I Can't Stand Beside "Our Country"
I know the song has been out for awhile now. Practically no American who is subject to the constant barrage of subtle and not so subtle pro-war, pro-Empire, pro-Patriotism programming found on network television on a nightly basis could have missed it. If you watched the World Series you definitely saw it and heard it and if you watched the NFL playoffs you also almost certainly saw it and heard it. The reason it is on my mind again is that John Stewart interviewed Mr. Mellencamp (I use the designation Mr. more than somewhat reluctantly) on his Daily Show tonight and was his usual obsequious, spineless self. Stewart of course did not challenge the faux folk singer about cashing in on his well timed and intentionally ambiguous anthem. He only made one hardly noticeable passing reference to the Chevy commercial which uses Mellencamp's song Our Country as a way to prop up Old Glory's sagging image while simultaneously selling their new truck. Stewart failed to take Mellencamp to task for writing a song which ostensibly supports "freedom" (whatever that is) and the idea that there is "a dream for everyone" in America, but selling this alleged vision of liberation to a car manufacturer to help promote blind patriotism and war. Despite Stewart's predictable whitewash of an interview, it is Mellencamp whom I reserve my true venom for.
John Mellencamp's pathetically transparent pseudo-liberal song Our Country which he sold off to Chevy (probably for something in the range of 5-10 million; of course the royalties for airplay will push the total much higher) to help them cash in on their new "Silverado" by playing on the most base emotions and desires of unsuspecting middle-Americans is the worst example of manipulative and misleading advertising. The song opens with the couplet ;
Well I can stand beside
Ideals I think are right
And I can stand beside
The idea to stand and fight
What strikes one first in the opening salvo of the song? Most obviously, the payoff line plays on the Bush/neo-con/Republican rallying cry to not back down in the War on Terror and to "stand and fight" as opposed to "cutting and running" which they ceaselessly tell us the Democrats are espousing. If Mellencamp didn't intend this stanza to be used as a pro Iraq war message (the framing of these lyrics in the add with images of helicopters landing in Vietnamese rice paddies seems to be clearly supporting the American war machine -- it is not soldiers that are shown in the add, but helicopters and military hardware -- it thus functions as promo for the military industrial complex) then he should not have sold the song. A conscientious and responsible artist would want to know how the song he was selling would be used, for what purpose and if he or she had a shred of integrity would not have agreed to such a blatantly exploitive situation.
What makes this add particularly galling is that there are also images of Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali preceding the helicopter shot. This juxtaposition seems to be intended to confuse the average viewer, legitimizing war by identifying it with a great champion boxer who sacrificed his title and livelihood for the cause of peace not war, and an inspired woman who refused to back down to racism, injustice and inequality. It is as if Chevy, and Mellencamp by proxy, are saying that if you continue to support the war in Iraq (and buy the Chevy "Silverado") that you will be heroic like Ali and Rosa Parks. The Mellencamp/Chevy tag-team are perverting and turning upside down the message of these two courageous Americans for their own self-aggrandizement and profit.
What makes Mellencamp's part in this so despicable is that he is operating under the guise of promoting core American values such as equality and freedom. Chevy is in the business of selling cars and trucks and really don't pretend to be fighters for social reform or justice. Yes, they do consciously attempt to pluck the collective hearstrings of middle-Americans, but it is clear what their objective is. That is not the case with Mellencamp however. He plays the role of revolutionary and uses the rebel mythos of James Dean and Woody Guthrie to cash in and balloon his musical persona and pocketbook. If Dean were alive he would turn away from his TV in disgust, while Guthrie would probably turn the outrageous manipulation into a song filled with poignancy, humor and angry defiance. Mellencamp's use of the title Our Country is clearly intended to stir recollections of Woody's classic This Land is Your Land. He even further abuses the memory of Guthrie by transforming Woody's poetic lines about our waving wheatfields, redwood forests, gulf-stream waters and diamond deserts into his own simplistic version;
From the West Coast
To the East Coast
Down the gypsy highway back home,
This is Our Country.
In the end, all Mellencamp will achieve is a larger bank account and perhaps a temporary rekindling of his past fame. John Mellencamp will never be Woody Guthrie and I don't believe his music will be cherished or remembered well after he's gone, no matter how many copies of his new album he sells, or how many sold out crowds he plays to during his tour. Marketing genius, advertising dollars and self-promotion can sell records and fill arenas. They cannot however touch people's hearts or change people's lives. And this is something Mellencamp will never understand.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
In Defense of Cynthia McKinney
It's no wonder that the American Kleptocracy continues to thrive. When a rare politician with a conscience like Cynthia McKinney dares to challenge the White House she is widely (though wrongly) discredited, mocked and discounted by her peers, as well as by pundits in the main stream media. Even the blogosphere has kicked her a bit as well. At least that's the impression one gets after googling "Cynthia McKinney's Impeachment Bill" and reading the predominantly conservatively slanted diatribes against the Congresswoman from Georgia.
One reads invectives such as "nutjob" and others who essentially call her a "racist" because after learning that the Clinton-Gore administration at one time had placed a ceiling on the number of black Secret Service agents who could be assigned to protect Gore, she called Gore out on her Congressional Web site. At that time she wrote that "Gore's Negro tolerance level has never been too high." She added that "I've never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time. I'm not shocked, but I am certainly saddened by this revelation." McKinney reportedly learned about the limit of black agents permitted to guard Gore from a group of agents who were bringing a racial discrimination suit against the Clinton-Gore Treasury Department, which is the mother agency of the Secret Service.
Well, I might be crazy, but I certainly don't think that the above comments by McKinney warrant being called a racist. In fact, in the above comments she merely seems to be pointing out what is a natural conclusion based on the information. If Gore didn't or doesn't have a problem with black people than why set the limit on Secret Service personnel? I only bring this story up to demonstrate how the Republicans, the Conservative media and moderate Bush apologist Democrats attempt to paint McKinney in a negative light, often disregarding the context and the facts surrounding some of her more controversial comments.
So, where is all this anti-McKinney venom coming from? Despite the fact that there are many on the left who admire her courage to speak out and her willingness to take on the President and the corrupt status quo in Washington, the collective roar of the bashing she has been taking and the character assassination she has suffered the last two days after introducing Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has far outweighed the endorsements and praise she has garnered.
The reason for this should be clear; McKinney is that rare politician who won't play ball with the Big Boys. She has never kowtowed to the Republicans reguarding the war in Iraq, and has persistently trumpeted the unsavory truth that Bush was never legitimately elected to the post he now holds. This is why the majority of her Democrat colleagues resent her and have slandered her in print and on the airwaves. This is also why they "tossed bundles of money" at her challenger Hank Johnson in the recent Primary Election. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchison/mckinneys-and-any-other b_36030.html)
Earl Ofari Hutchison believes that her impeachment bill "was never really about nailing Bush, but about getting back at House Democrats." I don't believe this. In fact, I think it is a ridiculous suggestion. If, McKinney's bill will "die a slow death" like most pundits are suggesting, how is she "getting back at Democrats?" She has always been an outspoken critic of Bush and his administration, so to suggest that she has introduced Articles of Impeachment in order to get back at moderate Democrats sympathetic to Bush, or pro-war Democrats, is absurd. McKinney's actions totally make sense when viewed in the context of her history: in 1991 she spoke out against the Persian Gulf War, she has been a strong supporter of human rights and has condemned human rights abuses against Palestinians by Israel and has supported the 9/11 Truth Movement while calling for further investigations and governmental transparency as regards the events leading up to and occuring on that day. She has also been very vocal about Bush's illegal wiretapping of American citizens and his manipulation of and lying to the American people to justify the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq. All things considered it is not difficult to understand why she would bring forth the Impeachment bill, or why she continues to be despised by so many power brokers in Washington and elsewhere.
The following comments that Rep. McKinney prepared for the Atlanta Progressive News and that are available on MichaelMoore.com sum up her position on the criminal and unconstitutional behavior of President Bush and his administration (http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/print.php?id=787).
What political analyst's like Earl Ofari Hutchison fail to recognize is that McKinney is indeed an "outcast" in Washington because she has a conscience and because she is not afraid to speak truth to power, even when that means questioning the very legitimacy of the holder of the highest office in the Western world. As she says in her comments which she was not allowed to read on the House Floor;
"....... We have a President who has misgoverned and a Congress that has refused to hold him accountable. It is a grave situation and I believe the stakes for our country are high.
No American is above the law, and if we allow a President to violate, at the most basic and fundamental level, the trust of the American people and then continue to govern, without a process for holding him accountable, what does that say about our commitment to the truth? To the Constitution? To our democracy? (.)
Indeed. And what does it say about supposedly free-thinking Americans that they would so readily and in such great numbers condemn Cynthia McKinney for speaking truths that we all need to hear? Why would free-thinking Americans condemn her for seeking the justice and full accountability that our current government apparatus so obviously lacks?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The Picasso Museum - Paris
It's not easy to get to. In fact, it is quite like attempting to navigate one's way through a maze. But seeking out and finding the Musee national Picasso is well worth the effort. It is located at Hotel Sale 5, on the rue de Thorigny in Paris' 3rd district. On foot it is about 15 minutes from Centre Pompidou, and if one is visiting this city it makes alot of sense to visit both sites during the same day. The Pompidou and the Picasso museum make for a fruitful and colorful day.
Although I was enthralled with the interactive FABRICA exhibit at the Pomipidou, on the day I visited these two museums there was no doubt which locale agitated and excited my senses most. This was surely In part due to the fact that the third floor of the Pompidou was closed for renovations, but even if I had been allowed to see the full selection of works at the Modern I doubt the experience in its' entirety would compare to spending a modest 90 minutes exploring Paris' spectacular Picasso Museum. I confess to being a Picasso fanatic and certainly would love his work wherever it was displayed, however, it had been about 15 years since I last visited, and I am still of the belief that there is not a more magnificent permanent collection of his works on display anywhere; this place is a veritable cornucopia of Picasso, representing the various stages and permutations (in addition to Cubist and classicist paintings, both styles of Picasso's mature work "figuration" and "dissociation" are fully represented) of almost 80 years of vibratory, incantatory, celebratory brilliance.
While the wonderful and unheralded Picasso Museum in Barcelona highlights Picasso's early work (which I for some time have been singing the praises of, and emphasized to my late friend, art historian Wendy Sheard -- she in turn later pointed out a review expressing similar sentiments about Picasso's early work and said dryly: "See, you are not the only one who noticed.") and clearly displays the fact that young Pablo had achieved technical mastery by the time he was 14 years old, the museum in Paris more thoroughly traverses his entire career and gives us tastes of Picasso's excursions into the realm of sculpture , which were by no means insignificant.
Most noteworthy of the paintings are Reclining Nude (1932) , with its' sumptuous curves, broad brush strokes and earthy sensuality. Figures at the Seashore is erotic in a more elemental way, highlighting the sexual puns that Picasso has become known for. The colorful, whimsical pastel toned Crucifixion from 1930 seems a precursor to the best Art Brut paintings. The bright lime greens used in Maya with a Doll remind us that Picasso understood the emotional power of the flat fields of almost florescent color that characterized many works of Van Gogh, especially the portraits. This painting enchanted me the first time I came here and did so again upon my latest viewing. Bullfight: Death of the Toreador (1933) is simultaneously brutal (in content) and beautiful (in form). The majesty of the Bullfight here has turned into a nightmare, occuring in the brightness of the midday sun -- a grotesque spectacle of writhing forms in which the shocking red cape of the toreador calls forth the blood spilled in the ring that day. The inverted colors of the Spanish Flag contribute to the atomosphere of confusion and distorted perception. This is an incredible painting and is one of many of Picasso's lesser known works which is worthy of admiration.
The previously mentioned sculptures housed here, such as Nanny Goat (1950), are evidence of Picasso's versatility and seemingly endless genius in exploring and discovering the essence of human and animal forms. There is an archetypal presence to this work and most of the other sculptures here. Nanny Goat was created out of such diverse materials as a large round basket (for the belly), metal strips (for the lean flanks), carved vinewood (horns), cardboard (ears), twisted wire (tail) and two ceramic vessels (for the udder). According to Ingo Walther, Picasso worked backwards in this project, the genesis of form arising not from a seen object which is then subjected to a process of metamorphosis, but rather by first coming up with the image of a goat, then seeking out a live model that matched his mental picture. The result is a delightful and textured masterpiece.
There are many such treasures to behold at Musee Picasso. More than a glimpse, we are offered a large cross section of art that truly does justice to this temperamental and brilliant poet of the canvas. What was his joie de vivre is still palpable in these works, and I can't think of a more fitting place to experience the magic of Picasso.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Louvre Reflections
PARIS, France -- It doesn't have anything to do with the art. The works themselves are sacred; worthy of not merely fleeting disinvolved admiration, but an intense focusing of the senses, and an immersion of one's being; emotionally, intellectually, spiritually.
Far from disabling my inclination to be uplifted and my ability to experience joy before great works of art, my encountering of a seemingly endless stream of antlike tourists trailing through the Louvre in search of nothing more than photographic proof of their trip to Paris ( something they can download onto their PC's and show their friends back home) only heightened my own appreciation. My sociological observations and remembered revelations over my five day stay in Paris and multiple visits to the Louvre reaffirmed what I value about art, and accentuated the pleasure I took in beholding (for only the second time in my thirty plus years) The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne by Leonardo, or the dynamic and inspirational Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Unfortunately, for most, a visit to the Louvre represents not an opportunity for personal enrichment, but is tantamount to an excursion to Las Vegas; something they can tell their friends about to illicit envy. For many, the Louvre has become like an adult Disneyland, a place invested with greater symbolic than real significance. While children cherish and look forward to a planned trip to Disneyland (which represents the epitome of escape, fantasy and unencumbered play) , the Louvre represents the height of culture and a level of sophistication to which most bourgeois adults aspire.
On the subject of Disneyland it seems appropriate to mention Baudrillard. The "Procession of Simulacra" is alive and well and has penetrated his homeland as well as continuing to characterize modern American culture. Now the instamatic camera, the Polaroid, has been replaced by the digital camera. Thousands of indoctrinated denizens of the Occident (as well as increasing numbers of Eastern and Middle Easterners) have been swallowed up in the ever growing wave. Along these lines it appears that the majority of the museum-goers visiting the Mecca of Art known as the Louvre are predominantly interested in procuring the best reproductions that Sony and other icons of modern technology can deliver; they are not there to engage the works themselves, but to capture them, to seize them. As Baudrillard tells us, "Reproduction is diabolical in its very essence; it makes something fundamental vacillate." He was astute in his analysis that "simulation... is still and always the place of a gigantic enterprise of manipulation, of control and of death (.)" This enterprise involves not only a figurative destruction of the works themselves, but a destruction of our bodies and our senses. In the process there is a basic unwillingness, or more likely an inability, to engage the object; everything sacred is now only experienced through the veil of a lens or a view finder. Most will look more closely at their duplicate images when they get back home than they did at the work itself. Some will complete the mechanical act of downloading said images without ever attempting to even encounter these reproductions. It is more important that they have it or own it than actually appreciate it -- in these cases the mythologizing of life has fully replaced the act of living.
Indeed, the mass of these museum-goers fail to take anything of real value with them when they go back home. Failing to have been truly moved or edified in any way (again, this is no reflection on the inspirational power or artistic brilliance of the works themselves) these folks will take small satisfaction in a series of robotically snapped off inferior photographic reproductions of the great masterworks. Far from requesting an empty intellectual exercise of content analysis, I am bemoaning the lack of impassioned engagement of these works. As Susan Sontag poignantly put it in her landmark 1963 essay Against Interpretation, "What is important ..... is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more." I would agree that we have forgotten how to see and feel and that the essence of what has been lost in the encountering of art is as Sontag wrote, transparence, or "the luminousness of the thing in itself (.) "
For those ready to open themselves, this experience can still be had. The gift of the great poets and artists is their ability to transport us, and ironically, by embracing our senses and truly drinking in the physical world, we are lifted into the world beyond the gross material. And this, rather than mimesis, is the purpose of art. It stimulates in us a desire to live more fully and more immediately.
First, we must put down our digital cameras and look with our eyes. We must put down our cell phone cameras and listen to the live music instead. The world is happening before us, and the more we attempt to capture and control it the more it slips through our fingers like grains of sand.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The Death of Habeas Corpus
October 17, 2006 was a very dark day in American history.
With his signing into law of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 President Bush has, with the help of Congress, essentially struck down over 200 years of American principles and values.
On Keith Olbermann’s Countdown yesterday, Jonathan Turley, Professor of Constitutional Law at George Washington University, said; “People have no idea how significant this is …..” and added later that “the Congress just gave the President despotic powers.”
It shouldn’t surprise us that the chief creators of American political and social mythology like The New York Times only find this story to be worthy of two small columns on page A14 (see “President Signs New Rules To Prosecute Terror Suspects”, NY Times of 10/18/06). Or that the L.A. Times, while giving the story more coverage internally, misleads the public with the bold printed yet benign frontpage headline: “Bush Signs Tough Rules on Detainees.” This frontpage story also highlights GOP strategy and the political aspects of the new law and almost totally neglects the frightening and unprecedented attack on civil liberties that the Act allows.
Fortunately, there are a few rebellious truth-supporting voices out there who are fighting against this latest travesty of justice perpetrated by Bush and his cohorts. According to Glenn Greenwald, a long time NYC litagator specializing in First Amendment challenges and now a popular blogger, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 ;
“…..vests in the President the power to detain people forever by declaring them an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’, and they have no ability to contest the validity of their detention in any tribunal. The President now possesses a defining authoritarian power – to detain and imprison people for life based solely on his say-so, while denying the detainee any opportunity to prove
his innocence.”
This is a pretty scary prospect indeed, and the American people need to be made aware of what is happening right in front of us. The track record of this administration would seem to suggest that we could be in for some seriously dark times. The January 2006 awarding of a $385 million dollar contract to Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build Detention Facilities in the U.S. appears in this new context to be quite foreboding. If you think that the stripping of habeas corpus contained in The Military Commissions Act is limited to non-citizens (as most of the language would seem to imply), you’d better think again.
Experts like Jonathan Turley have pointed out that even innocent U.S. citizens could be detained if the President decides to label them as so-called “enemy combatants.” This label includes not just terrorists or fighters but also anyone who has “materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Although what constitutes supporting hostilities is not clear, the current state of government paranoia coupled with this regimes' reactionary methods would be cause for concern. With journalists and legal professionals being indicted for so-called treasonous activity based on highly dubioius charges, anyone who openly condemns the Bush administration is not likely to feel completely safe.
There are legal scholars, such as Eric M. Freeman, (a law professor and habeas corpus expert at Hofstra University), who claim that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is heading for ultimate defeat in the Supreme Court, just as the case of RUMSFELD v. HAMDAN was defeated by a 5-3 vote back in June. The court’s position on that case was that President Bush,(and/or Rumsfeld) in setting up his military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, had acted outside the law. Now, however, Congress has approved the President’s power grab and has written these rules into law.
As L.A. Times staffwriter David G. Savage points out in his article today, (“Law’s Reach Extends to Jails in U.S.”) any case that reaches the Supreme Court “would be hard to predict because the justices have been closely split when faced with a clash between civil liberties and wartime powers.”
In addition, Jonathan Turley has stated that “People are fooling themselves if they believe that the courts will once again stop this President from taking almost absolute power.”
While our Constitution does allow for the suspension of habeas corpus, this is reserved for only the most extreme circumstances, such as cases of either “rebellion” or “invasion" -- in the service of public safety.
The important point here is that we as a nation are not experiencing either rebellion or invasion. As former judge advocate general of the Navy and dean of the Franklin Pierce Law School, John D. Hutson has explained; “This is not a time of rebellion. There has not been an invasion, and, there’s no evidence the ‘public safety’ requires it.”
Despite the obvious lack of any legal justification for taking these actions, the Bush administration continues to act as if the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and any other foundational principle by which government actions are limited or reigned in, ceased to ever exist. The fact that Congress would support this travesty (both Chambers of Congress approved the legislation last month in votes largely along party lines) truly makes this as Turley stated yesterday, “ a time of shame for the American system.”
Friday, October 13, 2006
View through Firefox !
Just a few days ago I noticed a problem with the formatting of this blog when viewing it through Internet Explorer. I have talked to several people who know more about computers and coding than I do and have discovered that the problem has to do with the xlm code on the blog and something called "quirk mode" that happens on IE.
At this time it is best to view Sociopolitic through the Firefox browser. When viewing through other browsers the sidebar with my picture, the links, and the archives gets pushed down the page to the bottom of the text. If anyone out there is good with code and knows how to fix this problem I would be much obliged.
Thanks
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Praise for Hugo Chavez
The recent uproar over the comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez before the General Assembly of the United Nations was noteworthy, but not for the reasons most American politicians or media pundits presumed. Far from being the outrage that spineless puppets of the American corporatocracy like Charlie Rangel and Nancy Pelosi claimed, Chavez' denunciation of President Bush as "the devil," and his passionate attack on America's criminal foreign policy was a heroic and courageous act, a pronouncement of rebellion against a mercilessly deceitful, exploitative, and murderous man whose regime (driven by a powerful neoconservative engine) has begun to systematically deconstruct our constitutional democracy at home while continuing to tighten its' far-reaching imperialistic Darth Vader death grip on nations who strategically and/or economically serve the purposes of its insidious figureheads.
Hugo Chavez was merely speaking the truth; a truth not often broadcast on the airwaves or printed on the pages of the increasingly consolidated mainstream media. Chavez hit the nail on the head with his assessment that Bush's speeches and policies are designed "to preserve the current pagaent of domination," and he was right on in referring to Bush's "democracy" as "the false democracy of elites." Chavez spoke the truth to the General Assembly and to the world -- and he spoke it with passion, sincerity and even a little humor.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/20/world/main2025874.shtml
In the hours after his speech Chavez was lambasted by a man who is usually one of Bush's biggest critics, Rep. Charles Rangel of New York. One of the proclamations that Rangel made was this: "If there's any criticism of President Bush it should be restricted to Americans (.)"
Oh really?
Does that mean that President Bush can't refer to President Ahmadinejad of Iran as "evil" or label his country as part of the "Axis of Evil?" If we are going to be even handed Mr. Rankel, then our leaders should not do what you are attacking Hugo Chavez for doing. This would seem to be only fair.
Further, in the statement from his official website Rangel stated that: "Any demeaning public attack against him is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us." What I would say to Rep. Rangel is : "Speak for yourself." To view an attack on Bush as an attack on myself I would first of all have to consider Bush as representing me and my interests, which he obviously does not. Further, if we as Americans were to view an attack on Bush as an attack on ourselves as Americans it would have to follow by logic that Bush represents all of us as Americans, which he clearly does not. As Chavez said, Bush's "democracy" is not real democracy, but "the false democracy of elites." Thus, Rep. Rangel's statement actually reveals his hypocrisy. It betrays the fact that his true allegiance is to the power brokers of our country; not to the "American people" he pretends to speak for.
Unlike Bush, Chavez was legitimately elected to his office and actually represents the interests of the majority of the population of his nation. Chavez won 56% of the vote in the 1998 multi-party election and then won a new six year mandate in 2000 with 59% of the vote. Chavez has kept the voters' loyalty since he was first elected and has begun to reverse years of corruption and exploitation of the Venenzuelan masses by previous ostensibly democratic governments who funnelled the country's oil wealth into the pockets of a small group of elites, and in the process kept well over half of Venezuela's 25 million people in poverty.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200510100012
Chavez has nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela and has used the money to finance many social projects which are aimed at empowering the country's poor and providing desperately needed services such as electricity, water and medical care. Through his Misions Chavez hopes to rebuild Venezuela in the image of a "participatory democracy". For example, Mision Barrio Adentro is designed to deliver medical assistance to slum-dwellers and has mobilised 20,000 Cuban doctors, dentists and their assitants. This program is being paid for through cut-price oil sales to Cuba.
Another similar program is Operation Miracle which is providing free eye care, such as cataracts surgeries, to not only Venezuelans but thousands of needy individuals throughout the Western Hemisphere. Mision Ribas provides secondary-school dropouts with a second chance through a two-year course and a small bursary, while Mision Mercal gives twelve million poorer Venezuelans access to cheap or free food.
Chavez also looks to empower his people by putting them in charge of their own programs. Talking about the important Urban Land Committees ( C.T.U.'s in Spanish) Chavez stated back in 2005 while being interviewed on the show Democracy Now! that :
"....... These committees of Urban Land are all over the country. They are in each neighborhood, poor neighborhood. You have a committee. The members of this committee should watch the whole neighborhood. And then they draft the map of the neighborhood. They go house by house and, family by family and they assess all the problems. If they lack running water or if some of the houses are unstable and they could fall down. How many children they have. The schools. the health care system in the neighborhood and so on. So these are the urban land communities." (Democracy Now!, 9/19/05)
As for his open attacks on Bush and the neocons it is essential to keep in mind that Chavez has a history with the U.S. leadership and has experienced the wrath of BushCo firsthand. It was a U.S. backed coup that attempted to remove him from office in April of 2002. For almost 48 hrs Washington was aglow with apparent victory, having ushered aspiring dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga into office after unceremoniously closing the Venezuelan Congress, dissolving the Supreme Court, and booting out the elected provincial governors and mayors. Naturally, this occured with the full support and propaganda streams provided by most of the local newspapers and television networks.
Fortunately, the majority of Venezuelans didn't take it lying down. They fought back. There were protests all over Caracas and a mass of angry citizens stormed the government palace to demand that their President, their leader be restored to his rightful position. With the help of the military guard (who were decidecly pro-Chavez), Carmona and his allies were thrown out and order was restored. This background is significant since it helps us to understand the personal connection Chavez has to the Bush regime. The 2005 statement by televangelist and Bush supporter Pat Robertson that the U.S. should assasinate Chavez obviously raised the stakes and revealed the true hatred that the Right had (and still has) for him. He is after all a man who is undoubtedly the most influential leader in Latin America today, as well as one of the world's most popular and democratic politicians.
Clearly the U.S. continues to see Chavez as a threat to their global hegemony. Perhaps this more than anything else is why politicians such as Rangel and Pelosi were so quick to jump to Bush's defense and in the process attack Chavez. Despite their rhetoric they are obviously still beholden to big business interests and lack the freedom of thought and integrity of action that a man such as Chavez has displayed. The greater fear among many Washington insiders is surely that Chavez' Bolivarian revolution will inspire other Latin American countries to enact similar reforms and thus threaten U.S. dominance in the western hemisphere. This was a fear that was present in regimes going back to Eisenhower, Kennedy and all the Cold War presidents. It is the "viral theory"; the premise that bred U.S. backed coups in Guatemala and Chile. This time however, Chavez has the leverage of oil. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East, and he has used his petrodollars to help other likeminded politicians win elective office. Diplomatically speaking, he has formed an alliance with Iran, while both Spain and Russia are selling Chavez guns and ships. He is working hard to build relationships around the globe, and for the most part has succeeded. When staring down the schoolyard bully it is good to have alot of friends, which Chavez seems to have.
In the past fews days Condeleeza Rice has reportedly dedicated herself to keeping Venezuela off the Security Council. She has made this her mission. Unlike Chavez' mission, which is born of hope, this U.S. mission is born of fear. Fear is a word that Chavez doesn't respond to -- it is simply not in his vocabulary. But this is something that petty, cowardly people like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel will never understand.
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