Pegged as the party of corporate favoritism and corruption, the GOP again emerged as the party of strong patriotic leadership, fearlessly guiding America through perilous straits. Some of our compatriots, who are usually cynical about politicians in day-to-day affairs, display an almost childlike trust and knee-jerk faith when these same politicians trumpet a need to defend our “national security” against some alien threat, real or imagined. Many rallied around the flag, draped as it was around the president.
All through 2005–2006 Bush Jr. repeatedly intoned, “We are at war,” inviting us thereby to suspend critical judgment and fall in line. In a speech before the U.S. Naval Academy’s graduating class in 2005, he pointed enthusiastically to the brighter side of bloodletting: “Revolutionary advances in technology are transforming war in our favor. . . . put[ting] unprecedented agility, speed, precision, and power in your hands. . . .We can now strike our enemies with greater effectiveness, at greater range, with fewer civilian casualties. In this new era of warfare we can target a regime, not a nation.”75 Something to look forward to.
SUPPRESSING DEMOCRACY AT HOME
The statist psychology fostered by perpetual war makes democratic dissent difficult if not “unpatriotic” and provides an excuse to circumscribe our civil liberties, such as they are. Under newly enacted repressive legislation almost any critical effort against existing policy can be defined as “giving aid and comfort to terrorism.” The Military Commissions Act of 2006 grants the president the power to incarcerate anyone at anytime without any accountability, a power that is dictatorial. Even the normally staid New York Times described the act as “a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.”76
Political democracy has historically been a weapon used by the people to defend themselves against the abuses of wealth. So it was in the ancient Greek and Roman republics and so it remains to this day. Consequently, the plutocrats wage war not only against the public sector and against the people’s standard of living, but also against the very democratic rights that the populace utilizes to defend its well-being.
Some of the liberal cognoscenti are never happier than when, with patronizing smiles, they can dilate on the stupidity of Bush Jr. What I have tried to show is that Bush has been neither retarded nor misdirected. To be sure, his invasion of Iraq sank into an unanticipated insurrectionary quagmire not long after he announced “victory” was at hand. At the operational level his administration made gross miscalculations, yet his policy was anchored in some real material interests of much concern to him and his fellow plutocrats. On the eve of war, the White House was populated not by fools and bunglers but by liars and manipulators.
33 GOOD THINGS HAPPENING IN VENEZUELA
Even before I arrived in Venezuela for a recent visit, I encountered the great class divide that besets that country. On my connecting flight from Miami to Caracas, I found myself seated next to an attractive, exquisitely dressed Venezuelan woman. Judging from her prosperous aspect, I anticipated that she would take the first opportunity to hold forth against President Hugo Chávez. Unfortunately, I was right.
Our conversation moved along famously until we got to the political struggle going on in Venezuela. “Chávez,” she hissed, “is terrible, terrible.” He is “a liar”; he “fools the people” and is “ruining the country.” She herself owned an upscale women’s fashion company with links to prominent firms in the United States. When I asked how Chávez had hurt her business, she said, “Not at all.” But many other businesses, she quickly added, have been irreparably damaged as has the whole economy. She went on denouncing Chávez in sweeping terms, warning me of the national disaster to come if this demon continued to have his way.
Other critics I encountered in Venezuela shared this same mode of attack: weak on specifics but strong in venom, voiced with all the ferocity of those who fear that their birthright (that is, their class advantage) was under siege because others below them on the social ladder were now getting a slightly larger slice of the pie.
In Venezuela over 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty level. Before Chávez, most of the poor had never seen a doctor or dentist. The neoliberal market “adjustments” of the 1980s and 1990s only made things worse, cutting social spending and eliminating subsidies in consumer goods. Successive administrations did nothing about the rampant corruption and nothing about the growing gap between rich and poor, and the worsening malnutrition and desperation.
Far from ruining the country, here are some of the good things the Chávez government has accomplished:
A land-reform program was designed to assist small farmers and the landless poor. In March 2005 a large estate owned by a British beef company was occupied by agrarian workers for farming purposes.
Even before Chávez there was public education in Venezuela, from grade level to university, yet many children from poor families never attended school, for they could not afford the annual fees. Education is now completely free (right through to university level), causing a dramatic increase in school enrollment.
The government set up a marine conservation program, and is taking steps to protect the land and fishing rights of indigenous peoples.
Special banks now assist small enterprises, worker cooperatives, and farmers.
Attempts to further privatize the state-run oil industry—80 percent of which is still publicly owned—were halted, and limits have been placed on foreign capital penetration.
Chávez kicked out the U.S. military advisors and prohibited overflights by U.S. military aircraft engaged in counterinsurgency in Colombia.
“Bolivarian Circles” were organized throughout the nation; they consist of neighborhood committees designed to activate citizens to assist in literacy, education, and vaccination campaigns, and other public services.
The government has been hiring unemployed men, on a temporary basis, to repair streets and neglected drainage and water systems in poor neighborhoods.
Then there is the health program. I visited a dental clinic in Chávez’s home state of Barinas. The staff consisted of four dentists, two of whom were young Venezuelan women. The other two were Cuban men who were there on a one-year program. The Venezuelan dentists noted that in earlier times dentists did not have enough work. There were millions of people who needed treatment, but care was severely rationed by the private market, that is, by one’s ability to pay. Dental care was distributed like any other market commodity, not to anyone who needed it but only to those who could afford it.
When the free clinic in Barinas first opened it was flooded with people seeking dental care. No one was turned away. Even opponents of the Chávez government availed themselves of the free service, suddenly being quite able to put aside their political aversions. Many of the doctors and dentists who work in the barrio clinics (along with some of the clinical supplies and pharmaceuticals) came from Cuba. Chávez also put Venezuelan military doctors and dentists to work in the free clinics.
That low-income people were receiving medical and dental care for the first time in their lives did not seem to be a consideration that carried much weight among the more “professionally minded” medical practitioners. Much of the Venezuelan medical establishment was vehemently and unforgivably opposed to the free-clinic program, seeing it as a Cuban communist campaign to undermine medical standards and physicians’ earnings.
I visited one of the government-supported community food stores that are located around the country, mostly in low-income areas. These modest establishments sell canned goods, pasta, beans, rice, and some produce and fruits at well below the market price, a blessing in a society with widespread malnutrition. Popular food markets have eliminated the layers of intermediaries and made staples more affordable for residents. Most of these markets and stores are run by women. The government also created a state-financed bank whose function is to provide low-income women with funds to start cooperatives in thei
r communities.
There are a growing number of worker cooperatives in Venezuela. One in Caracas was started by turning a waste dump into a shoe factory and a T-shirt factory. Financed with money from the petroleum ministry, the co-op put about a thousand people to work. The workers seem enthusiastic and hopeful. Surprisingly, many Venezuelans know relatively little about the worker cooperatives. Or perhaps it is not surprising, given the near monopoly that private capital has over the print and broadcast media. The wealthy media moguls, all vehemently anti-Chávez, own four of the five television stations and all the major newspapers.
The man most responsible for Venezuela’s revolutionary developments, Hugo Chávez, has been accorded the usual ad hominem treatment in the U.S. news media. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle quotes a political opponent who called Chávez “a psychopath, a terribly aggressive guy.”77 The London Financial Times sees him as “increasingly autocratic” and presiding over what the Times called a “rogue democracy.”78 In 2005 ABC’s Nightline labeled him “the leftist strongman” who “delivered a tirade in the United Nations against President Bush.”79 A New York Times news story reported that his government “is hostile to American interests.”80
The following year Chávez reappeared at the United Nations General Assembly and lambasted George W. Bush again for his single-minded dedication to the rich and powerful, and for his aggressive war policies that were in violation of international law. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi rushed to Bush’s defense, calling Chávez “an everyday thug.” The next day the Venezuelan thug announced that Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuelan state-run oil company, planned to more than double the amount of low-priced heating oil it was making available to needy Americans mostly in the Northeast United States, from forty million gallons a year to one hundred million gallons.81
In the Nation, Marc Cooper—one of those Cold War liberals who regularly defends the U.S. empire—wrote that the democratically elected Chávez spoke “often as a thug,” who “flirts with megalomania.” Chávez’s behavior, Cooper rattled on, “borders on the paranoiac,” was “ham-fisted demagogy” acted out with an “increasingly autocratic style.” Like so many critics, Cooper downplayed or ignored Chávez’s accomplishments and popular support, and used name-calling in place of informed analysis.82
Other media mouthpieces have labeled Chávez as “mercurial,” “besieged,” “heavy-handed,” “incompetent,” “dictatorial,” a “barracks populist,” a “firebrand,” and, above all, a “leftist” and “anti-American.” It is never explained what “leftist” means. A leftist is someone who advocates a more equitable use and development of social resources and human services, and who supports the kinds of programs that the Chávez government has been putting in place. Likewise a rightist is someone who opposes such programs and seeks to advance the insatiable privileges of private capital and the wealthy few.
Occasionally readers are allowed to challenge the demonizing barrage. When a report in the San Francisco Chronicle described Chávez as “a populist strongman with leftist leanings,” an annoyed reader pointed out that these were loaded terms: “To be consistent, newspaper writers should refer to President Bush as ‘an elitist oilman with far-right leanings who became president by political manipulation.’”83 A New York Times article described Venezuela’s efforts to aid poor people, including Mexicans needing eye surgery and Americans needing heating oil, as Chávez’s “pet projects.” A reader pointed out that the same article described similar efforts by the U.S. government as “development programs.” He asked why were these not also described as “pet projects?” Why such asymmetry in reporting? He also asked, “Don’t all countries seek foreign allies? Why is it particularly nefarious for Venezuela to do so?”84
Chávez’s opponents, who staged an illegal and unconstitutional coup in April 2002 against Venezuela’s democratically elected government, have been depicted in the U.S. media as champions of “pro-democratic” and “pro-West” governance. They were referring to the corporate-military leaders of Venezuela’s privileged social order who killed more people in the forty-eight hours they held power in 2002 than were ever harmed by Chávez in his years of rule.85
When one of these perpetrators, General Carlos Alfonzo, was indicted by the Venezuelan government for the role he played in the undemocratic coup, the New York Times chose to call him a “dissident” whose rights were being suppressed by the Chávez government.86 Four other top military officers charged with leading the 2002 coup were also likely to face legal action. No doubt, they too will be described not as plotters or traitors who tried to overthrow a democratic government, but as “dissidents” who supposedly were being denied their right to “disagree” with the government.
President Hugo Chávez, whose public talks I attended on three occasions in Caracas, proved to be an educated, articulate, remarkably well-informed and well-read individual. Of big heart, deep human feeling, and keen intellect, he manifested a sincere dedication to effecting some salutary changes for the great mass of his people, a man who in every aspect seemed most worthy of the decent and peaceful democratic revolution he was leading.
Millions of his compatriots correctly perceive him as being the only president who has ever paid attention to the nation’s poorest areas. No wonder he is the target of calumny and coup from the upper echelons in his own country and from ruling circles up north. Chávez also charges that the United States government is plotting to assassinate him. I can believe it. And if U.S. rulers should succeed in that ever so foul deed, Nancy Pelosi, Marc Cooper, and the others will rush forth with assertions about how Chávez brought it on himself.
34 A WORD ABOUT TERRORISTS
Terrorism is a form of violent political action directed against innocent and defenseless people. Along with denouncing such murderous assaults, we must try to comprehend why they happen. A number of the U.S. corporate media’s pundits maintain that “Islamic terrorists” have attacked us because we are prosperous, free, democratic, and secular. As CBS-TV anchorman Dan Rather remarked, “We are winners and they are losers, and that’s why they hate us.”
In fact, if we bother to listen to what the Islamic militants actually say, they oppose us not because of who we are but because of what we do—to them and their region of the world. The individuals who were convicted of bombing the World Trade Center the first time, in 1993, sent a letter to the New York Times declaring that the attack was “in response for the American political, economic, and military support to Israel . . . and the rest of the dictator countries in the [Middle East] region.”87
In November 2001, in his first interview after 9/11, Osama bin Laden had this to say: “This is a defensive Jihad. We want to defend our people and the territory we control. This is why I said that if we do not get security, the Americans will not be secure either.” A year later, a taped message from bin Laden began: “The road to safety [for America] begins by ending [U.S.] aggression. Reciprocal treatment is part of justice. The [terrorist] incidents that have taken place . . . are only reactions and reciprocal actions.”88 In November 2004, in another taped commentary, bin Laden argued that the war his people were waging against the United States was a retaliatory one. He explicitly addressed the assertion made by Western officials and media pundits that the United States is targeted because it is so free and prosperous. If so, he argued, then why haven’t the jihadists attacked Sweden? Sweden is more prosperous and more democratic than the United States. Predictably the questions posed by bin Laden received no serious attention in the U.S. news media.
As early as 1989, former president Jimmy Carter offered a fairly accurate explanation of why people in the Middle East see the United States as the enemy. He told the New York Times: “You only have to go to Lebanon, to Syria or to Jordan to witness first-hand the intense hatred among many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers—women and children and farmers and housewives—in those villa
ges around Beirut [an attack ordered by President Ronald Reagan]. As a result of that . . . we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful. That is what . . . has precipitated some of the terrorists attacks.”89
We critics of U.S. foreign policy have argued that the best road to national safety and security lies neither in police-state repression at home nor military invasions abroad but in a foreign policy that stops making the United States an object of hatred among people throughout the world.
The Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation, for instance, does not seem impelled by a hate-ridden envy of the United States as such but by a desire to get the Americans out of Iraq. The Iraqis resent the United States not because it is so free, prosperous, and secular but because U.S. forces have delivered death and destitution upon their nation. As exclaimed one Iraqi woman whose relatives were killed by U.S. troops, “God curse the Americans. God curse those who brought them to us.”90 Under the U.S. occupation, unemployment climbed to 50 percent or higher, and villages and towns continued to go without electricity, water, and sewage disposal. Meanwhile the country’s public institutions were in shambles, and its economy was privatized and stripped bare.
An in-depth, five-year study of religiously motivated terrorism was conducted by Jessica Stern, who interviewed religious militants of all stripes. She found men and women who were propelled neither by hatred of America’s prosperity and democracy nor by nihilistic violence. Rather they held a deep faith in the justice of their cause and in the possibility of transforming the world through violent sacrificial action.91 The United States was not envied but resented for the repression and poverty its policies were seen to have imposed upon their countries.
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