Can Chavez Be Defeated? BY MICHAEL ROWAN For the first time since Hugo Chavez became president, he now faces challengers with constructive solutions to defeating poverty, corruption and insecurity while restoring sanity to Venezuelan life. I n April, 1998, Hugo Chavez was running a distant fourth in the presidential race with only a few percent in the national polls - Irene Saez was the frontrunner with 60 percent in the polls. But she faded fast when voters listened to the powerful and angry Chavez message about ending poverty and corruption - by sharing Venezuela’s oil wealth with the poor. In May, 2006, Chavez is the frontrunner with 50 percent in the polls, and has relatively more power and money for his election campaign than any candidate in the democratic history of all the Americas, but he may be the Irene Saez of this campaign. Voters want results, not propaganda. Poverty, corruption and insecurity have increased dramatically under Chavez. Chavez has succeeded at elections because no alternative leader or credible message to defeat poverty, corruption and insecurity has come forth. What the opposition has been trying to do is get rid of Chavez – and nothing more. But Venezuelans want to vote for - not just against. They don’t want an opposition – they want a proposition. And in 2006 they are going to hear a proposition. The Salas Romer campaign of 1998 that offered no poverty program; the April, 2002 “coup d’etat” events that produced the flash presidency of Pedro Carmona; the national strike of 2003 that crippled the economy; the recall referendum of 2004 against Chavez; and the abstention by opposition parties in the national assembly election of December, 2005, all failed to answer the simple question: What are you trying to do? That has changed with this year’s crop of presidential candidates seeking to challenge Chavez. All of the challengers are presenting constructive solutions for using oil wealth to defeat poverty, corruption and insecurity while restoring sanity to Venezuelan life. By July, one of them will emerge as the unified leader to offer voters the first real choice in an election in recent memory. By providing the poor with 10 percent of government revenues in the next five years – from $40 to $50 billion – poverty can be eliminated in Venezuela. That direct investment would double the income of the bottom half of the population, freeing them to solve their economic problems in liberty and not depending on the state. By providing the poor with 10 percent of government revenues in the next five years – from $40 to $50 billion – poverty can be eliminated in Venezuela. This solution has been applied elsewhere to develop open markets, free enterprise and rapid economic growth. An example is Alaska, where government finance of indigenous corporations in combination with annual direct oil fund payments to the population produced these results in one generation: poverty fell from 67 percent to 18 percent; the gap between rich and poor in Alaska became the smallest in all the 50 states; indigenous corporations earned over $30 billion; the oil companies invested a lot and earned a lot from a stable rule of law; and the Alaska economy boomed, adding two million barrels of oil a day to US production. Norway has a similar story with its oil fund dedicated to national health and pensions. The $30 billion Alaska oil fund and the $160 billion Norway oil fund have also helped stabilize their economies for growth. The poor of Venezuela will hear a similar proposition in the 2006 presidential campaign. Poverty can be eliminated in five years; the economy can double in size as the poor invest $40 billion in wealth creation activities; government corruption and insecurity can be drastically curtailed; and PDVSA can get back on track as a professional oil company. The Chavez militarization of PDVSA has cut its production capacity to 2mbpd when it should be at 5mbpd and going to 8mbpd by 2010. The Chavez asymmetric war plan is to jack up the world oil price, create dependent client-states in Latin America against US power, and trigger a global oil recession against Mr. Danger of the Evil Empire. Whether the poor will vote for that over eliminating poverty is what we are about to see.
Assuming that the election isn't rigged I predict Hugo will lose. I think many in Venezuela and Latin America in general find him to be counter-productive with all his rhetoric. Plus, I think some of the opposing candidates should keep pointing out Hugo's attack on the Venezuelan news media. There are definitly reasons to vote against Chavez.
Carlos Herrera: Official statistics completely belie Michael Rowan's intentional fabrication. VHeadline commentarist Carlos Herrera writes: Opposition journalists all use the same tactics to discredit the Bolivarian process and throw darts at President Hugo Chavez Frias in particular. An article in question was published in the Daily Journal, penned by Michael Rowan. According to Rowan, Chavez -* who he refers to as Mr. Chavez, but in the same article addresses President Uribe and Dr. Rice -* is in bigger trouble now than in 2002, due to: ...the domestic expansion of the Chavez revolution; the export of the revolution to Colombia, Bolivia and the region; and the awakening of the United States to the Chavez threat to stability in the Americas. The expansion of the revolution and the legally backed up measures required to implement it have been approved democratically in 9 electoral or referendum processes since 1998. This is democracy, whether Rowan likes it or not. He provides no evidence that Chavez is “exporting” his revolution to Bolivia or Colombia (?), unless he stupidly or maliciously believes the words of Bolivian ex-President, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada who, in December 2003, in Cartagena, said that Chavez had “financed his downfall.” No proof has ever been presented ... as usual. The United States obviously regards Chavez as a threat ... but not necessarily to stability in the Americas (does this include Canada and the US?) ... but to its neoliberal interests in the region and the capital flows it needs to continue dominating the region and offset its crippling fiscal and trade deficits, the latter with Asia and Europe. All overstatement and exaggeration on Rowan's part to dramatize a paranoid perception of “danger.” Rowan speaks of the “rampant assault against private property rights” ... is he referring to squatters (which are nothing new in Venezuela) or the implementation of the Land Law and the Zamoran Decrees -- all legal under Venezuelan law? Some property is being expropriated in Carabobo and in the center of Caracas, under what one could term “compulsory purchase orders”... the same mechanism as exists in developed countries. By his way of thinking, are compulsory purchase orders a rampant assault on private property in other countries as well ... or only in Venezuela? All these compulsory purchases will be executed within a legal framework as in any other country. How convenient that Rowan does not mention this fact ... he wants to give the impression of anarchy and mayhem as far as private property in concerned in Venezuela -* ergo Chavez is a dictator, communist or worse. What poppycock and what a way to twist reality ... it is dishonest journalism. Crime is another subject he addresses in general terms: “More random, vicious and universal“ and, as usual, no mention of the joint police and military operations being taken in Caracas (coordinated by the Interior & Justice Ministry), which have reduced crime by around 53% in four months. Official statistics completely belie Rowan's intentional fabrication. Corruption scandals and the Danilo Anderson case -* this is still under investigation and nothing has been proven or concluded so far. In the true style of tarring everything with the same brush, Rowan takes one supposed case of corruption and, using the logic of a syllogism, concludes that corruption is everywhere. This sort of 'journalism' is merely part of the disinformation campaign being waged this year at international level against Venezuela. Parroting the most rancid elements of the traitorous Venezuelan opposition, Rowan assumes that Uribe will be the downfall of Chavez (”suicidal”) due to the Granda affair, talks about a “pandora’s box of terrorists” in Venezuela and even has the gall to compare the Granda affair to the Montesinos scandal. As his article progresses, Rowan goes from the dishonest to the Goebbelian, repeating half truths in the vain hope that the mud will stick. For the readers’ sake, no concrete evidence has ever been produced to prove that Chavez is in any way consorting with terrorists and the guerrilla. The only “evidence” is published in the right wing press and in rags such as US News & World report by paid mercenary journalists, such as Linda Robinson ... or even perhaps Michael Rowan? Rowan predicts war between Colombia and Venezuela and states, as he has done in previous articles, that the Venezuelan military “has been debilitated by internal spying and political loyalty oaths; sent on government tasks for which it was not prepared or intended; and has lost its mettle for defense.” All of this is conjecture, since internal documents reveal quite the opposite concerning the Venezuelan military. Morale is higher than ever; those who command the troops are committed to the Bolivarian ideal as many in key command positions are true nationalists and not US lackeys such as the military personnel who set up camp in Plaza Altamira. In addition, has Rowan forgotten the 80,000 reservists ready to defend the sovereign territory of the nation? Rowan does not realize that Colombia is not in a position to mount an assault on Venezuela, as this would simply leave the back door open for the guerrilla to move in on major cities as Colombian troops are displaced to the border. The US is currently embroiled in Iraq, and US involvement would be the only way of occupying Venezuelan territory ... leading to the Colombianization of Venezuela and a repeat of Colombia’s 50-year civil war at least. Is this what Rowan wants for the Venezuelan people, or is he writing this stuff as an integral part of the international press campaign contribute to the triggering of such tragic events? The Rowan piece was obviously written before Colombia issued a communique effectively defusing the diplomatic tension due to the Granda affair ... so now the Uribe government will have to manufacture another “crisis” if he, Uribe, is to use Chavez as a bogeyman in his 2006 election campaign. Rowan really jumped the gun forecasting this “strategy.” Until evidence is produced to the contrary, all “accusations” such as this by Rowan, dramatically headlined “A political earthquake in Venezuela,” should be read as one would scan a political pamphlet. The style of these articles generally predict terrible events ... always sometime in the future ... and which never materialize. They are political propaganda. To give Rowan his due, he is correct when he lauds the qualities of Condoleezza Rice, the new US Secretary of State. Just as the opposition web sites are now grasping at straws in the future expectation that Dr. Rice will take on Chavez and “defeat” him, Rowan plays the same card. First President Uribe, now Dr. Rice. When will someone please explain to hacks like Rowan that any external threat will simply strengthen Chavez' resolve, that of his ministers, the armed forces and the Venezuelan people as a whole. Rowan's time would be better spent trying to regroup the Venezuelan opposition and turn it into a democratic force, instead of calling for intervention by the US or a war with Colombia to topple Chavez. The one part of Rowan’s article I fail to understand is when he asserts: “With just about everybody in the country on the Chavez payroll, overtly or covertly, it is an amazement that Chavez could not entrench his revolution in the Venezuelan culture.” Anyone with a grain of common sense knows that you cannot “entrench” anything in popular culture by throwing money at it. Culture is the spontaneous and historical expression of people producing music, poetry, art and theater which they feel, as it comes from their inner being and roots. This is already happening -* simply look at the number of Bolivarian Circles discussing literature and music, for example. Musicians from Los Llanos and the barrios creating Bolivarian lyrics in the classic framework of Venezuela music. Outside the east of Caracas, this sort of culture has permeated every level of Venezuelan society ... and is still growing. If by “Venezuelan culture” Rowan means cutting out vices formed during the 40 years of an officially sanctioned corruption binge from 1961 to 1998, he is also wrong in this assertion. Cultural change can take one or two generations ... and you cannot make people be honest simply by paying them to be so. New values have to be instilled and that is the role of education as exemplified by the Bolivarian schools. Not only is the sort of journalism exercised by Rowan a disgrace to the profession, but also says little about democratic principles, the dignity or self-esteem of the author, his love (?) for human life by predicting a war ... without even mentioning his disrespect for the democratic will of the poor and historically downtrodden in the country where he currently takes refuge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once again Motion regales us with his patently unresearched grab for whatever oligarchical yellow journalism he can find to suggest that the Democratic will of the Venezuelan majority is both misguided and forced. "Corruption" is suggested as some recent and inherent trait to Venezuelan politics ushered in by the Bolivarans, willingly ignoring the decades of corruption and wholesale exploitation and impoverishment of the population by corrupt, US-favoured self-enriching "free market" (read: free to monopolise the land and resources - whilst expatriating the national wealth - of the Venezuelan people. Of course the formerly pampered oligarchs and their essentially slanted corporate press continue to throw one ridiculous assertion after another another whilst the realities of a vastly improved conditions (socially and economically) for the bulk of the once disenfranchised populace expand to leave them howling at the wind like the anti-democratic, anti-humanitarian Jackals they ever have been. As with Berlusconi, it comes as no surprise that those who put profits ahead of people will cynically apply terms like "democracy" and "stability" whilst belying the truth of their doublespeak with their every word and printed slander piece. The smart money rests with the repeatedly demonstrated will of the Venezuelans to support the man who has actually delivered to them the means of liberation from crushing poverty, illiteracy and ill health. Investing in the people, not the ravenous minority corporate interests, is the only way to ensure the future expansion of the creative dynamism and solidarity of any nation. Our own Northern nations would do well to learn from this example before we slide fully into the morass of wealth/opportunity-disparity and social discord. Corrupt oligarchical mouthpieces like Rowan be damned!
Here's an example of what I'am talking about here. Neighbors Grow Impatient With Chavez BOGOTÁ. As Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, insinuates himself deeper in the politics of his region, something of a backlash is building among his neighbors. Chávez - stridently anti-American, leftist and never short on words - has cast himself as spokesman for a united Latin America free of Washington's influence. He has backed Bolivia's recent gas nationalization, set up his own Socialist trade bloc and jumped into the middle of disputes between his neighbors, even when no one has asked. Some nations are beginning to take umbrage. Mere association with Chávez has helped reverse the leads of presidential candidates in Mexico and Peru. Officials from Mexico to Nicaragua, Peru and Brazil have expressed rising impatience at what they see as Chávez's meddling and grandstanding, often at their expense... LINK
Ah yes, but wholesale plunderous (and indeed murderous) neo-liberal trade blocs (underpinned by illicit arms sales to right wing paramilitary groups, the fomentation of civil strife, the transfer of illegal narcotics) orchestrated by Washington, Europe and their rhetoric-enshrouded multilateral thugs the World Bank and IMF are perfectly acceptable to you and those like you who present the one-sided editorials of oligarchs as indication of democratic and humanitarian concern. Please spare us the clearly uncritically examined diatribes of those who have proven by their actions (and in the case of the corporate media mouthpieces, by their refusal to decry those who have long demonstrated) a prioritisation of profit over the wellbeing of the citizenry of countless nations. If Washington presumes it has sole right to influence the conditions (political and economic) of the peoples of Latin America then it had best learn that the world will not revolve around it for much longer. For those who have held the scepter of corruption on a global scale for more than a century to call anyone else corrupt (especially those who prove their commitment to the needs of more than a minute elite minority) is the height of hypocrisy indeed! Bravo to Mr. Chavez and as more Latin American nations throw off decades of exploitative corporatist-serving Washington puppet regimes bravo to them as well! The welfare and creative dynamism made possible by such an end to smug oligarchical privilege will make future opportunity and growth possible for far greater naumbers than anything ever promised by neo-liberalist liars. [Edited to add: "Meddling" is obviously okay for those who impoverish nations with murderous sanctions only to bomb them into perdition and occupy them with no end intended so long as they're doing it in the interests of big money arms manufacturers and the energy cartels. Not to mention repeated illicit manipulations of foreign nations' electoral processes through covert funding of political parties favourable to Washington.] Your Rowan is a completely slanderous hack in the best tradition of William Randolph Hearst.
No, LickHERish is going to defend true democratic concern for the welfare of the majority of the citizens of Venezuela over the elitist cynical rantings of you and your regularly provided corporatist press mouthpieces. You on the other hand, so much like PB before you, will stop to give no objective reflection to the arguments raised to counter your clearly slanderous, elitist editorialists. You simply move on to the next cut and paste reinforcement of your less than truly democratic, big money serving, regurgitated criticisms of a man and movement and a country of whom/which you undoubtedly have no substantive basis for attacking. Chavez has survived far worse attempts to smear and oust him and each time proving his naysayers entirely false in their claims and in their character. You would do well to consider the wholesale corruption you actually endorse by so gullibly swallowing the lies of those who sank Venezuela into a mire of corruption and mass impoverishment to suit the vested interests of Washington fat-cats and their Multinational Corporation cronies for decades prior to the rise of the Bolivarans. The people of Venezuela and other Latin American states are incrementally demonstrating the principles of civic responsibility that mere soundbite democrats (such as our smug, mentally complacent and misinformed majority) have long forgotten.
Face it,people are begining to see the real Chavez. I don't think Bush has any control over Newsweek's or MSNBC's reporting. That Chávez Thing Is Over If his foes triumph, he will be pushed to the fringe. The Chávez road will have led nowhere. By Ruchir Sharma Newsweek International May 29, 2006 issue - Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is the new rock star of world politics. His impassioned rants against globalization, with animated poses to match, make front-page headlines almost daily. The commentariat—particularly in Europe—seems to buy Chávez's line that Latin Americans are so disenchanted by their short tryst with liberalism that they now prefer a strongman to spread the benefits of a commodity boom. The recent moves by a Chávez soulmate, Evo Morales, to renationalize the energy resources of Bolivia reinforce a growing perception that Latin America is lurching to the radical left. But it's not. While Chávez does seem to rekindle a certain romantic Western nostalgia for Latin American guerrilla movements, the underlying trends point in the opposite direction. Voters in Latin America, far from crying out for a radically new economic model inspired by Caracas, are in fact rallying powerfully behind leaders and parties who promote more-orthodox economic policies. As candidates espousing Chávez-style populism have plummeted in the polls in Mexico and Peru, their camps have tried to distance themselves from the Venezuelan leader... MSNBC
Also,what is this new revolutionary socialism Chavez is talking about? What's he doing that's different from what's been tried by others? As for his "price controlled" cheap gasoline. This has caused rampant gasoline smuggling into Colombia where the gas is resold for profits.
Face it Motion, you are swallowing the diatribes of howling jackals who are desperate to paint a picture as far from reality as they can to convince gullible and insulated know-nothings like yourself that Latin America is not steadily and increasingly throwing off the yoke of decades of elitist Multinational Corporate and Multilateral Institution exploitation. The awakeing of the common people and their rightful reclamation of their sovereign self determination, their cultural and their economic independence from the decades long manipulation (for profit) by Washington spells yet further the decline of American aspirations of empire within its own hemisphere and this is a clarion call that those who value the principles of democracies need not be cowed into submission even further afield. Time you put aside the yellow journalism and actually educated yourself on the dispicable history of US-supported brutality and economic extortion suffered by generations of Latin Americans. Perhaps then you might realise how great an opponent of legitimate participatory democracy and liberation you make of yourself with every regurgitated corporatist op ed you post. Read and Learn and Grow
True, the U.S has supported corrupt regimes,but so did those who were supporting the other side. It's like when I hear people point out how during the Cold War years that America and the west supported corrupt dictators in various countries. Ok,but so did the Marxist nations who themselves were also corrupt and repressive. I think the people in Latin America should be able to decide the direction of their countries. But do leaders like Chavez and Evo agree? Their style of Socialism isn't known for being open to change coming from the people. What happens in Venezuela and Bolivia when people disagree with the economic direction of these countries? Do they have a say? How did Evo decide on nationalization in Bolivia? Was there any kind of vote by the people?
