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Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:56:51 -0500

Good Things Happening in Venezuela

 

 

 

Good Things Happening in Venezuela

by Michael Parenti

Z magazine, July/August 2005

 

Even before I arrived in Venezuela for a recent visit, I encountered

the great class divide in that country. On my connecting flight from

Miami to Caracas, I found myself seated next to an exquisitely dressed

Venezuelan woman. Judging from her prosperous aspect, I anticipated

that she would take the first opportunity to hold forth against

President Hugo Chavez. Unfortunately, I was right.

Our conversation moved along famously until we got to the political

struggle going on in Venezuela. " Chavez, " she hissed, " is terrible,

terrible. " He is " a liar. " He " fools the people " and is " ruining the

country. "

 

She owns an upscale women's fashion company with links to prominent

firms in the United States. When I asked how Chavez has hurt her

business, she said, " Not at all. " But many other businesses, she

quickly added, have been irreparably damaged as has the whole economy.

 

She went on denouncing Chavez in sweeping terms, warning me of the

national disaster to come if this demon continued to have his way.

 

Other critics I encountered in Venezuela shared this same mode of

attack: weak on specifics, but strong in venom, voiced with all the

ferocity of those who fear that their birthright (that is, their class

advantage) is under siege because others below them on the social

ladder are now getting a slightly larger slice of the pie.

 

In Venezuela over 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty

level. Before Chavez, most of the poor had never seen a doctor or

dentist. Their children never went to school, since they could not

afford the annual fees. The neoliberal market " adjustments " of the

1980s and 1990s only made things worse, cutting social spending and

eliminating subsidies in consumer goods. Successive Administrations

did nothing about the rampant corruption and nothing about the growing

gap between rich and poor, the growing malnutrition and desperation.

 

Far from ruining the country, here are some of the good things the

Chavez government has accomplished:

 

* A land reform program designed to assist small farmers and the

landless poor has been instituted-this past March a large landed

estate owned by a British beef company was occupied by agrarian

workers for farming purposes

 

* Education is now free (right through to university level), causing a

dramatic increase in grade school enrollment

 

* The government has set up a marine conservation program and is

taking steps to protect the land and fishing rights of indigenous peoples

 

* Special banks now assist small enterprises, worker cooperatives, and

farmers

 

* Attempts to further privatize the state-run oil industry-80 percent

of which is still publicly owned-have been halted and limits have been

placed on foreign capital penetration

 

* Chavez kicked out U.S. military advisors and prohibited overflights

by U.S. military aircraft engaged in counterinsurgency in Colombia

 

* " Bolivarian Circles " have been organized throughout the nation,

neighborhood committees designed to activate citizens at the community

level to assist in literacy, education, vaccination campaigns, and

other public services

 

* The government hires unemployed men, on a temporary basis, to repair

streets and neglected drainage and water systems in poor neighborhoods

 

Then there is the health program. I visited a dental clinic in

Chavez's home state of Barinas. The staff consisted of four dentists,

two of whom were young Venezuelan women. The other two were Cuban men

who were there on a one-year program. The Venezuelan dentists noted

that in earlier times dentists did not have enough work. There were

millions of people who needed treatment, but care was severely

rationed by one's ability to pay. Dental care was distributed like any

other commodity, not to everyone who needed it, but only to those who

could afford it.

 

When the free clinic in Barinas first opened it was flooded with

people seeking dental care. No one was turned away. Even opponents of

the Chavez government availed themselves of the free service,

temporarily putting aside their political aversions.

 

Many of the doctors and dentists who work in the barrio clinics (along

with some of the clinical supplies and pharmaceuticals) come from

Cuba. Chavez has also put Venezuelan military doctors and dentists to

work in the free clinics. Meanwhile, much of the Venezuelan medical

establishment is vehemently opposed to the free clinic program, seeing

it as a Cuban communist campaign to undermine medical standards and

physicians' earnings. That low-income people are receiving medical and

dental care for the first time in their lives does not seem to be a

consideration that carries much weight among the more " professionally

minded " practitioners.

 

I visited one of the government-supported community food stores that

are located around the country, mostly in low income areas. These

modest establishments sell canned goods, pasta, beans, rice, and some

produce and fruits at well below market price, a blessing in a society

with widespread malnutrition.

 

Popular food markets have eliminated the layers of middlepeople and

made staples more affordable for residents. Most of these markets are

run by women. The government also created a state-financed bank whose

function is to provide low-income women with funds to start

cooperatives in their communities.

 

There is a growing number of worker cooperatives. One in Caracas was

started by turning a waste dump into a shoe factory and a T-shirt

factory. Financed with money from the Petroleum Ministry, the coop has

put about 1,000 people to work. The workers seem enthusiastic and hopeful.

 

Surprisingly, many Venezuelans know relatively little about the worker

cooperatives. Or perhaps it's not surprising, given the near monopoly

that private capital has over the print and broadcast media. The

wealthy media moguls, all vehemently anti-Chavez, own four of the five

television stations and all the major newspapers.

 

The person most responsible for Venezuela's revolutionary

developments, Hugo Chavez, has been accorded the usual ad hominem

treatment in the U. S. news media. An article in the San Francisco

Chronicle described him as " Venezuela's pugnacious president. " An

earlier Chronicle report (November 30, 2001) quotes a political

opponent who calls Chavez " a psychopath, a terribly aggressive guy. "

 

The London Financial Times sees him as " increasingly autocratic " and

presiding over something called a " rogue democracy. "

 

In the Nation (May 6, 2002), Marc Cooper-one of those Cold War

liberals who nowadays regularly defends the U.S. empire-writes that

the democratically-elected Chavez speaks " often as a thug, " who

" flirts with megalomania. " Chavez's behavior, Cooper rattles on,

" borders on the paranoiac, " is " ham-fisted demagogy " acted out with an

" increasingly autocratic style. " Like so many critics, Cooper

downplays Chavez's accomplishments and uses name-calling in place of

informed analysis.

 

Other media mouthpieces have labeled Chavez " mercurial, " " besieged, "

" heavy-handed, " " incompetent, " and " dictatorial, " a " barracks

populist, " a " strongman, " a " firebrand, " and, above all, a " leftist. "

 

It is never explained what " leftist " means.

 

A leftist is someone who advocates a more equitable distribution of

social resources and human services and who supports the kinds of

programs that the Chavez government is putting in place. (Likewise a

rightist is someone who opposes such programs and seeks to advance the

insatiable privileges of private capital and the wealthy few.) The

term " leftist " is frequently bandied about in the U. N. media, but

seldom defined. The power of the label is in its remaining undefined,

allowing it to have an abstracted built-in demonizing impact, which

precludes rational examination of its political content.

 

Meanwhile Chavez's opponents, who staged an illegal and

unconstitutional coup in April 2002 against the democratically elected

government, are depicted in the U.S. media as champions of

" pro-democratic " and " pro-West " governance. We are talking about the

free-market plutocrats and corporate-military leaders of the

privileged social order who killed more people in the 48 hours they

held power in 2002 than were ever harmed by Chavez in his years of rule.

 

When one of these perpetrators, General Carlos Alfonzo, was hit with

charges for the role he had played, the New York Times chose to call

him a " dissident " whose rights were being suppressed by the Chavez

government. Four other top military officers charged with leading the

2002 coup were also likely to face legal action. No doubt, they too

will be described not as plotters or traitors who tried to destroy a

democratic government, but as " dissidents, " decent individuals who are

being denied their right to disagree with the government.

 

President Hugo Chavez, whose public talks I attended on three

occasions, proved to be an educated, articulate, remarkably

well-informed and well-read individual. He manifests a sincere

dedication to effecting some salutary changes for the great mass of

his people, a person who in every aspect seems worthy of the decent

and peaceful democratic revolution he is leading. Millions of his

compatriots correctly perceive him as being the only president who has

ever paid attention to the nation's poorest areas. No wonder he is the

target of calumny and coup from the upper echelons in his own country

and from ruling circles up north.

 

Chavez charges that the United States government is plotting to

assassinate him. I can believe it.

 

Michael Parenti's recent books include Superpatriotism (City Lights)

and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), which was

nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His forthcoming book, The Culture

Struggle will be published by Seven Stories Press in the fall of 2005.

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