Hugo
Chavez's Social Democratic Agenda
By Stephen Lendman
24 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Hugo
Chavez Frias was reelected by an overwhelming nearly two to one margin
over his only serious rival on December 3, 2006 giving him a mandate
to proceed with his agenda to build a socialist society in the 21st
century on a Bolivarian model designed to meet the needs of the current
era in Venezuela and Latin America overall. Chavez first announced his
intentions on January 30, 2005 at the Fifth World Social Forum in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, and his people affirmed they want him to proceed with
it in his new term to run until December, 2012.
Chavez wants to build a humanistic
democratic society based on solidarity and respect for political, economic,
social and cultural human and civil rights, but not the top-down bureaucratic
kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states. He said
he wants to build a "new socialism of the 21st century....based
in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality"
as opposed to the neoliberal new world order model based on predatory
capitalism exploiting ordinary people for power and profit that's incompatible
with democracy. Newly appointed Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte
expressed Washington's concern about the challenge to its hegemony in
his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing saying Chavez's
"behavior is threatening to democracies in the region (because
he exports a form of) radical populism." He didn't mention how
glorious it is.
He also never explained Venezuelans
voted for it and love it and so do people throughout the region wanting
what Venezuelans now have. Since first taking office in February, 1999,
Chavez radically transformed the country from one of power and privilege
to a participatory democracy governed by principles of political, economic
and social equity and justice. He now wants to advance his social democratic
agenda well into the new century, and his landslide electoral victory
empowers him more than ever to do it. Like a true democrat, he intends
to serve his people and deliver what they asked for.
Chavez began his new term
with the formation of a new unity party called the United Socialist
Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to "construct socialism from below,"
built "from the base" in communities, patrols, battalions,
squadrons, neighborhoods "to carry out the battle of ideas for
the socialist project (to) build Venezuelan socialism." He wants
it to be an "original Venezuelan model" to become the most
democratic in Venezuela's history and include a coalition of many smaller
parties along with his former Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR)
party that completed its work and "must now pass into history."
In December, 23 parties joined
with the MVR to reelect Chavez, including three major ones that can
add strength and credibility to the PSUV - For Social Democracy (PODEMOS),
Homeland For All (PPT), and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV).
The inclusion of all or most allied parties in the new PSUV will be
a step toward building a foundational unity to address the agenda ahead
- building 21st century socialism using state revenues to benefit people
in new and innovative ways. Chavez wants to reform the constitution,
eliminate a two-term presidential limit, and institute new progressive
changes giving more power to people at the grass roots the way democracy
should work.
He also wants to transform
the country's economic model believing it's "fundamental (to do)
if we wish to build a true socialism (therefore) we must socialize the
economy (including the land and create) a new productive model."
He wants all proposed changes submitted to popular referendum so Venezuelans
decide on them, not politicians. That's how it should be in a participatory
democracy from the bottom up Chavez says must "transcend the local
framework (to achieve) "a sort of regional federation of Communal
Councils."
There are 16,000 of them already organized across the country dealing
with local issues, each with 200 - 400 families, and that number is
expected to grow to 21,000 by year end 2007. "They are the key
to peoples' power," Chavez stressed, and he sees them as the embryo
of a new state driven by the PSUV.
Communal Councils are central
to Chavez's plan for people empowerment. They were created in April,
2006 with the passage of the Communal Council Law. Once fully in place
and operational, they'll represent true participatory democracy unimaginable
in the US now governed from the top down by authoritarian rule allowing
no deviation from established policies people have no say on and often
don't know exist.
Councils work the opposite
way. They're to deal with all community issues in local umbrella groups
addressing matters of health, education, agriculture, housing and all
other functions handled up to now by Social Missions and Urban Land
Committees. They represent grass roots democracy in action giving them
muscle and meaning and are administered by the Intergovernmental Fund
for Decentralization that will distribute $5 billion to them in 2007
or more than triple the $1.5 billion allocated in 2006. Additionally,
Chavez hopes $7 billion more will be put in the Venezuelan National
Development Fund for industrial development use.
US Corporate Media
Assaults Against Hugo Chavez
In an earlier article, this
writer addressed how Venezuela's corporate media relentlessly beats
up on Hugo Chavez to a degree unimaginable most anywhere else. The US
corporate media never lets up either as evidenced on January 24 by New
York Times correspondent Simon Romero's report from Caracas. He referred
to the Councils as a plan to construct "socialist cities....to
be settled in part by cramped city dwellers in Caracas and Maracaibo."
He added: "Some of Mr. Chavez's critics compare the project to
(1970s Cambodian Khmer Rouge leader) Pol Pot's emptying of Phnom Penh
in his bloody effort to remake Cambodian society in the 1970s."
Romero's anti-Chavez polemic
went further with inferences of authoritarianism, anti-semitism, equating
him with (Libyan strongman) Muammar el-Qaddafi and accusing him of masking
an opposition to liberal democracy beneath the facade of his "socialist
ramblings" with a climactic final outrageous comment that most
Venezuelans voted for Chavez "because (they) wanted a dictatorship."
This kind of slander actually
gets printed in the so-called "newspaper of record" with "All
The News That's Fit To Print" that has muscle and clout. Its reports
get instant recognition and echoing throughout America's dominant media
eager to pick up on and trumpet the most outlandish misinformation and
distortions from the most influential publication on the planet. The
NYT and entire corporate media in both countries play fast and loose
with facts they never report unless they conform to their ideological
view supporting power and privilege with the public being damned.
What they ignore about Chavez
stands what they do on its head. It's his vision of participatory democracy
rooted throughout the country in communities that the NYT portrays as
potentially bloody communist takeover and population purging with implications
of Pol Pot's Cambodian nightmare regime three decades ago. This is typical
Times yellow journalism in its quasi-official state ministry of information
and propaganda role meaning all of its reports should be viewed with
grave suspicion or just dismissed.
So should Time Magazine's
with its strident attack articles using language like "The Venezuelan
strongman lurches even closer to one-party....one-man rule roiling democratic
waters" (and Chavez is) "Stifling Dissent in Venezuela"
also asking "Is Chavez Becoming Castro?" The articles refer
to Chavez's nationalization plans, his new "enabling law"
authority, and his government plan to control the Central Bank replacing
a private banking cartel doing it for profit the way it works detrimentally
in the US and West. Time's writers skip over inconvenient facts including
how Chavez serves his people in full conformity to Venezuelan law unlike
how Washington pols are bought, paid for and in office for the privileged
alone including for the directors of Time's parent company, media giant
Time Warner.
Another corporate press mainstay,
the Washington Post, took its best shots too in a January 27 editorial
claiming "democracy is dead, dying or in danger" in Venezuela
because "Hugo Chavez began his (new) term this month with a flurry
of authoritarianism, (including wanting) to rule by decree." It
continued saying Chavez "hopes to convert (Nicaragua and Ecuador)
into satellite leaders in a Venezuelan-led 'socialist' bloc (along with)
Bolivia's Evo Morales and....Fidel Castro....already in Mr. Chavez's
orbit (and) thanks to Venezuela's petrodollars, Cuba's 'totalitarian'
system may survive Mr. Castro's demise." With this kind of "journalism,"
the Post writer may be up for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
US's highest civilian award for exceptional meritorious service surely
including black propaganda for the state.
The above examples and countless
more pass for what's called journalism in a country claiming dedication
to press freedom but failing where it counts - reporting the truth.
There's precious little of it about Hugo Chavez because he represents
the greatest of all threats to US dominance - a good example that's
infectious and spreading to growing numbers in the region no longer
wanting democracy, American-style that's a one-way kind for the privileged
alone.
Expect lots more hostile
rhetoric ahead as Chavez advances new socially democratic plans and
programs sure to be denounced in a collective drum beat of distortion
and misinformation. They won't report the National Assembly democratically
voted Chavez limited enabling law power for a fixed period after weeks
of debate. They won't explain a fading US democracy with George Bush
on his own "executive order" authority giving himself permanent
"Unitary Executive power" to suspend the Constitution and
declare martial law any time he alone decides a "national emergency"
warrants it. They won't say Congress and the courts allowed him to do
it. They won't ever let on that Chavez governs as a social democrat
while George Bush rules by virtual "strongman" decree with
no check or balancing restraint on him. Why would they when they won't
ever tell the truth.
Nationalizing Key
Industries
On January 8, Hugo Chavez
announced plans to renationalize the nation's "strategic sectors"
starting with two large partly US-owned companies. They're telecom giant
Compania Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV), 28.5% owned by Verizon
Communications, and Electricdad de Caracas (EDC) that's part of Virginia-based
AES Corporation. CANTV is Venezuela's largest privately-owned company,
but it's not a telephone monopoly. Its land lines reach only 11% of
the population, with three-fourths of it having none, while its cell
phone unit, Movilnet, controls 35% of this larger, more profitable market.
It does have internet monopoly power in the country controlling 83%
of it that's enough to block competitors and make for an untenable situation
now being rectified.
The situation is similar
in the electric power industry with much of it already controlled by
two state-owned companies. At a news conference on February 2, Chavez
announced "The nationalization of the electrical sector is one
of the first laws to be approved (because) it is a necessity....One
of the priorities is the nationalization of the electricity. It was
a monumental mistake to have it privatized (and now six electricity
companies in all will revert to state ownership)."
Telecommunications Minister
Jesse Chacon indicated CANTV will be the only telecommunications company
returned to state control, but doing it disrupted Mexican billionaire
and richest Latin American Carlos Slim's plans. Slim controls the Mexican
telecommunications company Telmex as its chairman, along with other
vast holdings in banking, insurance, technology and much more. Verizon
planned to sell him its 28.5% of the company making him even richer,
but that's now off the table with Chavez's plans to "enrich"
the Venezuelan people, not a predatory billionaire tycoon wanting more
billions at the expense of the public he got his other billions from.
Venezuelan National Assembly
Finance Chairman Ricardo Sanguino said these and other previously-owned
state companies will be nationalized with payments for them likely conforming
to their fair market value with government input on what that is. Finance
Minister Rodrigo Cabezas indicated the country's oil revenue reserves
will be used to compensate shareholders who'll "receive the fair
price for the value of their shares."
It wasn't good enough for
US ambassador William Brownfield who's more politician than diplomat
and often offensive and out of line. He challenged the transactions,
and in so doing provoked Hugo Chavez to say he might ask the envoy to
leave the country if he continues "meddling in Venezuelan affairs."
He added doing it violates "the Geneva agreements and (its) getting
yourself involved in a serious violation and could (get you) declared
a persona non grata and would have to leave the country."
Brownfield didn't say it,
but he's reinforcing false and misleading reports that privately-owned
companies may be expropriated while ignoring Chavez saying that's illegal
under Venezuelan law and won't happen. But in a move to boost state
revenues in the face of lower oil prices, Chavez ordered his telecommunications
minister to take control of CANTV ahead of paying compensation for it,
and he may continue that practice with other nationalizations.
As announced on February
13, however, the CANTV matter is now resolved as the Venezuelan government
and US owner Verizon Communications agreed on a deal to settle it. The
government will buy out Verizon's 28.51% ownership for just over $572
million to raise its equity stake in the company from 6.5% to 35% in
an important step to put the company back under state control, 15 years
after it was privatized.
Another nationalization is
also moving toward resolution as state-owned oil company PDVSA agreed
to buy a majority share in the electric company EDC from US-based AES
owning 82% of it. Remaining minority owner shares will remain in private
hands. A memorandum of understanding was formalized with AES confirming
the agreement, and both sides expressed satisfaction with it putting
to rest unfounded fears the Chavez government might expropriate private
property forbidden by Venezuela's nationalization laws requiring owners
get fair compensation in any state takeover. Venezuelan Vice-President
Jorge Rodriquez attended the public presentation expressing his satisfaction
along with companies on both sides, and said this is the first of a
series of further agreements to come involving nationalizations of strategic
sectors.
Chavez plans other changes
as well and will ask for a constitutional amendment to end Central Bank
of Venezuela's (BCV) autonomy in a move responding to state strategies
according to its director, Armando Leon. Leon said one of the bank's
functions is to maintain medium and long term stability to guarantee
economic growth, improve the population's wealth, and keep the international
payment system. He added autonomy will let the bank continue developing
more convenient policies for the country. It should also put the crucial
power of money creation back in government hands where it belongs and
out of the hands of private for-profit bankers.
Chavez also repeated what
he's said before that he wants a bigger share of joint-venture profits
and majority state control over Orinoco River basin lucrative oil projects
(believed to hold the world's largest undeveloped oil reserves) where
big US and other oil companies now operate including Chevron, BP Amoco,
ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil. At his February 2 news conference, he
announced state oil company PDVSA will become the majority shareholder
on May 1 in four basin projects with minimum 60% ownership with foreign
joint-venture partners.
Negotiations toward agreement
were stalemated for months finally breaking off January 15 with the
government giving oil giants the option to stay on as minority partners
or sell out to a competitor that will. Given the basin's future profit
potential, it's hard imagining they'll want to leave. Chavez believes
it but added if agreement isn't reached "they are totally free
to leave." Minister for Energy and Mines Rafael Ramirez went further
saying the oil fields will be seized if no agreement is reached. Watch
for one ahead that will be fair and equitable to both sides as are all
others in foreign investor joint ventures. Chavez wants similar arrangements
to ones Western nations have that won't be strong-armed into bad deals
like developing countries get. In Venezuela, those exploitive days are
over.
Chavez also indicated he'll
reverse 1999 legislation allowing 100% private ownership of natural
gas projects. This sector will henceforth revert to majority state control
in joint-venture operations. Still, this move and others aren't attempts
to end private investment that's still welcome and likely always will
be. From now on, though, the deals will have to be fair including allowing
majority state ownership in them. It's to assure Venezuelan people benefit
most from the nation's resource revenues and other businesses providing
essential services like public utilities.
It's the way it should be,
and based on last year's operating results private investors have little
to complain about. In 2006, the private sector grew an impressive 10.3%
or double the public sector rate. Financial firms did especially well
under some of the most profitable conditions in the world including
in its free market US epicenter. The Financial Times even admitted bankers
were having a "party" in Venezuela because "rather than
nationalise banks, the 'revolutionary' distribution of oil money has
spawned wealthy individuals who are increasingly making Caracas a magnet
for Swiss and other international bankers." It showed in total
bank assets that increased by a third last year and may surge again
this year promising to be another good one for bankers and other private
enterprises in oil-rich Venezuela.
Changes ahead under Chavez
won't make the country unattractive to foreign investors. They find
it very profitable operating there and aren't about to leave or disinvest
nor is Chavez pushing them out. It's just that from now on, private
business will have to abide by new standards of fairness that will be
a big adjustment for those used to having their own way. That was in
the old days. Things are now different, the way they should be in a
social democracy.
Chavez's Enabling
Law Authority
On January 8, Hugo Chavez
announced "we are now entering a new era, the National Simon Bolivar
Project of 2007-2021" to achieve "Bolivarian Socialism"
in the 21st century that will be "radicalized (and) deepened."
He explained implementing the bold transformation will rely on five
revolutionary "motors" including constitutional reform, "Bolivarian
popular education," redefining and changing the organs of state
power, an explosion of communal power at the grass roots, and the "mother
(enabling) law" to make all other "motors" possible.
On January 18, the Venezuelan
National Assembly (AN) unanimously approved a resolution giving Hugo
Chavez his requested "enabling law" authority. It then convened
an open to the public session in Caracas' central Bolivar Square January
31 enacting the legislation shouting "long live socialism."
The "mother law" will run for 18 months and then expire. It
allows President Chavez authority to pass laws by decree in 11 key areas
including the structure of state organs, election of local officials,
the economy, finance and taxes, banking, transportation, the military
and national defense, public safety, and importantly policies related
to energy.
Chavez wants the power to
accelerate democratic change ahead that's part of his socialist project.
Venezuelans voted for it in December, and he promised to deliver. He
had it two other times, used it responsibly, never abused his authority,
and is the fifth Venezuelan president to use it as permitted by the
constitutions of 1961 and in Article 203 in the 1999 Constitution of
the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Chavez last used it in 2001
passing 49 new legal changes making them conform to the new Bolivarian
Constitution in areas of land and banking reform and establishing more
equitable revenue-sharing arrangements with foreign oil companies in
joint-state ventures. Going forward, he wants to continue building strong
participatory democracy at its grass roots in communities and end the
country's ugly past practices serving capital interests alone. The new
law gives him authority to do it in the following areas, all related
to the country's internal functioning without infringing on foreign
relationships. He'll be allowed to:
-- Transform sclerotic bureaucratic
state institutions making them more efficient, transparent and honest
while allowing greater citizen participation in them.
-- Reform the civil service
and eliminate entrenched corruption that's a major uncorrected problem.
-- Advance the "ideals
of social justice and economic independence" by continuing to build
a new social and economic model based on equitably distributing national
wealth through investments in health care, education and social security.
-- Modernize financial sectors
including banking and insurance and reform tax policy assuring those
paying too little are taxed fairly.
-- Upgrade science and technology
benefitting all sectors of society and the nation in areas of education,
health, the environment, biodiversity, industry, quality of life, security
and national defense including state and local community co-responsibilities
for the nation's defense.
-- Improve citizen and judicial
security by modernizing and reforming public health, prisons, identification,
migration regulations and the judiciary.
-- Upgrade the nation's infrastructure,
transport and all public services including home construction, telecommunications
and information technology.
-- Structurally improve and
developmentally enhance the nation's military.
-- Establish territorial
organization norms in states and communities relating to voting and
constituency size.
-- Allow greater state control
of the nation's vital energy sector including nationalizing oil production
in the Orinoco Oil basin, arranging equitable joint ventures with private
investors, taking state control of electricity and gas production, and
restructuring tax rates making them fairer.
In these areas, Chavez's
critics ignore the limits of his authority:
-- He's bound to govern within
the limits of the law under the provisions of the 1999 Constitution
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
-- He's restricted to areas
authorized by the National Assembly.
-- His authority will expire
after 18 months.
-- He has no power to harm
civil or human rights nor would he wish to as a social democrat believing
in them for everyone, even for his opponents.
-- He'll address only internal
areas unrelated to relations with other countries.
-- He has no authority to
expropriate private property nor can he. Venezuelan law forbids it,
and Chavez obeys the law.
-- The Venezuelan Constitution
empowers the people to rescind all laws by popular referendum if 10%
or more registered voters request a referendum vote be held, and for
laws passed by decree if only 5% want it.
-- The democratically elected
National Assembly can change or rescind decree-passed laws by majority
vote. Chavez's 18 month authority doesn't override or interfere with
citizen, judiciary or National Assembly "check and balancing"
of presidential powers.
In short, Hugo Chavez's wants
to reform and modernize a bloated, entrenched, and corrupted bureaucracy
needing major change. Enabling power will help him do it as well as
be able to strengthen grass roots democracy and direct more state revenues
to social welfare services. He'll have no authority to rule by "dictatorial
decree" as his critics falsely contend. Quite the contrary. He's
responding to the popular mandate given him in December, he intends
using it responsibly, and he'll do it according to Venezuelan law he's
observed in all respects throughout his eight years in office. For that
he should be lauded, not denounced, but don't expect that from Venezuela's
dominant media or their US counterparts voicing a steady drumbeat of
one-way vitriol that's long on noise and empty of truth.
Two Hemispheric Neighbors
Worlds Apart
The two, of course, are Venezuela
under Hugo Chavez and the US under George Bush, and the difference between
them is Grand Canyon wide. In eight years, Chavez impressively transformed
a state beholden to capital to one now serving all Venezuelans. He created
real participatory democracy at the grass roots advancing the nation
toward greater social equity and justice while George Bush neocons went
the other way. Venezuela doesn't wage wars or threaten other nations.
It engages them in solidarity offering no-strings-attached aid and mutually
beneficial trade and other alliances. Chavez respects human rights,
has no secret prisons, doesn't practice torture or state-sponsored murder,
respects the law and rights of everyone under it, and is a true social
democrat freely elected by his people overwhelmingly in elections independently
judged free, open and fairly run.
For that, he's demonized
as "another Hitler" by the man whose record is polar opposite.
He took office twice through fraud-laden elections and considerable
kick-off help from five Supreme Court justices deciding their votes
outweighed the country's majority feeling otherwise. It gave George
Bush power to pursue an imperial permanent war agenda, ignore constitutional
and international law, contemptuously disregard human rights and civil
liberties, wreck the state's already pathetically weak social contract
obligations, and accelerate a generational process of transferring well
over $1 trillion of national wealth yearly from 90 million US working
class households to for-profit corporations and the richest 1% of the
population creating what economist Paul Krugman calls an unprecendented
wealth disparity getting worse that shames the nation.
Chalmers Johnson writes about
it in his new book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic which
this writer will shortly review at length. It's important instructive
reading showing democracy and imperialism can't coexist. The latter
path ends badly in military or civilian dictatorship eventually causing
bankruptcy from a combination of "isolation, overstretch, and the
uniting of (opposition) local and global forces."
Two classic examples prove
it - ancient Rome that lost its republic and then its empire centuries
later and Nazi Germany after democratic Weimar that lost it all in just
12. Johnson foresees a similar fate here but hopes "our imperial
venture will end not with a nuclear bang but a financial whimper,"
even though dangers mount it may combine both. He explains the Greek
goddess of vengeance, Nemesis, "is already a visiter in our country,
simply biding her time before she makes her presence known." She
may be quiet or noisy when she does and is like that "piper"
(whose gender may be female) who's also very patient but always gets
paid.
The due date draws closer
because the man at the helm is one noted historian Eric Foner characterized
as "the worst president in US history (who) in his first six years
in office....managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided
policies and abuses of power of his failed predecessors." Under
him, authoritarian extremists are in charge dedicated to savage capitalism
and imperial conquest by permanent war. They've put the nation on the
tipping edge of fascism combining its classic elements of corporatism,
patriotsim, nationalism and the delusion of an Almighty-directed mission
while pursuing an iron-fisted militarist agenda with thuggish "homeland
security" enforcers illegally spying on everyone. They pathologically
insist on secrecy and tolerate no dissent in an age where the law is
what the chief executive says it is, and the separation of powers and
checks and balances no longer exist because both dominant parties are
in this together as allies, not adversaries. They put the republic on
life-suport that can't be sustained and won't be.
They harmed growing millions
left on their own under market-based rules where everything's for sale
for those who can pay. Our founding principles no longer matter in a
brave neoliberal new world order on the march for key resources, markets
and cheap labor where might is right and no challenge tolerated. Hugo
Chavez presents one as leader of an alternate world order challenging
the mighty but placing himself in jeopardy as hemispheric enemy number
one marked for elimination. The Bush administration tried and failed
three times but always readies a new scheme to unveil by whatever means
and at whatever time it'll try again. Chavez knows the danger, won't
be deterred, and intends governing responsibly regardless of the danger
that's real and threatening.
Responsible Venezuelan government
is what Paul Cummins wrote about in his January 17 Truthdig online article
called We Reap What We Sow. It was from a recent Los Angeles Times story
he called "A wildly successful Venezuelan program that makes free
musical instruments and training available to all children who serve
as a model for the US as we struggle to keep guns out of kids' hands."
The music education program is called "El Sistema" (The System),
and it's government sponsored. It's serving 500,000 children from all
strata of society getting free training at more than 120 centers around
the country, and from it more than 200 youth orchestras have been created.
The article explains Los
Angeles street gangs are up against thuggish police strike forces and
incarcerations only guaranteeing more violence while in Venezuela better
societal crime control alternatives are far superior to failed more
costly ones on US inner city streets. It proves again an ounce of prevention
beats pounds of cures that don't work. It also proves Venezuela's social
model works far better than state-sponsored iron-fisted militarism abroad,
homeland security thuggery at home and multi-billions spent on both
reaping what they sow - power and riches for the privileged and the
public be damned. As Cummins puts it: "Sadly, we reap what we sow,
and we don't harvest what we don't plant."
This is one of many examples
showing the chasm between two states getting wider. Venezuela's resources
go for essential social services and to build grass roots participatory
democracy governed from the bottom up. In contrast, Bush administration
policies prey on "The Wretched of the Earth" Franz Fanon wrote
about in his best-known polemical work exposing colonialism's devastating
effects. Today its modern neocolonial version targets the world with
even more harmful effects than its antecedent. It exploits people everywhere
for power and profit the way things worked in Venezuela before Chavez's
Bolivarian Revolution new way. It's advancing because it works, and
it's heading for a new level Chavez calls his "socialism in the
21st century" agenda.
It's name doesn't matter.
It's achievements and goals do because they're what Lincoln at Gettysburg
called "government of the people, by the people, for the people
(he hoped would) not perish from the earth." In Venezuela today
it's vibrant, flourishing, maturing and improving peoples' lives. They
won't tolerate going back to the old way, and Hugo Chavez promised it
won't happen. He's succeeding in spite of powerful enemies against him,
mostly in Washington, determined to end his glorious experiment because
it works so well.
It covers a broad array of
vital and innovative social programs including free health and dental
care and education to the highest level mandated by law. There's help
with housing, subsidized food for the needy, land reform, job training,
micro credit and more. Benefits like these are unimaginable in the US
where most people can't afford their cost. The Bush administration exacerbates
the problem by directing public resources for war and the military while
millions sink economically, politically and socially in an uncaring
society masquerading as a model democratic state. It shows in the above-highlighted
wealth disparity and a government exploiting the many for those of privilege.
It allowed its banking cartel-owned central bank power to erode middle
and lower income households' purchasing power on top of a bipartisan
commitment to end social safety net protection fast disappearing.
The damage shows in the following
inflation data. A 1950 US dollar today is worth 12 cents or 88% less
than 57 years ago, and it continues eroding annually. In 1952, a full
years tuition at Harvard cost $600. Today it's over $30,000, a 50-fold
increase in 55 years. With room, board, health insurance fees, books,
supplies and miscellaneous expenses it costs $50,050 making it affordable
only to the rich or students getting considerable aid.
In 1959, the average urban
new home cost $14,900. Today it's $282,300 - a 1795% increase. In 1950,
a dental crown cost $40. Today it's $740 - a 1750% increase and in larger
cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and others it can exceed
$1000. In 1970, the monthly Part B Medicare insurance premium for seniors
was $5.30. It's now on average $88.50 - a $1570% increase and for some
higher income seniors will rise in 2007 up to $163.70 with further exponential
increases coming in succeeding years to shift the burden of providing
senior health care from the state to private individuals with those
unable to afford it out of luck. It's as bad getting prescription drug
help after Congress legislated sham relief only benefitting the indigent
paying nothing or seniors with very high drug expense getting some,
but inadequate, relief because Big Pharma drug companies can charge
whatever they wish and do.
Also endangered is the single
most effective government-sponsored program for keeping millions of
retirees out of poverty - bedrock Social Security protection. Republicans
want to end it so far without success because of mass senior citizen
opposition that won't stop powerful Washington interests from trying
again. If they succeed they'll end the most vital of all social safety
nets through "privatization" fraud meaning seniors are on
their own in a heartless brave new world order for the rich alone.
Another example is homelessness
that's addressed by one country and not the other. In Venezuela, Hugo
Chavez wants to end it by offering street people communal housing, drug
treatment and a modest stipend. Last year he said: "This revolution
cannot allow for there to be a single child in the street...not a single
beggar in the street." He's acting through Mission Negra Hipolita
guiding the homeless to shelters and rehab centers providing medical
and psychological care. Those joining get $65 a week in return for community
service work.
Mission Negra Hipolita began
about a year ago and is headed by retired general and former Defense
Minister Jorge Garcia Carneiro. He said thousands are being helped but
believes hundreds remain on Caracas streets in numbers too hard to quantify.
Still, the Venezuelan government committed to action and has a program
in place that's working.
Added help may come following
Participation and Social Development Minister David Velasquez's announcement
saying: "We believe that everything related to social protection
aimed at helping people in a situation of risk and social exclusion
should be a policy which embraces the whole process not just responding
to specific situations or assistance." Part of it is strengthening
Mission Negra Hipolita giving more power to Communal Councils as well
as enhancing an integral social protection system implemented through
equality and social protection committees (or Copis).
Compare that to the US under
George Bush. No homeless help program exists nor is any planned. It
shows in a report released in mid-January by the National Alliance to
End Homelessness showing how bad it is. The report, called Homelessness
Counts, estimates the US homeless population at 744,313 as of January,
2005 but indicated the assessment was limited and the true number likely
much higher. An earlier estimate in 1996 had it at 842,000, and it affects
families, singles, children and even working adults studies estimate
are 25 - 40% of the homeless not earning enough to house themselves.
This issue alone highlights
the savage effects of capitalism US-style based on one-way wealth distribution
upward, varying crumbs to the middle, and nothing to growing millions
on the bottom most in need and ignored hoping they'll go away. They
won't and neither will their needs becoming greater.
Venezuela is dedicated to
social progress and addressing unmet neets. It's reducing its homeless
problem while Bush officials handle a growing one by eliminating vital
welfare and federal housing programs once in place for the needy. It's
happening in the richest country in the world where its largest corporation
alone, Exxon-Mobil, had gross 2006 sales of $377.6 billion or about
2.8 times Venezuela's GDP. It also posted record profits of $39.5 billion
for 2006, the largest ever for a US corporation, but isn't willing to
sacrifice a few billion for more responsible behavior that won't help
its bottom line. It wants more billions, not less, and has government
help in Washington to get them at public expense.
More Evidence of
Two Nations On Opposite Courses
In nearly every respect,
the US and Venezuela are mirror opposites. US GDP is about 90 times
Venezuela's with a population 12 times greater. It's huge resources
could end the nation's poverty and much of it elsewhere. Tiny Venezuela's
doing it because the law mandates it, and it's enforced. In the US,
poverty is growing. In Venezuela, it's declining. In the US, Department
of Education figures gloss over a deplorable functional illiteracy rate
officially at 20% with real numbers far higher based on reports from
urban school systems around the country graduating students without
computer skills and only able to read, write, and do math at the elementary
school level. It's from planned public school neglect for private sector
gain and an overall disinterest in educating poor inner city children
discarded like debris by an uncaring state.
Economic conditions are deteriorating
as well for most, and for millions they're dire despite false and misleading
reports to the contrary. They hide the true state of things for most
people losing ground, not gaining. It shows in phony Labor Department
unemployment figures hiding how bad things are. Based on how rates were
calculated in The Great Depression when unemployment rose to 25%, the
true figure today is about 12%, not the fictitious most recent official
4.6% number. In addition, poverty is rising annually despite overall
economic reports of a healthy economy hiding its dark side. Well over
12 million Americans struggle daily to feed themselves and many, including
children, go to bed hungry at night. And that's just one of many signs
of neglect getting worse but kept under wraps in the mainstream.
In Venezuela, the opposite
is true. Poverty levels are falling from a high in 2003 of 62% following
the crippling 2002-03 "oil strike" and destabilizing effects
of the 2002 two-day aborted coup against Hugo Chavez. They're down impressively
now to levels nearing one-third or almost half the figure four years
ago. Unemployment is also declining from a high around 20% in early
2003 to 8.4% in December, 2006 and likely to keep falling. Inflation
is still a problem, but government efforts are being made to reign it
in responsibly.
Free expression is another
fundamental issue in an open democratic society. One country pays it
lip service, but the other practices and respects it. In Venezuela,
it's championed, and it shows in government tolerance for the dominant
media's strident anti-Chavez rhetoric broadcast to over 90% of the country's
potential televiewers. It's from the country's five electronic media
majors' relentless denunciation of government policies and their leading
role in instigating and supporting the April, 2002 aborted two-day coup
and 2002-03 management-imposed oil industry lockout and "general
strike" destabilizing the country for 64 grim days. In the US,
these kinds of actions could be considered capital offenses subject
to long prison terms or even the death penalty for offenders found guilty.
Not in Venezuela. After restoring
stability, Chavez never punished media transgressors despite having
every legal right to do it. Only with RCTV's VHF operating license expiring
in May did he act against the worst of the lot announcing its renewal
won't be granted and its channel will be put under new management for
socially responsible programming as it should be in a democracy. Chavez
is acting within the law and is moving to democratize public airwaves
that should be used for the people and not for black propaganda against
them.
But that's not how Reporters
Without Borders ("for press freedom") sees it. It condemned
the non-renewal disingenuously claiming it violates free speech and
press freedom. It put its one-sided corporate media support in writing
in its 2007 Annual Report falsely claiming Chavez passed a "spate
of laws" in 2005 and 2006 "greatly curbing press freedom"
while failing to acknowledge every government action fully complies
with Venezuelan law. It also ignored Venezuela's highest standards of
press freedom in the free world tolerating the most outrageous corporate
media attacks against Hugo Chavez and finally only punishing one offender
with a mere hand slap.
Contrast this with life under
George Bush. A climate of fear is pervasive. No dissent is tolerated
and opponents are denounced as traitors and terrorists. The dominant
media are supportive acting as little more than thought-control police
mocking the notion of free expression vital to a healthy republic now
passing from democracy to tyranny. Nothing is off the table to "homeland
security" enforcers using hardest of hard ball tactics with no
regard for law and justice this administration disdains endangering
the last remaining free and open public space now under attack. It's
online digital democracy supporters call internet neutrality heading
for final debate and resolution in Congress in the coming weeks. The
outcome will determine its fate affecting every computer user and web
editor contributing material to the public domain. Saving this venue
is vital for any hope to remain to revive a flagging democracy somewhere
between life support and the crematorium.
But the struggle just got
harder because of Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill now
before the Senate, that, if passed, will require bloggers and others
communicating online to 500 or more people to register and report quarterly
to Congress just as lobbyists must do. The legislation's on hold, but
it follows from Senator John McCain's proposed "Stop the Online
Exploitation of Our Children's Act" that will fine bloggers up
to $300,000 for posting offensive statements, photos and videos online.
This is thinly veiled hardball to stifle anti-war voices, under the
guise of protecting children. They oppose Bush administration plans
threatening Hugo Chavez after it's done ousting the Iranian mullahs
and country's president.
McCain's bill is a leading
Republican's effort to regulate online speech and let the federal government
decide what parts are acceptable and what are not with heavy fines imposed
on violators. At the same time, it's quite acceptable for government,
Pentagon and corporate media propagandists to promote wars and anti-populist
programs through the internet or in any other way. If the McCain legislation
or Section 220 of S. 1 passes, the only voices heard online will be
those supporting government policy while critics Homeland Security Director
Michael Chertoff calls "dissaffected people living in the United
States (developing) radical ideologies and potentially violent skills"
will be banned. That includes the web site posting this article.
And if Republican-led bipartisan
efforts fail, planned Democrat-led ones are poised to go through in
the form of new federal "hate crimes" legislation called The
Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (aka The Thought Crime Act). Democrats
are closely aligned with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith
that's been unsuccessful getting this type law through a Republican-controlled
Congress for eight years. It now has a friendly Democrat-led one that
never votes against bills outlawing hate crimes. This one supposedly
criminalizes hate talk against gays, minorities and other often-persecuted
groups, but it's really about banning speech government opposes (including
online) making it punishable by heavy fines, imprisonment or both.
These are dramatic examples
of two nations going opposite ways. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez supports
free expression, social democracy, and using state revenues to insure
and improve both. In the US, both parties support wealth and power,
are jointly running a criminal enterprise masquerading as legitimately
elected government, scorn the law and constitutional freedoms, are heading
the country toward despotism in a national security police state conducting
wars without end, and want to rule the world including its oil-rich
parts inside Venezuela's borders.
In Venezuela, people live
freely in peace and their lives are enhanced. In the US they're threatened
by state-sponsored terrorism and harsh repression against anyone challenging
state power. The majority finds its welfare eroding under a system of
authoritarian rule keeping a restive population in line it fears one
day no longer will tolerate being denied essential services so the country's
resources can be used for imperial wars, tax cuts for the rich and outrageous
corporate welfare subsidies for boardroom allies in turn supplying politicians
with limitless cash amounts in a continuing cycle of each side feeding
the other so they benefit at our expense with growing numbers left out
entirely now suffering terrible neglect and abuse. If able to choose,
imagine what type government and leader they'd want. Venezuelans have
it under Hugo Chavez and are blessed for it. It's about time Americans
got treated as well.
Stephen Lendman lives
in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and tune in each Saturday
to hear the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com
each Saturday at noon US central time.