HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA AND AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

For years I have marveled at how easily our government is able to influence the thinking of its citizenry. I fell for it as a kid to the extent that it led me willingly into the service during the Vietnam debacle. It was toward the end of my service in the Army, though, that I began to see through it.

Everyone has epiphanies. My most important came in a mess hall on Fort Ord one morning as I sat sipping coffee with a couple of other non-coms. A radio was on. I hadn’t paid much attention to it but then Simon and Garfunkel came on with “Seven O’Clock News”, and I suddenly saw through the smoke and mirrors to the clarity of understanding that my peers were offering themselves up for nothing.

That began a long and still continuing effort to see through the official lines at least enough to understand their duplicity if not always to deduce the true motives behind those mirrors.

One of the simplest techniques our government uses is to begin denouncing the leader of another government or the complete government through occasional articles about how vile they are. By the time the public reads four or five such articles, the seed is firmly planted, so the government can more openly condemn the perceived “enemy” and even gain public support to attack them.

(BTW, the same tactic is used to promote political candidates in this country. Back when W was governor of Texas, I remember seeing a very small article in the paper that said little more than that there was a rising political star of great promise named George W. Bush and that savvy wonks expected he might be president one day. It was a Karl Rove trial balloon that led to our present miserable state.)

This link http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17706.htm will take you to an article that sheds a great deal of light on the subject, and reveals quite a lot about the U.S.’s current target - Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

If you read everything you can about this man, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that casts him as dangerous. He is not militarily oriented. He has not built a massive army or sought nuclear weapons. He has armed his military, but I believe that to be defensive rather than offensive. He has not threatened to invade any other country. He has not offered to support terrorism in any way outside of supporting the civil war that has been raging in class-divided Colombia since the 50s. Yet, as I pointed out in another blog recently, his country is listed along with North Korea, Iran, and Cuba as the top American enemies.

(To get see on of the government’s propaganda sheets on this, follow this link: http://www.homelandsecurityus.net/countries/venezuela/venezuela%20n%20korea.htm.)

What, since the “Cuban Missile Crisis” has Cuba ever done to endanger the U.S.? What, beyond the “link” the homeland security paper tries to establish between Chavez and North Korea, has Chavez or the Venezuelan government ever done to endanger the U.S.? The answer is very simple and the same in both cases. Venezuela and Cuba are both opposed to American control of their economies. Chavez and Castro have both striven to use the wealth of their nations (precious little in Cuba’s case thanks to American embargos preventing their profiting from the tourist and international sugar and tobacco trades) for the good of their people instead of for the benefit of U.S. corporations. In the eyes of the American government there can be no greater sin.

The whole foofarah is always about the same thing. Communism was globally unacceptable – though never really practiced – because it wouldn’t mesh with free wheeling capitalism. Socialism is among our dirty words because it ideally focuses on the little guy instead of the big guy.

We are supposed to hate Hugo Chavez because he has used his nation’s oil wealth to raise the standard of living for the poorest of his people. The homeland security article referenced here talks about the dissatisfaction of the Venezuelan people with Chavez’ government as evidenced by his being ousted after rioting broke out in the streets. The fact is that the “riots” were financed and orchestrated by the U.S. and big money Venezuelans seeking to regain control of Venezuelan oil. The “ouster” was immediately reversed because the people of Venezuela wanted Chavez back. He is a democratically elected leader who enjoys at least a 60% satisfaction level among the people of his country.

His desire to control all of South America as portrayed in this article is, in truth, an effort to form an alliance among South American countries to maintain local control of their resources rather than sign them away to American and Western European corporations. He has not actually shown any sign of wanting to take over his neighbors as this article purports. His opposition has been to NAFTA and CAFTA and other attempts to coerce S. American governments into submission to our idea of a free market– opposition I share.

Tactics like the article cited here have been used by our government to unseat many elected leaders in Central and South America throughout our history. (Cuba in 1898 and the 1950s– yes, we actually started the chain reaction that led to Castro, Nicaragua in 1909, Honduras in 1911, etc. etc. Read “Overthrow” by Stephen Kinzer for a complete list.) Let’s not let them get away with it this time.

If you aren’t already, become informed on this stuff. Check Chavez out. If you can find a real reason to fear him, I’d like to hear about it, but I’m betting you won’t. If you can’t find a reason to fear him, fear for him and do what you can to spread the word that he is being slammed into oblivion by our government for political and economic reasons. In my view the world needs a lot more Jimmy Carters and Hugo Chavezes and a lot less George Bushes.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR