Good Things Happening in Venezuela by Michael Parenti

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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Parenti/GoodThings_Venezuela.html

 

Good Things Happening in Venezuela

by Michael Parenti

Z magazine, July/August 2005

 

Even before I arrived in Venezuela for a recent visit, I encountered the

great class divide in that country. On my connecting flight from Miami

to Caracas, I found myself seated next to an exquisitely dressed

Venezuelan woman. Judging from her prosperous aspect, I anticipated that

she would take the first opportunity to hold forth against President

Hugo Chavez. Unfortunately, I was right.

Our conversation moved along famously until we got to the political

struggle going on in Venezuela. " Chavez, " she hissed, " is terrible,

terrible. " He is " a liar. " He " fools the people " and is " ruining the

country. "

She owns an upscale women's fashion company with links to prominent

firms in the United States. When I asked how Chavez has 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 Chavez 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) is under siege because others below them on the social ladder

are now getting a slightly larger slice of the pie.

In Venezuela over 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty

level. Before Chavez, most of the poor had never seen a doctor or

dentist. Their children never went to school, since they could not

afford the annual fees. 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, the growing malnutrition and desperation.

Far from ruining the country, here are some of the good things the

Chavez government has accomplished:

* A land reform program designed to assist small farmers and the

landless poor has been instituted-this past March a large landed estate

owned by a British beef company was occupied by agrarian workers for

farming purposes

* Education is now free (right through to university level), causing a

dramatic increase in grade school enrollment

* The government has 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-have been halted and limits have been

placed on foreign capital penetration

* Chavez kicked out U.S. military advisors and prohibited overflights by

U.S. military aircraft engaged in counterinsurgency in Colombia

* " Bolivarian Circles " have been organized throughout the nation,

neighborhood committees designed to activate citizens at the community

level to assist in literacy, education, vaccination campaigns, and other

public services

* The government hires 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 Chavez'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 one's ability to

pay. Dental care was distributed like any other commodity, not to

everyone 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

Chavez government availed themselves of the free service, temporarily

putting 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) come from Cuba.

Chavez has also put Venezuelan military doctors and dentists to work in

the free clinics. Meanwhile, much of the Venezuelan medical

establishment is vehemently opposed to the free clinic program, seeing

it as a Cuban communist campaign to undermine medical standards and

physicians' earnings. That low-income people are receiving medical and

dental care for the first time in their lives does not seem to be a

consideration that carries much weight among the more " professionally

minded " practitioners.

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 market price, a blessing in a society with

widespread malnutrition.

Popular food markets have eliminated the layers of middlepeople and made

staples more affordable for residents. Most of these markets 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 their

communities.

There is a growing number of worker cooperatives. 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 coop has

put about 1,000 people to work. The workers seem enthusiastic and hopeful.

Surprisingly, many Venezuelans know relatively little about the worker

cooperatives. Or perhaps it's not surprising, given the near monopoly

that private capital has over the print and broadcast media. The wealthy

media moguls, all vehemently anti-Chavez, own four of the five

television stations and all the major newspapers.

The person most responsible for Venezuela's revolutionary developments,

Hugo Chavez, has been accorded the usual ad hominem treatment in the U.

S. news media. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle described him

as " Venezuela's pugnacious president. " An earlier Chronicle report

(November 30, 2001) quotes a political opponent who calls Chavez " a

psychopath, a terribly aggressive guy. " The London Financial Times sees

him as " increasingly autocratic " and presiding over something called a

" rogue democracy. "

In the Nation (May 6, 2002), Marc Cooper-one of those Cold War liberals

who nowadays regularly defends the U.S. empire-writes that the

democratically-elected Chavez speaks " often as a thug, " who " flirts with

megalomania. " Chavez's behavior, Cooper rattles on, " borders on the

paranoiac, " is " ham-fisted demagogy " acted out with an " increasingly

autocratic style. " Like so many critics, Cooper downplays Chavez's

accomplishments and uses name-calling in place of informed analysis.

Other media mouthpieces have labeled Chavez " mercurial, " " besieged, "

" heavy-handed, " " incompetent, " and " dictatorial, " a " barracks populist, "

a " strongman, " a " firebrand, " and, above all, a " leftist. " It is never

explained what " leftist " means.

A leftist is someone who advocates a more equitable distribution of

social resources and human services and who supports the kinds of

programs that the Chavez government is 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.) The term

" leftist " is frequently bandied about in the U. N. media, but seldom

defined. The power of the label is in its remaining undefined, allowing

it to have an abstracted built-in demonizing impact, which precludes

rational examination of its political content.

Meanwhile Chavez's opponents, who staged an illegal and unconstitutional

coup in April 2002 against the democratically elected government, are

depicted in the U.S. media as champions of " pro-democratic " and

" pro-West " governance. We are talking about the free-market plutocrats

and corporate-military leaders of the privileged social order who killed

more people in the 48 hours they held power in 2002 than were ever

harmed by Chavez in his years of rule.

When one of these perpetrators, General Carlos Alfonzo, was hit with

charges for the role he had played, the New York Times chose to call him

a " dissident " whose rights were being suppressed by the Chavez

government. 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 destroy a

democratic government, but as " dissidents, " decent individuals who are

being denied their right to disagree with the government.

President Hugo Chavez, whose public talks I attended on three occasions,

proved to be an educated, articulate, remarkably well-informed and

well-read individual. He manifests a sincere dedication to effecting

some salutary changes for the great mass of his people, a person who in

every aspect seems worthy of the decent and peaceful democratic

revolution he is 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.

Chavez charges that the United States government is plotting to

assassinate him. I can believe it.

 

Michael Parenti's recent books include Superpatriotism (City Lights) and

The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), which was nominated for

a Pulitzer Prize. His forthcoming book, The Culture Struggle will be

published by Seven Stories Press in the fall of 2005.

 

 

 

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