Jeff Cohen: Go to Venezuela, You Idiot!

2006-07-12

Richard Moore

Original source URL:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070606T.shtml

    Go to Venezuela, You Idiot!
    By Jeff Cohen
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective
    Thursday 06 July 2006

I don't usually take the advice of right-wingers. But I did this time. After 
receiving inflamed email messages from dozens of angry rightists that I should 
get the hell out of the USA and go to Venezuela, I accepted their challenge and 
flew to Caracas.

"Would you like me to start a fund to ship your ass down there, Comrade Cohen?"

What had provoked the often-abusive emailers was my 2005 Internet column urging 
US residents to buy their gasoline at Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela's state 
oil company. I called for a Citgo BUY-cott, to protest Bush's interventionist 
foreign policy, while supporting innovative anti-poverty programs in Venezuela. 
(Last winter, Citgo started a program that provided discounted home-heating oil 
to low-income families in the US.)

"Hey moron, if you hate America so much and love Venezuela, why don't you go 
there?"

I'm glad I listened to the conservative chorus. In late June, I headed to 
Venezuela with a fact-finding delegation sponsored by the respected US human 
rights group, Witness for Peace. The grueling trip covered much ground and all 
sides of Venezuela's social/political landscape. It is a complex country, headed
by sometimes volatile President Hugo Chavez, a leftist and harsh Bush critic who
was first elected in 1998.

As soon as I returned home, I headed to the nearest Citgo to fill up my tank - 
more committed than ever to send a few dollars toward Venezuela's poor.

    "You, sir, are as un-American as they come."

For decades, Venezuela's vast oil wealth had been squandered and hoarded by its 
light-skinned elite, while most Venezuelans - largely of indigenous, African and
mixed descent - lived in dire poverty. Today, oil revenue from Citgo and 
elsewhere is funneled into social programs (called "missions") to benefit the 
country's poor majority. They're reminiscent of FDR's New Deal programs ... born
of our economic bust. But Venezuela's missions are fueled by a boom - a boom in 
oil prices that is likely to persist for years.

    "Because of Chavez, communism is thriving in South America."

From what I could see, capitalism is thriving. Foreign oil interests continue to
profit handsomely from Venezuelan petrol, but they now pay a fairer share of 
taxes and royalties. So do the 80 McDonald's restaurants in Venezuela, which 
were briefly shut down last year over alleged tax cheating.

Multinational companies and the old elite are doing fine in today's Venezuela. 
So well that some Venezuelan leftists denounce Chavez - despite his talk of 
building "21st century socialism" - as a tool of corporate imperialism.

Like other oil-exporting countries, Venezuela in the past allowed its domestic 
productive economy to atrophy. Besides oil, it produced little - with food 
largely imported. Today, people in poor areas are organizing themselves into 
productive and agricultural co-ops, supported by low-interest government loans. 
We visited a federal bank that underwrites women-run businesses nationwide.

My guess is that if Chavez succeeds in Venezuela - a big "if" in a country of 
endemic corruption, poverty and crime, in the backyard of the US superpower - 
its economic system will end up looking more like Sweden than Cuba.

What's not debatable is that the poor have found hope in the Chavez 
administration - which is why he's perhaps the most popular president in our 
hemisphere. So popular that Chavez critics in the US government and Venezuelan 
opposition concede that they won't be able to defeat him in December when he 
seeks re-election.

"The trouble with all you liberals is that you're anti-American and hate 
democracy."

Participation in democracy is booming in Venezuela under Chavez. That's partly 
due to polarization, but also because so many poor people feel empowered enough 
for the first time to get active in politics. A massive 2005 Latinobarometro 
poll conducted in 18 Latin American countries showed that Venezuelans are among 
the top in preference for democracy over all other forms of government, in 
satisfaction with how their democracy is functioning, and in belief that their 
country is "totally democratic."

"The oil money never gets to the poor.... You must have been paid by Chavez to 
write what you wrote."

Across Venezuela, it's hard to miss the new investment in public education. 
Schools are being upgraded in urban and rural areas and are required to offer 
free breakfasts and lunches, arts, music and after-school activities. Unlike in 
the US, these are well-funded mandates. Illiteracy has been virtually wiped out,
according to UNESCO, thanks to adult education that has penetrated the poorest 
neighborhoods.

In poor communities, federally-subsidized stores called "mercals" sell food at 
half the market price. In the capital of Caracas, thousands of government-funded
soup kitchens offer free lunches every weekday to the indigent; our delegation 
was headquartered in a church that served 150 free lunches per day. Across the 
country, new housing is being built to replace shantytown "ranchos" that so many
Venezuelans live in.

Thousands of free ("Barrio Adentro") medical clinics have been built inside 
neighborhoods that never had doctors before - so many clinics that you can spot 
them from the highway. These are staffed largely by doctors from Cuba; in 
return, Cuba receives Venezuelan oil. When we asked a community leader how local
residents reacted to the Cuban doctors, he explained that most Venezuelan 
doctors won't serve in poor barrios: "People in our community don't care whether
the doctors are French, German, Canadian, Mexican or Cuban - as long as they're 
here to help."

    "Go to Venezuela and kiss up to the anti-American dictator."

If Venezuela is a dictatorship, it must be the first in world history in which 
the opposition controls most of the media. And the first in which demonstrations
occur regularly outside the presidential palace (organized by various groups, 
especially low-income activists complaining about broken promises and government
inefficiency).

Dissent is alive and well in Venezuela. Any casual viewer can see anti-Chavez 
criticism all over TV, the country's dominant medium and largely in the hands of
conservative business interests. The opposition used its power on TV to support 
a short-lived military coup in 2002 (strike 1), an employers' oil lockout in 
2002-2003 (strike 2) and a failed recall election in 2004 (strike 3). Chavez won
nearly 60% in the recall vote - which was monitored closely by international 
observers.


Jeff Cohen is a media critic and former TV pundit. His new book, Cable News 
Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media, can be pre-ordered at 
http://jeffcohen.org/.
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