 5, 2005).

While flexing oil muscle in an effort to dissuade U.S. complicity in efforts to physically eliminate him, Chavez remained on the ideological offensive:

I am convinced, and I think that this conviction will be for the rest of my life, that the path to a new, better and possible world, is not capitalism, the path is socialism. (Alo Presidente, February 27, 2005)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1393