The Truth about Chavez....Pros and Cons...

[RadioRaheem84]

What is the real truth concerning Chavez? There is so much disinformation concerning his rule that I have no idea as to what is accurate and what is pure propaganda.

I hear good things like he is supporting co-ops, free clinics, oil for food programs with other nations, etc.

But I also hear he is suppressing opposition and consolidating political power. Just what is the truth about Venezuela and Chavez?

[The Red Next Door]

How you try to research for yourself.

[Che Guevara]

In my opinion, I see a lot of the news about the "Authoritarian Chavez" as total bunk. Most of the shit that you read, is total bourgeois propaganda.

One thing that I'm kind of concerned about Chavez his foreign policy. It seems as if he's allying himself with anyone that is anti-american. Also, I think that he's getting 'mixed' in with the wrong crowd. People might disagree or even agree, but I think he's almost taking his 'anti-imperialist' policies to such a great extent that it's making him seem like a lunatic to uninformed people.

Although, what he's been doing to help out countries such as Cuba (giving Cuba oil in exchange for doctors, teachers, etc.) is very good.

Also, I like his ideas of the '21st century socialists'. I think he's realized, this soviet-like socialism can't be the ONLY socialism in the world. Each country needs to develope socialism in it's own way, exactly what post-soviet-collapse-Cuba, Venezuela, etc. are doing.

There's a lot more to read about him... I thought I'd keep the post short to let other people speak.

[Red Fist]

Although, what he's been doing to help out countries such as Cuba (giving Cuba oil in exchange for doctors, teachers, etc.) is very good..

At this point I agreed with you. Chavez is thinking alot about the poor people and how to help them. and I like his politics about increased taxation of the country's richest and foreign companies.

But what I dont accept is that hi has positive relations to Iran's dictator Ahmadinejad and his regime , and calls Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe for a "freedom fighter"

[RedSonRising]

His national policy is very interesting and full of contradictions. While he is making moves that better the lives of the impoverished working class and has tried to expand the political process to include them (and often favor them in certain institutions, such as courts, over the bourgeois-oriented citizens of Venezuela), he simultaneously overrides the wishes of certain unions and other student groups for the sake of the party's specific platform and consolidates his power in an individual manner in certain ways. He has increased workers' rights and reformed health and education, but has fallen short of fully seizing and handing over the means of production to the working people; a strategic move that may be motivated by defensive measures against a dangerously negative US reaction, or an opportunistic stopping point for the consolidation for personal/party power (though I don't believe his intentions are mixed at best; I don't personally consider him power-hungry for solely individualistic reasons).

His foreign policy is too aggressive and assumptive; his probably rightful accusations of Colombian-US collaborations against his government make him abandon diplomacy to certain extents and give the bourgeoisie-controlled States of the Americas easier international credibility and rationalization to become violent, provoking wars that would not benefit the proletariat of any of the nations involved. His closeness with State abusers of populations such as those of China and Iran is internationally alienating certain people for sure, but the purpose is to remind the United States that capable middle-powers aren't afraid to collaborate in the face of threats of hegemony. I don't particularly like his warming up to any leader with anti-imperialist rhetoric, but it's his strategy. The economic benefits that come along with building such ties are a large factor as well.

The bourgeois media, especially in Colombia, likes to propagate that while revenues for oil are high due to the country's resource advantage, people are still starving; while poverty has gone down, I have heard various sources saying different things about that. Crime has gone up since his election, not sure what the correlation is, but I think that a genuine socialist leader should care just as much about the condition of the people than the spread of principles of the "movement" itself in the political realm. It's hard to judge or trace the economic distribution of wealth.

Despite the authoritarian hints that spring up, I think that Chavez has empowered the working class of Venezuela and Latin America as a conscious class capable of prompting political and social change as a class, for their own interests and eventual emancipation. They are in a position of recognition in the political world in a Marxist class-analytical sense, not just as "poor" or "blue-collar." Even if Chavez's proletarian goals turn out to be nothing but flowery speeches, even just the emphasis on the principle of socialism as a worker-oriented movement (obvious to us, farthest from the truth to many) is opening a geopolitical door towards revolutionary victory that all leftists should appreciate.