Sunday November 8, 2009, 8:05 am
Hugo Chavez has a point here. I respect his audacity, though not his dictatorship. I worry about this new relationship with Iran, that Chavez differentiates between "Jewish community" and a sovereign nation, Israel. Extremists are problematic and dangerous, whether they represent conservative/theocratic/fascist ideals or communist/dictatorship ideals. I'm very aware of a growing southern-hemisphere hatred for the U.S. and Israel. However, Chavez has articulated what many other Westerners say, including Americans, that U.S. and Israeli foreign policies which sell arms and escalate civil endangerment and war are counter to establishment of global and regional peace and security. The U.S. has an open door now to policies and actions that will secure peace and stability without building toward more war. I hope we use this opportunity well because many political groups want to close it.

Sunday November 8, 2009, 9:11 am
Nancy, Hugo Chavez is not a dictator. He was democratically-elected, in an electoral system which is less corrupt, more credible, and more democratic (no "electoral colleges" which are an obstacle to democracy in the USA) than the U.S. system. Indeed, Venezuelan elections have plenty of independent election monitors, including people from the E.U. and the Carter Center (of ex- U.S. president Jimmy Carter).

Also, there was a higher % of voter turnout in the elections that elected Hugo Chavez and a higher % of voters voted for Hugo Chavez, compared with the U.S. elections where Obama, or any other president since Rooseveldt was elected (and perhaps even since George Washington).

Furthermore, Hugo Chavez is probably the most popular leader in Latin America, and consistently enacts the will of the working class majority of Venezuela, increasing equality (e.g. building housing for poor people, providing free meals for all poor school children to encourage school attendance, as well as free education at all levels including university, free, quality medical care for all people, and raising the minimum wage) in Venezuela, which enables more and more true democracy in Venezuela.

Any claims of Hugo Chavez being a "dictator" are lies that come from the capitalist class of Latin America, the USA, etc., expecially their anti-socialist "news" media. Those lies have no evidence to support them.

Any claims of a "southern-hemisphere hatred for the U.S. and Israel" are only true to the extent that the USA and Israel have been killing, oppressing, exploiting and impoverishing the people of the Global South, which naturally results in anger at the U.S. and Israel. The solution is simple: the U.S. and Israel can stop killing, oppressing, exploiting and impoverishing the people of the Global South.

Why worry about Chavez differentiating between the Jewish community and the colonial apartheid state called "Israel"? I make the same distinction. One is a heterogenous religious and ethnic community, with many different political views and actions. And the other is a nation state, which is the expression of the will of the majority of its citizens, and is brutally occupying, killing, oppressing and exploiting the Indigenous people of Palestine, in a genocidal nazi-style campaign to gain "lebenstraum" [living-space]. All people who care about self-determination and human rights in general will join Venezuela in standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine, to end Israel's abuses against the people of Palestine.

The only danger is when people DON'T make that distinction, and so they blame the Jewish people of the world (whatever their varied political beliefs and actions), for the abuses that ISRAEL has been carrying out.

Nancy wrote:

"The U.S. has an open door now to policies and actions that will secure peace and stability without building toward more war."

That is a lie. Please don't believe that lie, Nancy. The Obama administration has been carrying out the same policies that all previous U.S. governments have done: warmongering, aggression against countries that refuse to be neo-colonies of the U.S. empire (e.g. threats and blockades against Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, etc.), support for military coups and oppressive regimes (e.g. in Israel/Palestine, Honduras, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Colombia, Peru, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, etc.), and support for U.S. corporate exploitation and impoverishment of the people of the world, resulting in the deaths of millions each year, and the suffering of billions of people. That willonly change when the people of the world rise up and kick U.S. troops and puppet regimes out of their countries (as the people of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia did), and/or if the people of the USA do like the people of Venezuela did: build a mass movement and kick out their capitalist political parties, electing the Greens or socialist parties to government instead.

Sunday November 8, 2009, 9:14 am
As for "extremists", here is a quote (my emphasis) -

"It is a sign of just how bad things are that even the modest proposal that everyone on the planet gets fresh water and enough to eat is fighting talk. One can imagine launching revolutions in the name of some exorbitant utopian ideal, but to disrupt people's lives in such a spectacular way simply so that everyone may be guaranteed a supply of fresh vegetables seems oddly pathetic. Only EXTREMISTS could argue against it, just as only EXTREMISTS could endorse a global capitalist system which in 1992 is said to have paid Michael Jordan more in advertising Nike shoes than it paid to the entire South-East Asian industry which produced them. Revolutionaries are those realist, moderate types who recognize that to put such things to right would require a thoroughgoing transformation. Anyone who imagines otherwise is an idle utopianist."
- Terry Eagleton (`That dreadful Terry Eagleton' Green Left Weekly, August 6, 2003)

Sunday November 8, 2009, 4:40 pm
Viva Chavez! I wish Obama would support the democratically elected of Central & South America & get out of the oil business with the Middle Easterners altogether!
Bu$h-League Politics should be Over - new days & better deals for all of us if we stopped messing things up & started doing the right things!

Monday November 9, 2009, 3:35 am
Yeah, I agree with you, Yvonne : ) But Obama is like every other U.S. president: he enacts the money-hungry, power-hungry agenda of the private corporations and the capitalist class (the major shareholders of those corporations).

Therefore, the solution is like what the people of Venezuela did: build a political movement and support socialist politicians, to replace the capitalist politicians who are backed by the capitalist class, and to transform the capitalist system into a democratic socialist one.