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Venezuela has a far better democracy than we do. They have a president who was actually elected, the last time (last year) with 60% of the vote, in the most highly monitored elections on earth--by the OAS, the Carter Center and EU election monitoring groups, all of whom have certified Venezuelan elections as open and aboveboard. Can we say the same? Our elections are a farce by comparison. Four million black voters unfairly struck off the voting rolls (according to investigative reporter Greg Palast and other analysts). Our votes are "counted" with "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, and with virtually no audit/recount controls--a gift of the Anthrax Congress (along with the Iraq War). In Venezuela, they vote electronically, but with an open source code system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they handcount FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the ballots, as a check on machine fraud. Know how much we handcount? ZERO percent in many states, cuz they don't even have a ballot. 1% in the best states. 0% to 1% vs. 55%! We furthermore have a White House political "czar," Karl Rove, conspiring to force U.S. attorneys to further suppress the vote, and to initiate (or stop) other prosecutions for political purposes.
WE are the ones with Stalinist elections. WE are "Animal Farm," where the fascist pigs rule. WE are the ones whose treasury is being looted decades into the future, instead of our tax revenue being used to help the poor and the jobless, as it is in Venezuela. WE are the ones whose soldiers are being used as cannon fodder for a corporate resource war--whatever its purpose, to profit from Iraq's oil, or to suppress its production to drive up the price. WE are the ones who have no control over our government any more. WE are the ones with a government that is torturing prisoners. WE are the ones whose government considers its citizens to be serfs and peons. WE are the ones whose Constitution is being shredded.
In Venezuela, ordinary people READ their Constitution. And they came into the streets by the tens of thousands to defend their Constitution, when an attempted violent military coup kidnapped their elected president, and shut down the National Assembly (Congress) and the courts. They braved tanks and guns to demand that Constitutional government be restored!
Sadly, few of our people have read our Constitution, and many are unaware that they can now be picked up off the street, or dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night, and spirited away to prison without trial, on orders of George Bush.
You have swallowed the Bush Junta State Department line that Chavez is a tyrant. When was the last time they told us the truth about ANYTHING? Who is the tyrant, Pavulon? Who is the "Animal Farm" fascist?
And speaking of "petro states" with "no industrial capacity," haven't you heard that giant sucking sound of U.S. industry getting outsourced to cheap labor markets and unregulated environments all over the world? Wake up! You are living in IllusonLand. At least Venezuela is USING its main resource well, to educate and empower people, and improve their lives. If people have food on the table, and a solid roof over their heads, and an education, and hope, they can plan; they can innovate; they can create; they can engage in enterprise. They are also using oil profits to create new markets and healthy trading partners in neighbor countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador), by creation of the Bank of the South, to help bail their neighbors out of World Bank/IMF debt, and the creation of other institutions, such as Mercosur, the South American trade group. Talk about far-thinking policy! They know that Venezuela cannot prosper, unless their neighbors are prospering. They know that South American countries will always get the short end of the stick from the U.S. and its corporate predators, so they are creating alternatives that encourage Latin American self-determination and regional cooperation. What is the U.S. government doing to plan for OUR future? Hm-m? What is our government creating for us except a future of endless war, increasing poverty, government bankruptcy and fatcat billionaires!
If YOU headed a "petro state," what would YOU be doing with the oil profits? Giving them all away to global corporate predators and the selfish rich? That's what was happening BEFORE the people of Venezuela created a good government for themselves. And it is THEIR creation, not just Chavez's. Venezuela has one of the highest levels of citizen participation in government and politics in the entire western hemisphere. They put us to shame! They take nothing for granted, the way many of our people do. They have the grief of US-backed fascist government in living memory. We are only just experiencing what it is like to be a "Banana Republic," looted and destroyed by the rich and the corporate. And they are bound and determined that that will never happen to them again!
So, please educate yourself and stop inflicting people with your uninformed Bushite opinions!
A good place to start: www.venezuelanalysis.com.
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