One of South America's most colorful leaders is gone and some of his nation mourns.
In the United States a similar pattern unfolds. Many, like myself, remember a wild man whose vision was of a sovereign nation committed to improving the lives of all its people while working with other nations in the region to establish national sovereignty for themselves, free from the dominance of foreign influences like the United States.
Others will rejoice at the passing of a quasi dictator who set the nation back decades while padding his own pockets. They will point of the high inflation rates, rampant poverty and horrific living conditions. The truth lies somewhere in between.
Nationalizing industries at the expense of foreign ownership was an offense against the oil companies whose repatriated profits came at the expense of the Venezuelan people. On the other hand, the revenues then flowed into the nation's coffers. paying for improved medical care, new schools and infrastructure for all, especially the poor and disenfranchised.
Chavez's Venezuela was a thorn in the side of US interests. Chavez gifted, or sold at reduced prices, millions of drums of oil to relieve the plight of the people in numerous lesser nations, including the United States, where the company it controls, Citco, provides heating oil to non-profits such as Citizens Energy, run by former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II. An article posted at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/06/ex-us-rep-joe-kennedy-mourns-death-chavez/
reports, "A spokesman for Kennedy said Chavez and the people of Venezuela have donated about 200 million gallons of heating oil over an eight-year collaboration with Citizens Energy. The charity distributes heating oil to lower income families in 25 states and Washington, D.C., offering 100 gallons per family."
Disturbing to this writer is the way Chavez was depicted in the US media. Was he a friend to the people of the United States? Yes. Was he a friend of our government? Not so much. To be fair, the same holds true for just about every Central and South American nation, most of which have been victims of US foreign policy directed at mining the wealth of those nations at the expense of the people and their rights as sovereigns.
Below is a link to the kind of one-sided reporting done over the years that paints Chavez in a negative light while making it appear that his actions threaten the United States. The truth is that he saw his nation as sovereign, independent and free to choose its own destiny, a view contrary to the interests of key capitalists in the United States. I have taken the liberty to comment on key elements of the article to point out the ways in which the paper seeks to color the true issues. You can draw your own conclusions.
In the United States a similar pattern unfolds. Many, like myself, remember a wild man whose vision was of a sovereign nation committed to improving the lives of all its people while working with other nations in the region to establish national sovereignty for themselves, free from the dominance of foreign influences like the United States.
Others will rejoice at the passing of a quasi dictator who set the nation back decades while padding his own pockets. They will point of the high inflation rates, rampant poverty and horrific living conditions. The truth lies somewhere in between.
Nationalizing industries at the expense of foreign ownership was an offense against the oil companies whose repatriated profits came at the expense of the Venezuelan people. On the other hand, the revenues then flowed into the nation's coffers. paying for improved medical care, new schools and infrastructure for all, especially the poor and disenfranchised.
Chavez's Venezuela was a thorn in the side of US interests. Chavez gifted, or sold at reduced prices, millions of drums of oil to relieve the plight of the people in numerous lesser nations, including the United States, where the company it controls, Citco, provides heating oil to non-profits such as Citizens Energy, run by former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II. An article posted at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/06/ex-us-rep-joe-kennedy-mourns-death-chavez/
reports, "A spokesman for Kennedy said Chavez and the people of Venezuela have donated about 200 million gallons of heating oil over an eight-year collaboration with Citizens Energy. The charity distributes heating oil to lower income families in 25 states and Washington, D.C., offering 100 gallons per family."
Disturbing to this writer is the way Chavez was depicted in the US media. Was he a friend to the people of the United States? Yes. Was he a friend of our government? Not so much. To be fair, the same holds true for just about every Central and South American nation, most of which have been victims of US foreign policy directed at mining the wealth of those nations at the expense of the people and their rights as sovereigns.
Below is a link to the kind of one-sided reporting done over the years that paints Chavez in a negative light while making it appear that his actions threaten the United States. The truth is that he saw his nation as sovereign, independent and free to choose its own destiny, a view contrary to the interests of key capitalists in the United States. I have taken the liberty to comment on key elements of the article to point out the ways in which the paper seeks to color the true issues. You can draw your own conclusions.
Losing Latin America
By The Washington Times
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
When President Bush leaves tomorrow on a five-nation tour of
Latin America, he will be entering a region that has become more important to
our national security than at any point since the Cold War.
Not too long ago, Latin America was a vital front in the
fight against communism, and if recent events are any guide, it could become
equally important in the war on terror. Note that no mention is made of the terrorism perpetrated in various nations of Latin America by the United States over decades.
A fresh wave of authoritarianism — fueled by petrodollars,
populism and anti-Americanism — has cast a dark cloud over the future of
freedom in our hemisphere. In order to deal with this emerging threat, we need
to dust off the Cold War playbook and become increasingly active in helping our
friends to the south. This
allusion to “authoritarianism —
fueled by petrodollars, populism and anti-Americanism” can also be taken to
mean, Now that they’ve taken charge of their own countries and
gotten out from under the thumbs of US interference, these leaders are acting
to get fair value for their countries resources and are using those revenues
for the benefit of their people. They are establishing schools, providing
health care and, by and large, taking care of their own.
The problem starts (but doesn’t end) in Venezuela, a nation
that once enjoyed a 50-year democratic tradition, but is now in the early
stages of a dictatorship. Venezuela’s messianic president, Hugo Chavez, has
basically become a power unto himself. Last month, elected representatives
abdicated their responsibility and gave the Venezuelan leader the sweeping
power to rule by decree for 18 months so he can impose sweeping economic,
social and political change. Hugo
took charge of his nation and he tossed US imperial interests like the oil
companies out. He had the nerve to take the monies that were being sent to US
companies and using them for the national good. And now there are others -- Ecuador, Bolivia to name just two. Imagine what is written about their leaders in the US press.
These dictatorial powers would be alarming in anyone’s
hands, but they’re particularly dangerous in the hands of Mr. Chavez. The
strongman rules an oil-rich nation that exports 1.1 million barrels of oil to
the United States per day, which amounts to 14 percent of our total oil
imports. Mr. Chavez has already colluded with other OPEC nations to raise oil
prices, and if he’s successful in nationalizing multibillion-dollar crude
projects in the Orinoco Belt, there’s a risk that prices could jump again. Chavez
is the worst of the worst, He’s colluding with other world leaders to get the
most for their nation’s limited resources instead of letting the US dictate
what they want to pay. The bastard!
This could have a severe impact on the pocketbooks of
American families and small businesses. According to some economists, every
time oil prices rise by 10 percent, on average 150,000 Americans lose their
jobs. Mr. Chavez has used his nation’s windfall oil profits to buy political
support at home and stir trouble abroad. He has said that Venezuela has a
“strong oil card to play on the geopolitical stage” and “it is a card that we
are going to play with toughness against the toughest country in the world, the
United States.” Don’t you
just love it when a supposedly ‘quality’ news outlet uses phrases like ‘According to some economists,’ to make their
points. FOX News does a lot of that.
WHO ARE ‘some economists?
In his struggle against U.S. “imperialism,” Mr. Chavez has
found a useful ally in the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism — the
government of Iran. He is one of the few leaders to publicly support Iran’s
nuclear weapons program, and the Iranian mullahs have rewarded Mr. Chavez’s
friendship with lucrative contracts, including the transfer of Iranian
professionals and technologies to Venezuela. Last month, Mr. Chavez and Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed plans for a $2 billion joint fund, part
of which will be used as a “mechanism for liberation” against American allies.
This could help achieve Mr. Chavez’s vision, shared in an earlier meeting with
Mr. Ahmadinejad, when he said, “Let’s save the human race; let’s finish off the
U.S. empire.”
WOW! Some nations got together to collaborate to loose
the shackles that US business employs to keep them enslaved and we attack them
for working in their (not our) self interests. Note the collaboration of England, France, Germany
and other European nations working against the sovereign nations in the middle
east. Note that Saddam Hussein was our friend before he became our enemy and in both instances he was a
brutal dictator who, as our friend bought all sorts of weapons from us. The
Shah of Iran was our friend. After all, we deposed his rightful predecessor*.
Mr. Chavez has grown bolder by interfering in the elections
of several Latin American countries, and his brand of revolutionary politics
has made gains in some of them. Bolivia’s newly elected president, Evo Morales,
has nationalized the energy industry, rewritten the constitution and promised
to work with Mr. Chavez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to form an “Axis of
Good” to oppose the United States. What some call collaboration, others call
interfering. When the US sent in the CIA to overthrow the government of Chile,
replacing duly elected president Allende with the brutal dictator, Pinochet,
most Americans had no idea. Likewise, similar actions in Honduras, Nicaragua
and other Central American nations. You really need to pay attention to what
the press is saying (and for whom it is saying it) and what it is not
telling us. (Read Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man by John
Perkins, a man who actually did the bidding of his US corporate handlers).
Perhaps most ominously, the former Soviet client Daniel
Ortega has returned to the presidency of Nicaragua. During the 1980s, Mr.
Ortega ruled his country with an iron fist until U.S.-backed freedom fighters
ousted him from power. Nicaragua’s democracy prospered for the next 16 years,
but now he is back. In response to the Ortega victory, Mr. Chavez chanted “long
live the Sandinista revolution!” Then, in his first week as president, Mr.
Ortega met with Iran’s Mr. Ahmadinejad, and told the press that Nicaragua and
Iran “share common interests and [have common] enemies.”
Left unchecked, Messrs. Ahmadinejad and Chavez could be the
Khrushchev-Castro tandem of the early 21st century, funneling arms, money and
propaganda to Latin America, and endangering that region’s fragile democracies
and volatile economies. If these two pariahs succeed, the next terrorist
training camp could shift from the Middle East to America’s doorstep.
We need to face reality and confront this threat head-on. At
the pinnacle of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan seized the initiative and repulsed
Soviet efforts to set up camp in our hemisphere. The Gipper’s leadership should
serve as a model in thwarting the advance of tyranny and terrorism in our
times. (The kind of tripe in this paragraph is the call to action based
on facts not in evidence or skewed information supportive of the interests of a
few, not the many honest, sincere and honorable US citizens who believe in fair
dealings with others.
We should build new bridges to our friends in the region —
pressing forward on free trade, development aid, military cooperation and
exchange programs. Let’s take the necessary steps today, so tomorrow we won’t
have to ask: “Who lost Latin America?”
Free trade and development are euphemisms for worker and resource exploitation.
Military cooperation means training other militaries to
suppress their own nation’s populations, Be aware that what our government has
learned over the decades undermining other nations it can now apply against its
own people, with coverage by a dependent press.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas is chairman of the Senate
Republican Policy Committee.
· During
Mohammad Reza's reign, the Iranian oil industry was briefly nationalized under
Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh before a US-backed coup d'état overturned the
regime and brought back foreign oil firms.
Excerpted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi
