This week on FAIR TV: Hugo Chavez was loathed by the U.S. press–and that didn’t change when they reported his death. Plus Time magazine provides a look at the “Path to War” with Iran–omitting a key fact along the way.
And the Keystone XL pipeline is back in the news. But when it came up on ABC‘s This Week, “left” pundit James Carville had a curious message.
For a man against whom much of his military committed treason, Chavez was remarkably charitable. Few, if any, heads rolled, and Chavez soon returned to constructive governance after the US sponsored coup against him. Chavez also bore a media avalanche against him, with many stations attacking him day and night with all sorts of sensational and downright scandalous accusations. But, unlike the our handpicked rightist leaders we trained to torture leftist dissidents in Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Peru, Chavez largely left the press alone and won election after election by decisive majorities. He could have used his country’s burgeonong wealth to build an even srtronger military and oppress the ruling classes. Instead, he mostly respected private property, conducted far fewer expropriations than Castro, and proactively sought to better the healthcare, housing, and education of the long oppressed and neglected citizens of his country. Tagging him with the Marxist label is slanderous. He simply used his country’s oil wealth to develop paralell institutions in which the long disposessed could actively participate and finally enjoy some of the wealth that was their country’s.
To follow up, let me give you an example of what the US prefers in a Third World leader whose country is blessed with oil: Equatorial Guinea, where the government asks for and gets only 7 cents in royalties on every dollar of oil sold. There, the dictators steal some of that 7 cents and spend much of the rest on imported US arms to protect them from their destitute masses. What’s left goes to US banks or armed militias that protectively encircle these thugs.
Chavez fought to get 30 cents on every dollar of oil wealth leaving his country, instead of the 12 cents that his predecessor negotiated. So, the Exxons and Chevrons of the world were still profitting, but were just not allowed to totally milk his country, as they had been doing. Chavez had the courage to stand up to these petro giants after he stood up to the military coup d’etat in against him, and he had to cope with US inspired strikes in the country’s petroleum industry before he was able to bring his economy to an even keel. Once he did, he began to reap the rewards of his persistence and was able to finance vast, far-reaching, and constructive projects for all his people.
Not sure who you are John McConnell ,but you are well informed.
Thank you for providing some sanity to the rhetoric spewed out by the ignorant mainstream ,regarding Hugo Chavez.
Unfortunately ,most of the population in the Western world ,continue to be taken in by the lies of corrupt government sponsored media.
They brand him as a communist while his actions have always demonstrated otherwise.They hated him because he dared to remove the yoke of imperialism from the Venezuelan people’s throats .
A great man has left us but he will remain in our hearts.
Thanks, Guy, and let me add that the idiotic chattering classes of the USA business media won’t tell you that the top marginal income tax rate in Venezuela is only 37%, and that its stock market tripled over the last 13 months. Unlike Germany and Switzerland, Venezuela doesn’t even have an annual tax on gross accumulated wealth. Yet, Obama couldn’t even bring himself to express his sympathies to Chavez’s relatives, a real diplomatic faux pas if we were living in normal times. The USA just hates Chavez because he held out a paradign for development that minimizes, but far from excludes, participation by corporate behemoths. That his people regularly relected him and forced the military to rescind its coup against him further maddened the elites here. It’s amazing how we force, or try to force, poor countries with rich resources to follow our narrow and self-serving path to economic development.
Thanks John McConnell for pointing out the incredible small-mindedness of Obama who could not even send proper condolences to the family of Chavez and the people of Venezuela, unlike William Hague UK foreign secretary. Shame on you Obama! Another disappointment… it would have cost you nothing to send polite condolences.
I depend on you and others like you for my critical thinking.
Hugo Chavez has said numerous times he is a (democratic) socialist and that is the direction he wants Venezuela to move in. Anyone who calls him a communist doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Our government(America) could learn a thing or two from a leader like Chavez. It’s a shame people are so adamant in bashing him.