MB Civic

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13885.htm

Go to Venezuela, You Idiot!

By Jeff Cohen

Commondreams   07/06/06

I don’t usually take the advice of rightwingers. But I did this time.
After receiving inflamed email messages from dozens of angry rightists
that I should get the hell out of the USA and go to Venezuela, I accepted
their challenge and flew to Caracas.

“Would you like me to start a fund to ship your ass down there, Comrade
Cohen?”

What had provoked the often-abusive emailers was my 2005 Internet column
urging U.S. residents to buy their gasoline at Citgo, a subsidiary of
Venezuela’s state oil company. I called for a Citgo BUY-cott, to protest
Bush’s interventionist foreign policy while supporting innovative
anti-poverty programs in Venezuela. (Last winter, Citgo started a program
that provided discounted home-heating oil to low-income families in the
U.S.)

“Hey moron, if you hate America so much and love Venezuela, why don’t you
go there?”

I’m glad I listened to the conservative chorus. In late June, I headed to
Venezuela with a fact-finding delegation sponsored by the respected U.S.
human rights group, Witness for Peace. The grueling trip covered much
ground and all sides of Venezuela’s social/political landscape. It is a
complex country, headed by sometimes volatile President Hugo Chavez, a
leftist and harsh Bush critic who was first elected in 1998.

As soon as I returned home, I headed to the nearest Citgo to fill up my
tank — more committed than ever to send a few dollars toward Venezuela’s
poor.

“You, sir, are as un-American as they come.”

For decades, Venezuela’s vast oil wealth had been squandered and hoarded
by its light-skinned elite, while most Venezuelans — largely of
indigenous, African and mixed descent — lived in dire poverty. Today, oil
revenue from Citgo and elsewhere is funneled into social programs (called
“missions”) to benefit the country’s poor majority. They’re reminiscent of
FDR’s New Deal programs. . .born of our economic bust. But Venezuela’s
missions are fueled by a boom — a boom in oil prices that is likely to
persist for years.

“Because of Chavez, communism is thriving in South America.”

From what I could see, capitalism is thriving. Foreign oil interests
continue to profit handsomely from Venezuelan petrol, but they now pay a
fairer share of taxes and royalties. So do the 80 McDonald’s restaurants
in Venezuela, which were briefly shut down last year over alleged tax
cheating.

Multinational companies and the old elite are doing fine in today’s
Venezuela. So well that some Venezuelan leftists denounce Chavez —
despite his talk of building “21st century socialism” — as a tool of
corporate imperialism.

Like other oil-exporting countries, Venezuela in the past allowed its
domestic productive economy to atrophy. Besides oil, it produced little —
with food largely imported. Today, people in poor areas are organizing
themselves into productive and agricultural co-ops, supported by
low-interest government loans. We visited a federal bank that underwrites
women-run businesses nationwide.

My guess is that if Chavez succeeds in Venezuela — a big “if” in a
country of endemic corruption, poverty and crime, in the backyard of the
U.S. superpower — its economic system will end up looking more like
Sweden than Cuba.

What’s not debatable is that the poor have found hope in the Chavez
administration — which is why he’s perhaps the most popular president in
our hemisphere. So popular that Chavez critics in the U.S. government and
Venezuelan opposition concede that they won’t be able to defeat him in
December when he seeks reelection.

“The trouble with all you liberals is that you’re anti-American and hate
democracy.”

Participation in democracy is booming in Venezuela under Chavez. That’s
partly due to polarization, but also because so many poor people feel
empowered enough for the first time to get active in politics. A massive
2005 Latinobarometro poll conducted in 18 Latin American countries showed
that Venezuelans are among the top in preference for democracy over all
other forms of government, in satisfaction with how their democracy is
functioning, and in belief that their country is “totally democratic.”

“The oil money never gets to the poor. . . . You must have been paid by
Chavez to write what you wrote.”

Across Venezuela, it’s hard to miss the new investment in public
education. Schools are being upgraded in urban and rural areas and are
required to offer free breakfasts and lunches, arts, music and
after-school activities. Unlike the U.S., these are well-funded mandates.
Illiteracy has been virtually wiped out, according to UNESCO, thanks to
adult education that has penetrated the poorest neighborhoods.

In poor communities, federally-subsidized stores called “mercals” sell
food at half the market price. In the capital of Caracas, thousands of
government-funded soup kitchens offer free lunches every weekday to the
indigent; our delegation was headquartered in a church that served 150
free lunches per day. Across the country, new housing is being built to
replace shantytown “ranchos” that so many Venezuelans live in.

Thousands of free (“Barrio Adentro”) medical clinics have been built
inside neighborhoods that never had doctors before — so many clinics that
you can spot them from the highway. These are staffed largely by doctors
from Cuba; in return, Cuba receives Venezuelan oil. When we asked a
community leader how local residents reacted to the Cuban doctors, he
explained that most Venezuelan doctors won’t serve in poor barrios:
“People in our community don’t care whether the doctors are French,
German, Canadian, Mexican or Cuban — as long as they’re here to help.”

“Go to Venezuela and kiss up to the anti-American dictator.”

If Venezuela is a dictatorship, it must be the first in world history in
which the opposition controls most of the media. And the first in which
demonstrations occur regularly outside the presidential palace (organized
by various groups, especially low-income activists complaining about
broken promises and government inefficiency).

Dissent is alive and well in Venezuela. Any casual viewer can see
anti-Chavez criticism all over TV, the country’s dominant medium and
largely in the hands of conservative business interests. The opposition
used its power on TV to support a short-lived military coup in 2002
(strike 1), an employers’ oil lockout in 2002-3 (strike 2) and a failed
recall election in 2004 (strike 3). Chavez won nearly 60% in the recall
vote — which was monitored closely by international observers.

Efforts to bring down Chavez — through democratic and undemocratic means
— have been supported by the Bush administration. Which makes it ironic
that the American Family Association, a U.S. religious ultra-right group,
has organized a Citgo boycott on the basis of its Internet hoax:
“Venezuela Dictator Vows to Bring Down U.S. Government.” The headline
tends to reverse reality; Chavez has made no such vow. But AFA true
believers have targeted my email inbox for months with the hoax.

“Try Jesus. If you don’t like Him, the devil will always take you back.. .
. .What terrorist group are you affiliated with?”

If you think the U.S. is politically polarized, you haven’t been to
Venezuela. Clinton’s impeachment by the religious right over sex is
child’s play compared to what’s gone on in Venezuela, where Chavez has
survived near-death experiences at the hands of a conservative opposition
that has never accepted his presidency.

Columnist Paul Krugman talks of a “New Class War” in our country. In
Venezuela, it’s old-fashioned class war. Political and media confrontation
between Chavez and the opposition is vicious, personal and bare-knuckled.
While independent human rights monitors in Venezuela complain about
isolated cases of government intimidation of opposition figures and
journalists, they scoff at claims that democracy is in jeopardy or that
dictatorship is coming.

Today, Chavez is popular (his approval ratings dwarf Bush’s), rambunctious
in whipping up his base against both domestic opponents and Bush, and
prone to hyperbole in his hours of extemporaneous speaking each day. He
has waged a war of words against U.S. Empire and Bush, whom he calls “Mr.
Danger.” But that’s polite in light of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
having compared Chavez to Adolph Hitler. Or Rev. Pat Robertson having
called for Chavez to be assassinated.

“You can write your articles about how great he [Chavez] is, but I know,
as well as other true Americans, that he is not a good man and he does
need to be taken out of power as soon as possible.”

To me, the issue is less about Chavez than about the social initiatives
his government has unleashed. When I first wrote about Venezuela 14 months
ago, I urged a simple economic action: filling up at Citgo so that our
money at the pump helps Venezuela’s poor instead of Middle East
oiligarchs. That remains a good idea.

Nowadays, I also urge political action: that we contact Congress to demand
that the U.S. stay out of Venezuela’s political contest. That’s up to
Venezuelans to decide. Not us. The U.S. should stop its efforts to back
the conservative opposition and cease all (“National Endowment for
Democracy”) funding of Venezuelan groups.

And finally, I want to join my rightwing critics in one recommendation: Go
to Venezuela. If you can arrange it, examine the social transformations
for yourself. Study Spanish there. See the decades of poverty, neglect and
corruption that led to the election of Hugo Chavez — and whether his
government is improving things.

There’s an added bonus for anyone who can get down there: gasoline at 18
cents per gallon. Expect to hear Venezuelans complaining that the price is
too high.

Jeff Cohen is a media critic and former TV pundit. His newest book, “Cable
News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media,” can be
pre-ordered at http://jeffcohen.org/

**

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