I’ve always had my suspicions about a certain crappy “news” outlet pretentiously calling itself the “Latin American Herald Tribune”. I never did trust it; there was something of a rightist stench about it. And today, I received this in my e-mail. I think it tells us something about who may in fact be behind them, making sure nothing but bad news gets out about Latin America’s socialist successes. You be the judge:
Now, anyone who knows even a little bit about Venezuela should be doing a facepalm over the headline alone. Venezuela is not a “communist” country in any sense of the word. That’s not merely editorializing, that’s just plain WRONG. Venezuela is democratic, and its president is duly elected, as are all its national assembly congresscritters. And some, including the president himself, are duly re-elected. And every major piece of legislation they pass is publicly ratified. Unless a surfeit of democracy is your idea of communism, Venezuela is not a communist country.
Of course, Venezuela does have an old and honorable communist party, one which was illegal under more than one military dictator (as well as quite a few of the weak-tea “democrats” of the Punto Fijo era of 1958-98). But it does not rule the roost, even though it does openly support the president, and its members often agitate for greater social reforms. They are also decidedly NOT under the control of Chávez, who criticized them not so long ago for organizing protests against the visit of El Narco Uribe. (It should be noted that public criticism, not jail, was the worst that any of them got for that show of undiplomatic independence. Chavecito is a president, not a dictator.)
And Venezuela enjoys close ties to Cuba, which is said to be communist, but is actually also surprisingly democratic at a grassroots level. Maybe it’s Cuba that the mindless drones behind that press release were thinking of? If so, they’re still in error. They wrote Venezuela.
Now, about that fertilizer company that the Koch profiteers are so hot under the collar about: Guess what, it was not “expropriated”, it was nationalized. And there’s a good reason for that: Venezuela can and should produce the overwhelming majority of its own food, and not be forced to rely on expensive imports from multinational monopolies. It was an agrarian country before oil was first discovered and commercially developed there, and when the oil runs out, it should be one again. That’s not going to happen without a lot of help from the top. And Chavecito knows this full well, which is why he’s nationalizing all these foreign-owned agro- and petro-chemical industries (with strong public approval!), and turning their output over to Venezuelan farmers instead of putting it up for foreign sale on a glutted world market. (You can’t fertilize your fields with dinero, after all.) It’s a perfectly rational and intelligent way of getting the country back to its self-sufficient agrarian roots, it’s producing high-quality local food (often by co-operative farming), and it’s helping Venezuelans to feed their families for less, too. Foreign corporations HATE that. So, of course, what better way to denigrate the reasonable measures of an elected government than to call it “communist”? And award lucrative cash “prizes” to opposition “students” who will never get themselves elected to anything?
But hey, if the Koch brothers want to make open fools of themselves suing a country whose citizenry holds them and their kind in rightful contempt (but bought them out for a fair price regardless), and the lazybums at the LAHT want to reduce themselves to just printing their shoddy press releases, maybe Venezuela’s Bolivarian government can counter-sue…for LIBEL. That money will surely come in very handy for more social missions to make the lives of ordinary Venezuelans better. Trickle-down and all that, you know.
(Thanks to Richard for sending me that screen-grab!)
‘Bina, it’s time for a quick re-write. 90% of the post is OK. Venezuela is democratic and all of the trappings that go with that. But Communism is an economic system not a political system.
Democratic, republic, autocratic (a los rabbiblancos), oligarchic (a los rabbiblancos), dictatorships (a los rabbiblancos) are all political systems. Political systems manage the affairs of government and, under a Communistic system, includes managing the economy and all the property of the state, which is everything.
Venezuela is not communistic, that is correct. It is socialistic. It recognizes private property and has laws that protect private property and laws that make taking of private property (except the state by duly passed legislation) a criminal act.
Communism involves total state ownership of everything with all production and distribution and sharing of profits done at the central economic planning stage.
Socialism involves the state ownership of certain industries and business deemed essential and critical to the state’s success. But each is run by in-site management that must answer to the central government for its failure and success. Labor is recognized as a collective unite and must bargain with the on-site management for its benefits. As indicated above, the major differences between the two systems is the notable lack of central planning in all forms of business and the recognition of private property by socialism.
Class dismissed!
Mea culpa, Jim, I knew that, but I was writing for the ignorant among my lurkers, the ones who think “communist” = dictatorship. I hereby stand, sit and recline corrected.
And the Latin American Herald Tribune has always been a wingnut scandal sheet which is why I took it off my RSS feed a long time ago.
Venezuela may be on the road to socialism but it certainly is not socialist yet( the grassroots and the rank and file want it but certain groupings in the government have done all they could to put up roadblocks and sabotage to stop it) as long capitalism controls the commanding heights of the economy such as the banks, large companies, land and distrubtion you will not attain socialism…
Rojo Rojito
Cort
Well at least it’s a far cry better than what we are seeing in Canada. Just today, the NDP were called “protectionists” just for questioning the quality of the bilateral trade agreements Canada was entering with various countries.
Bah…”Protectionist” seems to be Little Stevie Peevie’s epithet of choice for anyone trying to talk sense to his profiteering nonsense. He honestly doesn’t care if Canadian jobs die, or if we’re left in slavery. By the time it happens, he figures, he’ll be out of office anyway, and it will be the next guy’s problem.
I compare his petulance to the uncomplaining way Chavecito juggles governing and chemo, and I wish I were in Venezuela.
Well, obviously you don’t understand THE ISLAMO-BOLIVARIAN THREAT! 😉
Great piece from AJE this morning featuring all the usual suspects, Roger Noriega et al. The writer barely manages to stifle her giggles.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/2011810104313405606.html