by Gary Sudborough
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
26 July 2009
Venezuela may be the world’s best hope for a brighter future. Do you know they have a children’s orchestra formed by taking poor children from the slums and teaching them music? They are so excellent at playing their instruments that this orchestra is world famous. They are taking unused farmland, owned by the rich landlords, and distributing it among the peasants to farm. They have built schools and educated the poor, provided them with health care, built them better homes, built sewage treatment plants and done things for the poor that only one other country in Latin America has done (although a few others are trying) and that is Cuba. They have nationalized factories and increased wages. Venezuela has brought in many Cuban doctors and poor people in rural areas who never had medical care before are now getting it. They certainly don’t deserve to be invaded by the United States under some pretext like running drugs, supporting the FARC or some other filthy excuse to rid us of our only hope in this world and that is socialism. The United States is evidently preparing for an invasion by getting their patsies in Colombia to provide 5 new military bases for US forces.
I would advocate the idea of International Brigades, like those used in Spain in the 1930s, to fight against fascism, but I believe that the so-called left anymore are mostly, with some exceptions, a bunch of wimps and would never put their lives in danger for socialism. Maybe, they are different in Latin America and young men from Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and other countries would be willing to help Venezuela to defend socialism. I still wonder if they have the international consciousness and commitment young men had in the 1930s. I have a film about the Spanish Civil War called The Good Fight, and those young men of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade still bring tears to my eyes- fighting not only Spanish fascists but the troops of Hitler and Mussolini with outdated weapons. If they had equivalency in weapons, they would have driven those fascist beasts right out of Spain.
Perhaps, I am overreacting. Maybe, the new US military bases are intended only for intimidation, essentially conveying the message to Hugo Chavez of no more nationalizations or socialist policies. The world is exclusively the playground of the rich. However, I think Hugo Chavez should get all the advanced weapons systems he can from Russia or China in a great hurry because Obama is an ardent imperialist. He is far from being the compassionate advocate for good causes, as many people who elected him thought he would be. The Honduran coup is very ominous and indicates there is a new and aggressive US policy against any improvements for the poor in Latin America.
see
Chavez: US plans to invade Venezuela through Colombia
Venezuela: Class struggle heats up over battle for workers’ control by Federico Fuentes
Honduras: Anti-Chavez ‘free speech’ warriors linked to coup by Federico Fuentes
Dandelion Salad 
I did more research on the Internet about Venezuela. It seems they not only have huge oil reserves, but one of the largest gold mines in the world. They were having labor problems there because it was foreign owned. Consequently, it was 50% nationalized, and the labor problems disappeared, and the local community prospered greatly. It is one of the places Hugo Chavez is most popular. It is, also, another reason for a US invasion, which I hope never happens. The Venezuelans are well armed with shoulder launched missiles and a few submarines, which could neutralize American air and sea power a little. They also hope to have a one million person people’s militia armed with Kalashnikov rifles. Unless the United States wants to blow up that beautiful gold mine and those lucrative oil fields with nuclear weapons, they have a long and bloody battle waiting them. I also, noticed the Venezuelans have real local democracy in the barrios with 24,000 Bolivarian neighborhood councils, which make decisions on health care, education, building and repairing houses, sewage, clean drinking water and many other things. It is free. The government uses the oil profits for the poor. The poor people of Venezuela probably have never had it this good in their entire history, thanks to one very courageous man, who was willing to call George W. Bush the devil in front of the U.N. and the whole world. The world desperately needs more men like Hugo Chavez. He has also helped poor Americans by providing cheap gasoline and home heating oil to the poor in the United States. Hugo Chavez sent aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina, while George W. Bush thought it so important that he went on vacation. Cuba and Venezuela have offered to treat Americans with eye problems like cataracts free of charge. Hugo Chavez made the offer on one of Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now programs.
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The ananlysis of the situation is spot-on. My contacts in the CIA indicate a war for Venezuela; however, it may not be so easy for the US because all the rest of Latin America is against the agression, excepting, or course, the established elite supported illegally by the US in Honduras.
Can your contacts in the CIA please withdraw behind their borders and stop meddling in latin america?