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even after they have been burned time and again. Uribe is by far the most dictatorial of the Latin American leaders. Indeed, he is like night and day from genuine democratic leaders like Chavez, Morales and Correa. Yet, mind-bogglingly, the Bush Junta and its corporate "news" yippers paint the democrats and their supporters as authoritarian, and anathematize them as leftist "devils," and excommunicate them--and hold Uribe up as worthy of billions and billions of U.S. taxpayer "aid." And some north Americans, their brains fried by the corporate media, buy into it.
I'm reminded of the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages and its bloody tyranny against "witches," Pagans, Cathars and other "heretics." Refuse to worship in the Church of the Corporation and you will be drawn and quartered and burnt at the stake. But no matter what kind of bloody jerk and tyrant you are, if you pay homage to the Church of the Corporation, you are blessed, and you might even be made into a "saint." Saint Uribe, defender of the Faith and slayer of the dragon of union organizers, small peasant farmers and political leftists!
How can people not SEE what the reality is here? Bush and Uribe are alike. They both use "their" armies, and assorted mercenaries, to KILL innocent people, and rob and oppress them, and suppress dissent, in the interest of monstrous corporations--whether Monsanto and Chiquita, or Halliburton and Bechtel--and are treated with dignity, and are immunized for their crimes, by the corporate press. They are both tyrants. They are also both front men for the Corporate Rulers. And they twist and corrupt democratic institutions to serve the rich.
And when a leftist tries to bend power back toward its rightful balance, in the interest of the poor majority, with the people in charge of their own government, they are reviled as "dictators," just like FDR was in the 1930s.
The story of FDR's effort to "pack the Supreme Court" (as the fascists put it) is interesting, in this regard. Millions of Americans starving, homeless and jobless--due to the corruption and irresponsibility of the rich. FDR is elected by the people to remedy it, and proposes to alleviate the suffering, and jumpstart the economy, with government jobs programs (building infrastructure--roads, bridges, libraries, schools, hospitals--and other projects), fair taxation of the rich, labor protections, and safety nets under the poor, such as Social Security. The Supreme Court, packed with fascists from previous regimes--those who created this disaster--start declaring "New Deal" programs unconstitutional. FDR then proposes to expand the number of Supreme Court justices--which is not fixed in the Constitution (nine is an arbitrary number)--so as to appoint younger, more liberal judges to consider "New Deal" programs and balance the fascist view. The rightwing/robber baron press throws a conniption fit, calling FDR a "dictator." The proposal is dropped. But the pressure of the "New Deal," and the needs of the people, cause one justice to change his mind. Thus Social Security is saved!
The people wanted a BIG change. They wanted these fascists out! They wanted the Great Depression remedied, and they wanted it to never happen again. A leader responds to what the PEOPLE want and need, and the fascists call him a "dictator."
When a fascist takes strong measures to warp his country's institutions in the interest of the rich--and especially if he tortures and kills people (or has others do so for him), to suppress dissent--that is dictatorship. When a man of the people takes strong measures in the interest of the poor majority, and does so fairly and with open discussion--and oppresses no one in the process--that is DEMOCRACY. Indeed, it is democracy at its best.
Uribe is a dictator. Bush is a dictator. And Chavez, Morales, Correa and the other Bolivarians are--demonstrably, provably, on all evidence, on the facts--NOT dictators. They are men of the people, responding to the will and needs of the poor majority. And the poor majority--in its turn--is acting peacefully and democratically, to get its needs met, and its will done--exactly as the poor majority did in the U.S. by electing FDR and "New Deal"-friendly Congresses.
Our fascist/corporate media, by its frequent mention of Hugo Chavez's friendship with Fidel Castro, is trying to terrify its victims (readers, viewers, listeners) with the old bugaboo, "the dictatorship of the proletariat" (from Marxism)--hordes of poor peasants and workers storming the citadels of power, taking over the government, seizing the property of the rich, and imposing Marxist ideology--and Stalinist dictators arising to brutally enforce it. They, of course, fail to distinguish between Castro (a relatively benign and mellowed dictator) and Stalin (a madman). They are trying to raise a specter--in the teeth of the facts. The Bolivarian "hordes" are DEMOCRATIC. And Hugo Chavez has MANY friends. Further, MOST South Americans revere Castro, though they have decidedly chosen a different path to social justice. They DON'T WANT a communist dictatorship. They don't support violent rebellion. They want to work out the vast inequities in their society PEACEFULLY, in open dialogue, in a democracy, and with a bold new paradigm that includes elements of socialism and capitalism, use of a country's resources for the benefit of the people who live there, regional cooperation and other visionary policies, which are proving to be quite successful.
And the rich elite, and their U.S./corporate colluders, are screaming mad, as they see their unfair power and ungodly wealth diminishing, in the face of genuine democracy. THEY are the Stalinists, in truth--just as Bush is. Insane powermongers. People who would chainsaw union organizers and throw their body parts into mass graves, and throw leftists out of airplanes, or wink at those who do it for them. People who don't give a fuck if Bush slaughters a million innocent people to get their oil.
ALL of the Bolivarian governments are re-writing their constitutions, and trying to strengthen the powers of the president--as the remedy to vast rightwing corruption and entrenchment. Venezuelans are just the furthest along. Bolivia and Ecuador are undergoing a similar process. The rich and the corporate want to stop this process in its tracks, by attacking Chavez as "dictatorial," and completely ignoring the fact that the constitutional changes are grass roots and people driven. They are not being imposed. They are being DISCUSSED and VOTED ON. And I guarantee you that, if the American people had had the opportunity to vote on the Coolidge-Hoover Supreme Court in the 1930s, they would have done far more than add justices; they would have impeached the lot of them and thrown them out! Luckily for them, the RIGHTWING tactic of term-limits--which most of our Founders opposed an undemocratic--had not been put forward and enacted, at the time, and they were able to elect FDR to FOUR terms in office.
The Chavez government has proposed, for a VOTE OF THE PEOPLE, that the president can run for office and BE VOTED ON BY THE PEOPLE, for more than two terms. The Venezuelan Constitution furthermore includes a provision to RECALL the president--throw him out--unlike ours (don't we wish!). There are many "checks and balances"--far more than we have. But this, too, is painted as "dictatorial." And when the fascist Uribe proposes the same thing--that the law be changed so that he can run again--it is virtually ignored by the corporate media, and, of course, by the Bush State Department.
Time and again, we see this hypocrisy. Outright, naked dictatorship in Pakistan tolerated; fascist torture and killings in Colombia, tolerated, and entrenched and corrupt rightwing power approved of. Yet if a real democrat tries to act strongly, on behalf of the poor and the oppressed, and supported by them, and voted on by them, it somehow ends up with the word "dictator" attached to it.
The Chavez government decided NOT to renew the license of ONE corporate news monopoly (among many)--RCTV--which had participated in the 2002 rightwing military coup attempt, and had broken many other rules for use of the PUBLIC airwaves. And all hell breaks loose in the corporate press! Chavez is dictator! Chavez is suppressing free speech! (You gotta laugh at this, with the all the rightwing "student" riots going on there now. Some repression.) In any case, they DON'T MENTION that other governments in South America and the world (including our own) ROUTINELY pull licenses to use the PUBLIC airwaves, when the corporate users of these licenses break the rules. Four, I believe, were pulled in Peru, over the last several years alone. But, Peru, you see, has a corporate-friendly, center-right government that has sold out the Peruvian people to a Bush-designed "free trade" agreement.
It's damned terrifying to the Corporate Rulers to have a leftwing government, acting in the interests of the people, having the same powers as rightwing governments, who act in the interest of the rich.
There is hardly a word for this hypocrisy. "Alice in Wonderland" comes to mind. Colossal, mind-boggling hypocrisy that leaves you gibbering jabberwocky. Everything is so hypocritical, and upside down and inside out, that it almost defies description. The "Red Queen" demanding that the white roses be painted red. And if you speak even the simplest, logical truth, in the face of this gigantic lie--let alone dare to act against it, in defense of its victims--"off with your head!"
Our Corporate Rulers are constantly painting the white roses red. Orwell (or somebody) called it "the Big Lie." THAT is Stalinism. Our Corporate Rulers--in an ironic twist of history--have become their enemy. THEY are the "dictators." THEY are the "Red Queens." Not the people of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Nicaragua, who have elected leftist governments, to remedy vast, corporate/fascist-created poverty, nor the leaders they have chosen to see to their interests.
The rich should be glad that these leaders are as good as they are. Like FDR, they will make everyone prosperous. And our country--if we had a decent government--should be celebrating the triumph of peace and democratic change in South America, where violent change once seemed the only alternative. And, if we had a free press, they would be telling us the truth about it, instead of one "Big Lie" after another.
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