[lbo-talk] Gott on Chavez

[Cseniornyc at aol.com]

Very good article. But Chavez is not trying to " spread revolutionary  fervor 
through South America." This is the thesis of the neo-cons at the State  Dept.
Chavez, as the article points out, is hardly even a "leftist'. Perhaps  these 
terms are losing meaning now. If you count the No. of nationalized banks,  
private businesses taken over, confiscated farms, state capital venture  
enterprises, gosplans, etc, they all equal zero.So Hugo is at most a  compassionate 
reformist using oil money to advance social programs in education,  health and 
common infrastructure, These are the kind of programs that the IMF/WB  hates. 
And these are the oil revenues that the old oil technocracy used to  
appropriate for themselves to buy Park Ave. apts in NYC. The opposition to  Chavez come 
from the fact that the old ruling elite of Venezuela is one of  greediest, 
racist,myopic ruling classes in the world. Them and the Colombians,  who are 
even worst, and who, as Gott points out at he end, are still paying the  
consequences of the assassination (no Pat Robertson implicated here) of the  immensely 
popular leftist leader Gaitan , as he was about to win the  presidential 
elections in 1948. So much for the pushing of liberal  democracies.
Final question is what does the US ruling elite gains from supporting the  
incompetent Venezuelan old guard? Wouldn't it be in their best interest to  
support Chavez?
Cristobal Senior
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