Across the board in American media (news, opinion, talk radio, etc.) the term "dictator" is used in reference to Chavez, and suddenly we have become very concerned about those people in Venezuela.
For 40 years, Venezuela has had American-approved presidents who do nothing for the poor, help the wealthy immensely, and clamp down on domestic opposition. But most importantly, these presidents have been in thrall to the oil companies and have guaranteed that Venezuela will let these companies extract oil for a pittance. And nobody cared about Venezuela, or South America at all, really (except for the Colombian civil war). Then Chavez gets elected. Now Venezuela is one of our "vital interests" and we deeply care about democracy there.
Prior to Chavez, we had a political system in Venezuela that was ruled by the Punto Fijo accords. America liked this arrangement, because it guaranteed stablilty (and cheap oil), but little else. The Punto Fijo accord let two parties essentially take turns running the government and everyone else was deemed "unworthy". Elections were not clean, but America didn't care. These two parties did nothing to help the poor, which make up the majority of the population. Rather than demand a larger share of the revenue from their own oil, these parties instead launched on a huge borrowing spree from the World Bank for projects that went to benefit the elite and make the oil industry more profitable for the oil companies, while leaving Venezuelans to pay the bill. And this allowed the U.S. to control the economy of Venezuela even more tightly.
Not surprisingly, U.S. control did nothing for the poor and made the rich richer.
When Chavez gets elected, he faces a political system designed for little else but to accommodate U.S. interests and make sure that nothing changes. The opposition screams fraud, but has no proof, even though they control the voting system. The system has been designed to accommodate fraud and to make it difficult to detect it, so as to make the fraud engaged in by the two "legitimate" parties for decades okay. It's funny that nobody questioned this before, isn't it?
When we talk about the "opposition" we are talking about a wealthy elite of white or light-skinned people who are profoundly racist and refer to the poor (dark-skinned) as "monkeys" and "marginals" It's as if we have taken the worst of the American South and the feudal European aristocracy and combined them into one. Everything has been handed to these people; "connections" make sure they have high-paying jobs, not merit. The legal system is overwhelmingly designed to make sure that the lower classes don't trouble them. Police make sure these people do not have to actually encounter or even see the poor. The media is geared toward them and constantly puts forward the notion that this class is "better" and that they achieved their status due to merit. The government taxes the poor to pay for these wealthy peoples' college education in the U.S. and upon graduation they slide into oil industry executive roles. And this minority has controlled the government for decades. We are not dealing with idealistic people struggling against oppression. Instead, it's a class of spoiled, stuck-up, racist brats who no longer have everything stacked in their favour. Boo-hoo.
These are the people we are sticking up for in Venezuela.
As I said, when the opposition lost to Chavez, they went into full denial mode. In spite of closely monitored elections in a newly cleaned-up system, they claimed that Chavez's repeated electoral victories were fraud. Instead of a 70/30 split in favour of Chavez, they saw a 70/30 split in their favour. The polls showed otherwise, but people were too 'afraid' to speak freely under Chavez, or so their reasoning went. Yeah, the majority of poor people really wanted this wealthy elite to continue to rule, but were just too scared to say so.
In this "repressive dictatorship", the wealthy elite still controls the television, radio, and newspapers. The television news is strongly biased against Chavez, and allows the elite to live in fantasy world where they really are still on top. Near-treason is common, with opposition leaders pleading for a U.S. backed coup to restore them to power.
Can you imagine if the Democrats here in the U.S. had taken the same approach after Kerry lost? If they claimed that Bush was not really the President and openly asked for foreign countries to invade us to set things right? Now consider the oil industry lockout in Venezuela, which was the opposition's greatest undoing. The largest union, long in the pocket of the two parties formerly in control, from the industry that generates most of the country' income, combines with the oil industry executives goes on "strike", demanding not wage and benefit increases, but that the government step down in favour of the old parties. What they can't win at the ballot box, they attempt to win by extortion. They shut down the oil industry, which is in no one's benefit. Long story short, they are replaced and lose their cushy jobs, Chavez stays in power, and the flow of oil is restored in about a year. These bitter people, once wealthy with everything stacked in their favour, now have to compete in a fair system, and they don't do well. Of course, this is all proof of Chavez's "dictatorship", not their own failed bid to usurp power.
So now we have invade Venezuela to put Muffy and Thurston back into their old jobs and restore their way of life. In return, they will restore the old arrangement whereby we are guaranteed cheap oil. And if democracy has to go by the wayside for a couple of decades, so be it. Yes, we're deeply concerned.
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