Hugo Chavez’s New World Vision

After agreeing to supply discounted oil to the richest

city in Europe - London - to help its low income

residents use the city’s buses at a reduced cost after

earlier providing discounted heating oil for the poor

in several northeastern US cities including its

richest one - New York, Hugo Chavez is at it again.

This time he offered to aid the US oil and cash-rich

state of Alaska by providing an even greater benefit -

free or subsidized heating oil. In the richest, most

powerful country in the world, federal, state and

local governments continue to provide fewer essential

services to their citizens most in need like helping

them stay warm in winter when they can’t afford to do

it on their own. The result is many of them don’t and

some die as a result.

Even without federal help, Alaska easily has enough

resources and plenty of oil inside its borders to help

its most needy if it chooses to. Currently the state

has a Permanent Fund of $34 billion and a $2 billion

budget reserve fund for a population of about 660,000

people. Still, each winter thousands of Alaskans

can’t afford to buy enough heating oil, especially

since its price rose so dramatically in the past few

years. Alaska has its own federally funded Low-Income

Home Energy Assistance Program, but it’s woefully

underfunded and unable to provide enough help. So if

the state and federal government won’t do the job,

Hugo Chavez said he would step in with financial aid

through Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA’s

subsidiary CITGO Petroleum Corporation. The money

will be donated to state Native non-profit

organizations as part of a greater effort that will

also help other communities in the state. It’s also

one part of CITGO’s overall program to provide 5 - 10

million gallons of heating oil to help Native

Americans nationwide. The goal is to help thousands

of poor Alaskans and Native Americans in other states

stay warm in the winter in cases where they’re unable

to get help any other way.

Think of it. Tiny Venezuela has a population of about

27 million people that’s 1/12th the size of the US.

And it had a 2005 Gross Domestic Product of about $160

billion that’s less than 2% of the US GDP of $12.5

trillion last year and less than half of oil giant

Exxon-Mobil’s $371 billion 2005 sales volume. Still

Hugo Chavez is willing to share his nation’s oil and

financial resources so those in need in the US can get

some of the help its own government won’t provide and

help other nations as well that don’t have enough

ability to do it themselves. Don’t ever expect

Exxon-Mobil to offer aid as its game plan is to

manipulate oil prices for maximum sales and profit

growth with little or no regard for social

responsibility that would only lower them.

The Vision of Chavez’s Democratic Bolivarian

Revolution Vs. Bush’s Belligerent Imperialism

Look at the difference between how Hugo Chavez governs

at home and shares with others abroad based on the

principles of social equity and justice compared to

the way George Bush does it. He and his hard-right

Republican allies believe it’s right to take from the

poor and plunder other nations abroad to benefit the

rich and powerful at home. To do it he’s been waging

illegal wars of aggression almost since he took office

and just declared a permanent "long war" clash of

civilizations against 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide to

subjugate and exploit them for the corporate interests

he represents.

Hugo Chavez will stand for re-election on December 3

this year. His approval rating is so high (compared

to Bush’s low one), no opposition candidate can defeat

him in a free, fair and open election although the

Bush administration is planning an unknown array of

dirty tricks trying to do it. Compare that to the way

elections are now run in the US where the only sure

way George Bush and neocon Republicans can win is by

rigging the outcomes. They have to because growing

numbers of voters are fed up with them and reject

their failed policies of endless war against enemies

that don’t exist, tax cuts for the rich combined with

reduced social services for everyone else to pay for

them, and a crackdown on civil liberties to quell

dissent that always happens in the face of injustice.

A lot more people would reject them as well if they

knew and took to heart Founding Father and President

James Madison’s belief about the dangers of war and

how it extends "the discretionary power of the

Executive." He wrote: "No nation could preserve its

freedom in the midst of continual warfare." And

Abraham Lincoln once wrote while he was still in the

Congress that "kings had always been involving and

impoverishing their people in wars, pretending....that

the good of the people was the object." Both these

now revered men would shudder at how right they were

if they knew how fast those freedoms and greater good

for the people have been lost under the Bush

administration, its policies of universal repression,

and plan to turn the US into a nation of serfs and

then do the same thing all over the world and make

ordinary Americans have to pay the bills for it and

end up poorer as a result.

Things aren’t this way in Venezuela and shouldn’t be

anywhere. Under the letter and spirit of the

Bolivarian Revolution, the country is governed under a

system of real participatory democracy where the

people get to vote and those they elect actually serve

them. In the US what’s called democracy is only for

the privileged few. All others are left behind in a

system morphing toward modern-day feudalism based on

how an earlier failed 20th century tyrant ruled which

he explained in his own words - "(by) a system of

government that exercises a dictatorship of the

extreme right, typically through the merging of state

and business leadership, together with belligent

nationalism." Sound familiar?

The tyrant was Benito Mussolini, and he called it

fascism, although despite his claim, he didn’t invent

it. Nineteenth century born and early 20th century

philosopher Giovanni Gentile did, and he’s sometimes

called the "philosopher of fascism." He explained it

in the Encyclopia Italiana saying "Fascism should more

appropriately be called corporatism because it is a

merger of state and corporate power." Like all good

dictators finding an idea he liked, Mussolini replaced

Gentile’s name with his own and claimed credit for it.

Now in the US under George Bush it’s showing up again

as a feudal corporatocracy heading straight toward a

full-blown version of the Mussolini/Hitler model,

US-style with many of the same trappings - a messianic

mission and appeal to patriotism to fight an endless

war on terrorism sacrificing constitutionally

guaranteed civil liberties to do it and enriching

corporations that profit from it. And all this

falsely couched in the "land of the free and home of

the brave" rhetoric and spirit from "The Star-Spangled

Banner" anthem all children are taught at an early age

to sing in school with hands over heart and never

forget.

Hugo Chavez represents a different vision. Among

world leaders, he’s the best hope to give democracy

meaning again throughout the Americas and beyond, and

that’s why the Bush administration is determined to

oust him before he spreads much more of his good will.

The Chavez way is gaining ground because it’s a new

paradigm based on global solidarity, equality and

political, economic and social justice that opposes

the failed Bush neoliberal imperial world model more

people everywhere are fed up with and want no more of.

It’s shown up on the streets of Mexico for weeks and

again on Sunday when hundreds of thousands of people

packed the great Zocalo square in Mexico City in

support of winning candidate Lopez Obrador denied by

massive fraud the office of president he won in July.

They stand with him in solidarity and his intention to

set up a parallel government after he’s sworn in as

its "legitimate president" on November 20. Hugo

Chavez stands with him as well, and on Saturday at the

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Havana accused

Mexico’s ruling party of stealing the election and

destroying the chance for good relations with

Venezuela.

There were more signs of discontent with the old order

at the 16th annual NAM summit, attended by

representatives from over 110 nations. At it, Hugo

Chavez declared "American imperialism is in decline.

A new bi-polar world is emerging. The non-aligned

group has been relaunched to unite the South under its

umbrella (in opposition)." At the summit’s

conclusion, a final document was drafted expressing

support for Venezuela, its constitutional government

and democratically elected President Hugo Chavez. It

criticized US aggressive policies against Chavez and

supported the right of the Venezuelan people to choose

their own form of government, their leader and

representatives, and their economic and political

system free from foreign intervention. The document

also expressed "firm support and solidarity for

Bolivia" and Cuba including demanding the US end its

economic, trade and financial blockade that violates

the UN Charter and other international law.

It also acknowledged Iran’s right to develop its

commercial nuclear industry that’s in full compliance

with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) based on known

evidence about it. Further, it sharply criticized US

foreign policy and its wars of illegal aggression as

well as Israel’s wars against Lebanon and Palestine

and the US role in them. It also spoke out by

implication against the unilateral US domination of

the UN calling on this international body to do more

to respect and better represent the needs and rights

of smaller nations. The document affirmed the right

of each nation’s national sovereignty and was a strong

rebuke of the US Bush administration and its imperial

policies. In addition, it represented a strong

statement of growing resistance to it from around the

world that’s likely to gain added resonance as long as

Hugo Chavez is able to pursue his policies of putting

the needs and rights of people ahead of those of

wealth and power.

Other Unexpected Criticism

Chavez isn’t alone as other critics are emerging in

places as unexpected as the UK where British Labour

Party 23-year veteran MP and former Cabinet Minister

Clare Short just announced she’s leaving New Labour

because she’s "profoundly ashamed" of the Government

and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s "craven" support for

"US neoconservative foreign policy (that) has

dishonoured the UK, undermined the UN and

international law and helped to make the world a more

dangerous place." She said she was "standing down

(to) speak the truth and support the changes that are

needed." She’s not alone in the Blair government as

growing numbers of other party "back-benchers" are

joining her in a show of solidarity and disgust for a

government allied shamelessly with Washington’s

corrupted notion of might makes right and the use of

it in the pursuit of wealth and power as an end in

itself.

Stay tuned for the coming chapters in this epic

struggle for a new and better world vision and an end

to the old one that doesn’t work, never did or will,

and that more people than ever are determined to free

themselves from. It’s what Abraham Lincoln meant when

he once said: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and

having the power, have the right to rise up and shake

off the existing government, and form a new one that

suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most

sacred right, which we hope and believe is to liberate

the world." It was the same message South America’s

great Liberator Simon Bolivar had when he once spoke

of the imperial curse he sought to free his people

from that "plague(d) Latin America with misery in the

name of liberty." From the NAM summit in Havana, Hugo

Chavez echoed similar thoughts in his address to the

General Assembly on September 15. In it he said:

"....let’s unite in the South and we will have a

future, we will have dignity, our people will have

life....Let’s unite to liberate ourselves, to exist,

to self-construct the South."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog

site at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com.