[Mb-civic] Venezuela's Threat

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Today's commentary:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-02/27olson.cfm

==================================

ZNet Commentary
Venezuela's  Threat March 04, 2006
By Gary Olson 

Here is today's multiple choice question:  Who recently provided 1.15
million gallons of low-cost heating oil to thousands of poor and working
class families in seven East Coast states, including 25,000 people in
Philadelphia, and did so with the words,"No one should be forced to
sacrifice food, shelter, or medicine to stay warm" ? 

  a.) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
  b.) Felix Rodriquez
  c.) George W. Bush
  d.) Oprah Winfrey
  e.) 10 major U.S. oil companies. 

The correct answer is "b" and Rodriquez is the CEO of Citgo, a subsidiary
of Venezuela's state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). 
On behalf of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he also distributed free
heating oil to dozens of homeless shelters from Maine to Delaware. 

Venezuela, with the largest oil deposits outside the Middle East and the
world's fifth largest oil producer, also sold oil at far lower costs to
fifteen poor nations in the Caribbean and Central America. Even Native
Americans in Maine were recipients, and Chief Bill Philips of the Micmac
tribe thanked Pres. Chavez: "He is a fellow Native from the Americas, and
we appreciate Chavez trying to bring low-cost heating oil for our
elderly." 

The 10 U.S. oil companies  did not respond to requests to help the poor.
Just one of them, Exxon, reported record profits of $36 billion in 2005.

Can the twice democratically-elected Chavez be the same fellow that Pat
Robertson wants the CIA to assassinate, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has
likened to Adolf Hitler; and official and semi-official types have placed
on the White House "enemies list," labeled a "red devil," as "lethal as
Osama bin Laden," and a "madman"?  Further, the U.S. supported a
unsuccessful military coup against Chavez in 2002 and Condoleeza Rice has
called the Venezuelan government a "major threat to the region."

Assuming for the moment that preventing Pennsylvanians from freezing to
death hasn't prompted this venomous rhetoric, what could account for it? 
Perhaps the answer lies in some evil deeds done by Pres. Chavez back in
Venezuela. What mischief has he been up to there?

The challenges are daunting in Venezuela where 80% of the population is
poor and some 1 million children scratch out a bare subsistance in the
major cities. After four decades of indifferent upper-class rule, Chavez,
a 51-year-old former army paratrooper, was elected president in 1998 and
again in 2004.

According to Washington-based economist Mark Weisbrot, "The tangible
improvements for those living in Caracus' poor barrios have been noticed
in the rest of Latin America, a region with the most outrageously unequal
income distribution in the world."  Here are a few highlights of his
tenure:

  * For the first time time, universal health care is official state
  policy and peasants are living longer due to accessible health care. *
  Elementary schools are providing three free meals a day to all students,
  drawing some million new students to school. * misiones
  (missions/government projects) are extending vital social services like
  literacy training, food subsidies, and rudimentary health care to the
  poor. * Indigenous Venezuealans, homosexuals and women are now protected
  in the constitution. * Land reform is redistributing idle land to
  landless peasants.

  * Operation milegro (miracle), a joint venture with Cuban doctors, has
  restored eyesight to thousands of blind people in the region.

Venezuelan elites, who despise Chavez and call him a "monkey," have tried
mightily to sabotage the economy for eight years but it grew at a
respectable nine percent in 2005, the highest in the hemisphere. 

Venezuelan oil has made this possible but only Chavez acted on the clearly
subversive and radical notion that his country's vast resources should be
used to benefit the country's people and even those beyond its borders.  

Oil was nationalized in 1976, but according to all accounts the oil
bureaucracy operated as a "state within a state," refusing to function on
behalf of the citizens. The system remains imperfect but Chavez finally
excercised effective control over PSVSA in 2001. State oil profits were
over $25 billion last year and the petrodollars are now staying home in
the form of high social spending, faithfully reflecting social ownership
of this natural resource. Something must be working because his approval
rating stands at 77%, the highest in the Americas.

And of course this begins to explain why Chavez is viewed as a threat, as
a "virus" that might "infect" others. An alternative development model
where the citizens, not private U.S. foreign investors, are the primary
beneficiaries of government policy is feared by U.S. elites.  As Latin
American expert Prof. Rosa Maria Pegueros observes, from Washington's
perspective the real threat is that if Chavez succeeds, he may "create an
eqalitarian society that has the power to resist United States hegemony."

Who knows where this virus may appear next. To help it spread, I'm filling
my tank at the Citgo station from now on. 

Gary Olson, Ph.D. is chair of the Political Science Department at Moravian
College in Bethlehem,PA.  Contact:olson at moravian.edu   



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