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Peace Patriot

(24,010 posts)
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 02:28 AM Jan 2013

Venezuela's economy: 9 quarters of growth, current 5.5% growth, unemployment down to 6.4%

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7578

This is WHY Chavez was elected to a third term--these jobs and economic growth realities--PLUS the most amazing phenomenon of all (from our point of view here in the USA), that the wealth is BEING SHARED. (Venezuela was recently designated "THE most equal country in Latin America," by the UN Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean.)

...in case you were wondering how an incompetent dictator who is ruining Venezuela could get elected (1998), re-elected (2000), beat a recall election (2004), get re-elected (2006) and re-elected (2012), in an election system that Jimmy Carter recently said is "the best in the world." It's easy to get a completely wrong impression of Venezuela from the corpo-fascist press.

In addition to all this, Venezuelan voters just gave a drubbing to the rightwing opposition on governorships (the socialists won 20 of 23 governorships), with Chavez too ill to campaign for his party's candidates. Meaning: These by-elections were mostly not "about Chavez" but rather about POLICY--i.e., economic and social FAIRNESS.

This is something else that it is easy to get wrong about Venezuela, if your only news/opinion sources are the corpo-fascist press. Venezuela's "New Deal" is more about the people who demanded it, and who organized and got leaders elected who would do the will of the people, and about those who did their civic homework and created "the best election system in the world," than it is about one man, one leader, whom the corpo-fascist press set up as a sort of buffoon dictator in order to knock him down, and who calls him the "firebrand" leader of Venezuela while rarely reporting what he actually says. The corpo-fascist press loves to dis Chavez while completely ignoring the people who elected him, who saved him from a U.S.-supported coup d'tat and who are creating and benefiting from their own democracy.

Whatever happens to Chavez--whether he dies from his struggle with cancer, or is too ill to take office and see out his third term--the people of Venezuela RULE.

We need to remind ourselves of this in the coming weeks and months, as the corpo-fascist press tries to spin Chavez's disablement or death as the end of the leftist movement in Latin America. In every country to which the leftist democracy movement has spread, pioneered by and inspired by the people of Venezuela--Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Peru, Nicaragua, El Salvador--and where there are on-going struggles to create a leftist democracy revolution often in the face of U.S. interference (such as in Honduras), IT IS ABOUT THE PEOPLE--what they want, what they are doing and what they are demanding of their leaders.

This. Is. What. Democracy. Looks. Like.
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Venezuela's economy: 9 quarters of growth, current 5.5% growth, unemployment down to 6.4% (Original Post) Peace Patriot Jan 2013 OP
Power to the People, baby! railsback Jan 2013 #1
Infinite growth is not sustainable on a finite planet. Speck Tater Jan 2013 #2
I tend to agree with you but that is a different discussion. Peace Patriot Jan 2013 #4
Yes, it's "another discussion" Speck Tater Jan 2013 #5
Why do you think we are facing almost certain doom? naaman fletcher Jan 2013 #6
It is absolutely what democracy looks like. By all means it is. Judi Lynn Jan 2013 #3
 

railsback

(1,881 posts)
1. Power to the People, baby!
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 03:11 AM
Jan 2013

Taking the country away from the corporatists and giving it back to the people. If only..

 

Speck Tater

(10,618 posts)
2. Infinite growth is not sustainable on a finite planet.
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 03:33 AM
Jan 2013

The whole "growth is good" meme is destroying the only livable planet we have.

Repeat after me:

[font size="4"]Growth is NOT good![/font]
[font size="4"]Growth will kill us all![/font]

We need stable economies based on something other than unsustainable growth.

Peace Patriot

(24,010 posts)
4. I tend to agree with you but that is a different discussion.
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 08:20 AM
Jan 2013

It's a bit too easy for the Have's to tell the Have-not's that NOW, after they've been ripped off and impoverished by the Have's, for half a century, that they need to cut back, and have zero growth, and not build new houses for the zillions living in shanytowns, and not produce computers and refrigerators and cars and all the things that people reasonably associate with upward mobility.

This is a VERY difficult and complicated issue. We want THEM to preserve the Amazon rainforest for ALL OF US, for instance, but what have WE done to preserve forests in THIS country. I know a lot about this issue and I will tell you the answer: NOTHING! Now that Venezuela, for instance, is, AT LONG LAST, using its oil wealth FOR THE PEOPLE, we remote environmentalists want them to stop producing oil and stop being an oil-dependent, growing economy!

It's just too ironical. We need to INCLUDE the first world's utter ripoffs of the resources and wealth of the third world in this discussion, and in any policy-making that occurs, nationally or internationally. You want "sustainable economies" but are you going to tell that to some barefoot, malnourished street child, living in a crumbling shack, who needs shoes, clothes, food, a decent living space, books, a computer and hope, and whose parents need JOBS? You're going to tell that child, who has never seen a park, that he has to live off the land? You're going to tell his grandparents and parents, who were DRIVEN OFF THE LAND by northern corporations in league with local fascists, that they have to migrate BACK to the land and, somehow, make a sustainable living from it--now that their knowledge and skills are forgotten?

We have to take these millions and millions of forgotten, ignored, deprived, exploited people into consideration when we think about these issues and advocate on these issues. You're going to tell people who have only recently, and with great struggle, established democracy and fairness in their societies that THEY now have to take the burden of "sustainability"?

Is it a SHARED burden, hm? What is "sustainable" HERE? How are WE, who consume 25% of the world's resources, taking our share of the burden to save the planet?

It's quite interesting, too, how MUCH MORE conscious and ACTIVE these leftist leaders in Latin America are, on climate change and all of its repercussions, than our own useless, corporate-ass-kissing politicians. These LatAm leaders are outspoken on climate change; they propose and demand solutions, and they furthermore, for the first time in history, have given a voice to Indigenous groups and recognition to the concept of "Pachamama" ("Mother Earth&quot .* Our corporate rulers ignore them and hate them and our politicians trot right along with that agenda.

Hugo Chavez set the precedent for what we all must do, to save the planet. He friggin drove Exxon Mobil out of his country! NEXT, he started using the oil money for EDUCATION and other social programs. These have been very positive steps toward global solutions for both climate change and poverty. We need to do this. We need to throw these overweaning, transglobal corporate monsters out of our country and start repairing all the evil they have done--from wars to our insane transportation system, from tax breaks for the rich to looting Social Security, from the job-outsourcing wreckage of "neo-liberalism" to torturing prisoners. Do we have a democracy strong enough to do this? It's arguable that we don't even have a democracy any more. But Venezuela DOES? They have a democracy that puts ours to shame--and they are doing the best they can with what they have. Are we?

Anyway, it's ANOTHER discussion. My point is that the leftist polices in Venezuela and other LatAm countries that have elected leftist governments are SUCCEEDING as to employment, social progress and growth. Have they solved all the world's problems? No. But they've got some of the right ideas--for instance, establishing REAL democracy--government that is inclusive and that serves all sectors of society. We need to pay attention to this--yet we are getting nothing but disinformation about it, from the corpo-fascist press.

------------------------------

*(The controversies that have emerged between leftist governments and Indigenous groups, over development issues--more in Bolivia and Ecuador, than in Venezuela--point to the tragic dimensions of this matter--that governments "of, by and for" the people must serve the majority, as to jobs, development, growth, natural resources, consumer goods and all the rest, and really cannot sacrifice the good of many to the desires--and wisdom--of the few. They are NOT dictatorships! Also, a little country like Ecuador, or a very undeveloped country like Bolivia, cannot very well isolate themselves from the greater world and ITS economy and reform the world by themselves. They have to use their resources. They have to build roads, housing, schools, etc. And they have to implement FAIR social policy--as to education, housing, health care and so on--amidst the ferocious hostility of the developed world. Some Indigenous groups oppose some aspects of this development. They are probably right but WHO is going to tell this to the poor majority? At the least, leftist governments recognize these dilemmas, struggle with them, sometimes act in favor of the environment and--vitally important--promote education and public participation. These very difficult problems need to be solved collectively--by everyone.)

 

Speck Tater

(10,618 posts)
5. Yes, it's "another discussion"
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 12:53 PM
Jan 2013

And when there's no breathable air, there will only be one discussion left. And this won't be it.

Sorry for hijacking the thread. I'm just finding it harder to care about anything except the fact that we are all facing almost certain doom in the near future. Nothing else really seems to matter in the face of that one fact.

I'll drop the subject. As you were.

Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
3. It is absolutely what democracy looks like. By all means it is.
Wed Jan 2, 2013, 03:35 AM
Jan 2013

They all knew change HAD to come after the oligarchic monster Carlos Andres Perez ordered his police, who refused to cooperate, many walking right off the job, and then his military to fire directly into crowds of protesting Venezuelans who were enraged after he screwed them viciously with his savage reforms.

He was impeached, he was outta there.

The people remained, and they haven't forgotten a thing. They got their elected President back from the filthy freaks who took him out of office at gunpoint and started tearing up the government, and tracking down and imprisoning his administration officials.

These Venezuelans intend most certainly to keep their progress alive. We all know it, even the trolls.

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