VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Perhaps out of a misguided sense of patriotism, it is not unusual to hear citizens of the United States of America title the often inebriated lunatic in their White House as "Commander-in-Chief" and the presidential band can usually be counted on to strike up "Hail to the Chief" at the drop of any ceremonial hat ... so it came rather as a surprise to me that a VHeadline reader should object to my recent written description of President Hugo Chavez Frias as "El Comandante!"
"Calling Chavez "El Comandante" makes him sound authoritarian," the unnamed reader emailed in protest. "People don't usually call him that (unless they are in the army already) ... they call him "presidente" or Chavez!"
The fact however is that President Hugo Chavez Frias is indeed a military man with a military rank to prove it; and, indeed, he is the commander of Venezuela's democratic destiny by virtue of a series of popular elections which he won majoritarily ... no question about that!
To suppress or censor the fact of Chavez' military background or his current position as the supreme leader of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela would, of course, be an anathema to everything that Venezuela stands for ... truthfulness, honor and the democratic destiny of all of the Venezuelan people!
Our reader continues that "saying that the government agencies have become 'pig troughs' is simply slanderous..." Well is it?
Even the pro-government media, albeit reluctantly, is forced to admit that the government apparatus is littered with examples of blatant indolence, malfeasance and outright corruption ... one only has to point to ONIDEX (the Passport & Identification Office), the Housing Institute ... even the nation's various police forces ... to understand that government agencies have indeed become 'pig troughs' ... the reader may perceive the truth as slanderous/libelous but it remains the truth nonetheless.
S/he even goes on to admit that "there is no doubt there is corruption, but why don't you talk about the fight AGAINST corruption, which is alive and well!" Well ... yes, indeed, we do! But whether we like it or not (and we don't!) the fight against corruption in Venezuela appears to be waging a losing battle. Sure enough, President Chavez and some of his Ministers hold forth from time to time about the dire necessity to deal conclusively with corruption but, to take only one example, when a diplomatic "Elliot Nass" was appointed to conclusively purge corruption in Venezuela's Consular service, he was soon sidelined to the extent that he was officially denied access to the Foreign Ministry (MRE) offices in Caracas because he had only just begun to step on a series of delicately-placed corrupt administration toes.
What, indeed, is strenuously needed is the re-instatement of the MRE's ousted "Elliot Nass" with Chavez' fullest authority to REALLY get to grips with the corruption that everyone sees and recognizes as endemic throughout the administration, but nobody dares to tackle.
An anti-corruption commissioner was indeed appointed under the preceding Caldera government, but the incumbent lacked the teeth and the determination to get the job done and ended up, himself, being cited for requisitioning Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) executive jets to take him and his family on shopping trips to Florida and joyrides to Disney World et.al.
"Saying that Chavez puts his foot in his mouth is just stupid," our reader complains. "He talks like the man in the street and Venezuelans eat it up ... he knows exactly what he is doing. The only people who don't like it are the Venezuelan bourgeoisie who whisper in shocked tones about how "vulgar" he is (sounds like your article). When he said it smelled like sulphur at the UN, people applauded."
"Chavez has 'cojones' and people respond to that ... he is a force larger than life ... he has unified large portions of South America and is welcomed around the world in the epicenters of power -- Russia, China, Iran ... you can be sure people take him VERY seriously then!"
Without a doubt, Hugo Chavez has the necessary 'cojones' to unequivocally stand up to the Bush administration and the assorted Beltway Bullies in Washington D.C. And, without a shred of doubt, as witness his most recent foreign forays, Chavez is welcomed around the world ... maybe NOT in Washington or New York ... but Wall Street and the White House are basket cases of their own making and are very obviously in terminal decline with the value of the US dollar.
Without a doubt, Venezuela is "the most democratic and has the most free press of just about any country anywhere" and our reader writes "the standard of living has been raised dramatically!" While, naturally there are those in the up-scale suburbs of the Caracas Country Club, Lagunita and Los Palos Grandes who might disagree, yes, the standard of living for millions of Venezuelans has been "raised dramatically" and millions are receiving primary health care and free education for the very first time ... even if there is still a long way to go to achieve Valhalla.
Controversially our reader writes "last time I arrived in Caracas, we had to wait in the plane and a bunch of upper class bitches, after gossiping about all the dreamy clothes they bought in Miami, were complaining that they were back to "mi Comandante" with all the sarcasm they could muster ... they were unable to see that their 'totalitarian, despotic, vulgar' Chavez has NOT prevented a single dyed-blonde from traveling to their beloved Miami so they can visit all the other 'gusanos' (Spanish for worms or slugs) as often as they like..."
Oh! How I wish people would just pause awhile and think! Just the same as the gringos and disenfranchised 'rich upper class bitches' throw adjectives like 'totalitarian,' 'despotic,' 'vulgar' etc., to the wind, wouldn't it be absolutely wonderful if Venezuelans could stop up and end the childish slagging matches! Why is is seemingly necessary to describe an opposition diehard as an 'escualido' (squalid) or some equally depreciative word for a pro-government supporter. All the moreso when the excoriation is mostly based on what one wears, mannerisms and assumptions of lifestyle?
What is to be achieved in the long run, other than further destructive sectarian divisions that are wrecking President Chavez' best ambitions for a truly democratic future for Venezuela.
Rather a recognition that in ANY revolution there are wrongs that must be righted, assumptions that must be revised and corrected and general acceptances that must be countered ... such as ingrained corruption at every level of Venezuela's society!
To hang oneself up on labeling President Chavez as 'El Comandante' is to turn a blinder on the essential process of what is really happening in Venezuela and, without first recognizing the things that are currently wrong, President Chavez' personal commitment to his famous three Rs -- Revision, Rectification, Reimpulse (a fresh start) -- simply goes out the window, down the tube or otherwise into oblivion.
Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.
Roy S. Carson is veteran foreign correspondent (45+ years in the business) currently editor & publisher of VHeadline Venezuela reporting on news & views from and about Venezuela in South America -- available for interviews -- call Houston 713.893.1433
We have to fight our government's propensity for demonizing leaders who don't lead with globalization as their goal. We need to know more about such leaders and this article accomplishes that.
Michael Bonanno
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Michael Bonanno (98 articles, 19 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 130 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 1:40:04 AM
First, I'll have you know that we have a recovering lunatic in the Whitehouse, not a drunk one. :-)
You wrote:
...our reader writes "the standard of living has been raised dramatically!" While, naturally there are those in the up-scale suburbs of the Caracas Country Club, Lagunita and Los Palos Grandes who might disagree, yes, the standard of living for millions of Venezuelans has been "raised dramatically"...
It's my understanding that Venezuela has only returned to the standard of living they had in '98 this year, before that they were below that year's level. Additionally, the Venezuelan economy has slowed recently with a high level of inflation & high crime rates. See here. That hardly seems like a standard of living that has "been raised dramatically".
You also wrote:
...ANY revolution there are wrongs that must be righted, assumptions that must be revised and corrected and general acceptances that must be countered ...
The problem isn't a well intentioned & thought out new program that just needs a little tweaking. The problem is that corruption & powerful government go hand in hand. Venezuela has been implementing differing amounts of socialism for decades. Their serious decline started when they nationalized the petroleum industry. Something "El Comandante" hasn't even tried to correct. See here for Spanish or here for English. The point is that Chavez is nothing new just more of the same failed system, socialism, that his predecessors started. That's why he's getting the same results as they did.
Until people face up to these facts there can't be a serious discussion of Venezuela's problems.
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Darren Wolfe (7 articles, 225 quicklinks, 110 diaries, 810 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 6:32:05 AM
a recovering lunatic in the Whitehouse, not a drunk one. :-)
Darren -- the concept of a "recovering" drunk or a "recovering" lunatic premises the possibility of "recovery" -- while alcoholics can indeed have some prospect of "recovery" or at least stability in their confition, you have to recognize the sad fact that the lunatic in the White House is very much past any stage that could be thought of as realistically recoverable!
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Roy S. Carson (91 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 15 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 7:55:47 AM
Just a little clowning around. Since you were writing about Venezuela I thought I'd have a sense of humor since the Venezuelans consider themselves to be a humorous people.
That wasn't the main point of my reply, matter of fact it's the most irrelevant since we agree that he's a lunatic. How about adressing my serious points about Chavez, chamo?
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Darren Wolfe (7 articles, 225 quicklinks, 110 diaries, 810 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 9:46:20 AM
Darren -- suggest you get a little deeper into what Venezuela is all about! A few weeks/months in an up-scale district of Caracas, ignoring the reality of Venezuela's poor and living the life of Riley and believing every distortion laid on you by the diehard opposition does NOT constitute "knowledge" of Venezuela which is so very much more than you can possibly imagine. Okay, you have a political perspective that seems right to you but...
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Roy S. Carson (91 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 15 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 10:12:22 AM
Anyway, I lived in Venezuela for 7 years, not a few weeks or months. I know what Chavez is like from first hand experience.
BTW, you might be interested to know that part of the time I lived in Caracas I called one of the bloques in El Valle home. You know where you take the jeep to get up the hill. For a while I had a girlfriend from a poor family that lived in Los Rosales. I've been there & to Petare. So please don't lay this "life of Riley" stuff on me.
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Darren Wolfe (7 articles, 225 quicklinks, 110 diaries, 810 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 10:35:51 AM
Statistics and data gives you info, not living in Venezuela
Darren: Read the statistics about poverty-levels, that should give you more accurate information about Venezuela's economy, than just living there. Venezuela is not Canada, Norway or Germany, how can you expect that a country part of a continent sacked by European and US Imperialism to be rich in 8 years. Remember that Latin-America's poverty was mainly caused by European imperialism stealing all its gold and US Imperialism stealing all its resources thru Direct Foreing Investment.
Besides i don't know what you are doing on this site, if you are not a progressive leftist liberal but a right-wing capitalist, pro-free market.
Look at the statistics & you'll see that Venezuela got poorer under Chavez, not richer. It's only this year that they finally recovered to their '98 level of GDP. Not much of an acomplishment.
The Republicans & freepers aren't capitalists. They advocate all kinds of government intervention in the economy. There's a big difference between a libertarian & a conservative these days, especially the neocons.
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Darren Wolfe (7 articles, 225 quicklinks, 110 diaries, 810 comments)
on Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 10:51:28 AM
Shouldn't we go about "cleaning house" in our own government, before wanting to do so in other countries?
One might criticize Hugo Chavez but he DOES help the citizens of his country, which is more than can be said of our own lunatic in OUR White House.
by
uluro (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 69 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 7:08:47 AM
NOTHING the rich hate worse than having to share their spoils with those they robbed it from. One of these days, I hope to be in the vangard when they are burned out. Once in awhile in France...the peasants would BBQ their royalty.....sounds like a FINE custom to me. No, they did not eat them...they forced the royalty to eat each other...heh-heh.....
Veteran, '66-68
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Roger (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 404 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 2:06:27 PM
Darren Wolfe is a capitalist, right winger, anti-Marxist
Beware of Darren Wolfe, he would like to see Venezuela privatized. What the hell is wrong with him, can't he read statistics. What he is saying that corruption and poverty levels are higher now with state-socialism is just wrong. In fact Venezuela's poverty and crime levels are lower with Chavez than before Chavez. I think he should go to http://www.venezuelanalysis.com for a good objective site on the situation there
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LincolnMarx (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 69 comments)
on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 9:11:29 PM
I don't know where you get your info from, but you're way off base here.
Crime, especially murder is way up in Venezuela. Corruption is rampant. The economy has only just recovered to it's '98 level of GDP. How is any of this an improvment?
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Darren Wolfe (7 articles, 225 quicklinks, 110 diaries, 810 comments)
on Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 11:03:35 AM
Darren Wolfe is completely clueless. Darren lived in Venezuela for 7 years but 6 of those years were before Chavez became president. Darren left Venezuela after Chavez 1st year as President. The fact that he thinks Chavez just picked up where previous presidents left off shows he knows absolutely nothing. Darren doesn't understand the difference between socialism and corporatism/fascism. Socialism isn't "Big Government." Socialism is about establishing equality and democracy. Corporatism creates and maintains rule by an oligarchy. Corporatism steals wealth and political power from the masses. Corporatism seeks to privatize everything publicly owned and put it in the hands of the elites.
Whenever anything is privatized the only one who benefits is the owner of the corporation and the wealthy investors who invest in the company.
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Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 888 comments)
on Monday, August 4, 2008 at 1:48:16 AM
Can you give an example of socialism actually working?
As to the alleged difference between socialism & fascism, I would remind you that Nazi stands for national socialist. Mussolini started out as a socialist. A better way to look at it is that fascism is a form of socialism. Rand put it well:
[Some “moderates” are trying to] revive that old saw of pre-World War II vintage, the notion that the two political opposites confronting us, the two “extremes,” are: fascism versus communism.
The political origin of that notion is more shameful than the “moderates” would care publicly to admit. Mussolini came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Italy. Hitler came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Germany. It is a matter of record that in the German election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis—with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy: capitalism and its parliamentary form of government.
It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism).
That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.
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