Sunday August 2, 2009, 1:35 pm
So Spain has to kowtow to Hugo to get debt payments on the bank and investments that Venezuela "nationalized"

I suppose that could be called progress after the tense relationship in late 2007 with Juan Carlos infamous "Silencio"
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZDWwNa7N2ffy3wov-WshjyXuFFg
"He said the review meant Spanish firms would be under close scrutiny.

"I am going to put them under the spotlight to see what they are doing here, all the Spanish firms that are in Venezuela," he said.

Several big Spanish companies have investments in Venezuela, including telecommunications group Telefonica, the banks Santander and BBVA, and the Spanish-Argentinian oil group Repsol YPF." The same mentioned in the above article

Sunday August 2, 2009, 7:45 pm
Robert B is apparently unaware that the people's democratically-elected government in Venezuela has bought every corporation that it nationalised, regardless of which countries the owners of those corporations live in.

There is no kowtowing to Venezuela going on. For years, Venezuela kowtowed to the USA and other first world countries, such as Spain. Now that Venezuela is finally freeing itself from imperialism (foreign domination and exploitation), refusing to kowtow to first world countries, and is now dealing with first world nations as equals, Robert B acts like "a Third World country is dominating first world countries". Coming from Robert B, a citizen of the imperialist USA, the country which spends as much on its military as the rest of the world combined, with military bases in dozens of countries, and dominates most of the planet, that is not only a gross lie, it is also grossly hypocritical.

Remember, there is a net flow of U.S.$500 billion in wealth from the Third World to the first world each year (and a large proportion of that flows to the USA). This is what we mean when we say "imperialism" and "neo-colonialism".

The people of Venezuela have the right to end that imperialist plunder by foreigners. The people of Venezuela have the right to take back control of their own economy (e.g. banks in Venezuela), and direct it to ensuring human rights for all Venezuelans (including the right to food, clean water, decent housing, quality health care, equal access to all levels of education, and meaningful democracy - democracy free from the dominance of local and multinational private corporations). ANd they are succeeding, as you can see by looking at how life for working class Venezuelans has improved in the last 11 years since they first elected the democratic socialist Chavez government, compared with previous neo-colonial puppet governments, which served the U.S.A. and multinational corporations.

If Robert B prefers the people of Venezuela to continue being exploited by Europeans and North Americans, if Robert B prefers that the people of Venezuela not control their own destiny and the wealth that they produce by their labour, then Robert B belongs back in the 19th century, with the other supporters of racism, empire and exploitation.

Sunday August 2, 2009, 9:44 pm
That's me Mr Nineteenth century.
But guess who is going to end up on the ashheap of history along with the Soviet Union, your little tinpot dictator Hugo Chavez, Mr 21st century hah!!

Monday August 3, 2009, 1:30 am
The "Soviet Union" was not socialist. I am quite sure I wrote this in reply to Robert B before, in comments under a different news article.

Socialism means: "society owning and controlling the means of production, distributioon and exchange". Clearly this means a maximum of democracy -society can only control a thing democratically - any form of undemocratic rule is clearly not socialism. E.g. control of corporations by a mere section of society, who are shareholders, especially a few megarich major shareholders, as in capitalism, is not socialism. And e.g. control of industry by a mere section of society, who are party members, especially a few very powerful top party members, as in the USSR, is not socialism.

The changes that the people of Venezuela have been making in their revolution are increasing democracy and equality. There is no dictatorship there. Perhaps the capitalist media claims that there is a dictatorship in Venezuela, but, since 1998, when the revolution began, Venezuela has had more elections than any other country - and these elections have all been observed by independent organisations, such as the Carter Center, and have all been certified as free and fair by those independent organisations. (And the Bolivarian movement led by Chavez even lost one election - a constitutional reform referendum, and abided by the people's will, as always - that does not happen in a dictatorship.)

Hugo Chavez is the first non-white (part Indigenous, part Black) president Venezulea has ever had. Finally, the people of Venezuela have broken the old corrupt, nepotist, capitalist Punto Fijo 2 party system of rule by the white elite, and finally they have been able to elect one of their own - a non white man. He has a brown face like them, he talks the language of the street like them, he does what they want, and he is the most popular leader in Latin America. In 2002, the working class people of Venezuela even risked their lives, taking to the street in huge numbers, to overturn a military coup, to restore President Chavez to power.

But it does not matter what happens to Chavez, because it is a revolution going on, not a one man show. The people of Venezuela and the rest of Latin America are rising up to end savage capitalism, to build democracy and equality, regardless of who their leaders are at any one time.

Capitalism, with its encouragement of greed and fear, and its conflict, inequality, oppression, exploitation and impoverishment, is doomed. The next stage in human evolution is a social evolution, to a new consciousness, with a system of real democracy (including in the economic sphere), equality, cooperation and human rights, based on values of compassion, solidarity, and an understanding that we are all "one", we are all interdependent, and the most effective way to help ourselves is to take actions that benefit the group, not only the individual at other people's expense.

Monday August 3, 2009, 4:45 pm
What's happening in your backyard, Simon?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/australia.terror.raids/index.html

The Somalia Shabaab are whites (Arabs) and nonwhites, but their new consciousness that THEY think is the future involves little compassion until terror convinces a population to be "one" with them or at least a compliant second class dhimmi.

Tuesday August 4, 2009, 9:14 am
Robert B, did you mean to submit that as a separate news story? It doesn't really relate directly to Simon's article or his comments, and it's a bit of a derail.

Wednesday August 5, 2009, 6:13 am
Thanks Sarah : ) That's what I thought, too. : )