Hugo Chavez has once again done one of the things he does best: Win. Once again, we have a deeply progressive president of Venezuela. In your face, neoliberal rich dudes!
I was pretty sure when I saw the polls over the last couple of months. But I was damn sure when I saw pictures of the three million people who rallied in Caracas on Thursday. In the pouring rain.
Three. Million. People.
Even the French and Italians don't rack up numbers like that for political events. Here in Canada we could have feverish dreams of something like that.
Relatively unnoticed in the mainstream press, this is in fact probably one of the most important events of the year, in terms of the ongoing struggle between the banksters, militarists and assorted other powerst that be on one hand and the people of the world on the other. Venezuela keeps progressing, the Bolivarian revolution continues, El Proceso has a chance to keep on deepening. The US does not get to start rolling back the Latin American resistance to imperialism. Long live the people of Venezuela and their struggle to take control of their country from plutocrats, clientelism and paternalist bureaucrats!
I'll be all sarcastic and cynical and depressed again tomorrow. But right now, I'm enjoying that rare event: The good guys won, the bad guys lost. Woohoo!
I agree 100% I was afraid to find out the results after reading that Venezuelans in the US were voting. I thought that would give the US a way to manipulate the voting machines to defeat Chavez.
Chavez is a leader for the people unlike our corporation controlled governments. I wonder how long it will be before NATO sends humanitarian bombs to 'help the people' of Venezuela? After all, our corrupt leaders know best how a country should be governed!
I should have added that if we had a leader worth voting for maybe more Canadians would vote?
We do, but perhaps we put too much emphasis on leader, and ignore the "collective".
We have the NDP. It's full of representatives from all walks of Canadian life, particularly the younger class, and the working class.
When I heard that Chavez won at the crack of dawn this morning, I actually applauded the news. When is the last time we had 80% voter turnout?
Chavez has kept his word and has made major strides in reducing poverty and raising the quality of life for women. Bravo!
The Rethugs are frothing at how they are going to stage a covert coup against a democratically elected leader! Corporate media droning on how the economy is going to collapse! Danny Glover laughing his ass off!
Long Live Venezuela!
janfromthebruce, true, we have the NDP. And it's not really a worse political party as political party than the PSUV in Venezuela. What the Venezuelans have that we don't is a massive grassroots popular movement with a determined grasp of the possibilities for a better life that they run themselves. They work hard not to let formal party structures or government paternalist bureaucracies take over their revolution. That's something Canadians really need to work on.
Although I do think Chavez is a very impressive politician. He's very smart, apparently reads voraciously, has the optimism and lovingness of a Jack Layton combined with cunning and a feel for the jugular. He's very good at turning his opponents' tactics against them. And he's very good at the maneuver, nowadays mostly typical of the right wing, in which when challenged rather than backing up he pushes further; rather than defending the legitimacy of his policies, he makes his opponents defend theirs.
I think a good deal of what's happening is due to the interaction between Chavez and the grassroots. He creates official structures (from the communal councils to legalizing and supporting community radio) that act as a vehicle for the people's organizations, and they grab those structures and push them hard. If he wasn't providing those vehicles it would be much harder for the people to organize. But if the people weren't organizing his actions would be largely meaningless and he'd be left with a useful but uninspiring oil-financed welfare state.