Chomsky on US hysteria about Chavez...

Remember the US is a global power so you can’t just look at one region; you have to look at what’s going on everywhere. So if we go back, say to the last intelligence projection of the Clinton Administration - National Intelligence Council year 2000 - their projection for the next 15 years they took it as a matter of course that the United States would control Middle East oil. And then they say though the United States will CONTROL Middle East oil - because that’s a lever of world control - nevertheless it itself will rely on what were called more stable “Atlantic Basin” resources - meaning West African dictatorships and the Western Hemisphere. That’s what the US will rely on.

Well what’s been going on in Latin America since then significantly threatens that. For the first time in its history, first time since Spanish Colonization, Latin America is moving towards a degree of independence and also a degree of integration.

The history of Latin America - Latin America is very sharply split between a tiny rich elite and huge poverty and the rich elite are the only, have been the only active ones politically. They (rich elite) were oriented towards the Colonial Power - so that’s where they shipped their capital, that’s where they have their second wealthy homes, send their kids to school - this whole business. Very little integration internal to Latin America, I mean even the transportation system shows that.

Now it’s beginning to change.

They are moving towards a degree of independence and towards a degree of integration. And the United States is terrified.

Just keeping to oil alone, the major energy producer in the hemisphere is Venezuela. The US kicked the British out under Wilson -Woodrow Wilson - known as Wilsonion Idealism; they kicked the British out as soon as the oil age began because they knew that Venezuela had enormous oil resources. That meant supporting a bunch of utterly brutal dictators while Venezuela became, by 1928, the leading oil exporter in the world, and has remained very high.

Venezuela is now going towards independence and the United States is frantic. That’s why you have this hysteria about Chavez. It’s not because he’s attacking anyone or anything like that. It’s hysteria because he’s not following orders. That’s kind of like Serbia but much more serious because this is a big energy producer. Furthermore, it influences others. The major energy producer in South America second to Venezuela is Bolivia. What just happened there? They’re moving towards independence as well. And in fact the whole region from Venezuela down to Argentina is pretty much out of control, not totally, but pretty much.

The US in the past has had two fundamental mechanisms for controlling Latin America. One is violence, the other is economic strangulation. They’re both weakening. The last exercise of violence was in the year 2002, when in its dedication to democracy promotion, the US supported a military coup to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela. Well, they had to back down - for one thing because there was a popular uprising in Venezuela. But another reason was just the reaction in Latin America, where democracy is taken a lot more seriously than in North America and Europe. And people don’t think it’s amusing anymore to have elected governments overthrown by a military coup. So the US had to back down and turned to subversion instead, which is what’s going on now. That’s the last major use of violence. And so the US is preparing for more use of violence.

If you take a look at the number of US military personnel throughout Latin America, the military bases, the training of Latin American officers, that’s all going up, very sharply. In fact for the first time ever there are now more US military personnel in Latin America than personnel for the federal aid organizations. That never happened during the Cold War. Also, military training for Latin American officers, and you know what that means, military training is being shifted from the State Department to the Pentagon. That’s important.

The State Department is under Congressional supervision and there are conditionalities, human rights and democracy conditionalities. They’re not imposed very much but they’re there. And they have some effect. You switch it to the Pentagon, there’s no control, do whatever you want. And the whole region’s surrounded by bases and I suspect there will be secessionist movements coming along in Venezuela and Bolivia and possibly Iran. So the military option has by no means been abandoned but it’s nothing like what it was before. I mean in the past you just overthrew governments, didn’t think twice about it.

As for the economic option, that’s being lost too. Most dramatic case perhaps was Argentina. Argentina was the poster child for the IMF. And following IMF rules, it led to the worst economic disaster in its history, totally collapsed. Then violating IMF rules radically, they pulled out of it. And have had rapid growth. And the international investing community and the IMF, which is a branch of the US Treasury Department, couldn’t do anything about it, even the refusal to pay debt. In fact the President of Argentina said – “we’re ridding ourselves of the IMF”. That means of US economic strangulation. And worse, he was helped in that by Venezuela, which bought a large part of the debt. Bolivia’s probably doing the same. And Brazil had already done it.

Well, you rid yourself of the IMF, meaning the US Treasury Department, that’s seriously weakening the measures of economic strangulation. And it’s worse. A lot of these policies are gaining significant popular appeal.

I just read a scholarly paper by a very anti-Castro Cuban-American scholar who reports that about 170,000 Latin Americans have been, in the last couple of years, treated in Cuban medical facilities and most of them restoring sight under Cuban-Venezuelan programs where Venezuela pays for it and people, blind people, others who need medical care in the US dependencies where they can’t get it of course, are sent to Cuba where they come back seeing. They were blind.

Okay, that has its effects on countries. It’s called Operation Miracle. And within Venezuela, as far as, you can like it or hate it, but the interesting question is what do Venezuelans think about it? There’s knowledge of that - extensive polls taken, Latin American – North American polls. It turns out the popularity of the government has shot way up. And it now is the most popular elected government in Latin America, in fact in the hemisphere because THIS government is not popular. So it’s the most popular elected government in Latin America and keeps going up.

The reason is not too obscure but it’s driving the United States berserk. That’s why you have the constant hysteria from the government and the media about the terrible things in Venezuela and Bolivia.

thanks for the post

Anybody who saw Chomsky on C-SPAN the other day speaking to the West Point Cadets and didn't think he was fucking brilliant, are, well... dunderheads.

and this could be a great country. Instead, the greedy and lazy play upon the hateful and uneducated to make this wise man into a tinfoil hatted loony.

It's so ironic that a dolt like O'Liarly gets enormous compensation and public exposure, and Chomsky gets ridiculed by those TV News whores.

Highschool...

every public school!

Maybe some workplace rights and labor history in 10th, 11th and 12th grades as well. In a rational state this would be a given.

Okay, I'm going to my special place now, this one doesn't mage sins to meeeeee innymure

seminal thinker in the development of linguistics, and later probably the most distinguished figure in the world in the sphere of geopolitics.

Why not made in central and south america.

wish my damned Teachers did!!!!!

like it since the Reagan era and the demonization of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua--the leader of what was surely the least violent armed revolution the world has ever seen (until the Reaganites illegally jumped in with their Contra assassins, etc.--then it got dreadfully bloody; basically, the Nicaraguans just wanted justice and fairness and good government, and the moment Ortega could establish peace and a legitimate government, he did). I've been reading a lot of this stuff from the war profiteering corporate news monopolies on Chavez, and it gets almost funny, they are so out to paint him as a dictator or some sort of gun-toting leftist guerrilla. The man has been repeatedly elected by his countrymen in open, aboveboard, highly monitored, TRANSPARENT elections. They have Constitutional government in Venezuela, unlike here. So the--what can only be called--diatribes disguised as "news" articles, here, are just absurd. And they all use the same phrases--"self-styled populist," or "self-styled leftist", which suggest some sort of illegitimacy, or "increasingly authoritarian" (according to anonymous, non-quoted sources). It's shameful journalism. It shames the very word "journalism." It is hysterical. It is propaganda. And it can affect people in insidious ways. People who don't know anything about Venezuela or Chavez have a negative impression of him, and don't know why. People here at DU. It's instructive--of how the corporate news monopolies operate--and also unfortunate, because the model of transparent elections, Constitutional government, and populist leftist government (government for the people rather than for the war profiteers and global corporate predators), that Venezuela presents is something we might learn from, and be heartened by. Think of what Venezuelans and the other Latin Americans which are undergoing this remarkable revolution have suffered--decades, centuries of brutal repression, often inflicted by our government. And still they maintained hope and faith in the democratic model. It's impressive.

It ends several straight defeats for American Corporatism from Argentina to Venezuela.

I don't trust Garcia at all ever since learning he drove the Peruvian economy into the ground the last time he was president, and his support of free trade is rather troubling, especially since American-style free trade often includes weak or non-existent protections for workers and the environment.

as the campaign progressed, launching an all-out battle against Humala, even dragging in his parents and brother, even though Humala took great pains to indicate his country comes first, and his childhood family doesn't speak for him.

He had been very well in the lead for a long time until the campaign suddenly got filthy, and only near the last did Humala start pulling out of the hole it had thrown him into. He just didn't start climbing back soon enough.

It sounds very familiar, doesn't it? Sheesh.

If Alan Garcia doesn't look like a blooming idiot, and a total ass, I wouldn't know who does.



Oh, for chrissakes. What a jerk.

as usual.

about our strategic interests in the region, and our weakening grasp on control. Also do not neglect the fact the Chavez already survived one US-backed coup attempt. However, I'll admit that I am still uncomfortable with the cult of personality that has grown up around Chavez. The man is not without faults.

Nonetheless, an important note is that Chavez's influence would be much less had the US not invaded Iraq and driven up the price of oil to ~70 a barrel.

Ahem

Some people (not you, of course) never learn, do they?