Venezuelan government announces Chávez has 'severe' respiratory infection
Source: Reuters
Reuters in Caracas
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013 07.35 GMT
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is still suffering a "severe" respiratory infection that has hindered his breathing as he struggles to recover from cancer surgery in Cuba, the government said on Thursday.
The 58-year-old socialist leader has not been seen in public nor heard from in more than three weeks. Officials say he is in delicate condition after his fourth operation in just 18 months for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area.
"Comandante Chávez has faced complications as a result of a severe lung infection," information minister Ernesto Villegas said in the latest official update on the president's condition.
"This infection has caused a breathing insufficiency that requires Comandante Chávez to comply strictly with medical treatment," the communique added, giving no further details.
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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/hugo-chavez-severe-lung-infection
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...Chavez--and who fear that, if he dies, this revolution will be over, I assure you that you have been disinformed.
Disinformation is a CIA technique of substituting a plausible lie in place of the truth--in this case, substituting a very false creation--bogeyman Chavez the dictator--for the truth that the leftist democracy revolution in Latin America is ENTIRELY the creation of THE PEOPLE OF LATIN AMERICA. The "New Deal" that they have voted for themselves in numerous countries is the result of their long hard work on their civic structure--for instance, honest, transparent elections*--remarkable grass roots organization, dauntless persistence and dauntless courage, and an abiding belief in social justice and fairness that has survived every bloody effort, by the U.S. government and its corporate rulers, to destroy that democratic spirit in Latin America.
It is NOT about one man--neither in Venezuela, nor in Brazil, nor in Argentina, nor in Bolivia, nor in Ecuador, nor in Uruguay, nor in Nicaragua, nor in El Salvador, nor in Peru--nor in any LatAm country where this remarkable movement has been successful and has been able to elect leftist governments. Neither is it about one man in the countries where the people are still struggling for democracy (as in Honduras).
The corporate media--including the goddamned Guardian, the BBCons and NPRats--have been waging this disinformation war for nearly a decade: creating a PHANTOM, "Chavez the Dictator" (and, more recently, "Chavez the Incompetent Dictator"
, so they can knock him down. And why do they do this? To deny US the information that it is not about Chavez; it is about DEMOCRACY and how democracy, if it is real, is also FAIR, to everybody--results in fair trade, fair wages, decent jobs, high employment, fair access to health care, fair educational opportunity, fair use of a country's resources to help the people who live there, fair and inclusive public participation, dignity and civil rights for all, and--lo and behold!--prosperity for all!
Jimmy Carter recently said that Venezuela's election system is "the best in the world." It is the truth. I have looked into it myself. So, how is it that an incompetent dictator--as Chavez has been portrayed by the corporate press--has not only been repeatedly elected by big majorities in an honest, transparent election system (by a 10% margin in the last presidential election, and including the socialists winning 20 of 23 governorships in the more recent by-election), but also was defended and restored to office by the PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA, a million of whom poured into the streets, facing down a military coup and rightwing mobs egged on the by corporate media in 2002?
It's not about Chavez. It's about the people who put him in office! It's not about Rafael Correa (Ecuador). It's about the people who put him in office. It's not about Evo Morales (Bolivia). It's about the people who put him in office. Remember this, as each demonization of a democratically elected leftist leader arises, as each dirty trick unfolds, as each carefully calibrated or gross lie rattles around in your head, about "caudillos" and "dictators" in Latin America, about how "New Deal" economics, though plainly, obviously--according to hard data--hugely successful at creating prosperity, is nevertheless doomed, how sharing the wealth and giving everybody a chance leads to ruination, how denying a broadcast license to a coup-mongering corporate TV station and expanding public access to the public airwaves is "dictatorial," and on and on.
I cannot stress enough how totally we have been disinformed by the entirety of the 1%-er press, on this historic and inspiring leftist democracy movement in Latin America: by the New York Slimes, by the Associated Pukes, by the Miami Hairball, by Rotters, by the alphabet soup of monopolists of our public airwaves (CBS-NBC-ABC-CNN-NPR-BBC and of course Faux News) and, most shocking of all, by the Guardian. (BP's tentacles are long and lethal, apparently.) It is across the board in ALL corporate media, and in media that is not supposed to be corporate but IS. Goddamned lies. Pervasive lies. "Big Lies" of the Stalinist kind (repeat a lie often enough and people come to believe that it is reality).
That Chavez is a dictator.
That Chavez elects himself.
That Chavez is ruining Venezuela.
That Chavez is against "free speech."
That anything that goes wrong in Venezuela is Chavez's fault.
That Chavez is incompetent.
Etc.
So, if these are your only sources of information--and you have nevertheless been inspired by Chavez and figured out that he represents something real--DO NOT DESPAIR because Chavez may well be dying. (It doesn't look good for him.) HE is NOT the movement. He is merely one elected leader of this vast and inspiring movement--a courageous man, yes, a visionary leader, yes, a true representative of Venezuela's majority, yes, pugnacious and articulate, yes, comparable to our own FDR, absolutely--but he could not have been elected and re-elected, and could not have done what he has done--transform Venezuela from an extremely unfair country into a fair one, with opportunity for all--without the Venezuelan peoples' extraordinary efforts in creating and defending their democracy, and an extraordinarily competent and talented government comprised of hundreds of leaders--and, furthermore, without the cooperation, networking and backing of leftist movements and leaders throughout the region.
They don't want you to know this--that Chavez is just one man, one leader, of a vast and REAL democracy movement--because they don't want it to happen here (or in the UK). The 1%, the banksters, the war machine and the transglobal corporate monsters that rule over us would be seriously imperiled if real democracy happened here (or in the UK). So, after creating Phantom Chavez, in order to knock down a movement involving multi-millions of people, they are now in the process of creating Chavez the Icon, whose death will mean the death of THE LEFT.
You may mourn Chavez or not, depending on how you feel about it. (I will mourn him. I think he's a brilliant and courageous man.) But don't be fooled about WHO created Venezuelan democracy in its fairest manifestation over the last decade, and WHO has created the huge, important and inspiring leftist movement throughout the region: The people themselves--ordinary people like you and me, organizing, doing our civic duty (for instance, creating honest, transparent elections), envisioning and then implementing a better future, and electing leaders who are "of, by and for" the people--who listen to us, who act for us, who attend to the common good.
